- Joined
- Aug 12, 2010
- Messages
- 7,070
- Reputation score
- 192
A long time ago...
Reya's incarceration had been swift and unexpected. One moment she was merely foraging for some wild darberries from the Viscountess' free gardens, and the next a squad of imperial stormtroopers, in their terrifying laminate armor, had appeared from behind the cultivated wall of copses.
"She's a Corino defector!" One of their static-tinged voices had exclaimed.
"Shoot to stun!" Another had said.
Blue rings of dispersed blaster energy had struck Reya from several sides. Notorious stormtrooper precision...
It had only been when she'd awakened several hours later, bound and detained on an imperial shuttle headed for a prison barge transport that she began to piece the detail of her predicament together.
Imperial suppression had come to her homeworld of Kithaan at last. The Viscountess' bold words in the Senate, demanding a cessation of extraordinary taxes and conscription, had led to a 'pacification' force of Imperials to quell her 'violent uprising.'
Reya and her family happened to live on the outskirts of the Viscountess' Autumn Palace, where the royal had been staying when the invasion force arrived. Hopelessly outgunned by Moff Alia Zarena, aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer, The Rapture, the leader of Kithaan had been captured while trying to flee on speeder through the wilderness. Reya and a handful of other unfortunates in the area were captured under suspicion of collusion with the renegade royal.
Wrong place. Wrong time.
----------------
Now Reya shared a large prison cell with an assortment of other people.
The first was a blonde human woman in a tight-fitting flight suit. Her name was Senna, and apparently she was the personal pilot of the Viscountess. She was the only one in the cell who the Imperials had correctly imprisoned for the reasons given, and Senna was antsy and concerned about the well-being of her employer, who was being held in a different cell block, at the pleasure of whatever jailer was in charge of this small ship.
The second was a freckled, no-nonsense Twi'lek woman with yellow skin, the usual twin head tails, who seemed to be in a sour mood at having been swept up in all of this. Her name was Evee, and she was particularly angry that the Imperials had dismantled her prototype droid that she had been designing for a big competition on one of the core worlds.
Her patron, a Neimoidian man by the name of Lyne Keedo, was in the cell as well, and doing his best to try to cheer everyone up, assuring those who had the inclination to listen that this was all just a misunderstanding and that the imperials would, assuredly, let them go once it was made clear that they were not part of any uprising and that they were law-abiding, tax-paying citizens. Surely then they would allow Lyne to have his ship back, along with compensation for materials damaged along the way...
His arguments had been diminished slightly by the derisive names the human officers had called him and the other non-humans in the cell. The Empire made little attempt to curb the blatant racism within its ranks in the Outer Rim worlds, where they now found themselves.
Sitting next to Lyne and mostly silent and brooding by contrast was the hulking form of Paadesh Desah, a muscular Aqualish who owed Lyne a debt for having purchased his freedom from a Hutt crime syndicate, where he had been a pit fighter. Paadesh was intimidating in his brooding silence, with dark, pupiless black eyes that promised vengeance for his captivity.
Lastly, there was a lithe human man called Vorn, who claimed to be a bounty hunter whose efforts to capture a target had been greatly impeded by the Imperials suggesting he was a Rebel spy sent to extract the Viscountess. He of course denied this to no avail.
-----
It was the night cycle, and most were resting, but few were getting much sleep. The ship had been jumping a lot, going through hyperspace lane ways as they sped towards their prison destination.
"Hey, you doing all right?" Evee dropped by Reya and stooped down beside the outdoorswoman. Looming near the both of them was the large form of Paadesh, but the Aqualish appeared to have his eyes closed.
"In all of Lyne's talk about negotiating his way out of this, and the bounty hunter grumbling about his lost mark, I never really got to hear your story. You were a local, right? Did you support the Viscountess like they say or are you just like me, caught up in this political mess?"
Outside the cell, on the opposite side of the red energy field, was a short hallway that led to an open control room space that Reya could just see about a quarter of. Two prison officers manned the room at all hours, though they weren't the fearsome stormtrooper types. Just normal Imperial navy officers. Around this time of the night cycle, they were pretty relaxed and so long as the noise levels were kept down, they wouldn't be doing regular patrols to check on the prisoners.
"I wish we could just get this energy field down and make an escape. Even if we didn't make it, I'd rather go down fighting than just sit here and wait for a lifetime prison sentence."
Reya's incarceration had been swift and unexpected. One moment she was merely foraging for some wild darberries from the Viscountess' free gardens, and the next a squad of imperial stormtroopers, in their terrifying laminate armor, had appeared from behind the cultivated wall of copses.
"She's a Corino defector!" One of their static-tinged voices had exclaimed.
"Shoot to stun!" Another had said.
Blue rings of dispersed blaster energy had struck Reya from several sides. Notorious stormtrooper precision...
It had only been when she'd awakened several hours later, bound and detained on an imperial shuttle headed for a prison barge transport that she began to piece the detail of her predicament together.
Imperial suppression had come to her homeworld of Kithaan at last. The Viscountess' bold words in the Senate, demanding a cessation of extraordinary taxes and conscription, had led to a 'pacification' force of Imperials to quell her 'violent uprising.'
Reya and her family happened to live on the outskirts of the Viscountess' Autumn Palace, where the royal had been staying when the invasion force arrived. Hopelessly outgunned by Moff Alia Zarena, aboard the Imperial Star Destroyer, The Rapture, the leader of Kithaan had been captured while trying to flee on speeder through the wilderness. Reya and a handful of other unfortunates in the area were captured under suspicion of collusion with the renegade royal.
Wrong place. Wrong time.
----------------
Now Reya shared a large prison cell with an assortment of other people.
His arguments had been diminished slightly by the derisive names the human officers had called him and the other non-humans in the cell. The Empire made little attempt to curb the blatant racism within its ranks in the Outer Rim worlds, where they now found themselves.
-----
It was the night cycle, and most were resting, but few were getting much sleep. The ship had been jumping a lot, going through hyperspace lane ways as they sped towards their prison destination.
"Hey, you doing all right?" Evee dropped by Reya and stooped down beside the outdoorswoman. Looming near the both of them was the large form of Paadesh, but the Aqualish appeared to have his eyes closed.
"In all of Lyne's talk about negotiating his way out of this, and the bounty hunter grumbling about his lost mark, I never really got to hear your story. You were a local, right? Did you support the Viscountess like they say or are you just like me, caught up in this political mess?"
Outside the cell, on the opposite side of the red energy field, was a short hallway that led to an open control room space that Reya could just see about a quarter of. Two prison officers manned the room at all hours, though they weren't the fearsome stormtrooper types. Just normal Imperial navy officers. Around this time of the night cycle, they were pretty relaxed and so long as the noise levels were kept down, they wouldn't be doing regular patrols to check on the prisoners.
"I wish we could just get this energy field down and make an escape. Even if we didn't make it, I'd rather go down fighting than just sit here and wait for a lifetime prison sentence."