Private Slow West

[Belok Karr]

"Glen! Grab her and pull Lyla away from that console. Quick!"

The young man dropped the welding gear. A bright orange line in the seal still glowed. Not enough to light them up, but enough to give anyone shooting a frame of reference. He searched for her blind, gripped her arm tight and dragged her across the floor unceremoniously.

Tadgh was about to return fire. A stream from the repeater would give him away easily. He placed it down on a container and took a few steps to his right.

They were in the dark now. The troopers in the light. There was never panic when he was in a firefight. He raised his blaster pistol, an accurate and powerful weapon over short distances, and took aim.

A single blue bolt took the trooper out. Four quick steps to his left before the other filled the air where he had been with blaster bolts.

Tadgh next shot was on target too. He bolstered his blaster and ran to Lyla and Glen.

"How bad is it?"

A bright light flashed across the cargo bay. They were cutting through their own blast doors.

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Glen was struggling to drag the woman across the hangar bay, but eventually he reached the ship. "I... I don't know boss. I can't see anything. She's breathin' though."

Lyla was barely conscious by the time they'd made it on board, pressing her hand to the wound in an attempt to stem the bleeding. "N-not great." She stammered, grasping at Glen's arm in the darkness.

"Tadgh... we need to go.." She tried her best to raise her voice so that the mandalorian would hear her.

 

[Belok Karr]

"Dee..." went Tadgh. He slipped an arm beneath Lyla's knees and her shoulders. Even though she was tall he carried her easily up the ramp.

When the droid was hooked into the ship it was his eyes and ears. The ramp started closing as soon as they set foot on it.

Tadgh had left his light repeater behind. It had been one of his favourite guns. For a mandalorian, it was almost sacrilege to leave it behind. They needed to move.

"Glen, cannon."

He felt the ship lifting away from the hangar bay as he accelerated towards to medical bay.

"On your front," he grunted. Laying her on her side on the bed and rolling her over. He took his helmet and gloves off, leaving them on the counter.

"This is going to hurt," he apologised. He tore her shirt away from the wound and pressed down hard with some gauze.

 

[Lyla Emerson]

The ship was moving, Lyla could tell that much as Tadgh carried her to the medical bay. It was a small consolation, at least she'd done her job. As she was laid down on the bed, Lyla's attention snapped back to Tadgh. He looked worried, she realized.

Was it that bad?

She heard his warning, but she didn't quite process what he was talking about. Not until he pressed down on the wound with the gauze. Her back arched as she cried out in pain, reaching up to grab at Tadgh's arm. "Gnah!"

Now that they were in the light, she could see the blood that covered her hands as she held on to the mandalorian's armored arm. A pained whimper formed in her throat as she looked up at him, fear in her eyes.


Glen was also covered in blood after dragging the woman across the hangar, but there wasn't time for him to do anything about it. He raced down the cannon and strapped himself in, grabbing the controls. He expelled a shaky breath, slipping on his headset. "Cannon's hot!"

As the ship slipped from the darkened hangar, Dee expertly turned The Azimuth about and called out a brief warning over the intercom to prep for a jump. "Activating hyperdrive in three... two.. one."

The ship groaned as the stars all around them faded to elongated streaks and then the Azimuth leapt forward and vanished into hyperspace -- leaving the patrol ship behind.

 

[Belok Karr]

"You'll be fine," Tadgh said bluntly.

He thought the tone would sound reassuring. It probably didn't. Tadgh did gently touch her good shoulder before turning back to his cabinet.

"Where are we going after the shirt jump?" Dee asked.

"The coven," Tadgh replied towards the microphone on the wall.

"You've encrypted the location on my memory banks for the mandalorian coven you belong to."

"I'll come up and unlock it soon," Tadgh replied. He turned back to Lyla.

He wiped away the blood in a single swipe. The can in his other hand held bacta. Expensive stuff. He sprayed it over the wound in a fine, cold mist.

"I need to see how deep this went," he apologised, grabbing a pair of sterile tongs. "It'll...sting."

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Lyla nodded her head a few times, expelling a slow breath. Her heart was still racing and she was trying to calm herself down. Tadgh's brusque bedside manner wasn't exactly soothing, but his collected demeanor reassured her that it was going to be okay. She bit her bottom lip, dropping her head back against the bed.

"Can't really get much worse." She chuckled dryly, grimacing as the act aggravated the wound.

"It's okay.." She murmured a moment later, finally looking up at him. "Just do what you need to do."

 

[Belok Karr]

"Good news is, this isn't too deep," he told her after a fee moment of prodding. He used a clean cloth to wipe up a trickle of blood that had started down her back.

The wound was too wide to stitch up. He found kolto gel and smeared it inside the wound.

"Sorry," he said, sounding far more human than before. His tone was soft, almost gentle. "I've not got the most delicate hands."

The adrenaline never made his hands shake. They were steady no matter what. It was really an apology for getting on with the job quickly, rather than carefully. The wound was well wrapped, the bleeding mostly stemmed.

"I'm gonna give you some fluids," he explained. He searched through a cabinet for a clear bag of fluid and hung it next to her bed.

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Lyla swallowed hard as Tadgh moved off, trying to keep from making a sound. His tending to the wound had been painful, but thorough. She didn't want him to think she was complaining.

Her eyes drifted closed for a few moments, catching her breath now that Tadgh had stemmed the bleeding and sealed the wound as best he could. There would be a scar, but at least it would heal.

"No... you don't need to apologize. Thank you... really." She whispered, offering the mandalorian a faint smile.

 

[Belok Karr]

"The pain should get better over the next few minutes," he said. He didn't have fancy medical equipment. All basic, but reliable. A bag of fluids, plastic tube and a cannula.

"Hand please," he said. He wasn't delicate, but he was precise. The fluids would be a cold rush through her veins.

Tadgh stepped back and leaned against the counter. It had been a very long day. He looked down at his breastplate and peeled it from his armor's underlay.

"This was close," he said, arching one eyebrow. He ran his find ers over the scorchmark. No serious damage. Tadgh chewed on the inside of his cheek. As the layers of armor came away, so too did some of the shell he hid behind. It was easier to keep that barrier when you were behind the helmet.

"I'm going to take us somewhere safe," he said, looking up to Lyla. "But I need to get you some clothes. I've cut off your pants and now your shirt. Best try not to get shot again whilst I'm away, yeah?"

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Lyla let out a slow breath as the fluids washed through her system, the pain gradually ebbing away from the wound. The relief she felt was akin to euphoria, she couldn't help but laugh.

Turning her head to look over at him, Lyla managed a strained smile.

"You know... there are easier ways to get a woman to take her clothes off." Her words were teasing, meant only in good humor as she looked over at him.

There was a brief pause and she shook her head, chuckling once more. "You said you were going to take us somewhere safe... where is that?"

 

[Belok Karr]

"Less painful, though not as qui...Mmm that was about to sound really wrong," Tadgh said, grimacing. He was painfully out of practise at flirting. Now the helmet was off he was actually quite expressive. It might make one wonder how many expressions he pulled behind the visor.

"There are near constant wars over the homeworld of my people. We're also well spread out. We're going to a community of them so I can figure out what to do about this bounty. And we need to figure out if he has a transmitter on him before we come out of hyperspace again."

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Seeing the mandalorian's expressions as he spoke actually brought a smile to Lyla's face. He was so animated and full of life, but the helmet he always wore masked all of that from the world. It was a bit of a shame really, she thought.

Carefully, she pushed herself up into a seated position, grimacing a little in pain from the movement.

"A scanner should be able to pick up a transmitter if he has one on him." She said, looking over at Tadgh. "So... that'll be that problem fixed relatively easily."

"I'm going to assume you don't want me up and moving around just yet though... right?" She added sheepishly.

 

[Belok Karr]

Tadgh hoped it wasn't one of those difficult ones that got implanted in the hollow of the bones. At least, he hoped for the rodian's sake. The mandalorian would have no qualms about spacing a limb if it kept the coven safe.

"I think you should definitely be getting some rest," he said. Tadgh was leaning against the counter, showing no sign of immediately leaving.

"How do you feel in yourself right now?" he asked. "You've been dragged through a lot."

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Lyla held Tadgh's gaze for a moment, working her bottom lip between her teeth. The question he posed was a perfectly normal one, but the answer was difficult to conjure. So much had happened in such a short period of time that she hadn't been afforded the opportunity to process it all. Her gaze dropped and she glanced off to the side with a quiet sigh.

"Heh... sore. Tired. Anxious, if I'm being honest." She said quietly, clasping her hands together in her lap.

"But I'm also... relieved. We made it out of there, somehow." Her gaze flicked back up to meet Tadgh's, a crooked smile on her lips. "We make a half decent team, y'know."

 

[Belok Karr]

"It works quite well. I shoot people who get in our way and in return you get...shot by them."

Tadgh offered a lopsided smile. It probably wasn't worth joking about. She probably had a few deeply uncomfortable days of healing, even with the bacta.

"Look, we've got to lay low a little bit. When we figure this out and come out the other side you're welcome to join us on the next job?"

 

[Lyla Emerson]

She tucked a few stray curls behind her ear, smiling back at Tadgh after his quip. The woman gave a quiet laugh, shaking her head. "I'd like that."

Her legs swung down from the medical bed and she slid down to stand up. Perhaps getting onto her feet so quickly hadn't been the best idea, she realized entirely too late. She'd lost a lot of blood and the bacta could only do so much so quickly. Lyla swayed a little on her feet, reaching up with her good arm to press her hand to her brow.

"Mngh..." She sank back down onto the edge of the bed with a quiet sigh.

 

[Belok Karr]

"Alright now," went Tadgh, stepped across the space between them quickly.

He placed a hand on each shoulder and maneuvered her back down. He did not want to treat her like an infant, but he didn't want her tumbling off the bed and yanking the line out.

" Why don't I go and get some blankets and pillows and you can rest here a while?" he asked her.

 

[Lyla Emerson]

A sheepish smile touched her lips as he helped her back onto the bed, and she eventually conceded with a small nod. Moving around was more likely to result in further injury at this point and she didn't want to be more of burden on the mandalorian than she already was.

"Blankets and pillows sounds nice. We could make a little fort and camp out." She mused with a soft chuckle, closing her eyes as she relaxed back into the bed.

 

[Belok Karr]

"It would probably make the place seem more pleasant," he chuckled. It was hard to tell where he was looking when he was behind the visor. Not so now, when he let his gaze linger a little longer than necessary.

Tadgh wasn't gone long. His own room was not a blanket fort. The walls were bare metal, his desk a workshop for weapons. There was a string of broken pucks against the wall, one for every bounty.

Tadgh made a stop at the cargo bay, taking the rodian away from where he was chained to a small cell. If he was transmitting, the signal wouldn't get far through the durasteel. He continued on to the small cupboard where they kept a fairly limited amount of laundry.

"I don't think I have enough for the whole room," he announced when he returned. "But this should help you get comfortable and I can keep you company a little longer."

 

[Lyla Emerson]

Lyla grinned at Tadgh as he returned to the medbay with his arms full of blankets and pillows. There was just something so charming about a Mandalorian in his armor carrying around the makings of a pillow fort.

She sat up a little more on the bed, not trying to get up this time, though she did pat a spot next to her on the mattress.

"Come join me then, there's enough space for two. It's hardly a fort if it's just me, right?" She said with an inviting smile, scooting to the side to make more room for him.