3
PRESENT
Back inside the thrumming club, Bombo inspected his parcel that Rafa had dropped off for him. The container held its usual contents; data pads and hard drives. Bombo picked up the first data pad out of the container and immediately activated it. The screen lit up with the image of another Gorlug, a stocky little female, grinning up through the screen. Bombo's granddaughter.
Bombo let out a sigh as he traced a finger over her face. "Ah, my derr-atha," he sighed. My little dear.
His contact had come through yet again. After a falling out with his daughter, he'd been separated from his granddaughter for the past four years. These consistent deliveries, and the images and videos on the data pads, were the only way he'd been able to watch her grow up.
He took the rest of the data pads and hard drives out of the container one by one, counting them up to make sure the usual amount was there. After bringing them all out, his clawed hand fell on an unusual shape at the bottom of the parcel.
"Eh?" He tipped the metal container towards him.
A cylindrical object rolled around the bottom.
He picked it up. It was a short cylinder, silver, with a black rubber grip wrapped around its body. Bombo squinted his rheumy eyes at it, turning it back and forth in his hands to try to discern what it was. This must have been the "special delivery" that girl had been talking about. "Why'd you send me this…" he muttered under his breath. "Silly little toy–"
He pressed one end of it.
All at once the comm came to life, lighting up with a hum of energy.
Bombo cried out in surprise and fumbled with it. "Blast!" he cursed. Regaining his grip on it, he held it up closer to his old eyes to try to see it better. The comm kept emitting its little hum like a purring kitten.
Bombo scoffed, covering up his surprise with scorn. "Silly little toy," he mumbled again, and crushed it with the heel of his palm.
"Where are you on that facial recognition, Tech?" Echo asked.
Onboard the Marauder, the Batch were clustered around the primary console.
"Diagnostics are complete," Tech reported in reply to Echo's question. He pressed a few keys on the console, and a holographic image of the woman they'd met earlier flickered to life. "Rafa Martez. It would appear that she gave us her real name."
Wrecker pressed closer to the hologram, narrowing his half-blind eye at the image.
"All the intel I could find on her is limited," Tech said. "Which may be indicative of her business dealings. It seems that she has had previous affiliations with the Pykes."
"She's a spice dealer?" Echo asked, his eyebrows furrowing.
"More likely a low-ranking runner," Tech corrected. He tapped through the info on his data pad. "But that isn't the only black-market operation she has been involved with. Her records, stripped as they may be, are colored with other questionable odd jobs. The common thread between all of them would appear to be a favorable monetary return."
"You think she… sold Hunter?" Omega asked.
"I do not yet have a solid theory," Tech said to her.
A light suddenly flashed on the console. They all turned their attention towards it.
Tech sat forward, instantly alert. "Hunter's comm device just went live."
"What?!" Omega gasped. Pushing towards the console, she leaned over to see the flashing light too. "Hunter? Hunter! Are you there?"
"It is not a live signal," Tech said to her. "He is merely projecting his coordinates to us."
Echo leaned forward. "Where is he? What system?"
"Triangulating." Tech's fingers moved rapidly over the buttons on the console.
The light blinked out.
"What happened?" Omega said. She looked to Tech. "Tech, what happened?"
"It appears that the signal cut out," Tech muttered, his hands still flying over the keys.
Echo leaned closer. "Can you still get a fix on it?"
Tech tapped a final key. The blue-gridded display on the console alit with the display of a star system, complete with a flight course. "Yes," he said. "He's in the Sattaar system – on a planet called Arra Rutia."
"Well, what are we waiting for?" Wrecker roared. "Let's go!"
In silent agreement, Tech punched the coordinates in and set his hand on the hyperspace lever. Pressing it forward, he pushed the ship into hyperspace.
The Marauder settled in the landing port, kicking up a cloud of orange dust.
The door of the ship yawned open, the ramp unfolding down to settle heavily in the sand. The Batch filed out of the ship, Echo taking point.
Omega blinked in the bright sunshine. Two suns hovered in the sky and reflected off the bright hot sand, making the air almost unbearably bright. Just off the landing port where they had docked, a huge chrome-glass dome rose out of the sand and reached up towards the sky.
They walked into the shadow of the glass dome, towards the crowded market set up around the entrance of the city. Leading the pack, Echo turned around as he walked.
"What do we know about this place, Tech?" he asked.
"This city before us is the only habitable area on this planet," Tech reported. "Its thick walls insulates its occupants it from the planet's frequent violent sandstorms." He paused. "Which is also why I was unable to get more accurate triangulation on Hunter's signal."
Omega trotted alongside him. "Will we get a clearer signal once we're inside?" she asked.
"Given that Hunter's comm is not currently transmitting, no," Tech said to her. "We will have to improvise."
"We've certainly had enough practice doing that," Echo muttered.
Omega tilted her head back to take in the full expanse of the city. It loomed before them, the chrome of the glass curling up into the sky, glinting in the heat of the sun. She could just see the outlines of skyscrapers contained within it. If she didn't know that Hunter was trapped somewhere inside, the sight of it would have actually been pretty.
They approached the marketplace that was clustered around the entrance to the city, the chaos and noise slowly encroaching upon them.
"Watch your bags," Echo said over his shoulder as they began to pick their way through the crowd.
Omega tried to keep her eyes focused forward, but things in the market kept forcing her attention elsewhere. At one stall, a blue-skinned Rodian shook a bedazzled fabric in the Batch's direction. Each individual crystal in the garment caught the light of the hot sun, casting blurry rainbows across Omega's eyes. At another, a food vendor poured liquid into a hot pan, and a flash of green flame exploded out from it. Omega flinched instinctively, raising one arm to protect her face. She felt the heat from the pan flush over her.
A hand closed protectively over her shoulder, and she looked up to see Wrecker's face. "Don't worry, kid, you just stick close to me," he said. He grinned. "Easier to tune 'em out when you're half-deaf and half-blind!"
Despite herself, Omega gave a wry grin.
At the head of the group, Echo walked in step with Tech. "Do you think Rafa Martez is after something to do with the code we were retrieving for Kollo?" he asked.
"I had considered the possibility," Tech said. "But it seems highly unlikely. Taking one piece of the code would not serve her."
"She knew what we were there for," Echo pressed. "It's worth considering."
"Probability would suggest otherwise," Tech said, his tone dismissive.
"Hm." Echo lapsed into silence. Talking with Tech was sometimes like talking to a computer; everything was in carefully computed absolutes. His intel was valuable, but didn't always make for the best sounding board.
Walking in Wrecker's shadow, Omega suddenly realized that the noise of the market was mostly gone. Glancing over her shoulder, she was surprised to realize that the glass wall of the city was at their backs. She looked up at the curving glass sky enclosing them. She hadn't even realized they'd entered the city.
"The city is divided into four districts," Tech said, bringing Omega's attention back to the front. His head was bent over his data pad. "Three business districts and an industrial area. The primary way around the city is an underground subway system that connects all the districts." Looking up, he pointed to an electronic sign. "There."
Omega followed his finger. Beneath the sign, concrete ground dipped down into a stairwell, disappearing underground.
"Ideally, we should stick together," Tech said. "However, time is of the essence. I fear the longer we wait, the greater danger Hunter is in."
"Agreed," Echo said grimly.
Omega drew her eyebrows together into a determined expression. "So where do we start?"
Tech turned around back the way they had come, and eyed the wide scale of the wall. "I assume there will be security cameras guarding the entrance of the city," he said. "I will start there."
Echo spoke up, his voice low and serious. "Hunter was taken prisoner," he said. "We don't know what Martez's purpose for him is, but I'd say our best bet would be to go towards the more… nefarious areas."
Wrecker barked out a laugh. "Running into danger's what we do best!"
"Omega and I will take the tunnels," Echo said. "Wrecker, you take the industrial district. Radio if there's any trouble."
The others nodded their assent, and the group split off into their separate groups.
As Wrecker, Echo, and Omega left their separate ways, Tech turned around to look back the way they had come.
The main control tower was built into the city's inner wall itself, creating a convex curve in the wall. It monitored the city's only port – if Hunter had been here, he should be visible on the feed.
Tech approached the tower. A Trandoshan guard stood at the entrance. He wore brown leather armor with a stamped yellow insignia on the upper shoulder, a rifle held across his chest.
"Good afternoon," Tech greeted. "I need to access this tower's security footage."
The guard looked him up and down, his slitted green eyes narrowed. "I'm afraid the tower has restricted access," he hissed.
"I am a clone of the Empire," Tech said. "I am tracking down a clone trooper deserter." The lie didn't bother him; in fact, technically, that was all entirely true.
The lizard's face changed immediately. Even on a planet this remote, it seemed, the Empire's influence was strong. "The Empire?" He glanced over his shoulder at the access door to the tower. "Ah… of course. I will send you up immediately."
Tech concealed his slight smile behind his helmet. At least the Empire was good for one thing.
The subway tunnels were light in an ill greenish-teal by light bands running across the top of the walls. It was chaotic with noise as groups of people, aliens, and droids moved through the crowds.
Omega moved in Echo's wake, holding her satchel close to her body. Her eyes were narrowed beneath the short brim of her helmet, scanning the faces of the passersby with a hard glare. Somewhere, Hunter was on this planet, and surely, someone here knew about it.
Something caught her eye off to the right, though, and she forgot to glare as she turned to look. Sitting propped up against one of the tiled walls was a street performer. In front of him was a moving troupe of small droids, fanning themselves out into complex patterns.
Omega slowed down to watch, fascinated enough to forget herself for a moment.
The droids were small and dark copper, the burnished color of old coins. Their slim, double-jointed chassis flexed easily, like acrobats, and as Omega watched, they connected their wrist joints together to fold themselves into each other. With their hinges whirring, more droids twisted into shape on top of them, forming a complex pyramidal shape. It looked like there were nine in all.
Most of the passersby brushed quickly past, ushering their children away from the display. The metal tip of a boot of one passerby accidentally knocked into one the droids' legs, knocking it off balance. The pyramid collapsed into a heap, the droids clattering together with dejected whirring noises.
"Hey, watch out!" Running forward, Omega leaned down to set the droid back upright.
The street performer who was leaning up against the wall, a lean alien with hard orange skin, gave her a smile. "You've a soft heart, little miss," he said. "Not many your size who aren't scared of my droids."
She smiled, proud at the comment. "How do you program them to do that?" she asked, mesmerized by their little acrobatic routine.
His smile revealed a row of golden teeth. Without a word, he tapped the side of head through his hat. "Everything they know, they get from me."
"Omega." Echo's voice was a prompt from up ahead.
She suddenly realized she'd gotten distracted. Making sure the fallen droid was set firmly on its jointed feet, she gave its head a friendly pat. "They're cute," she offered.
He tipped his hat to her.
Echo slid down the access ramp, his boots crackling with the wetness and grit underfoot.
"Is this a maintenance tunnel?" Omega asked. They had ducked into a side door off the main subway platform, and the sound of her voice bounced off the empty tiled walls. Compared to the chaos of the crowds up on the subway platform, this deeper sublevel was nearly silent.
"Yes," Echo said, turning back to her. Reaching up to the higher platform where she was, he grabbed her under the arms and helped her jump down. "My guess is we're more likely to find something here than out there in the public."
"You think this is where she might have taken Hunter?" Omega asked in a whisper. Her boots also crunched against the gritty floor as they walked, and she shivered as she looked around.
Just like the subway platform above them, the maintenance tunnel was made up of a long platform running parallel to a deep, railcar-shaped dropoff to their left. It was cooler here, and also darker. The light strips running parallel around the upper wall flickered and buzzed.
"A lot of illegal spice gets run through places like these," Echo said in reply to her question. He could hear the staticky quality of his helmet mic echoing off the empty subway walls. "Abandoned tunnels are always a prime spot for smugglers."
"What would spice smugglers want with Hunter?" Omega asked.
Echo's voice was grim. "Spice isn't the only thing that gets smuggled through here." Walking to the dropoff edge of the platform, he jumped down onto the tracks.
Omega joined him. The metal tracks, varying in their thickness and shape, rose out of the ground like the tendons of an exposed wrist. "Don't the railcars run through here?" she asked.
Echo shook his head. "Not the passenger cars," he said. "This is a separate rail line." He looked down the mouth of the tracks, down the long black stretch of the track's throat, dimly illuminated by the light strips. "One that I'm guessing's been abandoned for a while."
The entire space seemed abandoned; the only thing breaking the silence was the sounds of their boots crunching on the ground underfoot.
As they walked through the dimly lit throat of the tunnel, Echo felt a prickle at the back of his neck. He wasn't usually a man to rely on a sixth sense, but this was unmistakeable.
He glanced behind him.
In a corner of one of the flickering light strips, a shadow quickly moved back into place.
Echo's eyes narrowed. Not for the first time, he wished for Hunter's enhanced skills of hearing and eyesight in the dark. He'd even take Tech's ever-present data scanning to do a sweep of the area.
Omega noticed him. "What is it?" She looked over her own shoulder to see what he was looking at, but the shadow had already gone.
"Omega," he said, "you take point."
"Why?"
He turned back around. "We're being followed."