Private Wildly Toxic Surroundings

[In Rhan]

Even having passed through hive-rooms, chambers that felt like pulmonary tumors, and over bridges where she couldn't be sure if she was looking at meat or steel, In thought the other side of that door felt PROFOUNDLY horrible. A bad idea completely. Much to dangerous to get near. As Niysha approached, a wildly yellow streak surged in In and she reached out to put a hand on Niysha's shoulder. To stop her. It was too dangerous to go in there, so it was MUCH too dangerous to go alone. There was no way In could let her do it, and if she couldn't stop her, there was no reason they had to die alone separately.

But Niysha didn't feel concerned. She looked anxious, but assured. In had to remind herself that this whole operation was to get Niysha here, where she presumably knew how to handle the problem. Instead of pulling back or following, she clapped Niysha briefly on the shoulder. "Good luck." The ragged trucker wished. "I'll make sure the door stays closed."

The club didn't remain set aside for long. In hefted it in her free hand and turned to face the way they'd come. Most of the mechanical horrors had not been felled, but simply knocked aside or pushed into adjoining halls. While there were less to deal with than before, there weren't none - and given the choice between facing them and hiding on the other side of the laboratory doors with the darkness Niysha was handling, In picked the zombies.

A moment to breathe. Rest. But don't stop moving. In met the stragglers halfway, bringing the club down atop the crown of the one in front with a furious yell - bending both skull and club, breaking spine. One more down, keep moving. She'd hold the line as long as she had to, for as long as she could. For Niysha, those three kids, and the saddest damn diner on the Rim.

 

[Niysha]

The relic was held in the exact center of the room. It wasn't clear if that was where the scientists who'd brought it here had put it, but it was certainly where it was now. Considering what happened to the space outside, it wouldn't have been surprising to learn that this lab had been altered, too, but given its otherwise pristine and unaltered appearance, maybe it had simply belonged in the center of its final resting place. Regardless of how it got there, it only touched the counter beneath it by way of the forceps holding it aloft above an examination monitor. The air around it was perfectly still, and likely would've been devoid of anything resembling a Force signature if it had not been consumed by the putrid, festering mass that it contained.

Niysha didn't flinch away. Instead, she approached this artifact the same way she did most others: casually, as one would pick up an interesting book or appreciate a particularly fascinating vase. The entity that had previously been inside didn't seem to be... measurably sapient any more. Whatever had been left of its power had drained almost completely, leeching out into Medi-Creen Station at an impressive rate. All that was left of its will or desires was a roiling point of raw energy. She could sense something in there that had motivation, but there wasn't enough left to form higher ideas. Talking to it would be pointless, a waste of time and energy.

It still felt right to say a few words.

"Your road has been long," she began as she approached, filling an empty and hauntingly silent room with the sole sound of her voice. "Longer than it should have been, and then longer than you wanted. You've been alone for so long that entire species, entire civilizations have been forgotten." Her fingers traced an unrelated counter, nowhere near the relic. "That road is ending now. I will mark your passing."

The mass roiled. It had been aware of Niysha's presence, now it was focused on her approach. Space around the relic began to distort, an etheric parralax that looked to Niysha's sight like ripples in water, or heat rising off burning concrete. It couldn't do anything to her physically, but that wasn't exactly surprising; it didn't exist in any physical form any more, and a spiritual enemy was often far more dangerous.

This one, however, was not dangerous. It was weak. Spent. Niysha could feel it, now that she was closer. The mobile cloud of darkness that she'd noticed at the first door, passing like the shadow of an immense fish over the top of a pond... that was this spirit, too. It was too spread out now. Too thin. Had it been searching for a host? Even if it found one, in this state, it wouldn't be able to do anything with that information. Searching for a new place to hide? Nothing on the station had the supernatural fortitude of the relic that it was housed in. Why would it even leave?

It took until then for Niysha's senses to swim deep enough into the cloud to notice the tiny crack.

 

[In Rhan]

The pace had slowed. In almost wished it hadn't, because the longer she spent not trying to kill and live was more time she had to reason things out. She wasn't a berserker or anything, just doing what she had to to survive. Survival currently demanded every drop of strength she could wring from her tired limbs, but even that was slowing. She was lathered, winded. Deep breaths felt insufficient, her legs wobbled through a combination of fatigue and her damaged inner ear. The air was still muggy, hot, ripe with sickly mechanical 'life'.

The remaining creatures were far down the hall. A few minutes ago, In would have run at them - but now she wasn't even sure they saw her. A strategic withdraw was in order. The Pantoran woman staggered back towards the laboratory door, set her bent club down, and sank her behind down on a small bench nearby to rest. Gasping breaths, head hung, drenched in sweat. Arms on legs, filth on skin, bruises to the bone. She wanted a shower and a couple of days to sleep. She wanted to go home. She wanted a sports drink and a painkiller. Mostly, she wanted Niysha to succeed so nobody would have to do this again. And then maybe they could leave and never come back. That'd be good, too.

One of the horrors had spotted her from a ways down the hallway and began staggering closer, half-tripping on the fallen and broken bodies of the zombies she'd managed to put down or break until they were no threat. The distance was sufficient enough that In simply waited, glaring at the shambling monster as it drew slowly closer. Probably a couple of minutes until it got close enough to matter.

Once it did, In knew she couldn't go on any further. Nevertheless, she wiped blood and grease from her lips with the back of a weathered leather glove, forced herself to stand up - legs shaking like a newborn deer - and found the strength to stave in one more skull.

 

[Niysha]

The crack in the relic's structure was very, very small. Small enough that it took Niysha seconds of active focus to really take it in in its entirety. The rapidly dissolving energy entity that was once a spirit wasn't leaking out with the same physics as water pressure, but the analogy wouldn't have been completely inaccurate. All things yearned for a place. Physical things fit into containers, or rested where gravity and momentum led them. Spiritual things, likewise, looked for a position of lowest entropy. After hundreds, perhaps thousands of years? This spiritual thing had long since settled into its home. When that home was first disturbed, then broken, it had changed to fit its new surroundings.

If Niysha did nothing, simply left, this entire station would slowly become a single messy, inefficient, decidedly grotesque techno-flesh hell. The creatures would amble until they found a place to rest, then likely slump down and stay that way until acted upon. What was left of this ancient Sith ghost was already on well on its way to that point, and it wouldn't even last as long as the monsters it had created. That would've been sufficient - a deep-space tomb over a toxic world that no one would think about for decades, maybe centuries - if not for the people still on the station.

So she focused. Her body approached the warped disturbance in the middle of the room on autopilot while she worked to understand not the essence - that, she'd already gleaned - but the structure of the energy gathered there. Most of it was spreading out over the station... but here, in this room, it had a center. Whirling, spiraling darkness and the half-present need to continue. That whirl itself would have a center. Deeper. A bit deeper. The world melted away.

There.

There were no memories, thoughts, desires, principles, or regrets here. Thoroughly submersed in the Force, on currents of what had once been someone's soul, Niysha journeyed deeper. The despair was icy cold, the bitter hatred burning hot. Every savage, guttural need was sharp enough that it threatened to cut her to the bone. But all of that gathered around a single point. And in that single point was a speck of darkness not quite so deep and intense as the rest. Not quite so vicious or resilient. The darkness of a mortal man who had wanted more than he had, burdened with the act of taking, was not so great as the looming, hungry shadow that wanted to consume the hundred-odd people around her.

That kind of darkness was as strong as any spirit was, when you got deep enough into it: terribly fragile. Soft and comfortable, but feeble and in need of protection. Wrapped in layer upon layer of deeper and deeper darkness, the person this had once been was at the very core, and no more difficult to destroy than any living being. Niysha had but to will it and-

As if a bubble popped, the energy immediately and violently burst forward. The shockwave was silent to the ears, but loud enough to make a soul shudder in its fleshy prison. Niysha flew back onto the ground, bracing herself to stand a few moments later. The aura was gone. The room was full of a thick, dark haze... but now, within, Niysha was well and truly alone.

 

[In Rhan]

The racket had drawn friends. Only a couple more. In was bone-tired and sore, in need of stitches. She couldn't go on. Three more would be enough to finish ripping her apart. She managed to bring the club down hard enough to finish off the one she had pressed against the wall, took a ragged breath, and pivoted to guard herself from hooked, barbed metal teeth. The belt holding her shield to her arm had long since rubbed the flesh raw. The locker door was dented and rent, barely useful. It'd have to do.

Something moved in a way In did not fully understand. A tide that gripped something intangible in her core, lifted and dropped it as the wave passed. The ripples of it filled her with a heart-stopping misery, but they stole the life from the mechanical horrors entirely. Robbed of motion, they ceased where they stood; crumpling to the ground, or remaining as grisly statues. The one that'd been trying to eat In maintained a death-grip on her shield. She loosed the straps and let him keep it, not having the energy to even push the corpse over.

Niysha had done it. At least, In assumed so. It was the only sensible explanation. And, a bit like popping your ears to get rid of a ring, In reckoned she couldn't quite feel the heartbeat of the station groaning through her boots anymore. Maybe it was over. Maybe it was dead. Hopefully Niysha wasn't. In the unhappy scenario that it wasn't dead and Niysha was... there was probably nothing In could do. Maybe throw the thing out of an airlock if it didn't kill her first. If she could find it.

The Pantoran staggered over to the laboratory door and yanked it open, standing silhouetted by the flickering lights and carnage behind her - nearly a dozen metal corpses in various states of disrepair. She called out in a raspy voice. "..Frizz?"

 

[Niysha]

Not completely alone.

Niysha was laying flat on the ground when In opened the door, and lifted one arm from her position in a triumphant thumbs up. A few seconds later, she let it fall back to the floor. The darkness in the air was extremely thick, which on its own made it extremely difficult to see, but In Rhan was a white-hot sparking road flare of an aura. The word of the day: "thrumming." She was power in its purest and most natural form, devoid of intent or technique or even awareness.

In ages past, in Niysha's childhood, people like In were corralled, controlled, and forged. The hammer of Sith authority would come down no matter what, and if you weren't strong enough, you would snap and be cast aside like numberless others. This far out in the fringes, there was no such expectation, no such authority to dominate a vulnerable young life. In was completely untempered, raw and pure in a way that Niysha so rarely got to see. Truth be told, she was extremely appealing to look at.

So Niysha decided she would not be ruining that by trying to indoctrinate her.

Eventually she managed to speak, still laying down. Her voice was less steady, more gravely, but still soft and gentle. "I'm glad you made it through. Thanks for not being dead." The lowest possible bar, honestly.

 

[In Rhan]

In answered the statement with a raspy and bone-weary chuckle, taking a few steps into the cool laboratory. It wasn't nearly as worryingly awful as it'd been earlier - that intrinsic, horrid sense of malice and wrong-ness, the intensity of which she was even now already starting to question. While she'd entered intending to help Niysha up, that felt like more effort than she wanted to do. In took a knee, then a hand, then a shoulder - laying on her back near Niysha, their heads beside each other and their feet in opposite directions. Cold metal felt fantastic on tired muscles and cuts. Quiet station felt fantastic on her battered mind.

"Glad to live." In promised, closing her eyes. "Glad you did, too. Good job." This proximity was nice - it meant she didn't have to speak very loud, and ruin all this nice quiet.

Quiet. Dark. Still. A vague sense of where things were, based on a glimpse and an educated guess. Knowing where somebody was by their breathing and the smell of their hair product. Being too weary to be anxious, too accomplished to move. Was this how Niysha experienced the world right now? Was it how she lived? Aside from, presumably, the weary part. There was nothing to say, just a quiet satisfaction that the task was done and gratitude that they'd both made it through. An appreciation for Niysha's presence at the end of it. It felt intimate in a way that made her a little ashamed, both because that felt selfish and because she didn't have the prowess to articulate the idea better.

In's comm lit up a moment before a shrill notification noise chased away the blessed silence and stillness with all the grace of a clown cartwheeling through a funeral. Lifting her hand to quiet the devilish little thing felt like a herculean task, but In did it. A small bark in Huttese rattled through, garbled by the poor reception and the hokum fouling up the air. In chuckled. "...Ship's offloaded and fueled. We can leave whenever." She promised Niysha. "You know. Whenever."

 

[Niysha]

While Niysha nodded in understanding immediately, it took her several seconds to actually force herself to sit up. Her body was at the mercy of endorphins and fatigue the same as In's was, though she'd been trained (briefly, incompletely) in how to conquer them. For now, she ached in all of the places she expected, and for just about the reasons she expected. Sitting up was hard, but not impossible. Surprisingly, her back was one of the more tender parts, but considering all of the running and crawling and swinging she'd done, that wasn't unexpected either.

"The relic isn't dangerous any more. The thing inside it is gone, so it doesn't have much power left." The Miraluka managed to push herself to her butt, then her knees, then to her feet. "Obviously leaving it with Medi-Creen scientists wouldn't be a great idea. We should move it." Normally she tried her hardest to physically turn and face people when she spoke to them, but she was too exhausted to really make note of that sort of thing.

The room was still thick and dark. It would likely be like that for a while. Considering the very visibly obvious danger of the area, she wasn't greatly concerned that anyone would try to shack up in the midst of the infestation. The... infection? Honestly, seeing the work of (what was left of) a being that had once had mastery of mechu-deru, but no actual sapience or control over it made Niysha deeply consider if the technique was measurably dissimilar from more mainstream disease-based Force techniques.

She hadn't pursued those before. She might need to, to understand what had happened here.

Stood properly, Niysha made her weary way over to the object, unzipped her bag, and produced a small container. It was carrying a small metallic cube with what looked to be glass faces, but she shortly removed that cube, put it back in her bag, and placed what was left of the relic there instead. The glass was powdered kyber mixed into a fractal lattice. Effectively a heat sink for Force activity. When the relic passed into it and the top was closed, its presence dimmed significantly. The darkness in the room diminished, though it didn't dissipate.

Niysha turned her attention to In once more, then walked back to help her off the ground. "We need to head back and get your payment. I think I agreed that you'd get the whole load of artifacts if you helped me." She nodded her head towards the door. "They're back in my room at the hab block motel."

 

[In Rhan]

Sit up time. In forced herself to sit, curled her legs underneath herself, and struggled upright despite a litany of complaints from her joints and head. Despite all the metal monsters she'd had to bludgeon and wrestle with today, she reckoned the exploding water canisters had done the most actual harm to her - and those had been her own damn fault. Why did she think that shooting pressurized containers was a good idea? It sucked for her every time she did it, and this was probably the third time. She'd nearly died,

"We can talk payment once we're back in the black and cleaned up." In promised wearily, tugging her wrap off. Her hair tumbled free, the humidity and sweat doing it no favors. "Stitches. Eat something. Sleep forever." The Pantoran added after a couple of steps.

The payment was tertiary at the moment. Sure, she needed money - but if Niysha came up penniless after all this, In wasn't about to turn her away. They'd nearly bought the farm together, they'd saved the station, and that itself was worth a free ride and then some. With a stiff walk that managed to convey a hurry despite being nearly geriatric in pace, In walked with her new associate off to anywhere else but here, as quickly as they could both manage.

 

[Niysha]

Niysha nodded and helped In to the door as best she could with her already-feeble-and-now-beleaguered body, but kept her mind as sharp as she could. It was clear that there was nothing within a hundred meters that was still moving, but one didn't survive long on the fringe without keeping one's head on a swivel. Her tone stayed steady, and the rasp was gone from her throat. "Sleep would do us both good. Once we're clear of the corruption, I'll get my things and meet you at your ship."

And she'd say goodbye to Andros. Leave him with her holonet address. They both knew that he wasn't likely to talk to her at all, but they also both knew that that wouldn't stop her.

The darkness of the half-broken, utterly inert object inside her bag was present, but not oppressive. It likely wouldn't even be noticeable to most people. Still, she'd need to find a place to put it that was out of sight, out of the way. Anything that could create nanogenes was going to be dangerous on a working, breathing ship... but it was shocking just how effective "wrap it in a blanket" had been when Adekos had had her policing a few of his trinkets.

"Don't worry," she encouraged with a gentle smile. "I can find my way there."