A little too close a call [OPEN]

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy walked down the corridors with her general wide stride, her dogtags jingling and her rifle bouncing against her back. She'd slung it on the other side from her healing rib - which was also why she wasn't moving really fast. Of course, she was on her way to visit the ship that had kept her alive. She had to see what all those near-misses had done. At least scratched the paint, maybe more. She thought a shot had skimmed her astromech, and then there had been the blast that had crippled the Dart.

The hanger, unsuprisingly, was fairly busy. She figured she'd run into at least a couple of the squadron's mechanics, and probably even more of the squadron. It would be good to see the guys - and she especially wanted to talk to the General.

As she crossed over to her X-wing, she passed her Samson and paused. It was still in the same state it had been before she started training with Rogue Squadron. It took up a big chunk of her time, and getting caught up in the media library on her ship's specs took up the rest of it. "Sorry bebe," she said under her breath. "Guess I've left you after all."

She walked over to the X-wing, trailing her hand along its underside. It definitely showed that it had been in a firefight. There were a couple of blaster marks hellishly close to her engines, that made her start grinning like a fool. "Guess it could have been a whole hell of a lot worse," she said, tapping the cross around her neck. "Good on you, big man."

Comments

[colorfulworld]

Aftran was continuing in her ongoing quest to get more acquainted with the ship. The hangar was one of the few areas she hadn't yet been to; which made sense, given the appearance she had. But sooner or later she figured she should check it out.

She walked around, staying out of everyone's way as she looked at each of the ships in the hangar. She stopped at the X-wing that Trudy was looking at, and tilted her head at it curiously.

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy felt eyes and turned around - that was the kid, from the podpop. And probably one of the kids she scruffed and threw into the first shuttle off the planet - she'd grabbed a lot of them milling around, couldn't really tell which one was which. "Hey there, kiddo. How you holding up?"

A fight like that could be scary, she knew. Especially for someone who couldn't fight and probably hadn't known what was going on.

[colorfulworld]

Aftran had acted terrified at the time, so right now she just looked up at Trudy, nervously but with a tinge of appreciation. "I'm okay. Thank you very much, Miss Trudy." And she flashed an adorable, grateful smile at the woman.

[fieldpromoted]

"It's just Trudy, kid," she said, twitching a little at the title. 'Miss' was something she hadn't been called since she was seventeen or some shit like that. "Glad you made it back to the ship okay. It was pretty rough there for a little while, huh?"

[colorfulworld]

"Oh, sorry." She smiled sheepishly. "Yeah, it was really scary. But, everyone made it back okay, right?"

[fieldpromoted]

"I haven't heard about a casualty one," Trudy said cheerfully. "Beats the hell out of my why they just up and left, and it really beats the hell out of me how we didn't lose anyone but hey, I'll take what I can get."

Then she paused and blinked over at the kid. "You didn't hear that," she said. Dammit, she was not used to having to watch her language.

[colorfulworld]

Aftran stared for a moment; it was only at the prompting from Karen in her mind that she realized what Trudy was apologizing for. She'd been up here so long she'd almost forgotten about the silly human taboo of swearing in front of children.

She ducked her head nervously. "It's okay. I won't tell anyone!" But then she nodded. "I'm just glad they left in the end..."

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

Medbay was getting boring, what with all the less serious cases leaving before the end of the first day was out, and a man only has so many gadgets in his backpack to poke at until he goes a little stir-crazy. And thus Dustin had casually joined some of those exiting, commandeering a crutch and waiting for his morphine drip to finish out—the ASIS would diffuse the dose before it became mentally crippling, though that hampered its effectiveness somewhat—and immediately took the tubes for the Hangar.

He wasn’t sure if going at such a busy time of day was a good thing, but then again, Dustin’s entrance wasn’t as quiet as he wanted it to be, what with him staggering sharply to his left and kind of half-wheezing, so even if he waited then he would’ve attracted some attention. And regardless, Dustin wasn’t planning on staying very long. His main concerns lay with the Dart’s wellbeing, and though he was in no condition to start any serious repairs, the least he could do was make sure that the other mechanics weren’t cannibalizing her parts.

There was also someone he wanted to see. What was her name again? Had she even mentioned? Dustin stopped short of his destination and glanced back at the familiar face, tilting his head, pondering.

“…Hey!”

More graceful attention-grabbers were available, but he found that one to be the most effective.

[fieldpromoted]

The hail made her turn around - straightening suddenly put some unnecessary pressure on her ribs and she hissed a little. Then she got a good look at Dustin and hissed some more. "Should you even be up?" she said, raising an eyebrow at him. "I had to fight the medbay tooth and nail before they let me out and I only cracked a rib. You look like hell warmed over."

If the crutch hadn't clued her in, the pinched look on his face would have. Or the rattle in his breathing. None of it sounded good to her.

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

Dustin raised his brow, an action that took some effort and sent stagnating blobs of sweat dribbling through his unchecked stubble. “Yeah, well, I always look like this,” he half joked, half sneered, shifting into a more comfortable lean on the crutch that was slightly too tall, “I’m sure they couldn’t tell the difference.”

A pause. Dustin mentally backpedaled.

“—I mean I’m fine anyways. Definitely had worse.” Which was true, by the way. We won’t go into detail just now. “Besides, I have things to do. Can’t waste my time counting spaceship capillaries on the ceiling!”

Speaking of which—Dustin craned his neck, suddenly distracted, and he began a slow hobble into the rows of parked vessels.

[fieldpromoted]

...Well then. Trudy was just going to surreptitiously follow him in case his dumb ass fell over. "So what's the laundry list? You were pretty messed up when I took you to the medbay - those people are really pushy, by the way, they dosed me so I wouldn't go back out."

Well, more accurately, Luis dosed her and she suspected ulterior motives on his part.

There were a lot of banged-up ships in the hangar. Trudy spotted the Destiny as they walked, and it looked more worse for wear than a lot of them, but when she did a mental tally of the X-wings it looked like they hadn't lost any ships.

They had gotten lucky.

[quark-assassin.livejournal.com]

Dustin glanced back at her to give a curious blink, quickly turning back because he found that his center of balance wasn’t exactly calibrated and required that his head stay in one place. There was a brief stumble and several mumbled oaths, but his pace resumed and continued ever onwards.

“I think it’s a job requirement for the medical field—being pushy.” He should know. “—Whatever, you asked, it’s a long list. First things first, I’m checking on my ship.”

That was a lie; the first item after awaking was contacting Yoshimi and making sure she was still in one piece (more or less), but she’d come to him instead and, thus, he was no longer so worried. So worried.

There was a long pause, as if Dustin was going to continue with his previous recitation. Instead he again abruptly switched gears. Painkillers made him rather absentminded, could Trudy tell?

“…So you’re the one that took me to medical?”

[fieldpromoted]

That was a rambling train of thought if she ever heard one. He had to be doped on something - she only hoped she hadn't said something really stupid when Luis doped her up. "Yeah, I don't think we've met properly. I'm Trudy Chacon, Rogue Fourteen." He should recognize that callsign. It's the one who was flying on his wing when he got sucked out into space. She didn't offer her hand because she didn't want him overbalancing and falling. "You got blood all over my plantsuit," she added with a lighthearted smirk.

[jesushasagundam]

Kira, meanwhile, was in the hangar inspecting his own ship as well. The Strike Freedom seemed to have made it through the battle mostly unscathed thanks to its Phase Shift armor and the beam shield that he'd relied on, but scorch marks were evident on its upper body and legs.

Still, he'd been lucky and he knew it.

There were footsteps behind him - he paused, turning to look at who it was. "...Trudy, right?"

[fieldpromoted]

There are way too many kids in this squadron, Trudy thought to herself as she turned around. Because the kid was a pilot, no doubt about it. Pilot of the Freedom, it looked like, from the way he was examining that suit.

"That's me. You're the Freedom's pilot?"

[jesushasagundam]

He nodded. "I am," she was an X-Wing pilot, clearly, and while he couldn't recognize the individual fighter he remembered her voice from the battle. "My name is Kira Yamato," he glanced up at the mobile suit, "And that's the Strike Freedom."

"I'm glad that you don't seem to be hurt."

[fieldpromoted]

"Just a cracked rib and some bruising where the harness got me pretty good." 'Some bruising' was a little bit of an understatement, but the plantsuit covered that up. "I'll be wearing my flight suit when we scramble from now on. Was kind of a dumb decision to go up without it but when you're in the moment..." she shrugged. She'd piloted her Samson without a suit a ton of times. She just hadn't been prepared for the kind of G-forces she had been pulling in that X-wing.

"How about you?"

[jesushasagundam]

"I kept it in the cockpit just in case," Kira acknowledged. "It's hard when you don't have a lot of time, but... it might end up being necessary."

"Nothing too bad - a few bruises from getting knocked around. I guess I got lucky."

[fieldpromoted]

"We both did. A lot of the rest of us are still laid up in traction." Like she should be. But whatever, details. "Shinn's about to start throwing things at the walls if they don't let him out of there soon. I've got him occupied looking over the vids from the battle. Maybe we can put together a training sim out of this thing." She hitched her rifle up a little higher on her shoulder.

[mercjedi.livejournal.com]

Kyle came into the hanger looking for his own X-Wing. Noticing Trudy he gave her a nod before he briskly walked over to his own fighter. Doing a walk around he noted down any damage that there was into his omnicom for the mechanics. He'd of course be doing some of the work himself, but it helped to have a record of battle damage. Prevented a lot of future problems by making sure everyone knew what had been replaced, and when. Thankfully his X-Wing had come out in fair shape. A few shallow scars on the hull from enemy fire, but nothing critical.

Finished he walked back over to Trudy to say hello. "Chacon, how are you holding up?"

[fieldpromoted]

"I'm fine," she said, leaning against her X-wing. "Just a cracked rib, and that harness is brutal without a flight suit. Check it-" she pulled her plantsuit to the side to show the gorgeous greenish-purple bruise on her collarbone. "You look like you pulled through okay."

Nevermind that if most people had those kinds of bruises, or their muscles screaming at them like Trudy's were, let along a cracked rib, they would still be in the medbay.

[mercjedi.livejournal.com]

He frowned a little at the injuries, but if she was up and about he wasn't going to fuss over her. Besides they needed as many hands right now as they could get. That, and she was a pilot so she'd just ignore him anyway. "I'm managing alright. I'll talk to Wedge about getting everyone flightsuits. We should have enough material from the shopping to cover everyone."

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy's face went blank, like it always did when she was trying to hide something from someone, and then she kind of gave in with a half-shrug. It wasn't like Kyle was her superior officer or something, even if he did know the General from before Stacy. "They came with the X-wings," she said. "In the cockpits of the ships - I was just in too damn big of a hurry to shuck it on before I went up. Seconds count, you know." She gave him a lopsided grin. "I know better for next time."

[mercjedi.livejournal.com]

Kyle was just concerned for his fellow soldiers. He'd always been that way. One of the reasons he'd worked alone for so long. Easier than dealing with all the worry. Thankfully he'd learned otherwise since then. "I'm just glad everyone made it back in one piece. It looked pretty bad there for a bit."

[fieldpromoted]

Trudy was quiet again for a second before she nodded. "Thought we were going to lose Shinn for a little while there," she said. "And Silver got himself sucked out into space, thank God he was wearing a suit."

Those had been harrowing moments, where the adrenaline went down her spine in jolts. "Nobody dead, though. Have to say I'm surprised."