Post by Bobbi on May 2, 2019 14:30:04 GMT -5
Everything that could be used from the smaller wakek's stores was gathered. The system was bare minimum of what they would need to get Solomon up there, but they'd have to make due. There just wasn't time for any scouting of the area, or going back to the graveyard for more stuff. It wasn't worth the risk anyway, not with how destroyed they had gotten during their first trip. A harness was fashioned, and things were pulled together. It wasn't easy, and it did take time, but after all of it, Solomon found himself reaching out with his left hand for Buttercup to pull him onto the ledge high above the settled drop ship and the people below them. Up here, it was a bit darker. Glow Rods would be the only source of light he had to work by, and their placement was precarious at best. It was low level lighting meets high winds and shifting red dust that billowed and thickened with each change of the wind's direction.
The only part of his body that felt it was his face. The rest of him was covered in what could be pulled from Catia's inert form. Some of it was tied on, strategic strips of fabric cut from what the dead Mandal on the ledge was wearing while bits and pieces of the larger, more cobbled together armor served as some protection against scrapes and scratches going up. It was completely piecemeal, what he was wearing. The full protection of his own suit had been pared down in order to fit beneath the new layer of padding and protection. It made him feel heavier, more weighted. It made moving take more effort, but it also gave support to places that were feeling at their weakest.
On the ledge, his real work began. In that dim lighting Solomon inspected what he could of the cable, his intangible senses long since given up on. He simply didn't have the energy to do both, and with the world as dim as it was up there he needed to focus utterly on what he was doing. What helped was that he had been given a full pod before making the ascent. It cleared away the encroaching cloudiness that had set in, and swept the unroar out of his ears. Only once equilibrium had been achieved, thanks to the pod, did Solomon realize how bad it had been getting. It left him wondering how he had been standing upright for so long without, functioning as he had.
The simple answer to that was because he had to.
The casing of the thing was thick, but access could be had with a singular controlled toss of the lightsaber he’d gotten from Azair -- Captain Black’s lightsaber. So he set to work. It was a delicate thing he was doing, the measure of his own strength versus that of the cable’s. This was where things became time consuming. The careful movements he needed to be making were clumsy at best, but he attempted to manage anyway. It was the thought that they needed this to work that pushed him forward and to break caution down. He would pay for that with a bright arcing spark that lit up the red. Contact, in that moment, was so very brief but the effect was enough. The length of his left arm was painfully numb. It was a different sensation than the numbness of his right arm. The jolt raced down the left side of his body, causing everything to lock up for a handful of minutes. His heart, he was sure, for those few minutes had stopped beating even while he still breathed. It was all due to the brush of exposed skin against the edge of the cable he was working on with his hand. An odd angle had been required, and that had left the opening. A mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
Recovered, after those long passing moments where the color of the red-black sky overhead was beginning to darken further into the eternal night, Solomon set to work again. A connection could be made, and he was on the verge of making it. All he needed was to bridge -- another shot of spark snapped out from within the cable, lancing once again up his arm and through his body. This one was stronger than the last, the contact with it hadn’t been grazing. The direct electrical assault bucked through him causing a sharp tremor, shortness of breath, rigidity of his fingers, and loss of his senses.
When they returned enough for movement, more time had been lost. He had given an estimate of how much time he’d need, and that was way overshot. Daylight, or what stood for it around the floating rocks of Blood Sky, was all but gone. He had to take a few more moments to work himself out, to gain complete control of himself back enough to move.
Going up hadn’t been the easiest of tasks, but thanks to those shocks going down was even harder. Controlling the speed of movement was guess work that he had to be careful with or else he’d land too heavily, and there would go his legs.
Buttercup hadn't taken the hit, and looking at his greyed face made her think he might die on the way down. She made sure Breis could see her, and she did her best to signal that she'd be coming down this time, and then without asking she grabbed Solomon before he could try to descend on his own. "You grab onto me, lefty. I'll get you down. --Can you hear me?"
There was a bubble between his ears, and it wasn't due to the unroar of The Red. Eyes still unfocused, he could only see the vague outline of Buttercup as she grabbed a hold of him and drew him close. There was no fight to ward it off. In her armor, and relatively unscathed, Sgt Rula was in far better shape than he was. There was an answer from him, something closer to a gravel-like sounding "Yes." But it was faint, his volume still broken by the red dust he had inhaled, his throat dry and parched from the shocks he'd just taken.
"Can you grab on?" she asked--and immediately changed course. In the dim, he looked awful. "No--forget it." And she set about altering the hoist a little to hold him while also twisting her own arm through for a firm attachment.
Could he? He tried. Whatever strength was in that arm -- his one good arm -- was meager just then at best. His fingers felt like hot wooden logs, the twist to them strange as he reached to grab a hold as Buttercup had requested. It was difficult to hold on, though. His entire body felt like a match that had been struck to blazing, and left to smolder.
With Buttercup taking the role that required the best coordination, the pair eventually got down. It was Breis Teimar to caught hold of the hoist to ease them down the final inches. He and Nen helped Buttercup get free, and Breis took Solomon's weight and helped him to sit. "What happened? Did it work?" He already had a canteen in hand, but upon inspection it was clear what was needed came from a medkit.
The help was both accepted and greatly appreciated. With the weight settling back onto his legs Solomon realized just how much like jelly they felt. His focus on Breis was just as fleeting as it had been for Buttercup, but things were clearing further. He could almost make out features on Breis Teimar's face. "Its live," he hoarsed out, "I wasn't protected well enough. Took a good shock." He caught his breath at the edge of what he was whispering and let it out slowly, "I can make it work, Al'verde. Just --need to catch my breath." What he told the Commander was true. He -could- make it work. He had no doubts.
"We saw," Breis said as Solomon mentioned that it was live.
"We smelled," Tavv added from farther away, half in the dark as the dim turned to true night.
Breis looked past Solomon at Buttercup, who shook her head doubtfully.
He chuffed some amusement at what Tavv had said, drew in a ragged breath and replied tightly with, "Well, they do say grilled Corellian is the best." After that he was shutting his eyes, and settling back against whatever was behind him, "Just need more padding, fewer gaps. I was so close. So, so close."
Breis looked him over. Still mounted on the wakek, Azair did the same. As did Buttercup. As did Nen, from his station near the nose of the Leap of Faith. Tavv, wounded and largely untreated, spared him a glance.
Without a word, the others began shedding what they could.
But it was more than that. Quietly, quickly, they began pitching ideas about what more they could do to ensure that Solomon was as protected while he worked as they could make him. As insulated from shock. He was so close.
The beat of that in his head was rousing. He had been close. He could still see the cable when he shut his eyes, he knew -just- what he needed to do in order to get the message sent. It was right there at the ends of his fingertips. That knowledge was like its own kind of shock. It didn't zap him like the current had, but it did bring back some vitality. "Buttercup," He opened his eyes to look toward the Hapan woman, "I'm going to need your hands when we get back up there. I won't be able to do this without you." With perception wishy-washy, but clearing, he hadn't taken notice just yet of the conversation or the striping of padding and armor.
"What's that? You want me to marry you? I accept. 'Solomon Rula' has a nice ring to it." Buttercup was heading away as she spoke, trying to figure out if there was anything else--anything at all--that they had that could serve as more insulation for them.
Breis, meanwhile, was playing medic, kneeling now right next to Solomon, checking his color and his eyes and anything else he could think of.
Solomon Rula? That -- that wasn't right. The dilation of his eyes was lessening, and color was returning, but he still felt like scrambled eggs. His focus on Breis as the Mandal looked him over faded in and out. On his left arm was where a burn would be found, skin damaged and blistered by contact with the cable's voltage. "Sorry, Sargent, already spoken for."
"Not very loudly if she or he or it ain't here," Buttercup mused with tired sarcasm--but far enough away now that it could easily be missed.
"Say my name," Breis told Solomon.
He blinked, focused on the Mandalorian which meant blocking out Buttercup, and got himself several moments of working at pulling facial recognition out of the darkness around them, "Tei- mar, Breis." His voice felt like sandpaper in his throat which made the raw tightness of it feel worse.
"Where are you?"
Sitting against something hard, on something hard surrounded by shadows and darkness, "The Yaim. Tal -- Tal Keb --" there was some small pause there as he attempted to make the Mandalorian's native dialect work for him right then. Failing that, he grasped at Basic and breathed out, "The Blood Sky."
"Say my name," Sadhric told Solomon, still checking him over.
That voice cut through every ounce of pain he was feeling, but his chest tightened all the same. "Sadhric?" Quick answer there, if spoken with the slowness of needing to work around a hindering physical condition. The shadows were starting to take shape, and the face he was looking at belonged to the man who owned the name.
Crouched there, Sadhric was focused on assessing Solomon's physical condition and not paying attention to his face any longer. "Where are you?"
"The Queen Kara," that came with a push from his right hand against the floor beneath him, not to rise but just to shift position slightly. That he barely moved was little concern, it was enough. "What happened?"
The slap met the side of Sol's face with a sharp crack. Face, not envirosuit visor. "Where are you?"
The strike hit, the clap of that hand meeting the side of his face resounded in his ears, overtaking the bubble that lived there and popping it. He drew in a breath, and felt it stick, "I'm here," was forced out of his heavy feeling chest. The side of his face stung where it was hit, a new sensation against all the older ones he had been working it. It was fresh enough to draw his focus. He blinked fiercely, and tried to focus in the person who had hit him.
The Mechanic stared him in the eye now. Through faintly tinted Lenses, his own dark eyes narrowed, his gaze laser-like, the motions tiny as the focus went from right to left and from left to right again. "You sure?" Faint wryness there; a quirk of one eyebrow.
"Yes," Sol insisted in response, "I'm here," his own focus on Sadhric wasn't quite as laser-like, but it was good enough to be seen. "Don't -- Don't hit me again, alright? I'm here."
On the next blink, Breis was there, frowning at him, close, puzzled and lit only from the side where Buttercup held a glow stick up for him. "No one's hit you," said the Mandal.
From the clean well lit corridor of the Queen Kara to the darkened ledge of Tal Kebii’tra, it was a quick changed. It happened as he blinked. Starting, finding himself suddenly surrounded by darkness, air too dirty to be breathed, and people that were -not- Sadhric Tlin, Solomon sat shock still. In the close light of the glow stick Buttercup held, Sol took in what he could without moving too much. "I was just..." He blinked again, daring the motion and the dry cough that followed, "I think I was dreaming."
Beyond Breis and Buttercup were other concerned faces farther off. Nen's could be seen at the edge of the light, watching from the front of the dropship. Tavv was propped up still closer to the path they'd used to reach the ledge. "You zoned out," Breis agreed.
"You're right," Buttercup said, tossing a glance toward Tavv. "He does smell like a barbecue."
"Do we have any stim-pacs?" The question was meant for Breis, but Buttercup was just as close as the Clan leader. It could have been for either of them. "I need to get back up there before I pass out."
"One," Breis said. "It's yours." He looked up and snapped a finger out sharply.
Azair, in the body of Liv, was still mounted, and twisted. Their single precious bag up there, that served as their medkit, was very small and looked deflated it was so empty. When tossed down, it caught the air, too lightweight to sail heavy. Breis snapped it out of the air before it could so much as brush a hair on Solomon's head.
"If you can move," Buttercup said, "we'll get you wrapped up in what we hope will work as insulation." Her own silhouette was already different; in the seconds--or minutes?--that Solomon had drifted, the Hapan had shed a little armor and wrapped up her arms. A small pile had grown before Sol. Some of it looked to include strange lumps of clotted dust the size of his head.
"If it doesn't move, I'll make it move," he told Buttercup, the pile before him catching his attention as the light she held shifted just slightly. He was then moving stiffly, putting energy into limbs that felt like they were long since empty of the stuff, "Once I have that stim-pac in me, we won't have much time before it makes me ill. Help me get wrapped, and then I'll take it. After that, we'll have about twenty minutes, give or take, to get this done."
Azair slid down, and couldn't get much closer without disentangling from the wakek, but with some repositioning Solomon was given the stim-pac and then set upon by Buttercup, Breis, and Azair.
The hands of a Hapan, a Mandalorian warrior, and the sister of Celestia Vikas worked quickly to get Solomon layered up in bits and pieces of Catia's armor, some of Buttercup's, and more promising donations that the other Mandals had given up. What good would it do them to cling to their belongings now? If this didn't work, they were doomed. Added in was the dust-clotted raw hide of the wakek, at the suggestion of Jujanaj.
Buttercup didn't go without--not if she needed to be Solomon's hands, as seemed more and more likely--but as one of the last relatively unhurt in their group, her best use was in keeping him stable up there, and safe.
Solomon did what he could to help them get the armor and padding secured. He wasn't utterly helpless, but his body was definitely showing signs of the hard wear and tear he had taken. He was moving like an old man, one whose body had long ago started to betray him. His help for this came where ever he could offer it, even if it was as small as holding something in place with his left hand while it was tied by one of the three tying pieces on to him. Once it was all done, and only once it was all done, did he break open the stim-pac. It was not an easy moment, knowing how much harder things were going to get once he swallowed the stuff within the packet. He usually didn't take them due to their effects on him, but here he could have no such luxury of denying that he needed the boost. The ghostly worn faces of the remaining Mandals, the life-linked Azair-Captain Black, and the remaining Hapans were worth just how wretched this was going to make him feel. He could deal with it for the short-run. His mind made up, he lifted the packet and emptied the contents into his mouth. With some water, he drank it down, drowning the powdered stimulant and slightly clearing his throat at the same time. The guzzle emptied the bottle to the last drop, and he could already feel it starting to work. "Let's go." He told Buttercup, handing the bottle off to whoever was nearby to take it.
With Buttercup’s help, Solomon once more found himself up on the ledge where his work had been abandoned. It was picked up right where he left off, with him giving Sargent Rula detailed instructions on what was needed from her. It was a step-by-step approach, with Solomon still helping where he was able. His biggest obstacle in reaching completion was the bridge he had to make with comms. That was accomplished by little careful movements, his own piece sacrificed for the task.
It was slow going, and intensive work. By the time they’d even just managed a stable connection Solomon could feel the effects of the stim-pac wearing off. His stomach was starting to tighten, he was beginning to feel ill. Sweat was beginning to moisten his skin beneath the layers of padding and armor he was wearing. But he had only to go just a little bit further. “Like that, yes.” He told Buttercup, blinking away a visual distortion that was starting to settle over his sight, one that had nothing at all to do with The Red. “That should be enough. Let’s try…”
No success came from that attempt. More tweaking was done, Solomon’s instructions were coming quicker now. He was pushing for it because it was either him, or it seemed like the formation beneath them had shifted when the winds picked up.
Just a few more seconds was all they needed. Adjustments made, and he was snapping to it. The dits and dashes he tapped out using his comm for the bridge to the cable’s keepers was something he could have done with his eyes shut. It was an old code for him, something he’d cut his slicing teeth on.
W-A-R-N-I-N-G A-I-R-M-I-N-E-S.
“Come Lefty, time to go. This thing is moving.”
S-E-V-E-N N-E-E-D E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y E-V-A-C
“Just a second more.” His hand was shaking so bad as he tapped at the receiver, sending the message up the line. He felt like he was going to be sick.
“Now!”
He felt it then, as he was pulling himself free from his work. There was a lurch to the rock as it swung on the wind. He couldn’t see much in the flat lighting of the glow rods they’d placed, or much of anything past the cloud that set in over his vision, making everything in the darkness a thick and sickly looking gray. He could hear her, though. It was like Buttercup was shouting right in his ear.
“Let’s go!”
There was no arguments as Buttercup helped him into the hoist, and down they went. If the Hapans above got the message, only time would tell.
The only part of his body that felt it was his face. The rest of him was covered in what could be pulled from Catia's inert form. Some of it was tied on, strategic strips of fabric cut from what the dead Mandal on the ledge was wearing while bits and pieces of the larger, more cobbled together armor served as some protection against scrapes and scratches going up. It was completely piecemeal, what he was wearing. The full protection of his own suit had been pared down in order to fit beneath the new layer of padding and protection. It made him feel heavier, more weighted. It made moving take more effort, but it also gave support to places that were feeling at their weakest.
On the ledge, his real work began. In that dim lighting Solomon inspected what he could of the cable, his intangible senses long since given up on. He simply didn't have the energy to do both, and with the world as dim as it was up there he needed to focus utterly on what he was doing. What helped was that he had been given a full pod before making the ascent. It cleared away the encroaching cloudiness that had set in, and swept the unroar out of his ears. Only once equilibrium had been achieved, thanks to the pod, did Solomon realize how bad it had been getting. It left him wondering how he had been standing upright for so long without, functioning as he had.
The simple answer to that was because he had to.
The casing of the thing was thick, but access could be had with a singular controlled toss of the lightsaber he’d gotten from Azair -- Captain Black’s lightsaber. So he set to work. It was a delicate thing he was doing, the measure of his own strength versus that of the cable’s. This was where things became time consuming. The careful movements he needed to be making were clumsy at best, but he attempted to manage anyway. It was the thought that they needed this to work that pushed him forward and to break caution down. He would pay for that with a bright arcing spark that lit up the red. Contact, in that moment, was so very brief but the effect was enough. The length of his left arm was painfully numb. It was a different sensation than the numbness of his right arm. The jolt raced down the left side of his body, causing everything to lock up for a handful of minutes. His heart, he was sure, for those few minutes had stopped beating even while he still breathed. It was all due to the brush of exposed skin against the edge of the cable he was working on with his hand. An odd angle had been required, and that had left the opening. A mistake he wouldn’t be making again.
Recovered, after those long passing moments where the color of the red-black sky overhead was beginning to darken further into the eternal night, Solomon set to work again. A connection could be made, and he was on the verge of making it. All he needed was to bridge -- another shot of spark snapped out from within the cable, lancing once again up his arm and through his body. This one was stronger than the last, the contact with it hadn’t been grazing. The direct electrical assault bucked through him causing a sharp tremor, shortness of breath, rigidity of his fingers, and loss of his senses.
When they returned enough for movement, more time had been lost. He had given an estimate of how much time he’d need, and that was way overshot. Daylight, or what stood for it around the floating rocks of Blood Sky, was all but gone. He had to take a few more moments to work himself out, to gain complete control of himself back enough to move.
Going up hadn’t been the easiest of tasks, but thanks to those shocks going down was even harder. Controlling the speed of movement was guess work that he had to be careful with or else he’d land too heavily, and there would go his legs.
Buttercup hadn't taken the hit, and looking at his greyed face made her think he might die on the way down. She made sure Breis could see her, and she did her best to signal that she'd be coming down this time, and then without asking she grabbed Solomon before he could try to descend on his own. "You grab onto me, lefty. I'll get you down. --Can you hear me?"
There was a bubble between his ears, and it wasn't due to the unroar of The Red. Eyes still unfocused, he could only see the vague outline of Buttercup as she grabbed a hold of him and drew him close. There was no fight to ward it off. In her armor, and relatively unscathed, Sgt Rula was in far better shape than he was. There was an answer from him, something closer to a gravel-like sounding "Yes." But it was faint, his volume still broken by the red dust he had inhaled, his throat dry and parched from the shocks he'd just taken.
"Can you grab on?" she asked--and immediately changed course. In the dim, he looked awful. "No--forget it." And she set about altering the hoist a little to hold him while also twisting her own arm through for a firm attachment.
Could he? He tried. Whatever strength was in that arm -- his one good arm -- was meager just then at best. His fingers felt like hot wooden logs, the twist to them strange as he reached to grab a hold as Buttercup had requested. It was difficult to hold on, though. His entire body felt like a match that had been struck to blazing, and left to smolder.
With Buttercup taking the role that required the best coordination, the pair eventually got down. It was Breis Teimar to caught hold of the hoist to ease them down the final inches. He and Nen helped Buttercup get free, and Breis took Solomon's weight and helped him to sit. "What happened? Did it work?" He already had a canteen in hand, but upon inspection it was clear what was needed came from a medkit.
The help was both accepted and greatly appreciated. With the weight settling back onto his legs Solomon realized just how much like jelly they felt. His focus on Breis was just as fleeting as it had been for Buttercup, but things were clearing further. He could almost make out features on Breis Teimar's face. "Its live," he hoarsed out, "I wasn't protected well enough. Took a good shock." He caught his breath at the edge of what he was whispering and let it out slowly, "I can make it work, Al'verde. Just --need to catch my breath." What he told the Commander was true. He -could- make it work. He had no doubts.
"We saw," Breis said as Solomon mentioned that it was live.
"We smelled," Tavv added from farther away, half in the dark as the dim turned to true night.
Breis looked past Solomon at Buttercup, who shook her head doubtfully.
He chuffed some amusement at what Tavv had said, drew in a ragged breath and replied tightly with, "Well, they do say grilled Corellian is the best." After that he was shutting his eyes, and settling back against whatever was behind him, "Just need more padding, fewer gaps. I was so close. So, so close."
Breis looked him over. Still mounted on the wakek, Azair did the same. As did Buttercup. As did Nen, from his station near the nose of the Leap of Faith. Tavv, wounded and largely untreated, spared him a glance.
Without a word, the others began shedding what they could.
But it was more than that. Quietly, quickly, they began pitching ideas about what more they could do to ensure that Solomon was as protected while he worked as they could make him. As insulated from shock. He was so close.
The beat of that in his head was rousing. He had been close. He could still see the cable when he shut his eyes, he knew -just- what he needed to do in order to get the message sent. It was right there at the ends of his fingertips. That knowledge was like its own kind of shock. It didn't zap him like the current had, but it did bring back some vitality. "Buttercup," He opened his eyes to look toward the Hapan woman, "I'm going to need your hands when we get back up there. I won't be able to do this without you." With perception wishy-washy, but clearing, he hadn't taken notice just yet of the conversation or the striping of padding and armor.
"What's that? You want me to marry you? I accept. 'Solomon Rula' has a nice ring to it." Buttercup was heading away as she spoke, trying to figure out if there was anything else--anything at all--that they had that could serve as more insulation for them.
Breis, meanwhile, was playing medic, kneeling now right next to Solomon, checking his color and his eyes and anything else he could think of.
Solomon Rula? That -- that wasn't right. The dilation of his eyes was lessening, and color was returning, but he still felt like scrambled eggs. His focus on Breis as the Mandal looked him over faded in and out. On his left arm was where a burn would be found, skin damaged and blistered by contact with the cable's voltage. "Sorry, Sargent, already spoken for."
"Not very loudly if she or he or it ain't here," Buttercup mused with tired sarcasm--but far enough away now that it could easily be missed.
"Say my name," Breis told Solomon.
He blinked, focused on the Mandalorian which meant blocking out Buttercup, and got himself several moments of working at pulling facial recognition out of the darkness around them, "Tei- mar, Breis." His voice felt like sandpaper in his throat which made the raw tightness of it feel worse.
"Where are you?"
Sitting against something hard, on something hard surrounded by shadows and darkness, "The Yaim. Tal -- Tal Keb --" there was some small pause there as he attempted to make the Mandalorian's native dialect work for him right then. Failing that, he grasped at Basic and breathed out, "The Blood Sky."
"Say my name," Sadhric told Solomon, still checking him over.
That voice cut through every ounce of pain he was feeling, but his chest tightened all the same. "Sadhric?" Quick answer there, if spoken with the slowness of needing to work around a hindering physical condition. The shadows were starting to take shape, and the face he was looking at belonged to the man who owned the name.
Crouched there, Sadhric was focused on assessing Solomon's physical condition and not paying attention to his face any longer. "Where are you?"
"The Queen Kara," that came with a push from his right hand against the floor beneath him, not to rise but just to shift position slightly. That he barely moved was little concern, it was enough. "What happened?"
The slap met the side of Sol's face with a sharp crack. Face, not envirosuit visor. "Where are you?"
The strike hit, the clap of that hand meeting the side of his face resounded in his ears, overtaking the bubble that lived there and popping it. He drew in a breath, and felt it stick, "I'm here," was forced out of his heavy feeling chest. The side of his face stung where it was hit, a new sensation against all the older ones he had been working it. It was fresh enough to draw his focus. He blinked fiercely, and tried to focus in the person who had hit him.
The Mechanic stared him in the eye now. Through faintly tinted Lenses, his own dark eyes narrowed, his gaze laser-like, the motions tiny as the focus went from right to left and from left to right again. "You sure?" Faint wryness there; a quirk of one eyebrow.
"Yes," Sol insisted in response, "I'm here," his own focus on Sadhric wasn't quite as laser-like, but it was good enough to be seen. "Don't -- Don't hit me again, alright? I'm here."
On the next blink, Breis was there, frowning at him, close, puzzled and lit only from the side where Buttercup held a glow stick up for him. "No one's hit you," said the Mandal.
From the clean well lit corridor of the Queen Kara to the darkened ledge of Tal Kebii’tra, it was a quick changed. It happened as he blinked. Starting, finding himself suddenly surrounded by darkness, air too dirty to be breathed, and people that were -not- Sadhric Tlin, Solomon sat shock still. In the close light of the glow stick Buttercup held, Sol took in what he could without moving too much. "I was just..." He blinked again, daring the motion and the dry cough that followed, "I think I was dreaming."
Beyond Breis and Buttercup were other concerned faces farther off. Nen's could be seen at the edge of the light, watching from the front of the dropship. Tavv was propped up still closer to the path they'd used to reach the ledge. "You zoned out," Breis agreed.
"You're right," Buttercup said, tossing a glance toward Tavv. "He does smell like a barbecue."
"Do we have any stim-pacs?" The question was meant for Breis, but Buttercup was just as close as the Clan leader. It could have been for either of them. "I need to get back up there before I pass out."
"One," Breis said. "It's yours." He looked up and snapped a finger out sharply.
Azair, in the body of Liv, was still mounted, and twisted. Their single precious bag up there, that served as their medkit, was very small and looked deflated it was so empty. When tossed down, it caught the air, too lightweight to sail heavy. Breis snapped it out of the air before it could so much as brush a hair on Solomon's head.
"If you can move," Buttercup said, "we'll get you wrapped up in what we hope will work as insulation." Her own silhouette was already different; in the seconds--or minutes?--that Solomon had drifted, the Hapan had shed a little armor and wrapped up her arms. A small pile had grown before Sol. Some of it looked to include strange lumps of clotted dust the size of his head.
"If it doesn't move, I'll make it move," he told Buttercup, the pile before him catching his attention as the light she held shifted just slightly. He was then moving stiffly, putting energy into limbs that felt like they were long since empty of the stuff, "Once I have that stim-pac in me, we won't have much time before it makes me ill. Help me get wrapped, and then I'll take it. After that, we'll have about twenty minutes, give or take, to get this done."
Azair slid down, and couldn't get much closer without disentangling from the wakek, but with some repositioning Solomon was given the stim-pac and then set upon by Buttercup, Breis, and Azair.
The hands of a Hapan, a Mandalorian warrior, and the sister of Celestia Vikas worked quickly to get Solomon layered up in bits and pieces of Catia's armor, some of Buttercup's, and more promising donations that the other Mandals had given up. What good would it do them to cling to their belongings now? If this didn't work, they were doomed. Added in was the dust-clotted raw hide of the wakek, at the suggestion of Jujanaj.
Buttercup didn't go without--not if she needed to be Solomon's hands, as seemed more and more likely--but as one of the last relatively unhurt in their group, her best use was in keeping him stable up there, and safe.
Solomon did what he could to help them get the armor and padding secured. He wasn't utterly helpless, but his body was definitely showing signs of the hard wear and tear he had taken. He was moving like an old man, one whose body had long ago started to betray him. His help for this came where ever he could offer it, even if it was as small as holding something in place with his left hand while it was tied by one of the three tying pieces on to him. Once it was all done, and only once it was all done, did he break open the stim-pac. It was not an easy moment, knowing how much harder things were going to get once he swallowed the stuff within the packet. He usually didn't take them due to their effects on him, but here he could have no such luxury of denying that he needed the boost. The ghostly worn faces of the remaining Mandals, the life-linked Azair-Captain Black, and the remaining Hapans were worth just how wretched this was going to make him feel. He could deal with it for the short-run. His mind made up, he lifted the packet and emptied the contents into his mouth. With some water, he drank it down, drowning the powdered stimulant and slightly clearing his throat at the same time. The guzzle emptied the bottle to the last drop, and he could already feel it starting to work. "Let's go." He told Buttercup, handing the bottle off to whoever was nearby to take it.
With Buttercup’s help, Solomon once more found himself up on the ledge where his work had been abandoned. It was picked up right where he left off, with him giving Sargent Rula detailed instructions on what was needed from her. It was a step-by-step approach, with Solomon still helping where he was able. His biggest obstacle in reaching completion was the bridge he had to make with comms. That was accomplished by little careful movements, his own piece sacrificed for the task.
It was slow going, and intensive work. By the time they’d even just managed a stable connection Solomon could feel the effects of the stim-pac wearing off. His stomach was starting to tighten, he was beginning to feel ill. Sweat was beginning to moisten his skin beneath the layers of padding and armor he was wearing. But he had only to go just a little bit further. “Like that, yes.” He told Buttercup, blinking away a visual distortion that was starting to settle over his sight, one that had nothing at all to do with The Red. “That should be enough. Let’s try…”
No success came from that attempt. More tweaking was done, Solomon’s instructions were coming quicker now. He was pushing for it because it was either him, or it seemed like the formation beneath them had shifted when the winds picked up.
Just a few more seconds was all they needed. Adjustments made, and he was snapping to it. The dits and dashes he tapped out using his comm for the bridge to the cable’s keepers was something he could have done with his eyes shut. It was an old code for him, something he’d cut his slicing teeth on.
W-A-R-N-I-N-G A-I-R-M-I-N-E-S.
“Come Lefty, time to go. This thing is moving.”
S-E-V-E-N N-E-E-D E-M-E-R-G-E-N-C-Y E-V-A-C
“Just a second more.” His hand was shaking so bad as he tapped at the receiver, sending the message up the line. He felt like he was going to be sick.
“Now!”
He felt it then, as he was pulling himself free from his work. There was a lurch to the rock as it swung on the wind. He couldn’t see much in the flat lighting of the glow rods they’d placed, or much of anything past the cloud that set in over his vision, making everything in the darkness a thick and sickly looking gray. He could hear her, though. It was like Buttercup was shouting right in his ear.
“Let’s go!”
There was no arguments as Buttercup helped him into the hoist, and down they went. If the Hapans above got the message, only time would tell.
