Being in the voids of Darkspace was one thing, but seeing a darkened planet was something else entirely. Or not seeing it, to be exact. Reyna's stomach had done flip-flops with the sudden tug of gravity and the thrusters push against it, to stop from ramming right into the planet's surface. All the while, she'd seen nothing but blackness surrounding them. Siali had assured her it was there, right in front of them and growing closer with each passing second. The ship had groaned and ground beneath her with the opening of panels and extension of landing platforms, until she'd felt the bump of The Blind Shark coming into contact with solid ground. She'd had to grab onto something to stop from falling over, having no reference point as to when they'd land.
From the look on Siali's face, he was loving this.
"Here, you're gonna need these." He tossed her what looked like a pair of goggles as he pushed his own up onto his forehead. He'd said nothing when he'd put on his own pair. Reyna just assumed it was part of his "shtick."
She turned them over in her hand, trying to figure out what they were for. They looked no different from simple swimming goggles, and she wondered if he was pulling her leg.
Siali rolled his eyes, and held them up to her face. There, everything blossomed into view in bright outlines and muted colours: plant life, abandoned vehicles, and assorted rubble. It was all there, and she had to pull them away to make sure she wasn't imagining the whole thing. She turned and gave him a questioning look, as the profitable part of her mind considered how difficult it might be to reverse-engineer them.
"Takes what's out there, and converts it into a spectrum you can see," he explained simply with a shrug, and pulled his own pair back down over his eyes. "Unless you like flying blind, I wouldn't take those off for anything. We hit the ground in fifteen minutes."
Leaving her to her thoughts, Reyna removed her targeting eyepatch and adjusted the straps on the goggles until they fit snugly on her face.
They'd gotten past the easy part. Figuring out the rest was going to be more difficult.
Everything within the ship was much too bright, and she had to squint against the overhead lights as she collected her belongings, rechecking her gear to ensure that everything was in place. This was the last place she wanted to make a mistake, surrounded by the unknown and with a man she could barely trust.
No fresh air rushed in to greet them as the door hissed open. It was as everything was frozen in place, the pressure around them a constant, stagnant force against their chests until they willfully drew breath. The absence of wind made the place deathly quiet and still, and Reyna kicked at an errant piece of rubble on the ground to ensure her hearing still worked. She watched its outline clatter away, bouncing off nearby stones with a dullness that made her feel strangely claustrophobic.
She rested her hand nervously on her hip where her holster resided, and fired up her command gauntlet. The colourless glow out of the corner of her eye gave her a sense of security, as did the warmth that radiated down the metal.
"Might want to put that away, cherie." The weight of his hand on her gauntlet shook her from her thoughts, having forgotten him temporarily, and she drew away from his touch with a scowl. "We dunno what's crawling around here, and I'm pretty damn sure your light'll draw them like a moth to a flame."
Great, so she couldn't use that either. This was going to be a problem if she needed to shoot anything or, Void forbid, summon an overshield to protect them. But she did as he said, trusting in his experience and knowledge with the place.
"So, where should we start?"
Nothing looked familiar to the Valkyrie, but she didn't want to just stand here with their thumbs up their asses. So she pointed in a direction and hoped it was the right one.
Except she wasn't sure what she should be looking for or how they would even come across it if she knew, but coming here was better than nothing. A stitched patch, a dogtag... anything that would reveal their presence here, and then she'd have some solid proof to go off of. Find them, bring them back home to her ship, and then...
... then what? They'd been gone almost two decades. It's unlikely that they would be able to slip back into society as if they'd never left. And what would they think of her current line of "employment"?
Reyna shook her head and tried not to think about future plans that would only muddle her head more. Instead, she focused on the pulse pounding in her head and continued forward.
The further they traveled from the ship, the more desolate their surroundings became. There was no one in sight, not even a single body, and she wasn't sure whether she should feel hopeful about her prospects or cast them aside for the harsh reality of the truth.
"You always this positive?" he whispered, though the silence made it sound a million times louder.
"Get out of my head," she commanded, her gauntlet pointed threateningly at his face. She didn't have the patience to deal with his sarcasm at the moment.
"'m just saying." He hooked his finger through her belt loop and spun her around, the small Valkyrie pressed against him. "Here in the dark, you need to keep your head up. It's easy to lose yourself in all this. Lucky for you, you got me around to keep you level."
The lightest touch to her ear brought a scowl to her face, and she twisted the arm trapped between them free. How could he find the time or the energy to joke like this?
Unfortunately, he caught her half-attempt at a swing, and she watched as the paper-thin lines of his face deepen with a smirk.
"You know, if you took me up on my offer, you wouldn't have to work so hard. I'd provide for you. Treat you like a queen."
"At the price you want? No thanks." She pulled her wrist free with very little struggle from his end.
"That's funny. Like you wouldn't have done the same thing before you had people to care about."
His tone needled into the soft parts of her chest and found root, stealing just enough of her air to make her feel like she was drowning. Saving the galaxy, fighting against a madman... it was just supposed to be a mission. Instead, she'd found people who she'd come to... like having around. More than just numbers to send on missions.
"Answer's still no," she tried to recover, but she had a feeling her honesty was already written all over her face. "You want a bullet in your foot?"
His beard tickled her brow bone as he planted a quick kiss on her forehead before stepping away, too fast for her to dodge or twist her head away from. She wiped away the spot with a gloved hand, eager to get rid of his "stain" before it lingered too long.
That was when he grabbed her wrist, and the expression on his face became all too serious. She noticed the thrum of a racing pulse in his neck, and her worry picked up double-fold.
"Turn around."
"This isn't the time to-"
A hand to her mouth cut off her hissing retort. His head shifted slightly, his attention diverted from her face to something behind her. But she couldn't tell for sure with his gaze hidden behind those goggles.
"Turn... around..." he repeated with more command in his voice this time that sent a ripple of worry down Reyna's spine.
With a breath caught in her throat, she did as he ordered, her pulse pounding in her ears. She blinked at the sight before her, and felt the trapped air escape her in one violent exhale. The sudden change in pressure wrapped an ache around her chest and squeezed her ribs until she thought she was going to pass out. Beyond the sound of blood rushing in her ears, she swore she heard him whisper "breathe" against the skin of her neck.
The sight before her was nothing like she'd ever seen before. Shapes and tendrils snaked out towards her, clawing at the empty air for a taste of her skin and blood. Varelsi, thousands of them, milling about as if they were waiting for the next train to pick them up, and completely oblivious to the trespassers in their domain.
"We can't fight off this many... Where did they even come from..." Reyna whispered under her breath, her feet rooted in place. She'd never known Varelsi to be sneaky, and she was sure they hadn't been there a second ago. But darkened planets were wholly new to her, and her traveling companion would have warned of such things beforehand. He looked taken aback as well, which meant he hadn't expected this either.
"I didn't see any portal blooms. Those would've flared up like Christmas lights on acid." The worry in his voice wasn't helping matters, but who could really keep a level head with the imposing sea of bone-white masks shifting before them?
"Do we go around them, or...?"
An impossible task, since the swarm stretched as far as the eye could see.
"Follow my lead." Siali's arm snaked around her waist, and though she cringed against it, Reyna wasn't about to loudly protest. So she let it be as he guided her away from the swarm before them to retreat back to the ship. His steps were careful, seeking out flat, empty ground to minimize their chances of stumbling and drawing any attention to their location.
All of a sudden, she felt his body stiffen against her back, and Reyna's heart sank, afraid that they'd been found. Any second, she expected the burning rip of Varelsi claws through her back and into her chest. To feel her own burning blood spilling out and soaking into her shirt as everything around her would start to grow dark. What would be her last thoughts in those moments, she wondered...
Then there was the soft escape of air and the gentle shaking of his body against hers.
He was laughing.
"Found the ship," he confessed before her temper ran away with her. He sounded as relieved as he felt.
"Don't tell me we're just going to leave..."
They'd already been here for hours, and she wasn't about to give everything up after spending days getting here. Her recklessness screamed at her to barrel through them and take down as many as they could to get to what they were looking for. Her fear told her that that was a fool's folly, and they'd be torn apart faster than a cupcake in Orendi's hands. Still, going back would undo everything they'd accomplished so far.
"We're not. Just need to think things through and come up with a plan." He fiddled with the panel until the door hissed open once more, his tone laced with disappointment. At least in that, they were on the same page.
She allowed him to guide her back into the open doorway as she maintained her gaze on the inky, undulating forms of the star eaters until the closing door blocked them from view.
But it was all a ruse to get her to cooperate, as she soon felt the steady hum of the engines coming to life beneath her feet. Reyna sprinted through the narrow halls of the ship to the bridge and all but tackled Siali out of his chair.
"What the hell do you think you're doing!?" She made a grab for the controls and tried to wrestle his hands off of them.
"You paid me get you here, not throw my life away in some fight!" He sounded more spooked than he'd originally let on. Reyna couldn't really fault him for that.
"I got credits-!" she snapped as she ripped off the goggles and threw them at his face. Siali winced and temporarily forgot his grip on the controls to take care of the pain. But it was too late; the Valkyrie had already shut everything off again.
"I paid too much for this ship, and you paid too much to get to where you are. You really think throwing your life away out there's gonna make a difference?" Thick brows that peeked over the goggles knitted together in genuine concern.
"They did." Reyna gestured back at the door they'd come in through. "They're the only reason I got to where I am." She blinked frantically at the sudden influx of colours bombarding her vision, having gotten so accustomed to the darkness and inky white lines of the goggles.
"No, you did that on your own. Not dead pa-"
It was her turn to silence him as she punched him square in the jaw.
"You don't know that. You don't know anything about me." Reyna primed her fist for another swing, and once more, he had a grip on it before she could cock it back all the way.
That clairvoyance thing was starting to get really fucking annoying. But then...?
"I gave you a freebie cuz you needed it. Better to get it out than keep it buried, they say." Siali dragged off his goggles and threw them at the ground, squinting at the erratic change of view. His other hand searched his lip and was satisfied to find no blood. It still hurt like hell though, and the first signs of swelling started to reveal themselves.
Reyna slid to the ground with a huff as she tended to her aching knuckles.
"So what now?" She couldn't help but sound deflated. They'd found nothing so far and the sudden appearance of the Varelsi was definitely putting a damper on things.
"Waiting's the only suggestion I got. What with you wrecking my controls." Siali retrieved his goggles and sat on the floor across from her, his knees drawn to his chest to give her her space. Teasing the Rogue Commander didn't seem so fun anymore.