Take the long road and walk it

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Shamira Karuto"]

Trextan waited as Shamira cut through the most obvious route into the ship, content to watch her work for now. His senses were pushed out to their limits and he could not sense any immediate danger. At least not from the natives.

He had been a moment away from following her into the craft when he felt it groan. The structure of the hull was incredibly strong but everything anchored to that, both inside and outside the ship, was less robust. Dagobah would claim it all soon enough.

Taking several steps back he closed his eyes and released the breath in his lungs slowly. His left hand came up, fingers splayed, as he manifested his will through the Force. The remains of the shuttle would - for the moment at least -stop sinking into the miss.

 

[Shamira Karuto]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]


The shifting slowly settled, making the initiate furrow her brows in confusion until she thought to what might be holding it up. Trextan. He must not have gone looking for his pieces yet, and had just decided to help out Shamira not be swallowed in the swamp by the quickly sinking ship. She smiled lightly at this thought, then resumed her search for the objects.
She carefully made her way to the front of the ship, avoiding the jutted out mettle and holes in the flooring, which let the murky water of the swamp seep into the inside. Making her way to the cockpit of the ship proved the situation was worse towards the front of the ship.
The very front of cockpit was totally underwater. Water flowed through the broken windows, slowly filling up the control center of the ship. Frowning slightly, Shamira stepped in carefully, water sloshing against her boots. Against the back of the cockpit, thankfully, was the emergency beacon she had been looking for. The togruta breathed a sigh of happy relief, pulled it from it’s resting spot, and started back out of the ship.
On her way out, her eye caught the site of a pair of bags, obviously filled and meant for survival purposes. One had a large shard of metal through the middle, rendering it useless, but the other way completely intact, save a severed strap or two. Quickly grabbing it and slinging it over her shoulder, the padawan emerged from the ship, holding up both objects. “Look what I found!”

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Shamira Karuto"]

"Excellent!" Trextan called. The strain was clear on his face. Behind the togruta the ship lurched as the swamp sucked it down lower. Trextan's expression darkened further.

The ship has tilted as it had dropped further into the waters. It revealed several long dark scorch marks. He tilted his head to one side as he examined them, stepping back Shamira. He stretched out his hand towards them and then stopped. He was no expert on the matter but this didn't look like damage from simple engine strike.

"Shamira, make for the treeline," he said softly.

Perhaps it was nothing. It didn't feel like nothing. He could concoct a few reasons in his mind for someone to bring down the shuttle deliberately. None of them boded well for him and the young padawan.

 

[Shamira Karuto]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]


Once she was out of the ship, the strain of holding it up for Trextan shown on his face. Frowning lightly, and wanting to help take the strain off, she quickly hurried over to him so that he could stop holding up the ship.
As he started towards the ship to examine something out of the Togruta’s sight, Shamira knelt down on the soft ground and opened up the survival pack. Shifting some of the food rations to the side, making a small hole of space, she shoved in the emergency and closed the top tightly.
The grey skinned alien had just thrown the pack over her when Trextan whispered to her to quickly move. Nodding, she bolted to the tree line, quickly leaping up onto the first solid branch she saw.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Shamira Karuto"]

Trextan moved swiftly into the cover of the treeline. He ducked and weaved just a few metres into the foliage before waving for Shamira to come to a halt. Crouching low he brought a finger to his lips before pointing back towards the shuttle. Hopefully she would be able to see what he had from here.

They hadn't been careful about hiding their tracks. Anything determined to follow them that was a native of dagobah would trail them by scent alone easily enough. The Force should have warned him if they were in genuine danger. He should have sensed malicious intent focussed in their direction.

He pushed a palm down towards the ground to indicate that they should keep low. Perhaps, he reflected, she would think he was following a reasoned plan. Maybe even that this was part of the assessment. Neither was true; right now he just wanted time to try and figure something out. He caught sight of something moving above them. He tilted his head back to look for something new and horrifying moving down the trees towards them. Instead what he saw sunk his heart even further. It wasn't something close that had disturbed the light. Familiar wedge shaped cut through the air above the canopy. Coral skippers.

 

[Shamira Karuto]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]


Shamira backed up into the trunk of the tree, so that the leaves of the tree with disguise her form from the outside. Looking down, she could see that Trextan had made his way into the treeline as well. He was looking up at her, bringing a finger up to his lips in a shushing motion. The togurta nodded with emphasis, showing that she understood.
Slowly, crawling on her hands and knees, she crawled forward on the branch to peak out of the leaves and towards the ship. She could see nothing yet, but it was obvious something was coming. Soon. The feeling in the back of her mind, the feeling of something dark coming to them, would be there within seconds. The learner slowly reached down to her belt, unclipping her blade, to be ready for what was coming.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Shamira Karuto"]

Trextan watches as the coral skippers circled the crash site. One of their transports appeared just above the treeline. The massive slug-like creature thrashed through the vines as it pushed for the ground.

"Have you ever met the Yuuzhan Vong?" Trextan whispered. He backed through the trees slowly, hoping to cover his form even more. He had met the Yuuzhan Vong before. In that transport would be ten of their chazrach. And if they were lucky that would be all. If they weren't there would be a pair of Yuuzhan Vong warriors in there as well.

At the back of his mind he thought about how long it would take to get a rescue party here. If they could get deeper into the undergrowth they could get a signal out with the recovered equipment. If there were coral skippers there would be one of their base ships in a nearby sector.