Chapter 3:
The hours passed all too quickly as we approached Coruscant.
"When we break from hyperspace," said Burmar, "we're going to have to full speed it to Coruscant without permission. It's crawling with Imperial's but it's easy to hide if you know Coruscant well enough, but we are probably being followed so brace yourself." Burmar took a quick look of a map of Coruscant on the screen before him. I just shrugged my shoulders knowing that I was along for the ride no matter what.
"Great," I said with little encouragement. I felt like a passenger being given site-seeing tips on some tourist, travel-tour. It was a little embarrassing and frustrating being jammed around like cargo, helpless to do anything but watch, letting that human turn me into a furry milkshake while he tried to get us a safe escape.
We exited hyperspace very close, unsafely close, to Coruscant. The planet's gravity pulled on the ship, and it was mere moments after leaving hyperspace before we had TIE fighters breaking away from formation in their patrols and showering us with green blaster-bolts. Burmar slammed the throttle down smacking it against its housing, and throwing me back into my seat again as we entered Coruscant's atmosphere and streaked to the surface like a comet.
The radio screamed with the voice of some Imperial in a control tower somewhere calling for us to disembark, and that we were violating such and such laws. It was hard for me to listen as I was too busy watching the ground rush up to us at a frightening speed and wondering how long I would feel the pain upon impact. Burmar had no intention of heeding the calls of the control tower as we passed by the huge buildings and swathes of traffic that make up the upper levels of Coruscant. A trail of smoke grew behind us as the hull of the ship cooled.
Burmar flew us deeper into the lower streets, the ghetto's of the planet. Buildings rushed past us, and I was amazed Burmar hadn't crashed the ship. Through some amazing piloting ability, Burmar brought the ship to a near halt in an instant, introducing my head to the dashboard, and he maneuvered us into a darkened alley. Burmar spun the small ship about, and backed us into a small alleyway hiding the ship in the shadows, like a counterpart to the break in the tree on Kashyyyk. Not a soul was around. No one but the trash and rodents witnessed our landing as far as I could tell. Our smoke trail quickly dissipated in the high, traffic-driven winds. It seemed that everyone was far too busy to take notice, or to care about our arrival. Burmar lowered the ship to the ground allowing the repulsor-lifts to steady it. The ship made a final, almost thankful, shudder as Burmar powered it down.
I rubbed the growing lumps on my head, "how did you manage that?"
"I used to live here, Echobe. I know this place pretty well," said Burmar, and he then activated the cockpit hatch and hopped out of his seat as if nothing had just happened, quite the opposite from the white-knuckled fear I saw in him on Kashyyyk.
"Let's go, we are close to the safe house."
I jumped out of the ship and followed Burmar, drawing the Ryyk Blade and gripping it tightly. I am sure, if it were possible to see my knuckles, they would have been white.
It seemed as if that entire grid of the city had been abandoned. I was a little disappointed, and fearful. I had wanted to see Coruscant in better times, and a better neighborhood. The place looked like a landfill hit by a hurricane, like the trash didn't want to sit in one place for too long, and how could you blame it? The size of the rodents fighting over the sailing garbage was immense. After seeing them I was no longer surprised to see the streets unpopulated. It was also hard to see. The only lights that shone were from control panels and sequencers. The lights from the upper city barely penetrated down there, but you could still hear the constant roar of the unending traffic of speeders up above, like the roaring of artificial wind.
"Come on, it's not much further, and then we can rest a little and get our bearings," said Burmar, calmer than I had yet seen him. I couldn't pull my eyes off of the strange new world. It was impossible to see the tops of the buildings towering over us, like steel versions of the Wroshyr trees back home. Every now and then I could see a lighted speeder streak across the sky in between the buildings. I kept watching, expecting to see an armada of Imperial ships coming down on us at any moment. As afraid as I was of being captured, I couldn't help but be excited at the same time.
I followed Burmar through the blocky labyrinth of the lower city of Coruscant until we finally came upon a small and dilapidated, gray house. It was made of the same "cost effective" material that all of the buildings down there were made of. The cheap materials only served the shadows in their mission to suck the light from the environment. It was dark, and still no one was around except for the rodents. We walked up to the door shrouded in shadow. Burmar entered a code into the flickering, unkempt lights of the keypad, and the door creaked open with noisy and aged servos.
"This is our rendezvous point," said Burmar, over his shoulder to me as we stepped inside and shut the door behind us. "I went underground when your parents disappeared. I did some digging and with the help of the Alliance, found the name of the Imperial who carried out the order to capture former Senators, staff, undesirables and such. His name is Heth Finissum. He's an Imperial Commander. He controls a lot of policing action here. You can bet that his orders came from the Emperor, but we wouldn't be able to get to Palpatine in one piece so this commander is our next best option."
Burmar locked the aged metal door when we entered and turned on a small light sitting on a table next to a radio beacon that he then also switched on. The beacon was silent, but there was a single red light that blinked as it sent out its signal. The hovel of a home again reminded me of Kashyyyk. It was dilapidated, dusty, and uncared for. It looked like it had been in a few battles of its own, probably against corrosion. All it needed was some blaster holes and scorch marks and it would've been perfect. I had a curious thought at that moment of what amenity would be like.
"They have been waiting for that signal for awhile." Burmar said, as he pointed to the radio beacon. "We found out that this Heth is stationed at a newly constructed base adjacent to the old Senate Hall." Burmar trailed off, and then meandered about the shack, checking to see if all was undisturbed and in its place. I was busy watching the dirt smudged, and failing viewscreen connected to the security camera just outside the door. I watched the entire wait.
It was not more than forty minutes or so when Burmar's Alliance friends arrived one after the other in gray robes that covered their entire body, hoods pulled over their heads. There were four of them, two Rodians, a Bothan, and oddly enough, an R2 droid beeping quietly behind them, not wearing robes of course. I greeted them at the door with Ryyk Blade in hand. Burmar was right behind me to assure me that they were welcome. Each one of them, save for the droid who beeped and whirred at me like it was scared, were a little surprised when they opened the door to find me towering over them and holding a blade in my hand that was nearly as long as a few of them were tall. The Alliance people nodded their heads as they passed me, and their eyes lit up when they saw Burmar. The strange Rodian's honking-like language seemed friendly. The Bothan spoke Galactic Basic, and nodded to me. I locked the door behind them, and followed them to the metal table where the radio beacon lay. The Bothan walked to it and shut it off.
Burmar introduced everyone and gave a very brief description of how Burmar and I met and how we arrived at Coruscant. Everyone nodded to me, the droid beeped in approval. None of the Alliance seemed the least surprised about our roughshod escape from the Imperial blockade.
We went over the plan to get to the old Senate Hall, which involved a trek through the city sewers from a carved out hole in the adjacent room, and a hasty escape to a nearby hangar where a ship would be provided for us upon our arrival by an ally. When Burmar finished pouring over maps and schematics, and ensuring everyone knew their roles, he basically ordered us to sleep.
Burmar fell asleep almost the moment his head hit his rolled-up, blanket-pillow, as did his Alliance friends. I hardly slept that night. I was overwhelmed about what I had gotten myself into, over what had happened the past days. My mind was racing, like compiling the overflow of data to be filed away into memory. Images of that Wookiee girl also haunted me that night. I tried hard to shut the images out and sleep, to try and think of something, anything else. I got maybe an hour or two.
**********
We all woke at dawn to the beeping and whistling of the R2. I stared at the ceiling, groggy and stiff, but that familiar feeling of life, however on a smaller scale, pulsed around me, making me feel more alive. It was nothing like back home where the very ground you slept on was alive with that strange energy. On Coruscant, then the Imperial Center, something was different. I still recognized the same feelings as I did on Kashyyyk, but it was different there. Like looking at the same image but through a dark piece of cloth. Something was constrained and suppressed on Coruscant.
The others were already up and readying weapons and eating while I stared at the ceiling. I finally forced myself out of bed, but wanting nothing more than to just lay there. I went to the small table where their equipment was sprawled and breakfast was, pleasantly, steaming hot. I fastened the Ryyk Blade to my waist, looking at the weapons on the table, and exchanged nods with everyone. There were so many different devices many I had no idea as to their purpose. I picked randomly, I grabbed an E-11 blaster, a typical, Imperial Stormtrooper issue rifle.
The idea of killing, much-less killing with an Imperial weapon, was repulsive to me at first, it still is. I felt as if I was crossing a point of no return in my life as I turned the black weapon over in my hands. I had seen countless siblings to the same rifle threaten and kill my people, and there I was holding one. It seemed fitting to be using just such a weapon against the entity that spawned it. Only a bowcaster would have seemed more fitting, but Wookiee weapons were nearly unheard of outside of Kashyyyk. Even on Kashyyyk during the blockade, they were scarce because they were outlawed.
Burmar approached me with a mouthful of food as I was fiddling with the blaster rifle.
"Good choice, Echobe," the old senator said as he tried keeping his food in his mouth. "That's a very reliable weapon. We strip what we can from Imps. 'Never waste a motion,' as the saying goes. The only things we really don't use regularly are uniforms, or vessels." Burmar shrugged, bit off another mouthful, and then continued. "Not exactly the richest or most well equipped organization, Echobe." Burmar concluded, picked up his battered scoutblaster, turning over in his hand as if he was reading an inscription that only he could see. Then suddenly coming out of his daydream he looked up to me, smiled with food bulged cheeks, and holstered the blaster. I became suddenly concerned for him. I wondered how old he was. I didn't realize human's short lifespan, and I wondered how long he would be around, or if he would ever see the day of the Senate's return, or better days for a New Republic.
The sewer entrance had already been excavated and opened in one of rooms connected to the main room that was merely separated by a door-less jam. We entered the hole in the floor one by one. The tunnel dropped a short distance by ladder, and then opened up into the sewer tunnel itself. The sewer was concave and tall enough for me to walk through without crouching. Burmar took up the lead. I was second to last in line, the droid trailed behind me. It beeped nervously and seemed not too happy about the dank conditions of the tunnel. The droid tried riding as high on the curved wall as it could to avoid the not so fresh smelling and chunky water that flowed in the opposite direction, but the droid just slipped back down with each try.
I had no idea that two completely different worlds could exist on the same planet. It reminded me greatly of Kashyyyk, though of very different material. The trees housed the cities of the Wookiees. You could see through the foliage of concrete and steel, the endless succession of ships, speeders, and all kinds of craft skimming on the highway in the sky and easily imagine the skyscrapers as Wroshyr trees. The layers beneath housed the creatures. Trade off steel and duracrete and you have Coruscant. Only on Coruscant people also lived below the canopy of the skyscrapers with the animals, but the animals were different there. They seemed like they were not native, or somehow out of place. The smells differed greatly as well, and Coruscant had more trash.
The oppressive statues of the Emperor lording over the people with grandiosity, wearing black robes and his face hidden, could be seen even from places in the sewer where a grate vented air to the outside. I always thought of Palpatine as a coward since the days he took control over the Senate, after claiming that Jedi had wounded him, almost killed him. It was shortly after that that Kashyyyk was plunged into informational blackout. No one but the Emperor knew the truth. Most of us only knew what happened afterwards. The Senate gave up its power to a dictator and the Republic ceased to be. Alderaan was destroyed some years later. The galaxy became a nightmare as the Emperor tried to pretend he was only hunting down the bad guys of the old, shattered Republic. I asked myself that if what was happening on Kashyyyk was any indication of what was happening on other worlds, and then everything I had come to know of the Rebellion was simply a lie. Knowing that made me feel a bit more justified in what I had become involved in.
As I was lost in retrospect, a deafening roar echoed throughout the tunnels snapping me out of my thoughts. We all stopped in unison and looked at each other with muted concern. Burmar explained quietly.
"That would probably be a Dianoga I think." I looked at Burmar with arched brow. The R2 oohed ominously. Burmar looked to each of us and elaborated.
"Dianoga's are used in sewage treatment. They generally don't attack people, but people usually don't come down here. It's best if we give it a wide birth."
I was immediately intrigued. I made my way from the back of the line to Burmar at the front with questions buzzing in my mind about a new creature.
"Um, about this, Dianoga," I started to ask, but Burmar was quick to cut me off. He looked at me and smiled, knowing well my curiosity.
"Not now, Echobe. Keep your focus on the mission. We'll have plenty of time to discuss your interest in the local fauna later." Burmar patted me on the back, lowered his head as if trudging through high wind, and kept his pace. I stopped my questioning with disappointment and shook my head, turning my mind back to the mission and also stepping up my pace to keep with Burmar.
"So what are our chances of actually getting this Imperial?" I asked a while later after we had traveled a ways.
"I've been laying the groundwork for this for a while now. There are a few people in the old Senate Hall I paid to keep the area where we are to break into as clear as possible so we have a chance to get the Imperial in the chaos of the bombing."
"Bombing? How much bombing? You didn't say 'bombing' at the meeting, you said we were going to break through the floor." I was already nervous, but Burmar using the word bombing startled me.
"How else are we to break through the floor? It's just a few small bombs like I said, Echobe, but they has to be big enough to break through the floor and create confusion, and small enough to not kill the officer, and I didn't want you to worry about it during the night. I know you hardly slept as it was."
I shook my head, I should have known better, but no one mentioned bombs during the meeting.
"He should be secluded in his office," Burmar continued, "at worst speaking with an aid or something, the Emperor is no where near this system, and the Empire is as spread out as they are ever going to be, so this is our best chance to get to this Imp and get him off planet."
Burmar stopped talking and walking simultaneously, and he looked up at the ceiling. We exited out tunnel and stood in a room where several other similar tunnels connected. Burmar announced that we had finally made it to the section of tunnels that coiled underneath the Senate Hall. It took a few more minutes for Burmar to locate the Imperial's office according to the diagram on his datapad. The ceiling was wide open of any pipes where Burmar finally pointed. Then the Bothan started planting several charges of explosives around a large circular area on the sewer ceiling to blow the floor out from under the general area of the Imperial's office. After the Bothan had everything wired he handed the wireless detonator to Burmar, we backed into the tunnel we came in from for cover. Burmar held the detonator up before him and then looked to me.
"Are you ready, Echobe? There's no turning back now." Burmar held the detonator up to our eye level, his thumb hovering over the button.
"I'm ready, let's get this done," I said drawing the Ryyk Blade from its sheath, and the E-11 blaster from its holster. The Bothan nodded to Burmar for the go ahead. There were eight charges of cylindrical metal explosives attached to the ceiling, yellow lengths of uncoiled wire hung down from each block and connected each one.
Burmar pressed the button. An ear-shattering explosion rocked the duracrete walls, reverberated with a deafening hollow sound against the tunnels in all directions, and shattered the roof above us, which was the floor of Heth Finissum's office. A storm of pulverized duracrete and shards of steel cocooned in wire dropped onto the sewer floor. A large square-like object came crashing down immediately after. The Imp fell rather unceremoniously to the floor still seated behind his desk that came down with him, his chair broke from underneath him, and he landed hard on the ground, splashing into the thin puddle of water of the sewer.
It was mere seconds before we heard Imperial guards shouting, an alarm then sounded that also echoed throughout the tunnel adding to the high-pitched ringing I already heard in my ears from the blast.
We wasted no time.
The two Rodians grabbed the officer, gagged him, and tied his arms and legs. I grabbed the Imp, and slung him on my shoulder like a squirming duffle bag.
We took off running.
Burmar was right behind me yelling for me to run fast, the R2 droid beeped excitedly behind Burmar and was less concerned about getting wet. The Bothan and Rodians lagged behind firing their blasters into the cloud of dust from the explosion that was slowly starting to settle. Blaster fire shot out of the dust and smoke like a volcano erupting. The bolts struck all around us tearing off chunks of duracrete, and peppering us with shrapnel, like the guards had no concern of striking the office. Maybe they were unaware that we had taken him at all I thought briefly in between running for my life.
Burmar shouted for the Rodians and Bothan to catch up, but his voice was lost in the chaos of noise echoing off of the sewer walls. I foolishly yelled as well, but they didn't understand Shyriiwook and I only added to the confusion. My heart pounded. My feet kicked up all of the filth of the sewer floor as I ran. I was terrified, but I kept going. I didn't imagine that was what being shot at and fleeing for my life would feel like. It didn't feel caged like on Kashyyyk when the danger was less direct, I felt empowered, terrified, but like I had some control of what was going to happen to me, and that made it all the easier to succeed, but at the same time with the threat being more direct.
Burmar's plan called for none of us to stop until we reached the safe point. We had little hope for making it out, and we had gotten much further than anyone of us had hoped already, but we ran with abandon. I was amazed to feel Burmar's hand on my back pushing me along if I was to hesitate. He fired over his shoulder with his scout blaster yelling for the others to catch up. The Bothan was the first to fall being the furthest behind. All I heard was the splash of his body hitting the sewer floor. The Rodians limped behind, both wounded and helping each other to walk. The R2 was carbon scored, but close behind Burmar and me. The blaster fired died down a little as we rounded turns, but it still chased us in sporadic bursts a few moments later. The Imperial on my shoulder tried to struggle and make noise as he regained his consciousness. I easily held him in place.
We must have ran several miles through winding tunnels of the sewers as Burmar lost his way a few times in the chaos. I regretted being covered in fur then as all of the smells and objects stuck to me, and made it more difficult to slough through the muck. The R2 struggled to keep up. Its wheels were lacquered in inexplicable funk. I could hear its motors struggling to keep moving. Burmar was helping the last remaining Rodian to run. The Rodian's leg had a gaping wound, and he was pouring blood into the water, the other Rodian must've fallen several hundred meters back, I never found out for sure.
I stopped as Burmar tried to tend to the Rodian's bleeding as best as he could, but the wound was just too large and we were too ill equipped. Burmar tried to get the Rodian back onto his feet, but he fell into the water bringing Burmar down with him. The Rodian pushed Burmar away, but Burmar did his best to pick him up from the ground until the Rodian punched Burmar in the face. A tooth clattered off the wall and fell into the water with a tiny splash. The Rodian yelled at Burmar, but I didn't understand what he was saying. I went to help Burmar and the Rodian, but Burmar yelled at me to move on and get to the safe point. The R2 just ahead of me beeped and whistled anxiously.
Burmar exchanged a few unheard words with the Rodian as I hesitantly turned away. I never saw the Rodian again. The blaster fire erupted as strong as before, but we kept running. Burmar left the Rodian and nearly caught up with me. We ran for what seemed like hours trying to lose the guards bent on our capture. When we finally made it to the safe house, Burmar climbed the ladder first. I then hoisted the Imperial up to Burmar, and then the droid. We bolted from the house with no time to cover our tracks, and back into the street to Burmar's ship where it remained untouched save for a few rodents scurrying around it looking for food.
Burmar opened the cockpit, and I not so gingerly tossed the Imp, Heth, into the small cargo bay. He tried to call out, but his mouth has been gagged. The R2 housed itself into the droid compartment of the ship, Burmar jumped into the front seat, and I into the back. Burmar started flicking switches and pushing buttons on the control panel to power the ship up. I could do nothing but wonder if the small, worn craft could handle the extra load. A few quick seconds later and my worries were blown away by the thrust of the ship as we were sent off into the sky before the cockpit had even closed. Burmar made a few quick turns going full speed upwards, like a complete reversal of our comet-like entry, and out of the lower city creating a whirlwind of trash and terrified rodents behind us. Burmar veered the ship into the flow of traffic nearly hitting a speeder. People honked their horns at us not even bothering to slow. We dodged around traffic dangerously fast. The lights on the passing speeders seemed like blaster bolts they went by so fast. I tried getting my seatbelt on to stop myself from being slammed side to side as Burmar dodged traffic, but failed. Burmar broke from the other speeders and turned towards an empty hangar. We entered far too quickly, missed the landing pad, and skidded into the hangar ignoring the protest of someone waving us off with two glowing sticks. Sparks and pieces of the hull flew off the ship like confetti, like a celebration of its final landing.