Log:The Good Guys
The rain has eased off as Hex, Gren and Oriana make their way back to their extraction point. Eased off, but not completely stopped. Visibility is poor and gets worse as night begins to fall. And then the unthinkable happens - Hex gets lost. Maybe the primitive animal trail they were following bifurcated, and Hex, lagging behind, found himself down the wrong trail. There's no sound but the drip-drip of rain falling from leaves. He's alone.
...except he's really not. There's a noise behind him, and then a cold, female voice that isn't Oriana's, squashing that hope: "Freeze. Hands on your head, kneel down." The voice is slightly muffled, as if coming from behind...well, a helmet.
Hex is injured. He's about one more successful shot away from being in a real bad way, a bad way approaching Sullust level of bad -- though, likely, nothing is ever going to be worse than Sullust level of bad, because as much as this trooper's got him cornered, she's not Kylo Ren level of scary. Few things are! But he's still stuck, breathing labored as blood leaks where it shouldn't through a variety of intriguing problems caused by blaster fire. So he does freeze, slowly, hands lifting as directed. "How's that comm relay?"
A heavy footfall behind him, a blaster shoved into his neck, and he's relieved of his obvious weaponry. Then the First Order patrol step round so he can see them - two women and a man. The leader, the speaker, wearing the rank insignia of a Corporal, steps in front of Hex, studying him. Then she holsters her blaster and lifts her hands to remove her helmet. Young, ash-blonde hair in a short ponytail, gray eyes. "TF-1881, removing your helmet's against regs," advises the other woman. "Fuck regs," retorts the Corporal, glaring at Hex. "We lost good people at the relay station. I want this one to see my eyes as I execute him."
Something rustles in the foliage behind her, but she doesn't seem to notice.
"Escho'ka ni tal'kan, frotzki schutta." They don't have to know Ryl to guess that the wounded Twi'lek being held up by TF-1881 didn't say anything complimentary. "You're gonna lose a few more on Bayuir before you pull up and turn tail," Hex adds. "Why don't you call headquarters and cry about it? Oh, that's right! You can't!" Maybe not a good idea to antagonize the person with an avowed interest in ending you right here in this muddy jungle, but perhaps he thinks that at this point there's nothing to lose?
Another rustle, and this time TF turns her head, glaring into the jungle. She glances at her male companion, "Check it out," she says curtly, and he nods, readying his blaster, and begins to climb the slope into the foliage above them. TF looks back at Hex, and without warning smashes the hilt of her blaster across the side of his face in a punishing blow. "Screw you," she snarls. "Freak."
Pistol-whipped! Ow! Even more ow, given the way someone's blaster shot already burned his face a bit from cheekbone to jaw. That smarts. That very clearly smarts. It hurts enough to shut him up for a second, and necessitates spitting out some blood... which of course, he has to aim toward her white boot. "I'm not afraid," he growls back. "Cut up my body. Take my life. I'm not afraid. /You/ are the aberration, you are the sickness, and the galaxy will not tolerate the growth of your cancer. You will find resistance in the core, in the rim, on this world, and in /this/ very patch of jungle." Maybe if he keeps talking long enough, lightning will kill them all? That's probably Hex's best approximation of a plan. "So do what you want. You might even win. But I resist."
TF-1881 smirks nastily, listening to the speech. "Yeah. You'll change your tune when I've cut off your..." she starts, but she's interrupted. From up the slope, out of sight in the bushes, there's a thud, and then a rattling, bouncing noise, as something comes bumping and jumping down the slope through the foliage towards them. Both troopers look towards it instinctively as it bounces into the clearing and rolls to a stop at Hex's feet.
It's a Stormtrooper helmet. And it contains a head. The cut is clean.
There's a retching noise, and then the other female trooper is pulling off her helmet, doubling over to spew bile into the mud at her feet. Young, pretty, curly blonde hair. Corporal TF-1881's eyes grow wide as she steps backwards instinctively...and a figure steps out behind her, whipping a wire up over her head, around her neck, pulling it tight. She lets out a despairing croak, dropping her blaster to claw at the wire biting into her neck. Dropping the blaster was definitely a mistake.
"How many more pieces of me are even left for you people to cut off?!" Hex demands, sounding so personally affronted at the thought of more amputations that he's forgotten for a moment to be afraid of the obvious legitimacy of the threat. Then, there's something rolling, bumping, falling, ending up at his feet... it's a head. Iiiiiit's a head with no body. "Ryma'at!" Hex coughs wetly in surprise, and fails to resist the urge to kick it. Get it awaaaay! And then... there's vomit, there's piano wire, there's his new best friend in bad shape. Hex drops his hands, but hesitates. What kind of freak appears from the foliage to strangle people with wire? "Gren?!"
Another shape appears behind puke-girl and brings the butt of a blaster down on the back of her head, dropping her face-first into the mud and into her own puke...and then a boot comes down on the back of her neck, pinning her there as she struggles. TF-1881's face is purpling, her body bucking as she fights to breathe in vain, her tongue starting to protrude from her mouth like a fat slug. Her assailant, pressed lovingly up behind her, is a human, dressed in jungle camo and masked; the same as the man..woman...with her boot on puke-girl's neck. And then a third figure, this time carrying a vibrosword, comes slithering down the slope. He reaches up and pulls off his mask, grinning at the sight before him. Human, male, dark hair, swarthy features. "Apologize to the Twi'lek, and I'll let you go," he tells the gurgling TF-1881.
Hex was born under a bad star. Like all good characters, things don't usually go well for Hex. So this, the appearance of camouflaged jungle ninjas who have a problem with the First Order, is jaw-droppingly unexpected. He fully expected to get shot, get escorted to Twi'lek hell, and probably spend eternity filling out a lot of paperwork explaining the misdeeds of his mortal life. Staring at the fallen puketrooper, at the gasping TF-1881, and at the dark-haired human, Hex opens and closes his mouth a few times like a dying carp, but words are utterly beyond him.
"Oh, you can't speak? That's unfortunate." The man turns his back on the dying TF-1881 and looks critically at Hex. "Who are you?" he demands, not unfriendly, but not desperately friendly either. "Are you anything to do with the firefight at the relay station earlier?" TF-1881 sinks to her knees, her eyes bulging.
"My name is Heksash'kuri." Aliens, man, aliens with their long freak names. There's a hesitation for the second question, but he's obviously wearing armor and sporting blaster based injuries and tangling with the First Order, so what's the use in denying it? "Yes," Hex confirms. "Ka. Yes. I was. Let her go," he adds, abruptly, in a tone that suggests he might be as surprised to hear those words come out of his mouth as anyone else is. "She started a problem with me, I should finish it. I --" Pause. "Who the hell are you people?" Another pause. "I mean that in the most loving way, don't get me wrong."
The man regards Hex for some long moments. They must seem an eternity to TF-1881, who is clearly losing her battle for life. Then, abruptly, he steps back, giving a curt order: "Release her." THe man with the garotte flicks it off and TF-1881 falls to her hands and knees, croaking and wheezing, blood on her hands and on her neck. "Call us concerned citizens. Finish her, then. Finish them both. We were going to string them both up and watch them dance, but...your call, Heksash'kuri." The curly-headed blonde's one visible eye is wide, full of terrible fear.
Hex eyes his new friend for a moment, then begins a search for his weapons, wherever they might have ended up after the troopers divested him of them. It's a slow search, partly because of his wounds, partly because of a mind churning away at a moral quandary that, like ripping off a bandage, would have been far easier not to over think. "Is the Order aware that some of their citizens on Bayuir are Concerned?"
"I think not. Or if they are aware, it's not high on their priorities. It's a dangerous planet. Patrols go missing. There are wild animals and all sorts of..aliens." The swarthy man grins viciously at Hex, not exactly friendly but not exactly unfriendly either. The weapons are there, tossed into the mud. TF-1881 sits back on her haunches, her gaze full of hatred; the curly-haired blonde is all full of fear, and the yellow liquid spreading between her legs isn't rain.
"All sorts of aliens," Hex agrees, grimly. His pistol is full of mud, what a mess, but everything's full of mud, and it seems operational. Alas for the pair of stormtroopers, it seems that the man's answer - no, the Order doesn't know - has sealed their fate. Even so, he stands there in the rain for a moment, looking at the poor curly-haired girl pissing herself. There but by the grace of gods... but it's a war. And he's a soldier. So he holds the pistol to her head, flatly says, "Ryma gesu'tak allesh," and pulls the trigger.
The blaster bolt sears into flesh, and there is the strong smell of burning flesh. TF-1881 looks shocked at the sudden death of her compatriot as the rain sizzles on the charred flesh, and then looks defiantly at Hex. "End it, then," she snarls, and adds an unprintable obscenity that just makes the swarthy man chuckle.
Hex doesn't hang around to check out his handiwork on poor curly-hair, she's not getting up again. TF-1881... well, there she is. He hesitates in front of her for a moment. They had such a nice talk. They talked about the loss of comrades, of the noble nature of resistance! And somehow it all just ends up blood in the mud, in the rain, trying to put more holes in the other creature than they put in you. "That's how it ends," Hex replies to TF, and then complies, and shoots her.
TF-1881 collapses face-down into the mud, dead before she hit the ground; from behind, she looks almost untouched, the rain washing away the blood so her armor looks freshly cleaned for inspection. The swarthy man chuckles softly. "Your friends are up there," he points a little way up the hill. "They're probably wondering where the hell you are. You should probably get those wounds seen to." He doesn't seem very sympathetic to Hex's plight, but is quietly satisfied at the deaths of the Troopers.
"They probably are," Hex dryly agrees, squinting through the rain in the direction indicated. "And, I probably should. Appreciate the assist. The Resistance against the First Order thanks you... or at least, this piece of it does. If I am ever in a position to return the favor," he brushes his fingers against his forehead in a salute, sincere but weary, "I will." And with that, he begins to trudge anew, back in the direction of his teammates, the extraction point, rescue, medical attention, and a galaxy full of pleasant distractions that can't quite mask the creeping suspicion that he is not one of the good guys.
