In time they came to a series of small, sparely furnished personal quarters where clothing still hung in closets, where beds remained unmade. The whole facility felt to Jaden like a doll's house in which a child had lost interest and just left off in mid play.
He examined the clothing and shoes in the closets. In addition to ordinary clothing, he found a neatly pressed Imperial uniform and several lab coats. The label sewn onto the coat's breast read DR. BLACK.
"Thrawn-era uniform," Jaden said, noting the cut of the cuffs, the rank insignia. "Imperial Medical Corps."
"Medical corps?" Khedryn said, his breathing a bit too rapid. "A bioweapons research lab, you think? I did not think to scan for an aerosolized bioweapon."
"You had no reason to," Jaden said. "And what's done is done. If there were something in the air, we'd be suffering effects already. I feel fine. You?"
"Fine."
"Then I think we're all right."
"Maybe we should put our helmets back on."
"We're all right."
Khedryn seemed to accept that, and the two of them searched the chest of drawers, the side table. Jaden felt awkward pawing through another's personal effects, but saw no other choice. He rifled through toiletries, a reading light, a gift set of novels on data crystals inset into an elaborate box. Eventually Khedryn pulled a personal vidlog from the back of one of the drawers.
"Here," he said in an excited tone. He tapped at the buttons, soft at first, then harder. "Not functional. With some time Marr could probably recover the data."
"Leave it," Jaden said. He started to move on when something struck him and halted him in his steps. He looked around the room to confirm his thought, then spoke it aloud.
"There are no pictures."
"No what?"
"No pictures, no holograms, no vids. Of friends, family. Look around."
Khedryn turned a circle, his eyes askew. "You're right. Maybe they took them with them?"
"Maybe," Jaden said, but thought not. They seemed to have left in a hurry, abandoning all manner of personal effects. They would have left at least some pictures or holograms.
"Let's keep moving," Jaden said.
They soon came upon a recreation room where two card games and a match of sonic billiards appeared to have ended abruptly. Khedryn examined the cards at one of the tables.
"Sabacc," he said, and flipped over the cards for all but one of the hands. "Cheap deck and not a good hand among them. Unlucky bunch." He seemed to hear his words only after he said them and colored at their implication. "At cards, I mean."
A galley off the recreation room still had sludgy caf in two of the pots, stores of dry goods, fresh food long rotted. Jaden eyed the walls and saw a large square speaker beside one of the air filtration vents. He imagined an alert blaring out of it, everyone leaving what they were doing to respond, but ultimately fleeing the facility in a hurry.
Assuming they had gotten out. He was no longer so sure.
"What is this place?" Khedryn said, his outstretched arms taking in the whole of the complex. "Have you noticed that there's nothing to indicate what it is? Nothing. But Imperials used to put labels on everything. Normally the hallway walls would be crowded with written directions and arrows pointing to weapons lab this, research area that. This place is secret even from itself."
Jaden agreed. Something about the facility felt off. Too secret.
"There has to be a central computing core," Jaden said. "Let's find it."
Continuing through the corridors, they found still more sleeping quarters for laboratory personnel. The lab coats again had names sewn onto the breasts. After seeing a few more the pattern became clear-DR. BROWN, DR. RED, DR. GREEN, DR. GRAY.
"What the kark?" Khedryn asked, holding up another lab coat to read the name-DR. BLUE.
A picture started to develop in Jaden's mind. "None of them knew the real names of the others. That's why there are no pictures or holograms in their quarters. Nothing personal, nothing with which one could later identify another."
Jaden knew that at some top-secret Thrawn-era facilities the participating scientists would be forced to endure surgical alterations of their facial structure while on assignment, changing back to themselves only after their work was completed. None would be able to recognize another afterward. He wondered if that had happened in the facility, and if so, why.
"And no instructions on the walls," Khedryn said. "Visitors knew nothing. Probably the doctors had the facilities map imprinted into their memory." He licked his lips nervously and stared at Jaden for a long moment, even his lazy eye fixed straight ahead. "I think we should leave, Jaden. There is something wrong here."
Jaden agreed, but he could not leave, not yet. "I cannot, Khedryn. But you are not obliged to remain."
Jaden saw shame and resolve battle in Khedryn's expression. His fingers opened and closed reflexively over the handle of his blaster. His lazy eye floated off for a time before returning to fix on Jaden's face.
"I said I was with you and I'm with you. Blast it, if Marr can fly into Harbinger with Relin, I can walk some abandoned halls with you."
"Thank you," Jaden said, moved by Khedryn's loyalty.
"What do you think they were working on here?"
"Something high priority. Top secret."
"Something dangerous."
"Yes."
They continued on, caution slowing their progress. Eventually they passed through a large botanical garden where cold-stiffened, time-browned vegetables and flowers sagged in their pots like desiccated corpses. Sunlamps hung from the ceiling, eyeballing the death of their charges. The faint smell of soil and organic decay filled the cavernous garden.
They walked through, trying not to smell the death, seeking the central computing core. They passed what Jaden figured to be a barracks: wall-mounted double racks, military-issue blankets, a central table for recreation. Bits of stormtrooper armor lay strewn about here and there. None of the armor exhibited unit identifications. Jaden imagined the troopers had been elite soldiers plucked from various units to serve as security in the facility. They would have been mind-wiped after leaving the facility, he imagined.
A weapons locker adjacent to the barracks had only empty racks save for a lonely BlasTech E-11 on one of the rungs, a heavy blaster commonly used by stormtroopers. Jaden and Khedryn left it alone.
They passed through more corridors, more rooms, but Jaden barely saw them. He wanted to reach the central computing core. He would find an answer there, if anywhere, to the question of the facility's purpose.
"Look at this," Khedryn said, nodding at the walls.
Jaden came back to himself and saw what had caught Khedryn's eye. Scorch marks on the walls, lots of them, even a few on the ceiling. Khedryn ran his gloved fingers over them.
"Blasterfire," Jaden said.
"Looks like quite a battle," Khedryn said. He turned about, examining the walls, floor, ceiling. There were marks everywhere. "Some wild shots taken here. Desperation fire."
"Yes," Jaden said. "Let's keep moving."
The signs of a pitched battle grew more pronounced as they continued deeper into the complex. More scorch marks from blasters, entire suits of stormtrooper armor cast in pieces across the floor with holes in the chest or helmets.
"No bodies," Khedryn said, toeing an empty breastplate. "Pieces look scattered, as if by an animal." He crouched on his haunches and studied a breastplate. He picked it up, put his finger through a narrow hole that showed only the smallest scorch ring around the entry. "Look at this. What kind of blaster makes that neat of an entry wound?"