Last Stand

(Expecting)

Vala probably spent too much time trying to get the bearings of the place and chatting it up with the locals. Or she was letting everyone else get their chance of getting patched up first in the triage. She was breathing and stable, albeit grouchy and not too pleased with the circumstance, so understandably low priority. While she'd like to think that she could slap on a quick stim and be on her way, that duel did a number on her that would keep her aching for the rest of the week if it wasn't addressed. That wasn't even addressing what she faintly witnessed too before she passed out.

Well, that was for another time, she could beat herself up after she got patched up.

Despite the total chaos of the day, the impromptu medical tent showed an intense amount of organization. Fortune had been kind enough to let most of her containers only sustain cosmetic damage. Her medical equipment was already rolled out, complete with an operating table of sorts. Not comfortable but, well, sometimes duty called.

Zeline opened her pack of cigarettes, regarded them for a moment, then shut it close. Whatever haunted her, well, it wasn't going to control her right now. Her latest patient had walked off just fine so she was just fine.

"Next up?" she asked, looking up to see Vala. "Heh, you've seen better days, haven't you?"

Vala probably spent the last few hours trying to stand upright as possible while gritting her teeth. She'd like to think of herself as not being dramatic in the slightest, even if there was ample testimony otherwise. In this case, she wasn't going to be so selfish that she'd hog medical attention from people with actual life-threatening injuries. All things considered, in this the circumstances that there was a barely set up medical station, it was still fast than getting an appointment on Corellia.

She hobbled in when it was her turn and gave a shrug of her shoulders like it was nothing, letting a low chuckle under her breath. "Hah, well, doc...I'd say it's been an actual long while since that happened. Funny story, it's not every day that I get shot and then try to walk it off. I've given it my best try but my health doesn't seem to regenerate on my own. So good to see that you've survived the crash too."

"Well, give enough time and rest, you might recover without my help. We don't have the luxury for that though do we?" Zeline headed over to her makeshift sink to wash off her hands and the rest of her prepwork. It'd been really difficult to do sanitized work during the busier hours. Now, though, she wanted to be professional about it.

"Is there more to this funny story or is it the same that everyone else has been going through?" she asked. "Take a seat, get comfortable." It was a bit opposite of how these interactions usually went but Zeline wasn't one to be categorized under ordinary.

Vala moved to sit down as directed but getting comfortable seemed like a strange request, considering the circumstances and the setting that they found themselves in. She took a breath in and it almost seemed like she was going to start spilling a whole tirade of how much what she was going through was extraordinary before she took a look at her surroundings. "...You know, what? Maybe it's not as funny as I thought. I get the feeling that everyone today has been through some sort of hell and is barely glad to make it out in the end. Well, if you must know for your diagnosis, I got shot up and then tossed about with the whole ship business."

She untied the blanket that she used to create a makeshift pancho with, which was perhaps the best she could do for a winter coat on short notice. "...That said, I'll say that I look much-much better than I thought, all things considered."

Zeline laid out the tools for the job as she took in the diagnosis. Since everyone seemed to be miraculously fine after the less-than-ideal landing, she focused primarily on the wounds before that part. "Everyone who is alive is alive," she said, grabbing onto her antishock blanket then tossing it over. It didn't seem like it was necessary for treatment right now, though it would help with staying warm for the time being.

"Well, that's the benefit of being born pretty, isn't it?" Zeline shook her head then came over with a salve (made with genuine bacta!) and a bandage to put over it. "Mind pointing out everywhere as I go? This won't make you tiptop again, can't do that without pumping you full of stims... and those, I'm afraid, are of limited supply."

---

D1 LM Healing: Vala, Medpac Boost, Over Half WT

Net Successes: 4; Net Advantages: 1

That'll be 5 Wounds recovered, factoring in a rank of Surgeon.

"Looks can only do so much, I'd say flattery gets you further in life and that's something I'm not so great at," she snickered with a shrug before she allowed Zeline to get to work. If necessary, she would shift her articles of clothing around so that she could bandage her properly. It was perhaps ambitious to think that she could find her things in the wreckage, especially when it might have been vaporized in the landing as far as she was concerned.

"That'll more than do the trick. And I think I'm good on stims. The last thing I want is to become dependent on the stuff in a place like this. Anyway, thank you, doc," she gave a few nods of appreciation and did up her jumpsuit and threw the blanket over her shoulders.


Vala should be healed to 4/14!

Zeline opened her mouth on the flattery bit then closed it. No need in embarrassing herself any further. "We're not quite done," she said. "Your joints are still out of whack from, well, getting shot so many times. Occupational hazard, huh?"

---

D1 LM Healing: Vala's Crit

Net Successes: 5; Net Advantages: 3

"Oh, right..." Vala murmured regarding her more underlying injuries. She probably was feeling a small high from not feeling like she was run down to the ground after she was patched up initially.

She frowned momentarily before letting out a small sigh. "You know...Calling it an occupational hazard makes it sound like I was expecting it. I'm hardly the soldiering sort. Yeah, sure, there's a war at the moment but I don't know if I ever expected to get into a shooting match with a Mandalorian. That said, it seemed like the most civil option at the moment, all things considered. I wish I could say I won in that exchange but I'm in a bit of a hole at the moment."

"You carry a blaster for work, don't you? Must be a reason for that besides just waving it at people." Zeline did one final adjustment before nodding in satisfaction. "Wasn't too bad, actually, though it could have been aggravated by further combat. And, well, we will be seeing a lot of that, occupational hazard or not."

Zeline started cleaning off her scissors when she really thought about it. "You going to find this Mandalorian then? Or is it not that personal?"

Vala looked a tad annoyed when Zeline had a point. "Everyone has a blaster in the galaxy but I'm not expected to get blasted everywhere I go. Well, at home, at least. It's a pretty good way of getting written up and making it obvious that you're bad at your job. Not that matters around here, of course. I guess you're going to have many chances to get real chummy with everyone here."

She narrowed an eye on Zeline for a moment. Or maybe not, I don't know.

Assuming Zeline was finally finished, Vala would get to dressing up again. "...That's the plan, for now until someone stops me otherwise. I have a score to even and maybe I feel partly responsible just because the brat tried to hold on to me for dear life."

"Nothing matters with Mandalorians involved," Zeline said, shaking her head. "As for getting to know everyone... Well, regardless of what people think of me, they need me." She looked up, oriented herself, then pointed the right direction. "Or they can go check out another medic's tent."

Once satisfied with the sanitation of her tools, she came back to Zeline. "A brat, huh? Why don't you start from the top so I'm not trying to piece it all together. Do that enough with people's bodies."

Vala sighed deeply and looked off with a frown. "Okay, he wasn't a brat but I don't usually expect children to come up to me and hug me," she spoke with an obvious discomfort on the matter. She supposed they were all children once but she never thought of herself as being this affectionate with any stranger, even if she was in need of help.

"So, I was watching one of the halls of the ship with some of the refugees when the ship was getting boarded by Mandalorians. This goes up to me and hugs me for protection. His pops was there but supposedly his mother was missing. Here, I was hoping that the tide would turn enough that I wouldn't need to involve myself in the fighting for things to get ugly. It obviously did get ugly and this Mandalorian approaches me for a duel and to keep the refugees outside of the fight. It was a fair enough offer and I took it, I just didn't expect my dumbass to lose and get left for dead," she scowled at that note.

"Right before I blacked out, the Mandalorian was very intent on taking the kid. Markos was his name..." She said looking at her curiously, wondering if that name or story seemed familiar to her, as Zeline likely had seen more people today.

"You're not fond of children? Who would have guessed?" Zeline chuckled to herself then crossed her arms, ready to listen without any more snark.

At the end of it, she shrugged. "So this Markos might have some connection to this Mandalorian? And no leads on the mother either, correct?" She shook her head. "Well, just the sort of mystery for your job, huh? I'll be here to patch you up after you next bout of heroics... Hope luck stays on your side."

Zeline reached into her pocket so she could get a cigarette. "But don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you did the wrong thing."

"You can't trust them," she said with a quick double glance at Zeline, perhaps hoping she didn't think too much into that blurted-out statement. Not that she was going to go into detail but let's just say she wouldn't trust getting hugged by her younger self. There was a quick pat on her leg to make sure everything was missing.

"I don't know if he has one, seems rather far-fetched. Maybe they're just in the business of kidnapping children and recruiting them," she shrugged, press-gang existed on Corellia. "...I haven't gotten looking yet, I'm not exactly in the best of shape. At least, until now, now thanks to you."

She sighed as she pushed some hair from her forehead. "So much for making it off this rock. I guess it was ambitious to run the Mandalorian blockade to meet up with the Republic, so I should consider this an even score when it comes to my luck."

Zeline snorted a bit in regards to distrusting children. Unable to fathom the depths of Vala's history, she simply found the sheer extent of this dislike to be amusing.

"Kidnapping children. Well, that wouldn't surprise me, though to be fair, nothing would when it comes to Mandalorians." Zeline lit up the cigarette, looked at it, then held out the pack to Vala in case she wanted one too. "Congratulations on being absolutely screwed, just like the rest of us."

Vala wasn't much of a smoker, anymore, but given the circumstances of surviving both a blaster duel and a crashing ship, she was pretty sure that one cigarette wasn't going to do her in. If it did, then she supposed it was her destiny or her luck running out. She found herself glancing off by habit to see if there were any signs present, which were commonplace for any city dweller before she took one of the offered not-death-sticks.

"...Thanks, it's a bit of a consolation prize for surviving. I'm not complaining in the slightest, it could always be better. Do you know what the Republic does in the situation of a few ships going down? Do they send more afterward and shovel this away like snow on a smooth driveway?"

"Under ordinary circumstances, yeah, usually things like this get buried under reinforcements." Zeline had been the cavalry, so to speak. She wasn't even sure why some people still rode horses around when there'd been countless years of speeders and the like. "But you know how it is. War is so bad that it'll take weeks for anyone to even care about our little ship."

Zeline flicked open her lighter for Vala's new cigarette, the flame reflecting a morbid amusement in her eyes. "So we just gotta tough it out ourselves."

"Mm," she murmured while she was getting a light for her cigarette. Who even smoked these anymore, it was like getting a double whammy for smoking in public and littering afterwards, not that she was the planetary police of this orbit. She took a drag with a soft cough afterwards, as the amount of smoke inhalation caught her off guard or maybe she already hit her smoke quota today after crawling out of the wreckage.

"I really had no idea, it's the first time I've been involved in something so military. And I thought constable college was tough," she said before clearing up her throat. "I always thought with an army, you would have one wave after the next. Into the grinder and all that to get it done. Something like that would make you pretty jaded, no?"

No judgement came from Zeline regarding the cough. Instead, all she did was take a drag of her own cigarette as a sort of mock demonstration on how to do it right. "I can't say I know what constable college is like. Back at home, they were kind of all dorks with more authority than sense," she said, tapping away a bit of ash. She hadn't even been on the wrong side of the law much. She just didn't care for them.

"It depends on the zone. Usually, we just hold a front until the navy can blast them into the hole. Course, that was usually asymmetrical warfare." Zeline pressed her lips together. "Still is, just this time we're on the losing side."