The boy is kneeling in the scorching sands, scrubbing at the anvil held in place between his knees, when the attack comes. The ambush.

It comes without warning. One second he's hunched over the thing, his bare upper body coated in a sheet of sweat. The next, pain explodes between his shoulder blades beneath a heavy, very-much-unprompted blow.

He drops instantly, bowing forward into a slump, the side of his face gracelessly burrowing into the sand. Pain shoots up his neck and races down his spine, makes his sweat feel cold in contrast. A boot presses down to rub it in- smug bastards, the overseers- and the hot grains shift beneath his lips as he groans.

He swallows the dry lump of nothing at the back of his throat.

"Get him up!"

"I didn't do anythin'." He mumbles into the sand, hands that aren't his own pulling him up by his shoulders.

They haul him upright nonetheless, drawing his wrists together behind his back- and a flare of panic comes over him. Mixed with a pinch of raw, unfiltered rage. His eyes land on those of the slave driver across from him, and the boy almost spits in his face as he tries to wrestle his arms free from the brute behind him.

His punishment is a warning jab to the ribs.

Cobb Vanth snarls. Bucks harder against the guy behind him. "I didn't do anything!"

But the words come out too loud, and he takes a fist to his jaw for his troubles. And more than that, as it turns out, for the force of the punch knocks him from the brute's hold while he himself could not have wrenched his thin body free.

He stumbles. Loses his footing.

His vision flares white when he falls, then descends into darkness.

Cobb swims in and out of consciousness as they pick him back up. The world spins around him, blurring and blackening, and he watches the sands turn crimson as they drag him along- spot by spot, growing bigger. His ears ring, and his face is wet. A coppery substance zips up his nose when he tries to snort the offending nostril clear.

He almost passes out all over again when he sneezes.

Somewhere, there's an anvil covered with his blood. Parts of his cheekbone, maybe, too. His teeth feel loose in their sockets, and his mouth tastes of metal.

His stomach churns at the thought, and he feels an uncomfortable warmth trickle past his lips. He doesn't even realize that his hand is reaching for his chin until it makes contact, and he flinches away from himself. His captors jostle him at the sudden movement, but all he knows in that moment is the sheen of red clinging to his fingertips. He stares.

And stares.

And keeps staring.

Then he's hitting the sand with a moan when the slave drivers drop him. Traces of it stick to his bloodied face and make his skin itch something horrible. His blood…

He watches it seep into the grainy soil, and he's almost overcome with the impossible desire to soak it back up. And then it hits him that he can hear again, that the impact with the ground fixed up his ears on him. There's a crowd gathering around.

There's a crowd gathering around, and he's the center of attention. It's like coming-to right after his parents' chips had gone off all over again.

Cobb scowls and gets his arms beneath him. Fights the trembling of his body, the spottiness of his vision. Pushes himself up to his knees as Bray calls his name from the sidelines upon his arrival. He's still out of it enough that words are a foreign language, and his tongue is far too submerged within the scarlet river that his lips can't quite contain.

All that comes out of his mouth when he opens it is a heavy spattering of blood as he coughs his lungs dry.

He hunches over himself as he gets it under control, and wipes his jaw across the back of his hand as his breathing begins to settle. That's when the slavers straighten him out and draw his arms taut, parallel with the tops of his shoulders. He blinks dumbly and wheezes. Wishes the fog around his brain would clear a little faster.

It comes to him in pieces, and only because he manages to hold focus long enough to dig into some of the conversation around. He's a popular kid, unfortunately.

"Poor boy doesn't deserve this after all he's been through."

"...was gonna happen eventually…"

"Oh! Would ya look at what they've done to him already?"

"...takin' it better than I expected…"

"...he's of age…"

"...down to the mines."

It's the words of the last two voices that really click, and suddenly everything makes sense. He hadn't done anything wrong. He's just been sixteen long enough that he's forgotten it. Long enough for them- the slavers, his lifetime captors- to get impatient in their waiting: It's branding day.

All his breath leaves him with the next exhale.

His eyes flutter around in a panic while he's frozen, and he sees Bray. Bray, his brother in all but blood, straining against the hold that Jeree has on him. Desperate to spare him this fate. Desperate to spare him of the mark that gets their kind worked to death, killed- just like Cliff Ealdel those ten weeks past. Cobb sees this, and he reaches out for his buried anger and gouges it from its cave.

It tears through his lips in a belly-deep caterwaul, and turns into a scream when the searing iron presses into his flesh moments later.

He probably made the damn poker himself, once, upon one of the very anvils he'd been fixing up.

.

He's lost in the dry, gray sea between consciousnesses for three days. No one knows if his skull ever healed right.

When he's thirty-three, he spends weeks planning and scheming. Spends weeks subtly removing the chips of the slaves on his block. And when the eve of the escape comes, Cobb finds himself standing at the edge of the Slave Quarter, staring out into the rest of Mos Espa. Some distant part of him memorizing it all as he stews on his anxiety in the evening's darkness.

Not even the sound of Jeree's footsteps startle him, the large man coming to a stop by his side. He's silent for a long moment, supportive, as he drafts up a quiet question. "How are you holding up, boy?"

Cobb shakes his head. He feels so many things that he's not sure which is most prominent. And yet, he still settles for, "I'm scared, Jer." Might as well tell the truth. "So many people are gonna die tomorrow. Hell, I might." He pauses for a moment, collecting his thoughts. "But ya know what gets me?

"What if we don't make it? This could all be for nothin'. What then?"

"Then at least you tried," Jeree says. "You're doing your folks proud, Cobb, no matter how things turn out. No one else has ever gotten this far before; if we don't get out this time, at least those that come after will know there's a chance."

"Yeah..." He blinks then, and turns to meet the older man's eyes, clap a grateful hand on his broad shoulder. "Get some rest, Jeree. We've got a long day ahead of us tomorrow, everyone's gonna need all the energy they can get. Don't know when we'll be able to sleep properly again."

Cobb doesn't sleep. He knows that Jeree doesn't, either. Maybe that's why the man doesn't even get through town before he's gunned down.

.

"Vance?"

A moan drags from his throat at the sound of his chosen pseudonym, his eyelids fluttering toward open without his consent. He gets them under control, and the blissful darkness persists.

Leaning against the long-ago-opened crate at the foot of one of the end bunks, only Cobb Vanth's lips move when he finally probes. "What's up, kid?"

"Do you really think we can make it?" Zart quietly asks.

If there are others awake and listening, Cobb doesn't have to fake his answer for them. "I do," he says, because it's true.

And if, for whatever reason, they don't- well, that's on him. He probably shouldn't keep planning these things by himself; slave revolutions are delicate operations, and there's no guarantee that this one will end as successfully as the last. These last couple of years have proven to Cobb that he isn't quite as successful as he used to be, either. He could have completely missed something- hell, he still might.

He just needs his deteriorating body to get the message and pull itself together long enough to see this through. If he fails because he didn't heed Tuk's advice, he's not quite sure what he'll do with himself. If he survives.

He's done his best. Checked everything once, twice, thrice, and then some. If he's missed something…

Whatever happens, he will have to live with the outcome forever.

"I trust you," Zart murmurs, all naïve faith.

I know, he doesn't say back. He doesn't have to. "Get some sleep, Zart. You're gonna need it."

No response follows, and Cobb figures the kid's taken his words to heart. Another painful jab stabs into his chest at that. Because, despite the respect the other slaves put in this boy, he is just a boy. Zart's got people that he looks up to, too, and Cobb's somehow become one of them in such a short span of time.

Part of him wonders. Wonders what the kid would say if he offered to let him tag along back to Tatooine and Freetown with him. He'd fit in quite well, with his quiet eagerness and bravery.

Cobb shakes his head. Zart's young, and he's got much room to grow yet. While he may be able to adapt to life beneath the twin suns, he could easily thrive somewhere safer, kinder. If anyone had asked a younger Cobb if he'd like off of Tatooine, he'd have left it behind without a second thought. But, in truth, he was a captive there long enough to tie all his sentiments to those sands, lethal as they've proven to be over the course of these past twenty years. He's not sure if Zart's got those same ties to Corellia; he hasn't gotten to know the boy that well, yet.

Maybe he never will. He's already told them that there's no guarantee of survival. They're already on borrowed time, given how long he's been here. Funny, how he hasn't yet been detected-

Pshrrrffffffff.

Cobb's heart leaps from his chest at the sound, and his body moves on instinct. He's halfway to his feet by the time his eyes snap onto the closing door. And, ever so briefly, halo-ed by the dim hallway lighting, is the one man who'd questioned him at every turn.

"You're late," Cobb offers tersely, muscles tight. He can feel the tension in the air from the slaves that have yet to drift off, waiting for an explanation.

The man doesn't move. "I'm sorry."

And in those two words, there's an undertone lurking. Cobb catches it fast, some weird mix between bitterness and guilt, and dread settles cold and heavy in his gut. "What'd you do?"

Back through the doors, a horrible sound answers his question. A scream.

No.

"You didn't," he manages.

And the man has the audacity to wince. "Sorry, Vance."

They've been ratted out.