101

[photophobic]

Navigating through Hyperspace is a complicated affair, only really possible with the careful calculations of a well-programmed navigational computer, working with the latest and most accurate data. Anything less than perfection carries a substantial risk of the kind of catastrophic failure that leaves a starship and its occupants scattered over multiple parsecs, disintegrated into nothing or crushed into a star.

So Kylo isn't surprised, when his desperate attempt to make the jump in his failing TIE Silencer results in the screaming blare of every alarm it's fitted with, all of them fighting for his attention. He has the time, as the starfighter bursts back into realspace under the bright blue glow of atmosphere, to be distracted from the likelihood of his imminent death by the sheer improbability of the feat. And he has the strength, just barely, to reach out through the Force and dampen the ferocity of the rapidly approaching and utterly inevitable impact with the ground.
It uses him up, the act of cushioning himself from the blow with every last scrap of his willpower. Kylo doesn't so much lose consciousness as the ability to discern where he ends and the heat and ruin of smouldering plasteel begins as his body slumps heavily over the crumpled control yoke, spent and useless.

Comments

[reproached]

At first, Murphy doesn't know what he's looking at. He's lying on his back at the very edge of the field, the crops around him doing a good job of concealing him from any worshipers who might wander by but giving him a perfect view of the sky overhead. In the daylight, the tiny spark looks like nothing more than a meteor breaking through Alpha's atmosphere, and he watches it with heavy-lidded eyes as it makes it descent, expecting it to burn up mid-air.

In less than half a second, as the object grows larger and larger in his sight, he realizes his mistake. By the time he leaps to his feet, it's too late.

The impact sends him flying as it flattens the crops around him and makes splinters of the trees on the other side of Sanctum's shield. The thing must have landed right on top of him, he thinks nonsensically as a tangle of vines break his fall. Eyes squeezed shut, dirt filling his nostrils, he waits to figure out exactly how mutilated the crash has left him.

When the adrenaline doesn't fade to agony, he slowly opens his eyes and realizes, no, he is alive and whole. And whatever that was is now a smoldering wreck buried not in the crop field, but in the woods beyond.

Disentangling himself from the ruined crops, Murphy stumbles forward a few steps, squinting past the cloud of dust and smoke to get a better look at the wreck. It's a ship, he can tell that much, though there's hardly anything left of it. Probably nothing left of whoever was piloting it, either, but he staggers in that direction anyway. There's got to be some marking on the twisted metal that'll tell him where the damn thing came from. And, maybe, whether he ought to be expecting more of them.

[photophobic]

When the dust begins to clear, it reveals a small, perfectly circular clearing in the woods. Those trees that have been left standing to describe the circumference lean out from the centre as if they've been crushed into new, unnatural angles under the weight of something invisible— and in the centre, the wreckage sits and smoulders. It would hardly be recognisable even to the engineers who'd designed and built it, now.

Kylo's efforts preserved his life and little else. The yoke, console and pilot's chair are the almost comically untouched eye of the storm of twisted plasteel, exposed through the horribly distorted shell. With the explosively scattered viscera of the Silencer giving little indication of its origin or purpose in any language Murphy would recognise, the slumped figure at the centre of it all may be the only lead worth investigating.

From the edge of the clearing the pilot seems unmoving— though as Murphy staggers forwards a section of buckled bulkhead gives way with a groan loud enough to wake the dead. Kylo's shoulders shudder, but he doesn't even attempt to rise, yet. His senses are screaming static noise, still crackling with overload... but he's alive. The rest might take a little time.

[reproached]

Murphy freezes when his eyes find the pilot somehow preserved in the wreckage. He's pretty sure some unholy horror is about to reveal itself - not the pilot himself, but what must have been done to his body in that crash. Any minute now, that black cloak will slip aside to reveal a mass of gore that Murphy would really rather not have to see.

He looks over his shoulder, in the direction of the settlement, for anyone else who might be close enough to take over this futile rescue mission. But even if a team of medics were scrambling right now, it'd take a precious ten minutes at least before they reach the crash site.

"Why me?" he mutters under his breath as he trudges closer to the decimated ship. Then, feeling like an idiot for even bothering, he barks out, "Are you dead?"

[photophobic]

That, he hears. Feels, perhaps— it isn't the sound that pierces the noise, but its intention.

He'd whirl round to face the source if he had the strength of will to force into his body, but without the incentive of an immediate threat it proves impossible to do much more than clutch at the control yoke and breathe, one ragged breath after another. He already knows pushing up from it now will cost him more effort than he has to spend.

There's blood in his mouth. He lets out a low, wet groan that sets his ears ringing on a slightly different frequency, and begins to gather himself. One chance may be all he'll get.

"Stay back," he hisses. Even he's not sure if any of the threat actually made it past his lips.

[reproached]

Of course the poor fucker's still alive.

"I come in peace," Murphy drawls as he carries forward, both arms raised to suggest he's unarmed. He's not, of course. His pistol is tucked into his right boot and his knife is in his left, but he doubts either are visible while the ground beneath their feet is shrouded with smoke.

The pilot isn't the only one who's bleeding. Murphy amassed a collection of scrapes when he was blown through several rows of crops, though his nightblood makes it look more like someone's splattered him with black paint for whatever reason. An understandably unnerving sight, this figure emerging from the dust.

[photophobic]

Perhaps it's a little strange, Kylo's persistent efforts to preserve his existence when so much of it is suffering. Perhaps it is pitiable. His body certainly trembles as he pushes his weight into the ruined control column and levers himself upright, breath rasping horribly— but when he turns to fix a glassy stare on the intruder's face there's an unmistakable defiance burning underneath. He knows full well he should be dead, but he isn't, yet— not after this or however many other times he's fought his way through to the other side of impossible danger.

So does the black-streaked stranger want to try his luck? The greeting he offers isn't anything Kylo recognises or understands, but regardless of his intention, Kylo isn't worried. Wary, yes, but not afraid. His eyes flick from what he assumes to be haphazardly daubed warpaint to the spread of Murphy's hands with open suspicion.

"Stay back," he demands again, though the menace he intended is no more substantial than the dust cloud taking its time to settle around them with the strain in his voice and the way he's still leaning on the crumpled chassis of the Silencer's cockpit even having unfolded himself from the seat.

Maybe he can't stand unaided. Maybe he's prepared to find out.

[reproached]

Murphy may not understand the words this alien stranger hisses at him, but he can guess the meaning of them, the way it's easy to guess what a spitting snake is attempting to communicate right before it lunges. Which means, of course, that Murphy immediately comes to a halt.

Helping a person is a thing he probably ought to do. He's sure as hell not going to do it if that person seems likely to reward him with violence, though. Anyway, what exactly can he do if this guy is half-barbecued or missing several organs?

"You probably shouldn't be moving around like that," he calls out in wry suggestion, dropping his arms. "I'm sure there's a medic on the way if you're good to just chill a while."

[photophobic]

Not being particularly trusting of his own medical team let alone a band of strangers, it's unlikely Kylo would take Murphy's advice— even if glaring harder at the shape of his mouth could somehow force the words of his alien language to rearrange themselves into Basic.

He is right though. About the moving. Thankfully, while Kylo's body may be suffering the effects of what concussive shock he was unable to redirect outwards, his body isn't the only part of the boundless universe he can control, and there's a medkit somewhere in all this wreckage. With one more wary glance at Murphy's face to confirm that he is, in fact, staying put, Kylo lets his eyes close and begins to search.

Which is when he discovers two things.

One, the kit in question is wedged under the remnants of one of the Silencer's wings, a couple of feet from where Murphy is standing— and two, Murphy possesses (among several other puzzling things) some kind of projectile weapon that he's chosen not to use.

His expression shifts slightly as his eyes open again. He considers Murphy's gestures, his expression, the streaked markings he recognises now as injuries of his own. He raises his hand and points, deliberately, at the twisted sheet of plasteel covering the kit.

"Under there," he calls back. His Basic is Core World clipped and clean, a galactic standard— or at least it would be, if it weren't for the pain dragging and slurring his speech. "Bacta. Nanoweave for both of us. Medicine."

He could try to drag it out himself, but he'd rather not give Murphy reason to consider him a threat.

[reproached]

Murphy can't even begin to guess what that language is. The people of Sanctum all speak like they grew up on the Ark, which suggests this guy isn't one of them. He's not speaking Trig, either, but Murphy wouldn't expect that. Signs are pointing to truly alien origin.

That's alright. The message is clear. There's something in the rubble and the stranger needs him to dig it out.

Cautiously, Murphy steps forward and eases the plasteel aside. "I hope this ship's finished exploding," he mutters as he reaches for the medical kit. He assumes it's a kit, anyway. If jet fuel isn't going to blow him up, maybe the box will.

"This is what you wanted, right?" He holds the kit up and approaches the stranger at pace that he hopefully won't find alarming, despite all the paranoia.

[photophobic]

Kylo's brow furrows further at Murphy's response, though the outright hostility he carries in his face begins to melt back into the tension of enduring pain that it was sculpted from. Confusion might be the best word to describe the resulting expression— Kylo's never met a human who can't speak Basic. He hasn't ever met one with blood that colour either, though admittedly he hasn't always paid that much attention. His enemies don't tend to bleed much.

He sags slightly against the console as Murphy approaches.

Closer up, the border between the parts of the starfighter within the radius of Kylo's efforts to survive planetfall and those beyond it becomes starkly evident. Lucky doesn't begin to cover it. Kylo is also, despite his injuries, quite a bit bigger than he might appear from further back.

"Here," Kylo directs, the wet edge to his voice suggesting some kind of internal injury. Frankly, the kind of pressure wave that must have ripped through the craft to leave it in this state should have pulverised every last one of his organs, and yet...

"Put it... put it here."

[reproached]

Yes, that is... one big fella. Murphy's glad the guy decided he could be of some use. Eager to continue proving himself useful, he does exactly as he's directed, setting the kit within the stranger's reach. Since he doesn't know what the hell else to do with it, he then backs up a couple of steps. Close enough to help if he has to. Far enough to avoid the swing of a fist.

He doesn't like the way the guy sounds. Murphy doesn't know what to do about the internal stuff. He can put pressure on an open wound, but an invisible injury? That's outside the scope of his ability. He glances back across the fields, searching for signs of an approaching vehicle, though he knows it's still too soon.

It probably won't even be a medical team that shows up. It'll be security. But he's got no idea how to communicate that to an alien without making it sound like a threat.

[photophobic]

Kylo reaches for the medkit and thumbs it open, relieved to find the contents undamaged— though he isn't much clearer on procedures for internal injuries than Murphy is. He's rummaging through the contents when he catches something of the stranger's... concern, perhaps. When he turns back to look, the way Murphy seems to be expecting company has his frown deepening further.

"More?" he asks, eyes flicking over the state of the crash site, then back to the stranger's face.

Of course there are others coming. Kylo hisses out a breath.
There's no way he can defend himself against a group with weapons like the one Murphy has hidden in his boot. Not in this state.

"How long," he demands. "How long do I have."

[reproached]

Murphy starts when he's addressed, quickly returning his attention to Kylo, doing only a moderately successful job of pretending he's not worried about anything.

"I don't speak alien," he stresses with an exaggerated shrug. Then he points to the kit. "Is that good or not? You need help with it?"

It's only now that he's looking closer that he realizes how perfectly preserved the space around Kylo remains. Almost like it was carved from the rest of the ship. He reaches out, bewildered, to follow the border with his fingers. How does something like that happen?

[photophobic]

He really doesn't speak Basic, does he? Or even understand it, as Kylo had partially assumed. It's unsettling, somehow, suggesting something he isn't prepared to examine yet. He follows Murphy's direction back to the medkit.

Whoever or whatever might be coming, the least he should do is treat the injuries he can reach. Bacta. Nanoweave brace. Enough to get him mobile. And to do any of that...

Kylo hisses a curse as he releases the clasp of his belt, laying it (and the attached hilt of his lightsaber) carefully over the console. It's immediately apparent from the sudden lack just how much support it was providing.

"Here," he gasps before really thinking it through— though Murphy clearly has more will to help than harm, so far. Kylo doesn't have much choice but to enlist his aid, if he hopes to be in any condition to face whatever's coming for him, which is only becoming more obvious the longer he struggles to get out of his armoured tunic. "Here. Help me."

[reproached]

Help me is a universal sound, and Murphy knows he should. But the longer this goes on, the louder his alarms are sounding. He does not understand enough about this situation to be actively participating in it. Experience has proven that someone who doesn't speak his language is going to try to kill him sooner or later. He doesn't know where this ship came from or why it's here or how it got to be in such a weird state or how its pilot is still breathing.

He can't leave someone like this, though. Not when they're pleading and probably dying. He hesitates only for a moment, and then he steps forward to assist in working Kylo out of that... armor?

"I bet you're here to invade the planet, huh," he mutters. "I can tell you right now, it's not worth the trouble."

[photophobic]

Even having demanded assistance and doing nothing to actively push Murphy away, it's clear Kylo doesn't quite trust him. Not that the look in his eyes suggests he's afraid— if anything, there's an almost disquieting lack of any recognisable fear response in the pained twist of his expression— but he's far more reluctant to surrender the task of treating his wounds over than might be expected of someone freshly fallen from the sky. Accepting even the tiniest fraction of helplessness, it seems, is intolerable.

His gloved fingers tangle with Murphy's as both a feverishly impatient guide and unintentional obstacle, but once it seems Murphy's grasped the basics of the fastening he relents with a slow, shaky exhale.

Beneath his tunic and undershirt, Kylo's bruising is a spectacular bloom over skin already decorated with a sizeable collection of older battle scars. Once it's exposed enough for inspection, he glances down at this latest injury and mutters— a low curse that needs absolutely no translation.

Never mind that the impact should have rendered him little more than a dubious stain painted across whatever shards of plasteel didn't burn up in re-entry.

He meets Murphy's eyes slowly. Carefully.
Considering.