AN: This is my first attempt at writing anything for others to read. I have a basic outline for the story and plan for this story to have around 50 chapters. I have a general outline for most of these chapters but have left a lot of room for flexibility with my planned story points so inspiration can strike. I have rewritten Chapters 1 and 2 because I couldn't see where the story was going so please be patient with me through this process. I am open to suggestions on future plot points but plan to stand firm on a few storylines I would like to experiment with. Since I am new, constructive criticism is welcomed, and I will try to respond and give credit for ideas I get from any comments.
This story is inspired by kossboss's Harry Potter and A Galaxy Far Away and Timewatch's A Single Decision (Take Two)
I am not the owner of any commercialized works.
Chapter 1: The Shattered World
The first sensation that clawed its way into Alexander Mathis's consciousness was the ache—a dull, throbbing pain that pulsed from the crown of his skull, radiating down his spine like a cruel echo of violence. It felt as though someone had clubbed him with a rock and left him to rot, the sensation gnawing at his nerves with every shallow breath. His eyelids fluttered, heavy and reluctant, peeling open to a dim, flickering light that stabbed at his retinas with jagged insistence. A groan escaped his lips, weak and ragged, swallowed almost instantly by the low hum vibrating through the cold metal beneath him—a sound that seemed to seep into his bones, steady and mocking. His fingers twitched instinctively, scraping against the floor, the surface gritty with dust and streaked with something sticky he didn't dare name. It clung to his skin, cold and faintly damp, and a shiver ran through him as his mind scrambled to answer the simplest, most urgent question: Where am I?
The air hung thick and sour, a miasma laced with the sharp tang of sweat, the metallic bite of rust, and a faint chemical edge that stung his nostrils. His vision cleared slowly, the haze parting to reveal shapes in the gloom, and with it came a creeping awareness of his surroundings. He was curled on his side in a cramped space, the walls so close he could barely stretch out his legs without brushing against them. The floor was a slab of unyielding metal, pitted and scarred, its chill leaching through the thin fabric of his patched survival suit. Before him shimmered a wall of energy, its edges crackling with a soft blue glow that danced like liquid light, sealing him in like a beast in a trap. Beyond it, through the faint distortion of the shield, he glimpsed more cells—dozens, perhaps hundreds—stretching into the shadows of a vast, cavernous hold. Shadowy figures slumped or paced within them, their outlines hazy, their movements sluggish or frantic. The hum pulsed louder now, a heartbeat of machinery that throbbed through the ship, underscoring his confusion with its relentless rhythm.
Alex pushed himself up, a sharp wince escaping as his bruised ribs protested the motion, a dull ache flaring beneath his chest. His survival suit clung to his skin, worn thin from years of scavenging Earth's wastes, its faded gray fabric patched with scraps he'd sewn himself. At twelve, he was small for his age, his frame wiry and lean, toughened by a life of clawing existence from a dying world. His dark hair hung in sweaty clumps over his forehead, matted with grime, and he swiped it back with a trembling hand, blinking hard to clear the fog clouding his mind. That's when he noticed them—the others sharing his confinement.
Four aliens occupied the cell with him, their forms so utterly foreign they might have stepped from a fever dream. Closest to him sat a wiry creature with green, pebbled skin that shimmered faintly under the dim light, its long fingers twitching restlessly as if tracing invisible patterns. Its eyes were vast and multifaceted, like an insect's, glinting yellow and sharp with an awareness that unsettled him. In the corner slumped another, its hairless body a soft blue, two sinuous tentacles spilling from its head to coil loosely on the floor, their tips quivering with faint life. A third loomed near the shield, broad-shouldered and horned, its mottled gray skin stretched taut over muscle, its breath rasping harsh and slow. The fourth, smaller and birdlike, huddled against the wall, its feathers ruffled and dull, a muted sheen of brown and gray that trembled with every shallow breath. They weren't human—not even close—yet their presence grounded him, tethering him to this strange, waking nightmare with a thread of shared captivity.
"What's happening?" Alex croaked, his voice hoarse and cracking, scraping against his dry throat like gravel. He coughed a sharp hack that brought the coppery taste of blood to the back of his tongue and turned to the green-skinned alien, the only one who seemed fully awake, his gaze steady and piercing.
The alien tilted its head, studying him with those unblinking, multifaceted eyes, a faint click punctuating the motion as its jaw shifted. "You're new to this, aren't you?" it said, its voice a low rasp laced with subtle clicks that made Alex's ears twitch. "Slavers got us. Snatched us up like livestock off the plains. Welcome to the galaxy's underbelly, kid."
Alex frowned, the words sinking in slow and heavy, each one a weight pressing against his chest. "Slavers?" he echoed, the term foreign yet chilling, conjuring images of chains and shadowed figures he couldn't quite place.
"Traffickers," the alien clarified, leaning closer, its claws tapping lightly against the floor. "They roam the stars, picking off strays like us—ones no one'll miss, ones who won't be tracked. Sell us to the highest bidder: pits, mines, brothels, whatever pays the fuel bill. My name's Krix, by the way. You?"
"Alex," he muttered, his gaze drifting to the energy shield's flicker, its blue glow casting faint reflections on the metal walls. Beyond it, he saw more cells stretching into the hold's depths—dozens of prisoners, a mix of humans and aliens locked in their own cages. A woman with hollow cheeks stared blankly at her hands, her fingers trembling. A man with a cybernetic leg paced his cell, the clank of metal echoing faintly. A multi-eyed creature clicked its mandibles in a nervous rhythm, its segmented body hunched. Fear and resignation painted their faces, a mirror to the tension coiling tight in his gut, a knot he couldn't shake. "Where are we?"
"On their ship," Krix said, gesturing vaguely upward with a clawed hand, the motion casual but tinged with bitterness. "Some rustbucket freighter, probably—old and cheap. They don't waste good tech on cargo like us. We're headed somewhere—I don't know where yet. They don't exactly hand out itineraries to the merchandise."
Alex's head throbbed harder, a splitting ache that pulsed with every word Krix spoke, a relentless drumbeat that matched the ship's hum. Slavers. A ship. The galaxy. The concepts crashed over him like waves, too vast and fast to grasp fully, yet a cold clarity cut through the haze, sharp as a blade. He wasn't on Earth anymore. The realization landed like a stone in his chest, heavy and final, sinking deep into the marrow of his bones. How had he gotten here? The question gnawed at him, a blank space in his memory that refused to fill.
"You got a story, Alex?" Krix asked, his tone softening just enough to nudge past the boy's silence, a gentle prod rather than a demand. "How'd they snag you?"
Alex hesitated, his gaze lingering on the shield's flicker, its soft crackle a hypnotic dance he couldn't look away from. The question tugged at something buried deep, a thread he didn't want to pull, a wound he wasn't ready to prod. But Krix's eyes held steady, patient and unyielding, and the quiet stretched too long to ignore, pressing against him until he relented. "I… I don't know all of it," he admitted, his voice low, barely above a whisper. "I was on Earth. My home. Then… fire. Screaming. I remember running, and then—nothing. Woke up here."
Krix nodded, a slow dip of his head as if that sparse tale was answer enough, his claws tapping a faint rhythm against the floor. "Earth, huh? I've never heard of it—it must be some backwater rock, barely on the charts. Good pickings for slavers—no one out there to stop 'em, no patrols to care. What about before? You got people?"
The question cracked open a door Alex hadn't meant to touch, a floodgate he'd kept sealed since waking. His breath hitched, a sharp intake that rasped in his throat, and the cell blurred as memory surged up, unbidden and razor-sharp, pulling him back to a world he'd lost.
The wind howled across the shattered plains of Earth, a keening wail that carried ash and the faint sting of sulfur through the air, a relentless dirge for a world long dead. The planet was a husk—its cities swallowed by time, their skeletal towers jutting from the dust like broken teeth; its rivers choked with sludge, their waters thick and black; its sky a permanent shroud of gray that pressed down like a lid on a tomb. Alexander Mathis was born into this ruin twelve years ago, under a tarp strung between rusted beams in a crumbling shelter, his mother's cries drowned by the storm raging outside. She'd named him after a conqueror from the old stories, a whispered hope scratched into the margins of a scavenged book that he'd rise above the wreckage, a spark in the dark. She didn't live long enough to see if he would—fever took her when he was three, her body too weak to fight the sickness that thrived in the wastes, leaving him to the tribe.
The nomads called themselves the Dustborn, a ragged band of survivors who scraped life from the desolation with stubborn grit. They roamed the plains in patched-together skiffs—cobbled machines powered by salvaged solar cells and jury-rigged engines—scavenging tech from the crumbled husks of ancient towers and hunting the twisted beasts that prowled the shadows, their hides thick with mutations. Alex grew up small but fierce, his hands calloused from stripping wire from rusted hulks and sharpening blades on whetstones scavenged from the rubble. The tribe taught him to survive—to read the wind for the faint tang of poison that could kill in a breath, to spot traps hidden in the debris where a wrong step meant a broken leg or worse, to fight with a knife when claws or teeth came too close in the dark. Old Mara, the tribe's grizzled leader, took him under her wing, her one good eye glinting with a mix of sternness and pride as she drilled him in their ways. "You're quick," she'd rasp, her voice rough as the sand that coated everything, her scarred hand ruffling his hair. "Quick keeps you alive out here, boy."
He learned fast, his small frame belying a tenacity that earned him a place among the Dustborn. By age ten, he could rig a solar cell from junk, patching its cracked panels with wire and hope until it hummed with faint power. He could track a mutated scorpion through a dust storm, its six legs leaving jagged trails he followed with a hunter's focus. He could take down an opponent with a well-placed kick, a trick Mara taught him when fists weren't enough, her gruff laughter echoing as he landed a blow. The tribe was his world—Mara's stern lessons barked over the crackle of a fire, the quiet laughter of the other kids as they swapped stories under the tarp, the hum of the skiffs as they rolled over cracked earth, their engines a lifeline in the void. It wasn't much—a hardscrabble life carved from ruin—but it was his, a fragile thread of belonging he'd never thought to question.
The raid came on a night when the sky burned red, a rare breach in the haze that lit the plains like blood, casting long, eerie shadows across the camp. Alex was on watch, perched on the hood of a skiff, his knife resting across his knees as he scanned the horizon, the air thick with a stillness that prickled his skin. The first hum broke the silence—not the wind, but something mechanical, alien, a deep thrum that grew louder until it shook the ground. He shouted a warning, his voice sounding urgent, but it was too late. Ships descended—sleek, black hulks spitting fire and noise, their engines roaring as they tore through the camp like a storm of steel. Blasters flashed, their bolts cutting through the night in streaks of red and white, slicing down the Dustborn like wheat before a scythe. Mara shoved a knife into his hand, her one eye wild as she barked, "Run, boy!" Her words were cut short by a bolt that punched through her chest, her body crumpling to the dust as blood bloomed dark and wet.
Alex ran. The camp blazed behind him, the crackle of flames swallowing the screams of his kin, the air thick with smoke and the stench of burning flesh. He darted through the chaos, legs pumping, heart hammering in his chest, weaving between skiffs and tents as the world fell apart. A shadow loomed—a figure in armor, faceless behind a helm, its silhouette a nightmare against the firelight. Pain exploded in his skull as a stun baton cracked against his temple, a burst of white-hot agony that drowned his senses. Darkness took him, swift and absolute, and Earth faded with it, leaving only the void.
Alex blinked, the memory receding like a tide, leaving him cold and hollow in its wake. The cell snapped back into focus—Krix watching him with those steady, unblinking eyes, the energy shield's hum a constant drone, the aliens shifting in their corners with restless unease. "That's how they got me," he said, his voice flat, stripped of the tremor he felt coiling inside. "Burned everything. Took me."
Krix let out a slow breath, his claws tapping the floor in a faint, thoughtful rhythm. "Rough way to go, kid," he said, his tone carrying a weight of understanding. "Slavers don't care about collateral—your people were just in the way, chaff to their harvest. Happens more than you'd think out here in the Rim."
"Why us?" Alex asked, the question slipping out before he could stop it, a raw edge cutting through his calm. "What's the point?"
"Profit," Krix replied simply, his voice steady as stone. "You're young, strong enough for your size. They'll sell you to a pit boss or a mine lord—someone who needs bodies that won't break too fast. I'm a mechanic—probably headed for a shipyard to fix their junk. The galaxy's full of scum who'll pay for us, no questions asked."
Alex's stomach twisted, a sour churn that threatened to bring the taste of blood back to his tongue, but he forced it down, locking his jaw tight. Panic wouldn't help—not here, not now. He glanced at the other aliens—the tentacled one stirring now, its scales clinking softly as it shifted; the horned one still staring at the shield, his breath a low rasp; the birdlike one trembling, her feathers quivering with every shallow inhale. "What about them?" he asked, nodding toward his cellmates.
Krix followed his gaze, his multifaceted eyes glinting as he assessed each in turn. "Tev's the twi'lek—probably labor, maybe a dock worker or some low-end grunt job, though his kind sometimes end up in worse places if the buyers are more interested in his race's appearance. Gorzod's the big one—a fighter, or was; the pits will eat him up, either way. Little one's Ysra—I don't know her deal, but she's too fragile for much. We're all meat to them, Alex, just different cuts for different plates."
The tentacled alien—Tev—groaned, its voice a wet gurgle that broke the quiet as it roused from its stupor. "Where… where are we?" it slurred, its blue eyes blinking slowly at the shield, confusion etched into its slack features.
"Slaver ship," Krix replied, his tone sharp and matter-of-fact, cutting through Tev's haze. "Caught us all—ambushed, snatched, whatever they call it. Sit tight, Tev—freaking out won't crack that field."
Tev coiled tighter, a shudder rippling through its sleek form, his lekku curling inward as if to shield himself. "Slavers? No… I was on Vaxus, working the docks. Hauling crates, minding my own—how'd they—"
"Same way they got me," Alex cut in, surprising himself with the steadiness in his voice, a calm he didn't fully feel. "Ambush. Fire. Knocked me out cold—woke up here."
Tev's eyes fixed on him, wide and luminous, softening with a flicker of something like pity. "You're just a youngling," it murmured, its voice trembling. "What kind of monsters—"
"The kind that doesn't care," Krix interrupted, his tone clipped, his claws tapping harder against the floor. "Save your pity, Tev—he's here, same as us. No use crying over it."
The horned one—Gorzod—finally moved, his head turning slow and deliberate, his dark eyes glinting with a cold, unyielding fire. "They'll pay," he rumbled, his voice deep as a quake, reverberating through the cell. "I'll tear their throats out—rip 'em apart with my hands."
"Good luck with that," Krix snorted, a dry, skeptical sound. "That shield's not budging, and neither are we till they say so. Rage all you want—won't change the math."
Alex watched them, their words weaving a thread of reality he could grip, a lifeline in the chaos that threatened to swallow him whole. He wasn't alone—not yet, not entirely. The cell felt smaller with every breath, the air heavier with the weight of their shared fear and defiance, but his mind raced, picking at the edges of his situation like a scavenger prying apart a wreck. Why wasn't he screaming like Tev, his voice breaking with panic? Why wasn't he swearing vengeance like Gorzod, his fists clenched with futile fury? He'd lost everything—Earth, the tribe, Mara, the only home he'd ever known—yet a cold focus held him steady, a quiet steel threading through his veins. Maybe it was Mara's training, her voice echoing in his skull like a beacon: Quick keeps you alive. Or perhaps he was just too numb to break, the pain too fresh to feel fully.
A sharp, metallic clang echoed through the hold, jerking his attention to the shield with a start. Beyond it, figures approached—broad, armored shapes moving with purpose through the gloom, their silhouettes stark against the flickering lights. The slaver crew. Alex tensed, his hand brushing the empty spot at his hip where his knife should've been, the absence of a longtime partner. Three of them stopped at the cell, their faces scarred and pitted, one with a glowing eye implant that whirred faintly as it scanned the prisoners, its red light cutting through the shadows.
"Feeding time, worms," the leader growled, a human with a shaved head and a jagged scar splitting his lip from chin to nose, his voice a harsh bark that grated against the hum. He tossed a handful of tubes through the shield—liquid sloshing inside, gray and unappetizing, their casings scratched and dented. They hit the floor with a wet smack, rolling toward Alex and the others in a haphazard scatter. "Eat up. Gotta keep you pretty for the buyers—wouldn't want you wasting away."
The second slaver, a hulking figure with a cybernetic arm that gleamed dully under the light, laughed—a harsh, grating sound that echoed off the walls. "That one's too small," he said, nodding at Alex with a sneer, his metal fingers flexing with a faint whine. "Barely worth the fuel to haul him—looks like he'd snap in a breeze."
"Then he'll fetch a pity price," the leader snapped, his scarred lip curling as he glared at his companion. "Move it, runt—grab your slop before I decide you don't need it."
Alex didn't flinch, meeting the man's gaze through the shield's faint distortion, his eyes steady despite the tremor that threatened to climb his spine. The slaver's smirk faltered, just for a heartbeat—a flicker of unease in his hard face—before he turned away, barking orders at the next cell down the line. The crew moved on, their boots clanging against the deck with a rhythm that faded into the hold's ambient drone, leaving the prisoners in uneasy quiet once more.
Krix snatched a tube from the floor, twisting it open with a grimace that wrinkled his pebbled skin. "Tastes like engine grease mixed with regret," he muttered, sucking it down with a reluctant gulp, his throat bobbing as he forced it past his distaste. "Better than starving—barely."
Alex grabbed one, his fingers brushing the cold, slimy casing, the texture sending a shiver up his arm. He twisted it open, the seal popping with a faint hiss, and forced a mouthful down—bitter, thick, like swallowing mud laced with metal shavings. His stomach lurched, a gag rising in his throat, but he kept it in, swallowing hard against the reflex. He'd eaten worse in the wastes—rancid scraps scavenged from beast kills, roots that tasted of dirt and despair—but this was a new low, a grim testament to his fall. Tev and Gorzod followed suit, the former with a reluctant shudder, the latter with a grunt of indifference, while Ysra just stared at hers, her small hands trembling as she clutched it, unopened.
"Tell me more," Alex said, wiping his mouth on his sleeve, the bitter aftertaste clinging to his tongue like a stain. He looked at Krix, his voice low but firm, a thread of resolve cutting through the haze. "About the galaxy. The slavers. Anything."
Krix raised an eyebrow—or what passed for one on his scaled face—a faint shimmer of surprise in his multifaceted eyes. "Curious, huh? Alright, kid—settle in. Lesson one: we're in the Outer Rim, the galaxy's rough edges. Law's a joke out here, a whisper no one listens to—slavers thrive on the chaos, picking off anyone who doesn't have a fleet to back 'em up. These ones? They're a gang, not some fancy syndicate—disorganized, brutal, running on the cheap. Probably sell to whoever's got credits and a cage ready."
"What's out there?" Alex pressed, leaning forward slightly, his hands resting on his knees as he fixed Krix with a steady gaze. "Beyond this ship?"
"Everything," Krix said, leaning back against the wall, his claws tapping a slow rhythm as he spoke. "Core Worlds—rich, shiny places, full of rules and towers that scrape the stars, where the powerful play their games. Mid Rim's a mix—trade hubs buzzing with ships, war zones spitting fire, and a bit of both if you're unlucky. Outer Rim's the edge—planets like mine, Vaxus, rough and free till someone like this grabs you. Then there are the Unknown Regions—wild, unmapped, a void even slavers don't touch much. They don't care where you're from, Alex—just where you're going and how much you'll fetch."
Alex nodded, filing each word away like scraps of tech he could piece together later, a map to build in his head. Core, Mid, Outer, Unknown—names that meant nothing yet held the promise of a world beyond the cell's walls. "And the buyers?" he asked, his voice steady, hungry for more.
"Pits are big," Krix said, his tone darkening as he glanced at Gorzod. "Fighting rings—blood sport for credits, where crowds bet on who bleeds out last. Mines, too—digging spice or ore till your lungs give out or your back snaps. Some get sold as labor—techies like me, grunts like Tev—or… other things." He glanced at Ysra, his eyes flickering with unease, then looked away. "Depends who's bidding and what they're hungry for."
Gorzod growled, cracking his knuckles with a sound like breaking stone, his massive hands flexing. "I'll kill in the pits," he rumbled, his voice thundering. "They'll regret buying me—mark it."
"Maybe," Krix said, his tone unconvinced, a dry edge cutting through his words. "Or they'll break you first—grind you down till there's nothing left to swing. Pits don't care about your promises."
Alex listened, his mind spinning like a gear catching traction, each piece of information a cog in a machine he was starting to understand. Pits, mines, labor—death or drudgery, a grim coin toss unless he found a way to rig the odds. He glanced across the hold at the other prisoners from Earth—two men in the cell opposite, their faces streaked with dirt, their survival suits tattered like his own. One wept silently, tears cutting clean lines through the grime, his shoulders shaking with quiet sobs. The other stared at nothing, his eyes blank, the feeding tubes untouched at his feet. Alex's chest tightened, a pang of something he couldn't name—pity, maybe, or fear that he'd end up like them. They'd given up already, broken by the weight of their loss, but he wouldn't. Couldn't. Not yet.
The hold dimmed suddenly, the lights flickering as the ship's hum deepened—a shift, a movement that vibrated through the floor. "We're going somewhere," Tev muttered, its tentacles curling tighter around its body, a faint tremor in its voice.
"Next stop's the sale," Krix said, his voice grim, his eyes narrowing as he stared at the shield. "Get ready, Alex. You're in the game now—sink or swim."
Alex leaned against the wall, the tube's aftertaste sour on his tongue, a bitter reminder of his new reality. The cell pressed in around him, the shield's glow a cage he couldn't touch, its hum a constant taunt. Earth was gone—Mara's lessons barked over the wind, the tribe's fire crackling under a red sky, all reduced to ash and memory. But he was alive, his pulse a stubborn thud against his ribs, and that meant something, a spark he refused to let die. Quick keeps you alive, he thought, Mara's voice a ghost in his skull, sharp and steady as ever. He'd watch, learn, wait—eyes open, head down, just as Krix had said. The slavers had taken him, ripped him from everything he'd known, but they wouldn't keep him forever. Not if he could help it. Alex closed his eyes as the ship rumbled toward its unknown end, the hum a lullaby of steel and shadow, steeling himself for whatever came next.