Crown of Slaves Novel – I didn’t expect to die the way I did. Granted, I don’t exactly remember how I died, but I doubt that it was how I had expected to die. In fact, my first feeling when I awoke into my new existence was an overwhelming sensation of sheer, overpowering incredulity. Then I felt pain. Pervasive, overwhelming, soul-deep pain. I screamed a scream beyond anything that had ever been torn from my throat in my old life. Allergic reaction to surgery anesthetic? A massage. Hand sanitizer to the eye? A gentle warmth.
Hit by a car while walking home from the library? A lover’s sweet caress. “Hmm, still alive? I was sure that I felt your life snuffed out like the pitiful, worthless spark that it is, but perhaps there is more to you than I thought, Forty-One.” A cold, cruel voice with an accent that I probably could have identified if I wasn’t in so much pain. I could hardly move, but I was able to look enough to the side to see who was speaking, and what little breath I had managed to gather in my lungs caught in my abused throat.
A Sith Pureblood, a clearly wealthy and aristocratic one, face pale and spotted from excessive use of the Dark Side, was cleaning blood from his hands and regarding me with something akin to aloof interest. The sort of interest that one might see from a particularly apathetic coroner examining a particularly brutalized corpse. “W-who, wha…” I wheezed through bloody lips, wracking coughs shaking my body from even that paltry effort, and he raised an eyebrow ever so slightly.
“Memory loss due to trauma? Perhaps, perhaps. But your signature within the Force has changed as well, in between what I thought was your death and your revitalization. Remarkable. Perhaps you are worth keeping around a while longer after all. I do so enjoy it when my experiments bring about unexpected results and avenues of exploration.” The agonized questions tumbling through my mind must have shown in my eyes, because he scoffed and sneered, even as he tossed the bloody cloth into a small incinerator.
A flick of his fingers had the table I was strapped to moving with a quiet whine, shifting its position until I was entirely upright, and my head sagged along with the rest of my body as gravity did its work on my weakened body. A brief blast of force lightning pouring from his fingertips had me giving a short, choked-off scream as he ever-so-kindly ensured I couldn’t possibly let unconsciousness rescue me from my suffering.
“If you’re going to give me pathetic shaak-eyes, slave, I suppose I can answer your inane questions, even if you are too pathetic to actually manage voicing them. I can hardly forsake the opportunity to display my intellect, even to so worthless a creature as you.” He chastised me contemptuously, brushing my hair out of my eyes and gripping my chin tightly. “You are an experiment, like your mother before you.
When your equally insignificant father impregnated your mother, doubtlessly by rutting on her like a beast on some dark night when the pair of them should have been giving thanks to the Emperor that they had lived another day in service to my House, I took her into my laboratory. As a Master of Sith Sorcery and Sith Alchemy, I could hardly let such an opportunity pass. I experimented on your mother for nine wonderful months, fully expecting for her body to reject you in a futile attempt to save itself, yet you persevered.
Of course, there were some minor side-effects. I was quite intrigued when you popped out of her pathetic womb with male and female genitals both. I’ve been biding my time ever since, waiting for you to grow until I could experiment on the child of an experiment. A unique opportunity, well worth the wait. A pity your mother died when I tried to repeat the experiment, I would have liked the opportunity to try and recreate the base circumstance before proceeding.
Alas.” “M-mons…ter!” I wheezed as stridently as I could, determined to spit defiance if I was to die again, but it seemed only to amuse him. Indeed, he gave a chortle and patted my cheek mockingly as he smirked with a gleam of sadistic glee in his eyes. “Oh, I can imagine it seems as such to you, but really, I’m a pioneer in pursuit of greater glory for the Sith. You have no value beyond that which your betters give you, you have no purpose beyond serving my goals.
Experimenting on slaves, killing slaves? This is no more murder or cruelty than squashing a buzzing insect or dissecting a tree-frog.” He responded, before turning away, waving his hand again. This time, a pair of humans wearing plasteel armor painted light gray and tan appeared, blasters on their hips and vibroblades on their backs. Imperial soldiers wearing my interlocutor’s House colors, I was sure. “How can we serve you, My Lord?” they asked in unison, bracing to attention and ignoring me completely, despite the fact that I was hanging there dripping blood and piss and tears all over the floor like the pseudo-murdered torture victim I was. Maybe t