Star Wars The Clone Wars: Cuy'Val Dar#Wattys2016

Twenty-Three

A/N: Guys, this book has his 1K reads today! Thank you to all of the readers/supporters of this book! It is the first book I've ever written to reach 1,000 reads before completion. May God bless you all and I hope you continue to read and enjoy the book! Thank you! (Please excuse my overuse of exclamation points, I'm just so excited!!!)

Ari whirled around and jerked his arm from the grip of his captor. He found Bogie standing beside him and both were inside of one of the shops standing face to face with a Mirlan man who was holding the door shut and listening closely as the droids passed by. Ari suddenly realized what the man had done and he relaxed some. The droid passed by without making any trouble and the Mirlan man also relaxed, then turned to Ari and Bogie. 

"You Republic soldiers?" he asked in a thick native accent and with broken Basic.

"We are," Ari said, stepping forward some.

"You save us from droids?" The man continued, one of his tattooed eyebrows raising in question.

"That's what we're here to do," Ari assured him. The man smiled and gestured for both of the troopers to follow him.

With a smile, the shopkeeper said, "I help soldiers beat droids."

"What soldiers?" Bogie asked, following after Ari and the shopkeeper. The man turned and gestured to Ari and Bogie. Ari glanced back.

"He's saying he wants to help up."

The shopkeeper nodded and pointed to a dark corridor. Ari waved Bogie forward and the two of them followed the Mirlan man down the corridor. It led to a staircase that led downwards.

"Where does this go?" Bogie asked the shopkeeper.

"Underground," he told them.

"Where underground?" Ari pressed.

The man tried to make some weird gesture with his hands, then he said, "Base. Big base."

Ari quickly turned to Bogie. "He's saying this leads into the droid base." He glanced back at the shopkeeper, who was smiling again at hearing Ari's excited tone. He nodded quickly.

"We need to tell Sarge and the General," Ari told Bogie, then he turned to shopkeeper.

"What's your name?" he asked. The man straightened up.

"Dresil. Gryom Dresil." He bowed in formality. Ari nodded.

"Alright. We need to contact our superior. May we stay here to keep safe from the droids?" he asked, trying to keep his basic as simple as possible so the man could understand, although he seemed already to understand most of what they were saying, he simply couldn't speak it very well.

"Yes. You need transmitter?" Dresil asked. Ari shook his head.

"No, but thank you. We have a transmitter."

Dresil nodded and then closed the door to the stairway and led them to a small room that was completely empty. There he showed them where they could set up their transmitter. Ari thanked him again while Bogie started putting the machine together.

"Do you have any family?" Ari asked Dresil while Bogie worked. Dresil shook his head.

"All dead."

"I'm sorry," Ari said quietly. Dresil shrugged and stood by the door while Bogie finished up assembling the transmitter. When he was done he turned it on and Sarge's holographic image came up above the transmitter.

"Where are you two? You should be heading back," Sarge said quickly.

"We got ourselves into a bit of a fix trying to get inside the city and it's taken us longer than we estimated to find the control base. However, sir, we have some good news."