Diehvir Dilemmas

[Jaiysa t'Tamarak 0]

Her ribs ached tremendously, but she ignored it.

 

Jaiysa's attention was everywhere at once; it was an ability she had honed and prided herself on, to focus on more than one problem at the same time, to absorb a situation and be prepared to respond. Her own injuries she had analyzed at once -- bruising on the ribcage from the lloann'na team's attackers, bruising on her shoulders and the rear of her head from when she had been thrown into the metal cage in which they were now being held. By the lack of nausea, double-vision, and the like, she gathered she had escaped a concussion, which was fortunate, as it did not appear that any of them could really afford that sort of drop in their guard at the moment.

 

Having thus established her own physical well-being, relatively speaking, she was able to dismiss it to the rear of her mind and focus on other problems. One of the engineers, the kll'inghann with the oddly lloann'na-sounding name, had a fractured wrist; he would require a splint. She hoped to find something usable amid the few bits of shrapnel which had been blown into their "crate" with them; her own medical kit had been mostly crushed against her side in the chaos, and she had no doubt it had created a very interestingly-shaped bruise on her lower abdomen to add to the mix.

 

The others of the team seemed relatively unharmed as she was. Battered, bruised...utterly bewildered...but intact, physically. Pilot was her main professional concern.

 

For the rest of it...

 

She grimaced to herself, laying a hand against the metal enclosure surrounding them, which rumbled under her touch with a sensation of movement. They were going somewhere, with captors for whom she hadn't the faintest sense of recognition. Diehvir -- robots -- of some sort, and ones with a distinct "shoot first" mentality. She could approve of that outlook, in certain situations, but definitely not when she was on the receiving end of the bullets.

 

As it was, she wondered why they were still alive at all, with nothing more than erei'riov Pilot's broken wrist to worry them. The diehvir had been quite capable of killing them if they had wanted to -- she had felt that strength without question when one of them had grabbed her. It seemed likely that they had been responsible for the elimination of whatever inhabitants had been meant to be here.

 

So why were they not yy'a* as well?

 

She couldn't help thinking that the answer to this question would not be a pleasant one, when and if it was provided.

 

The lloann'na officers had dealt about as well as could be expected with the crisis. McFly, who was apparently in charge, seemed new to the position of leader but hadn't yet melted down, which perhaps boded well. He appeared to have a definite interest in Kenickie, the security officer -- Jaiysa could not for the life of her understand that. All Jaiysa knew of her was that she had a quick temper; Kenickie had earlier attempted to strike Jaiysa for a simple (if perhaps acidly delivered) comment and had the other SEC man, Brutus, not restrained the human woman, Jaiysa could not actually vouch for what might have happened. An entertaining personality but one that Jaiysa, in such a tense situation, was not inclined to trust. She wondered what McFly saw in her.

 

The engineers had been comparatively quiet. Pilot was injured but determinedly focused on keeping hold of his equipment and getting a handle on the situation. Hilee -- a man Jaiysa only knew from his interest in Maenek Jaz and therefore down a few points in Jaiysa's book -- had been taken as well and now lay a short distance from the others amid the debris thrown in with them. And the yyaio, T'Prise...well, she was there too, her usual talkative self, and aggravatingly unruffled by the whole encounter. As yet she was showing no signs of her previous mental instability.

 

Kholairlh-a ihir hann'yyo'ir*...that would be the last thing they needed.

 

Insanity makes for a bad companion to destruction.

 

****

 

diehvir -- robots

Kholairlh-a ihir hann'yyo'ir: Elements be thanked.

yy'a: dead

Edited September 14, 2009 by Jaiysa t'Tamarak