ACTION TIME

[aphelionix]

The two days had come and gone since Locke stayed over at Weiler's. He was tipsy when Weiler had called that night and made their two day check-in rule - not that he forgot, but he couldn't stop the nagging feeling that something was off when he went to bed that night.

On the morning of the third day, he remembered.

The rule was to get out. He tried calling Weiler once, in case he had forgotten his own rule, but Locke was sure by now that it wasn't like him. It was all the sign he needed when the call went straight to voice mail. He headed right out the door of his room, only gathering his pistol and communicator. Through the bustling of the soldiers' morning routines, he managed to keep himself fairly blended in. No one seemed to be looking on him any differently. Locke was on the last stretch of the emergency escape route of Gladsheim's base - for Circle members, that was - when someone called his name.

His real name.

Comments

[pugsmuggler]

"I heard that we had some rats on the base," said a young soldier not but a few feet from Locke. He was in full uniform, hair tucked into a beret and utility satchel on his back. Although small in frame, he was intimidating in his stance, and from the film of dirt on him, it looked like he'd just arrived from the mines. Bad day for Locke.

"You shouldn't be here."

[aphelionix]

About an hour later, Locke woke up. It was a tense, hardly revitalizing sleep. His knee was hurting like hell, and had woke him up. He ran a hand through his hair groggily, unbuckling himself with the other. The other agents had the right idea, patching themselves up by now, chatting among one another about their escapes and close calls. They would've gotten a kick about his story of Vercelli Garamond crushing his foot in the door, he was sure, but there was a time for place for that. A bar would be more suitable, once all of this was over with.

Before he could lean up, Locke realized there was a weight on his shoulder. Weiler was out like a light. He had half a mind to go back to sleep himself, but he had to do something about his knee. And really, they should do something about Weiler's own injury before it got worse. He already looked paler than usual; probably a combination of things in the past couple days.

"Weiler," he said, giving him a small nudge.

[tactician]

His alarm clock didn't fail to perform, ultimately proving that Weiler had superb taste in who he put his trust into.

Locke was still too soft though - gently shaking him by the shoulder on his uninjured side as not to jostle him, but thankfully, Weiler had managed at least four or five hours of sleep by that time and was infinitely better than how he had started out. It still took him nearly ten minutes, but he drowsed awake between one loud speaker announcement and the other (though he tried burying his face in the medical bed to block out the noise).

"-sonnel report immediately to the landing deck. I repeat, evacuate your ships and all personnel-"

"How do I turn off that alarm?" Weiler grumbled, squinting his eyes.

[aphelionix]

Their fuel stop went smoothly, but not without a warning from the attendant there that they were most definitely riding in a ship flagged as hot. It took some bribing (and a fair amount of threatening) to get the man to give up the information, and even more (threatening) to get him not to report anything. It wasn't guaranteed by any means, but the first step Locke planned to take was to get rid of the ship.

And someone owed him a huge favor on Boriniat.

All fueled up, they definitely had enough to get them there. It was a little more out of the way than Erclesse, but definitely more urgent. Besides, peaceful little Erclesse had nothing on Boriniat's ships and deals; assuming you knew how to bargain. It was a shady planet in many ways, and one of the more restless ones. Some of Locke's reputation came from here.

Locke had landed them at an equally shady port, that also didn't ask for documentation or scan their ship as they came in. (More trouble than it was worth, most of the time.) The ship was docked, and he plucked up the ship's access cards.

He went back to the medical room, shoving supplies into a bag. You never knew when you'd need them.

"Ever been to Boriniat before?" Locke asked Weiler as he got ready for leaving the ship. He didn't intend to ride this thing out of here.

[tactician]

Weiler's first chance for a real bout of sleep came only after a handful of errands on Boriniat, ranging from returning the junked ship to Ace (it almost gave out half way there) to getting their injuries finally looked at by some unlicensed medic in the back room of some pharmacy building (it was clean, at least). They couldn't afford to be checking into officially outfitted hospitals, having no records they could fall back upon, but the medic seemed to be well suited to his job and well acquainted to having dress injuries of this sort for clientele of theirs.

For all the hubbub Weiler made about avoiding shots, that was the first thing the medic did to him anyway, though whatever numbing agent he had was at least three times as strong as the stuff in the first aid kit of the Gladsheim aircraft. Almost even before he was done expressing his doubts about jabbing sharp, pointy objects into his back, Weiler found his strength from waist down giving out, forcing him to flop face-down on the sterilized medical bed, breathing in the scent of laundered sheets, alcohol and iron.

Weiler frowned, taking his cup out from under the nozzle of boiling dark liquid just as it cut off its constant stream. There was no need to dwell on that - they were well-rested, medically treated, on their way to recovery and a few hundred thousand miles away from Boriniat by now. That was far, far away from needles and the uncomfortable sensation of something wedging into his flesh when he couldn't quite feel it. On the other hand, it was much, much closer to small luxuries like the small mugs of coffee he was holding in either hand.

Of all the foods that had carried down from more archaic human times, coffee was definitely one of the best of them.

Leaning against the co-pilot's seat, Weiler tapped the bottom of one of the mugs gently against Locke's shoulder, careful not to spill any. "I don't know how you take it," he cautioned, as the drink was still rich and dark, devoid of sugar and milk, which was how he usually took his. "But we don't have much back there anyway."