Stage 1: Temptation

[Jantar Keltainen]

“Equality is a lie… A myth to appease the masses. Simply look around and you will see the lie for what it is! There are those with power, those with the strength and will to lead. And there are those meant to follow — those incapable of anything but servitude and a meagre, worthless existence.”
— Darth Bane

Down.

For here, travel measured in a sense that on other planets would indicate flight. But here, on the Queen of the Core, it was an indication not only of progress but status.

For Jantar is was in so many ways an inverse journey. Most aspired to head up – towards the sky. But the young woman came from that place and found it wanting. What she sought she sensed was here. And of late she’d trusted her senses more and more.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

In the lowest levels, in the abyssal urban depths, in the city that was in effect the planet of Coruscant, it was a rare thing indeed to see sunlight. For the inhabitants of the baroque and gleaming cloudcutters, skytowers and superskytowers – the latter reaching as much as two kilometres high – the sun was something taken for granted, just as were the other comforts of life.

And since WeatherNet guaranteed that it never rained until dusk or later, the rich golden sunlight was simply expected, in the same way that one anticipated air to fill your lungs with every breath.

But hundreds of stories below the first inhabited floors of the great towers, ziggurats, and minarets, in some places actually on or under the city-planet’s surface, it was another story. Here hundreds of thousands of humans and other species lived and died, sometimes without ever catching as much as a glimpse of the fabled sky.

Here the light that filtered through the omnipresent grey inversion layer was wan and pallid. And that suited Jantar – the shadows made travelling less complicated.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

The rain that finally reached the surface was nearly always acidic, enough so at times to etch tiny channels and grooves into ferrocarbon foundations. It was hard to believe that anything at all could survive in these dismal trenches. Yet even here, life – both intelligent and otherwise – had adjusted long ago to the perpetual twilight environment.

And at the very bottom of the chasms, in the variegated pulsing of phosphor lights and signs, stone mites, conduit worms, and other scavengers flourished on technological detritus. Duracrete slugs blindly masticated their way through rubble. Hawk-bats built nests near power converters to keep their eggs warm.

Armoured rats and spider-roaches scuttled and hunted through piles of trash two stories high. And millions of other species of opportunistic and parasitic organisms, from single-celled animalcules all the way up to those self-aware enough to wish they weren’t, doggedly pursued their common quest for survival, little different from the struggles on a thousand different jungle worlds.

Down here was where the jetsam of the galaxy, a motley collection of sentients dismissed by those above simply as “the underdwellers,” eked out lives of brutality and despair. It was merely a different kind of jungle, after all.

And where there’s a jungle, there are always those who hunt.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Moving cautiously and stealthily through puddles of stuttering neon light, Jantar ducked into a recessed doorway.

It had once been a spice den, by the looks of it; cribs and niches in the wall showed where various body shapes had lain long ago, their minds disengaged and floating in soporific bliss.

Though it may have been as much as five centuries since it had last been used, it seemed to Jantar that she could still smell the ghostly scent of glitterstim that had once clouded both the air and the occupants’ minds. She’d tried it of course. She’d attempted anything and everything guaranteed to provide a buzz – or take it away.

When life was predictable, you sought change like an addict. Not that Jantar had become dependent on any of the substances she’d tried. Not because she was particularly clever or immune to narcotics – but because none had provided sufficient stimulus to warrant trying a second time.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

They say addictions were the solace of the down-trodden. Those seeking escape from a life not worth living. Which was half the definition in Jantar’s eyes. For in her opinion, you did not have to be one of life’s outcasts to seek exodus. A cage could be gilded, but it was still a cage.

Jantar wanted for nothing, yet – perversely – found nothing she had satisfying. Food, warmth, comforts – she’d always known these things. Safety was taken for granted and every minute of every day was hers to use as she wished. No work, no responsibilities – just freedom to act.

But there were only so many holovids you could watch. Only so many clothes you could buy. Only so many vehicles you could pilot.

She’d tried gambling at first. There was a small buzz but chance felt too random to be enjoyed. Then she’d progressed to alcohol and progressively stronger substances. But each and every one of them left her cold.

Then, one day, she’d discovered her outlet by accident.

She was walking on her balcony when she slipped. For a moment – for the briefest of nano-seconds – she felt in danger of falling. It could not have happened; the health and safety protocols could not have permitted it – but the adrenaline rush was real.

But given leaping to her death was an extreme way to sample excitement, she’d toyed with alternatives. There was an exhilaration caused by negative emotions. All emotions provided some sort of a rush, but adverse ones amplified the sensation. Pain, hatred but most of all fear – these made her feel alive in a way she could not describe.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

So she’d progressed further and further down over the past few months. Each new layer opening up new fears – ones she embraced and revelled in.

Which is why she was here.

The former spice den opened, by way of a half-concealed entrance, into a dimly lit, cavernous chamber that had long ago been a casino. It was huge, with a high, vaulted ceiling that rose easily three stories.

Jantar made her way to a turbolift tube, pushing her way past furniture and gambling tables so ancient that some of them crumbled to dust when she brushed by. How many abandoned, desolated places like this were there in the sublevels? Millions, no doubt, hidden and silent at the bases of the glittering, fresh towers, like rot growing silently in a tooth. The former capital of the galaxy had grown from a vast necropolis, as flowers sprout from funerary dirt.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Everyone experienced the Force in different ways, it was said. For some it was like a storm in which they were the cynosure, secure in its calm eye while commanding its tempests. For others it was a fog, a mist, the vaporous tendrils of which could be manipulated, or incandescence with which to illuminate or inflame. These were inadequate approximations, feeble attempts to describe, in terms of the five ordinary senses, that which was indescribable. Even the full-blown synaesthesia of one of the more hallucinogenic forms of spice was a faint and colourless experience next to being one with the Force.

For Jantar, the closest thing to which she could liken her current sensation was like sinking into warm water. On one hand it soothed her, calmed her, even as it lent energy to her tired muscles and sharpened her senses. And on the other it threatened to drown her. She was almost aware of the infinite nature of the Force, that her ability to manage it was wholly inadequate.

Almost...but not quite.

But she suspected. She’d researched what she felt and the Force was certainly an answer to the question her senses asked. But she would need a teacher. And that required asking for help. And to enquire, only to find out she was mistaken? That would be catastrophic for her ego.

So for now she explored – both the undercity and the sensations. Answers, she was sure, would present themselves. For she understood that was the nature of the Force after all.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

he next day, Jantar found herself among the colourful crowds thronging the Zi-Zhinn Marketplace.

This was a euphemistic name for an ongoing rowdy street fair on the 17th Level of an area in Sector 4X05, also known as the Zi-Kree Sector, along the equatorial strip. That was the name given to the upper levels, anyway; down here, below the layer of smoke and fog, it was simply called the Crimson Corridor.

While much of Coruscant’s lower levels comprised less-than-desirable real estate, some areas were loci of particular and concentrated trouble. The Southern Underground, the Factory District, The Works, the Blackpit Slums – these and other colourful names did little justice to the harsh realities of life under the perpetual smog layer that hid them from the rarefied upper levels. Yet ironically, it was only in ghettos like these, amid despair and desperation, that a measure of anonymity and security could be found.

For Jantar, anonymity felt like the key to discovering herself.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

A chill breeze plucked at her, and she turned her head against it. She was below the dirty, grey-brown belt of pollution that shielded the wealthier inhabitants of this sector from unpleasant views of the squalid depths.

The smog wasn’t too bad today, but everything was still cloaked in a pervasive gloom from the shadows of the buildings, thick as the boles of trees in a Kashyyyk forest. There was little air traffic, so the view was relatively unimpeded. On the street, ground skimmers hummed along less than a meter above the pavement. One-person conveyances called weavers lived up to their names as their riders adroitly piloted them by balance alone; rickshaw droids ferried others.

But most of the inhabitants walked, or slithered, or crawled, or otherwise moved along under their own power. The streets were crowded with vendors, solicitors, vagrants, and footpads.

It was like looking through some kind of magical portal onto a marginalised planet of the Outer Rim. It was hard to believe that she was still on Coruscant, crown jewel of the Core Worlds.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

The first time she’d ventured down, she had been appalled at the poverty and the filth. She’d been extremely happy and relieved to return to the sanctuary of her apartment.

And then she felt strange at harbouring such feelings, but she couldn’t deny it. She wondered how people could survive in such a hopeless environment. But they did – and she reflected they were as much in control of their lives as she was. Only the trappings were different. The only variance was life expectancy. But when you’re a virtual prisoner, longevity isn’t necessarily a positive.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

It was getting colder. Unlike the favoured upper levels, where the climate was as regulated as everything else, in the down-levels actual, local weather was still something to contend with. The near-perpetual inversion layer, combined with nonregulated releases of heat exhaust and water vapor, often caused localized warm and cold fronts to develop.

As Jantar walked down the narrow street, moving quickly to dodge the frequent automated tumbrels loaded with trash and rubble that hurtled by, she was lashed by a sudden flurry of cold rain. A few moments later the temperature began to rise again, and ground fog hid the pavement. The street and pedestrian traffic had thinned, fortunately, though she was nearly knocked into the path of an oncoming surface car when a drunken Rodian blundered our of a tavern and collided with her, and a few minutes later she was accosted by a pushy young Toydarian scalping tickets to a heavy isotope concert, before she finally reached her planned destination.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

The various reeks and stenches of uncollected trash, assorted life-forms who hadn’t bathed in far too long, hydrocarbon emissions from antiquated vehicles banned centuries ago up-level, and many other rancid sources assaulted her senses. It didn’t matter how many times she came down here, it was always the same.

She found a relatively clean spot on a street bench and sat down. The fetid air, along with the cacophony of dozens of languages being spoken, fluted, stridulated, or otherwise produced, and the sheer overload of the crowd, were all reminders of how little she knew of life.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

She returned to her feet, still weaving slightly, turned, and promptly bumped into a group of three armored Duros males. One of them, in a display of the consideration and thoughtfulness common to his kind, backhanded Jantar, knocking her off her feet and into the trash-strewn gutter. Another pulled a vibroknife and bent over her. The multifarious crowd parted as if the gang and Jantar were encased in an invisible dome, flowing around them and taking no notice of the young woman’s plight.

Jantar tried to get to herfeet, but the third member of the group pressed a boot against her chest, pinning her. “I suppose it’s too late to say I’m sorry?” Jantar said, the sarcasm dripping from every syllable.

The three humanoids looked at each other, their red eyes and lipless mouths giving no indication of their reaction to her words.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

he Duros with the vibroknife activated the blade. A high-pitched hum emanated from it as the blade began to vibrate, its monomolecular edge blurring into invisibility. The faces of the other two showed no expression as the third reached for Jantar’s hair, as if to yank her head forwards, towards the blade.

What happened next was difficult for the naked eye to see and given the bystanders eyes were firmly averted, you would be hard pressed to find a witness to what unfolded.

One moment the blade was edging towards Jantar’s face and the next it sprang from its owner’s surprised grasp, and dropped it to the pavement, where it sank into the duracrete up to the guard.

“Now, now-manners,” Jantar chided. “After all, I did apologise.”

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

The remaining two looked around, wondering who would be foolish enough to intervene, but saw no signs of outside interference.

Jantar continued. "'You’re probably thinking 'Everyone knows a young girl couldn’t possibly protect herself down here. Especially not when faced with three young bucks like you.'"

Jantar allowed the words to sink in before continuing and was amused that they did not interject. In fact, they appeared to be paralysed, unsure how to react.

“Well,” Jantar continued, “everyone, in this case, is wrong.”

The three now glanced at one another, finally puzzlement etched into their faces. Then, as if in agreement on some unspoken decision, they turned away and melted into the uncaring crowd – looking no doubt for easier prey. Jantar did not stop them. If they attacked someone else, and succeeded, that proved the victim was weak. She was not here to clean up crime or kill needlessly. Her only interest was herself.

But their willingness to walk away intrigued her. Clearly they saw a threat she posed that she did not see herself. And how did the blade get wrestled from the thug’s hand without her touching it? She had a theory. A valid and powerful theory.

But, as yet, that’s all it was.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

In a part of Coruscant where just glimpsing the sun could be an occasion to tell one’s grandchildren about, it seemed odd that true darkness never really came at all. But such was the case; the pulse of the city-planet’s down-level slums acknowledged neither day nor night. With few exceptions, those beneath, on, or near the surface lived in a perpetual gloaming of electroluminescence. The chromatic signatures of neon, argon, and other ionized gases lit the Blackpit Slums’ streets at all hours, and very few beings acknowledged the schedules of the world above.

Many businesses could be found open at any time of the twenty-four-hour cycle, and most species followed their own circadian rhythms, however esoteric they might be.

As a result – for Jantar, at least – the down-level world always seemed slightly unreal. There was a phantasmagorical quality that she found at times fascinating, and at times frustrating. Sometimes she felt as if she were wearing a dermpatch of dreamspice, or some other mild psychedelic, all the time.

The feeling was particularly strong now as she piloted her rented ground skimmer down a narrow street. Her very expensive chrono told her that it was 0342, but that was up-level time, where day and night signified something. Down here, in the never-ending electric twilight, time had a different meaning altogether.

It wasn’t something to be scheduled, something to be quantified in terms of seconds, minutes, or hours. It was measured much more simply: you either had enough, or not. And for most of the inhabitants, there was never enough.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Jantar had been able to ascertain that she was in the Yaam Sector, aka Sector 1Y4F, the lower regions of which were known as the Blackpit Slums.

The Yaam Sector was nearly five thousand kilometres east, along the equatorial belt, plus about four hundred klicks north. Jantar had taken a hypertrain for the first part of the journey, one of the big mag-levs that rocketed through a sealed tube at two thousand kph. Inertial dampeners protected the passengers from the high g-forces and torque, and the near vacuum in the tube reduced friction to almost zero. The result was a comfortable trip, in a little more than two and a half hours, that had taken her nearly an eighth of the way around the planet, even allowing for a detour past a large blast crater – the result of one of the frequent battles for sovereignty of the planet – typically between the Jedi and the Sith (for each, in one of their very many incarnations)

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

The bypass had slowed the hypertrain long enough for the passengers to get a good look at the devastation. The crater was seven kilometres wide, its walls and floor fused to black glass. The remnants of structures rose here and there around its edges, like melted candle stubs. There were a great many such craters pocking the urban surface, Jantar knew: ghastly evidence of carpet bombing in any one of the wars.

She’d switched at Ts’chai Station, taking a conventional monorail the rest of the way. When she’d arrived at the Yaam Depot, she’d hired the skimmer -- and she’d plunged into the Slums.

It was disturbing, yet fascinating, to watch the decay and decrepitude slowly grow as she piloted the skimmer down at a steep angle. It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, but never before had it seemed so condensed. Around the 115th level, the air became hazy, stinging her eyes, and the smell grew noxious, to such a degree that she considered putting the canopy up.

She knew this was the effect of hydrocarbons and ozone, caused by a temperature inversion layer, and that it was produced by under-dwellers burning oil, wood, animal dung, and the like, to keep warm and provide power. In the sunlit world above, automated air scrubbers patrolled the upper atmosphere, keeping it reasonably clean and fresh. But no such benefits were available down-level.

Beneath the belt of gritty brown air, it was another world – a world that Jantar had chosen to know well. For here, life was real. Life was precious. Life was gained or lost through any combination of luck, aptitude, connections or commodities.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Air traffic was far less plentiful down here than where she’d come from, which was good, because the drivers were far less competent – few vehicles were fitted with sophisticated software to avoid contact. And the majority of those that did were not functioning anyway.

Jantar narrowly missed being creamed by a landspeeder that was veering to the right so consistently, she suspected the craft’s starboard repulsor vane was malfunctioning. The pilot, a phlegmatic Rodian, acknowledged the nearly fatal encounter with a single twitch of his green snout, and then was gone into the haze.

 

[Jantar Keltainen]

Although the buildings of the Yaam Sector were, for the most part, only cloudcutters – most of them no more than seven or eight hundred metres high, which paled next to the impressive two-thousand-plus-metre skytowers of the equatorial belt – they were set extremely close together.

The Yaam Sector was one of the oldest on Coruscant; not as old as the Petrax Quarter, but old enough. A great many buildings had been built before the majority of the oceans disappeared, and the streets were narrower and winding, possibly because large ground transport vehicles hadn’t been used as extensively back then.

Jantar didn’t know or really care all that much about the reasons – she just knew that the constricted and vermicular routes on this part of the surface were making her faintly claustrophobic. In addition, many of the streets – more akin to glorified alleys, in her opinion – had a distressing tendency to come to an abrupt halt because some free spirits had decided, centuries ago. to erect a structure of some sort across them.

Sometimes these had maze-like routes she could navigate carefully through; more often they were simply dead ends, and she would have to backtrack and find a different way. It didn’t help any that the locator sensor on this skimmer was malfunctioning.

Eventually, after much retracing of her route, she reached the street she was looking for. Its official title was an entirely too grandiose a name for a constricted strip of pavement lined on each side by soot-blackened industrial warehouses, slurry conduits big enough to flush a bantha through, docking bays, and other Antaean structures stretching both directions into the intermittent darkness.