[Flame]

Everything was silent.
Dead silent.
The only sound that Atlee could hear was the faint whisper of his own breath inside of his helmet as he stood stock still, his back pressed against a wall as he sought to remain out of sight, the shadows just barely masking his presence as he waited for any sign of movement or life. A quick glance at his scanners showed no indication of stirring in the immediate vicinity, alive or otherwise, but he remained completely motionless for another minute or two, just to be sure. Literally in the middle of nowhere, there was nothing out here but the forest, him, and the Seperatist base in which he was currently standing. As to why he was here? Well, the answer was quite simple; for the same reason he ever did anything – carrying out the orders of his superiors.

Today, his mission was to infiltrate the base, gain access to the encrypted files which the Seppies had been guarding jealously (they had been developing new weaponry which could potentially pose a threat to the GAR), take it, and high-tail it out of there again. Being a one-man force, his goal was to carry out his assignment as quickly and quietly as possible, and be as if he had never been there in the first place. So far, everything seemed to be going according to plan, although it was slightly disconcerting that security seemed to be more lax than he had expected it to be. It had hardly been a challenge to get in undetected, but nonetheless, that was no reason to let his guard down now.

When he was satisfied that there were no people or droids in pursuit of the uninvited intruder, he called up the building plans once again, blinking as he scrolled through the images on his HUD which depicted a sketchy layout of his surroundings, including the building where the data was supposed to have been stored. If he wasn’t mistaken, it ought to be the building just a small distance directly to his left. He briefly craned his head around the corner to double-check that the coast was clear and to identify his point of access where he could gain entry into the building. From how it looked on his maps, it seemed like nothing more than a big warehouse or something of the sort. The intel he’d been provided was sketchy at best, but he had no choice but to make the best out of what he had.

Certain that the coast was clear – at least for the moment – he made a break for the building, keeping a low profile and hugging the wall as he sprinted over, simultaneously pulling out a cutting torch from his belt and firing it up. After a tense half-minute or so, he’d cut a section out of the thick metal-plated wall just big enough for him to squeeze through, which he did as quickly as was physically possible. Indeed, the inside of the metal building looked just like a huge storage room, where tall metal crates were stacked along all of the walls and scattered throughout the rest of the open space. From where he stood, he could just make out what looked like a console on the far side of the room, and having no time to waste, he made a beeline directly for it, all the while checking for security measures as he went.

He met no resistance as he approached the flickering panel – again, a fact which threw him off – and after a quick appraisal, he figured it wouldn’t be too difficult to crack. Atlee immediately set to work punching in codes to crack the security measures put in place to protect the information, and within a minute or two, he’d hacked his way into the system. Wasting no time, he pulled out a datacard onto which he would copy the information and inserted it into the computer. Immediately, a synchronized whirr and click echoed through the seemingly deserted room.

Oh, shab.

That was the very last sound he had wanted to hear, and as soon as he did, he knew that it was extremely likely that he would probably end up dying in here, alone. Nonetheless, he punched the ‘copy’ key on the console in front of him, initiating the agonizingly slow process of downloading a copy of the huge file, and whirling to face the vast expanse of the room. However, instead of seeing the rows and rows of inert metal crates that he’d walked in seeing, it seemed as if every single one was whirring, each one slowly opening to reveal a dark, bulky, and decidedly ominous figure, complete with the characteristic red, flickering eye which glared at him in their multitudes from every visible part of the room. Well, if he wasn’t before, he was definitely in deep osik now.

Moving almost reflexively, he grabbed an EMP from his belt and lobbed it at the nearest cluster of still-opening crates in one fluid motion, watching the electrical pulse as it detonated and immediately disabled all of the electrical circuits in the nearest droids. Glancing down at the panel on the computer, he was dismayed to see that only a quarter of the file had been copied, and that what time it needed to download the rest was precious time that he didn’t have, not considering what it would take to fight his way out of here. Darting over to the cluster of disabled crates to use them for cover, he knew that he did not have near enough EMPs to take out the whole army of droids which he had inadvertently activated. If only they had given me better kriffing intel…he grumbled to himself as he reloaded his rifle with a fresh clip to the sounds of the slow, mechanized footsteps of the SBDs, before reaching around the side of the crate at his back to pepper the onslaught of enemies with blasterfire. If he was going to die here, he sure as hell was going to take as many of them down with him as he physically could. That they could count on.

[MillietheWarrior]

Human Form --- Human Form 2

Hanah carefully checked the small device hidden in the pouch strapped to her thigh. It seemed to be in working order, but then, she honestly had no clue how to tell if it was viable or not. Technology and her didn’t agree very well. Clicking a small button, the device made a soft beeping noise, a light blinking on and off for a few seconds, before a second pressing of the button turned it off. Okay, it looked like it worked. And that was good enough for her, she decided as she secured the device to her pouch. Hanah’s gaze returned to the base, and she pondered on the reasoning behind her employer’s request to retrieve a specific set of militarily sensitive data. It didn’t seem all that vital to her (But then, she was woefully ignorant of military procedures, protocol, and intelligence, so maybe she was missing something here), but she would retrieve it nonetheless.

She was being paid a hefty sum, and the creds would do her and Yakul good; she would not receive her payment until they received their data. Thus it was that the small sliver of moonlight found the woman balanced precariously on the limb of a tree outside a Separatist base. She had been watching it for some time, observing the habits and the rounds the droids made, carefully taking note of where each of them was at each specific time period. There was a certain rigidity to their routine, and they never deviated…until tonight. Hanah had been watching when the lone, armored man slipped into the base, and was slightly astonished to see that he seemed to have the same idea that she did; get in, get out, and steal some very important data. Hanah pondered this as she watched him peek out from behind the corner, assuring himself that the coast was clear. She neither knew who he was, nor did she care to; all she knew was that he was beating her to her quarry, and there was no way she’d let some upstart in weird clothing do her job for her.

Hanah carefully checked the two short swords she kept at her hips, assuring herself that both were secure. With feline-like grace, Hanah swung down from the tree, her feet making no noise as she landed hard on the ground. Her long legs and ground eating strides had her at the wall of the base in a matter of moments. Unlike the man, who had cut his way into it, Hanah had another idea; without breaking stride, she pulled the swords from their sheaths, the metallic hiss of metal loud in the silence of the night, and threw them at the wall of the base. They impacted hard, embedding themselves in the metal of the wall. Both swords were made of beskgar, the strongest metal available in the galaxy, and Hanah had been hard-pressed to find anything as durable and deadly as the two Mandalorian short-swords. Bunching her muscles, she leapt, landing on the first and then leaping again. As she leapt, she pulled it from the wall, throwing it higher to embed itself further up the fortress. She repeated this again with the second sword, and then again and again until she had pulled the last sword from the wall and landed at the top.

Hanah crouched, eyes darting about as she looked for any opposition that might come her way. As she watched, a droid rounded the corner. It’s strange, almost humanoid head swiveled around, and it’s sights landed on her. “Intruder!” it began to shout, but before it could finish the word, Hanah had hurled one of the blades and severed it’s head. The body sparked and clicked, before it fell to the ground in an unceremonious heap. Before the head even hit the ground, Hanah was moving again. She retrieved the blade, and darted along the wall. Her eyes shot down to where the soldier was last seen, and she followed the rough indents of his footprints in the dirt to the hole he’d cut into the wall. So that’s how he’d gotten in. “Thanks for doing the work for me, solider boy,” she whispered, a serpentine smirk curling it’s way across her face. Without warning, she veered from the wall, leaping down and curling herself into a ball as she whirled towards the ground. Her feet touched the earth without a sound, and before she could even take a breath, they were moving again as if of their own accord.

The sounds of blaster-fire and the unmistakable whirr and creak of droids met her ears as she approached the hole he’d carved. Hanah threw herself against the wall, back pressing flat against the cold metal as she peeked around the corner, assessing the situation she was forcing herself into. The room was…filled with super battle droids. And one idiotic soldier who had probably activated them by accident. Oh, how lovely. Hanah felt a dark smile curl it’s way over her face; she relished these kinds of situations. The thrill of battle, the blood-song of the fight was rising within her, sending adrenaline pumping through her body, and adding a heat to her blade that was almost inhuman. She was not born of the people of the fire for nothing, after all. Their kind relished the hot, humid climates, living only within the confines of the deserts, volcanoes, sun-baked mesas. With their inherent ability to control the heat and humidity around them, as well as their body temperature, and the element of fire, Hanah’s people were of a great breed; but they were a dying breed, and as such, very few of them ever left their sanctuaries of fire, and so little to nothing was known about them. Her heritage lent aggression, anger, a fiery, untamable soul, and a dangerous lust for battle and blood to her already well-toned fighting skills. It made her a deadly opponent indeed.

Hanah closed her eyes, taking a deep breath as she channeled the flow of energy within her towards the blade. In a blur that was hardly able to be seen, she darted around the corner, making a giant leap and landed on top of one of the droids. Her sword, heated now so that it sheared through the metal with ease, made short work of it. As it fell, she used it’s momentum to leap to the next one. This one met the same fate, and the third, and the fourth. Then there was a volley of blaster fire, and Hanah mentally cursed; the idiot solider was firing into the droids. Lovely. Twisting with sinewy grace, she avoided the blaster shots while taking out another droid with a swipe of one of her blades. She spun, her body moving fluidly and without falter as she dodged shots and took out droids at the same time. One of the droids shoved a blaster into her face, and she barely managed to retreat in time to avoid the shot, the tips of her long hair singing as the blaster bolt whizzed past her. Switching both blades to one hand, Hanah grabbed the arm of the droid, and with a grunt, she spun, sending the droid flying into a group of it’s brothers; they exploded on impact.

She was showered with tiny pieces of metal and one managed to slice a gouge in her cheek, but she didn’t seem bothered by it as she whirled and sent her blade slicing through another droid. The hulking giant clattered to the ground, and Hanah darted through the rubble towards the remaining two. She sent her blades flying with a flick of her wrists, and both droids were impaled, exploding on impact. The blades  were sent flying, and Hanah made a fantastic leap into the air to catch them. She landed without a sound, sheathing both blades as she stared around a the wreckage and destruction she caused. She had a feeling she’d probably roused the entire base. With a smirk, she turned and sauntered towards the console, leaning over it curiously. She pulled the small device from her pouch, and inserted it into a port that looked viable. Pressing the button on the device, it began to blink, and after only a few seconds, it beeped, indicating the data had been downloaded. She picked it back up, and stuffed it in the pouch, before she turned to the clone who was still behind the crates. She lifted her lisp over her teeth in a dazzling smile, and touched two fingers to her brow in a mock salute. “Thanks for makin’ it easy for me, soldier-boy. But in this case, the best man…or rather woman, won.” She blew him a sardonic kiss, and then took off back across the wreckage and to the opening he’d made in the wall. She was out and across the courtyard in a matter of second, scaling the wall and leaping to freedom. Too easy.

[Flame]

Atlee ducked behind his metal barrier which separated him from the horde of droids as a volley of blasterfire blazed by, dangerously close to his helmet as he jerked it out of the way just in the nick of time. Whipping around the side of the crate once again, he retaliated with an equally rapid flurry of plasma bolts which found their marks almost infallibly, burning through critical points in the droids’ anatomy and disabling them with as few a number of rounds as possible. However, there were simply far too many of them, and only one of him, and even if he physically could fight his way through them, he knew that his ammo might very well run out before his enemies did. Ducking to avoid another explosion as the droid’s shot blew a small crater out of the metal casing which hid him from sight, he threw another EMP grenade to hold them at bay as he ducked out of the line of fire to reload again.

However, as he was loading a fresh magazine into his rifle, he thought that he heard distinctly unusual sounds amidst the familiar sounds of SBDs on the attack. He half thought that he must have been having an illusion of some sort, as he’d never heard anything of the like before; it sounded almost like metal tearing through metal, followed by a chain of explosions. Explosions? They certainly sounded much different from the well-known blast of a plasma weapon...more like a very large, metallic object detonating. Well, that was…odd, to say the least. He hadn’t been expecting any company anytime soon (at least, not outside of his current, less-than-hospitable robotic hosts), and the only disruption which logically made sense in this situation would be the presence of reinforcements, and he was more than willing to bet that they were also after his blood.

With a fresh clip loaded, he glanced around the corner once more and was astounded to see something (or someone) wreaking havoc on the droid army which he had been battling, and in the half-light, he could just make out the silhouette of a figure, the flash of metal blades, and the startlingly bright bursts of the light of exploding droids. For just a brief fraction of a second, he was flabbergasted, unsure of what he was supposed to do, considering the fact that this unknown person was clearly more interested in killing his enemies than him. He hadn’t been informed of having backup on this mission, and he was quite certain that they would not have wasted valuable resources of providing him any sort of aid. What was even more odd though, was the fact that whatever it was over there, it was creating an impossibly large heat signature on his sensors, which only served to further puzzle him. However, he figured that it wasn’t his problem (at least, not yet), since whatever it was obviously wasn’t interested in him.

Atlee continued to systematically mow down SBDs with blasterfire, not really paying any particular attention to the figure which was also still embroiled in the same task of taking every tinnie out. For now, he or she was helping him out, but he made no effort to aim either towards or away from them. After all, whether the stranger lived or died was of no concern to him – he had a much more important task to complete, as it was – so if they were smart, they would simply stay out of the way of his blasterfire. He had to admit though (if subconsciously) that whoever this was was good at what they did, although from what he could see, they used some relatively unconventional methods.

Surprisingly quickly, there was a final clatter of metal shards as the debris from the last droid rained down and settled, leaving the room eerily quiet after the heated chaos of battle. He held still for a moment, listening carefully for any telltale signs of movement, but heard none. However, as soon as he started to make his way back towards the console, he was surprised to find that it was already occupied. Judging by the heat signature on his scanner, it appeared to be the same person who had been taking out droids earlier, but nonetheless, he couldn’t risk having his data tampered with. In the faint light, he could just make out a long ponytail and the person’s strange, flowing clothing, and he assumed (with another jolt) that this person was female. “Ma’am, I’m going to have to ask you to back away from the console,” he said, his voice echoing in the expanse of the room.

She did just that, and although he couldn’t quite make out her face (even night-vision only did but so much), he could hear the derisive tone of the woman’s voice as she spoke. What she said, however, confused him. ‘Making it easier for her’? What could that possibly mean? But before he could stop her, she had taken off towards the opening once again, leaping out of the hole and vanishing once more. Instinct screamed at him to pursue her – he could sense that something was not quite right with this picture – but it was his duty to grab the copy of the data first, since that was his primary objective. Sprinting over to the console, he was dismayed to see exactly what that woman had been up to over here in the first place. The data which had been transferring to his disk had been taken. It was gone.

With a frustrated snarl, he sprinted after the escaping woman who happened to have the information which he needed. For all he knew, she was an enemy who was intent on stealing his data and foiling his mission, and it was now his job to stop her. He shot across the open ground, hardly checking for patrols as he darted to the place where he had seen her disappear over the wall, pulling himself up and over with a grapple line as quickly as she had scaled it. As soon as he was over, he glanced around for her and saw her figure making for the forest just beyond the base. Knowing that if he lost her, he would never get that data back and that his mission would have been a complete failure, he took off after her at a surprisingly fast, flat-out sprint, catching up to her just as she reached the line of trees.

Reaching out, he grabbed one of her hands in a vice-grip, jerking to an abrupt halt as he looped his other arm around her neck from behind, ensnaring her free hand with the one which currently trapped the other. There was a smooth sound of metal hissing against metal as he ejected his vibro blade, which hovered dangerously close to her neck, warning her that any sudden move might very well be the last one she ever made. “I believe you have something of mine, and I would very much like it back,” he said, his grip tightening slightly to tell her that he was serious. All he wanted was to get the data and get out of here as quickly as possible, and she was simply a roadblock which currently stood in his way.

[MillietheWarrior]

To say Hanah was expecting to be pulled to an abrupt halt in the middle of her ‘fight and flight’ routine would be an out and out lie. As it was, when the hand closed around her wrist in a vice-like grip, the resulting jerk sent her body rocketing backwards into a very solid, very painful object. Hanah was so stunned, that she could do little but allowed gravity to take hold and slam her against the soldier who, amazingly, had not only followed her, but caught up to her as well. Then there was the distinct ‘shunk’ of metal against metal, and Hanah found herself unceremoniously held captive by an arm, a hand, and a knife. It was one of the most unexpected and surprising moments of her life, and all she could do was stare stupidly down at the vibroblade resting inches away from her vulnerable neck. The vice-like grip this metal-man was using was painful, but it was nothing compared to Hanah’s righteously indignant fury.

A million different things began to run through her mind; first of all, how dare he! Who did he think he was? She wasn’t just some low-level thug that would cower at the first inkling of brute force! She was royalty, damn it, and she was a warrior. Second of all, how did he catch up to her? She was certain that his speed would be no match for hers. So how then, had he done it? And third of all…he was a dead man. Hanah had not the time, nor the patience to deal with some idiotic upstart who thought he’d have a handle on her just because he had a nice, shiny blade. If he thought she was going to roll over and whimper for mercy, then he certainly had another thing coming. With both hands bound behind her back, and a blade to her throat, Hanah was a bit hard pressed to figure out how she was supposed to get out of this one. With a growl, she decided that the left over energy from the fight would probably do nicely, and show the young upstart a thing or two about fancy tricks with a blade. She smirked at the analogy, and concentrated the entirety of her heat source on the vibroblade at her neck; it slowly began to melt, succumbing to the intense heat that Atlee’s armor was too durable to fall victim to.

Once the blade had melted and no longer posed a threat, Hanah smiled prettily, turning her head to blink innocently up at the armored man. “My turn,” she said sweetly, before she used the leverage of her body and his grip on her hand to yank him forward. She was rewarded with a ‘leap-frog’ move that sent Atlee tumbling over her head, releasing her arms on the way over. The man sprawled on the ground before her, and in the next split second, Hanah had unsheathed both blades at her hips with a metallic hiss. One blade found it’s mark between his legs, coming dangerously close to a very important piece of anatomy, and missing by only a hair’s breadth; the second, she jammed beneath his helmet, only a centimeter from the vulnerable throat that the armor did not hide. She tightened her grip, her smile dark as she pressed herself against his back, using him as leverage as she leaned on him and held the sword to his neck. “Temper, temper, little soldier. You and I are after the same thing, for the same people. Only difference is, I’m getting paid to retrieve it.”

She clicked her tongue, her voice naturally husky and sultry as she spoke. “Guess your superiors didn’t have as much faith in you as you might like to believe. I’m the back-up plan, and I’d say I’m a damn good one at that, hm?” She leaned closer, until she was practically draped across him; she didn’t seem at all uncomfortable or aware of the impropriety of their closeness, and in fact, relished the amusement she’d get from this encounter. “You see these swords here, little soldier? They’re made of beskgar. Considering what you are, I shall assume you know exactly what that is, and what it means. But I’ll break it down for you; these two swords are unbreakable, and they can cut through the tin can of yours whenever they like. So be a good boy, and don’t cause me anymore trouble than you already have, or else my hand might just slip-” Here she moved her hand a little, and the blade pressed against the spandex of the bodysuit beneath his armor. Her other hand squeezed his neck gently, almost lovingly, and then she dig small, sharp nails into the small space of skin between helmet and suit. Masochist. “-and whoops! There goes your head! Wouldn’t want that happening, now would we?”

Her chuckle was a rumbling purr of amusement, deep, throaty, and chilling. “Tsk, tsk. What shall I do with you now, hm? Any suggestions?” Her free hand reached forward to grab the hilt of her second sword, but she didn’t pull it away. “Target practice? Sword sharpening? What do you have in mind?” She leaned her head in next to his, gently against his helmet, and forcing his head to lean ever so slightly. Her lips were inches away from him, warm breath fanning across his neck in the chill of the cool night air. “Don’t get any stupid ideas. I flipped you once; don’t think I’ll hesitate to kill you if you do something…off the charts, so to speak. But I'd like to know what made you think you could get away with grabbing me so easily...”

[Flame]

Atlee frowned slightly behind his visor when he received no reaction from the woman whom he currently held captive. He would have at least expected her to fight back, verbally abuse him…something. However, she preferred to hold her silence, a fact which he found slightly disconcerting. He was about to say something again when he noticed one of the oddest things he’d ever seen in his short life occur right in front of his eyes. If he wasn’t mistaken (which he was half-convinced that he was), his vibro blade was…melting? Both his frown and his concern deepend, and although he didn’t know exactly how, he knew that the woman was somehow the cause of this strange occurrence.

A million impossibilities ran through his mind, but the only word he could muster in the face of his perplexity was, “Interesting.” The very next thing he knew though, he’d been hauled clear off of his feet (armor and all) clear over her head and unceremoniously dumped on his stomach, effectively expelling all of the air out of his lungs with a whoosh which left him spluttering for oxygen. “…the heck?” he managed to gasp out before a blade came down to pierce the ground just behind him, dangerously close to the last place he ever wanted it to be. Another forced itself under his chin, and he had to consciously lift himself off of the ground to keep from impaling himself on the blade. Well. He certainly hadn’t seen this coming.

“Well, congratulations,” he finally managed to huff out, once he had caught his breath again. “Has anyone ever told you that you ought to go out for wrestling? Well, let me be the first.” So, she was after the same thing that he was then, was she? That much he’d figured out on his own, but he would never have guessed that they were working for the same employer. That fact alone stung, considering how little faith his superiors apparently had in his abilities. Had he not been bred and trained for this? This was literally what he lived for, and yet they had to take even that away from him by hiring this worthless mercenary to do his job for him. If he had been nothing before, well, this just made him worth even less than nothing.

At the moment, it seemed like her swords were the last concern on his mind, in comparison to everything else that was going through his head right now. At the forefront of his thoughts was bitterness at the GAR for apparently thinking so little of his abilities. He could have made it on his own. Probably. Maybe. But that wasn’t the point. He was willing to die for what they ordered him to do, and to take that from him was like a slap in the face. “Well,” he finally replied, a note of cynicism in his voice, “I would assume that for all I’m worth, it doesn’t particularly matter what you use me for. Perhaps a throwing dummy…did you consider that?” Although his tone was humorously sarcastic, he was being almost completely serious. At this point, it seemed that it was all that he was worth.

“If it doesn’t make a difference to either of us, maybe it would be easier just to go ahead and bump me off now. It would probably save everyone a little trouble. I’m sure that if you bring them their prized data, they’d be more than happy to overlook the loss of an insignificant pawn. You might be doing this just for money, but I’m doing this for the right to live.” Despite the situation, he seemed almost disturbingly casual and nonchalant about his own fate, as if more amused by his predicament than worried about his own well-being. Either way, the outcome would be the same, right? So why spend what could possibly be his last few minutes freaking out about an ending which he had long forseen coming anyways? “So, what’ll it be, sweetheart?”

[MillietheWarrior]

Hanah seemed puzzle. She tilted her head to the side, staring down at the man as if he’d grown an extra pair of legs spontaneously out of his shoulder. Her long hair draped across his back, brushing lightly against the back of his armor. Her knee was resting somewhat uncomfortably in the middle of his back, and she wondered briefly what all he could feel through that armor as she leaned ever closer, her face inches from his helmet. When he spoke, as he had done before, she was a little surprised to find that he didn’t sound robotic. She hadn’t pondered on it the first time, but now, when he had more to say, she was curious. She rapped her knuckles on his helmet, wondering how hard it would be to detach man from armor and study the outer shell, but his voice startled her out of her musings.

She looked much like a bird, head tilting at too many odd angles to look anything other than puzzled and quizzical. Here then, was a person unlike any she’d ever encountered. In her village, the men did not wear such protective outer garments, nor did they allow the women to catch them by surprise so easily. She wondered how he moved in such cumbersome clothing, and one more rapped one his helmet curiously. She reached down with her free hand and lifted his arm, inspecting it, and then letting her fingers wander lower over his hand. With deft dexterity, she removed the glove and tossed it away, revealing darkened, olive toned skin beneath. Huh. Interesting. She prodded the hand once, then let it flop back down to earth, forgotten for the moment.  

Her eyes fluttered in surprise at his suggestions, and she let the sword slacken only minutely, wondering why he did not value his life more. The people of her society clung to life with a tenacity not seen in the soft, yielding humans of the modern times. They fought hard, and fought to live; they may not have cared for the lives of others, but they clung to their own lives with nothing short of a fatal and stubborn grip. So to hear him so flippantly disregard his life puzzled her. She kneeled a bit closer, pondering this as her brows drew together. “You aren’t worth my time,” she said, flinging him away from her in disgust and rising to her feet. She pulled her sword from the ground and sheathed it, eyeing him distastefully.

“You shame yourself, little soldier, by treating your life as a meaningless token. It’s disgusting,” she spat, sheathing her second blade and shaking her head. “If you value your life so little, then you do not deserve the right to live. But I will not stoop to taking what little honor you have from you by taking your life myself. If you want it to be done with, then end it on your own. Pathetic little soldier. No,” she said suddenly, growling. “Not solider. Not warrior. Not man. Pathetic little creature. Go and vent your sorrows elsewhere. I have data to deliver and a purse to collect.” She turned, starting off into the woods, her hair swinging down her back, and split skirt blowing in the faint breeze.