Vaynai Nights: Dazed and Confused - 8.163

[Tal]

Local time 1.2 hours before sunset

He was at an opera. A guest of honor of the local Moff, Tal was resplendent in his dress uniform. From the booth, he had a perfect view of the stage, where The Brief Reign of Future Wraiths was being performed. Tal was quite familiar with the musical piece being sung and was unconsciously humming along, to the mild annoyance of his neighbor, the heiress of a local manufacturing conglomerate. She reached over and grabbed his arm.

"Excuse me, sir? Sir? Excuse me." She shook him gently.

...
__________________________________________________ ___

"Sir? Are you okay?"

The spotlight must have been turned in his direction. He could feel the uncomfortable warmth on his face. The light was blinding. It made everything pink. The heat made the left side of his face burn. Why were they shining it on him?

"Sir?"
"Mommy, what's wrong with his face? It's all ugly."
"Hush, child."

Bit by bit, the pieces began to fall into place. He wasn't at the opera. He wasn't in a plush bucket seat - he was sitting on a hard, wooden bench. It wasn't a spotlight - it was the sun. He light wasn't pink - his eyelids were. And they were closed. He cracked them open. The world opened before him in various shades of blue with the contrast cranked up and the brightness turned down. In front of him was a small girl wearing a large, floppy hat. To his right was a woman wearing a larger, equally floppy hat. Her hand was on his arm and she wouldn't. stop. shaking. him.

"Unhand me, woman!" Tal hissed as he pulled away from her. The sudden movement sent lances of fire shooting through his right side. Reflexively, he reached across his body and grasped his left arm. He howled and pulled away from himself. Bits of charred skin and gummy blood came away, sticking to the palm of his good hand.

"Get away from me. What did you do to me?!" he snarled. The woman, terrified, grabbed the small girl and darted away. Her floppy hat fell off and lay forgotten at his feet.

Tal was suddenly seized with an inescapable feeling of panic. What had she been doing to him? He closed his eyes, crushing the eyelids down as hard as he could to block out the sun. Tal slumped down to his right side, setting his head down on the armrest. In moments he was asleep again.
__________________________________________________ ___
Local time .8 hour before sunset

Tal slowly opened his eyes. The sun lay low on the horizon. The atmosphere filtered out much of the radiation, leaving a dull red disk above the surface of the water.

What a great way to spend a vacation, relaxing on the shore, watching the day give way to dusk. By the stars though, he was sore; he must have fallen asleep and forgotten to put on sunblock. Foolish thing to do, that. He'd learned at an early age to watch out for sunburn. A breeze sent a floppy hat rolling, brushing against his leg. Ah! There was his hat of course he wouldn't have left without *some* protection. The shirtless man leaned over and grabbed the hat with his right hand. He placed it on his head. The purple floral pattern went well with his bright orange pants.
<sup id="cite_ref-COD_4-0" class="reference" style="border: 0px; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: super; font-size: 11px; line-height: 0; color: rgb(58, 58, 58); font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif; font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; background-color: rgb(216, 233, 252); "></sup>

[Ecks]

Vaynai was a garish tourist destination, though it did have good sunsets. The colors were beginning to stretch across the sky as Ecks walked down a main thoroughfare. He was only here because of a job, but that was over. The big bounty hunter walked heavily, his boots making solid noises in the pavement as tourists moved either consciously or subconsciously to the sides, giving him a wide berth.

The Falleen ran thick fingers through the black hair of his top knot, yellow eyes constantly scanning the area around him for threats. After so many years collecting bounties it was second nature, and that's how he first noticed the red man. He appeared at first as an eddy in the river of beings walking down the wide footpath, a disturbance that repelled others while doing nothing.

Ecks looked more intently as he drew near, the red of the being's skin resolving into raw and ravaged flesh, a wide floppy hat obscuring it's face and species, though it was certainly humanoid. And most likely male.

The bright orange pants brought the most attention from the hunter, however. Such a color meant either this man was a lost Rebel pilot, or an escaped convict. Or someone with spectacularly bad fashion sense. Judging from the hat, probably the latter.

He drew even with the bench the injured man was sitting on, and loomed over him. "Do you need assistance?"

[Tal]

Shadows fell across Tal, pulling him out of his trance-like state.

Who dared to obscure his view of the sunset?! He was an important officer of the Imperial Navy on a well-deserved leave. This simply would not stand.

Tal squinted, trying to make out some details of the back-lit body. (Ow, the left side of his face hurt when he did that. Must be sunburned bad on that side.) It was a large creature. Humanoid. Broad shoulders. The colors started to revert to the normal spectrum and he picked up the hint of green skin. An alien. He scoffed inwardly. (No, wait, that was out loud.)

"Do you mind?" he asked, the contempt dripping from his words. "The only assistance I need is an assitant to keep riff raff like you from ruining what should have been a lovely sunset."

[Ecks]

"Riff raff." Ecks repeated the phrase, and took a closer look at the man. He looked like he'd been in some sort of explosion. What was he doing here, on a bench on Vaynai, looking like he escaped death on Kessel?

Maybe he had escaped something. Ecks narrowed his eye. "You are badly injured." He bent down a bit to look into the man's eyes, dodging an ineffectual swat as he checked the pupil reflex. Concussed, most likely. "Where did you come from?"

[Tal]

The creature's ugly visage filled Tal's view. He almost looked like a Falleen, but if he was, he was an especially ugly example of one.

"Badly injured? Nonsense, it's a bit of sunburn. Fell asleep and forgot to put on sunscreen. Now please, leave me be before I am forced to summon the authorities."

He rather disliked Falleen, even moreso than he did other alien species. They were cold, and it wasn't just their cold-blooded biology - they rarely exhibited emotions. Tal was all for showing composure, in fact, he prided himself in the way he could keep his wits regardless of the situation. But Falleen, they may as well have been droids for all the passion they showed. And if he wanted to deal with prying, emotionless aliens, he wouldn't have chosen to take his leave on...hold on, what planet was this?

[Ecks]

"That is a good idea," Ecks rumbled. "I will call them for you. The authorities." He lifted his commlink, and paused. "What is your name?"

The bounty hunter prepared to do a search with the computer access node on his gauntlet, a remote processor that used his ship's holonet connection. It this man was in the system - any system - he'd know shortly. If he could even remember his real name.

[Tal]

The man's question went unanswered as Tal began to try and work things out. A thousand yard stare passed right through the Falleen as if he weren't even there.

He was on vacation, right? For the life of him, he coudn't remember the name of the planet where he was or how he'd gotten here. But he had to be on vacation. That was why he was relaxing on this bench, watching the sun set over the ocean. It was why he was wearing these loose, comfortable pants and wearing this hat instead of the usual formal atire he prefered.

He felt something missing. The familiar lump of his chance cube wasn't in the pockets of his pants. Were these even his pants? He slowly looked down. Orange. Not a color he generally wore, but maybe he bought them at a loca-HOLY CRAP, what happened to his arm? That was serious. No sun caused those burns.

Tal looked back up, bringing the Falleen back into focus with an accusing glare. "You. How did this happen? I demand to know where the nearest medical facilities are."

[Ecks]

The way the Human was barking orders in that Core accent with the largest disconnect from reality that Ecks had ever seen made him think that the man was probably either rich or in the military. Perhaps both.

Still didn't answer why he was where he was, but apparently the man wanted to know that too. Ecks grunted, unconcerned at the tone of the Human's voice. "They are about ten klicks in that direction," he pointed to the east, away from the sunset. "The Vaynai Memorial Hospital." In memorium of what was anyone's guess. The planet didn't have a history of conflicts.

Ecks straightened up fully, looking around. The space around them had grown once he'd stopped to talk, but someone was snapping a picture of them. He rearranged his face in something approximating a smile, and the tourist squeaked and hurried to catch up with his group.

The bounty hunter sighed inwardly, and thought about the stew and tea waiting for him on Razor's Edge. "I will call you an ambulance." He activated the commlink, dialing into the city's emergency services.

[Tal]

"An ambulance my ass. I'll not be carted around like some helpless invalid. Surely this city has some sort of tram system. I just need to find the nearest station." No way in hell would he let stranger treat him like some disabled charity case. Falleen were arrogant enough as it was. No need to give one more ammunition.

With a haughty grunt he got up and turned to the east, taking a firm, confident step...and immediately took a knee. Instinctively, he rested his weight on the right one. Careful, controlled breathing helped him regain his composure and his feet. After a short pause, he was on his way again.

[Ecks]

Ecks watched him go, watched him go down, and then watched him get up and go again. The Human was in no condition to be walking around, and it was likely his wounds were already infected. Ecks had seen this sort of behavior before, and always with a severe head injury. If not treated the man would probably slip into unconsciousness and never wake up, and that was without taking into consideration the extensive burns on his soft, mammalian flesh.

The bounty hunter turned to walk on, but then he swiveled on his heel and strode after the Human, catching up quickly. He owed the man nothing, but perhaps there was a price on his head. He put the odds of 'escaped convict' at about twenty percent. The other eighty percent was on 'over privileged Imperial son-of-a-bitch', and that meant that in the man's confused state he might well tell the hospital that a hulking Falleen was the one who put him into this condition.

And that would not do.

Ecks' boots were loud on the boardwalk they were now walking down, and the man turned toward him, irritated at his closeness. "You are walking in the wrong direction," the hunter said quietly, his deep voice pleasant despite his looks. He released pheromones into the air around the injured man to calm him and make him pliable toward what Ecks wanted him to do. "Tell me your name."

[Tal]

"You are walking in the wrong direction."

Ugh, him again? Wouldn't this guy take a hint? And apparently his species had no concept of "personal space" with the way he was hovering. A big, hovering, ugly, green, scaly....you know, actually, he wasn't that bad. Ugly, yes, but it was the kind of ugly that came with character. Every one of those disfigurements probably came with a story. That's how a man made his mark in this world, after all - a series of actions that resulted in a story and maybe a disfigurement.

No, not that bad. People didn't go out of their way to just harass innocent folk like himself. In fact, he probably just meant to help.

"My name? It's Kellison. Tal. I just need to get to a train station."

[Ecks]

"This is the way to the train station," said Ecks, the computer on Razor's Edge already running the name through the holonet. As they neared the end of the wide boardwalk and came to a street, the sun was dipping below the horizon, chased from the sky by a deepening navy blue in the east. The intermittent puffy clouds were splashed with reds and oranges as Ecks flagged down a green taxi.

As it pulled up a sleek black speeder zipped around it, in a hurry to get to wherever it was going. Ecks pulled open the door as his gauntlet beeped softly. "After you."

Tal maneuvered into the taxi, somehow gingerly avoiding rubbing his burns against the speeder while still maintaining his illusion that he wasn't injured at all. The driver, a bulky Barabel, was staring at them in his rear view mirror, but wasn't saying anything. Not surprising. Barabel rarely spoke.

Ecks took a seat, directing the driver to take them to the hospital, and looked at the results he'd managed to find on his name search. Over twenty name matches. He'd have to sort them for relevance later, when Tal wasn't drunkenly breathing on his shoulder. Maybe he'd overdone it with the pheromones.

[Tal]

The vehicle had some very soft upholstery, that was for sure. With a contented sigh, Tal settled back into the soft surface. For the life of him, he couldn't remember what he was so cross about. Outside, the resort town flashed by the window, lit a lovely shade by the setting sun.

He looked over at his fellow passenger.

"You know, you - you're a good man. I bet people don't tell you that often enough. The Empire could use more fellows like you."

[Ecks]

Tala Kellison, 38, human female, dancer. Ecks looked at his new companion and flicked the first result off the list. "The Empire uses many fellows like me." For good measure he removed all female results.

Kel Tallison, Rodian male... wanted for smuggling fruit. Smuggling... fruit. Ecks tried to sort the list again, to remove all non-humans, but the taxi was already slowing down as they reached their destination. He looked down at Tal. "Before you get on your train I think you should be checked out by a doctor."

[Tal]

"Yes, yes, I think you're right. A doctor."

Tal opened the door as the cab slowed to a stop. A cool, evening breeze wafted in as he slid, reluctantly, from the plush back seat. No, wait, he was supposed to take the train to the doctor. Train first, doctor second. No, pay for his cab first, train second, then doctor. He searched his pockets for money.

"My friend here will handle the fare. I'm afraid I left my credits back at...," Tal paused mid-pat. Something wasn't right. Where did he leave his credits? Who was this Falleen? No, this wasn't right. He recognized the Falleen - he was the one who had assaulted him. No, the Falleen hadn't assaulted him, he was simply an annoying busybody. Somehow he had been burned. He had been sitting on a bench, resting. Resting after leaving a ship. Not his ship. An unfamiliar one.

The truth was so close. Grimacing, he squeezed his temples with his right hand; grimacing more, he pulled his hand away. Whatever had happened, he had to get to a doctor now. With no other choice, he started off toward the train station.

[Ecks]

Ecks paid the impatient taxi driver, and was grimly pleased to see Tal staggering toward the front door of the hospital. His longer strides soon caught him up, and he wondered how the man would react once he was inside and the nurses and doctors got a look at him.

It would no doubt be amusing.

He looked down at his gauntlet. Tel Kalisson, 29, no warrants. Ecks frowned slightly, sure that the man he was accompanying was older than that, but not sure enough to strike the name from his list. Tal Kellisson, 43, murderer. Serving life on Kessel. Unlikely. No one escaped from Kessel.

Tal Kellison, former Captain, serving time for - the doors opened in front of the injured man, and he started asking loudly for someone to sell him a train ticket. Ecks caught the arm of a nurse gently and gestured toward Tal. "Can my friend get taken care of quickly?"

She looked at the room of waiting people in the emergency room, and then at her hand as Ecks pressed a credit chit into it. She checked the amount, and then nodded.