The Cipher's Slave
Chapter Two: Meeting
I was in the slave pens of the 'Great Sith Academy on Korriban'. So overrated. The place was a hunk of durasteel with gun emplacement everywhere, sentries everywhere, but most of importantly, Sith. Kriffing. Everywhere. The sentries that'd found me had dropped me off here, with this douchebag of a Sith. Jailer-something was his name, and he was a dick. Not to me, but to the Twi'lek woman in the cage beside me. The man had placed a shock collar around my neck the moment the sentries left, then shoved me into a cage and told me to stay quiet- or else...
The woman next to me was defiant, understandably enough. Her name was Vette, she was a tomb raider, caught breaking into a vault.
The man's voice rang out again, "Damn it, shut up! I'll do this again, and a-kriffing-gain, until you shut your mouth!"
The Twi'lek screamed as electricity coursed through her neck.
"Bastard." She gasped.
"There's more where that came from, little birdie. Now shut it! Act like a damned slave, like her!" He pointed at me.
I only raised my head. My eyes wide and fearful. It wasn't hard to act broken, I already was, but this was seriously starting to piss me off. Even the depressed had their limits, especially formerly proud ones- me.
Footsteps sounded in the hallway, they were heavy, a lot like my old master's. That brought on a pang of sorrow, my master.
But the man that walked in was nothing like Anakin. He had a lightsaber at his belt, one that would summon a cruel, scarlet column once ignited. His eyes were yellow and hateful, not a kind blue. Those eyes matched his saber perfectly. He was a warrior. They were the Sith equivalent of Jedi knights.
"The overseer must've sent you." The Jailer mused. "Well, I got you the slave that should be able to open whatever it is you need. But let me tell you, she's a feisty little thing. Might need to shock her a few times before she tells you anything."
The warrior spoke, his voice powerful, commanding. "Which one is it?"
"The Twi'lek. The other one's just some brat the sentries found in the desert's central region. Plus, she's no fun, hasn't said a word other than 'yes sir' since she arrived. Didn't even have to show her how the collars work."
"You can shut up now." Impatient Sith. He glanced at me.
He'd almost heard me. I had to remember to hide my Force presence since I was in enemy territory, and although my skills at masking my presence were decent, there were enough Sith here to detect me if I wasn't careful.
I grimaced as the Twi'lek decided to open her mouth again. "Hey, no Sithy stuff in the tombs, I'm only there to show you the way." Stupid. Even I hadn't mouthed off this much towards Atai Molec during my 'stay' on Zygerria.
"I make the calls." The Sith raised the shock collar activator.
"Aaarg, okay, okay, quit it. I'll show you where it is." The Twi'lek yelled. Cruelty has no limits in the Empire, sadly.
"Good, let her out, I have more important things to do than shock fools."
The Jailer let her out of the cage and she left the room, sparing me a single sympathetic glance.
"What're you lookin' at?" The Jailer asked.
"Nothing in particular, sir."
"I thought I saw you lookin' at the doorway, are you thinking about escape?" He smiled cruelly.
I was about to call him an idiot for thinking someone could escape this place but thought better of it, instead I answered quietly,
"Sir, even if I were to get out of this room, you would shock me before I'd have run a few meters. Also, if the collar malfunctioned, there'd be too many Sith for me to leave unnoticed. Adding on to that, there are sentries, gun turrets, and... I'm not very willing to go back to the desert." He slowly put away the activator he'd taken off of his belt staring at me skeptically. Slaves didn't usually explain to him why their prison was inescapable.
"That's how slaves should think-" His wrist-comm. beeped. A new voice spoke out of it, deep, emanating power. Jailer, you are to report to the northern excavation site, we need a few slaves taken back for reconditioning.
"I will arrive soon, High Overseer." The comm. went off. He got back to our 'conversation'.
"You stay put here, try anything, and I'll make you wish you'd died in the desert." I nodded.
The Jailer walked out of the room and down the hall, if my montrals weren't fooling me anyway.
I decided to meditate. No use wasting time doing nothing. Maybe I could find out who this 'Cipher Nine' really was. Maybe even something about his temper and how I could... Please him.
"Ugh, disgusting." I hissed. Everything about those words was wrong.
How to appease him was a better way of thinking of it. Pleasuring men wasn't my specialty, and I wouldn't throw away my dignity that easily.
After meditating for what was a few hours and finding out next to nothing about my soon-to-be master, exhaustion took over and I fell asleep.
Although I was sleeping in a cramped cage, my sleep was relatively good. No dreams, premonitions, or nightmares, just a dark bliss.
"Hey, wake up! Slave! Did you not hear me?!" I raised my head towards the sound groggily.
"Aargh!" Electricity coursed through me. I snapped my eyes open, now fully awake. I'd forgotten about the shock collar- and that I was in a cage.
"Finally, you're up. It's time to meet your new master, brat." I looked up at the Jailer then at the man standing beside him.
"Are you deaf, I said get up!" The Jailer shouted, bringing the activator back into view. I scrambled up before he could press its button. Force! I'd forgotten how painful these things were. Maybe the setting was just high but damn...
"Jailer, I can take it from here. She's awake, shocking her will only make this exchange more inefficient." The other man's voice was cold, calculating, and so incredibly apathetic.
"Suit yourself, Cipher, she's quiet and submissive, will the brat be useful to you or not?"
"Yes, she will. That's all I need, goodbye Jailer." He spoke in a deadpan.
"Whatever." The Jailer muttered, then stalked off. Asshole was probably looking for someone else to torture
The man looked back at me. He didn't have eyes. Instead were two metallic implants, substitutes, no doubt. He had short, slightly spiked hair, lightly tanned skin, and goggle marks around his implants. Why he wore goggle over implants? The next girl's guess was as good as mine.
If one could ignore the dull prosthetics in place of his eyes, then he could be considered handsome.
What the kriff was I thinking?
The sound of the cage door unlocking broke me out of my reverie.
"Let's go." I stood up with my head lowered.
The man then leant down a little and whispered, "The Sith have a certain... possessiveness over what's theirs. If you stray away from me, you get stuck with them. So just stay near me. I don't have a chain, but I shouldn't have to lead you around like some akk dog."
I nodded quickly. This man might have had a very cold, blunt aura surrounding him, but he was better than any Sith- cruel, bloodthirsty beings.
"Come on then." The clipped response came.
The Cipher was right, I got a lot of stares from Sith, particularly the acolytes, as we walked through the Academy.
We rounded a bend and ran into a group of men and women. They were, once again, Sith. Huge surprise there.
I caught a snippet of their conversation before they silenced.
"...The slaves on Dromund Kaas are getting out of hand..."
"...We have an expert on the scene, it isn't a problem..."
"...The Balmorran campaign is a mess. The resistance there is killing our troops off faster than in any other conflict..."
"...I heard that the resistance is getting help from the Republic..."
"Shut up!" A woman yelled, irritated with the chatter. "Get to the new Darth's quarters. I don't want to keep her waiting."
There was a chorus of the phrase, 'Yes, my Lord' and the group continued down the hallway, only said Lord stayed back.
Her attention instantly shifted to us. I lowered my eyes.
"Cipher, I need a moment of your time. Your other tasks can wait."
"Of course, my Lord. But may I ask how you know who I am?"
"I work with Imperial Intelligence. That's why I'm here. We were... Coworkers and leaders under the command of Darth Jadus. Now that he is dead, his daughter has taken his place. Our group heard that you were here to… congratulate her on her recent… promotion. And as pathetic as this is to ask, I need to know how your meeting went with her. She is powerful enough to kill me and my colleagues if she is angered. So tell me, what is her mood at this moment?"
"She tried to have me killed for sport and I killed her bodyguards. She said it was a test of sorts. My read on her is or rather was that she's, bluntly put, drunk on power. Lethally childish is another way to put it." My new master said.
"I must thank you for your straightforward attitude. I needed someone, even if what they said was somewhat rudely put, to keep things truthful. Thank you for your help, Cipher."
"Of course, my lord, I apologize for my rudeness."
"Who is she, if you wouldn't mind saying?" The woman gestured at me. I hadn't looked up yet, but decided to risk a glance. The woman had greying hair and a permanently skeptical expression. Her dark purple robes complimented her details almost perfectly.
The Cipher was quick to respond. "She's a gift from our passed Darth's daughter. She said that for disposing of her bodyguards, since they were such terrible bores, I needed a reward or such. Seeing that there was an unidentified and very recently captured slave, she decided that that would be my reward. It seems as though the Darth likes to dump her problems onto other people." That stung even though it really shouldn't have. Still, I wasn't trying to be a burden. Then again, not all people want slaves.
"Is she defying you? I can easily put her in her place." I shrunk away from the pair as lightning crackled at the Sith's fingertips. Lightening was electricity, electricity was kriffing painful.
Fortunately, the Cipher came to my aid. "There will be no need of that, my lord. She, herself, is not a problem. The Darth might have given her to me to rid herself of record writing and paperwork, but that doesn't mean she won't be of use to me."
"Alright then, I'll be on my way. Thank you again for your help, Cipher. Best of luck in any future encounters you may have." The woman left us.
"Um, sir?" I asked meekly.
"Yes?" His answer was clipped.
"What should I refer to you as."
"Slaves are supposed to call their owners 'master', in public anyway. If we're in private..." He stopped. "...call me whatever you like, I guess."
We started walking again. "I'm no Sith so I've never really dealt with slaves before." This could possibly work in my favor. A lenient master would listen to their slave, hopefully. It might be easier to convince him of his need to stay allied with the Empire.
"Yes, master. I… is there anything I should be… worried about? In your presence, I mean."
He rubbed the back of his head. "Not really, I guess. Don't straight up disobey in front of my superiors. Kriff, I don't know, you can go right now if you like, escape or whatever, I'll even take your collar off, but, you'll probably be caught forced to serve in a less… comfortable capacity."
He looked frustrated. It was surprising, seeing a man able to speak in a perfectly calm manner in a Sith Lord's presence but fumble for words in a slave's.
"I'll stay with you, master, but, can you tell me something?"
"Alright." We began walking again, now out of the Academy and into a sandy corridor between two tombs. There was a small landing pad in the distance, shuttle sitting with its engines online.
"Am I a burden?"
"Not really, you could be, or maybe it'll be easier with you around. What can you do?"
"Uh, come again- oh s-sorry." I lowered my head again. I was getting out of character.
"Whatever. What are you capable of, can you fight, clean, cook, dance- or are you meant to frak and discard." The last part somewhat caught me off guard.
I stammered out, "I-I can fight, master, and well, the other things too, except for… for the last part."
"You mean sex?" The blue stripes on my lekku darkened.
"Y-yes, that." I glanced up to see a small smirk appear on his lips.
"Then you're not a burden. Once we get to my ship we can discuss weapons and things like that. My last partner, Wraith, was killed on Dromund Kaas. She had a blaster pistol, a rifle, and a few other things. We can talk about that later, we need to reach the Imperial Fleet first."
"Yes, master." The answer came automatically.
Now I had to think up weapons I could use, lightsabers wouldn't be an option for sure.
AN: I just wanted to add a bit about this story down here for y'all. So I originally started writing this in 2015 but got bored of it and stopped. A few days back, I got back into Star Wars fanfiction/ AU's and looked back at this story. I realized that it was a few thousand words long and decided to edit it. I have two chapters posted including this one and two more on the way.
Also, on account of the Cipher's future changes in attitude, just take it as it is. If you're boss walks up to you and you hate them, you still try to act respectful or if you know you're irreplaceable then you don't. Around someone important that can screw your life up you grovel and when you're at home with your cat, ie: Ahsoka (b/c let's be honest, for the time being she's just his companion… but that's okay cause- Sneak Peak! In a bit, they'll go on missions together) anyway, when with your cat, you can let loose a bit. Not that dogs, chipmunks, guinea pigs, toasters, and attack helicopters are bad, I just have a cat.
Another thing y'all will probably notice is that relaxed for Cipher is when he's not in undercover pretend mode or cold and unapproachable. So he'll be a bit less freezing when in private with Ahsoka but still kind of aloof.
This has been a long-**s author's note and I'm a bit sorry for that but prepare for more as I need to explain other things for future chapters and prepare for those chapters as I do try to make my work not too terrible.
Thanks anyone that read this and a cherry on top for the people who review ;)
-I feel like that winky face is wrong tho-
