Karvis
The Rebel Alliance => Support Services => Topic started by: GM Craig on October 07, 2016, 12:27:18 PM
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In the next few days, a whirlwind of things happen. It seems once this Alliance makes a decision, things move rapidly. You met with a Major (who's name you cannot remember) who interviewed you and asked you technical questions. There was a swearing in ceremony, attended by only a couple of people, none of whom you knew. Then you found yourself on a transport with a bunch of other apparent techs, and a few rough-looking soldiers.
The new uniform - a grey jumpsuit with clompy boots and the red phoenix logo on it - was a tough transition. But that wasn't as hard as being given a rank. "Specialist Keshani" they called you now. There was a nob bad tech kit issued, along with a sidearm. You were expected to listen to direction, do what you were told. Not much different from on the station, but the consequences were a lot lighter and your off-duty time was your own.
The soldiers travelling with you are rough, coarse, and crude. But you find you fit in with them not badly. When you can get over your shyness and fear, their talk and manner is very reminiscent of life on the street, before the slave pens. They even give you a nick-name. Once one of the solider was razzing you a little, and you were feeling a bit feisty, so threw a one-liner zinger at him. it left him speechless, to the great amusement of the others. Ever since then, they've called you Snaps.
Danny is on the transport as well, wearing a new Officer uniform. She doesn't seem stuck up about it though, and you guys speak frequently. She seems excited about the opportunity, and determined to prove herself to the Alliance that trusted her. The other techs in the unit seem the typical tech folks, to varying degrees - respecting skill over rank and that sort of thing. You haven't really gotten to know them, but they seem friendly enough. They're all ex-military, which further sets you apart. As far as you bothered to find out, you're the only one without a military background.
On route, Danny gives you guys a quick briefing. You are heading to the rural, agrarian world of Dantooine. It is remote, off the main trade lanes - a perfect place to hide.
Military Transports are not long on creature comforts. You are pretty much spending all your time in a small cargo bay converted to carry troops, so it involves hours sleeping in a chair that only reclines slightly. Rations are better than slave gruel, and you enjoy them though the other techs complain about the food constantly. The soldiers do not complain - another thing that seems to draw you to them.
In speaking with the soldiers, you learn that are Special Forces, and are along as security for your group while you build the new base.
When you finally land, you are literally in the middle of nowhere. gently rolling hills dotted here and there with short thick-trunked trees streth as far as the eye can see in every direction, fading into the light mist after a couple of kilometres. Your muscles are stiff after so long in cramped conditions, but there si literally no place to sit and relax a bit.
Danny has a quick conversation with a couple of scouts that emerge from the brush - apparently expected - and starts issuing orders to establish a work camp. She comes to you.
"Specialist Keshani, take a squad of soldiers, load lifter, and a couple of crates of sensors, and give me a one klick perimeter with 25% overlap."
She looks around. "We have four hours until sunset, and then the predators come out. We need some hustle!"
One of the soldiers, a fierce-looking teddy bear name Corporal Bant Halloway - nicknamed Holler - steps up. "Hey, Snaps, if you need cover, my and my boys can come with." He spits some brown liquid on the grass to the side - a habit of his, some sort of thing he chews constantly. "If ye want. It'd beat guard duty, and we could use the exercise."
There's other squads to choose from, but Holler and his squad seem a good enough fit.
-
It had been a crazy few days. She had been sent from one place to another,
one thing happening after another. Her head was still spinning with the
quickness of it all. Things hadn't ever moved quickly during her time on the
Station, or her time before....
The new uniform she could handle. It was a bit tight in some places where
she'd rather it wasn't, but it was clothes, and it was more comfortable than
what she had been given to wear in the slave camps by leaps and bounds.
The rank was another thing. "Specialist". She still didn't really know what
that meant. It wasn't as if they had had a lot of time to explain, nor she a
lot of time to ask. She was by no means an expert in military
tradition/protocols and since being sworn in, she was sure, had ticked off
quite a few people for not recognizing some idiosyncracy that was considered
"normal" in the military, even if that military was a Rebellion.
But the thing that was, by far, the hardest to get used to and convince
herself to do was to listen to the orders of others without question. Sure,
she had been forced to do that while on the Station and in the slave camps,
but there the consequence for not doing so had a promise of being very
unpleaseant.
Even still, she had had her share of punishments (and in fact, Danny had
rescued her from a sentence of death) for not following directions, and here,
with the lighter tone and without the threat of death hanging over her as as
consequence for not doing so, it was something she had to work to constantly
remind herself to do, to follow orders blindly. Her first instinct was always
to rebel, followed by a reminder from her brain that she had decided that she
had wanted to do this - it had been her choice, nobody elses.
Free time was something she was slowly getting used to, as well. Very slowly.
She had had free time on the trip to Alderaan and plenty of free time once
they had gotten to Alderaan, but she still wasn't exactly sure what to do
with it. Again, the constant chance to cause trouble always hung around,
tempting her. Doing things she wasn't supposed to do and getting AWAY with it
was a challenge. It was exciting and it gave her an adrenaline rush. She was
hooked on adrenaline and couldn't easily resist a chance to get a rush....
But when Danny ordered her to take a squad of soldiers and set up a perimeter
around their makeshift camp, the girl's first instinct was outright fear. She
had never ever given orders to ANYONE before. She had never been in charge of
ANYTHING. And now she was supposed to just tell a squad of soldiers to come
with her and follow her lead?
She blinked, trying to figure out how to give orders to a group of hardened soldiers who all had extensive military experience and who were all a lot older than her when the sound of a voice behind her made her stomach unclench a little.
"Hey, Snaps, if you need cover, me and my boys can come with you".
She smiled to herself before turning around. Corporal Halloway. "Holler".
She let out a soft breath she hoped no one could hear and turned.
"That would be great. Thanks"
Then, recovering her wit some she couldn't help but comment "I don't know about your 'boys', but you sure could use the exercise."
But she threw a grin at him and punched him in the shoulder, showing that she was teasing before moving off to gather up the supplies.
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He gives you a lopsided grin. "Maybe I can give you some of my bulk... I'll meet you in 5 minutes by loading ramp."
You quickly gather up the required gear - automapper, crates of sensors, and a load lifter. The droid was on the fritz. However, the terrain shouldn't be too bad, so you commandeered a cargo sled, and head to ship. Sure enough, the specs are there. It looks like they are going through a gear check. "Holler" is giving them final instructions.
"... yer heads up and stay sharp. Recon says there's lots of predators here - kath hounds, and vorritor lizards are the worst of it. Kath hounds are hunters so watch for flankers. Vorritor lizards are stalkers, so keep your eyes open. There's Graul on this rock too, but not supposed to be any nearby and we should hear them long before we see them. Bol are mostly harmless, but will attack if threatened. Double Point formation, 100m intervals. Peepers and Spitz up front. Jacks and Hassle on the flanks. Grunt and Kicker with me on the package. Screamer brings up the rear. When we stop, I want a double circle at 50m intervals. I'll cover the package." He glances at you. "And here's the package - you guys already know Snaps." He turns back to the squad. "Any questions?"
No one speaks.
"OK, gear check."
The men and women of the unit each start re-checking their gear. Holler turns to you and hands you a blaster carbine. "Supposed to be a wild area, lots of predators. That pop gun you got won't help much, so take this. Insurance. Stick to me. If you can't stick with me for some reason, then it's Kicker, then it's Grunt. The gear is secondary. If things go bad, we dump it and run. Got it?"
[OOC:
Backgrounds:
- Peepers is a human male from Alderaan. Short, quick and quiet.
- Spitz is a human male from, you think, Chandrilla, but he's never said. He's a quiet guy, but the others seem to respect him. His voice is very high-pitched - may be why he doesn't speak a lot.
- Jacks is a human female from, you think, Corellia. She is a sharpshooter - she carrier a different weapon than the others.
- Hassle is a big human male from Anderaan. He's a heavy weapons specialist, and particularly mouthy. He has a reputation for fighting off-duty.
- Grunt is some sort of bi-pedal furry humanoid female with a tail. You're not sure where she is from or what her species is, but she speaks basic.
- Kicker is a human male from Alderaan. He tends to keep to himself, so you don't know much about him.
- Screamer is a human female, maybe from Chandrilla. She is very quiet - in the time you've known her she's maybe spoken six words. She has a habit of appearing without warning that makes people jumpy.
They all have real names, but you've come to know their nicknames.
/ooc]
A minute later everyone reports ready. You're impressed in spite of yourself with how quickly and how detailed they check every piece of combat gear. You could do all that, of course, but not as quickly as they can.
When they're done, Holler turns to you. "Ok, boss. Where do you want to start?"
[OOC: Feel free to make something up.]
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She made a face at the word "Package" used to describe her but bit her tongue to keep from saying anything.
She was supposed to be a professional, and she imagined that part of that meant not breaking protocol during a briefing....
The team was fast, focused and efficient. Before she knew it they were ready to go.
"Ok, boss. Where do you want to start?"
She mentally winced at the word "boss", but again fought to keep these thoughts inside of her.
She had a thing about lefts. She liked them. Everyone else always went to the right. Lefts were unexpected.
"Let's go straight out here" she pointed in a direction in front of them "and put the first sensors down. That'll be the first corner, and then work our way left from there."
-
You guys head out, the troopers taking positions in the formation without any further orders. They seem like a well-oiled machine, and the chatter stops entirely the moment you start moving.
It soon becomes apparent that the cargo sled is going to take a little effort to manoeuvre, so Holler taps Kicker to help you control it as you head out.
The countryside, once you get away from the camp, is beautiful. Pristine and untouched, as you climb down the first hill, you spot a herd of some sort of large quadrupeds - you suspect they are the Bol Holler mentioned - moving along and quietly grazing. There are also large flying lizards of some sort, but they stay well away from your group and you do not get a good look at them.
Wide open plains, dotted with the curiously stubby, thick trees stretch on as far as the eye can see. This is a sight unlike anything you have seen. It's like the largest park you could imagine, and then expanded beyond imagining.
The automapper does a good job, and after a while you get to the first point. You nod at Hollar, who makes some sort of hand gestures, and the rest of the team scatter and vanish in the grass and small shrubs around you.
Holler slings his rifle and moves to give you a hand. "Man, this is some wild country," he says quietly. "I've been in remote places before, but nothing like this. The Alliance wants a place to hide, this is a good one."
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Kesh worked to stay focused on the task. It wouldn't do to fail the first task she was given...but the surroundings kept encroaching on her thoughts. They were......awe inspiring. She had never seen anything like them. She wanted to go running through them, exploring, breathing in the fresh air. They were also terrifying. She was a city creature, and she was sure that there were things out there that she had no idea about.
Before she knew it they had arrived at the first point and she started in on setting up the sensors. The Specs scattered like the professionals they were and she couldn't help but feel a sense of....security...wash over her. There were dangerous things around. And she would be foolish not to remain vigilant. But what could happen to her with this team protecting her?
"Man, this is some wild country. I've been in remote places before, but nothing like this. The Alliance wants a place to hide, this is a good one."
She fought the instinct to jump at his words. So intent she had been on her thoughts and working on the sensors that she'd forgotten that Holler had stayed to keep an eye on her and stand guard. Her face flushed a bit red at her lack of "situational awareness", as it was known. She hoped that Holler hadn't noticed, but she was sure that he had.
"If the Alliance has discovered it and thinks it's a good place to hide, wouldn't that mean others would think so too, though?"
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"Needle in a haystack, Snaps. This wilderness is huge. They could spend a month searching and still not find us."
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She shrugged, warily looking out in the distance for a second.
"The funny thing about odds...there's always a chance they'll be against you."
Then she touched a few more buttons on the sensors and stood up.
"I'm done with this one. You guys had long enough a break that you're good to move on? Wouldn't want y'all getting tired on me..."
She grinned, and playfully punched Holler on the arm before gathering up her stuff and waiting to move out.
-
The next several sensor placements go without a hitch. The team stays alert, but there is good camaraderie, and when you are on station deploying a sensor, the team keeps a close eye on the surroundings.
Then, the bush beside you bursts into motion. You see scales and fangs as a flash of movement, then before it can even register, Kicker is gone - dragged through the bush.
You feel a hand on your back and before you know it, you are face down in the grass with Hollar kneeling over you, bellowing orders. "Contact left flank! Peeppers, Spitz, Jacks: pursuit! Everyone else hold up!"
You can hear the sound of thrashing in the brush, and Kicker's voice calling out, rapidly receding. There are a few wild blaster shots.
Hollar says, "Snaps, you ok?"
-
Despite her knowing better, she had started to relax. It was...refreshing....being out in the wilderness - the smells, the fresh air, the silence....It was so different from all of the things she had bad memories of.
She found herself enjoying the company of the others. They were close knit, but professional.
Then, suddenly, as she was deploying a sensor a bush began moving beside her. Before she knew what was even happening she saw a flash of scales and fangs and then Kicker was gone. She fought back the urge to scream - not for her own safety, but for fear for Kicker - when she felt a hand on her back planting her face down in the grass
"Snaps, you ok?"
In the adrenaline rush it took her a moment to realize he was talking to her.
"Uh..." she started, then stopped to compose herself.
"Yeah. I'm fine.", she answered quickly.
But her face was a mixture of paleness and redness. (Good thing she was still lying on the ground and he couldn't see...)
If she had gone out by herself without the others then Kicker wouldn't have been attacked.
Why did it seem that other people were always getting hurt, or worse, for her?
She felt feelings of frustration warring inside with feelings of fear for Kicker.
She felt like she wanted to puke. But she swallowed it back down.
"I'm fine.", she said again, some of that fear and frustration leaking into her voice without her being aware.
-
You hear another flurry of blaster shots - 5 or six - then an eerie silence. Immediately beside you, Hollar speaks into his comlink. "Report."
In your ear you hear Jack's voice, distorted by the signal encryption, "Kicker's wounded, not serious. He'll live. Vorritor. Big one, too. Might want to check it out, boss."
Hollar looks at you. "Your mission. Want to look the monster in the eye?"
-
She shrugged, fighting between her curiosity and her fear. Finally she nodded and moved to stand up.
-
You make your way through the brush for about a hundred yards, finally making it to a clearing. There, you see a bleeding Kicker being tended to by Peepers.
In the middle of the clearing, with still-smoking wounds, lies the largest lizard you have ever seen. It must be 20' from nose to tail. But the oddest thing about it is that the skin of the creature is covered in non-organic symbols, as if it had been painted or tattooed.
Jacks grabs the head and shows something to Hollar. "It's wearing a collar." Then you see a woven leather collar around the neck of the lizard, decorated with bits of bone and coloured stones.
Hollar looks confused and walks slowly towards the creature. "What the frell?"
[Any actions?]
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She stared at the creature with a look close to awe. It was HUGE!!!
But then she noticed the symbols all over it and her expression quickly turned to confusion.
'I thought no one lived here....'
Always the techie, the teenage girl reached to her side without even really conscious thought and pulled out a sensor pack, aiming it toward the creature. She was curious if it would recognize any of the symbols or be able to give her any information about the creature or the people who obviously lived on this planet....
<Actions: use sensor pack to try to read symbols, detect anything about the material they are painted on with, anything about the color, anything about a group of people living close by, etc...>
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The datapad is able to pull out the painted figures. They appear to be some sort of primitive pictograph, but Keshani does not recognize the language.
Hollar scratches his cheek. "Well, there's settlers on planet, but they're thousands of klicks from here."
Peepers speaks up. "I thought I read in the intel briefing that there was some sort of hominid species on planet."
Hollar shakes his head. "Yeah, but they're just social apes, barely using tools." Then he sighs. "Wouldn't be the first time Intel got it wrong..."
You are still examining the pictographs when you hear someone yell, "Incoming!"
You glance up in time to see a white globular shape land in the middle of the clearing. It bursts, releasing a grey sort of mist or dust. Hollar calls out, "Perimeter...!" He never finishes, as he is overcome with a sudden fit of coughing. All around you, the other troopers are all doubling over, wracked by coughs. Hollar reaches for you, but his eyes roll back and he collapses on the ground, hand outstretched. around you, the rest of the troopers are similarly incapacitated.
[Actions?]
Youi are not affected - likely due to your helmet. The troopers wear an open-faced helmet.
-
"Frell...."
She watched the others for a second but then forced herself into motion, looking around for cover and readying her blaster. She wasn't the best fighter, but it looked like for now she may be all there was....
<Actions: Look for cover>
-
Move move out of the clearing and towards the brush when you run into something. Glancing up, you are looking up - way up - at a huge bipedal creature, The creature is covered with a thin coat of fur. powerful arms reach down and grab you by the helmet.
You feel the straps cut into your skin as you are lifted forcibly off the ground, and you cannot draw breath. Legs dangling, you realize the creature before you is female. She has very pronounced cheek bones and a thick brow ridge, but she does look near-human. She is dressed in some sort of lizard skin, and has some wooden implements strapped to her back. He gives you a spittle-spewing roar, and violently twists your helmet. The straps cut into your skin before they part, and you drop bodily to the ground.
This appears to surprise the female, as she looks back and forth from your helmet to you.
Your neck is throbbing, and you are gasping to get your breath back when the primitive female squats down before you. She does not seem aggressive, but you flinch when her hand reaches out and pulls at your hair. It hurts a bit, but you do not think this is intentional. She then makes a couple of grunting noises at you, but if it is a language, you do not understand it.
-
Gasping for air, Kesh studied the creature.
I think I just found the source of the tattoos and collar...., she mumbled to herself.
She turned her attention back to the creature. Slowly she moved her hands away from her blaster, holding them out palm first toward the creature so she could see she was holding nothing. Hopefully she would understand that she did not mean the bigger creature any harm..
"Friend", she said, pointing first to the creature and then to herself. "Friend ". She said again.
All of her movements felt painstakingly slow in the hope of not alarming the creature.
-
She looks at you, head tilted to one side.
As she speaks, you hear some rustling in the brush, and another huge lizard crawls out of the brush. The vorritor comes next to the female, who places a hand on the lizard's head and scratches over the eyes.
She apparently doesn't understand you, but she rises and points to you while grunting a few times at the lizard. The lizard hisses at you, and flaps of skin open on either side of it's head. It crabs sideways to put you between the humanoid and itself. It then snaps at you a couple of times, getting closer and closer with each snap.
-
"Hey now. Whoa." She said, fighting to keep her voice calm. Her instinct was to run. But that thing was faster than her anyway and it seemed like sudden movements might be a bad thing.
So fighting her instincts and making sure her hands were still out in front of her, she slowly took several steps backwards, waiting for the creatures reaction.
-
The creature relaxes slightly, but steps forward to follow you. You repeat, as does the creature, and it becomes clear the lizard is herding you after the primitive.
You start walking, following the primitive female, while the vorritor lizard watches you closely. You definitely get the idea that this is trained behaviour.
You walk without rest for some time. Without your helmet and the displays it provides, you're not sure how much time has passed. The primitive does not attempt any further communication, and she does not respond to any attempts you make.
It is early evening when you crest a hill. In a small bowl before you, you see a small primitive village. Without stopping, the vorritor urges you to follow the primitive down.
You enter the village, and see several other primitives - males, females, children - but you notice that most of them appear to be sick. For most of them, their thin fur is patchy, and several have boils on their skin. You also note that, beyond the edge of the village, there are the remains of several large fires. Many of the primitives are wailing and moaning in what appears to be mourning as they attempt to care for what you assume to be sick relations.
The village appears to be a lot more organized than you expected - the term the troopers used was "apes" but these are not behaving like beasts. You note some crude stone tools, and the huts they live in are built from turf, thatch, and leather. They are small, and appear to be easily packed up.
Sad eyes follow you as you move through the village, but other than a few children scurrying behind the legs or bodies of an adult, they do not interact with you.
You come to a large wooden cage in the centre of the village. The vorritor herds you to the cage. The primitive female pulled open the door, and roughly shoves you inside. She closes the door, and turns to depart. The vorritor snarls at you before settling down in front of the cage, keeping an eye on you.
Several of the villagers come near the cage, looking at you curiously, but no one tries to interact with you.
You see the female that took you here cross the centre space of the village and enter a larger hut. She emerges a few moments later with a bundle in her hand. She returns to the cage and squats before you. She waves a hand at you, motioning you over to her. As you approach, you see the bundle she is holding is actually a child. The poor thing is boil covered, and you see the baby's breathing is rapid and shallow.
She lets you look at the child a moment, then grunts and waves her hand at the rest of the village. She grunts again several times, and around you the other villagers bow their heads sadly. She stares at you quietly for a moment.
[Actions?]
Pausing for reaction.
-
Kesh felt a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach as she followed the primitive female. It was....strange.
She never really had to answer to anyone before other than herself. Well, and the guards when she had been on the slave world....
But now she had been given responsibilities. The rest of the team that was with her were counting on her to get the perimeter sensors set up so that they were protected.
And she had failed.
She had no idea still what had happened to Holler and his crew - whether they were alive and had just been momentarily stunned or if they were dead. And if maybe that had been her fault, too....
But now here she was, with no choice but to follow this female...wherever it was that they were going. Well, she kinda had a choice, but she didn't really see being torn apart by a huge lizard creature as a viable option....
Once she stepped into the village with her captors, though, the pit in her stomach grew into something else. Horror at what was clearly a very sick population of sentient beings? Fear that she could be affected as well? Sympathy over seeing another life form hurting so badly?
She didn't really have much time to think as she was herded toward a cage. She was SURE as she was herded toward a cage again that the emotion that was taking hold was one of fear. And anger.
But she really wasn't in any position to do anything other than step into the cage. And fight to breathe. And fight to keep from screaming.
But it was hard.
She could feel her heart pounding, adrenaline coursing through her body, urging her to fight.
But again, before those feelings could completely take root the female primitive was back, holding a baby in her arms.
And the fear was momentarily replaced with.....compassion? She couldn't really describe the feeling. But she knew she had to try something.
So slowly, keeping her hands clearly visible, Kesh reached around to one of the medpacks she was still carrying with her.
Slowly, making sure the female primitive could see what she was doing, she took it out and set it on the ground.
"Help." she said, pointing to herself and then to the baby. She waited for the primitive female to show some sign that she was okay with her getting to work with the medpack.
-
The natives scream and roar when you open up your pouch and pull out a medkit. The female that captured you bares her teeth, but she does not pull away. You make placating noises and, working with slow movements, open the medkit and activate the scanner.
It takes some work, but you quickly identify that whatever is affecting the child is not contagious. Curious, you poke further. You're not getting anywhere. Then, more to remove the obvious than any thought it might be true, you discover the cause. Multiple organs are in the process of failing due to toxins in the body.
The cells of the child have absorbed a cocktail is toxic substances. It doesn't make much sense to you. one or two might be naturally occurring, but nothing like what you are detecting - and not in these concentrations. The only thing that would generate toxins like this would be heavy manufacturing.
Fortunately, the treatment for this is not complicated. You make soothing noises again, and administer the anti-toxins to the baby, and hope the medkit scanner had the physiology right.
Within a dozen seconds, the child's breathing begins to become slower, steadier and stronger, and the colour starts to improve. It will probably be unconscious for some time while the antitoxin does it's work, but the treatment appears to be successful.
Your captor pulls the baby back and coos at the child. Around her, the others from the village start to quietly chatter and grunt among themselves. Your captor gets up and goes back to her hut, carrying the child. The others seem nervous, staring at you and grunting. Then a male comes forward, holding a young female child in his arms. He squats next to the cage and holds out the child to you.
-
Kesh smiled for a second, seeing the results of the antitoxins. It would be so easy to help all of these people. But not while she was caged up here without being able to contact anyone for help.
"No.", she said, as the male primitive approached her with another child in his arms.
"Out first.".
She pointed at the door to the cage and moved toward it before she turned anymore attention to the new child.
(OOC: What equipment does Kesh currently have with her?)
-
[Nothing from your bag - that was left behind. So, your armour (less your helmet), and whatever you would carry on your belt. Some tools, blaster packs, and 2 more medkits.]
He holds out the child to you again, when there is a bellow from the large hut. All the natives scurry back from the cage, and your captor comes up to you again. She has some vegetable matter and some meat in one hand, and some sort of melon or squash-type vegetable that appears to have been hollowed out and filled with water.
She sets them down before you and squats to watch you.
-
Sighing she looked down at the food and slowly tapped at her bracer, activating the data pad that was built in there. She scanned the food and the water, trying to a) decide if they were safe to eat and b) see if either one was the cause of the poison that was affecting these people.
-
The food shows only traces of toxin - no dangerous amounts, but it certainly wouldn't be healthy long-term. The water, however, shows extremely high levels of contaminants.
You captor watches you with interest.
-
She pointed to the water and then to the child. She tried to mime gestures that showed being sick, but she wasn't sure how good a job she did.
She again moved toward the door of the cage. "Let me out." she said, determination evident in the tone of her voice.
-
The female does not seem to understand, but when you move towards the door, she bares her fangs at you and growls.
-
She ignores the female and continues toward the door. She couldn't think while locked up. Too many memories were doubting to surface and she needed to be out.
-
The female growls at you. Then she gets up, turns, and walks back to her hut.
-
She still couldn't think. Her breathing was increasing, she was starting to sweat. She felt like the walls were closing in around her. These people wouldn't understand. But she couldn't think of anything right now other than being in the cage. At least in the cage with the door locked....
She moved to the door to examine it, ignoring the beings around her (unless she sensed danger from one of them). She would try to figure out a way to unlock the door with the tools she had with her if she could....
-
The cage is made from simple, natural materials. The cage is not locked - more tied off with some sort of vine. It would be easy enough to cut her way out using tools on her suit, but there are natives nearby with spears that may present problems to any escape attempt.
[Actions?]
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She studied the lock and realized how simple it would be to break through. But then she looked around at all of the being surrounding her and she fought the urge to throw up her hands. She felt a moment of panic surge through her and she forced herself to take a deep breath. She HATED being locked up. She felt like the walls of the cage were closing in around her and for a moment the smells and voices of the Station came back to her. She closed her eyes and concentrated on her breathing. In Out. In Out.
When she opened her eyes again she felt a little calmer. She looked at the Beings closest to her. She had to figure out a way to communicate with them somehow....
"Look!", she said, her exasperation and frustration with the situation overflowing into her voice.
"Your water - " she made a gesture of holding a glass/bottle to her lips and drinking, " - is poison. It's making you sick."
She mimed first feeling sick to her stomach and then mimed vomiting, and then gestured with her finger across her throat in what she hoped was a universal sign for being killed.
"How do I make you understand this without some common language?!"
-
After the large female's roar, they others have stayed well clear of you and the cage. A few look over curiously when you start miming, but they quickly loose interest.
[OOC: You going to wait it out, or try to escape?]
-
(How "clear of the cage" are they and how "uninterested" do they look?
-
[OOC: They are keeping an eye on you, but you could probably open the ties without them noticing, so long as you stayed in the cage.]
-
(Yes. That. Definitely.)
-
You pull a small blade out of your toolkit and easily part the vines that are holding the door closed. You try and be surreptitious about it, but at some point anyone looking would know what you are doing.
The vines part, and the door is now able to swing free. If any of the nearby locals noticed, they do not appear concerned.
[Actions?]
-
With the door now no longer locked, Kesh felt her chest losen up. She could breathe a bit better now which prompted her to breath in a deep slow breath of air.
She was still in the cage, but at least it would be easy to get out if she wanted to. She had a small amount of control at least....
So. What to do next....
The beings seemed to be all pretty much ignoring her at this point which wasn't really very helpful to her getting out of here...
Her mind drifted in two directions - 1) she really needed to contact the Rebellion group and 2) She really wanted to help these beings not continue to get sick.
She wasn't quite sure how to do the second thing yet. But the first.....she had a commlink in her helmet. But she wasn't sure where her helmet was at this point. She remembered it flying off of her head as she had been shaken. She wasn't sure what happened to it after that.
She decided to try looking around to see if she could find it.
-
Thinking back, you remember your helmet being ripped painfully from your head - you rub the torn flesh of your neck and chin at the memory. It seemed to surprise the female. There was a lot of fear that followed the arrival of the lizard, but you seem to recall the female kept your helmet with her. You didn't see it when she came back out with the child - perhaps she put it in her tent?
And that brings your thoughts back to the rebels. The team that was guarding you were all down when you were taken prisoner. If they were not killed outright by whatever was done to them, Hollar would likely be looking for you. You know from the stories that Peepers was a good tracker. Maybe they're already on the trail to rescue you.
But, seeing the condition of the natives, do you really want to be rescued? Dantooine is supposed to be a mostly unsettled agrarian world. Where would heavy manufacturing byproducts get into the water supply? There is a mystery there. heavy Manufacturing could mean an Imperial presence, and if the Imperials are close, this is decidedly NOT a good spot to build a base for the Alliance.
Thinking it through, your choices seem to boil down to three options: try and escape; wait and hope for rescue; or find out what is causing the water poisoning.
-
OOC: Question before I decide. With the help of the data pad in her bracer and her land nav skills, would she be able to find her way back to the Base on her own?
-
[OOC: Difficult to say. The datapad doesn't have a locator or an automapper. You'd be mostly feeling your way. You're pretty sure you could find it eventually.]
-
She sighed. They hadn't killed her yet, which was good, she supposed, in the grand scheme of things.
But it didn't help her to figure out what to do next.
She chewed her lip and thought about the Rebels and Hollar's team. She hoped that they were still alive. Her stomach twisted a little bit about the thought that they had been killed and she pushed those thoughts away.
When they woke up, she corrected herself firmly, Holler would be freaking out looking for her. A small smile tugged at the corner of her lips at that. She wouldn't put it past him to search day and night until he found her.
Finding her helmet seemed not very likely. It was either back in the clearing still or somewhere in camp. She couldn't fight against these Beings. They were too big and strong.
But. She was little and knew some stuff about being quiet....she could probably sneak out of here under the cover of dark. IF these Beings couldn't see in the dark.
She chewed her lip again at that. If they did it would be a really short attempt.
But what should she do? Should she just try to escape?
She thought about the sick people in this camp and her stomach churned again.
Should she try to help them? Could she just walk away and not give them another thought? They weren't human, but she was growing more comfortable with "alien beings" over time. Just because they weren't human didn't mean their lives didn't matter and that they didn't feel pain.
But they didn't exactly seem to want to work with her, either.....
But then again, there was the question as to where the toxins were coming from, too. If this place was supposed to be mostly unsettled with small gatherings of "natives", where would these toxins be coming from? She didn't think they could be natural....it certainly didn't seem to be something that these Beings have always had to deal with. If it were they wouldn't be getting sick from it.
Should she explore and try to figure out where it was coming from on her own?
But what if she got caught? - either re-caught by these Beings, or caught by whoever was causing the water poisoning? She had no way to communicate with anyone and only had 2 medpacs left and no Blaster.
And what about the wild animals?
She let out another sigh.
She was tired of thinking. And she was tired of being locked up.
She made up her mind. She would wait for dark, sneak out of the cage, and follow the water source. Hopefully her sneaking abilities would be up to keeping her safe. If not, well...she supposed she would get an earful from Trax, if no one else, if she ever saw him again....
<Actions: wait for dark and then sneak out. Use any sensors that I have available to track both the water toxins and any type of biotic things...Also, grab a tree branch or something that she can use to help defend herself at least a little>
-
As the night wears on, Keshani keeps a close eye on her guards, while trying to appear to not be keeping a close eye. Eventually, the fires burn low and the shadows deepen. Judging the time is ripe, Keshani gets up and moves quietly to the door of her cage. Lifting it so the wood does not scrape, she opens it just enough to squeeze through. It is a tight fit, but she is out, and no alarm appears to have been raised. The guards still doze beside their low fire.
Minutes later, Keshani is hundreds of meters from the camp. Using her suit's built-in noteputer as a dim light, she is running through the darkness trying to put as much distance between herself and the natives as possible. In the dim light, however, she suddenly looses her footing and finds herself tumbling down a slope. With a loud splash, she finds herself sitting in the shallow mud of a river. In the dim light from her noteputer, she can see islands of foam several centimeters in diameter floating by.
On a hunch, she scans the water with her suit's sensors. They are not calibrated for the task however, and she can get nothing conclusive. She could analyse the water with a medkit, but she onyl has two left.
[Actions?]
-
The mud was sticky and cold. She didn't want to think about what was in the water. She imagined whatever toxin was making those people sick was also what was making the water foam...
Wiping mud off of her face with her hands she stood up. There really wasn't a reason to waste the medkit. Not yet. She needed to see where this water was coming from.
So carefully she followed it. She killed the light so as not to call attention to herself and relied on her night vision to help guide her way. And the sound of the flowing water. Keeping her eyes and ears as alert as possible she moved foward following the water upstream.
<Actions: Follow water "real quiet like">
OOC: Btw, just out of curiousity....Kesh had her blaster in her hand when the beasty female grabbed her. WHere'd it get to?
-
[Kesh lost track of it. Could be the female identified it as a weapon and took care of it while Kesh was contemplating a violent death at the hands of a giant lizard. You do have a knife, and a pointed stick.]
Extricating yourself from the muck, you scale the bank back to something approaching solid ground. You follow the river in the darkness, following the ripples and reflected starlight to try and find your way in the darkness. After an hour or so, the moon starts to rise, which helps you a great deal in finding your way.
The night is strangely quiet - far more quiet that you would expect for a mostly unsettled planet. There is the gurgle of the river, but there are no night sounds from creatures. Perhaps the poisoned water is the cause of that? You are contemplating that silence when, very faintly, you hear a repetitive sound. You aren't even sure you hear it at first, but as you move along the river, the sound becomes louder. It sounds like a whirr-whirr-whirr sound. Whatever it is, it is certainly not natural.
You continue on, and eventually you hear the sound of splashing. Not like a creature in the water - more like a waterfall entering the river. You pick your way through a tangle of brush and emerge on the edge of a bend in the river. There, ahead and below you, sticking out of the riverbank, are four large pipes that are disgorging some sort of liquid into the river. In the moonlight, you see large islands of foam, a meter or more across, drifting lazily downstream. Here, the whirr-whirr-whirr sound is louder, but still muted.
it seems you have found the source of the pollution.
It will be dawn in an hour or so - the eastern sky is already starting to lighten. You can see nothing now, but perhaps once the sun is up, you might see what is going on.
[Actions?]
-
(OOC: Apparently Ken takes issue with my pointy stick.....)
It was eerily quiet out, the loud thudding of her pounding heart the only thing she could really hear other than some rustling of leaves around her and the gurgling of the water below her. It was....creepy. There should be much more nightlife, especially this close to the water. At least, she imagined there should be....she didn't really have THAT much experience with stuff outside the city. But she had some. And this seemed strange.
It had her on edge as she heard a repetitive sound in the distance. It sounded maybe mechanical, or like something spinning. It wasn't supposed to be here. Of that she was sure.
She crept closer. Eventually she heard splashing noise like water falling down over a distance and saw pipes sticking out of the riverbank spewing gross foamy water out of them.
'Well, I guess I found the source of the foam..', she thought to herself.
Looking up at the sky she guessed that she had about an hour before dawn, maybe two. The sky was already starting to lighten a bit.
She shrugged. She couldn't see much right now. But maybe she could with more light. Either way, she was here. She might as well wait and see.
One thing was for sure - this place was certainly more settled than by just uncivilized natives....
She looked around for somewhere where she could have some protection, should anyone stumble upon her, and someplace where she was at least partially hidden and settled in to wait.
<Actions: Wait for the sun...(here comes the sun doot n do do...>
-
You find a likely clump of brush and settle in. Nothing disturbs the quite, and without meaning to you drift off. You wake with a start some time later, and see the sun low in the sky.
You dust yourself off, and head to the river to have a closer look at the pipes spewing pollutants into the water.
Looking around, you don't see any structures jutting out of the surrounding plane, but those pipes are definitely not natural. They are each about a meter and a half in diameter, and only filled about 25% of their capacity, so you might be able to get inside that way. Otherwise, you could spend some time looking around to find some sort of other entrance - presuming there is one.
-
(OOC: wait, I'm confused. What's above these pipes? Like..the river bank has to end eventually right? So like there's just more soil and graso and stuff around them and otherwise the land looks undisturbed?)
-
[Correct. The pipes emerge from the riverbank, but there is no sign of any nearby structure. There may be one you cannot see, so you could spend some time searching.]
-
She really wasn't too fond of the idea of crawling through pipes that were dumping out stuff that were making people sick and die so she decided to look around to see if she could see any other signs of the structures that she knew had to be there. Pipes just didn't exist on their own....there HAD to be buildings somewhere. As she walked she also began tapping some keys on her data pad, as well, trying to find information about the pipes and where they led.
-
Keshani spends some time searching around. The plains around the river seem undisturbed. Keshani starts walking a search pattern, scanning as she can to try and detect something. The sun is high in the sky before her scanner finally detects something. Following the ping, she finds a small mount overgrown with scrub. It looks like every other hillock all around, but her sensor definitely picks up something. Forcing her way through the thick scrub, she finds herself standing on some sort of metal grating. Now that she is close, she can hear faint machinery sounds coming from the grate beneath her feet.
-
OOC: How big is this grating?
-
There's 4 grilles, about a meter square, with a 20cm frame between them, but they all seem to lead to the same space below.
-
OOC: so big enough for her to fit down?
-
[Bit of a squeeze, but once she's through the grille there's plenty of room.]
-
Looking at the grill she thought for a minute.
'Trax would kill me if he knew about this...' she thought to herself, remembering his parting words to stay out of trouble...
But she couldn't just walk away...
And so, taking a slow breath, she moved to pull the grill back...
(OOC: in for a dozen....)
-
You cut away from plants that had twisted around the grate and manage to lever it up and aside. You are looking at about a twenty foot drop to a platform of some sort. [Technical] It looks like an air intake filter of some kind. Judging from the size of the intakes, there must be a sizable facility. Either that, or whatever is down there needs a great deal of cooling.
You can see a maintenance access hatch down below - likely to allow replacement of the filter canisters. You may be able to enter the facility from there.
-
Why not...
Shrugging she moved toward the opening.
-
[Plans to get down 20'? You could jump down, or hang and drop. Try to climb, but it looks pretty slick on the sides.]
-
Hang and drop
-
Keshani climbs into the opening and hangs on to the frame that supports the grate. It still seems a long way down, but she bends her knees and lets go.
She lands squarely, but quite hard on one of the filter modules, and ends up on her rear. Before she can recover from the hard landing, the plastic frame of the filter canister snaps and breaks, and Keshani and the filter canister fall through the frame. Keshani tries to grab the frame, but misses her grip.
Things are kind of a blur, all spinning and turning, but she can see below her a large fan spinning. Falling slightly ahead of her, the filter canister hits a grating protecting the spinning fan. The frame shatters completely, exposing the core of the filter just as Keshani lands on it. Broken pieces of the filter canister scratch up her heavier armour, but she is protected from injury. However, the force of the impact shakes her up quite a bit and it takes a few moments to get her bearings. When she gets her bearings, she find she is on a metal grating some 30' below where the filter canisters were. The spinning fan blade is about a meter below her. She seems stable on the grating, though her legs and backside are going to be sore for a while.
As she considers what to do next, the grating shifts with a sudden groan. It seems the brackets that hold the safety grating in place have been over-strained by the impact.
[Actions?]
The grating is pretty unstable. Moving might make it give way completely. You'll have to be careful. There is a series of rungs here on one side of the shaft that lead up to where the filter canisters were located. You also have tech tools as part of your armour - you might try to stabilize the grating.
-
So maybe that wasn't the best idea...., she thought to herself, groaning slightly. Very slowly she tried to move off the grating over to where the rungs were. She didn't weight that much; maybe it would be okay. If it showed the slightest signs of becoming more unstable she would stop and try to shore the grating up a bit before trying to move again.
-
The grating under your feet creaks and shifts, but you manage to get your feet under you and get a hand on the ladder.
It's a tight climb - your armour makes this more difficult - but you manage to heave yourself up to the location of the access hatch. It's a fairly standard Securitron 300 lock - in popular use during the Clone Wars. You can probably open it without much difficulty (DC~15).
-
(OOC: Sorry)
She hesitates before opening the lock. Did she REALLY want to do this? There was a little warning bell inside of her head screaming at her to just turn around and go back. But, as always, there was a much louder voice shouting over top of it yelling DO IT!!
Taking a breath she listened first to see if she could hear anything on the other side of the hatch. She also looked around to see if there was any sensor panel or anything that she could make use of before opening the hatch....
-
You manage to get the hatch open, but it takes you a couple of tries. You squeeze in to the access shaft and close the door behind you.
You appear to be in some sort of industrial facility. The passage is dimly lit by armoured work lights, and you can hear the steady thrum of machinery. Looking around, the first thing that strikes you about this place is that it is old. There are numerous flickering lights in need of maintenance, and a thick layer of dust and grim on everything suggests no one has been here for a long time.
The acoustic signature also sounds wrong - there's a piece of machinery somewhere that is on the point of failure due to some sort of mechanical breakdown. You can clearly hear the whine of tortured metal grinding away without lubrication.
The passage in front of you extends through dim light perhaps fifty feet before ending in another access hatch.
-
She couldn't help but let out a soft sigh of relief at the layer of dust and grime around her. She'd much prefer this to...well, the alternative.
She winced at the sound of tortured metal. It offended the mechanic inside of her and squeezed her heart a bit to hear the sound.
But she also had a small fear that whatever it was that sounded like it was about to break COULD do something really bad if it DID break. She had to go investigate.
She moved slowly through the passage, taking care to listen for ANY signs of life around her (she wasn't totally stupid after all...)
Assuming she heard nothing she planned on continuing down the passageway until she could see more about what the machinery down here was doing.
-
As she moved into the facility, the sound of operating machinery grows louder. There's a lot of machinery operating here.
You get to the hatch and, though it resists, you manage to get it open. Tortured rollers squeal as you force the hatch to slide into it's recessed position.
The sound of tortured machinery is much louder now. What you see before you is a maze of automated machines, stretching quite a distance into the gloom. There is a lot of movement, and it is difficult to track. Then, a flash of light fills the room, and you see molten metal pouring out of a huge crucible into some receptacle you cannot see. The light fades as the crucible empties, and the chamber goes back to gloom.
The screeching sound is very loud, and distracting. Looking around to try and trace it, you find a large set of three fan blades. The middle one is apparently the source. The hub of the centre fan is glowing a dull red, indicating an imminent failure. You trace the power cables to a small junction box about ten feet up the wall. One of the other fans appears to have already failed - the rotor has completely blown out, and the dismounted fan had been wedged at an angle into the track it used to turn in. The remaining fan is still turning.
The fan appears to be a standard ventilation fan, drawing air out of this space.
You should be able to amble up there without too much trouble - there's some braces and a walkway nearby that will help, if you wanted to shut the fan down. But shutting it down will likely seize the rotor bearings, judging from the heat. This place is old and looks abandoned - unlikely anyone is going to be too mad.
-
(OOC: That's an awful lot of usage of the word "torture" in two posts....hopefully not foreshadowing?)
She stopped and stared for a minute at all of the machinery surrounding her. Someone had had one hell of a big operation going on down here at some point.....
She wondered if it was some sort of mining operation. Especially after watching the molten metal pouring out of a hgue crucible. But it seemed obviously abandoned.
The screeching noise of the fan set her teeth on edge and she debated going up to turn in off. But something stopped her.
There didn't seem to be any living things here, that was true. But as she had learned back on the Station, droids could be just as dangerous if not more so. And this place HAD to have had security when it was up and going....
....And she didn't have any means to defend herself right now.
So she looked around the area, trying to find SOMETHING she could use as a blaster or some other means of defense against any droids that decided to come attack her....
-
Taking a quick look around, Keshani spots a tool crib nearby. Inside are various hammers, wrenches and pry-bars that could be used as crude weapons (various one-handed and two-handed clubs). There's a compressed air bolt gun that still has some power, which could be used as an ad-hoc projectile weapon (2-handed, single-shot, damage 3D physical, range 10/20/30, -1D accuracy) with plenty of rivets. There is also a handheld laser-welder which could be used as a short-range pistol (damage 2D, range 1/3/5). The power pack still has some charge in it, so you could get maybe six shots with it.
There's a lot of motion in the factory, so it is hard to tell if you are really alone. Unlikely to be biological individuals here, based on the level of apparent abandonment, but droids could certainly be present in stand-by mode.
-
Well, it sure wasn't ideal, but she had made do with "not ideal" before. Picking up a piece of webbing from the tool crib she fashioned herself a harness and attached a few wrenches and a pry bar to her waist. Having some sort of tool made her feel better if nothing else...
She hesitated between the air bolt gun and the laser-welder, though. She would be more accurate with the laser welder, but it wouldn't be useful at nearly as far distances and the power pack looked like it was almost drained.
Shrugging slightly she grabbed the air bolt gun and as many rivets as she could find.
Feeling slightly better she winced at the continued screeching noise from the fan. It set her teeth on edge, but she was more curious about the metal crucible.
Taking another careful look around to assure herself that nothing was at least presently seeking her out as a target, she headed off in that direction to investigate.
-
You move through a mass of machinery, pipes and conduits to find an elevated walkway looking over what is clearly a manufacturing floor. Six automated production lines are here. Three are operating normally, one appears completely shut down, and parts of the other two have failed, allowing a large number of incomplete parts to build up, which caused machinery to jam. The broken production lines are halted, with warning lights flashing.
As you watch, the crucible emerges from a passage and pours another load of motel metal into a receptacle before withdrawing. The receptacle appears to feed raw metal into three of the production lines, on the left side of the facility. Looking over, you spot another crucible hanging inert from the track that carries it, apparently automatically shut down when the production lines failed.
You can't make out what the production lines are producing, but whatever it is passes through a doorway into another chamber off to your left. Scanning around, you find a connected walkway that would lead you into that part of the factory.
-
She moved toward the connected walkway, sniffing the air warily as she went. Her nose may not be anywhere near as good as sensors, but maybe if there was something that she recognized as dangerous in the air she could get out of there before it was too late....
(OOC: Sniffing air for any signs of hazardous chemicals. Also keeping an eye on anything moving....)
-
You smell only the acrid scent of molten metal, the tang of ozone, and various related smells. There is nothing obviously toxic in the air. From your past experience, this is definitely a heavy industrial facility - a foundry.
For moving objects, this is difficult. There is so much movement out in the foundry floor that it is difficult to follow anything not fitting the pattern of automated equipment.
You reach the walkway and come to a plastic barrier that is easily crosses. On the other side, you see smaller-scale machinery. This appears to be an assembly area, where parts made by the moulds are cut, pieces, tempered and assembled into intermediate states.
-
Kesh wrinkled her nose at the smell. Foundries smelled disgusting. But she kept poking around. Now, more out of curiosity, she wanted to see if she could figure out what, in particular, this foundry was creating. Maybe that would help her to figure out who, exactly, it belonged to...
-
Here, you see two production lines are operating. Automated machinery are putting parts together. Aerial conveyors are picking up half-completed parts and moving them to the next assembly area. In the dim light, you catch your first glimpse of a partial product as it moved past you. it looks like some sort of chest chassis for a droid of some sort. The conveyor carries the chests pieces from the end of the assembly line off to the left to another segregated area. Your walkway comes to a T-intersection, with the right branch leading out over the assembly area, and the left branch leading towards what is presumably the final assembly area.
-
Droids.
She hated droids.
The first thought that came to mind was fear. Images flashed back in her mind to the Space Station and the multitude of droids and other mechs that had repeatedly shot at them....
She hated droids.
At least she knew what was causing the gross toxic sludge now....
But then another thought came to mind - one of an army of droids following her back to HQ (and maybe even giving her a ride since it was a LOOOOONG walk). If she could reprogram them and get them up and working again... IF there were even any whole ones here....
Yeah, that wouldn't be so bad.....
She chewed her lip for a second but then her feet carried her forward, taking the left branch in the walkway, trying to see what the finished product of this assembly line was....
-
You move through this chamber as well, and pass through a similar curtain of hanging plastic. You are now in the final assembly area, where the completed components are attached to the chassis. It takes a moment to spot the final production line, but you watch from a distance as a completed droid rolls off the assembly line. They are very minimalist - blocky, fragile construction with a cylindrical head.
You've seen these types of droids before - usually as collector's items, or really old scrap. The Separatists used a similar design for their battle droids, decades ago during the Clone Wars.
-
She eyed the new droid that had just come off of the assembly line.
If this plant had been working for a really long time there must be THOUSANDS of these droids.....
She couldn't help but step closer to investigate. (Carefully). She couldn't help but wonder if there was some way to use these things....
-
You get to the end of the suspended walkway. There is a ramp leading down, and a right turn to the other side of the production line.
The machinery here... there's a certain maintenance requirement. Automated factories still need maintaining, and raw materials. It's not likely this place has been running for years. But from the damage and non-functioning systems, it seems something has gone wrong somewhere. Why would the place start up, decades after the Separatists were defeated? And if it was started, why was no one maintaining it?
You are ruminating on these thoughts when you hear metallic footsteps behind you. Turning quickly, you see a bipedal droid. In a synthesized monotone it says, "Halt. You are not authorized." It reaches back and pulls out a blaster carbine.
[Actions?]
Range is 10m.
-
She froze for a moment at the sound of the voice. She hated droids.
"You are not authorized."
A blaster carbine suddenly appeared in its "hands".
She tensed.
But forced herself to take a deep breath and calm down.
Then she forced herself to take on a totally startled (not too hard) and innocent (a little bit harder) expression. She threw a bit of anger in (again, not too hard) for good measure.
"Excuse me," she said, placing her hands on her hips. She hoped that to the droid it would look like a typical female "put out" expression. She really just wanted to have her hands closer to any "weapon" that she may be able to pull out should this not work (and she really hoped that it would work).
"I AM authorized to be here".
"How do you think I feel - I get a message that I need to be here IMMEDIATELY to come and fix some sort of mess. The frelling sucky part about being the new girl in the tech depot....
"I grab my bag and head out the door all by myself, and FIRST I couldn't find the door to this place...
She gestured in the general direction of the "outside". "
"Have you ever realized how hidden a way in to this place is? Apparently the idiot who sent instructions to me skipped a few steps....
"So I finally find my way in, because I'm THAT loyal and determined to come and help fix what needs fixing.
"And in the process of trying to find the frelling door I fall down some frakking HOLE and almost die. But STILL I keep going, because I was told you needed help...
"And THEN I lose my tools during the fall but STILL I keep coming because maybe there's something I can do anyway....
"And THEN I come here and find THIS.....and then here YOU are holding a blaster in my face.
Her face was a bit red at this point, something she hoped that the droid would interpret as frustration and offense at being told she wasn't authorized to be here if the thing could interpret biological life signs at all....
"So yes, *I* am authorized to be here. You can try contacting the tech depot if you want, but I was told that was part of the problem as to why I am here - comms aren't working too well."
"So I'm here to help. Nothing more.
"Frell. I'm a kid. What ELSE would I be here for?
She sniffed.
"Maybe YOU are the one who is malfunctioning. When's the last time you ran a systems check? I'd be happy to look at YOU and make sure YOU are functioning correctly while I'm here as well...."
She mumbled something under her breath about droids preventing her from doing her work and causing her to get into more trouble than she's already going to be in for taking so long....
(Actions: um. Bluff/Persuasion)
-
[Falls under CON.
Result of the throw of dice "3d6 > 2d6" :
5 + 1 + 4 = 10 // 6 + 4 = 10 ... Tie]
The droid looks at you for a couple of seconds before responding hesitantly, "I... err... ah... What depot did you deploy from?"
-
[Dude....that hurts - tying with a DROID?? :-p]
"I TOLD you already...I'm from the tech department.", she answered.
"Can't you just show me what's going on so I can fix it and get out of here?"
(Con again?)
-
The droid hesitates again, the low-grade verbobrain apparently overtaxed.
However, after a moment the droid lowers it's rifle from the firing position (though it is still held ready).
"Come this way." The droid waves it's weapon in an arc, leading you deeper into the factory.
You move through several screen openings, eventually leaving the noise and chaos of the factory floor behind. You appear to have entered more of a "finishing" zone, and you pass several battle droids who appear to pay you no attention, since you are under escort.
You enter a large chamber filled with large computer systems. This appears to be the central control room for the factory. There are several damaged computers that have apparently lost power, and fully a dozen other machines that are displaying warning signs. Moving about the room is a Class-2 Engineering droid. It has a quadrupedal lower chassis, and four arms on the upper chassis, with a humanoid head, and an overall spider-like appearance. It walks with a sort of uneven gait broken by frequent spasms. The arms do not all appear to be under control - one of them hangs limp, one seems to be moving at random. The other two appear to be operating normally, though they also have odd twitches. The droid appears to be operating the various consoles that control manufacturing in the factory.
The battle droid with you reports. "Repair team has arrived."
The industrial droid stops. The upper torso rotates independently of the legs and it turns to face you.
The droid has eight optical receptors, five of which are dark, and one of which flickers intermittently. There are signs of some sort of damage - possibly an electrical discharge - on the outer casing of the body.
The optics look you over, and you notice the head twitch several times. In a distorted voice is says, "What is your code clearance."
-
She forced herself NOT to let out a sigh of relief as the droid motioned for her to follow it.
As they walked she tried her best to look around, gaining as much information as she could as she walked. She could always pass it off as trying to figure out just how big the problem was she was sent here to repair.
She also fought to hold back a shiver. She hated droids in the first place, and this place reminded her WAY too much of the Station and everything that had happened there.
Finally, it seemed, their excursion was done, at least for the moment. Looking around at all of the damaged tech she couldn’t help but wince.
“You guys have got some problem down here…”. She whistled. “Maybe next time you should call the repair crews in a little earlier, yeah?”
As the Engineering droid rotated to face her she winced again. If the thing had been a living Being she had a feeling many cultures would be thinking about putting it out of its misery.
“What is your code clearance?”
She blinked once. In for a pound……
Using any knowledge of military protocol that she had from her time on the Station and with the Rebellion she totally rattled off a made up code, trying to act as natural as possible, even throwing in a mix of boredom and annoyance into her demeanor that she had to go through this yet again….
(Con….again…)
-
It's a long shot. She knew a little about code clearances - it was required for some of her earlier survival training. But the odds of her guessing a thirty-year old code clearance correctly on the fly were akin to searching for a particular molecule in a nebula.
The droid resets it's optics twice, and in a distorted voice says, "Code clearance invalid." Immediately one of the working arms reaches towards a console as the droid says, "Intruder!"
The battle droid turns towards you, apparently engaging combat protocols.
[Actions?]
You have the messed-up engineering droid in front of you, reaching for the console. They also have one armed battle droid to your left, weapon at the ready but not aimed.
-
"Frell!" She muttered under her breath, aiming her make shift welder/blaster pistol at the engineering droid trying to stop it from hitting the alarm. If her shot was successful she would then leap toward the security droid, trying to take advantage of its surprise to steal its blaster before it could use it on her...
(2D damage on welder? Range 1/3/5)
(Kesh has armor, right?)
[actions: shoot engineering droid, try to steal security droid's weapon..use CPs so I don't get killed?]
-
[You picked up the bolt gun. Powerful, but clumsy.]
The two-handed bolt gun barks, and a bolt flies from the muzzle. The bolt gun was designed to be in contact with the surface you were securing. The bolts come out with significant velocity, but poor accuracy. Attempting to hit the engineering droid proved difficult, and the bolt zings past the droid. However, it does impact the console the droid had been reaching for. There is a brief arc and a pause as the console goes dark. [Technical] Keshani has seen power surges before, and can tell one is about to go off. She ducks and covers as the console explodes. Fire, smoke and shrapnel fill the room while the release energy ionizes the engineering droid. It dances there for a few moments, limbs twitching.
Keshani feels something hot and sticky running down her neck, but she doesn't stop. Letting the bolt gun go, she grabs the weapon of the surprised battle droid. The battle droid, overwhelmed by sensory input, was also never designed for strength. After a brief contest, Keshani manages to throw the battle droid to the floor. The force of the impact, combined with the earlier damage, renders the battle droid nonfunctional.
[Actions?]
The bolt gun is at your feet. High damage, low accuracy.
You have a blaster rifle in your hands.
The battle droid appears to be incapacitated.
The engineering droid is stunned, and took no actions this round, but has recovered by the time you turn back to it.
The exploded console is still burning.
You appear to have only taken superficial damage from the shrapnel - your armour provided good protection.
-
She blinks for a second, turning first to the battle droid, and then to the engineering droid. The battle droid seemed down. For the moment, anyway. But the engineering droid didn't look like it was much more badly damaged than it had been originally. She held the blaster rifle in her hands and turned to face the droid, aiming the rifle at it and waiting to see what its response would be. She tried to recall what she knew about both types of droids and where their "off" buttons would be if they had one...
{Actions: aim blaster rifle at engineering droid, wait for its response}
-
Different models of droids had power actuators in different locations. In the heat of the moment, Keshani managed to recall that this model had one under one of the arms on the left side.
The droid manages to extricate itself from the damaged console and rapidly closes, arms held out in a threatening way. The droid rotates it's upper torso rapidly as it closes, and before Keshani can react, arms lash out at her. She manages to avoid most of them, but the last one swings around and slams into her. Fortunately, her heavy armour absorbs the shock, and she manages to shake it off. The droid is now point blank with her, and obviously means her harm.
[Actions?]
| Name | Status |
| Keshani | - |
| Battle Droid | incapacitated |
| Engineering Droid | - |
-
An involuntary scream escaped her lips as the droid closed and lashed out at her with its multiple arms.
Without thinking her thumb depressed the selector to switch the blaster rifle she held over to stun and fired at the thing, cursing under her breath as she did so.
[actions - switch blaster rifle to stun, shoot engineering droid]
-
Keshani fumbles a little with the rifle, but gets it switched to stun. The droid launches another melee attack, and three of the arms slam into Keshani. Her heavy armour, however, absorbs the blows and she barely feels a thing. Having sorted the rifle, she levels it at the droid before her and activates the firing stud. She -barely- manages to graze the droid, but the ion blast has a magnified effect. Blue lightning arcs over the surface of the droid, and some of its limbs begin to spasm. It manages to shake it off, but it is definitely moving slower.
[Actions?]
| Name | Status |
| Keshani | - |
| Battle Droid | incapacitated |
| Engineering Droid | wounded (stun) |
-
"Frelling droid!", she cursed. Squeezing the firing stud again she got off another shot, hoping that it will drop the thing.
-
Keshani tires to focus, but the spinning arms, smoke and acrid smell of burning electronics distract her, and the shot goes wide. Behind the droid, another console explodes, sending smoke and sparks into the air.
The droid does not let up its furious assault, and it manages to connect solidly four times. However, Keshani's sturdy armour completely absorbs the blows, and she feels nothing but faint impacts.
The droid is certainly slowed down, but it is still a threat.
[Actions?]
-
"I......HATE.....DROIDS!!!!", she shouted, and with all of her strength she used the blaster as a club and struck the droid wherever she could find access to do so.
The consoles were getting destroyed the way things were going and if things went on much longer there might be nothing left. The droid would have been useful, but perhaps she could still use it when it was dead.....
<Actions: club droid>
-
Getting frustrated, Keshani swings the heavy riverter like a club, easily overpowering the engineering droids limbs to collide solidly with the droid's torso. The torso collapses, crushing the power core. The resulting explosion scatters large droid parts like limbs and head over several meters, but the droid is finally out of the picture.
Taking a sigh, Keshani looks around the damaged control room. Half a dozen consoles are damaged, but there are four that are still active. Maybe she can get some answers. The fallen droid would also have data she could recover.
[Actions?]
-
She couldn't quite keep a small feeling of satisfaction from rising up within her as the droid collapsed.
She let out a little startled "eep!" as the power core exploded, scattering bits and pieces all over in front of her, but also let out a soft sigh.
She really did hate droids.
Looking around warily to make sure there weren't any other obvious dangers, she walked over to one of the consoles that still looked like it was functioning and just took a minute to study it, trying to figure out what it was supposed to do and what it was supposed to control.
-
It is a programmable control terminal, currently showing the status of what appears to be a battle droid chassis production line.
The other consoles appear to be serving similar functions - the four that are working are showing various other stages of battle droid production.
-
Kesh felt around behind her absently for a chair or stool or something to sit on as her eyes were focused on the terminal in front of her.
Finally, something she felt like spoke her "language". She could DO computers.....
For a few minutes she sat (or stood if nothing was available to sit on) just studying the terminal - poking around in the different menu options and absorbing in as much of the information that the terminal could provide as possible.
In particular she was hoping for more information about who this place belonged to, how long it had been here, whether anyone had been here recently or was actively monitoring anything in relation to it (and if so if she could trace that information back to a location somewhere), how many functioning droids there were right now and anything else that might be useful to help the Rebellion and her out of her current predicament....
-
Rooting through the systems of the factory, it is a mess.
Near as you can tell, the factory was shut down and on stand-by. Mothballed, waiting for an activation signal for some twenty+ years. There were raw materials pre-staged here. Then about a month ago there was some sort of power surge, and portions of the factory sparked up and started producing. The engineering droid work up, though it was apparently damaged by whatever caused the power surge, and started doing the best it could. Thousands of battle droids have been constructed. But the factory quickly ran out of raw materials, the the engineering droid appears to have instituted a recycling program to keep the production lines working, scrapping already built droids to make more.
The process produces a fair bit of industrial waste that is dumped into the local watershed - heavy metals being the most dangerous. But there is another threat - one of the power cores down in the bowels of the factory is leaking radioactive waste. Left untended, it's going to get into the watershed sooner or later.
Shutting down the factory should be pretty easy - get down to the power cores and shut them down. You have access to passcodes and whatnot so local defences should be no problem, though there are reports of rogue droids roaming the facility that are not responding to commands.
Most of the droids here are dumb, unable to operate independently without a droid control computer to tell them what to do. But there were a few command models constructed capable of independent action.
If you want to shut the factory down, you can just kill the power cores. Cleaning up and sealing the leaking power core would be hazardous without the proper protective gear, but you could probably do it without growing a third arm.
The droids probably are not useful. There's no large-scale droid control platform here. You can only command a dozen at a time, and only within the facility and the vicinity. You could probably rig a dozen or maybe twenty with verbobrains and bring them back to the rebels to help with security. The weapons and supplies would probably be more valuable however, but that will take a fair bit of scavenging.
-
She frowned reading the stuff about the industrial waste and the radioactive waste threat.
The industrial waste was making the natives sick enough - that much had been obvious.
She had read about the health effects of radioactive waste. Somewhere. What felt like forever ago. It was nasty stuff.
There was no question about shutting down the power core. It needed to be done.
Her first thought was of blowing the things up. If she blew them up the factory couldn't start operating again; couldn't start causing damage to the environment again. Besides. Blowing up the power cores would be *fun*! (as long as she wasn't anywhere near them when they blew)
AND it would probably draw the attention of Base and maybe get some people to come investigate and find her.
BUT. It would damage things within the factory - things she, or the Rebels, may be able to use otherwise AND it would probably cause a lot of that radioactive waste to leak into the water which would defeat the purpose of shutting the power cores down in the first place.
Also, if there WAS any other presence on this planet they might ALSO be drawn to a big explosion and if she was still there when that happened.....
Sighing she went back to the computer and stored the passcodes she would need to go shut down the power cores the boring way.
Hopefully once she did that she could find something to rig up to get her back to Base and let them know what she found.
They could decide how they wanted to use the materials here, if at all.....
{Actions: Bring blaster with her, go work on shutting down power cores, first spend time rigging up as many droids as I can to serve as an escort to protect against the rogue droids}
-
You spend a few minutes activating some battle droids, and piping the command interface through your datapad. With a dozen armed escorts, things suddenly feel much safer in the factory. They are not tough, but a dozen of them should be good enough for anything you might meet here.
And then an idea occurs to Keshani - she might be able to right a local control module, tied to her armour. It wouldn't be very powerful, but she might be able to keep one of these guys with her longer-term. Something to think about anyway.
With access to the full schematics and the security feeds, getting down to the engineering levels is straight-forward. There are a couple of encounters on the way, and you loose a couple of battle droids in the process, but the threats were dealt with, and there are plenty of spare droids you were able to activate, so your escort team is intact when you get to the power generators.
The shut downs take a few minutes, but they go off without a hitch. There was one problematic console, but you were able to bypass the issues without too much difficulty. Above you, the factory grinds to a halt and systems shut down. With the power out, however, you loose your escort team. The battle droids with you all shut down. Fortunately, there isn't much else to do.
Activating the spotlight on your armour, you make your way to the leaky power core. An indicator, independently powered, indicated deadly levels of radiation. If you had your helmet, you might be bale to get in and out before anything too terrible happened. But without a helmet, you're not even sure you could survive long enough to shut it down, let alone seal the breech.
[Actions?]
-
Chewing her lip she tried to visualize in her head anyway that she could patch the leak from the outside. If she rigged something to her armor or somehow rigged up an alternative power supply could she still get one of the droids to do it?
-
Perhaps a droid? But you would need more direct control. And with the power down, the battle droids were inert, other than a few rogue leadership models.
-
[Clarification - you had said there might be a way to rig up a droid to escort her back outside of this building....couldn't that same principle be used here within the building? Also, what was the power core providing for the droids that a local power supply could not provide? Just need clarification]
-
With the exception of the leadership models, the standard droids have no capability for independent action. They are entirely reliant on a control node for even basic movement. With power down, the control node is down, so the droids are inactive. You could get a verbobrain and program it before attaching it to a basic combat model. Or you could rig up a mini-control node. A full control node would be a bigger project, but you might be able to rig a basic "drone mode" controller and manually control a droid to do the work.
Another option is to rig / find / create some sort of shielding to protect you from the radiation, and do the work yourself.
-
Which one would be easier to find - verbobrain or mini-control node? Would she need to use her armor to control either/both of these or can she find another power supply? And which one, in her her tech knowledge, would be more likely to accomplish her goal?
And, btw, does she still have sensors on her datapad available to know where those leadership model ones are?
-
No sensors, everything is shut down.
You can find supplies of advanced verbobrains in the factory. Reprogramming one would take time, but the droids are modular so fitting it will be simple. And it will be hard to program what you need the droid to do until you know what the damage is.
Doing a direct-control rig would take less time and be a little less challenging. But your technical skills would be filtered through the command interface, which may make things awkward.
There are industrial safety shields you could rig for personal protection and do the work yourself. But if it fails, you'll be in a bad way. Probably safest to use a droid of some sort to do the work. Then, if you make a non-explody mistake, you can try again.
-
direct-control rig. Let's go with that.
-
It takes a couple of hours, working in the dark. The factory is pretty eerie with silence everywhere and all the lights off, but the occasional clank faraway of some rogue droid going haywire. Eventually, you manage to cobble together parts and programming for a crude droid control rig. [Aside: the droid control would be a lot easier with an implant.] It's pretty crude, but you think you should be able to drive the droid well enough to at least shut down the leaky power core and assess the damage.
You've got a fairly limited range - no more than 50m or so, so you're not exactly out of the danger zone. But by positioning yourself well, you should be safe from exposure.
[Your repair skills will be capped at 3D+1 for this exercise, but you can take your time and get a bonus +2D]
[OOC: Anything else, or you just sending in the droid?]
-
Send the droid in.
(Did I ever mention that Kesh hates droids? :-p)
-
The droid trundles off. It's a little disorienting looking at the visual input through your computer, but you adjust. You drive the droid to the access hatch, and open it up. Independently powered alarms start going off in the corridor as radiation from the damaged power core floods the corridor. You direct the droid to open the door fully and step inside.
You can see the cracked containment shield from the entry way. This looks like a partial breech, with some collateral damage to the inside of the power core chamber. The chamber is glowing yellow, mostly from the floor at the breech. Fortunately the control panel looks to be intact. You gently get the droid to wipe off some of the debris, some of which ends up sticking to the hand of the droid. You run through the power sequence, and nothing happens. You try it again, a little slower, and still get nothing. Third time is the charm though, and you manage to get the power-down sequence to activate. In a few moments, the console goes dead.
That will stop the lead from getting any worse, but there is still a lot of radioactive debris all over the chamber. Maybe just sealing it up from here would be good enough? Patching the breech would take some work, and with now new leaking from the damaged power core, the radiation levels should fall quickly.
[OOC: Up to you. A thorough job and patch / clean up the leak, or close the door and leave it to decay naturally.]
-
Her lips twitched up into the beginnings of a smile as the power-down sequence activated.
It wouldn't be a permanent solution to the issue, but she hadn't detected any radioactive material in the village when she had used her sensor pack so that SHOULD mean the water supply would be safe for now if she just sealed up the chamber and called it a day.
Part of her felt like this was going way too easy and was waiting for something to go wrong, but she tried to push that thought away just as soon as it surfaced.
She thought for a minute about actually working with the droid to patch the breach, but working with the droid like this was clunky, and she had already been gone from base for so long....
She promised herself that once she got back she would talk with the people there and see what they thought. Maybe she could get better gear and come back and repair the breach? With more help so she was sure it was done right?
Her thoughts flashed back to the natives of the village and how sick they had become.
Yes, she promised herself. She would do everything she could to come back to fix it later.
But for now her first priority at this point was getting back. So they at least knew she was alive. And so at least she wasn't by herself anymore...
Which was a rather ironic thought since she had spent so much of her life ENJOYING being by herself...., or so she had thought.
She let out a sigh. The droid would have to stay in the chamber when she sealed it. He had radioactive debris on him so letting him out would not be safe.
She winced for a second. Him. It. she correct herself. It was a droid. It was an it, not a him.
She had the droid use the controls to close the door and then looked around to see if she could rig up another verbobrain to get another droid or so running to be an escort for her. There were still rogue droids out there and she preferred to not have to fight them herself if she could help it...
<Actions: Close door>
-
It'll take a bit to rig up something autonomous. But you can "drive" one along with you if you want.
-
Can I send it ahead of me a ways to make sure there's no friendlies?
-
Sure, it just takes focus to drive it.
-
Ok. I wanna do that
-
You manage to avoid another rogue droid while you rig up a second "drone" to come with you. Using the drone to scout, you make your way back up. It's a bit of a process - with no lifts, it's a manual, exhausting climb up to the level of the loading bay. But eventually, legs and arms shaky, you make it. The doors are sealed, and there's no power, but there is a small access hatch that should lead to the surface. You have everything you need here to rig a grav sled as a makeshift swoop bike, but without power you'll have a hard time getting the large overhead doors open. There is a manual access hatch (another long ladder, ugh!) so you might be able to open the doors manually, but you can't imagine the manual system will be much help - those doors in the ceiling look very heavy. It's either going to take hours, or more strength that you have to work the cranks. Another option is you could possibly rig a direct power feed to a door motor, if you can find a power source strong enough to drive the motivators.
There is also your helmet, which is still with the tribe. If you were to get that back, you could use the comlink to call for help. Maybe heading back there first is an option? But that's a risk - the primitives may not let you go easily.
So, a few hours of cranking, or carrying (or getting your droid drone to carry) parts up the ladder and build a smaller version of a swoop outside, or rig a power supply for direct feed, if you can find the parts.
Getting the droid to carry stuff would certainly save you some physical labour, and give you time to rest as well, so maybe that's the best option.
[Actions?]
-
She made a face, thinking to herself only half jokingly that this would be way easier if she could just rig an explosive to blow the door up. But that would leave the whole warehouse here exposed to whatever wanted to come in, which may not exactly be a good idea.
So carrying supplies up the ladder it was. Or, rather, having the droid carry the supplies up. Maybe droids weren't so bad afterall....
She went over to start gathering supplies and to get the droid going helping her to lift them up the ladder.
-
You strip everything you will need from a nearby grav sled, and relax while you control your slaved droid to bringing it all to the surface. You're tempted to have the droid carry you up as well, but that would be a little dicey, you you make the long ladder climb up to the hatch. There, you spend the next three hours putting together a makeshift swoop bike, constructed from welded storage barrels, a repulsor lift from the grav sled, a stripped down seat frame from an office, and a simple "T" bar control yoke to handle forward, back and turns. There is a separate control arm down on the left of the seat to handle lift. You added some overcharged fans to provide thrust. It's going to be noisy as hell, and the flight ceiling is going to be only about 10 meters, but it should get you mobile at any rate.
It should take you less than an hour to get back to the base.
-
She let out a little "whoop!" as she sat on the "bike" and it dust fall apart. This might actually be fun!
She paused for a minute looking back at the building trying to do a quick mental check to make sure she didn't forget anything urgent but then reached for the controls. "Time to go 'home'"
(Assuming I still have a blaster rifle with me? )
-
[OOC: Yeah, and a few more if you want. Older models - Clone Wars era.]
-
(Do they still work? )
-
[Sure.]
-
Ok. If I can easily carry them I will
-
The ride is a little harrying. Without the time to fine-tune the controls, you spend as much time fiddling with them as you do concentrating on driving, so you have a few close calls with near crashes. But you manage to make your way, and in fairly short order you reach the sensor perimeter you were building when you ran into the natives. From there it is a fairly short drive back to the base, but you are intercepted before you reach it. The troopers recognize you.
"Specialist Keshani! Where have you been? Corporal Halloway has been back for hours. They've been searching everywhere for you!"
-
"We got separated.....They made it back okay?", she responded, taking a slow breath after the rather crazy ride. It had been crazy, but she couldn't compLETELY say it hadn't been a LITTLE bit exciting and maybe a little fun....
-
"Corporal DeRio is getting treated, but otherwise yeah, they're all safe."
He stops, and glances at your ride. "What on earth are you driving?"
-
"A homemade creation. " she smiled. "Like it? "
-
He raises an eyebrow. "Sure, she's a beaut. You wanna ride back on my bike, or take that thing to the camp?"
-
She looked at the bastardized clump of jerry-rigged parts beneath her feet and couldn't help but make a face.
She would have to hold on to the trooper in order to not fall off his bike. She would have preferred NOT to have to do that, but at the same time, to say that driving her piece of junk was a bit stressful would have been an understatement.
Besides, she argued to herself, she could be risking danger to the compound if she drove that thing in. It wasn't exactly easy to control.....
But she hesitated.
"I, um, don't smell the best in the world right now....". Her face flushed a bit and she looked away, trying to hide her sudden unexplainable feeling of embarrassment.
-
"It's been 7 days since any of us have had a shower. I'm not worried. Besides, I'll be upwind of you."
He smiles, and offers a hand up onto the back of his bike.
A couple of minutes later you pull into the compound. The place looks a lot different than the last time you were here. Barricades have been erected, and there are signs of excavation.
As the bike pulls into the compound, Holler comes running out of the cargo ship.
"Snaps!"
He comes running up, and looks you over as you get off the bike. "Geeze, what happened? That spore pod went off, and we all blacked out. When we came to, you were gone!"
-
"The, um, locals, wanted me to visit them." She responded back, wincing.
"We are not quite as alone here as we thought, and I found an old old battle droid manufacturing plant that we might want to go back and visit at some point..."
-
He shakes his head. "What?" Then he shakes it again. "What?!"
He is interrupted by another call from the transport. "Keshani!" You look over Holler's shoulder and spot Danny jogging towards you.
She comes up to you, a look of concern on her face. She looks over your blaster scarred armour. "Keshani, what in blazes?! Are you OK?"
-
"I'm fine." She smiled at Danny. "Where would you like for me to start?"
-
"Well, get cleaned up and report to medical for a checkout. Then we can debrief on everything after that. The spores the troopers encountered had side-effects that needed to get treated."
-
She took a slow breath, doing her best to both force down and try to make sense of the feeling that was forming inside of her.
On the one hand, she felt almost giddy - this was the first time she had ever been off on an "adventure" on her own (well, since joining the Rebellion, anyway....) And she hadn't even gotten herself killed! (or anyone else). AND she even had information that she could tell people that would be new to them; information she had gathered on her own.
But, the adrenaline from her bout with the natives and the battle droid factory on her own was quickly leaving her, making her feel shaky and drained of energy as well. She was currently fighting this feeling really hard, because she didn't want the others to know what she was feeling; she didn't want them to think that she couldn't handle things on her own.
She closed her eyes for a few seconds, wishing the tiredness would go away.
"I really am fine. We can debrief right now if you want...."
But after a Look from both Holler and Danny she shrugged, trying to stay cool (she succeeded in her mind, anyway).
"Ok. If it'll make you guys feel better I'll go get cleared by the docs first...."
She turned to go, and made it around the other direction away from the other two before a yawn forced its way out.
Suddenly walking over to the med bay seemed like a tremendous effort. "Maybe I'll grab a cup of caf while I'm at it, too..", she mumbled to herself.
One foot in front of the other, she told herself, just keep walking.
She felt suddenly alone and unsure, walking into the med bay and hesitated. Another strange feeling. But she hadn't exactly had that many times in her life where there were people to care enough about her to MAKE her get medical attention, and when she had been living on her own she hadn't had any means to GET medical attention even if she HAD needed it.
She supposed she had gotten pretty used to just dealing with aches and pains and not complaining. This all was still new to her....
She sat through the med droid poking and prodding her until she was told she could go. She was feeling like a nap would be a REALLY nice thing right now and it was a lot harder than she had expected to convince herself to get up. But she did.
Grabbing a quick cup of caf to hopefully give her more energy, she headed over to find Danny and Holler.
-
The debrief goes as well as can be expected, though Holler is nowhere to be seen. Danny asks a few pertinent and smart questions, and makes several notes on a datapad.
When you are done she asks, "Do you think the we can work with the natives? They're obviously more advanced than we were led to believe. Would they work with us?"
-
"Well, treating them for the poisons they've been exposed to would probably be a good starting point...", she answered
-
Danny nods. "Would you be up to visiting them again?"
-
She opened her mouth to respond but then closed it again.
SHOULD she be nervous to go back? Was there something weird that she really wasn't?
They had knocked out the rest of the team, had held her by her helmet up in the air, had made her go with them to their "village", had locked her up.....
She should be scared, right? She should "hate" them and not want to help them?
But they hadn't really done anything to hurt her. They had put her in a "cage", but hadn't done anything more than that. And they seemed to actually WANT help. They clearly needed help....and they didn't know who she was or if she was one of the ones who was causing the people in the "village" to be sick.
So slowly she nodded.
"Yeah. As long as when I go back I have the stuff I need to help them..."
-
Danny nods. "Right. I'll put it together. And thanks for your help."
-
"Sure", she said.
She tried to keep her tone normal, but she couldn't help but feel a little....let down? Disappointed?
She managed to figure out all of this stuff on her own, NOT get killed, NOT blow anything up, AND make it back to the base relatively unscathed and all she got was a 'thanks for your help'?
Holler didn't even care enough to come to the debriefing, but she supposed he had more important things to do....
She let out a breath which she hoped was soft enough to go unnoticed.
But then she realized she wasn't quite sure what to do next.
"So. Um. What do I do now?", she finally asked
-
"Go rest up, grab some food from the mess tent, maybe grab a shower. You've earned some downtime."
[You have ~16 hours slack time if you want it. You could always report for work instead if you want.]
-
She nodded, again feeling a bit unsure.
She guessed she had let her ego get a bit ahead of her, thinking they'd be more....proud? of what she had accomplished on her own.
But she supposed that's not what the Rebellion was about. They had way bigger issues to be concerned with than one kid.....
She got up awkwardly and left, feeling a bit lost for several seconds, trying to decide what she wanted to do.
But then she caught a glimpse of her clothing and remembered just how long it had been since she had eaten a "real" meal, changed or showered.
Those things sounded pretty good....
************************
About an hour and a half later, after she was freshly clothed, fed and showered, she found herself wandering the hallways of the base again.
Her thoughts wandered to the droid drone that she had brought back from the factory with her.
She had never had any use for droids before. They were mech that she didn't trust, preferring to rely on her own hands to do what she needed.
But this little drone, as well as the others she had enlisted to help her in the factory had turned out to be pretty useful.
She thought maybe about keeping this one with her for a while.
The base had a small workshop area set up where Kesh figured maybe she could work on the droid a bit to make it more useful - a better power supply would be a good starting point...
So she went to grab the droid and head over to the workshop.
-
Keshani strips down the battle droid, salvaging parts and small components. Settling on the head, she adds some small repulsors and some simple fan motivators. It will take a while to rig up a control suite through her suit - the remote would be too simple for independent action - but through her suit comlink and datapad she could use it for scouting and the like. This will be a project of a few days, likely, and ongoing tuning and refining might take longer yet. Her supplies are limited out here - this is a construction camp, and Danny would take a dim view of cannibalizing command consoles and other required electronics for the parts she would need, so enhancements would have to wait.
She is done the chassis and mobility parts of the clunky-looking remote when Hollar comes over to her.
"Thought I'd find you here. I heard the report - sounded like a tough time. Glad you made it back in one piece." He stops, a look of concern on his face. "How you doing, Snaps?"
-
She jumped a bit at Hollar's voice, intent in her work, but recovered and paused, putting down the droid head for a minute, but still toying with it on the workbench.
"I'm ok.", she answered, pretty much out of reflex.
"I'm sorry I got the rest of you guys hurt...."
-
He shakes his head. "None of that. It was our job to keep you safe. We broke formation, and that left us vulnerable. That whole thing was out fault, so stow that drek."
he smiles to take any sting out of his words. "We underestimated the local threats. Fortunately, lesson learned, and no permanent damage, right?"
-
She frowned for a minute, toying with the droid head on the table.
"Yeah." she said thoughtfully.
"The natives weren't really that bad. They just don't like watching everyone get sick and die, I think. And without knowing what is causing it, why WOULDN'T they blame the next humanoid beings they see present on the planet...."
-
"Yeah, Big Brain points to you for figuring that out. The Looey thinks they might be allies. I heard she wants you to go back. You think the squad should come with you? Or you want less threatening types walking in there with you?"
-
She blinked, uncomfortable with the compliment.
"Um." she said hesitantly, (she was still VERY not used to people asking her for her thoughts on things). "Can't you guys manage not to look threatening once in a while? I mean, I know it messes with your image and all..."
-
He laughs. "I dunno. We really don't like to go into the field without our guns. And lots of predators out there would make a snack of you. But maybe we can set up a base camp near the village or something, and come in with a smaller crew? You're going to need protection of some sort."
-
"Yeah. I know", she said, poking at the droid and thinking.
"But they seemed...unhappy....when it seemed like I was trying to challenge their control before. As long as they felt they were in control they were fine. I just don't know how they will react to people coming in who appear to them like they want to be in control, if that makes sense"
-
Hollar says, "You said they looked sick, and stuff I didn't understand about poison. Should we bring a medic with us, or a 2-1B droid or something?"
-
"Absolutely, if we can...."
She poked at the droid head a bit.
"Holler, these people......", she started, but then stopped, not knowing how to express what she was feeling in words.
"I just really wanna help them."
-
He looks confused, but nods. "Sure, Snaps. You wanna help them, we'll help them. Just keep your eyes open when we're there, hey? They did keep you locked in a cage, and launched an unprovoked attack on the rest of the squad." He smiles to take any sting out of his words.
The rest of the day passes with you quietly tinkering. By the time the evening meal is served, you have a passable remote. It's pretty simply - only the return homing function is automated. It's got about a 500m range from your suit, but you could use it for scouting and maybe getting into small spaces.
[OOC: It has a top speed of 30. It needs to be controlled (which takes an action) to move independent of you. But it will return to you, and hover near you as you move autonomously. It's shaped like a football, with thrusters at one end, and a sensor pod at the other. Low-power repulsors give it lift, with a maximum gravity column of 100' It has a charge life of about six hours, depending on what it is doing. You can use it, through your datapad, you observe through the droid's sensor pod.]
The next morning, you crawl out of your tent - permanent shelters haven't been built yet - and wander over to the mess tent. You know you're leaving soon, so you forgo the rations everyone else complains about and instead grab some sort of baked muffin with "meat" in it, grab a cup of caf and try not to think about where the meat might have come from. You are just coming out of the tent when Hollar and Hassle come over. Hassle was always a bit of a loudmouth jerk until you shut him down and earned your nickname. Now he's all smiles and politeness around you.
"Hey, Snaps! We got a surprise for you."
Then step out of the way, and you see some sort of armoured transport roll up to the three of you. A hatch opens, and Kicker's head pops out. "They just unloaded them last night. Now we can ride in style."
Hollar smiles at you. "You ready to go boss?"
-
She raised her eyebrow for a second at the sight of the transport. They had spent so much time walking places since coming here she hadn't realized they had anything like that available....
She was also glad to see everyone from the team okay after the whole incident with the natives before.
"You ready to go boss?"
She hesitated for a second.
"Hey. Um. Is this gonna be okay after what happened to you guys before? Are you guys okay doing this?"
She didn't mean to insult Hollar (and by extension his team), but she also had images of them all knocked out unconscious on the ground flash through her mind. Would they be angry at the natives when they saw them again?
-
"Joy-riding aside, Kicker's gonna sit this one out - he still needs to recover from his injuries. But otherwise the squad is ready to go. No worries there. And they've been briefed this is a non-combat mission. We'll be alert, but not aggressive. We'll keep the transport back so we don't scare anyone. Me and Spitz and the medics will go in with you, with Jacks on overwatch and everyone else ready to come in and evacuate us if things go sideways."
-
She blinked. If things to sideways. She swallowed a bit uncertainly.
"Thanks for doing this, Hollar." she said softly, but then moved into the transport. She was as ready as she would ever be she supposed....
-
Kicker climbs out of the vehicle - carefully, due to the bandages on his leg - and the rest of you pile in. The two medics look a little uncomfortable around the soldiers, but that seems to be normal. In short order you are under way. Peepers and Grunt are up front driving, the rest of you are in seats alone the walls of the troop cabin in the back. It is a noisy, rough ride over the terrain, and you can't really see anything from the inside except the dim lighting from the overhead strips. The noise makes conversation an effort, and everyone seems content to sit in silence. Finally, the vehicle climbs a small rise and comes to a stop.
Peepers calls back, "We're a click out. Contacts on sensors, but not getting close."
Hollar juts his chin at Jacks. "Scope it out."
She undoes her harness and opens the big rear loading door. You squint your eyes as bright light floods the troop bay. Jacks slings her weapon and hauls herself up and climbs on top of the vehicle - you dimly hear her boots as she walks across it. On the comlink you hear, "Clear sight lines for 300 meters all the way to the village. Once you're in the huts, I'm down to thirty meters."
Hollar says, "Good enough." He looks to the others. "Masks on, and gear check!" Everyone pulls out breath masks and fits them over their helmets, including Peepers and Grunt. They then immediately check their gear. Meanwhile, Hollar opens his cargo satchel and hands you a mask as well. "Here. In case they have more spore pods."
[Actions?]
-
The image of the whole team passed out on the ground from the last time, Kesh took the mask and nodded.
"Thanks."
She said.
"Do you think I should go a bit ahead of you guys by myself?"
-
He shrugs. "Up to you, Snaps."
He yells at the rest of the crew. "Dismount! Perimeter delta, 20m." In two seconds, the entire squad has exited the vehicle.
Hollar looks back to you. "How you wanna do this?"
-
She starts to feel an overwhelming feeling of anxiety well up inside of her as Hollar told her it was up to her.
She was just a kid. What business did she have making decisions like that?
She forced herself to take a slow breath.
First of all, Hollar wouldn't let her do anything that he thought flat out would get her and the team killed.
Second, there were people trusting her to do this.
And so she would. At least, as best she could...
"I think I should walk a bit ahead by myself. Then have the medics come up to help. You think you and Spitz can be inconspicuous?"
-
He shrugs. "Well, not inconspicuous if you want us close in case things go sideways. If you want us inconspicuous, we won't be able to be close enough to get you out. This is your op, Snaps. We'll play it how you like. But my recommendation is Spitz and I go in with you, maybe a little back, but no more than 30 meters." He shrugs again. "You're call. You know a whole lot more about these people than we do."
-
She thought about that for a minute.
She felt like the statement that she knew a lot about these people was more than a bit of an exaggeration.
But she supposed it was true in relation to the others.
She pictured the female native growling at her.
Would they be more threatened by men showing up with weapons? Would it seem like they were coming into THEIR home and then threatening them?
Or did they NEED to see that to know that they couldn't just try to capture them all again?
She didn't know the answer to that. But she couldn't help but remember that they hadn't actually seriously injured any of them before. They had had the opportunity, but they hadn't. Kicker was the worst hurt and he would be okay soon.
BUT. That didn't mean that she wanted to be stupid. They HAD knocked out the entire security team before and they WERE strong...
She shrugged.
"I guess hanging back a bit will be okay. I don't want to get anyone killed...."
-
Hollar nods. "Fair enough. We'll hang back, maybe thirty meters. Remember Kicker will be watching through her scope. Anything goes down, duck and cover so she has free shots. She'll keep an exit open for us if we need to bug out in a hurry. And keep your comlink open, so you can warn us if things might go pear-shaped." He thumps your shoulder, and you head out towards the village.
As you approach, things look different in the daylight, and somehow more pathetic. There was much you missed under cover of the darkness, like the pile of smouldering bodies about a hundred yards south of the village. There is a commotion when you approach, and several of the villagers appear brandishing spears that look more like trees. They seem bigger in the daylight, thumping their spears, bearing their teeth, and hollering at you as you come near.
Then there is a shout, and the natives grow quiet. The female you had interacted with last time emerges from the line of warriors, and you see the baby you healed looking out curiously from some sort of front-facing carrier.
A nervous-sounding Hollar is on your comlink. "You play Snaps, but this looks dicey to me. Maybe we shouldn't enter the village, but see if we can heal them one at a time outside?"
[Actions?]
-
"Hang on." she said to Hollar, not taking her eyes off the female.
"We want to help.", she said slowly, pointing to the baby, then to herself and the medics.
"You understand help?"
She pointed back at the baby. "We can help the rest of you."
She stood where she was, waiting to see what the female would do.
-
The big female bares her teeth, and the rest of the village starts to hoot and holler in a rather threatening display, brandishing wooden spears and thumping their chests.
[Actions?]
-
She continued to stand her ground, waiting for the female to make a move. She didn't do anything else to threaten the natives or speak, just stood and waited.
-
One of the males breaks from the rest, and charges forward, screaming.
"Snaps...," says Hollar in your ear. As he gets closer, Hollar becomes more insistent. "Snaps!"
The big male is bearing down on you. He looks to be charging in for an attack.
[Actions?]
-
She ignored the voice in her ear, keeping her gaze locked on the big male that was now charging her.
She took no action to appear as a threat, nor any action that would show she was backing down; she just merely stood there, waiting.
She had spent enough time in the streets to know when someone was posturing and acting the part of a bully, and to know when someone was just trying to intimidate you and that's what it looked like this Being was doing right now.
She felt that it was important to show all of these people that she would not be intimidated.
-
The thundering charge gets closer and closer, until she can feel the breath as the native rushes towards her. Then, he rushes right past without doing anything. You hear a sigh of released breath in your ear. "Dammit Snaps, you're aging my by the minute here..."
You calm in the face of an aggressive male seems to calm the others down, and the rest of the village gets quieter, more relaxed. The atmosphere changes noticeably, and it feels much less like a confrontation.
The large female that captured you starts forward then. She stands towering before you, and even with your bulky armour you feel small. She reaches behind her left hip and swings a rough satchel to the front. She reached in an produces the helmet she forcibly ripped from your head at your first meeting. She looks at it for a moment, then offers it to you.
-
Inwardly she breathed her own sign of relief, willing her heart to stop pounding quite so loud in her ears. She had a feeling Hollar might just be ready to kill her by the end of this mission if nothing else killed her first. But she had to try to do this, right?
She took the helmet from the female native, smiling a small smile.
"Thank you.", she said, watching the female.
-
The female then reaches into the satchel a second time, and produces more objects. What appears to be a folded lizard skin. On top of that is a wooden object that looks to be a beaded stick of some sort. And next to the stick is a small rawhide bag with a pungent aroma. The female squats and places these things on the ground, and from her crouch picks up the bag. You see it is on a rawhide thong, and tied tightly. She motions as if she wises to place it around your neck.
-
She hesitated for a moment. But the female didn't seem like she wanted to harm her.... So she allowed her to put the object around her neck
-
The sealed bag is... pungent. It smells like spices and herbs, with overtones of rotten meat. You let her put it on you, and she seems pleased.
Next she takes the animal skin and unfolds it, and drapes it over your shoulders. It looks very much like the one she wears, and is held together by a rawhide thong tied at the throat. It smells much the same as the bag - fragrant herbs, exotic spices, with overtones of rotting meat. Finally, she large female picks up the beaded stick and holds it out to you.
The stick is not a stick at all, but appears to be a decorated bone of some sort, with crude carvings on the surface and rough bead-work woven around in a decorative pattern. She is handling the stick with great reverence, and there seems to be a great deal of import to this gesture.
-
The girl fought to keep her expression neutral as the female native brought the objects near her. Their smell was.......different.
The herbs and spices weren't so bad, but the smell of rotten meat...
Her stomach fought to voice its discontent and she fought equally hard to prevent that from happening.
Then the female offered her a stick, although it was clear from the way she was handling it that to her it was much more than a "stick".
She let out a breath again.
Something felt......important.....about this moment.
It was the strangest feeling. She had never really been important in her life.
But something just felt.....she couldn't think of a word to describe it. Heavy? Special? Profound? None of those words were right. It just.....felt.
She took the proffered stick from the female, feeling, in the moment, that a bow of her head would be appropriate, and so she did.
Holding the stick in front of her with both hands she bowed her head.
"Thank you.", she said again, waiting to see what would happen next.
-
Whatever ceremony this was appears to be over. The large female withdraws past the line of the other natives. Then, in ones and twos, they start to come forward. They move with a crude respect, some carrying children, others coming themselves, still others helping those too sick to move themselves. They calmly surround you at a respectful distance, clearly expecting you to aid them.
-
She let out a breath and turned to the medics.
"What do you think?", she asked them
-
They kind of shrug. "Looks like they're ready to get help. Should we start?"
-
She nodded. "Yeah. Give me a few med packs. I want to help too."
-
You get to work. The medics establish a triage station, and put you to work managing the less serious cases. Some of these interactions are heartwarming. Others, much less so. There's more then a few of the older and very young natives who are too far gone for your relatively primitive medical facilities. Sounds of relief are mixed with sounds of grieving, and you are struck how some things transcend language and culture.
Over it all, you observe the large female observing everything closely, hairy arms crossed as she scowls down her nose.
Then, withput warning, the female leader gives out a roar, and rushes at one of the med techs. Before you can react, Hollar has raised his rifle, but before he can fire (if he was going to) the female has her hands on the medtech and has lifted him into the air.
[Actions?]
[
-
She froze for a second, watching the female and the med tech.
She wondered if this was all going to go to hell in just this one split second....
She moved a few steps toward the female, forcing herself to stay calm.
"Down." she said, gesturing to the female.
To the other medics she spoke without looking at them.
"Stop what you're doing and take a few steps back away from the Natives." she said, keeping her voice calm.
Without waiting to see if they followed her directions or not she spoke to the female again.
"Put him down or no more help."
She gestured at the medics, and then again to the female to put the tech down.
-
The big female does not seem to understand you, but she seems to get the gist of what you are saying.
Slowly, she lowers the medtech while the others take slow steps backwards. The female native then grunts angrily, and waves a fist off to the side of where the medtechs were working. You see a small specimen case there, partially filled with sealed and labelled sample tubes. They appear to be blood samples, but would not be required as part of the treatment process, unless the techs were planning on taking them back to the lab for more detailed analysis.
-
"I, uh, don't think she likes the blood samples...", she said to the medtechs...
-
The recently assaulted tech says, "We were ordered to collect samples for genetic analysis and study."
-
She felt a feeling of anger at the tech's answer and was just as quickly surprised by the reaction. Why was she angry?
But it seemed not right that these techs obviously had been given orders that she had not been told about, yet she was supposed to be in charge of this "mission"..
"You think you have enough and that you could maybe stop?", she asked, a bit of....something...tinged with a mix of sarcasm, anger and hurt creeping into her voice as she spoke.
-
The medtechs sorta look at each other. The one you were speaking with shrugs. "Sure, I guess. We just wanted to study them, learn more about them."
-
She couldn't quite keep the glare out of her expression.
She had stolen things as a kid plenty of times. It had been a necessity for survival and frell, it had been fun.
But the people that she had stolen from deserved it. They were rich and arrogant and rude.
And, her time as a slave had changed her.
She had spent way too long having people take things without her permission and even against her will.
These people had definitely hit a nerve and the treatment by these medtechs......
She let out a slow breath, calming herself down.
"Look, can we just focus on trying to make them not sick first? And then go from there? One thing at a time....they are really suspicious of pretty much everyone...."
With good reason, she thought to herself....
-
The medtechs look at one another, then the one you had been speaking to nods. "Sure, Specialist. Sure." He looks at the big female. "Is she going to be OK with that?"
You look at the female, who is definitely not looking happy. She keeps glaring at the sample tubes, the medtech, and you.
-
She shrugged, and grabbed another medpac and moved to try to help the next native who was around her. She kept one eye on the Female as she worked to make sure she wouldn't react again.
-
With you in the mix, the female seems to relax.
Hours pass as you and the medtechs triage and treat the injured. There's a lot of happy stories to come from that day. But it is not al happy. There are a few - three older adults, and two young children - where the damage is too great and they are suffering from multiple organ failure. The best you and your team can do is make them comfortable for the short time they have left.
It is late in the evening before the last of the tribe has been treated. It has been a long day, and there has been some sadness. But you accomplished some good here. Those you were able to treat should make a full recovery.
As your team relaxes on the outskirts of the village, Hollar walks up to you. He offers you a steaming mug of cafe, and sits down beside you.
"Good work, Snaps. I was worried there a couple of times, but you knew what you were doing."
You and Hollar watch as you see the villagers build a large fire. Meat is set to roasting, and large drums are dragged out. In short order, a loud, exuberant celebration breaks out. None of your team are invited to join, but you have the feeling that just being allowed to watch the proceedings is a significant honour.
Eventually, the celebration winds down, and the villagers make their way to their huts. You are about to head to the transport when the big female comes up to you. Hollar tenses a little, but the female kneels before you. She presses her forehead to the ground, holds there a moment, then gets back to her feet. She looks at you a moment before turning and walking away into the night, away from the village.
You hear her make a high pitched call, and a large shadow emerges from the nearby grass and follows along beside her. In moments she is gone.
[i'm good to warp if you are.]
-
She was tired. Both physically and emotionally. Especially emotionally.
She felt good about the natives they had helped. She felt sickened by the images of those that they couldn't. Her heart hurt. It seemed so unfair.
She had been sitting by herself, off in the darkness where she wouldn't draw attention to herself, lost in thought, when Hollar walked up to her, a steaming mug of caf in his hand.
"Good work, Snaps. I was worried there a copule of times, but you knew what you were doing."
She smiled a small smile at his words. But they also brought fear and another tinge of anger to the surface, as well.
Fear, because it scared her to hell that other people would think she actually knew anything - that she had any business leading others, their lives in her hands. When the medtech earlier had been taken by the Female native she had been terrified. What if he had been killed?
The anger she felt was due to the fact that the whole situation might have been avoided if someone had told her that the medics were directed to collect samples. Maybe she could have suggested that that wouldn't be a good idea. Maybe she could have at least been prepared...
She didn't know if Hollar had known.
She didn't know if she wanted to know if he had known.
But it seemed to tell her that they, in fact, had NOT trusted her completely.....
She stared off into the distance at the fire that was being built, not saying anything.
The celebration that ensued couldn't help but raise her spirits a bit. It was so genuine, so....real.
"We did do some good today, didn't we?", she finally said, just as the celebration was winding down.
Before Hollar could answer, the female approached, and Kesh could feel Hollar tense beside her.
But the female just knelt in front of her, pressing her forehead to the ground, looking decidedly like a bow of some sort.
It felt....profound.
But she didn't know how to respond.
And then it was too late, the female headed back down the path to the village.
She watched for a moment longer before taking a slow breath.
"I'm not sure what exactly that meant, but I think we definitely made progress today."
She turned to Hollar.
"Thank you, for being here."
There was so much more that should have been said; that she wanted to say. But neither she nor Hollar were really great with words......
[I'm good.]
-
Hollar seems ... well, it's hard to categorize. Embarrassed? Touched? Uncomfortable? All three, or something else? He mumbles something that sounds like "doing my job," rises, and helps you up. Your team packs up the last of your gear into the transport, and you pile up for the dark drive back to the base.
[OOC: One clarification - the big female with the lizard pet did not walk back to the village, but instead walked off into the night away from the village, carrying her child with her on her back. You do not know enough about these people to have any idea what that means, if anything.]