Keres II, Friday

[suitably_heroic]

Everything smelled like durasteel and cold. His gut hurt. His side wasn't as warm as it was supposed to be, and his back-- his back was freezing.

Jaq opened his eyes with difficulty. It felt like he was staring out through a haze of white and red. Red? ...Space. That wasn't durasteel he was smelling. He inhaled sharply and nearly gagged.

Blood. There was blood up his nose.

A loud noise shook the last of the haze off his eyes. He looked up. Saw what had produced it: Llis, still firing off her blaster at the end of the line, her shoulder pressed up into a snowbank.

Then he saw the bodies that laid between them. Durran. Iris. A couple more soldiers he'd been having cheap wine with just last night. "Poodoo," he whispered. So much blood. It took effort parting his lips. So cold.

"Be quiet," Llis hissed at him. She looked surprised. Right. He probably should've been dead. "Be quiet, there's a Basilisk right around the..."

---

"Master Jedi?"

Atton jerked up in his seat. Space, it was cold. "What? Buh? Oh."

The miner at the door - what was her name again? Ree-something? - crossed her arms. "It's been three standard hours," she said. "You told us to wake you at this hour."

"Right, right, I did," he said, bouncing the back of his head off the back of the chair once before bothering to get up. "Uh-- everyone's had time to dig into the rations? We can go?" Probably shouldn't sound like there were question marks at the end there - he had more experience at this than they had, and if he wanted this to work, they'd have to be able to trust that experience.

"Yes," Ree-something said. "As long as you can guarantee us safe passage."

"Well, I can't do that," he said honestly. "What I can guarantee you is my help as a guard and a guide. In a place like this-- there's no promising anything more than that."

Look, you didn't get people to trust you by lying your ass off. Well, in a circumstance like this, anyway. He was going to have to make sure everyone had realistic ideas about their chances, what with the giant ravines and the nasty-looking creatures roaming around the wilderness.

"Fine," said Ree-something. "That's all we need."

He stretched. Tried to ignore the way the cold dug its claws into the scar tissue on his shoulder. "How did you people get stuck here?"

"The old mine is running dry," she replied. "So we were sent out to explore a new vein of ore. We'd just successfully scouted the site when the storm came, and the beasts with it."

Atton tamped down on the frown that wanted to boil up inside and nodded. "The storm's probably going to wind down in another 24 standard hours," he said, "But looking at your people and the fuel in our heater, I don't think we can wait that long. Drum 'em all up, make sure everyone's armed who can be armed, then let's get the hell out of here."

[[ nfb, nfi, ooc-okay, i sing a jaunty tune of cold. ]]