• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

So uncomfortable. His nose itched, and he couldn’t scratch it. No one had told him to. His hand throbbed hard enough to help him ignore the deep ache throughout his body. To pass time, he recited poetry he’d learned as a child. Mentally he translated it into Ssi-ruuvi, then pictured it in his special Ssi-ruuvi alphabet.

Too soon, he ran out of poetry. His eyes felt as if they would fall through his brain and his skull into the catchment circuitry. Poor Skywalker: doomed, like Dev, to survive without winning his own battle droid. Doomed by the same abilities.

Dev sighed and started counting pulse beats by the throbs in his left hand.

He lost track between four and five thousand. More time passed. The discomfort had long ago intensified to pain, and Firwirrung had not returned to check on him. Hurt and bewildered, he started counting again.

He still couldn’t scratch his nose. No one had told him to—

Do it yourself, bonehead! Now that he could try, the inability to reach it maddened him. Why hadn’t Firwirrung stayed? This was cruelty. Maybe if he held his breath long enough, he’d pass out and the dull-witted P’w’eck would notice a change in life signs. He inhaled until the waist restraint cut into him, then trickled it out. Empty, he closed his throat and held on.

An intense electric shock jabbed across the arc between left and right wristbinders. He inhaled involuntarily.

He’d suggested that mechanism. Irritated, he tried to pull his right hand free. He pressed his thumb against his smallest finger and wrenched his palm into the soft binder. Not far enough. He kept pulling. Three hundred heartbeats later, he gave up. He rested. He tried again.

The hatch whooshed. Startled, Dev thrust his wrist back through the three millimeters he’d managed. Firwirrung entered first. Without even glancing at Dev, he stalked past the P’w’eck guard toward the bulkhead panel. Bluescale led another P’w’eck, who dragged a second prisoner.

“Excellent.” Firwirrung turned around. “All life signs steady. Describe the sensation now, Dev.”

“I hurt,” he said thickly.

Bluescale blinked and stomped close enough that Dev smelled him. “Legs, too?”

He pulled his ankles deeper into their bonds. “They move again. But they hurt. They’re too heavy.”

“Ah.” Firwirrung examined a readout and hissed contentment. “Neuromuscular control returned in two and seven-twelfths hours, precisely on schedule. This is excellent.”

Dev swallowed hard. “It hurts,” he repeated in a cracking voice.

“That should not affect the catchment function. Entech this woman for us, Dev.”

“You’re not listening.” Dev compressed his lips. “It hurts.”

“Hurts?” mocked Bluescale. The alien turned slightly. Abruptly recognizing the posture, Dev winced and braced himself. A muscular tail slapped his legs so hard Dev saw stars. “Good,” Bluescale sang. “We need you unwilling, human.”

Firwirrung moved toward him, carrying an oddly shaped hypospray. “You’re right,” he sang back to Bluescale. “Surely the Jedi will not cooperate. Now that our war effort depends on fail-safes for controlling Skywalker, we’ll try this … instead of your talents. Then the victory of our people will not depend on the survival of any one of us.”

“It could kill him.” The tip of Bluescale’s tail twitched threateningly.

“It will either kill him or force him to obey. How much better to maintain professional objectivity on this less valuable subject.”

Less valuable? Master, what are you saying? Panic-stricken, Dev tried to writhe away from the hypospray. It burned his thigh for a moment. He waited. Then—

“Entech that woman,” ordered Firwirrung.

Dev blinked. What else were humans good for? He stretched out for her. As her essence plunged through him, there was more pain. He heard a scream. A male scream that hurt his throat. Then he opened his eyes again, awaiting orders.

Bluescale pulled the Fft knife from his shoulder pouch. Firwirrung honked. “Not necessary,” he said. “I’d like to leave him there for several days, to test the other life-support functions