Sliding with My Homie
Posted on Sat Jan 22nd, 2022 @ 5:24pm by Remal Kajun & Captain Rhenora Kaylen
Mission:
*CD*
Location: Bajor
Timeline: Current-ish
The impact threw them both backwards, Rhenora’s skull hitting a tree trunk as the momentum cast them backwards. There was a moment of blackness - how long she couldn’t tell before the biting wind and the pressure of someone on top of her brought her back to the frozen present. There was a mass of tangled hair tucked under a warm knitted hat that could only belong to one person - Patin.
With a grown she sat up, levering the other woman off her and taking a lungful of air. Apart from a headache she felt mostly fine - Patin on the other hand didn’t look so crash hot.
“ Patin… Patin!” She hissed through the biting wind, not wanting to let anyone overhear her least Mr Shriveled Balls was still lurking nearby. Bootprints looked as though they had fled from the area, she hoped he got a decent amount of frostbite for his trouble.
The winds had died, the storm had passed, so why did she still feel like hell frozen over? She could hear her name being called as if from a long tunnel, so distant, yet so familiar. It hurt to move, mostly in her head, but there was this strange pain in her back, pinching her ribs. Maybe she had landed wrong, she thought. She let out a grunt in response, and attempted to raise her hand to show she was alive.
There was a breath of relief that left a cloud of warm vapor in front of her face as Rhenora welcomed the grumpy awareness that graced Patin’s face. She was alive, not very intact if the scorch marks and the blood slowly dripping onto the white snow were any indication, but alive nonetheless.
“ He’s gone…as are his goons, those we didn’t kill” Rhenora admitted sagely “ But I gotta get you back to the snowmobile.. It’s back at the cave. Can you walk?”
Patin pushed herself into a sitting up position, then patted herself looking for something. Her bottle was gone. “Ugh, it feels like I’m four days sober.” Her eyes rolled. “”Yeah, I think I can walk.” She let out a grunt, “Ugh, it hurts to breathe, or laugh. What the hell was that, he shot us didn’t he?”
“ Well he shot us.. After he backed you into a tree. Hold still a moment” Then she carefully moved behind Patin, taking in the oozing from Patin’s back and the wheeze in her breathing. “We need to get moving…is there a medkit on your snowmobile?”
“Yeah, in the tool kit I carry. Why, what’d that bastard do to me?” Patin grimaced as she stood in defiance of the pain. Between her shoulder and the pain in her ribs she resigned herself that Rhenora would likely have to drive.
“ Let’s just say that Remal is gonna have a field day when we get home, even if I can patch you up in the meantime” Rhenora ducked and swung an arm around Patin’s waist, levering the woman’s arm over her shoulder in support.
“Quit fighting me.. You’re not gonna get there on your own, even if you DO bleed on me” She grumbled as they set a painfully slow pace back up the mountain.
“Must be pretty bad if you’re going to let that man meat of yours put his hands on me.” Patin chuckled and then groaned. “Perhaps I’ll save the jokes for another time. One with more alcohol to drink.” She sighed and then groaned a bit more.
“ Oh he’s been dying to get his hands on you since he first laid eyes on you” Rhenora joked as they ascended the rocks towards the cave. They should have passed the snow mobile by now…unless…
“ Where’d you park the car?” She looked around and maneuvered Patin with her to see.
Patin took in their position, relative to the cave, and spotted the sled, overturned and covered with snow off to their right. There was a crater right in the center, and a spot of burnt grass. She cocked her head towards Rhenora, “Looks like someone got a little zealous with the boomies. I think they blew up our ride.”
“ Well that sucks… there goes the getaway car” Rhenora’s survival instincts had well and truly kicked in. She looked around for something they could use to get out of here, fortunately it seemed Patin was doing the same.
“Hey, on the bright side, the sled still looks intact.” She pointed at the sled. “We are uphill. Might be able to sled down into the village, or the hot springs. Ah, the hot springs sound like a dream right about now.”
“ Sled… with no steering… no brake… and with Ms Stick poking out of her spine as a counterweight?” There was a certain irony in the words. It would beat hiking but carried its own unique set of risks.
“Sure. It’s that or walk. All you gotta do is lean to steer. The hard part is picking up speed… and avoiding the trees… and not launching us off a cliff into a jagged crevasse.” She smiled and patted Rhenora on the shoulder. “Come on Nozzie, you got this. I trust you.”
She looked dubiously at the sled then over at Patin then back at the sled. “You’re serious aren't you?”
“Serious as a case of your favorite Spring Wine if you get us there alive.” Patin removed her arm from Rhenora as they reached the sled so that she could focus on turning it over to check how well it had fared in the fire fight and the snow storm. From Patin’s perspective, it looked intact.
“Guess that means the medkit went with the getaway car…you’ll have to hold out till we get back. Hopefully Remal might come looking for us” Rhenora heaved the sled around into what she thought was a clearish path down the mountain. She needed Patin to navigate once they got to the bottom.
Patin slid into the front of the sled and slunk down low. “I’ll guide, you steer.” She heaved as she clutched her right arm to her chest. “Just like duck and throw, right Noz? By the Prophets I could use a drink right about now.”
“ You aint the only one” Rhenora grumbled as she gave them a Prophet Worthy shove and scrambled on board, keeping her weight to the back of the sled to best steer them.
Patin attempted to reassure Rhenora, "Don't fret, I know these trails like the bottom of my bottle." She then rolled her eyes as the sled picked up steam. "I'm just usually drunk when I'm up here and not seeing double." She muttered to herself. "Left!" She shouted as they neared a grove of trees.
Rhenora threw her body weight in the appropriate direction and grabbed tenaciously onto the side of the sled to avoid tumbling off completely. It was a rudimentary method of transportation that relied on a rough guestimation of what a shift in weight would accomplish. If they got it wrong they’d end up wrapped around a tree with a long walk home.
“ Too bad there’s nothing left in that bottle, you aren't the only one who could use a drink right about now” The Bajoran captain shifted a little further to avoid a large tree.
The trees were easy to see at least. It was the rocks and low ridges that were bothersome. So much snowpack lay upon the ground, at a certain angle everything was smooth and in the right light difficult to tell where the path ended and a sheer drop began. Patin was honest when she said she knew this mountain and the trails. What she neglected to mention was that she had never done a freefall, as they were doing now. “Right!” She bellowed as she helped lean.
Kaylen lurched to the other side of the sled and hung off as much as she dared, attempting to adjust the angle to avoid whatever it was Patin knew was coming. “ Please tell me it gets better closer to the bottom!”
Patin nearly shrugged, clammed her mouth, and tried to enjoy the ride, despite its bumpiness irritating her wound. As the tree grove cleared there was a large swath of open snow with small rises and falls. The slope was causing them to pick up speed, which caused her to worry. While the rush was good, the thought of hitting a cliff edge at high speed was not.
The axe was behind her and within Nozzies reach. "Hey Nozzie, can you try slowing us down a bit?" She asked, carefully hiding the mixed feelings that had found their way into her throat.
“ I don’t see any brakes attached to this thing” Rhenora called back, looking around and only seeing the axe. She could try and create something of an anchor but the thought of being able to hold onto said anchor whilst traveling at a great rate of knots was highly improbable. Better to try than not though.
“With this?” She held up the axe as they hurtled along.
Patin just rolled her eyes, “Nah Noz, I want you to drag your fat, pregnant arse off the back of this tub until it becomes as rosy as your cheeks. Of course I mean with that. Would have thought being in space would have put some filler in that head of yours instead of just more space!” She retorted.
“ This is your harebrained idea!” Kaylen shot back as she tried to achieve the best grip possible before digging the blade of the axe into the snow off the back of the sled and clinging to the sled itself with the other hand. She felt the blade dig into the snowpack and the sled try to accelerate beneath her, it was like her arms were being pulled in two different directions by two equal and opposite forces.
Patin felt the sudden drop in speed too. It was enough to throw her forward and slightly off balance. As she pushed herself back into a crouching position, something felt, off. Instead of the straight line they were traveling, the nose of the sled was slightly angled to the side. She shifted in an effort to correct, but slipped and drug her arm into the snow causing the front of the sled to over correct. They were now turning around, back-asswards.
“ This is NOT part of the plan” Rhenora adjusted the blade of the axe against the burning in her armpit as her arms were stretched. “What do I do now?” She shouted over the howling wind. Snow had started to fall again making everything slippery.
“Plan!? When have you ever known me to have a plan?” Now she could not see where they were going and the falling snow wasn’t helping the situation. “I’m going to shift right, you shift left. Let’s see if we can spin back around.” She suggested just as the sled struck a series of small moguls, shaking them violently. They were now straying from the path.
Kaylen shifted left and Patin lurched right - a rudimentary attempt to shift the laws of physics into their favour. The sled span, but towards a sheet cliff with a large drop.
“ Ahhh.. not good!”
Eyes wide, Patin could only do her best to shout, “Duck!” And then she crouched as low as low could go. The sled struck the cliff’s edge and for a brief moment all the pair of them could see was sky. The feeling of weightlessness was a momentary joy compared to the turbulent ride they had already experienced. Though it was short lived as the ground quickly approached, and with it a heavy thud.
Rhenora was sure this was the end, this was where they find the Prophets and live the rest of their lives taunting the beings that all the futures that they had shown her were wrong. She closed her eyes and accepted it, preparing to meet her maker as they plummeted to the valley below. Surely there was no way in hell they were going to survive this.
Remal watched the horizon. His day of chores, done, a nice soup cooking on the stove behind him. He was worried. Over the past few hours he had felt the ground shake from a distant explosive avalanche and had seen a storm move in over the area Rhen and her friend were supposed to be. A pit in his stomach told him something was wrong, but then, whenever she was away from him, there was always something wrong.
As he stood on what would be a back porch, overlooking the mountain, he spotted something emerge from the breakline. No sound. Just movement. The craft slid along a path next to a fence row, or at least where one was buried with snow. Then across the open field as it slowed until it slid right up and stopped in front of the porch. A blonde bombshell sat in the back, her friend grimacing up from the front. She looked in pain as she spoke, “High ya, man meat. Mind sparing a hand?”
Rhenora looked at Remal with a sheepish grin, thankful to the Prophets for delivering them in one piece. “So, what’s for dinner?”
TBC
