Chapter 8.

Ketch slowly eased out of the garage, knives waved at them as he shut the hanger door. the sleek green and gold Airspeeder handled like a dream. K2tec’s color choice was much more pleasing than the speeder bike they had been forced to leave behind. the hodgepodge of parts was performing perfectly together, not that he was surprised. He had learned to stop questioning his instincts on such things.

Joran watched as an unabashed smile spread over Ketch’s usually sober face. his fingers danced along the controls as he tested each of the onboard systems. like a master musician, he tuned the barely audible whine coming from the engines till they hummed perfectly in sync with each other. cheery green lights flashed along the control panel, and Ketch flashed her a toothy grin.

“Hold on,” he said gunning the accelerator. the Airspeeder jumped ahead, launching with enough energy that it seemed to be ready to surge ahead and into orbit. K2tec’s tiny censor nest clicked as if full of marbles as the tiny droid worked the Nav systems and helped plot a course through the mess of traffic infesting the skies of Coruscant. Even with her sense extended as far as she could manage, she could barely follow Ketch’s wild flight through the smog-choked skies. They zipped through alleys with bare centimeters to spare.

“Building!” Joran yelled as they headed straight for a Durasteel support structure. Ketch jerked the ship vertical and gunned the engines. with a casual twitch, he flicked toggle and the comforting green lights all blinked into angry shrilling red. the Engines went from a harmonious hmm to a tortured shrill scream of outrage. the floor shuddered as the pod racer engines mounted mere centimeters below their feet coughed to life.

“KETCHHHHH” Joran’s hard-won control evaporated under the force of their screaming ascent.

“YAAAAHOOOOOO” Ketch’s answering yell held none of her concern. his eyes were nearly shut as their path blasted through the smog. The screen in front of Joran showed the fog left in their wake spreading with ripples like the surface of a pond. with a cough the pods below them cut out, it had been the longest 30 seconds of Joran’s life.

“Let's not do that again....okay?” Joran’s

“You're the boss,” Ketch said grinning, he patted the controls fondly. “K2, check the police bands make sure no one noticed our unscheduled launch into sub-orbit,” Ketch said grinning as he worked the controls that sealed and purged the cabin pressure as they drifted free of the planet’s atmosphere. welcome aboard lady, and...uh lady the captain has turned on the artificial gravity feel free to maneuver around the limited cabin space. we shall be arriving at our destination in less the twenty standard minutes please enjoy your trip.“ Ketch announced over the interior speakers of the small shuttle craft.

“Was that really necessary? I’m sitting right behind you.” Joran said exasperated, a small smile tugged at her lips though.

“Hey, just trying to adjust to the civilian shuttle life, going to have to get used to ferrying passengers all over know space since my military career is bust,” Ketch said lightly, but a slight hitch in his voice made the comment harsher then he had intended.

“Nothing on the scanners sir looks like no one noted out escape into sublight space,” K2Tec said.

“Well keep an eye on the sensors, let me know if anything heavier armed then a pleasure yacht flies by,” Ketch said. they settled in for the short trip up to the moon base, as they drew nearer to it, Ketch became aware of his shoulders hunching up and becoming tense. Joran noticed his mounting anxiety,

“Relax Ketch, we will find some answers up here I’m sure of it.”

“Oh, what makes you so sure? got a feeling or is the force telling you?” Ketch said snorting derisively through his nose. He had little respect for the force even though he had witnessed its power on several occasions now.

“Well if you must know, No it’s not the force, its sound reasoning. it makes sense that there will be some kind of record left up here, no matter how effective of a sweep they might have done to the labs, there is always something left behind. plus no one likes to move cheap equipment into space, so everything there would be of the highest quality there for highly unlikely that they would destroy it. more than likely it’s all on standby and just waiting for some0one to come back and get the whole thing running again.” Joran said thinking her way through the answer.

“Hmmph.” Ketch just snorted and continued to pilot the craft through the light in system traffic leading to the main moon base.

“Papers and manifest.” A protocol droid demanded as soon as they left their small craft.

“We are just visiting for the day, no cargo,” Ketch said brushing past the gleaming black humanoid droid.

“Sir you know this means the craft will be scanned for contraband.” the droid called after them, Ketch just waved a hand vaguely over one shoulder.

“Was that wise? some of those weapon modifications must be illegal?” Joran asked hurrying to keep pace with Ketch in the .5G of the spaceport. she tended to bounce too high and hang in the air waiting to come back down, Ketch had a distinctive rolling gate that allowed him to keep in contact with the ground almost as if he was skating along more than walking.

“Nah I had K2 register the ship as a free transport and a mercenary ship so the weapons systems are all authorized. plus we really didn’t have any cargo, let them spend five or six hours searching the ship to find that out. It will give the real smugglers a little leeway.” Ketch said grinning. Joran paused and tried to mirror his motions and keep pace through the corridors. she was mildly successful and didn’t want everyone to know how little experience she had in low gravity.

“You remember the way?” Joran asked.

“Yes, now be quiet I’m trying to recall which turns they took me on.” Ketch walked purposefully through the cramped corridors of the spaceport dodging the heavy foot traffic of various crews refueling and going about their normal in system resupplying. a sharp left and the traffic around them dropped off as they headed deeper into the subsurface of the moon. another left and quick right had them in a rarely used access tunnel, the floor where dirty and only a thin path were evident down the center of the corridor. ketch led them on for several minutes, K2Tec kept pace easier in the lower gravity he was even faster than back in the garage. for several long minutes they walked deeper and deeper into the moon, several turns made them double back for several meters, but always ended up leading deeper. Ketch finally stopped next to a closed transport lift.

“is this the place?” Joran asked

“No, but this will get us to the other side of the dark side of the moon, it's faster than walking.” Ketch pointed at the control port, and K2Tec flitted down and plugged himself into the terminal. after a few seconds, the doors slid open and they all climbed into the lift, the doors slid shut and they have whisked away nearly straight through the center of the moon. after nearly 15 minutes the lift slowed and chimed as it opened, Ketch stepped out into the corridor and looked around. he froze as his eyes locked on a think bulkhead door that was sealed closed. a slight shiver passed over his body, Joran placed a hand comfortingly on his shoulder. Ketch’s head dropped as he took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, the cocky grin slid back into place on his face as he went over to the door and K2Tec worked on getting the doors open. with a hiss, the doors slid out of the way and ketch led the way into the dimly lit space on the other side of the door.

Joran looked around expectantly, there was diagnostic equipment everywhere. the best scanners and monitors that money could buy lined the walls of one exam room, another room the lights were turned off in. a faint odor of something burnt floated throughout the complex. Ketch looked questioningly at the darkened exam room and flicked a light on from the observation room, a plasma lantern flickered and tried to turn on but sputtered and blinked out. Ketch jiggled the switch and the lantern sprang back to life glaring light all over the room. everything inside of the room was blackened and burned the heat had been so intense that the exam table had melted into a puddle on the ground humanoid outlines off ash on the walls looked like charcoal sketches. ketch grimaced wondering what heat source had ignited so furiously in the confined space that it flash burnt the poor exam techs into the walls. Joran came over and wordlessly stood next to ketch studying the damaged room.

“Was this damaged the last time you came here?” Joran asked after several quiet seconds.

“No, nothing like this was here and they never mentioned an explosion. which is odd since it’s a must on any space station. fire is no joke in these confined environments, and they are investigated very thoroughly.” Ketch shook his head and looked for his droid, K2Tec was busily snooping through the computer systems. Ketch walked over to the small droid.

“Anything left in the system?” Ketch asked.

“Yes, sir quite a lot actually seems they were in quite a hurry to clear out of this complex after the fire, they must have been afraid of an investigation by the local authorities,” K2Tec said pulling up screen after screen of partially deleted files.

“Wait. Stop. go back ” Joran said looking over Ketch’s shoulder. K2Tec brought back the last batch of files and Joran scanned over it more carefully.

“What do you make of this?” Joran asked Ketch. Ketch studied the indicated file closely.

Subject species harvest yield location

[email protected]%$$^& @#$%cal Y .86% N/A

!&&[email protected] *&[email protected]@@!$ #! ($!*@ D

the file continued on in a broken manner for several pages sometimes detailing species and name of the subject sometimes not.

“The file has been contaminated sir,” K2Tec said. “That is the best I can repair it.”

“It's okay K2. least we got something. see if you can pull up any shipping info maybe where whatever the drug was they were giving me came from.” Ketch said thoughtfully. After several minutes K2Tec pulled up a shipping manifest, the inbound shipments contained the names of species arriving and a number detailing how many where transported to the station. Ketch had been looking around and had found a back room full of strange deadly looking instruments dangling from the ceiling. needles and blades attached to robotic limbs looked ominous in the dimly light room. another room had contained row upon row of cages with shackles welded to the floors. A shudder had coursed through his body as he studied them trying to discern their use. Joran was sitting at the terminal next to K2Tec running her own searches. she gasped and shuddered slightly as she pulled up a screen of data. Ketch bent over to peer at the scrolling Data, but it was gibberish too him. Just dates and weights listed and storage information.

“What did you find?” Ketch asked her putting a comforting hand on her shoulder. Joran didn’t answer for several seconds she seemed stunned by what she had found. Silent shivers rocked her body and she leaned into his hand taking what comforts she could from the contact.

“Ketch I think I figured out what they were injecting you with....it’s not pleasant,” Joran said finally taking a steadying breath.

“Ketch sat down next to her,

“Go ahead when you’re ready, I can handle it, I need to know what it was,” Ketch said quietly to her.

Joran took a deep breath before continuing.

“I was looking at the shipping info, but there was no record of anyone leaving the station that matched with the arrival dates so I assumed they must have been slaves, but who would need SO many? plus they obviously didn’t take them all with them when they left. so I was trying to track down where they went...I found it, there were no records of them leaving because none of them ever left...they all died here.” Joran said in a hushed voice. Ketch shuddered but nodded for her to keep going.

“There are records on the station of all the accumulated waste that is incinerated and then it’s billed to the party responsible, these offices had a lot of waste billed to them. I checked the weights against the incoming cargo... and they match to close to be a coincidence. whatever they were doing here, it killed hundreds of beings.” Joran said a tear slid down one of her cheeks as she finished.

“But what were they killing them for? surely they didn’t do it for simple fun! I don’t know exactly, but slaves can't be cheap especially not this close to the core systems!” Ketch said trying to rationalize the insane information he had just acquired. Joran took several deep breaths before continuing.

“They didn’t just kill them... we have been getting reports of kidnappings for the last several years of force sensitive beings all across the universe. its seems they ended up here. I think they figured out how to harvest the Midicholrinis from their bodies, but the process kills them. that’s what they where injecting you with Ketch, each of those injections was the life of one of these poor beings that they killed trying to harness the force from their bodies.” Joran said grasping ketch’s hand on her shoulder.

Ketch’s mind reeled, he had received hundreds of injections over the last two years...each one had cost someone their life. His eyes swam as tears clouded his vision. the room tilted and he realized that he had fallen out of the chair. Joran saw him falling and managed to get under his shoulders just in time to stop his head from crashing into the metal floor. the world receded to bright points as his eyes rolled back in his head, the last thing he heard was Joran calling his name across a great distance then everything went black.

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