4

The door of the lift hissed open.
Tech looked up, taking in his new surroundings. He had arrived at the top level of the security tower.
A male humanoid stood directly in front of him. He was tall, taller than Tech, and broad across the shoulders. "You're the clone that's come for the security footage?"
Tech cast a quick glance over him. It seemed he was a species close to human, with smooth pale skin and regular features, but also had a natural reptilian texture patterning down the bridge of his nose and up his temples. His clothes were dyed black, which struck Tech as somewhat odd, as all the guards downstairs had worn brown leather armor with yellow insignias. "That is correct," he said.
"My name is Borrak," the man said. "And you are?"
"With the Empire," Tech said crisply, avoiding the question. His eyes shifted. He could see the room beyond Borrak was circular, and there was a broad swath of screens covering one wall of the room. "If you don't mind."
"Of course." Borrak stepped aside. "You understand we don't get many outside visitors here. Much less…" he cast a glance at Tech, "clones."
"This will not take long." Sliding his data pad into a belt pouch, Tech walked over to the wall of screens. Just below them was a control panel, covered in multicolored keyboards. Tech quickly got to work, typing in a string of commands, switching the feeds. He raised his head to look at the screens. It appeared that the port was well-covered, but all the footage was just of the landing area and the marketplace – none of the inner workings of the city.
"You have no live feeds of the interior of the city?" Tech asked, turning around.
"The job is to monitor the port," Borrak said, crossing his arms. "You want a different angle, you find a different tower."
Tech resisted the urge to roll his eyes as he turned back to the controls. This was a good starting place, at least. He might not be able to see exactly where Hunter had gone in the city, but there was much data to gain from even his entrance into the city. Primarily, whether or not he had been hurt.
Tech scrolled the feed back to just before the Marauder had received Hunter's comm signal. The images onscreen whizzed in reverse until they landed on his designated timestamp.
Tech's heartbeat picked up. Hunter had appeared on the screen.
He raised his wrist comm. "Wrecker, Echo, Omega, I have visual confirmation on the security cameras. Hunter was here."
"Alright!" Wrecker was the first to respond. "Where'd he go?"
"Still determining. Standby," Tech said, and lowered the comm.
He leaned closer to take in the details – Hunter's hands were bound in front of him, but as far as Tech could tell, he appeared to be uninjured. At the very least, he was stable on his own two feet – in the footage, he was running through the landing port. He was escaping.
Tech let the footage play. Onscreen, Hunter suddenly jerked to a stop like he'd been attacked, ducking his head. His face was contorted in a wince like he was in pain. Tech frowned. He hadn't seen anything hit Hunter. Had he been poisoned?
Hunter twisted around, presumably towards the source of whatever was hurting him.
Tech followed his gaze onscreen to a ship that had docked further back on the port. A female stood on the unfolded ramp of a ship, holding something in her raised hand.
She looked remarkably similar to Rafa Martez. Tech zoomed the footage in closer, focusing on her face.
Yes. The similarities were too obvious to discount. Her hair was in a different style, but she had Rafa's eyes. And, Tech noted somewhat grimly as he watched the rest of the footage, she had Hunter in their captivity once more. Rafa appeared at the mouth of the ship, holding her head. Together the two sisters draped Hunter's unconscious form over their shoulders and dragged him back to their ship.
Tech glanced to his right. At the far end of the control panel, a scomp port was built into the metal. He needed to get this information onto a data stick, where he could more properly analyze their ship and its ID numbers in the footage.
"I will need to record this data, if you don't mind," he said to Borrak over his shoulder. Slipping a blank data stick from one of his armor's many pouches, he walked over to the port.
As he knelt down to insert it, he paused.
Something had caught the corner of his eye. To the side of the control panel was some type of electronics closet, but the hydraulic door hadn't sealed shut all the way. A boot stuck out of one corner of the jamb.
Immediately suspicious, Tech stepped closer and pressed the button to open the door the rest of the way. It gave way with a hiss.
A dead lizardlike alien sat crumpled in the closet. It wore a brown leather vest with a yellow insignia on the chest. It looked like it had been shot, its slitted tongue hanging out the edge of its mouth, one clean blaster hole through the head.
"Actually, I do mind," Borrak's came from behind him.
Tech whirled around.
Borrak was right behind him, holding a menacing-looking blaster. He had donned a helmet, matte black and smooth, with its visor angled in a sharp, shiny V across his eyes. "You see, it's not exactly my data to give away."
Tech's hand grabbed the blaster on his hip, but Borrak had already lifted his weapon in the air. He struck Tech's helmet with the butt of his own blaster. Tech cried out with the force of the hit, but he scrambled to get to his feet. He was pinned between Borrak and the control panel.
Borrak grabbed Tech by the chest plate and hauled him around, throwing him across the control room. Tech slammed into the wall and landed heavily on his hands and knees.
Grimacing, he reached a hand up to his helmet's comm. "I require assistance!" he said. "North control tower!"
"I think not, clone," Borrak hissed as he stepped closer. He raised his blaster in the air again.
With a quick, brutal blow, he hit the back of Tech's head, and Tech blacked out.