First Reply Yavin: Sorcerer

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

You've accepted the kind of job only the mad or desperate would take. It pays enough for a ticket out of this green hell and up into the stars.

Three old AT-AT-style walkers each carry a grain of antimatter through gloomy jungle canyons. The containment systems are nearly as decrepit as the walkers. There was a fourth walker; it put a foot wrong and erased a square mile of earth.

Far ahead, smoke rises from a great fire: the rare-volatiles borehole at Tarma Gulch is burning. Only the antimatter charges can put it out and let the mining start again. The mining always starts again.

*​

In the first walker's leaking cabin, driving slow so as not to jostle its payload of antimatter, Ashin thought about trench foot and canned whelkies.

War had crushed this whole sector of Yavin Four like a hammer to the temple, in vast overgrown cracks visible from space. What weapon had done it, Ashin couldn't say. Torrential rain washed the colour from the jungle and surged around the walker's four rusted legs.

She wiped gritty rain from her face and tried to move past memory: how much this place reminded her of a trench war the better part of a century ago. That war and that world had been everything to her once. All the names were gone, and yet today brought back two memories clear as day: the smell of trench foot and the taste of the subsistence rations. That was whole empires ago, bodies, lives. A piece of who she'd been before she forgot herself. A sign, even.

Jostling dead memories was worth immersing herself in this place and work and helplessness and fear.

Her heart rose in her throat as the storm surge tossed a log down the choked canyon. Before she could react, the log passed below the cabin's view and struck the front right leg. She felt the impact in her tailbone through the ragged seat. She was not dead. The antimatter was still stable.

"Press on to that ridge," she said, pointing at a stretch of canyon floor that rose above the roiling water, "or stop and check the knee now? What do you think?"

The walker had a crew of two: her and a stranger.

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

"Putting too much pressure on the knee if it is damaged, could cost us time, and strand us here with the cargo."

My eyes scanning over the control systems. Attempting to find any faults in the system errors. Little beeps or something that could tell me anything. Yet, I was not a person who was well versed in technology like this. Basics of vehicles was all I knew. Systems were installed in most to provide readouts of damaged parts, or just what some called "engine codes" for speeders or the like. The cockpit, cabin? whatever it was called wasn't screaming at us... yet.

"Problem with getting out now, is we are sitting ducks if we do. No where to run if we need to. Best bet?"

Looking over the scanners again then to the stranger I was doing this job with.

"Push and if we make it great. If not, then we need to find a new way to transport it."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Water surged high and churned against the base of the forward viewport, then sank again. Ashin opened the side door and leaned out far enough to glance down at the knee. Cold rain shoved at the back of her head. She flinched back and let the door bang shut.

"The knee's damaged and above water, but not consistently. Not safe to repair. I think you're right."

Ashin wiped sweat and rainwater from her eyes and slopped her hair back from her face. She gripped the bare-metal control levers to ease the walker through oncoming swells.

"Not sure we'll make it up that incline gently enough. Get the tow cable lined up. There must be a crag or root or..." She was about to wave vaguely at the high stretch of ground, the refuge, then thought better about taking her hands off the controls just now. The water was fighting her.

Lúthien Tinúviel

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

I watched for a second as they had looked out down towards the knee of the walker. The wind whipping into the cabin and sending a cold shiver through my spine. My hands already reaching out to try and check any electrical systems that had been damaged in the leg. Running systems checks by the time that she had stuck her head back in. Confirming what I had possibly thought of. Their hand starting to point out what to possibly do to aid in movement but snapped back to the controls with the sudden shake.

My hands stabilized myself in my seat. Looking to her, I did snap in the moment when I may have not meant to.

"Focus on driving. I got this."

I stood up from the seat. letting my hands travel across whatever I could grab without pressing buttons or messing with anything. Moving to the tertiary seat and hooking up the systems to fire the wench cables. The camera for the systems came on line in front of me. The controls swayed with the walker. The sight picture wasn't all that great, but I could make out ahead just barely a larger mound formation. One of the few locations around here where tree roots were showing.

Meaning that the roots could possibly hold the ground down in place. Sure they had been destroyed or chopped down but it was as much of a clearing better than what we were currently going through.

"Steady for a second!" I called out. Letting the sway die down for just a moment before firing. Not even warning that I was going to. Two cables shot out with speed. The first one pierced, but went relaxed as it attempted to pull. the second held on.

"One's holding. I'll reset the second one and retry in a moment."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin bristled but this was not a setting conducive to the spare moments that common civility demanded. Spare moments counted. And frankly, Yavin Four, antimatter, and common civility were not on speaking terms. She kept her focus on the task of driving. The walker lurched through the water and up, aided by the line. She flinched as the feet tore through submerged roots.

The walker eased out of the surge and onto the higher ground. An overgrown curve of the canyon wall gave it some shelter.

"Good shot." A moment for civility after all, or else just bad instinct. "The other line could stabilize us while I check the knee."

She cracked the door and unbuckled the corroded toolkit from its place under the seat. Segments of bolted ladder led down the neck and legs. She wiped rain from her eyes and headed down.

Lúthien Tinúviel

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

As the woman commended my shot, I didn't feel so good about it. I still messed up the first one. Either way, As the wench was retracting it for a second shot, she got up and started to gather tools to look at the leg. Standing up, I moved closer to the door of the cabin that she would be leaving through. Making sure that her climb would be mostly alright. I really did not feel like trying to go for a swim after her if she fell. Or worse, have to finish this job alone.

"I'll give you a holler on the coms when the next shot is going to be fired."

Watching her take the first steps down, I left the door open so if she needed to get back in quickly for whatever reason, she would be fine. I moved to stand at the front of the viewport. Watching the cable, and my eyes shifting back to the local scanners to make sure no signatures of something snuck up on us. I moved lightly to sit in the drivers seat. Looking at the scanners and systems, but not touching any of the controls.

My eyes looking out the viewport again seeing the cable was gone. Likely pulled nearly all the way in now. As if on cue, loud clicking sounds as the harpoon was pulled back into the cannon. I stood up and moved back to the third chair. Sitting down, and making the call.

"This is Cabin, Firing the second harpoon now."

Gave her ample warning to hold on incase something happened. My eyes focused on the screen. Taking aim again and this time aiming a little wide. That way the two points of contact with the wenches weren't pulling from the same spot. Spreading the load out just enough that if one should break or loose hold, it wouldn't be both of them.

The shot fired. Speeding through the air and piercing into the other side of the mound. Clipping in and pulling taunt. With the door open, I could hear the twinging of the metal cable as it whipped through the air back and forth before becoming tight enough it looked like it was meant to be a permanent fixture.

"Second cable is holding. Let me know if you need a hand."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

She positioned herself and the toolbox on the gantry ladders as Lúthien Tinúviel set up her part of this. In good repair, this walker wouldn't have shivered at the tow cable's twang, but Ashin felt it through the metal. Some resonance grew in the gantry. She thought too long of the unsatisfactory containment gear in the walker's hold, and of the academy ship she'd led for so long, and the family she'd left on Eshan for petty self-actualization and-

And really too much. Too much for the moment. Deep down, wasn't that why she'd thrown herself into this situation: to sacrifice everything that stood between herself and purity of intention, between herself and the fading memory of courage, between herself -- as she'd taught generations of Darksiders -- and exactly what she wanted most?

Be here, be now, keep moving. Just you and the moment.

She crossed a gap and, carrying the toolbox, headed down the leg to the impacted knee. The damage looked superficial but dangerous -- a warped stretch of plating that threatened hydraulics. She got out a grinder and set to it, cautious of triggering more resonance.

As the most hazardous corner winged away into the water, the Force whispered an opaque premonition. She deactivated the grinder and gripped the ladder.

And the horizon turned white.

One of the other walkers had detonated. Ahead of them. Had they fallen so far behind in the canyons?

"Brace! Brace!"

Three heartbeats, less than a mile: the shockwave of air, water, and debris roared down the canyon. This position had shelter, some, from irregularities in the canyon wall; if not for that, their antimatter would have popped in sympathy from the hit. It still might.

No doubt there'd be a gigantic crater to cross if they survived the next several seconds.

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

As the woman continued to work on the leg, I made sure to set locks on the rest of the legs. Holding essentially the "parking break" down so that the other legs wouldn't move or shift on her. So even if she accidentally hit a wire, or hit a hydraulic system, the leg wouldn't sudden collapse and make us fall into the earth. Even more so when transporting an extremely volatile cargo.

Part of me wanted to just do nothing. To just relax for a moment while they worked on the transport. However, I just didn't feel right doing it. If I was up top here, I had a better vantage point for what would be happening ahead of us. More over, I had sensors in front of me to show me what was happening. As if I que, or saying the word "quiet" out loud, I saw the blast. My eyes widening fast and I didn't hesitate. My hands threw themselves onto the controls and moved the other operational leg forward, shifting the weight of the walker to be on the good leg.

I did hear the voice come over. Yelling for me to brace for impact. My hands flying over the systems. Diverting all accessible power to the shields. I wish there was something I could do about my partner in this job. What could I do? There was some-No! The cargo!

I started to race back towards the cargo. When the wave hit the vessel. I had no real balance and was thrown into the door that led to the cargo hold. I was able to throw my metal arm forward and had it break most of the impact, but the arm being shoved deeper into my shoulder hurt like fack. I yelped involuntarily from the pain. Pushing myself to stand up and open the door to check on it. Making sure we would not meet the same fate.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Nothing mattered more than keeping the antimatter containment system active. To that end, Ashin had conducted certain private rituals before she left. Pieces of two enemies -- the palms of their hands, tanned to leather -- had been concealed in the bulkhead plating of the cargo bay in a tetrahedron configuration. (She had the sense that Lúthien Tinúviel had some Force connection, likely enough to detect or parse some lesser or greater portion of what Ashin had done. Ashin didn't care about that any more than she cared whether the name 'Ashin Varanin' or the yellow mask of Anger meant anything to Luthien.)

The effect was to shield against impact, as if those dead hands cradled the containment system and its jury-rigged padding and straps. But like the containment system, the padding, and the straps, the protective ritual could only go so far against the chaos of the situation and the overwhelming power of antimatter.

All that to say: she appreciated that Luthien scrambled for the cargo bay. Ashin did likewise, spilling tools in her hasty clamber up the gantries. She got up into the leg joint and then into the cargo bay a couple of heartbeats slower than Luthien.

The containment system was swaying in its cradle. A strap snapped and, with a curse, she grabbed for the flailing end and missed.

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

Moving to the back, I noticed some weird things going on. Sure I could sense it and register that this was no normal set up of just a bunch of cradles. However, that didn't matter. What did matter was that the Anti-matter stayed in place and didn't move. Looking to the mass of what the cargo was, I started to have a sigh of relief. The woman showing up behind me and coming into the room with haste.

However, nearly on cue, a strap snapped. In a flash the woman was there. Attempting to stop it, but missed. Everything seemed so slow, yet happening so fast. The weirdest interaction of having her form trying to stop it. I was not as fast as her. Not from this distance. My hands lancing out. The thought of just a pillow, one massive pillow in which it would fall on. Soft waves of The Current to hold it and prevent it from falling.

In that moment, the world felt heavy. The cargo slowing to a stop. Barely inches from the ground. Yet I stood there. A post as if I was trying to hold all the weight of a star system between my hands. My breathing heavy from straining to not just crush down. Trying to find the balance between holding it tight with the force, while also not crushing and causing us to explode.

Looking over to the woman, eyes widened from the interaction happening.

"As much as I'd like to revel in the idea we are still breathing, I don't want to hold this for long."

Already, my fingers strained. Why could I feel strain in my prosthetic? Why could I feel the pain as if the arm was touching the damn thing. My fingers tingling as if I had been clenching onto something for far too long.

"I will say, Holding a bomb like this is now off my bucket list."

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

No reciprocal quip came to mind. The walker was skewing gently as the flood waters and the blast wave's aftermath eroded the ground. The deck shivered and tilted underfoot, and Ashin lurched over to snag their one (1) spare strap. She got it in place and ratcheted it snug, allowing Lúthien Tinúviel to let go of the broken one at last.

"Felt like White Current," she said, breathing hard. "My grandfather was Fallanassi. Takes me back. Good work on that. Fallanassi aren't known for their tangible skills."

She had obvious questions but left them unspoken, scrambling back toward the walker's cabin to get them moving again. With the shockwave past, the knee damage mitigated, and the containment system stabilized, they could retract the cables and move on up the canyon.

She both was and was not looking forward to seeing the crater the other walker had left when it exploded.

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

The woman beneath the mask grabbed the strap and attached a new one. Applying it as I moved it back into position and retightened everything. Making sure it was solid before we would even think about returning. As she did so, she specifically mentioned White Current. That it felt like that. She could feel it. That only told me so much more about her. Even when she mentioned her Father was one of the Fallanasi. Which was strange since most were women last I remembered. I guess it was more of a tradition rather than a held fast rule.

"My mother taught me of the force. Was inducted to the Fallanasi Later."

Moving back out of the room, I made sure to shut the door and seal it up again. Moving to the opening of the cabin and closed it as well while the woman returned to the seat. Starting to move us forward. Once the lines had become relaxed, I had disengaged the harpoons and drew them back in. finally returning to my Co-pilot seat and sat down. Deciding to answer questions she had not spoken.

If she knew of where I had been from, I knew she might have the feeling. Its a very... rare subset of skills.

"I prefer the way the Fallanasi teach. It feels more natural to me. So while I can dip into the force itself, I prefer the Current. Just a learner by any standards."

Finally speaking more than just a couple words back and forth. This time though, no quips or snaps. having been slightly humbled by knowing that she knew more of me.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

"It's beautiful," said Ashin absently, even wistfully, as she eased the walker through muddy water. The surge was dying off and, as they slogged around a canyon bend, it became clear why: the crater was broad and nearby and filling up. A loosely circular lake was forming, an ugly churn.

How deep could it be? But no. Ashin began angling the walker around the edge of the crater. Tension spiked with ever snag as the walker's feet moved through deep mud and shattered logs. As long as she took it slow, though, this was more predictable terrain, less imminently life-threatening. She could breathe for now.

"The White Current," she said once her stressed eased off. "He was a bastard, a killer, never had the joy of it. No idea how he learned from the Fallanassi, what he did to get them to agree. Show me something nice. Not a distraction, just...something other than mud and shrapnel."

Lúthien Tinúviel

 

[Lúthien Tinúviel]

The woman spoke of her old man. How he was a bastard of a person and his secrets to this day were still there. Holding up after however long she had been walking in the lands of the living. More so, it was one of the few things she had learned of him. However, her next words confused me. A furrowed brow as I looked over to her.

"You want me to make an illusion?"

I thought about it for a moment. Wanting to think and understand what she said. But at the same time, I felt like doing this anyways was just flexing my powers. using them for mundane tasks to help refine them. So I did. Images of what I wanted to make formed in my head. Soft and blurred but forming to become sharp and focused. I closed my eyes and just placed my mind upon the dash. In front of her would be a shimmering wave that twisted and formed into a stuffed animal nexu. Sitting there for a moment before standing and strutting around. Looking to the woman, it then shredded itself.

The body ripping apart to show a crystal formation. One that glowed a soft blue. Falling into the dash and melting away to nothing.

Ashin Cardé Varanin

 

[Ashin Cardé Varanin]

Ashin got a chuckle from the image. It was the kind of thing one or, at most, two of her daughters would have made it they'd had skills like that. She revised her estimate of her companion's age downward somewhat.

"Good," she said, slowing the walker through a haystack of timbers. "How far ahead can you project? Could you be a spotter for our path, highlight routes that look or feel safe? I traded sensibility for strength a long time ago."

Lúthien Tinúviel