Welcome To The Jungle

[Sol Damerin]

PLANET: Dxun
LOCATION: Remote research base

Sol did not understand scientist. That wasn't right he understood them just fine, could comprehend them to an extent, but there was something about them that just left him confused. Taking on a job to guard a facility was generally a fairly boring proposition. Usually, you were just acting like a particularly well-armed security guard to make grumpy laborers think twice about getting violent with their cooperate overlords. You stood in or around an office until the worker dispute was finished. That wasn't every guard job a merc might get but that was most of them, like fifty percent. Some were a bit shadier, some involved protecting different kinds of rich people. End of the day though you were meant to be a living scarecrow. This job though, not so much, this job there was a very real possibility of getting eaten alive. Which brings us back to Sol not understanding scientists.

When he'd first read the details of the job he'd wondered what would possess someone with zero combat training to go to Dxun. Dxun was one of the most dangerous planets in the inner rim, the vibrant jungle world was chalk full of dangerous predators that would happily slaughter everyone in the small research base. You'd think that people who spent most of their lives in temperature controlled universities wouldn't want to go to a place where death was a real possibility. Yet the scientist seemed absolutely thrilled. They were from the CIS and had permission from the Free Worlds Collation to conduct some studies on the local fauna. The details of what this entails Sol wasn't actually clear on but it seemed to involve a lot of looking for dangerous things, knocking them out with stun weapons, and then the scientist poking them for several hours. He was sure science was happening but the exact goal of science today was eluding him.

Still, pay was good and he was managing to keep people mostly out of trouble. So long as they didn't run into any Maalraas things would be just peachy. At present, he was on night shift which meant he was sitting out on the watchtower with a partner observing the jungle with a pair of thermal goggles. It was a boring shift, for the most part, the perimeter fence kept most of the animals at bay. Still, you never know when a group something might try and bust through or one of the flying predators swoop over so it had to be done. So he sat in silence for the moment with one of his fellow guards, a woman whose name escaped him because it had only been two days and the guard team was a dozen strong. He should probably fix that but then he'd have to break his stoic silence.

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Her eyes scanned the horizon in the darkness of the night, aided by the goggles over her eyes. The jungle was pitch dark, but every now and then some heat signature will pop out in the distance before scrambling back into the bushes. A graveyard shift in the middle of the jungle was not exactly an appealing experience, but she had gone through worse than this. There was proper accommodation, snacks to chew on and hot showers to take a bath. Hot showers. She grinned to herself slightly at that thought, remembering the times where she went for days without bathing during her military missions. One could never imagine the delight in hitting the waters, however icy cold, after accumulating enough dirt on the face.

This was an easy job, being paid to watch over some scientific research. The animals were apparently precious enough for guards to be hired. She had no love for animals which were so full of teeth, but the pay was good. She had been saving up ever since she came back from retirement. The universe had changed, factions had died and people moved on. But credits remained an necessity to survive, to maintain her equipment, to purchase her dream. She wanted to rebuild a new cantina that had gone to dust when she hung up her boots. As long as she got paid by the end of the scientific expedition, she would do her job.

Satisfied that there was no real threat at the moment, she pulled up the goggles to her forehead and turned away from the jungle. Her eyes took a few moments to adjust to the bright lights from the watchtower, but was sufficient enough to navigate her to the nearby seat. She made herself comfortable, rifle leaning against the wall and poured herself an extra strong stimcaf. She took a sip and looked at the other guard who was still awake, an older man who went by the name of Sol and looked a little grumpy.

"Ahem, hi. I'm Mariya."

Time to break the ice. She made the first move and a little wave at the person sitting just a foot away.

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol doesn't immediately shift at her words and for a moment it seems like he might either not heard her, or decided to ignore her. Inhale, exhale. He looks over at the woman finally, his expression stony. If she'd noticed him at all in the last few days she'd probably have noted that his expression never seemed to change so it was hardly reflective of his feelings on being addressed. Raising a hand he gives her a return wave the gesture slow and lazy as though she'd just woken him up. Which she had in a sense since he'd been meditating lightly which generally lead him to a rather relaxed state.

"Sol."

He returns her greeting as his eyes pass over her in the casual, yet intense, way most mercs regard other mercs. Trying to figure out how much experience the other had and how well they were doing for themselves. She was a few years young than he was, four to be exact, though the age gap seemed much larger since the way he wore his years made him look somewhere between thirty and fifty while she still looked closer to twenty. Her gear looked well cared for and it didn't look cheap which said that she knew what she was doing. His gear was similar though his loadout was pretty light.

"Enjoying yourself so far?"

Mariya had broken the ice and while Sol wasn't a stellar conversationalist he wasn't unfriendly. So he offered up a token question to keep the conversation going, settling on one that wasn't too banal but not too intrusive either. The kind of question that may be taken as a bit wry sarcasm, at least if his tone had changed at all. The older man was about as emotive as a rock in all honesty.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

[member="Sol Damerin"]

The mercenary nodded her head to acknowledge Sol's greeting. The man had been sitting down quietly in a posture that she could only assume for meditation. She heard of practitioners mentioning how it served as a means to increase focus and clear their minds of clutter, though she remained really skeptic about the whole thing. She was never one who could sit still for that long before feeling bored of listening to her own breathing.

[background=#232323]"Enjoying yourself so far?"[/background]

She pondered for a moment, taking another sip of the hot beverage to think of a response. There was nothing enjoyable about guard duty, unless one enjoyed the sounds of insects and wildlife in the background. Also, blood sucking bugs that buzzed around at night, looking for a good meal to feast upon. Thankfully, the guard tower had electrical insect repellents, though it did not stop Mariya from spraying some on herself.

"I think it's difficult to enjoy or relax during work. You never know when something might arise."

That something could be anything. Lights going out. Wild animals breaking loose. Sneak attacks by disgruntled enemies. She had learnt long ago that peace was usually never lasting during a mission. Too many unknown factors that could go wrong.

"So, you were meditating?"

 

[Sol Damerin]

Just as he had taken time to consider his answer to her question Mariya took her time in answering his. It was something he could appreciate you usually got a more honest answer, or at least a more interesting lie when people thought about their response. Her's was close to what he expected from a fellow merc. It was important to keep up a healthy amount of paranoia on guard duty to stop yourself from drifting off. He did not really have that problem thanks to The Force but he didn't tout that, he didn't keep it a secret like he once had but it wasn't something he advertised either.

"I meant the job in general." He says his flat tone making it hard to tell if he is amused or bored. "Though you have a point, considering the potential for flying death swooping in from the sky maybe I shouldn't be relaxing." Okay, his tone was still flat but that was a joke so perhaps the older merc wasn't as stoic as he seemed.

It doesn't take him as long to answer her second question. Probably because he was more prepared for conversation than he had been when she'd initialized it. "I was, find it helps me focus. Keeps me relaxed but aware good for long watches in the middle of the night as long as I don't drift off." Another joke, he was on a roll tonight, wasn't he? Getting to his feet he wanders over to where Mariya is sitting to use the kettle. Rather than stim-cafe, he uses the hot water of the machine to brew himself some tea. A pleasing minty aroma filling the small guard tower.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

[member=Sol Damerin"]

"I haven't scanned the skies, but if they exist then we are probably doomed."

The response from the older man was monotonous to say the least. Not like a droid, but lacking pitch and tonality. Mariya could not tell whether he meant the flying death as a joke or not, but assumed it sounded like one. Just a bad one. It was unable to tickle her laughter.

The second response from Sol was more interesting. The one about meditation. He seemed to be really into it, judging from the time he had been sitting there alone quietly. She had spotted him in that same posture for at least thirty minutes or more. The only people in the whole galaxy who seemed to be into such stuff were self help gurus, monks and the Jedi.

Surely he was not a Jedi? If he were, then he should be using that lightsaber instead of conventional weapons. Then again, judging a person by his looks would be too foolish. Anyone could put on a mercenary disguise and carry a blaster around.

"I see. Learnt that stuff from the Jedi or the Whills huh. Do you know anything about them?"

An attempt to probe the acquaintance who was now drinking a cup of tea. She liked tea, but stimcaf gave her the kick that she needed to stay awake till the next watch arrived.

 

[Sol Damerin]

When Mariya questions the existence of the flying death Sol raises an eyebrow. "If?" Reaching into a pocket he pulls out his datapad clicks a few times then slides it across to her. "No if about it, Drexl are quite common on this moon." He lets her decide if she wants to read the details and worry herself before adding. "Not so many wild ones these days but they are still around." They were a popular mount for Darkside Force users so a lot of them had been tamed. Still, always a chance that a wild one, or a flock of them, would find their base if that happened they'd be in trouble but they could deal.

The obvious probe of that question is met with a shrug of the shoulders. "I know more than your average person about the Jedi but I am hardly an expert." Leaning back he takes a sip of tea. "They'd have you believe they are something special but in all honesty, they are just a religion like any other. The only difference is that their God has a bit more weight than others." Another joke? Or an honest opinion? Maybe a bit of both this time hard to tell with the stony man. He doesn't elaborate on this opinion since it was the bare bones of what he thought of the Jedi. If she wanted him to elaborate she'd ask. "But you bring up the Whills, I'm a bit surprised they aren't quite as popular as The Jedi. What do you know of them?"

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"What do we have here... holy bantha poo."

She took the datapad and had a good look at the bestiary codex section from the holonet, describing the Drexl as gigantic flying creatures with even bigger teeth. Her mind wandered, thinking about what kind of capabilities the watch tower had to defend against such a beast. There was a laser turret lying around, but no one actually bothered to test whether it worked. Maybe it would be a good idea to inform the mechanic to do so the next day. She was confident he would agree after looking up for the Drexl through the holonet.

"Let's... not think about their existence for the night. If things hit the fan, I guess we still have our small arms."

Obviously she had not been doing her homework. In the past, she would have spent more time digging up information about the mission. But her practice had been a little... rusty, to say the least. This was her first contract after she decided to stop hanging up her rifle and went back to work. Or maybe it was just excuses.

"The Jedi is a religion? Well, I have never really thought much about the existence of God. They say the Force is evidence of his creation, but there's no scientific claims to that."

Another glance at [member="Sol Damerin"], whose face remained stone cast. She was having a hard time trying to figure out his thoughts, but decided that his statement hinted his background as something to do with the Jedi. Maybe he might open up later after the conversation warmed up. For now, she better answered his question about the Whills.

"I have almost zero knowledge about the Jedi, let alone the Whills who are even more mysterious. Just hear stories about their guardians. That blind dude who fought in Scarif was every kid's favourite bedtime story. At least my favourite bedtime story. Sometimes I dream of a Jedi or a hero rescuing me from the streets."

A touchy topic, obvious from the way she suddenly stopped and somehow grabbing a biscuit to dip in her stimcaf.

 

[Sol Damerin]

While Sol did not seem like the type to laugh at someone else's suffering, there was the faintest ghost of a smile on his face as she read the datapad. Just a slight upward quirk of the lips to indicate he was rather amused by her reaction to him revealing that there was, in fact, flying death. The reality of it making his earlier joke funnier or less funny depending on how one felt about gallows humor. He was a fan something Mariya may eventually figure out if she paid enough attention.

"Or the big ones."

Sol notes with a chuckle patting the massive Protector he had on his gunbelt. With armor piercing explosive rounds in one barrel and tracking flechette rounds in the other it was a pretty solid weapon for dealing with the Drexl.

The revelation that she dreams of a Jedi or hero saving her from the streets isn't met with mockery or laughter. Indeed he just sits there staring into his tea for a moment as if her words had provoked some thought in the stony man. Eventually, though he shrugs and looks up at her considering.

"The Jedi Order is, in my opinion, a religion. Their god is The Force. I mean what else do you call it when you dedicate your life to something you believe to be everywhere, preach that there is a right way to interact with this thing, and spend much of your life secluded in meditation. Sure there are some semantic arguments you could make against it but at the end of the day, The Order has more similarities to a religion than dissimilarities."

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

The mercenary's eye lit up a little when she saw the slugthrower hanging at the side of his belt. The weapon was definitely custom built for shooting big stuff, despite its small size. She had a slugthrower herself, a standard KiSteer 1284 but did not bring it with her today. After all, physical ammunition was additional load and a pain to carry around. Still, she admitted that they served their purposes now and then.

"Let's hope we don't have to use any of our weapons. That's generally the best scenario..."

She mumbled a little, her mouth filled with cookie bits as she washed them down with her hot caf. It was rare for her to talk about the Force. She had seen it in action on the battlefields, of course. Jedi and Dark Side users jumping around with laser swords and tossing people around. Gettting tossed was painful experience, one she would gladly try to avoid if necessary. But her line of thought was straying from the main topic. The topic about Jedi being a religious order. Now that [member="Sol Damerin"] had mentioned it, his definition of a religion made for a decent point of view.

"That's an interesting view. I have never really talked much to anyone about the Jedi or their beliefs. Most of us don't care much about the Force."

She shrugged her shoulders, knowing that she spoke the truth. Most people were too busy trying to survive in this hostile galaxy to bother sitting down to talk about something that could not be seen.

"You mention the Jedi believed there is a right way to interact with the Force. I'm curious to know what is this so called 'right way'. I mean, look at the stars. The galaxy is so big. I don't think we know everything about this universe. Why should the Jedi claim there is only one right way to do things?"

Mariya glanced up at the night sky, thankful that there were no swooping Drexl at the moment. Stars littered across the sky like brilliant sparks, thanks to the lack of light pollution. It was definitely a breathtaking sight.

 

[Sol Damerin]

Sol decides to not offer his opinion on whether or not he thought a lack of fighting was good or bad. Mostly because he didn't really have one. He was equally with action and peace which is why he enjoyed being a mercenary. It gave him a nice blend of excitement and dull moments. He tried to avoid killing where he could but in all honesty, he did find a bit of enjoyment in his quickened pulse while chasing off the wild beasts of Dxun.

Mariya's question gets another ghost of a smile from Sol. From the mouth of babes wisdom. He thinks to himself since she'd hit upon one of the many reasons he no longer prescribed to the Jedi philosophy. There were as many paths to The Force as there were people looking for it in his opinion. The Jedi trying to force people to walk a certain way was not an improvement on what the Sith do.

"The Jedi believe that to truly become one with The Force you must detach yourself from the world and your emotions. Allow thing to move through you like water through a stream, letting them pass without affecting you. To indulge in emotion can lead you down the wrong path as passion can lead to anger, anger to hate, and hate to the Darkside.They view this as something to be avoided and I'd tend to agree since Sith can be real nerf herders. Personally, though, I don't see suppressing and ignoring your emotions to be particularly healthy, they'd be better off learning how to deal with being angry without deciding to go on a killing spree, normal people do it all the time."

This was not entirely fair since The Force tended to amplify emotion and respond to it. Meaning that when you lost your temper it was easy to accidentally say, crush someone with The Force. However, that didn't make him wrong it just meant that his argument could use some more explanation.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Was that a smile from the stony face mercenary? She thought so, or at least the twitching of his lips indicated he was. Not bad, she thought to herself. The stone face did have feelings and expressions.

"Detach from the world and emotions... so no love? No thanks, I love my friends. Besides, seeing a psychologist for anger management issues sounds more logical. We should put a bunch of them up to council the Sith and maybe the whole galaxy will be in peace."

Mariya played along with the conversation and made a joke. Jedi or not, she is not about to forget being a person and become detached from reality. That was as good as saying she had thrown in the towel and accepting anything in life that came along. Not a very appealing notion to her. To be fair, she was too quick to judge the Jedi over a short conversation. The Jedi had been around for millenniums and the Force was something that probably no one could understand completely. Not Sol, not her and certainly not the Jedi.

"I dare say you are not a Jedi, since you don't seem to agree with whatever they said. Whoever you are, I guess it doesn't matter since you are friendly enough. Hey hey... can you teach me how to meditate? I can learn it, can't I? If it helps me relax, I will..."

She had no idea what on earth Sol was interested in, not that she brought anything special to offer him. Her fingers went inside her pocket and dug out a nutrition bar.

"... erm, give you my awesome nutrition bar as thanks? You can eat it whenever you need a quick bite."

 

[Sol Damerin]

Mariya was right on both fronts in Sol's opinion. Both the joke she made aloud about simply going and talking to a psychologist and the bit about it not truly being that simple. Both the Jedi and the Sith had been around for years and his viewpoint was hardly new nor unique. The biggest stumbling block that was faced in actual execution was that sensitivity to The Force brought power and power could easily corrupt. Still, that didn't mean that repressing emotion was the right path for everyone. In fact, Sol was fairly certain that most Jedi turned Sith took the path they did because they were not suited for the Jedi's very narrow way of dealing with negative emotion. Regardless, her joke did get a nod and another ephemeral quirk of the lips from Sol.

"Whoever, I am?" Sol says raising an eyebrow slightly as his expression settles back into stony neutrality. "I was unaware that I was so mysterious. I did tell you my name, right? And I am working with you so you must know my profession. Is a mercenary having read books and dealt with The Force and Force users before really that surprising that I must be something more mysterious?" Of course, to be fair, she had a point since he was an Ex-Jedi. But he was also all the things she already knew he was so it wasn't as though he was being deliberately mysterious.

The offer of the nutrition bar is met with another raised eyebrow. "Well, how can I say no to that?" He asks as he settles down in lotus position. "Though, you might be a bit underwhelmed by the lesson. Just close your eyes, take deep breathes, and focus on the air moving in and out of your lungs. The goal of meditation is to slowly empty your mind of all thought essentially relaxing it, which at the same time relaxes your body. Anyone can learn how to do it, it just takes a bit of time to get the trick of not thinking." He says with a shrug of his shoulders.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

"I guess I'm just suspicious in nature. Job hazard."

Mariya shrugged her shoulders, unable to put a read on Sol's expression. True, his face was well... stony again and made it difficult to know what he was thinking. She decided not to probe further, her attention skipped towards the meditation she was going to learn. She adopted the same sitting position that Sol was taking and listened to what he said.

"So, close eyes and breathe. I thought it would be something more difficult..."

She had actually never done it before, but figured that it sounded too simple. The back of her mind was wondering if this was a good idea though. Two guards on guard duty closing their eyes and doing some quirky meditation instead of scanning the surroundings. Well, she would just have to assume that things were going to be fine. She closed her eyes, thoughts still in her mind as she breathed normally.

That thought drifted away and was replaced by nothingness. Nothing except the sounds of insects in the distance. Ten seconds later, she was thinking about the end of the guard shift and caught herself. She killed that thought, which was replaced by another telling her not to think too much. Which again, was a thought that needed killing. Somehow she found herself drifting back and forth from nothingness to another thought after a mere minute.

She was about to say something when a faint shriek sounded from the sky.

"Hey, did you hear that..."

 

[Sol Damerin]

For the first time, Mariya actually got a laugh out of Sol. Its a quick amused bark of a laugh, but it is genuine if a bit rough since he probably didn't laugh often. "I think you might be in for a surprise." Just because something seemed simple didn't mean it was easy. Sure, just sitting closing your eyes and breathing sounds like something anyone could do but it wasn't until you tried it that you realized how hard it was. While he wasn't a mind reader he could to a limited extent sense her presence of mind, watching from as her presence in the Force went from calm and serene to distracted over and over.

That was how most people new to meditation started out. It was easy to think of nothing very briefly but to do so for an extended period of time without falling asleep took a bit more effort. Then she notices the noise of something approaching, he'd sensed the disturbance it was making in The Force a while ago as it approached but hadn't said anything. No reason to worry her prematurely since it was large enough that she'd hear it coming. "Yup." He says simply as he draws his Protector his gaze traveling to the night sky searching. A pair of thermals wouldn't have been a bad idea.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Mariya knew that she was correct. Her ears were sharp enough to pick up the sound of a new beast from the sky. It was something, but she had no idea what it was until her goggles were slipped on. Her vision took on the familiar green hue of night vision as she scanned the sky. Wrong mode, she told herself, switching it to thermal. The green disappeared, replaced by darkness of the sky. She saw nothing.

Strange. Maybe the creature was cold blooded? She remembered that bit of information from [member="Sol Damerin"]'s datapad.

She fired up the intensity, trying to pick up even the weakest of signatures. A small dot of yellow appeared far away, but she was unable to tell what exactly it was. Judging from the size of the dot at such a distance, it could only mean a huge beast. Or perhaps two, since another dot joined the first one soon after. Not exactly the best thing she had hoped for. One Drexl was enough, but two? Maybe they could be some other creatures, but Mariya found that to be unlikely.

"I think we have company."

Her fingers reached out for the rifle leaning against the wall. It was already configured in her favourite sniping mode, which suited her well enough. Taking her eyes off the sky for a moment, she walked over to the button meant for emergencies and pressed it. Her ears buzzed from the loud ring, too hard for her to bear but was sure to wake up everyone.

 

[Sol Damerin]

Triggering the alarm was the right call. If they were about to be attacked by Drexl then they wanted everyone on high alert. You also wanted a roof above your head, fortunately they had that though it was pretty flimsy. They would likely be the first target because of that since they were the highest and most obvious as the watchtower only had a low half-wall around the perimeter. No duraglass for windows and the roof was some kind of plastic.

Drawing his protector Sol reaches out with his senses. Drexl were Force resistant but they weren't Force dead and couldn't use Force stealth like Malaraas. That meant he could detect the number and location of the flying creatures fairly easily. "I think I can see them." He says narrowing his eyes. "At least, three maybe as many as five coming in fast." Moving forward he grabs one of the searchlights attached to the side of the tower. It was currently off since it might attract predators but that was a secondary concern.

"I'll light 'em up you take them down." He says swinging the large lamp around to tracing it over one of the creatures. It was still a ways away but if she was any good with that rifle of her's she should be able to tag it with the help of the light. Maybe if they managed to injure one it would scare them all off.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

Mariya had no idea what kind of creatures the Drexl were, but five sounded like a big number. She peeped through the goggles again, scanning the horizon. True enough, there were now five dots in the distance. A strange observation suddenly dawned upon her. How would [member="Sol Damerin"] be able to see them with his naked eyes? Unless, of course, he was not depending on his eyes.

He was using the Force to sense them.

There was no doubt on Mariya's mind now that her companion was a Force user. A rather powerful one, judging from the way he detected the creatures from such a distance. She made a random guess of his alignment being neutral or grey, since she had never heard of a Sith meditating much. Whoever he was, questions could be asked later. For now, they needed to defend the watchtower. The laser turret remained motionless when she last checked, so the firepower would have to come from the two of them until reinforcements arrived.

The searchlight was strong, illuminating the sky immediately with its beam. Mariya's DC-17m was placed on the assembled rifle stand and came with an electromagnetic scope with night vision mode. The additional light source from the search light would assist in her aiming greatly, which she should thank Sol for. She peeped through the scope, her vision magnified by ten times and allowed her to have her first visual sighting of the Drexl's appearance. The first one which came into view looked gigantic even from such a distance. Her rifle was firing projectiles encased in blaster energy, which meant that there was weight involved in the ammunition. She needed to compensate the firing range with the current wind speed. Her anemometer blinked rapidly as she took it out of her pocket, telling her the wind knots.

"I see the first one. Firing!"

She took a deep breath and held the rifle butt against her shoulder. Time seemed to slow to a crawl whenever she did this. She had never thought of how she could maintain such concentration, which seemed ironic considering she could barely focus on her meditation just a few minutes ago. The cross hairs aimed for the creature's head, but she decided it was a shot that was too difficult at night and at such a distance. She adjusted, bringing the sights down and pointed the cross hairs at the estimated position where the creature would fly towards.

"Ka-pyoo!"

The rifle made a cracking noise that echoed throughout the forest. A blue trail sped through the night sky and the first creature faltered slightly, but continued its flight. Another crack. A second shot to follow up, which slowed down the creature. Then a third one, which missed. The fourth sent it tumbling out of the sky. She fired the last round at the second creature, injuring it slightly. The rifle was now empty, forcing her to eject the empty magazine to reload.

 

[Sol Damerin]

Had Sol known Mariya's immediate decision that he must be a Force user he would have been amused. After all, he could always have an ocular implant to help with his night vision, didn't have to be the Force did it? Then again when she goes to take her shot he does feel a faint stirring, so perhaps there was more than just intuition in her guess. Who knows, certainly not him, not yet anyway.

Sol holds the light steady as she takes aim and starts firing. The creatures were coming in fast but there was ample time for her to empty her first clip, the moment the first Drexl fell he turns the light to the second. They beasts were now close enough that he could hit more than one with the beam and she'd have enough time for a reload for sure, maybe even sufficient time to empty another clip if she was fast. But after that, the beasts would be on them.

Drawing his protector as the first one dive bombs them he takes a long deep breath. BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG, BANG! Five high caliber explosive bullets fire out of the barrel in rapid succession. The armor piercing rounds tears holes into the Drexls face and chest sending it crashing towards the ground. That left either three or two depending on how well she handle her second clip.

However, by the time he manages to spin the barrel to the flechette rounds the remaining Drexl have landed one on their tower, it is trying to tear it down or tear into it. The others going down to the compound where fortunately gunfire can be heard as their fellow mercs wake up to deal with the threat. As long as they can kill the Drexl attacking them before it... Tears off the roof like it just did, well as long as they killed it before it managed to grab one of them things would be fine.

[member="Mariya Fleischer"]

 

[Mariya Fleischer]

The mercenary barely had time to reload when the rest of the Drexl already landed onto the ground. One was now on top of the rooftop, making screeching noises that could rival the ringing alarm moments ago. Mariya made a face at the shrieking creature, concerned by the scratching noises it made on the roof. The roof might just collapse at the rate the Drexl was hitting it. Her rifle was loaded, but she could barely see the creature from her position.

At least her rifle rounds were capable of penetrating through the roof, but she would need to fire blind.

She pointed the barrel upwards towards the loud sounds above them, squeezing off her trigger at blank range. Three shots rang out, sufficient to make the Drexl stop its attack and fly off. It quickly made a return dive, its claws pulling away the roof and clawed its way towards the two mercenaries. Mariya could finally see the creature, which was so massive that words could hardly describe its size. The fangs were wide open and poised to strike.

"Watch out!"

She instinctively rolled and narrowly avoided the first attack, but her rifle was sending gliding across the floor. Her fingers reached for the belt and tapped on her cloaking device, winking out of existence. She took a few steps to the right and fired her pistol, before changing position again to avoid a narrow swipe from the beast. Her pistol fired small caliber blaster shots and had little impact to the Drexl. Unless she could somehow reach for the rifle which remained lying on the other side, it would have to depend on [member="Sol Damerin"] to do something.