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The air was filled with the usual sounds of the slums north of the main city on level 4000. Blaster fire could be heard in the near distance as two criminal gangs had a firefight in the streets, in another direction loud club music practically shook the floor near it, intoxicated denizens of the underworld stumbling out the front door. The streets were dark as they always were, in parts darker than others where massive illuminated signs which dotted the area did not shine as bright. The city was alive was activity, many of which was illegal. The authorites did not have as much of a grasp down here as they did on the surface, the local police force was rift with corruption and heavily underfunded. The Empire had some semblance of a footprint here, but things often slipped under their watch. Stormtrooper patrols were commonplace, but not as much in the slums where the Jedi had taken refuge for the past thirteen years. Varlo Andard to all but a very select few around him in the slums was just another face in the crowd. He'd made sure that almost no one knew of his true identity, only a handful of trusted friends.

Of course there were always rumors, the underworld was a perfect hiding place for someone that didn't want to be found. Varlo had heard of stormtrooper patrols in the underworld kicking down doors in search of hidden Jedi, but that was most often in the early years of the Empire, right after that damned Order came down and branded his kind traitors. He'd evaded discovery before, but that was years ago. He was younger then and bolder. The hidden Jedi strolled through the street, civilians were around him, though none gave him more than a passing glance. He was clad in a long, dark grey robe, one that didn't out him as a wanted Force user. His hood was lifted on top of his head, shrouding much of his features. When he stepped into the light his face could be better seen, rough light brown stubble covered his jawline, his blue eyes scanning the land around him as he walked. His lightsaber was tucked inside of his robe, hidden from surrounding eyes. He wandered past two conversing denizens.

"I heard a group of Stormtroopers ransacked that Twi'lek's tavern, busted the door right off the hinges and searched the place. Arrested some of the customers. No one knows what they were looking for." A tall duros muttered to a nearby human who was smoking a cigar. The alien seemed surprised to be telling the news, and judging by the human's reaction he was too.

"You mean they raided Yhorcilo's? Did they shut the place down?" The human asked, right before he coughed hard from the smoke exiting his body.

"No, just bursted into the place, jumped a few people, then dragged them out and spoke to Yhorcilo in the back. They even hauled out that big wookie bouncer." The Duros stated with a cautious laugh.

"Damn." The human replied as Varlo walked by them, blinking in surprise at the news as he eavesdropped on their conversation.

Stormtrooper patrols conducting raids this far into the underworld? There must have been something serious they were investigating, he did not know what but didn't believe it was him they were looking for. He'd keep a low profile for awhile now, but there was always a chance he was wrong and they had something that proved he was here on level 4000. Varlo hoped one of his contacts hadn't revealed this to the Empire, they were terrifying in their ways to get someone to talk. He shook his head, he needed to get back home and try to relax. The Jedi took a turn down an alleyway, stepping over an unconscious man in his way. There were so many in the underworld that practically depended on alcohol to get by. It saddened the Jedi, he wished he could help them out. More sounds of blaster fire echoed in the distance as he walked, there seemed to always be some violence taking place in the undercity.

As he emerged from the alleyway into another street, he noticed the unmistakable armored outfits of Imperial stormtroopers. He didn't see how many there were, but he could tell they were there and armed. Luckily for Varlo they were on the other end of the street, separated by a mid sized crowd of people wandering the streets. He was almost home now, he let out a deep breath and continued walking with caution.

3310 was not happy about her squad’s reassignment.

They’d gotten the news last week, delivered rather unceremoniously by her former commanding officer. The worst thing about it was probably that he couched the news in terms of a promotion, and then had the gall to tell her that they were moving her squad downward almost five hundred floors.

Floor four thousand. She almost couldn’t believe it. “What about the ‘good work’ that my squad was supposedly doing? Why the sudden reassignment?” she’d asked, as respectfully as her anger and shock could allow her at the moment. The officer narrowed his eyes.

“Orders are orders, 3310. It is not our place to question them, but to carry them out. I had assumed you understood that. The infrastructure that you have helped to set up on this level will help a less experienced squad to take up the work that you now carry out, while you attend to your reassignment,” the officer droned, checking something off on his clipboard before handing her a slim dossier. “The details are here. Report to your new commanding officer on floor four thousand at 0800 tomorrow.”

She took the dossier and began to flip through it. A deeper level of the underworld presented new challenges, of course, but 3310 was not on her way down. For the past four years, she’d been working her way up.

The orders were vague. Organize and attend various checkpoints, detain suspicious individuals, attend to the rampant gang violence in the area. She hoped her new commanding officer wouldn’t be so stingy with the details of their new assignment. She delivered the news to her squad, where it was received with much dismay. They all grumbled as they packed their sparse belongings in preparation for the move.

And then, at 0800, they reported. 3310 made certain that everyone was in good order so that they might make a good impression on their new CO. All of them lined up, spotless white armor buffed to a shine, looking the part of a organized, efficient, and dangerous Stormtrooper squad. When their CO finally arrived, fifteen minutes past the time that he was due, she could have sworn he was drunk. She couldn’t imagine how, at 0800, anyone could possibly already be drunk, but CO-225 had to have been, what with his slurred speech, disheveled uniform, and absolute disregard for her squad. He provided no details and simply sent them out to build a checkpoint.

That was a week ago. It had taken them hours to build the checkpoint, and she still couldn’t be sure that it was secure—the Underworld had an amazing number of dark alleys and secret entrances, after all, and her unfamiliarity with the area only exacerbated the problem. They had been teamed up with another squad, led by a gigantic sergeant who insisted she call him “Jack.” He knew the area. She couldn’t say that she enjoyed his company, however.

And here they were. Minding a checkpoint on level four thousand. A checkpoint that had so far found nothing worth detaining anyone for. 3310 swore it was the most insignificant work she had ever done in the Stormtrooper Corps, and her first assignment was cleaning bathrooms.

“Stand here,” she ordered an Ithorian male, who then proceeded to not stand where she had indicated. “Here,” she repeated, indicating the spot.

The Ithorian said something in Ithorese. Did he not have a translator?

“Here,” she indicated even more obviously for the Ithorian, and when he still didn’t move, she gave him a shove into place. “Identification?”

Obediently, and thankfully without another word, the Ithorian handed over his identification holopad. So he could understand basic, he was just being stubborn. Two could play at that game. 3310 scanned the holopad and began to look over the files within. Then she looked them over again. She had only really started to physically look over the holopad to delay the Ithorian, but now something was striking her as fishy about the files.

“Stand here,” she ordered, shoving the Ithorian to her right before flipping through the files again. Yes, there it was—it was faint on the display, but the expiration date on the identification had passed. But then, why had it scanned? Well, no matter—at least processing an expired ID would be a nice change of pace from what she had been doing for the past week.

The heat of the blaster just barely skimming her armor hit her before the sound did. She looked up from the datapad, and saw the blaster in the Ithorian’s hand. Her reaction was nearly instinctual—she didn’t even bother to raise her own blaster, but tackled the Ithorian to the ground, attempting to knock his weapon out of his hand in the process. He was screaming and the sound was piercing her eardrums. She hoped her squad was running to back her up, because any chatter in her helmet was drowned out by the Ithorians’ throaty voices.

She had him on the ground, but as she struggled to kick the blaster away, she realized that beneath the Ithorian’s clothes were patches of something hard. She scrambled to get a glimpse, any sort of indication of what he was hiding. Her stomach had dropped through the floor, but she had to confirm, or else—

She saw the wires and the hard plastoid containers. Explosives.

“BOMB!” she tried to scream over the Ithorian’s blasted double-throated yelling. The Ithorian gripped her by the shoulder and pulled her close, not letting her escape.

As the Jedi walked, he couldn't help but keep taking short glances towards the checkpoint. A stubborn Ithorian was there, being spoken to by a surprisingly patient Stormtrooper. As he tore his eyes away from the scene, he heard the distinct sound of blaster fire. Then the tell tale flash as the weapon was discharged, causing all on the busy street to pause in surprise. Blasters were an all too common sight in the undercity, but pulling one out at an Imperial checkpoint and firing at Stormtroopers? That was an entirely different level. A nearby merchant dropped his wares, a metal vase which loudly dented as it hit the floor. The mixture of multiple languages being spoken among the crowd was halted.

Varlo had paused in stride, watching as the scene unfolded. One Stormtrooper went to the ground, jumping on top of the trigger happy Ithorian. The alien was hollering an ear piercing scream as he went down hard. His blaster smacked into the ground, away from the madman's grasp. The Jedi watched as the Stormtrooper frantically felt at the Ithorian's gut. A sharp inhale entered Varlo's breath as he figured out what the trooper very well could have discovered.

He was proven correct as the soldier hollered as loud as she could that there was a bomb. The blasted lunatic had strapped himself with a makeshift bomb. Varlo had heard of others doing this in the past, aliens carrying out these insane acts against Imperials in retribution for their anti-alien policies and laws. Terrorism was no good answer to that, even with how the Jedi personally felt about the Empire he could not let this stand. There were dozens of civilians around, they would be hurt or even killed by the explosion. He couldn't let them die, or even the Stormtroopers that were just doing their job.

Varlo sprinted towards the chaos, drawing eyes all around him. Including some of the Stormtroopers who instinctively rose their weapons at him. He stopped halfway down the street from the scene, then flicked his fingers out. Channeling the Force he pushed the Stormtrooper being clenched down by the Ithorian out of the madman's arms, pushing her to the side away from the would be bomber. As he felt that all so familiar feel of the Force flow through him he motioned with his hands again, lifting the Ithorian high into the air, away from any innocents.

The explosion high above rocked the street below. A mixture of orange and red filled the formerly blackened skies. The Ithorian disappeared in the explosive flash, tiny debris raining down harmlessly to the floor. The bomber was neutralized along with his explosive. Varlo wish he hadn't had to even do that, he wished the Ithorian hadn't gone down the path he had chosen. But the Jedi had done what he needed to. No innocents had perished. The one that had discovered the bomb was off to the side, safe and sound.

Varlo let himself breath again, then felt all the eyes upon him. The crowd was still silent. He wondered if any of them had ever seen a Jedi in action before, if they understood what they had just witnessed. Then he remembered how the Jedi were regarded in this post-Republic era. The Stormtroopers moved towards him with their weapons pointed directly at him. He heard one of them yell for him to stop as he dashed to the side, pushing through the crowd and darting down an alleyway to the side. He couldn't even remember the last time his heart was beating as fast as it was at that moment.

3310 felt lightheaded as the Ithorian squeezed the breath out of her in his attempt to hang on. The panic probably wasn't helping her focus all that much, either. All of a sudden, the armor that normally made her feel like a whole person was too claustrophobic, too ungainly, too heavy. Her vision was starting to tunnel. Her chestplate pinched.

She was about to get blown to smithereens.

Everyone in the corps knew someone who had died. They were military personnel, after all, and though Coruscant was arguably one of the safer locations to be stationed at, they still carried blasters for good reason. She'd lost a few men herself, but without fail, within a few days, they'd be replaced with a fresh face. The squad moved on. You never really looked back.

But when you were about to die yourself, you were kind of forced to confront the idea. As she could feel the plastoid containers clinking against her armor, and she felt the Ithorian scramble for his detonator, she found herself thinking about her mother. Not as she was, but as she had been when 3310 was a child. "You mustn't give up, now, Lya," she would say, voice gentle, whenever 3310 got angry or frustrated (which had been often). "You're very special, you know."

She wondered how her mother would feel when she got the news that her special daughter was blown up, working her menial job at a redundant checkpoint on floor 4000.

She felt herself being pushed off of the Ithorian with great force. The back of her helmet smashed against the ground as someone (or something?) tore them apart, and for a moment she saw stars. Who the hell hadn't cleared when she'd yelled? Now they'd all just get blown up...

Her vision cleared just in time for her to see the Ithorian launch fifty feet in the air and explode with a deafening crack and a puff of gray smoke. She was still so disoriented that she just lay there for a few seconds, watching what was left of him rain down on the checkpoint, thinking about how they'd probably be the ones who had to clean that up later.

After an indeterminate amount of time, she felt herself being hoisted up to a sitting position. Her ears were still ringing from the explosion. "Are you alright?" asked Jack, as she felt the blood rush to her head and she lost all vision for a moment.

"I'm not blown up," she responded dryly, trying to shake the ringing from her ears. "What happened?"

"We don't know--all of a sudden, that psychopath was the air. Everyone's panicking. I didn't see him, but some of your men reported that they saw someone... lifting him? They say he's a Jedi--I sent your squad to chase him down."

"A Jedi?" She'd heard rumors that some of the Jedi had survived the purge thirteen years ago, but she'd never expected to meet one of them, let alone on Coruscant. "Help me up."

"I have two of my boys coming back with a stretcher, don't strain yourself--"

"I said I'm fine, didn't I? Help me up!" she ordered. "If my men are out searching for a Jedi, I need to be too. Those bucketheads can't tell their helmets from their asses if I'm not around. Help me up!"

Slowly, Jack helped her get back on two feet. He even retrieved her blaster for her. She took a few stumbling steps and leaned on a wall as she slowly remembered how to stand. She activated her comm. "MN-882, report!"

"33! You're alright!" came her corporal's staticky reply over the comm. "MN-882 here. There's a Jedi, sarge--I saw him."

"Split up and canvas the area. The only way you're going to catch him is if you corner him... and probably not even then. Set blasters to stun and shoot him on sight. Do. Not. Let. Him. Escape."

"Roger roger!" 882 replied, before the connection went silent.

3310 was left to wonder how she could be at all useful to her squad in this condition. Her head was throbbing, and though she was jittery from the adrenaline, she still felt her armor weighing on her, her blaster heavy in her hand. She moved forward anyway, ducking into a little alley almost at random and following it to the end.

She had always been told she had good instincts, and here she didn't even want to bother with rational thought, so she followed them. She jogged her way through the winding streets of level 4000, jumping over drunks in the gutters and pushing past anyone in her way, desparately searching for the Jedi. Capturing a Jedi would certainly mean promotion for her unit--and though it was certainly a longshot that whoever they were chasing was actually a Jedi, and if he was a Jedi that they would even be able to catch him--she was willing to hope.

Finally, after becoming thoroughly lost, she ended up in a dead end alley. She swore as she came to a stop. She had only been running randomly, but she had felt as if she was getting closer. Her men had only checked in to say that they'd lost him.

She couldn't shake the feeling that someone was there, though. She raised her blaster. "Come out!" she commanded. "Surrender yourself to the Empire or be killed!"

The discovered Jedi sprinted down the alleyway, his cloak waving as he dashed out of sight of those on the street that had seen his act. It was one of purely good intention, but that did not matter to the Stormtroopers pursuing him. He took a sharp turn, then leaped over a cart full of supplies. The Imperial soldiers on his tail simply bowled the cart over in their mad pursuit of him. He could hear them call out to him, blasters still tucked in their arms as they scrambled to keep up with him. Varlo tried his best to avoid knocking any bystanders out of his way as he darted down alleys and roads. The Jedi threw himself through an open window, landing inside of a home. The surprised occupant simply gazed in surprise as Varlo exited as quickly as he entered, slamming open a door as he sprinted down another alley. He lost track of how many turns he had taken, how many streets he crossed.

He hadn't looked back since he began to run, only using his other senses to let him know where his pursuers were. Their heavy armor clanked as they moved, allowing him to hear them as they attempted to keep up with him. Varlo was in luck in a certain regard. He knew the landscape around the area, if he used that to his advantage then he'd be able to slip away. Of course the Jedi would have to avoid not simply stumbling into another group of Stormtroopers. He had to pray that the ones after him hadn't radioed to all the other patrols in the area. Then they would tear apart the undercity in search of him.

As he shifted his body and sprinted down another dark alley the obvious sounds of approaching soldiers could not be heard. It appeared that he had lost those that were on his tail. Varlo finally let himself breath, leaning against a wall as he tired to calm his nerves. He'd weaved his way through all the alleys he could recall in this part of the slums, sure enough with all the turns he'd taken he had gotten lucky. Of course the Jedi didn't allow himself to think he was safe. He still needed to get home, and would need to be creative figuring out a safe way back. Then he'd have to be ready for heightened patrols all across the undercity, perhaps even more than that.

Varlo sighed, then closed his eyes briefly. He had to do it. There was no other solution, he couldn't just let all those people die. He did the right thing. Now he just had to deal with the consequences of his action. The Jedi took some solace in the fact that his long departed master would have approved. He always taught Varlo that it was the Jedi's duty to protect the innocent. He started walking again, slowly figuring out where exactly he was. Then he stopped dead in his tracks, realizing there was someone near him. Varlo blinked, then heard a female voice blare out to him.

You've got to be kidding me.

He cursed his luck, then slowly stepped towards the figure that spoke out to him. As Varlo began to emerge from the darkness he noticed a blaster raised in his direction, held tightly in the hands of a seemingly lost Stormtrooper. He stepped out of the darkness, his hands raised.

"I don't want to hurt you, or anyone else. I am not a bad man and have done nothing wrong to warrant an arrest. I saved you back there, along with your fellow troopers and all the innocents around us," Varlo stated calmly and clearly, then reached his hands to lower his hood, revealing his face. His hands were still raised, showing that he was complying. "You know how ruthless the Empire is, if you hand me in to your superiors then I will be executed, or worse. Do I deserve a fate like that for what I did?"

"I have been living peacefully in the underworld for years, if you let me go then I will continue to do that. Just another face in the crowd trying to survive down here." He added, trying to speak as genuinely as he could.