dev_chieftain (
dev_chieftain) wrote2012-01-09 03:27 pm
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SW:TOR fanfiction, only matters to like three other people, if that
Okay shut up what I'm allowed to write fanfic about MMOs, I've done it before. Once.
...Eesha, Photessa and Allisha make cameos. Ahem. Back to work for me.
Lifedebt
At some point before they hit the ground, but definitely after their passengers had started shrieking in panic, Soldat had had the audacity to be stupid and shove her out of the way of collapsing cabling and pipework and been half-crushed beneath it. Considering that he'd gotten back up and shaken it off like nothing much had happened (well, aside from seeming a bit unsteady on his feet), Risha'd felt entirely justified in being thoroughly annoyed with him, and let him have it as they scrambled back to the cockpit, Corso squawking about the shields collapsing under the atmospheric pressure over the intercom.
"I don't know where you get off," she snapped, as another heavy jolt made them fall into each other, Soldat catching the bulkhead above her, pinning her there hot and close and smelling of oil and sweat, teeth grit to brace for impact. She grabbed the wall behind her, loathe to touch him. "You could've just told me to duck, you know, I'd have gotten out of the way on my own."
"Pardon me for caring," he muttered sourly, and when the ship righted again, they finished the trip up the corridor to the cockpit, where Corso gladly gave up the controls to Soldat and Risha, still irritated, took the gunner's seat to the right, snarling,
"I'll pardon you when you've damn well earned it, Captain."
He flashed her a grin that looked weird, his lower teeth a little yellower than she remembered them being, but only chuckled weakly in answer, turning his attention to the task of trying to land the freighter without getting them all killed.
Corso, obviously motion sick, took the seat on the left and held on as tight as he could, occasionally moaning sickly oh, damn in increasingly useless panic. Elsewhere on the ship, she could clearly hear the two Jedi in a shouting match with Bowdaar, and under that the chatter of frightened jawas. Whatever had possessed Soldat to escort them and their ship back to Tattooine clearly hadn't accounted for how interested the Empire was in the little bastards' droids, and Risha couldn't find it in her to forgive them for putting them all in danger.
When it came down to it, she blamed Soldat for agreeing to let them be put into danger, like the bleeding-heart idiot he was, but it wasn't the first time his compassion had gotten them into trouble and, provided they didn't explode on impact, she doubted it'd be the last. As smugglers went, he had a terrible sense of self-preservation, and not much in the way of knowing when to say no, either. It was positively infuriating.
Tattooine was never fun to land on even under good conditions, but this was hell. The light of its suns glared up off of the wasteland of the Dune Sea, blindingly bright, and Risha found herself squinting right along with Soldat, trying to make out any sign of settlements nearby where they might safely land. Nothing; nothing but the blemish they were rapidly soaring past that looked suspiciously like the Sarlaac pit, mountains, and waves of sand.
"Captain!" Corso gulped for air, his face a mask of worry, and turned to them both with pleading eyes. "What's the plan?"
Never one to disappoint, Soldat pulled up enough that they banked over the mountains in midst of sand-people territory, skimming lower and lower as they neared Anchorhead. "Plan is," he growled softly, "shut up and hang on."
Risha tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes, either at Corso's surprise or Soldat's macho posturing, and took the advice, wondering if Soldat knew as well as she did that there was no way they were going to make it all the way to the spaceport. Not in this kind of disrepair, anyway. She could already tell they were in for weeks of repair and groaned inwardly, thinking of the bill. They'd be lucky to break even.
Bowdaar's voice hollered loudly over the intercom, Do not get up! just as they hit the ground the first time. They skipped like a stone over the vast expanse of the desert, each impact nearly knocking them out of their seats. Each impact lasted a little bit longer than the last, grinding away the hull on the bottom of the ship with a terrible rumbling that Risha did not want to think about. The final stretch saw them in the middle of the wasteland between Anchorhead and one of the outposts south of it, with nothing but sand to greet them as the ship's engines slowly whined to a halt, the final stop rocking them forward in their seats.
Neither of them had had any idea anything was wrong until then. Risha caught herself easily enough and even Corso managed to keep his balance. Soldat, though, fell forward into his console with a thick, tired groan and didn't rise for several seconds, hands moving with an exaggerated care that seemed foreign, compared with his usual quick, sharp mannerisms. The yellow she'd noticed on his teeth had resolved into a steady red stream, and he'd left some blood spattered at his feet before he straightened, seemingly unaware of the trail down his chin. He keyed the intercom, coughing lightly, and rasped, "Bowie? Everybody okay back there?"
The answering howl of complaining, but well enough, made him grin, and he staggered to his feet, turning to head back up the tunnel towards his discontent passengers. Risha, beginning to suspect that something was wrong betwee the blood and the dizzy way he was moving, stood as well. She followed just closely enough that when his knees gave out on him three steps in, she was there to catch him.
"Oh, damn." He said, faintly, heavy in her arms, even as Corso yelped in shock behind her and Risha wanted to kill them both. Soldat for being reckless, obviously, and Corso just for being Corso.
Risha considered telling Soldat what an idiot he was, but he didn't have the courtesy to stay awake, and then she had bigger problems. She decided it could wait.
***
As it turned out, Soldat hoarded supplies in the cargo hold, from strange jewelry and trophies to spare blaster pistols, clothing, and food. The food was what was most important to Risha, as it meant she could offer provisions to their frightened jawa passengers and, however temporarily, shut up the two jedi women arguing about which of them ought to make the dangerous run from here to the nearest settlement, ten miles off. Risha was grateful for his practicality, as well, in bringing his own water to the desert planet. The only thing he didn't seem to have much of was a suitable place to lay him out and check him for injuries, which was annoying but possibly not entirely his fault. Eventually she and Corso agreed on using one of the tables in the kitchen, and Bowdaar promptly carried him to it, laying Soldat out with a warbling query as to whether he would be all right.
"I don't know, what're you asking me for?" Risha snapped. "Get the droid to look at him, it's programmed for that sort of thing anyway."
"C2's not really, uh, equipped to do anything more complicated than diagnose his condition, though." Frowning at the obvious limitations of a protocol droid's body, Corso glanced guiltily at Soldat's unconscious form, as if he might get scolded for stating the obvious. Risha ignored him on both counts, and stormed over to the pair of jedi to get them to shut up, already.
The younger of the two, who had a bit more of a muscular look to her, Risha liked. The other one was Miraluka and, insofar as Risha was concerned, utterly sanctimonious and downright intolerable. Kind of like Soldat, sometimes. At least the younger one had spirit.
"Girls, girls," Risha said wryly, as they circled around the end of their argument back towards the beginning of it again. This was, if she'd been keeping accurate count, the third time they'd started the whole die-if-need-be-for-the-greater-good spiel over again, and she was thoroughly sick of it. "I appreciate that you both want to do the noble thing here, and Soldat really needs help fast. Why don't you help each other on the way and both go, all right?"
No matter how she sliced it, Eesha was better suited to make the run from a physical standpoint. It would've been fair to settle the whole thing based on that alone. Still, if Risha had to keep Photessa on the ship without Soldat around to distract her from nosing into Risha's business while they made repairs, it would definitely not end well. She congratulated herself on making a largely fair decision when it would've suited her just as well to kick them both off the ship and, sniper rifle at the ready, just tell them to get moving before she decided to shoot them.
They seemed startled by the suggestion, but soon enough both agreed, promising her in tandem, "I'll contact Allisha as soon as we get to Anchorhead! Don't worry, Risha, she's great with medicine. I'm sure she can help." and, "Soldat will be in the best of care as soon as we return. May the force be with you until then."
Irked, and not even really sure why-- at least they were sincere, right?-- Risha gladly helped them pack up with supplies from the cargo hold and chased them off. When she returned up the ramp, she busied herself with making a temporary inventory of the items she'd used thus far to provision their passengers and help with minor burns and things, just in case Soldat would want to replace them once he was well again. She wasn't sure if she was doing it to keep from seeing how he was doing on that table, or out of a desire to have some kind of positive news for him when he woke up, but it didn't matter. The task only occupied her for so long, and soon enough she was faced with the unenviable task of either sitting beside Soldat with Bowdaar to wait for him to wake up, or check up on Corso, who was outfitting the jawas with rations to get them to the settlement, where they could meet up with their fellows on the ship that Soldat had been escorting here.
She found herself returning to the ramp instead of the room that held Soldat, encouraging the jawas half-heartedly and talking idly with Corso as the little monsters walked slowly out of sight. Why Soldat had a soft spot for jawas was utterly beyond her. Their creepy eyes had always bothered her plenty, and she didn't much care for their slippery tongue, either. It was almost as bad as Huttese.
"You're worried about him too, huh?" Corso said at last, when they had no excuse to be lingering by the exit hatch but neither of them had made a move to go back inside. He looked positively glum, and Risha almost felt sorry for him. Of them all, Corso was definitely the least likely to have anything to do for the next however long while Risha repaired the ship and someone made sure Soldat didn't die. "I've never seen him just pass out like that. Usually if it happens, you know, takes a few blaster shots to the side or a rock to the head, or something."
"Yes, he's a stubborn idiot." She fiddled with her toolkit, chewing on the inside of her lip. "Hey. The Empire's probably still going to be scanning for us. Especially if they saw us avoid exploding on impact, you get my drift? See what you can do to make it clear they'd be better off if they don't mess with us for a while. I'm going to check the damage internally while it's still light out, I'll check the outer hull once the suns have set."
"Uh, sure." Corso glanced in the direction of the cockpit, then asked in a stage whisper, "What about C2? You want me to have him help Bowie with the Captain?"
Amusing though the thought was, Risha could imagine how quickly she'd have an armless droid to repair on her list of things to do. That seemed unfair to C2, who at the very least hadn't done anything wrong, even if he wasn't the most useful bucket of bolts she'd ever seen. She shook her head. "Mad as I am, I wouldn't wish that droid on any invalid. Have him man the guns with you, or something."
Corso winced. "Couldn't you use him? You know, to help-- repair things?"
"Kid, he's no astromech." Risha jabbed a finger at the center of Corso's shiny plasteel breastplate, sneering. "Keep him in the cockpit. Hey, you never know-- someone might call in speaking Rodian, and then you'd need him."
She was halfway to the engine room before Corso's indignant, 'I could probably speak Rodian!' caught up to her, but it kept her smiling for the next few hours as she distracted herself from Soldat's state of 'really unconscious' and traded insults with Corso over the ship's intercom. When Bowdaar made an appearance behind her, she worried for a moment.
"Did something happen?"
Shaking his head, Bowdaar yowled in answer, stepping into the engine room beside her. "The droid can watch him for a while. I do not like sitting idle with enemies looking for us."
Fully sympathetic, Risha moved aside to make room for him to help her out. "The internal wiring and panels collapsed in one of the corridors, earlier. That'll keep navigation out of commission until we patch it all back together; as for the engine, we got lucky. It didn't quite split, but it was overheated. I'm just now starting work with the coolant fans, there's something jammed in there."
"I can handle the wiring," Bowdaar offered with a happy bark. "Much better than trying to work with the hyperdrive."
"Lucky for us, the hyperdrive's about the only thing that's not busted." She pulled off an access panel that had been too hot to open before, and wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. "Corso spot any Interceptors or anything?"
Bowdaar shrugged expressively. "There were some ships flying overhead, but they did not seem to see us. He thought it might be better not to draw their attention and fire."
"Good idea," Risha agreed, and they parted to get to work, struggling with parts that had fused together in the heat of their flight, trying to reroute power when they had to and where they could to get the ship operational again, and searching for suitable replacements when that was the only option left. While Soldat had plenty of some things-- bolts, power relays, and spare batteries for certain key, frequently malfunctioning ship systems-- he hadn't foreseen the need for others, which meant, at the end of the day, that Risha and Bowdaar were completely exhausted, and both agreed that the thrusters needed to take off were completely shot, after making a comlete circuit of the ship and examining the external damage in dismay.
They collapsed back inside the ship, after informing Corso that he had first watch and was to wake them up as soon as he started feeling sleepy. Bowdaar took up position beside the table Soldat still lay on, but Risha made a point of sleeping in the room with the holoterminal.
She woke in the morning just as Corso was stirring after an accidental nap in the cockpit. After a few moments of glowering threateningly, Risha decided to forgive him for it, and returned to the cargo hold to grab something suitable to act as breakfast for the lot of them.
The good news was, Soldat had awakened between when she went to the cargo hold and when she returned, and was talking softly with Bowdaar when she entered the room. He didn't look up at her, though he did hesitate before asking, "So the jawas are safe? You're sure?"
"Don't be such a bleeding heart. You're the one who needs medical care." Risha growled, shoving breakfast-- a couple of nutrition bars-- at the pair of them and peeling open her own. She took a large bite and made sure she was too busy chewing to say any more, like ask how Soldat was feeling or whether he needed anything.
Unfazed, Soldat eyed her shrewdly, smiling just a bit. "Here, take mine, too." He murmured to Bowdaar, giving up the breakfast she'd grabbed him. "Can't keep anything down like this anyway."
That was news. Risha did not conceal her curiosity, but had the dignity not to ask.
"What's the damage?" He asked, and proceeded to be thoroughly invested in repairing his ship instead of himself, not even deigning to clarify what he'd said before about not being able to keep food down. If she hadn't been just as worried about the vulnerability of their position until the two Jedi hit town and were able to bring in help, she might have thought he was doing it to spite her. She explained their problem with the thrusters, some minor issues they'd encountered while trying to handle replacements with alternative parts, and he nodded at most places, only asking for clarification when it came to a part he hadn't had on hand, or a piece that could not be replaced while they were beached in the sand like this.
Bowdaar ate both nutrition bars happily, and disposed of the wrappers for himself and her both, giving her a moment alone with Soldat. He'd sat up while they talked, but was starting to look oddly grey under his tan, eyes losing focus, sweat standing out on his brow.
"You look like shit, if you don't mind me saying so, Captain." She stepped closer, and he didn't protest when she helped him shift so he could lay back down. "You've got medical supplies, you know. You're just the only one of us who knows which goes with what. Any interest in treating yourself, doctor?"
He chuckled, catching his breath in a hiss and squeezing his eyes shut, mouth a thin line. "Ah, sure. Go grab some of the trauma packs from the cargo hold, I'll walk you through it."
To her dismay, Risha realized that she had no idea which medkit held what, let alone what the terms were for each individual kind. She frowned at him, trying to stay patient. "Which one's that?"
Blinking dazedly at her, Soldat seemed to be more preoccupied with fighting to breathe than he was with answering the question. There hadn't been more blood welling from his mouth since yesterday right after the crash, but she didn't want to push the chance that it might start up again if she wasn't careful. Bowdaar returned, and she leapt to her feet, telling him only 'Keep an eye on him, will you?' as she sidled past and hurried to the cargo hold.
There were at least five distinct kinds of medkits, as far as Risha could tell. Some were little containers, color-coded to some obscure system of arrangment; others were clearly self-assembled, things Soldat had put together in his spare time with the various medical supplies he collected in his travels. She decided to grab one of each that she could actually tell apart from the others, and returned to find Bowdaar holding Soldat's hand, telling him firmly that he mustn't sleep again just yet.
Blinking blearily, he stared without immediate recognition at Risha. It came after a moment, and he tried to sit up. "D'you get the trauma kit?"
"I don't know which one it is." She held up the five she'd snagged. "One of these, right?"
To her relief, he nodded, lifting a slightly shaky hand to tap the green one. "This here'll do, Risha, thanks."
"Don't thank me yet," she grumbled, handing the green one to Bowdaar and setting the others on the floor beside the table. "I don't have the faintest what to do with it."
Rather than foist the chore off on Bowdaar, she settled in on Soldat's other side. "Relax," he said, voice cracking as he forced a smile. "Like I said, I'll walk you through what I can."
"Fine." And she was, even if she was a little worried about how pale and sick he looked, lying there. "Lead on, then."
"Bowie, help me get my coat off," Soldat muttered, and fumbled with gloved fingers at the buttons on his vest until Bowdaar got frustrated with it and told him to hold still, already. Much more nimble, Bowdaar made short work of the buttons, peeled open the vest and pulled up Soldat's shirt to his ribs without any fuss about the work. Where he'd been caught by the collapsing wirework the day before, there was a deep, dark bruise. Nothing looked like it'd been broken, but that didn't mean there couldn't be internal bleeding, which Risha began to worry might be the reason why Soldat had been stumbling around like he'd lost his sea-legs aboard a naval vessel.
She shared a look with Bowdaar, but neither of them said anything.
Soldat caught his breath, and waved weakly for Risha to open the kit. "Okay. Should be-- tranquilizers, bandages, surgical tools. And, uh. Mm." He winced, feeling the edges of the bruise gingerly. "Icepack, maybe some stims. All that in there?"
Risha checked over the contents of the medkit, and nodded, pleasantly surprised to find that the bandages were made of verbrellian mothwings; the sort that could turn into a firm makeshift cast if necessary, with a little bit of oil added to them. "Where do I start?"
"C2 detected some hemorrhaging; he's got the, uh, procedure for sealing that up on his database, he can walk you through it. It's probably--" He paused, just breathing for a moment or two, brow pinched with concentration. "--probably my diaphragm, maybe my stomach or my liver. No burning, though, so if it's my stomach, hasn't leaked any stomach acid I know of yet."
Risha wrinkled her nose at the thought, and eyed the surgical equipment dubiously. "You sure you can't walk me through it yourself, Captain? That droid's a real pill."
He cracked a grin, but didn't laugh. "Can't see what you're doin' down there, Risha, or I'd offer."
Bowdaar stood, silently going to the cockpit to retrieve C2 while Soldat continued. Just a little, Risha wished she could foist this task on someone else. Bowdaar was nimble enough; Corso didn't pull his weight around here and she still had repairs to make on the ship.
At the same time, she couldn't imagine trusting either of them with Soldat's life when she had the option of ensuring it was safe on her own. "You're gonna need to pull on some surgical gloves," he was saying now, "those'll be in the blue medkits, they're sterile. Once you're ready, there should be a dose of oxycodone in there. That'll put me under for a few hours."
There were multiple pre-dosed syringes in the medkit, but he'd labeled them clearly enough, in that precise, try-hard handwriting of his. She pulled out one of the oxycodone syringes, examining the fluid inside before she set it back and fetched the sterile gloves he'd suggested she wear. She could hear C2 and Bowdaar returning, so she pulled the gloves on, eyeing Soldat dubiously.
He watched her with a calm sort of acceptance, and for the first time she wondered how frightening it must be, trusting someone better trained in killing than saving lives to do something crazy like this and really, what was he thinking anyway?
"Hey," She murmured uncertainly, holding his gaze with her own. "You sure this is going to be fine?"
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite making it to a grin. "I trust ya, Risha." He was starting to get even more of that backwater twang he always seemed to be hiding when he was around her. He was breathing more quickly now, and she wondered if that was a bad sign, if she should be worried about how shallow each breath was as it came.
"Miss Risha? Shall we begin?"
C2 stood where Bowdaar had been lurking before, and Risha was deeply conscious of the big, worried furball behind her. She put asider her doubt, and unwrapped the syringe she'd grabbed before, testing the needle before she pushed up Soldat's sleeve, sought out a vein and jabbed him with the needle as cautiously as she could. He grimaced, but didn't complain, watching the plunger sink down with a weary resignation that she thought seemed awfully fatalistic. What, did he think she couldn't do it? "Night, Captain."
Wryly winking, Soldat slurred some half-born answer that sounded a bit like 'better be a mornin' to follow' and stilled, his breath coming a little too quick for her liking, but not so rapidly as before.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to C2. "Let's do this."
***
Allisha Terrik wrinkled her nose at the smell (Corso had, predictably, thrown up when he saw the mess left after the surgery was all done. Not that he had any right being so melodramatic. He hadn't been the one stuck on the spot, suddenly doing something for which he had no training) but didn't immediately tell Risha she'd been an idiot. She'd come with her own crew, bringing another wookiee-- something about wookiees made them awfully popular among smugglers, Risha thought bemusedly-- and a temperamental young ex-Trooper who'd sneered something untoward about Soldat. That had gotten him sent right back to Allisha's ship to wait for her to have need of him, and the wookiee was now assisting Bowdaar in fitting some spare parts Allisha had brought along 'just in case', which meant Risha could take a much-needed break and wait to see if she'd just doomed Soldat with her ineptitude.
"Well," Allisha said gamely, "He'll probably be fine, given a few weeks."
Before Risha could let the dismay of a few weeks on Tattooine sink in, the red-headed pilot brightened, her lips quirking in a knowing smile.
Smugglers. At least Risha knew how to speak their language. "I might have some supplies that'd be useful to speed that up, for the right price. Whaddaya say?"
"What's the price?" Risha sighed, cleaning up the last of the mess Corso'd made and bundling it with the other trash she'd accumulated during her first exciting endeavor into the magical world of surgery. "And you're sure he'll be okay?"
"I'm sure." Moving aside to let Risha lead her out of the room and back towards the cargo hold, Allisha chuckled wryly. "Diagnostics all came up good, it's just that old-fashioned healing's a mite slow, I figure. For something in the neighborhood of, oh-- two thousand credits? I might be able to set you up."
Risha suppressed an annoyed groan and pulled up the inventory, marking the price as an expenditure without even bothering to haggle. Smugglers. Greedy bastards, every one of them. Still, better than the Republic, or Jedi, with their codes of honor and whatever. "Fine. The sooner he's back on his feet, the happier I'll be."
It didn't hurt, she thought forgivingly, that Allisha and the two Jedi had successfully chased off their Empire pursuit in the meantime, leaving the rest of them breathing space to take it easy if Soldat might need to.
"You said Eesha and Photessa headed off already?"
"Shockingly enough, Jedi don't stick around for rewards after they do daring heroics, most of the time. It's hell on my profit margin." Allisha added vehemently, almost pouting. "Everyone starts to get used to the idea of free favors."
Risha laughed, and handed over a card charged with the credits Allisha'd asked for. "Well, let it never be said that I let our debts go unpaid. I'm just glad you were in the area."
She was just as glad, later, that Allisha had left too quickly for Corso to get more than one good look at her. His lovesick whining as they put into port at Anchorhead was plenty annoying enough, even if he was likely to get over it sooner since he'd barely met her. Risha gratefully set about making proper repairs to those few things she hadn't been able to fix out in the desert, thanks to the heat or lack of parts or the afflicted parts of the ship being submerged in sand. Corso wandered town, hanging around in the local cantina while they waited for Soldat to wake up. Bowdaar would not leave the ship, and stayed near enough to hear if Soldat stirred.
For the most part, Risha was glad. It meant she had no good excuse to do the same herself.
***
Soldat was nothing if not grateful to them all for bothering to save him, instead of finding themselves a new captain. He bought Corso a finger-puzzle and some armor polish, gave Bowdaar a trophy from his weird collection and let the wookiee beat him at all of Bowdaar's favorite board games, he even oiled C2-N2's joints a few days ahead of schedule.
He offered Risha whatever she might want, asking her to name it, and she found herself at a loss, telling him she'd take him up on it later. Both a little out of sorts, they went their separate ways, Soldat to rest some more after taking some of the medication Allisha'd provided them and Risha to wander the spaceport, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
It wasn't until the third or fourth day, late at night and out by Anchorhead's gate, that they spoke again. Soldat was walking slowly around the city's perimeter, and Risha fell into step beside him, unconsciously trying to shield him, in case they should come under attack unexpectedly.
He had eyes only for the stars, and a kind of goofy smile on his face. Risha had never much cared what Soldat looked like, though she didn't have a problem with it, either, but in the dark she thought he seemed unusually handsome. Then she started worrying she was going crazy.
"Came from a world kind of like this," he said, quite unexpectedly, not bothering to cover his accent, again, and making her want to laugh. There was something hilarious about Soldat Meridian, so-called Hero of House Organa, admitting to being a backwater nobody.
Instead of laughing at him, even if she should have, Risha shrugged, looking up at the stars, like he was. "Was the view as nice?"
"Maybe." He seemed to really think about it, shaking his head. "Maybe, I never really looked. City was a pretty rough place. More important to keep your head down, there."
She couldn't imagine Soldat as a child in the first place, let alone being so timid, and laughed this time in disbelief, unable to hold it back.
Rather than take offense, he grinned, slowing his steps and looking at her. "Thank you, by the way." He said, tracing the line of the sutures she'd made in his stomach with distracted fingers. For a moment or two, Risha considered telling him it had been nothing, then she seriously considered telling him he owed her bigtime for making her do it.
Instead, she asked, "Why'd you take up medicine, anyway? Just trying to prepare for the worst? Make it through internal bleeding because you happened to have the right supplies, that sort of thing?"
He shook his head, looking up at the sky again. They'd completely stopped walking, for a moment, but he started forward again with purpose. "Nah. I like helping people, you know that. Medicine's supposed to accomplish that." Rolling one shoulder, he fingered the burn covering the left side of his face somewhat self-consciously, and not for the first time, she wanted to ask. "Anyway. You think of what you wanted? I feel I owe you. Surgery's not exactly fun."
"I want a full spare engine and a new set of gunnery turrets," she said matter-of-factly, "so we can shoot down any new Empire heat we pick up, here on out."
Soldat laughed softly, and nodded. "Practical. I like it. Sure, we'll pick it up first thing."
Just a little bit, she wanted to ask for something else. His life story, maybe. He more or less knew hers, after all, whether he knew it or not. Instead, she told him wryly, "If you were the wookiee, you'd just give me a life-debt. Cheapskate."
He grinned, and after a moment, she grinned back.
"Thanks, Captain."
...Eesha, Photessa and Allisha make cameos. Ahem. Back to work for me.
Lifedebt
At some point before they hit the ground, but definitely after their passengers had started shrieking in panic, Soldat had had the audacity to be stupid and shove her out of the way of collapsing cabling and pipework and been half-crushed beneath it. Considering that he'd gotten back up and shaken it off like nothing much had happened (well, aside from seeming a bit unsteady on his feet), Risha'd felt entirely justified in being thoroughly annoyed with him, and let him have it as they scrambled back to the cockpit, Corso squawking about the shields collapsing under the atmospheric pressure over the intercom.
"I don't know where you get off," she snapped, as another heavy jolt made them fall into each other, Soldat catching the bulkhead above her, pinning her there hot and close and smelling of oil and sweat, teeth grit to brace for impact. She grabbed the wall behind her, loathe to touch him. "You could've just told me to duck, you know, I'd have gotten out of the way on my own."
"Pardon me for caring," he muttered sourly, and when the ship righted again, they finished the trip up the corridor to the cockpit, where Corso gladly gave up the controls to Soldat and Risha, still irritated, took the gunner's seat to the right, snarling,
"I'll pardon you when you've damn well earned it, Captain."
He flashed her a grin that looked weird, his lower teeth a little yellower than she remembered them being, but only chuckled weakly in answer, turning his attention to the task of trying to land the freighter without getting them all killed.
Corso, obviously motion sick, took the seat on the left and held on as tight as he could, occasionally moaning sickly oh, damn in increasingly useless panic. Elsewhere on the ship, she could clearly hear the two Jedi in a shouting match with Bowdaar, and under that the chatter of frightened jawas. Whatever had possessed Soldat to escort them and their ship back to Tattooine clearly hadn't accounted for how interested the Empire was in the little bastards' droids, and Risha couldn't find it in her to forgive them for putting them all in danger.
When it came down to it, she blamed Soldat for agreeing to let them be put into danger, like the bleeding-heart idiot he was, but it wasn't the first time his compassion had gotten them into trouble and, provided they didn't explode on impact, she doubted it'd be the last. As smugglers went, he had a terrible sense of self-preservation, and not much in the way of knowing when to say no, either. It was positively infuriating.
Tattooine was never fun to land on even under good conditions, but this was hell. The light of its suns glared up off of the wasteland of the Dune Sea, blindingly bright, and Risha found herself squinting right along with Soldat, trying to make out any sign of settlements nearby where they might safely land. Nothing; nothing but the blemish they were rapidly soaring past that looked suspiciously like the Sarlaac pit, mountains, and waves of sand.
"Captain!" Corso gulped for air, his face a mask of worry, and turned to them both with pleading eyes. "What's the plan?"
Never one to disappoint, Soldat pulled up enough that they banked over the mountains in midst of sand-people territory, skimming lower and lower as they neared Anchorhead. "Plan is," he growled softly, "shut up and hang on."
Risha tried to resist the urge to roll her eyes, either at Corso's surprise or Soldat's macho posturing, and took the advice, wondering if Soldat knew as well as she did that there was no way they were going to make it all the way to the spaceport. Not in this kind of disrepair, anyway. She could already tell they were in for weeks of repair and groaned inwardly, thinking of the bill. They'd be lucky to break even.
Bowdaar's voice hollered loudly over the intercom, Do not get up! just as they hit the ground the first time. They skipped like a stone over the vast expanse of the desert, each impact nearly knocking them out of their seats. Each impact lasted a little bit longer than the last, grinding away the hull on the bottom of the ship with a terrible rumbling that Risha did not want to think about. The final stretch saw them in the middle of the wasteland between Anchorhead and one of the outposts south of it, with nothing but sand to greet them as the ship's engines slowly whined to a halt, the final stop rocking them forward in their seats.
Neither of them had had any idea anything was wrong until then. Risha caught herself easily enough and even Corso managed to keep his balance. Soldat, though, fell forward into his console with a thick, tired groan and didn't rise for several seconds, hands moving with an exaggerated care that seemed foreign, compared with his usual quick, sharp mannerisms. The yellow she'd noticed on his teeth had resolved into a steady red stream, and he'd left some blood spattered at his feet before he straightened, seemingly unaware of the trail down his chin. He keyed the intercom, coughing lightly, and rasped, "Bowie? Everybody okay back there?"
The answering howl of complaining, but well enough, made him grin, and he staggered to his feet, turning to head back up the tunnel towards his discontent passengers. Risha, beginning to suspect that something was wrong betwee the blood and the dizzy way he was moving, stood as well. She followed just closely enough that when his knees gave out on him three steps in, she was there to catch him.
"Oh, damn." He said, faintly, heavy in her arms, even as Corso yelped in shock behind her and Risha wanted to kill them both. Soldat for being reckless, obviously, and Corso just for being Corso.
Risha considered telling Soldat what an idiot he was, but he didn't have the courtesy to stay awake, and then she had bigger problems. She decided it could wait.
***
As it turned out, Soldat hoarded supplies in the cargo hold, from strange jewelry and trophies to spare blaster pistols, clothing, and food. The food was what was most important to Risha, as it meant she could offer provisions to their frightened jawa passengers and, however temporarily, shut up the two jedi women arguing about which of them ought to make the dangerous run from here to the nearest settlement, ten miles off. Risha was grateful for his practicality, as well, in bringing his own water to the desert planet. The only thing he didn't seem to have much of was a suitable place to lay him out and check him for injuries, which was annoying but possibly not entirely his fault. Eventually she and Corso agreed on using one of the tables in the kitchen, and Bowdaar promptly carried him to it, laying Soldat out with a warbling query as to whether he would be all right.
"I don't know, what're you asking me for?" Risha snapped. "Get the droid to look at him, it's programmed for that sort of thing anyway."
"C2's not really, uh, equipped to do anything more complicated than diagnose his condition, though." Frowning at the obvious limitations of a protocol droid's body, Corso glanced guiltily at Soldat's unconscious form, as if he might get scolded for stating the obvious. Risha ignored him on both counts, and stormed over to the pair of jedi to get them to shut up, already.
The younger of the two, who had a bit more of a muscular look to her, Risha liked. The other one was Miraluka and, insofar as Risha was concerned, utterly sanctimonious and downright intolerable. Kind of like Soldat, sometimes. At least the younger one had spirit.
"Girls, girls," Risha said wryly, as they circled around the end of their argument back towards the beginning of it again. This was, if she'd been keeping accurate count, the third time they'd started the whole die-if-need-be-for-the-greater-good spiel over again, and she was thoroughly sick of it. "I appreciate that you both want to do the noble thing here, and Soldat really needs help fast. Why don't you help each other on the way and both go, all right?"
No matter how she sliced it, Eesha was better suited to make the run from a physical standpoint. It would've been fair to settle the whole thing based on that alone. Still, if Risha had to keep Photessa on the ship without Soldat around to distract her from nosing into Risha's business while they made repairs, it would definitely not end well. She congratulated herself on making a largely fair decision when it would've suited her just as well to kick them both off the ship and, sniper rifle at the ready, just tell them to get moving before she decided to shoot them.
They seemed startled by the suggestion, but soon enough both agreed, promising her in tandem, "I'll contact Allisha as soon as we get to Anchorhead! Don't worry, Risha, she's great with medicine. I'm sure she can help." and, "Soldat will be in the best of care as soon as we return. May the force be with you until then."
Irked, and not even really sure why-- at least they were sincere, right?-- Risha gladly helped them pack up with supplies from the cargo hold and chased them off. When she returned up the ramp, she busied herself with making a temporary inventory of the items she'd used thus far to provision their passengers and help with minor burns and things, just in case Soldat would want to replace them once he was well again. She wasn't sure if she was doing it to keep from seeing how he was doing on that table, or out of a desire to have some kind of positive news for him when he woke up, but it didn't matter. The task only occupied her for so long, and soon enough she was faced with the unenviable task of either sitting beside Soldat with Bowdaar to wait for him to wake up, or check up on Corso, who was outfitting the jawas with rations to get them to the settlement, where they could meet up with their fellows on the ship that Soldat had been escorting here.
She found herself returning to the ramp instead of the room that held Soldat, encouraging the jawas half-heartedly and talking idly with Corso as the little monsters walked slowly out of sight. Why Soldat had a soft spot for jawas was utterly beyond her. Their creepy eyes had always bothered her plenty, and she didn't much care for their slippery tongue, either. It was almost as bad as Huttese.
"You're worried about him too, huh?" Corso said at last, when they had no excuse to be lingering by the exit hatch but neither of them had made a move to go back inside. He looked positively glum, and Risha almost felt sorry for him. Of them all, Corso was definitely the least likely to have anything to do for the next however long while Risha repaired the ship and someone made sure Soldat didn't die. "I've never seen him just pass out like that. Usually if it happens, you know, takes a few blaster shots to the side or a rock to the head, or something."
"Yes, he's a stubborn idiot." She fiddled with her toolkit, chewing on the inside of her lip. "Hey. The Empire's probably still going to be scanning for us. Especially if they saw us avoid exploding on impact, you get my drift? See what you can do to make it clear they'd be better off if they don't mess with us for a while. I'm going to check the damage internally while it's still light out, I'll check the outer hull once the suns have set."
"Uh, sure." Corso glanced in the direction of the cockpit, then asked in a stage whisper, "What about C2? You want me to have him help Bowie with the Captain?"
Amusing though the thought was, Risha could imagine how quickly she'd have an armless droid to repair on her list of things to do. That seemed unfair to C2, who at the very least hadn't done anything wrong, even if he wasn't the most useful bucket of bolts she'd ever seen. She shook her head. "Mad as I am, I wouldn't wish that droid on any invalid. Have him man the guns with you, or something."
Corso winced. "Couldn't you use him? You know, to help-- repair things?"
"Kid, he's no astromech." Risha jabbed a finger at the center of Corso's shiny plasteel breastplate, sneering. "Keep him in the cockpit. Hey, you never know-- someone might call in speaking Rodian, and then you'd need him."
She was halfway to the engine room before Corso's indignant, 'I could probably speak Rodian!' caught up to her, but it kept her smiling for the next few hours as she distracted herself from Soldat's state of 'really unconscious' and traded insults with Corso over the ship's intercom. When Bowdaar made an appearance behind her, she worried for a moment.
"Did something happen?"
Shaking his head, Bowdaar yowled in answer, stepping into the engine room beside her. "The droid can watch him for a while. I do not like sitting idle with enemies looking for us."
Fully sympathetic, Risha moved aside to make room for him to help her out. "The internal wiring and panels collapsed in one of the corridors, earlier. That'll keep navigation out of commission until we patch it all back together; as for the engine, we got lucky. It didn't quite split, but it was overheated. I'm just now starting work with the coolant fans, there's something jammed in there."
"I can handle the wiring," Bowdaar offered with a happy bark. "Much better than trying to work with the hyperdrive."
"Lucky for us, the hyperdrive's about the only thing that's not busted." She pulled off an access panel that had been too hot to open before, and wiped her brow with the back of her wrist. "Corso spot any Interceptors or anything?"
Bowdaar shrugged expressively. "There were some ships flying overhead, but they did not seem to see us. He thought it might be better not to draw their attention and fire."
"Good idea," Risha agreed, and they parted to get to work, struggling with parts that had fused together in the heat of their flight, trying to reroute power when they had to and where they could to get the ship operational again, and searching for suitable replacements when that was the only option left. While Soldat had plenty of some things-- bolts, power relays, and spare batteries for certain key, frequently malfunctioning ship systems-- he hadn't foreseen the need for others, which meant, at the end of the day, that Risha and Bowdaar were completely exhausted, and both agreed that the thrusters needed to take off were completely shot, after making a comlete circuit of the ship and examining the external damage in dismay.
They collapsed back inside the ship, after informing Corso that he had first watch and was to wake them up as soon as he started feeling sleepy. Bowdaar took up position beside the table Soldat still lay on, but Risha made a point of sleeping in the room with the holoterminal.
She woke in the morning just as Corso was stirring after an accidental nap in the cockpit. After a few moments of glowering threateningly, Risha decided to forgive him for it, and returned to the cargo hold to grab something suitable to act as breakfast for the lot of them.
The good news was, Soldat had awakened between when she went to the cargo hold and when she returned, and was talking softly with Bowdaar when she entered the room. He didn't look up at her, though he did hesitate before asking, "So the jawas are safe? You're sure?"
"Don't be such a bleeding heart. You're the one who needs medical care." Risha growled, shoving breakfast-- a couple of nutrition bars-- at the pair of them and peeling open her own. She took a large bite and made sure she was too busy chewing to say any more, like ask how Soldat was feeling or whether he needed anything.
Unfazed, Soldat eyed her shrewdly, smiling just a bit. "Here, take mine, too." He murmured to Bowdaar, giving up the breakfast she'd grabbed him. "Can't keep anything down like this anyway."
That was news. Risha did not conceal her curiosity, but had the dignity not to ask.
"What's the damage?" He asked, and proceeded to be thoroughly invested in repairing his ship instead of himself, not even deigning to clarify what he'd said before about not being able to keep food down. If she hadn't been just as worried about the vulnerability of their position until the two Jedi hit town and were able to bring in help, she might have thought he was doing it to spite her. She explained their problem with the thrusters, some minor issues they'd encountered while trying to handle replacements with alternative parts, and he nodded at most places, only asking for clarification when it came to a part he hadn't had on hand, or a piece that could not be replaced while they were beached in the sand like this.
Bowdaar ate both nutrition bars happily, and disposed of the wrappers for himself and her both, giving her a moment alone with Soldat. He'd sat up while they talked, but was starting to look oddly grey under his tan, eyes losing focus, sweat standing out on his brow.
"You look like shit, if you don't mind me saying so, Captain." She stepped closer, and he didn't protest when she helped him shift so he could lay back down. "You've got medical supplies, you know. You're just the only one of us who knows which goes with what. Any interest in treating yourself, doctor?"
He chuckled, catching his breath in a hiss and squeezing his eyes shut, mouth a thin line. "Ah, sure. Go grab some of the trauma packs from the cargo hold, I'll walk you through it."
To her dismay, Risha realized that she had no idea which medkit held what, let alone what the terms were for each individual kind. She frowned at him, trying to stay patient. "Which one's that?"
Blinking dazedly at her, Soldat seemed to be more preoccupied with fighting to breathe than he was with answering the question. There hadn't been more blood welling from his mouth since yesterday right after the crash, but she didn't want to push the chance that it might start up again if she wasn't careful. Bowdaar returned, and she leapt to her feet, telling him only 'Keep an eye on him, will you?' as she sidled past and hurried to the cargo hold.
There were at least five distinct kinds of medkits, as far as Risha could tell. Some were little containers, color-coded to some obscure system of arrangment; others were clearly self-assembled, things Soldat had put together in his spare time with the various medical supplies he collected in his travels. She decided to grab one of each that she could actually tell apart from the others, and returned to find Bowdaar holding Soldat's hand, telling him firmly that he mustn't sleep again just yet.
Blinking blearily, he stared without immediate recognition at Risha. It came after a moment, and he tried to sit up. "D'you get the trauma kit?"
"I don't know which one it is." She held up the five she'd snagged. "One of these, right?"
To her relief, he nodded, lifting a slightly shaky hand to tap the green one. "This here'll do, Risha, thanks."
"Don't thank me yet," she grumbled, handing the green one to Bowdaar and setting the others on the floor beside the table. "I don't have the faintest what to do with it."
Rather than foist the chore off on Bowdaar, she settled in on Soldat's other side. "Relax," he said, voice cracking as he forced a smile. "Like I said, I'll walk you through what I can."
"Fine." And she was, even if she was a little worried about how pale and sick he looked, lying there. "Lead on, then."
"Bowie, help me get my coat off," Soldat muttered, and fumbled with gloved fingers at the buttons on his vest until Bowdaar got frustrated with it and told him to hold still, already. Much more nimble, Bowdaar made short work of the buttons, peeled open the vest and pulled up Soldat's shirt to his ribs without any fuss about the work. Where he'd been caught by the collapsing wirework the day before, there was a deep, dark bruise. Nothing looked like it'd been broken, but that didn't mean there couldn't be internal bleeding, which Risha began to worry might be the reason why Soldat had been stumbling around like he'd lost his sea-legs aboard a naval vessel.
She shared a look with Bowdaar, but neither of them said anything.
Soldat caught his breath, and waved weakly for Risha to open the kit. "Okay. Should be-- tranquilizers, bandages, surgical tools. And, uh. Mm." He winced, feeling the edges of the bruise gingerly. "Icepack, maybe some stims. All that in there?"
Risha checked over the contents of the medkit, and nodded, pleasantly surprised to find that the bandages were made of verbrellian mothwings; the sort that could turn into a firm makeshift cast if necessary, with a little bit of oil added to them. "Where do I start?"
"C2 detected some hemorrhaging; he's got the, uh, procedure for sealing that up on his database, he can walk you through it. It's probably--" He paused, just breathing for a moment or two, brow pinched with concentration. "--probably my diaphragm, maybe my stomach or my liver. No burning, though, so if it's my stomach, hasn't leaked any stomach acid I know of yet."
Risha wrinkled her nose at the thought, and eyed the surgical equipment dubiously. "You sure you can't walk me through it yourself, Captain? That droid's a real pill."
He cracked a grin, but didn't laugh. "Can't see what you're doin' down there, Risha, or I'd offer."
Bowdaar stood, silently going to the cockpit to retrieve C2 while Soldat continued. Just a little, Risha wished she could foist this task on someone else. Bowdaar was nimble enough; Corso didn't pull his weight around here and she still had repairs to make on the ship.
At the same time, she couldn't imagine trusting either of them with Soldat's life when she had the option of ensuring it was safe on her own. "You're gonna need to pull on some surgical gloves," he was saying now, "those'll be in the blue medkits, they're sterile. Once you're ready, there should be a dose of oxycodone in there. That'll put me under for a few hours."
There were multiple pre-dosed syringes in the medkit, but he'd labeled them clearly enough, in that precise, try-hard handwriting of his. She pulled out one of the oxycodone syringes, examining the fluid inside before she set it back and fetched the sterile gloves he'd suggested she wear. She could hear C2 and Bowdaar returning, so she pulled the gloves on, eyeing Soldat dubiously.
He watched her with a calm sort of acceptance, and for the first time she wondered how frightening it must be, trusting someone better trained in killing than saving lives to do something crazy like this and really, what was he thinking anyway?
"Hey," She murmured uncertainly, holding his gaze with her own. "You sure this is going to be fine?"
The corner of his mouth twitched, not quite making it to a grin. "I trust ya, Risha." He was starting to get even more of that backwater twang he always seemed to be hiding when he was around her. He was breathing more quickly now, and she wondered if that was a bad sign, if she should be worried about how shallow each breath was as it came.
"Miss Risha? Shall we begin?"
C2 stood where Bowdaar had been lurking before, and Risha was deeply conscious of the big, worried furball behind her. She put asider her doubt, and unwrapped the syringe she'd grabbed before, testing the needle before she pushed up Soldat's sleeve, sought out a vein and jabbed him with the needle as cautiously as she could. He grimaced, but didn't complain, watching the plunger sink down with a weary resignation that she thought seemed awfully fatalistic. What, did he think she couldn't do it? "Night, Captain."
Wryly winking, Soldat slurred some half-born answer that sounded a bit like 'better be a mornin' to follow' and stilled, his breath coming a little too quick for her liking, but not so rapidly as before.
Taking a deep breath, she turned to C2. "Let's do this."
***
Allisha Terrik wrinkled her nose at the smell (Corso had, predictably, thrown up when he saw the mess left after the surgery was all done. Not that he had any right being so melodramatic. He hadn't been the one stuck on the spot, suddenly doing something for which he had no training) but didn't immediately tell Risha she'd been an idiot. She'd come with her own crew, bringing another wookiee-- something about wookiees made them awfully popular among smugglers, Risha thought bemusedly-- and a temperamental young ex-Trooper who'd sneered something untoward about Soldat. That had gotten him sent right back to Allisha's ship to wait for her to have need of him, and the wookiee was now assisting Bowdaar in fitting some spare parts Allisha had brought along 'just in case', which meant Risha could take a much-needed break and wait to see if she'd just doomed Soldat with her ineptitude.
"Well," Allisha said gamely, "He'll probably be fine, given a few weeks."
Before Risha could let the dismay of a few weeks on Tattooine sink in, the red-headed pilot brightened, her lips quirking in a knowing smile.
Smugglers. At least Risha knew how to speak their language. "I might have some supplies that'd be useful to speed that up, for the right price. Whaddaya say?"
"What's the price?" Risha sighed, cleaning up the last of the mess Corso'd made and bundling it with the other trash she'd accumulated during her first exciting endeavor into the magical world of surgery. "And you're sure he'll be okay?"
"I'm sure." Moving aside to let Risha lead her out of the room and back towards the cargo hold, Allisha chuckled wryly. "Diagnostics all came up good, it's just that old-fashioned healing's a mite slow, I figure. For something in the neighborhood of, oh-- two thousand credits? I might be able to set you up."
Risha suppressed an annoyed groan and pulled up the inventory, marking the price as an expenditure without even bothering to haggle. Smugglers. Greedy bastards, every one of them. Still, better than the Republic, or Jedi, with their codes of honor and whatever. "Fine. The sooner he's back on his feet, the happier I'll be."
It didn't hurt, she thought forgivingly, that Allisha and the two Jedi had successfully chased off their Empire pursuit in the meantime, leaving the rest of them breathing space to take it easy if Soldat might need to.
"You said Eesha and Photessa headed off already?"
"Shockingly enough, Jedi don't stick around for rewards after they do daring heroics, most of the time. It's hell on my profit margin." Allisha added vehemently, almost pouting. "Everyone starts to get used to the idea of free favors."
Risha laughed, and handed over a card charged with the credits Allisha'd asked for. "Well, let it never be said that I let our debts go unpaid. I'm just glad you were in the area."
She was just as glad, later, that Allisha had left too quickly for Corso to get more than one good look at her. His lovesick whining as they put into port at Anchorhead was plenty annoying enough, even if he was likely to get over it sooner since he'd barely met her. Risha gratefully set about making proper repairs to those few things she hadn't been able to fix out in the desert, thanks to the heat or lack of parts or the afflicted parts of the ship being submerged in sand. Corso wandered town, hanging around in the local cantina while they waited for Soldat to wake up. Bowdaar would not leave the ship, and stayed near enough to hear if Soldat stirred.
For the most part, Risha was glad. It meant she had no good excuse to do the same herself.
***
Soldat was nothing if not grateful to them all for bothering to save him, instead of finding themselves a new captain. He bought Corso a finger-puzzle and some armor polish, gave Bowdaar a trophy from his weird collection and let the wookiee beat him at all of Bowdaar's favorite board games, he even oiled C2-N2's joints a few days ahead of schedule.
He offered Risha whatever she might want, asking her to name it, and she found herself at a loss, telling him she'd take him up on it later. Both a little out of sorts, they went their separate ways, Soldat to rest some more after taking some of the medication Allisha'd provided them and Risha to wander the spaceport, wondering what the hell was wrong with her.
It wasn't until the third or fourth day, late at night and out by Anchorhead's gate, that they spoke again. Soldat was walking slowly around the city's perimeter, and Risha fell into step beside him, unconsciously trying to shield him, in case they should come under attack unexpectedly.
He had eyes only for the stars, and a kind of goofy smile on his face. Risha had never much cared what Soldat looked like, though she didn't have a problem with it, either, but in the dark she thought he seemed unusually handsome. Then she started worrying she was going crazy.
"Came from a world kind of like this," he said, quite unexpectedly, not bothering to cover his accent, again, and making her want to laugh. There was something hilarious about Soldat Meridian, so-called Hero of House Organa, admitting to being a backwater nobody.
Instead of laughing at him, even if she should have, Risha shrugged, looking up at the stars, like he was. "Was the view as nice?"
"Maybe." He seemed to really think about it, shaking his head. "Maybe, I never really looked. City was a pretty rough place. More important to keep your head down, there."
She couldn't imagine Soldat as a child in the first place, let alone being so timid, and laughed this time in disbelief, unable to hold it back.
Rather than take offense, he grinned, slowing his steps and looking at her. "Thank you, by the way." He said, tracing the line of the sutures she'd made in his stomach with distracted fingers. For a moment or two, Risha considered telling him it had been nothing, then she seriously considered telling him he owed her bigtime for making her do it.
Instead, she asked, "Why'd you take up medicine, anyway? Just trying to prepare for the worst? Make it through internal bleeding because you happened to have the right supplies, that sort of thing?"
He shook his head, looking up at the sky again. They'd completely stopped walking, for a moment, but he started forward again with purpose. "Nah. I like helping people, you know that. Medicine's supposed to accomplish that." Rolling one shoulder, he fingered the burn covering the left side of his face somewhat self-consciously, and not for the first time, she wanted to ask. "Anyway. You think of what you wanted? I feel I owe you. Surgery's not exactly fun."
"I want a full spare engine and a new set of gunnery turrets," she said matter-of-factly, "so we can shoot down any new Empire heat we pick up, here on out."
Soldat laughed softly, and nodded. "Practical. I like it. Sure, we'll pick it up first thing."
Just a little bit, she wanted to ask for something else. His life story, maybe. He more or less knew hers, after all, whether he knew it or not. Instead, she told him wryly, "If you were the wookiee, you'd just give me a life-debt. Cheapskate."
He grinned, and after a moment, she grinned back.
"Thanks, Captain."