Taya shook from the fact she had just killed someone, the gun in her hands vibrating from the revulsion. Neil ducked out of the way of the barrel and grabbed the gun. Taya was almost taken aback Neil was still there, and the sudden scare caused her to pull the trigger. The bullet hit the crevice wall and ricocheted, causing her to scream. Neil wasn't angered though. He just took the gun from her hands, and then held a hand up to keep her calm. 

"Sorry." he saw her mouth, though over the din of gunfire he could only hear a whisper of what she said. He simply tied the rope around her waist, thanking Gideon that Junebug had tossed it down. With that, he told her to stay there, and began to ascend, placing his boot on an outjutting rock and climbing like the agile young guy he was. 

Once he crested the tall rise, he felt like he had crawled right into hell for a split second. Sand, flashes of light, and screams accompanied the cacophony of the ubiquitous roar of battle. A sudden explosion tore out of the sand, raining bloody shrapnel along the rocky rise as the pilot knelt beside the Captain who sent shot after shot into the desert. Neil hardly noticed, pulling the rope up one great tug at a time to get Taya to the top.

Once he hauled her up, she crouched next to them. Shaken but otherwise ok. Neil was proud of her, to be honest. She had a small freakout and then powered through it. Though that was the least of their problems at the moment. They needed to figure out their location and where Canek was planning on making a rendezvous. Sayeeda pulled a communications device out of her pants and hailed who Neil assumed was Canek. 

"Can-F, Can-F!" she cried into it, but there was nothing but static to greet her. The heavy ordinance and the EMP's being delivered around the perimeter must have short circuited the wiring. Even the comms were temporarily out, from Neil's estimation. He placed his comm back in his ear, cursing. "Where do we go?" he asked her. 

It was at that moment that a hundred things happened at once. A reverberation struck what seemed to be the entirety of the desert. Both Neil and Sayeeda felt their soldierly sixth senses kicking in. They knew what was happening, even before they could see the streaks of red on the horizon. Miles off, the heavy weapons had been discharged, and rounds the size of aircars were being shot into the open desert in the desperate hope of destroying Canek's caravan. 

Junebug grabbed Taya and hoisted her, and Neil ducked and rolled as the rounds suddenly struck the desert and the rocky region they found themselves in, sending enormous shockwaves and debris scattering for a tenth of a kilometer around. The three of them were thrown, somehow without major damage but sent literally flying to hit the crags in a rough roll. Sand blanketed their vision as everything went dark, and for a long moment, Neil thought he was dead. 

...Until he felt himself give an intake of thick, stuffy air into his lungs. His ass and hands were wet, and he was on a hard floor, with a light far above him beaming down to illuminate the area he found himself in. Taya and Junebug lay near him, the Captain stirring as he did, rubbing her head. "Where the fuck are we?" she asked, blinking and getting her bearings. The walls were smooth and the puddles of water and sand mingled in the uneven floor, though upon closer inspection, the floor was uneven by design. They were on a tiled walkway within a...ship? 

Neil couldn't answer her more informatively than his next sentence provided. 

"I think we found what we were looking for."
[@Penny]