A post Star One story Duel revisited Jenna VS Avon part 4.
The dewy undergrowth rustled lightly with the rhythmic sound of their footsteps, one after another. Swish, Swish. Jenna followed Travis' dark broad-shouldered back as the sun dipped below the horizon in an orange gold streak of vivid light like flames in a crackling licking pyre. She hoped that if she died here, she would go out that way, in a blaze. But she would do her damndest not to go out at all against that snake Avon. She wasn't beaten that easily, and she sure as hell wasn't taking Travis down with her if she could humanly help it. He'd survived so much worse than this already. The ex-commander had set a grim concentrated silence since they'd started walking and Jenna hadn't wanted to fracture his concentration. She kept looking behind her though, into the growing curtain of velvet dark. Wondering what if anything was out there lurking, and preparing herself to face it.
The dew was dampening her calves, and as the chill of dusk cut through to her bones. Fireflies had started to come out of hiding, spiralling around them like Chinese lanterns, and the call of some kind of owl echoed in the dusk. This really did seem like a different world.
"Now. What do you know about field combat?" Came Travis' slowly spoken but gruff question from out of the blue, pulling her forcefully from out of her quiet considerations. That revere was not wise to dwell on now anyway. It would be easy to get lost in the beauty of this place, but actions right now were more pertinent.
"Not a lot actually." She admitted practically, brushing a strand of wavey gold from the chilling skin of her cheek "I feel rather ashamed of myself." She graced the ex-soldier with a rueful yet comfortable smile.
"Why would you say that! You have no reason to be ashamed. You're the best pilot I've ever seen, better than the best recruits in the federation has to offer." Travis replied without consideration. It was clearly what he believed. "You weren't trained for this."
"Like you were?" She asked elfishly.
"Yes." Travis replied slowly
"But that does not mean you can't learn. Does it Jenna. Besides, I can help you. Now... we need a place with some security, defendable, while we sleep. Or you do at least." The bitter note he ended in worried her, but that worry turned to fire as her temper heated, believing he had thought her less than as capable as she was in reality.
"What? I'm capable enough to take a watch myself. Don't..."
"It isn't that alright." The tall dour soldier snapped viciously, clearly a defence, before admitting why. "I don't have my medication alright Jenna. I don't know what will happen if I sleep without it. I already have nightmares and that's when I take the drug." The frustration in his tough voice was palpable, his body a stretched spring about to snap.
"I see what you mean." she said levelly "But if I'm awake I can watch over you. We both sleep in part Travis. We can't afford not to." She would be smart about this. She had to be.
"Alright then. But I'll take first watch." he snapped churlishly, ill at ease with the idea but he knew that she was right. His expression was dark and peevish, trying to put up walls so she wouldn't see he was haunted by what he would see there. "We have to find somewhere to sleep first. The trees are really the only cover available. We'll have to use them. We have no choice."
"Yes, that's what Blake and I did before." Jenna mused with practical class, and they both looked up, to see what unceremonious roosts were available for two weary space traders.
They quickly found a place that didn't seem too uncomfortable in a large old beech tree, a mossy branch, roughly the right shape to support two bodies. The rough bark was ridged but moss ridden, making it squishier to the touch in some places, and smelled of damp aged wood and fresh foliage. Jenna settled herself down against the tree's trunk, her coat wrapped around her for better warmth, trying not to listen to the sounds that had begun to emerge as complete darkness had fallen. Beasts beneath their feet, no doubt some of them deadly. She was glad they had found a place to hide from that lethal fauna before its emergence, and in time to avoid detection from it, but she found instead of a worry for what terrestrial creatures hunted for them, that she felt more than a little fascination to watch Travis' long wiry shoulders and his expression of stony caution as he circled the area with his wary blue eye. Silent and still as the grave, a predator in his own right, and she wondered why that made him beautiful. This question stayed in her mind until she eventually fell asleep cold and tired against the mossy trunk of the beech.
Travis woke her stiff frame halfway through the night with a bluntly stony shake to her shoulder and a grim look on his shadow contoured and scarred face.
Jenna looked up at him tiredly.
"I won't be able to sleep!" Snapped the ex-soldier peevishly, the shadows outlining his worn sullen features so that she felt he looked almost hollow. Haunted by the dark.
"Yes you will." she reassured practically "It's only a few hours, and I promise I'll wake you if you start to thrash about or anything." She squeezed his calloused tense hand gently, and Travis gave her a look that was frustrated but probably surreptitiously grateful for her reassurance, even though he'd never admit it.
"Stanis!"
Jenna tugged Travis gently so that he was sitting next to her on the knobbly branch, his back rested against her shoulder. She resisted the urge to fuss over him further as she knew it would just result in him putting up walls and most likely another argument. Travis was not someone who found needing help easy, or accepting it.
"If you sleep here, I'll hold you if you're likely to fall at any point alright. The last thing we need is you injured before we even get to competing with Avon in a skirmish." He had to admit she had a point, and a good one, so he nodded silently. Adding afterwards
"Most injuries in the field aren't caused by the enemy. You learn that early, or not at all. Exposure and disease can do just as much."
"All the more reason then. You still have to try and sleep." Jenna whispered back, moving slightly to make his weight against her more comfortable.
"Yes." he replied slowly, and she really hoped he would.
Jenna had soon realised that although Travis had fallen asleep quickly, his dreams were anything but pleasant. The rough harrowed soldier's deathly pale features coruscated with clammy sweat and his head jerked sharply every few panicked breaths, his hand gripped tight and vicelike into a white knuckled fist. Jenna calmed him as best she could, gently holding him still, as she had promised, and putting a cool tender hand gently on his forehead, brushing his drenched dark hair back from his scarred features, and trying to talk quietly to him, despite her concerns for the animals below, as that somehow seemed more important.
"Come on. What you're seeing happened a long time ago. It's gone to the wind. Stay calm, that's it."
She knew it helped. But she was glad he didn't wake. She knew him well enough to know that he would be ashamed of his fractured state seeing it viciously as a shameful weakness and also that he found it difficult to accept that she cared for him. It was a new experience for him she thought sadly.
When the vampire bats came, lean black and leathery, their small flitting bodies itching to taste her blood, and Travis', the golden-haired free trader batted them away, tearing one from her soft skin in frustration, and another slightly confused one from Travis' prosthetic arm. This was proving to be a long night, she thought ruefully, her face silhouetted by dark.
The morning came swiftly, and with it new light. Perhaps new hope, but that might be her imagination running away with itself. They'd come down from the tree and Travis had found them something to eat, and Jenna was a little curiously, and somewhat playfully watching him prepare it, unused to anything but synth food, and rather impressed by his skills.
"Well, we aren't going to go hungry at any rate." Jenna's coquettish tone was a positive one "What is that?" The golden-haired free trader pointed to a particular curled green plant, that he was cooking on a covered fire, the covering he had assured her would disperse the smoke and make them unable to be tracked by it's presence.
"Ostrich fern fiddleheads." Travis replied, his tone hard and even "No. Field rations aren't all there cracked up to be. As a commanding officer, it's… It was my job to improvise. It would be either that or my people don't eat. Troopers don't fight well on empty bellies."
"No I should imagine not, I'm glad of your skills anyway. I'm starved." Jenna replied with a sympathetic and somewhat encouraging smile.
"Come here then. It's almost done." replied Travis and for a fleeting second she swore he almost smiled too.
The drug Travis didn't have with him was dream suppressants. It's mentioned that he takes them in the audio The mark of Kane, so that's where that came from. I'll upload the next chapter soon. Thank you for reading this far.