"I'm here," Valsil replied, loudly but without excitement. He was silhouetted against a fiery sky, facing the battle in the air, giving Zhiss a clear view of his back. His jetpack was scored with burn marks near the top, and one of the shoulder straps was damaged enough that the pack sagged to the left, but otherwise the Twi'lek seemed none the worse for wear. Shattered bits of plant matter and smoldering remains of a parachute at his feet hinted at the violent manner by which he'd come through the canopy -- but if it bothered him at all, he gave no hint. Instead, he seemed to suddenly come to life as he turned around and helped Zhiss find her footing through the muck shore.

In his head, Valsil was checking his comrade for signs of injury. Her rocket pack was gone -- just as well, since his own pack was damaged beyond use. The hard landing hadn't done her any serious injury, he judged. And she hadn't lost emotional control, which meant that she wasn't useless. "Careful next time. There are swamp slugs in that water." He paused. "Well, there could be, next time." He reached out with the force, trying to gauge the locations of their team and their target. The fighting confused all his senses -- he could feel too much to gather any sort of clarity with his mind, so he turned instead to math.

"We were flying east, heading 110 when the doors opened," he mumbled, tapping on his datapad. "But the weapons array is..... heading 085, from here. [i]Suicide[/i] flew us off-course. Which means we need to go [i]that[/i] way," he said, gesturing with his nose, "but any other survivors must have landed [i]that[/i] way." He brought up his hands, about 45 degrees apart, to visualize. "At 150 knots they could be scattered for..." He trailed off. All of this he had said aloud, but really he was speaking to himself while he sorted out the scenario. Now, though, he turned his attention towards Zhiss and spoke loudly.

"We have two decisions," he explained, as if the other Jedi didn't already understand the situation. "We need to regroup with our allies -- the more we find, the better our odds of success. We can head towards the crash site -- the supply drop is probably still inside -- but doing so will take us away from the target. If the others decide to continue the mission, we might not find them at all. At the same time, if we head straight for the gun battery and the others head for the crash, we'll arrive alone and empty-handed." He closed his eyes. 

"That's the first decision. The second: our positions in the dropship were near the door, but not the furthest back. There is a unit of Republic commandos somewhere in the jungle behind us. With so much chaos, I can't tell if they are alive or dead. If we choose to wait for them, they can help us on the attack; but if we wait too long, our allies may move without us, and I believe in our absence they would fail." He said this matter-of-factly, as if unaware that it could be considered rather insulting to the rest of the party, which included his own new padawan. "What would you do?" he asked.