Night in Death Valley

[Angel]

Ke'rehl kai'Kikuto (and he carried the name with a fierce pride) watched as the prisoners filed into Death Valley, carefully watched over by his troupe. His mind was troubled. The Kikuto tribe certainly got into more than its share of trouble but it had never gone looking for it. They prided themselves on surviving and part of survival was knowing when to keep your head down. So it seemed awfully foolish to him to basically kidnap a group of people the latest, jumped up House dog was sure to be looking for.

Around him the desert sun was still high in the sky and the air felt like the inside of an oven. Ke'rehl was used to it and he had the gear to withstand it but he was surprised as many of the survivors had made it as far as they had. They hadn't left anyone behind, mostly because Ke'rehl did not want a trail of vultures and crows leading the Cabri's search parties right to them, but many of them were in bad shape, even with the water that the Kadio had ordered they share.

He scratched the exposed stubble of his cheek, his blunt fingernails displacing sand from among the hair. His scouts were leading the prisoners into the caves set into the sandstone cliffs of the valley. No one worried about any of them running away. The sun and the sand was cage enough to hold them. This was an oasis and the only source of water for leagues around. Anyone foolish enough to strike off on their own would quickly end up dead and he was sure the prisoners realized that after the two hour stroll they'd just taken.

As he stood above the train entering the valley he spotted the form of his leader walking towards him. She was the only woman among them but she had the respect of the men. "Kadio," he said respectfully as she joined him on the ridge above the entrance to the valley, using the honorific title the men had bestowed on her.

"I've just received word from my mother Ke'rehl," Huria said as she pulled her scarf down off her nose. It blew in the arid wind, the edges of it just touching Ke'rehl's shoulder. His ears, always attentive to her orders, perked up at the news. "The Matriarch will meet us here. We're ordered to settle in for the night."

Ke'rehl nodded when he heard the news. "I'll spread the word Kadio."

Huria smiled as she watched the prisoners push their way through the lush vegetation of the oasis on their way to the caves. "It's too bad they don't speak our language," she remarked after a moment. "Someone should tell them to stay away from the plants."

---

The Madras

Your ship was pursued by pirates into a hostile system and suffered severe damage in both firefights. It went down in the middle of the local planet's desert. Many of its crew members have died, many others have suffered terrible injury. The ship itself was crippled beyond repair. Its life support systems were compromised including various hull breaches and a water supply that leaked into the desert sand.

The survivors were taken prisoner by the locals who seem to be equipped with the clothing and hardware to live in the desert and marched away from the ship. You've been walking through the sand for the past two hours with little water and no food but you've finally arrived at an oasis located in a small valley surrounded by sandstone cliffs. The cliffs provide a bit of shade but the caves that pocket the cliffs are much better.

Your captors seems to have settled in to wait out the rest of the day but no one is quite sure. Only their leader speaks your language and everyone else is just a bit hostile which means no one is inclined to tell the prisoners the plants have some interesting effects if ingested.

[Agari]

Agari trudged along as slowly as he was allowed through the desert heat. They had been walking for several hours and none of that time had been pleasant. His feet felt like they were going to fall of from trying to balance on the dunes, his skin was so burnt that he was sure he looked like a lobster, and there was sand in places he didn't even know he had. Not to mention the incredible thirst. When Agari could see that they were finally arriving at their destination he almost felt like celebrating out loud. Almost, but not quite. Celebrating required energy.

Instead he settled for observing the sights in front of him. It looked like there may be some caves along the cliffs, which would be a nice reminder of home, but what really caught his attention was the flora. It seemed there was a little oasis in this sheltered area and there were more plants here than he had seen all day. Granted, a lot of them you wouldn't want to touch due to needles, but they were still neat to look at.

Just at a glance he noticed some prickly pears, some barrel cacti, and in the distance what might be date palms. After he had a chance Agari decided he may have to look around and try to add some seeds to his collection. Since he hadn't had time to grab anything from the ship, all he had from his collection were a couple watermelon seeds he had in his pocket from breakfast.

Agari's stomach growled loudly and he put a hand to it. Lunch was sounding good right about now. He eyed up a prickly pear fruit as he passed by one of the plants, wondering if their captors would mind if he picked one.

[Asher Davis]

Asher's feet were dragging as he plodded onward. He'd kind of zoned out a while ago and was just walking now, half aware of his surroundings. The desert hadn't been much to look at anyways as it dragged on in all directions. Between his extremely fair skin - which had quickly burned - and the lack of food and water - the former of which they'd had none of and the latter of which had been limited - Asher was miserable. Drifting into his current state had allowed him to ignore the never-ending sand and the pain of his lobster-red skin.

He drifted out momentarily when they'd reached the oasis, but he'd almost drifted back into his zombie like state until he'd noticed the green of the plants they were now pushing through. He pulled his shirt of his head, where he'd wrapped it in an attempt to protect the back of his neck. While it had worked, it had left his shoulders and back open to be burned instead.

"I'd almost think this was a mirage if I didn't know that you couldn't feel one. That and I think they vanish before you reach them." After he said it he almost wished he hadn't for two reasons. The first was how stupid it sounded to be making such meaningless conversation. The second was how his voice had come out in something of a croak because of how dry his throat was.

He glanced around at the plants. It was tempting to try and eat something, but he wasn't sure if any of it was edible, or at least not if it could be safely ingested. If you didn't know, starvation was preferable to poisoning yourself. I'd just as soon wait for our captors to feed us.... if they do. At least then I can blame something other than my own stupidity if I end up dead.

[Huria]

Huria walked past the prisoners who had begun to hover just inside the entrances to the caves. By now many of the foreigners had figured out she was some sort of leader and the ones who saw her coming often stepped out of the way and watched her pass with frightened eyes. Not necessarily frightened of her but of what she represented, the terrible situation they found themselves in and the helplessness that most of them must be feeling. She didn’t spare them much thought. Their fate would be decided soon enough and there was nothing she could do to hurry the decision, whether they knew that or not.

She headed deeper into the cave system on her way to the storage rooms. The caverns of Death Valley looked pretty rough and natural and, for the most part, they were. Blending in was, of course, the first line of defense and the Kikutos worked hard to make sure the various dens that spotted the territory they’d claimed as their own didn’t draw attention to themselves. But all the caves of decent size in the valley had running water provided by an intricate plumbing system linked to the lake in the middle of the oasis. It was still a desert dwelling and water use wasn’t encouraged but it was available and they’d even devised a way to use a combination of the water flow, sun panels and cleverly constructed wind turbines to provide limited power. They were careful to conserve the power they collected and it was mostly used to provide light during the night and in the darker areas of the system. Lights that came on when they sensed her presence as she made her way towards the storage room located in the heart of the system.

She didn’t own many things, most Kikutos didn’t and their notion of property ownership was expectantly loose because of it. In most circumstances, you were only seen to own your own body and whatever you carried on it and sometimes not even that. If another member of the House had power over you could you really be said to own yourself? In a lot of ways Huria owned her men and that ownership was acknowledged on both sides and, underlying all of that, was the idea that all things were owned by the House as a whole. All resources were shared for the survival of all and that principle was one of the most dearly held and strictly enforced values of their culture.

But every person acquired a few things they wanted to hold on to throughout their lives, even nomads, and Huria was no exception. Most of the things she owned she kept in one of the dens located much farther north and a bit west of Death Valley. It was right on the sea and, while she didn’t have one designated home and would have hated being tied too closely to one place, she did consider that location her favorite and most of her few belongings could be found in the storage room there. But a few years ago she’d made it a priority to store a more comprehensive set of tools at every den she frequented and she wanted to retrieve the set she’d left here.

She located the storage room and put her hand against the sensor next to the door. The pad sensed her heat and a little click could be heard before the door began to slide into the slot in the wall. The lights inside the storage room came on as she walked in and headed towards the back. She searched through the items left there longer than she’d like. Her people weren’t the best at organizing things like storage rooms and many items had just been thrown on to various shelves. Eventually she found the kit she was looking for and she took it back out of the storage room with her as the lights turned off behind her and the door closed.

Huria made her way to the main sleeping berth where Kikuto engineers had carved tiers of sleeping platforms into the walls. Rarely, in some of the larger systems, entire rooms were built that held only one or two people but few used them, mostly immigrants who had yet to really get over the practices of their original Houses. Most Kikutos were used to the close quarters travel enforced and would have found it odd and probably a bit lonely to sleep in a room by themselves.

As she walked into the room many of the men turned to greet her and she nodded in return. Most were engaged in various tasks of maintenance on their gear and quickly returned to them after she’d gone by. Taking care of their gear was the first priority of any of the nomads who walked the deserts regularly and all other tasks were put off until that was seen too. But a few that had gone ahead and been here for a while or who had just been extremely quick with their chores were already stripped down to their waist wrappings or less and some still had shiny skin from quick baths they’d taken. Modesty was a value that only existed where there was privacy and since they didn’t have any, modesty wasn’t really highly valued.

Huria made her way over to a particular group of men and crouched down next to Ke’rehl, running a hand through his hair as she did so as one might pet a favorite dog, with affection and a bit of a dismissal. He looked up at her touch and raised a curious eyebrow but Huria just smiled at him. She hadn’t bedded Ke’rehl since he’d joined her troupe and become her second in command and she didn’t plan on changing that policy now. He accepted her rejection with a shrug and continued to peal a fruit with a knife. It was one of the few edible fruits found in the entire oasis, provided you skinned it of course or else the skin could send you on an interesting trip.

“Is everyone settled in?” Huria asked, picking up a fruit from the bowl. She sat down and produced a knife from somewhere within her garments and began to skin it herself. Ke’rehl nodded and was about to say something when they heard a small grunt behind them and they both looked over their shoulders. Huria didn’t have sex with any of her men because she had to lead them, but that certainly didn’t stop Jaykawb and Keith from doing things with each other.

Such pairings were frowned on in almost all other places on the planet and so Kikuto had more than its share of men and women like Keith and Jaykawb as they escaped the restrictive expectations of their homes and were welcomed by her people, as were all that sought freedom in the desert. Very few men and women with such inclinations had formed anything more than passing relations since starting their lives here. Partially because enduring relationships weren’t encouraged by her people as a whole but mostly because, having lived most of their lives suppressing their desires, many now pursued them with a fierce aggression that Huria personally approved of but may be seen as a bit overzealous by some others.

Huria heard a snort from across the fruit bowl and turned back to look at Ian. “Is your mother bringing women?” he asked, his eyes on the scene behind Huria’s shoulder. Ke’rehl chuckled when he heard the question but many of the other men had turned their eyes toward her to hear the answer.

“How can I possibly know my mother’s mind from leagues away Ian,” Huria asked as she continued to peal her fruit. Her mother was legendarily independent and it was considered wise not to try to second guess her decisions so appealing to her unpredictability was an easy out for Huria.

Ian grunted again and looked away, obviously dissatisfied. “Perhaps some of the foreigners will oblige you,” a man on Ian’s right said with a teasing smile. Huria looked around as many of her men looked up, intrigued by the idea. Huria certainly wasn’t against any voluntary pairings between her men and the prisoners but ensuring that the pairings were voluntary was a bit of a problem. With the exception of her, none of her men spoke their language of vice versa and it would be all too easy for someone to fake a misunderstanding to get what they wanted. She wasn’t all that concerned with the well being of the foreigners but she wasn’t about to encourage rape so she decided to squash that idea before it got any more traction.

She whistled and immediately had everyone’s attention. “Unless one of their women gets down on her knees to service you keep your hands off of them. And there will be no helping any of them to their knees either. I’ll have the balls of any man I even hear bad reports about. Unlike you, I can speak to them and be assured, I’ll check.” A hush fell over the room for a second but then they all went back to their tasks. There may have been a few grumblings, Ian certainly looked disappointed, but once she spoke the matter was settled.

“Are you going to take your own advice?” Ke’rehl asked a bit too casually.

“Of course,” Huria said, glancing over at him. “I only bed men willing to get down on their knees, as you should know.” He smiled, acknowledging the truth of it and the tense moment passed. “How are the prisoners doing health wise?” she asked, changing the subject.

“Fine,” Ke’rehl answered, "except for the sun touch but Louren is going into our stores of salve to help." He chuckled, "I figure they're gonna run out with all the red faces I saw." Huria knew he was probably correct, but that most of the prisoners would be fine after their burns healed. It may have been unexpected out of a band of desert bugs but they produced some of the best doctors in the world. Their physicians may not have been the best at the sort of procedures that took hours to complete but they excelled in field work. Their skill was a direct consequence of the bloody and often lethal raids carried out on her people on a regular basis by their neighbors. No troupe travelled without the doctors that would put them back together when they inevitably ran into trouble, especially not hers since she was her mother’s daughter.

Her mother didn’t impose many limits on her life but that was one of them. She was constantly accompanied by one of their best doctors who sole duty was to put her back into one piece after her life style landed her in many. Their doctors were the reason that most of the survivors had continued to survive their visit to her planet and they had no doubt been circulating among them and helping who they could after she’d made it clear she wanted as many alive as possible. But there was at least one that the doctors would not be able to help and that is where her kit came in handy.

“Where’s the android?” Huria asked.

[Leo]

Leo sat off to the edge of the Oasis glaring at the space in front of him. His hand still had a tight grip on his shoulder, trying to keep out the sand out but at this rate there was at least some in there. As bad as the threat of a clog in his systems sounded, he was starting to grow concerned about the fluids he’d lost. The leak wasn’t that bad but he hadn’t had a chance to attend to it. Once he was captured by the desert goons they quickly took his bag and inspected it. They probably thought he had weapons, but unless they counted a good wrench he was unarmed. Still they hadn’t given it back and he hoped they hadn’t dropped or lost his collection of tools.

He felt useless and trapped. Leo could have dealt with trapped, probably with pacing and swearing but then he’d be doing something. Now he was sitting to conserve energy and resources. If he lost too much fluid his joints would lock up first. Then what was left would be diverted to sustaining critical drives, after that if he wasn’t rehydrated in some way those drives would start to overheat. Overheating, well that would just be bad for everyone in general.

Some of the people from the Madras finally caught onto his existence while they had walked. While his eyes may have been screwed up, his ears were working just fine. There were a few gasps, and then whispers close by. Didn’t take a genius to figure out what they were talking about. Most of them just sounded shocked, a few he wanted to say disgust. Leo just kept his mouth shut and his head down best he could, besides yelling at them would just waste time and much needed energy.

He shook his head and forced himself to check his scans. They didn’t hold much good news but it wasn’t as bad as he thought it would be. He had lost an unhealthy amount of fluid, yet he wasn’t down at dangerous levels. In theory he could replace some of it with water. That however meant it would thin out his systems even at the best of times. As he calculated the pros and cons in his situation a shadow came up behind him. He glanced over his shoulder, only to have his vision whited out again by the sun.

“What?” he snapped after giving up on identifying the person.

[Tamrin]

Tamrin was leaning against a cave wall. She was in the shade but the temperature was hardly any lower. The stroll across the desert had been the worst experience of her life. She'd been in some pretty bad places and seen some pretty fucked up things. Her training had put her in some hellish scenarios just to prepare her for days like these. But she felt like nothing really prepared you to cross a desert with no gear, even it had only been for two hours.

She was slightly better off than some of her crew mates who were born into similarly light skins but that was the only way in which she could be said to be better off. Her shoulder had gotten progressively worse and it throbbed in a way that demanded all of her attention. She could no longer ignore it and she only hoped that someone would notice. It felt like a weak thought, that she just had to sit here and hoped a doctor would come or a crew mate would call a doctor or something. But the pain was too bad. She could just barely manage to sit here and breath normally and she felt like she was about to pass out. Maybe it's only what she deserved.

[Asher Davis]

The passengers and crew of the Madras had been lead onwards by their captors, into the nearby caves. Despite the shade, things didn't feel any better for Asher. Half of that may have been that returning to awareness had left him no way to ignore the dull pain from his sun burned skin. Asher had lived most of his life out of the sunlight. His skin had probably been the most prone to burning and, while he couldn't tell just by looking, Asher had probably gotten one of the worst sun burns in the group.

He sank down onto the ground of the cave, but as soon as he tried to lean against the cave wall he regretted it. Pressure on his burned skin didn't help it any, and he winced as he straightened back up. Instead of relaxing he glanced around him at the other members of the Madras. Near him was a female, a rather formidable looking blond who Asher vaguely recognized. He thought she'd been some sort of pilot or other similar crew member. However the other thing he took in looking at her was her arm, hanging rather limply at her side.

"Your arm," he said, scooting over to her. "Do you mind if I look? I'm not certified or anything, but I was a med student on Glace Au Four before I boarded the ship." It probably wasn't exactly a comfort that he was more of an amateur than anything, but he at least could communicate with her. That was more than could be said about their captors.

((I didn't want another random post with Asher in his own little world, so I merged his scene with Tamrin's.))

[Agari]

Agari stayed with the group, for the most part. When the majority of them went into one of the caves, Agari stayed just outside the entrance whereas many others stayed just inside. There were so many plants he had never seen in person before. He just couldn't take his eyes off the site.

"I need to restart my collection, Agari said to himself." He had already considered restarting his seed collection when they first arrived at the oasis, but now he was determined. Already he had collected a handful or two of grass seeds as he had walked past them. "But if I collect some seeds, I'll need something to put them in. I suppose I'll have to get that something from our "hosts.""

Agari paced for a moment, trying to think of how he might go about doing that. Language barriers aside, he doubted they would just give him something. And Agari didn't have any money on him, not that he expected them to use any normal currency anyhow.

Which left bartering. But Agari didn't have anything of value on him. In fact, all he had on him from the ship besides his clothes were a few watermelon seed. Those might be valuable to these people, but he doubted they had a place where they could grow them.

"Oh Agari, you idiot," he said to himself. "Did you drop your brain in a vat of acid?" He could grow them himself. A couple full grown watermelons in a desert society would probably be worth more anyway. He set about looking for a nearby spot where he could plant a seed that wouldn't draw attention for the next hour or so.