Chapter 4: Foundations in the Dust
Theed was beautiful in a way that hurt if you stared too long.
Smooth towers, polished stone streets, and bridges that curved over clear-running aqueducts — the kind of place built by people who'd never had to scrape to survive. It didn't look like a city with cracks.
But Kira had already found one.
"Here," he said, ducking under a crumbling arch barely wide enough to slip through.
Hikaru followed, brushing aside ivy and dust. It was cooler back here, in the shade of the lower quarter — a forgotten piece of the city's underbelly, where maintenance tunnels met abandoned chambers no one bothered to seal.
"What is this?" Hikaru asked.
"Old generator spill-off. Looks like it used to be a failsafe battery bay."
Kira crouched and ran his hand along the curved wall. The structure hummed — just barely — like it remembered what power felt like. Broken conduit lines spiderwebbed the floor, and a few dead terminals flickered in the far corner.
"No one's used this in years," he said, grinning. "Which means it's ours now."
They dropped the cloth bag of junk and sat on the cracked platform. Dust kicked up. It didn't matter.
"So…" Hikaru said. "What, you gonna build a spaceship?"
"No," Kira replied. "Just enough to survive."
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small device — a power cell casing they'd found in a bin near the plaza earlier. With a few precise movements, he cracked it open.
"Step one: stabilize power."
"And step two?"
"A door that opens for us and no one else."
Kira's fingers moved with purpose now. His mind was in that zone again — the one where everything made sense, where every wire was a sentence and every spark had a reason.
[Tech System Engaged]
Local interface recognized: Auxiliary Power Grid (Obsolete)
• Power reroute possible
• Tools: Improvised
• Success rate: 71.2%
He grinned. That was basically a guarantee.
With Hikaru watching, he jammed a piece of split conduit into the battery mount, bridged two contacts with stripped wire, and used the shell of an old bolt casing as a buffer coil.
The terminal whined, then coughed to life.
Lights flickered — just two of them — but they stayed on.
"Boom," Kira muttered. "System online."
Hikaru stood slowly and walked around the space. It wasn't big, but it was hidden. Stone and durasteel, worn down but strong. No cameras, no sensors. Just the quiet hum of reborn power and the sound of them breathing.
"This place is… weirdly perfect," he said.
"It's a start."
Kira walked over to a panel in the far corner. It was covered in grime, but under it, a dormant console glowed faintly now.
"With enough parts," he said, "I can set up a shielded signal jammer. Keep us off Panaka's radar. Maybe even crack the civic pass trackers they gave us."
Hikaru raised an eyebrow. "You sure we want to poke that system?"
"No," Kira grinned. "But I don't like being found."
He paused.
"And I really don't like not knowing who's watching."
They worked in silence for a while. Kira stripped more wire, started building a crude power relay. Hikaru organized salvage. Every so often, he'd glance toward the entrance like he expected something to be there.
Something watching.
Something waiting.
Then, just as Kira connected two nodes:
"You ever think this is all… too convenient?"
Kira didn't look up. "What?"
"This. Us. Here. Alive. In this galaxy. Just landing in a world like this, with you being able to fix everything with trash and me—"
He stopped.
"And you," Kira said slowly, "what about you?"
Hikaru didn't answer at first. His eyes had gone distant.
"Sometimes I dream," he said. "Not like normal dreams. More like… places I've never been. Stars I've never seen. Voices I don't understand."
Kira finally looked up. His voice was quiet.
"You think it means something?"
"I don't know," Hikaru muttered. "But I don't think we just got lucky."
Outside their hideout, wind rustled the ivy again.
A figure stood just beyond the wall — not close, not watching. Just passing through.
A robed woman with silver eyes paused, as if listening to something no one else could hear. Then continued walking.
She didn't look back.
🛠 Inside the Hideout — Later That Night
The space was warmer now. A salvaged heat coil hummed gently in the corner. They'd jury-rigged a couple of hanging lights, made a nest of fabric and scrap crates, and turned silence into something almost like comfort.
Kira sat at a low terminal, fingers tapping rapidly.
[Tech System: Schematics Unlocked]
• Signal Jammer [Tier I]
• Low-Power Drone Core
• Personal Diagnostic Scanner
He grinned. With time, he could make all of them. He could make more.
But Hikaru? He sat near the wall, back straight, eyes closed. Breathing slow. Still.
And somewhere behind his ribs, something moved.
Not a voice. Not a word.
A presence.
One that whispered not his name — but someone else's.
You do not belong. But you will matter.
His eyes snapped open.
The lights dimmed for half a second.
Kira didn't notice
Kira lay flat on his back beneath the gutted remains of an old maintenance panel, a headlamp rigged to a bent pipe above him, flickering like a nervous eye.
"Hand me the torque spanner."
A quiet shuffle. Then:
"Which one's the spanner?"
"The one that looks like a spanner, Hikaru."
"I have no frame of reference for that."
"The fat one that's bent at a 40-degree angle."
"...oh. Why didn't you say so?"
Kira sighed and took it, biting back a grin.
They weren't engineers. They weren't scavvers. But somehow, here in the belly of a sleeping city, they were building a kingdom of junk and sparks.
One wire at a time.
The lock mechanism snapped into place with a satisfying click. The power grid fed into it hummed briefly, and a green light winked on over the entry panel.
Kira slid out from under the terminal and sat up, wiping grime off his cheek.
"There. Door's wired. Biometric lock is keyed to us. If anyone else tries to open it—"
"Boom?"
"Not boom, but definitely nope."
He stood and stretched. "Could build a failsafe later. Explosive door foam, if we can scavenge the right chemicals."
"Please don't build door foam bombs," Hikaru muttered, half-laughing.
As the night stretched longer, the hideout truly started to take shape.
One corner was now a sleeping space — repurposed crates stacked and covered in salvaged cloth.
Another was a workbench zone: soldered terminals, a half-stripped droid leg, wires hanging like vines.
And the last corner… was quiet. Hikaru had started sitting there regularly. Not working. Just listening.
Kira didn't ask questions. Not yet.
"We need to talk about food," Hikaru said after a while, biting into the last preserved ration. "This was all we had."
Kira nodded.
"I'll hit the southern quarter tomorrow. There's a broken vending distributor near the shipping district. Bet I can rig a bypass."
"If Panaka sees you—"
"He won't," Kira cut in. "I've been watching patrol routes. They avoid that side during the afternoon. Too many tourists, not enough reason."
He pulled up a crude wireframe map of Theed on his datapad, patched together from old maintenance schematics.
"We stick to tunnels and low bridges. We blend in. We live. We learn. We prep."
They didn't say it, but both of them felt it.
This wasn't just about surviving anymore.
It was about building something that couldn't be taken from them.
Not again.
🌙 Later That Night
The city above slept.
Even Naboo had to rest eventually, its glittering towers dimmed and streetlamps casting long silver shadows through its plazas.
But beneath it, in a half-forgotten pocket of the world, two boys lay awake — neither speaking.
Kira stared at the ceiling.
Schematics ran through his mind like a calm river:
Scanner drone → 72% complete
Signal jammer → base node stable, full encryption not yet written
Power cell swapper → theoretical, pending core
Everything was math. Possibility. Pattern.
He didn't know why it all came so easily. Only that it felt right.
Hikaru, on the other hand, couldn't sleep for different reasons.
His eyes were closed, but his breath caught slightly with each slow inhale.
He sat still in the dark, fingers curled around the edge of a crate.
Not in fear.
In… anticipation.
Something was coming.
He could feel it — just like he had in that quiet room with Panaka.
A weight, brushing the edge of his awareness.
Not evil. Not good.
Just watching.
"I see you."
He opened his eyes.
There was nothing there.
But his heart still beat faster.
✨ Dreamspace (Midnight)
There was water. Endless. Rippling under stars that were too close.
He floated in it, not swimming — just existing. Weightless.
Above, figures shimmered.
One in white.
One in black.
And one… broken.
He couldn't see their faces. Only their eyes.
"You are not from here," said the white one.
"But you are needed," said the black.
The broken one said nothing. Just raised a hand — as if to reach out… or strike.
Hikaru flinched—
And woke up.
Kira blinked awake beside him. "Bad dream?"
Hikaru didn't answer.
"Yeah," Kira said, rubbing his face. "Me too."
A pause.
"What'd you see?"
"Stars. People. Water."
"...same."
That was new.
That was weird.
They stared at each other for a long moment.
Then Kira grinned. "Let's never talk about that again."
"Agreed."
But the silence between them wasn't empty anymore.
It was shared.