Read Online Star Wars: Red Harvest by Joe Schreiber - Free Book Online
Authors: Joe Schreiber
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grotesque bead on a string, and when Zo sat up and tried to move away from it, the fullness of the chamber where she’d awakened came into view.
She was inside a kind of trophy room.
The cable ran from one side of the room to the other. Rows of similar skulls hung on either end, dozens of them, grouped together in clusters while others were set apart in twos and threes to create a kind of ghastly abacus. Beneath it, an irregular array of vats and stained crucibles bubbled steadily over heating elements. In them, Zo saw morebones and shanks of raw-knobbed limbs protruding upward, some sheathed in yellow fat and sinew while others seemed to have boiled down to the marrow. Moss and mildew covered the ceiling, years of lichen and mold, colonies of life competing for airborne fat molecules coming off the pots. The smell of scalded viscera hung permanently in the air.
Swallowing, trying not to gag, Zo squirmed again and felt something slick and oily brush against the backs of her arms. Turning around, she saw that the entire wall behind her was lined with skins and hides, each one crawling with layers of tiny blind beetles industriously gnawing away. She watched, helpless, as they burrowed in and out of the hanging flank, hauling off chunks of grayish flesh.
“Boski scarabs,” a voice behind her said.
Zo snapped back around and saw the Whiphid standing in the doorway. His gaze was intense, corrosive, as if he could already see through her skin to the skeleton she would inevitably leave behind—bones he might boil out of her if she weren’t worth waiting for the natural decay process to do it first.
Zo moved her head slightly and winced at the pain in the base of her neck. She remembered those last few moments at the Marfa facility—the butt end of the Whiphid’s spear, a glassy rocket of agony, the blurry slither of the corridor as it warped past the lens of her ever-dimming consciousness.
And just before she’d blacked out, the hatchway.
Zo looked past the Whiphid, regarding her surroundings through this new, unwelcome perspective. The whine of turbines under the floorboards, the persistent shiver of the bulkhead—though the room was without any sort of viewport, offering no sight of their greater surroundings, she realized they had to be in flight.
“Is this your ship?”
The Whiphid nodded once. “The
Mirocaw
.”
“Where are we going?”
This time, he didn’t answer, lumbering instead over to the nearest of the pots. She watched as he lifted the lid and dipped in with an oxidizedpair of tongs, hoisting a grubby clump of something that she realized was a type of shank. Bits of gristle and musculature, part of a leg, dangled from its lower edges. With an unimpressed grunt, the Whiphid dropped the part back into the pot and slapped the lid back down, then turned to walk out again.
“Wait,” she said hoarsely.
The bounty hunter didn’t stop.
The hatch slid shut.
A moment after he left, Zo found the orchid.
It was still inside the half-crushed specimen flask, strapped almost haphazardly between a cargo drop panel and a swing bin above the vats of limbs and skulls. Her captor had used the same greasy cable he’d strung through the skulls to tie the containment vessel into place. From where she stood below it, she saw that the orchid had flourished even while she’d lain here unconscious. Simple physical proximity seemed enough to keep it alive, despite the fact that for a good bit of the time she’d been out cold.
Zo looked at it.
Hello
?
Nothing.
It’s me. Can you hear me?
The initial process of communication was never easy. At first it had felt almost unnatural. Yet with practice, through countless mornings spent sitting alone with the orchid, she’d soon reached a level of mastery that eased the transitory awkwardness into a smoother and more organic leap.
Are you there?
Within its glass vessel, the plant finally twitched, brightening slightly in recognition of her presence. Zo watched
She was inside a kind of trophy room.
The cable ran from one side of the room to the other. Rows of similar skulls hung on either end, dozens of them, grouped together in clusters while others were set apart in twos and threes to create a kind of ghastly abacus. Beneath it, an irregular array of vats and stained crucibles bubbled steadily over heating elements. In them, Zo saw morebones and shanks of raw-knobbed limbs protruding upward, some sheathed in yellow fat and sinew while others seemed to have boiled down to the marrow. Moss and mildew covered the ceiling, years of lichen and mold, colonies of life competing for airborne fat molecules coming off the pots. The smell of scalded viscera hung permanently in the air.
Swallowing, trying not to gag, Zo squirmed again and felt something slick and oily brush against the backs of her arms. Turning around, she saw that the entire wall behind her was lined with skins and hides, each one crawling with layers of tiny blind beetles industriously gnawing away. She watched, helpless, as they burrowed in and out of the hanging flank, hauling off chunks of grayish flesh.
“Boski scarabs,” a voice behind her said.
Zo snapped back around and saw the Whiphid standing in the doorway. His gaze was intense, corrosive, as if he could already see through her skin to the skeleton she would inevitably leave behind—bones he might boil out of her if she weren’t worth waiting for the natural decay process to do it first.
Zo moved her head slightly and winced at the pain in the base of her neck. She remembered those last few moments at the Marfa facility—the butt end of the Whiphid’s spear, a glassy rocket of agony, the blurry slither of the corridor as it warped past the lens of her ever-dimming consciousness.
And just before she’d blacked out, the hatchway.
Zo looked past the Whiphid, regarding her surroundings through this new, unwelcome perspective. The whine of turbines under the floorboards, the persistent shiver of the bulkhead—though the room was without any sort of viewport, offering no sight of their greater surroundings, she realized they had to be in flight.
“Is this your ship?”
The Whiphid nodded once. “The
Mirocaw
.”
“Where are we going?”
This time, he didn’t answer, lumbering instead over to the nearest of the pots. She watched as he lifted the lid and dipped in with an oxidizedpair of tongs, hoisting a grubby clump of something that she realized was a type of shank. Bits of gristle and musculature, part of a leg, dangled from its lower edges. With an unimpressed grunt, the Whiphid dropped the part back into the pot and slapped the lid back down, then turned to walk out again.
“Wait,” she said hoarsely.
The bounty hunter didn’t stop.
The hatch slid shut.
A moment after he left, Zo found the orchid.
It was still inside the half-crushed specimen flask, strapped almost haphazardly between a cargo drop panel and a swing bin above the vats of limbs and skulls. Her captor had used the same greasy cable he’d strung through the skulls to tie the containment vessel into place. From where she stood below it, she saw that the orchid had flourished even while she’d lain here unconscious. Simple physical proximity seemed enough to keep it alive, despite the fact that for a good bit of the time she’d been out cold.
Zo looked at it.
Hello
?
Nothing.
It’s me. Can you hear me?
The initial process of communication was never easy. At first it had felt almost unnatural. Yet with practice, through countless mornings spent sitting alone with the orchid, she’d soon reached a level of mastery that eased the transitory awkwardness into a smoother and more organic leap.
Are you there?
Within its glass vessel, the plant finally twitched, brightening slightly in recognition of her presence. Zo watched
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