Ayna watched the scene from a bit of a distance; station guards roughly dragging some shady-looking people through a doorway in bonds. The guards wore simple but functional light armour suits and helmets. Their prisoners wore generally similar colours to one another, not uniforms but definitely a common identifier. Several were visibly bruised or bloodied, and the last one in line was being half-carried and half-dragged by two guards due to a broken leg.

Clearly something big had been going on, and rumours were already passing through the crowds. The general thing everyone seemed to agree on was that there had been a big fight a couple of levels down, by one of the larger but less used docks.

No doubt about it; she was heading for the worse parts of the station. And as much as logic told her to just go find a massage parlour or do something equally sensible she kept on going. She had been allowed to bring her shock baton onto the station, so there was that.

Down she went, through a bit of a dividing area of much thinner foot traffic, before fully reaching the lower areas. These were the sections where damp had set in, where vermin stubbornly refused to be exterminated, where maintenance barely happened and businesses didn’t bother. This was where Uktena had decided to stuff the refugees.

They lived however they could. Some had been able to either bring blankets with them or barter with locals. Others forged crude shelters out of metal plates pried off the walls. Ayna didn’t see that they accomplished anything, but she supposed people at least wanted a sense of having their own place.

Some lay in ventilation shafts, or in depressions left by machinery that had clearly long since been removed. Most simply huddled together, lining the walls.

Making use of a maintenance walkway gave her a good view of the whole thing. Only a few lights burned down here and none of them were above floor level. Her Dwyyk eyes, so powerfully attuned to darkness, gave her a perfect view of the sad display down below as she slowly strode along and above it.

Some were injured. It was easy to simply blame whatever calamity they had fled, but the fact that in some clusters people looked alert for trouble, armed with knives, tools or just bits of metal left room for doubt. There was the murmur of various languages, and from them Ayna picked up little hints of bombardments, forced relocations, prayer, and fear for the future. The Hegemony was coming, some said, spreading its rule through the galaxy. The Heg, with its open stance against human subtypes.

Not very uplifting, but then she wasn’t here for entertainment. It was said that the First Civilisation had specifically engineered the human subtypes, Dwyyk included. She didn’t know whether to fully blame her DNA or her cultural upbringing, but either way her instincts were undeniable. It was in her nature to be ever alert, always ready to duck into a shadow, and the simple fact was that she wasn’t getting much practice on the Addax.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Ayna reached the end of the walkway. Before her was a sealed door. It was possible and maybe even likely that it would open, but probably with quite the groan. So instead she swung her feet over the railing and experimentally touched a toe on the thick pipe that went right under the walkway.

It didn’t budge, and so she went on, easily balancing on top of it.

She couldn’t point to any one particular thing she was actually doing wrong these days, but the worry gnawed at her guts that she was slipping up somehow. And so here she was, in a different kind of dark jungle, with different kinds of predators lurking about.

A small door or a big ventilation shaft opened up ahead, and the furtiveness of the figure that came out of it triggered her alarms. She knelt down and silently let herself slide to the pipe’s underside, clinging to it with her hands and feet.

Two individuals walked above her, making an attempt at being quiet that seemed pitiful to her but clearly worked in regards to those above. The two were each carrying something and clambered onto the walkway before continuing their facsimile of stealth.

Predators or scavengers, almost certainly.

Ayna’s people weren’t built for power, but she did have strong hands and it didn’t take much to move a lightweight body. She made her way up and continued on her little tour.

In time she leapt up onto another pipe, before having to drop down onto the floor and simply sneak about in the shadows the hard way. She kept a scarf pulled up over her nose and a hood down over her eyes, keeping her distinctively chalky skin hidden.

It was a modest thrill to find that she was as sharp as ever, passing like a ghost between support frames and makeshift hovels, and through the occasional gathering of people without anyone taking notice of her.

Ayna witnessed scenes of misery, but also of children playing, healers doing what they could for people with limited resources, songs and others attempts at maintaining community, and even a few locals who bothered to care.

It was in a large space, probably some old manufacturing room now serving as something of a hub, that Ayna spotted something interesting.

Saketa, the rather intense and solitary passenger, was down here. The woman had her blades and still looked quite intense and solitary, even when surrounded by people. Unlike most, she didn’t look tired or dispirited. Saketa walked with purpose, focus, and was moving at a fairly brisk pace.

Some took notice of the woman and a few of them reacted with some kind of recognition. Ayna honestly wasn’t sure what to make of it. But her curiosity was tickled. Saketa had stayed an impenetrable loner throughout the flight. And she had that demeanour.

Ayna knew “warrior” was the more proper word here, but her instincts assigned the word “predator”.

So why not? she thought, even as her mind conjured several reasons. Why not a proper exercise?

She fixed on Saketa and began trailing the woman.