Log:It Survived the Void
It Survived the Void
OOC Date: July 24, 2019
Location: HXF Rainstorm
Participants: Palena Maris, Aryn Cole
It's been two days since their rescue, and the crew of the mining ship has taken up temporary residence in the living area of the ship. Bunks are unfolded, bags are placed underneath them, and the EVA suits they'd been wearing are pushed and tucked into corners as neatly as can be managed. They're not messy about the space, either because they haven't had time to be or because they're trying to be conscious of their host. They've kept to themselves, mostly, either through playing quiet games of cards with the exchange of real credits on the line or through their own personal hobbies. They know how to keep themselves entertained. It's not until the second day that they seem willing to delve into what just transpired on their ship.
At least, the woman who'd identified herself at Palena Maris seems ready to talk about it. Whether or not the others are remains to be seen. It seems less likely, given that when she finds Aryn, she talks in a low voice to the blonde woman. "Can I talk to you in the cockpit?" The tone lacks brevity, and the measured expression on her face details the subject matter is of some importance. Or seriousness. She doesn't cause suspicion by casting a gaze back at her compatriots, or by whispering. The other three seem entirely uninterested in her, even. Maybe after so long in the same shared space, they've learned to give privacy to one another without thinking too hard about it. Their lives are certainly unique compared to those living their day-to-day out on a planet.
"Sure." Aryn says, halting her progress in storing something in one of the racks. Instead of placing the item down, she carries it with care back into the cockpit where C-3PO is powered down. The cockpit is not an overly spacious place, but there is room to move around as needed, and plenty for the two ladies to speak. Aryn sets the item down, and upon withdraw from it, the light hits the side of the item just right to show the red sigil of the Resistance phoenix. It is not a blatantly obvious detail, but it is one left in the open.
Aryn leans against one of the surfaces in the cockpit and props herself atop it, sitting casually and allowing her booted feet to swing. "What is on your mind?" Aryn uses one hand to direct the loose blonde hair behind her ear, revealing more of her face and light blue eyes.
Palena casts a parting glance back at the trio of crewmates before following Aryn into the freighter's cockpit. It's a more cramped space, but with the door sliding shut behind them, it affords them a privacy that the open area of the living quarters does not. Cognizant of where they are, Palena avoids leaning against anything. She's not familiar with this kind of ship. She doesn't know which console does what. The last thing she needs is to cause some sort of malfunction that drops them out of hyperspace. Tucking her arms in against one another, perhaps to take up even less space than before, she sets her gaze on Aryn. For a few moments, she doesn't say anything, as if trying to process just how to phrase the words she wants to say.
"We were attacked," she states after the silence starts to feel claustrophobic around them. "But not from the outside. Our mining vessel dropped out of hyperspace to make our last microjump and that's when we found... it." The hesitation explains she lacks any proper vocabulary to describe it. "We thought it was a dead body. It was just floating out in zero g, even if it was in an vacuum-protected suit. When we got close enough to examine it visually, we saw it move. So, thinking what a miraculous thing this was, the odds of finding someone adrift and in need of rescue, the Captain decided to bring it aboard. The ship physician came to do an assessment. We knew something was wrong when the helmet came off."
Palena pauses again for a few more moments, and her eyes drift. "It was like.." She struggles to find the right words again. "It was like they'd lost all their color. Their skin was just.. grey. We figured it was maybe just because they were out there so long or something, though. You rationalize it, y'know? We got it out of the suit, and then it attacked. Just.. woke up and attacked the doctor." She talks about it as if she's recalling a plain memory, and not an event which led to their mining vessel being adrift in space, with almost no power and dwindling life support. And the stains. "At that point, we were scrambling to find something to detain it with. But we don't have blasters or anything like that. It killed another two of our crew members before we finally just grabbed whatever we could and beat it to death."
The way her eyes snap back up to Aryn's indicates that's not the end of the story. "Only we didn't. We had just enough time to realize that it wasn't bleeding, really. Not blood. It was this.. I dunno. Black stuff. Looked like oil. But, like, really, really dark oil. Next thing we know, it and the doc and the other two crew members are up and now we're being attacked by all of them. We ran. As much as you can run in a ship, anyway. It was like hide and seek. A whole, destructive day of it. Eventually, I managed to get whatever those things were into the cargo bay, then we sealed them off and spaced them. We used our mining laser to destroy the bodies." And, just like that, it's through.
"So, that's it. That's what happened. They," Palena gestures with her head to the side, flicking black hair against the side of her face and away from it with the motion. "Don't wanna talk about it. But, someone needs to know, and maybe you've heard of this kind of thing lately. We don't get much news out where we go. The relays take too long for us to get anything newer than a month or so sometimes."
Aryn slips into a quiet state while listening to Palena recount the tale of their ship, crew, and the sorry state of their ship. As she got to the explanation of the substance, and how it moved, Aryn's hands came up and began to fidget with one another. By the end of her brief, Aryn's face has lost some color and she looks solemn. "Yes. I've actually come across it before. Many times, in fact. We do not have a name for the phenomenon, but we've documented some things about it. It's sentient, for one. Whatever the ooze is, it can think and feel, and it's somehow linked to other entities like it regardless of their distance apart."
"Additionally, it only takes a drop of that substance to.. infect.. affect? someone. What we saw through holo-recording, was that it acts like a parasite, consuming its host from the inside. I believe it starts with the brain, then works down. They can also shapeshift, which allows it to fill the gaps it creates beneath the.." Aryn pinches her skin, then glances up. "We came across it after accepting a rescue mission to Umgul. My friend removed an insect from the back of someone's neck and when we had the insect examined, that substance emerged. We nearly endangered all of Theed when it tried to.." She catches herself, as if saying the woman's name pained her in some way. "..sorry, when it tried to latch itself onto a colleague of mine, a Doctor with the university there in the city."
"We've been trying to track down a Sector Ranger ship that took in escape pods from a ship that was infested with it. My team, as specialized as we were, could not stop the entire crew and passengers." Aryn grows quiet for a moment, looking haunted. "Whatever it is, I feel like it's evil. Just.. absolute evil. I can't explain how I know this, but I feel it. When I am around the entity, my knees get weak and I just feel this overwhelming.. dread and despair. It's like hearing a beating heart that just pumps for violence and pain, or sometimes I feel like I hear thousands of screams at once in my head." Aryn's eyes stay angled down for a few moments.
On the scale of expected responses, Aryn having any clue what she was talking about rated low. Low enough that Palena expresses surprise when the blonde woman admits to knowing something about it. She'd expected to be called crazy at worst, and thought of as crazy at best. To hear confirmation of what she saw -- although she knows she's not crazy -- is in some ways relieving. It's disturbing in others. Surprise morphs into concern, and Palena's brows knit closer together to express that. It's her turn to listen, and the longer she does, the more sour her expression becomes. Truth be told, while she was sure that this hadn't been some crazy hallucination they'd all experienced, she also wasn't hoping for the news that she's hearing.
"Wait," Palena blurts out the command to halt as soon as the city of Theed is mentioned. "You took it to Naboo and it started infecting people?" The look of concern vanishes and is replaced by terror. "Please tell me you killed it, or stopped it, or something!" The pleading tone of her voice shifts more to demanding as it reaches the end, and Palena's arms have dropped from their crossed position down to her sides. Clearly, the 'nearly' and the 'tried' parts of Aryn's statement aren't definitive enough explanations for what took place in Theed. It's an irrational burst of emotion that takes over her sensibilities, because Aryn's presence before her isn't convincing enough, either. It's clear all she heard were the words 'Theed' and 'endangered'.
Aryn raises her hands in a gestured 'wait' kind of way, hoping to halt the escalation of thought before it spiraled toward emotionally distraught. "It was contained and quarantined initially, so that we could collect it from the vault at the university, but a scientist foolishly opened it. When we came to collect it, she and two guards had become infected, but they were contained within the catacombs of the vault. It was there that my friends destroyed it using fire, burning it until it was gone. Further investigation and scans of the vault and surrounding area revealed nothing that suggested it had escaped containment. The university had designed the vault to have redundancies in its safety plan in case something like that occurred. Theed is safe, thank the stars."
It was a long explanation, but it was the entire story. Whether she listened to the rest, Aryn wasn't sure. The topic made her uncomfortable, and like she needed to look over her shoulder or toward each mysterious sound.
Palena doesn't look relaxed until the words 'Theed is safe' are spoken, but it doesn't take all the tension out of her shoulders. Dropping her chin and bringing her hand to her forehead, the tips of her fingers massage there as if to banish away the deep pool of anxiety dwelling within. "Why would--," Palena starts, voice slightly elevated, before she halts herself. Her eyes drift shut, and she prompts herself to take a long, slow breath in through her nose. She exhales through her mouth. "It doesn't matter. I would have done the same thing. The libraries and the university in Theed are a pretty big repository for knowledge." The hand at her forehead drops while the one by her side lifts, and both end up braced against her hips.
When her eyes open again, she seems more in control of herself. "Well, whatever this thing is, it's obviously not good for our health. From what I could tell, the infected we dealt with seemed pretty.. dumb. Like they were just acting on instinct. They seemed pretty easy to trick. The others in there are feeling pretty freaked out, though. They wonder if they're infected. I gotta admit, I'm pretty scared about it, too. I mean, the doc and those other two passengers turned pretty quick, but if you're saying this thing is sentient, then maybe it doesn't do 'em all fast. Is there any test you can do?" They may not know each other well, but Aryn's profession came up pretty fast during introductions.
"I can do a little bloodwork and some scans." Aryn didn't go into detail about how the scans might reveal if they were infected with the parasite, or how the bloodwork helped. "I can start with you, but we'll have to go to a medical facility. I don't have all the equipment I need to run tests. However, once we get to the Naboo sector, I can drop into the hospital there and see about running some scans on you and your crew. It shouldn't take long to get the results and have the blood analyzed."
The mention of Naboo this time around leads Palena's features to adopt a subtle grimace. "Isn't that a bad idea? What if one of us is infected? Won't we be endangering people?" Her eyes don't meet Aryn's. Instead, her gaze is focused on the tunnel of hyperspace visible through the freighter's viewport. Her arms shift back into being crossed over one another, and while it had been a gesture of determination before she'd launched into her spiel about what went down with their ship, it now seems like one of comfort. There's a tension underneath her lean, taut skin that exposes hints of flexed muscle in her forearms. The darkness of the tone is washed out in the swirling miasma casting them both in shifting shades of blue.
"I suppose there's danger no matter where I take you all. If I do find that one of you are infected, the question becomes what do I do then? Without the right equipment, I might not be able to save them at all, if there is a way to save them." Aryn slides off her perch to stand up, then crosses the cockpit to collect her satchel which hangs from a coat hook. After setting the satchel on the surface where she sat moments before, she withdraws a blood analyzing tool. "I can do a preliminary test now. I believe if you are infected, I will be able to see by detecting foreign agents in the blood. If you're comfortable with that, then I'll run the analysis."
"If we find out someone is infected, we..." Palena starts off strong enough, but the idea of having to do anything to any one of the remaining crew members makes her trail off. Her mouth works for a few moments, and there's a few exhales in there, but no words come out. Palena shrugs. "I don't know. We figure it out when we get there." She sounds dismayed at the prospect of any of them coming up as affected by the events that took place. Like she doesn't want to face the possibility of what that might mean. She doesn't want to commit to a plan, and certainly doesn't want to voice anything radical out of fear. Her gaze darts to the satchel being picked up and set on the console, and then to the analyzer Aryn produces from within.
Palena stares at it for a long moment, then uncrosses her right arm from its twin. It extends, and Palena's left hand reaches out to grasp at the sleeve of her tunic. She tugs, drawing the synthetic fabric farther up along her forearm to expose half a foot of skin above her wrist. "Do it." A subtle flash of a dimple appears near her jaw where her teeth clench and relax. Either she's scared of needles, or she's scared of the potential outcome that could pop up from this test. "I'd rather know than not." Her arm stretches out to be locked at the elbow, offering Aryn the opportunity to go through with the analysis.
Aryn doesn't add on. The aftermath of finding out if someone was infected was enough to put a halt to both of their thoughts. Going straight to the worst possible scenario wasn't going to help anyone. It was best to stay positive. WHen Palena revealed the skin above her wrist, Aryn took a moment to ensure her device had a new needle. The collection tool was the smallest piece to the analyzer, and it was the item Aryn placed against her skin. Aryn glances at Palena's face when she makes the dimple, but she doesn't say anything about it.
The next action is what pierces the skin and immediately catches a sample of blood. The device Aryn used is replaced with a small white gauze which is held in place to stop any unnecessary bleeding. "Just hold that in place for a few moments. I'll run this through the device and we can take a look at your read out." When Aryn had the freedom to do this, she slid the small collection device into the analyzer and keyed a few buttons that projected a holo-readout. The readout was more of a graph, and it began to load everything it found within her blood. "Well.. let's take a look at all the options here."
A slow twist of a knob on the analyzer reveals new read outs, each looking more confusing than the last; and after reviewing each one, Aryn just slowly shakes her head. "I'm not detecting anything foreign in your blood, but there is something special about you." She brings back up the other readout, revealing a small graph that indicated a midichlorian count. No ordinary doctor would have this option available, but Aryn did. She had to treat a group of force sensitives, and had read in one of the old texts that force sensitivity came from the blood having a high midichlorian count. Somehow, it created a way for a person to influence the Force, or was it the other way around?
"Your midichlorian count is substantial, and rare. I'd say one in a thousand, perhaps ten thousand, people have such a gift." Aryn smiles and sets the scanner down. "The good news is.. I don't see anything that might indicate infection. I believe you're safe."
Palena winces again. The sudden puncture of a needle jabbing into her skin forces her lips apart to reveal her teeth, and a quiet, hissed inhale follows their exposure. The full pair come back together, but the wince remains. Palena replaces Aryn's fingers with a fingertip, and her arm bends at the elbow so her arm is vertical. "Aren't you supposed to say there's going to be a small pinch or something?" Her attempt at humor is brief, and entirely at odds with the situation they're facing. Nervousness and anxiety prompt it. She tries not to hover over the doctor, but there's no hiding her lean forward and her attempt to discern what's being seen on the screen. She doesn't really know what she's looking at, much less what to look for.
The blonde starts shaking her head, and Palena's chin lifts. Her gaze searches the other woman's face for anything. "What? What is it?" Her heart's ready to smash through her rib cage and out of her chest, but Aryn announces there's nothing foreign. She finishes her statement, and the only thing Palena can do is look confused. "Special? What's special? There's nothing special. No doctor has ever said anything like that to me before." When Aryn goes on to explain, Palena's look of confusion remains. No sign of infection, according to the good doctor. "Sorry, I don't mean to seem ungrateful, and, uh, pardon my language, but, what the drek is a midichlowhatsit count? I've never heard of that before. Plain basic, please. I'm not a doctor. I break rocks for a living."
Aryn turns the device off killing the holo-image. It's set aside and she turns to face Palena. "Okay, basic. We can do basic. Let's see..." Aryn thinks for a moment. "Have you ever heard of the Jedi Knights? The stories about the heroes of old, about Luke Skywalker?" Aryn's cheeks had turned slightly red when Palena had used inappropriate language, but she was growing used to it now that she'd been in the Resistance for awhile. "Jedi Knights, and people like the Jedi, people like you, have an unspoken relationship with the very energy that binds the universe together. We know it only as the Force. Midichlorians, the tiny essence that is rooted deep within the make up of your blood, allows you to touch this connection, and exhibit an influence of power and unique traits that no one else possesses. These traits might be exceptionally fast reflexes, or perhaps an innate sixth sense about things; perhaps.. you can even see things before they happen."
Aryn uncrosses her arms and flexes one hand. "You're not alone though. There's others like you. You're special, /we're/ special, and with the right guidance.. one day you won't need a hammer or a laser to break rocks." To drive the point home, Aryn extended her hand in the direction of the opposite table-like surface across the cockpit. A datapad that had been sitting there was plucked up off the table by some unseen force and carried to the very hand that had beckoned it. Aryn's other hand came up and presented a single digit which she placed flush against her own lips, signaling a moment for contemplative silence.
"It's a doorway to something different and beautiful, and with the right training, you could learn to influence it too."
The question regarding Jedi Knights and Luke Skywalker has Palena's eyebrow arching high. "Everyone from Naboo knows about Luke Skywalker and the Jedi. My people were persecuted for trying to help them escape the purge." There may be some places in the galaxy where the Jedi are a myth, but Naboo is not one of them. It still remembers the Clone Wars. It remembers the Empire, and how that same Empire had put their planet under a booted heel because they'd dared tried to help the Jedi survive being hunted down. Aryn goes on to explain Jedi and midichlorians and galactic, binding energy, and the skeptical look on Palena's face continues to grow. She seems both disbelieving and amused the more the explanation continues. Except for once.
Aryn pauses, and Palena laughs. It's short. Succinct. "You're not trying to suggest I'm a Jedi or something." Her statement is sure of itself. The look of amusement fades away when Aryn's hand extends, as if it's going to do something. "Okay, seriously, it was kind of funny for a second, but we're talking about a very serious infection one of the crew... might.... ha.." She starts trailing off when the datapad enters her peripheral vision. She's speechless when it floats into full view, and she's mesmerized by its movement. Nothing but shock is on her face, now, as it finds its way into Aryn's outstretched hand. "What the.." She looks up to Aryn. Back down to the datapad. Back up to Aryn. Again, her mouth works as if to try to produce words, and again, none produce themselves.
"Look, nevermind that. What about everyone else?"
"I'll go check them over now. We're due to arrive in Naboo soon anyway, so it will be good to put their minds at ease." Aryn says, setting the datapad aside. She picks up her first aid satchel, the analyzer, and the blood collection tool. The needle she had used on Palena is tossed into the rubbish casually. When everything seems to be in hand, Aryn turns back to look at Palena before opening the door. "Come on, they'll trust me more if you're there with me." Aryn smiles again and opens the hatch. She steps aside to let Palena through first.
Looking uneasy, Palena nods. She's glad the conversation deflects to something else. Casting one last look at the datapad that's been set down, she turns towards the cockpit door and eases past the doctor to re-enter the living space of the freighter. Her booted feet make soft footfalls against the deck, and her finger finally peels away the gauze that had been pressed against her arm so that it can lower. She makes sure to do this in front of the rest of the crew from the mining ship, so they can see she's done it. "Alright, listen up. The doctor here is going to analyze your blood. It's a precaution we're going to take before we get anywhere near a planet. I know you're all freaked out. I am, too. Remember, the things from the ship didn't bleed."
Pinching around where the needle had pierced her skin, Palena squeezes until her knuckles blanch and a bead of blood wells up. It's red. Not black. "So, we have our blood checked, we figure out we're all good, and we go about our way. We got it?" The three look between each other, and then back to Palena. It's Yoz, the one who'd asked Aryn if she was there to rescue them, who speaks up. "Yeah. We got it." There's a nervousness to his voice, but they all seem cooperative. They're all ready to get some peace of mind. And to go home.
