Vaykaaris - A Soldier's Accord

[Lucian Volante]

Lucian wasn't really used to standing around watching people debate and he was even less used to watching them while they were in a hotel and he was attracting attention from the Republic guards for, well, being a Jedi.

There had been a time when Jedi were seen with respect and admiration as peacekeepers... or so he was told. Lucian had never experienced this before since he had only ever been an officer-in-training and then a Jedi and only ever after the War. The War had changed the public perception of the Jedi drastically and he had never known a time where it wasn't normal to be viewed with suspicion.

What an age they lived in.

Soldiers from both moons were here as well and there was a little bit of tension there as well, which he could understand if he was honest. It was getting to another boring part and Lucian shuffled his positioning slightly to remain at attention without looking like he was standing at attention.

Some things you never forgot and 'how to stand, the military edition' was definitely one of them. He was just adjusting his footing when it happened.

The peace summit went from peaceful and full of conversion to suddenly being, well, on fire. A device, a bomb, had detonated and it was a rather large one, combining features of standard explosive devices and incendiary devices too. A shock wave spread from the point of detonation, killing many and throwing others aside like rag-dolls.

Lucian himself, his footing unsteady, fell backwards against the wall... before he pushed himself off from the wall to hurry forwards to the front of the room, closer to where the explosion had gone off.

They needed to get those dazed away from the rapidly advancing flames - even as he slid to a stop beside a man clutching his ribs, Lucian looked to some of the closer soldiers,

"We need to move those too dazed to move themselves first - the fires will spread to them first. Please - assistance!"

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

Lex wasn’t expecting anything eventful as she patrolled around with her rifle slung over her shoulder. She was to help with the security efforts during a peace summit, and it was one of the more boring jobs she had taken on. Nevertheless, it still got her out of her usually even more boring task of logistics and other business that dealt with rearmament. She was itching to see more action, but nothing was happening with the Senators still hemming and hawing.

She was just about to step away for a cup of Spacebucks when a tremendous explosion rocked the very hotel that housed the summit. Screams and shouts filled the streets and complete chaos erupted everywhere. Lex didn’t waste a moment as she burst into the building to help clear the way.

Lex came to stop at anyone that was wandering about aimlessly, clearly reeling from the attack, before she guided them towards the exit. She was joined by several other soldiers that immediately took on the task of escorting survivors out. After a moment, she found herself close to the Jedi that everyone was muttering about. At the moment she didn’t care what anyone had to say, she simply wanted him to be useful.

“The upper levels are inaccessible! What can you do?” Her voice came out harsher than she intended. Why the hell was he asking for assistance when he clearly had these magical abilities?! The fires were too horrible in the upper floors and the stairs had caved in. The level directly above was completely closed off with people still up there. Lex rushed towards the exterior of the building, looking for a place to launch her grappling line. Even from down here, fire raged from every window and some survivors were pondering simply jumping out. This was bad. This was real bad.


@Nefieslab

 

[Lucian Volante]

Blast it all...

There were still people up there on the next level up. That was problematic but not something that he could solve as easily as he thought. The stairs appeared to be out of commission which meant that they were going to need to get up there via unconventional methods. Seeing that many of the windows on the first floor were holding strong, keeping in harmful black smoke, Lucian took a step back,

"Open a window."

Drawing his pistol, Lucian fired ten shots from his pistol. He was firing a shot at the very bottom and a shot at the very top of five of the windows that lined the front of the hotel's first floor. Four of the five windows shattered, leasing the pent up black smoke and giving the people inside some air to breathe that wasn't poison.

It didn't help with the fire right now but once fire crews began to arrive it would.

But that would take time so he holstered his weapon and nodded to the Lieutenant who had spoken to him and who seemed to be preparing to grapple up to the first level. Didn't seem like the time to chat. Gathering the Force to himself, Lucian took a running start before jumping, leaping through the air to land inside the first floor with a small roll.

So far so good... he wasn't on fire yet.

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

Lex followed suit, firing her own shots to help the thick, black smoke escape. She realized it also gave her a window to climb through that didn’t look like death. She fired her hook and hauled herself up, climbing in. She saw the Jedi leap in through the second window. It was chaos in here, the thick smoke making it difficult to see. Out of the smoke, a shrieking woman with half her face melted away ran towards and collided with Lucian.

“HELP ME! OH GODS IT BURNS! PLEASE HELP ME!” She clutched him fiercely, her hair having singed away, her face absolutely grotesque. Lex was more than a little unnerved by this, but she would let the Jedi handle this. This was a horrific situation, and she had to keep her wits about to help the survivors inside. She only hoped the Jedi could actually do something to help these poor souls. She had heard they even had healing abilities.

Lex made her way out the door of the room they were in, going out into the hallway. Smoke and heat made it almost suffocating. She kept pressing forward, calling out for survivors. She thought she heard something from a nearby room, and she kicked the door in. The room revealed two children huddled together with their mother, “It’ll be okay!” Lex leveled her gun and shot through the windows behind them, providing them a better chance to breathe. She then gathered up the little family, glancing down at the fire department vehicles that now gathered outside. They had set up landing cushions below.

“You’re going to have to jump!” The children began to cry hysterically, and the woman hesitated, “Trust me! This whole building is about to go down! You have to jump!” The woman nodded furiously and took her children one by one and tossed them as gently as she could before climbing out herself.

Lex made her way back out into the hallway, noticing that she began to cough now. She felt the heat pressing in, but she knew she wouldn’t leave the entire building was combed.


@Nefieslab

 

[Lucian Volante]

Well having a woman clinging to him was something Lucian had tried to forswear since becoming a Jedi but it seemed to happen regardless. She was... well she was rather badly burned and that wasn't good but he refused to let that colour his response. He did what he did instinctively and he wrapped his arms around her and as she clung to him, he clung to her.

Unfortunately she pressed the side of her face, her burned side, to his robes and when he scooped her up to carry her to the window her head lolled away from him and she screamed louder still as part of her face didn't leave his robes - her burning skin had clung to his robes and she had pulled her own flesh away from her cheek by the motion of her head moving away from his robes.

The fire brigade were here already but Lucian didn't want to add to the woman's trauma by throwing her out of a window - even if there was a landing pad out the window. So instead he stepped out of the window, cushioning his own landing with the Force as he handed her over to a pair of paramedics, taking his outer robes off so that what was still connected to her face wouldn't be pulled away anymore.

"The Force be good, the Force be kind... the Force have mercy."

He chanted it as he jumped back up to the first floor but... he wasn't sure if he really could believe that right now. It didn't matter though. Pushing through the building into the hallway, Lucian began to use the Force to smash open the locks on the doors, opening them up to check the first floor rooms for any more guests. He spotted one,

"Sir? Sir! Can you hear me?"

Rushing into a room, he paused at a handicapped man in his wheelchair... who wasn't moving. He reached out both physically and with the Force, checking if there was any life clinging to him but it was useless. The man was already dead. Lucian closed the man's eyes and moved back into the corridor, spotting to the Lieutenant,

"This floor is clear of survivors!"

That last word stuck in the back of his throat.

"Move ahead of me to the next floor - I'm going to check the elevator!"

Burning to death in a metal box was not a good way to die.

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

Lex kept moving, coughing and hacking as the smoke got to become almost unbearable. She had gear on and it was difficult for her, and she couldn’t imagine what it was like for the hotel guests. She nodded as the Jedi said this floor was clear and she made her way forward. The stairs here were blocked too, and she cursed inwardly as she burst into an empty room. She blew the window out and climbed out, hopping up on a ledge above and climbing up.

There was a guest coughing and wheezing out of the window, and she hoisted herself up. As she came inside, Lex helped the guest up over to ensure she could jump down safely below. After a bit of coaxing, the woman finally leaped to safety. Lex went back into the room, scanning for survivors. Up here, there were several dead bodies littered around, but she couldn’t spot anyone moving.

She went through the hall calling out for people, and no one answered. Lex kept stepping forth and opening up rooms one by one. The air up here was even worse, and she felt woozy just from being here. The building’s structure was groaning in protest, the entire thing not too far from collapsing at this point.

There was a secondary explosion as the pipes overheated. The blast sent her careening through the air, debris sticking through her armor and skin. Lex cried out in pain, collapsing to the ground. She went from being rescuer to needing it, but she was too stubborn to ask for it. Instead, she gritted her teeth and tried to yank the embedded shards out of herself. She refused to use a medpack on herself, needing to keep them for survivors.

@Nefieslab

 

[Lucian Volante]

The Lieutenant decided to leave through the window and move up that way - he supposed that was a good confirmation as any that the stairs were blocked. Which, to his mind, meant that someone had, definitely, been stupid enough to try and use the elevator during the emergency situation they were currently in.

Reaching the elevating he was not surprised to fine that it was in use and it was currently stuck... the stupid thing was that it was stuck on this floor... why hadn't they opened the doors? He could hear them kicking the doors after all.

Seeing a small gap between the doors, Lucian grabbed them with his hands.

He roared in pain and pulled his hands away from the metal of the elevator doors, which had been heated so thoroughly that he had burns all over his hands now purely from the brief contact he'd had with the metal. Normally he had gauntlets on but... but they'd come off with his robes when he'd handed it off to the burn victim. Swallowing thickly, he opened the doors with the Force,

"Everyone head to the windows - there are landing mats down there for you. You're almost to safety so keep moving!"

The family of four vacated the lift and Lucian stepped into it, breaking open the access hatch at the top and using the Force to jump atop the lift. Using the Force, he opened the lift doors on the second floor before jumping up... needing to catch himself with his burnt hands and barely stopping himself from screaming. The smoke was getting thicker and there wasn't much that could be done unless he used Breath Control. He was about to do so when he spotted the soldier on the ground.

He was useless as a healer...

"On your feet soldier!" he barked firmly, his officer's training showing as he grabbed her by the shoulder and applied Breath Control to her, which would allow her to go an extraordinary length of time without needing to breathe. It meant that he was breathing in smoke but hey - she was injured so it was a handicap each, "Breathe only occasionally - the Force will assist you."

Seeing that she was going to be alright - and probably lucid enough to be angry at him in the first place - Lucian moved onto the door room, knocking it open with his foot rather than the Force. The room was small and had almost no life in it as far as he could tell. He almost moved on before he realised there was a tiny spark of life further in so he investigated, expecting to find a dying person... and instead found a baby in a crib, too weak to even cry.

"No no no no no..." he declared as he rushed on over to the child, picking it up and cradling it in his arms, using Breath Control for the child to see if it would have an effect, "Come on..."

While he was doing that he handed to the window to see about jumping down - only to have to jump back at the ceiling collapsed. Gods and the Force be damned!

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

Lex gritted her teeth as she pulled out a few shards from her stomach, blood seeping out from her wounds. She felt the building beginning to rumble and shake, and she knew it would collapse. It was a hazard for the fire brigade as well, and everyone needed to steer clear of the area. Lex was crouched on the ground when she was abruptly hoisted up to her feet. A glare shot across at the Jedi, “Don’t touch me,” She yanked herself out of his grip, not bothering to thank him for whatever he did to help her breathe easy.

She moved into the room opposite of where he went, looking around and spotting nothing. Lex finally made her way back over towards the Jedi, spotting him with the baby and jumping back as the ceiling collapsed, “This way!” She called to him, running back towards the room she came from. She gingerly had to step around the child’s dead parents as she did so, the sight causing a pang of pain through her.

As she led to the room across, she shot through the windows, pointing down below for the Jedi to jump. Lex still clutched painfully at her wounds as she waited for him before she jumped. The entire building was shaking now, and she glanced up, hearing the croaking, “It’s coming down! Go go go!”

 

[Lucian Volante]

Lucian had already forgotten much about the way the soldier had responded to him because he honestly wasn't surprised - it was typical in the Galaxy these days. But what was not typical was getting the chance to save the life of a tiny child. He stepped over the child's dead parents and he would have felt a pang of guilt save for one thing.

They would want this.

They wouldn't want people to grieve for them while their child still needed saving so he didn't - he would think on their death and their lives later. Nodding to the soldier, he gritted his teeth and poured on the speed even as he could see the ceiling above him starting to crack under the pressure and weight of the collapsing floors above.

As he approached the window he spoke under his breath.

"I am a leaf on the wind."

Throwing himself out of the window, Lucian was forced by the collapsing building to make a diving jump. Wrapping the Force around himself and cradling the baby tightly to himself, Lucian anticipated having to roll a few times...

He hit a speeder at the bottom, his Force-powered defence the only thing that stopped him from breaking his back as he crumpled the bonnet of the speeder. It hurt like hells... but the baby was alright and he could still feel all his extremities so he would count it a win. A pair of paramedics came over and he handed the child over to them before slumping back against the speeder, muttering to himself,

"Not much of a leaf that time."

He groaned as he pulled himself to his feet,

"Lieutenant... are you alright?"

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

She had no idea what the hell he was talking about when he mentioned a leaf on the wind. Was that some bizarre hippie Jedi prayer? Sure, why not. She simply shook her head, watching him jump out before she latched her grappling hook to safely make her way down. She winced from pain as she moved, and she was still bleeding. Once she made her way down, she pulled the grappling line away, watching the top of the building collapse.

“EVERYBODY GET BACK!” She shouted out towards all the people and rescue operatives that were still gathered around the building. She hoped they had gotten every last person out, but there was nothing more to be done. Lex made her way closer towards where the Jedi was. She simply gazed at him for a moment as he asked if she were all right, “I’ll live,” She paused for a moment, thinking to thank him for his earlier efforts. However, she held her tongue instead and moved on to gather the survivors they had brought out here.

The building collapsed shortly after, crumbling to the ground behind them as it kicked up a massive debris and dust cloud. Lex ushered everyone away, continuing to help put everyone into transports to carry them to hospitals. The locals were loudly commending the Republic and Jedi efforts here, but she ignored all of it.

At last, the adrenaline began to wear off, and she winced as she found a nearby speeder and leaned against it. She only paused for a moment before she slid down to sit on the ground, pausing to inspect her extensive injuries.

 

[Lucian Volante]

Lucian was glad that the soldier was alright - she seemed to have taken an injury back there and was holding it together rather well. How well she could keep that up was unknown to him. She hesitated for a moment, looking like she wanted to say something. He didn't say anything and he didn't expect her to say anything further.

He did however respond to what she did say.

"Good. The Republic needs good soldiers like you."

In his mind, a good soldier was, at the end of the day, a good person who was pushing themselves to go above and beyond in combat and in other areas as well. She had done that. There was nothing in her orders to charge back into a burning building after all.

As the building collapsed, Lucian spoke to some of the locals about bringing in a team of Jedi healers. While none were on hand at the minute, there was a team only a day out by hyperspace travel and he was quick to offer their services and give their contact details to a rather harried-looking doctor.

Some days he wished his healing knowledge wasn't restricted to the combat first aid he'd been taught at the military academy... speaking of which. He took a small medkit and a bottle of water before heading on over to the soldier from before. Stepping closer, he held the water bottle out for her to take,

"Lieutenant." he spoke out, "That needs to be seen to - remember what they taught you. You can't help anyone if you're hurting or you're dead. Look after yourself so you can look after others... you've done enough so focus on your own health for at least a moment."

@Sreeya

 

[Lex Kyrst]

Lex wanted to argue with him, but she simply didn’t have the energy. At the end of the day, they were on the same side. She sighed and lifted the visor of her mask and took the water bottle, taking a sip from it. She eyed him curiously for a moment before handing the bottle back, “You took a nasty fall. You should be taking care of yourself too,” She slowly got to her feet, managing a grin, “The job is done, we don’t need to act tough anymore.”

She left it at that. There was no denying that things were still a bit frosty, but he had been essential in helping get the survivors out. She may not have trusted Jedi, but she couldn’t deny that without him, she would have had a tough time locating and rescuing anyone. The streets were filled with people hugging and embracing one another, happy to be alive. The job was done, and that was all that mattered.

“Till next time, Jedi,” She saluted him before she put the visor of her helmet back on and strode off in the opposite direction. It was time for the first aid crew to do their part now, and she knew there would be a full investigation launched after the dust settled.

/End Thread