Wounded Warrior

[Charlotte]

There were rougher sections of Keldabe, but they weren’t like other rough places, in character. In Sadhric’s opinion, at least, except where there was a density of offworlders forming a familiar knot within the Mandalorian fabric.

He was getting restless.

Had been restless for a long time, and it was building, and it was dangerous.

He recognized the danger, and the danger of the slow softening of his resistance to it, and was eternally astonished that everyone around him seemed blind to it.

So there were rougher sections of Keldabe, and the Mand’alor was on foot walking through them, without armor, without escort. Daring the planet to pick a fight with him, so he could stop playing games with himself.


Jaare Noreme was a man of six foot three in height, young-to-middle aged, or maybe it was the tattoo on the right side of his face that made him look older. The bright blue lines and curves of some sea dwelling creature was painted across his skin in such a way that the creature’s eye was his own. Right then that eye was glassy, matching its twin which resided right where it should have for a humanoid on the left side of Jaare’s face. His clothing was a short nerf hide vest that was a dark-red-almost-brown color and so worn from time that it could have possibly fallen to shreds if touched the wrong way. Jaare was a grimey person, his clothing reeking of some heady drug, his breath smelling of sour alcohol. His shirt beneath his vest was just as aged as the vest showing signs of stains and heavy wear and tear. His pants were newer, and the most expensive thing he was wearing just then. They hid the tops of his boots, keeping the fact that he’d tacked them shut with shipper’s tacky strips out of sight. He didn’t seem to mind that he stumbled when he walked, or that he bumped into somebody now and then. A simply “On excuse me” could handle the problem most of the time, and usually no one knew what his wandering fingers were up to in that moment. He’d had many a warm bottle and a full belly that way since things in Keldabe had shifted. Fortune no longer smiled on him....


They all looked the same to The Mechanic.

That was to say: they were varied--varied in species, varied in status--but uninteresting.

He saw them drinking, gaming, chatting reclined in metal chairs outside of taverns; he saw them repairing speeders together, or leaning, arms folded across their chests, by the retaining walls that marked the forty foot drops to the next level down.

It wasn’t until he saw a young woman with her knee bandaged alone at a corner that he swerved.

He swerved because he could smell the wound the bandages hid from the street.


Familiar faces, some, were not familiar faces, all. Jaare didn’t know many of their names, these Mando’ade that he was passing, and mostly because that was the nature of repitition. He knew them because he saw them every day, or almost every day, on his way through the rise. Some were friendly, and some were not. Those who weren’t were avoided, and those who were were -sometimes- taken advantage of. By him. By others. By life. That was all just the roll of it. The young Mando’ade understood that, barely batting an eye at his misfortunes and the misfortunes of others all up until a point was reached. There, you helped yourself or you didn’t get help at all. So it was kind of odd, and a small thing that stuck out and caused enough curiosity within him to watch when he caught sight of a man he knew didn’t belong to that neighborhood heading for a young woman with her knee wrapped up.


She was seated staring at the horizon, maybe, or at the distance-misted tip of the MandalMotors towers. On approach, Sadhric knew she was drugged before he got within ten feet of her. Drugged, or on drugs, or both, though he’d never heard anything that suggested that Keldabe had many addicts of any kind.

The young woman wore rugged black pants, and the bandaging was done over the fabric in a way that Sadhric had only ever associated with rush. The rush of a battlefield, or the rush of an emergency with no recourse.

Nothing else about the woman suggested rush, and the foul smell suggested age to the wound.

He greeted her in Mando’a. Then, in that same tongue, he said, “Can you hear me?”

Her brown eyes only vaguely drifted to the side a little--not quite to him, let alone focusing on him--after several seconds, and then they wandered back to the... well, to the probably nothing that actually had her attention. She stared because her eyes were open, and that was all.


What was that guy’s angle? He watched as the young woman was spoken to, and the listless response that was given. “Oi, mate,” Jaare just didn’t understand, and that pushed the words from his mouth, “I wouldn’t bother,” he’d begun that way, toward them, “I doubt there’s anything left in there,” he tapped at his left temple with two fingers as he spoke, “To even recognize her own face in a mirror.”


The Mechanic crouched, and that didn’t make any difference in her expression either. She did not flinch when he reached for the tight, frayed-edged knot binding the dirty bandage, but he arrested the motion nonetheless.

Oi, mate.

He twisted. Eyed Jarre.

Jarre would see the dark-dressed human, the low-key cut to the clothes that suggested the man was not struggling for creds, even if there was nothing ostentatious about what he wore.

“What is it?” Sadhric asked lowly. “The drug. What’s it called?”


Leaning strongly to his left, Jaare gave himself a second to eye the woman before giving a shrug, “No idea. You a friend of hers?” From the young woman, Jaare was now looking once more at Sadhric.


“Noooo,” Sadhric said with a sardonic low draw of the word. He leaned back in and started to feel his way through the woman’s pockets, watchful of her hands, but they were like stone, or like wax; immobile and sallow. “I’m just the Mand’alor.”

He flicked his head to the side but didn’t really look at Jarre despite that clearly being the implication. “Come here.”


A look went from Sadhric to the girl again as a dirty knuckled, stained skin hand reached up to scratch at his left ear lobe. This guy was -just the Mand’alor-. Maybe fortune hadn’t turned its back on him afterall. That brief look up and around ended with Jaare stepping in closer to where Sadhric crouched next to the woman.


“Have you got a clean square inch about you? Hold these. I’ve counted them.” Without really glancing back, he offered a handful of what appeared to be low-worth cred vouchers.


“Ey, I’m clean!” It was an indignant response, Jaare reaching out to take the offered cred vouchers. He folded them, hiding them against the palm of his hand in a few quick motions. Another quick glance went to the area around them while the creds were secured in his hand.


The next thing Sadhric withdrew came from an interior pocket of the woman’s ratty jacket. It was a fabric packet with faded designs all over it in washed-out rusts, pinks, and blues. He spread it with his thumbs; there was something inside, he could feel. And see: a soft lumpiness.

The design looked whimsical, and might have formed the head of an animal in profile; it was hard to tell.

He brought the packet to his nose and sniffed.


Behind him, Jaare was shifting his position, moving around to Sadhric’s side a bit further to see what he was doing. The aquatic creature painted into the skin on his face shuddered and shifted with every movement it took to talk, look around, and even blink. “What is it?”


“Smells sweet. Here.” He offered the dingy little bag toward Jarre so that he could see for himself. “Might be whatever’s zoned her out. If you show this to those people over there,” he added, nodding toward the nearest little knot of people he could see who were seated and smoking something together, “and see if they know it, and know her, you can keep those cred vouchers.”


The creds were tucked away in a silent acceptance of the offer before he reached out and took the little bag. A second was put into inspecting the bag before he turned back over his shoulder toward the indicated group, “Aye, back in a second.” And then he was gone, leaving Sadhric and the young woman to approach the group.


In the packet, Jarre would feel a fibrous rope, like dried, twisted grass, and would have heard it crackle softly against itself.

The particular group he was aimed at consisted of five sentients--two human, three not--dressed with the same level of rough utilitarian carelessness as the girl. They lounged outside a low-ceilinged dive that had a few loners within, and they were passing two twigs around that gave off a musty smoke from their smoldering ends. Those sticks, at least, were local: that was nala. Not a drug anymore than an ale was, the wood was soaked in an old-recipe concoction for about a month before it became the subtly relaxing nala.

All five of them watched Jarre mildly as he approached; none knew him. The one on the end with the stick between her first two fingers, was red-skinned with a crescent-shaped head and wide lidless bright green eyes. She opened her wide mouth and the speech that came out seemed to come in two simultaneous notes that danced around a general raspiness. The human beside her, relaxed back with her blond hair in a low ponytail, indicated Jarre with a jut of her chin. “She asks what’s that you have there?”


Nala. He knew the smell of it well. It was the scent that followed him like a second skin. The group of five was looked over in his approach, each given a second to be sized up as he got closer. “No idea,” he said, lifting the packet up so they could all see it without him handing it over, “My friend there,” a motion went back toward Sadhric, “Was hoping maybe you’d be able to tell us what it is, and the name of the woman. She’s in pretty bad shape, we think.”


Another series of strange, sing-song rasps, and the human woman who was watching her comrade was already shaking her head before she eyed Jarre to translate. “She says she can smell her from here.”

“Yeah,” said the other human on the far end as he was passed the nala stick. “Even I can.”

They used Mando’a, not Basic, those whose mouths could make those sounds.

“Don’t know her,” said the woman. “She showed up an hour ago. Just drifted in like a feather on a breeze.”


The alien whose mouth made the strange noises held Jaare’s attention for as long as she spoke, and only that long because he was looking back toward the woman who was translating, and then to the man who was passing the nala, and back to the woman. He, too, was using Mando’a when he said, “And this?” he moved forward, offering the packet fabric and what felt like a bundle of heavily dried slender pieces of dried ....something.... “It smells sweet, and I am not familiar with the scent.”


The red-skinned woman took it first in her four-fingered hand and probed it lightly with her claws. She shook her head and passed it.

The human next to her took it, raised her eyebrows at the feel of it, and was raising it to smell it when the fourth sentient of the five reached passed the third, already jabbing a hairy finger at the design.

“I know that,” it offered. It had a low voice, and might have seemed male because of it, but honestly there was no telling. Fur obscured build and there might have been no difference anyway. Brown eyes with slit pupils were looking up at Jarre, clear and full of shine.


He watched and waited, hoping answers would come. He had credits riding on this, for as small as that take was. “Yeah? Tell me what it is, then?”


“Mn, she must be from Arrvaem, or know someone from there. This is a picture of Kwaea. A god of healing. And death, there. This is probably filled with marivv. A... religious thing.” He paused to sniff, and jerked his head back. Brown-furred, he did have humanoid brows formed of a denser curl of his pelt and those brows rose as he offered the packet back to Jarre, oblivious to the reaching hands of his curious friends who hadn’t gotten to smell it yet.


“Arrvaem,” He said with a nod, reaching to take the packet back, “And Marivv. Thanks, brother.” He was more careful with the little packet than he had been before. Now knowing that it was likely a religious thing, he did not want to suddenly find himself on the wrong side of whatever god Kwaea suddenly turned out to be right at that moment.


“Ah....” The furred Mando’ade--if indeed that was what he was--seemed to fish for a moment. “I wish I knew the words for the plants. I think the woman must be ready to die.”


“It works like a painkiller, then, the plant you think this might be?”


“Don’t know. I assume so. Given how she looks and how she smells. You’d think she’d be more bothered if it wasn’t, wouldn’t you?”

The human woman was regarding Jarre. “What’s your interest in her? Your friend’s interest?”


To the furry alien, Jaare gave a nod and a wave, as if to say ‘I suppose so.’ or ‘Good point.’ but it was to the woman that he spoke, “My interest is his interest. I think he wants to help her.”


One of them laughed. It was not at all a mocking laugh. It was a sad, sympathetic laugh, and it came with low-spoken words. “When it’s a warrior’s time to die, best let the warrior do it.”


“Yeah, maybe. Seems kind of like she’s given up the fight to me, but,” he shrugged and began to turn away in order to head back toward Sadhric, his answers gotten, “the only one who really knows has a head full of clouds right now. Enjoy your nala.”


In answer was a couple of raised nala sticks, tips aglow. Mild eyes followed Jarre as he headed back over to Sadhric and the woman.

Sadhric had the bandage peeled back and unwound, and the festering wound laid bare. It was black and green, oozing thickly, and the woman had not moved even though it was clear from the lines on her skin that she’d had the bandages on very tightly.


As he got closer and caught sight of the wound, just a glimpse, Jaare made a ‘Mmph’ noise, “Didn’t find out her name -- they didn’t know it. I -did- find out that the stuff in the packet comes from a place called Arrvaem, and -could be- a plant called Marivv which might be some sort of painkiller. The pattern on the bag is some diety of healing and death known as Kwaea.”


“Kwaea.” Though he said it, he did not actually appear to be listening overmuch. After a moment, he said, “Thank you. What’s your name?” without turning or looking up. He watched her face with a doctor’s keenness as he gently probed above the discolorations and wound, on the skin that seemed more healthy, with two fingertips.


“Jaare,” he said, the word flowing easily from him as he watched from where he was standing, “She’ll be alright, yeh? They said she was likely on the verge of death.”


“She is.”

Sadhric stopped the poking and settled back on his haunches, one hand gloved and one not, resting them off his knees while he studied her.

“I can’t find anything about Arrvaem or ‘marivv’ or Kwaea,” he said, low and calm, as if he’d just rampaged through a library hunting for references. After a pause, he asked: “What do you think, Jarre?”


He couldn’t find anything....Jaare was just then looking at Sadhric like he was daft. They hadn’t moved anywhere! What kind of research could the Mand’alor do while crouched on the ground over a dying young woman? Unless... “You got implants or something?” The thought made its way out of his mouth while Jaare was looking at the side-back of Sadhric’s head. “Cause, they might be limited by connections around here....”


“They’re not.” Hands on his thighs, Sadhric rose. Jarre was a few inches taller than he was, but their seeming class difference (if that was even something a Mandalorian might notice) was obvious. “I could call for help. Help would come. Should I?” He turned his head and his eyes were dead on Jarre, black and deep as seen through the faint filter of the Lenses he wore.


“I would, mate,” Jaare had taken a half a step back as Sadhric rose and turned to face him. There was nothing that spoke to hostile movements from Sadhric, but just a look in his eye. It could have been the filters of Sadhric’s lenses that put some sharpness to the look. Jaare’s glassy eyes were as focused as they could be when he met The Mechanic’s gaze, “She’s in bad shape, and even if they can’t do anything for her -- that kind of death is better than rotting slowly in the street.”


With a turn to look down at her, the man said, “Well, she’s not really ‘here,’ is she? But very well. Perhaps I can bring her around enough for her to say what she wants.” His head tipped slightly and his tone changed: “Yes. It’s me. I need paramedics at my location. One ill subject.” A swift description of the injury and its state rattled out of him as if he really were a doctor. He did not state what ‘my location’ was, however.

The obvious closure came with: “Yes. Thank you.” And that seemed to be that.


One hour ago Jaare wouldn’t have even blinked in passing the woman. In fact, just five minutes ago he was content to go on his way, and would have if it hadn’t been for the fact that he’d spotted The Mechanic trying to help the young woman. He would have chalked her off as having overdoses or something else if it hadn’t been for that moment of passing. He waited and listened, watching the man that was Mand’alor speak into his ....thin air....another implant? He certainly looked like he could afford them. And the longer that he looked at The Mechanic, the more he thought there was something familiar about the man. “Right, then, you want to take this with you?” The fabric packet was being offered back.


“Yes, please,” Sadhric said, reaching for it. Taking it, he thanked Jarre, and said, “If she’s not Mando’ade, she’s at least at home with weapons--though she’s not armed just now. You can tell by her hands, and she’s had some tattooing removed.”

Mention of that made him very obviously look with intrigued curiosity at Jarre’s own tattoo.


Jaare had looked down the woman’s way. There still wasn’t much he could see of her from where he stood. “If not Mando’ade, then maybe mercenary...” The blue aquatic creature that covered the right side of his face had looked her way as well, and moved in an odd fashion as he spoke. It wasn’t a swimming type of movement, just more of a shimmy and quirk as Jaare’s words came out in Mando’a. He was looking back up, only to find Sadhric curiously eyeing the tattoo. “It’s a Loram. A mythical creature that haunts the deepest of waters on Harlak.”


“Why take the mark of it?” The Mechanic asked softly. “What is it to you?”


“It’s a creature that is in a constant cycle of rebirth. It’s said to die, and come back to life a billion times over the course of its life span which can last millennia. I felt something about the stories, they just kind of stuck with me. I got the tattoo because of them.”


“What were you doing on Harlak?” Sadhric had turned a little, watching the sky--perhaps for that incoming help, though there was nothing out of the normal traffic flow yet.


“Working,” Jaare’s shoulders lifted in a slight shrug, “with a contract shipper.” A brief pause after which he was quickly adding, “All legal goods mind you!”


In a flick, Sadhric’s expression crunched comically--in surprise at the assurance, moreso than from any solid skepticism.


“You know, just in case you try to find anything out about the company I worked for.” The Loram on Jaare’s face contorted with the creasing of Jaare’s brow, his glossy eyes still oddly focused on the Mand’alor.


An eyebrow raised in amusement. “Ah. Noted,” he said with a faint smile. “You speak Mando’a. Are you verd?”


For a second it looked like Jaare may have nodded, but he shook his head instead, “Ah, no, but I am vod.”

The word for brother was the last to leave him, and it came with the lower portion of the loram stretching in tandem.


Sadhric had thought as much--given that quick assurance of legality--but had thought it politic to aim higher. “What are you doing, vod, acting squirrelish like any port-side thug in the galaxy? There’s no cause for such fear.”

He said the words, and knew that, of course, that he was there was a cause for fear. For caution. That was as it should be. Must be. Still... He had the sharp impression that Jarre didn’t actually know much about him.


“The Hapans, and their internment. The thought occurred to me that you might have equated ‘shipper’ with that...”


It was a solid possibility, but Jarre seemed fidgety in a way that Sadhric did not think supported that kind of guilt. Instead of responding directly, he asked, “What do you know about that? Did your clan know it was happening?”

He had an ear out for the help that was coming, and an eye on the woman. Her packet was in his hand, unforgotten.


“I know it got me cut loose from my job. My clan and I found out when the galaxy found out.” He offered sourly. “We were living on Harlak, and had been for some time.”


The Mechanic looked him over, head to toe. “Still jobless?”


“Been picking up odds and ends here and there, nothing solid I am sad to say. So, yeah...” Jaare’s hair was clean and close cut, buzzed down to keep it the most manageable with the least amount of care. His chin, the tattoo, and the line of his jaw sported a stubbly growth of hair that could have sprouted just through the day.


At last a new sound broke in: a flat-bellied ship, banking, the low whine of its repulsors unmistakable even before it came into view.

“Tell me how to contact you, Jarre, and I’ll see what I can do to be of service.”


“Thank you, my comm code is...” the code was given as Jaare turned his eyes skyward to see the incoming ship.


They fell under its shadow a second later as it came over the building, its underside emblazoned with the code-signs of the Aud.

Sadhric nodded, but his look flicked to a point beyond Jarre. One of the five had risen and was gesturing to him. “Stay with her a moment, would you?” he asked Jarre, already moving around him to go see what was wanted. Any wariness he felt was fully hidden from view.


From watching the ship come in, his gaze turned back to Sadhric, “Aye.” Was his answer, a step taken toward the dying woman while he turned to see where Sadhric was heading.


A whisper.

A breath.

No hard outlines.

Barely words--but the cadence, riding along through the weak murmur.

It came up at Jarre’s back from the ground behind him. The woman.


He watched Sadhric for a moment until the breath-spoken whisper caught in his ears and begged him to turn. It likely wouldn’t have caught his attention except for the fact that this was the first sign of coherent life she’d shown since Jaare had gotten himself involved. One look toward her turned into another and then he was turning back her way and dropping to a knee beside her, “Oi, now, what was that?” He asked, looking her over, watching her mouth move.


Her lips moved again, slow, hardly coming together. There was less breath available this time. What was there were the husks of the words. The husks, just the outer shapes of them. But the woman moved weakly, as if trying to bring herself closer to Jarre to be heard. Her efforts amounted to nothing. She didn’t even try to move her hands; they remained waxen and useless at her sides.


“One more time buir,” he said, calling the woman mother as he leaned in closer, getting himself as close as he could without feeling like he was suffocating the air between them. He listened hard for what she was trying to say, focusing on the hollow sound of the young lady’s voice beneath the drone of the ship overhead.


The tip of her tongue appeared, dry and lifeless, to lick her lips. It did nothing for her. She flexed fingers. Her brow wanted to tighten. Her body wanted to tense. Her hand moved like a thing disconnected from her, as she reached to grip Jarre’s near wrist. Less a grip than simply the weight of the hand.

“Taindo,” was the word that actually made it out in a longer phrase that lacked the power of her voice. “Taindo... cliff.”


Jaare did not flinch away from her hand. His own, when she reached for his wrist, moved to catch her hand in his grasp. He held on steadily as she attempted speech, “Taindo? What’s out there for you?” He asked, still leaning in as close as he dare to her.


She relaxed when he took her hand. Seemed to sink--even to shrink--in on herself a little with a silent sigh. No sound came, but the word was there, marked by the tongue at her teeth: Death.


Understanding took over. That small second was all he needed to see it in her. The way she shrank, the way she looked, said it all. He didn’t let go of her hand, but he did twist slightly to see if he could spot the Mand’alor where he had heades while saying, “I think I know what she wants,” in Mando’a.


Sadhric was across the way, just then peeling away from the red-skinned woman. He didn’t hear Jarre, but the medics were arriving right then in a hurry, uniformed and bearing a stretcher, and the one in the lead did hear. “Painkillers, by the look of that,” the fur-ruffed Idiran guessed--in Basic.


The Idiran pulled Jaare’s attention away from where it had been focused, turning just then toward the arriving medical team, “She’s already got more in her than the Bufftons have creds. She wants to go to Taindo cliff.”


The medics were from the Aud. Nothing about the demeanor of the Idiran, at least, suggested he was vod. He looked taken aback--taken aback, ready to dismiss, even as he was simultaneously pushing past Jarre to--

The young woman’s hand suddenly tightened with a strength to keep Jarre with her like a lifeline.


The girl’s grip was suddenly strong, pulling against his arm as the medic was trying to push his way in. Jaare flexed his arm, pulling himself in closer to the girl, muscling against the Idiran with his shoulder, “Hey now, watch yourself!” He protested, his words geared toward the alien trying to get past him. The loram crinkled with the scowl that quickly appeared on Jaare’s face.


“Is there a problem?”

The medics, at least, recognized Sadhric at once and fully, and they straightened up as he strode back toward them.


His shift in attention was swift. From the Idiran to the woman and around to Sadhric, Jaare looked. His hand still holding onto the woman’s, “Aye there is. This fool has no manners,” he motioned with his free hand toward the Idiran medic. His tattoo was flexing with every word spoken in Mando’a, the painted skin shifting with the man’s expression, “She wants to go to Taindo cliff, and she doesn’t want to go alone.”


Sadhric stopped and eyed the young woman and then Jarre for a moment. “She spoke?” He stepped closer, waved the medics off, and put Jarre in his shadow.

The Idiran looked offended, but did stand down. Standing down consisted of backing off half a step. His nose was far more sensitive than a human’s, and he felt the pull to shove all other considerations aside and get to work securing the woman.


“Aye, she did. I couldn’t make it all out, but she said Taindo Cliff “ he hadn’t rose to meet Sadhric, but he was looking up at The Mechanic as best he could from where he knelt. The medics were... less of a concern now.


“Where’s that?” The Mechanic threw a glance toward the medics as if they were afterthoughts.


“South of the city. I think she wants to die there.”


“Sir,” said the Idiran. He waited for Sadhric to glance his way before he said: “She may not know what she wants, the state she’s in.”

In Basic, The Mechanic asked, “Can you bring her around a little more? Right here.”

The Idiran’s face was stone. It seemed not to compute, this reaction to the woman’s injury. Every second....

“We can,” said the other medic--in Mando’a. She had already drawn her kit around and was bending her knees to rest her end of the stretcher on the ground.

“Do it,” Sadhric told her. “If you please.”


He had just a few moments. Jaare turned back toward the woman and spoke while wrapping his free hand across the back of her hand, which he still held onto tightly, “Buir, let us help you. These people are good.”


That strength in her hand was gone, but the need to grip remained. She seemed to want to curl in toward Jarre, but couldn’t. Her lips moved slightly. No sound came.

Sadhric gave a more definitive nod, and the medic moved to kneel beside the woman, hypo ready, frowning at the state of the woman and her clothing--not a clean daub to be seen--but did the injection fast. “It’ll be a moment,” she explained--seemingly to the woman, or maybe to Jarre, moreso than to the Mand’alor.

The Idiran had maneuvered the stretcher so that he held it in the middle, off the ground, and backed off some to watch with a critical, impatient eye, ready to move in again the moment he was called for.

It was not a long moment before the woman seemed to snap more into focus and lift her head with more vitality than she’d yet shown. The motion was like a recoil, though, as if she’d been hit in the forehead. She blinked her eyes repeatedly.

“This is yours,” Sadhric said, holding out the marivv packet so that she could see it, to give her something to focus on.

Jarre was a bit between him and the woman, so the fabric bundle was nearest him.


Her hand remained held. She may have lost the strength to hold on to him, but he hadn’t lost the strength to hold on to her. Those first few seconds just as the female medic was drawing closer were met with Jaare shifting to sit on his legs as close as he could get to the dying woman. Whatever she was craving from the contact, he was willing to do what he could. Tense, and attentive, Jaare watched for her reaction. When it happened that she came around his hands loosened on her’s should she desire to pull back and away from him. A glance went toward the female medic, but it was quick and over in a parsec.


When Jarre did not take the packet, The Mechanic leaned in low, shaking it a little to get Jarre’s attention on it.

Rather than asking the woman’s name, or how she’d gotten injured, or how she’d gotten there, Sadhric said: “You don’t have to lose your life.”

The woman licked her lips, looking at no one really, pulling away from Jarre not at all--even leaning more into him. “My life is already lost.” It was the first whisper she’d managed that was audible from start to finish. “Tain--Taindo cliffs.”

The stench of sickness that had first drawn Sadhric’s attention to the young woman was thick around them all. The medics certainly understood it. Sadhric understood it. It was the odor of death, not mere loss of limb.

Or so it would certainly have been in the past, or in places without the knowledge and tech available in Keldabe. In places with no healers, no extraordinary reach into other realms of possibility.


The wave of the packet got his attention, Jaare reaching for it to give back to the woman. It was a branch of motion. He was bringing it back to her and shifting himself to sit closer by putting his back against the wall she sat against, while keeping her hand in his and laying the packet against her lap. “What have you done so grievously to consider your life already over?” He asked, releasing her hand but only to drape his arm across her shoulders so he could hold her as close as she seemed to need.


“We can save her,” the Idiran said, sensing an opening.

Sadhric silenced him with a look, going into a crouch himself, right where he’d been standing so as not to encroach on the core of trust formed spontaneously between the woman and Jarre. From there, he listened.

Her voice was a dry rasp, an expression of self breaking down, just a reed through which she had to force thoughts without comfort. “Outlived,” she breathed. There was something else, but it faded out. Bolstered by whatever the medic had given her, this time she tried again, sucking in a deeper, shuddering, milky-sounding breath first. “No one left. Live for what?”


He drew her as she worked to find her voice, his arm around her shoulders strong. He reached for a hand again as she began to speak and at ‘no one left’ Jaare was casting a quick and sharp look Sadhric’s way. What did the Mand’alor make of that statement? Jaare, himself, was asking “What happened to them?” He had ignored the Idiran’s comment, silenced as the alien went just by a look his way from Sadhric.


“Fool’s war,” she breathed--with a wire of anger, finally, holding together the rasp of her voice. “But they died honorably.”


“And you didn’t.” The statement was a soft one, “They had their good death, buir. What good waits for you at the cliff?”


She rested her head, heavy, against Jarre’s shoulder.

After a moment, it seemed clear she did not intend to reply.

“Counsel after we’ve done the work you called us for,” the Idiran said.

“You’ll wait until I’m finished with you,” Sadhric said in such a low, soft voice it might have been mistaken for gentle had it come from someone else. He didn’t even look at the medic. “Is there anything at Taindo besides the cliff formations?” Evidently, he couldn’t find any further reference.

“No, sir,” said the female medic. “Not that I know of.”

“We’ll be flying there,” The Mechanic said in that same tone, pitched low out of courtesy. “You’ll be flying us. I assume you’re stocked, in case she does decide to accept help?”

“Yes, sir. Ship’s on stand-by already.”


With no answer coming from the woman, Jaare just let her sink against him. The Idiran was given a hard glare, but since Sadhric had that covered he said nothing to the alien. To the woman he said, his tone resigned, “We’ll get you there, but we need to get you on the ship first. The medics are going to help move you, and I’m not going anywhere but with you.”


Sadhric’s eyes were on Jarre, mild and steady, as the man with the loram markings spoke softly to the woman.

The woman seemed to notice for the first time that her packet was in her lap, and her other hand curled weakly around it. “Thank... you....” she breathed.

The Mechanic rose and retreated enough to be out of the way. It was medic who’d offered the injection, already there in the intimate space, who seemed to take charge. “We’re going to lift you onto the stretcher,” she explained, using the tone she took with people she wasn’t sure could hear her well. “My partner and I need to get to you, so you need to let go of your friend just for a moment. I have--” She hesitated, as this was not a normal moment. “I have something for any pain you’re in--”

“No,” said the young woman, jolting a little. “Nothing.”


He released the woman’s hand and slipped his arm from around her shoulder as much as he could without moving away from her too much. She was still leaning pretty heavily against him, and he didn’t want to jar her into any position she wasn’t ready for. His movements were careful and slow.


The medic looked to Sadhric, he nodded: let it be.

And so the process went forward.

The Idiran, clearly unhappy but finally and truly quiet now, worked with sure-handed efficiency alongside his partner as they maneuvered the stretcher in and then each took a side of the woman--with deference to Jarre--to get her on in the quickest, smoothest way possible. Her knee wound oozed and stank, and it was not in their training, even on Mandalore, to ignore such a wound. But ignore it they did, for now.

Their ship was not far--they’d set down just up the street at a crossroads large enough to take the ship. Minor traffic was snarled there as a result, but as it was a medical ship it was not met with hostility.

Once they got the woman onboard--and Jarre and Sadhric, too--they secured her in a metal-lined berth. Being where they were, the ship was outfitted with some protection against battle conditions. It was not a ship used to passengers, and there was only one fold-out seat for one, but Sadhric did not take it, instead grabbing a handhold above his head for stability during takeoff, staying close to the woman.


Jaare did not get in the Idiran’s way now, as he had before. When there was enough space for him to withdraw, and the medics had the woman fully in hand, he did so to give them room to work. He pushed himself up, and moved toward where Sadhric was standing to clear out for whatever the medics might need. On board the ship Jaare, too, ignored the seat and took a spot close to where they had secured the woman. He got as close as he could, and put himself where she’d be able to see him should she find the strength within herself to look.


There was a moment when the medics gestured and Sadhric moved aside with them. They murmured low. Perhaps they were voicing concerns about this; perhaps asking questions; perhaps listing what they might do, what they could do. Whatever the topic or topics, it seemed to end with nothing changed. The Mechanic returned to his perch, the medics went forward to get the ship up and turned about.

Once back in place, Sadhric asked, “Has she said anything more?”


Sadhric moved off, and Jaare’s focus remained on the woman. For what short period of time that it was, he stayed still while trying to both hear the quiet conversation and keep an eye on the capsule she had been placed in. It wasn’t too long before Sadhric was back and Jaare was shaking his head, “No. She’s quiet now.”


“She could get a bionic leg,” The Mechanic said after a silence in which the craft could be felt to tilt and lift, repulsors roaring outside. “I could fashion something so perfect she’d forget she lost her real one.”


“It’s not that easy of an answer. Its not the leg that’s killed her. Its surviving, I think.” He looked Sadhric’s way, “Whatever took her people, however they met their ends, she was cursed not to join them -- denied a good death.”


“I know that.” He’d said it quietly. “I’ve tried repairing people before who did not want to be repaired.”


“You make a habit of doing things like this?”


“Not like this, no,” Sadhric said, smiling faintly for a second. The quiet was allowed to wrap around them again, blended in with the whir of the ship at speed, before he added: “I’m new here. It’s hard to know how to read some things.”


“Where are you from originally?” his chin jutted toward Sadhric in a tiny little backward nod.
An eyebrow twitched up in amused surprise. “Ever heard of Lok?”


“Heard of it, yeh. I think I was there a while ago -- some few years back for a delivery,” His brow creased, pulling the loram in with the expression, “Or maybe that was Let....” Briefly he frowned and then shook his head, “Too many shipments, mate. But yeah, I’ve heard of it.”


“Nothing to ship to, there.”


“It was probably Let, then.” He coughed and then cleared his throat, “Lok is ...undercivilised, then?” He’d heard of it, but that didn’t mean he knew much about it.


“It’s a toxic wasteland, so I’d say so.”


“Ah, come on. There’s people there, so there has to be -something- of interest.”


Sadhric just shook his head, still gripping the handhold at the ceiling with one hand and the side of the woman’s berth with the other. The ship made for smooth flying, but the smoothness was still relative. “What about you? Was Harlak home?”


He let it go with a thoughtful ‘Hm’ sound, reaching up for a second handhold to help keep him steady on his feet, “It had been for a handful of years, aye.”


The Mechanic looked at the nameless woman when she moved--another weak motion toward Jarre’s hand, as if to take it once more. Her eyes seemed more focused, post-shot, and she had shifted to get more comfortable once or twice, but her silence remained, and something about her was still aimed inward, blind to much else.

“I wonder if this is a homecoming for her, as well,” he noted quietly. Quietly, but loudly enough to invite her to comment if she wished.

Apparently, she did not wish.


The motion from the woman was noted, and he responded by shifting his weight toward her capsule, releasing a handhold and reaching for her hand. He cast a look Sadhric’s way before asking, “Buir, what name will Mando greet you by?”


For whatever reason comforted by Jarre, the woman tried to turn on to her side toward him, just as she’d tried to curl into him on the street. A hiss came, and the motion arrested. She put a hand to her leg, though she pressed it without force to a point far higher up her thigh than the knee-wound itself.

“No names,” she hissed out breathlessly. “I’m done with names.”


He let go of the other handhold and pushed his weight against the capsule, placing his newly freed-up hand on the woman’s closest shoulder lightly, “Alright, Buir, no names. We’ll be there soon.” He looked toward Sadhric again, his brow creased with concern. That motion to press against her leg, to roll toward him and the pain it must have brought, he was doing what he could to comfort her through it. It left him feeling like his hands were tied, like he was just not quite doing enough to warrant the comfort she seemed to be taking from his presence. “Is there anything we can do to help ease this for you?” A quiet question directed back toward the woman, the hand he had laid on her shoulder steady and gentle.


It felt strange to not be simply fixing her up. To, in this case, not simply force her to sort herself out afterward. Nonetheless, Sadhric bit back all of his questions.

“Help me to the edge,” she said with a voice that crackled into the middle of the whisper for a second. “... when we get there. I want....” She ran out of breath. It took her a long moment to get it back. “I want to see the sun.”


“Aye, buir, aye. You’ll see it, even if I have to carry you to the edge.” He promised.


The Mechanic found himself smiling faintly at that, with a glance at Jarre--just a movement of his eyes, as he otherwise was still.

Are you sure?

Is there nothing we can offer?

Is there no one we can comm?

Have you no vision of yourself living a life beyond this?

What if you were uninjured?

What if I could find someone you thought gone?

What if you could speak to others who have lost and found a way to live on?

Is this what Mando’ade do, or is this only you?

Things he should have been asking.

No. Things other people asked. Things he usually simply did or looked into without asking.

Sadhric remained silent.


“And after you see the sun -- will you let them help you? The Fool’s War is over, and your leg can be mended -- your health returned. You could live, Buir, live to remember those you lost, give them life again with every new breath you take.” His position had changed to keep the jostling of the ship from knocking him off balance. His right hip was pressed against the metal enclosure she was laying in, his left leg slightly behind him to act as an achor. The contact through his hands remained.


In a ship like this, fifty miles was nothing. A matter of minutes. Once cleared from Keldabe’s airspace, beyond the dangers of collision, it was free flying and speed unregulated.

Now, The Mechanic watched Jarre ask what he couldn’t find it in himself to ask. He found himself grateful.

“‘s my time....” the woman breathed, as if sleepy. As if touched by Jarre’s concern. Touched and tired. Expecting such questions.


“Alright,” He resigned himself to that answer. They could help her he knew, and so did she. But this was what her choice was, and he wasn’t going to argue with a person in the state that she was in, “You tell me if there is anything we can get for you between here and the cliff, yeh?”


“Water,” she said nearly at once. Her voice was ghostly, as if it came from the future in which she was already dead.


His shoulders straightened a bit at the request, a nod following after before he was looking Sadhric’s way, “She’d -- like some water. Do you know if they have any on board, Mand’alor?”


Sadhric had heard, and was already scanning around. The ship’s walls were solid compartments, and every compartment had its own small hatched. Many of them, especially around the emergency pod where the woman was, were screens that showed contents, but more had simpler labels smacked right over the screens for easy knowledge at a glance.

None said “water,” but Sadhric, running one hand along the ceiling for stability, found a likely candidate and yanked it open. Got it first try. He pulled out a factory-sealed bottle and tossed it across to Jarre.


Jaare had leaned back, just a bit, and looking around his immediate area until Sadhric started moving around the cabin they were in. There wasn’t much Jaare could do to help without leaving the woman’s side. The click of the compartment door opening got his attention, and with the bottle being tossed toward him Jaare released the woman’s hand and shoulder to catch it while saying, “Thanks, mate,” toward Sadhric. He opened it where she’d be able to see what he had, “Can you sit up, or will you need help?” His body was now completely braced against the pod for support, his right hip in fully lean to help him keep his balance.


She did try to sit up, to dig an elbow in, but even with the shot she’d gotten her strength flagged. She did not say ‘help,’ but that meant help.


Watching the struggle and failure, Jaare was giving her a nod, “We’ll take care of this, Buir.” A quick look went to Sadhric, “I’m going to need you to help her sit up. Please.”


On that, he had not already been moving in, but as soon as he was asked he made a little noise, nodding, and stepped to her side opposite Jarre. “Here--let me,” he murmured--not moving in to shift her, but activating the bed on which she lay so that it slowly changed angle and then configuration so that she was in a better position.

“Pays to know where the controls are,” was what he said, smiling crookedly down at her, just faintly.

For the first time, she seemed to relax when she looked at him similar to the way she had relaxed with Jarre.


With the configuration changing Jaare had to change the way he was standing. One hand held onto the bottle while the other reached for a handhold overhead. “Thank you,” he said, looking toward Sadhric before letting go of the handhold. He poured a bit of water from the bottle into the cap and offered that little bit Buir’s way, lifting it toward the woman’s lips.


She slurped at it with lips that didn’t quite want to work, and dribbled a good bit of it down her chin. She nodded, though: More.

That water was her only request. Back where they were, there were no viewports, and thus no way to gauge how far along their journey they were other than a small screen positioned to be seen at a glance from about where Jarre was standing, or where Sadhric was. It showed them making good time toward Taindo.

So there they were.

An out of work Mandalorian and a dying one, the Mand’alor, two unhappy medics, and no fighter escort.

When it came time to land, it was the human medic’s voice that came back over the comms: “Trying to find a good place. Not much out here. We’re looking.”

The woman, slightly better hydrated now, stirred. “The top--top of the cliffs--”

“They know,” Sadhric assured her.


That water was gone, the cap was refilled. Jaare’s attention moved to where the medic’s voice had come from. The loram tattoo scrunched with the small smile he gave the woman’s way, “Won’t be too much longer,” his words came in an echo to what Sadhric had said, and the cap full of water was offered over again.


The medics were licensed emergency pilots, but that still was not their primary training, and they were intensely cautious as they scouted along a white-walled rock canyon for a likely place to set down. They didn’t trust trees and rocks the way they did rooftops and streets.

For their trouble, they were treated to the breathtaking expanse of the Taindo region. The wild craggy region had once funneled water down to the lands such as those settled by Ja’eeth’s parents. The cliffs did not tower, but rather endless ages of water erosion had cut the canyons down deep and then left them dry.

White stone, wind-polished, faced the ship, lined with the shadows of the trees that clung to the rim. It was late afternoon, crawling toward dusk.

It was not ideal, but close: the medics finally decided to chance coming to rest on a bald an eighth of a mile from the rim. They had repulsors specifically designed for landing in odd terrain, and emergency struts to help, and though it looked like a rough run from that site to the edge, they decided that the hoverstretcher would make it safer for their nameless patient.

And that decision stepped close to the edge of a different kind of canyon: that of the knowledge that in all likelihood it was sounding as if they had brought her here to die, and safety might be a moot point.

The Idiran stayed out of the way, finding this far more painful than his partner, so it was she who came back and got the woman’s pod detached so she could be moved.

All that in the span of just a few minutes. From flight to landing to getting the woman out of the ship, just a tiny wink of time.

Once outside, Sadhric got his own look at the terrain for the first time. It sloped in wind-rounded slabs down toward spikey trees that blocked the view of the canyon beyond. The medics tried to help him orient, not knowing anything about the Lenses he wore, and he of course let them while Jarre stayed at the woman’s side.

“Wait for us,” he told the medics.


Jaare had moved back when the medic came in to release the pod, the bottle of water capped tightly. Things went quickly and he stayed as close to the woman as he could through it all, trying to be where she could see him at all times. The smell of her wound was sickeningly oppressive, the rot that had taken over hanging thick in the air around her, and still he stayed as close as he could. Whatever comfort she found in him, Jaare was not going to deny a dying stranger of it. Outside the ship, he had a hand on the side of the pod, moving with it and carrying the bottle of water in his other hand should it be needed. The grandeur of the area was breathtaking in its magnificence, but he saw it with eyes of concern that hid the beauty from full recognition.


With no trail, and the medics left behind, it was up to Jarre and Sadhric to guide the stretcher down the haphazard slant of exposed rock. Once they hit the treeline, they had to negotiate deadfall and the carpet of needlelike detritus that hid the state of the ground.

But it was only a short way. A brief hike. The woman said nothing as they went.

The air changed. It came with a low song. It came at them bearing the scents of hardy scrub plants just as they began to be able to see the drop off point at the edge of Taindo.


It wasn’t the scenery, it was the quiet. The world around them seemed still to Jaare, like it knew what was coming and was holding its breath for it. He worked well with Sadhric to get the woman across the terrain and through the trees, stepping carefully where it was needed and being aware of where it was not all the while mindful of the living cargo he and the Mand’alor were moving. At one point, as they were getting close to the precipice, Jaare looked toward the woman and said “Buir, are you sure you want to do this?”


It was as if the Buir stirred her awake. She drew in a breath and smiled. “Yessssss....”

The hoversled made barely a sound. Its low-register hum simply blended in with the rattled branches above them.

As they made the edge, and stopped there, Sadhric gazed out at it all. Hidden away were all the thoughts he usually had, and they’d been spinning along all this time: Watch yourself. Watch Jarre. Be aware of the medics and their ship. Be aware of predators. Be aware that death lurks not only in shadows, but in the light as well, and not just at the edges of cliffs.

Yet he, too, seemed subdued up there. Perhaps as he had been since he’d spotted the nameless woman.


Stopping at the edge, the sight was more than breathtaking. It was more than what they’d seen back where they’d gotten off of the ship. This, he thought, like the oceans of Harlak, could make a man feel like a tiny speck of dust in the galaxy. He stayed by her side as he took it in, just breathing the air and watching the sky for a brief moment before reality came back to him and he looked her way again, “Can you see it alright?”


It yawned before them. Their own shadows were lost, but the shadow of the canyon wall upon which they stood was creeping up the distant far side of the chasm. Everything within it was painted cold, in the darkest greens, violets, blues, and the most aged golds.

The young woman seemed to have sunk into herself--this time in what might have been satisfaction, or simply pleasure.

“I want....” She had to try again. “I want to sit on the ground.”

Without prompting, Sadhric nodded across to Jarre, already moving to help and get her situated.


Silent, Jaare was there to help The Mechanic get the woman out of the pod. “You picked a beautiful place,” He told her as they got her out of the pod. Her weight was taken on as much as it could have been, giving her a body to hold her up and keep pressure off of her injured leg. With Sadhric’s help this was not an easy task, but it was made easier for the help he was both getting and giving to the task at hand. Once they had her seated, Jaare was quickly slipping out of his vest, as worn and grimey as it was, and laying it across the woman’s back and shoulders.


With Jarre seeing to settling her in, Sadhric got the hoversled out of the way--not far--and powered it down before coming back. He gazed down at her.

Still, all the things he’d heard you were supposed to say had been said. She was not in her right mind, perhaps--how could she be, so ill? So injured?--but it seemed disrespectful to hammer at her in this place.

So after a time he simply sat, too, on the ground, within armsreach of her, and waited.


The ground was settled on, Jaare sitting just at her right side, his eyes watching the shadows of the canyon slowly grow. The warmth of the day was shifting toward the chill of night just as slowly as those shadows were growing. Every now and then he’d look toward the woman, hoping to see something on her face other than exhaustion, other than illness. After a bit, he followed the urge to say something. He didn’t know what it was until his mouth opened and the words came out. What he said was, “Whatever the end of this day brings for you, I hope you meet it with peace, Buir. --I hope you meet it with peace.”


The woman seemed to fall asleep for a time.

Not long into sunset, with the sky ablaze, the human medic came down to find them. She said nothing--the fact that she had come down was enough to speak of the restlessness of her and her Idiran partner. That this was an uncomfortable event for them was one thing; the fact that they had been taken out of rotation for it made it worse.

Sadhric glanced at her, but after that returned to simply waiting, his own knees drawn up by that time, wrapped and locked by his arms, ankles crossed.

The human medic went to sit on the far side of Jarre, a few yards away, on a noselike boulder.

It was dark when the injured woman stirred again, opening her eyes, hissing in pain.

The Mand’alor took that opportunity to come to her side and crouch.

“We have more painkillers,” he said. “And I have something stronger, too. The choice has to be yours.” He put two capsules by her waxen hand.

The medic, craning her neck to see, recognized both as having most likely come from her own ship.


She stirred, and it brought Jaare out and away from his own thoughts which hadn’t been more than him wondering about the woman he was sitting next to. Who were her kin? Who, exactly, did she lose? What caused the wound, and the subsequent infection? What was her -name-? That last was important. If he knew nothing else about the woman, it was her name that he wanted to hear her say. He could remember her as a being, yes. Her name would give that being depth. Buir would be a great substitute, he decided, since she was not willing to give her identity away. Maybe she felt low caste due to the deaths of her comrades.... The bottle of water was offered over, shown in his right hand as Sadhric offered the pain killers, “Here, if you want it. I’ll help you.”


Her fingers seemed dull, thick, useless as blunt knives when she first tried to pick at the capsules.

“Thank you....” she breathed. To Jarre. Maybe to both of them.

“The stronger,” she told Jarre, when she failed to pick up either of what had been offered.

Rather than making Jarre do that, Sadhric reached in and got it for her, showed it to her as Jarre had shown her the water, and then pointedly put it in her hand and closed her fingers over it.

“Your task,” he told her. “You can’t ask this of him, though he’d do it for you. If you want it, find the strength.”


It certainly was not an easy thing to watch. Her clumsy fingers just weren’t cooperating, and before his eyes he saw Sadhric pick up the pill and place it in her hand. Numbly, mutely, Jaare opened the bottle of water and poured a bit of the liquid into the cap once again. If she could manage to take the pain killers, maybe she could manage to get herself some water.


The young woman rested there, the killing capsule in her left hand, her deadened fingers partially uncurled but the capsule nestled in the folds nonetheless, perhaps sticky against her skin.

Jarre waited with the water.

The Mand’alor waited for her strength to come, watchful and silent.

The medic watched the dark canyon.

The chill had come. Some kind of night avians called to one another somewhere far below them in the chasm.

They were like attendants around a queen.

The woman’s chest started to shake, and her breath came in soft little shocks.

She was crying, finally breaking down in silence, though the tears themselves were slow in appearing, the moisture too precious.


Leaving the bottle to stand upright on some smooth bit of ground near him, off to the side and out of the way, Jaare freed a hand and laid it on the woman’s shoulder when she began to shake, to cry even though the tears weren’t coming. He didn’t say anything, but through that contact he did attempt to let her know she was not alone. Jaare had never been in true battle. He could fight, but he was no solider. He’d never seen loss like she had, had never shed blood under the command of an order before this day. Those differences seemed like a line that just faded into non-existence. She was no solider right then, and he was not a down-on-his-luck drifter. They were Mando’ade. Strangers, yes, but still vod. Still from the same family.


Some of her sobs came in silence, just a heaving, a racking.

She drew in shuddering, weak breaths, and scratched some voice into some as she mourned.

Words were so sparse with her, it was impossible to know how much her grief came for others, how much for herself.

Behind Jarre, the medic bowed her head and locked herself up tight.

Opposite Jarre, the Mand’alor was silent, contained.


He was there, as constant as he had been since he’d first heard her speak her weak words back in Keldabe, his form unwavering as he sat beside her, his hand steady and warm on her shoulder. What words could he say to comfort the woman? He had no idea, not in that little bit of paradise that surrounded them.


The stars were above them when the woman’s eyes closed.

The pill lay untaken in her hand.