Free Lords of the Sith by Paul S. Kemp

level.
    Various cantinas and clubs were burrowed out of the stone, their interiors hidden from view. A steady stream of Imperial vehicles and smiling Imperial officers, often in the company of Twi’lek escorts, made their way to and from the Octagon’s various levels. Pennons flapped in the wind, and lighted signs and paid hawkers advertised for this or that establishment. Isval eyed them from the window of her servicecar and hated them all.
    “Level Seven, please,” she said, and the driver set her down on one of the tiers of Level Seven, the second one down. The vehicle’s door opened and the smells hit her instantly, the echoes of her previous life:smoke and perfume and spice. Laughter and music bounced up from the lower levels.
    An older, paunchy officer in his dress grays eyed her as the servicecar flew off. He propositioned her with raised eyebrows and a knowing smirk, but she ignored him and headed down a nearby stairway.
    “Stuck up,” he called after her.
    The maze was littered with dark corners, secret nooks, narrow tunnels, and blind alleys. Drunks and spice users and working girls lingered here and there, the castaways of Lessu’s vice trade. As Isval descended the Octagon’s tiers, the vices grew worse, the lighted signs more graphic. She’d spent her youth on Level One, the Hole, as it was known. And the Hole was where she would hunt.
    With a false smile and long-practiced skill, she avoided or extricated herself from the groping hands of drunk or spice-hazed Imperials on her way down. One of them removed himself too slowly, so she put a knee in his groin and left him moaning on a stairway. Laughter from above reminded her that she had to be careful about being seen.
    She was sweating by the time she reached the bottom, and the stink of Level One brought it all back to her. The degradations, the hunger, the abuse, the constant unrelenting desperation.
    Smoke and stink made a fog of the air. Torches were rare, signs were dim or unlit. Humans, Twi’leks, and other sentients moved through the dark stifling air like ghosts, too ashamed of their tastes to engage in them in anything other than near darkness. She moved among them, a ghost herself, looking for a likely spot and a likely target. She had both shortly.
    She sat in a nook not far from a spice-and-vice club, cloaked in the darkness and her anger, and watched a junior officer walk out of the club with a young, underfed Twi’lek girl on his arm. The escort had seen maybe twenty summers, and she wore barely enough clothing to cover herself. The officer pawed at her as they walked through the night, his sweaty face flushed with the heat and his expectations of what was to come. He leaned over, stumbling, and murmured something in her ear. She smiled, the false smile that Isval knew well and had worn often.
    She eyed him with contempt and growing rage. He was just somejunior lieutenant, probably fresh off a transport from the Core, who thought wearing dress grays and carrying a weapon gave him a claim on Ryloth’s resources and women.
    Isval dug down to mine her resolve, found it, and stepped out of the nook. Her sudden appearance brought both the officer and the girl up short. But his surprised look quickly gave way to a leer as he looked Isval up and down. There was no one else in the immediate area.
    The officer’s drink-reddened face split in a sloppy smile and slurred words emerged. “Aren’t you pretty? Why don’t you join us—”
    Isval sidled close, smiling, while she reached around to the small of her back. When she stood before him, she pulled the blaster and slammed its grip into his jaw. Teeth and blood spattered the street, and he fell in a groaning pile.
    The girl gave a single startled exclamation and looked as though she might run.
    “No, stay! Help me,” Isval said. She disarmed the officer, grabbed him under the armpits, and dragged him back into the dark nook. The girl did not help her but followed tentatively,