Lost Night

[Bobbi]

Hapans/Mandals:
"It folds upon itself."

Hours later, in the dark, the group having retreated away from Tal-Kebii'tra, they'd found a small windbreak and nestled in close. Parts of the harness had been undone, but they were all so tired, and so hurt, that they hadn't spent much time on it. Azair had done well before with Skirix, but the Eyith part of the symbiotic bond was truly hurt this time, having lost yards of length, and he had already been flagging despite the resilience of Liv's body, and the need to stop and rest was real. With no faith in their ability to navigate with the wakek through the Red as they had before, starved of the clarity of full pods except for Solomon, they'd gone as far as they dared. They'd clung to the rockier edges of the upheaval zone that ringed the crater. If the Hapans had received Solomon's message, they would try to get back there in time to meet them. If the Hapans had missed it, or it hadn't worked, they'd find the wreckage.

"It folds upon itself."

The middle of the night. Nen was muttering to himself. He was also wandering loose-limbed nearby. The short makeshift tether from the hoist that had been around his ankle lay disconnected and laid out like a dead snake in the dust.

Sol:
It was one of a number of instances that had occurred since he'd ingested the stim-pac. Bolting from sleep, Solomon made way for a short distance away from where they'd hunkered down, keeping close by but taking himself out of the niche in order to give in to the revolt of his stomach. There was not much left within him that could come back to haunt him, and the struggle of it made his chest hurt from the internal bruising he'd suffered being whipped about by the wakek earlier far sharper. At the very least, the visual distortion that had been so disorienting up on the ledge with Buttercup and the cable had faded away. He felt wretched, but that was not enough to blind him to Nen as he came back into the full body of the camp. Wiping his mouth against the back of his hand he moved closer to where Nen was muttering to himself, "Nen?" His voice was raw renewed, still strained, but just then aching with the torture his body had just put him through, "You alright?"
It would be worth feeling this bad to have gotten the word up that line. He only hoped the Hapans had heard it.


Hapans/Mandals:
There was one dying glow stick in a nook in the rock that formed their pitiful lump of a shelter. Dust billowed from the shuffling of Nen's feet as he stumbled into the shadows beyond the thin illumination and vanished into the darkness.


Sol:
He took a step to follow, then paused and looked back toward the group gathered in that small little crack of shelter, "Breis," He found where the clan head was in saying his name, "Something's up with Nen."


Hapans/Mandals:
Breis Teimar was curled on his right side toward Buttercup. At his back was the space where Solomon had been.

He did not stir.


Sol:
"Breis," He tried for more volume when the Mandal didn't stir but the name came out more of a hiss than a name. It was a balance of losing Nen's track, or trying to wake up the party. He had to weigh it out quickly because it was dark out there. Every second spent in deliberation was another footstep Nen was taking to who knew where. Choice made, Sol made a quick jolt for Azair to grab Liv's lightsaber, and then he was off after Nen. "Nen! --Nen!"


Hapans/Mandals:
Azair--or Liv?--turned over, propping up on an elbow. Buttercup mumbled, and groggily tried to blink awake as she came around. Like Breis, Tavv'ari did not move. Catia's soft snores had returned (a good sign...?) but now did not let up.


Sol:
He'd paused at the lip of the crevice they'd all tucked into, looking out into the darkness beyond, "Nen!" Another hiss of that name, decisions hitched on just how dark it was out there. It was worse than pitch. And who the hell knew what was lurking in it waiting for a moment like this one. "Nen, come back!"


Hapans/Mandals:
"... upon itself."

Muted with distance, riding under the wind, the words came briefly.


Sol:
"Damn it, Nen." The lightsaber came to life in his left hand, and that darkness was stepped in to, Sol using the lightsaber just as any one of them might have used a glow rod.


Hapans/Mandals:
As before, in dense dust partially kicked up by Nen's foot-dragging, and partially driven by the wind, the light was good, but was like a flashlight in a small closet: Solomon could see what was right next to him, a wall of dust. Of Red.


Sol:
"Nen!" In the dark and red the planet felt a lot smaller than it actually was. He'd seen places like this, but only in his nightmares. Endless night all around. Just darkness. The Red only made it heavier. He stopped walking and listened, stretching out the invisible fingers within his mind like a hand opening to lay against the world around him looking for some indication of which way Nen had gone.


Hapans/Mandals:
"Solomon! Come back!"

Buttercup was by that time trying to get the others to stir. She shouted after Sol, but was focused with the group. The line between trying to be delicate with injuries and feeling the urgency was for Sergeant Rula a foreign one. Azair was up, too, checking the wakek because right then the beast might be dangerous, but it was also the only way they were going to get injured Tavv'ari and unconscious Catia anywhere fast. And that wasn't including an unconscious Breis and a wandering Nen.


Sol:
The voice from behind him had him turning back where he stood. He couldn't exactly see where the crevice was, but that voice had helped, "Nen's taken off." A difficult shout left his throat, the words clipped with that effort, "Something's wrong with him!"


Hapans/Mandals:
It didn't even strain a tired brain to guess what the 'something' was.

Azair gestured to Buttercup that he would take care of the others, and that freed the sergeant to slice free the length of Nen's discarded tether and bring it out toward Solomon's voice and--as she drew nearer--the glow of Liv's lightsaber. "Stay where you are!"


Sol:
The length of Solomon's own tether was not pulled to its distance, the slack of it laying heavy behind him and unseen in the darkness. He watched the space back toward where the niche had been, and slowly the darkness began to form into a familiar outline as Buttercup cut through The Red, causing the dust to shift and shimmer around her, breaking the almost still-like illusion of the wall that the atmosphere was creating around him. He held the lightsaber up higher, as high as his arm would allow for Sargent Rula, and still the light didn't travel very far.


Hapans/Mandals:
The glow stick had been left for Azair, so Buttercup had to trust the lightsaber alone. When she reached Solomon, she called out, "NEN?" At the same time, she crouched to get to work on their tethers--hers and Solomon's, and Nen's, to cut here and there, re-tie, to directly connect Sol's and her own, and to get them some additional length to work with, even if it wasn't more than several yards. As she worked, with no reply from Nen, she said, "How is it the Captain's lightsaber isn't dead like the rest?" It seemed important enough to ask--a spark of curiosity in a dismal situation--at a moment when listening for signs of Nen seemed to be of paramount importance.


Sol:
Sol shifted the lightsaber to get the light where Buttercup might need it, angling it so that the blade was no danger to either of them. In answer to her question, he swallowed around the dryness of his throat and answered, "Specialized construction would be my guess. It's not built like a blaster." He turned an eye to the darkness briefly, trying to cut through the darkness with his senses to catch some sign of Nen out there. "I think I might know where he's headed."


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup knew how to put together blasters and rifles--not from an engineering standpoint, but from a field standpoint, and she didn't think they were complicated. Her lost slugthrower had been downright primitive, in addition, and while she had overheard discussions prior to the mission here about all kinds of theories about why some things worked while others did not, she had not down here much wiser. So she just nodded. "Yeah; to Dreamland. NEN?"

No answer.


Sol:
"Well, yeah, but I think he's wanting to head to the graveyard. He was muttering something about it folding over. He said the same thing to me after the ambush when we were regrouping. He couldn't tell me what 'it' was, but he just kept saying it over and over before collapsing."


Hapans/Mandals:
"'It folds upon itself'?" Buttercup's precision sounded like a direct quote.


Sol:
"Yeah," He looked back toward her, and then back out into the darkness around them. "He managed to find where I had taken Tavv, and said he knew the place. It was near where it folds upon itself. He recognized the place."


Hapans/Mandals:
"What are you talking about?" She squinted up at him, finished now with tethering them together.


Sol:
"He knew where we were," Sol repeated, "He had seen it, he said, where whatever 'it' is folds upon itself. And it was near the leaning ships I had taken shelter under with Tavv'ari, and him -- and then you and Breis."


Hapans/Mandals:
"He didn't know anything," Buttercup stressed as she rose, leaning in toward Solomon and putting a weighty hand on his arm. "He was concussed and fucked up. We need to find him, because he's still concussed and fucked up and running on Red."


Sol:
The hand on his arm caught his attention, but more from not being able to feel the contact versus seeing it happen. Sometimes it still caught him in little ways that he couldn't feel little things like that. All the same, he gave a nod to Buttercup and looked back out into the night, "He was heading this way, I think." He motioned with his left hand and the lightsaber toward the darkness off to his left, "Nen!" After that he was falling quiet and opening his mind up to The Force. Having gotten some rest, for as broken as it had been thanks to the grinding of a sour stomach, his focus was greater than it had been when he'd been on the verge of passing out. Here, with that energy much more than it had been, he sought an awareness of what he could not see much as he had at the graveyard. That felt like it was days ago, decades even. How the passage of time could be muddled when everything looked the same, and the body felt like caving in.


Hapans/Mandals:
As before, as even from the earliest days of Solomon's journey into the Red, into the Cloak, there was not much life out there, and yet there was an underlying sense of exactly the opposite. This time, the sense of emptiness was helpful: Nen was out there, not far but aimless. If he meant to get somewhere in particular, he was so turned around he made no headway. The Mandalorian was somewhere ahead in the dark, perhaps on a diagonal that erred to Solomon's left.


Sol:
Standing, as if listening, Solomon met the darkness around them with his eyes open, catching the glint of light off of little particles that drifted with every movement he and Buttercup were making. He went from looking the direction he had thought Nen had taken, and shifted to off from that. It took him a second to be sure before he was looking toward Buttercup, "This way. I don't think he got very far." before following the sense he had of the Mandal's weight within The Force.


Hapans/Mandals:
Nen still moved with the dragging steps of a sleepwalker, meandering away. Buttercup threw a last look back the way she'd come, but the glow stick could no longer be seen. The tether, though; the edge of it looked sharp in the brightness of the lightsaber that blazed red. Then she said, "Lead on, sweetie," and made to catch Sol if he needed it.


Sol:
His own steps were halting in the dark as he followed that sense he had of Nen. He was being cautious about how he moved, and which way he went. Not because he could sense any danger, but because he could not see well. The wall of red parted for them, but in the way that smoke drifted and wafted and broke against a body only to reform in its wake. The lightsaber's light was glaring enough to give him -some- sense of what was surrounding him, but beyond that it was all a never ending void that could swallow him, Buttercup, and Nen up whole if they weren't careful enough. He drew in a breath, fought the confines of his ribcage and the suit he wore beyond that and mustered his voice as much as he could, "Nen!"


Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
Suddenly, the sense of more living hearts out there.

Not visible, and they defied the specifics of a count, but in a snap the void around Nen was no longer a void.


Sol:
And just that quick things changed. It could have been the ground sliding beneath his boots that tripped his feet up, or it could have been that he was suddenly aware of more beings out there in the darkness around Nen. Alarm was a quick reaction, eyes narrowing as he fought against his own breathing to quickly tell Buttercup, "He's not alone. This way!" Before scrambling for his balance and breaking for his sense of Nen and those new heartbeats.


Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
Buttercup broke into a run.

The more became one again.

When the lightsaber light sliced through the red and fell upon the one, it lit the front of a cloaked and hooded figure several inches taller than Solomon Tekal and a good deal broader at the shoulders. It fell upon an alien face of a type he'd seen in a hyperrealistic holo once, and in the form of a floating dreamer.


Sol:
Recognition was instant the moment the broader, taller, and cloaked being came into view. A snap order left his aching throat toward Buttercup, a stern warning that flashed out of him the moment light hit the features of the hooded figure, "Rula get back!"
He, himself, skidded to a stop. The Red made quick actions of the feet difficult, but he was also suffering the burden of an injured body. His reaction, while mentally being where it should have been, was not quite so crisp bodily wise.


Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
Rula saw the light resolve the figure too big to be Nen, and didn't have to be told. Solomon had returned some of the armor used to help him work at the cable, and her suit was still the better of the two. His weapon was the thing, though. The brightest light, burning there in the Red with its low, atom-vibrating hum. She drew back just enough to be out of his way, but not so far that she couldn't turn herself into a shield.

The cloaked figure drew up taller, each black eye reflecting the slash of the lightsaber's light. It began to raise its left hand.


Sol:
The hand began to rise and Sol flinched forward, just a fraction of a hair. Memories of just how quick and strong the holo had been bit back the motion. His left hand slid out in front of him, the lightsaber meant to be a barrier between himself and the Ori'ade in its cloak, a cautious shield. He needed that distance to be there between them. That was the only way they'd survive this if it came to a fight. "See him?" Was quickly spoken to Buttercup even though he did not dare to break eye contact with the larger form before him.

Hapans/Mandals/Bad Guys:
"Of course I fucking see him!"

The hand beckoned, and the invader spoke as if the dust in the air didn't matter at all. "Olororji. Jii. Gamur dab."

Sol:
"Not -HIM-! -NEN-. Do you see Nen?" He was still keeping his eyes on the big guy, answering the alien language with Mando'a, because the one on his ship had known the language -- or appeared to have known it. "I don't understand." It was hard to get the dialect out, his words breaking and cracking as he struggled to speak.


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup knew more curse words than the Hapan language could hold. After putting a few of them on display, she hissed, "No. If you can't kill that fucker, I'll do it." She reached for the hilt.


Sol:
His line of sight was cut in half when Sargent Rula moved in to reach for the lightsaber hilt. He drew it away with his left hand, out further toward that side while his right hand shifted. It was a slow motion, that hand rising only after Rula was in Solomon's way. He meant to lay it against her armored chest, but the push he wanted from it wasn't there having had the intention of pushing Rula back. He did risk a glance toward her in those few seconds, hissing "-Wait-."


Hapans/Mandals:
It was right there.

Ten feet separated them from the cloaked invader.

When denied the weapon, Buttercup hissed and shoved at Solomon's side to get him away from her.


Sol:
Solomon, not being in the greatest of conditions just then, was not as able to hold his ground as he may have been under better circumstances. The shove to his side sent him stumbling back a few steps. "If you do this," he said as he recovered his footing, "You'll go to the same place the others went to. It hasn't attacked yet. Don't provoke it."


Hapans/Mandals:
It still didn't attack, even though the armored Hapan was leaning forward, knees bent, hands fists as if she meant to make herself a cannonball and fly at it.

She hissed, "Get back to the others, lefty!"


Sol:
He'd have turned the lightsaber off if it wasn't their only means of illumination right then. He carried it to his side, angled with the tip outward and down toward the red beneath their feet. His steps were not entirely the swiftest he'd ever managed, but he was hoping to be quick enough to get in Rula's way, daring his back toward the big guy standing roughly ten feet from them.


Hapans/Mandals:
They were tethered together; Buttercup's plan was to retreat with Sol. Only Sol didn't retreat.

Which made this tableau confusing to the Hapan grunt.

There was the enemy, not attacking.

There was her ally, not attacking.

There they were out there, with a missing Mandalorian, who'd been muttering creepy repetitive nonsense.

Buttercup shook her head and spat a curse.

Then the invader, who'd been looking between them and the lightsaber, started to back off.


Sol:
With his back to the retreating big guy, Solomon looked for any sense of Nen with The Force. He had felt the Mandal just prior to them arriving, and then nothing. He couldn't see past the big guy while facing him, and hadn't dared to split his focus. But the big guy hadn't attacked, even with Sol's back turned, and that gave some room.


Hapans/Mandals:
No Nen.

Buttercup was there, her living presence a spark. The invader was there--but leaving, retreating, and fading.

Perhaps farther back the way they'd come, the others were out there, though... not all evenly.


Sol:
With no sense of Nen to be found Solomon stirred from the stillness that had overtaken him. "Nen's gone." His broken voice barely stirred the space between him and Buttercup. "Let's head back."


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup's vast knowledge of slang for genitalia and waste products from across the galaxy failed in this moment to give her anything to say. She stared at the retreating shadow as it was obscured by the red, and then at Solomon, and then at the Red again.


Sol:
Solomon was disengaging, moving toward the side he had slipped in front of Rula from, lightsaber up once more like a torch. His senses he kept open, focused on being aware of what was around them, ready for any sudden ambush by the invaders out there in the darkness. "Come on, Buttercup." Today wasn't the day. His words were weighted because of that thought, and because of the fact that Nen was lost.


Hapans/Mandals:
The grunt did finally follow his lead. It was a strange thing, the idea that--

Let's be honest. Every second since launch had been strange for Sgt. Rula.


Sol:
If nothing happened on their way back to the camp, for what it was, Solomon's senses would be well open for the closely lit walk back. He was quiet, and mindful of the silence around them. Having been given a full pod in order to work on the cable afforded him better hearing but if nothing moved beyond the sound of their feet on the dry grit beneath them it would be all silence. It was like crossing through a tunnel so long you could neither see the end you were heading toward, or the end you were walking away from. If they had not had the guideline it would have been all too easy to wander off track, even more so than during the day time. Every few steps he'd turn his head just enough to catch the sight of Buttercup, an assurance that she was, indeed, still with him. And that he was still with her.


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup was, though she was walking backwards and using her grip on the tether as a guide, along with the light. She was completely put off by the whole thing.

Their tether had not played out far, though in the close Red it seemed it, so it was less than a minute before they were back at the nub of a windbreak, where Azair stared at them out of Captain Black's eyes.


Sol:
That less than a minute walk could have easily been a ten mile hike for all that it felt like it was. The reality of it was that within just a short few moments he was finding himself face to face with Captain Black. "I lost him," he told the Eyith, snapping the lightsaber off and using his fingers to spin it around in his hand so the emitter was facing him instead of Liv, "Keep an eye on this. One of them saw me using it -- they might become curious. Where is Breis?"


Hapans/Mandals:
Still unconscious, along with Tavv'ari and Catia, Breis was indicated with a gesture, but Azair never stopped staring at Solomon as she made it. "One of them? They're out there? So Nen is dead?" ... and got up immediately, turning to the bound wakek.

Buttercup, here, knelt to rearrange the tether, to remove the secondary length.

Now that apparently Nen would not be needing it.


Sol:
"I don't know," Sol followed the gesture toward where Breis slept, shook his head and looked back toward Azair, "I had a sense of him. We were tracking him, suddenly he wasn't alone. When we got to where he had been the sense of him disappeared, and there was no sign of his body. Just a big guy in a cloak. I don't know if he's dead. I just know I can't feel him anymore."


Hapans/Mandals:
"We should move," Azair said, though just saying those words seemed to pile on a sense of hopelessness. Deserting Nen....


Sol:
"We should wake Breis," Solomon offered in response, "It's not safe to move out right now. It's too dark out there and we won't have a chance if they strike out there in the open. We won't be able to see it coming."


Hapans/Mandals:
"Are--" Azair froze and turned back to eye Solomon as if he had showed up late to his own meeting.

"Lefty," Buttercup said with an edge of steel. "Breis is dreaming. So is Tavv."

"... we give them pods now, we're going to be just like that." She blinked. "Well. Captain and me will."



Where in the nine hells was he when -that- happened? The look Azair gave was quickly becoming a feeling that Solomon realizing within himself. He had been expecting some adverse effects from the stim-pac, but maybe he had been more out of it than he had thought to not recognize both Breis and Tavv'ari had slipped away. He wanted to blame the stim-pac, but he couldn't fully not after having gotten his head fried by that damn cable -- his own carelessness was at fault. Understanding was in his nod to Buttercup, "I’m sorry, I hadn’t realized. How many do we have left?"


Hapans/Mandals:
"We should have had a plan," Azair murmured, one viney appendage now in familiar contact with the wakek's head, drawn out through a partially dismantled section of armor.

"Two," Buttercup said in the same moment. She, too, was both trying to concentrate on the best way to handle the two and what that meant if there were invaders out there. But the one she'd seen hadn't attacked. It was the first and only one she'd ever seen alive and well, and it had not attacked.


Sol:
"Alright." He breathed out a soft breath that pulled at sore muscles throughout his midsection, "We should stay as close to Tal Keb as we possibly can incase the second drop ship is sent down. At first light I'd like to see if I can get back up there and send another message. I'll make it an S.O.S. I'll see if I can get a response from them this time."


Hapans/Mandals:
"We need a plan," Azair said, now turning and no longer murmuring, "specifically about the pods. Two left. Three of us. I'll last; you two won't. We have three others, now. Just three, but too many. We halved the pods and didn't even get half the benefit, in terms of time!"


Sol:
Azair got Solomon's attention. "We're going to need more." That was the obvious answer, but none too easy one, "They can only be found on the big guys, or on the thief, right?"


Hapans/Mandals:
Azair nodded. "Otherwise, the Hapans might come down, find all three of us dreaming, and not know what to do. And if they try to evac us while we're dreaming...."

Buttercup nodded. She knew that information had been relayed. "... we could get snuffed even as we're being saved."


Sol:
"Right. So, first light I get back up there and send an S.O.S. and give them a location. I'm thinking the graveyard. With the number of downed ships out there we can easily find places to hold up, even if we need to stay ultimately mobile. There are also parties of the big guys out that way, and the thief has been seen out there. -- It's a big place though," he broke off his words for a moment to think, "We give then a specific ship's name in our message, and we go there. If we have to move, we leave a crumb trail for them to follow. We can use Catia's flimsy."


Liv:
"Location won't do any good," Liv spoke, her form shifting for a moment as the former Jedi transitioned back into control. "Navigation is impossible from space into the Red. That's the main reason for the cable; something to follow. When they come down, they'll come down by the cable."


Sol:
That moment of transition was not missed, and seeing it turned his stomach again. For several seconds Solomon couldn't answer, he wasn't able to since having the need to lock every muscle he could down to prevent disaster had suddenly become paramount. If there had been anywhere to go for fresh air, he would have gone. Finally, as the urge weakened he pushed himself to break away and move toward where Catia slept, "So we stay put, then. We go to Tal Keb, get back up there and sit and wait for the Hapans to arrive and risk the big guys finding us up there, or raiding the crater and risk them finding us down there trying to pick them clean. If we move away from Tal Keb in any direction our evac won't know where we've gone. And regardless of that, we're going to need supplies -- specifically pods -- in the meantime."

Liv:
Going silent for a moment, Liv took in their full situation and a deep weight fell across her shoulders. Nen was gone, Catia and Breis were sleeping. Ta'Keb was abandoned. They were out of pods. Things seemed as dark as they could be. It would be nearly a minute before the Captain spoke again. "Proverbial rock and hard place," she softly mused.. though there was no humor remaining. "As desperately as we need pods, the risk of missing the rescuers is still higher. We stay, and we pray they find us in time." Soft spoken, no confidence there. This could very well be their end. Who knew what was happening on the station above, if they would even be capable of navigating down through the floating rocks.


Sol:
He had knelt beside Catia, first looking her over as he listened to Liv and then searching for more of the tech's flimsy. A stylus was pulled off the Hapan Naval tech as well. He had begun writing, using Catia's armor for a writing surface, as Liv finished speaking but hadn't gotten far, "We'll be sitting dead in the water up there," he looked up toward Liv, and then to Buttercup, "If the big guys hit us, they'll have the openings of both sides of the formation and we'll have no escape. How likely do either of you think the chances of a rescue being underway so soon is if they got the first message?"


Hapans/Mandals:
In all of that, Catia did not stir. Tavv'ari did not stir. Breis Teimar did not stir.

Buttercup, who felt no loyalty to Breis, and no deep comradeship with Tavv, would have spared a pod right then and there for Catia, who was their own tech wearing their own Queen's emblem where it was embedded in the Naval seal. She kept her mouth shut on that topic only because Catia's troubles were a head injury first, and if she was still out now because of the Red that seemed secondary in the grunt's mind. It simply came down to who would make best use of what pods they had, right then.

But here was another topic she could speak to. "One hundred percent," she told Solomon with the gruff certainty of the soldier and the tired. "They'll try something. The Prince is up there. He's been Captain Action since this whole thing started." Her shrug barely translated to the outer world thanks to her armor, but there was a little flex at least. "Now, whether it'll fuckin' work... Got me on that one. At least, if they think the area is mined, they'll be going for both maneuverability and defense. But that might mean it takes more time for them to put something together. Dunno, lefty. But a hundred percent they'll try, if they noticed it."


Sol:
Rula got Solomon's solid attention as she spoke. After that, there were several short moments of silence from him as he began writing again, this time as quickly and in as small a print as his left hand would allow. He broke only long enough to look at either woman in Hapan armor, "I'm writing down instructions on how to tap into that cable and run communications through my comm unit. If something happens to me, you'll have instructions on how to do it. Be very careful not to touch the casing of the cable, or the power line itself, and follow my instructions to the letter. If the rocks have shifted back into place we should be able to get back up there. If they haven't we'll have to see what we can manage." His writing resumed, his right hand laying heavy on a corner of the flimsy to keep it from moving while his left scratched out the instructions with the stylus he held awkwardly. He paused, again, just to look toward either woman, "How is your dot-code? Do I need to write that down for you, too?"


Hapans/Mandals:
"Fuck you," Buttercup said, which meant: it's reliable. She was attentively eyeing the flimsi.


Sol:
From where he knelt, he turned an eye up toward Buttercup as much as he could without really turning her way. "Wasn't meant to be an insult." He was back to writing, shifting from one piece of flimsy to another, taking a moment to hold the first piece out to Buttercup with the stylus held between his fingers, "Can you read that?"
It was an important thing to note. If they couldn't read his writing now, they wouldn't be able to read it when it might count.


Hapans/Mandals:
"Wasn't taken as one," Buttercup said with the flatlined tone of dismissal. 'Fuck you' was such a routine reply in her world that it didn't even bear comment. She leaned in to squint at Solomon's scribble. "Guess you weren't always left-handed...?" she asked by way of saying that's terrible. "But yeah:" She read it back to him to confirm.


Sol:
"It's a skill I'm still getting accustomed to," He commented, satisfied that it was at least legible. He drew that piece of flimsy back, set it down and began writing on the next. The scribbles ended with him grabbing up one last piece on which he wrote down what the hooded big guy had said to him. It was spelled as close to what he could guess it might actually look like in written form, "And this -- if I am not with you when you get back up to the fleet, do a search for a translation. If it can narrowed down there is a good chance the origin of these guys can be located."


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup took that flimsi and looked it over. The look she gave him was skeptical in the extreme. "You think he backed off because you and I looked soooo dangerous?"


Sol:
"No, I have no idea why he backed off but given that we had a camp back here waiting for us to return from the red in the middle of the night I wasn't willing to find out what his reasons were. That's why I didn't attack, and why I wouldn't let you." He pushed himself up uneasily, focusing on that for a moment before turning back toward Liv and Rula, "We still have missing people down here, and -anything- we can do to get some room for finding them is worth going after short of letting those guys lead us away from what we have left."


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup grunted out a laugh. "Don't get full of yourself, lefty. My plan was retreat. But you don't fucking look like you want to retreat when you want to retreat, get me? We were still tied together."


Sol:
"Yes, we were. And I probably would have followed him if we hadn't been." He offered the handful of flimsy over to Buttercup.


Hapans/Mandals:
"Yeah?" The Hapan snorted. "You just can't win for losing, can ya?"'


Sol:
"A lifelong fault of mine," if he had had more voice to speak with, his tone would have been flat and humorless. With his voice being what it was, the words were just a raspy attempt at conveying dryness. "Drives my friends nuts." He broke away from that to look toward where the Captain stood, "It's your call, Captain, do we move out now or wait until first light?"


Bad Guys:
Dust blew across them from behind, bringing the darkness in close.

Nen had been out there, then gone. Others had been out there, then gone. Now again: the darkness was not empty.


Sol:
Before Liv could answer, Solomon's attention was pulled toward the opening of the niche they'd found, his eyes searching out into the darkness from where he stood. The moment it had caught his attention he hadn't given warning. The warning came just a split second later when he was sure of what he was being told by his senses, "Something's out there."


Mi’Kei:
The figures in the darkness stopped... And one of them moved it's arm up-- in a wave. But it was the voice that sounded pleasantly surprised-- and not alien. "Su'cuy Gar!"


Bad Guys:
The second one--bigger--hung back.


Sol:
He spared a moment to grab up the spear they'd brought with them, and moved closer to the darkness. He didn't step beyond the bring of very low level lighting offered by the glow rods, however. "Su'cuy," was barely a word as he spoke it, still struggling with the language that wasn't his native tongue. Abandoning that, in his rasp, Sol asked "Do you speak Basic?" Getting as much of his voice to fall from his throat as he could. It felt like milling glass through his vocal chords.


Mi’Kei:
"Of course," He said, switching. "May I approach?" he asked. He didn't want to approach uninvited. "I have someone with me, please don't attack him. Her. It."


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup had pivoted on a knee and risen. It was her job. Not just her job: she was the only uncompromised (in her opinion) person left in their party. The only one fit. Automatically she adopted a protective position as she had before in the search for Nen.


Sol:
It? Don't attack? He looked toward Buttercup as she rose. "Come to the edge of the light." The instructions were given as Solomon looked back out into the darkness toward the figures.


Mi’Kei:
He still had the one hand up, but dropped it now as he came forward... He had a sword strapped across his back, a couple of knives across his belt. He had a makeshift scarf around his face. He had random pieces of armor strapped to him. A vest, gloves and bracers, shin guards over his normal clothing... Which was covered by red dust, as was everything else... He was a big guy for a human, but when he got to the edges of the light, he pulled the cloth down just low enough for Sol to see his face before covering it again.. There were patches on his clothing that Sol may or may not have recognized-- he was from the Vado clan.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Behind him--a big hooded figure. Maybe the same hooded figure from a moment ago. Certainly at first glance, the hood, the stance, the details were the same. The invader stayed behind the Vado clan-marked man, but reached forward to elbow him, to nudge him from behind, and to jerk his head forward to urge him on. "Zhorhayeer. Zhorhayeer!" he hissed, nodding further for the other to get on with it.


Sol:
Solomon was wearing pieces of things cobbled together to form a rough barrier of protection against the environment himself. Just then, he was not wearing anything covering his face, his mouth and head unprotected, but there was protection to be had in the form of a hood if he had chosen to wear it. His hair had long since gone rusty red with the settling of red dust, his skin was just as stained seeming. His right arm hung at his side, his left was up, hand wrapped around the length of a spear he was leaning against. "What do you think?" He spoke to Buttercup as lowly as he could which was no real struggle with how rough volume had become for him to achieve, eyes on the hooded figure behind the new comer. It was actually quite relieving to not have to force himself to speak up. And that didn't last long. Sol drew in a breath, "What are your names?" Clipped words, and more suffering syllables.


Mi’Kei:
"Mi'kei Vado," He said simply. "Not sure what it's name is... But I come bearing pods and explanations," he said. He sounded kind of happy about that. "He-- at least I think it's a he-- is an ally."
Mi'kei Vado was not a name to be snuffed at-- that was a Clan Leader.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Buttercup, unmoving, eyes narrowed, muttered between clenched teeth, "Where's Nen?" This was not projected at Mi'kei Vado and the other, but instead was meant in answer to Solomon's question.

The invader drew up taller, raised its chin, and stood with its chest out.

Buttercup had eyes past them--impossible to make out anything in the dust--and also made sure, as she had before, not to get too distracted by their appearance. Many an ambush had been made possible through sleight of hand no more complicated than giving the prey something to look at.


Sol:
"We'll take the explanations here, now, leader Vado. You can start by telling us if you've seen a brother out there, just now, wandering and mad." Sol, himself, was still sensing outward, but just now again he started looking for Nen's familiar spark.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
There was no such spark.

It was Olivia Tino/Black and Jujanaj Azair nearby with the wakek, Sergeant "Buttercup" Rula, Catia, Tavv'ari, and Breis Teimar with them, the sense of them all as it should be, filling in an unconscious space in the subliminal background. Then there were the two figures before them, Mi'kei and the other, and beyond that... the emptiness of the dust-whipped crater-edge. The emptiness that teemed with life; the life that teemed with void.


Mi’Kei:
"If you're referring to Nen, he's in good hands," he said calmly. "The explanation will take a while... So why don't we wake up your people first?" he said, offering a pod.


Liv:
"How many of those do you have?" Came Liv's question. She had remained quiet through the exchange, but the prospect of pods was an attention grabber.


Mi’Kei:
"Seven. One for each of you... Nen told me how many there were up here.... We don't have any extra. I've been sent up here to wake up your party and tell you what's going on... There's a battle coming and we need help."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Eyes hard on Liv, Solomon, and Buttercup, the invader muttered something to Mi'kei, and then followed it up by reaching out toward Mi'kei's head so that the clawed hand rested at his forehead. The thumb would press to his third eye.


Mi’Kei:
"He's telling me we need to hurry..." He said. "We have no idea when the enemy will return... Ormsa will send his people again and there are things to do."


Sol:


Sol, hearing that, backed up a few steps and motioned with the spike, drawing his left hand back toward him in a roll of his wrist. The action was not fluid, but by now the pain was old and not cutting, "Come in."


Mi’Kei:
He nodded and stepped inside, then gestured for the speaker-priest to follow him inside... "Again," he emphasized to the people he'd just come into the presence of. "He's an ally... Who all is here?" hs asked.

Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
The invader let his hand slide back from Mi'kei's forehead, still watching the others out of diamond-hard alien eyes. The cloaked figure did not follow Mi'kei more than two steps before stopping.


Sol:
Solomon was watching the big guy who had stopped. "If he's an ally then there is no need to worry of us attacking him." Me'kei would see three others laying in that encampment they had made. One larger man, Breis Teimar, wearing his own cobbled together protection against the environment but lacking a mask against the red. A woman, Tavv'ari, who wore an environmental suit that had seen far better days in that the one she wore was damaged. And a Hapan woman, Catia, who sported a head wound. Then, there was Liv, Buttercup, and Sol himself. "There is just who you see here." He continued looking toward Me'kei before giving the big guy his own motion to enter, the same as he had given just a moment before.


Mi’Kei:
He was immediately drawn to Breis... He pulled out the next pod and knelt down next to his clan leader to administer it... "Okay, so... I'd like to explain this entire situation to everyone.. So I'll give you the briefest of summaries: these people are the same people. Two factions. One enemy. One ally. There's a point and place where the Red is coming from... That needs to be addressed, but they need us to fight for them because they are few in number."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
The invader didn't get any closer. It listened, kept watch in an attitude similar to Buttercup's. If it understood, it gave no real sign.

Buttercup said to Solomon, "I see he comes from the Crazy Place School of Oration."


Sol:
The point where The Red comes from stuck in his mind, the line it drew fading slightly as Buttercup spoke to him. He looked her way, gave a minute nod and then asked Me'kei, "How many are there of each side? As you can see, we aren't even big enough to be considered a strike team."


Mi’Kei:
"Hard To say... I don't have that kind of knowledge. Everything I know came from the priest in opposition to Ormsa. The one who's leading all of this and unleashed the Exhalation... The Red dust."


Sol:
Buttercup had her eyes on the hooded figure so Sol put his focus on Me'kei and kept it there, "But you know there is more of one side than the other. This priest who told you what you know, where is he? Is Nen with him?"



Mi’Kei:
"Yes. He is tending to Nen." He gestured with a chin at the speaker-priest. "He took Nen to speak with Vwedja... To speak as an ambassador... I came instead because Nen was sort of bad off... And because I know more than most... So, we will wait for Breis to wake. And then I will tell all."


Sol:
"While we wait," Sol hadn't moved from where he'd backed to, but the spear in his left hand was taking his weight, "You can tell us about Ormsa."


Mi’Kei:
He waited the full 10 minutes... And in the meantime, he checked over the supplies they might've had... He listed off the people he knew had survived-- those down below, through the Red, through the Dreaming. Those down below.. When Breis finally woke, he was sitting beside him and he pulled down the scarf long enough to reveal who he was. "Welcome back, Vod."


Sol:
Those full ten minutes were filled with Mi’kei explaining a little about Ormsa, who he was and a little about his significance to Mandalore's current situation. There were more questions, but they'd have to wait. Solomon needed water, and emptied a bottle in little sips and swallows as he watched Mi’kei tend to Breis, listening to what Vado had to say while they waited. The churning of his stomach had quieted, and he was no longer feeling -quite- so ill. Still, light sips were taken to ensure the rolling wouldn't start back up again.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Breis Teimar's ten minutes passed, but he stirred away groggily at twelve. The first words he actually made out were "Welcome back, vod," and the voice was so familiar that he shoved himself up faster than he should have and was left dizzy but staring at Mi'kei Vado. In the next second, he'd embraced the man in stunned recognition.

Over his shoulder he spied the invader and cried, "Down!"


Mi’Kei:
"It's okay," he told Breis. "Calm... And we need to talk... There's answers to questions to be had, if you'll listen."


Sol:
Solomon was reaching for another bottle of water the moment Breis was stirring. He waited until after Breis had shot up, and Mi'kei started talking to offer it over with a nudge to Teimar's arm, "Al'verde, water."
'Commander', the word had been just as broken as any other Mando'a he had spoken before but not for lack of fluency.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
The invader shifted his weight back and his cloak swept aside with the graceful swing of one powerfully muscled arm. The hand there was empty, but the fingers tipped with dark claws. Otherwise, the tall creature did nothing in response to the sudden lopsided tussle between Mi'kei and Breis.

In much worse condition, Breis Teimar was the one who finally gave way, and he did so in time for Buttercup to be heard hissing at them: "We really letting this guy touch Breis? We are? Oh, okay."


Sol:
"If you want to arm wrestle him," Sol answered Buttercup, looking her way with the bottle still held out toward Breis and Mi'kei, "Go right ahead. I'd like to keep mine functioning."


Mi’Kei:
Mi'kei gave Solomon and Buttercup an amused look when Breis began to calm down... "Easy, Vod," he said reassuringly. "Drink. Be at peace. You are safe."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
"Safe?!" Breis did take the water, because his head was killing him, because he felt like his muscles were layers of hot wires criss-crossing each other, and because shadowing him was a frightening sense of deja vu; he'd woken from wherever he'd just been before. He had a sense of others, out there, unreachable. Friends, family; blood and brother.


Sol:
Solomon's reaction to the word were very similar to Breis'. He shook his head slightly and said to Mi'kei, "You came here to us talking of a battle to come and now use the word 'safe'? With everything happening on this world there is -no- 'safe'."


Mi’Kei:
"For -now-," he hissed at Solomon. He turned back to Breis. "Let me start from the beginning... We are safe for -now-, but soon enough there -will- be conflict and there are things I need to tell you... So all of you shut up and let me talk if you're so damn worried."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
"Get talking," Breis told him. He knew Mi'kei. Respected Mi'kei. Didn't care about the 'shut up,' because it was just Mi'kei, but cared very much that the invader in the cloak was right there. "But before you 'start at the beginning,' you give me your word that that fucker didn't wipe out our camp and all the warriors in it."


Mi’Kei:
"He and his people woke me and the others down below. There are agreements in place. There are two factions to the same species. One is attacking us. The other is not really trying to defend us, but is trying to stop them."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
"Your word, Mi'kei," Breis insisted. "Then tell what you know."


Mi’Kei:
"I give you my word, Breis," he said calmly. He sighed softly.

"So... This starts... I -think- millenia ago... There's this giant creature they worship known as the Ngna. Ngna is a living, breathing thing... Ages ago, the Liau-- that's what they call themselves-- came to worship Ngna. Long ago, to my understanding, Mandalore was -theirs-. Their names were our names. Many changes, but their species left to live with Ngna and serve it. They suffered for it. Almost grew extinct. Then flourished again... But they were angry that they'd lost that part of their warrior heritage. Eventually, the Liau split apart. Now there's the Liautaung and the Shotaung. Ormsa and his attacking force is the Shaotang. My friend here is of the Liautang... Ormsa forced Ngna to come here. Ngna does a thing called the Exhalation that causes the Red dust... It gives a kind of teleporting ability... The Dreaming works as a kind of... I don't know how to explain it... But it's a tunnel that connects two places at once. That is how they move around and come and go so fast-- they can use the Dreaming to their advantage -at will-...this thing, Ngna, has seven 'mouths'. Each one serves a different purpose... One opened to release the red dust, to release the Dreaming. This was done by the Shotaung... Another was released to create the suspension and floating that the Dreamers are doing. That was done by the Liautaung... Because it keeps the Shaotang from taking as many people to the side, to their place... So. The deal made was this: they woke us up so we could defend them against the Shaotang... To help them get rid of the Red dust and nullify the Dreaming. We have to defend them and Ormsa is the enemy.'


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
The invader simply watched them all, unable to tell what was being said.
Breis Teimar listened through all of that, but was lost almost immediately and took to watching the cloaked invader.

Buttercup wound up squinting and doing a lot of blinking.

Finally Breis cleared his throat. The water had helped, but he felt wrung out. Hungover. It wore down what little shreds of patience he had left. "I don't care about anything except how we stop this or get out of here. How we get ourselves out of here."


Sol:
He had listened, and followed a good portion of that. What he was left with in the end was this: "How do they expect us to help them when we are so easily overcome by this red stuff released by Ng -- Ng-na? You said their numbers were low -- how far, exactly, do they expect to rely on us for their defense when the Sho --" he had to stop there and give up mimicking the alien names, "other guys can use this stuff at their whim?"


Mi’Kei:
"I don't know," he said honestly. "They need defenders. They need help... And helping them helps us."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guys:
"How? What do we get? No more dust, this ends?" Breis bristled with doubt.


Sol:
Solomon was watching Mi'kei, his own doubts spoken by Breis. He shifted in the end, looking toward where the hooded big guy stood out just at the brink of darkness. "Al'verde, I'm going to ask him," he said motioning toward their other visitor.


Mi’Kei:
"I don't have all the answers... But I want you to come meet Vwedja." To Solomon, he said, "He doesn't communicate nearly as clearly as the head priest."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Breis didn't do more than glance at Solomon, giving neither approval or disapproval. His stare at Mi'kei was hard. "Say we follow you, meet this--Vwedja? Priest--and decide we do not wish to fight his battle for him? What then, Mi'kei? What convinced you?"


Sol:
Taking the glance and silence, Sol stayed put just to hear what Mi'kei would say to that.


Mi’Kei:
"Then you can come back and I will stay and fight," he said calmly. "This is not something you can talk me out of... They woke us when they didn't have to. They used their resources to do so... And they asked us to protect them. It a certain amount of obligation and a certain amount of hope... They know they are incapable of fighting them off. They are relying on us to uphold honor... And it's the only way we're going to stop the Red dust and the suspension. They know the most about it. They know how to get there."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Millennia ago... giant creature... extinction... split... Exhalation and red dust... teleport... mouths…

It was such a vomit pile of a story that it lost all persuasion for Breis Teimar. He was tired. He knew on either side of him were Tavv and Catia, that Solomon was hurt, that Azair was hurt, that everyone was hurt.

"We have help coming," he tried. "The Hapans. Tekal, here, thinks he got a signal out."
Breis grit his teeth. "He got the correct confirmation back, didn't you, Tekal."


Sol:
For Solomon that wasn't a very good answer. He could sense a lot more 'I don't know's in what Mi'kei was telling them in response to questions that Solomon was coming up with, and a persistent theme in that. He went from studying Mi'kei to looking at Breis, "We got what we needed," he answered, forcing volume meant his voice cracked.


Mi’Kei:
"Great," Mi'kei said, standing up. "You get on that... Leave your weapons if you get out. Or send some back."

He paused, looking at everyone around them. "Anyone know the name Vorran?"


Liv:
Liv had remained silent during the exchange. It was a lot to take in. Ngna, Liau, Sho, Ormsa.. it was a lot to take in. Seven heads. Dream teleporting. It was a lot to take in. Absentmindedly, as the Corellian was churning over the information in her mind--and shared with Azair--she casually reached up to touch her left earlobe and checked for blood.. or brain matter leakage, because surely her head had exploded by then. It was a lot--

"You're verifying this is an attack, which the Hapans had been fearing. They won't simply extract; they're going to want to fight. Especially if it's possible this.. Ngna could strike another planet, namely Hapes."


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
When Mi'kei seemed to dismiss all of them, their caution and their questions, Breis' eyes narrowed on him. "What's happened to you, brother?" he whispered, watchful as if the answer might appear on Mi'kei Vado's face.

It was softly asked, and thus got crushed beneath everything that came after. The name Vorran--"Why?" Breis had heard it from Azair and Renda.

Azair knew it directly; he'd walked with Vorran early on when the Red had come, alongside Renda and the man's little daughter, before they'd gotten separated.

Then the Hapans. Of course they'd fight. Attention shifted to Liv, and Breis said, "Aye to that, Captain."


Mi’Kei:
"He was the one brokered the, deal with the Liautaung to fight for them. He told them we'd help."

He looked around the group. He seemed to deflate a little... "I'm sorry I just dumped this bomb on you... And I don't fully understand what you've been through... But I understand they need help and I have them my word... This thing is so much bigger than we can imagine."


Sol:
"I can imagine some very big things," Sol muttered, which wasn't really a mutter. With his voice as raw as it was, those words were going to be barely even audible, and less than the volume of a whisper before he was moving away from Breis and Mi'kei, taking himself toward Buttercup, the hooded figure, and the darkness beyond. The word of a Mandal. He wasn't going to say it out loud, but he knew exactly what that was worth and there were two variances to that. He had to wonder which was in play with Mi'kei and this Vorran he was speaking about.


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guy:
Like Solomon, Buttercup Rula had no ingrained respect for the honor of Mandalorians. She turned a little as Solomon approached from behind her, stepping wider to make theirs a wide triangle with the invader as the third point. It was hard to pinpoint where those big dark eyes were focused, but after a moment the sharp-featured head squared more to Sol.

It made the same beckoning gesture it had not long ago, when Nen had first vanished. Not long ago? Bare minutes.

Breis dragged in one foot, then another, eyeing Mi'kei as if he might suddenly rip his own face off to reveal a different one beneath. Slowly, stiffly, the Mandal got to his own feet. "I have injured. We need pods. You give those over, and you tell me where all the people who were here--up above us--are now, and whether they're dead or alive, and that is a saner appetizer than what you just expected me to swallow."


Mi’Kei:
"That's what I brought the pods for," he said. "To help you... And to also show that they mean us no harm. If they were enemies, why would they help us?" he said. He offered the bag of pods to Breis. "I'll tell you of all the ones I know are alive.. Which is a short list... Until a few hours ago, I've been Dreaming since the beginning... Nen and the ones who were woken up with me." He proceeded to list off those names.


Sol:
Why would they help if they meant no harm? Solomon had been ready to step forward toward the hooded figure, having given Rula a small nod of thanks as room was made for him. That question asked by Mi'kei caught in his ears, stalling the step he was about to take. He found himself looking Liv's way. They both knew the answer to that question. The look didn't last long, and was not venomous. She had been taken in just as much as he had, helped and torn to shreds just as much as him. "Why, indeed." Rula would hear from him as he finished taking that step and the several more it would take him to cross the small distance toward Mi'kei's cloaked friend.


Mi’Kei:
"No," Mi'kei said to Solomon. "If you hurt him, we have no way back to our Vod below."


Big Guy:
Mi'kei's cloaked friend reached up and then very slowly and pointedly touched its own forehead, thumb to its third eye. It held it there a moment, and then reached out toward Solomon's own head. It did not take a step toward him, but if he hesitated, it would repeat the gesture, clutching its own head.

The curving black claws made it hard for any gesture by the invaders' hands to be free of threat.
Breis took the bag and peered inside. At once, he saw-- "Three lobes. The pods. These are like the different ones." He stretched the mouth of the bag so that Liv could see, since she'd seen the remains of the ones near the vanished dreamers.


Sol:
Mi'kei's 'no' did not go ignored. He stopped just a few steps between Buttercup and the hooded figure. He turned, using the spear as a balance point, not because he needed to but because he had carried it with him, and had been using it as he walked. It was to Buttercup he looked, unable to get his voice any louder than what it was just at that moment, "I said I wouldn’t," he told her as solidly as his voice would allow, the sound of it likely not being carried back to where Bries, Liv and Mi'kei were simply due to volume and distance. He wasn't trying to shout just then. He was then turning back around, using the spear to lean against, and closing the distance between himself and the big guy. Within a foot he paused, wiping his forehead with the back of his gloved hand by hooking his arm around the spear to do so, trying to clear some skin for the contact. He didn't know what this was, what it would do to him, or what the big guy would get from him in this, but information was bigger and more important than personal caution. That the big guy hadn't done -anything- but stand there helped him feel more comfortable in this decision.


Big Guy:
The hand was out. In all the red dust, it was the claws that somehow had a gleam, their edges reflecting the ruddied light of distant glow sticks. The muscles of the hand were blocky and outsized, clearly made to help cinch a powerful grip and dig those weapons deep into flesh. The invader's attention turned briefly to the spear. It cocked its head a little, and then it renewed its gesture and as soon as it was possible to do so it latched that hand onto Solomon's forehead and around the left side of his head so that the pad of its thumb pressed to its third eye in exact mirroring of what it had done to itself.

There was hesitation. The size of the being's hand, the dark claws that tipped the fingers of that hand, and the power that had to be coiled in those muscles. The worry should not have been if Solomon was going to hurt this creature but if this creature was going to hurt him instead. It could so very easily cut into Solomon's softer flesh, could so quickly and deftly render muscle and tissue, cut through veins and arteries. So very quickly with one squeeze could this being very likely crush his skull! All if it had the mind to do so. But it hadn't attacked yet. Even with him being steps away, it hadn't attacked. Even out in the darkness when it had been just him and Buttercup it hadn't attacked. If this was a rouse of some sort, it hadn't attacked. It was likely it wasn't going to. Whatever its reasons for not doing so were, it hadn't attacked. He and the spear came closer as beckoned, and in just the first split second when that large hand closed around his head, Solomon felt his heart stop. And then it started again. He held onto the spear, leaning his weight to it as little as he could while standing there with the big guy, the creature's thumb pressed against Sol's third eye.


The heat of a big dirty clawed alien hand pressed to Solomon's forehead, solid and gritty, and the grip tightened, driving the thumb hard to the bone of his forehead right there, between the eyes.


The pressure came, turned into a spear, drove deeper, and as it pressed right into Solomon's head and into his mind and into the heart of him he himself was spraying forward toward the invader in an atomized mist of himself moving fast and spreading out into a darkness, no longer a creature of body but now a general idea of himself.

The life that was everywhere out there and nowhere at all was just that same stuff, not quite in any position but occupying most of them in a halfway state. What did that even mean? Was there even time to proc--

Here a series of chambers crowded to capacity in the dim dark by Mando'ade of many species.

Here, in those chambers, a few cloaked ones--Liau--like the speaker-priest who sped along formlessly with Solomon.

Here, a mishmash of time all out of order that was as much ideas of events as actual experiences of rooms and bodies and personalities. They included nearly nothing that came through clearly. More hints of language, and emotion that rose in many hearts, creating a general soup of rage and righteousness and desperation. All this very vague, very weak, a weather-beaten mural rather than a true window to understanding.

The sharpest figure yet came into what a visual creature such as Solomon might understand as "view," but the clarity had nothing to do with the eyes.

Without an outline, Vwedja was there, distinct and aware of Solomon and the invader who came with him.

In a flash, Vwedja was known to be Liau/invader/messenger/high priest/brother of Ormsa/doubtful of The Bargain/certain of death/desperate for aid/fearful of the Body/protective of the Body/confused/frightened/by far the most powerful of the Liau, yet nothing compared to the Body the Body the Body the Body the Body the Body--

THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY
THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY THE BODY
From the outside, of course... Solomon stood there with a bigger humanoid hand on his head, and the wind blew gusts of red dust across both of them.


Mi’Kei:
Mi'kei knew what that feeling was like... It could be a little disorienting... And he closed the distance to Solomon. he stood behind him, not touching him, but hands outstretched to steady or catch him if needed... He'd only had it done with Vwedja, but even that had been a little disorienting... Gods only knew what it was like with a lesser priest. not lesser, but less adept? He didn't know... But he was ready to help if Solomon should falter a little.


Sol:
It was the oddest of sensations, but with not even time to process just what was happening, he found himself aware of so very -very- much. It was all perception, basic awareness blown to the n'th degree! Faces and forms where there, but not. Beings all of them, with their life's essence spread and yet kept so close. There were so many, too many to single any one of them out for himself, too many for recognition to be a thing. It was only familiar because of how many there were. It was like everything was overlaying everything else, but there was no -possible- way to tell the difference where the lines were drawn. There was no black and white in this perception. It was a sort of raging storm all on its own with how everything swirled together, truly undefinable. And then, out of that was a sense of something singular. This being -- this was Vwedja. He knew it instantly, and with that recognition came the instant understanding of what Vwedja was. But the Body. What was The Body?


Hapans/Mandals/Big Guys:
Safe to say: Breis Teimar, veteran commander and clan leader, hated all of this. Keeping an eye on Mi'kei and--past him--Solomon, their only tech, and the invader, he stole a moment to try to give Tavv'ari a pod. Catia... Behind him, the Hapan still had not stirred. Breis felt awful, but if Catia ever did wake he suspected she'd feel worse.

Liv would feel the sleepy curl of curiosity from Jujanaj Azair, who was not awake, but something was happening that could reach inside the sleeping.

First Vwedja snapped into perfect clarity, a huge muscular Liau with a cloak and a mask carved out of a wakek skull. Next Solomon slammed back together into a singularity of himself, hanging in a psychic space of filled with red and life. Then a place snapped into sudden reality around them, and it was not quite a place, but the mind would use that to frame it. It was somewhere Solomon had been before. Deja vu would wind around him thick like the red dust clouds themselves.

Vwedja stood opposite him on hard-packed pale desert with horizons all obscured and the space hemmed in by sky-tall vermilion thunderheads that blotted out everything but a bright light source above that could have been a star in reality but here was just the idea of illumination. It rayed down at them so sharply that their shadows were black and crisp beneath them.

All was as Sol would remember it from when he'd Dreamed. Sand, sense of others--out there, somewhere.

Just one difference:

Words, scratched in the hard surface of the desert nearby, by the Liau. Made by someone's spear or knife, they were scritched so finely.

FIND THE MOUTHS IN THE CRATER

ORMSA IS THE ENEMY

YOU ARE NOT ON MANDALORE
When Vwedja looked down and saw them, he moved over to rub them out with his foot.
Dangerous. The word came from Vwedja without a language anchoring it.


Sol:
The sudden bodily appearance of Vwedja produced an equally bodily reaction from Sol. There was startlement, a quick response to defend the snap coalescing of Vwedja's visual form. The danger didn't come from the big alien, though. It came from the desert that was suddenly around them. He knew the place, it was where he had gone when he'd been dreaming. He remembered not liking it there when he'd seen it the first time, and now he was sure his dislike for the place was real. That he could feel others so close but not see them, that the sky overhead looked like demons scrambling over themselves to be the one at the front -- there was nothing here to like. He didn't see the words until Vwedja started to erase them. Solomon's instinct was to try and stop the bigger being, to get in the way in order to see what remained before it was gone. Why? Why was it dangerous?


Big Guy:
The mask was partially pushed up on Vwedja's head, and the shadow beneath it was so dark that when he turned his head to focus on Solomon only the gleam of light in his dark eyes could be made out.

Something big crowded in at Vwedja's back. Nothing visible appeared, but something towered over the big invader and then consumed the idea of the rest of the space as well until even though the desert was the desert, and the light the light, something fundamental had changed.

Vwedja opened his mouth and said, "I can't help if you crush me."

In chorus with his low, half-whispered, very-present hiss of the words in Basic were dozens of other voices.

"I can't help if you crush me!" cried Ava Azalee.

"I cannnnnnn'tgggnnn help if you crussssssssh me...." growled Sadhric Tlin.

"I can't help if you crush me...." hissed a little girl named Lim.

"I can't help if you crush me," came the overlapping, mostly synced-up voices of Mandalorians of multiple species, from everywhere, in a rising reverberating volume.

The words only came once, simultaneously, just that one time, as if Vwedja had a hundred throats and mouths.

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

The idea smashed right into Solomon Tekal and embedded itself in every level of his consciousness. It would be on his own lips--simultaneous with the others, as if effect was cause--and it would be in his dreams, and the concept would be what he ate and breathed and sweated out for the rest of his life.
I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

Solomon was inside the idea, like a gem it hid in its cheek.

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

Thoughts of Trinity, Zachory, Ureala his daughter, Ureala his sister, Darien, his mother, Jeryndi, Medren, Ava, Sadhric, Camille, Caedmon, Celestia Vikas, Maltez, Zaal, Liv, Eva Grey, Jaysten, Tavean, Nikolaus, Jonas, Eve, Skylar, Zim, Ker'dan, Kel'dan, his father--everyone he'd ever met--everyone he thought he might ever meet--every place he'd ever been--everything he'd ever be--turned, twisted, and inverted to be seen through the lens of

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

He'd be on his knees in the desert.

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

... balled up, on the ground, thrashing...

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CRUSH ME

I CAN'T HELP IF YOU CR--

Silence. It was all gone. All of it. As sudden as it had come.

Solomon would be on the desert floor, faint scuffs marring the hard-packed sand now where he'd dug in his heels or clawed at the ground.

Vwedja kicked out the last hints of the words scratched into the dirt there.

Dangerous, he explained.
With the sudden end of the reverberation, the overwhelming presence that had filled up the air all around and through them seemed to go to tatters and withdraw.
Like a glimpse of graffiti scrawled on the hull of a passing freighter, the words would come to Olivia Black.

I can't help if you crush me.

Just there, out of nowhere, connected to nothing, while she and Azair were out there with their backs to the inadequate shelter of the little rocky rise.
For Liv, the voice might have come with a familiar edge. It was Ava Azalee's, as if the sister of Eve were right there, leaning in behind her, whispering in her ear a complete non sequitur.


Mi’Kei:
Mi'kei's hands moved a little closer to Sol when he heard that voice... It came in his own voice. He closed his eyes and gently touched the backs of Sol's shoulders. Almost as if it were for himself more than Solomon... He heard it. That whisper. That voice... It was not the first time he'd heard those words. But beyond that initial reaction to it, he didn't show any outward sign that he'd heard it.


Sol:
It hit like a hover train, fast and with no mercy, sparing nothing as it enclosed about him. All the voices, those he knew he picked out like they had actually been there. They were so close in the showering if shouts, but not at his fingertips. There, and not. All of them, every life in the galaxy. Every place, every -thing-. Nothing was excluded. When he'd collapsed, he hit the packed dirt hard, hands to his head. His own voice was in there, rumbling from within his chest to join the others. I can't help if you crush me. It was everything! There was so much to contain, too much for him to handle. But it wasn't him containing it. It was it containing him. The voices were so vast, the weight if how it felt was never ending. There was only one thing in his life he knew to be so....encompassing. from the living to the dead, from place to place, and thing to thing -- there was just -one- thing that connected them all. There was too much of it for him to think like that. All he knew was what the voices shouted, and what he shouted with them. I can't help if you crush me. The lancing of those words through his head was matched by the lancing of it through his heart. Bent over, grasping at the dirt, digging his fingertips in, pushing his boots down as hard as he could as if that would help ease the cacophony. And then it was over. The pressure, that weight of a galaxy, was gone. His hands were red from fighting with the desert floor, his boots covered in dust from his frantic struggle. But he was breathing, and things were quiet. There was no effort from him to stop Vwedja. The last shreds of it were gone, fallen away. He was left with just the impression they had made, an echo of the pressure that had been felt, and a human mind that wanted to understand it all. There were several things he could grasp at, but the concepts were not quite with him yet. The one that was, was Ormsa. "How do we stop this?" He felt like he was weeping, but the tears were dry, lost into wake of 'I can't help if you crush me.'

Physically Solomon was unmoved. The weight of him was against the spear held in his left hand. His right arm hung at his side. His blue eyes were dead, unseeing and staring up toward the priest who had his thumb pressed against Sol's forehead.


Vwedja:
Bargain, Vwedja replied, standing tall and watchful like an eagle or a panther, curious without remorse. Echoing still in the wake of the demonstration were the intertwined concepts of this place being Dangerous and those words in the dirt having been True. They had not been deemed dangerous because they were lies, but because they were words.

Vwedja's answers continued to be strong but without language. If language came attached, it was Solomon right then, his mind, that did the attaching.

Defend the Mouths. Free the Mouths. Reach the Lowermost.

Without an image as a guide, there was nonetheless a sense of these formations in relation to each other, and a sense of all of them being both below Solomon's physical feet and far, far away, perhaps even across the gulf of deep space that he'd sensed a moment before. But in relation to each other, even with a sense of great distance, they came stacked. There were Mouths nearer to Solomon, and Mouths below those somewhere, and more yet below that.

Go with Turumsa and his softskin.


Sol:
"Why do you need us" He was starting to rise within his mind. That form of himself rising from the desert floor, covered in just the barest hints that he'd been reduced to his knees. The words. They were dangerous and true. And there was more coming from Vwedja. He could feel so far below him, so close at hand and stretched to great distances -- there were many and all seemed to fall on top of others, and more still. "To defend the mouths? To free them? Who are we to bargain with -- with what are we to bargain?"


Vwedja:
Vwedja, like the other priest--Turumsa--didn't move much. Solomon rose, and he didn't even twitch. The big, dark eyes just observed.

Two distinct clusters of reply came, separated by a sense of time.

You are payment for bargain/Don't need you seemed to come with a sense of the past, of being true in the past.

Attacked/Need numbers/Need defense came with a sense of a present, of being true in some version of Now.


Sol:
"You didn't then," he took away from that, for whenever 'then' had been, "But you do now. You've been weakened. How many of you are left?"


Vwedja:
Go with Turumsa and his softskin. Come to me.

COME TO ME

COME TO ME


Sol:
"In a bit. How are we supposed to fight when the Exhalation robs us of strength? Tell me how we are supposed to help you."


Vwedja:
In a bit--

Solomon had felt it before. He'd been on the receiving end of so many cut comms that it had to be practically expected.

He was expelled the moment he began to reply.

He'd jerk back into his body, with a big clawed thumb over his third eye, and the owner of the thumb regarding him expressionlessly with a cocked head.


Sol:
Back in his body, he slumped against the spear he'd been using as a staff, his right hand moved to help stabilize him but missed the shaft of the spear and caused his balance to shift too far. The expectation that his own body would catch itself was an extension of just how whole he'd felt moments prior. Balance off-set, he had to let the spear go as he fell toward Turumsa in favor of catching himself with his left hand. He wasn't seeing yet, but his body was his own. His eyes felt like they were open, but it was taking longer for them to focus than it had for physical sensation to return.


Turumsa:
Solomon began to crumple.

The big hand on his head tightened, iron-hard, and the tips of long curving claws made dimples along Solomon's scalp and behind his ear.. Even with the awkward angle of the hold, the hand had purchase. Solomon fell nowhere.

He wasn't left to dangle like that. Turumsa caught him under his right armpit to hold him up.

The move made Buttercup tense and move forward with the clear intention of grabbing Solomon herself.


Sol:
There was pressure to his head, but it lasted only a second, shifting to under his right arm instead. His shoulder moved, and something was beneath it. He blinked, closed his eyes tightly and then blinked again. There was a large dark wall in front of him that was moving, "Tur-- um -- sa." That hadn't changed. It still hurt like a bitch to talk.


Turumsa/Buttercup::
"Ayimpa," Turumsa said with a low purr that might have been intended as comforting.

Eyes on Turumsa the whole time, Buttercup came up on Sol's left side to help him out--and back from the invader.

Behind them, back a distance, Breis still waited for any sign that Tavv'ari would stir, but more often than not he eyed Mi'kei and he eyed what he could see of Solomon's back.


Sol:
When Buttercup came up on his left and moved to take his weight, Sol leaned toward her. There was not much lift from his legs just then. Everything from his hips to his knees and ankles felt like jelly. There wasn't much to see in the darkness past Turumsa, but his head still felt the expanse as he had when the large alien had first touched him. There and full, yet dark and empty. The familiar shape of Rula's armor filled the corner of his vision as she started to back him away from Mi'kei's friend. What was supposed to be a thank you to both Rula and Turumsa came out the half-formed syllables of someone who might have been sleep walking.



Buttercup:
Buttercup gave him a little shake as she said, "Hey. Hey! Lefty. You okay? What did he do?"


Sol:
The shake gave him something to focus on other than general movement. Speaking, as well, gave him something else to focus on. The more he had, the more he had. "I'm alright," he promised, that sounding more like words than gibberish. It took concentration to get there, "He took me to meet Vw-- Vwedja. I'll be alright. Just need to sit for a while."


Hapans/Mandals/Turumsa:

Tavv moved her arm, and Breis was instantly bent over her, peering at her face. "Tavv? Tavv!" He spoke to her in quiet, urgent Mando'a until her eyes came open and she groaned something. She was the most injured of all of them save for Catia.

Buttercup staggered a little, moving a quick foot to keep her balance when a rock hidden under the dust skidded under her boot. She took Solomon's words to mean not just sit anywhere, but sit back by Breis and the others, even if the defensible difference was entirely absent.

Turumsa was gesturing after them, impatient and growing moreso.


Sol:
The pull on him that came with Buttercup's stagger resulted in his left hand closing around Buttercup's arm, and some shared sense of balance went in to keeping her from stumbling as the rock caught underfoot. The closer they got to the dim light of the glow rods the better he was seeing. Turumsa's gesturing was seen, a flourish at the edge of darkness, caught just in the lowest levels of what his vision was giving him just then, "This needs to happen fast," he told Buttercup. Likely faster than he'd be able to convey what he'd come away with. Turning to catch more of Rula and the rest of the camp, Sol caught Mi'kei's dark shadow hovering not too far behind them.


Teimar:
Breis Teimar's question was a single word: "Well?"


Sol:
"They were attacked," Sol offered to Breis as they came into earshot, "I didn't get how many of them are left, Vw-- edja didn't tell me. But that's why they need us. They need defense, and numbers both of which they don't have. He also told me that to end this, we need to bargain. We need to reach the lower most mouth. All others need to be defended and freed. There was a kind of split sense to it -- like before we were payment for the bargain, but not now. Now they need our help. I saw the words 'Find the mouths in the crater', 'Ormsa is the enemy', and 'you are not on Mandalore' written in the dirt of the Dreamer's Desert. He said they were dangerous, and scrubbed them out with his foot. They were dangerous because they were words."
"How is she?" He asked after all of that, meaning Tavv'ari.


Hapans/Mandals:
No enlightenment suddenly lit up the face of the Mandalorian, and the divergence to the topic of Tavv was welcome despite the situation. "She's--"

"--feeling like she got on the wrong side of the Death Star," Tavv'ari croaked, eyes open and on Solomon even while she lay back.


Sol:
"Well," he offered a small smile her way as she called his attention away from Breis, "If the Death Star can't take you down, nothing will." He was looking back to Breis a moment later, "You should go and meet this priest. He might be more forthcoming with details face to face. Leave Tavv'ari, and Catia with me. I'll wait for the Hapans and get them the medical they need."


Hapans/Mandals:
Breis had to look to Mi'kei at that. He was trying to make a plan, to understand the best course, the one that fulfilled his obligations to the utmost. "What kind of medical supplies do you have... wherever you say you woke up? I've got injured, and I need to know right now if they're better off waiting for the Hapans or going with you."


Mi’Kei:
"What we have is sparse at best... Like I said. We were literally woken from the Dreaming a few hours ago... We've regrouped as best we can, gathered weapons and supplies, but truth be told, we don't have much of anything."


Sol:
While Breis got that confirmation, Solomon found a place to sit with Buttercup's help. By then, it was more for unsure balance that he accepted the Hapans help than it was for anything else. His jelly legs were solidifying, as was everything else about feeling the world through his body but jelly was jelly and he didn't trust it to get him from standing to sitting without help.


Hapans/Mandals:
Breis watched Solomon sit, and measured it all out. "Someone fit needs to stay with the three of you, if you stay. Or you'll be as good as dead if the enemy comes back."

That he referred to the invaders as the enemy did not imply that he had accepted the notion that the one called Turumsa represented allies.


Sol:
"I'm going to vote for Buttercup," he told Breis after a moment of thought. "If things go south for you with them, you might need Liv's ...particular set of skills... to help get you out of a pinch."


Mi’Kei:
"I will stay," Mi'kei offered. "If that is acceptable.". He looked towards Solomon. "It's a lot to take in... And you might've gotten more than me... But you understand the urgency now? The need?" he asked softly.


Sol:
"No," Solomon answered Mi'kei, "You go with Breis. We'll be alright here. And no, I don't understand it any more now than I had before."


Mi’Kei:
Mi'kei shrugged... And turned to look at Breis. "We need to go soon, then... Time is not on our side," he said. It had a grim undertone to it.


Hapans/Mandals:
Buttercup didn't mind being requested, but her instinct and training where to look to her Captain, and stay with her Captain, and to follow the directions of her Captain. This was made weird by the addition to her Captain of an alien plant. Nonetheless, she was Hapan military, and not at the general disposal of just anyone who needed a hand. Fortunately, Solomon was their only link to the platform, and it seemed reasonable for the fit grunt to sit with him while he waited.

Tavv said, "That flat-faced fucker! I hate being baggage."

Breis shot her a hard look. "Body guard," he told her. "'Lefty' needs two. Catia needs two."

It was a kind of mercy.


Sol:
Solomon did not protest the needing of a body guard at all. He understood the sense of mercy behind the designation. Mandals, as much as anyone else in the galaxy, could be proud. Their rivals in that were Corellians, among others. He just nodded his agreement to it, and looked toward Catia, "I'd appreciate the help," he stated, looking back toward Tavv'ari, "Please don't object."


Hapans/Mandals:
Tavv shook her head, but the agreement was a mute one.

It had been over a week since Breis Teimar had lived in a universe where he didn't seem to be racing against one clock or another. That remained true, and he couldn't get jaded to it, but he wanted a nod from Captain Black, or a nod from Azair, because there was no one else among them who could derail the idea like she could with a word. A simple No to Buttercup staying meant that Buttercup would not stay.