Well, it's tenacious, I'll give it that.

Rakan smacked the door control, a warning sound started going off, so he smacked it again to initiate the override. The wind started to whip into the Ranger.

"Hold on to your balls," He said to everyone... mainly the Sullustan. "Schutta is tailing us."

He carefully brought his Rifle up, aimed, took a moment to steady himself just when a bump in the terrain threw him off and he had to grip the door frame to stop himself from toppling over.

"Hold her steady!" He growled through gritted teeth, and brought the rifle to bear again. The entity was almost lost in the fog now.. just a brief glimpse of his eyes...

BLAM!

He wasnt sure if he hit, but it was close that's for sure.

A tree trunk whips by, inches from the end of Rakan's gun as he pulls it back and steps inside the vehicle. Shapris smacks the controls to shut the door. Sorotai shakes her head in a chiding manner and Rakan's close call, "Hands, noses, and gun barrels inside the vehicle at all times." she says dryly. Breshenal shifts uncomfortably, holding his injured arm.

The rest of the trip goes without incident, and when they are about three minutes out, Shapris speaks back over his shoulder to Rakan, "You want me to call him do-- Hang on, that's not right..." He leans in close examining the scope, then jerks back upright, "That idiot! That... that... idiot!" He says again, struggling to find words through his frustration, "He landed the darn thing already." He accelerates, "Better get there fast, then."

Rakan leans forward to listen to Shapris. Then settles back in his seat.

"I'm going to throttle that Corellian." He growled matter of factly. "Just get us there, and on board immediately."

Shapris speeds towards the landing site, only slowing down when the ship comes into range. As the ramp begins to lower on the ship, Shapris yells, "WHAT THE KRIFF!" He slams on the brakes and swerves to the side as Karn Fenn rushes out into the path of the vehicle, waving his arms.

Seeing Rakan grab his rifle and start to stand, the Weequay hastily backs up towards the ship, holding his hands up in front of him, his yelling muffled by the thick transparisteel of the Ranger, but still audible: "Hang on! Wait! It's a mistake, it's all an illusion! It's me, I'm alive!"

Rakan jumps out of the Ranger, rifle firmly aimed at the new Fenn, now stood before them. He was going to blast him right off the bat but he was half-curious. They put Fenn in the ground and there was no way he would get back faster than the ranger. So whoever and whatever this was better have a good explanation.

"You have 10 seconds! If I don't like what comes outta your mouth. It'll be the second time you die today!" He barks

He takes another step back, stammering, "Rake! I-It's me! Something's been playing with our minds! I can't explain it, don't shoot me dammit! I know you never liked me that much, but don't shoot me!" The Weequay's panicked stare shoots across to the Ranger, looking for intervention from the occupants. They all seem very unsure of themselves, with the exception of Gonnie Ad who looks like he just wants to get on the ship as quickly as possible, and doesn't care whether it's Fenn or not. Breshenal gives Rakan a look, but doesn't say anything.

Rakan threw his synthrope on the ground. "Shapris, get the Ranger on board. Then bring a couple out to bind Fenn. Nadriana, let's do a few tests, scans, whatever, I want to know his biology." He growled, stepping closer to the Weequay.

"On your knees, hands behind your head. I'm only gonna tell you once!"

He slowly puts his hands behind his head and kneels as Doctor Juna steps down from the vehicle carrying her hand scanner and medkit. As Rakan looks at him more closely, he feels a fuzziness at the back of his mind, that something isn't right. Doctor Juna steps up beside him and reaches out with the hand scanner, running it over the Weequay, then looking at it quizzically, then smacking it, then running it over him again. She silently holds up the scanner to Rakan, showing him the reading: No heartbeat, no life signs, no vitals, no blood, no nothing. No readings on any of the charts.

"The facade is over."

Rakan fires, but the new Fenn leaped out of the way with inhuman reflexes.

"Take him down!"

The Ranger was already entering the ship when Rakan fired. Docor Juna grabbed her medkit and sprinted towards the ship as fast as she could, panting and staggering, unused to such exertion, and especially not amid these conditions. The figure leaps up and springs towards the treeline, already reverting to its previous form, the shadowy, red-eyed, humanoid figure. Rakan fires a couple shots at it as it changes form, and this time there is a visible burst of shadow as one of the bolts passes through, the transparent debris falling to the ground as the shadow passes out of sight and disappears into the mist.

He ran over to whatever his shot had taken off of the creature. He went to pick it up, but it was a powdery substance, as if his blaster shot had incinerated it. He grabbed a handful and stuffed it in his pocket. Scanned the treeline again before running to board the Prometheus.

The ramp began to close and the others began to exit the Ranger. Nadriana was breathing heavily, leaning on the wall of the ship. When the ramp closed with a clank and a hiss, Garm's voice came over the intercom, "We're sealed, Rake. You ready for me to take off now?"

"Get her up in the air!" He shouted back. Looking around and taking account of all the personnel. He looked to Nadriana.

"You alright?" He asked, then took the powdered substance from his pocket and held it out. "This is from the thing, not sure if it will be any good but, it may give some information?"

"I'm fine." She looks at the powder in his hand and glances up at Rakan, "You had this... in your pocket ?" she shakes her head and sorts through her kit, grabbing a vial and scooping up the dust, sealing it shut. "I'll check it out, see if it can give me anything, though I doubt it'll help much."

Part Two: Rakan Kowl
Chapter Three: Closing Pandora's Box
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The ship rumbles and Rakan feels it lift off, but then he... hears ? Relief? Relief that turns to confusion, and then the feeling disappears. Garm's voice comes back over the intercom, " We're outta here, Rake. Make sure to decontaminate before you get up here."

He shrugs at Nadriana.

"Right, will do." He replied over the comm. " However I want the ship checked out, top to bottom. If there was a way for the thing to get on board or cling on, I want to know."

Rakan goes through the decontamination process and makes his way up.

When Rakan reached the flight deck, the ship was already clearing the atmosphere and making for the edge of the planet's gravity well. The Corellian was leaning back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head. "Hull's clear. Scan shows no signs and there's now way anything survived leaving the atmosphere. Some of the others are currently working on sweeping the ship for any signs of stowaways."

Rakan nodded. He still held his Rifle firmly, too wound up to relax just yet.

"Good. Once we have the all clear take your next instructions from Breshenal."

He turned and went about making his own patrol of the craft.

Rakan begins his sweep in the opposite direction of the others, making a sweep from top to bottom. The observation and meeting rooms are the quickest to clear, and he uses their tremendous windows to get a good look at the top of the ship, and while he’s at it, a nice view of the system and the planet, a beautiful swirl of purple and white. He pulls himself away from the view and heads down to the next deck.

He takes a quick look around the flight deck and then turns back towards the crew quarters, checking each as he went. Mostly for his own amusement, he made a point of checking under Nem’s bed very thoroughly. No monsters. He smirks to himself and moves on to the next room. Once he’s done with the crew and passenger quarters, he checks the laboratory spaces, but skips over the Fauna Room, because that is where Nadriana is and he knows how she doesn’t like to be interrupted or distracted. They are all clear, but the Flora Room could use a cleanup. Some of the samples they took on the last planet have grown. A lot.

As he clears the second deck, he makes his way down to the bottom deck and starts with engineering, as he reaches for the panel, Nem and Mel pass by on their way towards the turbolift and assure him that they checked it thoroughly. Not really trusting their thoroughness, he checks anyway. All clear. He investigates the storeroom, but doesn’t go into the hangar because Gonnie is currently working on decontaminating Epimetheus . As he is finishing his check, his comlink beeps and Nadriana’s voice comes through, "Mr. Kowl? I’ve finished some of the testing, and I’ve found something I think you’ll be very interested to see. Meet me in the Fauna Room." Her voice is comparatively brimming with excitement.

Rakan makes his way to his quarters. As he enters he just stands in the middle of the room. Not doing anything, just musing, thinking about the days strange events and staring at the floor. It's hard to process. He pulls out the Glitterstim inhaler and thinks about taking another hit but Nadriana's voice comes over the comm.

"On my way, Doctor." He replies, shoving the inhaler back in one of the compartments on his belt.

When Rakan reaches the laboratory and opens the door, the Pantoran eagerly waves him over. "It took a while to filter the organic material from the miscellaneous debris, and even longer to filter the ash from the mostly intact organic material, of which there is very little. However, there was some. I used the filter to separate the different samples out onto various slides, and then I noticed that one of them appeared to be empty. I knew I had placed the intact organic material on that slide, so I looked closer." she gestures to her instruments, "It took a moment, but I had the idea to cycle through multiple wavelengths of light. The biomaterial seems to be able to absorb almost all wavelengths, except ultraviolet ." she said dramatically. "I could be wrong, and this is just a theory, but that may be why it was still somewhat visible, if only dimly, at times, and why it took your keen eyesight, enhanced by the... drugs..." she says with obvious distaste. "to see the creature."

Rakan listened carefully. Nodding every now and then. When she mentioned the drugs, he winced a little. Was that common knowledge?

"I don't take drugs Nadriana." He growled, matter of factly.

"Well, that's interesting. We'll be prepared for that next time. If there is one."

She stares him in the eyes, "My mistake, then." she stated, matter-of-factly, giving the impression she didn't really believe him. She looked like she wanted to say more, but just then, Rakan's comlink beeped, and Breshenal requested his presence on the flight deck. "I'll keep working on it and keep you updated." Nadriana said as Rakan signed off.

Unfortunately, due to circumstances stemming from the virus, this storyline has been cut short. Hopefully, we will eventually return and finish this.

This is a placeholder post. In the future, I will either link the post where this storyline resumes, or I will post my attempt at writing out the story.