6

It felt like they'd been trapped on this lift for hours now, the only light coming from the flickering lantern strung up in the corner blinking in and out. The air felt as if it was getting thicker the farther they descended, moisture and exhaust coalescing into a heavy soup that seeped into Avner's skin, making it feel like it was adding an extra five pounds to his body. The smell of decay, of buildings left to rust for the past several centuries, tickled his nose.

Across from him, Carth swiped a hand across his forehead. "How much farther can this thing go?"

As if the universe was gifting them an unspoken answer to the pilot's question, the lift shuddered to a stop. It's rather violent, the metal frame screeching and shaking side to side, nearly throwing both of them to their knees. The doors creaked open a second later, and Avner stumbled into the suffocating darkness, which was only punctured by a few stray lights hanging high above his head. It smelled of mud and decay, a strange mixture of organic matter and aging metal. There were scattered ramshackle huts held together with nothing but twine and spit before them. A sad state of affairs only punctuated by the hollow faces staring into cracked barrels smoking with burning refuse and chemicals.

You there! Up-worlders!" Two gaunt men came slipping from the shadows beside the lift. Their skin was a sallow white contrasting sharply with their dark hair and eyes. "Anyone using this elevator has to pay a toll!"

Avner glanced at Carth, who had his hand resting on his blaster. "We don't want any trouble."

"Well, you'll get it, Up-worlder, this is our elevator. We've laid claim to it for years now, so if you want to use it, you have to pay the price or face the consequences," the other hissed out, air whistling between his cracked, yellow teeth.

"Seriously? Even the beggars are shaking us down now?" Carth grumbled under his breath and moved to unholster his blaster. Avner put his hand up, signaling for him to hold. The men in front of them were no threat; they were underfed vagrants dressed in rags, hungry and unarmed. Their eyes weren't predatory but rather pleading, starving for any kind of help.

"Will five credits cover your toll?" Avner asked as he held out several credit chits. Their faces lit up at the flash of the metal currency, and they scrambled forward to take his money.

"Credits, brother, credits! Now we can get food!" One of the beggars chortled while dancing a small jig.

His brother cuffed him over the head. "Hush, you fool, or do you want the others to hear and take our credits?"

"Hey, you two! Get out of here!" A gaunt young woman with hair as black as ink dashed toward them. She was waving a heavy stick with twisted metal nailed into one end, heaving it with great effort over her skinny shoulders. The two brothers took one look at her and ran off into the darkness, clearly not wanting to face the wrath of the young girl.

She skidded to a halt in front of them, breathing hard but smiling triumphantly. "Sorry about those two; they always hang around the lift and hassle anyone who comes down here, except the soldiers in black armor… no one bothers them. We aren't all like that; most of us are good people."

"I'm sure you are, Miss," Carth started as he holstered his weapon. "Too bad the first thing people experience is your little welcoming committee."

Avner elbowed the other soldier in the ribs. "What my friend is trying to say is that we understand those two don't represent everyone down here. My name's Avner, and this is Carth; thanks for coming to help us."

The girl beamed at them and let her heavy wooden club rest against her leg. "My name's Shaleena! We all have to look out for each other down here; at least, that's what Gendar says."

"Gendar?"

"Our unofficial leader, he's got no title, but everyone goes to him if they have a problem. He always knows what to do. I can take you to him!" Shaleena bounced up and down on the balls of her feet, and Avner couldn't help but smile at her unabashed enthusiasm.

"Sure, that'd be great, Shaleena."

She led them through her tiny village, the whole lot covered in thick root growth and fungus, the only things able to grow without the sun. The people were sparse, huddled around hollow barrels and pits dug into the earthy loam, small fires giving light to their pallid faces and sunken eyes. Everything was covered in dirt and rust, the air thick with the smog and pollution pushed down from the upper levels of Taris. The distant hum of machinery and air scrubbers echoed off the small ramshackle huts creating a near-constant thrum vibrating through Avner's eardrums.

Across from him, Carth rubbed his ear and forehead.

"Gendar, we have visitors from above!"

Shaleena ran up to an older man with darker skin and ragged hair. His eyes were sharp and suspicious as they stopped, his thin shoulders straightening into a firm line as his hand came to rest upon a large knife strapped to his side. "And who might you be, Up-worlder?"

"I'm Avner, and my friend here is Carth. We don't want any trouble; Shaleena here said you could help us."

Gendar gave Shaleena a hard look but nodded. "Depends on what your needing, stranger. We rarely see your kind down here, but recently more and more of you have been tramping through the village of the Outcasts."

"Outcasts?"

"We are the people shunned from the surface for crimes our parent's parents committed. In this sunless world, we came together and constructed the Undercity to try to survive in this hostile environment."

"Can't you just leave?" Carth asked.

Gendar shook his head. "No, our fate has already been decided for us and our descendants. There is no way for us to return to the surface. Instead, we have learned to survive amongst the decay and rakghouls."

"I've heard about them, mutants, right?"

"In a sense, they were once like us, human and alien, but then they were bitten. Sometimes one turns within minutes, and others… well, it may take them days to turn, suffering from fever, their bodies slowly turning into… something else. They eat living flesh and cannot be reasoned with, rabid beasts with nothing but unending hunger." Gendar was silent for a moment, and his eyes scanned the village, most likely seeing the ghostly faces of all those he had lost hiding amongst the deep shadows. "There is no cure."

Deadly mutants that eat anything that moves, and a plucky teenage Twi'lek that was somewhere out there possibly getting her femur gnawed off… great. "Gendar, have you seen a young girl named Mission come through here recently? She travels with a Wookie."

The human nodded thoughtfully. "Yes, I've seen her and Zaalbar many times before. They explore the sewers and sometimes trade for items they find. She was the one who told us about the strange pods just north of our village."

"Pods? Was there anything in them?" Avner asked, feeling a rush at the mention of their missing pods. Though Bastila may have been captured by the Vulkars, other survivors might still be alive.

"No, they have been picked clean since the crash, though last I heard, Mission was heading for them and the sewers beyond."

"How can you get to the sewers?"

"Outside of the village and due north, there is a ridgeline you'll follow; it'll lead you to the entrance of the sewers. It's dangerous there, though; the rakghouls make their nests in those places."

"We'll take our chances."

"I won't stop you, Up-worlder, but if you get bit or scratched, you'll be left to fend for yourself. I won't have my people endangered," Gendar warned him schooling his features into a hard line. "Go to the gate at the edge of our village; there, you can leave."

Avner nodded his thanks. He weaved through the tiny shacks dotting his path, Carth hot on his heels. The inhabitants steered a wide path around them, most likely intimidated by their blasters, or perhaps the previous bad encounters with other Up-worlders had taught them that avoidance was the best policy for dealing with them. Well, most of them.

"Hey you! Up-worlders, over here!"

Avner slowed to a stop before a small man with greasy black hair. He was hunched over beside a small, pitted fire, his hovel behind him draped with various tarps and cloths, and Avner caught sight of him the glint of polished metal amongst the pile of junk that surrounded him. "Who are you?"

"Careful," Carth murmured behind him. "This guy's slimy; I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him."

Avner agreed with Carth's assessment of the small man before them. He practically oozed practiced filth, his dark eyes beady and cunning.

"My name is Igear, gentlemen, and I run the only shop here in the Undercity. I broker in all things: supplies, scrap, maybe some information. All, of course, for the right credits."

"What could you possibly tell us?"

Igear's teeth were crooked and stained, and the smile he gave was predatory. "Someone may have overheard your conversation with Gendar about the scrawny Twi'lek and crashed pods."

Avner glared down at the human. "And what would you know about them?"

He shrugged and stoked the meager flames in his pit. "Not much, just that they pulled a beautiful woman from one of them, but a few other survivors managed to escape into the sewers. Perhaps I… obtained the datapad of one."

"What do you want?"

"Oh, just a few credits and maybe one of your blasters."

"I'll give you fifty credits," Avner countered. No way was he parting with his weapon. Not down here in this hellhole. The miscreant had mentioned a woman being pulled from one of the pods, and he wondered if it was Bastila or could it be another officer? Were Jedi even allowed to be described as… beautiful? He was pretty sure most were stuffy old codgers holed up in some distant monastery waxing poetic about the moral decay the galaxy had fallen into.

"Pfft, I'm the only one with this info. It's worth at least a hundred credits," Igear spit pulling the datapad free from one of his junk piles.

"True, but we're the only ones with credits to spend. Who else are you going to sell this to? Fifty credits final offer."

Igear's eyes darted back and forth between the battered datapad and him. He licked his cracked lips and reluctantly handed the datapad over. "They say the customer is always right."

Avner flipped a credit chit into his bony hand and powered on the datapad. It flickered once, and a dim light illuminated the cracked screen. He scrolled through the sparse logs and opened the most recent one.

'We're trapped. I saw some people pull the Jedi from her pod… she looked dead. Not sure what to do now… Erso says we need to keep moving, but there are things in the shadows, and Detrick has a fever. One of those freaks took a chunk out of his leg, and now he's near delirious… I don't want to die…'

There' was nothing left after that, and the previous entries were all report logs from the Endar Spire. "Someone else made it out, and this account backs up what Gadon said… Bastila was taken." Avner tossed Carth the datapad, and he skimmed through it.

"Hopefully, they're still alive," Carth murmured, tucking the datapad away. "We could use the help. We should investigate those pods for any signs of the survivors. They'll probably need our help."

Avner nodded.

"If you're both pleased, perhaps you will consider returning to Igear if you… find anything while you're out there?" Again he smiled his hideous cracked grin.

"No promises," Avner said before heading towards the main gate. So there were more survivors from the crash who hadn't been captured yet. But were they even still alive? From what Avner had seen of this part of Taris, it was inhospitable to anything living, so how could three grunts have any hope to survive down here alone and most likely injured? He shook his head. Couldn't think like that; he had to believe they were alive until there was proof otherwise. Now that he was near the outskirts of the village, he could better appreciate the large stone walls erected all around them. Before, it had been impossible to see them through the murky darkness, vision obscured to only a few feet in front of him, even with a maglight. The wall stood nearly three meters high and was topped with twisted barbed metal and rusted scrap with a heavy all-steel gate at the edge.

"Trewin, please, you must open the gate! He'll die out there!" A woman was clutching the hands of a taller man wearing brown rags, his hair matching his clothes and a scraggly beard running the length of his gently sloping jaw.

He shook his head sadly. "I'm sorry, but the ghouls are too close."

Howls could be heard from beyond the gate, high-pitched screeching noises that almost sounded human but twisted and garbled like the throat had been torn out, and the sounds were escaping through the bloody hole.

"Please, Hendar, hurry!" The woman abandoned the tall gatekeeper and instead pressed her face against the gate, rattling it back and forth in some vain attempt to tear it down.

"He'll never make it, Hester," the man consoled her, trying in vain to pull her away. "They're too close now. The fool should have never left the village."

"He can make it! We have to give him a chance to get in!"

"No, Hester, it's too late. We can't save him."

A body slammed against the heavy gate. Thin, pale fingers interlocked between the sparse links and openings, hopelessly trying to pry it open. "Please! O-open the gate!"

The gatekeeper darted forward. "I-I can't, Hendar. The rakghouls are too close… I'm sorry."

"You son of a bitch! Open the gate!" Hendar screamed, his voice pitching high in sheer terror. He began pounding his fists against the barrier, undoubtedly beating them black and blue. "Don't do this to me!"

"They'll kill him if you don't open the door!" Hester cried, tugging on Trewin's arm in desperation.

"And if I do, then we're all dead!" He spat. "Is that what you want?!"

The howls grew closer, now interlaced with near-human shrieks and the thumping of numerous feet drawing near.

"Please help him!"

Avner wasn't even aware that he was moving, but suddenly in two bounds, he was over the massive gate and, on the other side, standing in front of Hendar. He pulled his blaster rifle off his back and leveled it against his shoulder in a forward position. For a few tense seconds, all he could hear was the whooping screeches and pounding footsteps of something getting closer. Then… out of the darkness, a skeletal, pallid figure emerged. Its sickly gray skin was pulled tight over its bony frame, and scraps of cloth hung off its skinny body. The fingers were warped claws tearing skin away from the hands, and it scrabbled around on all fours, spitting and hissing from between sharp, jagged teeth cluttered in too closely within a small mouth. The ghoul leaped forward, aiming to tackle him to the ground and disembowel him wholly. Avner fired several shots, each finding a home in the creature's gut and knocking it back.

It didn't go down.

Instead, it crawled backward, diseased bloodshot eyes tracking his movements with an almost keen understanding. He swung his rifle right, and the rakghoul dodged left, attempting to dart around him and go for the much easier prey still pounding on the gate.

"Hendar, move!"

He reached back and grabbed the other man's shoulder, throwing him bodily a few feet to his right while simultaneously unloading a salvo of bolts into the mutant's head, reducing it to a pulpy mass. Its corpse twitched a few times more before lying still. Another scream from behind him! He swung around and fired off a single serrated bolt into the head of another ghoul closing in. Two more sprang out from the darkness, their jaws slavering and exchanging several hisses. Were these things… communicating? They split off, one cutting left while the other slipped to the right. Avner blasted through the kneecap of the closest ghoul. It flipped over, head over heels, spitting and screeching in pain as he unloaded round after round into its chest and head.

"NOOO!"

Avner turned, half expecting it to have been Hendar who screamed, but instead found himself face to face with the snapping jaws of the final rakghoul. It barreled into him, knocking him back hard. His rifle fell from his grasp and slid away as the ghoul's wide jaws snapped forward, looking to tear his throat out. Avner wrapped his hands around the creature's neck and pushed, but the ghoul only surged forward, its foul breath washing over his face. His muscles strained under the ghoul's unrelenting attack. He pitched his legs forward, wrapping them around the mutant's waist, before sharply twisting while rolling with the motion, throwing it off and into a heap at his side. He freed his pistol and shoved the muzzle into the rakghoul's mouth. He fired a single shot, the creature's jaw unhinging from its face from the impact of the blast, dark blood and viscera exploding from its neck.

He stood wiping bits of charred tissue from his face and shoulders, scooping up his fallen rifle as he approached the still-cowering man. He offered him his hand, but Hendar scrabbled backward.

"G-get back! You've been infected… b-bit!"

The Kiffar took a second to quickly pat down his body. No bites or scratches besides the ones on his elbows from being tackled. "Didn't get me. Now come on, get up."

Hendar scrambled to his feet but still kept his distance, obviously unconvinced at his assessment. Avner shook his head and rapped a hand on the gate. "Hey! Open up! The ghouls are dead!"

Silence. For a second, he worried that the gates wouldn't open, that the guard would keep it shut tight, but a second later, a whining creak reverberated uncomfortably loud in the bleak darkness. The heavy gate slowly rose, but neither of them waited for it to fully ascend. They ducked under the partially opened barricade, Hendar all but collapsing into Hester's arms as she hurriedly patted him down.

"Y-you did it; you saved Hendar. How did you-."

Avner waved off Trewin's ensuing questions. "I'm just a lucky guy. Is he alright?"

Trewin glanced over at the other man, slowly getting to his feet with the help of Hester. "Thank you, Up-worlder. Not many risk their lives to help someone they don't know."

"Come on, Hendar, we need to get you home," Hester said, pulling the man away. "Thank you again, Up-worlder."

He watched them limp away into the darkness. Carth thumped him hard on the shoulder. "Are you crazy?! What were you thinking charging in there like that? You didn't know how many there were; you could have been overwhelmed or bit!"

He rubbed his bruised shoulder. "Gee, Carth, didn't know you cared so much."

"How did you get over that gate so fast? One second, you were here, and then…" Carth arched his hand down at a sharp angle and whistled.

Avner shrugged. "I've always been rather… limber."

"Those ghouls were vicious; thought that last one had you."

"They don't go down easy either. Took several rounds just to incapacitate them, and you need to destroy their cranium to stop them completely. We'll have to stay alert when we go out, don't want to get surrounded by a pack of those things."

Carth nodded in agreement.

Trewin coughed behind them, drawing their attention. "If you're going out there, I have something that will help you." He rummaged through the pack at his side and pulled out an old, dented medical canister. He held it out to him expectantly.

"Trewin… I-."

The gatekeeper shook his head stubbornly. "Don't even try to refuse. What you did for Hendar… what I should have done, think of this as a minor thank you."

He knew the other man would not let him refuse the small gift, so he took it and nodded. The gate rumbled in front of them, rising slowly and shuddering. Avner ducked beneath it. The bodies of the fallen rakghouls were still piled up outside the entrance, a strong rotting stench wafting up from their fallen corpses.

"Shavit, do they all stink like this?" Carth groused as he picked his way around the dead bodies.

Avner shrugged. "Probably. They're diseased mutants, remember?"

The darkness was all-encompassing as they passed from the safety of the village into the badlands. The lights flickered out, and all that illuminated his path was the simple maglight attached to the end of his rifle. Deeper shadows stretched from the base of massive towers, and rotting structures spread out. Gnarled pieces of scrap twisted around the faded paths making it impossible to see anything beyond them. Bioluminescent fungi littered the ground, giving off strange glowing purple, blue, and green hues, casting deep shades amongst the ruins. Hissing echoes bounced off the junk, making screeches sound either miles away or a few inches from his face.

It felt like they had been walking for hours, the air growing heavier with every breath Avner took, his steps becoming more weighted as the muck soaked into his boots and clothes. A squeal to his right and a frantic scrabble of claws scraping against metal raked against his ears. He swung his rifle in the direction of the noise; a small slavering rakghoul sat perched upon the highest pilon, jaws open wide, its bloated tongue slipping out and tasting the air. He didn't give it a chance to move, instead opting to cave in its skull with one well-aimed shot. More screeches sounded, and several more ghouls slunk from the refuse. Carth fired off a sweeping salvo taking two of the mutants down while the others scattered back into the darkness, chittering to each other.

"Let's go," Avner said, pointing to a pathway veering off in the opposite direction. The blaster fire could have attracted more, possibly a larger pack. They darted down the dark trail leaping over scrap piles, the screeches growing fainter.

"Avner, wait!"

He skidded to a halt, Carth grabbing the back of his shirt and hauling him backward. "Wha-."

"Shh. Look." The other soldier shined his light on a thin, nearly invisible trip wire. It ran the length of the path only a few centimeters off the ground before disappearing. "Land mine."

Avner tread forward carefully and followed the line back to its source. The tripwire was wound tightly around a small rectangular box with several gears clicking and turning in a continuous loop. "This looks like a basic field mine. Standard Republic issue." He slipped back into the demolitions training he had received in the army - find the feedback loop and disrupt its loop disc. He pulled his combat knife free and slowly twisted the loop disc from the guidewire. Moments later, the clicking stopped.

"One of ours must have set this up," Carth muttered, squatting down beside him to inspect the disabled mine.

"Maybe, but it is a standard-issue; anyone with basic knowledge could make one of these."

Carth didn't reply. Instead, he stood and scanned the area, treading forward cautiously and keeping a close eye on the ground. "Looks all clear but be careful. Could be more traps up ahead."

The pathway became steeper the further he hiked, but there were thankfully no more mines and the rakghouls were sparse, almost as if they knew of the hidden dangers and chose to give this area a wide berth. Impossible, everything he had seen of these creatures was savage and instinct-driven. But… hadn't he also witnessed them communicate and strategize to take down prey? Hadn't one screamed with spoken language? Perhaps that was what made them truly dangerous, the unknown capabilities they may or may not have. Ahead of them, several large cylindrical objects loomed. Avner swung his maglight around, taking in the slashed steel of the pods, paneling that had been ripped off and tossed aside carelessly in hurried looting.

"Our missing pods," Carth murmured, climbing into the one beside him.

Avner leaped into the first pod. Its innards had been completely gutted, and a soldier's bloated, rotting corpse sat slumped over in the furthest seat, his legs missing, the stumps jagged, flesh hanging in stringy threads. Poor bastard had most likely died on impact. He ran his hand over the controls, images flashing behind his eyelids in quick succession. The blurry face of a girl appeared, yanking the controls back and forth, her head slamming violently into the panel in front of her as metal screeched and folded in. Silence echoed for a few moments, then a hiss and sparks flew, landing on the girl's face and stirring her awake. She was injured, bleeding, and trapped in the twisted wreckage of her escape pod. Harsh voices argued from the outside and banged on the thick metal. Then a flash.

"Find anything?" Carth's head popped into view above him as Avner withdrew his hand from the panel, shaking his head.

"No, nothing here." The images came as no surprise to him. It wasn't the first time he had experienced them, having been privy to such flashes since his early childhood. His people, the Kiffar, were highly attuned to the Force and the electromagnetic fields that emanated from every being. It allowed them to read imprints left behind by others, sometimes only faint feelings, other times trace visions. Psychometry was the ten-credit word thrown around by scholars and such. Many of his people were gifted with the ability, some claiming the Force had bestowed it upon them since their inception. More grounded individuals tied it back to the electromagnetic sensitivity. Avner was more of the mindset of the latter. The Force… heh, well, most of it was just parlor tricks because few beings were truly gifted with… mystical powers.

He scrambled from the pod and dropped down beside Carth. "The sewers aren't far from here."

Carth kicked a stray piece of scrap with the toe of his boot. "There's no one left."

Avner didn't say anything, instead allowing the other man a moment of silence as the pilot was clearly trying to pull back from his crushing disappointment, the terrifying realization that he and some grunt he had just met a few days ago were the only ones left. Stumbling footsteps clattered off to their left, and Avner immediately leveled his rifle at the approaching figure.

"W-wait, don't shoot." The man who came limping from the darkness was dressed in the bloodied uniform of the Republic. His face was drawn tight in pain from three long gashes running the length of his stomach. They were deep but crusted over with a large amount of dried blood.

"Hold tight, soldier," Carth said as he eased the man down beside one of the pods. "What's your name and rank?"

"Private Kel Erso, Sir." He spoke in clipped, short sentences, obviously in great pain from just answering the simple question. Erso… one of the names from the datapad.

"Your safe now, Private. Avner, the pack," Carth snapped, holding out his hand for their only medpac, and for the first time, Avner was the one hesitant to help. The man was clearly dying, his wounds too severe to be treated with just one small pack. "Avner!"

Get back.

The strange pricking had returned, the same feeling he had experienced in the arena against Gerlon and Twitch and what had boiled over while aboard the Spire. It trickled down his spine like ice-cold water setting his teeth on edge.

Get back.

He grabbed Carth and yanked him back forcefully.

"Marek, what the hell!?"

"Sir? Wh-what's happening? I-." Erso jerked forward, violently retching blood and bile onto his lap.

"Let me go! We have to help him!"

He held Carth fast as Erso began to violently spasm before their eyes, his body twisting so viciously Avner could hear his bones crack and pop like snapping twigs. He fell back, twitching and foaming at the mouth, eyes growing bloodshot and skin sallowing. He needed to end this. With one shove, Carth was behind him, and he leveled his rifle at the poor man's head, squeezing the trigger. There were no apologies or last words. The young soldier's head popped like a wet blood balloon, and he slumped back.

"You bastard!"

The punch doesn't catch him off guard. Yes, it landed squarely on Avner's jaw, cracking his head back, but the blow was anticipated. As were the following punches. His teeth scraped across Carth's knuckle, his nose fractured with a sickening snap, and blood ran down his chin and neck from another vicious strike. Avner didn't hit back.

"I could have saved him! I knew you were no good!" The pilot's blows were becoming sloppy, his anger clearly making him unbalanced. Another square punch to his nose further deepened the fissure. Fuck, this was gonna hurt like a schutta for weeks. He shoved Carth back and held up his hands.

"It was too late for him! He was never going to make it."

"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT!"

"HE WAS INFECTED! HE WAS GOING TO TURN!"

They were both shouting now, and it was much too loud. Every rakghoul within a square kilometer had probably heard them. Shavit.

"I-I…"

"I'm sorry, Carth, but he was already dead," Avner muttered, then turned away from the other man. He firmly grasped his shattered nose between both his middle and forefingers. With a deft twist and crack, the bones snapped back into place, and a second gush of blood rushed down his jaw. "Fuck."

Carth didn't apologize for his frenzied attack, and Avner didn't expect him to. Instead, he was kneeling over his fallen comrade, gently laying him down and closing his eyes with practiced care for a final time. The Kiffar idly wondered if the man would do the same to him if he fell. Doubtful.

He stood and didn't even regard him. Wonderful, even more, tense air between them. Anymore and Avner was certain he could inflate an entire balloon zephyr like the ones used on Altair III.

"Help! Someone, please help me!"

His ears perked up at the distant cries. That voice… could it be?

"HELP, ANYONE!"

It was… Mission Vao.