Intuition - Book 1 - Captain Rex

[Chapter 26 - Mourning]

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The group made their way to the hangar-lot of Lenora's apartment complex. They approached a fabric-covered speeder, which Lenora unveiled to reveal a janky looking sore excuse for a speeder.

"We aren't taking that are we?" Calliope scrunched their nose up at the speeder.

"It's my neighbor's, he hasn't used it in years- I'm pretty sure it's unregistered by now." 

"I wonder why he hasn't been using it..." Calliope said sarcastically as they continued to inspect the speeder.

"Oh quit your complaining and hop in." 

The group got in the speeder and took off. They wound around a bit, which had the passengers a bit confused.

"Nora... we've passed this same building a good five times now..." Rex questioned his partner from the seat beside her.

"I need to make it look like we're just heading out on a joy ride... and I don't want anyone following us." She answered quietly.

The mood in the speeder shifted. Most of the people in that speeder had never seen this side of Lenora. Those that had knew just how serious this was.

Lenora took a sudden harsh turn into a dive. Speeding down to the lower levels. They wound through the lower levels of Coruscant, making sporadic twists and turns. Eventually they dived even lower, and pulled into a shifty looking lot. 

Lenora jumped out of the speeder, the rest of the group following her in silence. She nodded at a man who looked as if he was drifting off in his chair. He waved at her and pressed a button, opening a blast door. The group made their way inside to find a hallway filled with even more blast doors. 

"Lena? What is this place?" Kie'sha asked uneasily. 

"It used to be a storage place, now it's more like a hive for spice runners."   

"And how did you come across it?" Rex asked, also uneasily.

"Relax guys, I bought a plot here. It's perfectly legal, they can't persecute us for being here." 

"Is whatever's in the plot legal though?" Calliope raised an eyebrow at her friend.

"Well..." Lenora checked around a corner. 

Lenora led the group to a door way down the hallway. She typed in a code and the blast door opened to reveal a clone. 

"Hey Tacky, how's it going?" Lenora greeted.

"Oh, you know, the usual." The clone joked- "You come to take over?" 

"Not just yet, sorry mate." 

"All good, want me to take you in?"

"Yes please." Lenora approached the door with the group following her- "Thank you Tacky, I owe you one- actually, probably like five at this point." 

"Ah, you've saved my clumsy sheb enough times that we're probably even at this point." Tacky brushed off her thanks.

Tacky went to open the side door, but Lenora grabbed his arm.

"Wait. Before we go in, I need to reiterate the importance of none of you telling a soul about this. Not until the time is right for things to come out." 

"I think I speak for everyone here when I say that we would never dream of it Lenora. I would trust you with my life, and I have. We all trust you." Rex placed a hand on his partner's shoulder.

"Alright." Lenora took a deep breath before nodding to Tacky to open the door.

The room was dimly lit, and looked to be full of medical equipment. In the center, barely breathing, was Fives.