To Ashes [GUIDE]

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"Atheema! Mags, something bit her. She's losing her arm fast. I don't know what to do..." He felt utterly useless. What else could they do but take her arm? He couldn't just...lop it off. Could he? He knew it would be a risk but what choice did they have at this point? His breathing came in labored and ragged over the comm. He could feel her muscles tensing in pain under his gloved hands. His own grip tightened around Mags' biceps. A million thoughts per hour flew through his head and he couldn't stop them.

He reached out to Mags in the Force, not something he did often especially with Gurlanin's penchant for telepathy. He tried to push waves of calm onto her, but emotions and pain he couldn't describe flooded him instead.

'Calm...Calm....Calm...' He tried to touch her mind directly.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Atheema was silent for several moments, halfway down the climb from the tower with her gaze set on the southern complex entrance. It was overcome with shadow and red eyes.

"I cannot return to help you, the bunker entrance is compromised."

There was another, nothern entrance to the complex but the connecting tunnel between the two sections was collapse. It was the safest place for Atheema to go to ride out the night, but that would be of no help to them there. She didn't have any other choice.

"I am going to the north tunnel. Can you get me video uplink of what is happening there with your helmet cam?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"Compromised? How-" It didn't matter. He cursed loudly and released Mags from his grip so that he could put on his helmet. Follow orders. That was all he could do for now. But if the bunker was compromised then it would only be a matter of time before they were here and that meant they would be over run just like every other night. He looked to his left. He didn't know her name, he should have cared more.

"The bunker entrance is compromised. Make sure you wake up whoever is supposed to be on watch. Whoever you can find, don't let anything through." He turned away from Mags and tried to put the shouts in the back of his mind. "Alright Atheema, camera feed is on." He paused. "Make sure you get back here safe."

He turned back to face a few bewildered faces, but he stood there, allowing Atheema to see through his camera's eyes.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

It would not be the first time someone had made mental contact with Magdalena Lethe, nor, likely, would it be the last. But it was the first time this particular Gurlanin had reached out to her in such a way and looking back she would wish it could have happened under better circumstances. Presently all she had to offer was her pain and fear and the regret of the situation for all of them mixed in.

Magda recognized the voice in her mind, the presence, too, but her ability to grasp it and hold onto it was entirely degenerated. Sand through fingers, water through the cracks. He might feel her desperate attempt to make the connection, he might not.

Wouldn't matter, he was gone from her thoughts just as quickly as he had arrived.

Marsella nodded to Izzy and stood, quickly going to check the charts to see who was supposed to be on watch. Diedrik had been next along with another, but she surmised he would be needed here. He was the only one aside from Atheema that seemed to have any working knowledge of medical components. She made the executive decision to fill in for him and set off to gather the other.


Atheema was silent on the comm save the sound of her breathing as she finished her descent down the tower and began to head towards the north tunnel entrance with haste.

"I have seen one other venom act like this - Hssiss venom that contracts Darkside Sickness and kills those who cannot rise from the fall. If they are anything alike, the Anti-Venom will do nothing but prolong her suffering. We do not know enough about these creatures to properly address this problem...let me speak with Diedrik. I have an idea."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"Hssiss...?" Even though he had just heard Atheema say the word, the sounds felt fake and entirely foreign on his lips. "I've never heard of it." But it didn't matter what he had and hadn't heard of right now. All that mattered was making sure Mags was alive and that this, what ever this was, ended and they all made it off the rock and out of the tunnels as soon as possible. He nodded to Diedrik and tapped a few buttons on his wrist mounted datapad. A hologram extended from a small projector. Atheema's face didn't appear, instead it was a holo image of the words "VOICE ONLY"

"Atheema, can you hear us? Diedrik is here."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"I can hear you-" her voice was muffled, she'd picked up the pace as the darkness of night chased her heels, "Diedrik you have not administered a sedative, correct?"

"Correct," the man replied, wiping sweat from his brow, "it was my next option ... and beyond that, amputation to stop the venom from spreading to the rest of her body."

"It's already spreading through her body," Atheema answered back, the clattering sound of her toolbox hitting the ground echoed back out as she reached the northern entrance.

"How can you say that?"

"Because she's gone quiet."

"I-" Diedrik looked over to Benson who was pale as a sheet, shaking his head over the sound of Magda's labored breathing as he held her still against the cot. .

"I'm going to walk you through how to formulate the field version of Sleeping Death."

"Atheema...I'm not a Scientist, I'm just a Field Medic."

"You're not a Scientist, no," Atheema replied, looking around with wide eyes as she worked the locking wheel on the tunnel hatch. The creatures were only a few yerds away now, "but I am and Pathfinder Dashiell is going to buy you the time you need to do it. He's going to keep Miss Lethe with us long enough to dose her, isn't that right Isaiah?"

Diedrik glanced up at Izzy with a frown, unsure of how he felt about that.

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

She was right. He hadn't noticed Mags go quiet, when had that happened? How did it spread so quickly? How did this all go so wrong? Should he have just let Diedrik cut off her arm and risk her bleeding out or dying from shock? If she died would it be his fault? Atheema calling his name snapped him back into the conversation.

"I-" he stammered, "How-Yes. I...I think I can do that." He pulled the datapad from its socket and placed it on the cot between Mags' legs. He took two shallow breaths and positioned himself behind Mags' head and pulled a few boxes over for him to sit on. He clenched his hands a few times before sitting and placed his hands on either side of Mags' head and closed his eyes, tapping into the Force. He had very, very minimal training. All he knew was that when he concentrated he could go wherever he needed to, the Force always showed him the way whether it be through a an asteroid field or around the edge of a black hole. The Force guided him through the stars, maybe it could guide him through her mind.

Small objects nearby like pens and footlockers began to float slightly as Izzy reached out deeper into the force and went deeper into his meditation.

But he wasn't prepared exactly for what he would find.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDu9OOz7kxk

Dark skies surrounded him in an endless sea of stars. As far as his mind's eye could stretch they continued on farther - the distant unknown a tangible, emotional call on the winds between worlds. In the black splashes of gentle colors mingled, nebulae frozen in time like clouds of golden, iridescent dust. The stars peaked through, a myriad color of gleaming gems.

It was hot. Stifling hot, like standing too close to a fire, and the source was a shadow laying within the billowing wisps of grass.

"You haven't forgotten how to just look at the stars, have you?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

It was like no world he had ever seen. Even the fields of Dantooine didn't bring this much clarity into the skies above. Everything about the scene told him he should be cold, yet he was filled with warmth, so much so that it was difficult to breath. He inched his way through the grass. Grass as far as the eye could see, illuminated by the colors above. Despite it being so bright below between the shadows of the clouds, the being before him was unseeable, a shadow engulfed their entire being.

"I don't have time for games," there was an urgency in his voice. "Where is Mags?" He had a sneaking suspicion that the shadow who spoke to him knew something, or at least knew much more than it would let on if pressed.

He had heard the Force worked in annoying ways like that.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

The shadow shifted slightly, as if looking towards Isaiah, but its figure was amorphous and shifting. Vestiges of heat rose from its form like dark and tattered flames.

"My father always said to never forget where you started, so you could go back if you lost your way."

Magdalena's voice spoke to him from the shadow, calmly distraught, like one might serenely watch a horrific event on the outside while silently screaming on the inside.

"I lost my way years ago ... and I can't get back to where I started. What if I never can?"

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

He looked down at his palm and clenched his fist. His eyes met where the being's eyes would be if it shared human anatomy and he reached out to the shadow. Mags' voice came from the shadow and he couldn't tell if the shadow was her or if it was something else entirely, simply taking her likeness bit by bit.

"A navigator as great as you could never get lost in the stars."

He swallowed hard. He was talking as if the shadow was Mags. Maybe it was, maybe it didn't matter if it was.

"And if you can't find your way back to where you started...Then chart new paths forward. GUIDE will be there every step of the way."

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

The wisps were slowly dying down, the heat lessening, the shadow beginning to fade.

"...I miss my family..." Magda's voice was growing distant, "GUIDE was supposed to bring me back to them."

"I've never felt further away."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

"You've never told me much about your family," why did she sound so far away now?. "Beat this, and tell me about them," he looked towards the nebulae and the shining stars above and pointed in a seemingly random direction, "There. Tell me about your family at that star, on those worlds."

His eyes fell on the shadow again. He took two steps forward and reached out his hand again, a softer expression on his face than when he first entered this pocket of reality.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Dashiell.

The shadow shifted again, as if to reach for the outstretched hand, but faded from sight within a blink.

DASHIELL.

"Isaiah!" a hand was on his shoulder, back in the underground hall with the orange lamps blazing their brightest and the weary eyes of his team surrounding him, "Come back to us now."

"You did it, Isaiah," Atheema's voice from his comm, "well done."

Benson sat by the cot, wrapping gauze around Magda's poisoned arm. She was stone cold, silent, and still - she appeared to have passed on, but the faintest heartbeat remained.

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

Izzy was drenched in sweat, not that they'd be able to tell with him still clad in his armor and his helmet still on. He jumped, startled at the touch and looked around him, eyes weary behind the black transparisteel. He felt tired, more tired than he had even been before in his life.

"How...How is she? How are you? Atheema?" How long was he...in, where ever he had been? Was that really Mags' mind? He stood and almost tumbled over. He only caught his balance on the cot in front of him. "W-what about the breach?" He felt like his brain was swimming through the swamps of Dagobah, or at least this was what he imagined it would be for a brain to swim through the swamps of Dagobah. The orange light seemed entirely too bright.

His stomach grumbled audibly.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"She's alive and stable for now," Diedrik replied from the cot next to Magda, "thank to you and Atheema. Thought we were gonna lose her there for a few minutes."

"I have instructed Diedrik to dose Miss Lethe with a concoction known as Sleeping Death. It's a potent sedative that will keep her in a stasis-like state until we can get her to more advanced medical care. It deliberately slows down the heartrate to a hair above clinically dead - we must be careful not to disturb her body while it's in this state or we could render irrepairable damage."

"That shit's illegal, Atheema, how did you even known how to make it?"

"This is not important, what is important is that we were able to suspend the venom with the generic antigen and slow her system enough to keep it from spreading for the time being. We must now refocus our effort on getting the radio communication operable again. Once another radiation storm hits I will lose this comm frequency, so I must walk someone through resetting the transmitter now."

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

Good, Mags was fine...For now, though Atheema made it sound like that was just the beginning. "Just get here before the next radiation storm, you made it to the North Tunnel right? I'll come get you." Maybe he had spoken too soon. He took one step and fell into a stack of supplies, sending the plasteel containers clattering across the floor. Astrogation never left him this winded, why was he feeling so weak? One of the GUIDE members moved to support him and handed him a water bottle and nutrient pack to slurp from.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

"You can't go out there, we're on the shadow side-" Benson growled, "you open that door and you're gonna let in a whole horde of those things."

"Benson is right," Atheema said over the comm, "letting them in will make everything we just did, everything you just did be in vain for Miss Lethe. Our best option is to ride out the night. I'll make my way over come day break if it's clear. The communications relay tower is operable and I've managed to boost its power. Benson, take Isaiah's comm with you to the transmission room, I will walk you through reseting the signal frequency."

"You got it Atheema," Benson stood, tossing the extra gauze into the open MediKit and moving to drape Magda's jacket over her. He turned to Izzy and gave the man a pat on the shoulder, "You rest now, it'll be morning before you know it. Atheema will be alright for one night on her own, she's a smart gal."


Didn't take long for Benson to get their beacon signal active again. When he returned to the room he tossed the comm back to Izzy and then headed back out towards the tunnel entrance to relieve Marsella from what was supposed to be his shift.

"How are you holding up, Pathfinder?" Atheema asked quietly.

 

[Isaiah Dashiell]

They were both right, even though it took every fiber of his being to not protest. Instead he propped up a contained against Mags' cot and sat in the corner between them. A heavy sigh hissed through his lips after he took his helmet off . It clattered to the floor and let Izzy's hair flop out. It was still shoulder length from his half transformation earlier, and also drenched in sweat. It slapped his neck and cheeks, the cold sweat making him shiver. It wasn't long before he had nodded off.

~~~~~~

Dark shapes moved towards him, their shapes only defined by a smokey outline. He felt behind him, trapped against a wall.

SSSSSSSSSSSSPECH.

SSSSSSSSSSSSPECH.

SPEAK.

"How are you holding up, Pathfinder?"

He woke with a start and groaned. A dull pain throbbed at the base of his neck and behind his eyes.

"I'm very tired...And sore...What about you Atheema?" He took asked quietly so as to not wake Mags, who was right above him presumably still sleeping.

 

[Magdalena Lethe]

Magda would indeed still be sleeping. She would be sleeping until the medication given to her was reversed.

~~~

Atheema smiled where she sat in the resolute darkness of the northern complex. There was no electricity here. No lights, no oxygen. She had enough power on her own suit to carry her over to daybreak, but not much longer beyond that. They were all running on their last reserves it seemed.

"Enjoying the peace, quiet, and solitude..." the reply was meant to be ironic and he might hear the smirk in her tone, "I'm going to go exploring over here some, see if I can find anything that might be of use. I'll let you sleep, if you wish. Just wanted to give you that update."