Chapter 6: "Burn It All!"

Though most of Dromund Kaas was hostile to nonhumans, there was one exception: The Nexus Cantina. The upper floors were still restricted to humans, Sith, and Imperial officers, but the main level was open to all – and after the day he'd had, Zarek Voss was very grateful.

He settled at the bar and ordered some Mandalorian kri'gee. He winced at the bitter flavor, but at least the alcohol was strong.

Just one, he promised himself. He needed be in shape for the next day's training. Thirteen days until the Grand Melee. Not a lot of time, and he couldn't afford to waste any of it. His scowl intensified just thinking about this unexpected complication. Maybe he'd let himself have two drinks.

"You can actually stomach that stuff?"

A familiar voice. He glanced up to see Cipher Nine standing at his elbow.

"You're good," he grunted. "Not many can get that close without me noticing."

"You seem to be a little preoccupied."

She pointed at the bench beside him. He nodded.

She waved to the bartender. "Sullastan wine, please. And nothing that post-dates the Treaty."

"That'll cost," the man warned lazily.

She held up her credit chit. He straightened as he noticed its Imperial black color.

She flashed a smile. "One bottle and two glasses, please."

The man practically ran into the back to retriever her order. She turned to Zarek.

"How long since you've tasted actual good alcohol?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It's all just booze, isn't it?"

"So… never," she translated. "Please don't drink anymore of that rot until the wine comes. It will destroy your palate."

"I don't think I have one of those." But he pushed the kri'gee away. Pleasant company beat a pungent drink any day.

"I'm guessing you showing up isn't coincidence," he said. "How'd you track me down?"

"I still have Mako's link," she reminded him. "She told me where you were. I'm surprised she didn't give you a heads-up."

"I think she's busy trying to find information about the Grand Melee. Did you know about that little surprise?"

The bartender returned with their wine. Cipher thanked him with a smile. The man retreated. Zarek expected disapproving looks. After all, he was alien filth fraternizing with a pretty young human. But no one was looking at them. Her Imperial credentials had apparently been noted.

"I didn't know about the Melee," she admitted. "Mandalorians aren't my area. I looked it up after talking to Mako, though."

She filled their glasses with practiced ease. Zarek lifted his glass and gulped. The wine was delicate, with a hint of fruit underneath. It was certainly better than the Mandalorian ale.

Cipher also sipped, very lightly. She closed her eyes, holding the wine in her mouth. It was several seconds before she swallowed, with an audible sigh of satisfaction.

"Aged forty years," she said. "Not quite the best – the flavor lacks the subtlety of a top vintage. But not bad."

Zarek glanced at his glass, at the amount he'd crudely swallowed, and felt embarrassment.

"Anyway, the Melee," Cipher said. "It's pretty straightforward from what I found. The key is to stay in the circle and on your feet. Generally, people will go after the strongest and weakest first. No one will mistake you for weak. But you're also a little older than most of the competitors, so you won't be considered too strong."

"Thanks," Zarek said sarcastically. "I'll be sure to hobble in with my spare cane."

"If I thought you were too old, I wouldn't be here," she pointed out. "The perception is an advantage. It'll give you a few seconds to stake out your position. Make yourself a rock and don't let anyone move you. When it's down to you and a couple others, then shift your focus to moving them."

Zarek nodded. "Thanks." This time, his gratitude was sincere. Her information was more or less as expected from Crysta Markon's description, but confirmation was welcome. Then he smiled. "So you think I'm not too old?" he asked.

"You're seasoned," she said. "Like wine - a little time makes it richer and more interesting."

"And too much turns it into vinegar," he grunted.

She laughed. "I think you have a ways to go before that becomes a worry."

He took another sip of the wine. He replicated what she had done, holding it on his tongue a moment before swallowing. It was no good - Whatever subtleties might have been hiding, he couldn't detect them. He supposed he was just a blunt kind of individual.

"What's your name?" he asked. "What do I call you?"

She looked startled. "Cipher Nine, Imperial Intelligence."

"That's a job, not a name. It would be like me telling you to call me 'Bounty Hunter 72' or something."

"What name would you like?" she asked. "On Nar'Shadaa, I'm Danya Keelor, smuggler and art aficionado. I'm Leyla Silpat on Coruscant, investor in properties and small businesses. I was Raya Tsoong on Tattooine, but she died in a carbine explosion. Who do you want me to be?"

She tilted her head and smiled at him, but he felt his mood sour.

"Sorry, but one thing I am too old for is games," he said. "If you don't trust me..."

He started to get up.

"Wait." Cipher's hand reached out to touch his wrist. A surprisingly desperate gesture. He had been about to walk away, but instead he looked down at her. He felt his annoyance fade at the earnestness of her expression. "Please," she said.

Zarek settled back into the table, gave her a prompting look.

"If I didn't trust you, I wouldn't be here," she said. "It's just… Your question's a lot less simple than you think it is." No playfulness now. She looked straight into his eyes and spoke with absolute sincerity. "I guarantee my day's been worse than yours and I don't want to be alone," she added. "Please."

"I guarantee my day has been worse than yours," she said. "I don't want to be alone. Please."

Her hand was pleasantly warm on his wrist, and the wine smelled sweet and inviting.

"Okay," Zarek raised his glass, as if in toast. "Danya. I prefer smugglers to corporate types."

"Me too." Open gratitude in her eyes. Then the flirtatious smile returned. "Though Leyla has a very nice suite of rooms, and the finest taste in restaurants."

"So you prefer being Leyla?"

"Nah. Danya's a lot more fun."

Zarek's glass was almost empty. Cipher refilled it.

He considered asking what had been so awful about her day, but he knew she couldn't tell him. Everything about her work was confidential. She had already shared more than Imperial protocols probably permitted. It would be unfair to try to get her to tell him more.

Her hand found his.

"My room's pretty small," he said clumsily.

"Mine isn't," she replied.

"You're not ashamed to be seen taking an alien back to your quarters?"

"As Kaliyo's pointed out, every non-Sith outside my department is scared of me. After all, I am the freakin' secret police."

As if to prove her point, she leaned in and kissed him. As if to prove her point, everyone around looked anywhere but at them.

Vette was still completing the disgusting Sith stew when Krell returned home. He did not speak. When she mentioned that Lon Darro had come by, he made an absent sound of acknowledgement, then walked out onto the balcony, staring out over the city.

He stayed there, lost in thought, while Vette focused on finishing the dinner. She ladled out a dish, set his table with that and water. He always drank water, she had noticed. No alcohol. He still hadn't budged from the balcony.

She debated for a minute, but she didn't want to be blamed if the food went cold or the worms died before he got to them.

"Dinner," she announced nervously.

He nodded heavily, then took his place at the table.

She stood beside him as he ate, ready to assist him if needed. She tried not to watch as he speared one of the Blood Worms in the stew, but she caught a glimpse of him slurping the creature into his mouth like some kind of fat, squiggly pasta. She cringed at the crunch his teeth made against its flesh.

The food seemed to pull him out of his reverie.

"Good," he commented. "The spices are a little heavy, but this is not bad. Do we have seconds?"

Vette felt an instant's elation. Her Master was satisfied with the stew! She almost ran to the kitchen to re-fill his bowl.

Then froze, her hand shaking as she realized what had just gone through her mind. That she had been pleased because her Master was happy with her.

Krell called for her, a hint of impatience in his voice. She hurriedly finished filling the dish, then asked if she could be excused. He waved her off wordlessly and she fled to the balcony. Exactly as Krell had done before dinner. Even here, she was following in his footsteps.

She had lost track of the exact number of days since her capture on Korriban, but it couldn't have been much more than a week. A little over a week ago, if someone had asked her to cook a meal, she would have laughed at them. Today, she had spent the bulk of the day shopping for and preparing a stew that she had literally put her own blood into. And when Arkarix Krell – when her Master – had liked it, for a second she had been happy.

Did it really take so little time for her to start thinking of herself as a slave?

"You get used to anything," Dario Tullyn had said.

She should throw herself over the railing, she thought. If there was any hope, she couldn't see it. She would just grow more and more accustomed to being the Sith's property, until she stopped even thinking of herself as an individual. She should end it now, before that had a chance to happen. Krell wasn't watching her, and it would only take her a second to do it. He wouldn't be able to stop her.

She stared for a moment more. Then she turned away. As pathetic as it was, she wanted to live.

Krell called for her to clear the table. She drew in a lungful of warm night air. Then she straightened her shoulders and returned inside, to finish her work.

Parcam was asleep. As Reyenna Desme stood over him, he slumbered on, his snores coming in hog-like grunts that would have been appropriate for a Gamorrhean or an Ughnaut.

Khem Val, the monstrous Dashade bound to her in servitude, sneered.

"This was is not worthy of a true Sith's wrath," he rumbled. "It shows weakness to even bother with him."

"Silence," Reyenna snapped.

Khem made a grumbling noise in his throat. He obeyed, however, as his conditioning required.

Reyenna clamped her hand over Parcam's nose and mouth For several seconds, he did not move. She worried that he might smother before he woke. But finally, his eyes shot open and he began to struggle.

She removed her hand. He started to call for the guard. She made her hand a claw, feeling herself clutching at his fleshy throat. He gurgled, tearing fruitlessly at his own neck.

"You will be silent."

She imitated Zash's manner, calm and imperious. It had the desired effect. Parcam's eyes widened, and he nodded vigorously. Only then did Reyenna release him.

He lay in his nightclothes, gasping for breath. His eyes moved from Reyenna to Khem, who was a fearsome presence even when sulking. When he looked back at Reyenna, the only thing she saw in his eyes was bewilderment.

"You don't remember me, do you?" she asked. Of course he didn't. She had been just one of many slaves he had abused, no more meaningful to him than any other.

"If I've offended, my Lady – "

Reyenna laughed. "If you've offended?"

He moved to get up. She pushed at him with her mind, knocking him back onto his mattress.

"I am Reyenna Desme," she announced. "Daughter of Vallen and Ahlora Desme." A moment's blankness. Then, finally, he began to react. "Ah, so you do remember. That 'unfortunate circumstance' that put my mother and me in your clammy, sweaty grasp."

He started to make stuttering noises in his throat. She could sense his thoughts, racing dully for words.

"You're doing all right for yourself now, right?" he said at last. "Things may have been rough, but in the end – "

She made a gesture, mentally blocking his mouth. He could continue to breathe through his pudgy red nose, but he could not speak.

" 'Things may have been rough?' " she repeated. "You remember the shackles, don't you? Wrists and ankles."

She stretched his limbs, locking his feet and wrists together while yanking the feet toward the bottom of the bed and the wrists toward the top. Exactly as he had done. His nightshirt was pulled up, revealing his sweaty, pasty belly.

"You made me walk to that bench on my own power," she recalled. "If I didn't cooperate, you said, then my mother would entertain you instead."

He shrank away as she approached him. "You liked to make me scream," she recalled. "As loud as I could manage, so that every slave and guard on the floor knew what was happening. So that my mother knew what was happening."

Parcam was making desperate noises in his throat. She waved a hand and released the block on his mouth.

"Use your words wisely," she said.

"It was orders!" Parcam gasped. "I was following orders!"

"Orders?" This surprised her. She had assumed he was merely a degenerate, enforcing his depravity on those who were powerless to resist. "Whose orders?"

Parcam flinched. "I can't say," he said. "I can't!"

Reyenna raised a hand, allowing lightning to crackle in her palm. "Who ordered it and why?"

He shook his head stubbornly, more terrified of the one who had given the order than of her. Impressive, Reyenna reflected. Still, Parcam was weak. He would break easily. She shot a quick burst of lightning over him. More of a playful flicker than real punishment, but he sobbed and blubbered.

"Whose orders?" she repeated. "The next one won't be so gentle."

She conjured more lightning. Growing circles, which she allowed to swirl and storm in front of the man's eyes. She stretched out her fingers to direct it at him.

"Darth Zash!" he cried.

"Zash?" She stiffened. "Darth Zash ordered you to torture me?"

"Not you specifically," he whimpered. "She wanted to find Force users among the slaves. My job was to push the strongest as hard as I could. Any who used abilities to resist were shipped straight to Korriban. I don't know why - When a Sith give you an order, you don't ask why!"

Reyenna felt numb. It made sense. When her Force sensitivity had manifested in the mines, she had been sent to Korriban. After she was given one last push…

She closed her eyes against the image of the knife, flashing across her mother's throat. All to make sure that – what? – that what had happened in the mine wasn't some exaggerated report from an overly excited guard?

"How many Force sensitives did you find?" she asked.

"Not many," Parcam said. "Less than one in a hundred, and most of them weren't very strong. Not like you. Why didn't you fight back?"

Why hadn't she? Why had her abilities only manifested when the mine tunnel collapsed? She had been just as afraid in Parcam's care, just as certain that she would die.

But she was protecting her mother. Parcam had told her to cooperate or her mother would take her place, and she had already known that her mother would not survive that. So she had resigned herself to the pain, the humiliation, all of it.

"You were lucky I didn't," she said. "The guards who came for me that last night in The Pit? They died quite badly." Then she cocked her head, smiled at him. "But I'm afraid your luck has run out."

Parcam started to plead. "I told you what I know," he said. "It was Zash! I was just following orders!"

"Shush." She laid a finger gently over his lips. "I believe you," she whispered. "But I can't have you running to tell her about this little visit, can I? Besides, she may have given the order. But you were still the one who tortued me."

"Think what your mother would say," he whimpered. "She wouldn't want you doing this. She wouldn't want – "

She blocked his mouth again. There was nothing else he had to say that she was interested in.

"My mother," she said. "Do you know what listening to my screams did to her? She died a little each day." Ahlora Desme, proud Balmorran aristocrat, reduced to a slave. Helpless to act as she listened to her daughter's agony. "She detached. It happened to a lot of slaves. Usually, they died soon after." She blinked away tears at the memory of how hard she had fought to keep her mother alive. How pointless that fight had finally been. "One day, when I brought her food, she said something to me. She knew she wasn't going to make it out. She made me promise, though. That if I ever got the chance, I would do all I could to burn it all. Burn it to ash."

She moved to the side, allowing Parcam an unobstructed view of Khem.

"This is Khem Val," she said. "He prefers eating Force users. I'm afraid he'll consider you nothing more than a snack. But even a snack can be savored, and Khem is very hungry."

Khem was roused from his sullenness by the promise of food and the smell of Parcam's terror. He grinned, exposing rows of razor-like teeth.

"I'll let you in on a last secret," Reyenna whispered to Parcam. "It was actually a comfort to scream, to cry out the pain and the frustration. But I've promised to be a good little girl, to be controlled and discreet… So I'm afraid I won't be able to offer you that comfort. You won't be able tomake a sound."

Khem approached, and Parcam struggled helplessly. As helpless as her mother had been, listening to her pain. As helpless as she had been, as her mother had told her that she knew she would never leave The Pit.

"My baby, if you ever get the chance, by whatever miracle… Burn it. Burn it all to ash!"

She could feel Parcam's anguish. She smiled grimly, knowing that tonight Ahlora Desme would have been content.