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Thread: The Somnambulists Waltz

  1. #1

    TFA Closed The Somnambulists Waltz

    Ponemah - the Outer Rim


    It wasn't the first planetary collision that the Rake had experienced. More importantly, it didn't seem to be his last. He woke up on lying on the wall of the main hold and blinked, sticky blood clagging his left eye shut and his upper body tangled up in his cloak. He swiped at his eye and coughed as he swayed to his feet. His head was pounding, but there were no warning sirens shrieking in the freighter. His vision swam, eyes roaming over the disorientating sight of the room turned the wrong way around.

    "Runt?" His voice came out croaky. As his eyes focused in the gloom, he saw the sleek silver body of the Hrosma tiger lying motionless at the other end of the up-ended wall. Staggering around and over the chairs and crates that had be thrown from the floor to the wall, his cloak lopsided on his shoulders, he made it to the still form - just as Run lifted his horned head and cracked one sleepy eye open.

    "Mrrr?" the creature made a questionning noise, evidently none to pleased to be roused from what looked like a nap.

    "Oh, no - don't let me disturb you," the Rake turned away, taking a moment to get his bearings before he picked his way back along the wall. As he walked, he ran his tongue around his teeth and gums - nothing loose or bloody there - and tried to tentatively roll his shoulders. That wasn't quite so pleasant. Something in his left arm felt off.

    He stopped, about three quarters of the way along the wall and looked up, squinting up along the length of the corridor that lead to the freighters cockpit. Normally it was a short walk away but circumstances being what they were, it'd be a decent climb to get back into the pilots seat. Not so decen with a busted shoulder.

    Something tiny bounced off his forehead and he took an unsteady step backwards.

    Grails of sand trickled through the hairline fracture in the transparisteel, slid down the main control panel then tumbled through and out of the inverted cockpit, piling at the bottom of the hallway beyond.

    Through the main view-port, there was no view of the sky - only sand. The ship was buried, how deep he couldn't say yet.

    "It's salvageable," the Rake said, as if the words might make it true.

    At his side, Runt gave a low growl. The ship groaned and the Rake glanced down at Runt, who rolled his shouders in something resembling a shrug and mrr'ed again.

    "True. If we're buried, there's no chance anyone will come and scrap the ship for parts.. though we're not liable to make much use of her either."

    How the hell was he going to get out of this one? There was no telling how much sand they were under, and how long before that trickle become a flood.

    He cast his eyes around the room, looking first at the padded booth and its table, and then at the smashed remains of a tumble and bottle that had been sitting on the tabletop not too long ago. That had been some good brandy. Expensive stuff. Expensive...

    The thought tickled a memory in the back of his mind. Runt's claws were already clacking against the metal beneath them as the Rake made for the secure cargo storage. "The slab," he agreed, as the tiger slipped through the horizontally orientated hallway and into the small cabin beyond with the Rake on his heels.

    Lights blinked in the darkness, flashing along the length of the carbonite block that lay face down in the secure cargo storage. Runt purred.

    "I don't know how it works. Maybe the lights mean something good. All readings happy?"

    The tiger swung its horned head back to look at him with narrow yellow eyes.

    "Mm. Either she's dying, or about to come out of hibernation on the floor of a freighter with its arse buried in the Sea of Sand. Could be worse though, eh?"

    Runt whuffed a sigh.
    Last edited by The Rake; Sep 1st, 2018 at 12:01:43 PM.

  2. #2
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    A baby was crying.




































































































    She was cold. So very cold. Limbs trembling, she tried to move, but only spasmed, her fingers scraping against durasteel deck plating. Where was she? She tried to talk and could not, her throat too dry for more than a rasp.

    Why was she blind?



    oh what a tangled web I weave


  3. #3
    Body pressed low to the ground, Runt crept closer to the slab.

    In his mind, the Rake lined up the numbers. At the beginning of the day, he had been in the black. A functioning ship carrying a cargo that was - by his estimates - going to make a sizeable profit. He also had his life and Runt's.

    Now? Now was different. As the Hrosma tiger sniffed at the sides of the carbonite slab, the Rake decided that unless something miraculous happened, two out of three was the best he and the cat could hope for. Two out of three he could live with. After all, he could get the third with the money the cargo - and then some when he caught up with the slime-sucking waste of space who'd dropped him out of the sky in the first place.

    Get the girl out in one piece, take her to the buyer, get on with business.

    One step at a time... get out of the Sea of Sand first. The less he thought about that part, the better. Thinking about that growing pile of sand was not conducive to productivity.

    "Don't try to move," he stood alongside the carbonite block and crouched low, hooking his one good hand under the edge of the block and shooing Runt out of the way in the process. "I'm going to flip this off of you, and then help you get out of here. I need you to listen to me and follow my voice.


    Do you understand?"

  4. #4
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    She was struggling to get up, but something was pressing her down onto the deck. Her arms and legs had hardly any strength in them, but then there was a voice. She concentrated, and tried to nod...then spoke.

    "-esssss."

    Pitiful. She felt like a kitten still wet from being born. When the pressure lifted, she scrabbled and crawled toward the male voice as best she could.

  5. #5
    They said that coming out of a carbonite hibernation was... challenging. Having had no real intention of releasing the women from her imprisonment, the Rake hadn't done anything to prepare for the possibility that he might have a passenger reeling from the affects of the unnatural sleep.

    If he was lucky, the after-effects would be tolerable enough that she could move around and follow basic commands - but also severe enough that she didn't start to think critically about what was going on.

    Not asking for permission, he pulled her arm around his body.

    "Hold on to me-" he started.

    The next word out of his mouth was ripped out of his lips and yanked toward the far end of the room, along with his balance. Above, there was an almighty crash. Somewhere behind him, Runt gave out an incensed hiss as the four walls lurched around them. For an instant, they were suspended in mid-air as what was up and down switched places with what had moments ago been left and right.

    Runt landed on his feet, while the Rake landed on his arse, his 'passenger' half sprawled over him.

    Had the sand shifted enough beneath them for the ship to rights itself? The boom that had come just before their tumbled suggested something, unfortunately, more purposeful than the shifting of the sands. The fur all along the length of Runt's spine was standing up, and his tail had that fluffy look that meant he was anything other than happy.

    The Rake struggled back to his feet, helping the nameless woman up with him.

    "Can you walk?"

  6. #6
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    Right was down.

    Down was left.

    She held back a yelp as the world pitched and dumped her onto the floor, or whatever was now the floor. What hell had she woken up into? She tried to stand and failed, leaning heavily on the stranger who was... She frowned, trying to remember what had happened to her.

    Who was this, and where was she? And why was she blind and weak? A tingle in her memory. Those symptoms, with partial amnesia... "Car..bon freeze?" she rasped, clinging to the man while she tried to make her legs work properly. Something was very wrong.

  7. #7
    “Right. Don't think too much. It'll make your brain hurt more than it already does.”

    They lurched through the ship, the Galaxy's least competent three-legged race entrants. In the main hold, everything was the right way up again – though it looked like they'd just passed through a border patrol and been ransacked by some heavy-handed inspectors. Runt played a one-cat game of 'the floor is Mustafar', springing from surface to surface and in doing so avoiding the sand scattered across the deck plating.

    The ship shuddered, not as violently as before, but enough. Enough to make the Rake hurry matters along.

    The cockpit viewport had something new to offer now: blue skies and -

    A shadow fell over the command console as something huge rippled past the viewport, blotting out the sky. Runt, who had slithered up into the pilots chair, looped back onto the floor around behind the Rake's legs in a nanosecond.

    “Hm,” the Rake blinked. “Well. I'm gonna sit you down and buckle you in, because I think we might be having a little bit of a bumpy take-off.”

  8. #8
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    She was blind, her body wasn't responding properly, and she wasn't even sure what she was wearing - maybe a sleeping shift? She let the man put her into a seat and buckle her in, his hands rough in his haste, but she didn't complain. The ship they were in lurched again, and she tried to hold onto the seat, her head lolling from side to side as her neck couldn't quite support its weight.

    Her hair was damp from the carbon freeze and had fallen across her face as she tried to make her voice work. Her hand brushed the silk of her dress or nightgown...memories tickled at the edges of her brain. "Where...am I?"

  9. #9
    You're sitting beside a man who is going to sell you to your death, or maybe worse - assuming that the crashed freighter you're aboard doesn't get pummelled into scrap by a sand-worm.

    As though hearing the unspoken words, Runt – who was somewhere that wasn't the cockpit – let out an irritated howl. “You're-” the Rake started, words coming slow as his brain tried to piece together words while attempting to coax to life the freighter and contemplate how he was going to get his passenger back into her cosy carbon cocoon. “You're on my ship. We got hit over Ponemah and... dropped into the Sea of Sand.”

    The ship shuddered, engines coming to life with the kind of groan that came with the worst hangovers. It shivered and shuddered and the Rake told himself that was on account of the pre-flight start-up, instead of because the fleshy pain-train had come by for another pass.

    After a moment, the ship lurched hard and the freighter skipped across the sand like a stone on a windless pond. Runt growled but the Rake smiled, as the old freighter defied gravity. There's was nothing graceful about it, but soon they were putting empty space between them and the earth, sand cascading down in sheets from the freighters underside.

    “There's an outpost at the edge of the desert. I think we can make it there and get patched up.”

  10. #10
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    Her teeth rattled in her skull as the ship bumped against the ground harder than a mating gundark, and Lilaena - her name was Lilaena - could feel tears leaking from her tightly closed eyelids. The ship was making an unholy sound, but the man sounded confident of his ability to get it back down again.

    As they flew higher, or onward, or whichever way they were going, she rasped out, "Who...shot us down?"

  11. #11
    “First Order goons.”

    The words came out strained, as he stretched across the ship's console, wondering not for the first time whether a co-pilot would be a fine thing to have. If only Runt had thumbs – no, then we'd be dead twice over. Terrible, terrible idea.

    “Price you pay for operating outside of Republic space,” he went on, trying to tease a little more control out of the freighter. The sensor packages were blinking back to life by degrees, and none of what they said was good. The ship rocked like a frisbee tossed into a tornado.

    There was a small silver-lining, though. “Doesn't seem like they followed us down planet-side though, so I guess we were just... target practice.”

  12. #12
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    Ponemah. First Order. Lilaena was trying not to flop around in her restraints, but the heavy vibrations running through the ship as it swayed back and forth, combined with her muscle weakness, were making it very difficult. "Then what." She grimaced as the ship lurched downward and clicked her teeth shut, "is chasing us?"

    And why are we an us? What am I doing here? Who put me in carbon freeze? Her muscles twitched involuntarily and she began to feel the warm glow of anger in her extremities. The Force, however, was curiously distant. Perhaps a side effect of the freezing process. Lilaena reached for it, putting her whole concentration toward the slim thread that still connected her to the Force.

  13. #13
    "Nothing... hopefully."

    Runt hrrrmed - then hissed as the Rake swung a halfhearted kick in the cat's direction. His fingertips danced over the ships controls, teasing a little more information out of the often contrary system. It wasn't putting up too much of a fight. Maybe the impact had rattled some of the quirks out of it, though that was almost more optimism than the Rake was willing to entertain.

    "Not far to the outpost," he added, the ship of structures hazy in the mid-distance. "How's your memory doing?"

  14. #14
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    "Not -" the ship lurched, "well. I remember..."

    A ship tearing through the atmosphere, creating clouds in it's wake as it hovered over the beaches and disgorged metallic beasts with armored riders. She led the charge, a primal scream tearing from her throat as they raced into the city.

    A small child huddled in a corner, eyes bright with tears she refused to let fall.

    The boy with white eyes, practicing lightsaber forms with her.

    Striding the passages of her ship, a cadre of powerful Force users in her wake. Zereth. Ireen. Tyber.

    ...Lyydea. A bounce of bright red curls and mercurial temper.

    Lilaena De'Ville. Mand'alor. Master. Savior. Killer. Friend. Enemy.


    She groaned a little, her headache increasing. "Who put me into carbonite?" Despite the rasp of her voice, there was an edge of anger that was growing by the minute.

  15. #15
    Someone who thought twice about it. As he thought the words, the Rake kept his eyes front and centre, fixed on the outpost rushing towards them. Runt sulked in a corner of the cockpit that looked as if it had long been claimed as the feline's domain.

    “That'll come to you in time, I suppose. Rest's the best thing for you right now,” he added, as the freighter banked down towards a landing spot, identifiable only as a scuffed patch of dirt... in the middle of a sea of dirt at the edge of the ramshackle outpost.

  16. #16
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    "Where is Kazaar?" she asked suddenly. "Did he send you for me?" It was a guess - a stupid guess. Kazaar had ridden along with her to some success, but the former spy was not likely to be funding interplanetary efforts to recover her from whoever, or whatever, had been responsible for her current condition. The pilot didn't say anything, the ship finally coming to a stop, and she asked, "Who are you?"

    She fumbled with her restraints, releasing herself and feeling about her surroundings for something to lean on as she pulled herself up onto her shaky legs. There was something else in the ship... she could hear it walking around. "Who are you?" Lilaena shouted, desperately pulling at the distant Force for strength, and finding the connection missing. She fell forward onto a console, hitting her head on a lever. "Fuuuuuck!"

  17. #17
    Runt lifted his head at the commotion, evidently nonplussed by the racket. How dare this interloper bring this cacophony into their cockpit? The Hrosma tiger glared at the Rake's sleep-walking passenger, for what little good it did. Meanwhile, the Rake wrestled with a quandary. One too many questions that he couldn't rightly answer, not right now. The last thing that he wanted to do was alarm her, anymore than she'd done herself.

    “I'm-”

    There was only one thing for it. There was no way he could finish what he'd started if she was thrashing about like this. More to the point, she'd done half the job for him. It'd be rude not to finish it.

    “-sorry?”

    As though sensing what was about to happen, Runt peered at Lilaena with intent, glittering yellow eyes.

    The Rake grabbed the back of her head, yanked back, and made to slam her forehead into the console again - with enough force that he'd hopefully knock her out cold.

  18. #18
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    Her head hit the console a second time, and darkness descended.
















































































    When she regained consciousness, she was back in the chair, with her five point restraint on. Her head hurt. She was still blind. The Force was still curiously distant, but ...closer. Lilaena opened her eyes, her heart quickening at the darkness around her. Without the Force she was as helpless as a newborn baby.

    A baby.

    To her extreme consternation, she started crying.

  19. #19
    "It's going to be easier for both of us if you don't pull something like that again."

    A familiar voice, somewhere to her right. The sound of someone shifting in an upholstered seat.

    "A good partnership takes work."

    Somewhere behind her, a feral hrrrrr.

    "So you need to work with me. You don't need to like it -"

    Behind, the tap of claws against metal. To the right, a sigh.

    "Because I don't plan to like it either, but this is where we've come to."

  20. #20
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    The tears were drying already, and Lilaena slowly nodded. "Fine with me. I.." she reached up, fingers questing into her hairline, and found a good sized bump. "I am not used to my body being so weak. Or being so... out of control."

    She turned her head to the right, where the voice was coming from. I won't forget this, however.

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