The doors slid open, the sound of the grinding mechanisms setting my teeth on edge. I almost activated the nightvision mode out of reflex as I peered out into the darkness ahead. It was not pitch black by any means but the cab of the turbolift illuminated more than almost anything I could see ahead. It wasn't until I stepped out and the doors closed back up behind me that I was finally able to make out the shapes in the dark. Low light came from a hundred sources as flickering old world bulbs and a sea of neon signs create a kind of dusk effect that might trick you into thinking you were out on an evening stroll through town if you didn't see the looming floor of the level above just visible in the darkness overhead.

I brushed some stray snow off my coat and stomped off into town. People began to emerge from the shadows. I use that term fucking lightly, because these guys were not just the people society had forgotten, but people society had never even known to begin with. Their skin was pale, their eyes wide and bulbous. Mostly humans, but so removed from the surface population that they were clearly started to mutate from living down here. I could tell which ones had actually seen the sun sometime in their life, and the ones that grew up deeper down. Here and there you would spot the rare non-human. They all looked like shit, were wearing worn out grimy clothing that they'd probably passed down through the generations of their inbred families. How long had these people even been down here? Fuck, these levels were probably built thousands of years ago.

Moving through the ramshackle town it was interesting as fuck to see how these people had carved their existence out of the space. I could only guess based on what was still visible, but it felt like this was an industrial level at one point and now the people living inside blast furnaces and industrial compactors. Wherever they could lay a bedroll and string a clothesline. And the machinery still belched and churned. It was still alive, and people were living inside the hot and crushing bits. There had to still be spaces here that kept the planet running, right? You can't just keep building new levels without connecting to the floors below, right? Eventually I found it, the still maintained areas. Clearly fenced off with blast fence with large signs demanding the populace stay back and not tamper with whatever equipment was kept within. I guess posting guards down here would be impossible, and it was of no surprise that these places were covered in graffiti in layers that if you dig down enough to fight anti republic rhetoric buried under the anti imperial.

Shit, you can see the blast scoring and cobbled together repairs from the amount of times these facilities have been broken into. These dumbshits don't even realize that without this important infrastructure on their level that turbolift wouldn't come down here anymore, and they'd be left behind completely. Hell, they probably don't care. Just trying to get whatever scratch together they can. It was pretty obvious from the walk through that their commerce composed mostly of trading junk, prostitution, and drugs. There were a lot of people just standing around watching me with nothing better to do from the doorways of whatever structure they had put together. I was seeing some weapons, mostly cobbled together makeshift weapons but also the occasional blaster and vibroblade. I didn't feel in anyway threatened until They showed up.

They were a group of a dozen men if varying degrees of ugly and removed from the human species. They were all dressed just a little bit nicer, their grime wiped off a bit more recently, and they were considerably better armed. Most of them carried cutoff blaster rifles of a design I could not identify. Probably built in house from whatever parts they had. They also had matching armbands, and by matching I mean they were just armbands of different clothes but they were all cut and worn the same. No symbols. How cute.

"State yer business, Stranger."

It wasn't said in a way that felt like a person of authority was asking. It was said in a way that demanded your answer better be fucking good are they were going to kick your teeth in. Judging by the gaps in their mouths, they'd already had that done to them a few times.

"Bounty Hunter's Guild and Imperial sanctioned business." I held up the stamped permit just as I had done with the Troopers. The speaker didn't even look at it. He just kept looking me in what he thought was the location of my eyes through the visor of my helmet. Felt like he was looking me in my eyebrows.

"Well ain't that a shame. Bounty Hunters and the Empire don't exist down here, mate. The Undertakers run business 'round here. So here's what you're gonna do. You're gonna give us all your credits, and your rifle, and leave."

"And what if I don't?" holy shit it was hard to not laugh in the guy's face. I had a heavy blaster rifle on my back and they were waving around Clone Wars era gobshit with bits and bobs welded to the sides. They only one of them remotely intimidating was the big guy in the back with a vibrosword that looked like it was from the Old Republic era, and those shits lasted forever and could cut through armor like mine with ease compared to blaster fire. They all bristled at my rebuke, and the guy with the sword started to walk forward.

I wasn't going to wait for the next steps of this dialogue to play out. It was as obvious as fuck where we were going. Time to speed things up.

The DL-22 was easily accessible from underneath the side of the poncho. Maybe they didn't even see it in this gloom, but they sure as fuck heard it as the heavy blaster fired off and hit the big guy in the thigh as it came out of the holster. With the real threat decommissioned I turned on the rest of them, and like the fucking mouth breathers they are they stood their ground and began firing. Their impotent blaster bolts smashed into my armor and displaced across the plates. They might as well been trying to crack a bank safe with a toothbrush. I took my time turning in an arc firing one shot after the other. Center of mass. Straight to the chest. Blowing a hole through each of their chests until nobody was left and I was left standing there alone with my armor pinging as it cooled. The real shame was that my poncho was now full of holes. Shit. I really liked this one. A quick lookover confirmed my rifle and other equipment was fine. Apparently they just kept shooting me in the chest and hoping something would happen.

Looking over my shoulder there was a distinct lack of anybody. Everyone had disappeared back into whatever hollowed out machinery they called home. Fair enough. Holstering my blaster I moved on. Their corpses were not even worth my time and nature would take care of them. I was proven right when I heard the sound of squabbling and fighting behind me as I left them behind.