Chapter 29

Slake carefully arranges Felucian shrimp on a bed of aromatic greens. She chose the flavor profile herself from the cooling unit. This will be the appetizer for the senior staff dinner that will start in twelve minutes.

Those men will scarf it down while guzzling their cocktails. They won't take the time to appreciate the delicate seasoning or the sophistication of the arrangement. They'll leave the greens on the plate.

But that's fine by Slake. This detail is not for them.

Kirsh, the Chiss who evaluated her first cuts of drickle, inspects the appetizer. "May I?" she asks.

"Go ahead."

Kirsh plucks a shrimp off of the platter, wrapping bamh leaf around it, as intended. She takes a bite with his gleaming white teeth, chews slowly. Swallows.

"This is actually fine."

Slake chuckles while continuing to place the shrimp and greens. "Just fine?"

"No, actually fine. When I said your work was 'fine' before, I was lying. But this? It's fine."

"I'm going to put these tails in your pillowcase."

Kirsh laughs at her threat. "Ahh, that would be more appetizing yesterday's tart. Even by Imperial standards, that was a war crime."

Slake makes a faux-shocked face. "How dare you."

Gormaanda approaches. "Kirsh, the Captain is a novice. She needs our encouragement."

"Thank you, Gormaanda." Slake presents the shrimp platter: the most perfect plate of food she's ever constructed.

"Think of her like a toddler, Kirsh. Yes, she urinates all over her potty, but she's on the right track. And we need to tell her she's doing a very good job."

All three break into laughter. "I hate you guys," says Slake.

The kitchen doors fly open, revealing Virta flanked by two stormtroopers.

"Just what kind of buffoonery is going on in here? I arrive in the dining hall, and I hear literal clowns japing each other at a ludicrous volume." He lets silence hang in the air, his fury burning out of his eyes. Slake knows she needs to be very careful here. She stays silent, and takes a cue from Gormaanda and Kirsh, lowering her gaze deferentially to Virta.

"Slake. Explain yourself."

"Just some teasing, sir." She is cautious not to say 'they were teasing me.' It will put her friends in danger if Virta were to know if aliens were so casual with a human, however dishonored that human may be.

"What are you even doing in the senior officers' dining hall? I believe you were instructed to work in the central mess."

"Sir, you know I work here. I've served you before." After speaking, Slake immediately realizes her mistake. A slave should never correct a slaver.

Virta steps forward, towering over Slake. He glares at her. She cranes her neck and glares back. She can't help herself.

He punches her in her gut, a quick, powerful blow that she wasn't ready for. Slake doubles over and gasps for air.

"Stand up straight, Slake. A Vice Admiral is addressing you."

Slake coughs, and her eyes cloud with tears. She draws strength from inside herself and settles her breathing. She stands to attention, pain thrumming in her abdomen.

"Repeat what you said to me. Every word."

"Sir?"

"Repeat what you said. Make me ask again, and you'll regret it." A smirk tugs on the corner of his mouth.

"Sir. You know I work here. I've served you bef—"

Virta slugs her again, same fist, same spot, exponentially harder. Slake drops to her knees, unable to find air. She feels impossible heat in her face and throat. Panic sets in.

"To your feet, Slake. I'm going to need you to say that again. I couldn't quite make it out."

Slake gasps, getting not even a single percent of the oxygen she needs. She can't stand. She can't move. She's frozen to the floor in agony.

"Hm. Well, it looks like someone else is going to have to pay the price for your reticence." Virta removes his swagger stick from his belt—the one that activates the indentures' shock collars. Slake feels the heartrate of every chef in the kitchen accelerate at once.

Virta looks around the room at the half-dozen indentures at their stations, all standing at nervous attention.

"You know, I'm growing quite bored with the shock collars. It must be all the great culinary artistry going on in here, but I'm feeling the urge to be a bit more… creative today." He strolls around the kitchen. Looking at the ovens. The burners. The peelers.

The knives.

He draws one from the block, and it gleams in the overhead light as he admires it. Slake's guts are wracked with hurt. She wants to stand, take the knife from him. She simply has no strength.

"Gormaanda. Place your hand on the cutting board there."

"Virta," Slake manages, wheezing. "Don't."

"Slake, you had your opportunity to speak. But now that opportunity has closed. Put your fucking hand on the table, Gormaanda. Please and thank you."

"If you do this…"

Virta stomps to Slake with his impossibly polished boots, crouches down to face her. "You'll do what? You'll kill me?" He smiles menacingly. "It's been so long since I've been in an actual battle. I'm babysitting indentures out here in nothingness. Do you know how long I've wanted for a challenge? I want you to do whatever it is you're threatening, Slake. Because I would love to watch the very life drain out of you. My hands crushing your throat. So here's what's going to happen. I'm going to cut off this alien bitch's thumb. In about ten seconds. That will be your opportunity to kill me. I encourage you to take it. Please. I desperately want you to try."

Virta stands and kicks Slake hard in the ribs. "Here's your chance."

Slake, rendered powerless from a new explosion of pain , looks up to Gormaanda. She has her lower left hand on the cutting board, like she was instructed. Like Pyre before her, Gormaanda shakes her head no.

Don't. Warns a foreign voice in Slake's mind. We don't have the cards yet.

Slake watches again as Virta brutalizes another friend. Gormaanda issues a brief whimper as Virta saws off her thumb, but she stands steady.

When Virta is finished, he looks down at Slake. "Your challenge will have to be another time then. My disappointment knows no bounds."

Gormaanda takes her thumb off of the cutting board and wraps it in a towel, holding it in her upper hands. She lowers her head and squints her eyes. Dark purple tears stream down her gray cheeks, but she stands firm, waiting to be dismissed by the Vice Admiral.

It's the strongest anyone has ever looked to Slake.

"Once again, you are a coward, Slake. Interesting. Clean up this mess and get back to the Central Mess. If I catch you in here tomorrow, I will put the whole staff out of an airlock."

Virta turns flamboyantly on his heel and makes his exit, nose in the air. His two stormtrooper guards fall in behind him.

Slake gets to her feet. "Gormaanda, I'm so sorry."

"Oh my, that hurts like a motherfucker. Whew. Anyway. Never you mind, Amara. This is not your fault. This is Virta. All Virta. All Empire. Do you understand?"

Slake's body feels like it can't contain the flood of rage she feels. "I understand." She growls.

After the dinner service, Slake sits with Gormaanda in the infirmary, where the medical droid that treated Kell works to reattach the woman's thumb.

"Would you like a numbing agent? Perhaps a sedative?" asks the droid.

"No, thank you," says Gormaanda warmly, closing her eyes.

"Are you sure?" Slake asks.

"I'm certain. My culture has a unique perspective on pain. It's a lesson. It's an opportunity to grow. Change. We don't dread it like most species. We merely accept it, and we know we must adapt."

The droid uses a special laser to fuse bone back to ligament. It looks white hot and miserable.

"What planet are you from, if you don't mind me asking?" Slake says, looking to get Gormaanda's mind off of what must be deeply painful.

Gormaanda smiles back. "I'm sorry, darling. The less the Empire knows about my homeworld, the better."

"I don't fly for the Empire anymore. And I never will again. No matter what."

Saying the words has a powerful effect on Slake. It feels like every piece of identity she's cobbled together over the last nine years collapses, threatening her entire idea of herself. Tears well in her eyes. And she starts talking.

"On Corellia, my mother and father were spice addicts. They sold me to dealers to cover their debts. It started… it started when I was younger than you'd think." The shame of it won't let her meet Gormaanda's eyes. Slake stares directly at the floor, and she feels Gormaanda's two right hands on her shoulder and knee. The woman who just got her thumb cut off is comforting her. Slake feels another hot wave of shame all over again.

But she continues. "I didn't even know what I was doing. I didn't think it was bad. Whenever they picked me up, they always thanked me. They said I did a good thing for them. And… I didn't hear that a lot. So while what happened was uncomfortable, I thought I was just helping. It made me feel proud, I guess.

"It went on for years, and as I got older, I knew how wrong it was. But I didn't stop. Sometimes I even looked forward to the dates my parents set up, because I was just looking for any way to get away from them. Sometimes, the men, I could get them to pay me a little extra. So I'd get a hotel or something for the night instead of going back to my parents' squat. My favorite hotel was just outside the shipyards in Bela Vistal. I saw the Imperial gunboats and TIEs fly in and out of those docks. Heard the whine of those engines, and I would fall asleep to that sound, dreaming that maybe one day I could fly away on those ships.

"But when the Empire cracked down on the city, the price of spice went up. So my dad made my mom start… doing what I was doing too. One night, my Dad sent me to this guy. A really bad person. This man did better than his competitors under the Empire's thumb, because he was reckless, fearless. Brutal. And when I go to his trap to meet him, he's awful and disgusting, and he throws the credits in my face when he's done. And before I leave, he tells me that he likes me. And before I leave, he opens his refresher, and says that I need to 'lookit what my boys did to the last bitch I didn't like.'" And there's my mom. Just cut to ribbons. Barely recognized her, except for a tattoo she had on her ankle. It was my fucking name."

Gormaanda leans into Slake. "Oh, honey. I'm so sorry."

"So I ran. I forgot the credits. DIdn't go to a hotel, didn't go back to my dad. I slept on the street until I was picked up by a stormtrooper patrol for vagrancy. I went to jail and they cleaned me up, deloused me. And I guess the garrison commander took a liking to me or whatever, and he talked to me about joining the Empire. I said yes, I took the placement exam, and I was a top-scorer for fighter pilot placement. And I remember when they told me, I was overjoyed. I was going to hear those engines all the time. I went to the academy, and I never thought about home. Not once. Until I met Exel."

Slake sobs. She should have thought more about it. But her past felt like a baited memory, that if she acknowledged it, dwelled on it, she could get pulled back into Corellia's grasp. Better to just block it out.

"I always thought that the Empire gave people order and safety. But I was just getting scammed again. I got used up."

Slake collapses into Gormaanda's arms. The droid protests when her friend takes her hand away to hold Amara. "Ma'am. Please sit still. The procedure is not yet complete."

"Oh, you hush," says Gormaanda to the droid.

"You're going to be all right, girl. You've got a whole bunch of days left. And those days can be whatever you want them to be."

"They're gonna court martial me. I'm probably going to be executed."

"I wouldn't be so sure about any of their plans."

A very weighted statement. Amara looks up at Gormaanda. "What are you saying?"

"The next time this ship jumps, it's jumping back to the Rebel Fleet. Where it belongs. Where you belong."