Private Nar Shaddaan Nightmares

[Isar du Vain]

Clink. The first set of chains came apart beneath the plasma torch's searing heat and the prisoner - a little Chadra Fan - slumped to the ground, sobbing with fear and joy both and clung to Isar's leg, tears streaming down its face and upturned nose.

"Yeah, yeah. Move out of the way, you overgrown bat."

He moved on to the next one and cut half-way through when he heard the clank from behind and a robotic monotone that cut through the air, flat and cold. Isar's eyes widened.

Aw. Shit.

Blaster bolts churned through the air, in sharp, angry flashes of red that pocked the floor and wall and sprayed slagged duracrete into the air. Isar ducked low, looking for cover, even as he felt Alcariel at work. The Chadra-Fan twitched and started forward, induced by a wave of fear, and jumped in front of a blaster bolt meant for Isar. The little batman fell to the ground, body in tatters.

Isar's lips twisted, but he didn't have time to sort through any of this. They were fighting a droid, ok. Ok. Can't mind trick a droid. So, just shoot the droid. Isar dropped the plasma torch so he could grip the blaster pistol with both hands, aimed, and fired twice. The superheated plasma spat out the barrel, shrieking for the droid, then promptly struck a shimmering dome of energy encasing the droid and sizzled out.

Personal shield. Great.

<<Surrender, Rebel Scum.>>

Sael. Get down.

Isar ducked behind a crate. The droid's clanking footsteps were getting closer. He didn't recognize this model at all, some model of battle droid with a faded blue paint job.

All the prisoners were panicking at this point, adding their sobs to the mess.

"Alright, Big Blue. What do you want. We killed your owners. We can talk this out, yeah?"

<<Owners? Ha. Ha. Ha. This is my operation.>>

Now that monosyllabic laughter was just downright unsettling. Sweaty fingers tightened around the grip of his pistol. Alright, got it. Isar needed to buy another heartbeat as he drew the Force in a weave around himself and Sael.

This should buy us a second.

Clank. Clank.

The air around Isar and Sael warped and shimmered as he bent the lightwaves around them in a Disciple of Twilight technique.

The crate in front of Isar squealed as Big Blue simply drug it out of the way. The thin red strip of a photoreceptor paused, then Big Blue panned his head from side to side.

Isar didn't dare to breathe, but slowly got to his feet and took three steps toward the plasma torch. Cloaked by the bent lightwaves, there was no way for the droid to see him. Now if he could just grab the plasma torch, maybe -

<<Ha. Ha. Ha.>>

The Zeltron froze, hand extended toward the plasma torch.

<<Inefficient meatbag,>> Big Blue raised a charric it held in its other hand directly at Isar, <<Thermal residue.>>

Oh. Footprints.

Then an actinic blue maser beam erupted through his shoulder. His vision whited out and his bent lightwave illusion dissipated instantly. Isar stumbled backward. He felt a coldness creeping out from his shoulder, then a warm wetness, then a blinding pain. He smelled something. Like... like a bantha burger left in the microwave too long. Oh yeah. Microwaves.

<<Resistance is futile.>>

Isar swayed where he stood and let out an absurd chuckle. Violet eyes found Sael, an apologetic smile twisting up his mouth.

"Sorry, love."

The droid took a second to thumb a switch on the charric, then shot Isar in the chest. The beam was green. Isar fell limply to the ground.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

By the time Sael concealed herself behind an object traditionally found in a warehouse, she felt disaster encroach her peripheral awareness.

Only two heartbeats later, and Isar's apology drifted through her mind, mucking up the colours of the slaves and replacing them with an ocean of red dread.

No!

His body collapsed and the ocean overwhelmed her. The glitterstim made it unbearable. The threads flared neon-bright, reds and blacks so loud they screamed in her head. She gagged on it, the smell of cooked flesh and ozone twining into her synapses until she couldn't tell if it was real or just another colour in the net.

She clawed at the ocean, twisting the fear-threads together until they sang sharper, higher and forced it through the captives like a pulse of electricity, turning sobs into shrieks, shrieks into action. Shackled hands tugged harder, bodies surged against restraints. Those that Isar had already half-freed took the torch and continued his work, and those that wriggled free, Sael overtook with the strong desire to help the pink man who had helped them. Whatever they could get their hands on, they weaponized. Debris of all shapes and sizes hurled at the droid.

In her hand, the whip remained lit but useless. She didn't know its techniques. But someone here did. Her eyes caught on the figure slumped in the corner, leg twisted, knee blown out, eyes wide with pain. The whip's true master.

And his pain was like a wide open gap, fear of becoming something worse, something deader, an open invitation for Sael to infect and exploit.

She exhaled, moved as swiftly as she could across the space, avoiding stray shots with nothing but sheer luck and the — OW!

A sizzle slammed across the back of her calf and she spilled forward, yawping in pain.

But still, she crawled. Desperation, adrenaline and glitterstim making it possible.

When she reached her destination, the slaver, she hid herself behind his crumpled form mimicking his slowness with her own pain. She was inside him before he could resist, riding the rhythm of his fear and pain like a current.

Meanwhile, her fingers twitched around the hilt, and his arm, his broken body, lurched forward with sudden, unnatural grace.

The whip cracked alive, a long coil of fire, snapping against the droid's shield in an arc of blue-white sparks. Sael gasped, high on the echo of muscle memory that wasn't hers. She pulled tighter on his strings, forcing another lash, another flick. Elegant. Controlled.

"C'mon, you can lead the way, show me how you'd do this." she whispered, voice shaky with adrenaline and glitterstim, to the man whose body she was puppeting.

The whip cracked, blue-white coils sparking against the droid's shielding. For the first time its red optics flickered. The shield buckled, shimmered, spat sparks.. then flared back to life.

The N1 staggered a half-step, recalibrating. Its head turned with a hydraulic whine, and the grated voice boomed across the chamber:

<<Unexpected. Unacceptable.>>

It advanced, blaster-arm spitting wild bursts that slagged the floor where Sael had crawled. Each lash of the whip slowed it, but didn't stop it and every strike strained her stolen marionette harder, his broken body twitching like a puppet on frayed strings.

The droid's optics narrowed. Its second arm rotated forward with a screech of metal, revealing the charric. The shield flared brighter, drawing more power.

<<Resistance exceeds parameters. Escalation required.>>

It fired. A table of tools erupted in molten shrapnel. One slave screamed as a shard buried in her side — Sael felt it and flinched — another bolt vaporized a chunk of wall. The droid was clearing space, cutting her cover away piece by piece. If he caught her, he'd kill her. Or worse, she'd be enslaved again. This was its operation. Its slaves. She would be..its slave.

No. She could not be enslaved again. Not now. Not after learning about want, and power, and desire.

Sael felt the whip-man's terror spike along with her own, and nearly lost him in the flood. She forced another strike, another crack of fire against the shield. Sparks. Flicker. But the machine kept coming, unfeeling, inexorable.

Calf throbbing from the earlier shot, head ringing from the neon glare of threads pulling too many directions at once, she felt she might lose entirely. Fall back into servitude.

Until one of the neon threads glimmered, far, far, far away. Intentionally kept behind.

She tugged it fervently and begged urgency to the furred beast that they'd kept at the lift.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

Consciousness ebbed in and out as Isar lay on the ground, blood from his shoulder wound pooling beneath him. He saw and felt Sael fighting so hard against the droid, but the droid seemed relentless.

<<Force Users. High value.>> the droid said, almost as if to itself.

It fired in two directions at once, blowing through the skull of a man running at it with a plasma torch with the arm blaster, while the charric's maser beam burned through the stomach of the whip-wielding slaver who Sael controlled like a marionette. The droid dragged the charric back and forth, trigger depressed. Trying to cut the man in half.

<<Zeltron female, your rebellion is over.>> The droid whirred. <<I am Nerev'Ar. Know my name.>>

Blaster bolts and maser beams lit up the warehouse in a flurry of shots. Isar couldn't catch it all, his vision fading in and out. He could feel Sael's strength and her fear.

Another prisoner, still hanging from the chains, died with a blaster bolt precisely to the head. The droid's accuracy was unparalleled.

<<The more you resist, the more of them I will kill. Or.>> Clank. Clank.

Isar's eyes flickered. He looked up into the red glare of a photoreceptor looming over him and the business end of an arm-mounted blaster pointed at his face.

<<I, Nerev'Ar, can kill your Zeltron male. Surrender.>>

Darkness took Isar again and the last thing he glimpsed was another green flash of the charric's stun beam.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Fear became the most overwhelming thing she knew.

Those she'd empathized so deeply with, wanted so badly to free, were being used as fodder. Isar, her one friend, lay on the ground bleeding out. And all because this giant, massive machine, roamed beyond the borders of her power. She could not defend herself with the whipped man down. All she could do was stare, and feel, and despair.

​

Shame filled her bones as muscle memory took over, and she felt herself drop to the ground in surrender. Servitude imbued the motions of her arms outstretched, hands clasped above her head.

"Please don't." She begged, disgusted with how wet her voice sounded. How much those two words trembled.

"I surrender." Her head throbbed, and she felt more truth than ever in Isar's words from the Kaggath:

"Guess I should have mentioned," Isar said to her with a wan smile, "this shit'll kill you."

How horribly ironic. She'd come to show her power, and witnessed her own weakness. Come to free slaves, and quickly became one once more.

Still, she tugged that distant connection to the Lasat who seemed too far away now. Begging him to pay attention to her pleas and stay vigilent. Stay ready.

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Isar du Vain
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[Isar du Vain]

<<Predictable.>> The droid sounded almost disappointed.

Then it shot Alcariel in the chest.

The stun beam of the charric lit up the warehouse in a neon green.

* * *

When Isar woke, the first thing he noticed was that his head hurt so bad it felt like the worst hangover of his life. Well maybe not quite, there had been that time with the Twi’leks on Corellia. But definitely top three worst headaches of all time.

As his vision came into focus he found that he hung by a length of chain cuffing his hands to the pipe overhead. His feet didn’t even touch the ground. Beside him hung the rest of the prisoners, there were maybe three who were still alive - the rest were spread all over the warehouse floor in various stages of dead or dying, nothing more than scattered limbs and corpses with too many added meat holes.

Beside Isar hung Sael. She was alive. Huh. He felt… relief. Been a while since he’d felt that about seeing someone alive, usually it was more like “oh stars they’re still breathing and they want me dead.” Heh. Strange feeling. He’d chalk it up to the drugs. And the cigarra earlier. And the big hole in his shoulder that was screaming every time he shifted and was still leaking blood all down him.

The droid stood before the row of hanging prisoners, examining them the way a hunter might examine some slabs of meat he’d hung up in a walk in freezer.

<<You have regained consciousness. Positivity. Ha. Ha.>> the red photoreceptor stared at him.

Isar spat at the droid. “You ruined my favorite jacket, clanker.”

<<Bravado. Machismo. This will be enjoyable.>>

Strange, Isar didn’t know droids could enjoy anything.

<<You flatlined my security. The operation must be downsized.>>

Downsized?

The blue droid raised its charric and blew a hole through a hanging prisoner just beside Isar. He could feel the superheated air of the microwave beam and the smell of cooking flesh again and felt the rise of acid in his throat.

Isar looked away, lips curling in disgust, and turned toward Sael - her white hair a tangle about her carmine features. Regret pulsed through Isar like a wave. He’d done it again. Fucked it all up.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Suspended and imprisoned, the ache in her shoulders was not unfamiliar. The hang of her head like muscle memory. The frown heavy on her lips a common curve. Everything above her bellybutton hurt. Her chest from being shot, her shoulders from the unnatural strain, and her head from the glitterstim crash.

Why did she keep saying yes to drugs? Probably the only reason she hadn't thrown up on herself was because she'd been unconscious up until a few blinks ago.

Never had she foreseen this. And never had she known, or even considered, there to be an enemy she could not see. Every sentient glistened to her, all their unholy, disgusting, horrible thoughts out in the open and ready to be exploited. But this..this metal thing with a name operated entirely out of her orbit.

She couldn't foresee the actions before they came, the thoughts before they completed, so when the poor slave's head was blown backwards she wailed involuntarily.

Feet kicked, which only made for more strain in her wrists and white-hot tension shooting through her muscles.

"Hey, hey! You don't need to downsize. You don't need to start from scratch." She eked out, surprised by the dryness of her throat. Maybe she had thrown up at some point. Ew, did she have vomit somewhere on her?

All she wanted was all of the droid's attention. To buy minutes with its focus. To cause delay, because at the back of her mind, she was happy to find the swell of a connection being rebuilt. Unfortunately, in her unconscious state, the Lasat had the mind to head back up the elevator. But she caught him before he was completely on another floor or level.

"We're only valuable Force users when compared against those with no talents." Her chin pointed toward one of the few remaining slaves still alive.

"Then you have a baseline to negotiate upwards from."

The Lasat was making their way back down the elevator.

Once again, annoyingly, stopping at every. Single. Floor.

She sent a strained feeling through her connection to Isar, glimpsing into her plan and the desperate need to keep the robot stalled long enough for….something to go their way. Hopefully the giant fuzzy things with arms bigger than their bodies would be their ticket out.

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Isar du Vain
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​

 

[Isar du Vain]

<<Baseline? Baseline?>> the droid jammed the barrel of its charric into the mouth of another prisoner, who started kicking pitifully at Blue’s metal chasssis, the dull thuds growing weaker and weaker.

Blue’s red photoreceptor turned toward @Sael.

<<These are not even close to baseline.>>

It squeezed the trigger and there came another thwap of maser energy in a bright flash, followed by the sickening smell of cooking meat and tendrils of superheated steam wafting from the microwaved corpse.

Well. This was it. It really couldn’t get any worse, Isar thought.

Then the droid activated a vibroknife it had installed into its other arm and started on one of the last remaining prisoners.

“Fuuuh,” Isar’s word cut out, throat constricting as the faint hum of the vibroknife was replaced by the objecting screaming of the N-1’s latest victim.

The droid made shushing noises until the screaming finally stopped.

Clanking steps carried it in front of Isar and he felt a chill run through him.

The droid stared at him for a moment.

<<Damaged goods. Further damage may render you… unmarketable.>>

The red photoreceptor pivoted to Sael.

<<You. You may still be marketable.>> It took a step toward her, holding up the vibroblade projected from its arm. <<No warranty. Lightly used. Cosmetic damage. Ha. Ha. Ha.>>

Isar started thrashing against his chains.

“Stop, you absolute clanker,” he snarled. Reaching out in the Force he hit the droid with a telekinetic shove that sent it stumbling sideways. Then he started working on the chains. There had to be a way free. Had to be.

Alcariel

 

[Alcariel]

​

Cosmetic damage sent her in a spiral of memories. The torture for entertainment she'd suffered and left her with the scar beneath her right eye.

Her mouth went dry, and she did what she could to worm her way backward, or away, or at least achieve the sense of distance, from the vibroblade.

Isar interfered and bought her enough space to exhale.

His interference was to both their benefit. The stumble of the droid was well-timed with the thud, thud, thud, tackle! Of the Lasat that had been making their way to Sael's beacon.

With a loud clatter the droid crashed to the floor. The Lasat focused on the first problem, the vibroblade, first. Massive fists wrapped around the killer-droid's joints and with a heave-ho yank, brutally twisted it to an unnatural angle of sparks and wires.

Because Sael didn't know anything about combat, her control over the Lasat was only to push it to the point of ferality and embrace the animalistic side of its species to maim and kill. Use its size to its advantage as it contested with the horror on the floor.

The struggle went on until the last sizzle and the last breath. Sael felt the Lasat disconnect from her the instant the droid got in the last shot before powering down, and the brute slumped atop it, breathless.

She exhaled a shuddery breath.

"Feth."

In vain, she stretched out a leg toward the Lasat, as if to poke it with her toe. She couldn't reach.

Her mind was still a clusterfeth from the crash of the drugs — "I can't tell if he's dead or not."

A pause.

“Either of them.”

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Isar du Vain
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