Crankshaft

Troi led the team deeper into the Titan. Other maniples reported in with various groups of Claveborn captives or rival bandits held in separate cells. Troi's team came across nobody else since finding Toji. The kid did talk a lot, Troi thought, but when needed he proved he was capable of being quiet, following directions, and even taking sound tactical positions as the team moved through.

The music started softly; swelling, crashing, then melodiously shifting to reverie in series. Not the hard, driving, pounding thrash that the jumped-up younger bandits preferred, but true claver-stuff; even stuff older than the Time of Settlement, played on instruments hard to find any more on this strange, stormy world. The team moved towards the music; it seemed likely that where there was music, there would be someone listening to it; if not that, then at least it would play next to residential areas which would need to be searched.

"That, there..." Kacha drawled, "That's the mark of Longknife's Chosen." She indicated a symbol of a knife set upright between two lightning bolts. "That's for what Khem sees as especially his. I mean, of course, of higher value than the rest of all of this, which is also his, in his mind. It's for that which Khem does not see to share with the men as loot or spoils. That which he values, of especial interest..."

"Belay." Troi barked again. "You talk too much."

"Comes from having things to say," Kacha sighed. "Not a soldierly trait, it is, being of an educated sort. Or of having the curse of a talkative nature. Still, I thought you might want to know. Because the music is coming from there," she pointed at a door, on which the selfsame symbol had been stensiled, "Now, being Longknife's favored may seem like a blessing, but it's really quite not so. Should know. Was one, once, in a day..."

Troi snapped his gaze to the sergeant, who shrugged and let what she was saying trail off.

Troi slapped the doorburster on the stensilled door, and indicated his men to cover the gap.

The charge slapped open, and a strange, colorful cloud of chalk dust immediately burst out into the room...

Toji grinned at Troi and Kacha."You two been working together a long while, yah?An old married couple, you two resemble."When Troi planted the doorbuster, Toji took a tactical position, his cannon ready to activate, if need be.When the chalk dust billowed out, the young ex-bandit grunted."Shakto, that'll make it hard to see....."He put his regular hand on the handle of his sword, scanning the dust for any signs of hostiles.......

The choir of echoes was reaching a climax.
The voices were now right in front of the door.
Pieces of chalk held in both hands scraped frantically against the wall.
There was a dull thud and a clack.
Violins crying.
And a bang.

Ryan waved a hand in front of her face in a fit of coughing, trying to keep all the chalk dust away, but it was too everywhere. As it finally settled a bit, she looked up at the now open door to see...people. Armed people. That was odd. Normally he didn't let anyone in here. Normally the door opened in a completely different and definitely not so violent manner. She tried to blink the chalk out of her eyes, but the stinging sensation remained.

"You...-cough-...you're not... -cough cough- ...that Longknife bum's crew..." - however much she tried she could not calm her lungs. Her hand searched for the music player and she hurried to turn down the volume. - "...Wh-cough cough-...Who.." - Ryan gave up on her attempts to talk and just sat there trying to cough out the dust from her throat for a while.
That fuss outside must have been caused by those fellows. Was there a battle? Had the Titan fallen? Were these people here to get her out or were they just looking for valuables. There was nothing of value in her cell but she was certain they could use a pilot or at least a mechanic. She was hoping they could. She was also hoping there was still a mecha to pilot.

The dust had begun to settle and so had her cough and she almost mechanically grabbed for all the scattered chalk with half a mind to put it back into the boxes.

It was Kacha who had entered; Troi had been too close to the doorburster. He wasn't injured, but the burst of colored powder had covered him completely with dust. It startled him, and only with the greatest fire discipline did he avoid sending a burst of shot from his weapon through the cloud. He was, however, ridiculously covered in mauve and sea-green powder.

Kacha looked at the girl. The sergeant's goggles were down, and thus she avoided the worst of the powder's obscuring effect. There was enough ambient light to trigger the sensor feed and the imp encoded in the goggles removed most of the swirl from dust and airborne particles. She saw the whipcord-lean girl hacking in the thick dustcloud. Beneath her own kerchief, her mouth twisted ironically. She carefully unwound one of the cloths from around her waist and handed it to the girl. This was no battle-hardened warrior.

"No, We're not one of Longknife's slaves we. You've been reprieved of your meeting with that Satan-blasted soul. What I mean to say is that you are free of that obligation. it is no longer required. Poor it is that I should report nonetheless," Kacha continued, without Troi's firm hand to calm her natural loquaciousness, "that that particular soul still inhabits its clay shell. Through our fingers he has slipped, and ne'er be sure when might we our paths cross again." Her eyes piously went to the ceiling, as though they might penetrate the steel hull and the raging sky outside to reach into the firmament to wink at the Divine. "And the kerchief will help to keep the dust out of yer lungs."

Troi entered, his face still smeared where he tried to brush away the powder. "Who's this?" he said to Kacha.

"She hasn't said yet. Mayhap it might be that she herself doesn't know."

"Or maybe you haven't given her space to talk yet," Troi remarked acidly. He himself examined the girl. "Now, then. Do me a favor and keep your hands where I can see them, and tell me who you are. And the rest of you lot," he barked over his shoulder, "ought to be watching the halls to make sure one of Longknife's sneaky types doesn't come in and make paste of us while we chat!"

He turned back to the girl, "Now, what's your name, and where are you from?"

Toji busts out laughing at Troi's new look."WAAHAHAHHAHAHAHA, NICE PAINT JOB, BIG GUY, WAHAHAHAHA!"Calming down, after rolling around on the floor, the young bandit chuckles and snorts a couple more times, then clears his throaght,standing up and grinning at the girl."Hey there. You a prisoner to, cha? Well, worry no more, for I am Toji Okami, the King of the Beat!" He winks, his cybernetic eye gleaming as it scans through the chalk dust."So, classy music you were playing, cha? What you in for, anyway?"

Barakzai, pointedly blank-faced, handed his commander a canteen of water, which Troi used conservatively to swab away most of the dust from his face. His jawline showed strain as he clamped his teeth down on barking at the wasteling Toji rolling around on the floor. In a few days, he thought sourly, this might be funny in retrospect. But he learned long ago not to stand too firmly on dignity with the bandits.

"Unless you'd like to get shot by one of Longknife's people hidden in this damn hulk," he growled, "I'd recommend laughing a little more quietly. As well," he sniffed, "as getting that damn radio turned down!" The last remark he chuffed at Kacha.

Kacha waved it away. "if it's been playing this long, it'd be missed if it suddenly went off, dontcha think?"

Troi tossed the canteen back to Barakzai, and began inspecting his rifle, cleaning it as best he could in field conditions.

Kacha turned back to the girl, who seemed to be considering exactly what next to say.

Troi looked at Bannerton. "Take Barakzai and Whisper. Check out those bays there," he indicated two large cargo doors. "They probably have exits to the outside; don't breach them if they're sealed for now. Take Laughing Boy there with you," he indicated Toji, "and see if his ride is anywhere in those bays."

A lone figure walks through the hallways and corridors of the massive craft... It walks with a shamble, it's gaunt is weary and pained, as if this huge thing is trying to carry itself forward with all of its strength. It drags a large, 2-handed pipe wrench behind itself, it screeches and grinds against the ground as it moves along it's path. The body of this hulk is covered in layers of metal, leather, rubber, and plastic, it's whole suit is a dirty brown color and looks as if it was pulled straight out of the desert, and a fresh splatter of blood completes the ensemble. Instead of a face, this thing wears a metal mask, held on by straps of leather or rubber, a breathing-filter covering where it's mouth should be and where it's eyes should be are two large glass disks that shine a bright-green color, almost giving it's gaze a spotlight-like effect...

It stops before a door, taking a moment to take a breath in exhaustion, pulls back his improvised club, and brings it down on the door's control panel. The wrench caves in the metal device, it gives off a small shower of sparks before the door before the hulk slides open, revealing before itself a room filled with people! The door on the far side of the room that some of the other people were moving through looked as if it was blasted open with some sort of powder charge, which had coated one of the room's occupants. The figure's head turns to scan the room, it's lighted-lenses give you a general idea where it is looking. It then gives another visible sigh, it's whole body breathes with exhaustion, and the thing moans in a mixture of pain and disappointment, and then steadies itself, picking up its club with two hands and holding it in a defensive posture. You can hear its breathing, it is irregular and pained, but the way that the thing is standing you can tell it is no where near ready to die yet and can still defend itself.
((I was hoping this is my way of getting into the rp!))

Ryan blinked against the woman that had entered. She was handing her a piece of cloth and talking. Like, talking a lot. She wasn't even sure if it was bandit-speak at all, it sounded far too fancy. Despite that, it wasn't all too hard to follow and she was relieved to learn that they were in fact not part of Khem's crew. She reached out her hand hesitantly and took the kerchief, which she promptly tied around her mouth and nose. As soon as she did, there was another voice, a male one this time. Her eyes caught the silhouette of an imposing (to her at least) looking man.

"Now, then. Do me a favor and keep your hands where I can see them." Her hands quickly shot up as if she was being arrested. She was about to answer his question when a third voice burst into hysterical laughter. The boy, for it was in fact a younger boy who had looked into her cell next, then proceeded to introduce himself and shoot out an array of questions, all of this very loudly. Ryan could do nothing but stare at him like a startled deer in the headlights of a truck until the man who was apparently in charge found him a different task to remove him from the scene. It was then that she was finally given the chance to actually speak.

"I...M-my name's Ryan. Ryan Harper. They...I...I was trying to...They killed Chief, I tried to...And they took me down." Her face had gotten red and she knew that she was talking too fast to catch up to her own sentences, so she shut her mouth and took a deep breath through the cloth. Her eyes shot nervously between the two and she made another attempt. "I...please don't leave me here, I've nowhere to come home to...M-my...My Sentinel, v'you seen 'er?"

There was another bang from across the hall. She peered through the entrance of her cell to see a door sliding open and two large green circles atop a hulking figure dragging something large that looked a bit like a wrench. Ryan whimpered and instinctively crawled back, hands frantically grabbing around for a weapon, anything she could use as possible defence.

Sticking his tongue out at Trio, the young bandit got ready to fire back with a scathing crack at how the wild array of color made him look like someone slimed by a sand slug, but then a big hulk dragging a huge wrench came into the picture. Toji, gulping, pulled out his sword, trying to activate his cannon. His arm gave off sparks, and whined."Oh, of course, only repair my arm halfway. It's not like I would need it to fight off a big, wrench dragging hulk that makes Setquatchi look like a teddy bear!,"He muttered angrily and sarcastically.

(Sequatchi: Bandit verson of Sasquatch)

The figure stands it's ground, and while it flinches slightly backwards when the "young bandit" throws up his arm which begins to spark, it won't give them an inch. What it does do however is drop even lower, trying to angle it's armor-plated shoulder to take any sort of blast or bullet they might throw at it. It's club is no-longer being held defensively, but offensively, it sways lightly in it's hands as it holds the wrench, ready to strike at anything that comes closer. It's head begins to dart between the figures in the room, each time it stops on a human being you can swear that the hulk curses under it's breath, but when it's eyes fall on the woman who is cowering in her cell, it seems to drop it's posture for a moment in confusion. It then stands to it's full height, nearly scraping it's head on the ceiling and begins moving forward in an intimidating fashion.

A voice comes from the being's mouthpiece, it sounds muffled thanks to the mask the being wears, but you can make out a man speaking."Go ahead... Try an' kill me... I am more than a match for a bunch of low-life bandits." He wheezes in the middle of his sentence. "I already killed two of ye bastards with me bare hands, an' one more with this thing." He motions to his weapon, which he then slams as hard as he can into a panel beside himself, an explosion of sparks and a burst of steam escape from the damaged portion of the wall, indicating he damaged something vital underneath it. "I'm not lettin' ye bully me inta submission, we are leavin' this place, me an' that girl." He points with his club to the girl in the cage, and then slams his club again into into a vacant jail-cell, the metal bars break and bend from the force of the blow. His words carry a light Celtic accent that would almost make him sound pleasant, if not for the death-threat he just issued. "So, stand away from the lass, leave this room, an' don't do anythin' stupid. Or, ye can act like morons, an' then I will break ye all in 'alf! "

"Charmed." Chauncey shuffled his shoulders some, as if he were letting her complements drape over him as a mantle. Luxuriating in the sentiment, his scruffy sideburns were slanted outward from each other for all the stretching his grin inflicted on them. He couldn't help but feel a bit puffed, as alien and proper the imp was in this sandy world. "Ariadne's been talksome, hm? Good. Gotta get her some better influences. She was hanging with a bad crowd when Breaker turned the lights on." The Handler's teeth gritted triumphantly, his neck shivering to even recall the demon battle of the previous weeks. It was a good start to this chummy situation with NOMAD, but sadly one that hadn't had the kindness to top itself.

Chauncey didn't need to look at the screen to know that Circe was delighted to get the attentions of another imp. Parts of his little companion's psyche sparked into full awareness only when she had the comfort of input from another consciousness like herself. Quite literally. He muddled some quick calculations, and decided the apparent emotive bit interchange wasn't anything to worry about. Circe could play and her temperament shouldn't mutate meaningfully. He popped a few of the inhibitors hardwired onto his datapad, opening Circe's channels up to send the ephemeral slew of data jargon that comprised the speech of one AI to another.

----------

Circe handled the information delicately, precious as it was for its scarcity. A simulacrum of a flower of glassy velvet manifested into her hands, and she pressed its delicate petals against her nose and rosy cheeks. Her droopy eyes conveyed the smile hiding behind its shimmering petals, and then the flower slipped from her hands, dissipating into a small field of such flowers now at her feet. This was the visual for the intricate and personal process that was such communications between digital minds, but its enactment was integral to the process. Circe could no less deconstruct the emotive data than have it visibly affect her. Pippi was the good sort, she knew, and would never send poisonous information, or construe the context parameters viciously. C

Circe chattered at Pippi, though no sound was produced. Chauncey's fairy girl lacked the complex coding that allowed for vocal communication, and thus relied solely on her Semblance to convey meaning. With Pippi, however, Circe was free to use the array of data queries and contextual implications that made up the AI Root Speech. She asked about Pippi's travels, if she had seen any leaves of late, and complimented her on her graceful countenance. Circe blushed sweetly at the last, making no attempt to hide her admiration of Pippi's position as a social AI. Circe was certainly more efficient, born as she was to interface with data analysis tasks, but she idealized the splendor of being able to command attention with elegant words.

----------

Chauncey let his companion have her fun, though he wagered he'd have a look over the buffer later. Kayce, meanwhile, had not gutted him yet, so it seemed safe enough to talk shop until such time as heated words broke out. "Natch." He nodded at the offer to jump stack on the skimmer queue. "Breaker's always full stack, veri. I'm vectored for the Walker. Warch's mech reports null, so top stack is to hook Kaidos from tank. Believe!" Chauncey felt the shivers coming on again, wondering what could have possibly managed to threaten the Warchief's prized flying mech and its formidable battle AI co-pilot.

Chauncey entered in his request with the port crew, sliding his priorities with the Techies so her skimmer could accommodate his trip. They weren't happy about the change of plans, but there was plenty of need to send in auxiliary teams to the destroyed Walker, salvage, supplies, prisoner transport, and so on. As such, the skimmer had been fitted with a row of chains, which hopefully wouldn't be needful, but still made for an uncomfortable presence in the cabin. Chauncey disembarked with an extra task thrown on top of his stack, for the trouble of reassigning the skimmer, of making contact with one of the forward teams and escorting the hands they found into the loving arms of the Dune Skulls, where they'd either pound the brig floor or start negotiating how to earn their keep.

Chauncey wandered the twisted labyrinth of exposed infrastructure and plating, harkening his disdain out into the airwaves at regular intervals to make contact with the Retrievers. "Dune Skull Techie Six, calling static. Vector-p init, Retriever Three. Believe!" After about the third repetition on this theme, Chauncey became distantly aware of the clamor of violence up ahead The air tasted bitter and carried a tinge of dust. Someone was shouting, which was at least rude on the best of days. The moved down the hallway, toward the sounds of a man yelling about someone in a cage.

"STAND DOWN!" Troi bellowed.

Barakzai and Bannerton, about to leave with Toji to look for his transportation, had re-trained their weapons on the hulking man that had casually strolled in through the wreckage of what had been an interior bulkhead. The teeth-clenching whine of Barakzai's tasercharge strapped alongside his carbine reached an ear-cracking crescendo; Bannerton's weapon was aimed lower; at the floor beneath the figure's feet to be precise; ready to soak the flooring in a fast-setting adhesive. Kacha, a conservative, had her carbine leveled at the man-brute's chest, but the nozzle wove about uncertainly as she adjusted and re-adjusted her aim, seeking for vulnerable-seeming bits of anatomy in the man-mountain's frame.

Troi himself, after his command-voice exhortation, had his weapon at half-ready; aimed at nothing, but palming the bullpup grip and finger running along the sleek side, off of the trigger. Fire discipline, always.

"Stand down, friend. Nobody here wants to hurt you. Don't know where they were holding you, don't know where you're from, but we're not the troops that picked you up. We're the ones that took Longknife down."

As he spoke carefully, slowly, calmly, he abstractly noted that Whisper had activated her Slipsuit and had moved to place herself between Ryan and the newcomer. The Slipsuit blurred wildly; it was hardly a War-Age tech -- no invisibility cloak indeed -- but the rapidly flashing imagery acted as an electronic gilly suit; blurring outlines and making her intentions difficult to discern. It's duration was terrible and its drawbacks many, but at the moment it was their only trick.

"You leave this room, where will you go? How long can you last in the storm? Even with a vehicle, the 'Clave is looted. We're here to help. Don't have to believe me long; but we got a NOMAD crew you can talk to. I can bring them up on Comms if you don't believe me. We got a medic. We got supplies. We're not the Reavers. We're with the Dune Skulls, but we're not slavers. We'll bring you to where you want to go and go our ways in peace, or you can bring what you got with us. But we're protecting her," Troi nodded slightly to his left, to indicate Ryan, "until we know what your intentions are."

"And kid; I don't recommend sword vs. tempered-steel Techwrench. Bound to leave a nick, even in that blade."

Kayce nodded. She keyed Pippi's interrupt. "Sourcedata truestate terminal two-nine-four-four-Tango-Hotel-Xray; Trueport tree-tree-six Kayce. Sourcedata key matrix Kaidos; Tactical. Keynote: Zip; follows, 'Fuzz, beam this protostat; true believe.' Endfollows. Poke seven two nine five. Keynote: Ariadne; follows; "Chauncey request tank Cellhold-animate; route Engy.' endfollows."

It would have been faster to key the data in, but she didn't want to lose sight of Chauncey, and in an obscure way she was showing off, trying to flash-press that she could saycode like as to him. That, and she had remote-access holds to some of the systems on the bridge. A small voice in the back of her head, sounding a little like Popper, was yammering about Pride and Trust and whatnot, but the noise was lost in the static when his white-lens goggles flashed as she coded.

The Technomancer was filing their skimroute; lest they become lost in the dunes. The two boarded the skimmer and made for the ruined Walker, a god fallen among the dunes whose upper frame still oozed molten steel from the violence of his passing. Kayce hardly noticed when Chauncey took the controls; the fatigue of the battle was beginning to wear on her and she dozed lightly until Pippi's alarm gently buzzed along her spine.

She brought the datapad up. There were two keynote states. The first from Zip; "Navvie query trueloc Kayce; frosted over trueloc query for nonce. Checksum > Zip." Vance had discovered Kayce hadn't turned in as he'd ordered, and Zip was letting her know he was covering for her. She owed him. Attached to the keynote was the position data from Zip's tactical feed as to Kaidos' last broadcast location.

The second keynote was from Ariadne. "Cellhold has been prepped; awaiting arrival. Animate simulacra being generated. Engineer notified; no response. Standing by for transfer."

Chauncey had brought the skimmer into the impromptu motor pool of vehicles surrounding the walker. He noted she had awakened, and nodded abstractly to her.

The two entered the shattered walker; Kayce noted the many stunned, fearful looking 'Clavers liberated from some of the holds. Many of these wore administration-issue garments; scientists, technicians, administrators -- all the poobahs of the Claverhold. These would look down on the rag-a-tag sandskulkers were they in the halls of the Claves; now they were lost, frightened... Yet she could not pity them.

Chauncey walked past these wretches as uninteresting chattels. They might know something he didn't, but he seemed to think that they didn't. He was chatting on a private radio line, and seemed to be walking towards something.

"STAND DOWN" bellowed down the hallway, and Kayce, startled, began running after Chauncey, who was moving purposefully toward the confrontation.

She hadn't even thought to unholster her booster.

The figure finally stops when Troi mentions the enclave and how it was looted. He hadn't stopped before hand when he was ordered to stand down, nor did he stop when the trio of "bandits" all began to point their weapons at him. He was leaning into a charge when he was called friend though, and that did halt him for a moment. "Wait, ye killed Longknife? It's over?!" His posture drops and he lets himself relax for a moment... Until the girl standing amongst them turned invisible, which provokes him into a hostile stance once more. "No, ye are all just playin' with me! Just waitin' for me to leave an openin' for the ghost to carve me a new pain! No, ye get back now or I'll swear ye won't le-" He began moving forward when he started to talk and was practically charging forward again to take a smack at them, but the mention of the enclave came up, and that stops him in his tracks... This shakes him in his own boots, he quickly becomes passive. "But... The... They..." He stammers in his own words, dropping his weapon with a thud, and then letting himself fall to his knees.

The once strong, hulking, brute-of-a-man now lies propped-up against a wall, sitting on legs, finally letting the weakness of pain and sorrow get to him, unable to cope with them now that he is trapped in a state of disbelief. "But... They looted everything... I thought it was just a small skirmish... But..." The thoughts of friends and family dying make him docile, almost reducing him to a weeping pile of man on the ground. After a few minutes, he regains enough of what is left of his composure to actually begin speaking to someone besides himself. "Ye said you're here to help? I need a doctor, I killed the guard outside of my cage with my hands... An' then another one shoot me a few times..."He crawls to prop his back up against the wall, holding his knees close to his chest. "I don't think I can come with ye... Not unless ye got somethin' for the pain, the only thing keepin' me going was the thought of going back home..."

"Easy there," Troi muttered, as the man-mountain moved towards the girl again, "Easy. My name is Athanasius Troi, and I'm the commander of the Third Dune Skull Retrievers. Longknife's power is broken for the moment, but he turned tail and fled the field ere our Warchief could bring an end to him. But he did hit the Starbreak Jambles Enclave hard, and cracked its spine. We need to get there to see if the Lee Walls can be repaired or if the Sand will take the hold for its own."

"Is that where you were taken, at Starbreak? Or have you been here longer?" Troi's voice evenly, with slow measure, flowed from him as he tried to defuse this situation; inside, his mind raced trying to calculate angles, determine whether this whole situation would turn bad, whether he would lose these three refugees before they had even been fully reclaimed from Longknife's clutches.

"Whisper, phase in, stay tight." The blurry figure that was crouched in front of Harper lurched into shape; her canister rifle-bore gaping like a beast's mouth as she trained it on the huge ex-prisoner.

The news of the Enclave's taking, however, seemed to drain the fight from the huge man. "But... The... They..." he muttered, and then slammed into the bulkhead, his knees buckling as he slid crouching to the floor.

Kacha waved the guns down from the two Choosers, and then hazarded a look at them. "I thought you were going to take Toji to go look for his vehicle." she said, incongruously. "I believe it was phrased as an order. Are you in the habit of ignoring orders? Or do you feel that your superior judgement will be vindicated by the Commander's not immediately relieving you of duty at this precise phazkat second?"

Bannerton snapped his head to his sergeant, his eyes wide, questioning whether she was actually serious.

Troi's attention was still fixed on the huge man, disconsolate and probably suffering the aftereffects of battle and captivity. "Ye said you're here to help? I need a doctor, I killed the guard outside of my cage with my hands... An' then another one shoot me a few times... I don't think I can come with ye... Not unless ye got somethin' for the pain, the only thing keepin' me going was the thought of going back home..."

Whisper's eyes softened. Troi waved her forward while he spoke. "We'll get Doctor Germaine here as quickly as possible. For the moment, if it's okay, I'll have my squad corpsman give you something for the pain and our technical expert give you a look-over. What can we call you? Where are you from?"

And to Kacha: "Let's not forget about Ryan too, here."

Toji grunted softly."I reckon I'm fast enough to carve him a few new scars without nicking my blade.BUt, I guess he's a freindly." At Kacha's reminder, the young bandit blinks."Ey, you're right at that! Lycanos is probally going crazy, stuck like that!" Sheathing his blade, he grins."LEt's set off before he goes loco-taco, cha?!"

(Tilting Clock, would it be alright to mod my mecha?I was thinking of adding a Fusion Engager:allows the mind of cyborg and machine to fuse together,increasing reaction time and speed.)

Troi's booming voice had seemingly released a tidal wave of frantic sounds, to which Ryan could react in no other way than to curl up on the floor, palms pressed against her ears. She spent the next few minutes of conversation in this position, trembling, isolated from the rest of the world and vaguely aware of the sounds slowly subsiding. She could hear everything, but it sounded as if it was happening behind a thick wall of cotton, therefore not concerning her. She did not notice the woman in the Slipsuit who had placed herself in front of her, nor did she care much for the conversation between Troi and the hulk. But she felt the thud of something large and heavy hitting floor and that was the precise moment when reality returned to her.

Ryan lifted up her head slowly, cautiously. The man was on the floor now. All of a sudden her stomach seemed to tie itself up in a knot. He was not frightening, not anymore. Just broken. And very, very sad. She forced herself to look away and quietly started collecting the chalk back into the boxes. It gave her hands something to do. Something methodical and not overwhelming and familiar. At one point she stopped as if contemplating something, then looked over to the speaker. The music was still playing. What a bizarre background soundtrack for the scene. She let out a huff that might have been a giggle or a whimper or a sigh, then reached over and stopped it. The silence filled the space around the small group, echoing off the walls louder than the music had. Ryan finished collecting her chalk, then turned to the woman who had given her the piece of cloth to tie around her face.

She tapped her elbow hesitantly, frightened eyes drawn to the carbine like a magnet. "Uh...S-..sorry...You said one of 'em has a vehicle, yeah? Dunno how long he's been in the gitter but maybe my mech's still in too? Could I tag with...? Swear on my bum I won't try anythin' dumb, please, I need to find 'er." Her voice was shaky, as if on the verge of tears and the chalk dust lodged in her throat only made it worse. "Please."

"Orion... Ye can call me Orion... Ugh..." He tries to lift himself up again, but half-way up from the ground his body collapses again, landing with a dull thud. He then tries to roll over onto his stomach, and push himself up from the ground in a rough version of a push-up, and with an arm on the wall for support he manages to stand up again. While this giant is trying to stand up again, the wheezing from the mask is growing louder, either the mask is messing with his breath or he received an injury towards his lungs, but the generally-dirty and blood-splattered appearance of his suit stops you from searching his person for bullet wounds of any sorts. "I was from Starbreak... They broke it's spine? I didn't think that was... Possible." He takes a long breath before finishing his sentence, winded from his physical condition and disbelief. "Never mind about the doctor, I can still get up by myself..." He turns to the wall he was leaning up against for support and slams his fist into it, he then screams out in pain, moving his remaining good-hand to hold the one he just used as a weapon. He begins to spit out a long, incoherent stream of words that you can assume are curses, and then shakes his head. "Ok... I can move again... Lets go before the pain dies out."

Troi knew fighting-men.

Troi had trained all types of men across the spectrum of warfare -- security irregulars who would act as militia members to Enclaves under siege; frontier forces who went out among the dunes near the Enclaves as scouts, pathfinders, pilots, and spies; regular infantry forces who fought in the rare but not-unknown Enclave vs. Enclave struggles over resources, researches, or trading rights; DuneSkull warparties that raided, infiltrated, and bushwhacked their enemies; and his present Retrievers, who acted as pioneers, engineers, salvage experts, and first-contact negotiators. In a dying, decadent world slipping from civilization into barbarism or even further into savagery, Troi was a professional soldier who took his craft seriously and consciously studied the precise and direct application of violence.

He had never seen a man like Orion.

It wasn't his size; Troi had known big men before, even larger than Orion. But Orion's movements, even in his damaged state, belied some ingrained, almost instinctual combat-sense. His positioning within the room, the way he faced potential threats, the casual, almost effortless control of his own incredible strength, and his self-expressed capability of taking down multiple raiders armed only with a giant spanner all spoke to his familiarity with the Art of War -- perhaps not as an officer, but definitely as a warrior.

Troi knew the man could still potentially be a threat -- placed here by Longknife or one of his cronies as a threat to Mayh, or any of the Dune Skull warleaders. But instinctively, Troi liked the man; even in his belligerent state something spoke to the old veteran about this strange, almost miraculously innocent warrior.

Kacha was watching him longsides, trying to read her commander's intent regarding this man. The sergeant had accepted Toji easily enough, and seemed protective of Ryan; she wasn't sure of Orion yet, and was deferring the decision to Troi.

The man clamored to his feet, seeming to exhaust whatever Internal energy that had kept him going against Longknife's Reavers. With a suddenness that stunned even Troi, the man suddenly heaved and sent one of his long arms smashing into the bulkhead, which buckled under his tremendous strength. Troi imagined he could hear the bones of the man's hand breaking in the impact, and Orion howled with the agony of it. But Orion withdrew his hand -- injured but certainly not broken -- and turned his melancholy eyes to Troi. "Ok... I can move again... Lets go before the pain dies out."

"Very well, then. Let's go look for these people's property."

Toji walks up to the big guy, patting him on the shoulder."You're tough, cha....I guess I'm glad I didnt' have to fight you after all..." Hearing sounds, he activates his limbs' enhancements, blurring out into the hall. THere was a quick scuffle, then he came back in, dragging two of the Longknifes scouts, bloodied and cut in their limbs, disabling them."Heh..morons forgot how fast I can be..." One of them stirred, muttering,"Traitor....."

Troi nodded at Orion. The boy Toji (Troi shook his head mentally -- Toji despite his years was a warrior who had probably lost his limbs in battle and probably didn't deserve the epithet "boy") was talking to Orion flippantly. Troi would spare Orion Toji's company if he could; the lad seemed completely impervious to the seriousness of the world.

There was a scrape in the hall; something clicked. Troi caught it only subliminally, and had barely begun to swing back to the doorway...

There was a blur across his vision as Toji exploded into action; the lad leapt mid-stride from his place next to Orion and burst across the room, hauling the vibroblade in his wake keening like a soul bound to Sisyphus' Sphere.

The Retrievers, caught unawares perhaps by too many false alarms, too many events, were momentarily flat-footed; Kacha alone had her weapon trained on the door, and had raised it to her eye to deal death to any threat.

Toji's blade whirled, flashed, screamed like a soul in torment.

One of the Reavers was struck across the face with the flat of the blade, blood bursting from his nose and ears as the vibroblade burst the small capillaries in the sinuses and one or both eardrums ruptured. The young warrior's hand streamed as a counterweight as he whirled in-place, dancer-like, bludgeoned a second in the solar plexus, lifting Longknife's killer off the ground bent across the young man's arm.

This second slumped, chest heaving as he attempted to draw air into his lungs from the paralyzed abdomen. He spat breathlessly, "Traitor!", his eyes venomously fixed on Toji, who stood, one arm akimbo, inspecting the fallen Reavers.

Troi's eyes grew dark, and he glared at the young man. "Friends of yours?" he inquired blandly.

Toji grinned grimly."No...more like hateful peers." He bends down to the scout, getting serious." I only betrayed the bandits because you all betrayed my dad, the ONE honorable warrior among you. He needed help in the fight, and no-one went to help him." His metal hand grips the bandit around the neck, lifting him up."And if you think there'll be any forgivness for that, you're DEAD wrong...."