And There Was Another✔️

Chapter 03: Into the Under

"The pod is this way," Nova said, leading him off to the left, towards a path that led in between an enormous pile of garbage and metal refuse and a large, blocky metal structure that looked old and bombed out.

"Any reason you didn't set up in there?" Seth asked as he followed.

"I got here very late to the game, if you'll remember. But based on my own investigation of that building, it's got a very big hole in the other side and a lot of broken windows. Plus, I think, at this point, they've got some pride in their parent's work, and their own. You know how long it takes to build something like that settlement back there? Years. Decades, even. And, I mean, at this point, there's too much good stuff jacked into that camp to just move."

"Like what?"

"Piping, for one. The ability to have clean water down here is life or death, obviously. We managed to rig an old irrigation system to bring water from a filtration plant to that camp. Not a lot, obviously, and recently it's shut off. So that's number two on the list of things to do today: check out the filtration plant. Going to need your help with that. Another big thing: we've managed to tap into the power grid. They had a really jury-rigged connection set up that failed more often than not before Yex showed up. Now he's got a real, stable connection going. Of course, can't take too much or someone up top notices." She shook her head and sighed.

They hit the alleyway and moved down it. Both of them had their pistols out by now. Seth made sure it was charged and ready to go one more time. Never could be too sure. He'd seen people die in battle over pretty stupid mistakes. The alleyway opened up into a broader area, something like a natural courtyard edged by more mountains of garbage an old, derelict structures with broken windows and rusted out walls.

A few corpses lay scattered across the dirt, some of them very old, some of them fairly recent, all of them picked clean of anything even remotely useful.

Nova broke right and moved towards another alleyway.

"Why are you down here?" he asked as they moved on, his curiosity piquing. Everything about Nova spoke of intense training, devotion to survival, and a keen awareness of her surroundings. She didn't belong down here. "What's your story?"

"You first," she replied.

He couldn't help but laugh. "I mean, I thought it'd be obvious why I'm down here."

"Smartass," she muttered, but he thought he could hear at least a small smile in her voice. "I mean, what happened overhead? The war, how's it going?"

What little good cheer he'd managed to accumulate disappeared like oxygen blown out of a depressurized room. "Badly," he said quietly. "It's going badly." He looked around suddenly. "Should we be talking?"

"We keep our voices down, we should be fine. This place is relatively untouched by the Dreks, and rakghouls have crap hearing. Mostly they operate by sight."

"Fair enough..." he murmured, looking around one more time before they took another left and headed down a broader valley of garbage, lit by pale lamps somewhere high overhead. "The Sith are winning. They're kicking our ass left and right. They have numbers, but we have no idea where they're coming from. I lost the last six battles I was in," he said.

"Damn...that bad?"

"That bad. I'm not entirely sure we can win this one, not unless something big changes. I mean, I heard they finally put Revan down, but Malak is still leading the fight."

"Who are they? To be honest, my knowledge of the war is 'assholes in silver armor are killing people by the millions'."

"Fallen Jedi," Seth replied bitterly. He spat. "They were the ones who went rogue and led an army of like-minded Jedi against the Mandalorians."