All labour was soon called to a stop and slaves were rounded up and taken back to the lower levels.
We began to follow, but the Nikto overseer who had been a nightmare to us for the past few days called us to a stop.
"You two stay back."
He and his lower level enforcers streamed past us, and only when they had disappeared did another enforcer come to fetch us.
"Your quarters have changed," he said. "Follow me."
We followed behind him as he led us to the side of the office where we had been initiated.
We walked around it about three horizontal levels.
From the first look you might think the dockyard was small, but it was layered both vertically and horizontally so much that it was very hard to tell the exact size or its full capacity.
We passed five lines of long buildings before we were called to a stop at the sixth and guided toward a door further down the row.
The enforcer swiped the access card and the door swung open.
He stepped aside.
There was no rude "get in" or push, just calmly stepping aside to let us in. One could almost argue it was respect. I did not want to be that optimistic though.
It was something I had observed. Despite the fact that most enforcers and their superiors did not seem excited by the idea of us becoming runners, they were still showing some level of respect.
I did not know if I could call it exactly respect, but we were not exactly being treated like other slaves.
Of course by now I knew that a runner was an important role, but really they were just glorified slaves, but slaves nonetheless.
This amount of indifference made me begin to suspect that there was some other matter being hidden from us.
I had a sinking feeling that we would find out soon enough.
When the door had been closed, Koji and I stood inside the ample sized room. Well, it was ample compared to the cell where eleven of us had been locked.
This one was small, but it had two thin beds with individual mattresses and a table between them.
Honestly, it looked like decent lodging. On the opposite wall, just like our handler had said, I could see the holo map imprinted on the wall .
This one was huge, and it was a different version from the one the handler had used. Its width meant it did not need to be changed to explain different aspects.
Everything here was laid bare. Territories, routes, districts. Everything was plain and labeled.
I recalled the words of the handler.
"If I were you, I would spend the whole night memorizing it."
There was no exaggeration in that. I knew that if we were to succeed in this new duty, truthfully, from what I knew from Star Wars canon lore, we had no choice but to memorize these routes.
Ord Mantell was a fucked up place. Not as fucked up as Tatooine or Nar Shaddaa, but still a smuggling hot point. And as such, still fucked up.
Being disappeared or killed here was something common that nobody would bat an eye at.
Authorities here, even the official Republic presence, were so submissive to the smugglers' influence and so corrupt that they did nothing about it.
The de facto law here was syndicate law, criminal law.
Just like the handler had said, the trouble was that those rules existed, but they were unwritten. You just had to do one wrong cross into a rival zone and that was it for you.
Koji beamed up.
"Can you believe it? Just this morning we had no hope. And now..."
"That word again, Koji. Where do you see hope in this?" I said, falling onto one of the beds.
"Well, we have freedom to go out now, you know. And we are allowed to enter pleasure hubs and entertainment districts. I think I might even meet my sisters," he said, beaming even more.
Fuck. That forced optimism again.
"Let me guess. You did not hear anything the man said. You are a fucking client finder stuck in market district cantinas. Where do you think you will have time to find your sister?"
He seemed ready to come up with another childish Zeltron optimism that was bound to get him killed.
"Listen to me, Koji. Remember what I told you. Those ideas you get in there, you have to think. They chose you because you are a Zeltron. If you use those skills, you might be the one between us who survives longer. You have a gift. The more you convert buyers for them, the more they will treasure you. That is your way to seeing your sister.
If you start saying you will create time to see your sister during shifts, you will be dead before a week."
"Why?" Koji asked, as if the thing was not plain enough even to a downright idiot.
"Why? Are you serious? Look at the fucking map, Koji. Do not look at it with just your eyes. Look at it with your mind.
How many times has that man said you should not pay shadow taxes?"
"A lot?" Koji answered, still not seeing my point.
"Exactly. But if you look at this map, it is literally marked with reds and ambers, colors that represent Black Sun and Mantell local syndicates. Not to mention there are also Hutt supported gangs.
You can see that you cannot walk a few kilometers before reaching a marked zone. Which means whether you like it or not, shadow taxes are part of this work."
"Fuck," I cursed as the realization dawned on me. The answer to my earlier question was plain.
This was how their previous runner had been pushed to accumulate a debt of thirty six thousand credits. Imagine that. And he had been running.
Because you had to pay shadow taxes. There was no escaping that. You could refuse to pay one day or two, but not forever. Scratch that, not even a week.
Something else came to me. Despite our first thought that Hato was a very big smuggler doing well for himself, I now began to realize that Hato was really a very small time smuggler. From the red dot indicating our point, we were pushed into a corner of the industrial district, one of the lowest areas in the entire structure of even lowly Ord Mantell.
He was just trying to make do with things here. So if we fell into rival syndicates' grasp, he was not even coming to rescue us. He absolutely had no say.
Matter of fact, if Black Sun wanted, they could wipe Hato out in a day. And this was why I realized his rules were that you should never reveal your supplier, never dictate your affiliation, and never show them your route. He was supposed to stay in the shadows.
"Still," Koji said, "you know, coincidence happens. I might walk into one..." he faltered before gaining the energy to say, "I might walk into a brothel and find my sisters there."
I was angry for a moment, but I detected the sadness in his voice.
He had a way of amplifying sadness and making it infectious so that it affected you even when you were not concerned in the matter.
"Koji, your shift is during the mid cycle. Pleasure hubs are mostly active during the late cycle. I do not think you will meet them. Not to mention your sisters are Zeltrons, which means they will be working in the high end pleasure hubs. Most of those, if not all, are private access and in the corporate district. Some of them are owned by Black Sun and even if they are not, they are protected by Black Sun or one of the other syndicates. There is no chance of coincidence there."
Koji looked at me angrily.
"Why do you sound pessimistic? Everything I say, you try to come up with an objection."
I ignored his surge of angry pheromones.
"It is called using common sense for fuck's sake. Use yours. There is no way they are sending you to see your sister. If his contacts see you there, they will alert Hato. What do you think he will do? Hato will say that you went there purposely and abandoned your job just to see your sister. It is not good for you or your sister."
The logic seemed to calm his anger for a while. Maybe it was the possibility of harming his sisters.
"But you... you sometimes might be able to go to the entertainment district. The handler said it," he added cheerfully. "You might be doing drops sometimes and you might get to meet them."
"I might," I said unbothered, "but I am not stupid enough to approach them. I mean, what would I say? Say hey, I am Jax. Your brother Koji and I are runners for Hato. You know, we met in Hato's dockyard..."
He glared at me absurdly.
"Well... you do not have to say it exactly like that."
"I do not have to say shit. Koji, I want my head right where it is. Did you not see the fate those two people suffered just a few hours ago? You think they wanted it?"
For the first time it seemed my common sense was finally getting through that thick Zeltron skull.
Honest to God, if he did not regain his composure and choose logic over impulse, I was thinking another meeting would be called soon for the Zeltron boy.
For his sisters' sake, I hoped it would not happen.
"Listen," I said gently. "I told you I have a plan, Koji."
I lowered my voice. Even here, I did not trust anybody.
If you were heard mentioning a plan here that was anything other than what the boss had called for, it was death for everyone concerned.
The sadness and frustration that had fallen on his face seemed to ease before he turned to me hopefully.
"Yeah, but you are not telling me anything about it."
"I wonder why that is. Have you learned to lie yet? Maybe try that, then we will talk."
The two of us stopped and stared at the holo map plastered on the wall.
"It looks so small. I think one might be able to cross up to here in a day," Koji said, pointing to one of the areas indicated in white, which was supposed to be a free zone for Hato.
"Maybe. But do not let the map fool you. It is an entire fucking planet. Which means even these regions and cities must be too big to walk. I think they will give us speeder bikes or something."
It was a guess, but it did not take a genius to see it. I mean it was practically impossible to walk all that distance.
I knew from Star Wars canon that even a district marked as a simple industrial district could be the size of an entire country back on Earth. There was no way you were walking that in a day.
They would have to give us some form of ground vehicles.
I also knew one thing. Before the week ended, my debt that was at the moment ten thousand would skyrocket to probably fifteen or twenty.
I was looking at the map. There was literally no way of reaching most of the pleasure hubs in the entertainment districts.
Clearly, Hato had no intention of letting us go. And how would he?
He himself had said that the Zeltron was a big asset to his operation. How would he suddenly turn around after training us and begin reducing our debts, which in turn would allow our freedom?
So now more than ever, I needed to work on an exit plan.
It had to be an escape. But I had to be strong before I tried anything.
Or else it would be our two heads rolling in that square.