TWINFERNO
SERIS VELMORA
Objective: Recover the package
Location: Coruscant — Level 1313
Outfit: Normal Outfit
Equipment: Lightsabers
Tag:
Rorie
Seris Velmora had been told three times that the package was more important than the person carrying it. The first time, she'd nodded. The second time, she'd wondered whether the Sith giving her the assignment thought she was stupid. The third time, she'd begun to suspect they knew her rather well.
It wasn't that Seris couldn't follow instructions. She could. She'd spent enough time at the Academy being ordered from one lesson to another, sent into fights someone else had chosen, and expected to listen when someone stronger or more important spoke. That was simply how things worked. Power commanded. Everyone beneath it obeyed until they possessed enough power to do otherwise. But there was something particularly irritating about being told ahead of time not to break something. Or someone.
The lift shuddered as it descended through another layer of Coruscant, the polished civilization of the upper levels disappearing kilometers above her. Seris leaned against the wall with her arms folded, watching numbers tumble across the ancient display. The deeper she went, the more frequently they flickered. Eventually the indicator stopped pretending it knew precisely where they were at all. That made her smile.
The doors opened. Noise hit her first. Music somewhere nearby. Machinery somewhere farther away. Voices everywhere. Repulsors whining overhead. Water dripping from pipes that probably hadn't been inspected since before half the people living beneath them had been born. Neon signs fought one another across narrow streets while steam rolled from vents and turned pedestrians into silhouettes.
Seris stepped out. Her instructions had been annoyingly simple. A Covenant courier had disappeared carrying a secured container through the lower levels. The courier had missed two scheduled contacts. No distress signal. No body recovered. No package delivered. Someone higher up had decided that whatever had happened should be handled quietly before ordinary security started asking questions or some ambitious official noticed the disappearance and created paperwork.
That was where Seris came in. Find the courier if possible. Find the package regardless. Determine who had interfered. And, once again, the package is the priority, Velmora.
"Yes, yes," Seris muttered. She hadn't been told what was inside. Naturally. Apparently Acolytes were trustworthy enough to send into the depths of Coruscant after mysterious Sith property but not trustworthy enough to know what they were retrieving. Seris supposed that was motivation to advance.
The trail had been easy enough at first. Transit records. A security recording. The courier purchasing something from a street vendor several levels above. Another recording farther down. After that, the official trail simply stopped. The unofficial one hadn't. Seris had learned that people became remarkably observant when properly encouraged. A bartender remembered the courier. So did a Rodian mechanic. The mechanic had remembered considerably more after Seris placed one hand on the counter and casually let her lightsaber strike the durasteel beside it. She hadn't even needed to ignite it. Progress.
The directions brought her deeper into Level 1313. Her surroundings changed gradually. The crowds became thinner. The advertisements became cheaper. Cameras became less obvious—which didn't mean there were fewer of them. Seris caught sight of one disappearing into a recessed housing when she looked directly at it. She stopped. Her eyes narrowed.
Then Seris smiled directly at the empty housing. "Hello." She continued walking. Someone was watching. Good. That meant she was getting somewhere. The Force wasn't giving her anything useful about the missing courier. Too many people. Too much fear, anger, hunger, desperation and ordinary Coruscanti misery layered on top of itself. Trying to pick one stranger's presence from all of that was like identifying a single voice in a packed nightclub. So she relied on something simpler.
The courier's last known route ended near an old commercial block that had long ago surrendered any claim to legitimate commerce. Half its storefronts were sealed. The other half seemed to specialize in products whose sellers became remarkably vague when asked where they'd obtained them.
Seris walked past the entrance once. Then again. On the third pass she noticed the maintenance corridor. "Oh, that's not suspicious at all." The door's locking mechanism had been tampered with recently. Not smashed. Not cut. Opened. Someone competent, then.
Seris pressed the control. Nothing happened. She pressed it again. Still nothing. Her expression flattened. There were undoubtedly clever ways around that problem. Slicing. Bypassing the lock. Finding another entrance. Perhaps crawling through some disgusting ventilation shaft like characters in cheap holodramas always seemed to do.
Seris reached for her lightsaber. The crimson blade snapped into existence with a violent hiss. A few seconds later, a glowing circle of durasteel crashed inward. Seris stepped through the smoking opening and extinguished the weapon. "See?" she murmured to herself. "Problem solved."
Beyond it stretched a narrow service passage lit intermittently by failing fixtures. Fresh footprints marked grime on the floor. More than one set. Her amusement disappeared. Seris crouched. One set was heavier. Another lighter. There were overlapping marks near the wall, scuffing around what looked like—
She reached down. Blood. Not much. She rubbed it between gloved fingers before rising again. The assignment had just become interesting. Seris followed the passage until it opened into what had once been a storage room. Empty shelving lined the walls. Broken containers had been shoved into one corner. Another door stood opposite her. And beside it was a small recessed compartment.
Seris approached slowly. Someone had opened that recently too. She could see the marks. A dead drop. Her hand drifted toward her lightsaber. There was no package inside. Seris stared at the empty compartment for several seconds. Then she sighed.
"Of course." Someone had beaten her here. Behind her, somewhere beyond the corridor, metal scraped faintly against metal. Seris went perfectly still. Then the smile returned. Her fingers closed around the lightsaber at her hip, but she didn't draw it. Not yet.
She turned toward the sound. "Whoever you are," Seris called into the dim passage, almost cheerfully, "I really hope you have my box."