MedBay Cresh, Imperial Prison Ship Manacle, unknown space
Brakatak wiggled the loose tooth with his tongue. He hoped somebody would have a pair of pliers whenever they were finally allowed to return to their old hold. He had a feeling the busted tooth was going to have to be yanked before it got infected.
The loose tooth as well as a huge bruise and swelling across the left side of his face where the results of an unpowered force baton being viciously whipped across his face during the riots that had been fought to regain control of the ship. At the moment it appeared as if the guards had won, but they still had a few more decks to clear before the ship was declared secure, by whoever was in charge. One of those decks included his old home of Hold G-2, which explained his presence as a refugee in one of the Manacle's MedBays.
The MedBay was one of the few places onboard that had any sort of lighting after someone had ran power cables over from the Tector-class Star Destroyer Trapped. It still wasn't much, but at least there was some gravity and you could at least see your hand in front of your face. The Ishi Tib, Frip, and the two Firrerreo teenagers, Ashlei and Keatly, had stayed with the huge Gran while he was unconscious.
"The medics only slap a Grav-press bandage on Brakatak, then flung you against wall, because you dirty prisoner." Frip explained. "We protect you till you awake."
"We moved you," Ashlei indicated herself and Keatly. "It was easy in zero-G."
"Yeah, you we're as light as a feather, once that wall of troopers went past during the riot, the medic that was with them just waved the three of us on through." Keatly added.
"How come we're still here then?" Brakatak asked. "I mean if I can't get any more help out of the Imps, we might as well head back to the herd." Brakatak started to rise to his feet. The room started to spin a little as he stood and Frip caught him before he could fall and do some real damage to himself.
"Careful, we are still low gravity, and you have head injury. Don't stand so fast." He lowered Brakatak back to the deck again. A medic or nurse ran by dressed in their standard hospital scrubs. The human female had to be careful not to step on any of the multitude of prisoners that lined the wall. Near the end of the room stood a guard with an onewly powered force pike who seemed ready to use it against any of the slaves if they got out of hand.
"We can't go back, Brakatak. We already asked. Those decks are still being cleared." Keatly informed him.
"The guards just asked us why we were out of our holds, and then when they wanted to know what hold we came from. We told them G-2." Ashlei threw in. "That's when they got mad and said since that area of the ship wasn't secured yet that we'd have to stay here until it was."
"It's a good thing too; we saw the guards welding doors in place over the holds they had secured. They really don't want us wandering about."
"I wonder why they didn't just throw us in the nearest open hold and secure it after us." Brakatak wondered aloud.
"Empire procedures. Empire lose track of which slave where. Not good for datapads. Gives stormies many headaches if we're not in right rooms." Frip laughed.
"I hear you. When I was in school we had these three Gran boys who were triplets and each of them was in a different classroom. They got in so much trouble running our teachers around trying to figure out which was which." Brakatak launched into several tales from his own educational years, never noticing his friends were listening just in order to pass the time away. It wasn't till an hour later that he noticed Ashlei had fallen asleep leaning against his muscular arm.
He reached over to Frip and shook him as the Ishi Tib had also closed his eyes a couple of minutes ago. Brakatak had thought he was just resting them from the strain of having to use them in low light. Frip's eyelids shot open and he looked at his friend. "Sorry, you say again?"
"Do you think we can get some food down here? It's been a while since I've last eaten."
"That's a long time then for a Gran." Keatly said. She hadn't fallen asleep, but instead had maintained a watchful guard over her friends.
"Guards say no move. MedBay very crowded. They even only take slaves one at time to 'fresher." Frip explained again.
"Maybe they'll bring food in the morning like they did while we were in the hold. I wonder how the herd is holding up." Brakatak pondered.
"I'd say pretty wizard. Frekfrek had quite the stockpile when we left." Ashlei said, waking up from her short nap. She let out a huge yawn as she stretched her arms out.
"I hate this sitting and waiting. My shebs are getting pretty sore." Brakatak whined. His attention to his backsides didn't last long as he soon noted the presence of a squad of stormtroopers entering the MedBay. Brakatak noticed their weaponry was a mix of vibroblades, Rodian razor sticks, castor nets, and what looked like a huge Gamorrean cleaver. These boys weren't messing around.
They walked up to the one of the doctors working on a wounded Rattataki slave that was bleeding out on one of the rooms operating tables. "Where are the walking wounded?" the stormtrooper who appeared to be in charge of the small squad asked.
"Can't you see we're a bit busy here, Corporal." One of the nurses shot back out of frustration. The med teams had been working with a nonstop wave of casualties ever since Brakatak had reawakened. The only slave that had been allowed to move around the MedBay had been a small Dib-doob with a mop for all the blood on the floor.
"They're over that way." The doctor indicated Brakatak's direction with his thumb. The six troopers moved towards the crowd of almost a hundred slaves crowded along the floor and walls of the hospital. The Corporal just stood in front of all of them for a minute silently considering the mass of aliens. Brakatak had heard they had comlinks inside their helmets, but hadn't seen it in action until two of the stormtroopers suddenly lunged forward towards the same muscular Jillsarian. They pulled the slave out and moved him to a position behind them. Three more large slaves were pulled out of the crowd in the same manner before the Corporal was standing in front of Brakatak. A moment later another pair of troopers was jerking Brakatak to his feet and moving him to their makeshift holding area.
"No, wait we with him." Frip yelled. The girls were on their feet as well. The Corporal stared at them for a minute.
"How much can you lift? Do you have any injuries?" his voice suddenly projected through his helmet's speaker.
"We carried him up here to the MedBay." Ashlei pointed at Brakatak and indicated Keatly and herself. "We can handle whatever those guys can't. Frip here too." She jerked her thumb at the Ishi Tib. He clicked his beak and tried to flex his arms to look bigger. Obviously Brakatak's friends had figured out what the stormies were after well before he did.
The Corporal looked across the huddled masses and realized he didn't have much to choose from to start with. "Fine go and join your kriffing buddy over there." He waved the three forward. The girls gave Brakatak a big hug when they caught up to him.
"No separate from school no more." Frip said relieved.
After a few more minutes of picking and choosing the squad finally settled on fifteen slaves that they turned and marched out of the MedBay with. Brakatak was confused when they weren't led below decks, as he had assumed they were to be used clearing damage from the riots with the slaves down there. Instead they kept climbing single file up stairwells and ladders till they reached an equipment bunker near the Manacle's bridge. The Corporal opened the room and filed the prisoners into it. Along the walls were enviro-suits, condenser units, and other survival gear.
"Hurry up and find a enviro-suit that will fit you. You want one you can move in and won't get caught on anything and tear. Believe me when I tell you that you do not want that." The Corporal barked.
The girls and Frip fit easily into some standard human-sized suits, but Brakatak and a few of the other aliens had a little trouble finding ones that were more their size. Keatly showed Brakatak how to release the extender tabs on the arms and legs so that the enviro-suit fit a bit more comfortably on the big Gran. Once everyone was suited up a crewmen entered and started issuing each of the slaves a helmet that secured itself to the suit. When Brakatak donned his bucket he found that his middle eye stalk was rubbing up against the clear plastoid bubble. He wisely thought it best not to complain about it.
The squad led the prisoners back out of the locker and moved them towards a large airlock near the rear of the bridge. An officer waited at the door and inspected the motley group. "Stang it. Is this the best you could find, Corporal?" The human asked with a sneer.
"Most of the lower levels are still engaged in putting down the uprising, sir. This is the best we could locate in the MedBay." The junior NCO explained. Brakatak took the time to look through the airlock at the craft they were evidently about to transfer to. It was painted yellow with a giant CT-11 painted in large black aurebesh lettering along its side. It was the size of a small freighter and its superstructure carried a huge amount of heavy equipment. Lights coming from the few viewports on the thing showed that someone in the Fleet had fully powered up the craft.
"I guess this scum will have to do then." The officer conceded. "You lot, get inside the airlock. When the door on the other side opens move along the access tube till you reach the troopers on the other side. Do you understand?" Brakatak as well as several other slaves near the man nodded their understanding. The officer gestured for them to get inside and shut the door to the Manacle behind them. After a strange sucking noise was heard the blast door to the access tube was open. Once again Brakatak experienced zero-G as the slaves hurried across the thin plastoid tubing that led to the other spacecraft. A squad of strangely suited stormtroopers greeted them as they came aboard the other craft. He stood trying to figure them out, until he overheard another slave suggest that the new troopers were in fact SpaceTroopers especially equipped to deal with zero-G environments.
They were led into another cell, where one of the troopers indicated they could take their helmets off once again. Brakatak felt gravity returning and even noticed the enviro-suit felt a lot heavier onboard the CT-11. He suddenly remembered they were a class of space tugs from his studies in college.
"We're on a tug." He announced.
"They sure do use a lot more gravity on this tug than the Manacle ever did," Keatly noticed. The girls looked like they were trapped under the weight of their suits. The starship gave a small shudder. "I think we're moving too."
"I don't hear any engine noise. Are you sure?" Brakatak asked.
"Not really, but why bring us on board if they weren't going to take us somewhere." Brakatak broke into another story about how he was training to become a pilot one day, but so far the closest he had come to it had been as a slave aboard a tug. Every fifteen minutes or so there was another shudder and the tug seemed to lurch in a new direction. If you sat still you could just barely make out which way they were moving.
An hour later they were all being led off of the craft by the strange troopers and through another access tube to their final destination. Brakatak was stunned when he removed his helmet again and found himself standing on the deck of an Imperial II Star Destroyer.
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Observatory, Orbital Laboratory Starship Achievement, Kuati Third Fleet, Unknown Gas Giant Capture Orbit
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"When do you think we'll be able to power up all of the science arrays again?" Dr Paladin of the Duros Astronomical and Space Exploration Society asked his colleague.
"Weeks, I'm guessing. We should consider ourselves lucky that they got the heat going again. It was getting stang frigid in here as I recall." His friend from the Royal Alderaan Space Sciences University answered.
"The instruments like the cold, besides I can't believe old Kuat could be happy when he finds out all we have for entertainment is twiddling our thumbs." Paladin warned.
"He's had to make cuts with almost every experiment under his command, besides we've been dragooned by the Fleet so we technically aren't working for the Moff anyways. We might as well get back to it." His friend told him over a steaming cup of caf.
Paladin just shrugged. He stood and grabbed an instrument near the floor to ceiling viewport that made up one section of the observatory. "I can't believe I've been reduced to using this Neuro-Saav VXI-3 electrotelescope. I feel like I'm back in my freshman days at the university."
"I hear you, but they beat the fierfek out of macrobinoculars."
"True enough. It looks like we got something big plowing its way through the belt in Sector 6." Paladin voice rose at with the joy of new discovery. "That might be just what the Admiral's looking for." His friend stood up and grabbed his own electotelescope before approaching the viewport.
"I'm reading about 950 kilometer diameter, looks like a small moon."
"That's no moon." Paladin corrected, "Just a big asteroid. I'm getting readings of ice, dolomite, cronstedtite, siderite, olivine, silicates, sulfides, and most importantly oxides. Do you concur?"
His friend studied his own instruments for a minute. "I concur. This looks like just what the Admiral ordered."
"Let's call it in."