Best We Don't Know.

[Drogh]

Coruscant Underworld: Level 100

Coruscant, the old capital, the broken relic, a mere shadow of it's former glory. Once all the power in the galaxy was centralized in this one singular planet, but with all things time had eroded the ancient legacy of Coruscant. The constant wars and shifts of power has left this once proud planet beaten and broken. The sundering above tore the great gleaming towers of neon light, shattering the foundation with mortar and shell. And now fools play with the scraps of this once great planet, now cast into the dust like all ancient things. Yet despite this, billions still call this festering ruin home, and it still breaths it's sickly breathes. However, deep within the stomach of Coruscant, as layers of layers of city are built, falling into one haze of stone and broken metal, here lies the underworld, or rather Level 100.

One of the lowest levels with a sizable population, it is marked with constant poverty and decay, law and order has since long left this forsaken forgotten industrial abyss, as crime empires devour the land, marking it up between them, and so the average citizen suffers under the insane and brutal hand of the criminal families. Erosion and pollution has cemented it's self here, black apocalyptic smoke is pumped into the air, releasing insidious chemicals that choke the sunless sky.

Empty metal husks of stone and metal hang in the air, skyscrapers in dead dormant from neglect, overshadowing the cities like gravestones. Below endless streets of slums, as the poverty stricken and diseased residents reside in shambling house made of crude metal and rock, with the lucky able to afford the dull and dead flats high above.

Yet, industry never truly dies, the renaming factories function with a painful howl, as outdated machinery grovels across the land, doing what little they can to add to constant unstable economy. Many have taken to wearing gas masks or some other form of protection, as prolonged exposure to this nightmare has a habit to collapsing lungs. Yet Drogh was standing above it all on one of the many forgotten skyscrapers, overlooking the masses. The miasma of filth and soot made it hard to see what was going on, yet bright lights of green and yellow danced in the shrouded fog, a beautiful if twisted sight to see.

The sky seemed rather calm, as only a few ships flew in their mad directions, there was no constant stream of traffic as one might expect on Coruscant, just the few lonely birds flying away. Drogh was on the look out for one of these. He had no ship him self large enough and wasn't good enough to drive one to do the risky maneuvers that were required of getting out of here. He was smuggling people, not slaves, but warriors of death. They were vile, cruel and sadistic, they knew only war and bloodshed and hailed from the very lowest of Coruscant. They wore what ever old rags and metal they could find, a shambles of rust and grime. It wasn't easy finding some one willing for this job, but he had found some one, although he knew little about her.

Her name perhaps, although some thing troubled him oddly. Was she human or not? Drogh didn't care if she was or not, but the fact that he didn't know drove him insane. The small things tend to get Drogh the angriest, even if there wasn't real reason for his rage. He didn't trust her of course, and his mind quickly flooded into paranoia, he conjured up every worse case scenario and repeated them hundreds of times in his head. So he waited, very impatiently for the smuggler to arrive.



[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

After the failed meeting with Sneido the Rodian, which had dissolved into a lazy day at the bar alongside a man named [member="Vik Velkarson"] when the green skin hadn't turned up, Kal had been at a loss. The job she'd been there to discuss had been one that was said to be of high profits, the only requirement on her part being to rent a larger transport ship, an easy task for the likes of her. Disheartened, she had left the establishment empty handed only to find a message waiting for her back at her ship.

Apparently, Sneido had been incapacitated. Instead she was to sort out the aforementioned ship on her own, and head to a very specific location deeper in the City. To most, where she had been lingering was the deepest darkest pit of Coruscant, the slums of the Undercity, but she knew better than that. And for the first time, it seemed, she would be forced to see it with her own eyes.

Level 100.

The Y-4 Transport shot through the almost empty skylane, a relic of a bygone era which hadn't been as easy to get her hands on as she'd have hoped. It wasn't the largest transporter out there, but it was the only one which she'd found that didn't require a complete crew and that meant nobody to split the profits with. Besides, there wasn't exactly anyone in the Undercity she'd trust to share a job with.

While only legally capable of carrying 40 men and women, the disused cargo space meant that a great many more than that number could be transported inside. Truth be told though Kal did not know what she would be moving. People, goods, animals... The message had been especially vague, though the need for a transport ship had been made abundantly clear.

Kal wasn't the type to ask questions. The ship would be filled by someone else, her job was to fly it not to load or unload cargo. The less she knew, the better.

So as she brought the ship in to land within a hangar bay built into an old high rise, she punched in the code to the comm frequency she'd been given and waited for the call to be established. Then and only then did she speak, shutting off the ships engines yet also lowering the ramp.

"Ship's docked. Your men can load her up, I don't want to know what I'll be carrying."

The secure network, strengthened by Kal's own tinkering, ensured nobody would be listening in on them.

"Heading up to the meeting point now."

With that she stepped out of the ship - using a secondary entrance built into the cargo hatch so as not to see the cargo which itself would be moved in through the main ramp - and made her way up through the high rise in search of her employer.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh saw the ship flying, some old ugly thing yet it flew in an uncanny grace. The lady had made it very clear that she didn't want to know what her cargo was, Drogh could hardly blame her. He felt constantly in danger with these boys around, and he was certain if their patience was tested even slightly they would not hesitate to tear him apart. With a fierce force that Drogh had to command, he yelled at his boys to make way for the transport, which they did. Drogh turned away from the empty window he was looking out of, even with the grind of distorted sound below, Drogh could her footsteps and their were getting closer.

When Drogh finally got to see the girl, she was quite unremarkable and yet remarkable, Drogh gave a paranoid glare, judgmental and intense, trying to read every ounce of her flesh. A sack of flesh, yet one Drogh didn't trust. There something else other then just blind paranoia, something else that made Drogh uneasy, there was something wrong with this girl, although Drogh couldn't quite tell what. "Were you followed?" Drogh said bluntly.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

"Nope."

The girl's response was blunt, lacking formality, yet filled with certainty, as she entered the room which was to be their meeting point. It hadn't taken her too long to get there, not least due to the presence of a turbolift - without which buildings such as these would have never functioned - so with much of her energy still in tact she appeared rather chipper. Even though there was a more serious undertone beneath her perky step. After all, this was business.

And business wasn't something she fethed with.

"You got the drop off coords?" she asked, glancing around the space though really it was the abnormally large window that drew most of her attention, giving her a fascinating view of the putrid undercity below, "Can't very well move the cargo if I ain't knowin' where it's off to, Mister."

There was probably more which needed to be discussed, she knew, or else there wouldn't have been much need for them meeting face to face like this. Still he hadn't brokered that side of the conversation yet, so she may as well.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh appreciated the fact that she was to the point, if he had to deal with any more yappy young outlaws, he would of torn her face off. Drogh took a noticeable step away from the window, perhaps some inherent fear that she'd try to push him out of it, perhaps quite ridiculous but his paranoia had kept him alive this long. "Level 451, District 8, a lovely little place, a war zone". "The local gangs had been at each other throats for years now, and this is the result of that, an all out war, now forgive me for narrowing it down to what you might be smuggling, but it's important you know." Drogh gave a slight pause, then almost grinning Drogh said "Chances are we're going to be under constant fire as soon as we enter the District, so I hope that fat thing can fly well, otherwise."

Drogh then took something out of his cloak, a cheaply made cigarette. Drogh took his mask of casually dumping it on the ground, in that sudden flash of flesh, a horrific face was shown. His skin was a sickly, almost deathly pale, his eyes a burning furnace of the darkside, he had bags under his eyes, putrid black sags of flesh hanging low. His entire face looked far older then it actually was, defiled with premature wrinkles and the markings of a failing body.

Taking out a lighter, putting it in his almost blue cold lips. The it was almost impossible to tell that he was smoking other then seeing it, as the smell was drowned out by the constant wave of the polluting stink that hovered around them all.

Perhaps she could feel it, perhaps she couldn't, but there was something that stank more then the city. If one could feel the force pulsate around them, or even those who couldn't could usually at least feel something. Drogh's presence in the force was not focused, calm or fixated. It was a raging storm of untamed chaos, even to him self, like a ever shifting mask, destroying it's self and remaking its form constantly, like sand in the wind.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

It was true, the information she had just been provided with gave her a little too much to work with. She figured it was either weapons or men, then, that she'd been carrying. And honestly, of the two, men was probably the safer option. If they got pulled up by the authorities - though down here, were there even such a thing - she could easily make it seem as though they were simply passengers, but arms? Well, smuggling arms was harder.

Still, not knowing which it was gave her slight peace of mind.

"With me at the wheel, the thing will fly however it needs to."

When the man removed his mask, Kal internally recoiled. Externally, however, she kept her cool. Looked him in the eye, made him aware that she wasn't unnerved or put off or afraid. Even if it might not have been completely true, she did a good job of hiding it. After all, in her line of work a good poker face was necessary.

"Any specifics you need, outside'a that?"

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

"Kill your self after so I don't have to pay." Drogh said, in his attempt at comedy, leaving out a reaffirming laugh. Drogh gave the girl a hard look of his own. She was had a smooth, shiny almost bright face, that seemed to radiate a subtle white light. As if all the decay and corruption of this place just washed off her like oil on water. Drogh didn't trust this, at all. There was something strange about this one, as Drogh began to examine her, rather intensely and without even the consideration for manners. "You got a strange face." Drogh said, this time allowing a self-aware smirk of the irony, but he meant it.

"Oh and I'm not going in with the fething cargo, I know I ain't the most well dressed of people, but I ain't gonna in there." Drogh said strongly, he could tell she was a women who lived a life of ordered chaos, or alt east Drogh believed she did. The kind of outlaw with principals and morality, but Drogh viewed it all as sithspit. Drogh finished his cigarette, throwing it out of the window with a causal flick, before putting his mask back on.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

"Eh, I always knew I'd die alone," she retorted, with a loose shrug, "Never imagined it'd be my own doin' though."

His eyes fell over her without any sort of subtlety, and she could tell he was inspecting her face more so than anything else. She didn't care, she was used to it, there had always been something not-quite-human about her, some had called it ethereal, others haunting, or glowering, whatever it was Kal didn't know. Kal didn't care. Who or what she was had no place in business.

"Yours ain't too pretty, either," came another smooth reply, this time though she punctuated it with a slight smirk whereas prior her tone had been somewhat... Somber yet serious. "I didn't know you were comin', too. Not used to havin' my employer join me in a cargo run. Plenty of space up front for you, though."

When he appeared ready to leave Kal turned and set back off through the door she'd arrived in. Whether or not he kept up was on him, he knew where the hangar was, what the ship looked like, so he was hardly going to get lost.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh followed suit, if her pace taught Drogh anything, it's that she most likely didn't want him with her. Drogh could hardly blame her, self aware enough to realize just how much of a poor company he was to keep. Although she was fortunate enough to not have known him for a expanded period of time. Walking down the long case of stairs, Drogh realized just how depressingly desolate the skyscraper was. Offices empty, loose wires hanging by a thread, tables and chairs laying about, broken windows, stained with ancient fog and soot.

The very ground was sprinkled with broken glass and wayward metal, the stairs them selves were in horrible condition, looking as if they were about to crumble beneath your feat at any given moment. This skyscraper was living on borrowed time, that much Drogh could be certain of. Drogh made his way to the hanger, unsurprisingly it was just as in a tarnished state as the rest of the skyscraper. Bits of rubble there, a torn of wing there, random junk clustering around.

The exposure to the air was quite unpleasing. As one could get the full volume of the stench of the level. It was a rotting corpse, all of it. The skyscraper, the level and even the planet. One big rotting corpse, and everyone living on it the flies and maggots nesting within it's rotting flesh. Drogh had certainly been spending far to much time alone. Finally Drogh got to have a better look at the ship, and his mind didn't change, it was fat, bulky and old.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

"So... You got a name?" she asked, when she heard footsteps behind her, not at all phased by his presence despite what one might think. Kal didn't care about such things, what she cared about was the job. Getting it done, as soon as possible, exactly as requested, so that she could get paid. Whether she was working for a man who looked as though he was on deaths door, or a slimy hutt, or a trandoshan who would just as sooner kill her, did not matter to her.

Credits did the speaking.

When they finally reached the hangar, after making their way back through the decrepit high rise, filled with nothing but hollow memories that called out to her and longed to be relayed, Kal turned and waited for him to catch up. He didn't seem at all impressed by her choice in ship, but he didn't have to be. She was the one flying it.

"Anythin' left to do, before we go?" she asked, just as the lower door, which would bring them up into the cockpit without going through whatever cargo lay within, opened up at their approach. The soft whistle of an astromech droid chimed in binary within, and the only response it got from Kal was a dismissive wave of her hand.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

"Drogh, don't get too attached." Drogh said with a slightly snide tone, she most likely needed to know where to point the finger at in case anything went wrong. As Drogh stood there looking at her ship some what disgusted, she asked him a question. "We should be alright, long as we don't fly in the the gangs airspace for to long, otherwise we're going to have some trouble." Drogh followed suit towards the innards of the ship, going towards the lower door. He took one more look look at this blasted wasteland before turning back to the ship, it looked like paradise compared to this hell. "Tell me, how did you get something like this?" Drogh was committing one of his own sins, partaking in the depraved act of small talk, but he needed something to take his mind of the depressing reality of his job.


[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

"Drogh," she repeated, in order to commit the name to memory, and get a good taste for it. Wasn't necessarily a name which slipped off the tongue, nor was it one she'd heard before, which was interesting to her. "You can call me Mara, if you need to."

With the last of their necessary conversation over, Kal stepped up into the ship and hurried through to the cockpit, making sure her gaze did not stray even remotely close to the cargo space. Thankfully there was a door separating the two, but you couldn't be too careful.

Slipping into her seat, she turned her head to look at the astromech.

"Gonna need you to rewire the turret controls, over from the copilot. Think you can do that?"

A little beep from the droid was her response, to which she merely shrugged. "I can do both, you rust bucket, don't worry about that. Just get it done."

Beginning the pre-checks and closing up all of the hatches and doors, Kal was given a question to think on from Mister Drogh. Another shrug was loosed, as she gestured him into one of the few seats in the cockpit. The droid had already set about messing with the internal components, routing the gunnery controls over to Kal's main station.

"Most of the time I'd rent one, but this old hunk of metal was actually in a scrapyard. Needed a little work but, you'll find it runs smoothly. That I can promise."

Wouldn't be much good at her job if she didn't know what she was doing in that regard, after all.

With the ship prepped she allowed it to hover several feet while the landing gears retracted and then it was a simple matter of guiding it out into the airways beyond. From there, the ship picked up a surprising amount of speed and despite its clunky shape she was able to direct it near-effortlessly around what little traffic lay within the lane.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh sat down on one of the old chairs. He found even in this ship he could not escape the cage of decay. The interior was clearly repaired, however even then it seemed that the glimpses of rust shown though.

Mara was her name. Drogh was expecting a more exotic or alien name, but mundane Mara it was. Of course it changed nothing if it was her real name or not, although Drogh began to ponder if he should of given her his name.

Drogh heard Mara talk about techincal stuff, which had no interest on Drogh. He loathed things like this, waiting rather impatiently to take off.

Drogh stared out of a foggy window, looking below at the miasma of filth and machinery. It was a rotting corpse of twisted metal and defiled land. There was a horrid beauty to it all. How the diseased colours flash, how the broken pillars pierce into the sunless sky. There was something to admire here, as well as despise.

However as Drogh expected, this would not be a easy trip. Two small fighters going into the air, seemingly from no where, rising above, the clouds of rot and ruin. Drogh could not make out what they were, simply saying with a nervous tone "We got company" [member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

"Oi, you got those controls rewired yet?" she asked the droid, who whistled and beeped back at her in binary. "If we get shot down I'm pinning this all on you," she mumbled in the astromech's direction, with a shake of her head, though moments later the whole console before her seemed to light up and then dim back down, as the reconfiguration was finalized to match her beloved A-Wing a little more closely, something she and the droid had discussed ahead of time of course.

"Sweet."

Turning her head toward Drogh for a moment as the two fighters pulled up, she shrugged and mentally worked out a secondary plan. She hadn't expected to be tailed so suddenly. "Might want to buckle on in, man, this could get a touch bumpy."

Without warning she pulled hard right between two particularly towering high rises and began to descend lower in order to change their trajectory. Up ahead was a short tunnel which broke through some of the crumbling buildings, and given the distance that had already been between their ship and the two admittedly faster vessels she hoped it would provide cover until they reached the other side.

"Alright, little mech, you're up. Get us through that there tunnel and fly on steady. Keep the comms open."

Then she rose up, once the droid had control, and began to move through the upper reaches of the ship, leaving Drogh behind in the cockpit with the astromech. Up into the laser cannon tower she climbed, to take advantage of its rotating guns, ensuring they were trained on the fighters in case they dipped into the tunnel earlier than anticipated.

For his part, of course, the mech managed to do as commanded. Flying was part of his programming, after all.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh was terrified, to die in a burning heap of metal and fire was not the nicest way to go. All that Drogh could hope for is that he'd feel nothing if this ship was obliterated. He didn't show this fear of course, but he certainly was feeling it, in fact his emotions had small ripples that could be felt though out the hall of the ship, a consequence of the force. Drogh was more or less powerless, while he could fly he hadn't been given a job, task or anything and was simply sitting down, rather frantically sliding a belt across his chest.

Drogh might have pitied the cargo, as they were going to suffer the worst of it, but then they were despicable, horrific and terrible men and women alike, that deserved not the smallest ounce of pity. Then suddenly, after being warned to buckle up a sharp turn to the right, so sharp Drogh could feel his eyes rolling back into his head with the sudden jerk of motion. Then something that made Drogh's stomach turn, an horrific feeling as if his entire body was being crushed, his mind being melted beneath the unbearable pressure. Close to fainting, before they finally stooped.

Drogh was in a daze, unable to focus on what was going around him, his mind flayed by the frantic and spastic, yet oddly skillful maneuvers of the ship. As he quickly came too he soon realized that they were in a tunnel, made of the old buildings, merging into one blob of old concrete. Then Drogh saw the ships coming towards, speeding though the tunnels with an almost suicidal zeal.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]

 

[Lief]

While the droid took over flying the ship, Kal finally made her way into the gunnery tower and set herself up. After testing the controls, moving the turret this way and that to ensure it wasn't stuck, she glanced down the targeting sights and watched as the two fighters joined them within the tunnel.

The close proximity could spell disaster for either side, yet it also made it easier not to feth up. There'd be virtually no maneuverability for the little ships, whose only real defense against direct attack was outrunning and avoidance. In most cases one well placed shot would bring them down, and as though putting that to the test she loosed a few rounds which whistled down the tunnel and struck the first of the two. The first battered its shields, which wavered and warbled in response, yet the follow up bolts tore the ship to pieces, sending debris scattering over the second ship and down to the ground far below.

Now, though, the second ship had a little more wiggle room, and was able to flow left and right, back and forth, like a rocked cradle, making it harder to target. And, of course, it sent out bolts of its own to the much larger vessel that they were presently housed within.

The right hand side of their transport was struck, rocking the vessel despite the shield and armoured hull; thankfully their vessel was far more durable than a smaller fighter, and it withstood the assault long enough for Kal to send out another burst of firepower. The second ship went the same way as the first, just as the Y-4 broke through the other side of the tunnel, though she knew they were hardly out of the woods.

"There'll be more of'em before the job's done," she said, through the comms, "Mister Drogh, switch places with the droid, fly us on down to District 8," she presumed he could pilot, but if not she gave enough time for him to object. Provided he was okay with that responsibility, she turned her words toward the astromech.

"Rustbucket, I need you to go make sure the hull integrity ain't damaged," she doubted it was, but having the droid on hand in the event that something did go wrong with the structure of the ship was important.

[member="Drogh"]

 

[Drogh]

Drogh felt the rupture of the ship as the bolts firing hit the hall, along with witnessing the fiery explosions that danced across the tunnel of broken brick. Drogh was shaking subtly, his mouth dry with fear and his heart pounding, he really, really didn't fancy dying like this. They had gotten lucky, very lucky. They had escaped the clutches of death narrowly, and those who were chasing them were sent to what ever oblivion was waiting for them. And when Drogh was told to pilot he hesitated for a moment, but then he realized that he hadn't much choice, besides having some degree of control in the situation gave him a measure of control. He'd rather be the one responsible for everyone's death rather then a stranger, the joy of bringing others down with you always had it's appeal.

Jumping up from his seat, slamming him self at the controls he looked down slightly nervously for a second, before he remembered what he was doing again. Drogh sped out of the hall, while he liked being in a rather small space, rather then in the open air, it would mean certain death. They knew exactly where they were, and they would be calling for heads. Drogh looked down at saw the city streets, they all looked like ruins, but nothing like District 8. As Drogh carried on he began to witness something awful, a fiery hell contained with the dark crept of Coruscant. A few miles ahead, it seemed as if they were looking at the sun over the horizon, that was District 8. It had become nothing more then a battle ground that had lasted several long and painful days. Tens of thousands had died in a very short span of time, less then a week. Thousands took part in this rampaging battle and it was seeing no end.


There weren't very many ships that Drogh could see, and the few there were seemed far to focused on the ground below to even notice what was going on above them. "Kark." Drogh whispered under his breath, he needed to land this some where, some where safe. It would be miracle if they could even land it close to the destination , let alone land it at all. As Drogh crept up, the fire becoming so much brighter, blazing down below, a screaming missile from seemingly no where howled towards the ship. Drogh not noticing it in time got hit, the entire ship shook and then he realized something, the shields were down. "Get down here!" Drogh yelled at the top of his lungs, not thinking to use any com links as he flew the ship upwards, desperately trying to get it out of enemy range.

[member="Kalyn Shif"]