Star Wars: The Last of the Jedi, Volume 3 (8 page)

For the first time since he’d left the streets of Bellassa, Trever felt at home.

The Erased reminded him of the friends he’d made in the black market. Sure, you didn’t want to ask the brothers, Gilly and Spence, what they did before they were Erased, but that was
fine with him. He was used to people concealing their pasts.

Gilly and Spence didn’t say much. They were short and compact and heavily armed with various makeshift weapons they trusted more than any blaster. Keets Freely was the talkative one. That
guy could chew your ear off with facts about the Coruscant underlevels: How they’d always existed outside of the law. How security didn’t penetrate this far down. Millions of
inhabitants relied on their own defensive skills or teams of vigilantes to protect neighborhoods and individual apartment structures with their hundreds of inhabitants.

According to Keets, ever since the Most Evilest Empire took over, things had only become worse. Before the Clone Wars, the Senate tried to keep the place from falling apart, at least. They sent
droid teams down for occasional repairs. They even set up med clinics for the poor slobs who had to live there. But now, with the new greedy Senate, nobody cared. So the millions of beings slammed
into the sublevels traveled in packs and kept arsenals of weapons to protect themselves.

Trever could have skipped the lecture and picked up the main point—watch your back.

He noticed that Ferus wasn’t too happy about leading the Erased down. They had traveled for hours until they were far away from the Senate and Galactic City, and all Ferus could think
about was the Jedi he was searching for. Honestly, he was a little obsessive about it. But still, Trever had never met anyone he felt he could depend on like Ferus. It was worth sticking
around.

Their plans were loose. They had to be. The group had decided to head down, all of them packed into one large speeder, and pick up information along the way. Since there were so many rumors
about Solace, they felt certain that they would find the way there.

Of course, some of the rumors were pretty extreme.

Number one: Solace was a place on the crust that had escaped the monolithic building boom on Coruscant. It had trees and lakes and was open to the sky far above, with nothing on top of it.

And if you believe that
, Trever thought,
you believe in space angels.

Number two: Solace was built centuries ago on the crust, a wondrous place of palaces and towers where all were welcome, and all were cherished, and all were free.

Right, and the Emperor is a humble guy looking out for everyone’s well-being and the galaxy is a blooming garden.

The only rumor Trever truly believed was the fact they already knew: Solace was hard to find.

At the end of a long day of learning basically nothing, Rhya Taloon unstrapped her holsters to make herself comfortable and stretched out on the sleep couch in the guesthouse
they’d arranged to stay in for the night. Gilly and Spence were busy cleaning their weapons while Trever lay down on the other sleep couch, and Ferus spread his cloak on the floor for a
bed.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Rhya announced to the ceiling. She placed the toe of her boot on the opposite heel and kicked off one boot, then the other. They landed with a thump on
the floor.

“You’ve got to ask a lot of questions before you get real answers, sweetblossom,” Keets said as he sat astride a chair. “We may not see it, but we have pieces of the
puzzle.”

“We do?” She waved a hand in the air. “All I heard today was noise.”

“There’s one thing we keep hearing. The crust. It’s all the way down—some say it’s even
below
the crust.”

“That’s true,” Ferus said. “That’s the common thread.”

Oryon shook back his tangled mane of hair. He was in his usual resting position, squatting on the floor. It looked uncomfortable to Trever, but Oryon seemed to find it relaxing. “There is
usually a kernel of truth in even the most exaggerated rumor. Keets might be right.”

Gilly and Spence looked up from their weapons to nod.

“There’s got to be a first time,” Hume said. He was the tall human man who’d been a Republic army officer.

Keets saluted him. “Even a broken chrono is right twice a day.”

“So we should go straight to the crust,” Curran said. “Stop wasting time.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Hume said. “I hate to waste time.”

Everyone looked at Ferus. “I agree,” he said.

“Anybody ever been that deep before?” Keets asked.

“Are you kidding?” Rhya asked. “I never made it out of Galactic City.” She looked down at the holsters on the floor. “Then again, I never shot a blaster before,
either.”

Oryon checked his weapon. “Well, get ready. You might have plenty of opportunities soon.”

They left for the crust at first light.

They zoomed down past sublevel after sublevel. There were no space lanes here, just tricky piloting. Ferus piloted the speeder, not speaking, concentrating on avoiding the other aggressive
speeders he encountered as well as broken sensors that suddenly loomed in front of him, crumbling landing platforms, and narrow passages.

Coruscant had been built from the surface up. When the levels had become too crowded to bear, more levels were built above. More buildings, more infrastructure, more power stations, more
walkways. The deeper Ferus and the others went, the more ancient these structures became.

They left the speeder on a landing platform that had been shored up with timbers of durasteel and wood. Looking around, Trever could see that improvisation was the name of the game when it came
to building down here.

Here at the crust, they entered a century that was committed to grandeur. These long-ago beings built their buildings out of stone, hundreds of stories high, with intricate carvings and
balconies, turrets, and towers. The stone of the buildings was cracked and crumbling. Often they were reinforced with scrap metal or wood. Their streets were winding and narrow, with alleys leading
off from alleys in a confusing maze.

There were no official systems here at all—no power, no water, no light, no ventilation that wasn’t powered by private generators. They walked down through a narrow arched walkway.
The stone beneath their feet was cracked and split, sometimes with fissures that were meters wide. They jumped when they had to and skirted the holes. They were the only beings out on the streets.
Although above them the suns weren’t setting, it felt like night. The air was dark and close.

This was it—the bottom of Coruscant. The lowest known level.

If they didn’t find Solace here, there was nowhere else to go.

Trever hoped there was safety in numbers. The Erased looked treacherous. He couldn’t imagine that anyone would want to tangle with them.

He found his steps slowing. He felt haunted by what was above. It was as though he could feel the pressure of the millions of lives above him, the millions of structures and machines, a whole
impossible matrix of humming life above his head, of millions of beating hearts.

It was enough to seriously creep him out.

“You’re uncharacteristically silent, young fellow.” Keets fell into step beside him.

“It all feels so...heavy,” Trever said.

“You mean everything above your head?” Keets laughed. “Yeah, I see what you mean. It’s kind of oppressive.”

“So who lives down here?” he asked.

Keets shrugged. “Immigrants from other worlds, those who came here hoping to do better. Those who lost everything, those who had nowhere else to go. Just creatures living, trying to live.
And those who prey off them.”

“And those looking for the wonderful world of Solace,” Trever said.

Keets chuckled. Then suddenly he reached over and pushed Trever hard. Trever fell to the rough ground.

“Hey, what—”

Then he saw them. The gang had materialized, seemingly out of thin air, but Trever now saw the narrow passageway that snaked off the arched walk. Keets had pushed him out of the way of a stun
dart just in time. Trever looked up and saw that Oryon had already reached for his light repeating blaster from his back holster. Keets held a blaster pistol in his hand. Now Trever saw the streaks
of blaster fire in the darkness, a steady barrage, as the gang moved forward. There were at least fifteen of them, each more brutal-looking than the rest.

Ferus was already running, his lightsaber sweeping in a continually moving arc. The attackers were clearly startled at the ferocity and power he exhibited, not to mention the blaster fire that
suddenly boomeranged back at them. They kept firing as they retreated, shouting curses at Ferus and promising to kill him.

Oryon and Hume kept up a position on Ferus’s flank, each of them firing their weapons. Keets and Rhya were only slightly behind, while Gilly and Spence split up and began to chase the gang
as they gave up firing and fled.

Trever started to roll to his feet. The fissures and cracks were wider here, and his foot became lodged in a crack as he moved. Annoyed, he tried to pull it out, but it was stuck. Trever
squirmed closer to peer into the crack.

A thick, scaly tail had wrapped itself around his ankle.

Trever gave a yell of surprise and tried to pull his leg up. The creature wound another length around his ankle and tugged. He tried to kick at it, but it only hung on tighter.

“Ferus!” Trever called. But Ferus was ahead, with Rhya and Hume, and didn’t hear him.

He looked down again, and this time he saw the dead eye of the creature staring back at him. He didn’t think that the concept of mercy existed in this creature’s universe.

It gave a sudden yank, and Trever dropped into the crevice up to his hips. His other leg now dangled inside the crack, and he pushed away the question of whether this creature had a mate. He
kicked and twisted, hitting the creature now with one fist while with the other hand he fished for something—anything—in his utility belt.

Trever felt the familiar contours of an alpha charge.

His fingers fumbled as he tried to set the charge. He managed to do it, but the creature tugged, and the charge rolled out of his fingers and dropped into the blackness. In the flash of light he
saw a reptilian body with scales that looked like duracrete. The mouth of the creature appeared to be strong enough to snap him in two.

Suddenly something whistled by his ear. He caught the glint of a vibroshiv as it wheeled through the air in a spinning, perfect aim for the tail. It sank in up to the hilt. The thick tail
suddenly unfurled, and Trever heard the sound of the creature slithering away.

“Duracrete slug,” Keets said, holding down a hand for him and hauling him up. “About ten meters long, by the look of him. They burrow into the stone. Best to keep an eye
out.”

“Thanks for the tip.” Trever dusted off his pants.

Ferus hurried over. “What happened?”

“Nothing much. I was almost strangled by an enormous slug. Nothing for you to worry about,” Trever said. He didn’t know why he felt so irritated that Ferus hadn’t saved
him. Ferus had been walking ahead, not concerning himself with Trever at all.

“Hey, sorry. Thanks,” Ferus said to Keets.

“Sure. You owe me a vibroshiv.” Keets grinned, his teeth white through the dirt streaked on his face.

“We found a place that might provide some information,” Ferus said.

The others had paused in front of two crumbling stone columns. A sputtering laserlight sign read:
UNDERWORLD INN
. They regarded it as Ferus, Trever, and Keets walked
up.

“Not your most premier establishment,” Rhya said.

“We do need a bed for the night,” Ferus said.

“And where there’s beds, there’s grog,” Keets said. “And where’s there’s grog, there’s gossip.”

“Let’s give it a try,” Ferus said. “But keep your weapons close.”

They pushed open the stone door. They walked into a large circular space formed by towering arches. The stone floor and stone ceiling made their footsteps echo. Huge alien gargoyles leered over
their heads with what looked like malicious intent.

“Homey,” Hume remarked.

They approached a small battered desk that was dwarfed by its surroundings. A clerk sat behind it, fast asleep. Ferus cleared his throat, but he didn’t stir.

Oryon slammed the hilt of his blaster rifle down on the desk, and the clerk awoke with a start. “Fire!” he shouted.

“No fire,” Ferus said. “Just some customers.”

“Oh.” The clerk straightened. “Ah, we only have a couple of rooms available. You’ll have to double up.”

“Fine.”

“Costs extra for towels and water.”

“Extra for water?”

“Hard to get water down here.”

“All right, all right.”

Ferus was about to produce his false ID docs, but the clerk waved a hand to dismiss him. “Just credits. We don’t need ID docs.”

“I thought it was the law.”

The clerk raised an eyebrow at him, as though Ferus was a new recruit into a very old army. “There’s no law down here. If you haven’t figured that out yet, I feel sorry for
you.”

They paid the credits, and then Hume asked, “We’ve got some dry throats here. Any recommendations?”

The clerk shrugged a shoulder in the direction of a doorway.

They pushed open the door and went inside. The cantina was small but the ceiling was high, casting deep shadows throughout the space. To Ferus’s surprise, the place was almost full.
Humanoids and other creatures sat at the bar or at small tables that hugged the shadows. Weapons were prominently displayed on the tables.

“Reminds me of a place I used to go in Galactic City called the ’Dor, only worse,” Keets observed.

Ferus nodded. He’d been to the ’Dor with Siri, as a Padawan who had tried very hard not to be intimidated by the atmosphere. The dregs of the galaxy went there to drink, buy or sell
information, and hire bounty hunters. It had once been called the Splendor until most of its laser letters had shorted out, and everyone just called it the ’Dor.

“I’d say we should have a seat,” Hume advised. “We’re attracting a bit of attention here.”