Private My Shadow Runs With Me

[Velok Brokentusk]

The best he could find was a window, battleship-grade transparisteel that he couldn't break without a lightsaber. He took a few precious seconds to brace himself and struck it with his elbow, with everything he had left. The Dark Side surged. The transparisteel, intact, tore free of its housing and tumbled away from the falling ship toward the wave-choked rocks.

"To whatever end," he mumbled, and threw himself out to fall.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Tears were running freely down Lily's face now, the ground was so close, they had seconds.

Something glittering caught her eye, followed by a very familiar form. Lily let out a choked cry, angling the ships nose beneath Velok's trajectory towards the ground, sweeping underneath him as the cruiser connected with the sea and rocks beneath it. A lurch above told her he'd connected with the Pilgrim's roof. "Hold on!" She yelled as the shockwave beneath rocketed up to met them.

Lily did her best not to fight it, riding it upwards and outwards, away from the centre of the wreckage. When the flight became smooth and steady, she switched to hover mode, wrestling with the straps of the pilot chair, stumbling out of it to look for her friend.

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

It took a lot to make a Whiphid lose their grip. Each of Velok's three fingers was about as big around as Lily's leg. But lose his grip he did, and barely caught it again, sliding into the airlock with no grace. The battered cleaver clanged on the floor. Velok sagged into a nine-hundred-pound lump of bloody fur.

"Thank you for keeping your...distance," he coughed. He spat bloody muck out the airlock. "To forestall...to...I'm fine. I'm fine."

He looked away from bad memories old and new and focused on Lily's face.

"I owe you my life. I'm forced to realize that the only fair thing to you would be to end my curse, if it can be...if it can be done. Even if I don't deserve it and never will."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily threw herself at him, jumping to wrap her arms around his neck in a hug, letting out a sob of relief. He was not okay but he was alive and she would take that over the other option. She finally let go drawing back and wiping her face, before throwing a punch at his arm, it hurt her hand far more than it would hurt him. "You big stupid fething lump. Don't you ever do that again."

She wasn't entirely sure how she had grown attached so quickly to this oversized being, but she didn't question it. All she knew is that for whatever reason, they were bound together. Maybe it was fate, maybe they were meant to find each other, him to lift her from her own ruin, and her to help him break his curse.

"I can tell you this till i'm blue in the face and know you will never hear it, but you do deserve it Velok." She sniffed, wiping her face again of fresh tears. "Damnit." she turned back to the console, checking the scanners, many of the toff ships had scattered and the locals emboldened by the destruction of the cruiser were giving pursuit.

"We should go help them. Get you cleaned up..."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

This wasn't the moment to argue with her. She did not, after all, know the reason for his curse. And she never would, unless revealing that shame became part of whatever it took to free him. The selfishness of his feelings had to be recognized as an obstacle to doing right by this new and unexpected debt.

There was irony in the applicability of an old Sith teaching that came to mind. The core of the Sith way, some argued, was to identify what you personally wanted the most, and do absolutely anything to achieve it.

Right now, what Velok wanted more than silence was to not take on new burdens. This was why he'd taken down the Tof ship, and why he was making this pledge to Lily. Curse or not, he had enough to live with. He couldn't live with getting her killed, or getting another town burned by seemingly random interlopers. There was an unexpected and straight line between that goal and the elimination of the curse, and to his surprise he could live with that.

Such thoughts were interrupted. He heaved himself up in the airlock.

"We can split the weapons. You take the fixed-forward guns while you fly, I'll route the warheads and autoblaster through the other console. I'll...get cleaned up after."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

It took them under an hour, to help with the clean up of the few toff ships remaining. Lily was quiet through most of it, using the focus to process her emotions, work out their next steps. Velok was the first person to do anything for her, now he was setting aside his own principles, just because he wanted to keep her safe.

By the time they had landed, the ground fight had been concluded, the few raiders that had landed either killed, or overpowered and detained. Fires were coming under control and there was an odd hush on the small town. If Velok hadn't done what he had? She shuddered to think, realisation hitting her that that was what he meant, that was what his curse brought.

She sank back into her chair reeling from all of it. Adrenaline leaving her body, her hands shook slightly and she closed them into small fists, letting out a long breath. Before moving. "There's a med kit in the back...or we can see if the town's med centre has more for you?"

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

The adrenaline crash was seismic at this point. The adepts of the Toglannoq had techniques to keep themselves awake and un-frozen after taking down a mastmot or digging themselves from an avalanche. After Velok's exertion in the Force, those techniques were of limited utility, but he ran through them anyway to take the edge off. He uncramped himself from the superb new cushion. He'd bloodied it somewhat, but not ruined it.

"No town," he said. "I'll work from the rest of the medpack and use Toglannoq ways to heal up in the hills." He lurched back toward the medpack and got to work on his more serious injuries. None of this was at all life-threatening to someone his size, but it hurt, and it was draining. "You could use those few days to rest and salvage. There are treasures around and you'll want to be the first to get at them.The command ship...everyone aboard is dead, but plenty of the components could have survived the fall. Any...crashed landing ships and fighters have value too. If you can stomach work like that, you could make quite a haul."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily followed him, slowly, her limbs sluggish, her emotions wrought. She listened to his suggestions, watching as he tended his wounds, saying nothing. At least until he was trying to reach a particularly awkward one. She stepped forward plucking the kit gently form his hands. "Let me." She moved methodically, gently treating wounds, setting down to stitch a large gash in his side.

"Until today," she said finally speaking "I couldn't fathom it. what your curse meant, for you and for those around you, In understand now, why you were snoring so loudly on the expedition ship. Why you sought peace. We've been in each other company for what? Less than 72 hours? You've turned my entire world from a game of survival, to a life of possibilities... so when you say that you owe me your life, I need you to know you absolutely do not. We are, for all intents and purposes equal in that regard."

She took a breath, tying off the final stitch. "That said, we're going to find a way to end your curse. Not for my sake, nor yours. But for the sake of the people's whose lives you couldn't save today...or any other time its comes for you. And I need you to promise me something too." She cut the thread and lent back to look at him. "Don't try to push me away again. For whatever reason, lets call it fate, we're in this together now."

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

"That said, we're going to find a way to end your curse. Not for my sake, nor yours. But for the sake of the people's whose lives you couldn't save today...or any other time its comes for you.

That part earned a rumble that was not quite a growl. The clarity hurt worse than the blaster burns.

"I'll agree to that promise," he said at last. "Yes, I'll promise that, friend of mine."

Further words wouldn't materialize. He was deeply tired, not just from the battle but from the most time he had spent with anyone in years. The hills couldn't take him soon enough.

---

As night came down, he disembarked the Pilgrim's Rest and limped back up into the crags. The cold wind tonight was a comfort. It felt like childhood on Toola. He found the place where he'd butchered the horned creature and reclaimed his tree-trunk spear as a walking stick. He'd need to hunt again come morning. For now, a cave would do, or a warm spot under a tree.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily watched from the landing ramp until Velok's limping form was out of sight before hauling herself back inside, the ramp cling behind her. She fell into the cot of her room, sleep taking her instantly. It wasn't the first time she'd slept on and empty stomach and it most definitely wouldn't be the last.

---

By the time Lily woke, the sun had been up for a couple of hours already. She groaned as eh moved, muscles aching she groggily found her way to the shower, doing her best to wash away everything from the day before. Leaving her hair loose, she put on the same paint stained clothes as the day before, knowing full well that whatever waited her outside this ship was not going to be clean and there was no use dirtying another set of clothes.

She rummaging in the storage compartments, finding a good sized knapsack, a small cutting torch and a hyper spanner. She found a utility belt and a thigh holster for a blaster pistol and set about preparing for the day, heating up some of the gumbo soup as she did. By the time it was ready, she opened the landing ramp, settling down on it to eat, eyes scanning the wreckage instead of the town.

Velok had been right about that, there was a good salvage haul to be had, and she wasn't about to pass it up. They had a long journey ahead of them, they would need more than just supplies and money. They would need spare parts too.

Velok Brokentusk

 

[Velok Brokentusk]

No easy prey presented itself. He was slower on the hunt than last night, and his Toglannoq senses less incisive. His mind felt numb. A bird came close enough to his drowsy form that he could snap its neck in his mind's eye — far from his favorite way to hunt, but he needed meat and warmth.

He ate the bird whole. The cleaver was still useless for related tasks, and it was his only edge unless he wanted to knap local stone. As he picked bones from his teeth, he ground the cleaver against a flat rock. The irregular edge ground away, first in hot spots and then down its full length. Patience was the key — patience and symmetry, and cleaning slurry off the grindstone, and rasping away the thin hairs of wire that formed on the edge once it approached the right shape. The handle was a loss and hadn't been quite thick enough anyway, but the blade was getting somewhere.

The work gave him room to exist without much thought, without company. It let him ignore the great questions and all the things that overwhelmed him tonight. It gave him back normalcy.

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

By the morning after the Tof ship fell, the word was out. The moon called Darronid was only a couple of praedia from the end of the Nagai Trade Spine. Half a dozen new ships — Nagai, Tof, Sharukan — bristled at each other in the general area of Drakeport. Their clear intent was salvage.

Skeevi Merrill, slow and muddled from hunger, unfolded themself from a niche in a Nagai freighter. They'd only meant to stow away to hop a stop or two. That was weeks ago now.

The Nagai ship rested in the crags that jutted out above the huge wreck and the town. Broad daylight added risk to sneaking down, but Skeevi was out of toothpaste. And food, water, intact socks, but mostly toothpaste.

A careful, painful course took them through the rocks and around the wreck. Dead men with greenish skin lay near rents in the hull, and Skeevi noted not just valuables but belt flasks.

Nobody was at this particular part of the huge mess, not yet. Dopey but determined, Skeevi scrambled to collect belt flasks and other portables of note.

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily didn't wait for Velok to return before sealing up the ship. He would be able to find her easy enough if he did come back today though she had a feeling between his wounds and the weight on his mind, he may take a day if not more before returning from his solace. The most important thing was that Lily trusted that he would come back.

Pulling the empty knapsack on her back she set off for the wreckage. Half in the shallows, it looked like a distorted metal whale beached somewhat aggressively upon the rocks. Lily's eyes tracked up to the ships perched above it and braced herself. Today would be tense, and she'd no doubt small fights would break out between the vultures here to pick it clean. Her eyes tracked movement, a lone soul, moving down through the crags, separate from the Nagai crew that had not yet made their descent and a small knowing smile crept across her face. Maybe she'd find an ally amidst the carnage today.

The climb onto the ship amidst the salt spray left her damp and out of breath. A handful of local were already on and bickering. Lily moved away from them, towards the quieter end, peering through great hull cracks looking for something worthwhile investigating. She did her best not to look at the bodies too closely, knowing she'd deep cleaver wounds in those that dies before the crash. It was something she couldn't quite bring herself to face.

At the quieter end of the ship she found someone she was fairly certain that had been the same someone that she'd seen climbing down the rocks. She cleared her throat to announce herself, showing her hands. Lily's way of showing she wasn't here for a fight, she inched closer to the rent she was picking around. The hallway beneath, although somewhat sideways was mostly intact. Perfect. With a excited grin she turned to lower herself inside, climb down what she was pretty sure should have been the floor.

Once down she called up to the stranger. "Hey! I'll give you half what I find if you help me find it?" Two pairs of eyes and hands were far better than one.

Skeevi Merrill

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

The average Tof belt flask contained distilled fluids that would help with Skeevi's dehydration about as much as the seawater would. Conscious that good booze went a long way in trade, Skeevi stuffed the take so far in an oversized Tof belt pouch and slung it over their shoulder. At last a flask yielded something reasonably quenching - wine - and Skeevi chugged it down.

With a excited grin she turned to lower herself inside, climb down what she was pretty sure should have been the floor. Once down she called up to the stranger. "Hey! I'll give you half what I find if you help me find it?"

Skeevi whirled from their rummaging. They took in Lily at a glance: about the same size, young, shabbily dressed in the same way as Skeevi. Maybe a camp follower for a salvager crew; maybe someone independent, working the edges. Skeevi felt both affinity and wariness.

"I'm after food and water first," they said, clutching their bag. "Past that, if we steer clear of the big crews sniffing around, don't get friendly...yeah, I'd be on board for splitting what we find together the next little while."

 

[Lily Rhodes]

At the mention of food and water Lily dug into one of her many pockets, finding a ration bar she'd stolen form the expedition ship, unopened. "Here, catch." She tossed the bar over. "Keep it, I'm good. Didn't think far enough ahead for water though, sorry." Lily kept her distance, sensing their wariness.

"I only want to do a brief sweep of this thing, give it another hour maybe less and I reckon it'll be crawling, tensions are already rising at the shore. There's a a few smaller craft out in the water that are less likely to be swarmed so soon." She moved along the hallway slightly before realising she was standing on a set of doors. She moved to the control panel and popped it open with her fingers. If she was lucky, there was enough residual power...it'd been a minute since she had played with wiring so it took her a second and a couple of small sharp shocks before they hissed open.

There was something very disorientating about looking down through a door way, Lily lay on her stomach, pulling a torch of the utility belt and shining it into the room. It was flooded and the first thing that slid across the beam of light, making her jump was a bloated toff corpse. "You got a name?" Lily asked, not looking up scanning the room for anything that might be of use.

Skeevi Merrill

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

"You got a name?"

Skeevi looked back and forth between Lily and the bloating Tof. "Sounded like 'Slosh'," Skeevi said deadpan, spitting ration bar crumbs. "Tradish'nal Tof name, very dignified, nyeta? Oh, me? Skeevi Merrill."

The sea churned up the room down there, giving Skeevi a bad, bad memory of the time the Lum Rouge water recycler backed up across half of Seven Corners. But the room was...an armory. Weapon racks sat askew, half pried off the walls. Most of the gear was probably with the dead, who'd been prepping to raid this little moon. Skeevi squinted in the gloom and let themself down onto a groaning weapons case perched on a curl of buckled hullmetal.

"Blasters," they called up through the door.

The weapons case was mostly empty and these stylized musketty blasters were Unknown Regions tech. Skeevi couldn't say how much or little they'd be worth. But they powered up nice and tucked just fine into Skeevi's belt.

"Couple for me, couple for you, full charge. Lucky, wass keeza, nyeta?"

 

[Lily Rhodes]

Lily blinked, Skeevi's language unfamiliar, but she got the jist. "Good find, doubt there'll will be much else." She pushed herself up moving along the corridor to the next door. She opened this one a little faster than the last, but still managed to give herself a shock that ran up to her shoulder making her arm ache. "Ah, you fething..." she trailed off shaking it off.

This one was a storeroom of some sorts, the flooding less, maybe knee height. Tentatively she lowered herself in. Cold water rushed into her boots and she gritted her teeth against the bite. The water came halfway up her calves, she stepped carefully, not wanting to trigger any rush of water. Putting the torch between her teeth she pried open the nearest box. It was packed with basic rations and water. The last ditch supplies in case they ran out of whatever else they found. She pushed it to one side for Skeevi to claim. "Skeevi, a box here for you." She called up, moving to another that turned out to be much the same.

She took another step and the metal beneath her feet groaned, Lily froze, but it didn't stop She felt the water begin to creep higher up her leg.

"Shit."

Skeevi Merrill

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

Floodwater was notoriously foot-rottingly evil. This wasn't that, Skeevi reminded themself. It was just seawater tainted by the multifarious fluids of a crashed starship. Skeevi clambered down carefully and hauled up the two boxes, pausing only to slurp down a pack of plastic-tasting water.

"Good haul, good haul..." The groan of shifting metal snapped their head around. "Shavvit. Wreck's settling."

Watsr slopped down from the hallway. One of the supply boxes came with it and burst apart, raining ration bars and water packs.

"We can split the other, but we gotta, we gotta climb—"

 

[Lily Rhodes]

If water was spilling in from above they would have to get out of the ship entirely and wait for it to settle once more before coming back in, likely losing much of the access they had now. Lily sighed momentarily regretting her need to sleep past the dawn. Moving back to the wall, and a stack of unstable boxes she hauled herself back into the hallway pausing once she was up to help Skeevi, eyes on the water creeping along the hallway in a steady stream.

keeping the box steady, she cracked it open, dropping her knapsack from one shoulder to shove handfuls of the boxes contents within. There was no way the could climb out of the rent with the box. They could split it once they got topside. The floor lurched, and she relinquished her grip on the box to steady herself, a fresh slurry of water whipped it away down the corridor.

"Okay now we really need to go."

She moved for the floor and began the climb back up, pausing to glance behind her and check Skeevi was with her.

Skeevi Merrill

 

[Skeevi Merrill]

Several decks away, some vast structural element gave up the ghost. The shockwave ripple through every surface around. Skeevi lost their grip and found it again, just barely, dangling out of reach of the door. They hauled one of those Tof pistols from their belt and hooked the grip over the edge like a climbing axe.

Dizzy from malnutrition and wine alike, Skeevi's ensuing climb was not their most graceful. They slopped up through the door into the canted hallway. Salvager's regrets flooded in — not looking longer for backup cells for the alien guns; not moving quicker to secure the rations — and all those regrets would take up space and bandwidth. Skeevi had to focus.

"How we came in's underwater. Daylight up that way. Swim or up?"