Marsh Haunts

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

A force bubble went up as her body was slammed against the opposite wall on the bridge. Unlike Vex, she didn't have armor on. Maybe one day, she would. But she thought the stuff was bulky and weighed you down too much. She liked to be lighter on her feet.

But this was one of those times where armor would've been good. Great, even.

Even with the bubble, her body hit the wall pretty hard. She bit back a cry, swallowing down the pain. "Would yo believe we were taking a hike in the swamp?" She coughed, feeling a sudden pressure around her throat. It was getting harder to breath. Black spots threatened the edges of her vision.

"Nice try, little jedi," the sith, who was most likely a lord, called out.

Taheera gasped, eyes bulging slightly.

Frex.

"Ahhhh, so you do have some darkness in you," she Zabrak drew closer to Taheera. Myrtle-ellipses widened slightly as she felt a sudden, sharp pain in her head. The woman was digging around in her thoughts. She grimaced.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Vexen was pinned solidly. She tried to see how much movement she had. Her legs and arms were free, but a great weight was upon her chest. Even getting get feet to the wall she could barely push back against that force.

She tried to think of something clever she could do. Some trick to escape. Micah would have known what to do in this situation. Vexen took a deep, calming breath and tried to gather her strength.

"Leave her alone!" She called. Perhaps Taheera would fare better at breaking free of the Sith's focus was on the defel.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

The wraith's ploy seemed to work. But more so because the Sith was curious about what Vexen was. The Mirialan felt her throat open up a bit.

She gulped in some sweet oxygen. The pain along her head receded. Worried eyes snapped to Vexen's struggling shadowy form. She felt her body slip an inch down the wall. Then another. Feet touched the ground.

Whatever distraction Vex was providing was working. Gathering the force, she constructed a wall of energy and sent it hurtling at the Sith lord's back. Hopefully that would set them both free. She just needed the distraction behind the attack.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Nascin stumbled flrwards. A field shimmering about her as she snapped a barrier into existence to take the brunt of the blow. Vexen felt the telekentic hold breaking.

The scarred zabrak rounded on Taheera, pure anger etched into her features. She raised one hand toward the mirialan. And abruptly stopped.

That hand went to her neck and came away with a small dart. Vexen was still held against the wall, but her arms had been freed.

The Sith should have dropped unconscious in moments. Instead she growled in frustration, using the Force to try and disperse the toxin from her veins. But it was a distraction. An opening.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

The Mirialan was a trained healer. She was used to using the force to look at the body on microscopic levels, sensing damaged cell and nerve tissue. Even muscle and blood disorders. She saw the dart the same time Vexen fired it. And she felt the sith lord's power trying to disperse the toxins.

Maybe if she...

Eyes scrunched closed. Hands rose and the force swelled from her, searching for those toxins. As the sith lord tried to disperse them, Taheera tried to multiply and spread them. She also pushed her mind forward, trying to sense and find the receptor's in the sith's brain to knock her into a forced sleep.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Nascin sensed the intrusion and started to block it. It was far easier for her to manipulate her own body than for someone else to alter it. Still, it was another thing to focus on. Her right arm was raised towards Taheera again, fingers clawed open.

Yet before anything could happen it snapped down to her belt and yanked her saber free. Crackles filled the air as it swung up and blocked Vexen's stun baton as blue met scarlet. She gracefully twisted away and cut back in with the blade, forcing the wraith back.

Her left hand went for Taheera, bit again the sith had to turn her attention towards the persistent defel. The little canine creature was no match for her in a duel, but kept darting in and swinging high and low to force Nascin to keep working a tight defence.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

Eyes remained squeezed tightly shut. She was straddling the edge of danger and every time Nascin drew close, Vex was there. But her healer's mind continued to push forward into the Sith woman's body, threatening to overwhelm her system as she was distracted.

Just as quickly, Taheera could sense the woman's weaknesses. Old injuries never quite healed. Something in the ribs, an old break in the woman's saber arm. What she was about to do made her grimace and feel more than a little sick. A healer healed. She wasn't supposed to undo what had already been done.

Lips pressed down into a thin, hard line and she reached forward, putting pressure on weaknesses within Nascin's body. Nothing would break. She wasn't strong enough for that. But it would cause the woman pain and distract her for Vex.

The Mirialan pressed and pressed, trying to ignore the growing headache in her own skull.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Vexen felt the wave as it built. The sith's features contorted in pain as Taheera broke through her defences. Her saber work suddenly became sloppy. Vexen worked high and low and scored two hits to the same leg in quick succession. But Nascin wasn't finished yet. Old, familiar pains were almost friends to her. She fed off the pain and rage and used it to twist the Force to her will.

Vexen had little defence against this kind of raw power. The telekinetic wave knocked the air out of her lungs and threw her across the floor. The black shadow went tumbling down into an operations pit, followed by her clattering stun batons. There wasn't even a whelp this time.

Nascin turned on her heel, a grimace set on her face. She couldn't even form words, such was her anger. But the tip of her saber came up to point towards Taheera's throat. Just a few metres separated them and the Sith started to close them down.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

"No!" She cried, eyes snapping open as the Sith used the pain to her advantage. The healer's stomach rolled and she managed to raise her own lightsaber, golden blade springing to life connecting with crimson in a shower of sparks. A worried glance went to the unmoving shadow that was Vexen across the room.

Nascin grinned manically.

This wasn't Taheera's strong suit. And it was as though the Sith could read her mind. She began battering the healer in a series of sweeps and jabs with such quick succession, it made the Mirialan's limbs shake. Teeth grit and she tried to stay light on her feet. Heat singed her outer arm as a block wasn't fast enough.

Then another slice across one thigh.

The healer stumbled and it was clear the Sith was playing with her prey. Myrtle-ellipses widened suddenly remembering something. Nascin striked high to low as the healer unholstered her blaster and fired two stun rings at near point-blank range into the sith's chest.

A look of bewilderment and angry surprise crossed the sith's face as her whole body went numb.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Vexen's world was sound. Sound and pain. The high pitched whine was slowly starting to fade, but as it did the throbbing at the back of her skull grew. Metal consoles covered in banks of dead bulbs towered over her. Her paw tentatively patted the ground around her to find something to hold onto. Her sense of direction, and in particular her notion of which way was up, had been knocked out of her.

The other sound was the crackle and buzz of lightsabers clashing. Blades screeched as they skipped off each other. As Vexen tried to focus her view was filled by a myriad of colour sparks cascading down from above. The hot embers from lightsaber meeting metal caught her fur in several places.

Panic set in as she patted herself down. Her mind seemed to snap back into full awareness at the realisation that her fur was at stake. Taheera too, probably.

She climbed out of the pit, with none of the usual agility. She emerged just in time to see the zabrak look up at Taheera in disbelief, eyes wide open, before collapsing into a heap.

Vexen took a knee. She hadn't been too steady on her feet and wasn't about to risk tripping over herself when the sith was already down.

"Charges..." She managed to growl.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

The sith may have been down but there was one final, crazed act. She heard the click as the remote went off as Nascin curled her fingers around it. Just as Vexen growled. The warning in the force slammed into her senses. She was sure Vex felt it too.

"No," she yelped and with a surge of strength and speed, she was at Vex's side, cradling the Wraith like she weighed nothing at all. "Time!" She finished but was already sprinting from the room.

What was with suicidal sith?

Why even blow-up the ship?

Were there any other survivors?

Would they even make.......

So many questions a the first explosion rocked the bridge. She felt hot flames singe across her back even as she toted the wraith half tumbling and half being propelled down the stairs. A protection bubble flickered to life around them as she ran. Secondary explosions began to rock the air around them.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"Why did they even do this?" Vexen yelped incredulously, mirroring the mirialan's thoughts. She curled her paw up, her thumb rubbing the inside of the ring that Micah had forged for the members of the Covenant. The boost it provided wouldn't last long, but she drew deep on the Force and the last of her reserves. She managed to get her legs back under her. Imminent death had a habit of getting the adrenaline flowing too.

The ship was essentially a rapidly collapsing series of tunnels and defel's had an instinctive ability to map them out. Yet they had only moved through a fraction of a ship. Her sense of direction told her nothing of which routes might lead straight into a bulkhead. But she could feel the breeze.

The ship shuddered and gave a groan of tortured metal. It seemed all of a sudden like a living beast, speaking its final words, letting out its death groan.

"That way!" Vexen called. Just a hint, one she couldn't even consciously identify. Yet she knew it was the right way. Her nose had picked up the cool, damp swamp air.

The floor shifted as they ran, the swamp starting to swallow up the ship as it broke apart. Pipes fell from the ceiling as they ran, broken free by the buckling walls. Vexen had to skid to a halt as they reached an open. They were several stories up, the ship starting to roll backwards.

"Slide?"

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

"Don't...know," she heaved as Vex got free of her heap and managed on her own. She had a feeling her clothes would smell like wet dog for awhile. Definitely gonna need a bath. Her own limbs felt like jelly. She was relying wholly on the force, now.

Another explosion rocked behind them. Burned flesh pricked her nose but she'd have to take care of that, later. The Mirialan looked where Vexen pointed.

Slide?

Myrtle ellipses widened at the drop and the swampy ground below. Head nodded numbly. They didn't have time to deliberate. Scrambling up the edge, she stepped to the other side and promptly slid down, using the force to find trip the fall as much as possible. Body tumbled in the swampy muck below.

A loud OOMPH escaped her lips, mud and dirt pulling all over her hair, clothes, raw wounds, and face

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

Vexen struggled to use her paws to try and angle her descent down the hull of the ship. Whilst it might have seemed smooth from a distance, it was distinctly not against her rear end.

Hitting the edge of a docking port was the worst of it, but her landing in the swamp was almost blessed relief. She tucked into a roll, ensuring that her fur was almost entirely coated in a thick, dark mud. It wasn't the kind of watery stuff that washed off easily, more like clay. The shuttle didn't even have a sonic. Eugh.

"Run, run run!"

Another explosion and scream as the transport gave in. Chunks of durasteel hurtled away from the remains as it finished breaking apart.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

Vexen's warning broke through her semi-daze. Aching and protesting muscles complied, barely. Feet pushed off the muck as a piece of the ship's' hyperdrive broke apart and hit the ground in the space she just occupied.

The Mirialan yelped. And ran. And ran.

Black spots formed at the edge of her vision. Legs stumbled and continued to pump. She teetered. "Vex," she breathed. "I'm not going to...," voice trailed off as the black spots took over completely and exhaustion hit her like a collision with the millennium falcon.

Her form suddenly dipped sharply, going to face plant in the mud as she passed out.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"Oh crud."

Vexen had drawn on the ring to keep her going, but she didn't have the reserves to form a barrier over Taheera or form a barrier around her. So Vexen did all she could.

Lowering her centre of mass as she ran she dropped onto her limo form and covered her own head with her hands. It was a bit futile really. A chunk of hull would have pancaked them both together. Or worse, slowly driven them into the mud for a slow, agonising death.

Fortunately nothing did. Just a shockwave as several more explosions went off. Vexen rolled off and looked up, spotting a long winged shuttle heading up out of the planet's atmosphere.

With a sigh she pushed onto her knees and reached for Taheera's arm. Vexen wasn't large. She managed to get more of the Jedi's weight onto her back and start the slow trudge back to the ship.

When Taheera awoke she would find herself in a pull-down bed made of plastic mesh. There was a trail of black mud that led to the door and another to the cockpit where Vexen sat at the controls.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

Eyes moved beneath closed lids. A very pungent smell met her nose. The sith. The explosions. Vex!

Myrtle-ellipses snapped open as she heaved herself to a seated position in that mesh bed. Mouth opened as she gulped in air, eyes darting around as she drowned in disorientation and....shock. Hands slowly patted her mud-caked form.

"I'm not dead," she whispered. Took her a moment more to realize she was back on Vex's ship. And a moment further to realize that smell was her. Bruises and cuts and a few slowly healing burns littered her body beneath that thick layer of mud. Wincing, she swung her legs over the edge of the bed and wandered after the trail of mud to the cockpit.

"Hey," voice was weary as she made herself known to the wraith. "I really wish your ship had a sanisteam on board."

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"Hey," Vexen called without looking back. She gripped a heavy leaver and shoved it forwards with a clunk. There was a parp from the console. Vexen pulled it back and then pushed forwards. This time there was an affirmative beep as the autopilot locked in. There was none of Vexen's usual speed as she tentatively left her seat to lean against the wall opposite Taheera.

The mirialan would be able to see rain hammering the front viewscreen. They hadn't left the planet.

"Would have stayed there a bit longer, but computer said there were creatures approaching the ship. Probably marsh haunts. Might be the dark side drew them."

Vexen sighed. It was clear she was relying on the bulkhead quite heavily for support.

"We're twenty minutes out from Port Eldoon. They've got a hospital with a landin' pad big enough for us. Afraid the medical will come before the wash." Her paw idly flicked some drying clumps of mud from her fur.

 

[Taheera Sollo]

[member="Vexen"]

Marsh Haunts. She'd heard of them.

Myrtle-ellipses drifted instinctively to the viewport, as if she'd be able to see one through the rain and as they lifted from the planet's surface. "I feel like we failed," she spoke quietly, frustration edging her features. "We couldn't save anyone." She'd tried. Stars knew she tried. More people caught in the middle of the battle between force users. Just like [member="Elliot Locke"] said.

She'd failed.

And they still didn't know why any of these had happened. Was it the force crystals? She imagined it had to be something bigger. That sith wasn't a small player - not just an acolyte.

Head finally looked up. "Thanks for pulling me out. For what it's worth. I have some energy. Need me to look at any of your wounds?"

 

[Vexen]

[member="Taheera Sollo"]

"S'alrigh'," Vexen replied quietly. She wasn't very good at dealing with praise of any form. "I'd have been done in by the sith if you hadn't taken her down."

The defel fell silent for a few seconds, thinking on Taheera's review of their mission. Her lips thinned and her nose twitched.

"We were too late to do more than we did. Might be we stopped her from doing far worse the next time. Sometimes..."

The family had caught sight of her trying to take food from the next table. The female held out her arms to shield her children. The man had picked up a glass bottle and thrown it. Her shoulder had hurt for days where it had struck her.

"Sometimes things go bad and you just have to keep going forwards."