Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Blackfridayrule
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Ridahne was no stranger to sun. She had lived under it her entire life, her skin darkened by it and the land she knew sucked dry from it. In fact, her home planet had two suns. One was thriving, the other, a hollow bluish-white mass that no longer emitted much heat. Many astronomers claimed it would explode like one final act of defiance before turning to gas, or dust, or whatever it was suns were made out of. Ridahne never thought about it much. But she did know how to deal with its effects; she knew all about hydration, about what kinds of things she could eat or drink when water was in short supply, or how to find it or filter it if she wasn't at home. She knew that animals lounged in the shade and thus, the best trap was simply a small tent. She knew how to tell time by the sun (she never was one for watches, really, never could afford one anyway) and even knew how to light a fire with it, given the right tools and resources.

It was no surprise, then, that she was not entirely phased by the warm summer wind--was it summer? It felt like summer--or the glare of the sun as it drew tiny droplets of sweat from her skin like a necromancer conjuring up the dead. But this was not home. This was not Azurei, and she did not know what kinds of plants to eat or not eat, what kinds of creatures were dangerous and which ones were decent to eat. She could find little water in the usual ways and, she noticed, it was never clean, no matter how hard she tried to filter it, boil it, or otherwise purify it. It had a very faint, sharp chemical tang that one would only notice if they hadn't been raised on it. To make matters worse, Ridahne had very little money to her name. Actually, she had only a handful of credits--a universal but altogether inferior currency, the acceptance and value of which was sometimes hit and miss, depending on the locale. But she had her knife. She had her sword. They were the only nice things she owned and she would not be pressed to sell them, not by any pains of hunger. They were all she had left of home. She used to have a gun, too, but that she sold long ago.

It was a mistake coming here. The whole planet was a waste and yet its inhabitants were staggering on with all the desperation of a virus still clinging to a dying host. Ridahne knew she could not return home, even if she did somehow find a ship to carry her there and she held no hope of that. If any ship were to bear people away from this place, they would be rich people. She was not among them. Even so, she wished that she'd gone somewhere else, landed in some other planet. Not that it was her choice but...a girl could hope.

The wind brought a sentience to her wavy ebony hair, giving it life to reach up and swirl around like kinked black tentacles. Her hair was the only thing she would ever let mask the intricate lines of tattoos on her face, mostly stemming from the base of her right ear and blossoming outward like a twisted mass of black, blue, and white foliage. Her stomach growled. Alright. She needed to eat something, even if it was scrubby brush or a half-starved bird, or the rotten remains of someone else's dinner a week earlier. Rising from her seat underneath an overhang of broken concrete slab where she made her hidden little camp, she brushed off her uri, a flowing sarong designed especially for ease of movement and hot weather, and started off towards where she knew she would find people. It wasn't much of a 'downtown', but it was as close as this place would get for now.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by KillamriX88
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Whir. Grind. Grind. Clank. There were a lot of those noises. Mostly grinding, honestly. The mechanized portion of the local military was in a state of serious disrepair. There was plenty of metal left of the planet between the wreckage and the mines, but the wreckage was an irradiated hell-scape and the ore in the mines was of low quality. The mining facilities were also slow and horridly outdated. There was no way to mass produce high quality alloys.

That meant mechs, weapons, and vehicles alike were constantly rusting, overheating, and wearing themselves down. They were also usually small and unable to support much weight. And slow. So... fucking... slow.

But that made them easy targets.

Maedoc sat crouched on a clifftop, old, brown duster protecting him from the sun and sand. A convoy was slowly grinding and whirring its way by, half of the men on foot since they couldn't afford better transportation. It comprised itself of two mechs, six foot soldiers, one atv with two passengers, and a transport truck with a simple canvas covering on the back. He had to fight to keep himself from coughing. The exhaust from the two mechs was foul and rising right up to him. He pulled a bandana, a simple gray one, up a over his face to make it a little more tolerable.

If any were to look up, his scraggly mess of bright, red hair would probably give him away -- but no one wanted to look up into the harsh sunlight.

Right on schedule, the convey, literally, ground to a halt. A man had walked out into the road in front of it. A pair of soldiers, likely suffering in their stuffy combat armor, marched forward to shove him out of the way, but they never got the chance. A rocket streaked out from behind a sand dune across the road, blasting one of the mechs to pieces.

The other quickly rotated on its hip joints, twin autocannons on its right arm firing wildly in the direction the rocket had come from. Meanwhile, the man in the road had retreated, but not before shooting one of the soldiers in the head. That was his cue. He jumped from the cliff, landing on the back of the surviving mech, nearly unbalancing it just from that. He grabbed the nearest handhold and reached back with his free hand, grabbing what appeared to be a hatchet, but with a very small blade.

He flipped a switch and with a crackle of energy, an unstable blade of hot plasma burst to life. He smashed it into the mechs exhaust twice, and soon it was shooting flames and shaking itself apart. He leapt clear just before the engine gave and it toppled, a smoking wreck. By then, ballistic gunfire was raining down on the remaining troops, one shot having disabled the trucks engine.

A nearby soldier rushed at him, his weapon having jammed. He raised his energy hatchet... and it fizzled out, leaving him to smash it just about uselessly against the soldier's helmet. The soldier returned with the butt of his gun, knocking him to the ground. With the push of a button, a bayonet popped out, and the soldier moved for a finishing blow.

A bolt of energy struck the soldier in the chest, burning straight through his armor. Energy weapons were faulty, which was why Maedoc carried two. The second was a bulky pistol... that burned through its power cell in one, albeit deadly, shot. He snapped it open, ejecting the fizzling cell before it slagged the entire gun. He sighed, he didn't have a replacement this time.

He quickly dashed to the truck, jumping into the back. There were no guards. All the soldiers were dead or soon to be at that point. This was his best chance to get his prize. There were numerous crates on the truck, but the small one in the back was his goal. It was locked, but he pried it open quickly enough. Inside was another container, held safe by foam padding. That one wasn't locked.

He snapped the lid open, revealing a large electronic chip. He slipped it into his jacket, replacing it was another, considerably less value fake. It wasn't that he didn't trust his companions, but...

OK, he didn't at all trust his companions.

He jumped back out of the truck, and already two of them were standing there waiting among the wreckage and corpses.

"So, already nabbed it have you?" The first, a grizzled older man asked him. He had plenty of stubble, buzzed hair, and a very large machine gun.

"Of course," Maedoc gave a small bow. "Plenty of other loot too." What little it would be worth. Hopefully some of it was edible.

"Good. Hand it over." The second was a woman with similarly short hair. She had a large revolver in his face.

"So rude..." Maedoc scowled, fishing the small container out and handing it over. The man opened it and then nodded.

"Rude? No. This is rude." She pulled the trigger.

- - - Two Days Later - - -

A man drunkenly stumbled his way through the streets of "The Bowl." It was essentially a small dent in the planet. Over the years they'd erected a set of curved walls around it, effectively shielding it from the wind and harsh sand. The taller buildings still got blasted, but it was better than nothing.

He was in the downtown portion of the settlement, staggering past people and trying not to knock anyone over. He was pretty sure he wouldn't get up again if he crashed. However, vision blurry, his luck finally ran out. He stumbled around a corner and roughly bumped into some woman with dark hair wearing a sarong. He grabbed her shoulders, using her to steady himself and somehow not bringing either to the ground. He looked up once he felt a little steadier, opened his mouth to apologize... and coughed up a spray of blood right in her face before collapsing anyway.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Blackfridayrule
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"Hey now, don't be bringin' any trouble in here with that thing." A one-eyed man, thin and knobby with a bit of a wheeze in his breath, leaned across the shoddy counter to peer warningly at the tall, wisp of a woman that now entered his little establishment. By day it was a place to get some food (restaurant was a strong word...) , by night, a bar. He motioned to the sword strapped to her back, upside down and at an angle like a quiver of arrows, held there by a handmade leather harness of sorts that looked to be as much a part of the woman as her own skin. He couldn't see the knife she kept underneath her shirt, nestled away in a similar fashion as her sword, though much less obvious under her loose tank top. He'd never seen anyone come in with a sword before. A machete, once, and the poor sap was desperate and scraggly. She looked somewhat dusty, but no more than anyone else here. And she was not scraggly. No, he thought she moved like the forward roll of an incoming storm; confident, indifferent. He wondered why she'd have such an archaic thing, but then again, he'd seen lots of other strange things. "I got enough trouble without you puttin' holes in people's lungs er takin' heads off."

"I don't want any. But I'll end it if it comes to me." There was a coldness in her tone that made him absolutely certain that she meant it. Something about her was off-putting. Was it her eyes, too light a honey color for her dark russet skin? Was it the chilly seriousness in her manner of speaking, the jaded attitude? Or just the tattoos? The many, many tattoos. Something. But he just hoped she'd stay to herself; she didn't seem to be the sort that would play nice with others. "I need something to eat."
"Yeah?" He said dispassionately. "I need money."
Ridahne splayed the five dull tabs of metal, stamped with an odd symbol, out on the splintering counter. "Here," she huffed with a sigh.
"Credits!? That's all you have? Credits! Worthless pieces of scrap...ohh, alright. Fine. For that...er...I can give you a slice of bread or two--" Ridahne scooped up the credits and turned to leave without ceremony. "Wait, wait, alright. I think I've got some ship rations in the back." Ridahne did not answer, but instead just dropped the metal tokens back onto the counter and waited for the man to retrieve her prize.

The meal was bland at best, chalky at worst. Ridahne thought it might be something like hot oats, though it'd been too long since she had real proper Azurian hot oats for her to make a good comparison. Except the one difference was that the rations were packed with all kinds of nutrients and carbs and proteins, and the rations also tasted like sawdust. Wet. Gooey. Sawdust. Still, it was food and that was something right now. In fact, that was all she had, now that she spent her last five credits on it. She'd have to scrape up some change somehow if she wanted to eat tomorrow. That would be fun. Really, really fun.

"Did those tattoos hurt?" Some overweight man in a sweat-stained shirt asked as he leaned in closer to where she sat at a slender bar.
"Sure." It was a noncommittal noise, simply spoken to appease his curiosity and end the conversation, not to actually answer him.
"Do they ever seem a bit...much to you?" Ridahne bristled, but said nothing. "I mean, you seem real pretty, but it's hard to tell under all that jumbled ink--"

He'd only just finished the 'k' sound when she drew her hidden bowie knife, pressing its warm face flat on his forearm so he could feel the smooth metal. No one else seemed to notice the quick movement. The sharp end of her blade found its way to the base of his pinky finger and she pressed hard, though not hard enough to break the skin just yet. "Don't. Or you'll lose it." The man, now a few shades paler and far quieter, took the hint and left her alone after that.

So went most of her encounters with others in public places, particularly anywhere men were a little drunk and a little bold. She didn't take kindly to idiots, fools, or overly forward men (or women, for that matter) and had little patience for...well, anyone. This was not to say she was a cold person; once upon a time she'd been very warm and jovial, albeit a bit fiery. But the destruction and bleeding-dry of her current planet of residence soured her mood just a bit. It wasn't even so much that this world had become a giant sand dune--Ridahne grew up in the desert. It was just...desolate. Azurei was arid but there was beauty and life in those red sands, there was culture. Here, there was...nothing worth noting.

It was while she was dwelling on this particular thought that some drunk loser stumbled into her like a ship adrift in a current without a compass. He steadied himself on her, which of course meant grabbing her and that was never generally a wise thing to do to Ridahne. She was inches away from the handle of her knife when the man sputtered up blood all over her. "Ai!" She growled, equal parts stunned and enraged. But then he fell, crumpling to the dusty ground like a broken mech. Ridahne made no move to catch him. At first she just stood there with her arms akimbo, puzzled and offended all at once. And then she realized she had blood on her face, on her tattoos, and she cleaned it up with the backs of her wrists as quickly as if it were an acid that would burn her. It was only after this was finished that she paid much heed to the guy at her feet. She would have written him off as just a drunk who passed out and would regret his choices tomorrow if it were not for the blood. That was unusual. And while Ridahne had become hardened and abrasive as of late, she was not altogether cruel or heartless.

"Fine..." she sighed to the universe, crouching down to sling him over her shoulder like a dead animal. For her slender frame, she was surprisingly strong, though brute strength could never be considered one of her best assets. And slowly she hauled the stranger back to the little encampment amidst some rubble that she now called home. She'd dealt with sick people before--unwise fools who ventured into the desert seas without knowledge or equipment enough to keep themselves alive. For a long time, Ridahne spent her days cleaning up these poor saps and bringing them back up to strength, though not with out berating their stupidity first.

Ridahne put him down on the pile of blankets she called a bed, then stretched a dirty white sheet over the two opposing slabs of broken concrete that formed the walls of her sad fort; shade would do him some good. She took a spray bottle and spritzed him with it head to toe to keep him cool, checked his vitals, and sat back on the opposite side of the slab floor. There she waited, wondering why she bothered to drag the man all the way out there and what she was going to do with him now, but she resolved to pick his pockets if he didn't wake up by morning.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by KillamriX88
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Maedoc didn't have much in his possession. He'd been traveling light in order to take the caravan. He hadn't exactly had time to go back to his stash. He'd been busy bleeding.

His saving grace was the thin layer of armor under his jacket. It hadn't been enough to stop the bullet, but it had kept him alive. It wasn't even the wound that had taken him down, it was the fact that he'd kept moving. The bullet hadn't been made for an armored target, so he'd had enough life in him to slip away, having been left for dead.

After that, it had only been dumb luck that the military jeep had contained a small medkit he'd used to plug the bleeding hole in his side. After that, if he'd simply found a place to lie down, he'd probably have been OK, but no... he'd kept moving. He'd been afraid that they'd realize he was alive. He'd been afraid they'd find him.

And so, when he woke up... he probably shouldn't have been surprised that he had no idea where he was. Hell, the only thing that should have surprised him was that he actually was alive to wake up.

He'd have shot up if he wasn't in so much pain. Instead, after calming himself down, he chose to lay there quietly and take stock of things. He still had his duster on, so that was a plus. It seemed whoever had moved him hadn't removed his clothes. He slid his hands into his pockets next, to make sure everything was still there.

It wasn't.

Fuck.

His hatchet was gone, not that it worked. His energy pistol was gone... not that that was working either. And the chip. The chip, that he'd nearly died over, was gone. He'd managed to put it in a locked case, but that case was missing. The case had been well hidden in an inner pocket too. Which meant he wasn't surprised that his other hidden pocket had been relieved of the wallet within. There hadn't been much left, probably only enough money to feed him for another day, but wandering around injured with no money or weapons whatsoever didn't appeal to him.

He pulled his leg in slowly and found that they at least hadn't found his boot knife. He'd at least concealed that well enough. It was a stun knife, with a battery that could unleash a nasty shock. He probably relied on technology too much considering how often it didn't work, but the knife was at least more simple. And if the battery died, well, it was still a knife.

He left it where it was. Robbed he may have been, but he had also been sheltered. He'd give this person the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they hadn't intended to steal from him, but just disarm him? Maybe relieving him of his possessions had just been their idea of being thorough. Regardless of how or why he'd lost his things, he was in no condition to fight.

Whoever had found him, they weren't well off by any means. If this was their home, it made his hole in the ground look nice. Well, it was time to meet them, whoever they were.

"He-" He coughed, his throat dry. "H-hey! Hello?" He pushed himself to a sitting position. "Uh, thanks for helping me?"
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Blackfridayrule
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Ridahne didn't want to, but while she waited and watched her new charge lie there and breathe, she slipped into a very light doze. Light enough that anything but the rustle of the wind would have made her stir, but just into sleep enough that her mind wandered through gardens of sound and color that could not exist in real life. But then she dreamed of home. Of Azurei. Of the red sands that turned deep purple under the bluish light of the planet's two moons, of the cool, clear seas and the bright creatures within. She dreamed of family--first her brother and father, and then her mother. Her mother. She was the reason she was in all this mess, in some way. Ridahne knew it was all her own fault, but some part of her thought that if her mother hadn't been white, if she'd been Azurian like her father, there would have been nothing to drive her off her home planet when she left Azurei. If she never left, she never would have been here. Never would have been dirty, hungry, and broke in a beyond-dilapidated wasteland of a planet.

The wind gave life to her dark wavy hair, one near-sentient strand sweeping up to tickle her nose. Ridahne blinked, stirring fully awake. The man was still out cold. Drunken idiot. At least when Ridahne got that drunk, she had the good sense to do it in her own home. Or...waste hole, as was the case now. That's what she liked to call it--a waste hole. She didn't go stumbling around town spitting blood into people's faces. Ridahne wiped her face clean again even though she'd managed to wipe all the blood off earlier. It wasn't that she was averse to blood--she was hardly any stranger to that--but her ojih, the intricate tattoos on her face, needed to be clean and unobstructed. Always.

Ridahne's thoughts turned back to the man and what might be ailing him. Drunkards didn't spit blood. Hm. Curious, Ridahne squatted beside him and leaned in close, hovering her ear just above his chest to hear him breathe. A little on the shallow side maybe, but no wheezing or gurgling. Ridahne rocked back onto her heels, watching him loosely. He was dressed for work. What kind of work exactly, she couldn't be sure, but she knew the look of hard-worn clothing with an emphasis on practicality; this man was often outside.

The woman rose, kicking her shoes off to one corner of the little concrete slab floor. She hated shoes. About thirty feet from her excuse for an encampment was a rusty water spout, the kind that might have existed outside a building once, that still pumped water as well as the day it was made, much to Ridahne's surprise. But it was one of the reasons she chose her current living place; with a hose, she could have running water directly at her campsite. And that was nothing to balk at. The beauty of it all was that she did not exactly have prime real-estate--she was living in a sea of rubble that once was probably a road and a building of some sort and it was terribly dirty and got cold at night, so nobody wanted to steal or fight her for it. The water spout, she kept a hidden secret. It was to her hose that she strode to, squeezing the little nozzle a little until a small, lazy stream shot into her mouth. She thought about washing the dust from her hair when she heard movement behind her.

Ridahne sat back down to her place opposite the man. Slowly, he began to regain consciousness and she imagined he took a moment to evaluate his surroundings. And then he sat up and acknowledged her rather casually right away. Staring back at him were a set of honey eyes bearing the intensity of a hunting wolf, set into a russet face marked with ornate tattoos of black, white, and blue. She had piercings--a hoop in one nostril, two hoops near the middle of each ear, bone gauges in her lobes, and a curved plate of silver that followed the shape of each inner helix perfectly. Beyond her facial tattoos, she had a few others on her arms and body, most visibly a pair of black bands around her right bicep. She had the cold, hard look of a woman of experience.

Ridahne filled a plastic cup with water and handed it to him unceremoniously. "Here." Her accent was thick but her English seemed good. "Drink it all. I don't have any food for you." Her tone as all business and not at all warm, though not unkind. "I thought about leaving you in the street. But you spat blood in my face. Seemed like you needed at least some help." She didn't take her eyes off him, though she was not afraid. "You should stay down a bit, sit there 'till you sober up more. And drink water."
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by KillamriX88
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"I'm not... drunk..." He faltered, wondering if she'd even believe him. Considering how much he'd been staggering about, light-headed with blood-loss, he was sure he'd looked drunk. He looked the woman over, finding her very strange. She looked... exotic. Foreign to the world almost for sure. Possibly one of the last, unlucky fools to travel to the planet before it had been cut off and forgotten. But she didn't look weak and starved.

Her dwelling was a shambles, but she'd apparently managed well enough.

Speaking of drinking, he happily accepted the water. It wasn't like she was going to poison him now... right?

"So... I noticed you've taken stock of my possessions. I suppose you were just being cautious?" He needed to get an idea of what this woman's intentions were. Was she really just helping him? Or was she helping herself? It wasn't like he was any good to her at this point, since she already had his things... so what now?

He didn't have much time to be playing meet and greet. He had somewhere to be. Would he even be able to manage, though? He'd been shot and had already collapsed once. He'd need help. Had she said no food? He wondered how badly she wanted to fix that situation. Depending on how this conversation went, he might have to find out how helpful she really felt.

Or she'd cut his throat when she realized he had nothing more to offer than what had been in his pockets... that was also a possibility. But one could hope, right?
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by Blackfridayrule
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Ridahne scoffed, a hardly delicate sound. She had the body type of a dancer, of a thin, elegant, graceful woman. And she was thin, and in some ways graceful. But her eyes proved she was no dancer, and the thick scars on her hands showed that she was no stranger to blades. Instead of being soft, her hands were calloused and adept, her arms slender but defined in muscle, and she had a resolve like stone. No, Ridahne was not delicate. "Maybe you aren't now. But you were. And if you weren't drunk, then I don't care to know what kind of drug you were high on. Your problem, not mine." She hadn't considered that he was severely injured--he didn't show any immediate signs--or else she would have tried to give him some medical aid. She was no doctor, but she did know a few things.

"Whatever you were on, I suggest you kick the habit. I'll bet you have er..." She flung her hands, searching for the right word. At a loss at first, she tried her native tongue, hoping that might jog her memory a bit. "Tespah'jhi," she said. "Stomach blood." When she learned English, she never really was taught medical terms like 'ulcer'. Ridahne rose, taking the sun-bleached hose with her, and moved to stand over him; she really was quite tall. Instead of asking for him to hold out the cup, she just reached out her hand and hooked two fingers over his wrist and pulled it towards her. The move was not forceful but instead was natural, like she had no problem grabbing strange people's wrists, like she was supposed to. With a pull of the squeaky nozzle, she filled the cup again. Ridahne returned to her sitting place. "Drink."

If she had to make a guess, the man seemed a bit nervous. Or maybe jumpy, like he was waiting for something to happen. She didn't fully know and wasn't about to care until he asked about his things, guessing rather correctly that she had a hand in relieving him of them. He hadn't been aware of himself for very long and already he was concerned with his things. Beyond where he was, who she was, or what had happened to him. Ridahne knew that she only thought like that about things if they were very important to her, and though she could understand why someone might miss a weapon, she wondered about the little case she found. What was in it that was so important? And just how far would he go to get it back?

Ridahne seemed unmoved, simply tilting her head softly. "I'm not sure I understand what you mean." Her tone was innocent, but her eyes, those amber eyes, were very knowing. They were testing him, watching him, studying him. This, she made no effort to hide. Though she'd stashed her sword away safely, she always had her knife on hand, hidden underneath her loose tank top. Though she didn't know his fighting ability, she knew she'd lifted most, if not all, of his weapons from him and that he was not in prime condition. That alone was enough to give her confidence that if things got ugly, she had a strong chance of coming out the victor. Still, she liked feeling the weight of the metal weapon pressed against the small of her back, the wear-polished holster that had now conformed perfectly to her body. It was security, a backup.
Hidden 8 yrs ago Post by KillamriX88
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Well, he had changed his shirt, considering it had been bloody, so he supposed she'd perhaps missed the bullet hole in him while she was stealing his things. Saying: "I'm not sure what you mean," was possibly the most cliche way of admitting one was guilty while also making fun of the person accusing you.

He rubbed his eyes tiredly, they were a shade of green resembling peridot, and then lowered his hand to where he'd been shot. He winced, it definitely still hurt... a lot. It had been redirected so as not to be fatal, but it had nicked his lung... hence the blood spraying out of his mouth. He must have torn it back open the day before. Fortunately, he had at least one lung that wasn't filling with blood, and the other must not have been too bad because he could breathe well enough at the moment.

"Your bedside manner needs more attention than I do..." Maedoc rolled his eyes and drank the second cup of water. "So, are you robbing me or helping me? My drug addled brain can't handle the suspense," he asked her, voice laden with sarcasm. He probably should have been nicer to her, but he was cranky and her attitude was wearing on his already frayed nerves. He'd technically already thanked her for her help, so... it wasn't like he was being entirely rude.

She was rather pretty, if a little weathered. Who on this planet wasn't? She also looked like she could kick his ass, especially in his state. He was a decent fighter, when he could actually move, but even then he had a feeling she'd be trouble. No, rude or not, he wasn't going to fight his way out of this.

"If you do feel helpful, there could be food and probably money involved. There's a bit of a time limit though, and, at the moment... I'm sort of... incapacitated," he told her. "Of course, I'd need at least some of my possessions returned."
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Ridahne studied him carefully as she sat there, squeezing the nozzle gently so that a weak stream trickled into her mouth. Proper lady, she was not. His hand went to his side and she saw an unmistakeable flash of pain across his features. Pain. Oh. He must have been injured somehow, though she wasn't yet sure how. That explained the blood spitting...she tried to guess what happened to him;broken rib that punctured a lung? Some kind of gas exposure? No, his body hurt, his flesh hurt. A puncture wound of sorts. Of course. Ridahne kicked herself for missing it, as she hadn't really bothered to dig deeply onto his person for interesting objects. Mostly, she checked the pockets of his duster and anything readily accessible, as that's where people kept tools anyway. Tools she could find useful or at least valuable. She never once bothered to look underneath his shirt.

A slow smile crept onto her inked face, warping and bending the marks like they were tentacles of a living being. "Who said I can't do both?" Ridahne rose, stooping down to grab something from a crag in her little broken fortress. In a flash of silver, a sword sprouted from its hiding place and glimmered in the sun, shaded as it was by a dirty sheet overhead. It was a shorter blade, a one handed thing that was clearly very well made and served both a ceremonial purpose as well as a practical one. It and her knife were the two things Ridahne actually took care of to keep clean and maintained. It looked at home in her hand. She used it to hook under one side of his duster and peel it aside, then slid the tip underneath his shirt and lifted it until she could see the hastily bandaged wound; she felt confident she could hold her own against him in a fight right now, but she wasn't about to get too close and take her chances. "Ah," she sighed in understanding. She withdrew her blade and went to sort through a canvas bag, returning to him with a fresh bandage, a flask, and a yellowy green salve in a plastic bag. "I might be a lawless thief, but I am not altogether cruel. Here." She lost a little of the harsh disdain in her voice this time, sounding just a bit more sincere.

He solicited some kind of work in exchange for some of his things back, and Ridahne gave a little smirk. "I might be interested." She was playing coy, but secretly she was absolutely desperate for the idea of food and maybe a little money. "But it depends on what kind of work you're talking about. And how much is in it for me. Also..." She produced the black case from her bag and held it delicately between her thumb and forefinger, holding it aloft to the light to get a better look at it. "By some of your possessions, do you mean this?" She did not move to offer it to him, but instead turned it over in her hands as if dangling it in front of him. Her tone turned serious, but not dark. "Start talking. I want to know what this is and what kind of job you have in mind."
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Oh good, she had a sword. He flinched a little when the cold steel brushed against his skin, but apparently she was just inspecting him. Luckily, his injury may have actually won him some sympathy points. And new bandages. That was probably a good idea, actually.

He pulled off his duster and shirt, revealing a wiry, athletic build. A bulky physique was a liability when you didn't have the food to maintain it, but he was clearly very active and in as good of shape as he could be considering how often he went hungry. He gingerly went about swapping the bandage, but then stopped, freezing and staring at the case in her hand.

He wished he'd controlled his reaction. No doubt she'd noticed and no doubt he'd be unable to hide that it was important.

"It's a thing," he told her, "a very fragile thing. And it's locked with a code that only I know. You could try breaking it open, but it loses all value if it gets even a little damaged." He quickly went about finishing with the bandage, biting his lip from the stinging pain. "As for the job, I suppose you'd consider it an escort mission. I need to get some supplies and then bring that case's contents somewhere. I'd be a bit more specific, but trusting people hasn't done me much good lately, and you're not making the best case for yourself right now. Not the worst... but you could do better." He figured he should give her at least one concrete detail, however. "What I will say is that there is no client or middle-man, so to speak. Consider it more of a treasure hunt. And we'd have to go into the red zone..."

The "red-zone," aka the irradiated hell-hole that used to be the main mining colony before the transport ship blew its core. Over a decade later, and things hadn't improved much. It was known as the red-zone since most Geiger-counters tended to jump into the red once you went there.

The radiation wasn't even the worst part. By avoiding radiation pools and the old landing zone, you could keep away from the worst, and protective gear would handle the rest. However, there were violent, and often insane, groups that made their home near and sometimes even in the old colony. Also, there were a few dangerous predators that had gravitated there. Perhaps they liked the shade the old buildings provided... or the dead bodies that the raiders occasionally dumped.
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Ridahne gave him a cold sneer. "The only case I need to make for myself is that I haven't fleed you open head to toe already. I had plenty of chance. And practice." And it looked like she meant that. Of course, she meant to say 'flayed', but her accuracy of less common words was hit and miss. Despite her spotty linguistics, she had enough confidence to make up for it and let him know she was dead serious. She could have. She could have chopped his head off, or his hands, could have cut him open, stabbed him, or for goodness sakes she could have left him in the dust after he passed out. But she didn't. She brought him into her home, despite how lame and dirty and shoddy it was. It was still hers.

Ridahne flicked her hair behind one ear, the silver piercings glittering in the light. She could have sold all the pieces some time ago, but the thought never even occurred to her. Not only were they so much a part of her that she did not often remember they were there, but it was a small piece of home. Of culture. She wouldn't sell that for the world. She considered the little case in her hands, turning it over a few times. "Fragile you say, mm?" She tapped it with her finger and then gave him a little smirk. "So...I should't do this..." she shook it like it was a martini, knowing from the sound it made when she tapped it that it was well padded. But she just wanted to watch him squirm a little. It was too easy.

But then he actually answered her question. Then he actually told her the details of the job he had in mind. The red zone. She stared daggers into him and after a moment of what looked like boiling rage she began to curse in a sharp, jagged language that made her accent suddenly make sense. "The red zone!? What are you, nuts? What kind of job would make you go into the red zone? Do you even have gear for that? Can you even get enough lead for that? Crazy!" She swung a hand to hit his shoulder with a loose, open hand. It was not enough to leave a bruise, nothing of the sort. It was almost...playful. Except rather than playing with him she was just expressing how stupid she thought he was. And this was simply the way she knew to do it.

Still, she did not let go of the case. She looked at it, and at him, and back to it, the wind making her ebony hair sway softly. This was no petty smash-and grab or something of the sort. No. This was bigger than that. "What supplies? How will you get them? And just how much of a payout is there exactly?"
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Exotic had been right. So exotic she didn't even have the native language down right. Putting that aside, she didn't seem keen on helping him. But she also wasn't totally opposed. No, as long as he didn't say anything incredibly stupid, he had her. He smirked, "Oh, it's crazy. But I think you can handle it. I'm used to this kind of danger, and I'm sure you'll catch on." Oh, she looked used to danger, but not his kind. His kind was organized and with purpose. He had a feeling her kind was mostly for survival.

Well, that'd be important too.

"Step one will be acquiring some hazard suits. There's a few high-class scavenger, err, 'salvage' crews that have bought them from the military." They really didn't like being called scavengers. "The red zone is so dangerous these days, they won't even know their suits are missing -- and yes we'll most likely have to steal them. If that goes against your sensibilities we can always give them back later... when they're not looking." He doubted they'd be thanked for their safe return, no matter how politely they went about it.

"Aside from the suits, motorized transport would be a much appreciated luxury, especially in my condition. Animals could suffice too if that's impossible. Besides that, just the usual provisions for a trip into the desert," he explained. Honestly, the suits would be the hardest part. The scavengers had long since learned that being able to defend themselves from raiders was necessary. Even if they usually just sat on their asses lately, it wasn't like they'd thrown away their guns and become pacifists.

But he still needed to give her a reason to take the risk. "As for the payoff... well... Food and money are almost a given if all goes well. And, if you're really ambitious, how about leaving the planet?"
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"Don't patronize me," she said, though she didn't sound totally venomous. "You speak to a former Eija. I used to be an Azurian soldier. An...assassin. Sort of. So watch your step." Ridahne stashed the black case and continued to squirt water into her mouth, seeming disinterested in what he had to say. She was listening, but only about halfway. Red zone. He had to be nuts. She couldn't think of any lame artifact worth trekking into that place for, especially considering what called the red zone home. Hardly human anymore, she always thought. Though she'd never seen them, she spent a lot of time in taverns or doing odd jobs with equally odd people. And that always meant stories, fish tales, and news. From what she heard, he was daft for even considering going.

"Desert expedition, huh?" Ridahne gave a snort of a laugh. "You're better off with a horse than a mech of any sort. The sand will get in everything. That's assuming you can get everything else." She was already thinking of more spicy quips to throw at him for his madness when he mentioned leaving the planet. She went still. All that moved were her wispy clothes and hair in the wind and her hard eyes were locked on him. She took a step forward, then another, her bare feet padding silently against the rock. Ridahne knelt down slowly beside him, her expression intense.

"The last thing you want to do is to screw with me. I am better with a blade than you are with a fork. Don't you dare make promises you can't keep." Though her talk was all tough, she looked desperate, like she never wanted anything more than to believe everything he said. "I understand nothing in this world is certain, but if I'm gonna take this job, you better have a very good idea of how you plan to do this. And if you even considered cutting me out for half a second, I'd ruin you. Details. How do you plan to do this?" she kept her voice low, like she didn't want anyone else to hear.
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Azurian? Maedoc... had no idea what that meant. He'd been on the pathetic dust-bowl of a planet his entire life He knew there were other planets with people on them, but he couldn't name them or describe them. He supposed he'd been right to suggest leaving the planet to get her interested, but he had no idea how well he could follow through with that. "Ambitious" really had been the key word there.

Sure, she was pretty much on board now, but she'd taken on a sudden intensity that honestly had him a little scared. Should he be totally honest with her? But too much honesty might cause her to lose interest. Or was she desperate enough that any shred of hope would suffice.

He grit his teeth. If he wasn't so banged up, he'd have just risked dealing with her anger later, but... he had a feeling she'd just kill him at this rate.

"Look, I'm not in it for leaving the planet, personally. I don't particularly have any attachment to this place, but it's just... kind of a pipe dream. Keep that in mind before you do any ruining, OK?" He took a deep breath. "It's really a very simple job, but we have to be fast. The people who did this to me," he pointed to his wound, "are probably on their way as well. The only tricky part is beating them there. After that, we just have to get into an old science facility. There's no power left for the locks and the explosion should have punched enough holes in it for us to climb through."

There was only one such facility in the old settlement. He hadn't given his ex-comrades its location, but it wouldn't be hard to find. That's probably why they'd been OK with shooting him. It had already been a few days, he hoped they could still manage to beat them there.
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Ridahne's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Pipe dream? What does that mean?" She couldn't tell what the particular idiom meant, but she could at least hear the tone of his voice and see the expression on his face. It told her not to get her hopes up. It told her he was not certain. Out of pure spite, she had half a mind to just poke him right where he'd been shot, but she resisted and instead just growled a little and muttered something in her native language--a jagged, lilting tongue that sounded nothing close to local.

"Look, don't get my hopes up for nothing. I want to know details. I won't lie, I am tempted by your offer. I think you've figured that out already. But I want to know details if I'm going to do this. I am desperate..." She struggled to admit this but the time for being coy and secretive had passed. They were talking business now and that meant being frank with one another. "I hate this place. I have no food and no money. I need work. But I don't need pointless suicide."

Ridahne left his side to take something from her bag, a little tin that used to be for coffee or cookies or something--the label was long since worn away--and brought it back to him, kneeling by his wounded side. She flicked his arm away from the area without much of a word. This seemed to be her way--a little gruff, but not unkind, deep down. "Here." She opened the tin and a pungent, herbal smell blossomed from it that was neither pleasant nor foul. Ridahne scooped some of the bitter smelling balm from it and took the liberty of putting it over his wounded skin. She did not ask for permission. "That will help it heal. And take a little of the pain away but not all of it. Now." She sat cross legged beside him, leaning forward with a serious wrinkle in her tattooed brow. "Tell me everything. What am I getting into? And why?"
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Maedoc grumbled under his breath. Maybe the gunk would help eventually, but at the moment it just stung. Although, by the time he finally was able to finish bandaging it, it wasn't so bad. Another thing that was darkening his mood was her insistence on details. He felt a certain level of secrecy was his only safety net, but she seemed to want to know everything.

He stared her hard in the eye. If he gave away details, there'd be scarce little left to work with. He'd have to trust those last threads of safety to hold him up.

He'd reveal a little more. "It's a military research facility, to be specific. That case holds a microchip that will run one of their last projects. Once we do that, I'm almost positive we'll also be able to get into the computers. Those computers will contain a number of files, including blueprints. They should have been shielded, so the engine going off shouldn't have fried them. Those blueprints will probably include ships -- the fast ones. I'm talking half the time to get to another planet compared to the one that went nuclear." He sighed. "But I've obviously never been there, so I obviously don't know exactly what is in there."

That left why. He could tell her half of that, at least.

"As for why? Well, I'm hoping that once I have access... I can wage war on the military and tear everything down. But since you hate this place, that shouldn't matter to you, right? If you have your way, you won't even have to be here for most of it." His expression almost went blank, his eyes gaining a sort of soullessness -- a coldness. Ice covering up something much more violent deep down.
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It was as if someone had flicked a switch inside of her and instead of being aggressive and threatening, she seemed quite pleased to have him sitting in her blanket pile all of a sudden. Well. Perhaps she was still aggressive, for that was just her way--she was never a smooth talker or blessed with a silver tongue but hers instead was rougher than a cat's. But she no longer looked like she was debating whether or not to cut off his ear.

"Oh. So that's what that was..." She said, glancing towards where she'd stashed the case. "I see. Well consider it good you spat on me instead of someone else." Not exactly the most eloquent of things to say, but she didn't care. "I happen to hate the military. I hate who they are and what they do and everything they stand for. And lucky for you, I was once thrown against them in battle. Of a sort. I came in the night and killed their leaders when they slept because they started war with my people when they thought they could come in and take what is ours."

Ridahne steadied herself with a steely sigh, but then a wicked smile rolled onto her dark face. She rose with all the grace of a wisp of steam and swept over to her bag, pulling from it the dark, dusty case. Ridahne held it up as if considering something, then tossed it casually to her patient.

"I say we do it. I will come. But I'm not about to give you my life, if you know what I mean. I am more concerned with my own survival than yours, as you should be also. But if I do, I will captain the ship. It will go where I say it will and I will leave this planet. In this, I will not move." She gave a nod, a very businesslike gesture and sat back down.

"I am Ridahne. You? And tell me, how did you get...stabbed? Shot?"
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She mentioned a war of sorts with the military. He could guess how well that had gone. Back then, the mechs had worked a lot better. Taking their things? "Yeah, they did a lot of that after the... event." Finally though, his almost trance-like state began to lift, whatever thoughts that had taken over him being pushed to the back of his mind once more.

He snapped out of it completely when he had the chip back in his hands.

"Yeah, well, I suppose I didn't plan on getting you killed. No accounting for stay bullets, though." If they didn't get shot at at least once, he'd be astonished. "I'm Maedoc. And I was shot by my ex-partner's psychotic girlfriend, err, wife? Let's just go with insufferable bitch who I plan to pay back at some point. I teamed up with their crew to acquire-" Well, why lie at this point. "Ahem, steal the chip. I was able to trick them, but I still got shot. My armor had a duel with her bullet and lost after a valiant fight." Valiant enough to at least keep him alive at least. "They're the people we're racing against, to be clear.

"Now, none of what you want is going to much matter if we don't beat them there. So we really need to work on that shopping list I told you about." Shopping list, stealing list, same difference. He pushed himself to his feet, but nearly collapsed immediately, legs wobbling and knees knocking. The pain had almost been gone too... until he'd stood. "Survey says that's gonna be mostly your job..." he whimpered, eyes watering. "Transport would probably be a good start." He took a deep breath to steady himself. "Makes getting everything else easier. Especially if we need to run afterward..."

She'd said she wanted horses. Horses existed, but they were at a premium. They weren't native, and it was hard to breed them with so little native vegetation. They were also usually very skittish and trained to run home at the first opportunity. Kept losses to a minimum...

He'd have preferred some sort of ATV, like a truck... but those were loud, required fuel, and could break down. And in the desert, they weren't necessarily faster what with the sand and rough terrain. But at least they couldn't argue with you. Of course, his ability to argue with her hadn't improved in the last five minutes, so his opinion didn't have much weight he was guessing.
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"I know risk," she said. "I have been shot before. And stabbed once. But cut more. Swords are the way of my people, not bullets. But we know how to use them all the same. A sword is precise and graceful. It is an art and a tradition. Kha'haij," she said with bitter disgust as she did a quick imitation of a mech with her arms, "They are like Bulls. Sloppy and loud and cowardly. I hate them." Ridahne snorted but then shook her head as if putting the thought aside to hear the rest of his story. Things certainly made a lot more sense now that she knew how he'd been injured and why, and it also clarified who they were up against.

"These people, this...bitch..." It was an unfamiliar word for her but she did know it, though it felt strange on her lips and awkward. "What can you tell me about their training? Equipment?" She guessed that if transportation was necessary, they would go for some kind of vehicle. He looked like the type and guessed that he once ran with similar folk who would prefer the security of a vehicle, as they did provide some shelter from bullets and other deadly projectiles. But if they used vehicles, it would be a grand distraction while they slipped in quietly.

"I will tell you, I am an artist of quiet. My instinct is to use your...friends as a distraction to draw away attention while we slip in--Don't!" She warned as he tried to stand. She gave him a glare that might have been seen as unkind if it weren't for the context of her trying to save him pain. "Yes, yes, I will get these things. Can you ride? Like a horse? Or a camel...do you have camel here? Or are you in too much pain? It is bumpy even on a good horse. I would love to have a sand speeder but..." Ridahne laughed derisively. "I doubt anyone has one of those here. If they did, I am very good at crossing the wires to make them start. You call it...hot wires? Tell me, Maedoc, where did you plan to find these things?"
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"You are the strangest person..." he muttered under his breath, barely audible, but then cleared his throat to speak clearly. "Uhh, well..." Training? "They can shoot guns real good? I don't really know. They're just... mercenaries. Brigands might be a better word. They have lots of weapons and there's over a dozen of them, but that's about it. Rifles and explosives mostly. Maybe a few vehicles, trucks, but nothing heavy."

He groaned, it seemed it would be horses for them. Of course some geniuses had realized "hey, desert planet, bring camels," but that also meant the few camels were at a premium, even more so than horses.

"OK, here's a simple plan," he slowly slid back to a sitting position and began explaining. Honestly, he was coming up with most of it on the fly. First she'd have to find food and water and then head to the edge of the settlement. There were horse stables there. She'd either have to find money to rent them, or steal them. She'd load whatever supplies she'd gathered onto the horses and then head out. He gave her directions to a salvage camp, on the outskirts of the town, but within sight of the walls where she'd head next.

She'd meet him nearby where she could tie up the horses and together they'd find a way to steal the equipment they'd need. Meanwhile, he'd be finding a gun and anything else useful he could managed before slowly making his way there. He had less tasks so that hopefully at his hobbling pace he'd be able to meet her at the salvage camp in a somewhat timely manner.

"That last parts gonna be the hardest. The salvagers aren't an easy bunch. They know how to handle themselves out in the wastes. IF we aren't caught, they probably won't know the difference for some time and it won't be a problem. IF we are caught... I'm not sure your sword is gonna be much use." One woman with a sword, no matter how good, didn't seem like a good match for an armed group of salvagers.
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