Judd
5 hours earlier...
Being that Rayia had yet to master the art of piloting, she still often relied on private transport to ferry her between worlds. While most people would find the prospect of walking down to the spaceport, pursuing the potential pilots who might be willing to carry on a passenger (or sometimes simply hitching a ride as a stowaway if the flight was short enough), and negotiating her fare tedious, Rayia rather enjoyed it. She had seen all manner of marvels that she suspected no one on Weik had, and had interacted with more people than she could count. Plus, being from a world where trade skills and bartering managed most of the mercantile system, she was more familiar with this aspect of nomadic life than one might expect. The only stipulation she imposed was that if the journey was particularly long the pilot occasionally factored in breaks in real space. Rayia got... sick on long hyper-lane journeys after all.
"How long you think you'll need?" A stocky Devaronian male called back over his shoulder as he continued staring at the vast expanse of twinkling lights stretching out into the blackness. He ran a finger along the edge of one horn as he clarified.
"Heard rumors a band of pirates had taken to raiding ships throughout this region. We probably shouldn't hover around too long."
"Give me th-thirty minutes." Rayia replied, teeth chattering as she shivered on the floor. Sunk to her knees, Rayia was curled up in a ball on the floor as her vision swam in and out of focus. She could feel the beast stirring within, and grit her teeth, enduring the waves of adrenaline spiked nausea as best she could. Her shoulder blades and spine flexed as they appeared to drift and snap back beneath her skin, suggesting the presence of more bone and muscle mass than her body could possibly anatomically hold before reverting to normal. Rayia never got those thirty minutes. Pirates showed up to raid their vessel too, blasting away until the transport's small shield reserves ran out.
Still shivering on the floor, Rayia heard the metallic clunk of a boarding tube engaging and the pneumatic hiss as it sealed the open breach. She heard the whine of a blaster bolt and the splurch of a body falling to the ground. She could only assume it was the Devaronian pilot who had gone to defend the ship. Her head was still swimming when the pirates stepped in through the door. They stopped in surprise when they saw her.
"What do we do with her?" Rayia heard one of them asking, kicking at her prone form on the deckplates.
"Boss said we can do whatever we like," said the other moving to grab her.
As his firm hand wrapped around her arm, Rayia's eyes narrowed into slits and her back stiffened. Then Rayia's mind sank into a pool of soothing blackness...
But the beast knew what had happened. The monstrous feline's forepaw was torn from the man's grip as Rayia shifted in front of him. Bones cracked, snapped and reshaped themselves until the pirate was left standing next to a monstrous great cat taller than him at the shoulder. A pelt of metallic spikes reminiscent of tawny and white fur grew and covered the feline's body. Wicked claws extended from the beast's paws, carving and cracking the deck plates like rice paper as within a heartbeat the beast had turned and brought down its paw on the pirate who had grabbed it, splattering his guts across the wall. His companion had leapt onto her, stabbing her in the shoulder with his vibro-blade. The beast roared as she shook him off, bludgeoning him against the wall as she slammed him into it.
"Hey, what's going on over here?" The rest of the boarding party called out as they rounded the corner to find their companions dead and a predator soaked in their blood.
Blaster bolts grazed the beast, setting small, hot, burning welts cooling across her fur. The beast ignored them. They were like mosquitoes to her rage and adrenaline addled mind. Painful, but ultimately ineffective. The monstrous feline exploded into a pounce, sinking its fangs into one pirate's neck and swatting another into a crumpled heap near the equally dented wall. Those who had fled tried to shield themselves behind an airlock, but the beast's claws left jagged rents in the pristine metal as she started to cut her way through. One pirate was dragged screaming and clawing at his vibroblade sheath through to the other side of the door as the beast's paw managed to snag his greave. Grunts of effort abrubtly altered into wet gurgles in the seconds that passed. It did however buy the pirates enough time to bring forth two z-6 rotary blaster cannons that they sprayed the beast down with from the cover that the joint in the ship's passages provided. They were relatively secure, while Rayia took the full force of those shots in the open hallway. The potency of these burns is what ultimately caused Rayia to pass out, reverting back to her humanoid form in front of them.
Present...
Rayia's first sign of movement was the slight fluttering of her eyelids. As she opened her eyes, a myriad of golden pinpricks hovered in her vision as the light swung back and forth above her. It was almost painful and she would have shirked away from it, were it not for the restraints that made themselves apparent. There was the slight clack as the metal cuffs and leather straps held fast. A tingling sensation slowly spreading through her shoulder caused her to relax. It alleviated, blanketed and soothed the soreness and pain that she was feeling.
The relief also protected Rayia from the sensory overload that the funk permeating this place would have caused. This combination of strong, pungent smells would normally have set her nose burning. But she was simply too tired to care. She felt more than saw the presence at her shoulder, slowly dabbing at her wound.
"W-who?" She croaked, tasting the acrid and metallic tang of humanoid blood within her mouth as she spoke. It clawed at her throat, and her tongue felt thick and unwieldy in her mouth. She was desperately thirsty.
