Saga - Legends “The streets of Coruscant”, Krennic on-shoot (warning: drug abuse & child neglect)

Title: “The streets of Coruscant” , an Orson Krennic on-shoot (drug abuse, crime and child neglect)

Author: AzureAngel2

Co-Author and editor: @DarthUncle

Main beta editor: @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

Summary: There are places without hope on Coruscant. Where life is but a joke. The Uscru District is such a place. But sometimes darkness gives birth to the best inside a person. There is a core of decency left in Orson Krennic.

Time frame: 14 BBY

Planet of choice: Coruscant

Reader warning: Please excuse my weird English! I am German. English is only my Second language!

Disclaimer: SW is owned by George Lucas, Lucas Ltd. and now The Walt Disney Company


There are times I can leave my heart wide open
There are days I believe I can heal wounds on me

There are times I could come to you and hurt you
I could easily bring you tears
I could send you to hell, I know you

I will find something more
Someone I am made for
Shame on you baby
Forever yours [Repeat: x 2]

You were mine and I was yours for one night
You were mine and there is no one who's like me

These screams they wake me up in the night
They violently fill my room
They keep me awake, I hate you

I will find something more
Someone I am made for
Shame on you baby
Forever yours [Repeat: x 4]

Forever yours

I will find something more
Someone I am made for
Shame on you baby
Forever yours [Repeat: x 3]


Level 2685. The seedy under-city right beneath Coruscant’s golden dragon skin. That a spice addict would try to walk the streets for money here, was a great possibility. Places like 'Club Kasakar' even tempted rich Coruscanti youth from the planets higher levels. The louder, the more illegal, the better.

Orson Krennic, dressed in civilian clothing, had not descended from the upper levels to seek out leisure tonight.

It had been a hard and demanding working day for him. It had been a hard and demanding working day for him. Especially his continued search Galen had been challenging. Three years ago the crystallographer had used Coruscant's All-Species Week to disappear off-world. He had taken his little family with him.

No, if the Director of the Advanced Weapons Research division would have sought female company and oblivion, he would have called his usual agency to send somebody straight to his bachelor’s den. And he certainly had other places to go for knocking-off time. There were several Jizz bars, one even with pole dancing. The 'Outlander Club' was for gambling and sports only.

He pressed his cap down. The wrong moustache made him feel like an PI, or better to say private investigator. But he was not hired by an individual or group to investigate. He was actually his own client. Matese was a reliable individual, but the less his hatchet man knew about this personal matter, the better. It was impossible for two person to share a secret. The past had proven this to him over and over again.

Down here in the Uscru Entertainment District, where the sunlight never shone, the toxic fumes from millennia of urbanization filled the air.

Slightly dizzy, the tall human leaned into the wall just behind him. He had become too soft, too pampered the past years. Being a member of the Tarkin Initiative would do that to any person. Rooms with excellent air filters, flawless catering services, easy access to the finest drinks, alcoholic and non-alcoholic. The biggest plus were death troopers as personal body guards. He had six of them.

The director smirked, while some members of a street gang passed his hiding place.

It was a risk to come down here. But he wanted no witnesses. Not yet.

A desperate plan had formed within him since Mas Amedda had demoted him back to his Lieutenant Commander rank. There was a clone tank on far away Scarif. The child’s face was in his mind night and day. Its lines were so hauntingly familiar.

He gazed at his long fingers, hidden in black leather gloves.

About two years ago he had made contact with Delila and her nameless daughter. From then on he had started to sacrifice precious time that 'Project Celestial' would have needed. But a lie, the most cunning and vicious that he had ever told, needed to be given a foundation.

The director checked his crono. No sign of the wench yet.

The speed with which a person became addicted to a substance always varied. It had to do with the substance itself, the frequency of use as much as the method of taking it, the intensity of pleasure, and the genetic and psychological susceptibility.

He sighed.

The worst case scenario would be that his former one-night stand was dead already. And that the child had perished with her.

Orson Krennic believed in the saying that ill weeds grew apace. Like the lichen that covered many of the buildings and surfaces of this city level.

For the next two hours he remained where he was, motionless.

Finally, a skinny human woman left the run-down house opposite to him. Her movements were that of a walking undead as one was able to see them in horror holovids.

Irrevocably, Delila Craven had lost her edge. Not even rehabilitation in a detoxification centre would be able to restore her beauty. Once she had been a woman that had focused all male attention on her by just walking down a street. Now every pedestrian passing her on the pavement avoided to notice her at all. A molecule called ceramides had caused her cells to age and eventually die, including the facial cells. This made her look older prematurely. Serious tooth decay made the matter worse for her.

Knowing a lot of spice addicts, the director also believed that her mental health had taken a nose dive. She was constantly muttering to herself like some crazy old granny, grimacing uncontrolled. Her movements were equally ataxic. Victims of torture often were this way. Years of service in the Empire had given him this bitter insight into human darkness.

While he watched Delila on her crawl, a huge Gamorrean advanced to her. After what seemed to be a business deal between them, they hit it off in a backyard.

Disgust rose in Orson Krennic. Many regarded him as a low life, but he had never sunken so lowly. Not even during his most inglorious episodes. He had always risen anew, stronger and more clever.

He pushed away from the wall.

The lodging house seemed to come straight from the pages of a drama novel. There was decay and rubbish everywhere. Also in humanoid form.

Delila’s apartment was not locked. Once inside, he shook his head. The stench was offending his senses. How was a four year old girl supposed to grow up in a place like that?

His stomach turned around, causing him to make retching sounds. But he was a high ranking Imperial officer. He could do better. At the last moment he pulled himself together and forced the bile down again. Then he started looking for Delila’s daughter.

It took him ages to spot the gaunt body in the one-room flat. The staccato flickering of the fluorescent lights overhead was not helpful. It did caste shadows everywhere.

Several dirty blankets covered the metal crib. Underneath the child was subdued by cloth restraints binding a leg to the bars of the crib. She was malnourished and severely anaemic. Empty eyes looked right through him. The small chest barely moved up and down.

The director could not do it. His conscience was too strong to ignore.

Almost months ahead of his plans, he took out his personal comlink. To call the hotline to report suspected or observed cases of child abuse or heavy neglect. He gave his name, military rank and described the scene he was on.

The operator inquired the address.

He gave her more than that. Trying to be helpful he also stated the mother’s current profession and her health situation.

Then he named the address.

After that Orson Krennic stepped outside and waited.

But nobody came.

He called the hotline again and was right put through the same operator again.

“Have you been listening to me at all?” he yelled.

“I am sorry, sir, but my superior says that we are not sending any staff members down to level 2685.”

“You must be kidding me. A child is in danger and you hide up there right under Coruscant’s bright sun. You are worse than the old Republican senate. Immediate action is needed and not some stiff rules. This is not why we have built up the Empire.”

Like a madman he ranted on and suddenly had the superior on the line.

“Director Krennic, behave yourself! I will file an official complaint against you!”

“Up yours!” he roared like a rancor bull and hung up.

He hurried inside, willing to take the girl to a hospital all by himself. Even if that meant to lose his last connection to Ina forever more. But he rather had her copy live happily ever after in a clone tank high in an ivory tower, then letting a child die on his watch.

Something was wrong.

He took off his glove and held it above the tiny nose, covered with layers of dry snot. There was no breath any more.

Aghast, he checked the girl’s pulse just to find none.

“Orson,” slurred a voice behind him.

Delila was back, a stupid grin on her face that revealed all her decayed tooth.

In shock he mumbled her name.

“How nice of you to visit us!”

Before he could do anything, she bent down to the nameless child.

“Isn’t she beautiful? She looks just like you.”

His jaw opened and shut again, while he watched her freeing the girl from the bonds.

“Let us eat something, dolly!” Delila babbled, her cheeks alive with the afterglow of spice usage.

Frozen to the spot he witnessed how the corpse got picked up just to be placed down on the filthy kitchen sink.

Humming a lullaby the mother injected the daughter a syringe, filled with blood.

“What are you doing?” the director gurgled.

“I give her a micro-infusion of whole blood every day,” Delila explains somewhat proud. “My blood!”

Orson Krennic hid his haggard face behind his palms, trying to shut out the eerie scene, but there was no escape. It would be imprinted on his retina forever more.

Instead of only thinking about Ina, he should have been there for this poor girl here from day one. Having been raised by Force fanatics he should have been aware that there are dangers for young children. Grown-ups were so preoccupied with themselves at times.

Shaking all over like somebody on cold turkey he left the flat. The tears made it hard for him to see everything.

Is this how Ina had felt in such cases? When she had been a social worker on the streets of Coronet City, the capital of Corellia, she must have faced horrors like this, too.

He was grateful that Barin Samye, Ina’s first husband, had tried to protect her from wanting too much for those unfortunate souls.

By accident he bumped into a hulking alien with slick black skin. It had a wide mouth, oily eyes, and a blow hole. A Herglic.

“Crawl back to level 1782 where you belong!” the director cursed and walked off.

Nothing went as planned.

Suddenly, there was a beep.

An incoming HoloNet message from Ars Dangor, encrypted beyond recognition.

Frowning, Orson Krennic read it.

“Imperial-class Star Destroyer 'Perilous down'. Cham Syndulla responsible,” he translated. “No word on the master and his servant.”

Obviously, the Emperor had been crazy enough to deal with the Free Ryloth movement all by himself. Only bringing his under dog Vader along.

Cursing, the director started to run towards the next public lift. It would take him an eternity to reach the upper city levels again and even longer to get on a freighter to Scarif.

The scenario he had planned for next year had come. He needed to act swiftly if he was to safe Ina’s clone from a fate worse than life long imprisonment. Any possible successor of the old man would gaze into the Citadel tower at one point of his reign. There would be questions and investigations. The DNA of the being in the clone tank would speak a clear language.

Orson Krennic ran as fast as he could, reaching the intersection of Daring Way and Vos Gesal Street soon. “I will succeed,” he muttered under his breath. “In memoriam Ina.”



Sources:
The song “Forever Yours” by Sunrise Avenue
Wookieepedia – The Star Wars Wiki
Jedipedia, a free German Star Wars-Encyclopaedia

 

Gritty and intense Definitely matches what I've read of Coruscant's seedier side

 

Then jump straight to Scarif´s sunny beaches with this link here, because I have a surprise for you, @WarmNyota_SweetAyesha and everybody else who is not tired of me and my fan fics.

(Is hopeful that @DarthUncle, @Kahara, @earlybird-obi-wan, @Darth Gangrenous and others will join.)

See, the fat blood moon tonight causes me extreme insomnia again and with my cough fits being so bad I did refrain from singing & dancing.

 

the seedy underworld and its perils

 

There will be more, soon, @earlybird-obi-wan. Loose one-shoots, all flowing into the new main story.

 

You captured expertly the seedy sinister underworld of Coruscant and Krennic's urgency and Delila's horrific outcome as well as her nameless child.

 

Wow, seedy, dark and sinister - and to think that in this story Orson *ing Krennic is actually the sane, and shockingly the caring, adult one, who lets his conscience get the better of him. What's the plan on Scarif exactly, I wonder. I guess we'll get to read it at some point. Also, this was quite sad, but Orson finding his better side made me still feel positive at the end. Poor little 'dolly'.

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha & @DarthUncle: As usual your comments are heart-warming & encouraging. Especially in a stressful time of insomnia where I need some light beacons. Thank you!