Saedah was on scullery duty again. It was becoming a regular chore, and he was growing to prefer it over other jobs such as cleaning or stocking the storages. This job was mindless but constant work. Since it was such an automatic, rhythmic chore, there were few times he would get the buzz of the collar or the snap of a whip. He wasn't allowed in the kitchen proper, after the first - and only - visit. There were too many weapons available within easy reach. Too many opportunities to do some real damage. Poisoning the whole of the Keep came to mind.

Instead, he stood at a long metallic table. Clean pots and pans hung from hooks above his head, while dirty ones sat in stacks along the table. The enormous, industrial-sized double basin threatened to overflow with more dirty dishes to the left of the table. The water was ripe, as the bubbles had long ago vanished. It needed to be drained and refilled.

If the head slave, the Ceeder, came in, he would probably meet the whip again over the poor state of the station. The tall, rotund Neofei male let the power of Ceeder go to his overly inflated shaved head. He treated the slaves as though he'd never been one of them. Saedah couldn't bring himself to care much of what that brainwashed bastard thought, especially right then.

Things that morning had gone from bad to worse for the whole of the slave forces throughout the day. It all worked out just as well for Saedah, though. In a manner. He would turn it all into fuel to feed the fire of his anger and use it as a center, keeping his dwindling resolve from breaking under Akumini.

The Ceurish male, Rehsh, had been little more than a child.

A child.

The boy had still had hope. He'd still had his juvenile spirit and had not let his imprisonment discourage his ideals of a future. He'd held onto the nieve hope of freedom.

Saedah hadn't felt so alive in a long, long time. Ironic that it took the death of one poor soul to rejuvenate his own. It had been months since last he thought of escape. Suns, how many months had it been?

He started on the math, marking a scratch in the greased bottom of the pan beside him as he mentally recalled and counted the weekly shipments.

Roughly 43 weeks, give or take a few, after his arrival on the planet or satellite. The first month or so was absolute chaos and he didn't recall time too clearly. 43 weeks. Roughly ten months, just as the hateful doctor had said. He had become far too docile. Too tame. Too used to being Lady Akumini's pet.

Too accustomed to the 'playtime' with her.

Well, Saedah thought, I think ten months is enough.

He was tired. The Ghosts weren't coming for him. They were alive, from what Akumini told him. But they either counted him dead, or simply could not find him.

He rubbed his fingers over the scarred portion of his left arm. This was where they'd removed the tracker, welded his bones together, and did a shoddy job of muscle and nerve reconstruction. His arm was bent at a slight angle. He could still feel his pinky and ring fingers, as well as his thumb tip. They hurt, even if the appendages were long gone.

Feeling the bumps below the scars, he couldn't help but wonder how the Ghosts could have possibly found him without the tracker. Hells, even he didn't know where the hells he was.

Boots echoed down the corridor. He turned his eyes to the eight guards filing into the scullery.

And cue the bastards, he thought.

"On yer feet, ya filthy shits!" the front guard growled, pulling the oldest female to her feet by her short, choppy hair. She screamed as he flung her through the door. Saedah heard a sickening crunch from the hallway. "Cell changes, ya ugly shits."

Saedah couldn't help but huff at the lackluster and brainless insults. It drew the eyes of the guard, who hesitated before turning to less 'troublesome' targets. It was then that Saedah realized he had shifted his stance. His body, weakened, disused and abused, still remembered the ways of the Ghosts. Of battle. Of being the legendary Dirge.

However, Saedah wasn't sure Dirge had survived at all. He had declined badly, after all. He was an addict. He was weak. Here, he was little more than a malnourished, drugged slave in nothing but dirt and a glorified Loincloth. His gimped arm, three fingers trembling from nerve damage, completed the picture. It was easier to just… not. Not think. Not try. Not Hope. That knowledge had previously done nothing but cull his temper and depress him. Now it stoked his hatred.

His hatred and anger bled together. He hoped it was not that of an explosive force, building below the surface. That kind of anger blew itself out quickly. What he needed was slow, calculating anger that would burn all the hotter without consuming itself. He knew he would not survive the event, but he would not die as a cowed slave.

For the first time in months, he practiced the Calm. It flickered in response.

They had been kept on shift longer than usual, by well over six hours. This was without any rest or food. This had happened only once before and the prospects were not good in any aspect.

Saedah created what buffer he could between the younger, shaking females and the leering guards, as the remaining ten slaves in the room had to squeeze past. When he reached the hallway, he bent and helped the elderly woman to her feet. She was new, likely from the same crew as the boy. Her hip ground as she attempted to put her weight on her left leg. She whimpered, and Saedah closed his eyes on the sad reality, hearing the grind.

The guard behind him heard as well, recognizing the tell-tale broken hip. She was completely and utterly useless to them as a slave now. She still wouldn't be put down gently, for the deranged minds of the keep would see to their entertainment first. The guard reached around Saedah, gripped the woman's hair again and drug her from his limp hands.

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He fought against the condemning emotions at her sobs and pleading, outstretched hand. Her look of fear and betrayal would haunt his dreams. Another anguished cry reached his ears, from the group behind him. He turned, seeking the gut wrenching sob. One of the younger females, clinging to a near mirror image of herself, did a poor job of muffling her anguish.. She was pale-haired and bore a blotchy cream and white pattern to her shin. At a few whispered words from her twin, a pale-haired, blank gazed, and sunburned girl with a slightly darker pattern to her skin, the whimpering girl drew in a breath and set her shoulders. The two shared a look. They had to be sisters. The smaller, teary-eyed girl breathed deep and seemed to settle her mind somewhere far, far away. Saedah had seen that look many times.

Good girl. He thought. You're gonna need that to survive around here.

They were roughly the same age as the boy, brought in with the same shipment. They were mix-breeds judging from the Vitiligo to their skin. Saedah wasted a few moments attempting to pinpoint their races. Ceurish, and what? – certainly not Baultoni. They were too small. They may have been human, or any of the other humanoid species. They weren't anything so extreme as the Agmidi or Pteroisians, though.

As the elderly woman was drug away, the remaining six guards returned to leering at the young women, pushing the cluster down the winding passageways to the cells. Inappropriate groping in the guise of 'authoritative guidance' was suffered in silence. The four slave men of this crew maneuvered themselves to take up positions similar to Saedah's, attempting to create a wall between the guards and the five women. This did not go unnoticed, and received amused and aggravated taunts aimed at the whole lot of them.

There were ten slaves to six guards. Had the other slaves had any sort of weapon, strength, combat training, or confidence in any measure, they might have been able to overpower the light-forsaken idiots. However, even if they managed to miraculously overpower those six guards, they wouldn't find freedom. The entire keep was was full of the vile bastards.

As it was, Pompous McDickBiscuit was beginning to enjoy his intimidation factor just a tad too much for Saedah to stomach. He was forced to bite his tongue against the retorts and retaliation bubbling in his throat. They would only serve to get yet another killed. He would not hasten the death of another innocent.

Not yet.

They walked the halls with only the taunts and mockery breaking the silence. The halls slowly changed from clinical white and modest decorations to the tarnished, stained décor of the slave wing. They turned down a faintly familiar hallway at the northern end of the property, if he was correct. Then they reached the cells. These were the first cells he had been forced into those many months ago. Interesting, he mused, two rotations?

His cell, by order of the Lady, was the solitary cell. They wouldn't place him in a cell with another slave. They had to protect the value of the property, after all.

Of course, this put his cell at the end of the block. The last to be locked in. That was likely an oversight in design.

The guards, locking the others away, apparently felt secure in their safety. They turned their backs to Saedah. He almost scoffed as they appeared to have forgotten about him. To their credit, he had been reserved for far too long, content to do their bidding and not incur their wrath.

Then one of the guards grabbed one of the pale-haired sisters around the neck, drew her close, and buried his face in the girls' hair, murmuring things Saedah couldn't make out. The look on her face said it all, though. Another guard snatched her sister around the waist as she made to attack the man assaulting her sister.

The second guard pulled her back flush with his front, placed a chubby, veiny, shovel-sized palm on each side of her hips and gyrated into her. He was guffawing like a braying donkey, sounding like he was a few brain cells short of fully operational.

When the first girl cried out, Saedah noted the man had backed her to the bars, hand still about her throat. He raised her shirt above her breasts, and pinched a nipple with his heavy gloved paw, enjoying the pain and anger on her face.

The first guard was not ugly, not like his fellow predator with the other sister. He had a look about him that would have gained the attention of many women, if the man was inclined to go to a bar or club. Even joining the many dating services or Companionships would have earned him as much attention as he wanted. His ugliness was in his mind. He didn't want a willing participant. He didn't want to see someone enjoying his attention. He wanted to see someone break under him. Saedah was too familiar with the man and his attentions in the cells.

The two soldiers closest to the cell-block entry were grinning like morons, but the other two came around to common sense. They looked around and took a double take at Saedah before removing their batons. They decided to prod Saedah and the remaining three men toward their cells and away from the 'show'. Saedah gave ground, believing it would be better to fight another day. Then he met the first girls' pleading eyes. Eyes the same pale bluish-purple as Citram's, framed in the same pale blond hair. The gloved hand moved south, slowly over her stomach, disappearing inch-by-inch into her skirt. A tear rolled down her cheek.

Saedah stopped, hung his head, and sighed. He squeezed his eyes shut, growling out the frustrating agony of the stupidity he was about to unleash.

One of the two guards actually doing their jobs, Target 2, was opening a grated door for the remainder of the slaves. The other, Target 1, nudged Saedah in the shoulder with his baton.

Once.

"Come, now. Don't do anything stupid." He nudged Saedah with the baton for a second time. On the third, Saedah spun, grabbed the baton and jerked, hard. The forward momentum unbalance the guard. With speed fed from pent-up rage, he smoothly grabbed Target 1 as he stumbled and used the continuing momentum to flip the shocked bastard into Target 2. They both landed in a heap inside the cell, with two of the male slaves leering down at the dazed guards.

Saedah turned his attention to the other four as the slaves looted the batons. The sound of metal against soft tissue echoed around him as he started the prowl. He never noticed the Calm wash over him.

The fight that ensued left Saedah in a bleeding heap. He was laughing, and it creeped the hell out of the last guard standing.

"Sonofabitch!" the guard spat in a high, frightened pitch, hobbling over to the wall to slump to the floor. "You're smutching mad!" one gloved hand was clamped over what was left of his ear.

Saedah just drew in a deep, rattling breath, spat out an earlobe, and rehearsed a piece of a song dedicated to Dirge on the free radios:

"For the many hell-ward sent,

Their foul sins I purge.

Twisted, burning souls lament,

I am the final Dirge." Saedah whispered.

"Di…" the guard's eyes bulged as the color drained from his face.

"Dirge." Saedah lumbered painfully to his feet, a baton in hand. He didn't remember picking that up. He watched with a small amount of enjoyment as the recognition and fear permeated his final target's soul. Saedah swung with all his remaining strength.

The guard was not swift enough to stop the baton from crushing his wind-pipe. He died trying to get air to pass through the collapsed esophagus. The last thing he would ever see was Saedah kneeling over him with a sinister smile.

The other slaves, having heard the whispered exchange, looked at Saedah with renewed respect, if not outright fear.

A loud clanking rattle, as something metallic hit and rolled on the floor, issued from the open Guards room at the other end of the corridor, nearest the stairwell. Saedah saw a shadow move as the door clicked closed.

He cursed as his body moved.