Falkon stared at the bloody bandage wrapped around his thigh, wishing the laser wound had pierced his heart instead of his leg. Wishing he was dead.
A prisoner on the mining planet of Tierde. It was a fate worse than death.
He came from a wild and untamed people. Never, in all his life, had he been forced to submit, to bend his will to the will of others. Never had he been confined in such small quarters; never had his freedom, more prized than life itself, been taken from him.
Lifting his shackled hands, he fingered the heavy collar that circled his neck, wondering what depraved monster had devised such a cruel instrument of torture. He could barely breathe, scarcely swallow.
He stared at the lynaziam cuffs on his wrists. He had spent an hour trying to pull the metal apart, but to no avail. The thick bands, held together by a powerful magnet inherent deep within the metal itself, held fast. His hands would remain locked together until the overseer decided to release him.
Falkon cursed under his breath. His shoulders ached. His back ached. The brand on his arm ached. His thigh throbbed dully, monotonously. He had spent hours, days, pacing the cold stone floor, wishing he could stretch his arms.
Lying on the thin straw pallet that served as his bed, he stared at the small square opening cut into the thick wooden door. Through it, he could see a slender ribbon of midnight sky. And a single shining star, twinkling like an ice-blue crystal suspended high in the heavens.
He had been imprisoned in this accursed place for ten days. It seemed an eternity. Onboard ship, the prisoners had been bathed with a strong-smelling disinfectant. He had been examined by a heavy-handed physician, who had poked and prodded every inch of his bruised flesh until he had wanted to scream. The laser gash in his thigh had been examined, and he had been pronounced in good health.
He had a vague recollection of being examined again after the beating he had endured while being collared. The mine doctor had rebandaged his thigh and looked after the cut in his cheek, saying he would be back to check on his wounds within the week. That had been ten days ago, and he had seen no one since then save for the scrawny, one-eyed man who brought him his meals twice each day.
He blew out a heavy sigh of resignation. He had known it was futile to resist, known he couldn't win, and yet the thought of submitting without protest had never occurred to him.
Ten days of isolation in a room no bigger than the storage locker on his ship. The closeness, the lack of sunlight, was driving him slowly insane.
Never, in all his life, had he been imprisoned. Rarely had he spent more than a few hours at a time within the confines of four walls. He was a fighter, a rebel, a mercenary. He had spent most of his adult life at war. Away from
home, his bed had been the ground, his blanket the sky.
He stared at the four cold walls of his prison, and prayed for death. Night and day, hour after hour, the same hopeless prayer.
With a sigh, he closed his eyes. The gash in his thigh ached anew with each breath. The wound, sustained in the heat of battle before he had been captured, was festering. He smiled into the darkness. With luck, it would kill him. Better he should die than spend the rest of his life, short as that was likely to be, imprisoned on Tierde. It was not in him to be a slave. He would fight to be free with every breath in his body, even though he knew he could not win. But he could not submit. To do so would be like turning his back on everything he had fought for, everything he had once loved
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