Post by Bobbi on May 21, 2019 14:26:36 GMT -5
Rula:
An hour later, the numbers at Tal-Kebii'tra had diminished yet again.
Breis and Liv/Azair had gone with Mi'kei.
With the day so jumbled, it was not easy to gauge time any longer. Night was different than day, still, but what was lost were those softer in-between times, the false dawns and the twilights. The Red, the Cloak, simply devoured those.
Catia did not stir, but she breathed. Tavv'ari grunted and tried to stay awake. Buttercup kept nervous watch, but Mi'kei's pods had been the real deal, and they helped. She'd tried to find them a good position where they couldn't be easily overrun if the enemy returned. That was laughable, but she'd been in a lot of situations where standard procedure had felt ridiculous and moot, and this was just one more. You followed it because you had to do something, so why not?
Sol:
It was in times like these that Solomon missed his chronometer. He missed the ticking away of seconds that could be counted, and the reliability of assurance that at the end of the count down plans would fall into place. Here, it was guesswork and more guesswork on top of more guesswork. They were oriented in the little bubble of space they occupied on the planet because it had become familiar, it was known to them because they'd spent time there. Anything beyond that little bubble was a vicious beast waiting to pounce should they wander away too far from the familiar. He had done what he could to help get Tavv'ari and Catia settled, and was doing what he could still to help Buttercup keep an eye open for the big guys, watching a close horizon of red clinging dust and feeling the settling of his bones. His senses were outstretched, laying over the still muted land that surrounded them. He, like Tavv'ari was struggling to stay awake. The long night was drawing even longer, and with the oppressive state of their situation it was becoming harder to not be swallowed by the darker side of 'what if's. And that was a lengthy list. The best thing he could do was keep his senses open, try to ignore the nagging idea that those they'd been separated from would never be seen or heard from again, and just focus on what was at hand. After some time spent resting, Solomon got himself up and shook off the red that had settled into the creases of his suit. His masked hood had been pulled back up over his face between when they'd split off and now, but it helped very little to cut down the amount of red he was breathing in. He moved to kneel down by Catia for no other reason than to check her vitals. This was not because he expected any change to her status, but just to have something to do that was movement. It was something to keep him awake, "I've got some ideas," He said then, after straightening and being careful about how he moved the Hapan tech. If he had been a healer, he might have been able to help her further than just checking for a pulse. That little bit of regret he kept to himself. "On trying for another signal."
Rula:
Not far away, but standing, weapon in hand, Buttercup turned her body but not her head to show that she was listening.
Sol:
"Gonna need a length of wire long enough to reach from way up there to way down here, or several spliced together. It's going to need to be able to carry the charge and communication line. Something like that could be scavenged from one of the ships out there. Still working on how to get what we need without paring down further, we can't risk that."
Rula:
Buttercup finally looked at him. Through her helmet, her disbelief was on display like a flashing neon ad in Coruscant's underbelly.
Sol:
Rula's face was shaded by the helmet she wore, but the disbelief settled clearly in the woman's shoulders, all the way down through the majority of her stance. "What?"
Rula:
It took a moment of breathing for Buttercup to be able to trust her voice to be steady. "We just sent the Captain and Teimar--our only other able-bodied people--off to... wherever the fuck... while we are here, awaiting contact in a hostile, unsecured area, and you... want to go back... to the Graveyard... where we just got finished losing people and getting our asses kicked?"
Sol:
"It's not the best option, even if it is the most logical one," He admitted, "I'm still working on the idea, but if we can get enough to connect up there to down here somehow our wait could be made a little bit less.... blind. Breis said that the speeder was scraped. I haven't been to look at what's left behind just yet, but I doubt there's enough in there to get what I need from it."
Rula:
"You're delusional," Buttercup announced with an exhausted, wrung-out sandpaper-scoured laugh. "Your last signal was the signal. You really think we're going to forage up more usable wire and have time to put it all together so you can connect it up there? Really? Really?"
Sol:
"No, but it's something," The dryness of his voice robbed it of the punch he had tried to put into saying 'something', bleeding the sound of the word away into a flatness, "It's better than sitting here and watching the sky, or waiting for them to pick us off, isn't it?"
Rula:
"I get it," Buttercup said, holding up a hand, then waving that hand, then dropping it to her side like it suddenly weighed two tons. "You're not military. If you were, you'd get that, at this point, signal sent, watching the sky is not nothing. It's the only thing to do. Every single rock around here is a place where we could get picked off. A soldier gets that. You're just fidgety, and you don't like the idea that you might be a teeny tiny narfly when Death comes."
She shrugged. "That's fair. But guess what? We're beaten up, scattered, and few in number. You are a teeny tiny narfly when Death comes. Live with it, lefty."
Sol:
He tried to laugh, but that was just as dry and ragged as his voice was otherwise, "I do get it. But it isn't the only thing to do. We have more openings out here than we do guns to cover them, or eyes to see them. Every angle of where we are has us in an opening that would be very bad for us if they came because nothing will stop them if they don't want to be stopped. Death isn't coming, Buttercup. Death is already here, I'm just trying to come up with ways to out maneuver it."
Rula:
"Yeah. I just said all that myself. You weren't listening, I know. I've watched you. You don't listen much. I'm not sure how you think saying 'I got an idea to get some wire, but I don't actually know how to get the wire' changes enough for us to make it worthwhile when we have a plan, and that plan is to wait here, and that's the plan that the Captain and Teimar think we're following."
Sol:
"I was listening, I'm telling you that I do understand. What I'm not good at is sitting still and waiting, particularly when that waiting involves huge unknown factors. Our plan to sit and wait here has one very big hole in it, Rula. We don't know if they are coming, and if they are we don't know when. We could very well run out of supplies by the time it happens, or by the time that Breis comes back with Liv. Even still, moving is a bad idea. I can agree on that with you, which is why I have no idea how to get the damn bloody wires where we need them, in the amount we need them in. "
Rula:
"So we're agreed: going and staying are bad ideas, because the situation is bad. Staying put wins, therefore, because it is what we agreed to do, what we told the Captain we were going to do. For the good of the group, we do what we said."
Sol:
The knuckles of his left hand knocked against his left leg, fingers opening and closing slightly through the movement as he stood there regarding Rula before moving back to where he had sat moments earlier. His left leg was left extended, settled against the dirt beneath him while his right was bent, foot flat against the wild floor on which he sat. His right arm he pulled across his midsection with his left hand and let it lay there, gently massaging the muscles up and down the numbed length of it up to his shoulder and back down again. There had to be a solution that didn't involve an unfathomable amount of time passing with them in continuous wait for something that might not happen.
An hour later, the numbers at Tal-Kebii'tra had diminished yet again.
Breis and Liv/Azair had gone with Mi'kei.
With the day so jumbled, it was not easy to gauge time any longer. Night was different than day, still, but what was lost were those softer in-between times, the false dawns and the twilights. The Red, the Cloak, simply devoured those.
Catia did not stir, but she breathed. Tavv'ari grunted and tried to stay awake. Buttercup kept nervous watch, but Mi'kei's pods had been the real deal, and they helped. She'd tried to find them a good position where they couldn't be easily overrun if the enemy returned. That was laughable, but she'd been in a lot of situations where standard procedure had felt ridiculous and moot, and this was just one more. You followed it because you had to do something, so why not?
Sol:
It was in times like these that Solomon missed his chronometer. He missed the ticking away of seconds that could be counted, and the reliability of assurance that at the end of the count down plans would fall into place. Here, it was guesswork and more guesswork on top of more guesswork. They were oriented in the little bubble of space they occupied on the planet because it had become familiar, it was known to them because they'd spent time there. Anything beyond that little bubble was a vicious beast waiting to pounce should they wander away too far from the familiar. He had done what he could to help get Tavv'ari and Catia settled, and was doing what he could still to help Buttercup keep an eye open for the big guys, watching a close horizon of red clinging dust and feeling the settling of his bones. His senses were outstretched, laying over the still muted land that surrounded them. He, like Tavv'ari was struggling to stay awake. The long night was drawing even longer, and with the oppressive state of their situation it was becoming harder to not be swallowed by the darker side of 'what if's. And that was a lengthy list. The best thing he could do was keep his senses open, try to ignore the nagging idea that those they'd been separated from would never be seen or heard from again, and just focus on what was at hand. After some time spent resting, Solomon got himself up and shook off the red that had settled into the creases of his suit. His masked hood had been pulled back up over his face between when they'd split off and now, but it helped very little to cut down the amount of red he was breathing in. He moved to kneel down by Catia for no other reason than to check her vitals. This was not because he expected any change to her status, but just to have something to do that was movement. It was something to keep him awake, "I've got some ideas," He said then, after straightening and being careful about how he moved the Hapan tech. If he had been a healer, he might have been able to help her further than just checking for a pulse. That little bit of regret he kept to himself. "On trying for another signal."
Rula:
Not far away, but standing, weapon in hand, Buttercup turned her body but not her head to show that she was listening.
Sol:
"Gonna need a length of wire long enough to reach from way up there to way down here, or several spliced together. It's going to need to be able to carry the charge and communication line. Something like that could be scavenged from one of the ships out there. Still working on how to get what we need without paring down further, we can't risk that."
Rula:
Buttercup finally looked at him. Through her helmet, her disbelief was on display like a flashing neon ad in Coruscant's underbelly.
Sol:
Rula's face was shaded by the helmet she wore, but the disbelief settled clearly in the woman's shoulders, all the way down through the majority of her stance. "What?"
Rula:
It took a moment of breathing for Buttercup to be able to trust her voice to be steady. "We just sent the Captain and Teimar--our only other able-bodied people--off to... wherever the fuck... while we are here, awaiting contact in a hostile, unsecured area, and you... want to go back... to the Graveyard... where we just got finished losing people and getting our asses kicked?"
Sol:
"It's not the best option, even if it is the most logical one," He admitted, "I'm still working on the idea, but if we can get enough to connect up there to down here somehow our wait could be made a little bit less.... blind. Breis said that the speeder was scraped. I haven't been to look at what's left behind just yet, but I doubt there's enough in there to get what I need from it."
Rula:
"You're delusional," Buttercup announced with an exhausted, wrung-out sandpaper-scoured laugh. "Your last signal was the signal. You really think we're going to forage up more usable wire and have time to put it all together so you can connect it up there? Really? Really?"
Sol:
"No, but it's something," The dryness of his voice robbed it of the punch he had tried to put into saying 'something', bleeding the sound of the word away into a flatness, "It's better than sitting here and watching the sky, or waiting for them to pick us off, isn't it?"
Rula:
"I get it," Buttercup said, holding up a hand, then waving that hand, then dropping it to her side like it suddenly weighed two tons. "You're not military. If you were, you'd get that, at this point, signal sent, watching the sky is not nothing. It's the only thing to do. Every single rock around here is a place where we could get picked off. A soldier gets that. You're just fidgety, and you don't like the idea that you might be a teeny tiny narfly when Death comes."
She shrugged. "That's fair. But guess what? We're beaten up, scattered, and few in number. You are a teeny tiny narfly when Death comes. Live with it, lefty."
Sol:
He tried to laugh, but that was just as dry and ragged as his voice was otherwise, "I do get it. But it isn't the only thing to do. We have more openings out here than we do guns to cover them, or eyes to see them. Every angle of where we are has us in an opening that would be very bad for us if they came because nothing will stop them if they don't want to be stopped. Death isn't coming, Buttercup. Death is already here, I'm just trying to come up with ways to out maneuver it."
Rula:
"Yeah. I just said all that myself. You weren't listening, I know. I've watched you. You don't listen much. I'm not sure how you think saying 'I got an idea to get some wire, but I don't actually know how to get the wire' changes enough for us to make it worthwhile when we have a plan, and that plan is to wait here, and that's the plan that the Captain and Teimar think we're following."
Sol:
"I was listening, I'm telling you that I do understand. What I'm not good at is sitting still and waiting, particularly when that waiting involves huge unknown factors. Our plan to sit and wait here has one very big hole in it, Rula. We don't know if they are coming, and if they are we don't know when. We could very well run out of supplies by the time it happens, or by the time that Breis comes back with Liv. Even still, moving is a bad idea. I can agree on that with you, which is why I have no idea how to get the damn bloody wires where we need them, in the amount we need them in. "
Rula:
"So we're agreed: going and staying are bad ideas, because the situation is bad. Staying put wins, therefore, because it is what we agreed to do, what we told the Captain we were going to do. For the good of the group, we do what we said."
Sol:
The knuckles of his left hand knocked against his left leg, fingers opening and closing slightly through the movement as he stood there regarding Rula before moving back to where he had sat moments earlier. His left leg was left extended, settled against the dirt beneath him while his right was bent, foot flat against the wild floor on which he sat. His right arm he pulled across his midsection with his left hand and let it lay there, gently massaging the muscles up and down the numbed length of it up to his shoulder and back down again. There had to be a solution that didn't involve an unfathomable amount of time passing with them in continuous wait for something that might not happen.