Leea was awoken from her stupor with a nasty shock. By the time she was cognizant of her surroundings, the pilot had already jumped to hyperspace. She had long ago discovered that her helmet gave her head just enough balance where she could doze without slumping forwards. She found it useful on long space trips, which tended to reduce her to a snoring lump, when she didn't want her commanders knowing she was sleeping.
She became aware of a heat coming from the hull, and she could hear the officer orders, or maybe it was crying for help. "Which one was he?" She thought to herself, still groggy enough not to focus on the real situation, "Not Makeb... Taris? No. Rogue Team? Not tall enough..." When the ship shiddered and Leea heard the distinct screaming of metal being rent, she finally began to awake enough to realize what was going on. She swore under her breath as she pushed another restraint into place on her seat.
"I promised myself I wouldn't fly again. Look where I am now..." Leea's words were lost in the din of the ship's explosive descent. She rattled in her seat, the safety buckle not quite as restraining as she would have preferred. In her head, she understood that the ship was crashing, which included the fact that this ship was going to hit the planet fairly soon, but that uncomfortable thought did not quite reach her conscious mind. She busied herself, seemingly oblivious to the danger, with ensuring her various personal effects were stored safely on her person. A particularly loud explosion from the thruster caused her to lose track as her hand smacked the metal hull. Pain shot up her arm and she instinctively retracted the injured limb to her chest.
Clutching her hand, flexing it carefully, she was shocked to greater awareness of her surroundings when one of the other passengers suddenly dove for the loading ramp. He shouted something, but Leea couldn't hear him over the din, before tearing at the hatch. Leea's intial thought, as the metal gave way to his enhanced strength, was, "As if we aren't losing enough of the ship as is, you want to tear more of it apart?" A moment later the person jumped and Leea wondered if she should follow suit. Apparently she was not the only one, as she caught sight of another passenger fumble with their restraints and begin to run awkwardly towards the opening.
The passenger didn't make it. The falling ship suddently jarred into the ground, crashing through trees and stone outcrops. The sudden shift in enertia sent the attempted escapee hurtling back towards the cockpit. There was a disturbing crunch from the front of the craft and for a moment Leea wondered if the ship would explode like in so many of the holos. She was about to remove her own restraints, feeling the ship beginning to slow, but before she had even managed to reach the release, something hard and ungiving struck the side of her head. She knew no more.
Leea awoke to an uncomfortable heat across her chest. Her eyes opened to a scene as if from hell. The interior of the ship was ablaze, the inferno slowly working its way across cabling and metal towards her side of the ship. Across from her she saw a husk, a faint outline of an individual consumed by the flames. She realized she was laying on her back, the ship must have tipped onto its side during the final moments of its forward traversal through terra firma. Her mind was blank, she still wasn't fully over the smack she had recieved not too long ago. Her hands and feet moved separately from her will, controlled by the survival instinct and training drilled into her brain. Releasing the latch, the hands, they were not her hands anymore, pushed Leea over and she crawled away from the fire. Her senses seemed dysfunctional, she had no peripheal vision and her auditory and olfactory senses were dead. Her mind wondered if this were some last entry in her mind before death overtook her. Perhaps this was the final moment of her imagination willing her to live, against all odds.
Leea blinked and realized she had moved impossibly fast, or maybe she had lost consiousness for a moment. She was now several meters away from the seat, right on the edge of the torn ramp. She dragged herself from the wreckage, falling a foot or two from the heated metal onto the cool churned earth. But her body seemed intent, for it continued even as Leea felt her mind slipping away again. The last she saw before her world turned to darkness, was a large leaf tapping her helmet as she pulled herself into the treeline.
Awaking for a third time, Leea felt a surging pain through her forehead moments before the rest of her body followed. She tried to scream, but all she managed was a crackling moan which broke through her parched lips. It felt like an eternity before she managed to force herself to a sitting position. She instantly regretted the decision, as agony filled her. Refusing to surrender to the pain, Leea managed to look around, she realized the helmet's eye slots had been cracked and were covered in grime. She reached slowly upwards to remove the helmet from her head, she wondered if this planet smelled like the small jungles on Makeb. All she could smell was her own stale breath. A little voice in her mind, all business, matter-of-factly stated, "The rebreather is broken. Oxygen will be halved." Her helmet refused to release and she swiftly gave up on fiddling with the switch. She rubbed the grit and mud from the faceplate and found she could see reasonably well.
Over the next half hour she began to collect her wits and locate her equipment. It seemed even in her concussed state, her trained mind had collected her necessary supplies and dragged them from the ship. She had looked hopefully to find some pain meds or maybe even some Bacta patches, but there was nothing of a medical variety. She had found her wrist was pained, perhaps twisted but not broken. This was important, if for no other reason than it allowed her utilize the rifle she had dragged with her. Her vibroknife had managed to drop from its supposedly secure sheath on her hip and lay a couple of meters away in a bush. She also discovered her pistol had survived, the only piece of military equipment that had stayed in its place. Now, unfortunately she had only found a few energy packs for her pistol and a single canister for her rifle.
During this time, Leea had realized she was unable to remove her armor. At first, she had assumed it was her fingers that were shaking too much to work the various catches and releases. Now she theorized that they had fuzed and her hands were still shaky. Leea decided there was no point in waiting any longer. She felt only a minor aching in her body now, and she decided to head back to the ship. She hoped someone else might have survived, maybe the jumper was near the crash.
As she slowly wobbled back to the craft, Leea felt something in her head. It was like a pressure, but it caused no pain and left a strange feeling. She broke the treeline and a shiver rolled through her being. Moments later a howl pierced the darkness. Without thought, Leea fell back into the trees and dropped to the ground. She fumbled with her rifle for a moment as she scanned the surrounding. She blinked and Pandac had the distinct feeling more time had passed in that simple action than she at first believed.
Waiting for a few more seconds, Leea brought herself upright, trying to hold back the pressure that seemed to be building in her head. She began marching, at least she attempted to march, towards the howl. It was only after she had become thoroughly lost that she contemplated her decision, "The ship was right there.... Why didn't you at least check the transmitter? Could have gotten help..."
She was thoroughly lost and was about to lose hope when she felt something move through the underbrush near her. Her mind pointed out to her the oddness of feeling something moving. She dropped to a crouch and kept her rifle ready as she waited to see something move through the night. It wasn't long before she thought she saw the outline of a wolf. "Are there more of you?" She thought. "Don't want to deal with a pack..."
Sola Wessiri Ravenous Aesro
Imperius
Pom Stych Tivé
Varlo
Mliss Roo
Mila Uhlesifa
