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A vast network of water recyclers lay anchored among the layers of Coruscant, converting waste into clean water for the majority of the estimated 300 trillion people that depended on it. In what had been at the time a good idea from an engineering perspective and remained a nightmare from a security perspective, all but the oldest recyclers had been coupled to the city’s power grid, yoking one crucial resource to another as waste heat from the recyclers was directed away to produce electricity. But not all waste heat was thermodynamically useful, so what wasn’t was dumped into areas like transit tunnels and places nobody was supposed to hang around in.
So of course Trooper Docks had been ordered to spend an entire uncomfortably warm day in such a place, manning a security checkpoint en route to the Senate District where a gang with a healthy interest in politics had recently done a very messy, public job of assassinating a visiting CorpSec delegation. Because this incident was being taken so seriously, Docks and certain members of the Coruscant Guard had been selected to “augment” the CSF by conducting vehicle inspections.
Docks watched as a rickety Daystar model made its way towards his checkpoint, its cargo bed piled high with crates that shuddered and swayed as the speeder bobbed up and down. An issue with the repulsor stabilization system, most likely. He’d put money he didn’t have on the thing not lasting another month before it fell out of the sky and really fucked with someone’s day at terminal velocity.
Someone else thought the speeder looked interesting too, because at that moment a sentry’s voice popped over Docks’ helmet comm.
“Stop the Daystar,” it said. “The shitty blue one with crates in back.”
The speeder was waved off to the side and Docks stepped forward, patiently standing guard over the search team as a massiff and her handler trotted out to investigate.
In what was really no time at all but felt like forever, a searcher shut the lid of the last crate.
“Just fungal culture stuff,” he said, jumping out of the cargo bed. “All good.”
He motioned to let the speeder continue on, but Docks, acting on an impulse he didn’t understand (and didn’t question,) held a hand out to stop him.
“Give me two minutes,” he said.
The clone shrugged as Docks walked over to meet the driver.
A Talz peered back at him with four glassy eyes dark as boot polish. Docks didn’t know the species of course, but seeing something new on Coruscant every day had long since entered the realm of bland truths no longer worth stating.
“Know any Black Sun?” Docks asked.
The Talz twitched its proboscis nervously and rumbled something completely unintelligible, but that was alright.
“You don’t know any Black Sun?”
Docks nodded as empathetically as possible as the Talz snuffled in confusion. The exact meaning of the sounds was lost on him, but he’d always had an affinity for communication—that, and a few other things beginning with ‘c’, not all of which were in keeping with the professional nature of his conversation just then.
“I know, I know... Well, if you get to where you’re going, right now it’s about uh…” Docks leaned against the speeder with a clack of plastoid on metal and checked his chrono. “...1600. Just let the Black Sun know that Security Team 5 is on Checkpoint Besh, and we’ll be out here for about another hour if they wanna come out and shoot at us. Alright?”
The Talz shrunk back in its seat and twitched its proboscis, rumbling some more.
“Black Sun?” Docks tried again. “Shoot ?”
He moved away from the vehicle and hoisted up his Z-6, provoking immediate, frantic hand waving from the Talz.
“I mean, they can come from either direction if they want.” Docks shrugged and gestured around. “I mean, it’s up to— we don’t care. Right now we just wanna shoot at anything, but uh—” Docks twisted around in time to see someone on his search team shake his head, hand to his visor. “—preferably like within an hour. ‘Cause we gotta go back and eat and shower and shit like that.”
The Talz warbled and stuck an arm out the window, gesturing to a mess of glowing signs past the checkpoint.
Docks straightened and pointed his head in the direction the Talz was indicating. All he saw was the same flickering advertisement for inji root chews that had played probably a hundred times since he’d been out here. He could always roll back his helmet cam feed and count to be sure, if he needed an extra dose of monotony to euthanize himself with today.
Hoping it would provide some insight, Docks peered into the speeder to check out the driver’s console and immediately brightened when it did.
“Ah, you’re going to level 1313? Oh there’s shitloads of Black Sun down there!” He slapped the side of the speeder and the Talz balked, fur ruffling about its neck in alarm. “Just drive down there and tell ‘em. Tell ‘em ST5 is on Besh, we’ll be here for an hour, we wanna play. So come out and shoot at us. We haven’t had any action since we’ve been out here.”
The Talz made a keening sound as Docks stroked his Z-6.
“I know, I know,” said Docks, throwing up a hand in a placating gesture. “But we just wanna shoot at something, alright?” He signed the good-to-go to the rest of his security team and faced the Talz again, counting off on his fingers as he spoke.
“Wear your seatbelt, don’t run with a vibroblade, and drink your jawa juice.” He slapped the roof of the speeder and gestured towards the checkpoint exit. “Have a nice day. Go ahead, go on!”
The vehicle pulled ahead and zipped away.
“Wear your seatbelt!” Docks called out after it.
Daystar models didn’t even have seatbelts, but good advice was good advice all the same.