The negotiation wasn't going well. There were only two of themin the dark and foul-smelling corridor in Coruscant's underworld, a man and a woman. Here, under kilometers of durasteel and permacrete, the world's pale sun never penetrated the mazes of buildings above. Tolam, a Rebel Alliance intelligence agent, wasn't especially fond of this place, but it was convient when meeting with others who might have useful information or goods. Since the destruction of Alderran and Palpatine's dissolution of the Senate six months ago, the Rebels had gained support, but the Emperor hadn't made life easy for them.
In a lull in the conversation, he surveyed the woman with whom his discussion was failing. She was from Alderran, he guessed, owing to her striking white hair pulled into a tight braid. How exactly she came into her current line of work he couldn't guess and really didn't care. She was medium height but fairly slim, and would have been attractive in Coruscant's high soceity with its balls and formal dinners and flowing gowns. It would also help, he thought, if she smiled, but he didn't care to see her smile because he knew her enough to know that her smiling would mean his demise.
She wasn't smiling now, but it was the closest he had seen on her in their months of covert negotiations. "Life is sweet," she said. "Don't let your Rebel Alliance take away the only sweetness this galaxy has known." She stepped close and punched him, a quick one-two combo, one blow to his gut and another at his jaw. He saw the gut blow coming and parried it, but he was unable to vanquish the jaw blow. Unprepared, he staggered backwards, crashing against the damp permacrete wall. Some slimy organic substance stuck to his back as he pealed himself away. His advassary was already three meters away running to what must once have been an access panel in the middle of an otherwise bare wall.
Tolam brought his left ankle up and reached down with his left hand and removed a vibroblade from its sheeth. He thumbed it on and a thin, snake-like blade slid out of the black handel. Ultrasonic vibrations took hold and straightened the micro-thin blade into a deadly cutting surface. He transfered the blade to his right hand and threw it at the woman, now clawing at the panel. It caught her in her upper back, just to the left of her right shoulder blade. She stifled a cry, but Tolam could see that the blade hadn't penetrated as deeply as it should have. She must be wearing some sort of armor, something that resisted his blade.
She turned, now weilding a stormtrooper's blaster carbide rifle, and fired at him. The shots were quick and unaimed and crashed unceremiously into the permecrete to his left. She must have copied his trick -- hiding a weapon nearby so it would be handy but not violate the no-blasters rule for the meeting. He ran down the stank alley, nearly slipping on some pale red ooze at a crack in the ground. Red blaster bolts exploded around him, some singing the hairs on his arms. He turned a corner, skidding on the ooze. He banged on the durasteel wall to his left, but it refused to give. "Sithspit," he whispered. He kicked the wall, but it refused to budge. The blaster bolts subsided and he could hear his advassary's boots coming near.
Tolam drew another vibroblade from his right ankle and thumbed it on. When the pale blade stabalized, he thrust it into the wall. Sparks flew as he cut out a crescent and then completed the cicrle. The panel fell out and clattered to the permacrete. He smelled his boots singing at the contact with the hot metal and jerked his feet clear.
The boots came closer still as he reached into the fresh, glowing hole and brought out a large blaster rifle. He didn't remember how long it had been sitting there waiting for him or another operative in need, but the power was full.
"Drop it," his erstwhile negociee said. "Drop the weapon." He looked up and saw her pointing her carbide at him. He felt the handle of his vibroblade, now deactivated, in his right palm against his blaster's grip. Unless her vision were enhansed, she would be unable to see it in his hand. It was a risk he would have to take. He gripped it between his fingertips and dropped the gun, bringing his hands up. The blade handle was nearly invisible against the dark corridor. "Kick it to me," she instructed. He complied. "Against the wall," she ordered, motioning for the wall opposite the glowing breech. He backed slowly, keeping his hands up, until he felt the cold durasteel wall behind him. She paced him, keeping just over a meter away, her carbide trained on him until she was confident of his position. She let the cabide drop a little and kicked him in the gut. He took the blow, sharp with the neat edges of her boot, not dulled by the thin armor he wore. He was, at least, gracious that she didn't think to slip vibroblades into her toe.
When he straightened a little from the blow, she swung at him again, this time with her fist. Tolam turned and rolled on the wall. She wasn't fast enough to correct. When her knuckles slammed into the wall, she screemed in pain. He let the vibroblade, still balenced between his fingers, drop into his palm, and activated it. She struggled to regain control, but he drove the blade into her gut, cutting through the cloth. She screamed again, louder this time, and dropped to the ground, releasing her blaster. He pulled the blade out, it splattering blood over his clothes and the ground as it vibrated. He ran two meters to his blaster and picked it up. He deactivated the vibroblade and dropped it back into its sheath on his ankle.
He turned back to his vanquished advassary, still writhing on the ground, and wondered what to do with her. If he left her, she would probably would die, which wouldn't necessiarly be bad, but someone would eventually notice her absence, much quicker if she actually were an Imperial intelligence agent, as he now suspected. He could take her into custody, but the Rebel Alliance wasn't organized well enough on Coruscant to hold or question her.
A squardron's worth of clicking boots answered the question for him. He looked right, the direction of the boots, and saw a squadron of stormtroopers quickstepping towards him. "Freeze," a mechanized voice yelled. He dove into the now-cooled hole. Red blaster bolts sizzled past him, exploding behind him. He thought he heard his former advassary scream out and then be silenced, but he wasn't sure.
His luck held as he slid, head-first into some sort of long-abandoned shaft. Centuries-old metal scraped at his bare arms and cut his shirt, revealing the light armor beneath, which only now was he greatful for. He plunged through pitch-blackness and splashed into water and came to a stop. His raw arms stung in the acidic water, and he could imagine all orders of bacterias stagnating in the water for centuries entering his body through the abrasions. He stumbled to his feet and promptly banged his head on the meter-high cealing. He cursed again. This day was not going well.
Twelve hours later, Tolam awake suddenly. He sat up quickly and promptly banged his head on the cealing. "Sithspawn," he whispered, having reinjured the same spot he bruised earlier. He laid back down on the form-fitting metafoam pad that passed for a bed and gathered his bearings. He surveyed the coffin that passed for his quarters, a rectangle one meter wide by one meter high by two meters wide. It was small and it was only one hundred and fifty levels above his combat encounter, but it cost the Rebel Alliance over a thousand credits a month. Adding more space on Coruscant may be as simple as building on top of existing structures, but that doesn't mean it's cheep.
He peeled the bacta bandages off his arms and examined the skin there. The lacerations and abraisions had healed to his satisfaction. He dropped the spent bandages into the trash chute. He rumaged through the data chips sitting in a box and pulled one out. He slipped it into a datapad to verify that it was indeed the identity he used to negociate with the Imperial agent. He erased the chip and took it out. He propped itup against the wall next to his feet and pulled out his sidearm, a beat up, fourth-hand BlasTech 1400D blaster pistol. He thumbed it to the lowest setting, dropped the safety off, and shot the chip. The plastic casing melted and the ceramic chip cracked, destroying the delicate circutry and its even more-delicate data. Confident that the data was no longer readable, he dropped it into the trash chute. Another day, another identity. The rebel cause must go on.