#oc kelsa kine

Angstpril - Left behind

50 ATC. Kelsa Kine (23) is trapped in a Hutt labor camp and has thought endlessly of her escape the entire time.

“Alright, guards change shifts in two minutes. Everyone ready?” Kelsa asked the small group of slaves that she had formed an uneasy alliance with.

Everyone nodded, grim determination on every scarred and dirty face. They all wanted out of the mines and out from under the Hutts thumb. They were all desperate for their freedom.

Normally, Kelsa tried to avoid making deals with desperate people. Desperate people were dangerous. But these weren’t normal times and she was just as desperate as the rest of them.

“Ok. Mouse, come here.”

The smallest of them scurried up to her, nervous excitement on his thin face. Reaching to the collar on his neck, Kelsa closed her eyes and concentrated. The Force was still easy enough for her to feel but forced labor, little food and the all to common beating made it extremely difficult for her to wield.

A trickle of sweat slid down her brow as her face scrunched up in concentration. She could not fail, not now. This had to work otherwise they were all doomed to a slow death in the mines.

Precious seconds ticked by as she poked and prodded at the collar with the force until finally, with a small click, it unlocked and fell from Mouse’s neck.

Mouse’s eyes went wide as he felt the skin of his neck for the first time in years.

“Get a move on, kid,” growled the biggest of their group. “We need that remote.”

Kelsa frowned at the big man. Out of everyone in the small group he was the one that Kelsa trusted the least. Had he not been part of her work crew, she never would have included him in her plan. He had never done anything overtly hostile but she always got a bad feeling in her gut whenever she looked at him. Still, he was right, they were on the clock.

“You’ve got this, Mouse,” she whispered as she clapped his shoulder.

Grinning, Mouse gave two thumbs up to the group and dashed off to the guard house.

The rest of the slaves had nothing to do but wait and hope that their little thief wouldn’t let them down.

Not for the first time, Kelsa wished that her connection to the force was more useful. Back on Odessen, her abilities had seemed limitless and she had still been growing in potential. But this wasn’t Odessen. Now she was exhausted every second of every day and it took a monumental effort just to keep putting one foot in front of the other let alone to unlock multiple slave collars. One was all she could manage now and it was up to Mouse to snag the remote to deactivate everyone else’s.

“This had better work,” the big man muttered with a glare at Kelsa.

She returned his glare with one of her own. “You don’t like my plan? Then go back to your bunk. I’m sure Smiley will love to have someone to vent his frustrations on after he finds out he lost a whole crew.”

The big man let out a growl but kept his mouth shut. None of them wanted to get on Smiley’s bad side. They had all seen the foreman’s work and no one wanted to be the next example he chained in the center of the camp for all to see.

Fortunately, they didn’t have long to dwell on what would happen to them if they were caught as Mouse quickly came running back into view with a wide smile on his face.

Seeing his smile and the remote in his hand, Kelsa let out a sigh of relief that was echoed throughout the rest of the work crew.

“Guards were sharing a death stick, just like you said! They never had a clue!” he whispered excitedly as he started passing the remote around to everyone.

For the first time in what felt like forever, Kelsa felt real genuine hope as she deactivated her collar. This was really going to work!

Tossing the remote to the big man, Kelsa addressed the group. “Ok. That’s that done. Now lets go. We gotta get to those drones before they take off with the evening shipment.”

She was greeted with smiles and eyes full of the same hope that was now coursing through her. This was going to work. It had to work.

As quietly as they could, the group made their way to the western part of the camp where the raw spice from the mines was packaged and sent to a refining plant off-world. Now that their collars were deactivated, all they had to do was get over the camp walls and slip into one of those drones and it would take them away from this hellhole.

Reaching the wall was easy enough. With their collars deactivated there was no risk of them going off as they reached the edge of camp. Most guards on the night shift were also extremely lazy as the slaves were usually too exhausted from their time in the mines to do anything other than collapse into their bunks. Kelsa was counting on that behavior to get them all over the wall without attracting anyone’s attention.

Quickly, two of the crew dropped to a knee and hoisted a third up to the top of the wall. From their, they tossed up a makeshift ladder of knotted safety cords stolen over the course of a month from the mine’s supplies. The man atop the wall secured the ladder and everyone began to make their way up the wall.

When it was finally her turn, Kelsa took in a breath of air as she climbed which somehow seemed fresher than the air in the camp. A taste of freedom, she thought with a wide smile. Just as she began to swing her leg over the top of the wall, warning bells went off in her head. The Force was screaming at her of a danger that she had somehow missed.

Whipping her head around, she scanned the nearest watch towers but there was nothing. No guards pointing weapons at her or searchlights illuminating her position. But then what was it?

Far too late, she looked down to where the rest of the crew were all staring up at her. Some with sad and regretful expressions on their faces, others with looks of disgust. But her eyes zeroed in on the big man who was giving her a cruel grin. The remote to the slave collars was held in his hand and pointing right at her. “Sorry but we’ll have enough trouble without one of you witches coming with us.”

Pain exploded through her body as the collar was reactivated. She convulsed on top of the wall as she screamed out in agony.

Still screaming, she toppled back down the wall and into the camp. The fall undoubtedly did even more damage to her but she couldn’t think through the shocks coursing through her.

Alarms were now going off as her collar let all the guards know that someone had approached the wall, setting off their collar’s shock function.

She never heard the shouting of the guards as they spotted her. She didn’t even hear the alarms going off in the camp. But she did hear the sounds of the automatic drones powering up and lifting off the ground.

Tears were spilling down her face as the guards dragged her still twitching body back into the camp. Tears of pain, of betrayal, of fear and hopelessness. She didn’t want to die in the camp but now she was terrified that that was exactly what was going to happen.

As if in answer to her fears, the next thing she recalled seeing was Smiley grinning at her, a sadistic gleam in his eyes.

“No… please… no,” she rasped.

Smiley’s grin never faltered as he struck her across the face. “Now, now. You know the rules, 952.”

Utter terror gripped Kelsa’s heart as she desperately tried to pull away from the strong arms that kept her on her knees.

“Looks like things have gotten too comfortable for you slaves.” He tapped his chin as he hummed with the air of someone considering what they wanted from a diner menu. “I think they need another example of what happens when they act up.”

“NO! No, please!”

“Take her away. I’ll get started on her in the morning.”

“No! No, no, no! Please don’t! I’ll be good! I swear! It’ll never happen again! Please!”

But her screams and pleas for mercy fell on deaf ears. The guards were too strong and she was too weak. They dragged her to the center of camp where the “stage” was located. Chains were attached to her wrists from a pulley and then pulled taught, straining her arms and forcing her to stand on her toes.

“Please… please don’t… I’ll do anything…” she sobbed as the guards finished setting her up.

All she got for her pleading was cruel laughter and a punch in the gut.

She gasped and sagged in her bonds, causing the manacles to cut into her wrists.

Tears fell freely from her eyes as she tried to ease the pressure on her wrists. But doing so made her calves burn and in her weakened state, her legs eventually gave out. She whimpered as her wrists took on all of her weight and began to slowly bleed but she just didn’t have the strength to try and stand anymore.

Why couldn’t the fall from the wall have killed her? Why couldn’t she have died during her time in the mines? What had she done to deserve this life?

Her sobs echoed throughout the camp as she hung there only stopping when Smiley arrived at sunup to be quickly replaced by her screams.

Angstpril - Doorstep collapse

43 ATC. Kelsa Kine (16), eldest daughter of the late Alliance Commander, is struggling to make ends meet while raising her younger cousin, Élise Kine (11)

Just a little bit further.

That was what she kept telling herself. Just a little bit further.

On most nights, the walk back to her tiny apartment would have been simple. But tonight those few blocks had her struggling for breath. Each step took a monumental effort as if her boots were made of duracrete.

Some small part of her brain recognized that her fatigue and shortness of breath were symptoms of blood loss. But there wasn’t much she could do about that right now besides continue on to the first aid kit in her apartment.

Just a little bit further.

Her vision blurred for a moment and she lost her balance. Instinctively, she tried to twist and fall on her good side but pain still shot through her like lightning and tears came to her eyes as she cried out.

She should have seen the knife coming. She should have known that something was off about tonight’s match. Far too many nicely dressed people were in the crowd tonight. She should have realized it was a death match.

Curling in on herself, she let her tears continue to fall.

She hated death matches. She hated having to kill others that were just as desperate as she was. She hated what her life had become.

With her eyes still closed, she felt the stab wound on her side. It wasn’t bleeding profusely but it was still oozing blood. She would have to give herself stitches as she still didn’t have enough credits saved up to afford kolto.

She hoped that Élise was already asleep. It always hurt to have to avoid her little cousin’s questions or outright lie to her about how she was making credits to keep them both housed and fed. It hurt all the more because she knew Élise didn’t believe her. Their force bond made it almost impossible to lie to each other though she had gotten much better at shielding Élise from the pain she experienced in her matches.

Oh how she wished she was experiencing the usual pains from a normal match.

Some part of her mind whose voice was a mix of her parents and her other Alliance teachers told her that she had to get up. The more she lay there on the ground the more likely it was that she would never get back up.

Grunting in pain, she managed to roll onto her stomach and then brought her knees up beneath her.

A pool of blood had formed beneath her but she was too tired to even wince at how much she was loosing. Instead, she scrunched up her face in preparation for more pain and before she could think herself out of it, forced her body to stand.

A strangled whimper escaped her lips as her side screamed in protest but she did manage to stand.

Taking a moment, she tried to fill her lungs with oxygen but no matter how many deep breaths she took, her lungs did not feel satisfied.

Realizing that she would not be able to feel better here but not trusting her balance any longer, she pressed one hand against the wall and started to slowly shamble the final few blocks to her apartment.

Just a little bit further.

After what felt like hours, her apartment building finally came into view.

Relief flooded through her exhausted body, giving her enough clarity of mind to balance her way into the lift to her floor.

When the lift doors opened, she stumbled out. Her apartment was just a few doors down.

Just a little bit further.

Glancing down to her side, she saw that she was still bleeding and had trailed blood from the lift and into the hallway.

Just as she started to wonder how much blood she had lost, her vision went blurry again.

Her body didn’t even have the strength to reach for the wall for balance. She simply wobbled on unsteady feet before collapsing.

A muffled sob emerged from her as she desperately reached out to her apartment’s door.

Please… she was so close.

Shadows began to obscure her vision.

She whimpered as she dragged her bloody body closer to the door.

Reaching up felt like a brand was being pushed into her side and she let out a desperate cry of frustration.

The door’s release was right there.

Reach…

Just a little bit further.

It was too far.

The pain was too much.

She fell back onto the floor and this time she couldn’t get back up.