Blackguard
CORUSCANT - UNDERLEVELS
ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
Thorn
ABANDONED WAREHOUSE
Meliant only had to stand for a few moments before the gatekeeper droid popped out of the wall. It was nothing more than a single, long appendage terminating in an oversized photoreceptor. If you asked him to describe its color, "angry orange" was what came to mind.
It blinked once at him. "You call that a disguise?"
Meliant had a heavy black cloak draped over himself. Underneath was his typical armor: light and simple, duraplast, armorweave, Imperial-branded. This was all to say he looked suspicious at-best when viewed from a distance. Anyone who got close would see immediately that he was some agent or other of the Dark Side Elite.
And why would it be otherwise? Almost everyone on this planet were too scared of the Elite, too scared of the Emperor, to question his doings. Usually.
"Don't lecture me. Open the door."
"Were you followed?"
Meliant looked over his shoulder at the dead street that had brought him here. You would never guess the Federal District was only a few dozen levels above them. All that was here was rubbish and rust, barred doors and broken windows. And yet Meliant smelled death on his heels anyway. Literal death: rotting flesh in a poorly sealed container.
He could guess who that might be.
"I already know you're not in there, you fool," Meliant snapped, "So what do you care? Open the door."
The droid seemed to consider for a long while, then it blinked again. "Fine. Sure. Make it quick."
The warehouse doors rumbled open and the gatekeeper snapped back into its hidey-hole. Meliant stepped over the threshold, paused again to glance behind him, then vanished deeper into the warehouse.
The doors did not close behind him.
Thorn