Tali ducked the humming energy field by a hair. The midday sun dripped sweat off her bone-spurs. Her red skin felt flushed, two degrees past combustion as she grunted and skiffed past her opponent. It wasn't going well. He was bigger, stronger, trained. This was exactly the kind of fight she'd avoided in the spice-mines. The kind that got her killed.
Her weapon was long and unwieldy, a meter and a half of dead-weight that burned her feeble muscles every time she swung. Mostly she didn't, instead dredging up every scrap of agility she had to dart around her opponent's blade.
Tali dodged another strike and swung hard. Quick as a snake, the other saber-foil slapped her weapon out of her grasp. The crowd around her watched silently. They'd come to see the Pureblood bleed. Tali could taste it in their whispered breaths. So far they were getting their credit's worth. Tali hissed out a breath and lunged for her foil anyway. Wham! Impact triggered the shock field humming around the duralumin pole. Pain stitched up her gut and the Pureblood clenched down a snarl as she tried to block with her arms. The second impact sent her skidding to her knees and blood speckled the sand from her busted lip.
There was some clapping and appreciative whistles from the other acolytes and a dry growl from Overseer Rance.
"Remember acolytes, Shii-Cho is the most basic form! A true Sith could master it in a week!"
Tali worked her tongue around her mouth, dredging up some moisture to coat the back of her cracked throat. Outside the Academy's freezer-chilled halls, Korriban was a wasteland that made the Pureblood realize there really could be a thing as too much heat.
"From Shii-Cho rises the precision of Makashi! The power of Djem So!" Rance's fist clenched tight. "As Acolyte Tali has repeatedly demonstrated, fancy footwork is not enough. Starting positions you two! Let's see if you can at least hit him this time." Tali grimly got to her feet and collected the saber foil. Acolyte Kehel smirked and twirled his own foil. Tali ground her boot heels into that awkward spread-legged stance, squared her shoulders, tugged the heavy foil up with her burning muscles.
"Again!"
Tali darted forward warily and Kehel smoothly stalked out of his own ring like a Nexu loosed for the arena. The Pubreblood blocked two shuddering strikes and then Kehel bellowed and when she tried to block he cleaved down so hard her own saber slammed down on her skull. A spiral galaxy bloomed across her eyes. Tali slammed to the ground and spinning gravity kept her pinned to the hard-baked dirt.
Overseer Rance cursed in disgust and turned away.
The stars orbiting her eyes started to fade back to the dusty Korriban skyline. Acolyte Kehel crouched down beside her. "Everyone else got so scared when you showed up but you're pathetic aren't you? How'd a weakling like you survive?" His noxious breath raked her ear. "Or did the other slaves like having a little Sith as their schutta?"
"Acolytes! Starting positions."
The pebbles around her hand trembled. Kehel didn't notice. He spat on the ground and walked back to his ring. "I could do this all day Overseer!"
Tali got up. She heard Rance say something, heard the sniggered whispers in the crowd, but she didn't understand it. Right now the Pureblood was listening to the dead wind stirring the dirt, Kehel's heavy pig-breath. The hiss of grit running against her foil as she dragged it, the blood slamming in her ears.
The little black spark in her heart started to burn. Tali stabbed her feet into the dirt inside her circle, squared her hips. She didn't hear the Overseer, didn't see him signal go. Her feral yellow eyes were laser-locked to Kehel.
His foot lifted off the ground.
She moved.
Kehel saw her rushing towards him, abandoning any pretense of that awkward shuffling she'd been forced into with that stupid Shii-Cho. He understood her anger had clouded her judgement, that she'd just made herself completely defenseless.
He understood nothing.
Kehel grinned and started towards her, spinning his foil at the wrist. His saber-foil whipped out, batting aside her overhand chop then whipping across. It struck her on the rib, discharging an electric crackle, hitting hard enough to send her sprawling-
- except this time Tali's skinny arm wrapped around the saber-foil, sliding up its length in a shower of sparks. Her arm went numb but saber-foils were meant to train not kill. Too much current passing through at once triggered auto-shutoffs. The orange field sizzled out, leaving him with just an overpriced stick and her bearing down like a pint-sized reek.
She hit him mid-stride. His front leg arced up, his back leg bent under and Kehel toppled with a curse as Tali rode him all the way down to the dirt. The screaming nerves in her arm met the anger in her heart. Pain became power.
The human's nose had a smooth, unfinished look to it. Tali slammed her skull down and the bone spurs on her forehead texturized it for him with a wet splurt of blood. Her fingers stabbed into anything she could find. Anything soft, anything that made him scream. Thick nails raked his face, fingers hooked into his eyes and pulped nostrils.
Kehel's fists slammed her sides but Tali tucked in tight and he didn't have the leverage to do much damage. He covered her snarling face with his greasy hand, trying to shove her head back, and Tali sank her teeth in, chewing for the blood vessels running under the flap of skin. Kehel screamed and ripped his hand back. Blood splattered her crimson cheek, hot, salted iron on her tongue. She lunged forward, transferring her teeth from his bleeding palm to his exposed ear.
"Acolytes!"
An invisible hand gripped Tali's body and yanked. There was a wet tearing sound and she flew back, tumbling along the ground before she could bring it to a roll. Overseer Rance lowered his hand and released his Force grip.
Kehel was on the ground, curled in a screaming ball. Red tears poured out of one weeping eye, the other hung on pink fleshy strands. Blood from his palm and his ear and his pulped nose splattered with every agonizing exhale. The dessicated ground drank it up eagerly.
Tali stood up. Her left arm was numb to the shoulder, the fingers on that arm were a mass of pins and needles and the ribs on her left side were tight fists of tractored knots. Every breath was fire. She savored it like wine she'd never tasted and wanted more.
Tali bent over Kehel's ear and whispered "That's how." Then she threw it back to him. It landed with a limp plop. Someone sounded like they might be sick but the rest of the class was dead silent. No whispers, no snickers. The only sound was Kehel's agonized keening and the wind hissing through the valley.
Sand crunched as Overseer Rance stepped forward. He bent over Kehel, evaluating the acolyte with a cold eye. Tali knew kolto would be able to save his sight, restore his ear too, if Rance thought it was worthwhile.
"Congratulations Pureblood. You achieved dun-moch over your opponent. You only sacrificed your arm and most of your chest cavity to do it."
He reached down to his belt and unclipped his lightsaber. With a sharp vzzm the blood red blade sizzled in the sunlight, catching everyone's eyes.
"Pay attention acolytes!" Rance said, "What you just witnessed would get you killed in a real lightsaber fight!" He turned towards her, keeping the lightsaber low at his side, blade sizzling the sand beside his boot.
"Acolyte Tali, I know you were raised by feral Kath hounds,I know your life slaving away as lesser scum diminishes your appreciation of your heritage, but you will learn how to defeat opponents with discipline, power, and skill, or you will not learn at all." His words were dry, low, full of contempt.
Tali barred her teeth silently and scrubbed blood off with her tongue. He could try to undermine her victory all he liked. The Pureblood's counterpoint was on the ground trying to put his eye back in. Rance looked down and his expression twisted. He twitched his lightsaber and cauterized Kehel's bleeding with burning licks from his red blade. The young acolyte screamed and bucked but the Makashi master was relentless and precise.
"Count yourself lucky I'm letting you keep the eyes." The overseer's lip curled, "Acolyte Nataya, Acolyte Telo, haul this waste of meat to the Infirmary. Let Inquisitor Zyn know I leave it to his tender mercies whether he uses kolto, cybernetics or anything at all."
The other two acolytes blanched and left quickly, dragging Kehel between them. Rance shut off his lightsaber and clipped it to his belt. "This concludes our training segment for today. Dismissed."
The other acolytes stirred and started to file out. Tali felt their stares on her. Cold, calculating. Re-evaluating the odds of picking a fight. The Pureblood didn't have to convince everyone she was too much trouble to fight, she only had to convince them to let somebody else try first.
It'd worked in the spice-mines, hopefully it'd work saber-foil was still lying in the grit where she'd tossed it. Tali reached down to the grip. One shiny leather boot stamped down on the pole.
"Slave." Rance said quietly."Overseer Harkun will hear of this."
Tali stared at him. There was neither anger nor compassion in the human's face. He drew his boot back and Tali retrieved her saber-foil. The sun raked at her back as she turned around and shadowed the other acolytes returning to the shadow-drenched interior of the Academy.
The mess hall was already getting busy. The lunch hour had just begun. Falling into line behind some other acolytes, Kory collected a tray of food and went looking for a table. By habit, she looked for the farthest, darkest one, but someone had already claimed it. The Sith Pureblood raised her head and gave the approaching human a hooded yellow stare.
Kory swallowed and turned aside. She didn't need her gut feelings to scan that message. She hadn't even known Pureblood Sith could be slaves until one had shown up in class, listening to the instructor like a hyper-intelligent rakghoul. She rarely talked, Kory didn't even know her name, but she kept glimpsing the Pureblood out of the corner of her eye, lurking in the shadows, watching everything with those cold, feral yellow eyes like a predator's eyeshine caught at the edge of a campfire.
Kory sat her tray down on a different table and tugged her chair in. Gerd was the first to join her. The dark haired boy had formerly cracked cortosis ore in the Imperial's slave-mines. Now his broad-shoulders cut an easy passage through the other slave-acolytes.
Her roommate came next, skirting around the edge of the hall like a mouse-droid trying to steer through stomping feet. Alif slipped into the third chair and glanced around with his ever-wary, ever-twitching eyes. Alif was even smaller than her and he had the look of the slave who'd spent most his time trying to stay out of the spotlights. He didn't cause her any trouble.
Kory dredged up a reassuring smile for him. Alif's nerves eased a little. Then a tray slammed down, splattering nerf-stew on the table. Nical dropped into the fourth seat and the short, stocky Zabrak threw a glare around the table. Kory's smile dropped, Alif started twitching again. Gerd just grunted and calmly sopped up the splatters.
No one had actually suggested the four eat together, it'd been something natural. Kory had shared a bunk with Gerd once or twice and Alif just needed some lunchmates that looked tough enough that he wouldn't seem such an easy target while he ate. Nical looked mean enough to bite a Wampa and tolerated Kory and the "skrunt" because Gerd was his roommate and because Gerd had spent a lot of years cracking cortosis ore that was harder than Nical's bones.
Three times a day the four slave-acolytes came together like nerfs locking horns against prowling manka cats. Kory didn't know if that made them friends. Seemed the closest you could get in a place as screwed up as this was allies of convenience.
"Heard the Pureblood sent another acolyte to the infirmary." Alif mentioned.
"So whose balls did she bite off this time?" Nical glowered.
The horned Zabrak had been in the running for meanest Huttspawn before the Pureblood showed up. He wasn't taking third place very glanced over at the other table. Feral yellow met open blue and Kory quickly turned back to her meal with a cold shudder.
"Think she heard you." Kory muttered.
Nical snorted. "She comes after me, I'll show her a headbutt."
Gerd shrugged, "You want to yank her tail go right ahead, I'm staying outside the splatter-zone."
Nical took a second glance at the Pureblood himself and rubbed his tattooed chin. "I could take her."
"She blinded and deafened Kehel in seconds. With her teeth." Alif repeated, "I heard she even swallowed the ear afterwards."
"Hmph."Nical turned back to shoveling food down his throat.
A basso roar behind them cut off the conversation as Slek overturned his table and lunged at a pair of red-haired human brothers. Gerd snorted."Forget the Pure, there's someone I wouldn't want to take on."
Nical looked over as the massive Houk cannonballed into one brother and took the other brother's foil-strike with an angry growl. "I would, if I can hijack one of those turbolasers outside and figure out a way to get Slek to walk in front of it. Otherwise? Not enough credits in the galaxy."
Gerd shook his head, "Don't know why Harkun would assign that new Sith to be Slek's roommate."
Nical grinned. "Ever put a Kath hound in with a Manka cat?"
Kory bit into her grain-roll to hide her grimace. Some of the slave-acolytes had taken to the concept of murdering your classmates like dianogas to stink. Kory thought the entire concept was disgusting but she'd quickly learned to at least keep her mouth shut and nod along at the appropriate times. Four years working the factory-lines on Brental hadn't prepared her for the Sith Academy. This place was cutthroat. The acolytes here could smell blood better than Firaxa sharks and the overseers had about the same amount of kindness too.
As long as there wasn't a body, no one raised eyebrows about the blood on the mats or in the drains of the 'fresher stalls. For her part, Kory couldn't remember the last time she'd taken a shower without her saber-foil.
After a sickening crunch and a sharp yelp, the fight behind them ended with Slek victorious. Technically the brothers won too. They were still breathing. One of the twins looped his arms under the other's shoulders and carefully dragged his concussed brother away. No one had really paid attention after the first few punches had swung and the losers were quickly forgotten.
"I overheard some of the overseers talking. It sounds like the Trials are going to be starting soon." Alif said.
Gerd shook his head. "They keep saying that. Getting the feeling they just like making us squirm."
"Yeah they like making us squirm. Right on the end of their hooks." Nical skewered a bit of stewed meat and twisted his fork around.
"Any idea what the Trials are going to be?" Kory asked, but Alif just shook his head. Kory's stomach dropped and she rubbed the burn scar under her eye nervously.
She'd had enough Force talent to get plucked out from the factory lines, after everyone else on her line but her had gotten charbroiled when a smelter burst, but even after weeks of harsh lessons in cold chambers the most she could do was levitate a handful of pebbles, and even that left her sweating and shaking.
The combat-drills weren't as bad. Duplicating the same motion over and over again had been her job description at Brental, so she at least memorized the sequences well enough to not get called out as an example. Right now she was surviving in the middle of the herd, but everyone kept hinting the Trials were just around the corner like a shiv-cutter ready to stab.
No one knew what they were actually going to be, but all the rumor-mills agreed that the Trials were going to cull the weak from the worthy. Failures didn't need to try again, or keep breathing for that matter.
Trouble was, that left Kory not knowing how to prepare or what to do. The red-haired slave couldn't help feeling like there was a noose hanging in front of her path and she couldn't stop walking forward. All Kory could do was keep studying, lift more pebbles in class, eat less dirt in saber-training and hopefully she'd be ready enough to survive the Trial.
And try to dismiss that tightening-noose sensation as just a case of nerves.
Overseer Harkun's chambers always felt too large for the single slab desk and chair that occupied it. Cold air shivered out of hidden ceiling vents and clotted the sweat on her back as Tali stared at the table. Harkun still hadn't gotten around to wiping off the bloodied smears from her last visit.
"You summoned me Overseer."
Overseer Harkun's shoulder-pauldrons creaked on his laminate armor as he leaned back in a towering chair. A stripe of facial hair dangling from his chin twitched as his lips tightened. Tali wondered if all humans with blood red hair had mad-dog blue eyes. "Have a seat, slave."
Only Harkun could twist that word out with so much grinding venom. Tali had spent years playing Odd Nerf Out in the spice-mines. The Pureblood hadn't expected to be greeted with open arms when she arrived at Korriban. So far the Overseer had failed to disappoint.
She'd never seen an angrier human. Every inch of Harkun, from his too-pale skin to that hair that was the exact shade of two-hour-old blood seemed to vibrate with low-frequency rage whenever she entered the room.
Somehow Harkun always gave the impression he was a hair away from exploding and somehow he never actually did. Each word always come out clipped off. After the hiss, before the roar. It was the hands you had to watch, especially when the air began to get dry and static.
Right now his hands were holding onto a datapad, so Tali took a seat in the single chair opposite the desk. It was naturally shorter.
"Congratulations slave. Your failures are undoing centuries of prestige and power in the Dark Side. Now when acolytes think of Pureblood Sith, the first one that comes to mind is the one foaming and writhing in the dirt with the other slaves like a mangy Kath hound."
"A frequent visitor to the infirmary. Regular trouncing in saber-drills. Assistant Overseer Markan says your control of the Force remains erratic. Half the time you're too feeble to twitch a pebble, half the time class is canceled after the holoscreen shatters. As for Overseer Rance - " Harkan glanced over and smirked, " - well, I see I already have another message from him."
Harkun tossed the datapad aside and pressed his fingertips together.
"You continue to disappoint the other instructors acolyte. I am not disappointed. Because I was never taken in by your red skin. No, I saw you were for what you were." Harkun leaned forward and smiled slightly.
"You are a stain. A mistake, squirted out between some scum's thighs. Unfortunate to be sure," Harkun allowed, "Given how thin the Pureblood color is at the academy, but Sith are slaves to no one and you have been a slave to well, everyone."
She could've left the Academy. A dead wasteland wasn't that different from a cold asteroid, and there were dozens of outposts in the valley where she could steal or forage for supplies. She'd dealt with crystal spiders, creatures invisible in the dark with heat-sucking forelimbs, she could deal with Tukata hounds and overgrown leech-grubs.
But something called to her here. Some power here, on this dead rock. Something that dared her to be more than just a rat etching out a living in the tunnels. She'd never had that feeling before. She'd do anything to steal it.
"I will learn." the Pureblood promised. Harkun snorted and stretched out his hand.
Lightning blasted out, actinic-bright and smashed Tali out of the chair. The Pureblood's teeth smashed together and her vocal cords seized too tight for a scream. Then it was over and Harkun lowered his hand.
"Do not get cocky. A rakghoul would have a better chance of learning than you, slave."
Tali scrubbed her tongue around her teeth and tasted iron. She wiped her mouth and found she'd bitten off the tip of her tongue. Harkun dusted some soot off his gloves.
"Your blood means you are still potentially too useful to kill on a whim. Continue to fall below the expectations of your instructors and I will have all the justification I need to scrub you away." He picked up his datapad and turned away. "Dismissed."
Tali slowly hobbled to her legs and stood up. It burned like fire to keep her spine straight, but she walked to the door, then she slowly turned around. Harkun looked up and found her poison-yellow eyes fixed on him.
"Oh yes. The infamous stare." Harkun lowered his datapad and flexed his fingers. "I am not some mewling acolyte, and I do not have Rance's gentle touch. So go ahead. Explode."
The Pureblood stared at him for a long moment, then she said "I will learn." and left.
Harkun leaned back with a grunt and returned to his datapad. "You will die." he replied to the empty room.