The Fall of the Infinite Empire
Chapter 13
Gran-Nock told himself that he could master his hunger. The intervals between the meals the Sith brought him had grown longer and longer. Whether this was another kind of torture or whether they simply didn't think much about him was not something Gran-Nock gave much thought any longer. The hunger pains would come in waves. At the peak of the waves the pain was intense, but after the pain receded he spent most of the time anxious about when it would start again. He had tried to meditate, to call on the Gift to sustain him, and he supposed it had. He thought it likely he would have died of starvation by now without the meditation. But while the Gift might keep him alive, it did not help with the hunger.
Adas had not returned since letting slip, or intentionally informing Gran-Nock, that he intended to make contact with the Celestials. Since then Gran-Nock had been fed only once, a meal of raw meat. Gran-Nock felt certain he was being fed the bodies of his fallen brothers in arms. He wondered whether the Sith knew that the eating of fallen rivals and enemies was a long-standing part of Rakatan culture. He figured they did not, or else they would have fed him something else. Gran-Nock knew that the cannibalism his people practiced was rare. He knew his history well enough to know that the Kwa had been horrified by the practice and had forbidden the Rakatans from continuing it. As a result the ritual eating of the fallen had become one of the marks of the resistance to the Kwa and their Celestial masters. In the centuries since the rebellion it had become a tradition that distinguished the great families from the average Rakatan, and as a result Gran-Nock had never eaten one of his own kind before. But when they had brought him the meat with the smell of decay on it the novelty of the experience had proved no obstacle. Left without hands to grasp the food, Gran-Nock had debased himself and eaten like some common animal. He wondered while he did it whether he was being watched, whether they were laughing at their prisoner. But even the shame did not stop him. The hunger had driven him half mad and he had to make it stop.
But the next time he would control himself, for this time he had a reason. He could still use the Gift. It was difficult, took far more concentration than it had when he had the use of his hands. Adas, the great beast, had been correct. His mind had difficulty using the Gift without the gestures he had been using since he was a child. His instincts made him want to move his hands and when he was confronted with the fact that they were gone it broke his concentration. But he had used the Gift in his meditation to keep himself alive. But what else could he use it for? The cell he was in was bare rock, but it was entirely clean and smooth rock. There were no pebbles or small stones on the floor for him to try to pick up. Ripping rock from a solid wall without bring the whole wall down would have been a difficult and delicate task before his maiming. Now it was entirely beyond him. He needed something small to practice on, to train on, to relearn the necessary skills. The food was the only thing they brought in. If he still had the chains on his limbs he might have tried to move those with his mind, but the Sith had removed them. What was the point of them? It was not like he could get away. Or so they thought. So he had thought. But he would find a way now.
When the next meal at last arrived Gran-Nock knew what he had to do. He had to rip it apart, and for that he would have to dive in headfirst again. But he could not eat it, not all of it anyway. Because he did not know whether they watched him he would have to eat almost all of it, so as to not raise suspicion. But something would have to remain. Some morsel would have to be left un-swallowed for him to work on. And so he did. The measly portion of meat he was given did not eliminate his hunger of course, and it took no small degree of will-power to refrain from swallowing it all. Even worse was having to hold it in his mouth for hours. If they were watching, they would be sure to watch closer around the time he ate. But the Sith were not machines, boredom affected them as it did any intelligent creature. The long hours of watching Gran-Nock had to get to the watchers, if watchers there were. Their minds would search for something to do, something besides watch the cripple roll around trying to find a comfortable, or at least less agonizing, place to sleep.
So for hours a hungry Gran-Nock lay on the hard stone floor with a bite of food in his mouth. It had to be large enough that he could see it, but small enough that they couldn't, wherever they might be. He could see no holes in the rock, but the Sith had the Gift, and some of them at least had greater facility with it than he did. Adas clearly did. The brute could have overpowered him even if Gran-Nock were whole. And where there was one there could be more. He knew that there were Rakatans who could sense objects move through walls or at great distances. Any Elder certainly could.
Gran-Nock counted the minutes and the hours down. After 5 hours he gently ejected the bite of meat from his mouth. He had done his best to keep it between his teeth and lips, the better to keep saliva from breaking it down. But it was still barely in one piece. It sat on his chin as he slowly rolled on to his side, causing it to slide off and on to the floor. He stared at it and concentrated. He pictured it moving. He pictured an invisible cord stretching from his mind to the shred of meat. He pictured a hand he no longer had picking it up. He concentrated so hard that had any Sith been watching they would have wondered why he was sweating in the cool cave.
He had no idea how long it took, for he could not spare the mental resources to keep track of the time. Had he been asked to describe his task to someone else he would have said it felt like learning how to tie knots with your teeth. Failure followed failure, frustration built, patience ebbed, and several times he briefly gave up. But each time, a moment after losing his temper with himself, silently of course, he would remember. He was a warrior of the Infinite Empire. He had fought in an army that killed gods. His people were the greatest conquerors the galaxy had ever known, and at this moment he was the only weapon his people had in the place they needed weapons most. He was weaker than he had been since he was a child, but he was still a Rakatan, and so nature itself demanded he succeed. So he would try again.
Weariness was overtaking his body; his eyes were burning from what he was now sure were hours of staring at the stubbornly immobile morsel. But he would not, could not let himself sleep until it moved. When the moment finally came, when the little ball of food rolled forward and then back towards Gran-Nock, it was the fatigue more than anything that kept him from spoiling everything with a shout of victory. The Gift had not deserted him. It had simply demanded more from him. And now that he had satisfied her brutal and ruthless desires, she would serve him again. And the Sith would suffer for what they had done.