Kessel: Hell in Space

Part 1: Rotten to the Core

ARCHIVIST'S NOTE: The Wookiee slave Gyylghrard remains something of a legend among those who work the mines of Kessel, an angry Kashyyyk native who stood up to and ultimately destroyed his oppressor. Gyylghrard's journal, kept safe by a fellow prisoner after the Wookiee's death, recently came to light during General Calrissian's failed attempt to reopen the mining operation. The journal offers a rare glimpse inside one of the Empire's most dreaded confinement facilities.

Day 1: Arrival on Kessel

My name is Gyylghrard the Wookiee, and the last few weeks have been the worst days of my 50 years. I must take solace in the fact that my newfound enslavement will delay, maybe even prevent, the indenture or execution of my family. Though a prisoner, I remain a Wookiee, and will serve my term with as much honor as I can muster.

Acquiring these ragged sheets of flimsi and a simple writing stylus proved easier than I had thought. Despite the despicable conditions here in the Spice Mines of Kessel, there is a thriving black market trade amongst the prisoners for illicit items. Anything from clerical supplies to weapons can be obtained -- for the right price. The little Sullustan who supplied me with the material for this journal has agreed to keep me stocked in exchange for protection from other prisoners. In this place, my strength and ferocity are my most marketable commodity. I hope that I have found a friend.

But I'm wasting flimsi. I mean this to be a record of my incarceration on Kessel, so that I will one day have evidence to protect myself -- or at least get word to the outside of the system that operates here.

I arrived on Kessel on board a slave ship. As bad as the passage was -- with filthy accommodations, stale rations, and an outbreak of Dantari flu that killed three Humans and a Duro -- Kessel itself was a whole new kind of hell. The ship docked at the garrison moon, where the survivors of the trip were processed by a clerical officer and sent to "decontamination." The decontamination process consisted of blasting the prisoners with mysterious gasses of varying temperatures, from scalding hot to ice cold. Shaken and dazed, we were then led onto a cargo shuttle for a brief flight down to the factory prisons that sat above the mines. This was the last time I saw the stars, and my vision was so hazy that space all around us was distorted. My Sullustan friend insisted this was due to the gravitational disturbance smugglers called the Maw, but I couldn't say for sure. On Kashyyyk, I was a hunter, not a space pirate.

The guards, as one might expect, excel in the casual brutality common to stormtroopers and relish their thuggishness. We are kept in dismal, dimly lit barracks, where we are allowed to sleep a few hours at a time before returning to the mines. The air here is very thin, blasted out by massive atmosphere generators. Even in the mines, we must wear gas masks at all times lest we pass out. To ensure that no one gets any funny ideas about hording oxygenation equipment, we get only one mask when incarcerated and one recharge on the oxygen cell per day. The stuff we're mining, glitterstim -- insanely valuable on the black market, or so I've heard -- is ruined when exposed to light of any kind, so we must also work in total darkness. There's also something in the mines, some sort of deadly creature my Sullustan friend has told me to "keep a lookout for." I assume he was joking (though maybe not; his kind thrive in tunnels, he claims), but I have noticed a strange scent in the areas where this so-called "spice spider" has been spotted. If ever I detect that scent in great amounts, I must be ready to fight.

The guard is coming, so I must hide my journal for now. More later.

Coming in Part Two of "Kessel: Hell in Space"

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