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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3990585" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 551: Battered but Alive“Sir...?”    A voice.    Why was there a voice?    There hadn’t been anything before. Wait...had there?    “It looks bad. Will you give me a hand?”    There was that voice again.    It wasn’t really distant, but somehow it didn’t seem all that close. Wait wait...that didn’t make any sense. Maybe if he just opened his eyes and...    He.    Okay. Maybe a voice did make sense now. If he was a he then he was thinking and he was alive. Why wouldn’t he be alive? All that black...that nothing...no, no none of this made sense. It was all a headache. Or was the headache already there?    Light slowly crept into the previous darkness as one of the eyes opened very slightly. Had he done that? Maybe...try...    Slowly and unsteadily, Rulae Nok opened both of his eyes to take in what was around him. Most of his currently-blurry view of the world was colours. The edges of his vision showed dense, dark greens and then lighter yellows mixed in. Moving inwards, greys and silvers overlapped with the greens and yellows, and then there was a very large shape that was a light blue colour.    “Sir...?” the blue shape shifted slightly. Or, rather, a small opening towards the bottom of the shape that was probably a mouth did.    Sadly, the only response Rulae was able to manage wasn’t really a word, “Nnnghh...”    “Stop it,” the voice became a bit firmer and Rulae began to take notice of his surroundings more clearly. He was...on the ground. Or, at least on his back looking up at the sky. And there was a pressure on his chest that was strangely heavy.    “Nnn...” Rulae attempted again to speak but, again failed. Instead of trying a third time, though, he allowed himself to begin to recover. After a few moments, the blue blur formed into the face of the Twi’lek Rea’tin Lor, which shouldn’t have surprised him. She looked concerned, but wasn’t actually looking back at him. No, she was looking down...well, down to him, at least, towards the pressure on his chest.    Resisting the urge to move as he knew nothing of what had happened and couldn’t quite grasp any memories that would lead him to where he was. But Rulae’s thoughts were beginning to become more coherent and less...less...well, less confusing and fuzzy. As he began to think in more complete sentences again, Rulae opened his mouth and attempted, once again, to speak...but very slowly, “Si...sitrep...?”    At first, Rea looked surprised that he had said anything, her head suddenly turning with wide eyes to look at him. It did not take long, however, before her military training kicked in and the young Twi’lek understood that she had been asked an important question by her superior officer. Immediately adopting a formal tone of speech, Rea said, “We landed on Rodia’s moon...well, some of us did. Most of us crashed and hit pretty hard. We’re uh...we’ve only found five so far. Adria...” she paused, realized familiar tone, then changed it quickly, “Cadet Harken is treating Rast and Sansont. They’ll be alright...nothing but minor injuries. Same for Harken and myself...”    Not a fool, Rulae knew exactly why she had trailed off after that. Still not moving, Rulae took hold of his voice again, “And...me?”    Rea bit her lower lip a moment then sighed, “You’re lucky to be alive, sir. Your...your X-Wing didn’t make it. It got through the atmosphere of the moon in pieces and we saw you eject, but it was a rough fall. When Adria found you she had to pull you out from under a tree that had come down and your ejection seat. The crash webbing had you good and stuck and...well, neither of us are medics or at all trained in Duros biology but you’ve definitely broken your right leg and badly hurt the left. And your chest...we think you broke a few ribs and from the...from the blood you’ve been coughing up since before now I think you’ve got a punctured lung. I...I really don’t know, though. We don’t have anything beyond a basic medkit so we’ve done the best we can and...”    “Calm down,” Rulae strained the words out, now understanding the pressure on his chest and why it was difficult to talk. It hurt, “What about...the Vong?”    At the last word, Rea turned to look over her shoulder a moment, then quickly looked back, one of her two head tails sliding over her shoulder in the process, “No sign for now, sir. But...well, we saw a few ships set down not too long ago. It was dangerous but we’ve moved a good ways from any of the wreckage so we won’t be that easy to find in this mess of a moon. But I’m...I’m worried about the others and how we’re going to get off this planet now that pretty much all our ships are useless...”    “Right now...right now we lay low...” Rulae trailed off slightly, closed his eyes a moment, then went on, “There’s something here...something the Vong don’t want us to find.”    Though his eyes were closed again, Rulae could tell Rea’s expression from the way her voice sounded. She didn’t like what he’d just said, and she obviously thought he had hit his head harder on impact than originally expected, “Sir, we’re in no shape to search an entire moon for some Vong thing based on a...based on a hunch.”    The small mouth on Rulae’s mostly featureless face formed the best smile it could considering how he currently felt, “That’s why...that’s why we lay low first. Which means if we have to move again...then we move again.”A sigh escaped Rea. She looked ready to argue with him, but was intelligent enough to hold it back. Apparently, she hadn’t been Jyren’s wingmate long enough to pick up his defiant nature when it came to orders. That was good, as Rulae had worried about that and, especially at a time like this, defiance was the last thing they needed.     There was something on this moon that was important. Rulae was sure of it. He didn’t have the Force or anything mystical like that, but Rulae did have years of experience that gave him strong instincts. Tactically, it made sense for what he saw happening, especially when compared with the usual battle tactics of the Vong. Of course, there was one problem with his theory: the fact that there was also something on Rodia that the Vong had been driving them towards.    One thing at a time. They’d made it to the moon, mostly intact, so that was the focus. Well, after staying alive.    “Rea!” that was Harken’s voice, not very far away at all but out of Rulae’s line of sight. He still wasn’t moving, and wasn’t going to risk it if he didn’t have to. Without a full knowledge of his injuries, Rulae wasn’t about to make things worse. It damn well hurt enough as it was...    Quickly, the Twi’lek in front of him disappeared from his vision, getting to her feet and quickly running over towards Harken’s voice. Rulae could hear them speaking in quiet voices, but couldn’t make out the words. Barely a minute later, Rea returned and had a mask of concern on her face, “We’re going to have to move again, sir. This is the uh...hard part.”    “What is it?”    Glancing upwards slightly and reaching for the corner of a thin object that Rulae identified as a stretcher that he was lying on, Rea spoke swiftly, “Adria’s astromech has detected lifesigns a few kilometers north of us. That’s...that’s about where my X-Wing went down so its not another of our’s. We need to move before any Vong find us here.”    Then, Rulae felt an odd sensation. With a gentle whirring sound, he felt, and saw, the world change slightly as he lifted nearly a meter into the air. This made sense quickly enough, as Rulae remembered that the small, extendable stretchers packed into most medkits for X-Wings also had small repulsorlift generators. That, at least, explained how Rea and Adria were able to move three other pilots by themselves without simply dragging them along the dirt.    “Give me...give me my blaster,” Rulae said as Rea started to move him through the not-so-dense forest they seemed to have crashed into. When the Twi’lek looked at him and was about to say what he could tell was going to be a ‘not right now’, Rulae forced himself to raise his arm and open his hand, “I can still shoot if they find us.”    “Yes, sir,” she said, finally, then reached down to the holster on his belt and removed the weapon before placing it in his outstretched, gloved hand. By that time, Harken had moved over to them and Rulae turned his head very slightly to see she was pushing two stretchers in front of her.    Noticing he was conscious, the red-haired human woman nodded slightly to the two other pilots, both of whom were humans of roughly the same age, “Rast has been in and out and Sansont hasn’t done anything but breathe since we pulled him out of his X-Wing, sir. That means your our only gun if they find us right now.”    Tilting his head to look up to Rea, Rulae mumbled, “Then I’ll try to aim around you two if I have to shoot.”    Managing a half smile, obviously forced but helpful nonetheless, Rea nodded and both of the bruised-but-standing pilots began to move again, “How about we just avoid the Vong and none of us have to worry about being shot...or worse?”    “I like that plan,” Adria said in the same kind of forced, joking tone, “But on that note...” she glanced down towards Rulae for a short moment to ask, “Would it be too much to ditch these bright orange flightsuits at the first chance we get so we don’t stick out so much here?”    “Consider it...” Rulae cringed suddenly as he felt something dig into his chest, paused a moment to regain his composure, then forced the rest of it out, “...consider it an order.”</blockquote>

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