I hate getting shot.

I know. Why'd anyone actually like getting shot? But for me it's especially galling, since most of the times I've taken a round out here on the Rim I've not even had a gun drawn. Three times on Hale's. Once on Blackburne. Gives a girl reason to pause, and then put a whole lot of faith in her armor.

I guess it serves me right though. Folk out here are probably thinking I'm more target than anything else. Still have a reputation for being hard as anyone out here, in spite of showing open affection for Imrhien and then going soft on 'Brina, it's just they don't see me fighting much since the Alliance backed off and I stopped sniping from the pad. Folk don't see me when I'm serious about killing. My targets usually don't either. At least before it's too late.

At least I was wearing armor this time.

Blackburne's got plenty of folk good with a sidearm or rifle. They normally don't need someone good at the kind of fighting I do, but this time I decided to go along anyway. Most of the folk on Hale's at the time saddled up and burned over on the short hop to Blackburne as well, so I was one of many answering the call. While everyone else was out trying to deal with another batch of those goram combat drones, I set up a first aid station in the bar.

Since the fighting was most of the way across town, I decided to take a peek outside and give Cholgosh a hand with triage. Haley, bless her fuzzy heart, stayed with me and was smart enough to not go running off. It seemed there were a fair number of the drones, heavily armed, but they weren't coming much into town. Looked like things were steady when I felt a completely unexpected impact against my ribs.

I hate getting shot.

Fortunately, the armor did its job and stopped the impact - Blessings upon whoever invented synthetic spun sapphire weave - but I don't have a lot of mass to absorb impacts and it knocked me down hard. I could vaguely perceive some of the others trying to help me out. Chol, Tillery, concern in Lily's voice, barely recognized through a fog of pain. Haley's mournful howl.

I was only down for a few minutes, and was able to make my way down into the bar where I could open up the armor and see how bad it was. Ultimately, the weave did it's job. I'd have a nasty bruise, and Cholgosh had some salve to take care of that, but not a lot more.

Unfortunately, I'm not real social when I'm hurting. Especially after getting shot reasonless. So I decided to take Haley back to Hale's and just kick back in the office. It would give the salve and the pain killers time to their job until 'Brina came home, and between her and Haley, the pain didn't seem so bad any more.

Still hate getting shot.