At the bottom of the abyss was only silence. A planet of trillions of people and yet none lived here. The constant noise, rapid streams and gaudy hues of the endless metropolis were all gone, swallowed by the dark. Even Ves, who had lived all her life in the rotten hole that was level 4097, couldn't have imagined a place like this.
She landed the speeder on a metal surface. The loud thud filled the void for just a second, each echo growing more distorted, more deafening. Maybe this had been a busy street once, the pulsing artery of a thriving community. It was all gone. All that was left were metal corpses of civilization, embalmed in millenia of dust and decay.
"Help me off, will you?" Serrad was struggling with the wound in his side. Ves heaved his heavy frame off the bike. His once almost royal attire looked disheveled. Plasma fire had burned away the glamor, leaving only the unrefined realities of blood and pain. "You're gonna have to fix me up, there's a first aid kit in the back." He sat in front of the speeder's headlights, the only light in the dark. It rendered his wounds in sharp and revolting detail. The shot to his shoulder had not burned deep, but the one to the side had gone all the way through. She applied the first Bacta pad to his stomach, then moved to his back to apply the other. Back there, she couldn't help but notice that part of his collar had been burned off, revealing the telltale scars left by a Zygerrian slave collar. Ves was taken aback. "Focus on the things you can fix, please." She applied the second pad and soon heard him sigh in relief.
Ves sat down opposite him: "I'm sorry." He answered simply: "It's not your fault." They sat quiet for a while before he spoke again: "We have to get some cover, they might try to spot us from above."
They ducked into the remains of a nearby building. The insides looked like a small one family house. It once might have been filled with joy and laughter, birthdays and lifeday celebrations. Raucous children playing carefree, their smiling parents watching from the side. All gone, all claimed by the void.
Ves started talking a mile a minute. Rattling off how it must have been their employer who called the cops on them, how those cops must somehow have been involved with it too, how they'll have to find Hokzam and Jukko and make the bastard pay. Serrad simply nodded along. The day's events had clearly drained him, made him a shell simply waiting to give himself to sleep. Ves was not sure if she even believed the tale she was spinning. Part of her blamed herself, blamed the lie she had been telling. Would they be in this situation if she had told the truth? Would those people at the bank still be alive if it wasn't for her? He eventually stopped her, telling her to go to sleep. Rest did not come easy to her, but eventually the screams and flashes faded from her mind and she slipped into sleep.
She woke up with her entire world spinning. Her eyes could not resolve her surroundings. There were vague impressions of colors and light, but no sense, no structure to them. The most horrible smell she had ever smelled assaulted her nose. The whirlpool of sensation caused her to fall from whatever she had been lying on. The ground was cold, the cool just barely calmed her perception enough for her surroundings to start making sense. She was in some other place. The floor was tiled and a vile yellow light came from the next room, filtered through a dirty plastic curtain. She was lying next to some kind of metal gurney. Her head felt like it was about to split in two. She was sick to her stomach and her ears were being assaulted by the whirring of an impossibly loud circular saw. What kind of hell did she find herself in? She noticed a sore pain coming from her right arm. She ran her fingers across it and noticed what felt like a needle mark. She'd been drugged, but by whom and for what? A terrifying crunch came from the other room. She was panicking again. She looked around in a frenzy. Her weapons were gone, but she noticed what looked like a rusted nail on the ground. She quickly grabbed it and stashed it inside her sleeve. The whirring stopped. She quickly laid back down on the gurney and pretended to be unconscious.
Booming footsteps traveled from the other room to hers. Each step was accompanied by heavy breathing. Her gurney was rolled to the next room. She felt the plastic curtain move over her. The gurney stopped moving. She heard the footsteps move away, then come back again. Metal utensils clattered in a tray. The breathing was now getting closer, she could feel it on her face. Something was cutting at her clothes. Now was her chance: She took the nail out of hiding and stabbed at where she thought the head might be. She felt brief resistance, but then the target gave way. She opened her eyes. A man, human, maybe middle aged with dull features stared at her with bulging eyes. The nail was stuck in his neck, his hands were clasped around hers, desperately trying to stop her from ripping it out. She did anyway. Warm blood hit her face. He gasped and fell to the floor. She got up and grabbed him: "Who are you? What is this place?" Gurgling, then gasping, but no response. He faded quickly. She was now holding a corpse, with no answers left to give.
She let go of him and took in her surroundings: The man she killed wore a plastic apron covered in blood, looking like some demented cross between a doctor and a butcher. The room was similar to the one she woke up in. A heavy metal door was right behind her, she didn't know how to open it. The ceiling was low and held up by several pillars in the middle. Both the floor and walls were covered in yellow tiles, stained significantly with dried blood. There was a barely working drain in the floor. A fresh stream of blood was pooling on top of it. the source of which was hidden behind a smaller plastic curtain hanging from the ceiling. She pulled it away and immediately fell to her knees retching. What she saw was worse than anything she could ever imagine: Serrad, motionless, his legs cut off by the knee. They were lying beside him, the flesh poorly stripped off of them layer by layer all the way to the bone. There was no expression on his face, his eyes were closed. He looked like he was sleeping peacefully and all the while blood kept flowing from the stumps. A stainless door to a walk-in fridge was behind him. It couldn't be, it better not be… Maybe there was something still alive in his broken shell, at least she thought she felt a pulse. She needed to stop the bleeding immediately. She looked around and found a table on the opposite end of the room with all their equipment splayed out on top of it. She grabbed his bandolier and used her own belt to tie off the other leg. He seemed stable, for now. She noticed dozens of pairs of shoes and clothing haphazardly strewn around the table. Her worst fears were coming true, but before she went to check the freezer, she grabbed her blaster and a thermal detonator from the table. She opened the door and all her fears came true.
The freezer was filled with neatly stacked packets of meat. Each was labeled: RACE, SEX, AGE. There must have been hundreds of them. Sure enough, there was one fitting his description. She had heard of places like this, everyone on the lower levels had. They were always dismissed as urban legends embellished by the drug-addled minds of the homeless. What a fool she had been. It was all true, no matter if she wanted it to be. Ves dropped the packet in disgust, then backed out of the freezer.
The metal door out of the room was ripped open. Several armed thugs came rushing in, blasters drawn. Ves held up the thermal detonator and armed it: "Try me."
"What the hell are you doing here, Tail-Head."
-"WHAT AM I DOING HERE?! What the fuck are you doing here, you sick fucks!?"
"You should be meat by now!"
-"Try hitting a vein next time."
"Got a big mouth for a filthy rat. We know who you are: You robbed that bank, stole our money"
Ves was shocked, but didn't hesitate to respond:
"Oh I'm sorry for robbing your little family butcher shop."
One of the thugs pointed his blaster at Ves, she shook the detonator in response. The leader continues:
"You're good at talking, aren't you? But look at the mess you've gotten yourself in. Put down the detonator and you can go."
-"Oh and leave my friend here for you?"
"He's already dead, why join him?"
A second thug pointed his blaster at her, the situation was looking worse.
"Last chance"
A third lifted his blaster. Her situation was now hopeless. She decided that if she was going to die, she was taking them with her. She closed her eyes and prepared for the end.
The sound of blaster fire interrupted her. For a moment all paused and looked in disbelief at Serrad sitting upright on his gurney, Ves' blaster in hand. One of the thugs fell over dead, clutching a hole in his throat. Ves used the opportunity and tossed the detonator at the thugs' feet. She tackled Serrad to the ground, hiding from the imminent blast behind the gurney. The blast pushed the gurney against them, nearly crushing them against the wall. Everything was filled with noxious smoke and swirling dust clouds. The pillars holding up the ceiling were turned to rubble, the ceiling was crumbling, just barely holding together. Little more than a stain was left where the thugs stood, their remains scattered all around the walls. Serrad turned to Ves, only one thought on his lips: "Get me the hell out of here."