Slaves Of The Empire {1}

Twelve | The Brink of Suffering

A Gotal followed, and died writhing in an invisible chokehold. His bones were tough, and as recompense for the challenge to kill him, she claimed his forest-green cloak and the wicked vibroblade hanging from a sheath at his belt.

"Run. Fight. Rebel," she chanted, hardly above a murmur.

Run. Fight. Rebel, she felt the slaves echo, a chorus of hundreds rising up to match and surpass her.

Their hearts and minds and souls were one with hers. She'd given them hope and returned their long-lost willpower. In return, their rage and insatiable desire for change filled her, and drove her to action.

For a moment, vision overshadowed natural sight, and Ahsoka heard the thundering march of Imperial boots hitting cobblestone, saw flecks of mud and filth hitting white armor too unnaturally pristine to match the scene before them.

Reinforcements. That was something she could not allow. Nothing could be permitted to stand in her way.

"Assemble," she whispered into the minds of her makeshift battalion, and the slaves wove around the tents and pens that had once held them, flocking to the far end of the enormous plaza outside the auction house where it met the road.

Ahsoka pulled the hood of her new cloak up and fastened the front. She'd reached the stairwell up to he landing pads – her way out – and it would do well to conceal. Then, she broke into a run, taking the steps three at a time until she stood in the open air. The edge of the plaza was only a Force-enhanced leap away.

She could feel Lux's fear rising. It jumped out to her amidst the hundreds of other affluent guests as though to remind her of her purpose, her mission. (How delicious it was that the muted aura of fear and suffering that permeated Kyzeron every Auction Week had been turned on its head, rising to fever pitch now that the masters cowered before the slaves that broke and pillaged and killed for their freedom.) She ignored it.

"Go," she commanded, pointing the tip of her blade toward the main entrance, where storm troopers were already streaming in and searching for a staging area for their heavy guns. "Destroy the weapons of those who would do you harm, who would see you back under a master's whip, then destroy them!"

The slaves charged, washing toward the waiting Imperial troops like a tidal wave. Ahsoka leapt down before them, drawing the Force around her to distort her features and mask her aura. It was an ancient technique, one of the very last things Anakin had ever taught her, and allegedly it was an enormous drain on one's energy.

It was funny how easily it came to her. She hardly had to lift a finger.

Her stolen vibroblade bit into plastic, tearing through the durable casing to the soft flesh beneath, and again and again as she spun this way and that to face each opponent that dared to come her way. They were little more than armored beetles to her – and they were just as vulnerable as anyone else to a well-placed attack beneath their protective white exoskeletons.

"They've gone mad! The whole blasted lot of them!" yelled a Zygerrian not far away. Feelings of hate sparked in the Force when the slaves nearby heard her speak. Ahsoka could sense she'd inflicted pain on many of them.

Another slaver's voice rose above the rabble to meet hers. "Gods above, is that a Jedi? I thought they were extin–"

Ahsoka's vibroblade finished his sentence prematurely: she swung around, gaining momentum from a killing blow to an Elite storm trooper to take his head clean off. (Pathetic. How had the Elites ever gotten the better of Anakin Skywalker? Anakin must've been distracted.) As she watched the decapitated body crumple and collapse to the ground, spurting blood, she felt a sudden pang of longing for her lightsabers ­– taking down an enemy had been much simpler and cleaner with them.