Pilot/Purveyor of Fine Things
LEVEL 1313
IMPERIAL CENTER
Level 1313 was a maze of welded metal walkways and flickering signage, a forgotten slice of Coruscant where sunlight had never reached and hope rarely bothered to stop. The air tasted of coolant fumes and old smoke, and the constant hum of machinery vibrated through the duracrete walls like a heartbeat that refused to die. Crowds moved in sluggish tides, faces hidden, intentions murky, everyone minding their own business because that was the only way to survive this far down. Even the Empire kept its distance. Stormtroopers patrolled the upper levels with stiff efficiency, but on 1313 they preferred to let the shadows sort out their own arguments. It was not comfortable, but it was quiet enough, and Sharill found that quiet strangely comforting.
Sharill nursed her drink the way one might nurse a stubborn injury. Slow, deliberate, resigned. The bitter tang lingered on her tongue longer than she would have liked but it was wet and did not cost her any trouble to acquire. That was enough for a quiet evening on Level Two Hundred and Ninety Four. The bar was half-lit and half-forgotten, a corridor of warped transparisteel, rusted piping and recycled air filters that wheezed like dying nerfs. The stool beneath her had seen better centuries. Her feet did not touch the floor, her elbows rested firmly on the counter, her eyes wide and unblinking as she surveyed the room.
A pair of stormtroopers clattered past the entrance, boots clicking in perfect rhythm. They did not look inside. They never did. Too far down, too dim, too unimportant. The Empire liked everything in neat little boxes. Down here, things were messy. That alone kept them away.
Sharill watched them disappear into the dim passageway beyond the bar door. She took a sip of her drink and muttered, mostly to herself, "Empire this, Empire that. All their uniforms pressed and polished while the rest of us drink whatever this is supposed to be." She swirled the glass. The liquid moved with the enthusiasm of a tired swamp. "New management, same problems. Worse, probably. They do not tolerate much that is small, messy or old. That makes me three strikes."
She let out a small puff of breath and watched a mouse droid skitter past her stool with a bit of loose wiring dragging behind it. Sparks jumped off the floor every few seconds. The bartender ignored it. Everyone ignored it. Life on the lower levels had enough real problems without worrying about defective vermin.
Two men at the rear table argued loudly about new ration policies. One claimed he had lost half his business to Imperial inspections. The other insisted the Empire was just getting started and that people needed to brace for the squeeze. Sharill did not turn her head. She did not need to hear more. Fear clung to every sentence spoken about the Empire these days. People tried to sound angry, but they sounded afraid. She understood the feeling. It settled in her gut each time she saw white armour pass too close. Sharill made a point of sitting with her back to the wall. Habit, age and a little survival instinct.
She lifted her drink again. "They tidy up everything they touch. All clean lines and marching orders. People like me do not fit neatly into that sort of picture. Probably why I stay down here where no one looks too closely. If the Empire cares about this place, it hides it well. I prefer it that way."
The neon sign above the bar flickered in its last gasps of life. An Ithorian bartender tried to negotiate with a dehydrated Devaronian over the price of imported water. The entire exchange sounded like a badly tuned engine to Sharill's ears. She grimaced and took another drink, her gills fluttering with irritation.
"Should have stayed on Takodana," she murmured. "Heck, I should have stayed on Hamra; at least the drinks did not taste like solvent."
Someone shouted across the room. A chair scraped violently. Another glass shattered. Sharill did not react. Fights were as common as broken ventilation units, and she had lived through both plenty of times. She glanced toward the door again out of instinct. The stormtroopers were long gone.
Quiet settled back over the bar, a strange kind of quiet that belonged only to these lower levels. Not peace exactly, but a sort of neglect that Sharill found almost comforting. Nobody cared what she drank. Nobody cared who she was. Nobody cared how old she felt or how many circuits she had repaired that week. Here, surrounded by shadows and worn machinery, she was invisible.
She raised her glass in a small, sardonic toast to the dimly lit room. "To the Empire. May they stay very busy upstairs and leave us forgotten down here."
For the first time that evening, the drink did not taste quite so bad.