Board Thread:Archive/@comment-24866242-20140611012851

Chomja Kajat posted July 19, 2003 12:14 AM

She entered the valley at dusk, skimming low over the tree tops with the setting sun at her back. Her reflection flashed back up at her as she crossed the small lake at the valley’s far end and a few fish jumped into the air in fright at the wake her passing left. The mountains rising on either side seemed to pin her in and she didn’t seem to like being confined. She struggled for height as the uppermost branches tickled her belly and she managed to gain a few feet. That was enough to carry her to her chosen objective: a clearing a few hundred yards ahead.

She slowed to a hover above the clearing and carefully spun around to face the sun as she began to lower to the ground. As she turned, a jagged gash made itself visible along her left side. She touched the ground almost gingerly, holding her left side up and settling carefully there only after she was sure of her footing on her right. Even with all the care a great shudder still racked her body as she stopped holding herself up and finally let her weight rest on the ground. She let out a bitter groan and then was silent.

The valley was quiet once again. The sun, as if realizing there was nothing more to see, allowed itself to slide the rest of the way below the horizon and the stars began to peak out from behind their rapidly fading curtain of blue to see what had been deposited on the ground below them.

The Wookiee’s Fang could never be mistaken for anything but what she was, a ship, battered and bruised, but whole. A ship that didn’t look like it planned to go anywhere anytime soon. The only windows were in the gun turret on her back and her cockpit, slung along her right side like an afterthought. Both were dark, but there was motion in the cockpit…

Jim Kochanski leaned back in his chair as he finished powering down the ship’s primary systems. Behind him, Chomja slipped out the door, heading for the starboard hatch so he could get out and inspect the damage. Jim ran a hand through his already messy black hair and rested his arm there. With a sigh he looked out into the darkening trees and wondered just how far away the city they had been aiming for actually was. It was the other direction, of course, but it was all trees as far as Jim cared. There were at least a hundred and sixty kilometers of wilderness between them and it.

A group of some sort of small flying animals leapt from the trees as he watched and flew away from the ‘Fang. Bats. Or the local version of bats, anyway. As they flew, a larger shape dove into the cluster of flying critters and caught one in its talons before swooping away, sending the rest of the cluster scattering in every direction. Jim watched this until a rock bounced off the cockpit window with a loud crack that made him jump.

He bounced to his feet and pressed his face up against the pane in time to see Chomja gesturing that he should come outside.

Jim sighed as his large furry partner disappeared back under the ship. Left with little choice, he stood and left the cockpit. He walked the short length of corridor to the hatchway and clattered down the already open ramp. He slapped the edge of the ship as he walked under and immediately wished he had put on a jacket before coming outside. Shivering, he took a deep breath of the cold forest air.

He frowned. The forest had a faint smoky smell. It was odd that he should notice it at all, it was so faint. Especially considering the level of pollution his nostrils usually had to put up with. He circled under the Fang and immediately accounted the source of the smell to the gash that reached nearly to the gun turret on the ship’s belly. Burn marks scorched the hull around the wound. He ran his fingers along the scar, whistling softly as he approached Chomja. The wookiee was scowling from under his brown fedora at the damage.

Jim came up next to Chomja and stuck his hands in his pockets as a measure against the cold. He bit his lower lip and squinted at the side of the ship. “I think I can fix it,” he said casually.

Chomja glanced down at him with what for a wookiee passed as incredulous surprise.

The ship was in bad shape. The port hatch was gone. Luckily the other side of the airlock had been closed, but the cargo they had stowed there was gone, probably drifting in space somewhere between here and Betelgeuse. That wasn’t really a problem though. They could make it to the nearest space station with a drydock without their port airlock. The problem was that there were at least a hundred systems that had been damaged along with it. Not the least of which included half of their port thrusters, sensors, the comm. array, the port stabilizer ring, and the artificial gravity generator.

The wookiee pushed his hat back and scratched the fur on the crown of his head before pushing the rim back down near his eyes. He looked like Indiana Jones with fur.

“How far is that city?” Jim asked.

“Whrmarnmphraarh.”

Jim winced. His earlier guess had been optimistic, as it happened. “I was afraid of that.”

Chomja shrugged and ducked under the ship’s scarred hull, heading back for the hatch that was still passable.

Jim shivered and followed him with his hands firmly under his armpits. Well, if they had to walk a hundred and eighty-five kilometers through this weather he was going to bring his warm jacket.

Chomja Kajat posted September 27, 2003 02:27 AM

Jim woke slowly and struggled with that brief realization that he wasn't in his own bunk. The next thing he realized was that he had a rock digging into his back and that it was cold. He opened his eyes to see the stars were still out and shining brightly through the branches of the tree above him. The third thing he realized was that it wasn't the rock that had woken him up.

Chomja was squatting by the fire, feeding sticks into the flames and making a general ruckus. Jim lay there for a few moments, blinking at the firelight before finally sitting up and removing the rock from the ground and tossing it away where it disappeared into the darkness.

Chomja regarded him silently as he stirred up the flames, sending sparks floating up with the smoke of the camp fire. He made a questioning sound in the back of his throat in that subtle way of his. Skippy, the little mongrel dog that had adopted Chomja before they had met cocked his head and watched Jim in much the same fashion.

“I had a dream,” Jim said sleepily. Chomja didn't answer but the wookiee was more of a listener than a talker anyway so that was okay. Jim continued. “I dreamed that we found a cube of water. Like an aquarium but there were no walls. We had hamsters with submarines so we started sending them in to see what was inside. They kept getting stuck but we just kept sending them in.”

“Wrmph,” Chomja grunted, seeming to take this in stride. Wookiees seldom questioned dreams or searched for meaning in them.

Jim screwed up his face in concentration, trying to remember the next part. “Then... there were huge earth movers. And they were moving... rocks.” Jim rubbed his back and shook his head. Maybe Chomja's kind had a point when it came to dreams.

“What time is it?” he asked, deciding not to dwell on the fantasies of his sleeping mind.

“Whoarrah woearheoarhphar.” Chomja replied.

Jim nodded and looked east through the trees. The sun would be up soon. There wasn't much point in trying to go back to sleep. He pulled his nap sack up around his shoulders and looked into the fire, bleary eyed. He was still only half awake and he found himself nodding forward for a moment before a pair of doggy paws imposed themselves on his lap as Skippy climbed into the warm pocket created by the blanket. Jim scratched the dog behind the ears absentmindedly as he once more tried to bring himself awake again.

“Any coffee?”

Chomja nodded and passed him the pot which had been sitting next to the fire to stay warm. Jim reached over to his bag and grabbed his mug from his mess kit and poured the steaming black liquid into the metal container. It hadn't had a decent washing since the path had last taken them close to the stream a couple of days ago. He sipped and burned his mouth for his trouble. The coffee pot went back on the fire.

Jim had never spent much time camping when he was young, but he had a sense that this was a universal state of things in the early hours of cold autumn mornings in the mountains. If you were camping you were going to be up at an ungodly hour staring at the camp fire and waiting for it to get light enough to do something useful. At least that was how it had been for the last few days. They had left the 'Fang four days ago and were still making their way to the city Chomja had seen on sensors. Today they would make it to the first small settlement. Hardly more than a few farm houses clustered together for mutual protection against the wilderness, but civilization none the less.

Jim set his coffee mug on a cold slab of rock to his right and left it there to cool while he nursed his burnt tongue. After a few moments he decided it had had enough and took a large gulp. It was tolerable at least. He sipped at the rest and cupped it between his hands as he watched the fire.

Chomja reached for the pot to pour his own cup but stopped and stared into the trees. In Jim's lap, Skippy let out a shrill bark that trailed off into a feeble howl. In the distance Jim heard the sound of someone tromping through the woods towards their camp. A voice called out,

“Whoa, doggy! I'm commin' ta get you, doggy.”

Skippy turned around nervously and hid his face under Jim's arm. The tromping continued unabated and the voice took to verse. A broken song made its way to them as the owner of the footsteps made his way steadily towards them. Once it was just outside of their field of view, the voice cut off its song and called out to them, saying, “You there!? I don't know if you're ghosts or men, but I smell caff and I sure wouldn't mind a draught! Mind if I join you at your fire?”

Jim looked at Chomja and Chomja shrugged. The wookiee did unhook the catch on the holster attached to his pack however. “You can come. Be warned, we're armed,” Jim called out to the stranger.

The response that invoked was not what he had expected. Laughter erupted from the solitary voice. Somehow between fits of giggles the voice managed to cry out, “That's okay, me too!”

Chomja pulled the blaster but it didn't turn out to be needed. The stranger entered the camp with a hunting rifle and three hares slung across his shoulder. He sat down next to Jim and tossed one of the hares down at the fireside. “For your hospitality,” he giggled. He reached for the coffee pot and stopped, looking at Chomja. The giggles subsided for a moment then started again as he picked up the pot and poured into a cup produced seemingly from nowhere. After he had a sip he closed his eyes and savored the aroma before chancing another glance in the wookiee's direction. His first glance confirmed, he leaned over to Jim and whispered between giggles, “Say, friend. Were you aware there's a werewolf on the other side of yonder fire?”

Jim looked at Chomja and couldn't help but laugh at his friend's expression.

“I was aware,” he answered the stranger.

“Just thought I'd check,” the man said before taking another sip of coffee. “A man can't trust his senses these days. But if it's all the same to you, Mr. Werewolf, I'd just as soon sit and finish my caff before running in a panic.” He raised his cup to Chomja and took a long sip.

Chomja blinked.

“I have to say, that was mighty considerate of you fellows.. er werewolves notwithstanding... not to shoot me. That's more than most folks'ld be willing to do I'd wager.”

Jim yawned and sipped his own coffee. “If you thought we might shoot you why'd you come?”

“It's been a long time since I had a decent cup of caff.” The stranger drained his cup and laughed, reaching for the pot again. “Maybe the next one will be it.”

The man drank three more cups, giggling around the rim of his battered tin vessel. Between cups they asked him questions. He answered with more giggles and cryptic responses. Chomja asked if he had seen many werewolves recently. Jim had to translate around the man's giggles at Chomja's language of grunts and roars. The man answered that he had seen many things since the upset and didn't doubt he'd see more before something finally took him. Jim asked what the upset was and the man said that it took people in different ways and wouldn't say any more, countering with a question of his own.

“You werewolves been up here long? It doesn't seem to have taken you. Course you're probably both figments of my imagination.” He took a long drink of his fourth cup and gestured with it. “This is most likely sand.”

By then the sky had paled to a grayish color and the sun seemed to be considering emerging from it's night's slumber. They could see more of the man and what that showed was a man who had been living in the woods for weeks. His beard and hair had pieces of leaves and grass and his clothes were torn in spots. Jim noticed, however, that his weapon was well cared for. The shells were carefully closed away in a waterproof pouch on his belt and the shaft looked clean and well oiled, without a spot of rust.

“We had some engine trouble,” Jim said, nonchalantly. It was the honest truth.

For some reason this sent the man into a fit of hysterical laughter that had him on his back and clutching his sides before it passed. He sat up and wiped his eyes with the backs of his grubby hands before standing up.

He shook his head, still laughing. “Well, if you figments are heading down the mountain, stay clear of people. It takes people in different ways. Where people are together its most dangerous. If they don't kill you, they'll make you angry.”

With that he hefted his remaining two rabbits and his rifle and left the camp. They heard him laughing as he headed the way they had come. More than once as his voice faded they heard him laughing to himself about engine trouble as he faded into the distance. As his voice faded the sun rose and day was upon them.

Chomja Kajat posted October 11, 2003 12:49 PM

They marched for the rest of that morning through the trees. It wasn't difficult going. The trail picked up the stream again and they stopped for a few minutes to refill their water bags and wash. Cold water didn't make for much of a bath but Chomja didn't seem to care. He jumped into a deep pool at the base of a large boulder and surfaced with a roar. While Chomja scrubbed in the frigid water, Jim settled for washing his hands and face and cleaning out his mess kit a few feet upstream from the cloud of filth that Chomja was spreading. A couple of miles downstream some people were going to start wondering why their drinking water tasted like a wookiee but Jim didn't think Chomja was especially worried about it.

After a few minutes in the icy water, Chomja climbed out, dripping water all around and getting his feet muddy in the dirt of the trail. “That's it, I'm taking point,” Jim announced, looking at the mess Chomja was making.

Chomja grinned and shook himself out the way a dog does, starting with his head down to his feet. Jim yelled and jumped behind the nearest tree for protection.

“Nothing smells worse than a wet wookiee, you know that?” he shouted out at Chomja.

They picked up the trail for another couple of hours. A short while after lunchtime they came out of the pass and were able to see the valley spread out below them. Farmland stretched as far as they could see. The city Chomja had spied on sensors was still out of their field of view but it was there. A thin line of haze blurred the edge where land met sky. From this height Jim guessed it must still be a hundred kilometers to the horizon and who knew how far past that till they reached the city. Directly below them, perhaps ten or twenty kilometers distant, was the town they would reach before darkness fell. There were farms between them and the town, but only one of them was on a direct line. Jim guessed they would pass through it in about two or three hours.

As they began their descent the valley was quickly obscured by the trees that the path traveled through. The path wound its way down the side of the mountain through the trees, slowing them down quite a bit. When they finally reached the bottom the land leveled out very quickly, but the trees were just as thick. The path had been kept clear of underbrush and the going was easier now than it had been the entire trip.

They were on the benches. A spot of level land at the foot of the mountain before they entered the river valley below. They weren't far from the farm now, but you couldn't tell by the trees.

The trees remained constant right until the point they emerged. The farm had been carved from the forest some fifteen years before, Jim guessed. The field between them and the farm house lay fallow. The stream emerged from the trees fifty feet to their left. The field on the other side was growing something like corn. Closer to the log house was a large vegetable garden. Livestock grazed to the south and there was a chicken coop just visible around the corner of the homestead. This farm looked extremely self sufficient.

Jim and Chomja walked towards the house, talking as they went. There was no sign of any inhabitants other than the meticulously cared for fences around the chicken coop and the well tended appearance of the fields and the house. Bird calls from the trees were nearly drowned out by the babble of the stream to the north.

Chomja paused for a moment and sniffed the air. Jim laughed at his attentive posture. “How you can smell anything through that stench you give off is beyond me.”

Chomja looked at him and wrinkled his nose.

Jim shrugged. “Yeah, I'm no prize ether.” He nodded towards the house. “Should we see if there's anyone home? Maybe they'll offer us a warm meal and hot baths, you think?”

Chomja's eyes widened and he dropped to the ground, pulling Jim with him almost before the shot rang out across the field. The impact with the ground knocked the wind out of Jim and it was a moment before he even realized what had happened. Skippy was jumping around them frantically and barking at the limit his small dog voice would allow. Chomja had turned himself around as they fell and had his blaster out and pointed behind them.

The voice that called out to them was between them and the trees. They were pinned halfway between the safety of the trees and the house. “You best be travelin' on, mister,” it told them. “There ain't nothin' here for you or your ilk.”

Jerico Gains posted October 11, 2003 12:55 PM

It was late afternoon. Jake had been hunting for about an hour when he spied the man with the bear heading straight for the house. Silently, he slipped through the trees until he was close enough to see his mother trodding behind the old plow horse, keeping her covered with the .22 rifle he had used to shoot the three rabbits strung over his shoulder. There hadn’t been enough time before the stranger arrived to go to her, but the birdcall they had agreed upon in times of danger would suffice. He watched, a small smile of pride playing on his lips, as his mother grabbed for the shotgun holstered on the plow. She’d give the stranger and his bear what for.

As the stranger stepped into the clearing, the explosive boom of both barrels firing at once echoed off the trees. In one swift movement, his mother had the shotgun reloaded and aimed at the stranger. Her strong voice covered the surrounding area, making it very clear that she was not to be trifled with.

“You best be travelin’ on, mister. There ain’t nuthin’ here for you or your ilk.” 