Post by Neology on Jan 23, 2019 19:36:30 GMT -5
[googlefont="News Cycle"]
Unconsciousness was not much like sleep at all, but it gave way to that eventually. In between was something else, recognized with strangely detached alarm as heavy sedation. Self-inflicted? She couldn’t remember, but thought not. Had she wanted high, she might have used a lower dose and simply chosen not to resist ... The first nightmare was one she had often, frustratingly mundane. Lidah searched alone through every dusty corner and supply cabinet of the Blind Eye, looking for people she hadn’t seen in years. Sometimes she found them: Richter Kast’s gleaming Imperial dress boots sticking out of a crumpled roll of carpet, Danica Liviana, enormously pregnant still, folding baby clothes on a bench in the third sublevel. Just as often, she did not. A particular, stubborn knocking seemed to follow her wherever she went. Levin come to debase himself again, eyes and lips sewn shut, bloody left hand smudging the fogged over glass. She never opened that door, recalling with perfect clarity the sound Vance’s head had made against the Tarisian pavement. The familiar/endless halls of the Blind Eye gave way to that next morning, ashen and carbon-scored. That seemed appropriate – she’d only survived the night by hiding in the old tunnels with the other monsters. Sunlight filtered down on the still-smoldering battlefield, the one truly unforgivable thing ... There was meant to be something else. Something to tare the scale. She could not think what. A creature had followed her out into the light, out of the bowels of Taris. A bloated rakghoul of giant size, half its face a staved in mess of gore. The whole left side of its body hosted an explosion of colorful mushrooms. It crouched and leered at her. Ahh, at last. I/We have found you, White One. The voice almost purred in satisfaction, the monster setting back on its heels. Lidah struggled, to scream or to cry or to do anything at all, paralyzed by the dream. Why hide? And how? The creature lumbered forward – Lidah was only about as tall as its shoulder. A long, superficially human tongue lolled out and raked over the top of her head, besliming her hair. It huffed a great breath, seeming disappointed. A trick only. Well, the Chorus can lift these burdens all the same. It opened its mouth, closing flat herbivore teeth around the top of her head. Something cracked with the sound of a glacier shifting. Not her skull, though it felt as if it ought to be. She was falling suddenly, pinching pain all over, landing hard and gracelessly on cold sterile tile and pebbled safety glass. Still and shocked, Lidah slowly reached up to her face and pulled tape from her eyelids, fighting to breathe around the tube in her throat. That came away next, the dragging sensation causing uncomfortable choking spasms in her throat. Lidah vomited a small quantity of bloody bile from her empty stomach and lay panting on her side in a shallow bacta solution, still resolutely pumping from the shattered tank. The Soothesayer’s medbay had become all too familiar in recent weeks. She groaned, wishing that she’d recognized it at once, thus saving thousands of credits in equipment. A wave of her hand shut most of it off, alarms and alerts dying away until only comparatively demure flashing lights remained. ”Mo?” Her voice came out strange, thick. Lidah remembered the electrical short, her suit going dead … An explosion. Where were the others? She surely hadn’t put herself in the bacta tank. Beyond all that, had whoever-it-was left her any clothes? It was very cold on the tile floor. ”MoBiva?” “Yes, Ms. Faine?” ”Did we ...” Lose anyone. Lidah sat up, peering around. No one in the patient beds, no white sheet draped bodies. Perhaps she had got the worst of it? ”Did the recorder survive the explosion?” “Yes, Ms. Faine. Ms. Muir and Mr. Aetoris are working on decrypting the contents. They anticipate results by the end of this day/night cycle.” ”Good. That fast? Huh.” She pulled off sensor patches one by one and climbed gingerly to her feet. Reaching out tentatively with the Force, she swept pellets of glass out of the way. With an unbidden shiver down her back, Lidah drew in her presence, hiding once more. The voice in her nightmare had been real, she felt that for certain. Running the shower as hot as it would go, Lidah washed the oily gel out of her hair and looked for signs of this most recent misadventure on her body. New scars, thin and silver, traced down both arms, across her chest and up her neck. On her face, where the command headset touched her brow. Oh. That particular set of armor would never be the same; might as well have it cut into slices for paperweights and doorstops. Lidah dried off, shrugged into a set of gray knits, and retreated to her own cabin. Sinking happily into her station chair, she peered at her hands for a long moment. New bruising, purple-tinged nail beds … A symptom of what? She logged into her console to record it, stopped when she saw the date. It was not the same day as the Basilisk raid, or even the day after. According to this display, she’d been in that tank for three and a half days. Locke had been sent the email just over fourteen hours ago and nothing could call it back unread. ”Aw, fuck.” She slid down in her chair. |