Chapter 2: Life on the Outpost
It's hard to long for a better life when this is the only life you know.
The slave outpost facility might give one the impression that it was a factory merged with a coliseum if looking at it from a bird's eye view. At the same time the layout was something like a market weaved throughout: much of the operation was staged outdoors. On one end, a building that was forged from leftover metal from a massive Kree battleship that had been demolished; there were numerous levels of the building, both above ground and below.
Outside of this to the south was a vast span of ground, bare from the center on out with pavilioned stations all around the perimeter. This arena and its web of stations encompassed the land, bookended by another facility: single story, yet still formidable in terms of square feet it covered, and rectangular in shape.
It looked, for lack of a better word, like a prison. This was not too far off from the truth.
This was the facility that every infant sold into Kree slavery would spent the majority of their first few years of life. More specifically, they would spend their lives in egg-shaped pods.
The pods themselves were architected to remove the need for any nurturing or interaction in the child's development - babies served frankly no purpose, but the investment of the slave warranted a model that was efficient and productive.
The baby would be connected to the machine, a mouthpiece in place to allow breathing, and the pod would fill up with a thick, orange liquid. Through osmosis, the liquid would seep through the skin of the inhabitant and deliver whatever formula the pod was programmed to deliver.
Nutrition. Healing. Growth stimulants. And with a few simple attachments to the skull, brain synapses could be coded with motor skills and speech development.
It was truly a very sophisticated machine.
The regimen for infants was to spend 14 hours a day in the pods. When not in the pods, the Kree maidens transferred the infant to the nursery for sleep: a cold and dark place with rows upon rows of infant beds, a nursery in name only given you would not once find any one of the Kree maidens nursing or nurturing, or even holding the infants to soothe or comfort. This was forbidden.
It was a simple formula - 14 hours in the pods to promote growth, otherwise in the nursery for sleep: repeat, and repeat. Once a year the child would receive a physical assessment; this was to ensure the child was not only developing as expected, but that there were no egregious deficiencies with their bodies. Any child that was too weak, or too sick, or deformed was deemed unfit for the battle slave occupation...and terminated on the spot.
Similar to six months ago, the Centaurian named Yondu Udonta was laying on a grey slab, this time under a pavilion within the facility.
Behind this scene the entire outpost was a bustle of activity. The fighting grounds were full of slaves in battle match-ups, honing their skills in fighting and in weaponry. The pavilions surrounding the fighting grounds acted as various stations for armor, weapons, weapons maintenance, weapons cleaning, armor cleaning. And further still in sight - if one looked hard enough - you could see the docking bay for ships to load and offload soldiers from the outpost onto battle. It would of course be some time before the baby on the stone slab would be boarding one of those ships, but board them he would if he survived that long.
The alien conducting the exam was not Kree: tall, oblong shaped head, with large turquoise eyes and fingertips resembling little orbs, his fingers sprawled across the baby's head to reveal the chip behind the ear to scan and pull up the infant slave's record. The child squirmed at this touch and grunted in protest but did not cry. The slab beneath the infant was again glowing orange, graduating its glow to red, then to purple, performing the scans and populating the holoscreen next to the provider with the necessary data.
"Name: Yondu Udonta.
Age: 1 year.
Physical growth targets...met.
Intellectual growth targets ... met.
No glaring deficiencies identified."
Time passed. The cycle repeated itself. As time went by the child spend less and less time in the pods, but given the nature of their function the Kree saw it fit to use the pods throughout the life cycle of all battle slaves: it was honestly a very easy way to ensure low mortality rates from undernourishment as well as lower operational costs towards food and any healing needs.
2 years.
3 years.
4 years.
At four years old Yondu sat on the table; he was wearing a white shirt lacking in sleeves and a pair of pants, both of which had been his singular possessions for clothing for quite some time and thus showed signs of wear. The provider's assessment was the same as it had been the last 3 years with one exception:
"...no glaring deficiencies identified. Ready to begin task assignment."
Task assignment.
This meant the child was finally at the point where developmental needs were seen as sufficiently met. It was time to put the child to work.
A Kree maiden that had been shadowing the doctor beckoned Yondu to follow her.
It was another dark-skied, overcast and grey day.
The four year old obediently followed behind the handmaiden, looking at her back, knowing she would not look at him because they rarely ever did. He followed her throughout the stretch of pavilioned stations to weapons maintenance. A large, muscular man was working a dagger at a sharpening stone setup when they arrived.
The man, quite possibly entering his 60s, looked up briefly to see the handmaiden and in turn the small boy. His eyes and skin were the same fire and ice as Yondu: another Centaurian.
The Kree maiden, adorned in their signature black and gold, stated clearly, "he is to start task assignment."
The Centaurian man did nothing but nod and return his attention to the dagger in his hands against the stone. Yondu stood there in the wake of the Kree maiden, observing this newfound behavior of weapons maintenance that he had glanced at from afar but never seen up close.
"Come 'ere, boy," came the gruff voice of the weaponsmith. There was a twang of dialect in his voice, a signature (unbeknownst to Yondu) for Centaurians from the southern regions of Centaurian IV. Yondu approached him, staying a few feet away given the sparks flying off the dagger as it was sharpened.
The adult Centaurian released his foot from the pedal of his workstation and held the dagger up to observe his work. It seemed he had reached a level of satisfaction with it and thus turned both his body and his attention to young Yondu.
"Can you speak?" He said, looking the boy directly in the eye.
This was an interesting question - in truth, this was the first time in the four year old's life anyone had asked him to speak, outside of his yearly assessments where they were merely ensuring the synapsing for speech development was on target ("Can you speak? Say 'yes sir'." "Yes sir")
What a sensation for the small child...but he responded in course, with the only thing at that point he had been used to saying: "Yes sir"
The adult Centaurian chuckled and smirked at this programmed response. There was no need to inquire how long Yondu had occupied the slave outpost - his age and this response was evidence enough.
"Wa's your name?"
"...Yondu Udonta." Again the boy responded, his hesitance only due to this being his first real conversation. His name he knew given it was stated each year during his assessments (much like how barcodes are matched to products).
The man accepted the response and gave one in turn. "My name- is Barrett Ygah." It was clearly important to this man to establish the exchange of their names even though his correspondent was only four years old... perhaps this was because in terms of living your life as a Kree battle slave, your name was the only thing from your prior life you were allowed to still have.
"Now listen up, Yondu," Barrett leaned in to look down at the young Centaurian: "y'gonna help me out by takin' the daggers I finish up, and puttin' 'em up over there" he pointed behind Yondu at a large slab of stone that housed more than one sharpened weapon, to which Yondu turned his head. Barrett grasped the entirety of the boy's scalp, free of hair same as his own, with his expansive hand and turned his focus back: "look at me." He removed his hand and pointed at the dagger he held in his other.
"Carry it at THIS part," Barrett pointed at the handle, and then to the blade, "you ain't gonna touch this part, you got it?"
Yondu's red eyes went slowly from the blade up to meet Barrett's; the boy nodded. Barrett urged his young counterpart: "R'peat it back"
Yondu looked at his feet, then back up to Barrett.
"I ain't gonna touch that part."
Barrett nodded. "Good boy." He laid the blade flat and offered it to the boy trustingly with both hands. Yondu grasped the dagger at the handle, careful not to touch the blade, and walked over to the stone to set the weapon down alongside the others. The exchange set the tone for how the remainder of the day would go for Yondu: taking finished weapons from Barrett to the table, "weapons maintenance assist".
This was a typical first task assignment; the goal was to establish the relationship of servitude in concurrence with giving an application to the skills adapted in the pods.
Yondu would actually not see Barrett the next day: he would be rotated throughout the various stations to gain familiarity with the other task assignments appropriate for his age.
Yondu found weapons maintenance to be the most pleasant of all the task assignments; this was not only due to the fact that Barrett engaged Yondu in conversation, and as time went by he even went as far as teaching Yondu how to whistle (a core of Centaurian culture that Yondu never knew given he had been a slave since he was a baby).
No, the other stations he got assigned to were far less pleasant. If not set to weapons maintenance, he was either tasked to cleaning the blood off of weapons and armor, or worse: stripping cadavers of their clothing and armor to be repurposed. His small hands trembled the first time he had to strip down a dead battle slave, which attracted the attention of the overseer as the boy found himself frozen and unable to perform the task. This had earned him a whip across his back; he did not make the same mistake again, despite his trembling hands.
Whenever the days concluded the boy - along with all the other slaves - were led off the open area to the main facility building and underground where he would find his new sleeping quarters in the cages. Now that Yondu was on task assignment he was no longer housed in the nursery: he had a cage, roughly four feet wide and seven feet long, with nothing but a cold black stone floor to sleep on. His first night of curling up fetal to retain warmth was sleepless: his only solace was that the next morning he was taken straight to the pods where he would find rest while submerged in the thick orange fluid, a warm comfort like that of an embrace he did not find a source for otherwise.
Before being taken to the cages the slaves were convened in a mess hall with very limited food in supply: getting any food at all seemed like a privilege or courtesy not truly needed given everyone would at some point in their day be sustained via the pods. This made the fact they got food at all, got the opportunity to eat, very much desired and hence fought for.
That first day it was clear to Yondu he would have no chance to snag food for himself: after observing the literal swarm to the tables once food was provided, Yondu consented he would rather not get trampled and sat alongside the wall, waiting obediently for whatever orders he would be given next. It was a pleasant surprise when Barrett plopped down next to him and broke him off a piece of his bread that he looked to have been able to score.
Yondu held the bread, honestly not knowing what to do or to say. Barrett picked up on this.
"Ya eat it. Put it in y'mouth and chew it. Like this." The Centaurian tore off a small piece and popped it into his mouth, chewing obviously to show the boy the intent of the action.
Yondu copy-catted this, tasting solid food for the first time.
Barrett was pleased at Yondu's reception to his instructions but was clearly waiting for something else to happen. Seeing the boy once again needing prompting, he barked "Somebody gives y'somethin you say 'Thanks'."
Yondu looked from Barrett, to the bread in his hand, and back.
"Thanks." Yondu's voice sounded so small in that moment.
This was more attention, more interaction, more care than anything the boy could remember ever receiving in his life.
His awe clearly made the adult Centaurian uneasy: Barrett looked forward to break his eye contact with the boy. Using his arm closest to the child, he ended the interaction with a hearty tap tap with his open hand on the boy's shoulder and got up, finding a different place to finish his bread until the "meal" was considered over and everyone led to their cages.
Once again, time passed: Yondu enjoyed very much the opportunities with Barrett to use his voice and speak to another person. Their conversations were always during times of work where they were not under the observation of their Kree overseers. Yondu naturally developed the same speaking patterns as his conversation partner, and cherished any chance to speak with Barrett even if his tone was less than pleasant ("Hand me that cloth" "Yes sir" "Don't say Yessir to me dammit jus say awright!" "...awright").
Things carried on like this for Yondu for the next 14 months. It's hard to say what kind of person Yondu would be had it not been for these interactions: they added an element to his life that he'd been sorely missing, not that he would have consciously known it.
It was another rainy season, and Yondu at age five (secretly eagerly) went to his task assignment for the day; he was dismayed to see that someone other than Barrett was at weapons maintenance, cleaning the pieces of a dismantled heavy artillery gun.
More than dismayed: Yondu was dumbstruck, so used to seeing that familiar face, red eyes, blue skin... instead the alien before him housed a series of eyes in their skull, with skin a sickly yellow, and a mouth full of sharp teeth akin to that particular race.
Yondu wanted to speak, he wanted to ask where Barrett was, but was too afraid to even move let alone inquire. The many-eyed brute noticed the boy in his paralyzed state and grunted at him, "He's been sent on tour to battle."
Yondu came to his senses...Barrett had said something to him about this at one point.
"Y'git good at somethin and they let ya do it during the offtime when y'git older, but y'never gonna stop gettin' sent int'battle." The old man motioned over at the ships that day when he relayed this to Yondu. "They'll send me on those ships til the day I die."
Yondu had looked at Barrett with wide eyes at that statement, prompting Barrett to say "don't worry. I ain't died yet."
Maybe I'll see him next time, Yondu thought to himself.
His task assignment at weapons maintenance that day went without conversation.
The next time Yondu would see Barrett... was during his task assignment a week later.
Barrett's body was cold, lifeless; a gaping blaster wound in his chest had begun to turn black with congealed blood. Yondu could only look at the cadaver in front of him.
"Udonta." Came a terse command. It was the head overseer, the same one who had whipped him the last time he fell short on this job. Yondu looked at the whip clutched in his master's hand. The threat of violence was enough; Yondu began to dismantle the belt around Barrett's waist.
The unfamiliar ache in Yondu was none other than grief, and it hit home the hardest as he lay curled up on the floor of his cage that night. His eyes teared up as he choked back sobs. He did his best to stay quiet and make his tears stop; this, however, was a very hard thing to do.