Author's Note: Longer chapter…this is still set in Amara's past, approximately 11 months before she is rescued. I don't own Star Wars just the characters I created.

Mutiny

The uprising aboard the Trandoshan slave ship Devil's Claw was short and bloody. The Claw's crew was outnumbered almost ten to one by the small army of humans, Selonians, Drackmarians, and several other species who had agreed to fight. But the Trandoshan slavers did have one big advantage: blasters. Once they realized what was happening, they mowed down whole groups before they were overtaken and killed. Kat died in the first round of shooting, and Jake could only stand, stunned, over her body before he was shot in the chest.

The large Italian woman somehow managed to take down one of the slavers with a dropped blaster she had recovered before another Trandoshan snapped her neck with his bare hands.

A huge chunk of the rebelling forces—including all of the Drackmarians—were killed when a well-placed shot blew up one of the Drackmarian's methane tanks.

A group of Selonians managed to fight their way into the ship's cockpit and battled tooth and claw for control. Mendelssohn figured they could handle themselves and signaled to the remaining humans (about ten in all, bloody and wild-eyed) and aliens to get weapons before they headed deeper into the ship to pick off any remaining Trandoshans. The humans scooped up blasters from the dead and dying that littered the hall. One thin blond girl collapsed to her knees beside the charred corpse of an older woman—wisps of blond hair still fluttered around her blackened face. Mendelssohn sighed and pulled the shaking girl to her feet. He thrust a blaster into her hands and pushed her in the direction of the cargo room, now full of empty cages and a few creatures unwilling or unable to fight.

"Take that to Amara," he said before turning and pulling another man to his feet. Mendelssohn barked orders to his tattered army, startling them out of their shocked stupor and forcing them to look at him instead of the bodies twisted at their feet. "We can't help them now, my friends—we have to press on. We can win!"

The thin girl watched them walk away and clutched the blaster to her chest. Sounds of the battle still raging in the cockpit filtered slowly into her mind. She watched the rebels until they disappeared around a dark corner. She lowered her head and stared at her mother's body. In the cockpit, someone shrieked and growled—blaster fire. The girl shook her long blond hair away from her face and raced back to the cage-room.

Grodossk ducked behind the Claw's hyperdrive. It was not in his nature to run from a fight or hide, but the humans chasing him had to be some sort of demons. How'd they get out of their cage? He could hear their footsteps. They were getting closer. He balled his hands into fists, his sharp claws bit into his palms. The pain calmed him, and he was able to think. Unfortunately, all he was able to think about was the multitude of ways he would kill his captain, Drissk, for harvesting the humans in the first place. It was an unknown, unexplored planet—and he lands like he owns the place and picks up some natives, a nice little sampling in fact. Who cares if they have a taste for mutiny? Grodossk had already decided that the wimpy looking creatures were not normal humans…maybe not human at all. And he wanted nothing more to do with them except to destroy every last one.

He heard them run into the engine room—they would find him soon. Grodossk knew he was going to die, and he wasn't about to fight fair. He reached into a pocket on the thigh of his orange flight suit and pulled out a thermal detonator.

The Selonian lashed at Drissk with her tale, but he dodged out of the way, placing the pilot's chair between them. Her chestnut fur bristled. He fired his blaster, missed, and fired again this time striking her in the shoulder. The Selonian shrieked and rushed at him, her claws tore across his face, blinding his left eye and shredding the collar of his yellow flight suit, before he kicked her hard in the stomach, sending her crashing into the control panel. He lifted his blaster again—the red fire tore through her stomach, disintegrating fur, flesh, and bone. Drissk roared triumphantly and then strode out of the cockpit, making a mental note to skin the Selonian later. First, however, he was going to take his ship back.

"Who's winning, Amara?" Amy whispered, trembling uncontrollably at every blaster shot and scream that echoed through the ship. She took an anxious step toward Amara who was standing outside the cage trying to convince her two other charges that they were safer in the cage than out. Complicating matters was the fact that the two boys (although of Turkish descent) spoke German and could only understand a little English.

"I don't know, Amy…" Amara replied, glancing up at Amy who was a head taller than her standing.

The boys made a run for the door, their hands outstretched and held like guns. Amara blocked their way—how could she make them understand that this was more than a game? "Nein! Nein!" she pleaded, summoning every ounce of German she had ever learned in school, "Ihr musst hier bleiben! Hier ist sicher." The boys paused and glanced at each other, then at her.

"Unsere Mutti…" one began.

Then Amara understood—they wanted to help their mother, to save her. She noticed the way their hands clenched at their sides whenever a particularly horrible shriek or burst of fire reverberated down the hall. She didn't know what to tell them. All she could do was hold out her hands to them in a sad half-pleading, half-commiserating gesture. "Bitte…"

A blond-haired girl dashed into the room carrying a blaster. She skidded to a stop in front of Amara. Her face was pale and gaunt, her emerald eyes haunted. She thrust the blaster into Amara's hands without a word and then promptly burst into tears and fell to the floor.

Amara stared blankly at the blaster for a moment and considered setting it down, but then she noticed the hungry looks on the boys' faces and thought it was safer if she held onto it. She gingerly clutched it in her right hand and knelt down beside the sobbing girl. "What's happened?" The girl didn't look up. She let out a sound that started as a scream and ended as a wrenching sob. "Please…I can't help if you don't tell me what happened. Are we winning?"

The girl sucked in a breath. "We were…" she managed to choke out.

Amara bit her lip—she didn't like pressing the girl, but… "What do you mean 'were'?"

"Before he sent me back…I don't know about now."

"How many have died?"

The girl shook her head and sobbed harder, refusing to answer any more questions. Amara sighed, lifted the girl to her feet, and helped her back into the cage where Amy waited like a mother hen, attempting to consol the girl with whispered nothings. "It'll be okay…Amara—she'll help you find your way home…she'll protect us…I'll help you too…"

Somewhere in the bowels of the ship, a thermal detonator went off.

The explosion knocked Amara off her feet and slammed her against the bars of an empty cage. She was only vaguely aware of the floor beneath her…the blaster still clutched in her hand…all she wanted to do was go to sleep and ease the pounding in her head…she tasted copper… The sound of clawed feet on metal snapped her awake. Slowly, she raised her head and forced her eyes to focus on the tall creature standing two meters away from her. It reminded her of Godzilla (if Godzilla shrunk, lost its tale, and wore a yellow flight suit that is). Amara shook her head and attempted to rise. Pain shot through her arms, legs, and chest—she rolled onto her back, gasping. The boys were moaning somewhere to her left. She couldn't hear Amy or the blond girl.

A scream ripped the air.

Galvanized into action—all pain forgotten, Amara flipped onto her stomach and forced her legs beneath her. She stood too fast and swayed, catching herself on the bars of the cage. She still held the blaster in her right hand. She faced the Godzilla-lizard-man.

His left eye was swollen shut, and he seemed to be grinning at her; his lips pulled taught against jagged teeth. It took her mind a moment to register why. Her vision blurred then cleared again. In his right hand, the lizard-man held up the eleven-year-old boy who clawed vainly at the hand clutching his throat and struggled to escape the vice-like grip, his legs kicked wildly. The other boy he held by the shirt collar and easily kept from running away. Behind the lizard, two motionless bodies were crumpled inside the human's cage.

"No…let them go…please…"

The lizard's grin widened. He crushed the eleven-year-old's neck. The boy's body went limp and was tossed aside like a rag doll. But his brother, taking advantage of the Trandoshan's distraction, ripped his shirt from lizard-man's grasp. He bounded toward Amara, tears streaking down his face. He never made it. In one fluid motion, the lizard swept out his blaster and shot the boy between the shoulder blades. The boy's mouth formed an "o" of surprise, his eyes widened, and Amara noticed that they were a strange dark violet color—almost black—before he fell dead at her feet.

Amara raised her gray-green eyes, cool as forest fog, to meet the lizard's red one. She watched him swing his blaster upwards, almost in slow motion, aiming for her head. But she was already firing into the creature's broad chest. Her finger clenched the trigger reflexively—she couldn't stop firing even after the lizard-man crumpled to the floor, a black hole in his chest. The blaster grew hot beneath her hands.

"Amara, stop! Please stop! It's dead…it's dead…"

Amy's frightened voice sliced through the fog in Amara's head. She jerked her hands away from the blaster, letting it fall to the floor with a dull clatter. She swayed, but gentle hands caught her and enveloped her in a comforting hug. Amara gazed with morbid fascination at the red puddle blossoming beneath the violet-eyed boy.

Amy dragged Amara away from the bodies, moving to a small clear space by the door. She sat down and pulled Amara into her lap and rocked her like she would one of her doll's back home. "It's okay…it's okay…" she chanted over and over.

Amara finally met Amy's eyes, and was surprised to see a frightened child staring back at her. For a moment, she had almost believed she was home being held by her mother after a particularly ruff day. But this was not her mother stroking her hair, it was a child doing all she knew how to do to comfort someone who should have been comforting her. Amara broke the embrace and stood up. She kept her eyes focused on Amy.

"Are you all right?" she asked.

Amy stood. "My head hurts, but yes I'm all right." She glanced nervously at the girl still lying in the cage. "I…I think I hit her."

Amara entered the cage and bent to examine the girl. Her spine was bent at an awkward angle—broken. "She's dead."

Amy began to cry, silent tears coursed down her face. "It's my fault."

"No, no—you didn't mean to. You didn't make the ship jerk like that…didn't cause the blast…"

"But I…"

"No 'buts,'" Amara interrupted, pressing Amy's hands, "It was not your fault, understand?"

Amy nodded, but didn't look convinced.

"Now," Amara continued, glancing around the room (she tried to ignore the bodies on the floor and the blue elephants who didn't fight piled on one side of their cage, apparently dead), "we are going to find the others…"

A tremendous crash threw her across the room again, smashing her into the durasteel wall, but this time she didn't get up.

The Wookie howled and struggled against the solid durasteel restraints holding him down on the operating table as Dr. Lucius Rave made tiny slits in the Wookie's lungs with a slim but wicked looking knife. Air hissed out of the slits, and the Wookie was forced to stop howling and gasped for breath. Dr. Rave smiled—it would take the creature a few hours to die at least. He wondered if he should speed up the process, but no, another experiment could cloud the results of the first. He'd had enough fun for one day—simply shaving the Wookie had been pleasure enough. Why hadn't he thought to do that before? He shrugged and began fusing shut the opening in the creature's chest cavity.

But the sound of crunching, breaking metal followed by the violent shaking of the entire research facility, startled him and he lost his balance. His hand squelched inside the Wookie, tearing vital organs. The creature died with a low wail.

Dr. Rave removed his hand and gave it a disgusted shake, and then, seeing that the specimen was dead, stabbed his knife into one of its blank eyes. Furious, he strode across the room and punched the com with his bloody hand. "What happened?" he seethed.

The perpetually nervous voice of the communications officer, a young Second Lieutenant, crackled into the room: "Ahem…um…we're still figuring that out, sir, but it appears that a ship…" he paused as if listening to someone, "ah, yes…a Trandoshan slave ship dropped out of hyperspace and slammed into us."

"Damage?"

"Bridge 6 is severed, sir, and Block 2's atmosphere is barely holding…we are evacuating the area."

Lucius's rage had already calmed, but now he burned with curiosity. "What of the ship? Any signs of life?"

The communication's officer paused, then: "We are sending a boarding party now. Instructions?"

Lucius's blue eyes twinkled. "I want everyone on board the vessel taken alive and brought to Holding Room 3, in section 7, Center Block. Understood?"

"Acknowledged—I will update you of any new developments."

Dr. Rave ordered a clean-up crew to the operating room and then turned from the intercom and practically ran to the catwalks that crisscrossed over Holding Room 3. He wanted to see his new specimens as soon as they were brought in.