"I'm going on morning rounds," Renata Westaway announced to the small substation control room that had been repurposed as a kind of conference room-cum-break room for command staff in the underground bunker. The three others in the room, a human man, a twi'lek woman, and a human woman, glanced over at her and nodded their assent. "If you need me, I'll be on the radio." She clipped the walkie-talkie to her belt and pulled a battered dark blue quilted jacket on, jamming her arms through the sleeves. She took a gun -- more out of habit than any real threat -- and let herself out of the room, heading along the catwalk that wrapped around the concrete room. As she took the stairs carefully down to the access tunnel, she mused that she only thought it was morning rounds.
Satellite uplinks had failed during the first minutes of the invasion, and batteries for hand-held devices that kept time reliably had long since been drained. The daily rhythm kept time, more or less, but for Renata it was maddeningly imprecise. She liked to think that she got tired and hungry at about the same time each day, but she knew that some days were more exhausting than others, and some days burned more calories than others. By instinct she glanced at her wristwatch -- a gift from her parents on the occasion of her first degree -- but it was, of course, purely decorative and sentimental now, the battery long having been drained. For all she knew it could be mid-afternoon on the surface, broad daylight if the spot where Avalonia stood still experienced weather like it once had.
It was another piece of information that was infuriatingly absent from her database.
She shook her head to clear her thoughts and emerged into the tunnel. The first stop was the fungi cisterns and processing center. "Alin," she said when she approached the foreman at that location. "How's it going? Were you able to get that leak sorted?"
Alin was middle-aged. He had been a plumber on the surface. He didn't even like mushrooms. "I think so," he said, beckoning her closer. Renata followed him around the large cistern to where he shone his flashlight on the cistern, showing where a fresh coat of sealant had been applied to a broad patch. "We weren't able to isolate the precise location without draining it, and we can't afford to do that until this crop of 'shrooms is ready to harvest."
Renata nodded, reaching up to pull a lock of blonde hair from the elastic that secured her eyepatch in place. "I know," she said. "But we're down to our last few cans of sealant. We can't really afford to do these big patches much longer, either." Her blue-green eyes flickered over to her foreman and her lips twitched up in a smile. "Not a criticism," she added in haste. "Just thinking out loud. If I'm sending anyone up to the surface -- and I don't know how I'll even do that with our surface tunnels getting filled in by god-knows-what -- it'll be for power packs, water filters, and air scrubbers, not sealant." She frowned and pulled out a small notebook, using a stubby pencil to take a note. "Good work, Alin, thanks. Let me know when those are ready to come out and we'll see about doing an internal patch. We've got plenty of liners, maybe it's time to just re-line the whole damned thing."
"You got it, Doc," said Alin.
She was halfway to the next stop on her rounds, the first air filter substation when her walkie-talkie squawked. Through the static, the voice of the twi'lek woman, Jalisa, came through: "Boss, need you in sector one-one-three-eight-aurek. Right away."
Renata frowned, her eyebrows furrowing with irritation. She lifted the walkie-talkie, depressed the transmit key. "What is it, Jalisa? I'm just getting started here."
"Multiple reports of code black from the tunnel entrance there, Renata," came the response. "Iain and Cler are on their way already. They should be catching up with you soon."
Renata put her hand to her forehead as she considered the information, but her deliberations were cut short when an ominous rumble shook through the tunnel, sending sediment and dust sprinkling down like dry, dirty snow. It wasn't the first time there had been some disturbance in the tunnels, but this felt different.
Closer.
She bit back a curse and clicked the button on her radio again. "I'm on my way. Unlock the weapons lockers in all sectors and get the word out to our district captains. Rendezvous at one-one-three-eight-aurek, soon as. And tell Cler and Iain to book it." She took her own advice and took off, sprinting through the tunnels as fast as her legs and the limited light would allow her. Five minutes and two rolling tumbles later, she entered sector 1138-A. A crowd had gathered, armed to the teeth, and they turned and parted as she entered, Cler and Iain close on her heels. "Somebody tell me what we know," she called to the crowd at large. The knew better by then to start talking all at once; the man who had originally reported movement in the tunnels came forward. "Palyo," she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Talk to me."
"I heard it first," Palyo said. He was a young man, about sixteen if she remembered right. "Creaking. Like when the underground cars used to settle, you know, when the buildings came down. But that was years ago." Renata nodded in what she hoped came across as encouragement rather than the impatience she felt. As they spoke, she guided him towards the tunnel entrance. It had been blocked since the assault had collapsed the street over the tunnel under the weight of what seemed to Renata to be roughly a third of the old financial district's buildings.
"Lights," Renata called over her shoulder. In the distance, an emergency generator sputtered to life, running on the fumes of fumes. It was enough to light the tunnel's emergency lighting, bathing the tunnel in crimson light until it disappeared into the rubble.
"Then I saw it," said Palyo. "Stuff shaking. Trembling. Something's in the tunnel. You can hear it if you listen."
Renata decided to test that theory. She wandered into the tunnel, then climbed into an underground carriage through the gap where the door had once been. The carriage was all but flattened, but the reinforced seats had stopped the debris from flattening it entirely. It caused a claustrophobic tunnel that Renata could just about army-crawl her way through. She took her blaster out and flicked the flashlight on, then shone it down this small passage. She could see dim red emergency lighting out the other end of the carriage. Renata was not prepared to go spelunking today, not at all, but she wasn't sure what choice she had.
At that moment, in the distance but distinctly within the tunnel structure, a machine roared to life, its unseen machinations causing the screech of metal against metal to echo down the tunnel. Renata swore under her breath and wriggled her way out of the carriage again. "Well," she announced. "There's definitely something in the tunnel, and I'm willing to bet it's coming this way." Her mind raced, considering the options. What if it was the scales? What if it was plunderers or scavengers? Would they have the right equipment to clear the tunnels? Could her people stay and fight? Would it be safer to fall back into the tunnels and hide?
Another shrieking sound of metal against metal, the shuddering and unmistakable sound of something heavy being moved. Renata's breath caught in her throat. "Lights!" she shouted. The generator flickered off, and the red glow instantly subsided. She turned back to the group, which had only grown as more volunteers arrived with weapons. "All right, people," she announced. "Take up defensive positions on the catwalks and behind the barriers. Cler, if it's the scales, you'll need to blow the charges in the tunnel mouth. That should make bring more rubble down and give us time to retreat into the tunnels to evaluate their strength. If it's people..." she brushed something itchy from beneath her eyepatch. "If it's people, be prepared to return fire, but unless they shoot first, only fire on my command. Is everyone clear?"
A chorus of affirmative responses greeted her.
"Good," she said. "Take your places, everyone." Renata clicked her walkie-talkie. "Something's coming. Get the vulnerable people to shelter positions until further notice."