The wind continues to gain force as Dex and Jarren drag Ian back to the spaceport, picking up bits of sand near the surface and sending them speeding along like micro-meteors. Undoubtedly, if the trend continues, there could wind up being a sandstorm or worse, a fearsome gravel storm where the winds are so strong that more than just sand and dust are blown about. The natives of Tatooine have a healthy respect for the common surface storms and only the foolhardy or the Sandpeople don’t seek shelter during one. Even the Sandpeople fear the gravel storms, however. Both Dex and Ian are in no mood to deal with a sandstorm, and besides, what better white noise to sleep by than the howl of the wind and the rain of sand against a plasteel hull?

After clearing the streets of Mos Taike without attracting notice, the Human and the Omwati alternately drag and carry Ian back down the road, through the junk graveyard, and into Coozer’s office. Coozer is still sleeping peacefully, snoring softly. An attempt is made to be quiet, but carrying Ian is ungainly at best. Jarren accidentally bumps a stack of loose parts near the door to the landing pad, fortunately not hard enough to knock it over completely, but hard enough to make a decent clang. The sound rouses Coozer, who sits up on his elbow in his cot, rubbing the sleep out of his right eye while looking at the trio out his left eye questioningly.

“Too much to drink,” explains Dex, rolling his eyes in mock antipathy, deciding to bluff.

v Coozer grunts with sympathetic understanding. “That’s going to be one hell of a headache.” He trails off, returning almost immediately to sleep, having bought Dex’s explanation completely.

As Coozer fades back out, Jarren mumbles wryly under his breath in response to the comment about the headache just loud enough for them to hear. “You have no idea.”

Out on the landing pad, the wind is fairly minimal. After centuries on the planet, the engineers have honed their ingenious designs for structures and buildings to deal with such things as sandstorms. The perimeter wall around the landing pad is just such an inspired design, shunting the winds upward and over the pad rather than allowing it to pelt sensitive equipment with debris. Fast moving dust is in the air now; flying overhead as Ian is moved into position to coax up into the ship. Getting Ian up the ladder and inside proves slightly problematic, but between the two of them, they manage to get him up the ladder and out of the turbulent weather.

Y-3P0 is there to greet the party. “Oh my, what’s become of him, Master Jarren? Whatever it was, it’s not coming here is it?” it asks nervously. Exhausted, Jarren ignores the annoying droid’s probe, choosing instead to remind it to wake him up in the morning as he and Dex pull Ian down the hall toward the cargo bay, his feet dragging behind.

In the cargo bay, Ears appears to have woken up, judging by the hundreds of copies of “Secrets of Twilight” strewn all about the cabin floor. Sure enough, her scraggly head pops up over the rim of the cargo container and she lets out a mischievous screech, apparently proud of her handiwork. Seeing Ian brings her out, concerned for her friend who’s being dumped on a makeshift bedroll by the scary human with the green stripe and the other mean blue one. She can sense the displeasure in their body language and the angry sounds coming from their mouths.

“Unbelievable,” curses Jarren, viewing the mess. Silently he vows that somehow, sometime, that rat is going to be made accountable. For the moment though, its luck still holds because the only thoughts in his mind are of sleep. As he heads for the crew quarters he passes Dex, who, as a precaution, is fiddling with the cargo bay door’s lock, trying to change the code to something Ian wouldn’t know, figuring that Ian might be a tad bit upset when he finally comes to. Locking him in the cargo bay might not be such a bad idea. After some effort though, he can’t seem to isolate the codes in order to change them and eventually gives up and closes the door, leaving it unlocked.

Jarren and Dex finally get back to their bunks after the evening’s adventures and promptly doze off without fanfare.

-----------------------------

“Master…”

Jarren cracks an eye as a drill head prods his ribs.

“Master, are you conscious? Oh dear.”

The athletic Omwati nods. “Morning already?” he mulls. Uncharacteristically weak sunlight trickles through the porthole in confirmation; it is indeed morning. In addition, his body also grudgingly admits that it is in fact somewhat rested, although it’s protesting that it would like more. “What is it Tin Man?” he asks acidly. He’s not so much upset with the droid for following his orders to wake him up, rather he’s slightly angry with himself for issuing those orders.

“Sir, the mechanic is outside with some Storm Troopers. They’ve been buzzing the intercom for several minutes. I thought you should be informed. Oh my, I hope this is nothing serious!”

Jarren is certainly awake now.

[OOC: Sorry Mal, you still haven’t had your chance to talk privately with Coozer yet. BTW, the 2 you rolled was for the door code. I rolled your bluff check for you. Dex is still sleeping. Travis, Ian is still K.O.’ed also, but it’s just sleep at this point and he can be awoken by normal means. All –2’s for exhaustion are gone.]