Shores: Homecoming (Closed)

[Monfrox]

There wasn't too much else to speak of. Many of the rooms looked like they were just barracks like before. She remembered her first week here and how fucking awful it was to get any sort of sleep. Huddled next to a space heater to stop shivering just enough to get some small amount of rest. The showers were lukewarm at best and icy cold at worst, which while a standard military affair as far as showers went, it was certainly not helping the current state of things. She dreaded changing clothes and took to just sleeping in her full kit to help stay warm. It was the last time she forgot the scarf she was gifted for Christmas, as she didn't think she'd need it because she had joined up with Twilight before they had the Hoth assignment. Even then, only a select few troopers were sent to Hoth out of an entire company, but 'Tanicass Vosk' was always in the wrong place at the right time and that earned her a trip to the ice planet with Captain Howl.

Brit touched the scarf around her neck, thankful for its magic in this subarctic environment. She played her light over more and more of the inside corridors until she noticed a sign up above. She couldn't exactly understand Aurebesh at first glance, but the arrangement of letters looked familiar enough. A chill ran down her spine as she gulped and took another step forward. She listened for any signs outside of her own heartbeat in her ears before moving ahead.

"Oh man...I really fucking hate hospitals..." She murmured to herself, her grip on her blaster tightening ever so slightly.

[Giovenith]

"I don't have anything much stronger than a few standard heavy objects if the glass is thicker than that," said Giovenith. "A few bricks and hammers sure, but not like a wrecking ball or anything. My birds can sharpen and cut most surfaces though."

She blinked at the cheers of the pirates incinerating her birds. They were not true living beings with personalities or anything like that, they were just tools, so Giovenith did not mourn for them, though she was concerned at what conclusions their enemies might take from this. If they realized that the birds were largely harmless (Giovenith wasn't keen in commanding them to slit anyone's throat — yet), they might cease being distracted by them and come looking for her and her friends.

"I made fives birds initially when me and Amanda had to run," she said. "And I made about ten more, just little creatures, nothing specific, just enough to look kind of scary. They're bouncing and flitting around back there as a distraction, pretending like they could bite those guys or something. I can make some of my birds be a shield for you or attack the pirates non-lethally in order to keep them off of you, so you'll be less of a target."

[Northwest Slobovia]

Floor 2
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

Brit […] played her light over more and more of the inside corridors until she noticed a sign up above. She couldn't exactly understand Aurebesh at first glance, but the arrangement of letters looked familiar enough. A chill ran down her spine as she gulped and took another step forward. She listened for any signs outside of her own heartbeat in her ears before moving ahead. "Oh man...I really fucking hate hospitals..." She murmured to herself, her grip on her blaster tightening ever so slightly.

Brit's ears heard nothing but her own pulse; Giovenith and the Belas were too far away to hear, except via the comms, and it didn't seem anybody else was nearby.

The quarters flanking the hallway toward the hospital were like the ones on the floor above: relatively large, with private bathrooms. Also like them, they contained very little, just impersonal furniture – sometimes not even that – and isolated personal effects: a lost tube of toothpaste, a single military-issue sock, and other things a million other Alliance soldiers might have had.

The hallway ended in double doors. Above them, a white-on-blue sign read:

HOSPITAL
Medical Personnel and Patients
Only
Beyond This Point

Ignoring the sign, Brit carefully opened one of the doors and systematically swept her light across the space beyond. She found that the hallway continued, but the architecture changed: plastered and painted walls were replaced by calming pink metal walls with rounded corners.

A large directory sign nearly filled one wall just inside the double doors. It listed a wide range of medical specialities found on this floor: dentistry, ophthalmology, psychotherapy, dermatology, obstetrics and gynecology, reconstructive surgery, physical therapy, and several more, all listed with suite numbers, and directional arrows giving an idea where they were. Arrows also pointed to the main hospital turbolifts, three other sets of turbolifts (east, west, and south), and two patient wards on this floor.

Other departments were listed on Floor 1 and the Main Floor, and a glance confirmed what Brit likely thought: combat patients came in on the Main Floor, which had Primary Triage, eight operating rooms, six bacta tanks, and the intensive care unit. Most patient beds were on Floor 1.

Just beyond the directory were doors on either side of the hallway. On the left was Ophthalmology, suite 2N1, and on the right was Physical Therapy, suite 2N2. The ophthalmology department had been stripped to the bare walls; even the furniture was gone, leaving nothing but marks on the floor indicating where it had been.

Physical Therapy couldn't have been more different. While it seemed like some large pieces of equipment had been removed, the department had been ransacked. Furniture was overturned, free weights littered the floor, and smaller pieces of equipment were scattered around the rooms Brit could see from the doorway. A search, even a half-assed one, would take a while; careful searching could take as long as Brit wanted it to.

Over her comm, Brit caught a brief conversation between Amanda and Sandy. [OOC: See below.]

Hangar Control, Floor 1

I can make some of my birds be a shield for you or attack the pirates non-lethally in order to keep them off of you, so you'll be less of a target."

Nodding, Sandy agreed. "The latter would be preferable." He looked out the window, first checking that Roo and Tormak were still occupied, and then looking over the pirate ship. After nodding once, he turned back to Giovenith. "I'll barely fit into their ship, even with my wings tucked. Keeping the opposition too busy to blast me a new hole is vital. As Pegasus, I can-- Pegasus is big enough to take a lot of damage before dying, but he's unaging, not invulnerable. And being shot or burned still hurts... plenty, even at his size."

Amanda's voice came through the comm. "I found some stirrups. They'll take some adjusting, though." There was a laugh to her voice.

Sandy knit his eyebrows. "You found tack for, uh, tauntauns?"

"You'll see."

Sandy caught the sound of Amanda's boots moving rapidly over the floor almost immediately, and Giovenith heard them a little later. But before she arrived, Sandy's eyes darted around, Seeing something. "Two more paper animals gone. They're getting better at hunting them."

Amanda returned, several bedsheets draped over one shoulder. "The room was a laundry and linen storage. Most of the machines are gone, but there's two washer-dryer sets left in a corner." Her face brightened. "There's enough bed linens and towels for an army. Also some uniforms, but I--"

"Uniforms! We can match laundry marks with lists of personnel, and see-- We'll be able to verify who was here and find people and units that aren't mentioned!" Sandy seemed ready to leap to it, but he fell silent, thinking. "Are all the uniforms plain white?"

"Some had a little green and black camo too."

"Hm. Maybe other units, from places with-- from cold places with some plants. Interesting, we'll--"

Amanda cut him off. "We'll have to make the sheets into stirrups. I think I can tie them together and leave pockets for my feet. But you'll have to change first." She looked towards Giovenith. "Do we have a plan?"

[Giovenith]

Giovenith nodded vehemently.

"I'll make a swarm that'll blind and throw them around a bit," she said. "But with how this place is draining our magic and with their weapons, we'll still probably have a limited window. Let me see if I can..."

She began to rummage through her pockets, careful not pull anything major our since she didn't want to deal with stuffing everything back in, but seeing if perhaps she could find something a bit easier to work with than a grandfather clock. Maybe a really big rock that she found one day? Or...

"Oh!" Giovenith perked with happy surprise, and soon pulled out a sledgehammer from her pocket. Smiling, she offered it to Amanda. "Much better!"

[Northwest Slobovia]

Hangar Control, Floor 1
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"I'll make a swarm that'll blind and throw them around a bit," [Giovenith] said. "But with how this place is draining our magic and with their weapons, we'll still probably have a limited window. Let me see if I can..."

Sandy nodded with a smile. "That will more than suffice." Amanda's face formed into a wolfish grin, and she mumbled something about "fish in a barrel".

"Oh!" Giovenith perked with happy surprise, and soon pulled out a sledgehammer from her pocket. Smiling, she offered it to Amanda. "Much better!"

Awkwardly, Amanda took it, and gave it a trial swing: she'd do better with a lighter, more balanced weapon, or...

"Just a second, dear. You'll need a little help with the hammer toss." The help Sandy meant was Adonis' Boon, and with it, Amanda swung the sledgehammer like it was baseball bat. "Throw sidearm, please – getting it caught in my wing won't– won't be pretty – and let go just before we reach the window, after we've built up some speed. I'll, uh, let the Boon fade once we're through."

Sandy got ready, pacing off ten meters from the computer consoles to give himself room to build up that speed – that put him a bit down the hall – then turning around to face the hangar entrance, off in the distance. He raised his hands to begin Apollonius' Fifth Metamorphosis, then paused, staring at the hangar entrance, as though he was watching the snow fall. Walking back to the consoles, he raised his head to look up the crevasse, studied it, and then after a few second's checking on Roo and Tormak, returned to where he'd started, talking to Amanda and Giovenith as he walked.

"Better plan: we fly straight out of the hangar, climb along the slope, then, uh, over to the crevasse. We'll dive on the pirates. We'll have-- They won't know what hit them."

Amanda stuck out a couple of fingers, about to started listing objections, then changed her mind. She changed it back: "One problem: I'll need heavy clothing for that flight. Let me see what I can find in the clean uniform pile." She hustled off down the hall.

When she returned a few minutes later, she wore three layers of white uniform shirts, a pair of white cold-weather pants, and one of the Alliance's quilted hats with ear flaps, making her look something like a short snowman; she had her parka slung over one shoulder She also carried a blanket, which she showed to Sandy. "It's a bit small for a horse blanket, and dark blue, but we'll cover it with a couple of bed sheets. That should keep you a little warm. I think the real horse blanket is too bright for these sheets to cover."

Sandy checked the weight of the blanket, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger, and frowned. "It'll have to do." At Amanda's insistence, he repacked his backpack, stuffing Amanda's parka under his medical kit. He rechecked his distance, and this time completed the Metamorphosis, waiting patiently as Amanda wrapped him in the blanket and sheets, and then tied more sheets into fabric stirrups.

He knelt down, and with the help of the Boon, Amanda climbed onto his back, and set her feet into the bedsheet stirrups. She gave the hammer a few more test swings, verifying that she could swing it level, and even get her hip into it.

She had Giovenith hand her the grandfather clock as well, which she tucked under her left arm. She made an ungainly knight, but regardless, she leaned forward as far as she could, so she didn't clip her head on any hanging shards of glass. "Have your birds follow us out of the control room. We won't be long."

One of Sandy's eyes turned towards Giovenith, and he nodded in confirmation.

"All right, let's do it."

Sandy rose to his feet, pulled his wings tightly against his body, tensed, and shot off at a gallop. He covered the ten meters in under a second. At the last moment, Amanda gave the sledgehammer a one-handed side throw, and it shattered the window ahead of Sandy. The grandfather lance was largely superfluous, as there was little of the window left.

The Belas dropped from view, and bitterly cold air rushed into the control room behind them. But before Giovenith could even think to worry about them, she heard the heavy booming of Sandy's wings, and Roo shouting, "What the hell is that??"

Giovenith began to fill the air with paper birds, but before they reached the hangar floor, somebody got off several shots at Sandy. None of them were close, though; even Giovenith, who was watching the Belas' departing silhouette racing away from her arrow-straight, found it difficult to track them against the falling snow outside. Roo and Tormak, who were watching a white horse with a white-clothed rider against the ceiling of an ice cave, would have had a worse time of seeing them.

Soon Giovenith could hear confused shouts, cursing, and yelling from below: her birds had found their targets. She could hear some blaster fire mixed in, but it seemed to be entirely random. For a very little while, she had the luxury of watching the pirates dance to her birds' tune, but she soon realized something was casting a shadow down the crevasse, and looked up just in time to see Sandy spread his wings and turn into a silent dive toward the pirate ship. There was no sign of the grandfather clock. Amanda was pressed flat against Sandy's neck, his mane streaming behind her head.

Sandy kept one eye on Roo and Tormak; both were batting at Giovenith's birds, but the birds were too swift and agile for them to connect. His other eye was fixed on where he was heading: the ship's tail ramp. He swiveled an ear towards the ramp; all he heard was incoherent shouting and swearing.

Sandy continued his diving glide until he was almost to the ship, then reared upright, pushing his wings flat against the wind of his motion, and landing almost standing on his hind legs. He winced as Amanda grabbed handfuls of his mane to stay aboard. He dropped to a normal horsey stance, and paused while Amanda drew her stunner. He heard the snick as she set it to kill.

He trotted up the ramp and instantly realized Roo wasn't kidding about the smell: his nose was overwhelmed by ozone and burnt plastic, and even through their acrid odors, he could smell urine, sweat, and other stenches he guessed were the equivalents for the other species he'd seen.

A couple of people were near the back of the ship. One curled up into a ball at the sight of him; the other jumped – or was forced by Giovenith's birds – into his path, and he knocked them down. Moments later, he felt a snap and a sickening squishing before he jerked up his leg: he'd stepped on them with a rear hoof. From the gurgling scream, Sandy guessed it was a human woman, and he'd stepped on her chest, broken some of her ribs, and crushed a lung. Shit! A slow, horrible death wasn't part of the plan.

"Wait! Stop!" Sandy looked up and behind to see that Amanda was staring into an open panel on the ship's ceiling. She raised her gun to fire into it, but before she did, somebody fired on them from the cockpit. Their aim was awful, but Sandy filled much of the ship's width, and one shot burned into his right flank. Sandy added his own bellow to the poor woman's moaning.

"No, you do not do that!" Amanda returned fire, and since she wasn't troubled by Giovenith's birds, her aim was fine. She fired three shots down the length of the ship, dropping the other person with the first shot, and hitting them at least once more, before returning to looking into the open panel. She took careful aim at something, fired, and was rewarded by a shower of sparks and the crackling of an electrical arc, before something tripped, and the ship's lights went out, and a host of ambient sounds started to fade away.

"Let's go." Sandy didn't need prompting, but took the backwards-walking slowly in the poor light. As soon as his head cleared the back of the ship, he sat down heavily on the ramp, once again feeling Amanda's weight on his mane.

"OK, you want me off. Just a second, dear." Amanda struggled to get her feet out of the pocket-stirrups, and then slid down Sandy's rump.

Sandy returned to human form, let his pack slip off his back and frantically unzipped his parka: he shirt was already soaking up his blood. While he started to get his shirt unbuttoned, Amanda got his medical kit out: she knew what he wanted, and handed him a styrette as he turned around. Sandy broke off part of it, and slapped the exposed needed into his side. He sighed, and started counting off seconds, "One one-thousand, two one-thousand, three... Right on schedule. Dangerous as fire, modern opiates are, but just as useful." Now that he could focus, he cast the Kythiran Anathilosis on himself, before kneeing down next to the medical kit. "Where's the...?" He pulled out a scalpel, prodded around the burn to make sure it was numb, and then cut the blackened tissue away.

Amanda watched, awed and horrified, as Sandy casually cut himself with the scalpel; he wasn't even especially good at it. She opened one of the jars of Balm, which he took and slathered onto the wound. The bleeding stopped immediately, and Amanda wrapped his abdomen with a roll of gauze to keep the wound from reopening while the regrow spell did its thing.

Sandy turned to look into the ship. "I should look at the woman I stepped on."

"Just put her out of her misery."

Sandy shot his wife a disgusted look, but accepted her help with the medical kit. Amanda turned to Roo and Tormak, noting that Giovenith's birds were slowing their attacks, and a couple of birds were flopping on the ground. Sandy grabbed her arm left-handed. "Just stun them. You can always kill them later."

"Fine." Her gun snicked again, and she stunned both of them before walking over to disarm them.

On her way, she touched her comm stud. "Victory, Brit! The pirate ship isn't going anywhere, and we have four prisoners and a cooling corpse. Sandy's been shot, but he cast regrowth on himself, so he'll be fine soon.

"And thank you, Giovenith, for the birds. We couldn't have done it without you." That wasn't strictly true, but it would have taken them much longer to pick off the pirates if they were shooting back.

[Monfrox]

Brit had been taking her time to look around, but mainly was just kicking over chairs and trying to find some papers to rifle through. Desk drawers and filing cabinets had all been emptied out, and she found black dust in metal trash cans with discoloring near the bottom. It was admirable, but at the same time frustrating. She knew exactly why it was like this. She'd done things like this many times. Still, that didn't make her new objective any easier. There was tons of wings full of different equipment for different special treatments. She wasn't familiar with any of it, but it wasn't like they'd be in working order anyway. over fifteen years of just sitting in sub-zero temperatures would definitely cause a lot of problems.

The more she stuck around, the more rattled she suddenly felt. She was alone, in the dark, in a hospital. Soldiers died in these rooms, and she wondered if they still stayed here. She'd seen more than her fair share of paranormal and other things that were not meant to be comprehended by mere men when she was working under the green triangle. "Scientia mors est" she muttered to herself as she pushed those memories back from where they came. Her commlink came to life in her ear, making her jump at the sudden intrusion to all the silence. It was just Amanda talking to Sandy. She shook her head, her frustration mounting. Of course they were still trying to get things in order while she was the only one still actively on mission.

Brit huffed to herself and checked her watch. It was cold. She was hungry. And there was no way in hell she was going through all these places by herself.

"Oh fuck this." She growled. "I'm not getting paid enough for this shit."

She headed back out and left the hospital to head across to another hallway. She was bent on giving everything just a once over, but she would leave the real digging to the local historian that was not present at the moment. She made it back to the intersecting halls when Amanda came over her commlink and announced that they had prisoners and that Sandy had been shot in the battle. Brit pinched the bridge of her nose. She briefly entertained the idea of not answering at all, but that would only worry them. She let it go unanswered for a minute while she thought of what to do. Sandy was hurt, so he couldn't come. Gio wasn't going to be more help here than she was with them. And Amanda...

"Roger. Standby and hold position." Brit said over the commlink.

It'd be best to cool off as much as possible before she saw them again, so she took a small drink of whiskey out of her flask and chased it down with some water before continuing on her search of the other areas on her floor.

[Northwest Slobovia]

Floor 2
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

The barracks part of Floor 2 had three long hallways running between the hospital and the turbolifts/ladder, connected by a pair of short, perpendicular hallways, one between the stairs and the hospital, the other near the turbolifts.

Brit's search found that most of the rooms were varying states of empty: some completely empty, others with a little furniture, and some fully-furnished. This floor had three sizes of quarters: single rooms with bathrooms, pairs of single rooms sharing a bathroom, and pairs of rooms for two sharing a bathroom. The largest of the rooms were between the stairs and the hospital, the other two kinds seemed randomly placed.

In one of the pairs of two-person rooms, Brit found one uniform and parts of two others. The complete uniform was a formal Alliance uniform, in the green the Alliance used on temperate worlds, with a complete set of insignia for rank, unit, and service. The insignia indicated that M. SUNBER was a sergeant first class in the Alliance special forces, with training in all three forest specialties: jungle, temperate forest, and taiga; and had served with the Alliance in a number of campaigns, though Brit didn't recognize many of the ribbons. She did recognize one for the defense of Yavin 4.

One partial uniform was Alliance jungle battle dress, though oddly missing the pants. The other one was insulated white pants and a heavy undershirt that Brit was already familiar with from her time on Hoth. Despite repeated searching, Brit turned up nothing further in the suite about sergeant Sunber.

Finishing her search by returning to the stairs by way of the middle hall from the turbolifts, Brit found one other odd thing. Close to the stairs, were doors on both sides of the hallway unlike those to the quarters. These were marked "Steam Baths and Showers" in Aurebesh, with writing a few other languages beneath that. One side was for men, the other for women.

The antechambers were warmer than the hallway – well above freezing – and humid to the point of being clammy. Water droplets collected on the walls and ran down into a shallow gutter around the edge of the room, and then into a drain. There was also constant dripping of water from the ceiling.

The showers looked like facilities Brit was familiar with from home: a set of shower stalls with frosted glass doors. They were about the same temperature antechambers, but less humid. Turning the knobs didn't start any water flowing, though.

There were several steam bath rooms on each side; each one could probably hold seven or eight people comfortably. The steam bath rooms were distinctly warm, though somewhat cool for actual steam bathing, and wisps of steam rose from grates on the floors. Like the antechambers, water collected on the walls and ceilings and was channeled into drains.

[Giovenith]

The godling did more than her fair share of the plan, far away though she was. The birds she sent forth stuck to the Belas as they flew, and continued to send more after them after a mental count and the sound of laser shots implied that a few of them had fell. The plan, from what she could see of it, went off smoothly — for a while. Giovenith's stomach dropped somewhat as she heard agonized screaming from the distance. Fumbling quickly for the intercomm, she buzzed in.

"Guys!" her voice crackled on the others' side. "What's going on over there? I heard screaming, are Amanda and Brit okay?"

On her way, she touched her comm stud. "Victory, Brit! The pirate ship isn't going anywhere, and we have four prisoners and a cooling corpse. Sandy's been shot, but he cast regrowth on himself, so he'll be fine soon..."

At that, she relaxed.

"And thank you, Giovenith, for the birds. We couldn't have done it without you." That wasn't strictly true, but it would have taken them much longer to pick off the pirates if they were shooting back.

Giovenith nodded, though she knew the others couldn't see it. "Mhmmmm..." She frowned and her tone carried hesitation. She was never quite sure what the right move was with Amanda, especially in regard to using her powers. To the godling, it seemed random, though not malicious. It had seemed best so far to stay polite and keep a certain distance, emotionally speaking, in light of that uncertainty. That wasn't particularly relevant right now though.

"Do you want me to come over there?" she asked over the intercomm. "I have my healing smoke, if you need extra help with healing. It'll take away energy from me, but I can do it. I can maybe talk to the pirates too and make them see reason!"

Very typical of the girl to think she was capable of such a thing. Then again, she had reasoned with more difficult people before.

[Monfrox]

Brit was feeling largely uninterested in the surrounding facilities. Even with the steam baths and everything, she felt she was wasting her time. Documents, holodisks, and other things, were probably all effectively burnt and gone when the Alliance abandoned Echo Base. And whatever wasn't destroyed was most certainly picked up by Imperial intelligence. She felt largely disheartened, and still on edge. She started moving back to the staircase. Something ticked in the back of her mind and she heard her name called from behind her. She turned around to find nothing at all, but that made more worried. She didn't well on it and immediately headed off. Gio came on over the commlink asking if she needed to help. It wasn't going to be pretty. Brit changed her mind.

"Actually, Gio, I'm coming back down. I need you to take Sandy when he's ready to go scout out the rest of the floors. I'll stay in the hangar with Amanda."

Tough decisions had to be made. She knew that all too well. Soon enough, Brit found her way to the hangar and walked along. She spied the pirates and stopped to give them a mean look, and bounce the handguard of her blaster rifle in her hand as if she was daring them to give her an excuse to use it, before continuing on. She found Amanda and Sandy not much later.

"Is he gonna live?" She asked very matter-of-factly.

[Northwest Slobovia]

North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

Sandy started up the ramp into the pirate ship, but the ship's lights came back on. "Whoa!" With his medical kit in his left hand, and injured on his right side, the best he could do was back down the ramp and crouch beside it.

Amanda turned at the sound of his voice, and realized she was in the open, far from any cover. She threw herself to the ground, then realized she couldn't see into the ship from there, and raised herself to a kneeling position, and demanded whoever was in the ship surrender. Feen came out, hands raised, and asked for assistance with Marisi, who Sandy had stepped on. Sandy volunteered, saying he was a medic; he followed Feen back into the ship.

While Sandy treated Marisi, Amanda disarmed Roo and Tormak; after some searching around, she found wire danging from a wrecked piece of equipment, and used that to tie them up. She then started to look in the row of green metal boxes near the ship; the red droid ignored her attempts to order it around. The first green box contained smaller boxes, each holding a helmet marked with the Alliance crest.

After a little while, Sandy reported that Marisi was started to improve, as he'd jury-rigged a chest tube to help her collapsed and punctured lung, had given her a dose of Ox Blood, and had cast the Anathilosis on her. He'd let the Eyes and Ears dissipate, as he was running short of ousia. He did want to stay in Echo Base for another hour or so, to let the Anathilosis start to set Marisi's broken ribs and heal her lung, but after that, he'd be out of ousia, even to sustain the Critique of the Chill.

As Amanda started to open the second box, Sandy asked her to go through Roo's pockets, but wouldn't explain why. Amanda didn't find much, but she did come up with identi-chips for Feen, Marisi, and somebody named Soli Kel'tey.

"That's her name," Sandy began. "Feen said that he and Marisi are her slaves. The guy you shot was Ketav Fey'lya; they're Bothan. They were lovers, expecting to get engaged. The ship was his; Feen and Marisi were, uh, her contribution to the partnership.

"Feen keeps the ship running, uh, to the extent that Soli and Ketav had money for parts, and he and Marisi helped man the ship's guns, and were dogsbodies and grunt labor. Other than what the droid provided, that is. Neither was armed, nor do they know how to fly the ship.

"Oh, and take a look down the far tunnel; they were excavating a collapsed storage room. Apparently, they found a protocol droid."

Through gritted teeth, Amanda replied, "I should shoot Roo – or whever her name is – now, but... she is entitled to speak in her own defense." She relaxed and changed the subject. "I'll take a look for the droid. I think the boxes by the ship are Alliance pilot suits, so the droid is probably an Alliance..." There was an awkward pause. "Slave. I'll check." She headed off to look at the tunnel.

A little later, her voice came through the comm. "Brit, in your time with the Alliance, did you ever see a protocol droid painted grey with a pair of gold stripes around its arms? The pirates were trying to dig one out of storage room." Brit hadn't, but she had seen an officer on Hoth speaking with a white protocol droid with yellow stripes around its arms. With some difficulty, Amanda and Feen managed to finish excavating the droid, but it wouldn't switch on; Feen guessed that it needed to be charged, but Amanda wanted Brit's opinion before trying that.

"Do you want me to come over there?" she asked over the intercomm. "I have my healing smoke, if you need extra help with healing. It'll take away energy from me, but I can do it. I can maybe talk to the pirates too and make them see reason!"

Feen gave Amanda a puzzled look. "'Healing smoke'? What's that?"

"It's a brand name for a kind of medicine." Amanda managed to get it out smoothly, but wasn't sure it would convince anybody. She thumbed her comm stud and replied in French. "Careful what you say. Sandy and I have company: two of the opposition claim to be slaves. One's with me, the other's with Sandy."

Sandy's voice came through the comm next, speaking Modern Greek. "I could use some of the smoke, but if I remember how, uh, how it works, it's not going to be good for a lung injury."

The rest of the green boxes held Alliance pilot equipment. It was mostly helmets and flight suits, but also ration kits, tools and parts for field repairs on X- and Y-wings, and some emergency supplies, including lights, heaters, and power converters... but the last needed fuel. Feen refused to give Amanda any of the ship's fuel, since they didn't have a pilot, and Amanda had evaded his questions about the Belas' ship: he was worried about being stuck here for a while.

Searching the hangar discovered a large section of floor that seemed to be metal and hollow, but it was buried under packed snow. Amanda dug out a small part to verify that it was metal, but clearing the whole thing would take time. Meanwhile, Feen had returned to the ship to check on Marisi and try to repair what Amanda had shot up.

As Amanda returned to check on Roo and Tormak, she heard a strange sound like hail on a metal roof, coming from the tunnel near the two pirates. Amanda took a look, finding Giovenith's birds hacking their way through the hunks of ice, with the godling standing a few meters behind them. Amanda helped for a few minutes, tugging at the ice from the hangar side with the top of the shovel blade, but she decided to go see if the pirates had had any other tools.

Tormak recovered first from Amanda's stunner first. Despite being groggy, he seemed to figure out what had happened pretty quickly. The next time Amanda passed by him, he asked, "Who the hell are you? You don't look like a pirate, and I'll be damned if I know what that flying animal was." After a moment, he added, "You're a Core-worlder, aren't you?"

"Corellian," Amanda answered.

"Figures. You've got that look to you, strutting around like you own this place. You gonna lecture me about how being a pirate is wrong? Are we cutting into your profits, Core-worlder?"

"You murder and rob innocent people. Out here, almost none of them are Core-worlders."

Tormak's scoffing shaded into laughter. "Sure, they're Rimmies, like us. We have to pick on our own because you Core-worlders don't give us a choice. Rimmies do your dirty work, and you guys steal from us in bulk, not onesie-twosie like we do."

"Excuse me!" Amanda recoiled at the implication.

"Oh, please!" Tormak tried to get to his feet, and discovered that his ankles were bound as well. He gave Amanda a dirty look. "Thorough Core-worlder, aren't you?" He looked behind her. "Who's tall and handsome?"

Amanda looked over her shoulder to see Sandy coming down the ship's ramp. "My husband. He's a medic. He was treating Marisi, who was hurt the battle."

Brit joined Giovenith in waiting for the godling's birds to finish cutting them a path. They could hear the conversation easily enough, despite the erratic clicking of bird wings chipping at the ice.

Laughter shook Tormak's body. "Battle, my ass! We stirred up a bunch of those flying ice rat things, and you took advantage of that to hit us. Typical Core-worlder tactics: no guts, letting others do the hard part." He gave Sandy an amused look. "Treating a slave? Are you sure you're Corellian?"

Sandy walked over, and squatted in front of Tormak. "I think so. Not all Corellians treat slaves like dirt. Marisi will be fine, by the way, but it will take time for the medicine I gave her to work." He blinked a couple of times, trying to remember the other thing... "Umm... Oh! What were you saying about Core-worlders stealing from you in bulk?"

"Do you know what lommite is?"

Sandy shook his head, even though his babblefish told him it was a valuable industrial ore. "Never heard of it before." Amanda also shook her head.

"Doesn't surprise me. Core-worlders don't know or care where their money comes from. It's a mineral. Your big Corellian shipyard makes ship armor from it. I'm from a planet where there was lommite. Was. For four generations, we mined lommite for Core-world companies. Got paid nothing for it. All the supplies were in the company store, and that cost us as much as we earned.

"Do you even know what a company store is?"

"Yes, we do." Sandy's expression began to harden.

"Anyway, the lommite ran out when I was a kid. The company packed up and left. And we were left with nothing: just the empty wrapper of a planet, and no money to leave it."

"No other industries? No farming?" Amanda seemed dubious.

Chuckling, Tormak answered. "Other industries? Where would we get the money to have those? Farming? Yeah, somebody figured out that you could eat thorn peaches and some of the nuts, and a few people grow rice, but that and hunting are it. The farmers are just scraping by, but that's not much of a living, is it?"

"So you'd rather steal?"

"Than spend half the day chasing down mudbucks, and then the other half stewing them to get them tender enough to eat? Damn straight!" Amanda looked at Sandy, shaking her head, and he replied with a frown: she wasn't buying it, and he wasn't sure.

"Suppose, for... the sake of argument, that we believe you-- your story," Sandy began. "Suppose further that we were to set you free. What would you do at that point?"

"What am I supposing about the rest of the crew?"

"Ketav is dead. That's not supposition, that's fact. Sooo, why don't you suppose we set you, Marisi, and Feen free. We'll even let you take your ship, supposing Feen can get it flying again."

Tormak's expression said that he was trying to decide if Sandy was for real. "Back to piracy. What other choice do we have?" Sandy rubbed the back of his head, thinking that over.

Giovenith managed to squeeze through an enlarged hole in the fallen ice. Tormak turned to look at her. "Who are you?"

Amanda answered, "Another member of our crew. The last one should be through soon."

"You brought your daughter?" Tormak gave the Belas a funny look. "Teaching her the family business? She watches while you shoot?"

Brit muscled through the hole, breaking one of the weaker ice slabs along the way. She caught Tormak's eye instantly. "You're not a Core-worlder! You look like you're from out here. Or are you a Mid Rimmie? What's your name?"

[Monfrox]

Brit pulled her scarf in a little around her neck as she approached the group.

"Hey listen, I-"

"You're not a Core-worlder!"

What. Brit's gaze followed down to one of the pirates.

"You look like you're from out here. Or are you a Mid Rimmie? What's your name?"

She stared at him blankly for a minute while her jaw clenched. She walked over to him and stooped to his level.

"Who I am and where I'm from are none of your business, asshole. Talk out of turn again, and I'll feed you my blaster. Only warning." She stood back up and looked to Amanda. "Well, Miss Corellia, you drew the short straw so you stay and watch them with the youngling. You." She knife-handed at Sandy. "I need to talk to you. Privately. Let's go." She growled, clearly not happy to have to entertain current company. She didn't wait for his response and headed for an isolated spot in the hangar.

[Northwest Slobovia]

North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"Well, Miss Corellia, you drew the short straw so you stay and watch them with the youngling. You." She knife-handed at Sandy. "I need to talk to you. Privately. Let's go." She growled, clearly not happy to have to entertain current company. She didn't wait for his response and headed for an isolated spot in the hangar.

Sandy got to his feet slowly and carefully, favoring his left side. He followed Brit, trying to figure out why she was upset. Perhaps it was the battle itself, though that would reflect a misunderstanding of Giovenith's magic and little understanding of how we fight. Hmm. Or straightforwardly, she didn't appreciate Tormak's loose tounge.

As they drew away from the captives, Sandy whispered to Brit in Modern Greek, "I'm not sure how well Soli hears with those big ears, so switch languages if you know a second one.

"Uh. Amanda said she was Corellian because the forged ID Maghrl made for us says we're Corellian. It's... much easier to tell a consistent story if we stick to the one we know." One corner of his mouth lifted into a half grin. "And, uh, Tormak's stereotype of Core-worlders isn't entirely wrong about Amanda."

[Giovenith]

Giovenith was practically soundless as she approached the others, who were in the middle of a confrontation with one of the pirates. She quietly listened, catching pieces about the alien's home life. She frowned and tilted her head, brow pursed sadly. She began to open her mouth-

"Who I am and where I'm from are none of your business, asshole. Talk out of turn again, and I'll feed you my blaster. Only warning." She stood back up and looked to Amanda. "Well, Miss Corellia, you drew the short straw so you stay and watch them with the youngling. You." She knife-handed at Sandy. "I need to talk to you. Privately. Let's go." She growled, clearly not happy to have to entertain current company. She didn't wait for his response and headed for an isolated spot in the hangar.

Giovenith squinted and grimaced at Brit's harsh outburst. Well, that certainly wasn't making anything better. Slightly frustrated but knowing that some lecture wasn't going to improve the situation, she decided to let it slide and instead try to approach things her way.

"Excuse me," she greeted Tormak, in a genuinely gentle and apologetic tone as she stepped forward past the Belas. "I heard everything you said. My name is Giovenith, but you can call me Gio for short if you like. I'm uh, actually not their daughter, just a friend..." She vaguely gestured to the Belas behind her before holding up her hands out flat in a pleading gesture. "I'm really, really sorry that we hurt your friends, by the way. We didn't mean to, well... we didn't come here meaning to, we just ran into you, and we just wanted to stop you from maybe hurting other people. But we didn't want to hurt you."

She briefly considered revealing her paper birds, but then thought better of it.

"I uh, stirred up the flying creatures, scared them," she explained. "I did it so that they could confuse you and block your attacks... not because we wanted to mess with you, because we thought it might hurt you less than just attacking you with weapons. We just had to think really fast about how to stop you, and I didn't want you all to be killed, so I thought it might help... and we will help your friend who got really hurt, I promise!"

Giovenith took a brief look over her shoulder, hoping they could keep that promise.

"I know that big places and people have a tendency to steal from little places and people," she continued, turning back to Tormak. "And I'm sorry that was done to your home. It was wrong, it was evil!" She nodded vigorously, before turning sad and pleading again. "But hurting others when we're hurt only makes more hurt in the end. I know this is a really big and complicated situation that doesn't have some answer right now, but if there's anything that we can do to help you so there's no more hurting, at least a little bit, please, we can try."

[Monfrox]

"Shut up." Brit snarled as she led him deeper into the base. She took him up a floor since she didn't have any sort of alternative language she could fall back on to voice her particular feelings at the moment. She took a deep breath and turned around to face him.

"So you drag me out to one of my old combat zones, have me relive my experience here, send me all over Hell's half acre on your archeology quest, and then you decide you wanna play Rambo with Gio and Amanda so now we have prisoners to deal with." She pinched the bridge of her nose very tightly. "You have some semblance of Operational Security with the fake IDs but how in the Sam Hill are you going to deal with this? The magic can't all be explained away as Force Projection, and the first rule of time travel is don't tell people you're doing it. Don't you get it? Or do you just not care."

[Northwest Slobovia]

Main Floor near the North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"Shut up."

Sandy stopped mid-stride. What the...? What's got her so mad? He decided to let it pass.

She took him up a floor

Sandy looked up the ladder, then back down the tunnel to the hangar. "This is far enough. My right side is all patched up where I was shot, and I'm not going to waste the ousia to climb one handed."

"So you drag me out to one of my old combat zones, [...] The magic can't all be explained away as Force Projection, and the first rule of time travel is don't tell people you're doing it. Don't you get it? Or do you just not care."

Sandy looked at Brit like she was a freshman who'd read Marx or Rand and was trying to explain history to him: a walking example of the Dunning–Kruger Effect. He spoke firmly, voice flat. "You have no idea what you're talking about. None whatsoever. You don't know the facts, so your reasoning is faulty, and your conclusions are myths.

"Fact: Tormak called Giovenith's paper animals 'flying ice rat things'. Fact: he called us cowards for attacking when they poured out of what he thinks is their roost. Fact: he and Feen think Pegasus is a riding animal. Fact: neither Feen nor Marisi can distinguish between the products of alchemy and the products of unfamilar technology.

"Correct conclusions: all of our magic is mistaken for things they partially understand. Thus, the people here have no idea Giovenith or I aren't from around here, nor that we're supers."

"Fact: I don't know where you've been been since we parted company on the third floor. You gestured for me to go back, and I thought you were following me. Apparently not, but I didn't send you anywhere. Other than hearing that you went down to two, I don't know where you've been, what you've done, or what you've seen or found."

He took a deep breath, held it for a moment, and then let it out. When he resumed, his tone was conversational. "However, based on your background and what I saw on three, I assume you've searched wherever you've been thoroughly. Thanks, that's a big help. I'll need to know where you went, so we can pick up from there.

"The prisoners are a problem, but not an immediate one. Two are disarmed and tied up – that's Soli and Tormak – one, Marisi, is badly injured, and the last one, Feen, isn't armed and is trying to get their ship working again. Feen and Marisi were slaves; as far as I'm concerned, they can be set free. But they don't have a pilot for that junkheap they call a ship.

"Tormak might be that pilot, but I don't know that, and I don't want them returning to piracy. If Tormak won't give up piracy, he's a dead man. Soli's dead too; Amanda will doubtless execute her for being a pirate and a slaver. Uh, unless Giovenith stops her, which I don't want to think about or get in the middle of."

North Hangar

Tormak listened to Brit's threats with a pretense of being afraid, and after she stalked off with Sandy in tow, added, "Oh, she's good! Did you get her from Rent-a-Bitch?"

Before Amanda could start a cutting reply, Giovenith said her piece, and Tormak's expression shifted to confusion, then suspicion. The pirate stared at Amanda, and then finally said, "What the hell is going on here?? You've got us tied up and you've given Feen the run of the ship. You don't need the good cop-bad cop routine. So what gives?"

For a second, Amanda had no idea what did give: she hadn't expected Brit's outburst or Giovenith's attempt to mollify Tormak. But slowly, a smile brightened her face, as she got her mind up to speed. "Maybe I want something from you, hmmm?" I'm not sure what yet, but it'll hit me in a minute. "Your boss said something about meeting up to ambush a convoy." Got it! "A guy named Tenko was organizing your attack. So, where was the ambush supposed to be, and where can I find Tenko?"

Tormak's eyes narrowed. "Got it: if I give you what you want, the girl in pink is nice to me, if not, the woman in white fucks me up. What's the choice, a little romp in bed or torture? That's more like the Core-worlders I know."

Roo/Soli grunted and started moving. Her eyes opened, and she tried to focus them. Her head lolled to the side, and she realized she was looking at Tormak. "Wh...?"

"We've been captured by a couple of Corellians and their... help. How much do you like Tenko?"

Roo/Soli struggled to take that in, looking uncertainly at Giovenith and then at Amanda.

[Monfrox]

Brit's face screwed itself up again. Unfortunately, it was getting harder for her to maintain a mask on her feelings, but she still was holding so much back on the dam of bitterness.

"I'm not talking about Amanda and her skewed sense of righteousness right now. You wanna talk facts? Here's one: none of this would've happened if you just listened to what I said and not engaged. Yeah, you and Gio use magic. That's not something new to me. However, I assumed you two would be more...covert...and avoid making a scene with it. Obviously, I was wrong to think that. And now you're banking on others buying your bullshit to sustain your level of plausible deniability, which is a very dangerous fucking game to play. A game that I will not be a part of."

She stepped closer and narrowed her eyes at him.

"And for the record: I do know what the fuck I'm talking about." She hissed. "I've covered my tracks over every era I've ever stepped into with more than just fake names and IDs, so don't try to talk to me like I'm that same young girl in your study the day she royally fucked up. That ship has long since sailed. I know things far beyond what I am comfortable knowing, and I'm marked by beings who I've tangled with that I couldn't even feebly grasp what the fuck they were. And every hop, skip, and jump keeps them off my trail more and more every day."

In a rare moment, her anger faltered into something akin to lament.

"Sandy, I don't tell you this to be some Billy Badass and try to look superior to you. I tell you this...because I'm afraid. I have a very real fear in my heart because I've found out that something owns me. Something I'm not even sure I'll truly escape or be able to defeat. And one day...that something is gonna come to collect from me. And when it does, I pray that I'm alone and you and Gio and Amanda are all spared. I cannot, will not, talk anymore about it. That just invites it more. I've probably already said too much anyway..." She fished the small little...whatever it was that she grabbed after Sandy ran off and handed it over with the cord still attached. "Here. I grabbed this out of the holoprojector. Maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing. I don't know. Just take it and go."

[Northwest Slobovia]

Main Floor near the North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"And for the record: I do know what the fuck I'm talking about." She hissed.

Sandy raised a few fingers, about to object, but decided against it. This is a discussion for another time. Brit is either not getting it or not willing to get it. Either way, she's not going to get it now.

["S]o don't try to talk to me like I'm that same young girl in your study the day she royally fucked up. That ship has long since sailed."

Sandy was stunned by that. Is that what this is about?? That was... six years ago? Oh, boy! That's a long time to hang on to that, and Brit's apparently been hopping timestreams a lot. How long has it been for her??"

"Sandy, I don't tell you this to be some Billy Badass and try to look superior to you."

Sandy's eyes narrowed with suspicion and doubt. Could have fooled me, General Not a Little Girl Any More!

["]And one day...that something is gonna come to collect from me. And when it does, I pray that I'm alone and you and Gio and Amanda are all spared. I cannot, will not, talk anymore about it.["]

Hoo, boy! Either she's run into something like the Umbrum, or she has serious issues from too much fighting. Probably the latter. Sandy nodded, apparently at Brit's comments, but actually at his own thoughts. She needs professional help. Maybe even Cadance's personal help. Hoo, boy!

"Here. I grabbed this out of the holoprojector. Maybe it's something, maybe it's nothing. I don't know. Just take it and go."

Sandy examined the device closely, holding it near his face to try to get a better look at the dangling gold wires. "Thank you. Thank you very much! Assuming this is some sort of memory – which we don't know yet, but seems reasonable – it must have been something somebody thought worth projecting holographically. So it should-- is likely to be interesting, even if unrelated to the fall of Echo Base." He gave Brit a huge smile. "Primary documentation is always valuable!"

He paused and looked distractedly at the ceiling, trying to remember the last thing Brit said. Finally: "But what are you going to do now?"

[Monfrox]

"You should take Gio." Brit said, not answering his question immediately. "There's a hospital and another barracks on Floor 2. I didn't get to go over everything with a fine-toothed comb, but most everything's been torched by the Alliance or taken by the Empire. Maybe you'll have better luck. As for me," She hefted her blaster over her shoulder and shook her head to adjust her cap and get out of the mood she was in. "I'll go make sure Amanda doesn't do anything rash to the prisoners. Though, if I'm honest, I don't like loose ends. Still, it's your show. I won't get in your way."

She stepped for the stairway past him and then stopped when she was right at his side.

"And for the record," She said, looking him in the eyes with a very serious tone, "everything I just said to you stays between us. That's all private, and the only reason I'm telling you is I'm just trying to be understood here. I don't need Gio or Willow worrying about me, or Amanda jumping down my throat calling me a liability. Take it from me: It's only going exacerbate things. So please, don't tell them. Okay?"

[Giovenith]

Tormak's eyes narrowed. "Got it: if I give you what you want, the girl in pink is nice to me, if not, the woman in white fucks me up. What's the choice, a little romp in bed or torture? That's more like the Core-worlders I know."

"No," Giovenith said insistently, narrowing her eyes and shaking her head. "We would never do anything like that."

She looked over back at Amanda and between the pirates, not sure what the former was up to. She knew that it probably wasn't wise to reject the idea that they were too much of a threat since it seemed to be their leverage, but she also didn't want to be some bully. She pulled a hand to her mouth somewhat worriedly as Roo/Soli awoke.

"Don't be scared, please," she said, in the most soothing voice she could manage. "Do you, need anything? Are you hurt in any way we can't see?"

[Northwest Slobovia]

North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"No," Giovenith said insistently, [...] "We would never do anything like that." […] She pulled a hand to her mouth somewhat worriedly as Roo/Soli awoke. […] "Don't be scared, please," she said, in the most soothing voice she could manage. "Do you, need anything? Are you hurt in any way we can't see?"

Soli looked looked at Giovenith, studying her face, and then looking her up and down. She did the same to Amanda, before turning to Tormak, speaking the unfamiliar language they'd heard before. "The girl in pink's telling the truth: usual human tells. Careful with the other Core-worlder, though, she's played this game before. Confident of winning, too." The babblefish had no trouble translating it.

Soli shifted her gaze back to Amanda, and switched back to oddly-accented Galactic Basic. "We need to work something out here: how we stay alive if we do tell you how to find Tenko. What's the plan?"

Ah, shit! That's a good question, and not one I'd thought of. And she reads us like open books. But she doesn't know we speak her language. That makes us even. Gotta keep it moving, though. "Which of you can fly your ship?"

"Why does that matter?" Soli whispered something to Tormak, but it was too quiet to make out.

Amanda raised her voice. "Enough of that!" Then, she turned to Giovenith, speaking French. "Could you give me a hand with her? I just want to separate them, and I can't lift her without the Boon."

[Giovenith]

Hoth

Giovenith nodded hesitantly and slowly approached Soli with a gentle stride. She bent down low to put them on the same level.

"Hey, the two of us are going to touch you, but it's just to move you away for a little bit," she explained, calmly. "We won't hurt you at all, I promise. If there's somewhere you can't be touched or it hurts too, please let us know, okay? Do you think you'll have the energy?" She offered her hand.

[Northwest Slobovia]

North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

Amanda looked around. "Over there, by the wreck." She nodded in the direction of a skeletal snowspeeder, then she took Soli's feet and Giovenith lifted her shoulders, and then the two of them slung Soli like a big bag of potatoes and carried her over to the snowspeeder. They had to set her down every few yards though: she was surprisingly heavy.

Every time Soli was put down, she squirmed and moved her bound hands. The third time, Amanda cottoned to what she was doing, and pulled out a short combat knife with a serrated back from a pocket. "Looking for this?" Soli's expression was unreadable, but the babblefish provided a colorful translation to her swearing.

Eventually, they got her to the ex-snowspeeder, out of line of sight of Tormak. Amanda stood back up, touched her "send" comm stud, and spoke French into it. "Guys, we need a plan."


Main Floor near the North Hangar

Sandy started with a loose read-back of Brit's description: "Hospital, barracks, but searched-- but not much there. Got it.

"I'm going to give the Anathilosis a little while longer to work, so I'll come back with you, tell Giovenith what the plan is, and check on Marisi. Speaking of her, did you, uh, get more training in first aid?"

"And for the record," She said, looking him in the eyes with a very serious tone, "[...] I'm just trying to be understood here. I don't need Gio or Willow worrying about me, or Amanda jumping down my throat calling me a liability. [...] So please, don't tell them. Okay?"

It took Sandy a second to take in what Brit said. He made a dismissive gesture with one hand. "Amanda has her own issues, so she wouldn't say anything anyway. And Willow...Willow's getting professional help from Cadance-- Princess Cadance -- one of his goddesses – and Her people. He..." Sandy paused, groping for words. "He had an unfortunate hostile encounter with an extremely potent immortal. He'd understand too."

There was a bit of a silence, broken by Amanda's transmission. Sandy replied in Alexandrian Greek, "What sort of plan? Did somethin-- What's happening there?"

Amanda continued in French. "We had to extemporize with the pirates. For a couple of bush-leaguers, they know their business. The ex-boss' girlfriend reads tells really well, too. What are we going to do with them?"

"Can either of them fly their ship?"

"They're being difficult about that."

Sandy sighed. "We'll be there in a minute."


North Hangar

The return trip was shorter than the outbound one, and Brit and Sandy were met by Amanda as they approached the hangar. She continued to whisper in French. "Between Giovenith's and Brit's introductions, Tormak thinks we're playing good cop/bad cop with them. I ran with it. Best I could do.

"In short, Girlfriend wants to know how they'll get out of this alive since we hold all the cards. I don't think 'trust' is a word she knows. I'm used to having the perps trust me when I let them cop a plea in exchange for testifying against somebody more dangerous. In this case, the guy who organized the raid they were supposed to be part of.

"Anyway, we split them up to keep them from communicating. That's when I called you. Any ideas?

[Monfrox]

Brit let Sandy walk down first, but his answer to her statement worried her deeply. He was trusting Amanda and Willow to not respond to her current condition, and that was not something she would do as well.

"No, I mean it Sandy. This stays between us." She said as they walked.

Whether he heeded her words or not was no longer a matter of not getting the message. If he shared it with them, she would consider it a betrayal. Honestly, she was already kicking herself for even attempting to make him understand. She was never any good at that. As she approached the rest of the group with Sandy, she hardened her expression and actively adopted a poker face. Amanda asked for ideas, and suddenly Brit couldn't be bothered for it. She sighed and plopped down onto a crate in front of Tormak and occupied her time with guarding him. She settled her blaster rifle into her lap and pulled her scarf above her nose. She regarded the pirate with the eyes more like a shark: Blank and almost lifeless. Her introduction was fresh in her mind, and she wondered if Tormak would try to call her on it.

[Giovenith]

Giovenith immediately spoke up.

"Maybe we could give them something so nice that they don't have to be pirates anymore!" she suggested, holding up a hand in eager thought. "Not something dangerous, but maybe something they could sell legitimately for enough money to live off of? I mean, we could travel anywhere and find something that must be good enough. I'm sure they don't really want to continue living this life if they don't have to."

[Northwest Slobovia]

North Hangar
Echo Base, Hoth
Mid-Summer, 20 ABY, Maghrl's Timestream

"No, I mean it Sandy. This stays between us." She said as they walked.

Sandy walked along in silence for a few steps. "All right. But you should talk to somebody about it-- about what you've experienced."

She sighed and plopped down onto a crate in front of Tormak and occupied her time with guarding him. She settled her blaster rifle into her lap and pulled her scarf above her nose. She regarded the pirate with the eyes more like a shark: Blank and almost lifeless.

Tormak looked back at Brit for a few seconds, then his body language shifted: he was unimpressed. Then he seemed to notice something on her uniform, and twisted to the side to get a better look. "Is that an Alliance uniform? Did you fight for the Alliance? Were you here?" He looked around: he meant Hoth, and to the extent that Brit could tell, his view of her was changing for the better.

Giovenith immediately spoke up. "Maybe we could give them something so nice that they don't have to be pirates anymore! […] Not something dangerous, but maybe something they could sell legitimately for enough money to live off of? [...] I'm sure they don't really want to continue living this life if they don't have to."

Sandy's face blossomed with a pleased smile. "I had a similar thought, though we should confirm, um, some of those asser-- certainties."

He switched back to Alexandrian Greek as they walked towards the pirate ship. "Feen said that he and Marisi were Soli's slaves. Tormak seems to have confirmed that, as does the presence of their IDs in Soli's--"

Feen bounded down the ship's stern ramp, grinning at Sandy. "Ship's fixed, and ready to go." He looked at Giovenith, uncertain about her; she was new.

Sandy answered him in English, "How well will she-- will the ship fly?"

Feen's face fell. "Not well. Your wife... Erm, the flux motivators were overloaded by the blaster strike. They're not staying fully excited by the flux." Giovenith's and Sandy's babblefish did their best with the jargon, and both ended up with a similar mental image. Sandy imagined his wings failing to grip the air, as though he were caught in turbulence but then soaring away; Giovenith envisioned her birds intermittently flopping to the ground and struggling back into the air.

"I see. Can the ship make it to Bespin?"

The Sullustan made a strange up-and-down sweeping gesture with his hands, touching his shoulders in the middle of his motions. The babblefish interpreted it as exasperated uncertainty. "If we can get into hyperspace. Which... maybe? Then we need to land. Small landing pads there: it might be dangerous."

With an unhappy nod, Sandy replied, "That may have to do. How's Marisi?" He started up the ramp, leaving Feen to walk and talk.

"Better! She's awake now."

Sandy led on; the ship smelled better too: there was no ozone, but it still smelled like a truckstop bathroom. Marisi was lying on the deck, covered by a stained blanket, her head propped by a rolled-up shirt. She managed a weak "Hi" to Sandy. "You're the doctor, right? You... this?" She moved her right arm: next to her were a pair of saline bags.

One of them had a tube that disappeared under the blanket; something red was flowing into it, leaving red swirls where the tube connected to the bag. The second one had its tube, with a needle on the end, attached to that bag; a corner had been cut off, and it slowly dripped onto a plastic sheet on the deck.

Sandy knelt down beside her right leg. "Yes, I'm the doctor."

Marisi slowly rolled her head to look at Giovenith. "Are you a doctor, too?"