EDANITH > The Frontier

No rest for the weary [DragonSong]

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Marjorie:
There was automatic fire all around. The sprayer was amazing - he was yelling for the others to get down, but it was unneeded they knew better than to get up. “Grendy!” he yelled, clinging to his friend, “You’re going to be fine,” he yelled at him, even though he was coughing up blood all over Raf’s face, “don’t you fucking die on me.” He was already gone though.

Raf woke with a start. He could hear his screams echoing off the empty cockpit. He was cold, his heart beating out of his chest, soaked in swat. For a moment he was terrified of wiping his borrow - afraid that it would come back slick with Grendy’s blood. He shook his head and then forced himself to wipe his face with the sleeve of his shirt. Nothing there. Just awkward. He could still smell the metallic tang of blood though taste the salt and dirt and metal in his mouth.

He looked at the clock. He’d k my dozed for fifteen minutes or so. He hadn’t had more than an hour of sleep at a time sense he decided to take this job.

Edanith.

Home.

He was going home.

Raf craves and longed for home nearly as much as he craved the bottle these days, but even just the thought of home made his nightmares worst. Every time he closed his eyes he could hear their screams, taste the smoke and the dirt, feel hot, sticky blood running threw his fingers.

His heart rate increased again and his breathing kicked up a notch. Oh gods and fucking space angels. The room was spinning. No. No. Breath. Relax. Breath. Hold your breath. Calm the fuck down Raf. It took him several minutes and he nearly had a full blown gods damned panic attack.

Just as the room stopped spinning the console in front of Raf chimed. Then an alert popped up on the screen to tell him the ship was on its final decent. Home. He was home. It was a bad place to visit, but a good place to die. He could feed the worms in the same dirt as the rest of his unit.

DragonSong:
It had already been almost thirty-six hours.

The two marshals she'd spoken to within the first twenty-four had said once it hit the fourty-eight mark, her chances went from slim to none.

Ava took a breath, hands clenching where she gripped her own arms, so tight that her nails bit into the skin and she felt a trickle of blood begin to trace down her right forearm. She didn't care. Besides, it wasn't like there was anyone around to see--docking ports were rare out here in the "borderlands", as a few citizens of Reckless referred to the gaps between frontier towns, and this one was essentially abandoned.

Which was apparently why her contact had told her to meet the man she was hiring here.

Too late, a tiny voice whispered in the back of her mind, tightening her jaw so hard that her teeth creaked. It's too late, you'll never get her back now.

Ava swallowed a shouted curse and stamped the little voice out, firmly. She still had twelve hours. If they couldn't find Val by then...

No. It didn't matter. She would find her.

Marjorie:
There were just a few people here... the ones who maintained the power and the one who walked up to his ship as soon as it had touched down. Had to be Ava... looked like the woman in the image he'd been sent along with the desperate plea of a mother. This kind of job... he'd do basically for free.

He just needed enough to refill his liquor cabinet, if he lived, anyway.

He'd sent credits to the dock master earlier... enough that there'd be no record of him being here and no inspection of his ship.

The hatch opened, and an aggravated voice rose up out of the ship traveling toward Ava. "Lis, set security protocols to maximum." A moment later he stepped out of the hatch, and a moment after that it was closing behind him. Raf was taller than Ava by about half a foot, and the stink of booze probably reached her before she could see him. He hadn't shaved in two days and he looked like he hadn't slept in a week. He had a side arm strapped to his leg and he was carrying a rifle slung over his back. His pants were outdated standard issue combat fatigues and he wore a stained white t-shirt under a beat up leather jacket.

"You Ava?" his voice was tired and irritable. "Tell me about who we're after, and what you remember from when she went missing." He walked right past her without stopping. There had to be a bar in this gods forsaken place, "I need a drink before we get... and don't worry about payment until we find her. If I wind up dead, there's no need to pay." If... gods he fucking hoped he ended up dead on this thing.

DragonSong:
...This was it?

This was her last resort?

The desperate could hardly afford to be picky, but Ava still felt her stomach sink as the sickening stench of alcohol washed over her at her contact's approach. Her eyes narrowed and she gave him a quick, evaluating up-and-down sort of look.

"Yes, I'm Ava," she replied after a very quick mental weighing of the pros and cons--the cons being obvious, the pros being...well, he was really her only option.

So more a "cons and reality check" situation then.

"I'm not sure how much information you were given, the man I spoke to earlier said--where the hell are you going?" She tried to do as he said, beginning to explain what had happened--she'd had an unfortunate amount of practice in doing that succinctly over the last day and a half--but before she could get more than a sentence out he was blowing passed her, talking about a drink.

A drink?

Ava snapped.

"Over my gods-be-damned dead body," she snarled, whirling to grab the strange mercenary's arm as he tried to walk passed her. In any other situation, with anything else at stake, she probably could have kept her cool, could have convinced herself to play along until she could get what she needed from him.

But her daughter's life hung in the balance, and any logical argument she could have given herself just flew out the window.

Fingers digging into his arm, painfully tight, she glared up into his face and hissed, "I don't know who the fuck you think you're dealing with or what the hell Corbin told you, but my daughter is out there. You want a fucking drink?!" It took all her willpower to keep from screaming, and even still she noted vaguely that he voice had risen just a bit too much, risking attracting attention. But she couldn't stop herself.

"I don't give a shit if you die," she spat, not realizing until the words left her mouth that, in that moment, they were true, "but if something happens to Val because you can't shape the fuck up and act like the gods-damned professional Corbin told me you were, you're not getting paid then either--and Edani bandits will be the least of your problems."

Breathing heavily, she finally let go of his arm, taking a sharp step back and dropping her hand to her side, clenched in a fist. Her whole body was shaking with rage and panic, not to mention the lack of sleep finally seemed to be catching up with her.

Marjorie:
Raf was listening, but you wouldn’t think it to look at him. At least until her hand connected with his arm. He reacted automatically to that like a threat. He grabbed her thumb and twisted her hand around painfully, to get her to release him, but lucky for her didn’t break the thumb. Before that movement was finished though his side arm was jabbing her in the chest. His hand shook a little and then he holstered the weapon. “Look sister you don’t know anything about me. If you’re smart you won’t touch me again though. I hate this fucking place,” it wasn’t exactly true, but he couldn’t stand it anymore, “it’s a gods damn grave yard. The only reason I came back is because this wild goose chase of yours is likely to end up getting me killed. Oh and, don’t forgot you asked me to come... I know you didn’t pick me, you were stuck with me, but why was that? Oh yeah, no one else was fucking stupid enough to volunteer to help, because they DON’T want to die.

“You ever seen a man detox? They have seizures and die. So, if you’d rather I not calm that shake in my hand... sure, but then I really won’t be any good to you at all. I know your fucking kids out there, an I’m real sorry about that... I like kids, but I’m not your fucking hero, I’m your gods damn last fucking resort.” He laughed, bitter and cold. “He told you I was a professional? Sweetheart that was a lifetime ago. I was a soldier and I am a mercenary. I can kill for you and I can track a man across these wastes, but don’t expect a whole not more than that from me.”

He took a deep breath. That hand shook a little again. He made a fist then stretched it out to get it to stop. “Now,” he said, “I need a drink and a shower and we’ll be out of here in fifteen minutes.” 

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