Karvis
Player Journals => Niil Spaar => Topic started by: Niil Spaar on April 16, 2016, 04:41:02 PM
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Niil watched as the senators, Collan, Keshani and the blind Jedi boarded Ch'lana's ship and gave them a final wave. A faint hiss-thunk signified that the airlocks had closed, and a few moments later a minute tremor passed through the Rogue Shadow. Magnetic clamps released, so we'll be off soon, Niil mused. The sudden silence of the ship struck him, and left him alone with his own thoughts. Ch'lana's death was still very fresh in his mind, and again he refrained from smacking his fist against the bulkhead. Tax and Nim's grievous injuries also tore at him, and he turned his head to where they were. Trax, lying on a table, was clearly unconscious, but his body was coated in a light sheen of sweat. A good thing PROXY gave him strong anesthetics, Niil thought. If not, Trax would have likely died on his feet standing by Nim's side.
The droid was just finishing some adjustments on the bacta tank that Nim was floating in, and turned to regard Niil with what could best be described as a reproving look. Niil grinned, and held up his hands in supplication. "I said I'd behave, PROXY. I just wanted to make sure everyone was safe before I let myself get some rest." His face creased in worry. "How are Nim and Trax?"
PROXY came over to Niil's bedside, and replied, "Miss Naja's wounds are serious, but she was brought to me in time. I expect she will make a full recovery."
Niil held up a hand with a smile. "So if she follows the regimen, she will recover fully?"
PROXY nodded. "That is correct."
Niil breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank the Force. And of course you, PROXY. I take it that Trax is in similar straits?"
Niil swore that PROXY let out a faint sigh. "Mister Trax's abdominal wound was not as severe as that of Nim's."
He hesitated for a moment as he looked at Trax, and he peered closer at the man's sheathed arm. "PROXY, do you know what happened to Trax's arm? I saw that he had it covered up when we first met in the Horuz system."
Proxy nodded. "On Corellia, Trax's right arm was amputated just below the elbow. I replaced it with a mechanical prosthesis."
On Corellia? That's where the senators were captured by the Empire, weren't they? PROXY's voice brought Niil out of his thoughts. "Master Spaar? I would highly recommend that you let me administer a sedative and a pain dampener now. Your injuries are also severe."
Niil shook his head. "One moment, PROXY. I'm going to attempt a Jedi healing technique first. If it works, my injuries will start to heal at a faster rate, which means that you can focus more on Nim and Trax. After that, I'm going to put myself into a Jedi hibernation trance. My vital signs will drop drastically, but that's to be expected. Maybe one or two heartbeats per minute. It will ease the strain on the Rogue Shadow's life support systems. If you need to bring me out of the trance - or when Trax regains consciousness - simply say to me, 'Niil, time to wake up.'"
PROXY hesitated, then reluctantly agreed. The droid was no stranger to the odd ways and powers of the Jedi.
Niil smiled faintly. "Thanks, PROXY. Time for me to see if I can do something about this damned lightsaber slash . . ."
OOC: Niil will clear his mind first, then he'll go for Accelerate Healing (augmented by Concentrate if it's allowed). Once he does that, he'll slip into a Hibernation Trance. I'll wait until PROXY wakes me up (I'm guessing that will be when Trax wakes up and is coherent), and then Niil will want to talk to Trax.
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Yeah, concentration, accelerate healing, and hybernation trance. It takes a few tries, but you get it.
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OOC: Cool. All right, I guess I'll either let you or Trax decide when the wake-up call is. And sorry about taking liberties with PROXY. Please, feel free to edit my first post if I stepped out of bounds there.
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If Niil is waiting for Trax to wake him up, he'll be risking dying of old age. :P
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[Edited the original post. Please adjust IC knowledge accordingly.]
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"Nlll, tmm to wkkk upp . . ."
Whazzat? Did someone speak? A few moments later, he heard the voice again, although it was much clearer.
"Niil, time to wake up."
The trigger. Slowly, Niil let himself become aware of his body again. With great care, he gradually brought his metabolic rate back up, and started to feel his heart beating again. Taking in a slow, deep breath, he gingerly opened his eyes, and cursed. Cover your eyes next time, dolt. Flopping an arm over his face, he shaded his eyes until they could fully adjust to the ship's lighting. Taking his hand away, he saw PROXY standing over him, it's head cocked slightly to the side.
"Ugh," he muttered as he worked to get moisture back into his mouth. "Thank you, PROXY. Has Trax regained consciousness?"
PROXY nodded. "He has, Master Spaar. Do you require assistance out of bed?" The droid slowly raised the controls of the bed so that the upper half was inclined.
Niil lifted the sheets to look at his chest, and grinned faintly. The healing acceleration has definitely made some improvement, although he doubted that he was ready for combat any time soon. "I should be all right, PROXY. I'll be careful." Niil propped himself up on his elbows and very carefully swung his legs over the side. A brief spasm of pain shot through his chest, but quickly passed to be replaced with a dull ache. Pushing himself away from the bed with his hands, he slowly straightened and let out the breath he'd been holding expectantly. "Not bad, all things considered. Thanks, PROXY; I'm good."
"Very good, Master Spaar. Please let me know if you require any further assistance."
Niil let the droid go on about his business, and carefully made his way over to where Trax was. Niil gave the man a weak thumbs-up, and muttered with a faint smile, "This will probably be the mother of all dumb-ass questions, but how are you feeling, Trax? That was one hell of a whack you took." Niil's voice betrayed some of the concern he was feeling for his comrades.
OOC: I don't know how long Niil's been out, so I don't know what his wound status would be like at this time.
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Trax gave a bit of a shrug.
"Been worse.
I saw you drop when her saber hit you too, how is it you managed to get up?"
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OOC: I don't know how long Niil's been out, so I don't know what his wound status would be like at this time.
Niil has been out of it for a week. He's going to take some time to recover from such a long trance.
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Niil shook his head, then grunted and placed his hand on a stanchion to steady himself as vertigo sloshed his senses around. "It wasn't easy. One of the first things that Ch'lana taught me and Collan was how to override the the body's pain receptors. We can still move around and do stuff if we're able to kill the pain, but it's risky. We're basically over-riding the body's safety shutdown, and we can still deep-six ourselves from aggravating the injuries if we're not careful." He snorted. "You wouldn't feel the pain, but you'd still be as dead as the nightlife on Tatooine."
He cocked his head slightly, a puzzled expression on his face. "But you said you've been worse? We fought side by side on pretty well every op back on Karvis, but don't remember you taking a beating this bad before . . ." Niil already knew of the injury to Trax's arm, but played dumb. Nope, if he wants to tell me about it, that's his call.
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"Pretty well every, but not every. Spent some time in a bacta tank after a KDF heist or two. Granted blaster injuries don't tend to leave you with your guts spilling out, or missing an arm."
Trax raised his left arm slightly and wiggled his fingers.
"I know you noticed, a little hard not to given the current situation."
[OOC: I know at least once after a KDF mission Trax spent time in a bacta tank, just can't recall if it was more than once or after which mission(s).]
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Niil nodded grimly. "Yeah, I saw that you had it sleeved up before we hit that station, and again. You were already out of it and hooked into a crap-ton of IVs." Niil glanced back at the droid, and whispered, "Please don't chew out PROXY, but I, ahh, sort of asked him if your arm was okay. I noticed that you had it covered up before we hit the station. He told me that you were outfitted with a prosthesis shortly after you left Corellia."
Niil lowered his head, and muttered, "I take it that Corellia was pretty bad?"
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Trax's eyes narrowed. He was clearly unimpressed, but whether it was with Niil about asking PROXY or PROXY telling Niil about his arm it was hard to be sure of.
"You could say that." he said, his tone as somewhat hostile, clearly indicating that Niil should be treading very carefully.
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Niil held up a hand. "Trax . . . hey, relax, I was just concerned about what happened to your arm. I'm sure as hell not going to tell anyone about it. That's your call to make. And if you don't want to speak about Corellia, then no worries."
He went silent for a moment, then changed the topic with a grin. "PROXY told me that Nim will be making a full recovery. No permanent damage if she sticks to his recovery regimen. You got her to Nightshade just in time."
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Trax eyed Niil for another moment or two before he visibly relaxed.
"I think it was more that Nightshade got there in time.
We need a better plan for dealing with jedi."
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Niil blew out his breath and nodded grimly. "You got that right. Collan and I are only apprentices right now, so getting in a Force fight would probably be very one-sided."
He mused for awhile. "We already know that single-shot blasters are desperation weapons. If a Jedi's good enough with a lightsaber, he's got a good chance of killing you with your own frakking shot. I'd suggest . . . probably stuff like area-of-effect weapons, scatter weapons and weapons with a high rate of fire. Slug throwers aren't bad. A Jedi might still be able to deflect a slug with his lightsaber, but the round's probably gonna melt when it hits the blade, so it can't be sent back at you. A slug-throwing sniper rifle from a good distance could be great if the Jedi can't detect the danger in time. Frag grenades? Pffff, they'd be good if you could catch the Jedi by surprise. If you can't, they might just Force-fling it right back at you, or jump out of the blast radius before it detonates."
Niil chewed at his lip for a moment, then murmured, "Yeah . . . yeah, sonic stunners and neural scramblers might work well, too. Disrupt or overload a Jedi's neurons and synapses enough, and he's not going to able to use the Force too well. Maybe not at all."
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"Hard to move through security check points with sonic or neural weapons. Don't have much experience using them either.
You say Jedi can detect danger?"
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Niil nodded. "If they learned how or were taught, yes, but the Jedi has to be actively using the Force to try and sense a threat. The more powerful the Jedi is in the Force, the easier it is for him to detect a hidden danger."
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"Is there a limit to the range of that ability?"
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Niil shrugged. "I'm not sure. Again, I guess it all depends on how powerful the Jedi is, and how many augmenting powers he has going."
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"Wrist mounted rocket launcher is an option then." he said thinking out loud.
The man clenched his left hand into a fist. It was obvious jedi were a serious threat. And from Collan shouting out at the barrier that Ch'lana was going to a dark place, obviously even a seemingly good jedi could become a threat. No one should be able to wield the power he'd seen over the last few weeks. No one. That Niil and Collan were going down this path made the man very uneasy. But at least between his current discussion with Niil, and the discussions he'd had and would continue to have with PROXY, he was learning how to deal with this new threat to himself, and those he cared about.
"Still pretty damned illegal mind you so permits need to be forged. Not an insurmountable problem." he said, suddenly noticing he'd been quiet for a few seconds.
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A ghost of a smile played upon Niil's face as he waited a few moments before replying. "Illegal as hell, but you might also be able to disguise them as something else and mask their power signatures. Hmm . . . Keshani's pretty sharp. She might be able to design something . . . if she decides to stay with us, that is."
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"She turned two droid power cores into explosives in under a minute, I'd say pretty sharp doesn't begin to describe it.
But I'm not sure staying with us is the best thing for her, as much as I'd want her to. She needs a safe, low stress place to hang out until she can heal, physically and mentally."
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Niil nodded his agreement, but then chuckled. "She should find plenty of places like that on Kashyyk. Or knowing her, a fully stocked tech shop." Niil thought for a moment, then came to a decision. "I was, ahh, thinking of trying to repair Buzz while we were in transit, but my tech skills are laughable at best. Maybe when we reach Kashyyk we can let Keshani try and fix him if she wants. That little floating bugger was a big help to us, and he sure seems to like Nim."
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"We could ask, but that should really be Nim's decision. I know she'll want him fixed up, we both do, but how that's done is her call."
Trax's tone was pretty clear, the droid carried some sentimental value to the man.
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"True enough. I wouldn't turn it over to Keshani without Nim's green light anyway."
Niil hesitated for a moment, then decided to get it over with. "Look, Trax . . . with all the drek that's happened to us in the past couple of weeks things have gotten hairy as hell, but please, bear with me here. Back when those bastards cornered us on the station and captured us . . . you know Collan was trying to feed that guard captain the mother of all snow jobs, right? It was a desperation move, and it conned that guard captain . . . and a lot of us, too." He snorted, "Well, Nim probably saw through it. She's a Lorrdian, after all. Unfortunately for Collan, that captain stuck to procedure and took him right to the Emperor."
Niil winced. "Palpatine saw right through the bogus story, and gave Collan over to a torture team. I could actually feel a small part of the torture they were putting him through, and even that felt like I was getting worked over with electrical cables. He was in pretty bad shape when we sprung him." He shook his head. "Collan's no Imperial plant, and he's not a Dark Sider."
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"You so sure about that?
One of the best ways to sell a con is get the mark to empathize or sympathize with you. Especially when the mark is prone to wanting to help people. Enduring pain, even if it's enough to knock you down for a while is a great way to get that empathy. You say Palpatine gave him over to be tortured, but how do you know it's just not another part of the script he's following?"
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Niil's eyes hardened for a moment, but he visibly relented. "Yes, Trax, I'm sure of it. Yeah, he managed to sell most of us on the con job, but when I was sitting in my own little fun cell, I got to thinking about what Collan had said, and a lot of it didn't add up. Collan didn't even know who the hell his father was until Demaia used the Force to try and get past all of his mental trauma blocks. And if Collan was working for his father, you can bet that he'd be a crap-load more powerful in the Force than he is now. Demaia and Ch'lana would've made him right away. And like I said before, Nim probably saw Collan's con for the bantha crap it was right on the spot."
He shrugged. "And if that isn't enough, think on this . . . Collan's had countless opportunities to do a hell of a lot of damage to us back on Karvis, or on any of our missions. The prison ship? One shot or two in the back and the Imps could've had all of us frakked there, including Demaia and Ch'lana. And why spring Demaia if she was already captured and on her way to the Emperor? Hell, what about that last mission? If it was a trap and the Imps knew we were coming, all they needed to do was station a few Interdictors to yank us out of hyperspace, and blow us to hell with a Star Destroyer and its TIEs. Setting the trap up on board the battle station - especially with someone as powerful as Galen Marek with us? That just defines the word 'stupid'. Your average Imperial trooper might not be the brightest being, but Imperial intel operatives are far from dumb."
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"He says he didn't know his father. You've got nothing but his word to go on.
And hey, maybe he didn't, maybe the mental blocks were necessary to make sure he got past any test thrown at him. Assuming the blocks were there, releasing them activated him, something of a sleeper agent if you will.
Collan said you guys watched the mountain get bombarded when you were in orbit. Awfully convenient that happened when he wasn't there and he'd just happen to be with you, who's actively being hunted by the Empire, and a jedi knight. Hell of a feather in his cap delivering you both. He would have had no idea when you finally reached the station he'd have connected with Galen first. As for him being more powerful, maybe he is, maybe he isn't. Maybe he has to prove his worth before they'll train him further. He pulled some pretty neat tricks on the station, did you know he could do all that?
As for his little stint in the torture room, for all you know his chat with Palpatine changed the end game and he needed to be, let's say reprogrammed a little, for lack of a better term. Or Palpatine was pissed at him for something, or he was being prepped for another infiltration entirely which got interrupted."
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Niil shook his head and sighed with equal parts exasperation and regret. "Trax . . . I don't know what else I can say to try and convince you, because I'm getting the feeling that you don't trust me anymore. Or anyone that uses the Force, for that matter. Collan lied about being an Imperial, and he used the Force to augment his con - so yeah, of course most of us believed it, too, because we overheard it. Ask Nim when she's better on how she read his body language. Just . . . do me a favor and at least give Collan the benefit of the doubt."
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"There is nothing you can say that'll make me trust him, he's shown himself to be a con man. So no, he's not going to get any benefit of the doubt from me."
Trax paused for a moment.
"As for you, I'm not sure it's a matter of trust.
No one, no...one..., forces their sense of morality on me, or gets to preach to me about their perceived sense of moral superiority."
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Niil's eyes turned frosty. "Wow. But you have no problems with threatening friends, and insulting the drek out of us? I'm truly sorry that you see things that way. Trax, I was concerned you were treading a path that could easily lead to worse things, and you didn't seem to give a rat's ass."
Niil shook his head, and started to fold up his cot. "But if that's the way you feel, then you won't hear any more from me; you're a big boy. I'll find somewhere else to crash."
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"Don't trouble yourself." Trax said, the tone of his voice very plain. There was no anger at Niil's response.
"I'm moving to medbay anyway."
Trax stood up and headed for the door. Tapping the panel the door swooshed open but instead of leaving, the man turned around. There was no hint of any hostility in his voice or a look of malice on his face, in fact, possibly the opposite. There might have been a hint of sadness, or maybe disappointment.
"Let me tell you a little something about paths." he said sounding weary.
"The path I'm on had me risk my life to intervene when Whitehawk came looking to cash in on your head. The path I'm on had you risk my life needlessly, and without permission, so you could take a pot shot at the jedi on the prison ship. The path I'm on has cost me an arm, someone I care about, and almost cost me the life of the only other person I care about...just to do the right thing. So don't worry about the path I'm on, but you might want to walk softly on yours.
Because the one you're on means I won't be around when the next hunter shows up to collect on your head. And don't kid yourself, even before Horuz, the next one was on the way. And they make Whitehawk look about as dangerous as a new born nerf."
With that said Trax spun around and left the cargo hold, closing the door behind him.
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[OOC: 2cp each, Trax and Niil.]