Chapter 23 - Son of a Gundark!!

She awoke feeling a little queasy. She suspected it was from the stun bolt. She then realized that she was hanging on a wall, chained by her arms and legs. She was getting really tired of always being taken captive. She looked to her left and saw her master and the girl both hanging on the wall too. Then, she looked to her right. Her mouth dropped. There were dozens of people of all species hanging on the wall. The wall seemed to go on forever. And what was even weirder was that they all seemed to be dressed in Jedi-like clothes. She tried to see if she could sense if her master was alive, but she got nothing. His chest was moving, so she suggested that they were inside the cave where they couldn’t contact the Force.
“Master?” she whispered. No response.
“Master!” she said a little louder.
“Be quiet!” the girl said with her eyes closed. “Do you want to become their next experiment?” she asked.
“What do you mean?” Ash said.
“There’s no time for questions, just be quiet and pretend you’re asleep. I’ve been here long enough to now what to do if you want to live.”
Ash took her advice and pretended to go to sleep. She wished she could contact the Force somehow. She felt lonely with out it.
She heard a door open in their room and a group of people walk in.
“I told you, we don’t even know if these people are Jedi. They could just be bounty hunters or something,” a guy said.
“Get a hold of yourself Ken! How many people just walk around with lightsabers clipped onto their belts? Huh? Their Jedi,” another man said.
“Whatever, let’s just get today’s session over with. I’m not a big fan of it,” he said. Ash heard the man click a few buttons, and then an ear screeching sound filled the room. Ash almost screamed. So did some of the other captives. She looked over to the men. One was short with brown hair and the other was tall and muscular with blonde hair.
“Good morning scum of the galaxy! Time for another session that I’m sure you’re gonna love,” the blonde haired man said.
He pushed a few more buttons and Ash felt something sharp go into her arms. They were injecting them with something through their cuffs. She immediately began to feel dizzy. Then the cuffs let go of her and the rest of the people and they stumbled to the ground. Some actually fell face first onto the ground. The men walked over and one by one put cuffs on each person and separated them into groups. Ash was moved into a group with 3 other people. One of them being the girl she met earlier. The other 2 where both males, one an older rodian and the other a younger man, maybe in his early 20s. Everyone seemed wacked out by the drugs. Once the man left her in her group and walked away to get another person, the red headed girl scooted over to her.
“Stick close to me,” she whispered. “I know how to survive these sessions. These other idiots don’t act like they’ve figured it out yet.”
Then she scooted back to her spot and acted like she was drugged out. Ash watched as her master was put into a group with a male Mon Calamari, and female Cathar, and another human female. He too seemed drugged out. Ash scooted closer to the girl.
“What is this place?” she whispered.
“I can’t tell you right now, you’ll just have to wait about 3 minutes,” the girl replied.
Once the two men got everyone into a group, 5 groups in all, he had another 3 men some in and took the groups away. One of them was Cin’s group. Then, the red headed mad came over and motioned them towards the door. In about 2 minutes, they reached a large room and the man pushed them all in.
“Have fun!” he shouted, and slammed the door shut. As soon as he closed the door, Ash ran over and tried to open it.
“Don’t bother trying,” the girl said. “I’ve already tried ever possible way to get that door open. With out a lightsaber, there’s no other way.”
This caught Ash’s attention.
“A lightsaber?” Ash asked.
“Yes a lightsaber. The shiny bright thing that slices through limbs like slime, or have you already forgotten?” the girl asked her, acting like Ash was stupid.
“No, it’s not that. I was just wondering…are you a Jedi?”
“No dip nerf herder. We’re all Jedi here; all captives. If you hadn’t noticed, you can’t contact the Force in here. That’s the only reason they can keep us here, and they drug us 24/7. I’m still trying to figure out how they can make the Force disappear from us in here, and not everyone is as immune to these drugs it seems you and I are,” she said pointing to the two men besides her.
They were drooling.
The girl walked over and slapped them.
“Wake up you sleepy hutts! You’re going to need to be awake in about 30 seconds!”
“Why 30 seconds?” Ash asked.
“You’ll see,” the girl replied. Then she started counting down from 30.
When she got down to 5, she started to yell it out loud.
“5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and….. what is it today?…….” She looked over to a wall on the other side of the room. A hidden door opened slowly and a horrifying screech filled the room. The door opened fully and it shown a huge gundark.
“Introducing the wonderful gundark that wants to tare us to shreds!” the girl yelled.
Ash was in shock. She couldn’t use the Force, had no lightsaber, and she was suppose to battle this gundark with another girl her age and two drugged out adults. She apparently hadn’t been trained for every situation. They were all doomed.
“Fodder. Stinkin sith blood,” Ash said under her breath. She really wished Echo where here right about now.
“Wow, I thought I had a dirty mouth,” the girl looked over to her. Then she looked to the gundark.
“Come on, let’s go play!” she said running up to the gundark. The gundark charged her too. When she got close she flipped over his head and landed on the other side.
“Come and get me you fat lard!” the girl said, mocking the creature. Ash looked over to the other two men. One was about to pass out and drop to the floor. She didn’t quite understand why she wasn’t affected as bad by the drug. But all she could think about was if her master was okay.
“Look out!” the girl shouted. Ash snapped out of her day dream and looked in the girl’s direction. Instead, all she saw was a huge gundark coming her way. She screamed and ran. The monster swung at her feet multiple times, but she managed to jump over them. At one point, she slid behind the animal and jumped on top of its back. She could hear the girl in the background laughing.
The monster started to try and shake her off wildly and Ash tried to stay on as long as she could, but that didn’t last. He slung her off his back and she flew into a wall. The laughing ended abruptly. The creature ran over to her and put on huge claw on her body. It was the size of half of her.
The weight crushed her. The creature screamed in her face. She felt like her ears where going to explode. Plus, his breath stunk like dead Hutt.
“Now would be a really good time to help!” Ash screamed.
Almost before she could finish her sentence, the girl came flying through the air, landing a hard kick to the face on the Gundark. She hit so hard the gundark stumbled back and blacked out. The girl walked over to Ash and helped her up.
“That was a little too close don’t you think?” Ash asked her.
“Hey, I’ve studied with more than just Jedi. Nothing is ever too close for me,” the girl replied.
Ash laughed.
“So, what is your name?” Ash asked.
“My name is Sakura. Nice to meet you!” the girl said while shaking her hand.
“My name is Ash. How long have you-“Ash started to say, but then they were cut off when 4 men stormed into the room. Two of them walked over and picked up the unconscious men and the other two walked over and put Ash and Sakura in cuffs. Ash didn’t resist. She knew she didn’t really have a chance when she didn’t even know what was going on.
They brought her and Sakura to the door and a women walked in.
“That was quite a show you two put on,” she said. “Slick was so impressed that’s he’s invited you two to join him up in his office.”
“Who’s Slick?” Ash asked.
“You’ll find out soon enough,” the woman replied and motioned them out the door. The guards pushed them through and took them to Slick’s office. They opened the door and a huge room revealed to them. There were fountains and pillars. It looked like a smaller version of the Galactic Republic Assembly hall. At the end of the room there sat a man in behind a desk. He was very muscular and had longer brown hair. He must be the man in charge.
The guards motioned them in and then they walked out of the room quickly.
“Come closer,” Slick said.
Ash and Sakura walked closer, and when they did, Ash felt something inside her come back. The Force. She could contact it again, but not when she was near the door. Plus, she couldn’t sense anything outside of the room.
“You won’t be needing those,” the man said. He pointed his hand towards their cuffs and they fell off their hands. Ash didn’t say anything. If he was trying to impress them, it wasn’t working.
“Come and sit down,” he said and motioned them forward. Ash and Sakura stepped forward and sat in the chairs in front of his desk.
“Ahhh…doesn’t it feel nice to be able to contact the Force? I know you two must have felt very lonely out there with out it.”
“What do you want with us?!” Ash demanded. “I hope this isn’t your crazed idea of a spa resort!”
The man chuckled. “No, this is more of a…training facility, you might say.”
“Well that’s a crazy idea too!” Sakura said.
“You just don’t understand, but in time, you will learn too,” Slick said. “You see, my people envy the Jedi. They wish they could be like you, and because of that, they hate you. In this place, they learn how to be like that Jedi in everyway they can, and order to do that, we need Jedi lab rats to conduct our….examinations on.”
“You call these experiments?!” Sakura yelled. “You’re drugging us then letting wild beast tear us to shreds! What type of sick evil experiment is that?!”
“It is all a difference in opinion,” Slick said. “One thing I would like to ask you guys is why you aren’t affected by the drugs.”
“I really don’t know,” Ash responded. “I guess we’re just special.”
“No ones special, the Jedi just pretend to me,” Slick said with a hint of evil in his voice.
“What do you have against the Jedi?” Sakura asked. “It seems as though you’ve had some practice with them,” she said referring to earlier.
“The Jedi hurt me in ways you couldn’t possibly imagine, that’s why I’ve created this group to get back at the Jedi.”
Ash could tell he was getting angry, she could sense the rage inside of him boiling. If she wanted to get any more information out of him before he through them out, (or killed them), she needed to ask him quick.
‘Why is it we can’t contact the Force outside of this room?” Ash blurted out.
Slick looked at her, almost surprised that she asked that question.
“Now that… I can’t tell you. Family secret,” Slick said smiling. He hit a button and two guards came back into the room. He got up and grabbed them by the arms and started to pull them over to the guards. Ash wouldn’t go back with out a fight. She used the Force and through a chair at the mans head. About half way there, it flew the other way. The man stopped and looked at her.
“You’ll have to do better than that,” he said smiling.
“Okay then, how about this you hutt slime,” Ash said getting mad. With all her strength she kicked him in the knee. She heard it pop. The man screamed and threw them towards the door. They were close enough now to where they couldn’t use the Force anymore. It was like an invisible bubble that surrounded the cave. Ash felt a little scared now.
The guards came up and picked them up by their arms and pulled them to the door.
The man regained his strength and looked at them.
“Take them to detention block 2300. They deserve for what they’ve done to me,” he said.
As the guards took them to Detention level, only one thing was on Ash’s mind.
What in blazes is so bad about detention block 2300?

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