Futuristic Transsolar

[InsanEleven]

Doc

​

She had wanted to fight Jericho pulling her with him when the centipede came rushing through the walls, more than capable to run away herself, but in the end decided against it and just let him lead her. At least until she saw Marshall carrying the paralysed Jack. Running beside him, she switched her comms to a private channel.


"We need to get him out and give first aid. Identify and cauterise the poison, before it spreads to his heart." She was talking while running, looking for signs of what she would have to use to alter it.


When they were finally outside Chrice immediately took over Jack. Stripping off the Kevlar armour to the base layer, feeling for a pulse and looking over the symptoms. Immediately she commanded her fellow medic for several substances. Except only half of those were available in the first aid kit.


"Don't we have fucking anything decent? Okay, we need to get him back to the camp ASAP. I can't treat this in the field." A few moments later she realised one more person was missing, looking around quite confused until she realised Jericho really wasn't there. "Were the hell is Jericho?! Never mind. We need to head back, we can't wait for them to return, otherwise we'll lose Jack."





Halfway through returning to the camp an emergency beacon started beeping, quite a ways back. "They did find their way out..." Immediately she took makeshift command again; she, Marshall and a few people equipped with guns were to go back look for their captain, while her assistant and the remaining people were to head back to the camp. "Move it! We'll catch up on you."

Saami
​

There was perpetual darkness, but the sound was still there. Hearing Woods' footsteps move through the complex, listening to echos, and the sound of a swarm of bugs getting closer. At least he could somewhat update the map based on that. Then the sound of exoskeleton piercing through flesh hit. It couldn't be him, his vitals were still the same. Then the sound of a thump on the ground followed, and he knew that was his own body being dropped. The swarm got closer, surrounding, louder and louder despite his hearing going worse. Were they dying? What he heard wasn't congruent with that. It sounded more like... the bugs were fighting eachother. But even that was drowning out, going more distanced. His own, weak breaths were overcome by that of something else, something he couldn't place.


Perhaps another bug was dragging him off, perhaps it was his hearing going strange. Everything was fading. Still alive. He was still alive. But his mind was going messy. Failing. Like drowning, gone deep deep down. Breathing was a struggle, and he didn't even know if he was breathing anything worthwhile in. His mind was overcome by a writhing mass of errors. Failure. Failure. No more time. No more sound. No more body. Heavy darkness weighing down on him. One by one his mechanics were falling out. Indications of when he was. Where he was. Not even how he was.


Saami had only barely been breathing, his pulse nearly gone, when Woods slammed the adrenaline in him. The surge resuscitating him just enough to take loud, shallow gasps. For a moment his mind came back. Just enough to hear Woods tell him it'd be okay. He didn't sound okay, but it was better than the dead man Saami had held him for.


It took a while for Adira to arrive, and in that time the adrenaline had been wearing off. He only vaguely heard her voice in the distance, but not quite what she was saying, or to whom.

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Where Vince and Adira stood, the jungle on the surface seemed to cradle them. From the spotty openings in the canopy, rays of sunshine bathed the three in its radiant light, and by some beautiful work of nature, the rain had stopped. The birds of the planet began to chirp, and the wildlife that inhabited the monumental trees had begun to leave their wooden homes to bask in the warmth of the newly shining sun. Mercy, rare and brief, had found the trio.


The rustling in the bushes, of course, created a sense of uneasiness. They had just escaped the bugs that lived underground, almost dormant until their arrival, but the fact that they had not been hunted down yet was a good omen to the safety they should feel while on the floral surface. However, it would still be against better interest to ignore such movement in the underbrush.


Jericho, true to his position in the group, acted as rear guard for the expedition, and put his shotgun to good use during the fighting retreat out of the catacombs and into the light. As expected, everyone in the motley crew of scientists and soldiers had blasted any chitin-bearing creature to smithereens in defense of their group, and he especially took the time from his retreat to finish off any wounded bugs that he encountered as the last man in a chain of people scrambling to the surface. It is unfortunate though, that in the process of executing any wounded enemies, that he found himself falling more and more behind in the retreat. There were a lot of bodies to account for. No one noticed his extended absence.


Staggered and separated, a chitin spike from the darkness had taken a swing at the bastion, and in quick reflex, Jericho took the brunt of its sharpened carapace to the left arm, hearing the servos of his limb straining and watching the metal bend to the impact. Surprised and staying true to instinct, Jericho broke his silence with a yell, turning the hefty shotgun to bear on the enemy, before blasting apart its innards. The splatter of its circulatory fluid drenched the left side of his armor, and took to malfunctioning his prosthetic's electronics from the open gash the carapace has made. The shotgun blast, only one-handed and in poor posture, caused him to also drop the firearm, which slid down the slippery rocks deeper into the darkness. Deciding that chasing it was pointless, and not knowing how many more insects were bound to be around him, he made a mad dash toward the way he once came.


Confident in the party's ability to defend himself, Jericho also decided that he had to look out for himself as of now. Unarmed and wounded with a malfunctioning arm, he took any route to the surface, crawling naturally to any light he found in the claustrophobic blackness. Sadly, his path had strayed from the group he swore to protect, and when he finally broke free from the rocky grave, a quick survey announced his solitude. However, in the sunlight, he could see a small beacon flashing on his heads-up display...


Exhausted and disoriented from the action, instead of searching for the group, he made the easy assumption that a bug couldn't set a beacon, so he headed toward it, ironically, like a moth to light. Jericho made it especially obvious that he was approaching. Instead of creeping through the bushes and shrubs, as a hunter would stalk its prey, he hoped that by making his presence easily audible, that he wouldn't get shot immediately upon contact. In the final moments before breaking into vision of the trio, he took a deep breath, knowing full well that he could be shot out of preemptive reaction, but he took the chance and charged headfirst through some brush and into the opening the trio resided.


His left arm, sparking and dripping with fluids, announced his audience better than his words did. His mind, sharp enough to distinguish the members surrounding the beacon, but not sharp enough to switch his communications to any private channel, instead opted for an outwardly audible, simple response.


"Present."

 

[Dragongal]

"Maybe. Maybe not. But we won't worry about that now." At the rustling in the bushes, Adira pulled her phaser and took aim. When Jericho came into view, she merely sighed heavily. She'd been worried it was a bug, but now that she knew it was him, she holstered her phaser again. "Thank God. Where are the others?" At least he hadn't been in time to see her and Woods saying anything compromising. A look around seemed to affirm what Adira had worried about: nobody was with Jericho. "Do you have a medical kit on you? Saami needs medical attention and I don't have any of what he needs." If they had to wait much longer, Adira would have to pull out her medical kit and work on Vince, but if they could wait, it would be better for him. She really had nothing to help Saami, though.

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Jericho, stone cold under the ocean of his visor, used his functioning hand to pat around his tactical belt until he produced a medical kit. His assistance here would be the fruit of his efforts, considering that the grim confidence of the crew had lead, from what he could see, to ill preparation for the expedition. His head had not changed direction, still facing the trio, but his eyes had taken to skimming across the environment in search of clues to how he could assist further. Vince, clearly wounded and with the obvious chitin spike still in his back, would appear to be the first patient of his medical kit, but his eyes ended their search when they came across Saami—crumbled and fading.


There is something about watching the dying that Jericho understood. In the few, last pacing moments of their life, the dying almost give off an aura, a light like no one has ever seen without this context, and it was behind the cold, sea blue glass, that his eyes caught that very aura. Whether the sixth sense comes from experience or age, Jericho had addressed the trio to seek out the aura in each of them. He found none on Adira, for obvious reasons. He found none on Vince, oddly enough. But he found the flickering light, the aura, he had seen in his father, but now, around Saami.


He absent-mindlessly handed the medical kit to Adira, his visor seemingly locked on her, but proven a wrong assumption when he stepped past her and began the few steps it would take to reach Saami. Dropping to his knees, the guards giving a thwump as they embraced soft soil, Jericho immediately took his operational hand and moved the hair from Saami's face, his fingers trailing on the skin of a being not quite kin to his species, but more human nonetheless. There was little pieces of dirt and insect stuck to the skin, which he spent the time to remove from Saami's face. It wasn't long after his initial meeting with the ground that Jericho twisted and sat flatly, pooling his strength to then place the pilot between the cradle of his legs, and placing the head of the same pilot back against his chest. It was a delicate hold, contrasting the hardness of the armor Saami laid upon, but in spite of this, Jericho held onto the dying boy, before he began to speak.


Whether the initial crack was from a glitch in the speaker, the microphone, or the man, a low grumble followed it before Jericho's voice came clear through the helmet.





"Hey, kid... Can you hear me? Are you awake, kid?"





The last address of Saami fell short of Jericho's usually audible voice. It had been reduced to a whisper. The same hand that cleared Saami's face now took one of his limp hands and gave it a squeeze. Even past the flexible Kevlar, the warmth of Jericho's palm still emitted.


"Give me something, a squeeze, an eye flutter—Are you awake?..."

 

[BookWyrm]

Vince watched Jericho walk right past Adira and over to Saami, almost seemingly lost in a haze. Vince shook his head, understanding the situation. Some people handled death differently, and there was obvious tenderness in Jericho's movements. It was a tenderness you see in someone who'd lost a close loved one. "Do you have what you need?", Vince asked as he looked back at his pack and the rifle that lay next to it. He sorted through his remaining gear, producing a couple of extra magazines before he picked up his rifle, placing the stock on the ground as he pushed himself to his feet. If they were going to have to wait to be found they were going to need to be protected.

 

[Dragongal]

"Now I do." Adira immediately had set to searching through the medkit, then pulled out two syringes and held them out to Jericho. She wasn't cleared to carry such medicines in her medkit, but he was. "Here. He needs these. Trust me, I used to work in medications as an ensign." It was true. She'd also worked in defense and engineering and commandeered her own ship, but hey. Medications was needed at the moment. Once Jericho had the medicine, Adira stood up next to Vince. "What do you think you're doing? You started going into shock. Neither Jericho nor I are hurt, and who just killed a giant insect with a hookshot? Yeah, sit down."

 

[BookWyrm]

Vince rolled his shoulders back and did his best to stand up straight. Even if his armor was torn to shreds and he had broken chitin spikes jutting out from his chest and back, he was determined to hold himself with some dignity. "I was hired to protect this crew. With my last breath, and to the last man standing, I refuse to give up the mission." Vince looked over at Jericho, the one half of his helmet that had been torn revealing a tired face behind the visor. "It would also seem that Jericho is, in fact, wounded. It might just be a prosthetic, but that is his arm after all."

 

[Unlimited]

"Oh, I hope you enjo-..." Everything happened so fast he couldn't keep up, the rain, the bug, the pain, then the darkness. JT was out and being passed around like a sack of potatoes, limp and in full gear would make him a pain to carry. The image of Saami saving JT was burned into his mind and the last thing he remembered, dreaming about his hero as he took a paralytic nap.

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Jericho, still whispering, took the syringes carefully. What Adira probably picked up on was the shaking that his hands had when he initially grasped the medicine, but he was quick to pull in his arms and keep Saami upright. It was then that he cleared his voice a bit more, and spoke with a stronger confidence. He waved one of the syringes near Saami's face.


"Listen, kid, I have the medicine right here. I am going to punch it into your sternum, so we can get it to your heart, alright? You see it? I'm going to do it now, hold your breath..."





It was a common tactic among medics to assign random tasks to mask when they were going to perform. Like a nurse taking someone's pulse, they tell the patient that they are checking their breathing, so that the patient isn't nervous about how their heart beats—which may or may not effect the results. So, knowing that Saami, if he was conscious, was mentally preparing himself to hold his breath, Jericho punched the long syringe into the sternum to inject the medicine within it, taking him completely off guard in the case that last second, Saami did not mentally prepare and flinched. With the medicine administered, he pulled the syringe out slowly and tossed it to the side before continuing to cradle Saami, waiting to see the effects of the syringe's contents.

 

[Dragongal]

Adira looked at him for a moment. Since her helmet had a metal face, there was no way he could see her irked expression. She went back to Jericho's medkit and pulled out some dressing and bandaging, then without warning pulled a chitin spike out of Vince's shoulder. "Then I'm working with you while you're standing, is that better?" Needless to say, she didn't wait for permission before starting to dress and bandage the wound.

 

[InsanEleven]

Nadanya

​

3487/12/17 11:20:37 SST


Everything after the centipede had happened so fast, liquid fear rushing through her veins as she had to do her best not to just make a sprint to the exit in blind fear. Now their freaking doctor had given the order to move back to the camp, the last of the defensive team scrambling together with some more combat worthy engineers, without a scout, commander or overseer. She understood why Chrice had wanted to take Marshall with her, needing the best for their own safety. Quite honestly, what remained looked like a group of very frightened puppies cowering together. At least it worked. They were making rapid paces back to the camp.


Somehow she now found herself haphazardly carrying the limp body of a chemist. One she had been drinking coffee with not that long ago. In dire contrast with the situation, she still couldn't help but think he was too freaking cute to die like that. Would be a shameful use of the man wouldn't it? Not that him hanging like a bag of salt on her shoulder wasn't shameful. Good thing they were the only ones heading in the general direction of safety.

Doc

​

3487/12/17 11:27:49 SST


Their small rescue dispatch had trouble manoeuvring through the thick forest and underbrush leading up to the place where the beacon came from. Making little use of what otherwise would be useful time. It irritated the doctor to no end that she hadn't yet crossed the relatively small distance. They could not be sloppy and risk losing another man here, but their caution could very well mean that someone else lost precious time. If they are alive to begin with. And not overtaken by these damn bugs on this damn horrible excuse for a planet.


While simultaneously trying to give the crew some sense of direction and fight off some stray bugs with her pistol, she also mentally went over what chemicals there were in her medical kit that could help. She hadn't however been able to help JT much, and she could only hope that Saami wasn't too far down the deep end. She could try and buy a few extra minutes, then set to treating whatever else needed to be treated. At this point in her life she hated to admit it, but all she could do was her best. And it might not be enough this time.

 

[InsanEleven]

Saami

​

3487/12/17 11:29:13 SST


Somewhere from within the deep dark a little lightness bubbled up shortly. Like the memory of warmth grazing his face and hand in an otherwise endless field of freezing, heavy abyss. More than once sound shimmered through, and his whole being tried to claw at it for something to hold on to, but it was just that. Kind yet empty sounds he could not place, not even giving him so much as a general direction to head in. It was the piercing light in the distance that revealed he was sinking in a sea of numb demise.


Laying in Jericho's lap he could not react to the words, as he didn't even know what was asked of him. Instead simply fighting his lonely battle for breaths. The kindness did little to save him, and more to reduce him to the youth he was. Only to make painfully clear that that youth was now slipping too. Compared to Jericho he looked nearly transparent; pale and fading.


At least until a needle was rammed deep into his sternum. Like a sudden bubble popping around him, giving him a moment of respite. With nearly admirable determination to stay alive he took the deepest breaths he could. Yet it was just that, a chemical aid. It didn't make his resolve any less tired, or his body any less cold. Even if it helped him now, it contained nothing substantial to fight the true cause. A last resort barrier, easily splintered and shattered by crushing darkness rolling in.


For a few more minutes the medicine bravely stood against death like a knight against a dragon. Until the dragon had enough of their little game and carelessly swatted the knight away again. The paralysis returning to torment Saami. Crushing his throat while he still tried to breathe. Nothing happening but high-pitched sounds of choking coming from deep within him. Frantically pushing and pulling, battling through his own flesh, but unable to win. Each gasp he tried to spit out the saliva he was asphyxiating in, but in the time it took him to get it out, twice as much had already blocked his airways again.


Until slowly the panic left, leaving him with little wheezes. So weak most could not even escape the confines of his saliva; instead filling his mouth with foam. Sporadically a true breath broke through, but it got less and less as time passed.

 

[BookWyrm]

"Fucking hell." Vince clenched his eyes shut and leaned against Adira, pain the only feeling as she removed the spike from his shoulder. "Yes and no. I could have tolerated it being there until we got back, you know. Not that I don't appreciate the care, but damn." The wound bled now that the spike was gone, yet right before Adira could apply the dressing, something writhed inside the wound, pulling tissue from either side together to seal the injury.

 

[Dragongal]

"That's why I was trying to wait, I just - " Adira paused and stared at the wound for a few solid seconds in shock. Was that? Okay, now this was getting worrisome. She had only started working on patching him up to give him a shock, since he was kind of ignoring her. "Um... okay, nevermind." She shook her head a bit and checked the comms, then gave it a try. "Doc, it's Adira, yes I'm alive, but if you take much longer, Saami won't be. Jericho is with us. Where are you?"

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Seeing Saami still struggle, Jericho had taken to laying Saami on his side, in an effort to clear his airways of mucus, saliva, or other miscellaneous objects that may prevent him from breathing. It was at the point, where Saami had been reduced to wheezes, that he injected the second syringe, hoping to prolong the life of the being before him. There was a hiccup in the aura, where it almost dissipated and gave Jericho the reassurance he needed to know that Saami would survive, but the aura eventually returned and even past the visor of his helmet, he could see the transparent and fading. A cadaver that isn't quite there yet.


The shimmer of hope he held was fading, like a flickering candle, and Jericho desperately attempted to shield the flame from the coming wind, but he knew that he was ill prepared to stop the coming storm. For now, he waited for the effects of the medicine to set in, and took to making sure that Saami would not fade into the dark. That he would spend every living moment fighting. Just as his father did.


Just as he himself did.

 

[InsanEleven]

Doc

​

"The display says a about a hundred metres away. At least he's still alive, that's better than I anticipated. How about you fire a shot? We can place you on the sound." It was a hell of a work to find someone in a jungle, even with the right equipment. Some sound would help give them a direction and precise location in case the Lullaby's relay didn't exactly show where the beacon was supposed to be. With some luck it could even be they were closer than the signal showed.

Saami

​

Being placed on his side, and given a second injection eased his struggle slightly. However, it was clear he was at the end of his strength. Fighting, but just barely. The wheezing crowned by exhaustion. Slowly the sharpness and pain of him forcing himself to live was dulled by a silence akin to that of sleep.

 

[Dragongal]

Adira looked around for a moment before shooting into the canopy. Phasers were mostly silent, but they made noise when they hit things like that big branch up ahead, with a bug on it, which screeched when she shot it. "Please tell me you heard that? We really need you over here, Saami is barely hanging on."

 

[InsanEleven]

Doc

​

She couldn't help but grin a little as the sound of a blast resonated through the woods; finally something went their way. "Yes, loud and clearly!" Immediately she commanded for the team to move in that direction, with the renewed energy of some goddamn hope pacing their steps. Until finally they ran into the collection of bodies, none of which looking too great, but some worse off than others.


The defence took the liberty of securing their surroundings, as Chrice quickly took in the heap of work that now laid before her. With a sideways glance to Woods being taken care of by Adira, she decided that Saami definitely looked like the one that needed her help most. Taking out a range of medicines which she knew weren't enough, and half of which she had only guessed hoping that one of them would counteract against the paralysing agent. Basically throwing rocks at it until she found one that would magically stick.


"I can't stabilise him here, I have neither the means nor time. Cap, Woods, do you think you can keep up with us? I'd rather not cause a second death."

 

[BookWyrm]

There was something morbidly funny to Vince about how everyone seemed to be more concerned with Saami than they did over himself. But, when you factor in the knowledge that Vince was still on his feet and coherent even with chitinous javelins sticking out of his body and Saami was slowly dying while laying down, looking like a haint, it made some sense. "I'll manage.", Vince growled as he flashed a smile at Adira and walked off to join the security team members. Vince could only imagine the looks on their faces as he walked past, his armor rent and covered in blood. They'll probably be coming up with my legend before this cruise is over.

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Seeing the arrival of Chrice, Jericho took a backseat in the care of Saami. He recognized his medical in-proficiency and instead opted for orders from any of the superiors that surrounded him. It was only now that he realized that the head of the defense department, the lead pilot and scout, the doctor in charge of the medical bay, AND the captain of the entire ship was in his presence, and he failed to recognize any of their authority. He gave quick salutes to each of them, considering he was coming down from his own shock, and knelt beside the working doctor. His left arm, still uncared for, sparked and announced the need for attention. Almost like a barking dog. However, Jericho ignored its plea and spoke up to the person he buddied with for the expedition.


"Doc, is there anything I can do?"

 

[InsanEleven]

Doc

​

Chrice raised a silent eyebrow in such a manner that she didn't even need to say 'what the hell?' to Jericho out loud. You didn't need formalities for fucking dying together now did you? "Yes, you can put these back," She pointed at the medicines that were already stuck inside Saami. "Make sure it is alphabetical." Oldest trick in the book; distract people that want to help with menial tasks so they couldn't accidentally help someone to heaven. Meanwhile she continued fixing Saami as good (which was admittedly still pretty bad) as she could, finishing injecting the medicines. After which she moved on to a more perilous task. "Jericho, you know how intubation works?"


It was a last resort, if anything. But Saami was barely breathing and didn't look like he would do that either for much longer. Which meant it was time for a crash course on how to manually aid breathing, refreshing the man's memory while she was already in the midst of inserting tubes in their head pilot. "You just slowly squeeze over the span of a few seconds, that's all you need to do." Don't fuck it up. If Jericho could do that, she'd have time remove some pieces of bug from Woods on the go. Funny how her job consisted of inserting shit in one person, then taking stuff out of another.

 

[Dragongal]

"Now don't you be taking the glory for my killing the big crawly down there," Adira laughed, poking fun as Vince walked away. "That was all me." Now she turned her attention over to Chrice. "I'm untouched except for some slime, I can keep up." Once Doc stepped away from Saami, Adira pulled her aside and said on a private line, "Doc, the symbiote's very wide awake. When you pull out one of those spikes, it stitches him up. Don't let the team see it, okay?"

 

[InsanEleven]

Doc

​

"So that bitch is doing my job now then?" Sounded like it was in her best interest not to let anyone see, before they started thinking about replacing her with Mr. Wriggles. "Fine, as long as it doesn't decide that my hand needs to be stitched to him I can keep quiet." The question was whether or not Woods could keep quiet. Some of those chitins looked like they were embedded fairly deep, and she didn't have the time to cotton ball things up first. The least she could do was try to make it quick and not to accidentally make the wound worse when she pulled them out.

 

[SSgt Goodrich]

Jericho, initially surprised by the reaction from the doctor, opted to just nodding when instructed to pump air into the paralyzed man. She was clearly upset about the events of today, who wouldn't, but some people took it out differently than himself and he needed to remember that. So silently, just like he was on the way down the ruins, he pumped air.

 

[BookWyrm]

Now that Saami seemed at least stable enough Vince figured it was time to get his own wounds addressed. "Alright Doc," he said as he walked over to where Chrice and Adira were standing. "Let's get this over with." Vince looked around before finally settling on a log to sit on, laying hi rifle down and looking at Doc expectantly. "Don't worry about, things. I should be fine, as long as you keep those damn needles and scalpels away from me."