Log:Array Consortium: Interlude - A Good Pain

Interlude - A Good Pain

Location: Nar Shaddaa
Participants: Mandl, Tamrae, Adhar Gann

After being severely injured by the strange creature on Planetoid Aurek-4227-Besh-1, Adhar returns to Nar Shaddaa where medical staff are waiting.

Mandl is perched on the ramp of the 'Diet,' peering inside at the easy and masterful work occurring there -- Tamrae's voice responds, though there are periodic electric-blue flashes and the air is thick with the smell of ozone. Repairs must be underway!

At the rear of the Diet, by the starboard thruster is a mobile repulsor stair that's been parked just under it. Currently on top of it is Tamrae and a selection of tools and parts, as she steadily rebuilds the damaged stabilizer . The port side, from the way that it looks good but is a different color from the rest of the hull seems to have already been repaired. She's chatting with Mandle while she works on it. "Hmmph. Maybe. But th' Hutts aren't gonna cross the Order unless they think they can pull a fast one on 'em. They're too cowardly to risk their empire otherwise."

Quite suddenly, an alarm begins to blare.

From the belly of the Bandit's Castle, a knot of crewmen come running, techncians and medical. Two medics run along with a repulsorbed between them, indicating a grave injury. Something has gone wrong.

Mandl would reply! But, emergency! Mandl hops down to power-waddle across the tarmac!

Tamrae frowns, her head snapping up at the sudden alerts as her pointed ears perk forward slightly as she shifts to try and get a better look about what's going on. She doesn't want to get in the way of an emergency...and really, medical emergencies aren't her thing. She does hop up and jog down the length of the Diet to get a better look.

Into the hangar comes the sleek, blue-and-gold shape of the Captain's new ship swoops in, settling down on the deck. The boarding ramp unseals immediately, and as it does the medics with the bed charge up into the vessel.

Mandl waits, fretful...

Tamrae looks more alarmed as she sees the ship coming in, then slides carefully off the hull of the Diet, landing in a six-point crouch, then starts jogging over to see what's going on. She runs her eyes over the ship, looking for any battle damage or anything that might indicate how someone was injured...

The medics emerge, leading out the bed; on it, heavily wrapped about the torso with that looks very suspiciously like a lot of bacta bandages and compression wrappings - the kind that keeps one's guts in - is the Captain. Wearing only athletic pants, Adhar's torso is still covered with dried blood; his curls are matted with it, dried blood on his face there it gushed out of his mouth. His skin is pale, and he looks as though he is - or, at least, /was/ - close to death.

Incredibly enough, he is conscious.

Mandl gasps. "Oh, no! No-no-no!" The itty Bith hurries over. "Adhar, what happened?!"

The Codru-Ji teen is scampering over right behind Mandl's hurried waddle, her face turning a bit pale as well as she sees who it is. She fidgets, not seeming to want to go too close for fear of getting in the way, but paralleling the captain as he's carried along. 'Captain!"

As the two of you come running up to him, the Captain smiles wanly at the two of you; dark circles under his eyes suggest he's been through a lot worse before getting here, and his eyes are a little unfocused. "Hey, you guys," he says in a distant, raspy voice. "Just had a little tangle with some over-eager fauna, that's all. Really, it looks....worse than it is."

"Begging your pardon, Captain," says the medic pushing the bed from the back, "But that is so much poodoo. Onys is gonna kill you for this."

"Yeah, yeah," he says, waving a hand feebly. "You should see the other guy. I'll be fine."

Tamrae initially looks like she MIGHT buy it...because she wants to..and then the medic shoots that down and she goes right back to frowning. "What what th' other guy, a Rancor?" she says, trotting along a bit away from the medics so she's not interferring.

"Crewman," the medic pushing him says, "I don't think that--"

"You let her talk," Adhar says with a laugh, but there's iron in his words besides. "Come on, Tamrae, come with me to the medical bay. I'll tell you all about it."

Tamrae hmmphs. "Well since th' exec an' Sion are both off on their own runs, guess I'll do until someone higher rankin' comes along who can yell at ya..." she says. She follows orders! And follows along, trying not to hover too much. "Seriously. What th' dosh happened?!?"

They bring him in, the captain, and get him on a medical bed. Adhar lets out a soft groan as they do so, but then he carries this off with yet another smile as you hover, even as diagnostic leads are put on his chest and temples and intravenous connections are slipped into his veins. "So...the other guy. The other guy...was...well, wasn't really a /guy/." Adhar laughs feebly. "It was a thing. Animal. Something like that. Some guys called it a float-saw. But I killed it before it could do me in entirely."

"A..float-saw? Where were you?" she says with a frown, stepping back to give the medics room to work. "Or did this thing get on yer ship? Are there more of them?!?"

"No, no." He waves his hand again, groaning as the medics start to cut the bandages off of him after a short check with a medical scanner; as they do, bruised, purple flesh is exposed, a horrible network of wildly curving wounds criss-cross his lower torso. It looks almost as if he'd gotten caught in a length of monofliament wire, only this stuff was being flung around at the front of him. It's a horrible sight, ugly and puckered. He's going to have a lot of scars, bacta or no bacta.

He groans again as they pull the bandages away; the wounds, though held closed and partially healed with generous applications of bacta badages and sealer gel, are angry and red along the edges. The medics mutter amongst themselves, pumping all manner of chemicals into him. Which he takes, eyes closed, teeth clenched. Even when they start to debride the wounds with a sonic wand, he does not cry out further. He just looks at you, smiling, and does his best to talk with you as they work on his savaged body.

"So tell me," Adhar says, his voice tight with pain but yet still cheerful. "What were you workin' on when we came in?" His accent is out, too, good and thick. Space redneck is here to say hello again.

Tamrae frowns a bit, then pulls over a chair so she's not towering over Adhar on the cot, perchign on the front edge. "Nothin' too serious, just patchin' up the Liquid Diet after Mandl and Dosk flew it outta that explodin' corvette. It was flyable, but needed a new port stabilizer and the starboard was pretty trashed too, but repairable. An' a whole lot of shrapnel pulled an' microfractures in the hull reinforced. It's fine now, I was actually finishin' up on th' damaged stabilizer when ya arrived."

"Augh, shrapnel wounds. I hate those." he laughs softly when he says it, swallowing hard after a few seconds. That must /really/ hurt. "...you know, Mandl got that damage being really heroic. I tell you about that...story?"

The Codru-ji shakes her head. "I got a little of it from Dosk...rescuin' slaves an' such." she explains. "But not a lot of details." She narrows her eyes. "I'm kinda more interested in how th' dosh ya got ripped ta hell on YOUR mission, though."

He smiles at you. "Figured you would. Well, the words 'angry space jellyfish' might be involved. Ran into it on the planetoid we were reconnoitering. It was damaging something we needed, I shot it, and it took me apart with its tendrils. Not really sure /how/, since they were as thin as noodles, but..." The captain shrugs. "I took it out in the next salvo, though."

"Classified, but yes." Adhar chuckles, then immediately regrets it. "We'll see if the pain was worth it, though." Electing to change the subject, Adhar peers around the bay. "Needs more droids," he murmurs, then looks back to you. "So how are you finding the ship? Settling in okay? Need anything?"

"Or a bacta tank or two, if yer gonna get hugged by hostile jellyfish things." Tamrae notes, then hmms. "It's been fun? Not a lot for me to do, the ships are kept up pretty well, so other than th' Diet mostly just been keepin' busy with general maintenance and parts an' fuel storage.

"Very hard to get one," Adhar says, keeping still now. "But we'll get there. Eventually. People treating you all right?"

Tamrae nods easily. "Sure, everyone's been pretty friendly. Captain Cuul is a bit standoffish, but okay. I haven't met Captain Jade yet, an' some of th' others only in passin'." She tilts her head. "Haven't met alla th' crew for the Castle yet, but they're busy an' stuff I'm sure."

"Captain Cuul is a good smuggler," says Adhar. "But yes, she's...aloof, you could say." Something seems rather amusing to him, but it doesn't seem to be at your expense. "She's very cynical."

Tamrae frowns, a bit disapprovingly. "She ran cargo for th' First Order, she said. I mean, back before they started blowin' everything up. I guess there are bound ta be plenty of smugglers who did, with all th' secret stuff they must have been buildin' ta pull their invasion off."

"Yeah, she's open about that." Adhar grunts softly. "I got opinions about that, but we also made it policy not to judge people on the things they did before they came in." He eyes her faintly. "I did not, by the way. In case you were wondering."

Tamrae nods a bit, but lets it drop at that point. "So...what...are we doin' exactly, Captain? I mean...purpose-wise. Other than kickin' th' Syndicate till they scream? Straight profit? Or more expandin' like that colony that was set up?"

"Expansion, mostly," says Adhar, "For the moment. Development. I mean the whole point of smuggling /is/ profit, right? But the exact goal depends on the captain. Me, I'm looking to make money, but to help others if I can do it. You know, like getting people out of the Core, getting arms and such to planetary governments. Helping. For profit, sure, but not that much. I don't intend to gouge the needy."

The Codru-ji nods thoughfully. "Okay. I just wondered. I know Defiance is basically anti-slavery an' stuff, an' Waywards seem to be all about money, so...wasn't sure."

"Nah," says Adhar with a slight shake of his head. "They're not, I assure you. They're the ones helping to get the slaves /we/ rescued get home. Just because Ax is rich as Empress Teta doesn't mean that he's not got a heart. He's just really generous to people." He shrugs, regretting it of course. "This organization is extremely anti-slavery, even if some of its members might not be. You move slaves while you're a part of the Consortium, or let your crew do it, we come down on you. Now I figure you should be killed, personally, but it's a matter of what the Captains vote on."

"Long walk out a short airlock is fine with me.' Tamrae says darkly, then catches the medic on duty glowering at her a bit. "Um, I should really let you rest, Captain...get some sleep. Ya don't wanna make things worse before we get a surgeon ta look at ya or somethin', right?" She carefully pats an area that looks undamaged on Adhar's shoulder as she gets to her feet. "I better get back to fixin' th' Diet up anyway, if Mandl was bein' all heroic, he deserves a ship that looks it." She smiles faintly, then idly salutes. "Hope ya feel better soon!" She sidesteps around the medic as he moves up to continue working, then slips out of the hatch.