Freedom (short story)/story

Freedom

(Borgo Prime - 55 BBY)

Landing in a heap against the far ring wall, every rib in his body screaming in semi-fractured agony, the red-skinned fighter spat blood contemptuously. The roars and jeers of the crowd seemed somehow distant, as if someone was holding a towel over his ears. The man shook his head to clear it, then instantly regretted the movement; the stabbing pain in his head was far worse than the muffling had been, and to add insult to injury, he still couldn’t hear. Drawing a ragged breath into lungs that pressed achingly against his ribs as they expanded, he got unsteadily to his feet.

His name was Tak Sakaros, and he was dying.

“Bad luck there! So close, too. Bet he wishes he hadn’t tried that now, though, eh fellas?”

The words came patchily in through Tak’s muddled hearing, but he cast a venomous glare at the announcer all the same. The Bith blinked his enormous black eyes and shrugged, as if to say ''What? It didn’t work, it’s not my fault''. Sighing, Sakaros rounded on his opponent.

The Borgo Prime Death Ring had, until three days ago, been ten meters across. Now it was fifty, and the surrounding stands were packed. Spectators had flown across the Outer Rim for this fight. Not that “fight” could truly describe the match; they had come to watch Tak Sakaros get eaten.

Only a dozen meters away and advancing slowly but steadily, the krayt dragon snapped its jaws threateningly. Gur Deebo, Tak’s owner, had told him confidently that the dragon was young for its kind, ten meters long and a third of that tall. Staring past a row of razor teeth, into a maw wide enough to snap his head off, Sakaros had no interest in seeing them get any bigger.

In a sudden rush, the young krayt skipped forward and slashed with a right paw large enough to crush Tak’s arm through his lungs. Reacting on pure instinct, the only thing which had kept him alive this along, he slid to his left, the claws just barely grazing his right shoulder in passing. He swung one booted foot up in a crescent kick, slapping the dragon’s paw before it touched the ground. Though heavier, the dragon was off balance, and it landed awkwardly.

Seizing the closest thing to an opportunity he’d had thus far, Tak charged past the dragon’s bent right, hands balling into fists so tight that blood leaked from the gashes on his knuckles. He was aiming for the dragon’s eyes, the only thing resembling a weak point; even this monster could only do so much damage blind.

Tak, on the other hand, for all his speed and skill, could do no damage at all. The dragon spun its head on the advancing fighter, snapping its jaws again. In the split second that he hesitated, unsure whether to advance and brave the teeth or retreat and lose the moment, the krayt righted itself, regained its balance, and swung its right paw back the way it had come. The scaly arm caught Sakaros hard in his right side, and he went flying.

“Oh, missed an opportunity. Looks like Sakaros is reaching the end of his rope.”

Tak landed badly, bouncing off the ground with the first impact and rolling several times before he crashed into the wall of the ring again. His vision was blurring, and he could barely see clearly past his own hands. Pressing his left hand to his right side where the dragon had hit him, he regretted the decision immediately as a wave of pain and nausea doubled him over. Looking down, he couldn’t even tell which red was his own skin, and which was the flow of blood he felt leaking down his palm and slithering up his forearm.

Smelling the blood on the air – not only Tak’s own, but that of some rowdier patrons who had taken to blows for seats – the krayt roared aloud and thrashed its tail toward its fallen prey. Something in Tak warned him, whispered that to crouch down against the pain for even a second longer would be the end of him and he leapt. His jump carried him impossibly high, two or three meters off the ground, and the krayt’s tail crashed into the wall, breaking it open.

The screams of the dislodged and crushed patrons were distorted in Tak’s ears; he felt he was listening to them from underwater. He landed badly from his jump, and his knees buckled under him as he came down. Barely managing to catch himself with his left hand before his head would have gone through the floor, the young man pivoted to face the krayt, which was trying to free its tail from the wall. He made to rise, seeing a moment of weakness, but went down again, the rib now jutting out from his side setting his nerves on fire with every second of exposure to open air.

It hurt so badly he saw black.

It hurt so badly, he saw Tisya.

“Ktah!” the young woman snapped irritably, wrapping a bandage around her left palm. The capacitor had backfired and shot a piece of metal out at her, slicing through the soft blue flesh. Now the malfunctioning holoprojector sat abandoned nearby, and Tisya sat tending to her injury, throwing glares at the machine now and then.

Tak always wondered how a slave kept her hands so soft; his own were rough enough that he could crack open a Gamorrean’s rib cage with his palm and not even feel a twinge. He’d done it just two nights before. But it was one of the small things that made her so incredible.

“Language, my love,” he said teasingly, emerald eyes shadowed in the dim of the slaves’ workshop. “I thought nothing could break a Chiss’s calm.”

Tisya glared at him, her ruby eyes flashing in the gloom. “Ha ha. You fix it, then.”

“Is it supposed to fly?”

“No, of course n—”

Tak grinned. “Then it’s your issue. If you want it to fly, you let me know.”

Growling in frustration, Tisya finished wrapping her hand, started toward the holoprojector, then shook her head. She flexed her nimble fingertips, wincing as a twinge of pain scaled up her arm, then sat beside Tak against the rough rock wall. The slaves quarters on Borgo Prime had been carved directly into the interior of the asteroid, with as few accoutrements as possible.

Tak rested his lips against the Chiss woman’s head, breathing in the smell of her hair, a mix of the smells of sweat and the solutions she used to clean herself that he found intoxicating. She leaned into his shoulder, the eerie red glow fading as her eyes closed gently.

“How long?” she asked, so quietly Tak could have feigned not hearing her with the dull vibration of the air recyclers. Instead, he simply frowned.

“Tisya…”

“How long?” she asked again, and now the glowing red eyes opened again. The Chiss pulled away from him, turning to look him in the face.

Sakaros sighed to himself, looking at the brown rock ceiling. “Five standard years, eight months, eleven days.”

Tisya sighed. “And longer for me. We’re still here, Tak. We’re still not free.”

“I told you I’d kill Gur…” Tak started in frustration.

“…and he’d detonate you before you could lay a hand on him,” Tisya snapped back, though the red glow in her eyes softened. “You’re fast, Tak, but he’s watching for it. You’re not that fast.”

Tak paused, hesitating. Tisya, who could read him like a datapad by now, touched his cheek gently. “What is it, love?”

The young man sighed, running his fingers absently through Tisya’s dark hair, but her touch broke down the walls of his stoicism as no blow from an enemy ever could. “There may be another way. In the Death Ring.”

“Tak…”

“Listen…”

“Tak, he’s had you fighting there for almost six years! You’ve never lost and you’re still a slave.” Tisya stared at him in disbelief. “The Hutts may make Gur give you some of your winnings, but he’ll keep raising your sale price. It’ll never be enough and you know it.”

“This fight will.”

“How?!”

“He’s offered me freedom. Outright.”

Tisya choked, and her faced was suddenly shadowed in red light as her eyes widened. “Just for the fight?”

Tak nodded, still not looking at her. “Just for the fight.”

For a moment silence hung between them, Tisya staring at Tak in amazement, Tak keeping his eyes directed to the floor, waiting for the inevitable moment when she realized what he hadn’t told her.

“That’s…Tak, this could be it!” Her thin, strong arms wrapped around him compulsively, and Tak took her in his arms, cherishing the moment that he knew was fleeting. Then he felt her stiffen, the grip around his neck tightening just a bit, and he knew she knew.

“Tak…” Tisya pulled back, looking at him with new concern. “What does he want you to fight?”

A sigh escaped his lips, and he rested the back of his neck against the cool stone. “He won’t tell me.”

Tisya’s jaw dropped. “He won’t tell you? He has to! It’s the Hutts’ rule.”

“Oh no, it’s being publicized,” Tak said with a sneer. “Just not for us. We’re not allowed to leave the slave quarters until the fight.”

“What if you don’t do it?”

He gritted his teeth. “I’ve already agreed to it.”

Silence hung for a moment, then a crack echoed through the hollowed-out cavern as Tisya slapped him across the face. He could have stopped her, of course, but to raise a hand to the only good thing in his life all the years he could remember would remove the shreds of goodness even the Death Ring couldn’t beat out of him. So he took the blow in silence, and waited until she spoke before he finally met her eyes.

But the harsh whisper burned him to the core like no angry scream could have. “What if you die?”

“I’m not afraid of death…” he began, but Tisya seized the collar of his tunic and shook him.

“I am! I’m afraid of your death! If you die…all these years, I couldn’t…I can’t…GRR!” She shook him again, and he laid his hands calmly but firmly atop hers until she stopped. Pulling them free of his tunic, he looked her in those ruby eyes.

“Kai’tisy’ara,” he said, so softly that anyone but her would not have believed the voice was his. “I die more every day I’m here. If it weren’t for you I’d have let Gur blow me up already. I can’t live like this. We can’t live like this. It isn’t living!”

He took a calming breath, and the muscles in his neck that had tightened relaxed. “I would rather die than spend one more day wasting on this rock.” His emerald eyes, glinting oddly in the light from hers, stared purposefully. “And so would you.”

Now it was Tisya’s turn to look away, and her eyes closed as she nodded. “You’re right.” Though her shoulders shook slightly, her voice was firm and controlled, all Chiss once again. “We have to take any chance we can get.”

“And when I win,” Tak added, “I’ll buy you free and we’ll get out of here.”

She settled back onto his shoulder, breathing slowly, tracing her fingernails gently on his neck. “Freedom…”

He nodded. “Freedom”

Freedom.

Tak Sakaros spat out blood and slapped himself with his left hand. Though it sent a wave of fire cascading along his bruised jaw, his vision cleared, and he wiped the blood from his eyes. With braced paws and an almighty wrench, the krayt dragon jerked its tail free of the wall and rounded slowly on Tak, snarling at him. He raised his hands, the muscles on his bare red chest flexing as he tightened his fingers to fists. Bone was starting to show through two of his knuckles, but he stared unblinkingly at the krayt.

His fear of the Tatooine beast began to burn away, and anger crept into him. This mass of muscle, teeth, claws, and death would prevent him from being free, from delivering his love, from escaping the nightmare his life had descended into. Fear became fury, and fury focused Tak on winning. He had always found he fought best with a cold desire to destroy his enemy, and he sank into it now.

The krayt lunged.

Tak sideslipped the beast’s jaws, backhanding it so hard that one of its fangs – each as long as Tak’s forearm – cracked in half. The krayt snarled in surprise and pain and clawed at him, but Tak backflipped over the slashing claws, coming down beside the beast and kicking it in the ribs. Raising itself on its hind legs, the krayt shrieked and turned to face its foe, but Tak rolled beneath it, and all the crushing weight of the dragon pulverized only the floor.

He had risen behind the krayt and was preparing to leap when its tail accidentally brushed his shoulder, and the dragon kicked on reflex.

The blow was a hammerstrike against his chest, like being hit by a starfighter, and it sent him careening through the air. He bounced off the transparisteel wall with a sickening, wet crack that a wave of agony up his left shoulder informed him had been a breaking arm. When he hit the ground, the impact broke two more ribs and pushed the protruding one back into his chest. Before he could control the reflex, he vomited, and his vision disappeared for a moment into black.

The thunder of the approaching krayt’s footsteps rumbled in his dim conscious. Planting his hands on the ground, he forced himself to a standing position, swaying, images of the vicious beast blurring in and out of focus.

“Looks like this is it, people! Sakaros is going down!”

Freedom.

Tak opened his eyes, though they were beginning to swell shut and he could only see a haze of greenish and white approaching. Somehow he could tell where the dragon was, despite his agony, and adrenaline coursed through his body, suppressing the pain that would have debilitated a lesser man.

Summoning his last bit of concentration, he ran forward.

“I don’t believe it…”

The krayt leapt forward as well, claws and teeth cutting off all means of escape to the sides…

Tak leapt…

And again he went high, and he felt his boots graze the crest of the krayt’s skull, and then he was on its neck. Spinning, desperate, he seized one of the beast’s horns with his left hand, numb to the pain in his broken arm, and brought a tightened right fist down on its eye.

The krayt shrieked and reared, but the spasming pain in Tak’s left arm had turned his grab into a death grip, and his fingers began to dig into the horn he was holding. He punched again, and this time when his fist came back it was dripped a thick green gelatin.

The crowd had fallen silent, and Tak made not a sound as he struck; only the krayt dragon’s agonized wails and cacophonous footfalls echoed through the arena. The krayt tried to claw at him, but he swung to the front of its head and struck its other eye as well. The beast went down, rolling side to side, but Tak clung desperately, eyes wide as they would go, punching again and again and again. He could distantly sense his arm going deeper with every blow, buried now to the forearm, now the elbow, now nearly the shoulder…

The announcer said something, and people screamed, and white fire raced along Tak’s back as he struck the ground…

Tak Sakaros had been dreaming. In the dream, there had been light and dark in alternating cycles. A woman had screamed, and other, deeper voices yelled. They spoke in many languages, some that Sakaros understood, others that he did not. The words themselves escaped his memory, but he was sure they had been important…

His eyes opened – fully, he was groggily pleased to notice – and he blinked against the harsh light above him. Absently, he raised his left arm to swat the glowpanel out of the way, and was further pleased to discover it didn’t hurt. He brushed the thick muscle on his upper arm curiously…he had been rather sure that the dragon broke it…

The dragon.

Tak sat upright fully, bringing both arms up to guard. The movement did not bring him the pain he last remembered, but his back and his muscles tightened and he winced. He felt as if he hadn’t moved in days, perhaps weeks. A glance at his surroundings revealed what passed for a medical bay on Borgo Prime. An ancient medical droid was already buzzing out of the room.

Had he won?

Tak slid off what he discovered was a bed, testing his legs on the floor. His knees buckled and he had to catch himself on the nearby wall, but after a moment of flexing his muscles he felt confident enough to stand. He had taken two experimental steps when the door cycled open.

Beyond was Gur Deebo, and even to Tak’s confused gaze the Aqualish looked bad. His normally oiled and well-kept rancor leather jacket was starting to fray, and it had been stained with what smelled like starship fuel and engine grease. Tak had worked the docking bays on Borgo Prime for far too long not to recognize a mechanic when he saw one, but since when did Gur Deebo know anything about ships beyond how much they cost?

“You’re awake,” he said glumly in slurred Huttese, as if the news were just one more in a serious of personal misfortunes.

Tak tried to speak, but found his voice hoarse. He coughed roughly, and the medical droid reappeared carrying a cup of pale pink liquid. Its digital voice emitted, “Please drink the lubricant, sir.”

The young fighter swallowed the medicine in one gulp, retched horribly against the taste, and found some semblance of his voice had returned. “What happened?” he managed in a gravelly tone.

“You won,” Gur said in the same flat, emotionless tone. “Punctured its eye and got into its brain. You’ve been out for a month.”

“I won…” Tak said, more to himself, staring vacantly at the wall. Against all odds, he had done it. Against the most fearsome of enemies, he had won his freedom. His voice deepened, and he said with confidence to Deebo, “And my freedom?”

Deebo searched through the pockets of his jacket – Tak couldn’t help noticing that his master’s hands seemed oddly thin – and withdrew a small electronic device, still stained around the edges with blood. His blood. “Deactivated. You can go.”

He laid the chip in Tak’s hand, and the newly freed slave stared down at it for a long time. When at least he looked up at Deebo, his grin was vicious and lively, and the muscles in his upper body flexed. “What were my winnings from the fight?”

“2,400 credits.” The words seemed almost torn from the dejected Aqualish. “Put in your account already.”

Tak walked past him out the medcenter door; Deebo trailed after him. He tossed snidely over his shoulder, “And yours?”

He could hear the anger creeping into his former owner’s voice. “You know damn well about mine.”

Sakaros spun on his heel, and though he stumbled slightly with lingering weakness, there was nothing weak about his cocky smirk or the glint in his eyes. “Tell me anyway, it’ll make my day even better.”

The Aqualish stared up at Tak, then suddenly erupted, gesticulating wildly. “I lost! I lost everything! How could you beat a krayt dragon? They make dozens of those Tusken things fight them, but you beat one ALONE?!”

His anger threatened to overtake him, and Deebo descended into his native Aqualish for a moment. Tak leaned against a wall, grinning, until Gur mastered himself. “And now I owe the Hutts! The make me release you, and now I have to go to work for them!”

Tak smirked. “Ah, servitude. But it’ll be good for you, you’ll learn to appreciate the little things.” He leered at the rancor jacket. “Like clean clothes.”

Gur Deebo threw out a frustrated punch, but Tak caught it effortlessly, twisted his former master’s wrist until the Aqualish squealed, and kick him squarely in the behind. The slaver went down in a dusty jumble of limbs, crashing into a pile of medical supplies so outdated they looked more likely to kill than save their patients.

Tak laughed mirthlessly, grabbed Deebo by the collar, and hoisted him to his feet. The fighter noticed with some displeasure that his arm muscles had weakened from the long stasis, but he was still far stronger than Gur Deebo, and the Aqualish did not strike again. He brushed his pants off and grumbled, “Thanks for nothing.”

Chuckling to himself, reveling in his tormentor’s humiliation, Tak adopted a patronizing sneer and replied, “Tell you what, I’ll improve your fortunes. Where’s Tisya? I’ll buy her freedom and you’ll be able to pay down your new bosses.”

Suddenly shaking off his frustration, Gur Deebo looked at Tak with new eyes, and there was something unexpected there. A hint of the old malice, a flicker of deviousness. It was deeply unsettling, and Tak’s smile faded even before Deebo replied, “No, you won’t.”

“I have the credits, you know that,” Tak said, emerald eyes narrow, trying hard to keep his temper. “And you certainly need them. We both win.”

“Oh, I need the credits all right,” Gur replied, and now he gave a chuffing laugh. “But I needed a lot more before I sold her.”

Freedom?

The dream crumbled into ash like a house of straw set aflame.

Tak did not truly comprehend the words at first; they had hollowed him so totally that meaning was lost to him. Triumph had turned to tragedy faster than he could have believed. His arrogance evaporated, and his voice was a choked whisper as he managed to gasp out, “Sold…her…?”

“Yep.” Gur Deebo was positively thrilled now, and he stuck his hands into his jacket pockets without even a change of expression as they plopped sickeningly against something inside.

“To who?!”

“Dunno, some big shot offworlder. Seemed a little fancy to be all the way out here, come to think of it…”

Fear devoured him. She was gone? “Where did they go?”

“How should I know?” Deebo asked maliciously.

And in an instant, just as it had with the krayt, fear became fury.

“Where did they GO?!”

Deebo had actually opened his mouth for another retort when he finally noticed the fire that had consumed Tak’s emerald eyes, and he hesitated. The cocky arch of his back bent again, and he looked every bit the nervous debtor. “I said, I don’t know! I was selling a slave, you think I ask questions?”

Tak stared at the man through a red haze. His hands balled into fists so tight that the scars on his knuckles turned white. Fury no longer did justice to his feelings; he embodied rage. His love, his purpose for living, taken from him. Total victory reduced to agonizing defeat with a sentence.

He thought back to his dreams on that medical table. A woman’s scream. Tisya’s scream.

Screaming for him. And he had not been able to answer. And now he never would.

At first Tak Sakaros was not aware that Gur Deebo had clasped at his throat, choking and retching against some invisible noose. Tak knew only his unbridled rage, and the bottomless despair that fed it like fuel drums on a fire. And those fuel drums exploded into psychopathic hatred so intense that all he could see was Deebo suffering, and he gloried in that suffering, that torment of the man who had harried him for years and now stripped him of everything that mattered. He would do anything to drag out the slaver’s agony a second more, to cause him pain, to crush him like the dreams of two young lovers had been crushed…

A thick thud brought Tak back to the present, his rage scorching his brain but slipping back enough that the warrior could see reality again. His expression turned to surprise as he saw Gur Deebo on the floor, face a mask of horror, hands around his neck. Kneeling, Tak took the Aqualish’s pulse, then quickly released the paw from his own trembling hand.

The paw hit the floor with a very final smack. Deebo was dead.

For a long moment Tak stared at the body, stunned. What had happened? How had this happened? Lost in his own anger as he had been, he was certain that he would have been conscious of even touching Deebo. He looked at his hands, unstained by blood but now shaking with shock.

He had done it. He had killed his enemy, there was no doubt in his mind. But how?!

“Sir, what is…ALARM! ALARM!”

The medical droid brought Tak’s attention to his surroundings. A single well-placed kick crushed the droid’s chest cover and smashed the processor within, but now the alarm was being echoed down the long corridor. It was only a matter of time before Borgo Prime Security arrived, and Tak had no intention of losing his freedom again.

He could not think about the dead Deebo; he had no time for the puzzle. He searched the fallen slaver’s pocket’s impassively, drawing out activator chips for a half-dozen ships the Aqualish had been servicing. Clutching them in one hand, he bolted for the door.