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Brimstone
Eleventh Hour Skiddadle
By Sylvana Lorrdain and Alison Sky
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As the landshark eyed its next course, blaster fire filled the air. Through
it, working together in complete sync, Alison ran toward them, dodging the
blasts aimed at the landshark from a very angry Hobbie.
Alison spied the lightsaber handle lying on the ground beside Sylvana, and
did a shoulder roll under the next round of blaster fire to get her hands
on it. She didn't have a LOT of experience, but Corran had let her play
with his lightsaber on a few occasions when they sparred, so she luckily
knew how to hold it and turn it on without impaling herself.
The blade sprang forth and Alison stood over Sylvanna, guarding her from
the beast that continued to advance despite Hobbie's efforts.
Sylvana, her eyes flashing wildly back and forth in her distress, startled
from her resignation to scuttle backward from what all was happening. She
reached through her blurred world to try and find the pole she'd killed the
last landshark with, but no matter how she tried to reach to where she had
thought it might have fallen, she just couldn't get it. She began cursing
in her mother's native language as she grabbed the nearest weapon she could
find, a large rock, and threw it at the creature. Anguished tears further
blurred her vision, and the pain in what was left of her leg was searing.
She grit her teeth as her breath came quickly, laboured, as she began
shaking uncontrollably.
Alison could see Syl's eyes starting to go distant. "HOBBIE! Forget the
shark, I got him. Syl needs you!" Steeling herself, Alison firmed her
stance, holding the saber out and preparing to dance with the creature.
Hobbie ran to Sylvana's side and knelt down, putting the blaster on the
ground beside him so he could get it quickly should he need to help Alison.
"You know, Syl, I'm supposed to be the one leaving the planet with life
threatening injuries," he made an attempt at humor and he dug through his
pockets for his portable med kit that he NEVER left home without. "You
trying to put me out of a job?"
"Just cut off... lightsabre... cauterised.... I can't heal myself...."
Sylvana's speech was disjointed as she blearily looked up at him.
"Shhhh, Syl, it's ok. I'm here, I'm going to take care of you. Don't
worry..." Hobbie tried to get her to relax as he found a med patch and
placed it on her arm. Its sole purpose was to keep people from going into
shock. She had already begun to slip, and he could only hope it would bring
her back out quickly.
"It killed Fegrin... Solun.... Why? It's not.... Why is this...?"
He then looked at her leg, wincing. She was allergic to bacta, this he knew
as he had to remind himself to keep from covering it with a large bacta
patch. Instead, he looked for another drug patch to block the pain, and
gently applied it to the leg a few inches above the wound. Then, taking out
a clean dressing, he moved to wrap the leg to keep anything from getting at
the burned stump.
"The eyes... they thrash... so much blood.... The weak point is its eyes...
shove it through... sizzle the brain..." she shouted, even as her shaking
began to still, her eyes finding a new colour. They were neither mud nor
mercury, but a dried blood brown that was dilated, not quite seeing. "It
hurts... it hungers...."
Hearing her, Alison nodded and stepped towards the landshark. The dance was
fast, short, and lethal. The shark lunged for Alison's waist, and she
sidestepped around the beast, holding the saber so close she almost burned
her own body. Then she was behind the beast. She lunged at it, and winced
as the saber burned the flesh while she drove it through the back of the
beast's head... the tip of the saber exiting through the eye of the
landshark as it roared.
As the medicines coursed through her system, Sylvana's eyes cleared to a
mercury colour once more. They narrowed, and she growled, reaching toward
the blurred black that was her bar and a moment later it was in her hand,
before being thrown like a lance through the creature's other eye. It
twitched a few more times, and began falling toward them, then suddenly
stopped as she kept her eyes on it. "We're leaving. Now," her voice sounded
a bit strained... strange, as she leaned weakly into Hobbie.
Hobbie nodded and wrapped his arms around and under her, picking her up
gently. "I agree. I don't think this is a very good vacation spot. ALISON!"
"WHAT?!" Alison called back, exasperated. The lightsaber handle was stuck.
Alison had plunges it in a bit past the handle rim, and now the ribbing was
keeping her from pulling it back out. She had a foot braced on the back of
the sharks head and was tugging.
"Time to go!" Hobbie stated, bending over to get his blaster and giving it
to Syl for her to shoot as he carried her.
"I'm not leaving till I get the lightsaber back!" Alison growled. "I want
one, and this is my chance to get one!"
"Turn the stupid thing off, Alisky!" Sylvana shouted from Hobbie's arms,
still commanding, still fierce. "I'll give you a shove!" Her body was
stiff, her muscles taught in her alertness. Off to the side she saw one of
the bounty hunters heading their way, and she pulled up Hobbie's blaster,
shooting their would-be attacker flawlessly with an unrepentant snarl.
"It's the handle that's stuck!" Alison shouted back, but turned it off,
military conditioning training her to listen to a commanding voice. She
suddenly felt the saber shoved toward her, and the beast fell to the side
as she stumbled backwards, the bloody saber in her hands. "How the
sith...?" she started to ask, then shook her head. Now was NOT the time.
Hobbie was a bit upset by the sudden fierceness in Syl's demeanour, but
ignored it. "Ship's back at the main gates! Syl can fire at anything
coming, you take rear guard!"
"What about the Australians!" Sylvana asked sharply, squinting against the
blurriness, to keep watch for anyone that didn't look like one of their
soldiers, doctors, or patients.
"Ooryl went to find them," Hobbie told her as he kept running. Hearing the
hum of a lightsaber again behind him, he dared to stop a moment in order to
make sure that Alison wasn't going to do what he thought she was.
Three pirates had appeared behind them and were shooting at them.
Remembering that her sword was able to do it, Alison worked to block the
blaster shots with the saber. With such a thin and unfamiliar blade, she
really sucked. Sure, she got one or two by chance, but the others went
right by and hit the wall beside Hobbie and Sylvana. Finally, she gave up
and just charged them... and then laughed as they took off running.
Sylvana's eyes were fading to resemble the earthen colour Hobbie was
familiar with. "She's..." her fingers nervelessly dropped the blaster.
"Crazier... than me...." Her eyes closed and she went limp in Hobbie's
arms - the combined medications in her system pulling her roughly to the
unconscious realm.
"Of course I am. That's why they put me here first." Alison said with a
grin as she walked over to them, running a soothing hand gently along Syl's
forehead. She looked up at Hobbie. "We need to get back to your ship."
He jerked his head to where Syl'd dropped his blaster. "Take that and let's
have some cover, then." He readjusted his hold on the unconscious woman in
his arms.
Using her foot to kick it into the air, Alison checked the blaster charge
and tucked it into her pants at the small of her back. "You got it. Lead
the way, Bacta Boy."
Hobbie grumbled something under his breath about needing a new nickname as
he quickly glanced around and started making his way as swiftly across the
rubbled area as he could, keeping an eye out for any more of those
monstrous creatures as he did so.
Alison did the same, taking a few pot shots at people who tried to attack
them as they ran by. She didn't kill anyone, but some certainly would have
a hard time walking for a few weeks.
If they made it out alive.
Hobbie took a moment to pause behind a bit of crumbled building, surveying
the last bit of their path to the ship. Lonely space, with nothing to hide
behind, stretched between them and their salvation... and a plucky little
droid hovering in the door to their escape as though it belonged there.
"That's Syl's droid," Alison motioned with the blaster. "I think it wants
us to follow it."
"Sure, as soon as-" he stopped and pulled his head back when a blaster shot
broke off a bit from the wall he was hiding behind. "Alison, would you
take care of that, please?"
"Get on board. I'll mop it up." She moved away from Hobbie, firing to
give him cover.
Taking one last glance at her, he dashed across the empty spacepad -
trusting both his life and Sylvana's to her sharpshooting as he dashed up
the ramp and past the droid, who whistled a warning into the ship as he did
so.
Wes was there to meet him. "What happened?!" he asked, seeing Sylvana.
"Big Beasty and a Nutjob with a lightsabre," Hobbie told him as he pushed
past toward the small medical room in their transport. "Give Alison some
cover so she can get on and we can get out of here - where are the
Aussies?"
Wes shrugged. "Face is trying to get in touch with Ooryl to see if he
found them." He grabbed a blaster rifle from a smuggling compartment, then
got in the doorway. "Alison, get your cute ass back in here so we can go!"
"Oh come on, I'm just starting to remember just how much fun this is!"
Alison shouted while she slowly backed up toward the ramp.
As she did so, Face reappeared, or at least his head did, through the
cockpit door. "Ooryl's getting the others off planet separately. Soon as
Alison's on board, we're leaving!"
"Come on, sweetheart. Time to stop playing with your toys and see what
kind of fancy flying Face can do with this lug."
"If that's the case, it's safer out here!"
Face had one of the big guns blast a hole into Alison's targets. "NOW!" he
shouted, revving the engines.
"Kriff, someone can't take a joke," Alison smirked, taking Wes' hand
and getting pulled on board.
The shuttle door slammed shut as the ship lifted off the ground. It
shuddered while it did so, dodging some anti-aircraft fire as it wove its
way out of the atmosphere.
"Hobbie, I hope you two're locked down! It's going to be a bumpy ride!"
Wes shouted as he grabbed Alison and ran to the cockpit.
He'd just strapped Sylvana down to the makeshift cot and managed to grab
hold of an overhead pipe as Face took an exceptionally rough turn at the
last moment to avoid some maniac pilot in an escape ship. He shook his
head and quickly moved to strap himself in a chair beside her as he waited
for them to hit hyperspace so he could do something more than worry about
how pale she had gotten.
Face cursed under his breath as he pulled back on the controls again,
swerving his way to space.
"Remind me to tell my uncle you need remedial flying lessons," Alison told
Face as she strapped into the co-pilot's seat. Wes sat in the spare seat
behind them, strapping in as well.
"If people'd stop getting in my way it'd be smoother," Face grit his teeth,
narrowly evading more anti-aircraft.
"That's why it's called evasive flying," she teased. In her opinion, Face
was actually doing a good job. It was just the right of being a best
friend.
"Glad to have you back," he pursed his lips, slipping between two wildly
flying ships and finally making it toward free space. "Set in coordinates
for-"
"Coruscant's too far right now," Wes said looking over the navigational
charts.
"Any suggestions, then?"
"Spaceport?" Alison offered.
"Not enough non-bacta medical supplies to help Sylvana," Wes pointed out.
"Terra's our best bet."
"I can't go to Terra," Alison pointed out.
"Then I guess it's a good thing we have smuggling compartments."
"Put in the coordinates, Wes," Face told him as he checked to make sure
their way'd be clear.
Wes nodded, doing so. "Ready for hyperspace."
"On my mark," Face ordered, flicking a few switches. "Three... two...
mark."
Alison leaned back against the cushions of her seat as they accelerated.
"Cracken is going to kill us all when he hears about this."
"Hey, not our fault things went kablooey before we got there."
"No, but I'm sure he'll find a way to blame us."
"Let's not worry about that until we have to," Face said, unbuckling
himself as the ship settled in its jump.
"Yeah, let's catch up on missed time instead." Wes unbuckled and stood
behind Alison, wrapping his arms around her chair.
"Wes," Alison rolled her eyes and slapped his hand, but let him hug her
just the same.
Face shook his head and stood, stretching. "I really REALLY don't want to
know. In fact, you two just better behave," he said.
"You expect a Janson to behave?" Alison laughed. "That's like asking
Cracken to be sympathetic!"
"Well, I'm sure you're capable of keeping him in line, Ali. Meanwhile, I'm
going to check on the others, see if Hobbie needs any help with Syl." He
stepped through and let the doors to the cockpit shut between them as he
leaned back against the bulkhead. "What ARE we going to do about
Cracken...?"
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