Change of Plans

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Silently, she caught Trex's gaze and gave him a pleading 'Help Me,' one in return before her eyes shifted back to Rigg's animated face as he continued to flirt shamelessly. The long blue lines of hyperspace stretched in front of the viewport. Never ending, like his story.

Still, his smile was a bit charming. Maybe. Ugh, no. Not really.

"Wow. All the way to the lake? What happened to his clothes again?"

"Well it all had to do with that wookie named Mabalene-Daisy and she...," Riggs stopped his prattle as she held up one green index finger, turning her attention to the incoming feeds and navigation. "Trex," chestnut strands of hair whisked across her face as her head turned to the younger Voidstalker. "Got fresh reports coming in about security protocol the Order has set up for incoming vessels. Check it out, transferring to your station."

Index and thumb toggled down on the controls. Riggs shifted in his seat, trying to determine the appropriate time to pick up his story all the while, flashing Taheera an inappropriate look.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

As soon as Riggs was definitely looking the other way Trextan raised an eyebrow in his direction whilst meeting Taheera's gaze. He felt uncomfortable about the whole thing, but wasn't really sure what to say. Was the pilot going to carry on like this for the entire journey?

"I've got a bad feel about this," he announced as he sat at his station. "What's that's..."

"Oh I bet all the Jedi say that for... No, hang on. That's a signal coming back down our tunnel. We're not going to get there unnoticed," Riggs said. "We didn't have scanners like this before. They've put..."

Riggs turned to face Taheera, his lips pursed. He gave a subtle shake of the head. "We've got to change course."

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"Change course?" She couldn't stop the frown and the crinkle of her disgruntled tattooed-brow. Green fingers gripped the ship's counsel where she sat in frustration. Myrtle-ellipses darted from Riggs to Trex. If they'd been in a bigger ship, she might've done something as drastic as taking an escape pod and exiting on her own. Or, if she'd been alone, she might've been hard-headed enough to keep going.

Consequences be fethed.

Fortunately or unfortunately, she wasn't alone.

"Are you sure there's no other way to get there?" There was an edge of desperation in her voice.

"No. Unless you want to be blown out of the skies or pulled into a tractor beam the moment we pop outta hyperpsace," Riggs was being serious for once. "Sorry princess."

Myrtle-ellipses widened for a moment.

Did he seriously just say that?

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"Princess?" Trextan asked on cue. The pilot grinned and looked from one Jedi to the other. There were no military buddies to back him up this time. "Sorry," he muttered. He pulled back on two levels and the swirls of hyperspace became solid lines and then the pinpricks of stars. One was much brighter than the rest of them, dead ahead.

"We were minutes away," Riggs said sadly. Below the speed of light they were much further than that. "Do we head back to Karfeddion?"

Trextan noted that the pilot didn't swing the ship around just yet. They were too far to resolve any planets with the naked eye, but the star was almost disc shaped.

"I guess so," he replied. After his blood had been pumping he now felt thoroughly deflated.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

The mirialan's frown drew deeper. After a moment's hesitation, she nodded. What else were they going to do? It's not like they had taken a ship with a cloak. She stared off into space, getting one last glimpse of Barkesh in the distance before Riggs began putting back in the calculations for hyperspace.

Fingers fumbled with the crash-webbing and she unbuckled herself, chair swiveling, she stood and made her way to the cargo-area.

"I need a second," she muttered, brushing past Trex, hands shoving chestnut strands of hair away from her eyes. With a slight lurch, the ship made the jump back into lightspeed. Hand braced herself on the ship's hull, eyes closing for a moment.

A second after that, klaxons blared and the ship shuddered.

What the feth....

Eyes snapped back open and she stumbled her way back to where she'd just exited.

"What's going on?!" She hollered, stumbling against the bulkhead.

"Some sort of disturbance. Maybe an exploding star. We're being ripped out of hyperspace. Hang on!" Riggs was no longer the flirty, cocky-pilot. Worry and strain edged his tone,

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Sometimes it was easier to fall in on yourself than reach out to another. Trextan let Taheera head behind as Riggs finished his calculations. He thought that perhaps he should have followed. This had been their pact and already it was falling apart. Instead he just deflated on his chair.

His face was bathed in the cool cerulean of hyperspace. The colour suited his mood. He snapped out of his reverie as the warnings started.

"I don't understand!" Trextan called. Space was actually incredibly empty. There were many stars, but they were seperated by vast empty vacuum.

"Those not pilots can shut up," Riggs snapped as he did something frantically. Trextan grimaced as he felt his stomach yanked in several directions at once. His knuckles whitened on the arms of his chair.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Feet slid along the deck plating. Green-fingers nearly turned white as she hung on, struggling to get to a jump seat in the hold. For a moment, she went weightless. Clothes and chestnut strands of hair floated in all directions. Teeth grit. Risking it, she pushed off and got a grip around one of the restraints, managing to shoulder one on.

Gravity snapped back on.

"Riggs!" She yelled.

"Yeah, yeah! This can't be right. Any of you ever survive a blackhole?" Riggs swore, still gripping the controls and new alarms started to blare. Red, warning lights bathed her green face. Red then green.

Worried eyes latched onto Trex's. She could just see his profile since she wasn't up front, in the cockpit. Eyes shifted to the closest window. Long-lines of space suddenly broke into pinpricks as they were roughly expelled back into real space. A planet of greys, blues,and greens quickly filled the spinning view.

Ugh. She was going to be sick. And this is why, the jedi healer hated flying.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"That lever! No the one next to it!"

Trextan reached for the correct lever but was pressed back into the chair, his fingers grasping inches short. He grunted in frustration and then cheated. The Force wrapped around the lever and yanked it back. Emergency power was directed to the inertial dampeners and artificial gravity and a modicum of normality was restored to the chaos.

It was hard to get a feel for the distance to the planet ahead, but the structures were definitely growing. There was nothing Trextan could do right now. He looked over at the mirialan. For a moment then he'd thought she was going to go flying into the viewscreen.

"At least it isn't a black hole."

"Atmosphere is like a lovely blanket," Riggs grunted, but he didn't sound very happy about it.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Couldn't tell how sick she was feeling with the natural tone of her skin. Head dipped between her legs as she moaned. "I think. I'm gonna be sick."

Stomach lurched as they bounced through atmosphere.

"Bags on the right!" Riggs called. "Darvet. This can't be right. Readouts show we're at Felucia. That's....impossible."

"Remember all those bad feelings?" She grumbled, head still down. Hands wrapped around her abdomen. There was a sudden whirring pop from outside where she sat. Then another to the right.

Riggs cursed again.

"Power's failed on both engines! We're going down. If you two can do some Jedi chit, it's time to show off now!" The swampy ground below was coming up real fast.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Gravity wasn't something he could stop with the Force. If he was anchored on the ground he could try and slow the descent of a ship, perhaps even one of this size. But it wasn't as if he could fly. The ship groaned beneath them.

Trextan looked to Taheera. Even with power back to the inertial dampeners he could feel them falling. Riggs had done all he could to slow their descent. The young Jedi closed his eyes and stretched out with the force. The right wing stopped juddering as he tried to hold everything together.

"We'll try and make a barrier inside the cockpit before we hit the ground," Trextan murmured. There wasn't much they could do in reality. It all depended how and where they landed.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Hands still wrapped around her stomach. She tried to push past the nauseous feeling that continued to churn in her stomach and threatened to come up the back of her throat. Myrtle-ellipses snapped onto Trex's eyes through a curtain of tousled chestnut-hair. She managed a silent, sharp nod.

A force protection bubble. Between the two of them, they must just be able to protect themselves enough to survive this. Eyes closed and her head bowed slightly as her body rocked and tugged against the crash webbing.

"Ground coming up!" Riggs yelled.

A green-tinted force bubble shimmered into existence as the healer began to manipulate it to not only include herself but also Riggs and Trex. "C'mon, c'mon," she muttered, eyes still closed.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Trextan tried to imagine himself slowing time. That had actually worked on occasion. Only when he was deeply immersed in the Force. It didn't buy him any time to concentrate so he pushed on as well as he could. He could feel Taheera through the Force. An undercurrent of panic. But also the sheer willpower required to keep her food down.

The youth followed that link to the barrier. It felt almost like a discontinuity in the Force and difficult to grasp. He took in a sharp breath as he sensed the ground coming up to react them.

"Come on!" He shouted, almost echoing Taheera. He found the manifestation of Taheera's willpower and poured everything he had into it. The bubbled pushed outwards. Not as neat and spherical as an instructor would have liked but it pushed outwards fast. Out until it pressed against the bulkhead and the canopy of the cockpit.

Trextan braced.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Concentration ground in as she connected with Trextan's own willpower. His presence was solid and she was grateful they were together with Riggs on this crazy mission-turned-so-wrong. She poured everything out to him during that one dinner and she trusted him - whatever that meant.

All that said, she was able to keep the protection bubble up on their initial impact. She felt the ship give way behind her as the wing was ripped free like it was flimsy. Swampy-humid air rushed in as they slammed down a second time, mowing down trees and swampy ground. The part of her bubble faltered as her vision began to blur, Trex and Riggs seemed to blend into one person. Something sharped whacked against the back of her head and suddenly, everything went dark.

She just hoped they didn't land in a sarlaac pit or near an Acklay herd's hunting grounds if they really were on Felucia.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Taheera's final thought would be Trextan's waking nightmare. The youth shook his head and tried to blink his eyes open as he felt consciousness return.

Ping.

Ping, ping.

Ping, ping, ping, ping.

He managed to open his eyes just in time to see a long green spindly limb pass the window. He didn't know what an acklay was, but that limb had looked long and spiky.

Pushing himself from his chair, his legs collapsed under him and left him with an out of focus view of the deck and a green blue where Taheera was. It suddenly occured to him that there might be all kinds of entry points ripped into the hull of the ship for the local fauna to explore.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

Eyelids shifted and opened, almost immediately closing. The world spun and everything was upside down. Wait. No. She was hanging upside down. The crash-webbing dug into her shoulders, the only thing keeping her from face planting into the swampy and iridescent undergrowth below. A hole had ripped itself in the decking beneath her. Or was it the ceiling? She couldn't tell. It looked like the ship twisted where she was, just before the cockpit.

Head gingerly moved to the side as a large shadow crossed just beneath. Myrtle-ellipses searched for Trextan and Riggs, fingers struggling with the harness release. She couldn't get it open.

"Trex...," she groaned, worry and shock edging her tone as blood continued to rush to her head. "Trextan."

Was that his form, crumpled on the deck just ahead and below?

Where was Riggs?!

A high-pitched whine was heard behind her and she froze.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Trextan was up on one elbow when the shriek resonated through the remains of the ship. Once again his artificial arm had started working before the rest of him. Like Taheera he froze. A deep, instinctive reaction from a million years of evolution kept him rooted for nearly a second. He didn't know what cry, but his bones knew it was something bad.

He couldn't see anything but he could hear something moving. He couldn't hone in on from where. Focus on the now, he told himself. Getting Taheera down from where she hung precariously was step one. Not being eaten by something could come next.

Trextan stumbled over to her and took a wide stance. His left arm hooked under her shoulder to try and take some of her weight. His prosthetic arm grasped the harness where it met the wall.

"Ready?" He asked before it snapped the straps free with ease.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

She looked at his upside-down but really upright position through a mess of tangled hair. "Wait," she whispered. Green-palms reached forward, trying to find purchase on his shoulders. "Oka---oomph," lithe body fell gracelessly on top of him as she was suddenly freed and gravity took over.

Front of her body swung down and slammed against his torso, arm wrapped around his neck, shoulder and her green face smacked against his own with a quiet slap. And she couldn't tell if she hit him with enough force to knock him over into an even more compromising position with some predator waiting just outside.

At least they were friends, or whatever, or this might've been even more awkward than it already was.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Being seventeen this was awkward regardless of any circumstances between the pair. She would probably hear the sharp intake of breath. Fortunately there was no time to dwell on the tumble. The pitter-patter of chitinous limbs exploring the hull of the ship kept him grounded in reality. Ignoring quite where it placed Taheera he used the strength of his artificial arm to prop her back up so she was sitting upright. His view of the world still seemed to spin slightly back and forth.

"Pilot and noise," he murmured. "And guns. All of the guns."

They had come with supplies for a resistance movement. It seemed they were going to end up used for big game hunting. Or more like survival.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Trextan Voidstalker"]

"Sorry," she mumbled, feeling a heat rise to her tattooed-cheeks. Knee pushed off his thigh and she stood, hands straightening her clothing. A palm pushed tousled strand of chestnut hair away from her brow.

Soft-booted feet creeped within the wrecked ship as she found a box of rifles, shouldering a few straps on. Eyes searched for Riggs. It was good. She was too scared to look at Trex's face right now. In fact, she'd almost rather face that acklay.

Hearing a moan outside, head cautiously poked outside where the pilot's seat had been. There he was. Strapped in and wedged in the fork of limbs on a marsh tree.

"Found Riggs," she whispered and without waiting, jumped from the ship's threshold to one of the higher limbs of a tree, bag, guns, and all.

 

[Trextan Voidstalker]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"S'okay," Trextan mumbled as she got off. He was distinctly looking at other places as the stood and smoothed out her clothes.

He groaned as he rolled onto his front and then pushed himself back to his feet. Rather than a rifle he collected a compact scatterblaster from one of the boxes of gear before holstering his handcannon.

"Hang on!" He called, but she was gone, the ship shifting slightly at her leap.

Ping ping ping

Trextan decided to stay with his feet on the deck and started to load a powerpack into the scatterblaster.

"Is he alright?" He whispered harshly.