Ailee rushed down the steps, her bare feet skidding on the well-worn stone. "Father, troopers -"

"I know." Her father moved about the shop with purpose - turning this switch off, covering that console with a thick canvas. As though he were simply closing up for the night, though his tense shoulders betrayed him.

"What do we do?" Ailee's teeth chattered as she spoke; she pressed her tongue against them to keep them still.

Her father paused by the window, switching the "open" sign off. "You run. I stay."

"But -"

The front door shook as a fist slammed against it, three times in quick succession. "Open up!" An electronic voice came from the other side. "By the authority of the Emperor!"

Ailee was staring at the door, and so it seemed as though her father suddenly appeared in front of her, startling her just as much as the noise from outside. He clasped his large, rough hands around hers, pressing something small and hard into her palm. "Guard this with your life, understand?"

She tried to open her fingers, just to see, but he just shoved them closed again with a low, "Don't you dare drop it."

"What is it?"

"It's hope. Someone's destiny depends on it. It cannot fall into the wrong hands." His gaze shifted towards the door as the banging resumed, before returning, landing sharply on her eyes. "Understand?"

Ailee squeezed her fingers tightly, so the edges of the thing dug into her skin. "Yes, Father."

He pushed her towards the basement stairs. Later, she would wonder why he didn't say goodbye. Sometimes she even resented him for it. In the moment, though, there was nothing to think about it. Her father had always made it clear what was important. And so she ran - down into the tiny room where she didn't need a light to find the spot on the wall to press her shoulder, opening the secret door. As she stepped into the tunnel and the soundproofed door slid shut behind her again, the last thing she heard from above was the sound of the door coming off its hinges in a volley of blaster-fire.

She forged ahead, ignoring the urge to go back, doubly ignoring the desire to open her hand. It was too dark down here to see, anyway, and if she dropped it here she would never find it again. So she just squeezed her hand again - it felt like a little rock, trapped against her fingers - and kept walking.

Ailee counted her steps, and lost count, and started counting again, and one of the times she reached three-hundred-and-four, her foot hit metal. The bottom step, up to the sewers. She exhaled and started to climb, ignoring her worries for her father, ignoring the sounds of dripping and the increasing stench, ignoring her own wondering if anyone would be coming to fetch her at the rendezvous point, or if she really was on her own, after all those drills.

Her adrenaline had finally flagged, and so it took multiple tries to shove open the grate at the top of the steps, and even more effort to close it again, as quietly as possible, unable to avoid causing a small clang to echo through the wide undercity pipes. Aille froze, peering around in the dimness. There was moonlight filtering down from somewhere, reflecting off the metal all around her, enough that she could tell that besides her, and besides the water at the bottom of the massive pipe, nothing was moving.

She sat against the curved wall, just above the waterline, her tunic squishing beneath her in the dampness. Her closed fists trembled against her legs, and she waited for them to still before she dared to bring them close to her chest and slowly, carefully, peel her fingers away from the object her father had given her to protect.

It was a crystal, tiny and blue. It had a rough oval-ish shape, and its edges were not overly sharp, though she had held it so tightly there were now thin red lines across her palm, sore and smarting.

Someone's destiny depends on it. Her father's voice echoed in her ears. Ailee looked up to the ceiling. Though her legs ached at the thought, she had to keep moving.