This logfile is imported from aitelogs2 and may contain errors or wrong timestamps.
#RuinsOfRakhana – September 21, 2016
Jason remains in place, the weight of Namira not bothering him too much because-... well, robo-arms. He looks across the chasm at Jake, then to Seriah, suddenly realizing why she seems to want to get off this planet. Everyone here already hates her! "Jake, look. Whatever beef you two have, you've gotta put that behind you, alright?" he says, his attention moving back to the man, "We're all just trying to survive. We all just want
to get off this planet. Alright? She got us here and, for better or worse, I'm not just gonna turn my back on her. So how about you set whatever problems you have aside so we can work on getting off this rock together?" he negotiates.
Renala sighs, glancing at Seriah. It's not her place to add to the negotiations, as Jason already has this under control. But she does it anyway. "With a bit of patience, you can always find a few holes in the language barrier," she says.
Korio steps forward, bowing his head to the man in respect. "We communicate as best as we can. It is difficult, but we have managed. Our languages share some words, so there is a little common ground." he explains with a brief glance towards Seriah, "She understands enough for us to get by. And.... she has been kind to us, so it is hard for me to believe that whatever issues the two of you may have had in the past is the result of
Jake scratches the back of his head. "Uh... she killed our boss. I mean, she was kind of an asshole, but still. Can you tell her not to shoot me...?" he asks, hand once again going up to shield from the sunlight as he studies them, sweating in the scorching heat of the sun. His tone is matter-of-fact, with no real hint of accusation.
Jason can't help but smirk at the man's casual demeanor over the whole thing. "Uhh... Sure...?" he says, looking back to Korio with a shrug. "Haven't had any issues with her.... killing anyone."
Korio blinks a couple times, but complies. He looks over at Seriah and gestures to Jake. "Don't.... shoot him...? Please?" he says, feeling somewhat uncomfortable at even having to ask such a ridiculous thing. He gestures towards Jake again. "Friend." he nods.
Renala chuckles at the ridiculousness of this, even if she does understand the man's concerns. She'd be wary of any friendly drell too if said drell had just shot Jason. Renala doesn't add anything, though.
Seriah raises an eyebrow, glancing from Korio to the human on the other side. She nods once she realizes what the concern is. "A bin fet [harm] ale [aliens]." she says, showing her palms to Jake, a peaceful gesture.
Jake waits for a moment before resting the sniper rifle over his shoulder and stepping up to the winch. "You guys better not be assholes!" he says before starting to lower the drawbridge.
Jessica climbs to her feet with a grunt. "You see? Is good thing Ten did not come with. No assholes allowed." she says as she begins to limp towards the bridge.
Jason eases up a bit as the man shoulders his rifle, but the concern soon returns to his face as Jessica brings his thoughts back around to Ten and the others. He gives a brief, worried glance towards Renala before starting across the bridge as it touches down. "We've got a few people still out there in the desert." he says, "We lost contact with them a few hours back. Do you guys have any sort of functioning comms equipment on
Jake shakes his head as the bridge comes down. "Nope. Went to shit in the crash." he says with a shrug, studying them as they walk across. He places the rifle against the boulder he was taking cover behind.
Renala sighs relieved and walks over to pick up one of the stretchers, previously occupied by Jessica. She uses a biotic field to lower its mass and she falls into step some distance behind Jason, balancing it carefully even if the pieces stretching the canvas down does help. She raises her brows at the mention of crash, however. She can definitely not fix that. Goddess, Jason has really oversold her this time. It doesn't
matter, though. "Non-functioning would do, as well," she says. "Even the antenna could serve our purpose if it's all that's left."
Jason nods to Renala's words as he carries Namira across the bridge. "What I tell you, Jake?" he asks with a smirk, 'Best damn engineer in the galaxy." he repeats. "Couldn't help but notice you said 'she killed our boss'. Got a lot of people with you? We might have a bit of heavy lifting a head of us if we're gonna get that ship of yours running, so it would be great to have a few extra hands." he says, mostly just doing what
he can to probe out any info he can. The thought of working closely with a bunch of Eclipse mercenaries doesn't exactly bring him a great deal of comfort.
Korio gives Seriah a nod and starts across the bridge behind the others, falling into line a step behind Jessica. "Ten. Steven. Ehanis. This is Korio. If you can hear me, or have been able to hear our previous broadcasts and have attempted to reach out to us, know that we have been unable to receive any responses from you for hours. We have made our way to the ship and are going to do what we can to get comms up and running again."
Upon crossing the bridge the group would find themselves looking down a slope at the ship below. A small, boxy frigate crashed into the small canyon in the middle of the mesa. It looks mostly intact, albeit battered and scarred from the crash, and scratched and weathered by sand and wind. A ramp at the back of the ship is open, and several cables run out of it to a large water collection and purification device which seems to be
made of a mixture of repurposed ship components, fabricated materials and salvage. Planters line one of the cliff walls, filled with shrubs. Another human man sits on an old plastic crate, seemingly trying to get a fire going at a metal firepit, surrounded by crates presumably meant for sitting. He looks over to the new arrivals with narrowed eyes. "Didn't think I'd ever see another human..." he mutters. He looks about the same
age as Jake, late twenties or early thirties, hair of similar length, albeit black and gray. His nose is broken.
Renala taps on her omni-tool to transmit their position over their channel, in case there's one sided communication reaching the others. Considering they have roughly equally powerful radios, and both ends have to deal with the same obstacles, it's not very likely. Renala does for once keep her pessimism to herself, however. She does follow Jake down into the canyon. "I'd like to begin my diagnosis of the ship's communications
systems immediately," she says, trying her best to sound composed and professional in hopes of getting remotely close to living up to the Renala that was pitched to them. "But first, is there anywhere inside where I can leave our things?"
Jason sucks in a deep breath and nods at the grim sentiment. "I'm.... I'm sorry to hear that." he offers, "It's never easy to lose people." He offers a nod to the fresh face, propping up a friendly smile as best as he can, but it's getting heavier with each passing moment. "I think we'll take all the friendly company we can get at this point. Jason." he introduces himself. As Renala speaks up, he looks from her to Jake, lowering
his voice somewhat to the latter, "Would be nice to get our wounded out of this sun, too. You guys got anywhere that they can lay down and get a little rest while we look over the damage?"
Jessica limps past the others, taking a seat around the firepit without being prompted. A loud, relieved sigh escapes her, happy to finally be done with the long journey. She watches the man, doing little to hide her stares.
Korio remains near Seriah, a feeling of unease still heavy in his mind at knowing that the two parties had some sort of issue in the past. He scans around, looking for any sign of anyone else.
Seriah seems unfazed by the presence of the Eclipse, and whatever previous history they have. Why is not quite clear. She looks around the canyon in silence, knowing her words would be of little use to anyone but herself.
The other human gives Jason a nod. "Mahmoud." he says, eyeing the rather well-armed group. "Guess if you were gonna shoot us you'd have done it already. Welcome to our shitty little corner of this shitty little planet." he says with a sigh. "Which one of you is the engineer?" he asks, putting his arms on his hips as he looks from person to person. His outfit is not far from Jake's, although he wears a vest in addition to dirty
tanktop, and oil stains his clothes. There's also the small detail that his left arm is missing below the elbow.
Jake nods in response to Jason, not commenting further on the fate of the rest of the crew. He gestures to the ship entrance at their questions. "You can put 'em inside." he says in response to either Renala or Jason's questions, or perhaps both.
Jason gives Jake an appreciative nod before looking to Renala with a smirk, his eyes sweeping to the side at Mahmoud before coming to a rest on the asari. "You're up, slugger." he says, "Good luck. I'll start bringing the gear inside. Let me know if you get a channel open to the others. I don't want them out there aimless any longer than they need to be."
Renala hands the stretcher over to Jason, the biotic field around it dissipating shortly after it leaves her hand. "That's me," she says as she approaches the human, her eyes casting a glance at the oil stains on his clothes. Her, no, Jason's lie isn't going to last very long if he's the engineer. "The other guy told us the comms systems are broken, do you know anything more about it, like what's working and what isn't?"
Jason can't exactly accept the stretcher with Namira in his arms, but he does signal for her to just set it down for now. Once Renala steps away, he starts towards the ship's entrance as instructed by Jake. "Not much longer, Namira." he says, "Renala is going to get that comms equipment running, we'll get a message back to our people, and we'll all be out of here in no time. Just hang in there a little longer."
Mahmoud shakes his head. "They were completely destroyed during the crash. Nothing left." he says to Renala. "No repairing them."
Jake looks on as Jason carries Namira inside, and then turns to Jessica. "So, uh... you guys crash too? You look pretty fucked up." he asks, sounding like he's making small talk.
Renala sighs. Shit. That's the only thing she would feel confident in repairing. Not that the rest would be impossible given enough time and means of testing. "Not even the antenna?" she bargains. "That's the only thing I really need." She doesn't answer Jake, hoping that one of the others would speak up.
Jessica frowns, adjusting her cap a bit and shuffling in her seat as her gaze lowers to the ground. "No." she says plainly. It seems as though that's probably all she has to say before suddenly shrugging her shoulders, "We were hired as security. Some stupid expedition or something. Stupid blob of pink just abandoned us here... Is fine, though. Is dead now."
Mahmoud shakes his head. "Our last tech was working on one... but she never came back from her last scavenging trip. Said she needed some parts that she couldn't fabricate, I don't know... that was weeks ago."
Jake nods faintly. "Uh... right." he says. "Fucking blobs." He furrows his eyebrows and then shrugs, walking over to the water collector and filling up his canteen. "You guys thirsty? We saved up last rain."
Korio steps forward, giving the man a gracious nod. "That would be appreciated." he says, reaching for his canteen once more. "I assume you put a purification device together on your own? The water here does not seem like something you would want to put into your body without heavy purification first."
Jessica nods sternly, her frown deepening. "Fucking blobs." she repeats. Her gaze sweeps from Jake to Mahmoud as she attempts to stand back up from the crate but a sharp pain through her side causes her to rethink it. She groans and merely extends her canteen towards Jake. "So you are all that is left, mmm? Everyone else is dead, yes?" she asks casually.
Renala frowns, and thinks back. The mention of an Eclipse tech scavenging takes her back to Ehanis' findings during their first trip to Kell's compound. "Our team encountered the remains of an Eclipse mercenary," she says. "I couldn't identify the parts they were carrying, so they may still at our camp unless someone else brought them along." She nods to Jake, but doesn't move over to fill her canteen yet.
Jake takes a swig of water and then nods. "Yup." He notices Jessica's gesture, and her question. "It's just the three of us left." he says, taking her canteen with a shrug and going over to fill it up.
Mahmoud sighs. "Well damn, must've been her. Sounds like she might have found what she was looking for. You didn't bring it?"
Korio waits for his turn to fill his canteen. With a crane of his neck, he offers Renala a smile. "I took the liberty of packing them among the rest of our supplies." he says, giving a nod towards the stretcher and the bag atop it. "Given the circumstances they were found under-..." he trails off, his gaze moving briefly to Mahmoud with a sympathetic tilt of his head, "I-... I thought they may have some use here."
Jessica furrows her brow as she extends her hand back out to accept her canteen once more. "Three? Where is the third?" she asks, glancing about a bit.
Renala looks around at the others, and she lights up as Korio speaks up, clearly relieved b. "I'd kiss you right now, but... you know." Although, to be fair, she's not sure she remembers any explicit mentions of doing drugs on the job in her contract. "I can begin working on it immediately."
Jake seems briefly confused by the question as he hands over the canteen, before realizing that the third member of their little group isn't in view. "Oh, right, yeah she's probably in the ship, I think."
Mahmoud actually cracks a smile. "Now if that isn't the best news I'e heard in a long time..." he says. "It's in the ship. We stowed it away after we realized she wasn't coming back." he turns towards the vessel and gestures. "I'll show you."
Korio allows a genuine chuckle to escape him. "I... appreciate the sentiment. I'm just pleased is actually proved useful." he says humbly with a bow of his head.
Jessica accepts the canteen and takes a large gulp, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand. "Mmm. I thought maybe you were just crazy." she admits, "Is better that you are not crazy and talking to your imaginary friend."