Prey

[Micah Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"] [member="Vexen"]

The thick, ominous clouds did not slip past the Talith. They were on an unknown planet with an unfamiliar solar cycle. At present time, there only appeared to be one sun and about five moons. One larger than the other, with a ring of debris orbiting around it. It wasn't until they reached the top of the ravine that the true extent of this desert world blasted them with the arid heat of three distant suns.

"Feth," Micah cursed under his breath, grit and a fine layer of dust covering his face. It was horribly bright, and if this was too much for him, it would be worse for Vexen. Even with her eyes closed, there was no way that she'd be able to navigate across this terrain. He would have to fix that.

A grip and flex of his fingers would manipulate the force, telekinetic-ally latching onto a thick slab of debris nearby. It shuddered, then metal groaned, sand drifting as Micah lifted it with another focused jerk. He swung it up, high and over to block off a bit of the sun, using the slab as a makeshift umbrella.

"Well this makes it a bit more difficult..."

 

[Vexen]

Vexen's eyes were watering. Micah was using the Force to hold up a piece of debris to keep the area around her. Yet even shading her eyes with her deformed paw she could barely look back down towards the main wreckage of the ship.

“I'm sorry,” she said quietly. “I can't look down there.” The whole point of their little exploration trip was to get up to the top of the ravine and pick the best route out for the whole party to take the transceiver.

She shook some of the dust out of her coat. She loathed grit getting right into her coat. Then she silently chastised herself. Once she had been a tough and wiry little thing, even if she did spend too much time running stolen brushes through her fur. Now she was concerning herself with a bit of dirt when all their lives were at stake.

“Can you see a path back down?” she asked, closing her eyes. Anything much above starlight was too much for her sensitive eyes. Even through the goggles the terrain was too bright for her to look at directly.

 

[Kaili Talith]

“Kaili?!” Two very worried voices called for the young girl. “Are you okay?!”

“I’m fine!” Kaili perked her head up from the hidden compartment. “Got any idea why there is an empty smuggler’s compartment here?”

Never mind the fact that it was there in the first place. The question of utmost importance was why it was empty. Was there more to the run than kids learning how to handle life on a ship for a bit? Maybe Kaili had taken a heavier hit in the head than she could remember, but for a moment she had no idea why they had gone on the trip. It wasn’t as bad as the last time she hit her head in a crash, but amnesia was never one of those things that had the afflicted in a state of wonder and awe. Annoyance and bewilderment more like.

“Can someone hand me a hydrospanner?” Kaili raised her hand for the toolbox and telekinetically tugged it in her direction without really putting much consideration for what the others had to say. “Thank you!”

“Kaili!” Maila yelled most angrily. “What are you doing?”

“Adventure.” Kaili shouted back as she got to loosening the already loose panel. “There.” She shouted once as she tossed the hydrospanner over her shoulder back in the general direction of her friends. “I’m going in.”
“What?”

“Kaili, come on.”

The other two separated from the comm unit to go check on the youngest Talith who was nowhere to be seen within the compartment anymore.

“What the-”

“Kaili come back!”

“In a bit, there are some loose cables he-”

No, these weren’t loose cables. Or ripped cables. These were bit cables.

Was something on the ship with them?

“Oh no.”

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"]

"It's fine Vex." He told her, assuring her of it. The slab would shield them from the sun, but she was right. They had to go back down. With this bright sun, it would be hard for the Defel to use her sight. He'll have to see what he could do with what they could find back on the ship.

"Come on. Climb up on my back." he would suggest to her. "Tuck in your face by my neck. I'll get us back down." He could handle it just find going back to the wreckage. Get a full idea of who was left and what they had to help them get out of this place.

They needed to get communication out there for rescue.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Kaili Talith"]

Vexen made a small throaty noise of disapproval. As much as there wasn't much of, or any, issues regarding personal space between the two she didn't really like the idea how having to be carried back down the slope.

Still she obliged, placing one leg on his hip to climb up. She couldn't prevent the small contented sigh as she pressed herself into his neck. Since this episode had begun she had tried to stay strong when all she wanted to do was cling to Micah until it was all better.

She felt him moving fast as they went back down the slope towards the ship and she tried not to dig into him too tightly with her claws. Even with her eyes screwed shut she sensed a change in the light.

She opened her eyes to see the dark tendrils ahead of the main body of clouds start to blot out the suns. Vexen tapped on his shoulder until he stopped and she could clamber down. As they reached the ship her hackles were raised as she sensed something amiss. Her nose twitched as she smelt something new.

"Micah," she said quietly. She raised one paw to point out the trail of glittering blue strands that ran along one wall. The same as they had seen in the cave.

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"] [member="Vexen"]

The treble in the Defel's voice brought the Talith to a pause. Those orange eyes would narrow, his face scrunching up in contemplation. A serious set of his brows, and he stood momentarily immersing himself in the Force. With a slow motion, he would help Vex down to the ground, all the while his expression becoming more and more stoic.

Two more seconds and then he snapped his head from the spun silvery lines of silk into the wreckage. His body would immediately shift into a predator's stance, slowly starting to move forward, every muscle rippling under his clothing as if in hyper awareness.

No words were spoken between Vexen and he. Instead, their curious bond would relay a singular message.

Keep an eye out, there is something out there... and it isn't the rest of the survivors.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

[member="Micah Talith"]

When it was required, Vexen could move without making a sound. Her courage through this whole situation had been driven by an instinct to survive. That same instinct was screaming at her not to follow the blue thread.

She fell into step behind Micah. Whilst she stayed close she had the foresight to leave enough room for him to swing a weapon if he needed it. She was completely unarmed. She was just a child and there wasn’t much point when Micah was nearby, but now she sorely regretted not finding something to carry. Something solid to hold would have made her feel better.

There was a noise. Something made a series of tiny clicking noises. Micah carried on forwards, carefully placing each foot ahead of the last. Heel-toe to make as little sound as possible. Vexen padded in his wake.

Something moved ahead of them. She saw a shadow of something. It was all long slender limbs. Lots of limbs. Micah started to move more purposefully.

There was a blue flash, and a popping noise like Vexen had heard before. As they rounded the corner the found a blue swirling vortex at the centre of a spiral web.

“Did…did something just go in that?” Vexen asked faintly. The vortex faded to a faint orb that glowed in the centre of the strands. Vexen felt something shifting beyond her physical senses, but would not be able to accurately describe it.

 

[Kaili Talith]

The girl looked at the torn cables again. She extended her hand to investigate. It wasn’t a big bite, the cables torn could just as easily have been from the stress of the ship crashing. That was the theory she was willing to go with, she was already dealing with enough trouble as it was. Dealing with another problem was not going to do her sanity any favors. The same sanity that was already slowly breaking apart, crumbling almost as the weight of death kept on dealing one crushing punch after another and while the ripped cables weren’t necessarily a defeat in itself there was a certain undeniably thick mist in the air. The kind of mist that had you choking up for air despite the air being about as thin as ever.

“What was that?” Kaili could hear Maila exclaim in what sounded like fear. “No! Don’t go over there, you don’t know what it is.”

“Only one way to find out.” The boy responded sounding just as cocky as Kaili had known him for being before the crash. “Stay there.”

“No.”

The sound of heavy footsteps echoed from the distance, back from the comm room, but that wasn’t all. Something clicked against the metal panels above Kaili accompanied by an excited sound of even more clicking, like tendrils of teeth repeatedly clacking against each other. A predator was on-board, there was no doubt about that. The young girl gasped and for a second the clicking noises stopped.

It had heard her, it knew she was around. The creature listened for the girl to make another noise, but in her panic she had already covered her mouth with both hands, fallen on her back and stared up through the tiny cracks in the panel.

Was that a spider? It looked like a huge spider.

“Oh no. No! No no no!” The worried screams of Maila caused the spider to run off towards the comm room and suddenly the investigation had turned into a race. Kaili wasted no time to get back on her feet to crawl her way back to the comm room.

“Stop it! Nooo!”

Kaili wanted to call out for the girl to shut up, to be quiet, but considering her opponent in this race it hardly felt like the best of choices. All that Kaili could do was pray that she got to Maila before these other things did.

[member="Vexen"] && [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"] [member="Kaili Talith"]

Micah's face was grim.

"Yeah.. it did." he said in a strained voice. That's when the screams came echoing from within the ship.

Kai.

Micah bolted. Really, there was no other word for it. When it came to those that the Talith cared for, he had little regard for his own safety and instead focused on others. Morp gun in hand, the teenager narrowed his focus and let himself open to the Force. Where was she?

Like a hunter tracking its prey, Micah went rushing over wreckage debris, honing in on that connection with his sister. Something was wrong. Very wrong, The screams grew louder. Maila.

The comm room!

 

[Vexen]

[member="Kaili Talith"] [member="Micah Talith"]

Vexen certainly wasn't planning on being left behind. Not with...whatever that was she'd caught a glimpse of. Leaning into the run she dashed after Micah, but his long loping strides quickly put some distance between them.

Darkness was usually the friend of the Defel, but now her eyes were darting between patches of shadows, her ears were perked up and swiveling back and forth. As she ran she took a long stride and leant down, shopping up a metal pipe without slowing. Better than nothing.

 

[Kaili Talith]

The race was still on and Kaili was not in the lead. She shuffled as quiet as she could beneath the panels of the ship. Leftover dust from what could have been two months without a good clean out lingered on the floor and for each step she took she could feel the grime and dirt swivel through the air in a careless pirouette. The situation was growing more and more tense. In the distance Kaili could hear Maila’s whimpers, the other kid had gone quiet and Kaili could only assume the worst again. It was another life that was on her shoulders and another weight to carry around.

She got closer to the comm room, but so had the predator. Kaili heard her friend, the whimpers had stopped but the sound of boots slowly touching metal ground. The creature had slowed down as well, the clicking of its mandibles echoed like a chord out of a nightmare. Kaili had to hurry. Her heart was beating like a war drum and with the last stretch ahead of her she gave up on all attempts at sneaking. She wanted to make noise, to be found before she got another of her friends killed.

It didn’t work. Kaili jumped out of the compartment. With her hand extended towards the blast door she shut it down tight and forced it to lock down and crush one insect-like creature between it. There was little time to waste. She turned toward Maila and...

She was met with agonizing screams. It was only for a moment, yet Kaili was still taken aback as the teeth of the monster sunk into her friend’s waist like a scissor through paper.

“NO!” Kaili ignited her saber. The monster shrieked in pain as the superheated plasma cut its way through it’s neck. Just as quick as it had arrived it was gone again.

Kaili rapidly turned her saber off and picked Maila up from the ground. Kneeling down by her friend’s side, cradling her in her lap and quickly running an inspection of her wounds. There were blood. In fact there was a lot of blood. There was a lot of blood and it was all Maila’s. The monster had ripped a hole straight through her waist, they were down to seconds and Kaili knew it.

“Come on, stay with me Maila.” Kaili panicked. “Stay with me, everything will be fine. We just need to hold out until Micah and Vexen is back.”

“Wh-why, K-Kai?” The injured girl’s eyes glossed as she coughed blood in Kaili’s face. “Wh-ere did you go?”

“I was- I don’t- Please, we just need to-” Kaili choked up as the tears began to stream down her cheeks. “You are all that is left. You are the only one hasn’t left me.”

“K-ai, I’m s-scare-” The girl coughed another round of blood before a shaky inhale was followed by a final exhale.

“Me too, Maila.” Kaili ran her hand through the girl’s hair. “I never should have stepped aboard this ship. I never should have taken that pilot’s seat. Everyone is dead, because of me. Everyone except you.”

There was no response, there was nothing. Not a single breath or movement. Kaili’s hand stopped dragging itself through the dead girl’s hair.

“Maila?” Kaili shook her friend. “Maila.”

The realisation kicked her in the head. In this moment Kaili was alone. She drew the body closer and planted her forehead on Maila’s temple. The blood from her friend had started to soak through the fabrics of Kaili’s clothes, the sticky crimsons that would cause her clothes to cling to her form.

“No.” Kaili whispered with hope of a miracle. “Maila, please no.”

But no miracle came her way. All that remained now was Kaili, a pool of blood, the friend that it all belonged to and the lonesome sobs of the girl who had doomed them all. Kaili withdrew herself from the dead girl. Her fingers traced along Maila’s face to shut her eyes post-mortem. Her friend deserved a rest with her dignity in tact, even when dead.

Kaili looked to the comm unit and then Maila. The blood-drenched teen took a seat on the floor at the opposite side from Maila. Her arms wrapped themselves around her legs and just this once it was all... Okay.

Everything was just okay.

She could just sit here.

And stare at the wall.

Forever.

An impassive look fell over Kaili. She wasn't really all there anymore. She didn't want to.

[member="Vexen"] && [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Kaili Talith"] [member="Vexen"]

"KAI!!???" Micah's voice would boom across the wreckage, the teenager moving with such swiftness akin to a Jeco. He was worried, one could feel it bleed through the Force. His heart kickstarted, his breath burned with every intake of air; air that began to have the distinct metallic tang of blood.

"KAILI?!!!" he shouted, skidding to a halt, as a more primal sense raced through his veins, narrowing down his youngest sister's location. With a leap, he manged to vault himself over a toppled bulkhead.

"Kai!" he gasped out, sliding in with the Defel at his heels into a scene straight out of his nightmares. There sat his sister, as still as the grave, soaked from head to toe in blood. His face blanched, the angles of his skin drawing taunt.

"Kai..." his voice was hoarse, and were it not for the face that he'd feel her death, one could believe her to be. Malia was to the right, her body half slumped, eyes closed in an endless slumber.

He fell down to his knees, bloody hands reaching forward to grasp at Kai's shoulders. He didn't pause, he simply drew her to him. He had to hold her. Micah simply had to bring her into his arms and make sure she was okay.

 

[Vexen]

Connected as she was to Micah, she was hit by a wave of emotional pain as he first saw his sister soaked in blood. Her eyebrows arched in a look of sorrow, similar to the look a dog would give her master. But Vexen knew she could not help here. Instead she found herself retreating from that connection, withdrawing back into herself. There was one thing she needed to do now: survive. It was something she had done against the odds for as long as she had walked.

She approached the remains of the beast. Her lips drew back and she snarled audibly. With the long metal pipe she prodded its body, then darted back when one of its legs twitched. It was something like an overgrown spider, yet it had sharp claws on its front limbs and an elongated head. Its jaws looked small, yet were clearly sharp and powerful enough to rend flesh with ease.

Vexen twisted about on the spot quickly. Kaili and Micah were absorbed in each other. Her ears turned back and forth as she listened out for any more of their kind. She couldn’t hear anything. Suddenly the journey to get the transceiver back to the top of the ravine became a daunting prospect. Yet she’d rather face them out in the open in the light than in the narrow, dark tunnels of the remains of their ship. Janis, Shanere and Kreedo suddenly appeared together, clearly having heard the screams.

Kreedo broke down this time. The Rodian boy dropping to his knees heavily and starting to shake at the horrific scene of gore.

“Get up,” Vexen growled quietly. “We don’t have time for this.”

 

[Kaili Talith]

She didn’t react. Micah’s arms wrapped themselves around her and all that she would do was to shake and shiver as if she was just barely holding herself together. Every muscle in Kaili’s body started to tense up yet she did nothing to fight it. There was no hug in return and she didn’t adjust the position in which she was seated to find more comfort. All that Kaili would allow herself was the inaudible sobs, the non-stop stream of tears. All was lost, every single person that she had known other than her brother was dead and it was all because of her ineptitude behind the controls.

Her stare remained adamant on the wall. The upset Rodian and the growling of Vexen passed right through her like voices in the void being overpowered by the sound of her own heartbeat and an unfamiliar ringing noise. She was starting shutting herself in, and for each second that passed by there was a tiny voice at the back of her mind goading her into straying further and further away from everyone else.

She had so many other things she should have been thinking of, yet all that she could think of was how because of her the last thing that so many of the people lost to day would ever hear was a young girl cracking a joke over an intercom.

“Promise not to hate me for what happens next.”

She should have spoken for herself.

[member="Vexen"] && [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"] @Kaili Talith

This was one of Micah's flaws. Tunnel vision took over when it dealt with those he loved and cared for. His hand would cafune her blond hair, fingers slick with blood that had splattered over her. She was fine. She was okay.

She was alive.

His face had turned to stone, his jaw tensing. Off in the distances of his senses, he could feel [member="Vexen"] draw back. Her emotions became more honed, and to a degree he could understand. He heard her low growl, the terseness in her words.

"Come on Kai," he would then murmur by his sister's ears, helping to pick her up. For now, he was okay with having her cry against his chest, his arms around her to soothe her.

"What is it Vex?" he asked, aware that she had gone to sniff at the creature.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Micah Talith"] [member="Kaili Talith"]

"This thing," she said, giving the creature a kick. Its legs again furled up and twitched, but this time she did not flinch. "It smells like that cave we saw," she explained, turning towards him.

"We need to get that transceiver moved now," Janis added firmly. His bottom lip trembled as he spoke, even as he tried to jut out his jaw and hold his head high.

Vexen wasn't looking at any of them. She was looking through a viewport. This thick dark clouds were drawing closer. Better for her, she decided, to be able to move under some cloud cover and be able to use her ears and eyes to try and keep them safe.

"He's right," she echoed quietly. "Need to keep away from caves and go quick as. Kaili, you'll be okay." She didn't have time to help reassure the girl, but Micah could do that. Right now they needed to act. Or they were all going to die here.

 

[Kaili Talith]

With that, Kaili clinged to Micah. His left arm became her pillar and he would find that the girl refused to let go of her tight grip. She refused to let go, he could moan and whine about the pain all he wanted, she would not. As of now, Kaili had effectively become a part of Micah’s arm like a benevolent little growth that followed him no matter where he went.

He was in charge now. He would lead them all outside. Him and Vexen.

Her feet shuffled around alongside his. Blank stare off in the distance still. She would rely on the force, on her gut to let her walk around this place for now. The last thing she wanted was her eyes open to the world that surrounded her.

[member="Vexen"] && [member="Micah Talith"]

 

[Micah Talith]

[member="Vexen"] [member="Kaili Talith"]
“Let’s go,” Micah agreed. They had to get that transceiver moved quickly. Kaili was now latched to his arm, but he wasn’t going to argue. He did, however, want to get a good look at that spider. He’ll just have to come back a bit later and check it out himself.

For the moment though, he needed to get everyone within an area of safety. And start building a defensive area to protect everyone else. Who knew how those things would move. How many there were. At the very least a lightsaber could slice through them, so they had that going for them.

The group would carefully move along, everyone keeping a wary eye out. Now they knew that not only did they have to worry about crash survivors, but also some sort of alien spider predator.

He tried to comfort Kai, but he had to keep on the alert. Once they grouped up with the others, he’ll have her sit down and try to rest. Maybe Vex could stay with her.

He needed to know what he had to do to protect everyone else.

 

[Vexen]

[member="Kaili Talith"]

[member="Micah Talith"]

The transceiver was where it had been left. Janis had welded it down to a curved piece hull. It was one of the inner layers made of relatively stiff but thin durasteel and it formed something of a sled. With the aid of the goggles Vexen could now look across the terrain without discomfort. That rolling mass of black clouds had blotted out a lot of the light. They must have been far thicker than cloud cover she was used to given how dark it was getting.

She darted up the side of the nearest outcrop of rocks to try and get a better view down the length of the ravine. “Looks like rain,” she called, seeing the tell-tale grey streaks across the sky. “Don’t know if that’s waterproof?” she called.

“Should be good in some light rain,” Janis replied.

Vexen kept a grip on a treebranch as she turned to look back up the ravine. Her eyes traced the path her and Micah had scouted out. This time she considered the locations of the cave entrances they had seen. She used her deformed claw to hold the branch, her other shoulder was still throbbing from the impact against the bulkhead as they’d crashed. She noted that her claws didn’t mark the bark at all. On closer inspection she found the outer layer of the tree was exceptionally resistant to scratching almost as if it was an outer shell.

The Defel climbed back down to the others. “Think there’s a few rooms can be locked if anyone wants t’stay,” she said, before looking to Micah. “I’m comin’ with you.”