Imperial times- Hyperspace

Tarik woke up in a cage made of metal bars as thick as his wrist. The same kind of metal mesh they�d trapped him to the floor with was welded to the bars. Another layer of thinner bars was welded over the outside of the mesh, they looked like a more recent addition to the cage.

Tarik whined, scratching at the mesh like an animal for a moment before he recovered himself a little. He curled up in a corner of the cage, wrapping his tail around himself protectively. He sniffled, rubbing at his cheek as a tear ran down his mottled green skin.

He shivered even though the room was warm, his memories were enough to chill him to the core.

~~~~~~~

No light, little light. A thin ribbon of light from the next lab shone under the door. Sometimes, someone would walk close to the door, and he could see the dark stripes where the person blocked the light. Then everyone would go home for the night, and there�d be no light again, then a little light when the guards came past, then no light again.

~~~~~~~

He shivered, closing his orange eyes and wrapping his arms around his knees.

~~~~~~~

He cried all night, a little whine that echoed in the empty room, only answered by the other hungry creatures in the other room.

The others were noisier, and nastier. They would talk about eating him if he didn�t shut up, so he started keeping quiet. He was always hungry, they forgot to feed him sometimes for days, too many days.

The sniffles of the sickness that he�d caught, and the horrible, ceaseless shivering that it caused were unforgettable. He was starving, cold, sick and miserable. He couldn�t even squeak loud enough for the others to hear him anymore.

~~~~~~~

The sound of boot-steps was barely audible in the hall outside.

~~~~~~~

They thought he�d died more than once. The mean guard from the weekends even threw him into a cage with some of the others to kill him once. The feel of one of his own�s teeth on his throat was too intensely burned into his memory to ever be forgotten. The others were mean, they would have eaten him if the doctor hadn�t stopped them.

~~~~~~~

The door to the room opened, and Nick, Dr. Rico Nerai, came into the cell.

~~~~~~~

The rodent came again, this time it gnawed on his tail, trying to see if he was alive or not. He�d managed to move enough to make it think he was alive, so it left for a while. It would be back as soon as he stopped moving. It would kill him if he couldn�t move anymore.

He was so sick, and hungry, and weak. The rat didn�t care, it was hungry too. If he could move a little better, maybe he�d be able to catch the rat, but what then? His food came in a little bowl, the green-brown goo that tasted dry and slimy at the same time. Rats weren�t food. He wasn�t food either, but to the rat, everything was food. Maybe he should learn from the rat.

~~~~~~~

Nick leaned closer to the mesh, watching Tarik stare into nothing beyond the bars despondently.

~~~~~~~

It was quiet one night, one of the big others had gotten loose and eaten a few of the smaller others because they forgot to feed him. He cowered in his cage, the sound of claws digging at his door the only noise in the horrible silence.

The rat had gnawed on his ear a few nights ago. It had gotten too close, and was too slow, even compared to him. The rat was his food now. But maybe he�d be the other�s food before the night was out. It had dug a hole through the door by morning before they stopped it.

It had killed one of the doctors too, the nice one who�d rescued him from the others. He hid what was left of the rat under himself, so that they wouldn�t take it away. It was all he had, they were so busy cleaning up that they forgot about him again.

~~~~~~~

Nick called his name a few times, but he didn�t even twitch his ear. He stared at nothing, lost in his memories.

~~~~~~~

The new doctor didn�t forget about him, but he wished he would. The new one with the sick grin and the scary blue eyes liked him, but not a good like. He�d spent the night crying and shivering after the electro-shock test the doctor had done to him.

He�d done other things, worse things, and they all hurt. He paced his cell all night, trying to keep awake so that the doctor�s buzzer wouldn�t sting him if he sat down. If he touched the bars, it zapped him, if he sat down, it zapped him, if he stopped moving, it zapped him, if he moved too quick, it zapped him.

Why couldn�t the other have eaten this doctor that night?

~~~~~~~

Nick banged on the bars, trying to get Tarik to look at him.

~~~~~~~

He couldn�t breathe. Why couldn�t he breathe? The cell was dark, there was smoke everywhere. Noises came from outside the door that didn�t open anymore. He paced his cage nervously, something was wrong.

The smells of burnt ozone and the sound of a rhythmic, mechanical hissing came from the next lab. The strange humming of something electrical and the cries of others dying in their cages and in the tanks terrified him.

Was he next? Did they forget about him completely? Was he going to die slowly, forgotten, while the others died quickly?

~~~~~~~

Nick walked around to the side of the cage, waving a hand in front of where Tarik stared without focus on some nonexistent point in space.

~~~~~~~

An explosion shook the building, bouncing long-forgotten chemicals and supplies off the shelves in his lab. He yipped in surprise and fright, pacing and clawing at the bars frantically. The mechanical hissing sound stopped outside the door, listening.

Another explosion from the deeper labs shook the building again, knocking part of the ceiling loose and onto his cage roof. He whined and screeched in panic, he hadn�t known how to talk then.

He clawed at the bars again, whining louder as the building shook again. The wall behind him collapsed on top of his cage, crushing the cage and letting in more smoke and noxious fumes. He was pinned inside the crushed cage, screaming and crying for help.

~~~~~~~

Nick looked worried, banging on the cage in front of Tarik�s face, but only getting a blank stare as a response.

~~~~~~~

The door that hadn�t opened in months was blasted open from the other side, revealing a figure in black shilouetted by the flaming lab behind him. He could only see a soot-and-filth coated creature with orange eyes staring at him helplessly, begging him for help in words that weren�t words to humans.

He cried and whined in his cage, clawing at the bars and reaching toward the stranger pleadingly, screeching in panic as the building shook again.

~~~~~~~

Nick called one of the soldiers, ordering him to open the cage door so he could go in. The guard refused, pointing to Nick�s bandaged arm.

~~~~~~~

The figure in black looked repulsed and disgusted by the scaly creature trapped within the forgotten cell. He aimed a weapon made of red light at him, the source of the strange humming noise he�d heard.

He whimpered in panic, scrambling for the far side of the crushed cage. Just as the man in black prepared to kill him with the strange weapon, another explosion from the lower labs rocked the building. The floor gave way, dropping them both into the burning lab below.

~~~~~~~

Nick finally forced the guard to open the cage door. He stepped into the cell, calling Tarik�s name.

~~~~~~~

The fire was burning out of control in the room full of chemical tanks. The half-formed and distorted creatures floating in the cloning tanks were eerily familiar, barely recognizable as beings like himself. The section of the floor with the cage had crushed many of the tanks, their highly flammable contents igniting as they spilled across the floor.

He climbed on top of his shattered and mangled cage, away from the spreading flames, holding his injured arm carefully. The man in black looked stunned. His weapon had fallen some distance away, switched off in the fall. The liquid flames washed toward him, the flammable fluid from the tanks already soaking his cloak and armor.

~~~~~~~

Nick ventured closer, timidly placing a hand on the vacant Tarik�s shoulder, shaking him slightly.

~~~~~~~

The flames caught the fluid soaked into the man in black�s cloak. In a strange moment of emotion he didn�t understand, he fought his way back through the ocean of flame, ripping the man in black�s cloak from his shoulders and trying to beat away the flames licking at his robes and armor.

The man slowly recovered himself, realizing what was happening around him. The man in black was startled and disgusted for a moment to find him still there, trying to help him.

He backed away as Vader stood shakily, fighting his way up the rubble and away from the flames. He chirruped, hopping out of the flames onto the pile of rubble where his cage still sat. The metal was too hot to touch now, there was nowhere to go, not even up.

Up was where he had to go, up to where the fire wasn�t yet. He forced himself to hop onto the cage, yipping in pain as the bars burned his feet. He leapt up, he didn�t know how far, to the crumbling ledge that had been the floor to his room. He fought his way over the edge of the floor, exhausted and hurting.

A ventilation shaft had been ripped open in the last explosion, and he could see light beyond it that wasn�t from a fire. He squeezed out of the shaft opening, nearly falling off the narrow ledge where there had once been a maintenance room.

The entire corner of the building was gone, blown out when the chemical storage tanks below had exploded.

He looked around at a world unlike anything he�d ever seen.

~~~~~~~

Nick shoved Tarik harder, bringing a distant cheeping noise from him as he slowly recovered from his despondent shock and stupor.

~~~~~~~

Sunlight, fresh air, strange noises, and great square walls everywhere he looked. The square walls were later found to be called buildings. The huge masses of beings very unlike himself roaming the city were discovered a little earlier.

He also discovered that being naked may be natural, but was not acceptable by the billions of people in the rest of the world. The city called Coruscant, the place where he�d been created and grown up.

The place they were taking him back to.

~~~~~~~

Tarik peeped weakly, looking up at Nick in confusion.

"Hey, you with me?" Nick asked, pushing a handful of curly hair out of Tarik's face and studying him. Tarik cheeped, shoving Nick�s hand away from his hair.

"Come on, talk to me," Nick said, looking worried. Tarik chirruped and squeaked, curling back up into his ball, crying.

"Tarik," Nick said, shaking his shoulder again. The green being closed his eyes and ignored him.

That�s not my name, he thought. Who am I?

"Tarik?" Nick said, crouching down next to the scaly being. He didn�t acknowledge that he even knew he was there.

Nick sighed, "Great, he�s fried." He shook his head, standing and walking toward the cage door.

"I finally make a discovery that will save my career, and he has a nervous breakdown," he said, closing the door to the cage gently. He rested his head against the bars for a moment, sighing.

"I should never have asked to tag-along to Dantooine," he said, backing away from the cage. "He�d have escaped and maybe lived to be a hundred, but now," he looked back to the nearly comatose Tarik.

"Now he might be ruined," he sighed, "And it�s all my fault."

----on to Part 4 of Chapter 6---

© 2000 Michelle Petrosky

-Back to Tarik's Page

Return to the Main Page