Chapter Text
The void looked particularly all-encompassing today.
Minara wasn't sure how she felt about that. This was not her first venture into space, it was true, but the wide, endless expanse of black had never exactly instilled a feeling of comfort, at the least. She had no real issues with space travel, but she could not deny that she had always felt more comfortable with solid ground beneath her feet, and some three years spent mastering the Force was not going to change that.
Then again, there was no shortage of external stressors adding to her anxiety, either. She was a Sith who hated the Empire. It didn't get much more complicated than that. Add to that these "artifacts" her new master instructed her to collect, Darth Zash herself, and the ghost haunting her dreams, claiming to be some long-dead ancestor who seemed to know more about her own family than she did, and it was no wonder why her anxiety levels were through the roof.
And the only members of the crew supposed to help her were an idiot robot and a deadly assassin who hated her and ate Force-users.
Well, Mina, she thought, crossing her arms over her chest to ward off an imaginary chill as she brought up the nav-computer and set a course for Balmorra, You could still be a slave.
She supposed she had General Daley to thank for her "freedom". He had been her kindest master, if she had to admit. Most treated her like garbage--if not like a piece of furniture--but in his household, she actually had some semblance of humanity. She'd been Daley's first and only slave at the time, and he had never hurt her. She was basically a housekeeper, but she had her own room, her own space, and a bed that was more than just a simple cot (or the floor). Minara had had worse owners, that was certain. Honestly, the only real issue she had with working for him was the lack of compensation for the things she did. He was young, for a general; some might even say naive. Minara wasn't sure if his high rank at such a young age was a product of his hard work, or just handed to him because he came from a family of nobles off Dromund Kaas. She didn't think he was a bad person, per se; just that he was a product of his privileged position in the Empire that raised him. He didn't understand why slavery was a problem because he simply didn't know any better.
As the months passed, it had been Minara's goal to subtly "educate" him on why personal freedom was important (who knew?) until the day a man bypassed his security systems, broke into his home, and held him at the business end of a blaster.
Daley's hands lifted to show he was unarmed, and the fear that snaked down Minara's spine when she entered the room to investigate the commotion caused her to drop the box of cleaning supplies she'd been holding. The intruder's eyes shifted to her, and she felt herself get very tense.
"She's just a slave," Daley said, shaking his head. "She is no threat to you."
The intruder's eyes suddenly became very dark and angry as he studied her. "You'd be surprised what a slave could be capable of."
Well, he's not wrong, she thought, but I can't say I like the way he's looking at me.
Returning his eyes to the General, the man began to explain. Apparently, Daley had recently pulled most of his soldiers from a construction site on Dromund Kaas to respond to a rebel attack, and the lower security provided the perfect opportunity for the slaves working on the site to rebel. The man's wife was a technician on-site who was coordinating the construction. She wasn't a soldier or a guard, but she had been killed in the resulting chaos.
Minara could understand his anger. No one expected slaves to fight back and actually succeed--certainly not on Dromund Kaas--because, in so many cases, they didn't have the resources to actually win a battle against their captors. But these slaves had, and this man's wife had died in the process. He was on a quest for vengeance, and since he couldn't hunt down the slaves responsible, he went after the general who had ordered his soldiers to be elsewhere.
When Daley glanced at her, and then purposefully to the cabinet to her right that contained his own blaster before his eyes returned to the vengeful man, his meaning was clear. Minara paused just long enough to marvel at the fact that he was willing to trust her with his blaster, but then slowly began moving closer to the cabinet. The fact that she wanted to help Daley was... an unfamiliar feeling, to be certain. Yes, he owned her as a slave, but she didn't think he deserved to die for his ignorance. Not to mention that his death would mean she would be either sold to someone else, or given to someone in his family as part of their inheritance--likely someone not as kind to her as he was. She could escape in the wake of his death, but without the proper documents citing her as a free woman, she would not make it through the nearest checkpoint alone without getting caught. Plus, there was no way to be certain that the man wouldn't turn on her the moment Daley was dead, and she had no idea how to defend herself--or how to use a blaster for that matter.
In the end, it didn't make a difference. When the man saw her moving, he immediately turned the blaster on her, and when she held up her hands reflexively to defend herself, she ended up pushing him right off his feet and directly through a window to fall to the ground several storeys below--without ever having made direct contact with his person.
When the shattering of glass caused her to open her eyes again, she wasn't even aware she'd closed them. If not for the energy that coursed through her, the rush of power that she felt burst outward from her outstretched hands, and Daley's wide-eyed stare, she never would have thought herself capable of something like that.
She didn't have to look out through the shattered remains of glass in the window frame to know that he was dead. The first casualty in her Sith career.
Minara had had an inkling that she may be Force-sensitive for years prior to this moment. She had been unnaturally lucky as a child and had ridiculously quick reflexes. It was only after she'd become a slave and started working for Imperials, overhearing various conversations of prospective recruits, that she had any idea what it might mean. But she kept it hidden because she was terrified of what might happen if her masters ever found out. Some Sith may have been able to sense it in her, it was true, but she had only ever had one Sith master--and Minara would have been shocked if the woman would ever admit to her slave having any inkling of power, even if the Empire demanded it. But, Minara supposed, if she had to choose any one of her masters to reveal her Force-sensitivity to, it may as well have been Daley.
The general offered her an ultimatum, in return for saving his life: he could alert the Dark Council as he was legally required to do in such a situation (and in which case she would be required to submit herself to the academy for training and would get a chance to become a Sith) or he could keep it to himself and Minara would remain in his service--but as a paid servant rather than a slave. Either way, she would essentially be freed--in a limited sense of the word.
In the end, she chose the academy. It was the lesser of two evils, she supposed. Minara was under no illusions that she would ever have normal life, and had given up any attempts to gain one long ago. But becoming a Sith offered her certain freedoms and opportunities that she would not otherwise have. She would learn to fight, to defend herself. To use the Force as a tool, a weapon. She could fly. Explore the galaxy.
Find her sister. Stars, it had been years since she last saw her. Where was she now?
And so, at twenty-one years old, after eight years spent toiling ceaselessly under the Empire's thumb, Minara became a free woman... in theory. In practice, she had no choice to but to submit herself to the Empire for the rest of her life--to become a Sith, or die trying. And, being older than usual for an acolyte, the odds were stacked against her. But if she succeeded... she'd have access to a ship, and the means to search for her sister.
Now, two years of training and one as an acolyte later, she had it. Her own ship! Albeit, her success came with its fair share of caveats--including a strange force ghost who claimed to be her ancestor and wouldn't leave her alone, a Sith master that was as shifty as she was lenient, a mission to collect a bunch of artifacts for some ritual she had no idea about, and far more people killed by Minara's own hand than she would have liked. Stars, her life had taken a dark turn.
Years ago, back on the streets with her sister, if someone had told her she would become a powerful and deadly Sith, she never would have believed them. This was certainly not where Minara had expected to end up. But, she never did anything half-way, so would make the most of it. If she was to become Sith, she would become the best damn Sith the Empire had ever seen. She was obedient to Darth Zash--she didn't really have much choice in that matter--but she took pleasure in the fact that she at least had the freedom to run her mouth to anyone who wasn't a higher rank than her. Minara actually had people answering to her.
She wasn't sure how to deal with that, at first. In fact, she wasn't really certain what to do with all of her newfound freedom.
She hated the Empire. This was a fact. And oh, she had dreams of wiping it out from the inside. It deserved no less for tearing her away from her sister and her freedom, putting countless people through the abuse and horrible manipulation of slavery. Sure, she had lived on the streets, but she'd been free. Maybe one day she could destroy the Empire as she wished, but for now, she would focus on consolidating power. It would not be easy. Her peers would have to perceive her as wholly devoted to the Empire, despite having been a former Imperial slave. She could cast herself as power-hungry, she supposed, her years in slavery causing her to develop a desire to rule over everyone who had ever owned her. She would need to be manipulative at all times, and ruthless when the situation called for it. She would have few allies, and fewer friends.
Minara had no doubt that, given enough time, she could pull it off. But she would need help. And power. Neither of which she had, at the moment. So she would have to wait, biding her time until an opportunity presented itself to rise higher in the Empire.
It would take time. Years, even.
But if there had been one thing Minara learned from tending the every whim of Imperials for nearly a decade with little hope of escape... it was patience.