Kylo Ren hated bacta. It lent itself to claustrophobic madness. He'd only been submerged in a bacta tank twice before in his life, and each time he was convinced the sticky, viscous fluid would suffocate him before the healing process was complete. This time was no different.
He opened his eyes as his mind flitted on the verge of consciousness. The world around him was nothing more than a pink, blurred haze, and he wasn't sure if it was the sedative qualities of the regenerative bio agent or the multitude of his injuries that likely landed him in the column that prevented him from escaping the purgatory between dreams and reality.
His limbs dangled weightlessly, and the only thing he heard was the rhythmic air exchange through the breathing regulator inserted into his mouth and perhaps the distant beat of his own heart. He tried to focus on the bubbles escaping the mouthpiece every time he exhaled, but the darkness called to him again, that inky black oblivion of unconsciousness reached through the bacta to pull him back under.
Kylo struggled to remain awake. Bacta therapy was supposed to be peaceful, perhaps even blissful. At least that's what he read when he was younger. Quiet and nurturing, the very nature of the fluid was supposed to generate healing environment.
But not for him. His master saw to it. Snoke was always there in those folds between awareness and dreams to remind him of his failures. The bacta didn't excuse him from the discipline he deserved for his mistakes. Rather the bacta became the discipline. Where there was supposed to be a calming analgesia that numbed all of the pain and quieted the mind, he only found reprimand and agony.
As his eyes slipped shut, his master whispered to him. Kylo couldn't quite make out the words, but they never ceased. Disappointment, anger, punishment. The same condemnation that had taken the place of his master's empowering encouragement so many years ago, the same condemnation he had heard every day of his adult life. He was supposed to be the Supreme Leader's shining accomplishment but once again he was reminded that he was Snoke's greatest failure. And in that purifying pain of punishment was where his master wanted him to find the enlightenment that continued to elude him.
Somewhere along the way, he could no longer distinguish between reality and dream. In that moment his head exploded in pain, overpowering, and every nerve in his body felt like it had been set on fire with a thousand unseen flames, as if he was being burned from the inside out. He weakly thrashed his limbs in an attempt to desperately claw his way to the surface, but his arms and legs gained no traction in the viscous fluid. In the muted distance, he felt his foot strike against a curved wall.
The claustrophobia was overwhelming. Even the breathing apparatus strapped to his head was suffocating him beyond belief. His chest ached for oxygen, and his heart pounded against his ribcage. He was certain it wasn't air that filled his lungs but rather molten lead. He fumbled at the strap that secured the regulator in place, but his fingers did not have the strength to tear it from his face. There would be no escape. Surely he would burn to death while he drowned simultaneously.
His weakness betrayed him again. In his head he cried for help, for mercy, for anyone to come and save him. He begged for respite, for death, for anything, for this all-consuming pain, this choking and suffocating fear to end.
Kylo Ren wrestled one last time with the envelope of awareness. He opened his eyes only to see the angry flurry of bubbles dance around his face as he screamed into the regulator, and the ragged sound of own voice hung trapped in the bacta's syrupy matrix.
At that moment, his prayers appeared to have been answered. The tank slowly began to descend into the floor below him as he continued to hang from the harness that held him in place and the remnants of the bacta dripped from his limbs. His arms and legs suddenly felt very heavy. A hatch closed over the floor, sealing the column of bacta off from the transparisteel tube that still encased Kylo Ren. He didn't have any time to react. Cold jets of water sprayed from above and below. They stung against his bare flesh, rinsing his hair and skin from the bacta that still clung to it. The water was freezing cold, and he turned his head to the side in a desperate attempt to avoid the worst of the blast to his face.
He was shivering by the time the jets cycled off and the outer wall of the therapy tank also descended into the floor. The lights in the room powered on, and brightness hurt his eyes. He put up no struggle as he felt the harness holding him in place lower him toward the ground and two sets of hands removed the weighted belt from his waist. They grabbed him and pulled him over to a waiting gurney. The team of technicians quickly unbuckled the regulator and retrieved the nose clip, lifted his head to remove the strap and disengaged the mouthpiece while another tech freed him from the shoulder harness.
Kylo's breath came in ragged gasps, and he couldn't stop shaking. He was no different than a newborn – completely naked, soaked and overwhelmed by the harsh world around him. So very cold, he could feel his skin erupt with goosebumps everywhere, and he was powerless to stop his teeth from chattering and the rigors from laying claim to his body. The techs wasted no time and began to towel him down. Even though they quickly dried him off with clinical efficiency, they seemed to ignore that he was even there and had no regard for comfort.
He all but cried out as the towel scrubbed the tender area on his left flank. The bowcaster wound was still fresh and not fully healed. As much as he hated bacta, he wished he'd been allowed to remain in the tank a little longer so that the blaster wound could have been erased entirely. But the Supreme Leader would never let that happen. He'd never allow the bacta to remove the pain and scars completely. Each scar was a reminder, a lesson unto itself, Snoke had taught him years before. The bacta would save his life again, there was no question about it. But the scars would remain a daily reminder of his past transgressions. He'd live with the puckered scar on his side as well as the gash that carved his face in two forever.
Kylo rolled to his right side, the journey sapping him of any energy that still remained in his body. He was beyond exhausted. Sleep called to him like a beautiful siren in the distance, but he knew that as well as nourishment would be something he would not see for a while. The lesson Snoke wanted him to learn was not complete. There was never time for inane comforts when his master wanted his undivided attention. He knew that rest and even his next meal would not come until the Supreme Leader was satisfied that the light that still stubbornly flickered inside him like a hidden flame as well as the vestiges of that weakling Ben Solo shone just a little less.
He had failed his master. He deserved what he was receiving, he feebly reminded himself. And in that solitary agony, his master would reveal the tender mercies of his lesson. Kylo needed to be patient.
It was not as though he could eat anyhow. He could still taste that mushroomy, earthiness of the bacta on his tongue. It turned his stomach, and the bilious wave of nausea rose. His mouth watered uncontrollably just like it did when he was a child right before he was going to vomit. Without warning, he gagged once, and the mending flesh on his flank tugged painfully at his side as he retched up what little was in his stomach. Without saying a word, one of the technicians had a surgisteel basin waiting at his mouth to collect the contents. It wasn't much more than a mouthful of stomach acid, but it felt like the lining of his stomach exited with it. Kylo wordlessly nodded as the tech took the basin away and dabbed his lips with a towel.
A dull headache blossomed behind his eyes and he pulled his forearms around his head to shield himself from the light. The Force hovered no closer than a fingertip out of reach. His master's doing, no doubt, and Kylo could only glance its surface with his mind. There would be no solace in its energy. It felt like part his very being had been cleaved away. He would have to ride out the rigors and wait for them to subside alone. He allowed his eyes to close and he focused on his breathing. It was the closest thing to meditation at this point, and he needed to center himself somehow.
He didn't bother to look up when the door opened with a whoosh and he could hear the sound of footsteps approaching. Hux, he knew it was him from clipped cadence of other man's boots striking the floor. The general drew close to the gurney and didn't say a word as he surveyed what he saw. Kylo could feel his eyes boring into him, but was too fatigued to acknowledge his visitor.
The general stood there in an awkward silence for a few moments until Kylo weakly let out a gasp when Hux curiously probed the freshly healed wound on Ren's flank with his finger. "I see you have decided to join the living," Hux observed, his voice filled with a cold and impersonal disdain.
Kylo finally opened his eyes, he saw the general curiously studying the bacta residue on his fingers as he rubbed the sticky colloid between his finger and thumb. When Hux's curiosity evaporated, he wiped it off on the sheet covering the gurney's mattress. Surely he wasn't going to soil his perfectly pressed uniform with an oily bacta stain.
"I've taken the liberty of having your clothing delivered here," Hux said, his voice nothing more than a combination of condescension and disgust. He'd always been an insufferable, pompous weasel. He could've sent one of his enumerable lackeys as his errand boy to deliver the clothing. No, Hux wanted to gawk like he always did. He'd never turn down an opportunity to mark his territory and properly piss in all the corners.
"Get dressed," Hux added coldly. "The Supreme Leader has summoned you."
Kylo knew this was coming from the moment his bacta session was complete. And he knew the routine—kneel before his disappointed teacher and wait. No sense even trying to make up excuses or begging for mercy. Those were the actions of a weakling Ben Solo that still clawed at the corners of his subconscious.
"Leave," Kylo spat out in his best attempt to sound powerful, but he knew at that moment, it was just a farce. "All of you."
Hux sneered but acquiesced. Turning on a heel, he quickly strode out of the room and exited to the waiting hallway. The medical technicians followed suit. They set their towels on the counter and exited through the other set of doors leading to the inner workings of the medical bay.
Kylo didn't move for several minutes. He savored the solitude and tried to gather his bearings. He wasn't quite sure where he was. The last thing he recalled before waking up was the ice melting against his cheek as his own blood stained the snow red and the Starkiller Base starting to crumble beneath him. That girl—Rey—had bested him, the Force that flowed her was raw and unbridled. And yet she had managed to drop him to his knees with his own former lightsaber, the one his grandfather had made and his uncle had gifted to him so many years ago. It had called to her, and she had branded him with it.
How would he explain that to the Supreme Leader? He was supposed to have handed that little urchin over to Snoke, but instead she had left him broken and bleeding in the forest.
His failure was complete, and he was about to pay for it.
Finally, he pushed himself to a sit and dangled his long legs off the medical cart. His head swam for a moment, and he waited for the spots dancing in vision to subside. Everything ached. Only then did he realize where he was. The Finalizer. Where the destroyer was located is space was anyone's guess.
Slowly he slid his feet to the floor and stood. The durasteel flooring was cold beneath him. Kylo picked up one of the discarded towels and scrubbed it through his hair to remove the last hints of bacta as he spied his clothing folded on a chair by the door. Wincing, he felt like he was a hundred years old as he stiffly crossed the room.
And so he got dressed as he did every day. There was a certain level of comfort in the ritual of covering up that coward Ben Solo and cloaking himself in the darkness that was Kylo Ren. First the base layer. Then the leggings and arm guards. Next would come neck wrap and the surcoat that hid his lean frame and made him appear broader and larger than he did when he was soaking wet.
When he got to the belt, he ran his fingers against the underside until he found what he was looking for. A tiny tracker. He hadn't realized it was even there until just then. It must've been how the soldiers had found him in the snow. He was disgusted that he hadn't realized it sooner. That micromanaging Hux had chipped him like a pet, no doubt to keep tabs on him. As soon as he had located the device he picked it out of the belt with his fingernails. He studied it for a moment before walking over to the sink. He deposited it in basin and turned on the tap, watching intently as the tiny tracker vanished down drain.
Kylo cupped his hands under running water and allowed it to pool into them. Bringing his hands to his mouth, he drew in a sip of water. It tasted metallic, like it had been processed through the ship's recycling unit too many times to count. He swished it around his mouth to rinse away the acrid taste of vomit before spitting it into the sink. He repeated the process twice before turning the tap off.
There was one more thing to do before he pulled on his boots and faced his master. Kylo activated the view screen above the screen and waited for it to power on. He knew it was there, but it still took his breath away when he saw it in his reflection in the screen. She had marked him.
Even though the bacta had erased the rawest of its edges, that angry red scar that the scavenger had given him carved his face in two. It started at the medial edge of his left eyebrow. How he didn't lose an eye or his nose was beyond him. It cut a diagonal path down his right cheek, and he could feel its tail come to an end over his right shoulder under his arm guard. It would be months before the scar would fade to a silvery white, but he knew it would still disfigure him forever. Wordlessly, he watched the haunted figure in the screen trace the gash, his fingers committing the injury to memory.
It was in those moments that he saw his former self staring back at him, and he hated Ben Solo all the more for it. It wasn't a great warrior that he saw in the reflection. What he saw was fear and weakness. He saw a fool in over his head. Kylo Ren thought he had killed that pathetic boy as he stood on that bridge and ran his lightsaber through his fath…Solo, his name was Han Solo. He meant nothing to him.
Ending that old man's life was supposed to fix this. That runt should have vanished with Han Solo beneath the catwalk. But there he was staring back at him, that stubborn flicker of the light still burning brightly at his very core. No matter how hard he tried to pinch out that light, that naïve fool, no matter how scared he was, kept offering it to him as gift for the taking.
With a backhanded blow, he struck the screen with the bottom of his fist. The screen cracked into glassine spider web of a thousand fractures, and the image winked out. If he couldn't kill that coward once and for all, he damned well had better hide him, he thought to himself. So Kylo did the only thing he knew he could. He finished dressing—boots, belt, gloves, and cowl.
He didn't have his helmet to hide behind. It ominous visage had likely melted with the rest of Starkiller Base. As he palmed the control and exited into the waiting hallway, he tugged the hood of his cowl over his head. If he didn't have his mask, he would just have to make do retreated into the darkened folds of his hood.
o.o.o.o.o.
Hux was nowhere to be seen as Kylo entered the Supreme Leader's audience chamber. His master remained nearly a galaxy away, hidden in a temple that he had only seen once. And even then, its location was shrouded in secrecy. He couldn't locate it on a galactic map as he tried. But Snoke was already there waiting for him in the darkness of the chamber, his image would not materialize until he fell to his knees in supplication.
He wordlessly crossed the room and pulled back the hood. He tried to take a centering breath to calm his frayed nerves, but when he exhaled, it was anything but calming. No sense delaying the inevitable. That would only draw his master's wrath.
He dropped to one knee and lowered his head. Trying his best to shove that traitorous fear back into the deepest recesses of his mind, he knew it was all but an act of futility. Finally, after he had no other place to go, he beckoned Snoke forth in the ritualized obdience he had been taught so many years before.
"What is your bidding, my master?"
He kept his head down as the light began to coalesce on the dais in front of him until the image of Supreme Leader Snoke materialized. It was ten meters tall and every bit as terrifying.
"Kylo Ren," Snoke began, "I trust you have had time to heal from your injuries?"
"I have," he lied. His side still burned, and he was well aware the bacta therapy had been cut short. But there was only one answer that was acceptable. Anything else was a concession of weakness. "Thank you, Supreme Leader."
This is where the lesson would come. Kylo needed to listen. He needed to learn.
"And what did you discover from your battle with the girl?"
That he was bested by an untrained novice? Did he learn once again his overconfidence in his own abilities was his greatest liability? Or did he discover it simply that he deserved to bleed out and die on that collapsing superstation? He was never very good at playing this game of verbal cat and mouse with his master. He knew whatever answer he could muster would be wrong. So instead of attempting to fail at philosophy, he went with the painfully obvious.
"She is very strong with the Force," was all he could manage to say.
"Perhaps even stronger than you, my apprentice," Snoke answered. "That is why I had commanded you to bring her to me. Yet I see no girl before me. I only see you. Why is she not here, Kylo Ren?"
This lesson was going to hurt, Kylo silently told himself. He could already tell. Discipline always followed failure. It would make him stronger, he lied to himself. He had to prove to his master he was worthy of the forgiveness that would come when the screams would end and the Supreme Leaders calming darkness would envelop him in its wake.
The healing scar on his face itched, and suddenly there was nothing more than he wanted to do than to scratch it. "She got away," Kylo whispered.
"Incorrect," Snoke hissed. Kylo closed his eyes as he felt his master's anger wash over him. "She is not here because she defeated you. A little desert child with no training whatsoever bested you with your own former lightsaber as though she was the skilled pupil and you were but the unlearned wildling."
There was no other answer than to concede defeat. "Yes, Supreme Leader."
"Then why did you offer to teach her?" Snoke asked in a hushed tone. "Did I not command you to bring her to me?"
There was a price for disobedience. Always. And there were even worse consequences for dishonesty. The Supreme Leader always knew. There was no lying with Snoke. There was absolutely no room for subterfuge. Kylo bore the scars from making that mistake in the past. He knew it was futile to fabricate excuses.
"I am sorry, master," he answered. There was no sense begging for mercy at this point.
"Your disobedience has led to disastrous consequences," Snoke pointed out. "The droid, where is it?"
"I don't know," Kylo whispered.
"The map," his mastered said. "Surely you must have the map to Skywalker by now."
Kylo let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. There would be no hiding during this interrogation. "I do not," he finally admitted.
"And what about my weapon?" Snoke asked, his voice as icy as ever. "What happened to Starkiller Base while you were busy chasing the girl?"
"It's gone," he answered as he started to tremble. The silence in the chamber was deafening. The blood roared in his years, and if he listened closely he could even make out the faint hum of the Finalizer's ventilation system. The silence was the worst. Wrath always followed silence, and he could already feel that growing fury simmering beneath the surface, ready to erupt at any moment.
"I asked you to bring me the map. Instead you thought a girl would be more useful," Snoke spat out. "I commanded you to bring the girl to me, yet you disobeyed me and offered to teach her instead. I asked for a simple map and you give me nothing. What have you touched that has not turned to ash, Kylo Ren?"
"Nothing," Kylo admitted, the confession barely audible yet it echoed off every wall in the chamber, pregnant with a prayer for mercy he neither expected nor deserved.
"What is it about the girl that you allowed everything to unravel?"
Kylo felt the Supreme Leader enter his head. The Force was still absent around him, and he could not buffer Snoke's intrusion. It was brutal and agonizing. Kylo clenched his teeth and let out a strangled cry as the Supreme Leader probed deeper. He as all too familiar with this torture technique. By its very design it was meant to be painful, especially to those who could not use the Force to resist. After all, it was the same probe he used on his own victims.
"I don't know," Kylo groaned, his breath labored and uneven. Without the Force, he was utterly defenseless.
"Do not lie to me!" the Supreme Leader demanded.
One moment it felt like Kylo's head was about to explode. The next, the pain abated, in its void a soothing respite of silence. Tears he didn't realize were swimming in his eyes broke free and slid down his cheeks. It took everything in his power not to collapse to the floor.
"Compassion," Snoke said. He'd found what he was looking for, and there was no hiding his disgust. "You have compassion for the girl, and it makes you weak.
"The light still calls to you. I thought you had extinguished it and were prepared to complete your training, but I was sorely mistaken."
Panic gripped at Kylo's very core. He'd never failed his master on this magnitude. "Supreme Leader…"
"Do not beg," Snoke spat back and he leaned back in his chair. "It is I whom have failed you. I overestimated you. You are not ready yet to complete your training. You still have much to learn. Tell me, my apprentice, how does it feel to know the Force is surrounding you at this very moment but you cannot touch it?"
Snoke was right, Kylo could feel its energy buzzing everywhere yet each time he tried to connect with it, the Force slid further out of reach. The more he wanted to cloak himself in its power, the more he felt naked kneeling before his master.
"As if I was missing my own arm," he answered. It was the only way he could describe its absence. He felt incomplete without it.
Snoke leaned forward in contemplation. "Perhaps the next stage of your training should be solely focused on your connection with the Force. It is time you begin to appreciate how a true master of the dark side is a vessel for the Force's full potential and how one devoid of it is nothing more than a useless bag of bones."
This was the lesson Snoke was granting him. He didn't understand it yet, but Kylo greedily accepted it. He only prayed he would live up to his master's expectations. He wasn't going fail him again, because he knew there would be no more second chances.
Kylo bowed his head and awaited the Supreme Leader's final benediction. He was ready to accept whatever Snoke was merciful enough to offer. He would accept any pain that came with enlightenment. It was there that he would earn the right to complete his training. He would snuff out the light, no matter the cost.
"As you wish, my master," he said offering himself to Snoke with absolute submission.
Kylo did not see his master's image dissolve. He did not hear any further instructions. The Force consumed him from all sides. He did not hear the scream that tore from his own mouth, nor did he feel his body crash to the ground as it convulsed uncontrollably.
The blackness consumed him entirely, and the world slipped away into a numb nothingness.
o.o.o.o.o
The slave transport docked with Weapons Factory Alpha. Armed First Order handlers awaited the airlocks to connect and the docking bay door to open with a loud hiss. Slavers with tazers led several dozen humans from the transport and into waiting bay. Shackled at the wrists with stun cuffs tethered their waists, the slaves squinted as they adjusted to the bright over head lights. For the most part they were younger adults, some likely not even of age. Their home planets varied. Only the chips imbedded in their left forearms would tell their stories.
Weapons Factory Alpha dated back to the height of the Galactic Empire. Located on Cymoon 1 in the Corellian Industrial Cluster, it had quickly fell into the hands of the First Order as the reformed Republic splintered. A shining example of Imperial efficiency back in the day, propaganda long touted it as a weapons factory that was completely automated, so efficient that it was run by a computer matrix that bordered on sentient thought.
In actuality the blasters, thermal detonators, ion cannons and plasma mortars that were produced around the clock at the facility by nothing more than slave labor. Sentients of all species classified by their strengths, intelligence and ability and then assigned tasks depending on those abilities to keep the war complex running on schedule. At the height of the Empire, it took three thousand slaves working around the clock to continue to supply the Imperial Military with a continues supply of weaponry, each working eighteen hours a day with little nourishment and even less sleep.
By the time the First Order had assumed control, Alpha had all but been abandoned. Yet within two years of claiming the facility, the First Order had it up and running with an efficiency that would be the envy of any Imperial installation.
But like its predecessors, the First Order quickly learned that it required a never ending supply of slaves to keep up with demand, sentients that could be literally worked to death and easily replaced with fresh bodies. Only the First Order didn't just rely on non-human slaves to keep the installation running like the Empire did a generation before. The First Order actively sought human slaves as well, all under the guise of an enviable efficient lie—fully automated.
"Form ten rows and wait to be processed!" a First Order lieutenant yelled to the slaves that began to fill the room.
"This looks like a load of garbage," the lieutenant's assistant said. She sneered over her datapad at the assortment of tattoos, scars and mismatched clothing.
Half had shaved heads—likely exhausted and strung out after a stint in a Kessel spice mine. Their sickly pale skin a reminder that it had been many months, if not many years since they had last seen the sun. Others were bronzed and calloused to the point that their skin looked like leather. Farm hands from agrarian moons that supplied food to the Hutts or Darvonians.
And then there were the true garbage. The First Order slave handlers had named them the Chaff years ago—the drugged refuse other slavers were trying to pass off as someone else's problem, hoping that any remaining use could be sold for a handful of credits instead. They were the infirmed, the old, the mentally ill and the impossible to tame. Each was, in essence, capable of working—likely for many years if their personal baggage didn't get in the way of productivity. They went for a fraction of the going price of the other slaves, so they were always a tempting bargain. But they usually were drugged, some of them had their memories wiped, any useful skills they had attained along the way erased with their previous problems.
The lieutenant would likely accept a handful of the Chaff. They would never see the production floor at Weapons Factory Alpha. First Order leadership had banned the use of Chaff in weapons manufacturing. Those he would purchase out of pocket and try to turn for a profit. It was a deal he had forged under the table with the slavers years before, trafficked to third parties before the higher-ups would ever know. It was the perfect don't ask, don't tell money making venture.
He could usually sell a handful as pleasure slaves to brothels along the Corellian Trade Spine. Others he'd ship off to moisture farms on the floating bits of rock in the Outer Rim that always seemed to need muscle but not necessarily brains. The others he couldn't flip for more their original asking price would just be expelled into the vacuum of space if they went unpurchased by third parties. It wasn't a problem, he'd resolved with himself years ago. It was just business
After the other slaves were processed, their chips programed as First Order property and led toward the dormitories for a summary delousing and initial programming, all that remained were the Chaff. One could always tell the Chaff from the rest of the crowd, the lieutenant thought to himself. They always had that blank, drugged stare. Those not lacking from a paucity of sedative were sometimes drooling like imbeciles. They were slow moving, as though their limbs were swimming through wet duracrete. They were always barefoot and minimally dressed. No sense wasting boots or clothing on the equivalent of excrement that would just as likely be shoved out an airlock. The women were clothed in not much more than thin, grey shifts that almost reached the knees. The men matched them in boxy shapeless shirts and loose, thin pants.
Two of the women appeared to have most of their teeth and weren't covered in that many sores, the lieutenant noted. He could likely sell them as pleasure slaves. Three more appeared young enough that he could ship to the warlords on Muscoda to serve as cup bearers. After all, how hard is it to learn to pour a glass of wine?
What to do with the other dozen. Three he made a note to reject out of hand. One appeared so dysmorphic the lieutenant knew was a genetic mutant. The other two appeared to lack the cognition to perform basic functions. He'd let the slavers deal with their final fate. He wasn't going to lose money on this garbage.
It was the last few he had to make a decision on quickly. His stomach rumbled and he wanted to eat his supper more than anything.
"You there, what's your name?" he said pointing to a woman, not much older than a girl in the back. Her hair was matted and her face was disfigured with what looked like an acid burn. "What skills do you have?"
"They call me Tulsi," the woman looked up and nervously answered, "I was a domestic until my master died."
"Can you cook?" he asked as she quickly nodded. Turning to his assistant who was keeping notes in a datapad, he added, "Add her to the group headed to Muscoda. I think Lord Zsenga needs scullery maids."
Turning his attention to the back row, a tall slave caught his eye. The damned thing was drugged to the hilt, its eyes were glassy and unfocused. But the male stood at least eight centimeters taller than its peers, its pants didn't even reach down to its ankles. It didn't look all that old and if its broad shoulders were any indication, it was no stranger to hard work. If it hadn't been Chaff, it would've likely been a good fit in mortar production. With a strong back like that, it could heft the materials to make the largest shells without difficulty. But the lieutenant was not going to take that gamble on whatever landed this idiot in a Chaff cull.
But he was curious nonetheless. Pointing at the slave he called, "You, step forward."
The slave staggered forward. Too many damned sedatives running through its system to make it all that valuable. Had to be hard to control, the lieutenant reminded himself.
Walking over the confused slave that was trying its best to hide behind a tangled mop of dark hair, the lieutenant wanted a closer look. It may be more problems than it was worth, but if he could offload him somewhere where strength and endurance were a commodity and any potential discipline problems would not come to the fore before he could settle on a sizeable asking price, then it may be a gamble he was willing to flip. Maybe Tatooine. The Hutt collective farms were always looking for mindless drones to manage the vapor collectors.
"Let me see your hands," the lieutenant commanded.
The slave tried to turn its palms up for inspection only to be hampered by the cuffs tethered to its waist. The lieutenant grabbed one and inspected it. Calloused with long fingers. He might be able to turn a profit on this one after all.
"What's your name?" the lieutenant asked.
The slave blinked once slowly, and its brow creased as though it didn't know the answer.
"Oh come on, it's not that hard of a question," he added. He pointed to the scar that traversed across the slave's cheek. "Or did you forget it when whatever did that to your face?"
The slave lifted its head and looked the lieutenant. A sense of realization sparked in its eyes and it found the answer to the question.
"Ben," it said with a bit of uncertainty—as though it was almost sure but didn't quite trust the answer, "My name is Ben."