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weetuskenraiderTahiri had been out on a scouting mission with Face Loran, who'd been mercifully quiet for once -- well, for Face, anyway. They'd reported back to the others on their findings, and now the team had trekked back down through several levels of ruined factory machinery and was gathered on a metal walkway high over a huge chamber.
There wasn't a whole lot of anything for their glowrods to illuminate except for tiny sections of floor far below, and one giant, gleaming white metal tank filled with some reddish fluid.
"You found a tank of goo," said Mara.
Which, yes, she had, but it wasn't the goo itself that had her looking nauseated.
Most of the Wraiths didn't look too excited by the discovery, which annoyed Tahiri, but Baljos and Danni went into full-out geek mode, pulling out their equipment and testing everything.
"Definitely a living thing," Danni said. "A large quantity of monocellular life-forms."
"This chamber is unusually high in oxygen, unusually low in carbon dioxide and world-shaping toxins." Baljos pulled off his helmet and tugged the perfumed patches of cloth from his nose; he took several deep breaths, and a smile broke out on his face. "Clean air. Thought I'd never experience it again."
They'd been going around with those patches of cloth stuffed up their noses since they'd arrived just to keep from gagging at the smell of the planet, and most of the team looked relieved, almost exhilarated, to get a break from that. Tahiri wasn't smiling, though; she was staring down into the goo apprehensively. Something didn't feel right. Something down there scared the hell out of her. It wasn't the fact that she could sense traces of life in the vat, although that was creepy in and of itself; there was a weak but constant thrum of dark side energy that was making her queasier than the smell of Coruscant. It wasn't overwhelming, but it was persistent.
They found a metal ladder, still intact, and filed down to floor level. The tank wasn't any more impressive from this angle, either: still a rectangular pond of red, evil-looking slime, though shallower than it had looked from above.
"I think," Luke said, "that this is a devourer tank."
"Based on your extensive knowledge of factories and city engineering," Mara said.
"Based on something Wedge Antilles said to me once." Tahiri didn't think for a second that Luke was really as stern as the rebuking look he'd just given Mara. "There was a time, a few years ago, when he thought he wanted to give up the life of a fighting officer and turn his skills to building things, fixing things. So he headed a military crew that was deconstructing portions of Coruscant that were falling apart. So new portions of Coruscant could be built there and fall apart later. He described something like this. A huge flat area filled with a living material."
"Oh, that's right," Face said. "You mentioned that the first time I met you."
"Years ago," Luke said.
"Yes."
"But you still can't tell me when."
Face shook his head. "Official secrets. If you were to remember what I looked like, who I was then, I still couldn't admit it to you."
Tahiri didn't say anything, but she silently reinforced her opinion that part of the Wraiths' job description was to be the biggest pains in the ass they could be. She glanced around, her gaze following a set of tubes that led from the tank to a wall console, and wanded that way.
"What's it for?" asked Danni. "The tank."
"It's one type of garbage disposal." Luke held a hand just above the red surface, and the goo swelled slightly, but disturbingly, toward him. "Anything organic that gets thrown in here is consumed. Every so often, they pump out the goo and scrape out the material that accumulates at the bottom of the tank."
"Here's the pumping equipment," Tahiri said. She pried the cover off the console and peered at the insides. "Why didn't the Yuuzhan Vong smash the tank? Everything around here was smashed. We know they've been here."
"Because it's organic rather than technological, I guess," Luke said, but Tahiri wasn't entirely convinced by the argument as she started to crawl inside the console. She could tell that the Wraiths were up to their usual banter, and she was glad she couldn't really hear it from here. Squinting in the light from her glowrod, she got a good look at the innards of the console. She wasn't the mechanical whiz Anakin had been, or that Jaina and Ben were, but there was something very off here if it was obvious to her.
She shoved her way back out of the console and announced, "It's a fake."
"What's a fake?" Luke asked.
She jabbed a thumb behind her. "This console. The computer equipment looks real enough, but it's not actually hooked up to any pumping equipment."
Luke and Mara moved over to look, and Tahiri stepped aside for them, only half listening as Luke asked Bhindi, the Wraiths' computer expert, to come take a look. This, of course, was met with more of the Wraiths' oh-so-charming banter, and in between that and the constant sense of wrongness Tahiri half wanted to pound her head into the wall.
"I need to go out there," Luke decided after several minutes' consideration.
Mara, beside him, snickered. "That'll be a quick, painful swim."
"Maybe."
Tahiri watched him extend his hand toward the tank, and she guessed he was trying to communicate with the living goo.
"I need an air mask," he said, pulling off his fake vonduun crab armor. "Completely inorganic material. Preferably with a faceplate."
"I have you covered." Face dug around in his pack and handed over an oddly-shaped, fist-sized lump of something shiny. "My backup. It's a hood made of transparisteel foil with an oxygen canister. It'll give you maybe five minutes."
"Perfect."
"Luke, I don't want to discourage your curiosity, but I have to remind you, if something goes wrong, this is an exceptionally embarrassing way to die."
Luke grinned at Mara. "I'll trust you to improve the story. Luke Skywalker goes out in a blaze of glory in battle with a hideous red devourer." He handed her his lightsaber; Tahiri wondered how she'd never noticed before that the dorkiness she'd seen in the teenage Luke back on Endor was still there in the Jedi Master. Probably because she'd never seen him as anything but the Jedi Master before.
She watched, impatiently, as he waved at them and dove into the tank. After several minutes that took far too long, the there was a scraping of metal against duracrete, and the chamber started changing. Tahiri pulled her blaster and heard the faint sound of the others doing the same, all of them covering the large rectangular plug that was rising from the floor in front of the tank.
"What did you do?" Mara asked when Luke surfaced.
"I turned a wheel. Something obviously still has power."
With several glowrods out, there was enough light to . . . turn his way and see more than she really wanted to. Luke might have convinced the goo not to eat him, but he hadn't convinced it to leave his clothes alone apparently. Tahiri's face was about as bright red as the goo as she quickly looked away. Wow, that plug was fascinating, and it looked like Danni thought so too, but Tahiri would have bet good credits that Danni wasn't nearly as embarrassed as she was.
Mara let out a cough that might have been a laugh before she suppressed it. "Luke, before you step out and join us, out of respect for those of us you're not married to, you might want to be sure that you're presentable."
Tahiri just kept staring at the plug, practically sweating from the effort, because no, with two Jedi Masters in the vicinity -- these particular Jedi Masters especially -- she was not going to let herself get flaily over oh Force I did not need to see that much, and I know you all thought I'd still be a complete dysfunctional wreck over Anakin's death, and yes, I know Ben's a baby here, don't look at me like that, because really, that was the last kriffing thing she ever wanted to have to explain because she already got stuck with the night watch shift enough on this mission. And it wasn't like Kell Tainer needed any more ammunition to annoy her with.
It took far too long for her liking before she could actually look again, and she was pretty sure she was already traumatized for life anyway. The plug, as it turned out, housed a turbolift that Danni immediately started geeking out about. Tahiri wasn't surprised; one of the buttons read RESEARCH.
Face brought up his comlink. "Kell, Elassar?"
"We hear you." The voice was Kell's.
"We may be gone for a little while. Don't be surprised or alarmed."
"As long as Aunt Tahiri is going to be back in time for my bedtime story, I'll be all right."
"He's starting to get on my nerves," Tahiri complained. "Doesn't he know that's a bad idea?"
Baljos snorted. "He knows. But he's a demolitions expert. He likes playing with things that blow up in his face."
They entered the turbolift; the doors shut, and Luke hit the RESEARCH button.
The turbolift did not immediately move. An antiquated droid voice, coming from an overhead speaker, addressed them: "State your name and Bluenek authorization code. You have ten seconds to comply . . . before you die."
Speaking of things blowing up in their faces.
[OOC: Yep, still with the NFI/NFB dance, OOC still chompable (and a welcome distraction since I'm stuck in training all day), still borrowed and adapted from Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston and still in love with the Wraiths. I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR THAT. Up early 'cause I'm gonna have a long day. Joy. I cliffhanger because I suck.]
There wasn't a whole lot of anything for their glowrods to illuminate except for tiny sections of floor far below, and one giant, gleaming white metal tank filled with some reddish fluid.
"You found a tank of goo," said Mara.
Which, yes, she had, but it wasn't the goo itself that had her looking nauseated.
Most of the Wraiths didn't look too excited by the discovery, which annoyed Tahiri, but Baljos and Danni went into full-out geek mode, pulling out their equipment and testing everything.
"Definitely a living thing," Danni said. "A large quantity of monocellular life-forms."
"This chamber is unusually high in oxygen, unusually low in carbon dioxide and world-shaping toxins." Baljos pulled off his helmet and tugged the perfumed patches of cloth from his nose; he took several deep breaths, and a smile broke out on his face. "Clean air. Thought I'd never experience it again."
They'd been going around with those patches of cloth stuffed up their noses since they'd arrived just to keep from gagging at the smell of the planet, and most of the team looked relieved, almost exhilarated, to get a break from that. Tahiri wasn't smiling, though; she was staring down into the goo apprehensively. Something didn't feel right. Something down there scared the hell out of her. It wasn't the fact that she could sense traces of life in the vat, although that was creepy in and of itself; there was a weak but constant thrum of dark side energy that was making her queasier than the smell of Coruscant. It wasn't overwhelming, but it was persistent.
They found a metal ladder, still intact, and filed down to floor level. The tank wasn't any more impressive from this angle, either: still a rectangular pond of red, evil-looking slime, though shallower than it had looked from above.
"I think," Luke said, "that this is a devourer tank."
"Based on your extensive knowledge of factories and city engineering," Mara said.
"Based on something Wedge Antilles said to me once." Tahiri didn't think for a second that Luke was really as stern as the rebuking look he'd just given Mara. "There was a time, a few years ago, when he thought he wanted to give up the life of a fighting officer and turn his skills to building things, fixing things. So he headed a military crew that was deconstructing portions of Coruscant that were falling apart. So new portions of Coruscant could be built there and fall apart later. He described something like this. A huge flat area filled with a living material."
"Oh, that's right," Face said. "You mentioned that the first time I met you."
"Years ago," Luke said.
"Yes."
"But you still can't tell me when."
Face shook his head. "Official secrets. If you were to remember what I looked like, who I was then, I still couldn't admit it to you."
Tahiri didn't say anything, but she silently reinforced her opinion that part of the Wraiths' job description was to be the biggest pains in the ass they could be. She glanced around, her gaze following a set of tubes that led from the tank to a wall console, and wanded that way.
"What's it for?" asked Danni. "The tank."
"It's one type of garbage disposal." Luke held a hand just above the red surface, and the goo swelled slightly, but disturbingly, toward him. "Anything organic that gets thrown in here is consumed. Every so often, they pump out the goo and scrape out the material that accumulates at the bottom of the tank."
"Here's the pumping equipment," Tahiri said. She pried the cover off the console and peered at the insides. "Why didn't the Yuuzhan Vong smash the tank? Everything around here was smashed. We know they've been here."
"Because it's organic rather than technological, I guess," Luke said, but Tahiri wasn't entirely convinced by the argument as she started to crawl inside the console. She could tell that the Wraiths were up to their usual banter, and she was glad she couldn't really hear it from here. Squinting in the light from her glowrod, she got a good look at the innards of the console. She wasn't the mechanical whiz Anakin had been, or that Jaina and Ben were, but there was something very off here if it was obvious to her.
She shoved her way back out of the console and announced, "It's a fake."
"What's a fake?" Luke asked.
She jabbed a thumb behind her. "This console. The computer equipment looks real enough, but it's not actually hooked up to any pumping equipment."
Luke and Mara moved over to look, and Tahiri stepped aside for them, only half listening as Luke asked Bhindi, the Wraiths' computer expert, to come take a look. This, of course, was met with more of the Wraiths' oh-so-charming banter, and in between that and the constant sense of wrongness Tahiri half wanted to pound her head into the wall.
"I need to go out there," Luke decided after several minutes' consideration.
Mara, beside him, snickered. "That'll be a quick, painful swim."
"Maybe."
Tahiri watched him extend his hand toward the tank, and she guessed he was trying to communicate with the living goo.
"I need an air mask," he said, pulling off his fake vonduun crab armor. "Completely inorganic material. Preferably with a faceplate."
"I have you covered." Face dug around in his pack and handed over an oddly-shaped, fist-sized lump of something shiny. "My backup. It's a hood made of transparisteel foil with an oxygen canister. It'll give you maybe five minutes."
"Perfect."
"Luke, I don't want to discourage your curiosity, but I have to remind you, if something goes wrong, this is an exceptionally embarrassing way to die."
Luke grinned at Mara. "I'll trust you to improve the story. Luke Skywalker goes out in a blaze of glory in battle with a hideous red devourer." He handed her his lightsaber; Tahiri wondered how she'd never noticed before that the dorkiness she'd seen in the teenage Luke back on Endor was still there in the Jedi Master. Probably because she'd never seen him as anything but the Jedi Master before.
She watched, impatiently, as he waved at them and dove into the tank. After several minutes that took far too long, the there was a scraping of metal against duracrete, and the chamber started changing. Tahiri pulled her blaster and heard the faint sound of the others doing the same, all of them covering the large rectangular plug that was rising from the floor in front of the tank.
"What did you do?" Mara asked when Luke surfaced.
"I turned a wheel. Something obviously still has power."
With several glowrods out, there was enough light to . . . turn his way and see more than she really wanted to. Luke might have convinced the goo not to eat him, but he hadn't convinced it to leave his clothes alone apparently. Tahiri's face was about as bright red as the goo as she quickly looked away. Wow, that plug was fascinating, and it looked like Danni thought so too, but Tahiri would have bet good credits that Danni wasn't nearly as embarrassed as she was.
Mara let out a cough that might have been a laugh before she suppressed it. "Luke, before you step out and join us, out of respect for those of us you're not married to, you might want to be sure that you're presentable."
Tahiri just kept staring at the plug, practically sweating from the effort, because no, with two Jedi Masters in the vicinity -- these particular Jedi Masters especially -- she was not going to let herself get flaily over oh Force I did not need to see that much, and I know you all thought I'd still be a complete dysfunctional wreck over Anakin's death, and yes, I know Ben's a baby here, don't look at me like that, because really, that was the last kriffing thing she ever wanted to have to explain because she already got stuck with the night watch shift enough on this mission. And it wasn't like Kell Tainer needed any more ammunition to annoy her with.
It took far too long for her liking before she could actually look again, and she was pretty sure she was already traumatized for life anyway. The plug, as it turned out, housed a turbolift that Danni immediately started geeking out about. Tahiri wasn't surprised; one of the buttons read RESEARCH.
Face brought up his comlink. "Kell, Elassar?"
"We hear you." The voice was Kell's.
"We may be gone for a little while. Don't be surprised or alarmed."
"As long as Aunt Tahiri is going to be back in time for my bedtime story, I'll be all right."
"He's starting to get on my nerves," Tahiri complained. "Doesn't he know that's a bad idea?"
Baljos snorted. "He knows. But he's a demolitions expert. He likes playing with things that blow up in his face."
They entered the turbolift; the doors shut, and Luke hit the RESEARCH button.
The turbolift did not immediately move. An antiquated droid voice, coming from an overhead speaker, addressed them: "State your name and Bluenek authorization code. You have ten seconds to comply . . . before you die."
Speaking of things blowing up in their faces.
[OOC: Yep, still with the NFI/NFB dance, OOC still chompable (and a welcome distraction since I'm stuck in training all day), still borrowed and adapted from Rebel Stand by Aaron Allston and still in love with the Wraiths. I MAKE NO APOLOGIES FOR THAT. Up early 'cause I'm gonna have a long day. Joy. I cliffhanger because I suck.]
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Date: 2009-02-26 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-02-26 06:17 pm (UTC)