41:03:30 GrS
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"Rutting hell," groaned Sera as she came to. The back of her head throbbed. Her arms were stretched to either side, held fast with thick leather straps. The big Tassilite hovered behind her, sharp nails biting into her shoulder. On the other side, the long-necked reptilian from the crew at Enarc tapped a stun baton against his palm. She could see that it had been modified to deliver more painful shocks. He wore a crooked grimace and flicked a bluish forked tongue at her.
Sera had been stripped. She was pretty sure they hadn't noticed her prosthetic leg, or else they'd have removed it already. That might play to her advantage, at the right time. The room was cool enough that her breath was visible, and her skin prickled with the cold air.
Zorath Rawl stood in front of her. Just a look at him brought back terrors that she'd buried for a decade. Old memories assaulted her; the dark, brutal eyes, the stink of his breath, his sour smell, and... the weight of his body against a naked, bound girl, while he raped and beat her for hour after ghastly hour.
"Awake already?" He raised his hand to the smooth metal where the right side of his jaw should have been. "Sera Brasheer." He ground his thumb into the symbol that was branded just above her wrist, making her wince. "That's an Amberdyre mark. Told you we knew each other." He grabbed her jaw hard and jerked her head close to his scarred face. "Like your handiwork, Brasheer? I'd still like to know how you got your hands on those explosives. They were locked up tighter than a Senator's daughter."
Sera didn't have to fake the fear in her eyes. The atrocity of that day had lost a little of its paralyzing power over the years, but it still carried enough terror to make her quail. She felt sixteen again, beaten, violated, and humiliated. Then she was nothing but a powerless indenture for the Amberdyres, a plaything for their wealthy patrons, and an opportune target for cruel enforcers like Zorath Rawl. But she wasn't sixteen anymore, and she wasn't helpless. Sera wasn't going to let him know that, though. Not just yet, anyway. She knew fear, knew how to use it. She let out a whimper.
"Not talking, huh?" He snatched the stun baton from Snakeface and jammed it into her ribs. Sera wanted to scream, but the electrical shock yanked everything tight. Her jaw clenched so hard she thought her teeth would crack. After a few seconds, he let up. She slumped, wheezing and gasping.
Back at Arclight all of the Ballista trainees went through a three-week survival and evasion course. The 'survival' part included simulated torture— shocks, beatings, deprivation. The techniques they'd used in training weren't that far short of what she was experiencing now. A lot of the trainees never made it to the evasion part of the course; the survival curriculum proved too brutal. Through the haze of pain, Sera supposed going through all of that was a good thing.
Rawl handed the baton back and pulled his duster aside. Attached to his broad belt were half a dozen sheathed knives. He drew one of them, with a slender, upturned blade. "Remember these, Brasheer?" Her eyes went wide, even more fearful than before. The corners of Rawl's mouth curled. "Oh, yes you do! You and I are going to get... acquainted, again, and we're gonna have some fun with these."
He unbuckled the belt and laid it on a table, carefully arranging it so that he could draw the blades easily. There were other things on the table already; vibro-saws, cutters and shears, basins, and towels. He looked like he was preparing for a long session.
Rawl looked her up and down, letting his gaze wander over her naked body. "You've changed, Brasheer. Still tall, but you were just a stick of a girl then. Now look at you." He put his hands on her, metal and flesh, but both rough.
The revolting treatment lasted a minute and Sera kept her face impassive, though her breath quickened. She wasn't going to let the man see her revulsion.
"You know, I think I'll pick up where I left off last time," he said, and suddenly drove his finger down her throat. Sera choked and gagged, tears springing to her eyes as her stomach clenched. She wanted to clamp down with her teeth, but she knew it'd be useless against his cybernetic fingers.
Snakeface and Bonehead howled with laughter as she retched and coughed. Rawl slapped her across the jaw, hard. Her face, already swelling from his previous punch, stung even more, and she grunted from the pain. New tears blurred her vision, but she noticed the table where he'd laid out his array of terrible cutting tools. Her guns were there, too. If she could just get to one of them...
Rawl looked at his two subordinates. "Get out."
"You sure, Bossss?" hissed Snakeface.
Rawl waved his knife at the lanky reptilian. "Sure I'm sure, unless you want me to use this on you, too."
The male held up his scaly, four-fingered hands. "Don't think so, Bossss." His tongue flicked from his long snout as he followed the Tassilite out. The door dropped solidly into place, locking with a heavy clang.
Turning back to the table, he reviewed his implements. "Now where were we?" He mumbled.
"You were about to kill yourself and save me the trouble," she managed through her battered jaw and swollen mouth. "How'd you survive, anyway?"
The man shrugged. "Blind luck, Brasheer."
Despite her circumstances and injuries, she regarded him with as much of a sneer as her beaten face could manage. "You got off easy."
"Looking to finish the job?" He glanced at the guns she'd brought with her. "That's some serious hardware for a girl to be lugging around, even one as buffed up as you. Decent shooting, too. What'd you do, run off and join some militia? Sign on with the Empire?"
"Something like that," she said, flexing her wrists against the leather straps. The buckles were solid, but the leather was dry and it had some give. It wasn't much, but there was a little play in them. She'd need some time, but Sera felt that she could free at least one of her hands. She'd have to do it while she was being tortured, though. The thought of that made her spine go cold and her heart thud heavily in her chest.
"Well, little girls shouldn't play with guns. Even not-so-little ones." He might have been smiling behind the respirator, but it only made him look more menacing. He tapped the surgical steel handle against the glowing lens of his cybernetic photoreceptor. "It hurt when they gave me this— a lot. How about we start there, Brasheer?"
Sera felt the rising panic as he brought the bright crescent blade closer. "No, no no," she repeated while he clamped his powerful cybernetic hand across her face.
"Now, don't struggle, or I might cut something I don't want to— yet," Rawl taunted.
He drew back his other hand and stabbed. Sera screamed.
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Taz wasn't sure how much the ancient Sith might know about his abilities, but he decided to chance a lie. "I've made crude attempts in the past to heal others, my master. Untrained, almost blind," he said in a deprecating tone. The last part, at least, was true.
"That ability, like any other in the Force, may be sharpened with practice and guidance."
"Would you provide such guidance to a poor youngling such as I, my lord?"
"If your service proves useful to me, perhaps, whelp."
Taz was intrigued. Despite his obvious corruption, a creature as old as Agonis, steeped in the Force for centuries, must certainly have valuable knowledge to impart. He decided to betray a little more of what he knew.
"Your subjects are dying. Their ability to create the endocranial fluid you're harvesting is nearly spent." He drew a breath. Allying himself with Agonis would almost certainly expose him to the dark side of the Force. He'd felt its power and seduction before, so completely that it had nearly consumed him. Taz repressed a shiver of disgust. "What service of mine would prove useful enough to warrant the gift of your tutelage, my master?"
Agonis's mouth stretched into a thin smile as he swept a hand across the room. "Sustain these subjects. Rejuvenate them."
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Taz's heart thumped uncomfortably against his ribs. "Of course, my master, but I've never healed a Rayeth before, and—" He shook his wrist in the manacle— "I need to touch them, to have physical contact."
"Nonsense," scoffed the Sith. "You can extend your senses into the Force, can you not? Healing is no different. It is merely a question of extending your energy along with your senses."
Never thought of that, Taz had to admit. Lesson number one, I guess. "I think I understand, my lord."
"You think?" Agonis mocked, striking him across the face again, though not as viciously as before. "You lack conviction, youngling! Trust in your power to command the living Force! Compel its obedience by the strength of your will!"
Taz worked his aching jaw back and forth, though there was little he could do about the blood that flowed from his cut lip. "Shouldn't I let it guide me, Master?"
Agonis's tentacles twitched with disgust. "Guide you? Bah!"
Taz recoiled, steeling himself for another blow from his captor, but Agonis only glowered at him.
"Such are the weak-minded mewlings of a Jedi! True power must be seized from the Force, young Oktos! It cannot be gained through supplication."
Every lesson in Master Jorun's journal stressed the danger of trying to command the Force. That, the Jedi repeatedly wrote, led inevitably to a fall into the madness of the dark side. Yet, what alternative was there? The Rayeths were dying and Sera's fate was unknown. He had to figure out a way to free them all, and that meant keeping them alive.
Taz swallowed hard. In as firm a voice as he could summon, he said, "I understand, my master."
"Good," stated the Sith. "Let us begin."
"Now?"
"You would disobey your master's command?"
As Agonis' drew his arm back, he hastily added, "Of course not, my master." He closed his eyes and settled against the hard steel, mumbling the Dahannist meditation until he felt a measure of calm.
Pushing outward with his senses, he found the Rayeths. He'd never touched more than one mind at a time, but he tried opening his perception, like he would if he were listening to multiple conversations in a crowded room. At first he received only a confused jumble of sensations, flashes of consciousness that weren't his own, and glimpses of distorted images that felt alien and horrific.
Steadying himself, he willed more stillness. He tried to filter out the disquieting sensations, and gradually they receded. He called forth the sensation he felt when he used the Force to examine someone's injuries, like he had with Lyra, Sera, and Varun. It took a minute for him to sense the health of all the Rayeths. It was vague at first, like looking through an unfocused lens, except there was a different lens for each Rayeth. Taz worked clumsily, stiff with concentration and effort. Eventually he sharpened his focus on the first of the adolescent amphibians. Then he moved on to the next, and the next, finding the task a little easier with each one.
Taz breathed a haggard sigh and cracked his eyes open. Agonis stared at him, looking impatient. "Your progress is woeful, whelp."
Excuses would probably only buy him more punishment. "Apologies, my master. I'll begin refreshing them now."
How can I do that? He summoned the healing energy as he'd done before, but instead of flowing it through his arms, he tried directing it along the conduit in the Force that connected him to the nearest Rayeth. It felt different, guiding it along the misty nothingness that constituted the Force. He sharpened his concentration and willed more control. He felt instant opposition from the Force, and he pushed even harder with his mind. The effort was painful, like a sharp, searing knife driven into his body. He yelped, nearly losing his concentration.
"You feel it, don't you, youngling? The Force, resisting your will. Command it! Turn the pain you feel to anger! From anger comes strength, and from strength comes mastery!"
Taz felt fear and trickles of cold sweat. Pain and anger. He'd felt them, in a dusty cantina on Jakku, and aboard Allegra's Heart. As soon as the memories materialized he could feel the familiar pull, the presence of the dark Force, very close to him. He'd told Sera he might not be able to come back if he entered those depths again, but he knew he had to, for the Rayeths and her. He knew how brutal a man like Zorath Rawl would be. Sera was strong, but even strong people could only take so much. The shadow drew closer; he let his anger, fear, and pain carry him right to the edge of the abyss.
Amazingly, Taz could feel the power of the Force, swirling in an untamable maelstrom scarcely more than arm's reach away. He stretched forth with his mind and formed all his mental strength into the will to command that power. The burning grew worse and he uttered pitiful cries through his clenched jaw, but he took more of the dark energy into himself, using the pain to transform it.
He alternated panting and painful gasps, but he was succeeding. The raw power of the Force transmogrified through his body into healing energy and flowed along his connection to the Rayeths. He could feel the young creature's strength returning, but with that renewal came terror and hopelessness. And under that, a seething hunger that seemed insatiable.
The shock of that realization jolted Taz so much that he let his control slip. The unfocused energy fed back to him with burning pain that made him scream until his throat felt lacerated by a thousand whips. At nearly the same instant he could feel Agonis's presence, powerful, sharp, and commanding in a way that Taz realized was well beyond any effort he might make. The difference in their abilities was like a breath and a cyclone, and despair joined with his building agony.
Fool of a youngling! chided the Sith, his thoughts stabbing into Taz's mind. He vomited from the overwhelming force of Agonis's mental probe. It will destroy you if you do not control it!
"Control would be easier if you'd get out of my head!" Taz hissed in a sudden burst of rage. He struggled to regain command, heedless of antagonizing his captor.
"Good," Agonis said, his voice rising triumphantly. "I feel your fury, young Oktos. Good! Do you not relish it? USE IT! Turn it into strength and dominance!"
Taz strained against the sharp metal shackles, felt the edges cutting into his flesh, and it only fed his anger. Through the stabbing, the furious heat and suffering, he gained a perverse insight into the workings of the Force. With each passing instant the trauma grew, but so did his power and his control. He channeled all of his emotions— anger, turmoil, despair— into a single focused desire for command.
And the Force obeyed. He could feel its obstinance, but it was obeying him. He pushed more of it through his body, willing the metamorphosis from pure raging power into modulated healing energy. He tried splitting it, sending it along two of the channels connecting him to the Rayeths. It balked at him, feeling like thick lava in his veins. His tortured screams reverberated off the walls until his throat refused to work any more; he felt like his bones were being ripped out of him. If not for the brackets around his limbs he'd have collapsed from the effort and agony. His eyes flung open, glowing a sickening yellow, rimmed in angry crimson. His cries became a stream of barely audible ugly curses that filled the room. He scrabbled at the steel frame, ripping his nails until his fingers ran with his blood.
"Excellent, my young apprentice!" shouted Agonis. Taz was dimly aware of the lights in the chamber flickering. Somewhere out of sight came the sound of overloading circuits and rumbling explosions, but his focus was almost entirely consumed within the black whirlwind of Force energy that threatened to escape his control with every passing instant. He struggled, shouting and swearing furiously, just managing to keep the flow of converted dark power pouring into the Rayeths as he opened up more channels— "three, four... six... nine," he managed through the supernova that engulfed him. "Twelve!" he finally rasped.
All around him the captive Rayeths jerked and spasmed against their bindings as they received the transfusion of Force-fueled vitality. It was harsh, raw and stinging, but their bodies regained their youthful vigor second by second until they were screaming along with him in a terrible chorus of agony and hopelessness.
HL-0T looked up from the bank of monitors connected to the Rayeths. "My lord Agonis, Engineering reports the stealth circuits have failed, along with a number of secondary systems. And I believe the subjects have had as much... treatment as they can tolerate."
"Youngling!" snapped Agonis. "Desist. Now."
Taz fixed his raging eyes on the Sith. "As you command, my master," he seethed, cutting off the energy he was feeding to the Rayeths. The power of the Force kept surging though, and he let it saturate his tissues, his muscles and bones and sinews. The fury he'd used to seize control of the Force was still there and it filled him with terrible power.
"I've exceeded my apprenticeship," Taz's restored voice resounded off the chamber walls, gutteral and alien. His body tensed and jerked but he felt unimaginable euphoria and invincible power.
Yes! Why should you bow to anyone? Let him feel your wrath!
The steel bands holding him to the frame burst apart in a shower of sparks and molten metal. Taz clawed at Agonis but the mantis droid skittered between them and swept its huge forearms toward his head. He wore a twisted, menacing grimace as he caught the metal arms in mid-strike. For a moment, man and machine struggled, evenly matched. Then the raging glow in Taz's eyes grew even wilder and he began forcing the droid's arms apart. Its servos shrieked while it tried to compensate, but fueled by resonant rage, Taz's strength only grew. With a sudden grinding noise the mantis droid's arm joint shattered, spewing a shower of angry orange sparks.
HL-0T issued an alarmed shout that lasted only as long as it took Taz to slam the heavy arm into the droid's head, bursting the shiny housing and sending one of its segmented eyes flying across the room.
"Master, save me!" buzzed HL-0T's smashed vocabulator but Agonis only stood by, intrigued. Taz's mindless assault continued for terrible seconds until the droid lay in a pile of jagged components. Bleeding from a multitude of self-inflicted lacerations, he turned his hateful gaze on Agonis and raised HL-0T's arm for a strike at the Sith.
"That's enough, whelp," pronounced the alien. Blue-white lightning arced from his splayed fingers. Taz jerked under the assault, his skin blistering beneath his singed clothing. After a few seconds of the attack, Agonis looked surprised that Taz was still standing. With a sweep of his arm he sent the man sailing through the air, crashing into the heavy machinery.
Taz slammed hard into the unyielding metal and thudded to the floor. His chest moved shallowly, tiny groans escaping his bleeding lips. One arm was twisted behind him at an unhealthy angle, shattered from the terrific impact.
Agonis stood over Taz's still-smoking body, his robe fluttering around his legs. "Most interesting, youngling. Heal yourself if you can, or die." Then he turned and exited through the arch.
On the floor, Taz's body didn't move.