"I think you're very beautiful," N'Dara told him when he took off his helmet and shook his head.
"You'd be the only one," he grunted. Ran his hand through his hair. He was exhausted. He was hot. And he was tired. The suit could only do so much to keep him cool in this jungle and he was pretty sure—walking across this desert of black volcanic rock that made him feel like an interloper from another time—that he might pop like a kernel of seed.
She just smiled sweetly up at him.
When her hair melted to her face and neck like it was and her face was pink from her own over-heated discomfort it was possible to see some otherworldly aspect in her beauty. She swore to complete humanity but any existing records of her origin was gone, lost to the fire that ravaged the temple. She appeared in no database Jaing or Mereel had been able to access prior to her service in the navy. Something about the way her ears curled, though, something about the way they sat on her head, the way the delicacy of them met her neck… it made him think of demons who had once been angels. Her features were over-large and every one of them rounded—the sweetest, most kissable lips he'd ever seen on a woman. Big eyes, apples at her cheekbones and a little round chin set into her jawline. If you drew her you'd use circles and connect them with gentle sweeps of pen or brush.
"It is no contest which of us is beauty and which of us is beast in this scenario."
She aped making muscles with her fists up near her head. Nodded with a gleam of superiority curving her lips.
"Because only one of us is doing this for real without any kind of mechanical suit to help us," she guessed wrongly. "I am a beast. Feel my calves. I think I'd have to buy new pants if these didn't stretch."
She stood like that—like some absurd bird, and simply lifted her leg high to offer him the proof of her boast. So graceful. He wondered how long she'd be able to stand like that. She hadn't even shifted or braced herself. Incredible balance. That had to be the jedi in her.
He wished Enacca and Chakkyrr and Wade weren't there. He'd be sorely tempted to push her against the nearest outcropping and pull that leg up around his waist.
Hell. Thank the almighty gods of this planet and all the others for the fekking armor he was wearing. It did nicely to hide every sign of arousal.
Even as he wished his friend to the devils the woman whose scent filled his dreams turned, grinned at him.
"You think he's pretty, don't you?"
"Gorgeous," Wad'e huffed.
N'Dara scowled at him. "If one of us gets to play the beast it's me, right?"
Chakkyrr growled. Laughed that deep, rumbling sound of amusement, and then pounded his chest.
N'Dara looked at him like he was crazy. "You're not going to convince anyone you're so tough. You're a softie. And you're covered in this gorgeous thick hair. You make women want to braid it and tuck flowers into it," she scolded. "If you weren't so big and broad you'd be even prettier than Enacca."
The female with them preened a bit, pretended she was going to reach out and finger the long, soft pelt that covered Chakkyrr.
"I wish my hair laid that smooth," N'Dara bitched. She felt like she could just wring it out. Figured it was a waste of time in this humidity.
"Drink something and let's get going again," Vau hissed.
Wad'e bared his teeth and hissed back. "I'm not going any further. Leave me here to die."
"See? Brawn over beauty," N'Dara bragged. She skipped over to where he leaned against the outcropping to check his incision.
"Are you sure that thing's working?" the other man asked.
"Of course," Walon swore.
Enacca yodeled her own addition to the conversation—whether to side with the man in black or his comrade was unclear.
N'Dara bopped over to check the display. Frowned.
Looked up at Vau.
"Do you think this is hopeless?"
"It certainly would have been easier if the fekking thing hadn't erupted."
She nodded. "Could they survive, if they were trapped down there when it did?"
"I believe so. I trust that it would be uncomfortable, but there'd be other shafts—ventilation shafts and the like. I've yet to see a prison with one way in and one way out."
"Dungeons are down single-egress locations all the time."
"Dungeons, yes. Prisons, no."
"Oh." She turned to Wad'e. "Do you believe that?"
He nodded. "Yeah. Especially sub-level facilities. You wouldn't want a single act of God or nature to trap you like a rat. And officers and dignitaries wouldn't want to have to get the hems of their cloaks dirty trekking past the cells. You need somewhere for food production and for waste removal. Yeah, I think there'd be a minimum of three points of entry. Probably more."
Enacca yodeled. Reached into her cross-over pouch to pull open a holochart. Half of it was just missing. Like the code had been corrupted.
"They'll hear us chipping in."
"They won't," Vau assured her. Reached out to tap the cylindrical shape outlined against her hip.
"Oh. Yes." Her eyes lit up.
He nodded approvingly.
"I am sorry about your ship, Walon," she said again.
"I am sorry my friend tried to kill you with his home-brewed booze and then scared the living kriff out of you," he said kindly.
Wad'e shot up fingers on both hands in a rude gesture that had Chakkyrr reaching out like the Wookie was going to remove his fingertips from the offending digits.
N'Dara just laughed at the Wookie's objections. Chakkyrr had very definite beliefs about what was proper and appropriate in mixed company. She expected Pashyyr would be the most polite little boy to ever issue forth from a sentient species. High standards.
She sucked down the last of her hydration pack. Stuck the pouch in one side of her pack and evaluated how many more she had.
"Are you okay?" Vau asked.
"Of course."
"Tell me now. Don't skimp because you-"
She rolled her eyes and stomped her foot. "I'm fine. Not like you can produce water like that!" she said with a snap of her fingers.
"Oh, you'd be surprised," Wad'e said. "The glory of reclaimed water… Mandalore's gift that keeps on giving."
"What?"
Vau chuckled. "It's not cold but at least it's not wasteful. One of the reasons we don't have to stop often is because our suits repurpose our-"
"Gross. Seriously?"
Chakkyrr let out another rumble of dismay. Shook his head and tucked his own water skin away. Decided to lead for a while, the scanner he claimed from the Mandalorian looking like a child's toy in his big paws.
They'd barely gone another twenty feet when the signal started sounding. Faint, then stronger as the Wookie angled the tool differently.
"Well. Holy fek," Wad'e murmured.
Enacca tapped the flimsi map in her hand.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Vau muttered. "Right where you said it would be. Give or take an entire freaking slab of volcanic rock."
"So?" Wad'e asked.
Vau stepped aside. Looked over Chakkyrr's shoulder and paced off a space. Enacca pulled up another hologram, this one the probable schematics for the facility that had been closed off.
"What if he's not here?" N'Dara wrang her hands.
"Then we've crossed one more place off our list," Vau said sharply, glancing her way. "Do not let doubt still your hand."
She nodded. Watched as tools came out of the backpacks both Wookies wore and long-handled shovels were assembled of interlocking pieces. Enacca handed Vau the first one.
He looked over his shoulder, took a bent stance, and shoved it hard into the rock face. The tool had been designed for this exactly: breaking through a hard crust of rock, stone, or ice with the intention of piercing it so it splintered on its own. They had broader-headed ones as well, for relocating the slag.
The man seemed satisfied as his hard first exertion was rewarded and the ground gave way.
"Be careful," Wad'e warned. "There's usually air trapped. And as hot as it still is, you'd burn yourself pretty badly if you hit a gas pocket."
Chakkyrr nodded and altered his approach slightly. Vau's suit would protect him for a short while, but the Wookie had no such recourse.
"I can cut it…" N'Dara offered.
"You will eventually," Vau told her. "Be patient, Padawan. Let the adults show you how it's done."
"I hope you get a splinter."
He blinked hard, turning his helmet to internal so that she didn't hear his amusement. So that none of them heard his grunts as he broke up the rock.
Wad'e was the one to whoop the loudest when there was a scrape of metal-against-metal. They all looked over at Chakkyrr. The big male probably felt like a rockstar, the way they cheered him for the near-accidental discovery.
Vau scanned the pit they'd opened up.
"Shab. Look at that. That's hot," Wad'e muttered.
"Wait until the jedi princess adds her little pyrotechnics show."
"How will we lift it?" the younger man asked.
"Je-di," Vau intoned.
He was smiling when he looked at N'Dara. She didn't need to see it; she could hear it in his voice.
"I'm so on it, Sarge," she nodded. Dropped to her belly to sink her lightsaber into the sealed-shut metal.
"We're going to leave a scar on this spot that no one overflying it will be able to miss," she mentioned as she dragged the blade through and around.
"There are no reports of overhead patrols here. And none of us has heard or seen anything…"
"It would be just our luck," she spat out. Shifted. Took another grip on her hilt and sank her shoulders toward the impenetrable hatch.
"That it would be. Can I help you? Or is this something only you can do?"
"I'm using the force a good bit to get it through. This is serious stuff."
He knew that. The sounding they'd taken indicated the hatch to be probably a meter and a half wide and nearly a foot thick. To say nothing of how it might have fused under the heat and pressure of the eruption.
"You're amazing," he encouraged her. "If you need a break no one will blame you."
"If I stop it might cool back together," she grunted.
He nodded and Enacca gave a yowl of agreement.
"I hope there's a whole table of Trando sitting right underneath it playing cards," N'Dara ground out. "I hope molten metal is dripping on their heads and they're too stupid not to look up. I hope the one who's blinded by it first was cheating and his foul friends catch him out at it and-"
"Hot damn," Wad'e whispered.
"Sometimes there's nothing like a good mad to put a little extra elbow grease in a job," Vau noted.
She laughed. "I'm not mad. I'm pissed. I'm PISSED!" she shouted. The blade nearly leapt from her hand, as though it had hit a slick spot in the very fiber of the construction. She caught it more tightly and hit her knees, bending farther over the opening. "I… am… pissed!" she roared.
"Hell. Fek. Yeah," Vau murmured.
The woman with the blue hair that looked like something a toddler drew wasn't done.
"I hate it here! I hate these people! I hate this war! I hate every single person who gave orders to a man who couldn't volunteer for himself! I hate every single person who found a child with special powers and takes them from their families! I hate governments and senates and republics and empires and every individual who lives better because these men were fighting their war! I hate them! I hate the people who profit from it! Who bid on it and bet on it and made money on the slaves we led! I hate men! Lazy men who reach for what they couldn't have before they beat it into submission! Who reach with their hands and their fists and strike the weak! Who misuse their power and laugh about it! Who laugh when they hurt someone! I hate their laughter more than I hate their hands! I hate the sound of that laughter! I hate it!"
There was a collective gasp when she made it the rest of the way around and fell back on her rear end. She immediately lifted her hands, dropping her laser sword, and closed her eyes.
Calm swept over her face and the metal creaked and groaned as she raised the slab from where it had rested at the top of the access tunnel.
She slid it with both hands, sent it skidding across the surface of the volcanic rock so that it left huge scars like half-hand claw marks. Sparks erupted.
"I did it," she told Vau weakly.
He couldn't get across the chasm to catch her when she went down. Enacca did, crouching to lower her to the ground.
"I'm… I'm fine," N'Dara murmured, not even getting down before she was struggling up, struggling free.
"You're my goddamned hero," Wad'e Tay'haai told her.
Vau nodded. Reached for her hand to help her up. "That's the way, girlie. That's the way."
.
Dark never seemed so dark to Vau as it did when he led this bright little thing beneath the ground. Idly he wondered if their Shyriiwook speakers struggled with night vision. From his HUD's 360° he wasn't picking up on any distress or disorientation from the pair.
"Here's how this is going to work," he warned the big male after the scan of heat signatures- - aided and abetted by Jedi-isms from Ensign Blue- - showed a manageable number of lifeforms beyond. "You're going to let me interrogate them. No arm ripping and no irreparable damage. They may have information…"
There'd been a misunderstanding the first time Enacca brought Chakkyr.
A loud one. Not that he blamed the big bastard. But still. He had goals of his own and this little blip on the radar might be the key to opening up whatever underground operation the slavers in this system were running.
Not that he was becoming some fekking bleeding heart. Slavery was an ongoing social issue on more planets than this one. He was damned if he was going to see these hutuuns make a profit selling soldiers and sailors. Irmenu's naval academy taught her warriors that prisoners were a burden- - for both sides. Resources had to be expended to keep them locked up and kept alive. And this, this right here? This proved that. Here he was covered in magma dust from digging a way into this hot-as-haran hellhole to liberate a bunch of guys who only existed as a slave army.
The world was fekked.
But he wanted a couple answers and as many directions as possible before the devils who ran it were annihilated.
So he stared at the big Wook-guard until he got a low-growled acquiescence to his demand.
Which promptly went to osik.
"Why don't you come with me? We can upgrade some of your gear. And the more people working on a problem… you'd have access to superior tech."
"Maybe I'll ride out with Enacca sometime. You told her she should come see Etain's baby."
"Do you remember her?"
"Vau… I'd have been long gone before the younger ones you know would have been a blip on my radar."
He nodded. Let out a long breath. "You'd be a welcome part of the contingent out there. The boys all like you."
"Better than they like you," she teased.
He lifted his face skyward. "Everybody likes you better than they like me. It's my cross to bear—the only man on this planet who sees you for the brat you are."
She beamed softly at him.