The outer rim contains planets beyond number. Of those, a small few are considered to have reached the levels of the galactic core. Most others are little more than backwaters, relatively unimportant little dirtballs that matter little to anyone other than the miners and farmers that live, sweat and die upon their dusty surfaces. And the rest... the rest are worse still, savage lands that have regressed almost beyond recognition in the countless decades and centuries that have passed since colonisation.

Velek was one such world. The fourth planet in a system of twelve, the world had appeared lush and inviting to those first colonists. But appearances were often deceptive, as the colonists (those who survived the first few days, at least) were quick to discover; Velek was a world frequently wracked by seismic disturbances and furious storms, the first of which destroyed many of the colonists' transports, leaving those 'fortunate' enough to survive at the mercy of the myriad predators that stalked the lush forests that had originally drawn the colonists in.

But a small, hardy few survived, perhaps even flourished on the hellish world. Cut off from the galaxy, they established a new society, one that steadily fell back toward the ancient ways and away from the cultural dominance of technology. And so, for centuries, life went on. War swept over the galaxy again and again. Tyrants rose and were toppled, and Galaxy-spanning Orders collapsed in flames. But life on Velek didn't change.

Until, that is, the slavers came.

They arrived in the dead of night, their powerful ships shrieking through the heavens like demons. The people of Velek, armed only with a handful of antiquated blasters and whatever weapons they had managed to forge for themselves, didn't stand a chance. Dozens died, and dozens more were cast into the vast slave pens aboard the massive transports.

Jarik Kymeri was one of the latter.