The loaf was stale. The meat was questionable. The grease was very real.
Still, neither of them complained as they sat on the edge of a stone bench overlooking the lower plaza, chewing like survivors of a war only they remembered.
"Okay," said the techie between bites, "next step — tools, safehouse, maybe real pants."
The other one wiped his fingers on his tunic and winced. "And shoes. You keep skipping the shoes."
"You know what? Fine. Step zero: shoes. Step one: empire of garbage and gadgets."
He laughed, the kind that came too easily from people who weren't fully aware of how deeply screwed they were.
They didn't notice the silence behind them until it was too late.
"You two. Stay seated."
The voice was clipped. Official. Too practiced to be local law enforcement — too calm to be a bounty hunter.
They turned slowly.
Two guards in red and gold stood behind them, but only one spoke. His uniform was crisp, his stance impeccable. He looked like someone who woke up disciplined.
His dark eyes scanned both of them without blinking.
"You're not registered citizens of Naboo."
No one said anything for a second.
Then, the taller one (the tinkerer) smiled. "We're… tourists?"
"You arrived this morning," the officer said evenly. "There's no record of your entry. No transit papers. No travel logs. No identification. No companions. No credits spent at official checkpoints."
He took one step forward.
"You're ghosts. And Naboo doesn't have ghosts."
The silence stretched. The second boy — the one with sharp eyes and better instincts — tensed. Not visibly. But inwardly, in that gut-level wrong-vibe kind of way.
"Look, we're not here to cause trouble," the techie said, standing up slowly. "We just… got dropped here. We don't remember much. You've heard of cases like that, right? Amnesia? Hyperspace radiation? Bad spice?"
He was fishing. The guard didn't bite.
"Name," the officer said.
"Uh—"
"Don't lie again."
The two boys looked at each other.
"We're not lying," the second one said, voice low. "We're just not… sure who we are."
The officer's eyes narrowed.
"Convenient."
One of the red-robed guards stepped forward, reaching for a commlink.
"Captain Panaka," he said, "Should I alert the palace?"
So that was his name.
Captain Quarsh Panaka. Naboo's Royal Security — and not a man who missed details.
"Not yet," Panaka replied, eyes never leaving the boys. "They're not spies. Too unprepared. Too stupid. Or too clever to show it."
He stepped closer again. He was tall — not imposing by brute force, but by presence. The kind of presence that filled space with expectation.
"Tell me the truth now, and I might believe you're just runaways. Offworld stowaways, maybe. But if I find out later you're part of something bigger—"
"We're not," the techie said quickly. "We swear. We're just—look, we don't know why we're here. We woke up in the water. We were confused. We still are. I'm just good with tech, and he's just good at… not dying."
Panaka stared for a long time.
Then, finally:
"You'll come with us."
They didn't resist. They didn't really have the energy to.
The guards didn't cuff them, but the formation they walked in wasn't optional.
As they moved through Theed's cleaner alleys and corridors, the people stared only briefly. Naboo was too polite for gawking.
"He's not telling the palace yet," the taller boy whispered. "That's good. Right?"
"Yeah," the other murmured, scanning their surroundings. "But I don't think he's bringing us to a picnic either."
They were taken to a modest government annex — not the palace, but clearly a place where paperwork and secrets lived. No cells, no weapons drawn. Just quiet corridors and sharp eyes.
Panaka dismissed his guards at the entrance to a private room and stepped inside with them.
The door hissed shut.
"Sit."
They sat.
Panaka moved to a console and tapped a few commands. A soft hum filled the room — a privacy field.
"I don't like mysteries," he said. "But I especially don't like unscheduled visitors in a city about to host a major diplomatic summit."
He folded his arms.
"So here's how this works. I'm going to run facial scans, biometric cross-references, and offworld activity matches. If you are someone important — or someone dangerous — we'll know. If you're nobodies? I'll have to decide what kind of nobodies."
He looked them over again.
"And if you're something else entirely… then we'll all have a problem."
They didn't speak.
Kira — though no one knew his name yet — stared at the glowing panel behind Panaka and, without thinking, began analyzing its power node alignment. His brain hummed with diagrams he didn't ask for.
Hikaru — still quiet — felt a faint, unwelcome shiver crawl down his spine. A presence in the room. No... not in the room. In himself. Brief. Gone. Like a breath he didn't know he'd been holding.
Panaka didn't notice. But the systems around him flickered for half a second. Only once.
Outside the room, a protocol droid paused mid-step, glancing toward the sealed chamber. Its optics flickered. It processed the anomaly.
Then continued walking.
As if nothing had happened.
The hum of the security field was like a soft migraine. Not loud, but constant — the kind of sound that made silence feel impossible.
Kira tapped his fingers on the edge of the table. He wasn't nervous — not exactly. But his brain was buzzing. Information moved across his mental vision like a HUD overlay, each detail of the console in the room practically begging to be reverse-engineered.
Wiring density. Energy regulation. Feedback dampeners.
He wasn't even trying. It was just… there.
This is basic. Too clean. They designed this to break before it breaks the user.
He blinked.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
Hikaru, across from him, was less focused on the console and more on the man pacing the room.
Panaka had gone silent. His eyes flicked between readouts on his personal datapad and the boys' profiles — or lack thereof.
But Hikaru wasn't watching his eyes.
He was watching the shadows.
They kept feeling… off.
Every now and then, just for a split second, one of the room's corners looked deeper than it should. As if it wanted to stretch.
It was the same feeling he'd had earlier by the water — that crawling static under the skin. Not fear. Not even instinct.
Just… pressure.
You're not supposed to be here, it seemed to say.
"You're from the Outer Rim, maybe," Panaka muttered aloud. "That would explain some of the data gaps."
Neither responded.
"Rim worlds often use stolen IDs. Slave chips. Implant wipes." He paused. "Maybe you were smuggled in. Maybe you escaped something."
He looked directly at Kira now.
"But you're too calm. Too curious."
Kira smiled weakly. "I like puzzles."
Panaka exhaled through his nose. It wasn't a laugh — not even close — but maybe it was the closest he ever got to one.
Then he slid the datapad across the table toward them.
"This is your story now. Write one."
They stared.
"What?"
"You're not showing up anywhere. Not in any Republic database, criminal archive, or trade route log. You're either ghosts or off-the-books."
He stepped back toward the wall.
"So unless you want the palace to start asking questions — and trust me, they will — you're going to give me something that makes sense."
Kira stared down at the pad.
Words blurred in his mind. Truth? Lie? Cover story?
He could feel the system ticking in his head. Not the datapad — his system. Like a quiet AI buried in his subconscious.
A prompt blinked inside him, unbidden:
[Tech System Activated]
Generate plausible cover story?
• Risk level: Low
• Acceptance probability: 83.4%
He hesitated.
[Y/N]?
He didn't tap anything.
He just… thought it.
[Y]
The system pulsed. Then, inside his mind, a fabricated identity unfolded like a military dossier:
Orphaned on Dorvalla.
Transported as stowaway through an Outer Rim shipping route.
Worked in salvage. Specializes in minor droid repair and starship wiring.
No birth records, abandoned during corporate conflict.
It even included a scannable ID code — one that, as far as the system was concerned, would pass inspection.
I didn't build this, Kira thought. It built itself.
He handed the datapad back without a word.
Panaka read it.
He didn't blink.
"Dorvalla. Hm. Trade Federation's still chewing on that system."
He scrolled.
"And you?" he asked, looking to Hikaru.
Kira shot him a glance. Careful.
But Hikaru just leaned forward slightly. His voice was steady. Almost quiet.
"I'm with him. I don't remember where I came from. But I'm not leaving him."
Panaka studied him for a beat longer. Then — surprisingly — nodded once.
"Fine. Your story's thin. But not impossible."
He powered down the datapad and tapped his comm.
"I want Level-2 civic passes issued to two unnamed minors. Temporary clearance. No ID implants. Facial tracking only."
A voice on the other end chirped in acknowledgement.
"You'll be monitored," he said simply. "Naboo doesn't take chances."
Kira nodded. "Fair."
Panaka stepped closer again.
"You'll check in every three days. A droid will find you. If you disappear, or if anyone starts asking about you that shouldn't…"
He let the threat dangle.
"...you vanish for real. Understood?"
"Crystal," Kira said.
"Good," Panaka said. "Now get out of my office."
🏙️ Theed Streets — Late Afternoon
The sunlight was warmer now, the kind that softened buildings into gold and shadows into velvet. As the boys stepped out onto the street again, they didn't speak for a while.
They just walked.
They weren't in chains.
They weren't in space.
But they weren't home either.
Finally:
"So that went well," Kira said.
"I don't think he trusts us," Hikaru said.
"He's not supposed to. He's got a neck made of security codes."
They turned a corner and slipped into a quieter alley, away from the foot traffic. Kira's eyes immediately scanned the walls — power conduits, vent routes, surveillance blind spots.
"We'll need somewhere off the grid."
"You think he'll let us disappear?"
"No," Kira said, crouching to inspect a power node near a sealed door. "But I'm not asking permission."
As he worked, Hikaru stood watch — but his gaze drifted up.
Above them, high in the Theed skyline, the clouds rippled unnaturally for a moment.
A ripple only he could feel.
His stomach turned.
"Hey," he said suddenly. "Did you hear that?"
"Hear what?"
"Like… something distant. A whisper. Not real sound."
Kira looked up. "Hikaru…"
"No, I'm serious. It was like… something said my name. But not out loud."
Kira stared at him.
"That's either a head injury," he said, "or the worst welcome package this galaxy's ever offered."
Neither saw the protocol droid down the street stop again.
Its optics glowed faint blue.
Inside its memory logs, a keyword had just tripped a flag:
"Hikaru."