Star Wars_ Darth Bane 03_ Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn [139]
“There’s a saying on my home planet, Ostrogoth. Only a fool turns his back on an unpaid debt. You think about that.” Scopique nodded slightly at Jura’s arm. “Now, because you do still have some value to me, I’ll allow you to remove your hand from my throat voluntarily and save face in front of our peers. But the next time I see you, you will tell me what you’ve found out about the disappearances.” The Zabrak smiled thinly. “Or else the rest of the academy will soon see a side of you that I don’t think you want them to see—a very unflattering side. Do we understand each other?”
Jura’s jaw tightened; he was too angry to trust his voice for a reply. Instead he managed a curt nod.
“Good,” Scopique said. A second later the Zabrak turned and walked away. When he and Hartwig stepped out the door, Jura Ostrogoth carried his untouched meal to the waste receptacle and dumped it in, tray and all.
He’d lost his appetite.
Outside the dining hall, back out in the cold, Jura stalked through the snow, fists clenched and trembling at his sides. After he’d gone a few meters from the doorway, where he was sure no one could see, he stepped into a narrow alcove and stared at the stone wall. Fury boiled in his chest.
Or else the rest of the academy will soon see a side of you that I don’t think you want them to see, Scopique’s voice mocked in his head. Do we understand each other?
Jura’s thoughts flashed back four standard years to the day he’d first arrived at the academy, a scared and ignorant kid from the other side of the galaxy. He’d spent his first couple of days keeping a low profile, avoiding everyone, hoping to get his bearings before anybody had a chance to push him around, but that wasn’t how things worked around here. On the third morning, he’d been in the dorm, making up his bunk, when a fist swung out and smashed him hard between the shoulder blades, knocking him to the floor where he lay gasping for air.
When Jura managed to roll over and look up, he saw a gigantic Sith apprentice named Mannock T’sank looming over him. T’sank was stronger and older than Jura, and the smirk on his face was one of nearly homicidal glee.
“You look good lying there on the floor, newbie,” T’sank leered at him. “You know what you’d look even better doing? Licking my boots.” He’d held out one of his filthy leather dung-kickers, waving the toe right under Jura’s nose, close enough that Jura could smell the tauntaun droppings—T’sank had been sentenced to cleaning the paddocks for some minor offense. “Go ahead, newbie. Give them a good tongue-polish.”
Even then, Jura had known this was a test; how he responded would determine the way he was treated forever after in the Academy’s court of public opinion. Grimly, with the air of someone planning his own funeral, he had stood up and told T’sank exactly what he could do with his boot.
The results had been even worse than he’d expected. T’sank punched him in the face so hard that Jura blacked out, and when he woke up his entire head was a gonging carillon of pain. He couldn’t move. There was a dirty rag stuffed in his mouth, crammed so far back that he almost choked on it. Looking down, he saw that he was naked and tied to the bunk by his feet and ankles while T’sank stood over him, grinning with malevolence that bordered on madness. When Jura tried to inhale, he started gagging and panic took hold of him; he lost all control and burst into frightened tears, while T’sank howled with laughter.
And then, abruptly, the laughter had stopped. His last memory of T’sank was the thin, surprised yelp that the sadistic apprentice had let out right before he’d gone flying backward out the door. When Jura had craned his head and looked up through