Post by Bobbi on May 21, 2019 11:47:04 GMT -5
Sol:
Shoot-- The moment broke, tension rising in a tide like the winds rising around them. His left hand snapped to his blaster, the smooth motion breaking it away from the magclip, with a rain of bolts being pressed from the barrel. The Runner had his blaster, and he had Narion's. It was a lighter model, even than the MerrSon that the lithe thief had gotten off of Sol. He was aimed for the being in red-black, the one who had cut his first suit and could dance away like a leaf on the wind. He had aimed for a mix of head and body shots, and following those shots was the grasp of an invisible hand. Sol's right hand twitching in its sling, the fingers closing as much as they could while in his mind he reached to push the runner down, meaning to hold him -- her -- it -- in the same spot for as long as he could. If even just one of the shots hit it would be helpful.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
The killer twitched at the motion and flattened to the side where Buttercup's armor would be between it and the pair out there. More dust billowed up, and the wind greedily swept up more.
The clap of Liv's slugthrower report boomed even as Buttercup yelled and the murderer moved--
Solomon went for his blaster--
Another report from Liv, but this one pinged off of Buttercup's shoulder with a bright white spark.
The killer twitched at the motion and flattened to the side where Buttercup's armor would be between it and the pair out there. More dust billowed up, and the wind greedily swept up more.
Sol:
Those shots from Liv's slugthrower came in what felt like the blink of an eye. What also happened just as quickly was the shift that put Buttercup between them and the assailant. He wound up pulling his blaster but not opening fire. Instead, Sol pushed to his right and broke into a sprint to circle wide around the quick footed thief. His goal was to get behind the mystery being, and to get closer to its hostages. He remembered his first meeting with the being. The quickness of movement, and the ease of it. This, out in the open, was a losing battle.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
Tavv'ari felt a hand latch onto her freshly injured arm and drag her back; Buttercup went sideways. Buttercup was in the better shape of the two, and tried to shove herself over so that her armor still served as a shield, but the blaster was out, and Tavv was vulnerable from that side, and it changed things.
The silence of the killer left it--him--a blank slate.
Tavv herself, battered and raw from having been tangled up in the cables at one point in the rush of the wakeks, could barely breathe thanks to damage to her envirosuit, and her facemask was caked partially with red that clumped to it on the outside--blood? It had been smeared aside mostly, but she was left with a narrowed field of vision, and the wind was picking up again. Still, with all her strength, she wrenched around. Her free hand was not empty. Short knife from her leg sheath--
--jammed into abdomen. Off center--damn--and the killer's blaster went off again--off center, too; taking her in her left bicep--but she was still in his grip even though he flexed toward the protruding hilt of her blade.
She had time to register liquid sheen there before, true to form, a gust of wind made a tidal wave of the red dust, smashing into and across them and blotting out all but the closest forms.
Sol:
The wind was picking up, but he had his mark, and his line was straight. It was a tangled mess, and slug thrower bolts were making it messier. The wind and dust weren't making it easier. Step by step, his senses shifted. That wide spread awareness was fine tuned again and pointed inward one more time. HIs muscles felt light but tight, his legs becoming the focus of that flowing energy. The last time he'd committed a jump like this he'd wound up with a piece of shrapnel through his left knee cap, but out here there was no giant monster of what the frag chasing after him, and he wasn't bounding onto a ship with a small humanoid in hand. HIs blaster was slapped back onto the maglock, and he hurled himself, tapping the ground with his left foot in his run and bounding upward while his left hand formed into a hard fist. It would take him across the remaining few feet, in an arch that had the power of his falling body behind it with his left hand swinging down from above toward the side of the red-black wearing runner's helmet.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
The killer's face plate came up, Tavv'ari yanked up as a shield against Liv's slugs, and Solomon's own blaster aimed squarely at him as he came in mid-air and fired. With Sol coming straight at him, the killer had every shot he could want, but the warrior in his grip gouged backwards with her elbow, and the bolt would take Solomon under his left armpit or chestward instead of certainly dead center.
Sol:
With the ground passing beneath him, he hoped that Liv would find some way to take the chance, that she'd find an opportunity to make use if the distraction. It was risky, and it was dumb, but Liv still had her lightsaber and if he could buy her an opening to use it then by the gods he hoped she would because firing at this guy from across the plain wasn't going to get them anywhere. Not with Tavv'ari a hostage, or anyone else for that matter. He could only hope he was enough of a target, coming in as he did, for Liv to get an edge on it. That hope burst into a searing pain that hit him under his left arm, the bolt lancing through his suit and gouging into sensitive skin. It took over his shoulder, and encased all muscle surrounding it in a loss of sensation that was entirely different from the numbness in his right arm. The contrast was pain versus no feeling at all. He was still falling, gravity doing its job to bring him back down into the dust. The power of his push off from the ground affected enough that he'd drop in short of landing on top of the helmeted killer. His boots hit the dirt, and he rolled forward toward Tavv'ari and the killer following the momentum of the jump, gathering red and dust around him in a cloud that was picked up and carried in the gathering winds.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
As soon as Solomon went to circle, Liv did the same, trying to get an angle on the killer. The fight wasn't out of Tavv'ari, yet, though Buttercup, rising slowly to hide how beat-up she was inside her armor, was momentarily an obstruction again, and Liv had to keep moving.
When Solomon came down, the killer kneed Tavv in the chin, trading his grip on her arm for a grip on her--
--cable--
--to which he gave a mighty tug so hard that the force of it dragged Tavv back with him and put him for a moment at an impossible angle to the ground, counterbalanced by the weight of a still-living wakek.
The line snapped up out of the dust, taut in the air, and Solomon would strike not the earth for a roll, but the cable, right up between his legs.
Sol:
His landing wasn't going to be a sloppy one, even for the amount of dust he was going to kick up from it. He'd shifted his weight, bringing his feet together in an anticipation of the roll, so what hit the wire wasn't the space between his legs, but the solid material of his left boot. Control of his landing was lost in that moment, the material of the boot sliding off of the cable, causing his legs to go one way while the cable remained taunt. It would ride up the outside of his left leg, brushing against suit, and causing internal heat to rise with it like a fierce rug burn from the friction before he found himself hitting the dust heavily.
Liv:
Death was sensed and couldn't be fully ignored. Pain, most recently from Solomon, filled her senses. It spurred her on, pushing an extra spring in the Corellian's step. She needed this Thief to die and die quickly. Eyes closed, she gave herself fully over to the Force. They needed this desperately, and with the red dust billowing around, her vision couldn't be fully trusted. Continuing her sprint in the semi-circle in their attempt at flank, she waited for the very last moment to gain a line of sight on their aggressor again once she was past Tavv enough. Slugthrower raised, she sought her target out and fired, envisioning the shot clipping him in his dominate shoulder if she could be so fortunate.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
The killer whipped the cable out after Solomon hit the dust, to loop it around his neck and yank hard.
Tavv saw Liv materialize through the Red and convulsed to try to throw the killer's weight toward the Hapan Captain to expose his back. The killer lurched around and Liv's shot cut across a plain of shoulder blade, blasting apart a fastening and sending a scale-like layer of armor loose from their opponent's shoulder.
Buttercup surged forward, and in reaction--
--but soundless as ever--
--the killer spun to both fling Tavv's small body into Liv's path and tighten the cable around Solomon's throat as it slipped back in retreat.
The hilt of Tavv's knife still protruded from the side of its abdomen, a stout disturbance in an otherwise fluid form. The armor piece flopped loose but hung from the front.
The black faceplate betrayed nothing.
Sol:
In the thick of the landing, with a heavy cloud of dust shooting up around him in a plume, there wasn't much for him to see but that wall of red. The left side of his body felt like someone had plugged him into the wrong end of an electrical socket. It hurt, as did his midsection. He barely had time to even think about pushing himself up and the pain aside before something tightened around his throat. It was thin, and twisted with a tug. Knees in the dirt, he reached for the length of wire that the runner was holding on to, replacing his own strength with that of The Force, making up for the wound under his arm, and for the threatening lack of air, he pulled toward himself as hard as he could when his fingers closed around the cable.
Liv:
Sensing Sol's immediate danger, Liv's attention is stolen away ever so briefly, no additional shot taken.. instead, she ignites her lightsaber blade just before throwing it, her thumb pressing the delayed safety trigger to keep the blade lit for a few seconds longer.. an attempt to cleave it just far enough towards the chain to sever it and free the Tekal from being choked out. That attempt proved costly however, as the flung Tavv came flying in her direction, and she had no time to react, taking the body directly into her own moments after the Jedi weapon left her grasp. The two tumble backwards, the slugthrower dropping from Liv's right hand as she lands in a new plume of blinding red dust.
Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys
The tug on the cable wanted to propel the killer forward, into Solomon, but instead of letting out slack or fighting it, the killer went with it, just rounding to the side, the cable staying taut--at least between the point of Solomon's left hand and the killer's own grip. But the pull gave that run momentum, extra energy, and in the pluming dust the killer was around and over the fat tail of the dead wakek with a low dive, the cable released a second before.
Something caught it as it went over, but go over it did. The knife hilt scraped against tail plate, pulled, killed what might have been a beautiful arc.
Nonetheless: gone from view was the attacker.
Sol:
The cable was moving. He couldn't see where, but he could feel it. His arm shifted, his hand still holding on as the thief took off. And suddenly the tension was gone. The cable was released, and Solomon was slumping into the red.
Liv:
As gently as she could, Liv moved the form of Tavv off of her and to the side, climbing to her feet in a defensive, yet weaponless, stance. Left hand held out, she closed her eyes to focus, searching the Force for immediate danger first and foremost. She hadn't seen where the Thief went, and she knew she was a good, easy target if they could see through the Red. She couldn't at all, and thus the Force was her only eyes. If no immediate danger presented itself, the Captain would focus on tracing her lightsaber's whereabouts next by reaching for the oh so familiar crystal attuned to her within it. Find danger. Stop being defenseless. Then seek out the wounded. Those were her priorities in order.
Hapans/Mandals:
Immediate danger: ... none in Liv's personal space.
But she knew that.
Less immediate danger: everywhere else.
She knew that, too.
What stood out was furious motion beyond where she had last seen Solomon, past the dead wakek, a contrast because their small collection of living things out there was battered, off-balance, slow-moving or not moving at all. Even the surviving wakek was injured, still harnessed by a single line to its dead companion. So out there, in that clump, was one thing spiked with pain that still moved with purpose, its intent indiscernible in specific, but in general it had an angular, single-minded quality that fought the sweeping organic nature of the mess all around it.
Sol:
"But--" He had taken just a moment, allowed himself just a second to just feel his body and the weight of it and all the ways it was hurting just then. He couldn't let it swallow him yet, though. When he breathed in to take a grasp of that and push himself up he caught a mouth full of red, a throat full of red, and it reached all the way down into his lungs. He coughed, cutting the word in half before wheezing out and trying again, this time waiting until he got himself on his feet. It almost didn't matter which leg he used to push himself up, both were feeling like they were sinking into the dust that mingled with the red becoming inseparable. "Buttercup?"
Hapans/Mandals:
Tavv wheezed something between coughs and the warrior seemed to want to get back up despite all her injuries. The something she wheezed seemed to be on the topic of a sniper rifle--a joke among the Mandals back at Tal Ruus. Guess he was still mad.
Buttercup staggered toward Solomon, weaponless, and was slow because her armor hadn't fully protected her from the pinches and shocks and twisted limbs that had happened during the drag. The grunt was also slow because she was trying to keep an eye around them and not fixate just on the closest person to her: Solomon, of course. He was certainly her goal, though. The nearest fellow living person. When she got up beside him, the first thing she did was brace a hand to his back to help steady him. Her priority could not be asking whether he was hurt. It had to be: "You still armed? Give me your weapon!"
Sol:
He didn't see her until she was right up next to him, hand on his back. Her presence, though, had preceding her arrival. He had been aware she was drawing close. The bubble eye he had on the area around him was minimal and dropping. His intention had been to be that extra set of eyes, to feel for anything coming their way but with the wreckage that his body was just then, his energy had to be somewhere else. That somewhere else needed to be his own limbs otherwise he might have collapsed. Gritting his teeth, feeling tiny grains of dirt crunch between them, Sol lifted his left arm stiffly and grabbed for his blaster. Releasing it from the maglock took a tiny twist of his wrist and the pressing of a finger against the release. He didn't mind handing the thing over just then. He wasn't going to be lifting his arm high enough to shoot with it anyway. With it away from the lock, Sol offered it to Buttercup. The move was nothing fancy, just a quick and desperate shove of the weapon her direction.
Liv:
The immediate danger was clear, though not-so-immediate danger that always seemed to be around remained so. Liv was no longer defenseless either, so that brought her to the third priority. Assess the wounded and help as she's able. "Check in!" she called over the comm, first directly to her team and then broadly to anyone else able to communicate. The Force stretched out as well, trying to identify what she could not see, and sense who may be closer to the brink of death. She knew one wakek was dead and the other wounded.. but she wasn't sure on the status of anyone else. Bodies had been thrown around and scattered during the exchange; she hadn't been able to keep track of who went where.
Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup's comm buzzed with Liv's voice; even Sol would have heard it in stereo from Liv's real direction and the crackly device in the Hapan suit. "Sgt. Rula," Buttercup commed back for herself.
With Sol's weapon in hand now, and her arm around his back to help him, she said, "That way," meaning Liv's direction; "We group up."
The grunt spat a soft curse after a moment when it registered that the comm channel had been silent too long.
Sol:
He would have nodded, had even tried to nod at the direction Sgt. Rula had indicated before grunting and forcing his legs to work that direction, but the muscles refused to work that way. His neck felt both tight and swollen, and something was digging into his skin. Amidst everything else it was a sharp little pinch that came when he tried to move his head a certain way. There was a limp to his gait, a favoring of his left leg as he did what he could to keep his weight off of it as much as possible. With Rula's steadying hand against his back, doing that was a lot easier than it would have been without. Her hand gave him a sense of depth and a measure to just how he was moving.
Liv:
Buttercup was the only voice she heard. Not promising at all. Liv's stomach dropped, her hand tensing around the unlit lightsaber hilt. Catia was her first priority, followed by Nora, then Solomon, then the Mandals. But first the Hapan Tech. She was familiar through the Force; the Captain focused in an effort to find her.
Hapans/Mandals:
A vibrating buzz came through Buttercup's suit and Buttercup was tugged back half a step and forced to steady herself against Solomon even as she was trying to see. "Fuck--"
Her cable--still attached! The line of it bobbed in the air. Nothing like the quick tightness of the first time--yet--but it suddenly had her full attention. She dropped Sol's gun to shoot her hand to her shoulder to try to unhook herself.
Out there, somewhere, Catia still existed. Not far, but not visible.
From a point not quite in that direction: weapons fire. Weak pulses of it, source hidden.
Sol:
The tug back on Buttercup's armor brought some space between his back and her help. That was right before she swore sharply and dropped his blaster to scramble for a quick release from the cable keeping her tied to the wakek. He turned, flinching at the motion but following through to force his left hand up and fingers to work at helping the Hapan get free, "Hold on," he barked hoarsely.
The blaster fire off in the distance sounded a little like pop-guns going off, and it served as a doubled reminder that even while they were under the cloud of red that had been kicked up, their current position was relatively open.
Liv:
The blaster fire in the distance was a concern but not the priority. The priority was Catia, and Liv poured all her effort in trying to orient a direction of the downed Tech. She could sense the Hapan alive, near but not visible. Eyes remained closed; they were still mostly useless at the moment. "Catia," Liv urged, hopeful. Nora had died; she'd seen that herself. Felt that herself. Rula was up and moving, but that was all she knew.
Hapans/Mandals:
The clasp to the line snapped free with Solomon's help, popping away after a second, flying through the air to drag along the ground a few yards away.
Buttercup--Rula, apparently--heaved a sigh of relief that she wasn't attached to it. All the same, the drag was not nearly as violent as before. "Where's Crasshat? Did you see her?" she huffed to everyone in general as she quickly crouched to feel for the blaster in the dust. It took half a second to do so, and then she was back to trying to cover them in a world closed in by red. "She was connected to the big guy."
Tavv groaned nearby and began trying to see if she could rise. With two blaster wounds and all kinds of sprains and twists, it was a troubling prospect.
Catia was out past the corpse of the "big guy," the larger wakek, near the source of the sounds of shots being taken. Those sounds stopped for several seconds, resumed once--twice, stopped again.
"Orders, Captain?" Buttercup sounded like if she could bark every word, it would make it out into the world through the screen of her fear and hurts.
Sol:
The line freed, Sol did nothing to stop the thing from snapping away from where they stood. Crasshat -- "Catia?" He croaked with a shake of his head. "Teimar, and Azair are that way," he tried to get a clear enough voice for that to hold true to what he was trying to say, but volume dropped in between letters, causing some of that to get lost, "Saw no one else."
Hapans/Mandals:
Looking sharply Sol's way, Buttercup slapped a hand to her belt as she barked, "Pod time for you, Raggedy." A quick look down; no belt. "Shit! You got one left?"
Sol:
What he got from that was just enough for him to shake his head, "In my tool kit," he answered, which was somewhere between where they were and were the wakeks had first started going mad.
Liv:
Liv took off towards the dead wakek--which included Catia and the weapons fire by chance. Over the comm she chimed back to Rula, "On my six Buttercup, if you're combat ready."
Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup shot Tavv a look.
Buttercup glanced sharply at Solomon.
In light of their states, her reply was a gruff, "Relatively." Which meant yes. "Yes, sir." Fast as she could, she eyed Solomon: "Can you walk? Help her and follow!" and jabbed the blaster sideways to indicate the wounded Mandal. "Partner up."
The armored grunt was already stepping back from Solomon, the dust puffing up with every dredging of her boots through it. With no more time to waste, she was offer after Liv.
Without cables, their marker had to be the dead wakek. It would be too easy to lose everything else. And the living wakek--if none of those blaster shots had killed it, it was a big unknown out there in the wind with them.
The shadow of the beast's corpse became a more crisp outline. Dust already began banking up against the windward side of the hulking thing.
One pulse of weak blaster fire. Source unseen--but the streak of dispersed blue sliced out of the cloud across a distance partially obscured from her before it was gone. Someone's blaster was nearly out of juice.
Sol:
Could he walk? The answer to that was him moving toward Tavv'ari and offering his right shoulder to the female Mandal, "Gonna need you to lean against me if you can." He rasped loudly toward Tavv in Mando’a, reaching up to shift his right arm so that it wouldn't be in the way. His sling had held on well, but only by a few strings so movement of it was minimal. He didn't want to lose it completely just yet. As soon as Tavv'ari was ready, their path to follow after Rula and Liv would be a slow loping one, with Sol focusing on each step. Rest wasn't on the to-do list just yet, giving in to the need to could wait. That blaster fire was still active, they had people to recover, and daylight would be gone sooner than later.
Hapans/Mandals:
Tavv'ari knew from her short life as a warrior that if you couldn't do anything about your injuries, sometimes it was best not to investigate them too hard for a while. It was almost mystical, how ignorance of their specifics could let you keep on going, when just one look could stop you cold. She leaned hard on Solomon. Her feet dragged. She tried to make her movements more normal, more independent, but he'd just watched her lurch her way over to him with more hunched willpower than actual ability. This was the most she could ask of her body right now.
As Liv drew closer, she saw the form of Breis Teimar materialize out of the dust, moving sideways, clearly trying to spot something out there in the dust before it spotted him. Looped over his shoulder like a hank of uneven rope, was what remained of the viney coils of Dr Azair. "Fucker freed the wakek--we lose it, we're dead out here!"
Sol:
He knew that look all too well. The heavy dragging feet, the lurching steps. Tavv'ari looked, just then, how he felt. With the Mandal woman beside him, his pace would be a slow one. Solomon couldn't handle much more than that right then, himself. His goal was to get them to the cover of the nearest and largest thing he could spot in the wicked dust around them and get some strength back. If he didn't have it for himself there was no way he'd be able to share it with someone else. A small look went around the clouded wasteland around them, with not too much movement from his head going into it. "Just a few more steps," he rasped out to the Mandal woman, "just a few more...." that second half was exasperated and more for himself. The nearest bulge of shadow was off toward his one o'clock, a path diverging away from the dead wakek and the path of wreckage.
Hapans/Mandals:
Breis had seen, but did not want to say aloud: his blaster, unused for a few days, seemed essentially to have become a toy. Enough power left for a bolt, but no kick. The sound of it had been flatter, the shots hot and startling, but not at all what they should have been. Not at all what the killer's shots had been.
Fortunately, Liv had a slugthrower. And in this world, as of a week ago, those clunky weapons were now among the most potent. If one could get used to the kick. If one could reconcile the loss of ammo. With a quick assessment of Breis, Liv turned just enough to verify that it was Buttercup coming up behind her. "Find Catia!" And she gestured toward the line that led from a reel attached to the harness of the dead beast, far out into the dust. The reel was completely played out: Catia could be sixty feet out there. But at least finding her should be a piece of cake.
The second Buttercup acknowledged, Liv dashed toward the bigger wakek's corpse. Full circle. She'd been here before; that was her work, there, the cauterized slice down the wakek's side; her work, those guts that didn't even glisten now that they were coated in debris.
Jeryndi had tamed the smaller creature. She did not know the man. But maybe his work would hold. Maybe they'd catch a break.
Sol:
The unsilence was setting in. Across the path he'd chosen Solomon had to take a few small glances toward his right side to confirm that he hadn't lost the Mandal dragging with him. The edges of that shadow were dimming too, rounding as the wind swept the red through the air. He continued to push for it, though. If things settled and they were out in the open both of them would be easy targets. Onward he continued, just a few more feet, until the shadow took the shape of a small personal ship buried about halfway in the dust. Across from it, sitting and resting against the portion of it that was still above ground, was another ship that had lost its ventral thrusters somewhere along the way. "Here." He coughed, trying to retain the volume of his voice for Tavv'ari's sake. "We'll wait here."
Hapans/Mandals:
Movement yards behind them. A hacking cough. Tavv wanted to twist to see, but that required more dexterity than she had without help, right then.
Liv proceeded carefully. Coming over the tail of the big wakek, she kept herself flattened and made the move as quickly as she could. In the vermilion dust, she could still barely make out Nora's body, but the wind banked dust against the wakek's corpse and the slope of it had begun to bury the grunt's legs. Nen was no longer where he had been--good. A quick glance didn't show him anywhere, and the way was clear to the smaller wakek.
It was out there. She could see it. Not running, though it was clear Breis had been right: severed harness dragged alongside it, and tangled its legs. The big creature stumbled, limped; dust took to the air.
Pressing her back to the dead one, Liv listened for a moment with her eyes on the carnivore out there. She heard no blasters. Heard no calls or voices, either.
Danger still made her skin itch, but it was a blanket of danger rather than a blade of it.
Sol:
Thinking he'd heard something like that cough was enough for him to take a pause. He stopped with Tavv'ari leaning against him and listened for it again.
Hapans/Mandals:
Come again it did. It was Nen, walking with a pronounced limp, trying to close the distance. He had a weapon in his hand, and announced himself with a nigh-voiceless, "I know... where... this is." Meaning the ships. They'd certainly visited these earlier. But as he came closer, his topic changed: "Where... but... it... it folds...."
Sol:
He had been ready to defend Tavv'ari if he needed to. Anticipation of that bled away quickly into recognition as Nen revealed himself. Sol, looking Nen's way grimaced and reached up with his stiff left arm to rip the hood of his suit back, freeing his face in the dust from the confines of the filter. Once that was back, Sol's fingers curled around the splintered makeshift vocal receiver around his neck and gave it as good and sharp a tug as he could, causing the thing to give and whip free. Pieces of fragile metal splintered out and away from it like larger pieces of the red dust that had clumped together. His neck was raw where the cable had forced the wires he had been wearing to dig in deep. But, at least now he could speak without them digging in, "All I heard was 'folds'." He answered, "What folds?"
Hapans/Mandals:
"It," Nen gasped; he coughed more; seemed to heave a sigh. "... folds upon itself." And collapsed, knees buckling, into the dust.
Olivia Black, Olivia Tino, breathed steady, focused on the wakek.
Get there fast.
Do not startle it.
Breathe even.
Remember what calm feels like.
Radiate it to the beast.
Sol:
It was no good. He barely heard any of that before Nen collapsed into the dust. He had to consider, though. They were almost under the safety of the sheltering ships, and took Tavv'ari the rest of the way, helping her as carefully as he could to settle as comfortably as he could help her be under the circumstances despite how the middle of his body screamed for him to not do it. "I'll be right back." He'd tell Tavv before heading out to retrieve Nen from the open space.
Hapans/Mandals:
Liv had no particular affinity with beasts, but the concept was basic. All she had to do was sustain a calm that some might consider directly opposed to the reality of her circumstances. Well. Maybe that wasn't all she had to do, but she'd find that out soon enough. It was the place she needed to start, because she had no time for exploring a greater enlightenment.
Pushing up, craning her neck, she stole a look over the back of the dead wakek, then all around, and seeing no looming killer and hearing no cries or weapons, she looked to her goal, dragging itself away, breathed in deep in her suit, and shoved off with all her might into a sprint toward it.
Tavv'ari had not been raised to wallow in self-disgust. Her upbringing presented a coarse, practical take on the things that befell warriors. She felt her own helplessness, wished heartily to find a spring of strength within herself, but her injuries were honest ones, and she might not be able to defend Solomon as she might wish, but she could still keep a lookout, and that was what she resolved to do. A warning could be as powerful as a wallop, timed right.
A mere few yards away, Nen moved weakly as if trying to swim through the layers of dust settling around him anew. He coughed hard, barely could draw a full breath after to cough more, so his body convulsed with weakening attempts to expel dust from his throat, from his lungs. Face down, he wasn't talking about anything folding anymore.
Sol:
It was the last time, he told himself, turning away from Tavv'ari to beat tracks back to Nen. It was more of a walk, his left leg not giving an inch toward the run he wanted but it was still moving, his knee was still bending -- a good sign to say the least. Reaching Nen, Sol turned himself and bent, reaching with his left arm to grasp at the prone Mandal to pull him up, "Olar vod," Here brother, he gasped out while trying to get his body under Nen's weight in order to lift the Mandal out of the dirt. "Stay with me now."
Hapans/Mandals:
Nen's body wanted to curl up with the effort of trying to breathe. The effort itself was failing. It was Sol's strength, and none of his own, that got him up.
"Still clear," Tavv said, flicking a look toward Solomon when he spoke Mando'a. It was hardly the first time in her presence that he'd done so, but everything looked a little different right then.
Sol:
Lifting Nen came with a steady low grunt and a catch as his midsection threatened to give out under the effort. He steadied himself and held onto it, gritting his teeth and breathing out through his nose as he pushed himself up and took Nen with him. When Tavv spoke he heard a good portion of that, enough of it for him to tightly say, "Hope it stays that way." Tightly. The distance, as short as it was, was crossed a lot more slowly than it had been with Tavv at his side. He was practically dragging Nen along with him, "Need to find pods." He coughed out a second later.
Hapans/Mandals:
Once Sol got Nen back to Tavv, a quick search would show that Nen, in fact, had a smashed pod at his belt, but also a second intact one in a hard-sided case attached to the same.
Sol:
Letting Nen down, Sol settled him next to Tavv'ari as slowly as he could manage for both the sake of the man and himself. That ended with Sol leaning forward to look Nen over, situating and squirming around a body that wanted none of it. Finding the busted pod, Sol frowned and coughed and kept looking. There were angles that were unforgiving for his arm, and every reach exposed the burned under arm where he'd taken a hit. His movements were about to become frantic when he located the hard side case and popped it open to find an intact pod within. "I'm going to give it to him," he told Tavv in Mando'a that was choked and thick from his own struggle with inhaling too much red dust.
Hapans/Mandals:
She nodded.
Moving slowly toward them out of the dust was a strange lumpy-backed shape that resolved itself into the less strange shape of Buttercup dragging, with her right arm, a limp form armored like she was except for the lack of a helmet, and supporting, with her left arm, Breis Teimar.
Sight of them made Tavv stiffen in place, and then her battered face brightened. No great laugh from her! No gasp. Breath was too precious. But she whispered tightly to Solomon: "Breis."
Sol:
He turned at the name and caught himself at the ending edge of the motion to keep his upper body from convulsing in protest. "Can you get this into him?" Sol carefully turned back to Tavv'ari, his left hand her way offering the pod over, "I'll help them."
Hapans/Mandals:
The answer was Tavv taking the pod.
Heavy movement out there, and a jingle of muffled harness--and suddenly, converging on all of them was a great looming predator topped by Olivia Black.
The next short while happened fast. The wakek waited while they loaded up the wounded, which was nearly everyone. Being the most fit, it was Liv who split off to make a quick run for the dead wakek, to get water, to verify Nora's death though she had felt it, to grab any weapons, any pods, anythings that could be used. Grot was the only one who no one had seen, and Liv finally found the man, neck snapped and with a wound in his back.
Which meant that by the time she returned to the wakek, using a cable to keep her steady, their salvage party of ten had become eight, and of those eight she and Buttercup could breathe, with Buttercup herself mangled and battered from being bashed about when the wakek had first panicked. With Grot and Nora dead, Nen barely revived by the one pod he'd been given, Tavv shot twice and scraped up, Breis in only slightly better straits, and Catia having not yet regained consciousness and sporting a wound to the side of her head, the only thing they could do was get everyone mounted and secured and get the hells out of the area. Thoughts of returning with reinforcements couldn't even be entertained yet, but the killer did not reappear.
Sol:
There had been a moment when the lumbering form had gotten his attention through the thick haze, settling a sense of dread over him. Had it been the runner come back on the beast to finish them off? Thankfully the answer to that was no. The arrival of Liv on the wakek was like that fleeting sight of sunshine they'd caught during their trek through the graveyard. It was a relief, as was finding himself sitting atop the creature even if the posture was not so forgiving on every inch of him that hurt. It was enough to be part of numbers again, to have sharper eyes than his on what was around them. With the help of Buttercup his sling replaced the filters from the wrecked suit he was wearing, providing at least some very minor means of protection against gulping in the red stuff by the lung full. He would do so anyway, but something was better than nothing. Something was always better than nothing. His blond hair was turning red with dust that had settled into it, becoming more rust like in color in many ways that what was natural. Being maskless meant he could feel the wind against his skin as it blew. It was a feeling he'd never thought he'd have missed so bad until he felt it sitting with the others and waiting for Liv to return. By the time she had gotten back Solomon had been sitting with his eyes closed, mind aware of what was around him still, just feeling things out. It wasn't restful, but anticipatory. With the effects of the red setting in more and more, and for as tired and worn as his physical self was, his mind -needed- to remain sharp.
Hapans/Mandals:
As well as two warriors, they'd lost water, weapons, and pods. They'd lost ration packs. They'd lost a wakek, and the materials it had been hauling. Together, they were down to six pods total, and the first order of business once up and moving--all of them riding this time, even though it would inevitably slow down the beast--was to distribute three of those pods in a kind of rationing that had not been tried before. Breis had a hard time speaking, but he agreed to it with a nod: they'd see if each taking half the contents might help them to stave off the curled-edge early effects of the Red. Liv and Buttercup, now the only two with intact armor, would see if they could wait.
If they could make it back to Tal-Keb, if they could make it the remainder of the 24 hours, maybe the backup mission from the platform would make it down all right on its own? Or maybe something in the time remaining could still be done to warn them.
Sol:
Roused when it was his turn to partake, he'd do as the rest did and ingest half of the slimy substance after a few hard attempts to swallow the goo. Even water went down rough, his throat feeling as parched as the desert they had been crossing. It was only after the pod had been ingested that he thought of something and looked Breis' way, "Azair?" The name was barely spoken, more a tangle.of dry attempts at forming the sounds of letters than anything else.
Hapans/Mandals:
"Doc stopped moving." Mounted as they were, the raspy whisper came from very close behind Solomon. Sol wasn't the only one who was finding it hard to speak. "Don't know what that means."
The vine like tangle was still with him, still looped, its snapped ends hidden in its remaining mass.
Sol:
"Can I have him?" He wheezed out from behind what was now a tattered strip of cloth over his mouth.
Hapans/Mandals:
The Mandalorian hesitated, but unlooped Dr Azair slightly from his shoulder--enough to pass a length of the Eyith forward, over Solomon's shoulder, without wholly handing him off.
The gait of the wakek had a side-to-side slither, but was otherwise fairly smooth. Liv found that, once they got going, the wakek wanted to go. Unfettered from its torn harness, it readily ran the way she thought they needed to go.
So easy to get turned around, though. It would be too easy.
Fortunately, they passed (on the wrong side) another cluster of ships they'd seen before, closer to the very edge of the graveyard itself, and Liv was able to urge the wakek into a gentle course correction.
Sol:
The lumbering gate of the wakek was natural, and easy. The feeling of that beneath him as the clan head laid a bit of Azair over his shoulder had a kind of lulling effect to it. When he shut his eyes, and opened his mind there was some hesitation to what he was sensing around them. His energy was waning, everything in him was on the brink of exhaustion, but if he could do just this one more thing -- reaching up, Sol placed his left hand on the portion of Azair that was touching him and looked again for the gate to open between his mind and what Azair was. He doubted he'd get a direct sense of the Eyith, much like he hadn't the first time. But it was a deeper sense of feeling, maybe something Azair could read. Some sense of searching for life within the alien body.
Hapans/Mandals:
Beneath Solomon's grip, a tired radiance like a banked fire.
Alive.
As before: Alive!
The Eyith, without eyes. The Eyith, with no mouth. The Eyith, lacking ears, lacking hands, lacking bones, lacking expression.
Yet Jujanaj Azair's two hundred years of life was stored in that plantlike body still. The body breathed. The body sensed in its own alien way. And this time, just perhaps, Solomon felt an answering awareness, just a simple stirring, a wordless reply to the sense he'd tried to convey before, that the Eyith was not alone.
Sol:
His response to that feeling was relief and joy. He was too tired to even try attempting to keep that from filtering in through his grasp. He coughed hard, drew in a short breath and coughed again, "He's alive. Doc's alive."
Hapans/Mandals:
Breis was not the only one who reacted to that with relief, but his relief only went so far. "What does he need?" He forced the whisper out so that it could be heard, leaning in so that those in front of him on the wakek's back helped to shield him, however minimally, from the dust being kicked up. What thin light there was had not yet begun to dim with night, but it had to be close. "How do we give him water, without a mouth? How do we give him a pod? Food?" Anything?
Sol:
"H--" he coughed, and tried to clear his throat only to find that caused things to worsen. "H-- Ost. A bo--ody." Damn red shit. He gave up briefly to draw in as deep a breath he could and give one really hard cough to clear things, "He needs a body."
Hapans/Mandals:
At that, Liv's head turned a little. She couldn't fully focus behind her, but she could listen. She had the distinct sense that the wakek, without Azair's control, was cooperating because of some genial sense conveyed to it by Jeryndi Trander, and that if that tame fondness faded even a little, she might need to act swiftly to save her fellow survivors from their own mount. She was ready to do kill the beast. She had her lightsaber poised so that it would take but a firm hand and the will. Still she prayed they could stay in partnership, in harmony, and make it back to Tal-Kebii'tra and help.
She did ask, "Will he make it back to camp?"
Sol:
"He's weak," Sol answered before turning inward again for that sense of Azair to feel it once again, "He's there," his chest rumbled with another cough as he took in some of the dust cloud, "But I can't say how long he'll make it."
"Too different for me to tell."
Hapans/Mandals:
Liv watched ahead. Just more Red.
She stared at it to confirm that this meter would not reveal the killer; that this next meter did not, and on like that for ten more meters of ground covered. Then she twisted as far as her armor would allow, and eyed Solomon Tekal through her visor with a hard eye he'd have seen in the past. He was right behind her; she'd seen how much abuse he'd taken in that fight. She knew how hurt he was. That was the reason why she shouldn't ask what she asked next, and also the reason why she had to: she knew she had some bruises, but they were from her own armor, and they were nothing compared to what the others had endured. She alone had not been dealt a snap of whiplash and then dragged through the desert. She might not be alone in the will to help the doctor, but she was alone in having the strength right then to try the one specific thing he needed.
What would actually be required of her?
She had no idea, and plenty of reason to wonder given past experiences. But Azair himself had seemed straightforward enough in her brief experience of him, and the Mando'ade respected him, and with the loss of Nora, and even Grot whom she had not known, it felt important to pull out all the stops to save anyone who could be saved.
"If we switch places, and I strap you in," she called back to Sol, "do you think you can control this animal?"
Sol:
When Solomon opened his eyes the connection with his sense of Azair weakened slightly. He found himself looking at the visor to Liv's armor. He so badly wanted to answer 'no' to her question. Muscles, nerves, appendages and everything in between wanted him to say 'no'. But he had the ability to say 'yes', even for as tired as he was there was a chance he could do it if doing it meant they were giving Azair some more time. "I don't know how far we'll be able to get," He answered honestly, his voice dry, "but I can try."
Hapans/Mandals:
The important part. She twisted back to really look at him a second time, to read his face. To let him read hers. "We can't fight this beast if it decides we're not its friends." This had to be understood; no question.
Sol:
It was understood. His healthy respect for the animals had only grown since having been tossed how many yards like a whip being cracked. The gravity of it could be read around his eyes at the corners where red settled in fine little wrinkles, "If I can't handle it, I will say something."
Hapans/Mandals:
Liv nodded.
Now to switch. She knew she'd be the one having to do the most maneuvering, simply because she was the one who was capable. The wakek had a broad back, and the harness, made for larger-on-average creatures than she and the others, made for some room to spare and would necessitate Solomon adopting a kneeling position up front. Breis reached out at one point to steady Sol and help him get forward, and then was there for Liv as she came around, too.
Sol:
Awkward didn't quite describe how movement was on the back of the creature. It was more shimmying, and trying to find ways to move that wouldn't cause any undue pulling or straining while attempting to keep balance with help from Teimar. Azair's limb had been gently offered back to Breis in the process of all of that, Solomon's connection to the doctor breaking as the contact was broken. It was for good cause, as was him settling into the harness on his knees. Movement helped wake him up a little bit, enough for him to feel alert, while settling down and opening up to the full waters of The Force took the edge off of the bodily ache he was feeling. This was different from light sensing, he was reaching out to make contact with a beast who could react in any number of ways. He put his focus into exuding a sense of trust, and of affection while placing his bare left hand on the back of the creature's neck.
Hapans/Mandals:
Liv settled in and set about quickly wrapping and tightening the trailing ends of the torn harness to give Sol a little extra stability.
Sol:
Sitting upright was more of a challenge than he could handle right then with needing to keep contact with the wakek. Sol slumped forward as Liv tied the harness around him, giving in to the weakness he was feeling through the middle of his body. It was going to hurt no matter what he did, but at least with him slumping forward he was able to breathe just a -little- easier. His contact with the beast, as of those first few moments, was strong enough for him to get a sense of the creature, and for the creature to get a sense of him. He wanted to work with the smaller wakek, to get along with it. He trusted the giant lizard to get them where they were going, and none of them wanted to harm it. As he had with Azair, a gate was opened up between them both with Sol focusing on base instincts and desires. He urged nothing complicated and impressed a sense of Jeryndi. It wasn't really a mental image, just an idea -- a level of comfort and friendship, something warm and familiar. The underlying urge there was -find him.-
Hapans/Mandals:
Find him went hand-in-hand with the wakek's own urge right then. It made not for Tal-Kebii'tra, but for the place it had last seen Jeryndi. The wakek was wounded from a blaster shot to its left hind leg, but that hadn't slowed it down yet.
And perhaps Solomon would begin to get an inkling--a tickle of shapeless knowledge--that the wakek could navigate in this blinding landscape because it relied on powerful instinct and subtle senses other than sight. It was not the Force in direct play, but almost like the way some avians might be attuned to electromagnetic changes, to alignments undetected by humans and their cousins, or the way undersea creatures might read pressure, or sounds so distant that they defied the human ear. In any case, it was no dumb luck that the wakeks could find their way between Tal Ruus and Tal-Keb without strictly following the ridgelines of the zone of upheaval. No dumb luck that they could navigate the graveyard with Azair with confidence. The Red obscured not half the clues the animals were using to orient themselves.
Behind him, Breis attempted to help Liv with her armor. The thing that had protected her was suddenly a barrier to what she needed to accomplish. The Hapan armor was fitted precisely, and there wasn't room for even a quarter of Azair's twinings within it. But she had an idea. It meant removing her helmet, which made the moment that happened the first moment since PinkHue that she would breathe dust.
Sol:
Through that connection, Solomon was beginning to get the shape of the kind of instincts at play within the wakek. Those instincts were stronger than his own, allowing the creature to find its way in a manner that Sol never would have been able to as a human. But there was a sense in that which gave him the impression they weren't heading toward Tal Keb where Solomon had known Jeryndi to be when they left. The last he had seen Jeryndi, his cousin was supposed to have been resting. So where, then? There was no attempt to read the mind of the beast. When the world could suddenly shift around them and fodder could hit the fan, he didn't want to distract the wakek from its path. He let the creature decide, but kept that sense of trust and acceptance between them.
Hapans/Mandals:
With a snakelike hiss Liv's helmet unsealed. She turned enough so that when she told Breis to reach to her back and strip out the padding that guarded her against impacts and even some of the action of her own armor when she was in motion, he could see plainly how that was meant to work. The man hesitated. He leaned close to ask, "Are you sure?"
Captain Black nodded once. Firmly. Certain. Even if she wasn't as certain as she appeared.
That was enough. Breis got to work making space, and trying to see with his dust-whipped vision, and through visual distortion that made him afraid, how he might use the room to arrange Azair so that the vines might least impact the Captain's ability to move freely.
So Solomon would feel the minor jostling behind him, the combined efforts of Liv and Breis. The others clinging to the wakek with their half-servings of pod-stuff keeping them vaguely in the world were quiet, Buttercup keeping a firm grip on the unconscious Catia, and also on Tavv, who in turn kept an eye (since her arms were nigh useless) on the knots holding Nen in place.
Breis hoped that enough space could be made that Liv would be able to seal herself back into her suit fully. Its plates and sections might not be proof against the Red, but Catia's head wound showed plainly how valuable that armor was right now. He began feeding lengths of Azair into the suit and trying to arrange them. Then he saw how Azair became livelier, working to arrange tendrils into contact with Liv's body. How once that happened, they and their small leaf like protrusions could help it to crawl around, wrapping her in a woody embrace.
Liv would feel the full presence of a living being with her. It could have been described as a warmth of proximity, but that was a construction of a mammalian mind that associated warmth with safety, with friendship, with intimacy, with love, and with other good things on a deep animal level. What she did not feel was menace, selfishness, scheming: the doc was what he claimed to be. She also did not feel an intrusion. Eyith were not parasites. Theirs were partnerships, friendships even, and though she might breathe in a sense of deep grief and reluctance from the plant-creature, there was no possessiveness. Here was a creature of curiosity and drive who could not express either without aid, and willing aid. Azair could not bond with a sentient being the way he could with wakeks, against their will. The ability was entirely absent. A mutual welcoming had to bring him close enough to share with her what was hers, and in exchange was knowledge, long life, and greater physical resilience, resistance to disease and to infirmity.
How this was accomplished was on all levels invisible. And while Liv was awake, all that she would know was that presence at first, that nearness, that readiness to meet her, and know her, and join with her even if only temporarily. For now, in other words, the bond might be offered, but it would be only half-forged until she rested.
Sol might feel this merely as activity, a sense of a conversation happening in another room. As with a half-heard conversation far away, he might be able to sense the tone of it. Not an argument, not a slithering con, but something far gentler in nature.
Sol:
Because it was gentle it stood out. Very briefly he dared to tilt his head toward it over his left shoulder, just enough to catch the wavy shadow of Liv at the corner of his vision. There was no hunger to it, no desire to harm. On a world full of razor sharp things that hunted in the depths of the red, that feeling of gentle conversation was a bright mark within his senses. But he had to be careful in giving mind to that. He and the wakek were holding their own conversation of sorts. He let his head drift back to center, still hunched over with his head low and eyes drifting back toward the horizon and the world around them. If anything were there to be sensed, he had the idea that the wakek would be the first to sense it, the best thing he could do was pay attention to how their ride was acting.
