"Thief!"

Her heartbeat thudded in her ears, boots thundering along the metal catwalks of Level 2172. She shoved her way through a group of people, knocking one of them over.

"Stop that girl!" Four sets of boots pounded after her. A woman screamed, and a blaster beam shot over the shoulder of the girl in question, whizzing past her left ear.

She hurled her body over the railing of the catwalk, to the accompaniment of more screams, and landed hard on the grating below. Just a bit farther, just a bit farther to the portals—

Another blaster shot struck the metal floor just in front of her, sparking, and she yelped.

"Stop, thief!" came a booming voice.

She turned slowly, right hand closed tight on the object she'd pilfered from a very officious-looking man hovering around Ghrrik's place. On the catwalk above, that very man had a blaster aimed for her head. He was red-faced with anger, sweating, his uniform unbuttoned at the collar and his hat missing. Behind him stood three soldiers, their armor all white, their faces masked—Stormtroopers.

"Return what you have stolen!" he demanded. "Or I will order my men to open fire!"

"This little thing?" she murmured, opening her palm to reveal a very small, thin, black and yellow card. "So angry over a few credits? I'm sure the First Order can spare it for a poor girl."

"You have until the count of three!"

"How droll." She let it drop from her hand—four pairs of eyes watched it fall, and in the moment of distraction she grabbed a metal sphere from her hip and chucked it onto the catwalk. It burst in a brilliant explosion of light and sparks and smoke, and when its effects had cleared the girl and the card were gone.

"You mean to say, Lieutenant," said General Hux in a dangerously low voice, "that the data was stolen by a street rat?"

"The urchin witnessed the exchange." Back on board the Finalizer, Lieutenant Dopheld Mitaka stared straight ahead and did his best to regulate his breathing. It wouldn't do to show further weakness in front of his commanding officer. "She mistook the data for a credit chip and lifted it from my pocket as I was leaving the alley."

General Hux breathed slowly through his nose, hands clasped behind his back to keep them from shaking. "Putting aside the fact that you allowed a waif to pick your pocket, how is it exactly that she managed to evade not only you, but your accompanying soldiers as well?"

"She…" Mitaka cleared his throat. "She had some kind of...flash bomb, sir."

In, out. Hux's breath wheezed, the only sound in the quiet, stark meeting room. "You are to return to Coruscant and retrieve the data. No mistakes this time, Lieutenant."

Abruptly, the temperature of the room chilled. Mitaka's spine tensed. Ren.

"Perhaps—" Ah, there it was, the terrifying, cold metallic rattle of his morphed voice. "—there is someone to be sent who can do a better job at retrieval. Your lieutenant has been thwarted before by a girl."

Ren was of course talking about the earlier failures to retrieve the BB unit, Mitaka realized with a wince. But those circumstances had been entirely different, and the desert girl had revealed herself to be a powerful Force user, powerful enough to even defeat—

An invisible hand closed around Mitaka's throat, cutting off his air. "Careful with those thoughts, Lieutenant," hissed Commander Ren. "The fact remains you have proven to be quite unreliable when young females interfere. I am suggesting that someone more capable go in your place; however, I can easily alter my suggestion to recommend you be replaced entirely and reassigned to the sanitation department."

"Who are you suggesting, Ren?" asked Hux. It was clear through his tone that he was used to the Commander's demands; he sounded tired, as one exhausted after a five year old's temper tantrum.

"Myself, of course." Ren dropped his hold of Mitaka and the lieutenant gasped for breath. "If you want something done right, and so on." His cloak billowed behind him as he left.

"General, I apologize—"

Hux's hard eyes fell back to his lieutenant. "I have no use for apologies, Mitaka. Let's hope your mistake does not cost us." The other man scrambled from the room, and when he was gone Hux relaxed his shoulders with a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "God help us all when Ren finds the girl. I shall never hear the end of it." What mattered most, he tried to remind himself, was the First Order. The girl needed to be found, the data retrieved. Ren was arguably more qualified than most and was hungry to prove himself to Leader Snoke after his embarrassing defeat on Starkiller. Let Ren do it. Hux would put up with his insufferable attitude.

Yes, as long as the data was retrieved, and their mission accomplished, he could deal with the petulant child that was Kylo Ren.

She awoke to the quiet clink of cooling metal and gentle purr of a jumpspeeder as it shut off. She lifted her right hand in front of her face and stared hard at the black and yellow card pinched between her middle and index fingers.

"All that anger," she whispered, "for a credit chip that doesn't even work."

"Ana!" A lanky, orange-skinned Twi'lek appeared in her line of vision, tucking his visor helmet under one arm. "Sleeping again?"

Anavexi Tam sat upright, rubbing the back of her stiff neck. The air on Level 1168 was rank, borderline toxic, and for a moment she gratefully breathed in the smell of the warm jumpspeeder engine. "Get anything useful, Elek?"

"Artesiatic dampener," he said, gesturing to the starship engine part strapped to the side of his speeder. "Good condition, a collector will pay a premium for it, don't you think?"

Anavexi smiled at him. "Where's Thena? She have any luck?"

"Saw her lurking near one of the embassies on 5126," said Elek. "She'll be down after she finishes charming a wealthy diplomat out of a few credits. Anything on your end?"

She lifted the thin card and grimaced. "Stole this off a First Order officer, but apparently they don't pay their men too well. I tried it at a terminal and it spat the damn thing back out at me. He must've drained it all on one of Ghrrik's girls or something."

Elek's face leveled, his expression going stern. "You targeted an officer in the First Order?"

Anavexi shrugged. "Sure, he was pissed, but it's not like it's going to come back to bite me. What kind of officer would he be if he admitted he lost his money to an undercity girl on Coruscant?"

"That's not the point, Ana." Elek cupped her face, searching for injuries. He didn't miss the singed hair on her left temple from where the blaster shot had passed her, but she brushed away his concern. "You keep going after more dangerous targets. Do you have a death wish?"

She met his gaze. "This is about surviving down here, Elek. It's always been about surviving."

Thena arrived a few minutes later, falling gracefully out of the portal from the levels above, a small, young-looking Mirialan with big, pale blue eyes. A small geometric tattoo stood out on her pale olive skin, just below her right cheekbone. She smiled at Anavexi and held out a fistful of credit chips. Elek whooped and cheered her success. Thena never said a word.

In all the years Ana had known her, Thena had never spoken. She assumed it was due to something that had occurred before Anavexi found her, cold and thin and trembling underneath a hollowed wreck of a downed cruiser. Everyone had something tragic about their past. She was sure if she asked, Elek would give her a sob story about a dead brother or childhood accident—shit, even that red-faced man from the First Order probably had an abusive dad or something. Ana had never pestered Thena about it. She'd merely given the starving Mirialan a jacket and a piece of stale bread, and the girl had loyally followed her ever since.

"Good girl," Ana murmured, patting her head. Thena beamed up at her, but the smile dropped when she noticed the tension in Anavexi's face.

Thena tugged at her hand, pulling her into a sitting position. Ana sighed with exasperation.

"I don't want to meditate, Thena," she snapped. "It's just been a rough day."

Thena ignored her, folding her legs into the correct position. She inhaled, lifting her chest up, exhaled loudly through her mouth, and waved her hands at Ana.

"This won't help, Thena." Despite her words, Anavexi copied the Mirialan. She inhaled through her nose, exhaled through her mouth, and relaxed her clenched fists.

Thena did it again and waited for Ana. After the fourth deep breath, Ana rolled her shoulders. Thena reached over and tapped a finger to the crease between her brows. Anavexi closed her eyes, breathed deeply again. It did help. Thena always helped. It reminded Ana of the training her grandmother had put her through, slow calculated moves and counts to eight and always a deep-rooted sense of calm. Keep your mind blank, Anavexi, and your body sharp. The memory put tension back into her shoulders but Thena moved behind her and pressed her small hands down. Three more breaths, and Ana felt lighter. She reached up and gave Thena's hands a squeeze. The artificial lights cast an eerie glow over the girl's face when she looked up.

"They'll dim the lights soon," she said. "We ought to eat before then, don't you think?"

Kylo Ren skulked out of his command shuttle on the surface of Coruscant. Filthy Republic-sympathizing planet. How could it fall so far from the days of Palpatine? He knew from Mitaka's report that the data chip had been stolen on one of the lower levels of Coruscant's undercity. 2172. He hated the crowded atmosphere of the planet, the overpopulated hub of what was essentially one enormous city. Airspeeders whizzed by and behind his mask, Ren's mouth twisted into a scowl. Find the girl, kill her quickly, get the data chip, and get out.

He ordered his troops to fan out to the other levels, covering 2173 and 2171 as well. There was no chance of a street rat escaping him.

No chance.

AN: Hi all! Please review, I'd really appreciate it-especially constructive comments. Have I hooked you? Have I not? Do you hate Ana yet? Review and let me know!