Chapter 7: Supernova

In a majestic arc the grenade rises into the sky where it stops and for a moment hangs in the air, only to plummet back down, completing its deadly path. Shortly after it disappears its audible remnants roll over Lola, as much felt as heard. Phoenix Strike, likely MK2, based on the thundering impact. A bad choice. What the MK1 misses in oomph it more than makes up in precision. Lola thinks and makes mental marks where the shooter and the recipient of the grenade are located, relative to the ship. The next silent arc is painted into the sky.

Taelor is crouching below the ship. The hull is damaged, but nothing severe. She can handle this, but it will take some time. But until then we're grounded in the middle of this shit show!

Sam cowers behind a bush by the ship. The vegetation consist of mostly bushes and shrubs, the occasional tree. In between, burnt tree trunks bare witness of fires years ago. She cannot see far, because of the hilly terrain, but then her eye catches sight of a rose in the middle of a bleak patch of dirt. Pretty

Three hours earlier
"Buckle up, Haistro is waiting for us. Let's go and make some money!"
The Undertow dips into the atmosphere, including the expected rattling and shaking of the ship. The ship gently loses height and takes course for Yanarta, Haistros biggest space port. Suddenly a loud bang rings through the ship and it starts listing to the right. A klaxon starts ringing, lights flare up and Taelor barely manages to stabilise the ship. Only now the crew notices the flashes and dark clouds below.

This is a new situation for Elan. A growth opportunity, in the parlance. He's not sure he appreciates it.

Recently he and Taelor had been swapping lessons: he's been showing her his way of defeating security measures, and she's been teaching him how to create and repair devices both simple and complex. He has the basics down but in a situation like this he's not sure if he should assist or if he'd just get in the way.

Right now he's forming a loose perimeter with Lola. He's laying prone with Betsy, scanning for threats with his panspectral optics. His telekinetic armor is up, but he knows that it won't do much against an artillery shell. I'll die a split-second later than everyone else, he assures himself.

He looks for direction from Lola, who is presumably more familiar with these situations than Elan is. Then he checks with Taelor to see if she needs an assistant.

He's anxious, not only because they're vulnerable to stray artillery fire but also because he doesn't want a squad of soldiers to come by and liberate the ship's property. 100K of cargo walking off would sting. Yes, it would sting, but not as much as dying.

"Samara!" he barks a little more harshly than he really intends to. "Do you have any gut instincts about staying here?!"

THREE HOURS EARLIER

Taelor is sitting in the pilot's seat. She'd been letting Elan do some of the flying and had planned on having him land the Undertow on Haistro, but Sam had 'had a feeling' and suggested Taelor take care of this particular landing. The pilot had been ready to wave the cook's concerns off, but Elan, who'd shown himself to be a true believer when it came to Sam's instincts, had agreed to sit this one out.

"Take a seat, folks," Taelor says over the shipwide comms. "We're about hit atmo. Looks like there's a storm or something, but it should be smooth sailing anywa-"

The Undertow shakes violently, bouncing Taelor in her seat, but the harness holds her tightly in place. Flashing red lights bathe her face, klaxons blare. "Fuck!" She pulls on the controls, trying to stabilize the Undertow. It finally levels out. She mutes the klaxons.

"Strap in and hold on to your butts, it's gonna be rocky!"


NOW

Taelor surveys the damage, crouched behind one of the landing struts, her toolkit on the ground nearby. Though the hull had taken the brunt of the hit, the portside lift thruster had been clipped by the dud that had struck the Undertow. "Fucking hell," she mutters. Truth was, they'd gotten lucky. If they'd been hit by a functional warhead, the thruster would be gone, and possibly half the Undertow as well.

She ducks instinctively as a grenade goes off nearby and looks around to try and see where. He eyes meet Elan's and she sees the question in them. "Thruster's shot. I'm going to need to replace a few of nozzle's blades and..." She realizes he doesn't need a full fucking breakdown. "I need some fucking time. Can y'all find out if I fucking have it?"

She turns back to the thruster and starts making of list of the parts she'll need from her stash in the workshop.

"Yup, yup!" Elan agrees. "We'll buy you the time."

Elan is used to high-stress, high-adrenaline environments and seems to be handling this one reasonably well. Between his panspectral optics and his binoculars he has a pretty good view of the surrounding area.

He looks to Lola for direction. Sneaky as Elan is, he makes a pretty good scout. He could reconnoiter the area to figure out the best defensive position. Or he could stay put and keep his cybereyes open.

. Metal plating, isolation foam, sealant,... Taelors list is not short, but nothing exotic. The trickiest parts are time and peace. She'll delegate those.

Elan scans the surrounding carefully timely and again. The monotonous artillery fire is the only thing he sees. After a while, he realises though, that it is only fired from one side to the other, there is no return fire. Dark clouds are rising from the area, where the shells disappear.
After another hour of constant fire, the shells suddenly stop. The following silence is deafening.

Contemplating the rose that has managed to bloom despite its surroundings, Samara is able to let the smoke and explosions fade from the foreground of her mind. This blossom is a fine representation of the fixed-yet-mutable nature of reality; it should not be able to grow here, but did should not matter in the face of is?

Tecumseh wrote:

"Samara!" he barks a little more harshly than he really intends to.

Hearing her full name, so seldom said by Elan, or any of the crew really, snapped her out of her vegetal reverie in time to catch the tail end of the question. Instincts about staying here?

She had not really thought about what might happen should they stay; she was already too caught up in the act of staying. When she thinks about it, she gets a faraway look, as her mind resolves the stereogram of the now and likely-then: a group of armed soliders would be joining them. "Well, probably soliders... If they are soldiers, that would make the vehicle a transporter, but maybe it was just a car. Hard to tell really..." But they are probably soldiers because despite them all wearing different clothing, their helmets are all the same, with one side bearing an oak leaf crossed by a sabre. They stand before Lola and Elan, and while she cannot make out what they are saying, "at least their weapons are lowered and they didn't seem aggressive." She would have added that she hoped that they might even be friendly, but she knows that that is her own optimism and not the sense that she had gotten of what might yet lie ahead.

Elan nods. He'll take that as good news.

"So we survive the bombardment!" he says brightly. Some of the tension leaves his muscles, even though the artillery shelling is still underway at this point.

"And they sound like irregulars. Biggest danger will be that they want to confiscate our cargo. But if our weapons are down then it sounds like we can at least have a conversation.

"Samara, did you get a sense for how big the group was? I don't know if we're talking about four soldiers or fourteen. Did they all come in one vehicle? If so, maybe fewer."

Three Hours Earlier
Lola was finishing putting her new sniper back together after a clean, when the whole ship shook violently. She'd not been expecting this, they'd had so many uncontested landings recently that she'd left this time for busy work, figuring that the real problems would come later. Her instincts cried attack. What else could it be when they were coming into land like this? She needed to move fast. For a moment she hesitated between the sniper rifle and the mag rifle. The former was her baby, and a weapon she'd poured a lot of attention into, without actually bleeding it yet, but without knowing the terrain they were about to head into, was it perhaps too specialised? There was no real time to consider, so she went with first instincts and went for the Mag Rifle.

Now
"The weapon they are using isn't the most accurate." she voiced over the coms while she continued to look out from her position of cover. Though of course they had been hit once before. She was about to continue but stopped when Samara gave her report. That was... The fact that she could give them future predictions in a battle scenario like this felt so incredibly odd. It also raised so many questions. Was that if they went about a certain course of actions? Or stayed doing what they were? It would paralyse you if you thought too much about it. Best to go on instinct.

"Elan, with your stealth gear, would you be able to scout out and find some more? I can cover you from here. At the very least we could get information, and at best get them in a crossfire."

"Five or six Elan."

Listening to Lola, she notes that It is moments like these when looking ahead is tricky - does Elan going to scout lead to the irregulars joining them? Or will him going mean that the soldiers will end up speaking to Lola and Taelor instead? Or... She shakes her head and reminds herself that smoke, water and time are all better held in cupped hands than in clenched fists.

Elan nods. "Received and understood," he says.

That's how soldiers talk, right? Elan felt the need to pretend, given the circumstances.

"Thank you," he tells Samara. "That is helpful. They will have too few to overwhelm us. They will need to talk just as much as we do."

He pulls out his compad; he's concerned the conflict will have knocked some critical communication infrastructure offline. "Let's make sure our compads work on this rock." They do. The team can continue to communicate while he is out scouting.

Nodding to the others, he sets off for a nearby hilltop. Steepness doesn't matter; his gecko anchors will take care of that. He wants something that will give him a vantage point on the surrounding terrain, but preferably something close too. His panspectral optics will likely give him some advance warning of anyone approaching, at which point he'll alert the others and then move to rejoin them. Elan is increasingly confident in his ability to talk his way out of trouble, which seems to be a valuable skill when sneaking isn't an option (or, perish the though, unsuccessful).

Elan climbs the closest hill and crouching, scans the horizon.
The landscape before him has seen war before. Regular ponds and dents in the ground remind him of little craters, whole areas are barren. These barren patches also have a shine to them, some kind of radiation is still lingering there. In the distance, where the shells hit, he can see warmth rising, likely something is burning.

Lola just finished her suggestions (orders?) to her teammate, when something gives her pause. She crouches, her left hand on the ground, the right one readily on her weapon.
First she isn't sure, what triggered her instincts. She looks down to her left hand and then she can feel it. There is a very faint tremor on the ground. No one would notice, but a trained sniper. A vehicle, lager than a car. She closes her eyes and listens. Now, knowing what she is trying to hear, she can hear a vehicle approach from her left. She looks up, Elan is to her right, the others and the ship behind her. The tremor slowly increases, they have only a few minutes until the vehicle will be here.

Elan has a certain amount of faith in Samara's vision: if she saw him, then he's meant to be there. Yes, it's a bit of an ouroboros, but he has neither the wisdom nor the intelligence to reflect on it deeply. It's more about belief: his telekinetic powers work, so he believes Samara's powers will too.

<<Coming down>> he comms, and then begins his descent from his hilltop perch. He keeps Betsy pointed low in a non-threatening manner so that he can initiate a conversation when the vehicle arrives. His plan is to stand by the road and hail them as they pass.

"They probably saw the ship go down, and they're coming to investigate," Elan tells Lola. "Let's hope they're sympathetic."

A thought occurs to him. "Samara, were the soldiers in your vision men or women?"

Having finished her list, Taelor crawls out from under the Undertow and rushes inside. She makes her way to her workshop. Well, she shared it with Elan now, but she still thought of it as hers. She starts to rummage through the bins. Everything was put away. You wouldn't want random crap strewn about when making high-G maneuvers or executing a drill. However, Taelor's sorting system was... inexistant. Spare parts were put away where it was most convenient at the time which, in an emergency, wasn't very practical. As she grows increasingly frustrated looking for the things she needs, she vows to spend the next trip reorganizing the bins.

After a few minutes, Taelor finally finds the last part, lifting it up triumphantly before putting it in her bag. She rushes out of the workshop, leaving a bunch of bins on the ground or half-out of their slot, and instantly forgets her vow as soon as the mess is out of her field of vision.

Taelor runs back outside. "How much time do I got?!" she yells as she crawls back under the ship to start her work.

"Oh, a few minutes," Elan replies casually. He's relaxed; Samara's vision has calmed him.

Speaking of which...

"Haistro's going to have some complicated gender dynamics," he points out. "In Samara's vision, the soldiers were mostly men. Our crew is three-quarters female. Playing the odds here, I'm guessing these soldiers don't represent the Council of the Sisterhood of the Eternal Flame.

"Let me take the lead until we can convince them that we're a neutral party."

"That's a good point Elan. On the other side if we are dealing with the Council, we might have to hide you somewhere aboard. I've not lived in a matriarchy before."
She took a moment, looking out over the terrain.
"Though I appreciate a group casting off the old hierarchy, this sounds like its lent into subjugation."

Hand on the ground, she feels the vibrations through the ground increase.
"We have a vehicle coming our way from the left, medium heavy maybe. Bigger than a car. Be with us in a few minutes. Might be trying to outflank us. I'm going to move to try and see if I can get cover from it. Samara- you should go back to Taelor."

She set off quickly towards the left, her gun gripped in both hands. What she was looking for was cover towards the direction of the vehicle, somewhere where she could possibly get the drop on it, when it came over the ridge, if needed and at least keep herself hidden.

As Lola crouches behind a shrub, an armored vehicle appears over the next hill. It's somewhere between a troop transporter and a scouting vehicle. It makes its way towards the ship and stops as soon as it and the crew are in shouting range. Four persons appear from behind it, two holding shields, the other standing behind training rifles at the crew. "HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM! IDENTIFY YOURSELF!"

Spoiler:

Elan has Betsy on a sling around his neck. He lets the laser rifle dangle over his chest and stomach as he raises his hands and steps forward.

"Hey, woah," he says with a calm tone.

"We're the crew of the Undertow here." He points helpfully at the ship. "She's a free merchant, not a corvette or a frigate. We're registered out of Xenthra; we're not from around here." He hopes that Xenthra sounds remote and unthreatening.

"We're traders," he says, "and we caught an artillery round during our descent. Taelor - the one there with the tools - is our pilot and engineer. Samara is our medic. My name is Elan; I guess you could call me the talker and the trader. What's your name?"

He asks the last question with a friendly tone, expressing a desire for a conversation rather than an interrogation. Still, he keeps his telekinetic shields raised, just in case.

Taelor pulls her soot-stained hands out the of thruster assembly and holds them out, still clutching a spanner in one of them. "Hiiii!" she calls out when Elan introduces her, noting his omission of Lola. Her pistols were close, but out of sight, tucked away where someone less skilled would have trouble pulling them out. Taelor, however, could draw like lightning. If things went south, he could get cover from the ship's landing struts and would be shooting back in a fraction of a second. Hopefully, it wouldn't come to that.

"I'm a medic, but I'm mainly the cook!" Samara chirps happily, while eagerly waving at their potential new friends.

The person quietly says something into a radio on his shoulder and less aggressively, still holding the weapon trained on the crew, though, answers "Put your weapons on the ground, what brings you to Haistro?"

Samara raises a hand as if asking for permission, and then lowers it to point to the Undertow. "That's easy, the ship of course!" She laughs airily at her terrible joke. "Like Elan said, we're traders. Although to be honest, I'm mainly curious about the local cuisine. Oh! And it would be nice to make some new friends! Maybe cook them a meal even! Tell me, how do you feel about mushrooms?"

If uninterrupted, Samara will speak with at the soldiers for some time.

Lola cursed to herself as she recognised the vehicle type. They'd been too slow, too unprepared. She should have got the rest of the crew with her, or hidden elsewhere. They'd made it scarily easy for their enemies. What her unit would say right now?

Except she wasn't with her unit. She wasn't fighting with soldiers now, and they couldn't just abandon the ship. And Samara couldn't be excepted to hold the line. They needed to act on their wits. Like a scouting party.

From behind her cover, Lola raised her weapon and aimed it at one of the soldiers with weapons raised. Time to trust her crew and their abilities to talk. If any of these men looked like they were going to shoot, she'd go for the killing blow.

Elan holds his hands out. He slowly grabs Betsy's sling and raised it over his head. He gently lowers Betsy to the ground, making sure not to disrupt her focusing lens.

He smiles in a friendly manner and lets Samara do her thing. He's pleased that Lola is doing what he hoped, namely staying quiet and flanking these fools new friends as a backup plan.

The soldier looks at Samara in slight confusion. Is she serious, or is she making fun of me? A sound from his com device on his shoulder draws his attention away from the young cook. He listens to what the person on the other side says and nods. He then gives his comrades a sign and they lower their weapons and shields. Another two men exit the vehicle. With lowered (but not dropped) weapons they come closer to the crew. "Alright, your story seems to check out. What are you trading on Haistro? I must say, you picked a bad time to come to this forsaken planet."

"Why, aid, of course!" Elan responds brightly. Perhaps not so earnestly as Samara, but few stars can shine so brightly. He keeps his tone upbeat to echo hers.

"Friends of ours informed us of the conflict here. We've come with supplies needed to sustain the struggle!"

He nods affirmatively, but then pauses to acknowledge the explosions.

"But, yes, these are challenging times. Once we deliver our freight, our cargo hold will be empty. If there are refugees that need to be evacuated, we can provide passage to nearby systems."

He looks proud of his little speech.

"With whom do I have the pleasure of speaking? Would you care for refreshments? The things Samara can do with mushrooms! Mwah!"

Elan gives a chef's kiss. He personally loathes mushrooms and draws hard line at Samara's mushroom cookies, but perhaps the soldiers are less particular.

Through the conversation and some vague memories of news and information, the team pieces together that the people before them are part of the oppositional group Oak & Sabre, fighting for more rights for men.
After years of trying to move things politically and through protest, the conflict recently grew hot, when the Sisterhood tried to squish the Oak & Sabre. Currently the Sisterhood is aggressively attacking the positions of O&S, but resistance is brave and fierce.

The next position of O&S is close to a small town, a few kilometers away in the direction of the smoke.
Once the soldiers realise the party is no threat and no ally of the Sisterhood, they turn to return to their base.

Samara's smile becomes wider and brighter with each of Elan's statements; from evacuating refugees to offering refreshments, she is overjoyed. She KNEW that he would come around on mushrooms!

The exchange with the soliders is punctuated with very persistent offers of said mushroom based products*, and as they begin to leave, Samara turns to the crew.

"It sounds like the Sisters are being huge bullies! Other than evacuating refugees, how else do you think that we can help?" She somehow manages to keep her voice low enough to not be readily overheard by the departing soldiers.




*Mushroom based fudge recipe anyone?

Before the soldiers go, Elan tries to get a bit of intel.

"Hey, who is your CO?" he asks. His eyes instinctively dart to Lola to see if he used the term correctly. Hopefully the soldiers don't notice. "Who can we talk to that's in charge?"

He points toward the base and small town. "Is it safe to fly there when we're done with repairs or are we just going to get shelled again? If that's your forward operating base, is there a main operating base behind the lines?"

He beams with pride at his use of military terminology. Of course, he'd never pass for a soldier because he doesn't know the right acronyms, but hopefully he can avoid embarrassing himself.

"Of course there other bases. But I'm not going to map them out for you. You can speak to Lieutenant Blackthorn. He runs the base. Whether it is safe or not is basically your decision. We ain't gonna shoot you down, but what the crazies will do..." he shrugs. Towards Sam he adds "Thanks, but hard pass on the mushrooms. And re helping. We can always use fighters" he shoots Elan a glance, apparently having bought his military lingo, "and weapons and supplies. So, you guys can help best by transporting those that want to be transported I guess. Anyway, take it up with Blackthorn."

The soldiers file into their vehicle and drive off, back to the direction they came from.

"To the base!" Exclaims Samara once the soldiers have gone. "Right?" She adds nervously before once again finding her blithe confidence. "We need to find out if the Lieutenant like fudge! And see how we can help the people here! And! And..." she trails off, frowning, deep in thought. "No, that's it: Base. Fudge. Help."

Samara begins rocking on the balls of her feet, a motion that will inevitably lead to bouncing if given enough time. "Is the ship fixed? Can we go now?"

Taelor relaxes as the soldiers drive off. Her hand moves away from her guns and resume their work on the ship. Her peace is quickly broken by Samara. "No, not even close. I'll need a few hours 'til we're flight worthy," she says, straining as she pulls out one of the bent blades of the thruster's nozzle. "But, yeah. We should head to that base when we can. Sounds like they might be interested in the shit's we've got to sell."

Elan is pleased that they were able to talk their way out of being at gunpoint.

He picks up Betsy off the ground. "Sorry, babe," he apologizes to her as he dusts her off. He slings her over his shoulder.

Elan nods in the direction of Lola. "Good job," he said. "Nice work staying concealed and providing overwatch in case things went sideways."

Lola doesn't really need his praise, but recognizing her seems right to him.

"Lola and I will establish a perimeter. I'm guessing we won't see the Sisterhood if we're close enough to an Oak & Sabre base for the O&S to be patrolling, but best to be careful.

"Samara, let us know if you get any of your tingly feelings, yeah?"

If there are no revisions to the plan, Elan returns to his previous perch up on the hill to get an elevated view of the surrounding countryside.

The approach to the town is a short and simple flight, but Taelor does not dare to do a complete flyover, given the recent events with the stray shell.
From above the crew observes that the town is little more than that. A collection of one-story houses scattered alongside three or four streets. The houses all look very similar: built of wood, one story, small porch, no decoration.
The town center consists of a few shops, a bar and what seems like a community house.
The fires caused by the bombardment didn't reach the houses, besides some men fighting fires outside town, not many people are seen outside of the houses.

The base is a little outside the town towards south and some of the barracks lie in smoking ruins.

Right now, there are no shells flying, nonetheless, Taelor lands the ship on the other side of the town, as far away from the base as possible.
The landing site is a flat meadow on a small hill above the town. About a kilometer towards south, the first houses start. On the east side of the ship a small forest is about 2 km away and towards north and west the rolling hills continue.

Elan tries to look out the portholes to see if he can get a sense of how people are dressed. Is everyone armed from war? Does the village look like it's full of guerilla fighters? Or just civilians caught in the cross-fire? He's intending to match his actions to the locals to help blend in and foster acceptance.

"Okay, let's go make friends," he says to the crew, but mostly to Samara. Samara's a dynamite distraction, the perfect wingman to a thief (whether she knows it or not). Maybe one day she'd run into a hard heart immune to her charm, but until then she's a steamroller.

"Let's make our way to the base," he suggests. "But we'll need to be tactful. The barracks got hit: they might have dead and wounded. Even if they don't, they might have lost their place to sleep tonight and their personal effects."

Tecumseh wrote:

"Samara, let us know if you get any of your tingly feelings, yeah?"

Ever eager to please, Samara is quick to answer Elan. "I don't get those when I'm standing, unless I have been standing for a really long time, or my shoes are too tight. I can sit cross-legged for a bit or maybe lie on one of my arms!" She seems content to continue to suggest different ways in which she might limit circulation to one part or another of her body only to eventually realises that that is not what Elan meant, and she laughs heartily at her own expense.  

"My mind does not tingle, although I think that there are some chemical compounds that could..." She shakes her head, trying to stay on topic. "It is more like staring at a bright light and then closing your eyes. You know‽ Because you can still see its image!"

The caveat being, that if she turns her head or the light moves, the afterimage remains nevertheless.  She doesn't explain how she has gotten better at seeing the possible, because she herself does not know. That said, knowing that her new friends appreciated the ability, makes Samara far less worried about further developing her Precognition.

Tecumseh wrote:

"Okay, let's go make friends,."

Samara grins at Elan, nodding happily. As he concludes the various ways in which the crew could render aid, she gives into her impulses and gives him a hug. "Yes! Elan! This is great! You're great!"

Regardless of how receptive Elan is to her enthusiastic appreciation, Samara  remains on cloud nine.

"You guys go ahead, I'll catch up with you. I need to take another look at the ship, I had a feeling it was listing to the damaged side on the way here. And I'd rather be able to take off quickly, it has proved to be useful in the past." Taelor already carries her tools with herself and heads over to the recently patched up side of the ship.

The rest heads out towards the base. Passing the town in an arc, it takes a while to reach the base.
As they come closer they see and hear the hectic orders barked and men scurrying around to help the injured and salvage what is salvageable.
Half of base lies in ruin. Former barracks are reduced to piles of rubbles and craters. Smoke rises from smoldering remains, the major fires already put out. The stench of burned wood and plastic lies heavily over the scene. Soldiers run in and out of the ruins, tending to the injured and searching for stashes of ammunition and explosives in order to get them away from the put out fires.
The approaching crew remains unnoticed or is being ignored.

"Alright, let's see if we can help out," Elan says, and for once he's not immediately looking to steal everything in sight.

"I don't know the first thing about first aid, but Taelor showed me the basics of how to fix things. I only have my metatool though, not a toolkit, but maybe I can tackle the small stuff. Or we could fight some fires.

"Lola, you know how to talk to soldiers. I presume they're not going to shoot anyone offering to help, but do you want to go through the chain of command?"

Samara nods along absently to what Elan is saying, his words not really registering; she is taking in the scene before them, her attention divided between horror at the devastation and determination to find or set up a field hospital of some kind. Despite every fiber of her being screaming at her to go help individual soldiers, she knows that she can help more people if done systematically.

Stepping off the ship, she was struck with a wave of memories, as the ambient noises and smells washed over her. The smell of burning, material and of course flesh. The sharp scent of cordite, the duller sense of heavier exploded munitions. Even the freshness of the soil as it had been overturned. The hollowness to the sound, as if all the background around the camp had been turned off, overlaid with moans, shouts and the occasional short scream. Sobs, gasps and the low muttered words in return. Things that she couldn't have remembered that she knew, but were as familiar as her name barked out by a CO. She'd been here many times. Sometimes looking through the wreckage of her people, and sometimes as the aggressive force accepting surrender, seeing what their weapons had wrought. It wasn't something you got used to, at least for her, just something you became more or less successful at burying down.

So she did that again, weapon hooked over her right shoulder, and walked out following her companions. The best way to get in with the soldiers would be to act as they did, with a professionalism and distance between you and the act. Of course today might be a little complicated by the fact that the enemy here was female, but she'd have to do the best she could.

"Right yes, I'll see who I can find."
She looked back at the two hesitating before speaking. She wasn't quite sure of either of their experience dealing with a disaster like this and didn't want to talk down to them.
"Just to say. Help what you can but don't run yourselves into the ground. It sounds cold, but things like this can be overwhelming and there will always be more people who require help than you have the capacity to give. Don't feel bad about taking breaks."

She then set off into the camp, heading generally towards the centre which was typically where command posts tended to be. Keeping her hands open and by her side, she moved briskly, knowing that an unsure walk was more likely to stand out. She felt the stares though, from the different soldiers that passed her, some wary, some outright suspicious, some spitting as they walked on. Finally catching sight of two men standing back and deep in discussion, she approached them, assuming them to have some authority.

Slipping back into her old military cadence she asked,

"Could you point me towards, Lieutenant Blackthorn? I'm with the trade ship that just landed, we've some supplies that might be of interest."

"Blackthorn? Aye, over there." The soldier points towards a makeshift tent towards the side of the camp. As Lola approaches she hears yelling of orders and profanities from within. "Make yourself useful! I don't care if you are running low on material! I don't have any, or do you see some lying around here? Find something, you useless idiot!" A young soldier comes hurrying out of the tent and scurries off.

Meanwhile Sam and Elan find the field hospital. There are about forty individuals injured on stretchers. Three doctors and four nurses (male and female) tend to them as good as they can.

Elan looks torn about what to do.

On one hand, he doesn't want to leave Lola on her own, in case some of the men want to lynch her.

On the other hand, there's not much he can meaningfully accomplish at the field hospital. Perhaps he can get water for the wounded, especially if they were not mobile and couldn't attend to themselves. But beyond that, seven medical professionals for forty wounded seemed like better than could be expected, under the circumstances. Elan is more concerned about getting in the way.

He sees if there is any medical equipment that was damaged that he might be able to fix, or if there are small errands he can run for the wounded. Beyond that, he mostly keeps an eye on Samara. Maybe she knows what to do, and he can mimic that.

In more controlled environments, Samara likes to practice what first aid she does know along with her ability to guide a body towards wellness. It was both to keep her skills up, and to provide plausible deniability should her powers be misunderstood.  With so many wounded and more likely to be incoming she will only use her more mundane skills if it would make it easier for the body to recognise and therefore strive to reach its healed state.

"The immediate is not the inevitable," she says at (rather than to) Elan, with quiet determination before she begins walking among the stretchers.  As she briefly places her hands on each patient, Samara whispers "Overcome and rejoice." Even though the words are not necessary to be able to help bodies, she was used to hearing them when large groups of people were found worthy of Mother J's assent to receive the blessings of the Revolution.

Finding the quirk in the engine is not hard. The ship was listing to one side. That must be... Surely it cannot be anything but... The modulator on the side, right, it isn't calibrated. She facepalms herself, however could she have forgotten this. Mweh, it's fine, she'll just tell the others that a wire was loose.
After having calibrated the modulator, she decides to follow the rest of the crew to the base.

As she approaches, a group of soldiers closes the loading door of a truck with rubble and the vehicle starts driving off. To make room for it, Taelor takes a few steps to the side. Suddenly, she looses her foothold and starts sliding into the crater next to her. It is not a very steep crater, so the slide is not dangerous. A scraped knee and some scratches on her palms is all she suffers. When she reaches the end of her involuntary descent, she finds herself at the bottom of what seems to be a crater in a crater. Several shells must have hit the same spot in order to make a hole this deep. She is just about to start climbing back up, when she notices a hole in the ground. It is maybe a meter by a meter, but hidden from sight from the top of the crater, by a large stone.
Curious, she walks over to the hole and tries to look inside.
The hole opens to a dark room. She cannot see much from outside, just that walls are clad in some kind of ceramics, which strikes her as weird for a cellar of a, frankly, rather provisional military base. The air in the hole smells old and stale. Fancy ceramics, but no proper ventilation, tststs, amateurs...

There was something oddly reassuring about hearing the officers angry retort. It wouldn't be pleasant to be the person the threats were directed against, but it was something she was well used to. And though your leader might insult you, having them there in a time of crises certainly made things easier.

Lola walked up to the entrance of the tent, and called through.
"Lieutenant Blackthorn? My name is Lola Tory and I'm with the trading vessel that just landed. Could I have a few moments of your time?"

She kept her voice clipped and short in the properly military way, waiting for the word that would give her indication to enter the tent. Upon hearing this she would step inside, arms at her side. She wasn't quite standing at attention, but old habits died hard.

Taelor wipes her palms on her pants, then kneels down and shrugs her backpack off. She rummages through its contents and retrieves her low-light goggles. She straps them on and flicks the activation switch, before leaning forward to peek into the hole again. After having gotten a better look, she pulls out her dataslab and records a short voice message. "Hey, just made it to the camp, but I found something just outside. Some sort of underground ruin, maybe? I wanna check it out. Sending my coordinates along with this. Hope on over when you have the time." She adds her location data and sends it off to the crew.

She then sits down on the big rock, turns off her goggles, and waits for an answer. Her eyes keep straying to the hole, and she has to fight the urge to just drop down and start exploring it on her own. I mean, who can resist the lure of a mysterious hole?

Elan gets a message on his compad and is grateful for the distraction. Right now he's being confronted with his lack of meaningful skills to contribute, so he welcomes an alternative.

<<What, like an underground bunker?>> he types back. <<On my way.>>

Elan heads for Taelor's position near the edge of the base.

~~~ (presuming nothing stops him or interferes with him en route) ~~~

Elan gets to the crater and is disappointed that it's not steeper so that he could use his gecko anchors. He slides down the crater and arrives next to Taelor.

"Huh," he says. "That's a coincidence, the crater within a crater. Usually you expect dispersion to happen naturally: each propellant charge slightly off, every round slightly asymmetrical, blown a bit differently by wind, etc."

The point is largely rhetorical as he does not expect Taelor to have an answer, so he goes over and sticks his head in the hole to put his panspectral optics to work. Depending on what he sees, he may crawl in using his gecko anchors.

Elan peeks into the hole, hanging upside down. The room behind the hole is dark. Not only lack of light dark, but lack of any radiation dark.
Elans lowlight enhancement let's him see a corridor leading in one direction to a door, the other direction is blocked by a caved in ceiling.

Seeing that it is empty, Elan enters. Or is that logic backward?

"Curiosity killed the cat," he says, "but luckily not the cat burglar."

And with that, he descends into the hole, dropping down to the floor to walk down the corridor to the door. He listens at the door for a moment to see if he can hear anything on the other side. If not, he'll try to open the door. If the door is locked, he will use his metatool to pick it.

As Elan walks into the tunnel, he can feel dirt and small stones under his shoes. The door is not locked, but rusty hinges make it very hard to open. With lots of effort and some painfully loud screeching sounds (although Elan is not sure whether the sounds are actually deafening loud, like it seems to him, or whether they just appear to be so loud in the silent narrow chamber he is in), he manages to open the door half way.
Behind it, there is another very dark room. Without extra light, Elan cannot see far. There might be some old screens on the side and old chairs sprawled on the floor.
Every movement Elan makes is accompanied with scratching sounds of shoes on dirt on smooth surface. The air is stuffy and old.

Taelor types in another message for Sam and Lola. //Elan and I are going to check out the ruin. Will lyk if we find anything// She puts her dataslab away and lowers her goggles over her eyes again.

She drops down into the hole, then turns her goggles back on. She makes a disappointed face when she realizes they barely help. She turns them off and lifts them up, then fishes her dataslab out of her pocket. She turns on the flashlight app and heads down the corridor. She finds the half-open door and hears Elan's feet scratch against the floor in the room beyond. She squeezes through the opening.

Once inside, she sweeps the room with her dataslab's light to get a better look.