Ask [Raxus Prime] Trash Cats and Falling Stars

[The Storyteller]

Raxus Prime, 151 ABY
Debris Field, Toxic Lake​

Vast hills of trash spanned from one end of the horizon to the other, with a large pit that led down into an obscure lake of waste. A group of scavengers worked at one end of the massive debris field not far from their hideout, when the sudden emergence of a sleek starfighter just above the planet's atmosphere caught their attention. It dove through the atmosphere like a falling star, and the closer it drew, the more familiar the group seemed to be with it.

"The kark he doin' back?!" One of the men lifted his head away from a pile of rusty durasteel scraps he'd been digging through for useful parts. "Even goin' to the same spot!"

"Better not want a refund!" Another individual responded as she dropped what she was doing. "Those were good parts, and that was one of the best droids we've sold yet!"

"I can't reach him. Either he's ignoring us, or... Something else is up." A third person turned to the others with a slightly concerned look on her face and a comlink in her hand.

"Let's get over there before somebody else finds him." The largest member of the group commanded them as he grabbed a shoddy blaster rifle from a nearby collection of equipment. He then gave it a quick once over, and set it in the dirty holster on his back. "If there's a problem, then at least we'll be able to get that ship of his!" He let out a deep guttural chuckle as they all began to collect their gear and head toward the direction of the small incoming starfighter, which was making its way to the obscure toxic lake in the valley of trash.


Little did they know, the being in the cockpit of the descending Tau-7 "Arrowhead" Starfighter was completely unconscious. Nonetheless, the R6 astromech droid piloting the ship continued to lower it down into the rusty pit. The ship would slow as the droid carefully navigated between the steep sides of the trashy cliffs that surrounded it. There was a small metal stretch of unnatural beach and a few narrow paths that led down to the bottom of the pit, where the starship would gently set down on top of the black murky waste water that had runoff from everything around it.

Then the cockpit would pop open and lift back, allowing anyone outside and with the proper angle down into the obscure lake to see the unconscious raven-haired pilot, garbed in a long tattered black coat over his black and red armor. His condition was clearly not good. Crimson trails ran down from the top of his head, and another pair traced down from the corner of his lips to his chin, and this was just the damage that could be seen from a distance. Closer inspection would reveal the dislocated and possibly broken left arm, and the left foot twisted out to the side. With the pilot unmoving the droid would soon begin to chirp and coo, attempting to awaken the unconscious individual he'd saved not long ago.


@AdventCore @Cinderella

 

[Yuri Gök]

Psssshhhhhhhhkkkkk The wicked sound of a plasma torch cutting into the rusted hull of an old junker blended with sounds of shouting voices and metal clanging on metal. The torch's blue-purple light shimmered in the visor of its wielder, a tall figure with broad shoulders wearing a padded, blue-black jumpsuit. The salvage team had been working all day in the hot sun with hardly a proper break. The company was working them harder than usual today, something out there had triggered a sudden increase in demand for durasteel and ship parts.

A sudden buzzing sensation awoke the welder from their trance. The helmet behind their protective mask was vibrating, flashing, and beeping to get their attention. The blow torch stopped, and Yuri pushed her visor up until it locked with a click!, letting out the trapped heat and welcoming what summer breeze there was to lap softly against her sweat-drenched face and neck. She wanted nothing more than to remove every last bit of wet clothing and throw herself into a cold pool of water.

"Yuri... Yuri, I pinged your comm, it's urgent. Can you hear me?"

"Yeah, I hear you. What's up?"

"Some laserbrain just fell outta' the sky. Real fancy lookin' starfighter. Tika an' Murdoc radioed; said they saw it go down. Pilot died on impact. You needa' get over there A-S-A-P and rip that thing apart. Bring me back some goodies an' I'll throw you a bonus."

"Well, thanks for thinkin' of me, but if T an' Murds are closer, just send them. I'm already worn out; they'd be faster."

"They're busy."

*sigh* "...Alright. Where'd it go down?"

"Not far. Went for a dip in the lake in C7. You might have do some swimming."

"That's scavenger territory."

"That's right, so you best get a move on, dipweed. Early bird gets the worm."

"Okay, fine. I'll take a look, but no promises, and you owe me either way."

"Attaboy!"

Irritated, she climbed down from the junker's hull and quickly set off in the direction of the fallen starfighter. It may have been scavenger territory, but it was an area she was intimately familiar with, and the path was one she had trailblazed alone and taken many times. It only took her about an hour to climb and navigate her way to the crash site. Looked like an automated landing computer or a droid had tried to set it down gently, but that turned out about as well as it often did on Raxus Prime, and the thing was nose up, half submerged with its cockpit open.

She had kept an eye out on the way down from the last scrap hill, but she didn't see any signs of scavengers yet. She waded into the murky soup of sewage and waste without so much as blinking an eye or a second thought to how much of this water was even water at all. Lakes like these could be smelled from a mile away, even further on days like today; spent baking in the heat of the dog days of summer. If you spent your days salvaging on Raxus Prime, you either grew an iron gut, or you found a different career.

By the time she reached the ship, the cockpit had begun to take on water. At least she wouldn't need to do anymore climbing, her body was just about spent. A deep breath and a quick dive gave her a chance to take a better look at the vessel. There were some good parts, but nothing she could grab quickly on her own, especially not underwater. There was a trapped astromech she could probably drag to shore, looked like its disengaging bolt had gotten stuck when it tried to eject itself. She grabbed for her plasma torch and cut the droid chassis free, pulling it back up with her onto the body of the fighter as she resurfaced for air.

At least the fighter seemed to be somewhat stable now, becoming stuck on part of an older shipwreck, where it would likely lay now for lifetimes until its bones were picked clean. As she sat and caught her breath, drenched and dripping in black water, she looked down at the body still in the cockpit. Looked like some kind of mercenary; probably had some kind of dealings with the scavengers in this area. Whoever he was, he looked dead now. It was odd though; the ship wasn't too badly damaged, and the landing didn't look like it'd been hard enough to kill someone.

Curious, she climbed down into the cockpit and on top of the pilot, removing a glove and putting a bare hand against their throat while leaning her face down to listen for breathing. She couldn't tell at first, it was faint, but it was there; they weren't dead. Not yet. Panic and concern rose inside of her. She knew a bit of healing, but she was no doctor. She knew of a wreck nearby with a medical bay that she had found poking around for salvage before on her own. It had a bacta tank, technically, though much of the lake's murky water had become mixed in with the old, stagnant bacta.

She could probably scavenge whatever she needed to make it work. It was a stupid idea, and as likely to kill them as it was to save them, even with the force and whatever other medicine might still be sitting in that old medbay. She didn't have time to think about it, she could hear faint shouting in the distance. The scavengers were cresting the horizon and would be upon her soon. She looked at hopelessly dying pilot in her arms, looked back at the astromech she'd salvaged, and against her better judgement, hoisted the pilot up out of the cockpit, and began dragging and carrying them away from the wreck as quickly as she could.

She stayed with them for the night, camping in the medbay of the hidden wreck and doing everything in her power to keep them alive. She turned her comm equipment off and decided to stay as long as it took for them to awaken. They were comatose, and would need constant care, and no doubt the treatment would leave them sick and suffering, even if she managed to save them from their injuries. She could tell the company and her foreman that she'd been captured by scavengers. It didn't matter. All that mattered was keeping them alive.

_
@AdventCore

 

[Kyosuke Yamato]

Kyo slowly opened his dim blue eyes, though he couldn't open them very far. He tried to move, to get up and take a look at his unrecognizable surroundings, but the intense pain across most of his body forced him to collapse. The sharp cry he failed to restrain bounced off the crusty metal walls of the trashed medbay he'd been left to rest in.

Tape and bandages covered nearly the entirety of his left side, with a few wraps of them strapped across his smooth bare chest. Something akin to a bandage bandana was also around his forehead, with random bits of his raven-hair sticking out of it. A dirty looking blanket was draped across his lower half, which was also smooth and wrapped in the strange mix of tapped bandages.

Kyo couldn't hold back the bright pink glow at his cheeks as he shyly realized how exposed his thin athletic body was.

Then a painful set of memories flashed across his mind. His right palm pressed tight against the upper side of his head, and he winced at the ache pounding in his skull. The last thing he could remember was dragging his broken body across a battlefield and into some random starfighter. The only other thing he could recall for the moment was being chained up in some dark room somewhere.

What felt like oily bile suddenly rose from the pit of his gut to the back of his throat. An overwhelming pulse of nausea crept up, causing Kyo to roll onto his right side and throw his head over the edge of the narrow bed he was on where he gagged from the sickly sensation.

The lost and confused individual resisted the first urge to vomit, and then the second, but the third he failed. Most of it miraculously managed to land in the small trash can that was next to the medbed, but the rest...

Kyo huffed out a hushed whine.
His body lurched and wavered.
Then crashed back to the bed.

@Cinderella

 

[Yuri Gök]

Yuri returned to the cave of wreckage that this old medbay had become. She found her patient moving, groaning faintly when she arrived. They're awake?? She'd done her best, but she'd already accepted the stranger was in their final moments, and was only doing what she could now to help them pass on painlessly. The expression of shock dimmed from her face when they began wretching into the waste can she'd been using to cook to their food. Her feline ears folded behind her head and her face wrinkled, but she stuffed the frustration down with a huff, and dropped the pile of seemingly useless junk she'd foraged while out in the surrounding wastes.

"Hey," her gravely voice came softly, but carried a commanding tone as she grabbed the stranger's face in a strong hand. "Cockroach, don't fall asleep." She grabbed the can filled with soup and black, oily bile, and dumped it on the floor, giving it a quick plunge in the murky water leftover in the old jury-rigged bacta tank she'd kept him in briefly before it seemed it was doing more harm than good. Fortunately, she had made another bowl of food; a heartier stew made of what edible things grew and crawled on Raxus Prime, the ecosystem growing on the world like a pestulent mold was stronger and more wild than an offworlder might expect. It was meant for her; the stranger's body wouldn't be strong enough yet to handle solid food, but it would have to do.

Anywhere else, such a dish might turn the stomach of a starving dog, but against the odors of this world, the smell of freshly cooked food dared even the most stubborn mouth to water. She removed the stew from it's place above the fire she'd left burning, and returned quickly to her dying ward.

"Here," She sat down and held the bowl to the stranger's face. "Sip this. Slowly."

_
@AdventCore

 

[Kyosuke Yamato]

There was a soft whimper from Kyo when the mysterious individual grabbed his face. His shaky eyes looked up into theirs like a wounded pet. The near-Human nodded weakly. He wasn't sure what to think about this person or the situation he found himself in.

The raven-haired nobody nervously clutched the blanket in his hands, then gradually pulled it up over his chest. He felt a strong desire for modesty as blurry memories of being scantly clothed reminded him that his body had once been an appealing attraction for his last masters. The care he received now though was far different than how they'd treated him.

"Th..." Kyo began trepidly. "Thank you..." His dim blues flicked up to the top of the individual's head where he noticed their cute ears, then back to their face so he could determine whether or not he should be calling them 'master' based on their reaction.

After the brief moment of hesitation he'd then gently bring his lips to the bowl, where he had to fight back the repulsive urge to vomit at its stench. Kyo took one last innocent glance up at the individual's eyes, then dipped his mouth down to the edge of the bowl where he'd begin to slowly slurp the meal up while trying to endure the harsh taste of the questionable stew.

@Cinderella

 

[Yuri Gök]

Yuri monitored their face and body language. They seemed traumatized; she knew the signs all too well. She wanted to reassure them.

"You're safe now. My name is Yuri; I'm a friend," she said softly, in a tone unusually warm for her. "If you're feeling up to it, can you tell what you remember? Do you know where you are?" She watched the poor soul struggle with the stew. It was hard to remember now, but she'd struggled with adjusting to this place herself at first, now she hardly batted an eyelash before crunching into the warm cooked shell of a spider-roach.

"Sorry about the food, we're not exactly known for our caviar on-," she stopped herself. She couldn't allow her instincts as a caretaker to jeopardize her instincts for survival. She was an unwelcome and secret guest here on the edge of Sith space; for her, anonymity was a matter of life and death. "...this backwater world," she finished, adjusting her words. "Your body might not be ready for something that solid, so don't push yourself. You've been comatose for a couple of weeks. I made a soup broth that would've been easier for you, but..." she glanced at the can they'd vomited into earlier. "...it went bad"

_
@AdventCore

 

[Kyosuke Yamato]

Kyo's eyes opened wide with a look of deep concern as he bit into something disturbing. It remained between his teeth and lips while he looked up at Yuri. Then he suddenly moved his head back towards the bin and retched another wave of vomitus.

A weak groan escaped. His hands barely supported his body at the edge of the bed. "Sorry..." He hardly managed to make out, and stayed as steady as he could while he hovered over the bin for now.

"I don't remember much..." A distorted blur of rapid blurry images raced through his foggy mind. "Some big battle... Lots of bugs... I..." His mind searched through the labyrinth of shattered memories again, finding little more than dead ends. "I think my name is Kyo, but I don't know the rest..."

@Cinderella