First Reply Wonders of Yore

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Having expected dramatic waving of weapons or perhaps some energy beams or something (Could Jedi and such launch energy beams from their eyes or was that just superheroes? Crowe certainly didn't know.), feeling a bit chilly caught him completely off guard. Had someone turned on a climate control device, of some sort? But no, it seemed Alyssa was removing heat (or creating cold, did magic care about thermodynamics?) somehow.

Eying the droid warily, it seemed... thoroughly unimpressed. At first, anyway, but as the temperature plummeted further still it attempted to unleash some sort of energy weapon, only for the thing to fizzle out in a shower of sparks. Evidently not about to give up, it surged forward, a surge that turned to a slow slide, then a full stop perhaps the length of a finger from his companion's torso.

Good thing, too, given that a bladed weapon of some kind had extended from the serpentoid on the approach.

"Nice work, if, uh, a bit close. It's rebooting, but I'm suuuuure I can juuust..." Pressing his shivering fingers (thank Ashla for his gloves) against the machine in seemingly random places, he eventually nodded in satisfaction. "... stop that. Great! ... uhm, Alyssa? Are you having a panic attack?"

Alyosha Drutin​

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

The serpentoid's last ditch attempt at an attack, if it had worked, would've caught Alyosha in no position to defend himself. He had slid down to the floor, his knees against his chest, his head in his hands, a dazed look in his eyes. Crowe's guess that he was panicking was justified, given the way the assassin looked. Then, quite abruptly, Alyosha seemed to relax, getting his bearings back. His arms lowered to his sides, he looked around, and then got to his feet. He looked at Crowe pleasantly.

"No no no, you're pronouncing my name wrong. It's Al-yo-sha. Or if it's that hard for you to pronounce, just call me Yoshi, like the dinosaur. That's what my brother calls me. Started when he was a kid, and had a hard time talking at all..."

A bit too pleasantly.

"... and no, I'm fine!" He grinned. "What about you? Are you okay?"

The "episode" had begun. Alyosha was fully awake and alert, but his personality had changed drastically. So had his aura in the Force, though Crowe wouldn't be consciously aware of that. He seemed brighter, gentler, almost childlike in his mannerisms.

Picking up his lightspear, Alyosha looked at it, then folded it and put it away. He peered above the fallen serpentoid into the dark passage beyond. "We should keep going," he remarked, turning to face Crowe - only to become distracted by the glowing lines on his suit. He traced them with his fingers for a few seconds, then giggled. "Race you!"

He proceeded to climb up to the top of the serpentoid, like a monkey climbing a tree, then ran along its mechanical body to the other side. He hopped down, landing in a crouch, then looked around. "Wow," he said. "It's huge in here!" Fascinated by the reverberation of his voice, he yelled, "Echo!" and was rewarded by a dozen or so answers from throughout the massive chamber.

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Moving heat around like that must be quite a feat, given how confused Alyosha was in its wake. No, not quite confused, more... unhinged? Almost like the grumpy NotJedi had been replaced with a weirdly childlike NotJedi. Very odd, perhaps he had forgotten to take some kind of pill.

"Al-yo-sha. Huh. Yeah, I'm fine, I... what are you...?"

Watching with open puzzlement as NotJedi's behaviour became stranger yet, the tone of his voice betrayed his concern. "Enthusiasm's good, but maybe don't... do that." Grimacing under his helmet, he hurried along behind the lunatic, doing his best to keep an eye (heh) open for traps. The last thing he needed was to be bisected by an energy beam or violently compressed by a force field.

For a moment, he fully expected more droids to emerge from hidden alcoves, or something, but no. It was silent, eerily so.

Other the suddenly-less-than-responsible NotJedi and his echo, that is.

"Do you need to... take a pill, or something?"

Alyosha Drutin​

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

“Nope,” Alyosha replied confidently. “I don’t do drugs anymore, it's bad for me. I got addicted.” Then, muttering to himself, “Are your men on the right pills? Maybe you should execute their trainer!”

The reference echoed throughout the chamber, amplified in the empty space. Alyosha walked into the darkness, not at all afraid of what might lay ahead, and promptly encountered a ghost.

Now, the young student who had been clinging to Crowe like a baby koala to its mother when Alyosha first arrived on this planet had mentioned ghosts, so the sudden appearance of such a specter didn’t really surprise Alyosha, regardless of his current state of mind. The phantom was not humanoid in the slightest; its physical appearance was difficult to describe, except that it was yellowish in color and wider in the middle than anywhere else. Alyosha only deduced that it was a ghost because it appeared seemingly out of nowhere, and disappeared in the same manner a second or two later.

“Did you see that?” Alyosha asked Crowe, turning to the Miraluka with a look of wonder. “I guess that was one of the ghosts that guy mentioned earlier.”

Raising his eyes, Alyosha noticed an opening in the wall a few paces ahead of them. The archway was very wide—quite suitable for a species which was widest at their middles—and came to a triangular point overhead. He couldn’t see what was beyond it, but he was terribly excited.

“Crowe, I think we’ve found aliens! Er, new aliens—a brand new species!” He paused. “But if they’re ghosts, they must be all dead…” he muttered sadly.

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Half the things that left exhausted-crazy-or-both Alyosha's mouth were, as far as he could discern, utter nonsense. Or maybe he was quoting some sort of Jedi religious texts, those were supposed to be incomprehensible to the layman, weren't they? Spice and/or prophecy fuelled weirdness?

"No such thing as ghosts."

The words leaving him on reflex as the strange thing appeared then disappeared, he frowned beneath his helmet, not wanting to seem like someone denying evidence that was right in front of him. "What I mean is, that's probably a hologram or something. Even though I can't see any projectors."

Tech must be too alien for him to recognise, is all. There was all sorts of weirdness in the walls that he could not quite recognise, some of which might be power conduits, or information relays, or, indeed, holographic projectors of sorts. Yeah, that was the only plausible explanation.

There was, after all, no such thing as ghosts.

"I mean, maybe? There's got to be millions of species out there, though. How do you know they're new new?" Could you sell data on newly discovered species? Was that worth a hundred credits or a hundred thousand? Maybe the grad student from before would know because Crowe sure didn't.

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

"No such thing as ghosts."

Ha.

Ha ha.

"There are too," Alyosha replied. "I've seen 'em. You have to be pretty strong in the Force to stick around as a ghost though. Haven't you watched any of those holofilms based on the life of Luke Skywalker? Sure, they're just movies, and not all of it is accurate, but the stuff about Force Ghosts is definitely true." He pointed in the direction where the "projection" had been. "So what we've got here is some kind of uncommon species, possibly undiscovered, probably long extinct, which was Force sensitive enough to linger in a spectral form. Oh-ho-ho, this is amazing."

It seemed very odd to Alyosha that Crowe wouldn't know this basic stuff, unless he was completely out of the loop as far as the rest of the galaxy went. Some fringe frontier kid who had never read a Holopedia article in his life. Unless...

"Crowe, you do know how to read, right? You're not illiterate. Even though you're, y'know, blind. You can read braille or whatever." Or listen to an audiobook, at least.

As for the newness of this species, he added, "Don't you have a doodad in your arsenal that can scan for DNA? Those things usually come in medkits." Gotta make sure you give the right kind of blood transfusion to an injured person, among other things. "I think I have something... whoa." He paused, clutching his head. "Had a dizzy spell there. Also, nope, I lied. I got nothing. Help me Crowe, you're my only hope."

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Shaking his head vigorously, Crowe struggled to grasp the NotJedi's faulty logic. "There are also movies that claim that Luke guy could jump mountains in one leap and pull Star Destroyers from orbit, but you don't believe that do you? I'll believe it when I see it."

Quirking his head, he tacked on an addendum. "When I see it and can be sure it's not a hologram or something."

Shaking his head even more vigorously, the Miraluka's pose was beginning to betray his annoyance. "Of course I can read. Well, from machines. I can't really read physical books without a device to help me, but barely anyone uses those anymore." Physical signs were a bigger problem, but there was no reason to give the man the satisfaction. "Aaaaalso, Miraluka aren't blind blind, we just have no eyes. We still sort of see through the Force."

In his case, machinery, technology, it all just made sense - people and inert stuff was a lot harder, however.

Eying Ayosha for a while, he sighed. "I don't have a medkit exactly. Just duct tape and a bit of off-brand bacta."

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

Alyosha blinked. "What kind of movies have you been watching, kid?" Shrugging, he headed through the door. While he walked, he kept talking, jumping from one topic to the next without pause. "Like I said, I've seen ghosts before. I went to this graveyard planet called Boz Pity after I was hired by an archaeologist to find an artifact buried there—thing was supposed to be able to resurrect the dead. Anyway, I met the ghost of the guy who created the artifact. He told me it was broken anyway, which it was... but I wasn't about to leave until I saw it with my own eyes.

"Another time on Atrisia, my master and I fought these creatures called 'Fragments of Ersethy' which were... uh, I guess you would call them demons? They were created by this ancient witch named Ersethy to guard her tomb. Or I guess you could say she conjured them up from the Force somehow...

"Another time I swapped bodies with my brother. We have a thing called a Force bond—a spiritual connection that allows us to feel each other's emotions and sometimes even hear each other's thoughts. But ours is... more complicated than they usually are. We can almost become each other, the connection is so close. That time was the worst. I felt my soul, or consciousness if you prefer, being jolted through the cord that binds us like electricity through a wire. I passed him along the way and saw him for what he really was..."

The room was filled with rectangular shelves lined up evenly, holding what looked to Alyosha like old-fashioned books. Crowe's obvious annoyance made him giggle. "I figured that. Oh, but quick question—do baby Miraluka have to be taught how to see with the Force, or are they born already knowing how to do it?" He assumed it was the latter, given that Crowe would likely have a better idea of what the Force was if it had been taught to him, rather than just being part of the background noise of his existence, something he never had to question or work to understand.

There was another door ahead, with a switch on the wall beside it. "No medkit? Do you want to die horribly?" Alyosha shook his head. He always brought along a proper human-style medkit calibrated to his biology.

Upon flicking the switch and opening the door, Alyosha immediately caught the faint but distinct odor of blood in the air. He shivered, his hands clenching into fists at his sides. His K'paur bloodlust was rapidly overcoming him, bringing the "episode" to an abrupt close as he wrestled for control.

He paused to take a deep breath, then exhaled. His voice came out gruff, cold, and slightly strained, but more in line with how he had been when he first met Crowe. "There's either a dead body in here, or freshly spilled blood. I can smell it. Must be from one of those expedition members the survivor you found was babbling about." He entered with much greater caution, keen eyes scanning the darkness.

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Ghosts and demons and witches and body-swapping and whatthewhat?

Had Crowe had eyes he would most certainly be blinking in confusion, as is he settled for tilting his helmeted head somewhat in a near-universal gesture of confusion. "I, uh, well, I guess? I don't... oh. Oh, books." Great, just great. He really should've prioritised those ocular sensor thingamajigs.

The prototypes had sort-of-maybe worked? Assuming seeing was supposed to be a confusing mess of colour and movement.

"No, well yes, well it's partly inborn partly learned? Kind of like walking, or talking." That made sense, didn't it? He hoped so, because Alyosha the Not At All Sane Seeming was already dragging him further along, seemingly blithely ignorant of the possibility of traps. Behaviour shifting back as quickly as it had turned in the first place, Crowe was suddenly faced with dour-faced Alyosha the Serious once more, one who smelled what?

"Wait, what? How does one even... nevermind. Where?"

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Ignoring Crowe's bemoaning of the books behind him, Alyosha advanced into the room, following the metallic scent. There—a red smear on the far wall, as if a bleeding body had leaned against the stone then slid down to the floor. There were drag marks leading away, through a third door, the bloody tracks cutting off abruptly where the door had slid shut.

Glancing back at Crowe while the Miralukan sputtered in confusion, Alyosha tried the door. It was locked. Well, since I screwed up the front door of this place, I think I better let you handle this one, he mused. "Crowe, come over here and unlock this door." Belatedly he added, "Please."

As the kid approached, Alyosha noted his bewilderment. The smell of the blood having preoccupied him, he hadn't had a chance to explain himself. He knew how he had been acting—there was no memory loss. An "episode" was not like sleepwalking or possession. He was permitted to feel embarrassment and annoyance at the remembrance of his behavior, even though it had been out of his control.

But all he said was, "Hey, uh, I know I was acting pretty weird there for a little while. But it's not that big of a deal, and it shouldn't happen again as long as we're here." That was all Crowe needed to know.

"Also, there's probably some kind of nasty thing behind this door, so once you unlock it, you better get out of the way."

Zelannia Arcrin

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

The blood left behind by a predator dragging a snack towards its lair was hardly foreign, to the Miraluka scavenger; the lawless dirtball where he had spent much of his formative years was polluted and filled with trash, certainly, but that only seemed to make the beasts that survived angrier.

Never once had he ever, ever, been tempted to follow such a trail, but magicians were clearly a different, more suicidal, breed of men.

Eying the door for a while before turning to face Alyosha as he explained his behaviour, Crowe bobbed his head in understanding. "Magic-induced insanity. I have heard of that, people on the HoloNet say Sith and such suffer it all the time! You're not a Sith, are you?"

After a moment's observation, he decided that that seemed unlikely - not enough spikes, nor enough of a, ah, menacing presence.

"Oh yes, I was planning to do exactly that!" Came Crowe's earnest reply, gloved fingers tinkering away with the mechanisms that operated the door, he eventually shoved an ad hoc thingamajig into it, stepped all the way back behind a corner, and unholstered his gun.

"I'm right here with you, moral support!"

Pressing a button that should have been red had he not been unable to see colour, the door slid open... revealing a glimpse mangled corpse and a great big thing coiled around it, all sleek scales and gnashing tendrils. If the serpentoid droid was based on this, it was a pale imitation.

 

[Kai and Gerda]

While Crowe was talking, Alyosha had unhooked his survival rifle from his back and was checking the ammo and scope. Darth Themis had warned him not to mention the whole "Light Side Sith" thing to just anyone, and right now Crowe fit neatly into the category of Just Anyone. Rather than directly answering the question, he replied, "I stick my neck out for nobody, if that's what you mean. Seriously, kid—stay outta the way."

As the door slid open, revealing the monster beyond, Alyosha smirked. Finally, I have a chance to actually use this lovely gift.

He opened fire without a second thought. The slugthrower was noiseless save the click of the trigger beneath his finger. Durasteel shots pelted the creature. Avoiding the no doubt armored scales, Alyosha aimed for the fleshier looking parts of the thing's body—the tendrils, what might have been a mouth, possible eyes. Roaring, it abandoned the corpse and reared up like a cobra, ready to lunge forward and snap at the intruders.

Zelannia Arcrin

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

This, more than anything, was why Crowe was opposed to following shady trails of blood into caves/ruins/slums; whatever killed the last guy was very likely to still be there and no salvage was worth getting eaten over. Sure, it could be a payday, but it could also be... this thing.

As with his counterpart, most of the slugs from his own little gun hit the thing, though unlike Alyosha his aim was less uncannily good more just about average, and so most promptly bounced off its scales, accomplishing little beyond making it angrier, if that was even possible. Massive form lunging forward, Crowe hid even more of his body behind the corner, shouting at the guy who'd wanted the damn door open in the process.

"Keep it in the doorway and I can squash it! ... probably."

If it got through, by Ashla and Bogan would he run as fast as his legs could carry him, desperately hoping Alyosha tasted good all the way back to the ship, off this dustball, and to the nearest port of call. He was a scavenger and a mechanic, not a monster hunter.

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

Alyosha had already ducked behind cover, moving to the opposite side of the door across from Crowe. The kid's emotions, which had been muted, now radiated strongly under stress: terror and resentment toward Alyosha for opening the door, with cowardice crouching in the wings. To be fair, Alyosha had done his fair share of running away from danger—only he tended to fear the clever machinations of other, smarter sentients much more than the mindless flailing of random carnivorous monsters.

While the serpentoid crashed through the doorway, toothed tendrils whipping wildly, Alyosha kept shooting even as he backed away out of the thing's reach. He did his best to draw the thing's attention away from Crowe, giving the Miraluka time to close the opening. One of the viny, jagged appendages wrapped around the barrel of his rifle, wrenching it from his grasp. He let it go rather than risk injury trying to hold onto the heavy weapon, spinning out of the creature's reach...

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

So much for the extra-long-lightsaber wielding maniac holding the thing back; when push came to show the man seemed determined to make do with his rifle, at least until it was wrenched from his hands. Nope nope nope, not good.

Slamming down the button to close the door once more, he already had a sinking feeling - and lo and behold, without someone repelling it the damn thing was able to mostly slither through before the slab of metal slid shut. Mostly, because it was now down the tip of its long body...

... which unsurprisingly just made it madder, greyish-green liquid dripping from the wound as it screeched silently.

Silently to him, anyway, the sound too high-pitched for his ears to pick up. Still made him nervous, however. Weird thing.

Pistol no longer working, he swore silently under his breath, hurrying to reload while hiding even more of his body behind the corner. By Bogan was he entirely unwilling to get any closer to that damn thing than he absolutely had to.

 

[Kai and Gerda]

Zelannia Arcrin

Spinning away from the thing, Alyosha gained enough room to activate his light-spear. The silvery blade flared to life, burning dust in the air.

Alyosha did not have specialized hearing, and so the creature's high-pitched shriek didn't register either. While it was still screeching, he leaped forward and jammed his light-spear down its throat. The plasma blade not only cut deep, it delivered a potent electrical shock upon contact with the soft tissues inside the body.

The thing went absolutely fething nuts. Whipping its head to try and loose the spear from its gullet, Alyosha barely managed to hold on. The lamprey-like jaws of the serpentoid yawned before his face. He twisted his body around until he was lying flat on his stomach on top of the monster, still wedging the spear into its mouth. Badly injured, it initiated a roll, desperately trying to fling him off, only for Alyosha's crude Force telekinesis to jam the spear further in, reaching something vital. The thing went still.

Alyosha was still astride the monster, clinging to his weapon, adrenaline pumping through his body. He felt like an idiot. Not for opening the door or trying to shoot the thing, but for embarking on this trip with only this candy-ass kid as backup.

"Hey, Crowe!" he sneered, grinning toward the corner which the little chit was hiding behind. He continued to jam the spear into the already mortally wounded thing's mouth, wanting to make sure it was dead. Sickly, foul-smelling ash-green gore gushed from the maw and onto the floor. "If I needed an astromech droid to open every door for me, I could buy me an astromech. But clearly, you aren't half as quick or as accurate as a droid!"

He hopped down onto the floor, extracted his spear from the corpse, then collected his rifle. Taking a cig from the packet in his pocket, he put it between his lips, lit it, and puffed like a chimney, sighing smoke as he prepared for the worst. The rifle... wasn't broken, mercifully, but he certainly wouldn't keep tossing it around after this.

"Now get out from behind that fething corner, you coward," he growled at Crowe. "Before we go any further, I'm going to at least teach you how to aim properly. That way you'll be less likely to get both of us killed."

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

Given his lack of eyes and the helmet that covered them, Crowe's glare was hardly the most impressive. The annoyance he meant to convey was clear enough, however. "You are the magician, not me. Sane people don't fight monsters, they run away from them. Preferably leaving behind explosive charges to slow it down and or blow it the feth up."

Examining the creature for a long moment before daring to step closer, Crowe waved his gun about as if trying to make a point.

"... and I know how to use a gun! Most people don't have magic aim, you know."

Clearly, the repeated snorting of magic dust, or whatever it is Jedi and their like did, had addled his brains. Crowe had seen more than a few shootouts in his time on the Rim, in most people seemed to hit walls or bystanders more often than their target. Especially those unused to firing live.

Sighing dramatically, he headed towards the body, making a wide circle around the dead serpentoid. "Whatever. Let's check the body."

Torn up and half-eaten, by the looks of it. Ashla and Bogan, there was a chance the thing might have eaten evidence... yeah, not doing that.

 

[Kai and Gerda]

“Oh, is that what you were planning to do? Set charges? Before or after you were done running away?” It occurred to Alyosha that Crowe’s hiding behind the corner may have been an attempt at such a thing, but it only infuriated him more. Crowe would’ve saved himself, potentially, while leaving Alyosha to be eaten.

“You couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn,” he snapped. “Half your slugs bounced harder than a Hutt’s check!” He wished he could count the bullets as evidence and further emphasize his point, but the door was closed. As soon as the word “whatever” left Crowe’s mouth, Alyosha stepped in front of him, blocking his way.

“Newsflash, kid. You don’t know everything. In fact, it looks to me like you don’t know chit except how to open a door and complain.” Despite his fury, the cig never slipped from the corner of Alyosha’s mouth. His anger was a cold, rigid, controlled thing. “You go ahead and check the body, if you can stomach it. I am going to call for backup. It’ll take a few minutes for him to arrive. In the meantime, I’ll give you the chance to learn something new. It’s a little Force power called Better Aim. I know that you can do it, Crowe, because you have the Force same as I. I strongly, strongly recommend that you take this opportunity I am offering you.”

Raising his wrist, he pressed a button and began speaking into his comm. “Theo, come in Theo…”

Meanwhile, aboard the Harlock…

“Are you sure you don’t want any of this?” Theo Vathek asked. “It is the good stuff.”

The surviving student’s gaze followed Theo’s hand as it waved above the table, his eyes widening at the various drug paraphernalia which covered the surface. He gulped. “N-No thank you.”

“Well, suit yourself.” Theo grinned and licked his lips. “More for me.”

He was just about to reach for a vial of glitterstim when his comm buzzed. “Hey, Al! You run into any problems?...”

While Alyosha recounted an abridged version of the events of the past hour or so to Theo, the student turned his attention to the holoscreen which had been jury-rigged to the wall in the main hold. An episode of a holoshow was on, some kind of crime drama about a small town murder, only now things were starting to get really freaky. The lead investigator was sitting in a red room with a one-armed Devaronian who spoke backwards while a Jawa danced around to smooth jazz…

“Hey, uh, the captain needs my help,” Theo’s voice broke the student’s concentration. “You’ll be okay here by yourself, right?”

“Y-yeah,” the student replied, his eyes still glued to the screen. The ghost of the murder victim had suddenly appeared from behind a curtain. “I’ll be fine.” She was sidling up to the detective, leaning down to whisper in his ear…

Theo followed the student’s line of sight, snorted, then flicked open the weapons locker. “Alright, what do we have here…”

Zelannia Arcrin

 

[Zelannia Arcrin]

The man was pathological, refusing to acknowledge that not everyone he met was a battle-hardened Jedi Knight or the like. Even the renowned Imperial Stormtroopers of yore missed most of the shots they took, as he'd heard it. Combat was stressful and the room for even the slightest of failures small.

Something told him trying to convince Alyosha should be worse than useless, however.

"Whatever you say. It's not like you are the one who insisted on opening that obviously ominous door."

Feeling slightly nervous as he punctuated the sentence by re-opening the door, he stepped forward cautiously, head swivelling back and forth as he scanned the darkness for more of those things. Fortunately, the room seemed empty. No sign of any other bodies, but two other doorways split off. Triangular room design? Very unusual. Stepping closer, he switched to suit-assisted breathing to avoid the smell.

Ashla knew the sight was bad enough. Death and hunger, violent death.

Poking the corpse with his boot a few times to make sure there weren't any weird alien face-eaters in there - he'd watched enough holofilms to be very careful in strange alien ruins - he eventually mustered the courage to search the remaining pockets and such. Empty, empty, oh!

Producing a wallet with a victorious little jump, he found a few creds, some ID, and... oh! A device recovery function, lovely!

Following the guidance, he grew more and more apprehensive until he finally stood in front of the dead beast once more. Leaning closer, he heard the very, very soft beep through the fleshy bits surrounding its stomach. "Errr, I think there's a, ah, wrist link in there. Would you, uh, like to..."

 

[Kai and Gerda]

“Okay, dungeon master,” Alyosha muttered under his breath. Still inhaling his cig, he watched as Crowe nudged the corpse of the dead expeditioner with his foot. There were indeed a lot of ricocheted bullets lying around, which Alyosha began to irritatingly play with, dragging the pieces of metal across the floor with his mind, making a great deal of noise.

He was spinning them around Crowe like soldiers on parade around a giant statue when the kid asked for his help. Alyosha stopped playing with the bullets, looked right at the Miralukan, and replied, “No.”

In the pause that followed, he put out his cig, then pointed to the mangled body of the serpentoid. “You get that wrist link out of there yourself. Without touching it. Use the Force to feel it, the edges of it, the inner workings.” The Miraluka was already doing that naturally. “It’s just a piece of machinery. You’re good with machines, aren’t you? Then exert your will. Pull it out through its mouth. Separate it from the organic matter. Doesn't matter if it sounds crazy. At least try.”

~~~​

Theo, now carrying two pistols, a vibroblade, and a motley of grenades slung around his shoulder, walked toward the entrance to the ruins. He got far enough to see the carcass of the first droid serpentoid, then opted to call Alyosha.

“Did you kill this thing out here? Chit.”

“Don’t worry, it’s very dead. We’re a little further in. First corridor on your right, you can’t miss it.”

The Wroonian contacted the ship. “Anything happening on your end?”

“The girl who was murdered whispered the name of the killer in the detective’s ear, but he can’t remember what she said, ‘cause it was in a dream,” the student replied. “Her secret boyfriend is posthumously cheating on her with her best friend, and her ex-boyfriend sells drugs… Now the detective is throwing rocks at glass bottles to find out which suspects he should question.”

“... Glad to hear you’re okay.”

Zelannia Arcrin