Star Wars: Heroes of Another Kind

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 321

“Somehow, I get the feeling Jen doesn’t mind just killing us!!” Jyren yelled over his shoulder as he pulled the X-Wing through a series of tight, well-timed maneuvers to avoid the flurry of turbolaser fire currently raining down on the starfighter from above.

“Really?!” Shadow sounded like she was doing her best to be sarcastic, but was obviously having a bit of trouble from the way Jyren was flying. Not that she was complaining, of course, they were alive...but that wasn’t the point. Not to her, at least. When he exited another quick roll and came up on the underside of the wedge shaped cruiser, just skimming the hull and close enough that the turbolasers couldn’t get a lock on them, she added, “What could have possibly given you that idea?”

Jyren was silent for a moment as he focused on not accidently ramming the much larger ship’s hull. He was aiming for the good sized hangar on the underside of the ship, which was in exactly the same place as it would have been on a Star Destroyer. He was beginning to think that the whole thing was just an unfinished Victory-class Star Destroyer...it would account for the slightly smaller size, but still similar shape.

When he got a good sight on the whitish glow of the hangar, he commented idly, “Right about the time the forward shields died and you started saying things I’m not sure I want translations of.”

Shadow just glared at the back of his head...or rather, the back of the seat. When he shifted so that he could spot an ear fairly easily, she shifted her gaze to that, hoping to burn a nice little hole in that. Love didn’t mean she didn’t want to harm him...in fact, it gave her more of a reason to, if all she’d heard around the galaxy had any truth to it.

But he simply ignored the glare, despite the fact that he could feel it very strongly, and adopted a more serious tone for his next statement, “I really don’t think she wants us onboard.”

“Just get us in the hangar,” Shadow said with a nod to herself, shifting a bit and moving her tail just to be safe, “We’ll deal with whatever’s there when we land.”

She finished the sentence just in time for him to roll the ship around so that the underside of the capital ship was above them. In another second, the dull grey hull gave way to an almost blinding white, and the sublight drives on the starfighter suddenly cut out. They sat there for a moment, and Jyren stared up with a feeling from shock escaping the Force from him.

“What?” Shadow asked, not liking that he was still hiding from the link despite however strong the oppressive feeling was around them.

Somehow, even with his head tilted up as far as it was, he managed a nod, “Maybe she does want us onboard.”

Shadow glanced up just in time to notice they were rising straight into the hangar, then immediately knew what he meant. She bit her lip a moment, then sighed, “No shields up...and no point lasers as defense.”

“And nothing waiting to jump us when we land,” Jyren said just as the X-Wing moved forward to find a good spot on the black on black hangar deck...it was actually fairly empty, save for two smaller transports and what looked like a personal shuttle. In another moment, the landing struts were out and the starfighter was down...with Shadow quickly hitting the switch to bring up the canopy.

By the time Jyren was unstrapped and standing up to jump down to the deck below, Shadow was already heading for the nearest turbolift. When the thud of Jyren’s landing echoed across the silent hangar, she turned around and pointed to another turbolift on the opposite end of the hangar. [Get to the bridge and break things.]

Jyren tried to smile, but couldn’t manage it. His feet started heading that way, but his head stayed focused on Shadow. [But wouldn’t she be on the bridge...]

Shadow had turned around and stepped into the turbolift already, and as the door slid closed and cut her off from view...Jyren actually thought he might have seen the slightly hint of a smile on her face. He wasn’t quiet sure, though, as he knew that he had a habit of...seeing things like that on her face. A smile to him usually ended up looking like a snarl to everyone else. Her ‘voice’ through the link got him moving again, though. [She’s not. Just go there, and focus on that.]

[You’ll be alright?] Jyren asked after a quick run to the other turbolift. He slipped in, noticed the configuration, and hit the small button to take him to the level where he remembered a backup bridge was located on Victory Destroyers. In all honesty, he was probably wrong...but a large part of him wondered just how long he had to be wrong again. Loki could only avoid being shot too long before...

He cut the thought off before it went any farther, knowing that neither he nor Shadow needed to think about that one bit. Focus.

He needed focus. Of everything he’d been through, this was where it mattered the most.

Yet a distant part of him still couldn’t let go. He could feel the strong, painful presence of Jen Zaarin Voort not far away from him at all...and it hurt. It made him want to be anywhere but near, especially with the knowledge of how Jen had been before. Not even the slightest hint of her old, wonderful self was left...his surrogate sister, and even, at times, surrogate mother, was no more.

And on her way into the swirling darkness that surrounded their once greatest ally was the love of his life...just like before. Just like all those years ago on Coruscant. Then it had been the Empire...then it had been Elizabeth Mare...but now it wasn’t either of those. It was worse, and it terrified him. Though Jyren’s mind stayed focused on the task at hand as the turbolift shot upwards towards its destination...a part of him simply couldn’t let go. It sat alone and afraid...

...and it fed the darkness that surrounded the ship. Both the heaviness in the air and the monsters of the Dark Side that waited within...

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 322

Shadow looked up the long turbolift tube before giving one last glance down to the actual lift below her. She had opened up the emergency hatch on top and begun to climb up after having deactivated the lift(just in case). Somehow, using the thing and having the doors slide open right when expected just seemed like asking for trouble to her. And this was not something she was just coming up with on the spot, either...thanks to a few rather ugly encounters that began just that way, Shadow had gotten into the habit of climbing. Sure, it was far, but of all people, she could handle it.

As she made the climb, Shadow began to very slowly and carefully open herself up to both the link and the Force again. The link came easily, as it was literally a part of herself and harder to ignore than it was to get back. Doing her best not to let Jyren’s stray thoughts distract her, she then put her focus on the Force. It was almost hard to climb from the overbearing strength of the Dark Side that permeated the ship. The Force was not inherently Dark or Light, no, but the darkness of living things had a way of tainting an entire area. If Darkwings, the thought of which made her shudder, not to mention the thought of it being plural, were anything, they were the ultimate incarnation of the Dark Side in an equally powerful physical form.

And they were all around her.

She could feel them searching through the Force...a familiar and yet all too alien presence hunting in the Force. Deep down, Shadow knew that those Darkwings were more of her...her clones at least. But that fact was kept buried deep below any conscious thought. The idea of clones was bad enough, and the thought of having to fight her own even worse...but Darkwings? Herself? No. That was one of the few things that was simply beyond Shadow’s ability to accept, and so she simply pushed it aside and ignored it.

Attention returning back to her physical senses, her eyes searched up before finding the label for whatever level she had climbed up to.

Deck twenty.

That would work...or at least, it felt like the right place to be.

So, once she was at the door, she reached over, strained a moment and cursed the fact that being short meant shorter arms, before managing to hit the emergency release switch. There was a slight pause, then a hiss as the circular door slid away. By the time it was open, Shadow was already in and surveying the area. There was an empty desk about two meters in front of her and a set of open lockers to the right...and behind the desk was a large, slightly blue-tinted transparasteel window. Through it, she could see a series of tanks and a few empty beds.

Medical ward.

Why here...?

A few soft steps forward and she knew exactly why. The door to the side of the medical ward that was on the other side of the window had a series of very large, and very...unique looking claw marks across them. She knew the source immediately, and stepped over and hit the switch to open the door a second later. It creaked, hissed, and then only made it halfway before stopping and leaving her with a very small amount of space to slip through. Shadow turned and did her best to slide through, silently cursing whoever designed the female form in the process.

Once inside, she saw that the room was actually much larger than it had appeared to be at first. There were at least fifteen tanks across the far left side of the wall, which had all been impossible to see upon exiting the turbolift tube. Two of them were filled with a soft, pinkish coloured liquid that had to be bacta, but the others...

Three were cracked, broken, and empty. The remaining ten were very much full. She’d seen this before...not long ago at all. Back on Hoth, the tanks had looked like this. Completely filled with black, nearly indistinguishable forms...but when you knew what to look for, it was easy to spot the long, sharp-toothed jaws, the powerful claws, the tail wrapped around the midsection and the massive wings that encompassed the majority of the tank.

But these Darkwings were different than the ones on Hoth.

Here, they watched. Twenty deadly, predatory eyes stared straight into hers, and when Shadow moved...the eyes did, too. But somehow, the usual horrible presence did not follow the deadly eyes...even their presences in the Force felt contained within the tanks. So much so that when Shadow reached out to them in the Force, she was nearly thrown back by the strength of the Dark Side that was forced into such a small area.

And yet they didn’t move.

Run.

No! No. She couldn’t run. Shadow wanted to run so badly...to hide from this until it was gone and then never speak of it again. But Marix...Marix stood strong to what the child could not stand against. She held her feet in place and peeled her eyes away from the ones that watched her and waited for their chance to be free of the confining prisons. And soon, her eyes found what they were looking for.

Getting her feet to move was an...interesting exercise, but Marix pushed through the fear attempting to grip her and walked over to a small console on the wall. There was a series of medical reading being displayed for each tank, and while she didn’t understand a damned thing about what it was trying to tell her, she did have an idea. Her arms reached up and her hands changed their shape so that her claws could shift into view. Marix dug the sharp claws deep into the panel’s edge before pulling the entire casing off of the wall in a short, but over dramatic, shower of sparks.

The mess of wires and small circuits within was not anything that she was an expert on...at least, not on fixing it. She could put two things together and hope they worked without too much trouble, but that was only thanks to the basic information on starship repair that Max had instilled in her not long after the two of them had met. But what she needed to do was the exact opposite of repair. She needed to do things Jyren’s way and break things...well, not Jyren’s way, she didn’t bring her lightsaber and wasn’t exactly about to cut things up. There was always that off chance that the Darkwings would be released if she did something wrong.

And so her hands(now back to their normal form) searched through the web of wires to the circuit boards in the back. She carefully reached around a small last clump of...something, before finding what she hoped it was that she was looking for. Carefully, Shadow put her fingertips to the board, then let out a silent prayer that all the Imperial training as an assassin she’d been instilled with was correct....before her claws returned. There was a loud crushing sound as the claws immediately dug straight through the circuit board and into the durasteel panel behind.

At the same time, the lights in the room flickered off before the emergency power cut on.

Then nothing.

Shadow’s eyes stayed focused forward, looking into the mass of wires that her arm was lost in, and forcing herself not to turn to look behind her to the now dimly lit room. She couldn’t look. She didn’t trust her eyes. Not now, at least...not in the near darkness. And so she trusted another sense. Very slowly, and very carefully, she reached out towards the tanks on the side of the room...and felt nothing.

Nothing.

Emptiness.

It took her a moment, but soon she was sure of it. At that second, Shadow retrieved her hand from the wires and then turned to look. The series of eyes that sat in the tanks were still watching her with the same intensity as before. It hadn’t worked?! She’d destroyed the entire power to the room, including any connections that the backup systems would have had!

The fear taking its grip again, Shadow couldn’t stop herself from taking a few steps back.

The eyes didn’t move.

Shadow bit her lower lip and stared at the eyes that...were facing where she’d been.

She took another few steps away.

The eyes still stayed focused on the spot she’d been in before.

A smile began to form on her face, and the slightest of nervous laughs escaped her. Finally letting out a long sigh of relief, Shadow turned to head out of this part of the ship and actually find where Jen was hiding.

But just as she pivoted around, the transparasteel window that allowed a view into the main medical room from the section with the desk exploded inwards at her.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 323

Jyren was at least slightly thrown off by the fact that his short trip in the turbolift went completely unhindered. In a matter of seconds, the lift arrived at its destination and the door slid open to reveal a small, grey-white corridor. It looked to go forward for about five or six meters before ending in a door, and also a T-shaped junction. Maybe that explained why there had been no problems...he had no idea where he was actually going.

No. Don’t argue with yourself now. Trust your instincts.

He didn’t, of course, knowing that they had a habit of leading him right into the exact place he didn’t want to be...but at this point, they were all Jyren had. The Force was too...thick with the Dark Side to be able to sense anything else, and the link was...well, it just was. Shadow couldn’t help him. She was busy doing...doing something else.

And so, probably rather foolishly, Jyren just trusted his instincts and headed forward. When he reached the end, he looked both of the other directions. To his right, the corridor only went on for another fifteen or so meters before ending in a few doors and what looked like another lift tube. To the left...the corridor simply made another right turn a good ten meters down. Biting his lip, Jyren made a choice.

He turned, and pressed the switch on the door that was directly in front of him, already. Sure, it was the easy way out, but if he was wrong, it would save him the trouble of having to check it later and be wrong then.

The door opened without any resistance and with the usual hiss that every single starship in the galaxy, save Loki, seemed to echo with, and revealed, amazingly enough, exactly what Jyren had been looking for. It was the backup bridge. Designed exactly like the main bridge of a Star Destroyer, with the two crew pits on either side of a main walkway and sensor stations just near the door, the only difference from the norm was the lack of any viewports. Instead, though, there was a series of viewscreens with holoprojections of the surrounding space outside...and Jyren had to force himself to avoid looking at the constant green and red flashes in the distance.

Truthfully, it wasn’t that difficult.

In fact, it was always very easy to focus on the moment when being shot at. And, just after the door had opened, that was exactly what had happened. Instinct(well, the Force, really, but sometimes he still thought of it as instinct) forced Jyren’s body to move, pivoting back outside the doorway and against the outer wall. Two red blaster bolts scorched the empty air and hit the far bulkhead, leaving black marks on the clean surface.

It was then that Jyren realized he hadn’t even seen what had shot at him, just reacted. While one hand naturally detached his lightsaber from his belt, he very carefully took a quick glance around the corner to see through the still-open door and into the bridge. Obviously, it wasn’t empty like the freighter they’d stolen had been...but Darkwings didn’t use blasters, as far as Jyren knew. Claws and teeth seemed to work just fine for them. So was it more clones...?

It wasn’t. Thin, almost awkward looking shapes marched towards the door, and let off two more shots before he ducked back around and realized what they were. Very, very old model battle droids of some kind...probably held together by luck and some well placed emergency adhesive from the strange way they were walking. But despite the fact that they were probably twice Jyren’s age, the blasters they carried seemed to work quite well. Droids...were they all...?

Taking a quick moment, he reached out through the thick Darkness that held him down and searched the bridge for something...anything...and found nothing. It was devoid of life. All droids? Well, it was cheaper than slaving systems and more reliable, too...and would explain how such a fleet had been gathered by Jen so damned quickly.

It also meant that he could tear straight through every single one of them without even the slightest thought to killing a sentient being. Not that it normally crossed his mind, it was something that had been forced out of him years before any kind of Force training, but it was at least something he knew he was supposed to think about...or pretend to think about.

Focus!

The word in his mind echoed with a blaster shot that caught the edge of the door a little close to where his face had been resting. Jyren jumped back, his sense of smell ruined by the overbearing ozone smell that followed the blaster bolt. But when he landed, both hands came onto the cold, metal hilt of his lightsaber and the switch was thumbed on.

The sharp snap-hiss struck a cord somewhere in him, but was something he didn’t really notice until later. Jyren was...finally, focused.

And so, drawing upon his own strength rather than the Darkness surrounding him, Jyren pivoted back around and charged straight into the bridge, blue-green blade in front of him and already a blur. Two quick cleaves cut down the nearest of the droids that had almost ran straight into him in their path towards the door, and a fast vertical swing caught a stray blaster bolt to send it straight into the chestplate of a third droid. With each droid that dropped, one of the other droids at some console would snatch up some kind of blaster pistol and fire at him.

Jyren quickly cut down the six other droids that had been at the sensor stations closest to the entrance, causing even more to start firing at him from the crew pits as others climbed out or found position of cover...which was exactly what Jyren was doing. He redirected a near-hit back at its origin, sending another droid down with a loud crash of metal, then immediately spun back around behind one of the small extensions that sat between the sensor station and the section of the bridge with the crew pits. It was a wall of sorts, though it was closer to half his size...Jyren did his best to squeeze against the console to take refuge from the barrage of blaster bolts heading straight for him was relative accuracy.

As best he could while still remaining behind his meager cover, Jyren switched to a one-handed grip on his lightsaber and reached down and grabbed his blaster pistol with his left hand. He wasn’t exactly the best shot with his left hand, but it was something and, at this point, he needed all he could get. There were at least...fifteen droids down there, maybe as much as twenty five depending on how many were actually working and how many were guards...or if certain unnecessary stations were left empty. Right. He could do that.

A blaster bolt shot straight past his face, singing the fringe of metallic-blue coloured hair that sat in front of the right side of his face. Jyren’s eyes went wide and he turned to see that the droids were moving into a position that made his cover useless. Damn these bridges and lack of useable cover!

There was no time for a deep breath or any kind of preparation. The droid was firing again, and others were moving next to it to get a clear shot at Jyren. So, with a simple step Jyren left his cover, lightsaber up to immediately deflect a shot aimed at his face before sliding his left arm under to fire a quick shot at the two droids that had gotten around his cover.

The shot was fancy, flashy, and downright stupid.

It also missed.

A quick downward sweep across that side deflected another shot from the same attacking droids, and Jyren took a step back to raise his other arm and actually line up his next shot. He managed to squeeze off a quick shot that caught a droid that had been dashing up out of the crew pit, but yet another bolt came at him from his right side.

This one, he couldn’t defend...mostly because it would have taken his own hand off in the process. Instead, the red blaster bolt caught him in the hand, burning through the flesh and causing him to both yelp in pain and drop the blaster pistol to the ground.

As he stumbled back and tried not to lose any footing while also doing his best to remorph the burn wound, the droids pushed forward.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 324

Unlike most idiots in the galaxy who would just stand in shock as something exploded at them...Shadow moved. She didn’t need the Force to tell her that standing in one place when a transparasteel window shattered inwards at her that it was a good idea to not stand right there. It was one of the reasons that she wondered if she was the only sane being left in the galaxy anymore. Even Jyren would have at least given thought to standing there.

But Shadow wasn’t stupid...at least, not when it came to simple matters like that. Her ears were already picking up the sound of the attack before the Force screamed at her, and so, Shadow’s body was diving to the side and rolling out of the way before the window itself was even completely shattered. Mid-roll, she heard an angry roar behind her, and it didn’t take anything more than that for her to know the source of the attack.

This time, fear did not grip her. Mainly due to the fact that Shadow was too busy coming back up to her feet while, at the same time, staying low enough to avoid the large, powerful swing of a clawed hand that could easily have taken her head off. Out of a natural reaction, her own hands remorphed to reveal her own claws, though they weren’t nearly as dangerous as the ones that had nearly killed her.

Shadow had a half second to get decent footing and see that this Darkwing was about twice the size of the ones that had been in the tanks. It was maybe four meters high, and with a nearly ten meter wing-span, all curled up to fit into this room that was suddenly a lot smaller with this leathery, black-skinned creature inside it. Another angry roar that sent a cold shiver up her spine escaped the large, sharp-toothed jaws of the thing before it took a powerful step forward and swung at her again.

Part of her nearly stood still...which would have meant a lack of a good half of her body and all of her life. But, again, Shadow’s instincts moved her body before anything else would have. A second time, she ducked low, feeling the swipe catch a few stray strands of her hair as she slid to the side again, now with her back to the shattered and open window.

She could run...but it would follow. It would follow, and she couldn’t run forever.

Her hand quickly reached down and withdrew the small, ancient dagger that had been with her since Alraxia, and slid the cold metal blade out of the makeshift sheathe that she kept it in more for the sake of Jyren and Tobias than herself. She brought the blade up in front of her just as the massive form of the Darkwing spun around to face her, swinging another clawed hand at her.

Now, though, when Shadow ducked under the strike, she spun around and gave the Darkwing a sharp slash across the back of its arm. The creature made no sound, but Shadow could see the dark blue coloured blood spill across the ground, and the two piercing eyes narrow in rage. Instead of another swing of a powerful arm, it dove at her, wide-open jaws first.

The Darkwing snapped at her like a dragon, only missing her by centimeters as Shadow sidestepped the strike...but the Darkwing had obviously been ready for her dodge, this time, as it gave Shadow no chance to return the attack. Just as its jaws closed on the empty air, a wing swung around and slapped Shadow across the side, sending her straight back at the Darkwing’s jaws...which had, of course, reopened in anticipation.

But Shadow did what Jyren would have called cheating.

She used the Force to throw herself back and away from the monstrous thing, leaving it to once again snap its jaws into nothing. But she didn’t stop moving there. Once her feet caught the deck plates, Shadow dropped to the floor just in time to avoid a vicious slash. She then rolled inwards and straight to the Darkwing to dodge another set of claws that sank hard into the deck where she’d been. Just as she ended up on her back, Shadow’s arm shot up towards the hunched over torso and the metal blade cut straight through its gut and up to the neck, where she then turned it and left a long, horizontal slash.

The strike had been lightning fast, and perfectly placed to cause the Darkwing to stand up fully and rear back a step and a half out of pain. Shadow also took note of the fact that the wounds did not remorph...an important similarity with Alraxians that was not something to miss. Her eyes still on the Darkwing, Shadow rolled out from under its torso just as one of the large feet slammed down on her spot. Her tail was missed by a very small margin, a thought that would later cause her to shudder more than anything else...the very idea of how that kind of pain would have stopped her was mind numbing.

But she kept moving, rolling across the deck plates an quickly kicking herself up to her feet again. The Darkwing had recovered from its short moment of shock by then, and was charging straight for her at an extremely fast speed. Shadow jumped up just in time to avoid another loud snap from the monster’s jaws and she came down just on the spot between its massive wings...and a memory struck her.

Not her memory...but Jyren’s. It was a point where he had been when...she...was one of these. Not a blind spot, but a point where the arms couldn’t actually reach. The safest place she could possibly be, really.

Immediately upon realizing this, Shadow dug her claws in deep in the creature’s spine as it twisted around to throw her off. One foot managed to find a spot to wedge itself right against where the wing met the back, but Shadow was still thrown around viciously as the Darkwing struggled to remove her. And Shadow knew right away that she wasn’t going to be able to hang on for much longer...this sure as hell wasn’t as easy as Jyren’s thoughts made it seem.

Shadow’s free hand, which had been thrown to the side with a vicious thrashing from the Darkwing, managed to come back down, and she brought the metal blade down with all her strength. It hit hard, digging down into the back of the Darkwing’s skull and cutting straight through the bone until it was so deep that her hand was up against the horrible, leathery skin.

And that was it.

The Darkwing let out a deafening, mind-numbing sound from its jaws, tilting its head back and flapping its wing in its thrashing until Shadow could no longer hold on. In a second, she lost her grip on both the skin of the Darkwing’s back and on her blade, and was thrown like a small toy straight across the medical ward and into the far wall. There was a loud thud and an even louder crack from her spine as she hit, but Shadow didn’t make a noise.

...because her head was snapped back and her skull slammed straight into the durasteel wall before she dropped to the ground face first with another bone crunching thud.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 325

The initial guess on how many droids that Jyren had made was...well, wrong wasn’t the best word. ‘Off’ was probably better...though, Shadow would have said something a little more extreme, probably along the lines of ‘dreaming’. Not that it really mattered anymore. It was too late to stop the assault on the bridge, and had reached the point of no return for Jyren, as the blast doors to the backup bridge had been sealed.

He was, currently, huddled in a small niche provided by the dividers between the sensor stations that lined the back end of the bridge. His body was pressed as much as he could to the cold wall to avoid the swarm of blaster bolts that were still coming his way. Every few seconds, he’d have to make a quick adjustment, as his foot would slide into view and nearly get shot, or his elbow or...well, the near miss on his tail had really been the most worrisome moment.

The only sound drowning out the constant attack on him was the deep thrumming of the lightsaber that he still held active in front of him. It provided no warmth, but was so close to his body that it was nearly taking off the blue-coloured fringe of his hair. The blade was also up so close that he couldn’t see the blue-green outer glow, and only the ultra-bright, almost blinding beam of hot-white energy that was the actual ‘blade’ of the weapon.

Jyren tilted his head very slightly to the side to get a view around his cover. In the small second he had to get a look at the situation before he had to jump back to avoid losing his face to a blaster bolt, Jyren managed to survey the area fairly accurately. Four of the skeletal-looking droids were using a sensor station as cover like he was and firing from that, almost directly across from him and nearly close enough to see around the small cover he had. Another four were just behind them, standing out in the open but kneeling and obviously trying to find another angle to get a clear shot at any body part that showed itself. At least six others were lining the small section before the room opened up into the large section of the bridge with the crew pits, blocking any chance he had of getting to the...however many droids were still down there.

So what to do? There wasn’t exactly much time to think, as it looked like the nearest group of droids was going to find a new section of cover within perfect view of Jyren in a matter of moments.

Trust the Force.

Jyren blinked. It wasn’t a normal blink...if that meant anything. It was a voice in his head and it sure as hell wasn’t Shadow. He knew her...her...voice, if the link even used voices. But, at the same time, it was...familiar. Familiar and yet...

“Mother...?” for some reason, Jyren looked up...or at least as ‘up’ as he could manage in the tight quarters with the lightsaber so close to taking off his nose. Why he said that up, he didn’t know, but it was probably part of the same strange reaction that made him talk to Loki through the ceiling. Instead of the bulkheads.

But there was no answer beyond two blaster bolts that caught the wall in front of him and made the black scorch marks there even blacker.

It had been his mother’s voice...he was sure of that. That was a voice he knew surprisingly well considering he couldn’t even remember the woman. But he felt no presence, and not even the comforting image that the holocron usually provided....it had only been the voice, and now it was gone.

Trust the Force.

That had been it. But maybe...

Jyren closed his eyes and let out a deep, calming breath, trying to push aside the fact that another blaster bolt nearly hit his elbow before it was pulled inwards.

Trust the Force.

Trust the Force.

His eyes were forced open by the pang of a blaster bolt hitting the bulkhead he was hiding behind, and the knowledge that so many shots on the thing was starting to finally eat through the metal. Jyren’s eyes then quickly darted over to the sealed bulkhead over to his right. There wasn’t any running from this. There was no turning back. And through the link...he could feel something was wrong. He could feel a very violent pain, and the shadows of it tried to force themselves through his own body.

And he couldn’t get there...this time, Jyren wasn’t going to be able to save the day. He was trapped here...and had to trust Shadow to keep herself alive. An act that she had been very good at long before ever knowing him, and would likely continue to excel at for decades to come. Jyren had to trust her...and, at the same time, had to keep up his own end of their life and not screw things up for the both of them by getting himself killed. And there was only one way his mind could think to do that.

Trust the Force.

And he did.

Jyren gave himself to the energy around him, pushing away the thick Darkness and finding the Light that was always there. He latched onto it and let it into him...let it take him. His grip on his weapon loosened, and the stark tension in his entire body faded. It wasn’t relaxation, but rather, a calm state that was exactly like what Shadow was an expert at falling into whenever she was in a similar situation...in other words, most all of the time.

And then he moved.

Jyren pivoted around and out of his cover, lightsaber swinging up and in front of him to deflect the barrage of red bolts flying at him. None of them were returned to their origin and none of the droids flinched at the sudden jump that Jyren made from his cover. But standing there and taking the shots that were already being fired at him was not exactly the smartest thing in the world to do...and just as his initial lightsaber sweep was finished, his left hand left the lightsaber and reached out to the droids.

Suddenly, the Force slammed into the six of them that were out in the open and sent them flying across the bridge...a couple into the viewscreens on the far end and the rest simply into the crew pits. As they hit, Jyren’s hand returned to his lightsaber as he moved forward and he dropped into a quick roll to the center of the room to dodge the next barrage of red that burnt through his previous position. He came up into a kneel and threw the lightsaber in a horizontal sweep. It flew out and cut straight through the remainder of the battle droids that were out of the crew pits.

The metal remained scattered across the ground and Jyren got to his feet and started running straight for the right crew pit where his lightsaber had ended up falling into. Mid-stride, he called his blaster pistol into his hand from its position on the floor and caught it just as he dove straight into the crew pit...with its four rows of consoles, each manned by two droids.

Two blaster bolts shot up at him but missed thanks to his forward momentum, and he landed at the midpoint of all of them. The second he was down, he fired at the nearest droid and took cover behind the console it had been ‘manning’. His lightsaber wasn’t in view, so he waited for a couple shots to go over him before standing back up and jumping over to the back row, kicking the battle droid at it and ducking down again...while firing off a quick shot at the second droid in the row.

There was the lightsaber.

Jyren quickly dove to the corner and picked up the metal hilt before reactivating the blade.

The sound of the lightsaber was not the only sudden sound, though.

Behind him, back near the entrance, there was a very, very loud crash. Jyren looked up from the crew pit to see pieces of what could only be the bulkhead fly past. His openness to the Force told him the source of this sudden explosion right away.

A Darkwing.

The gut-wrenching roar that echoed into the room only confirmed what the Force told him. Footsteps started, too...and Jyren stood up fully to see that the battle droids were actually running out of the crew pits and...firing at the entrance to the bridge?! Well, they were old and definitely not the brightest of droids ever crafted. But there was no reason not to use this to his advantage.

Once again calling the Force to him, Jyren jumped up and out of the crew pit again, landing squarely on the deck plates that were littered with droids parts and seeing what had entered...and his heart stopped.

There was a Darkwing, yes...standing there at the ruined bulkhead, wings flared out and teeth barred...but it didn’t move. Its eyes simply watched him, a predatory and almost face-melting expression boring through him. But Jyren only saw the Darkwing for a moment...as it soon became a dark, black backdrop to the thing that stood in font of it.

No...the woman.

Jen.

She looked exactly the same as he remembered her. Long blonde hair pulled back behind her, a simple, grey tunic and slacks and the same belt on her waist that she’d worn since the first day he’d met her. But it was her eyes that were different. Where once there had been warmth and even a form of love...now there was a cold emptiness that even Shadow’s eyes had never held.

When Jyren’s eyes locked with Jen’s, he nearly lost his footing and fell back into the crew pit. Somehow, he managed to stay up...but all the momentum that had been built up in him had gone in that second. The blaster pistol dropped out of his left hand, and the lightsaber in his right simply hung at his side, its thrumming nearly inaudible despite the eerie silence in the bridge.

Her eyes still holding his attention, Jen’s hand moved to her belt and withdrew a small cylindrical object. Jyren knew what it was right away...and was not at all surprised by the snap-hiss when she activated the lightsaber and a bright orange blade, eerily similar to Titus Voort’s old weapon, bathed the deck around her.

“No, Jen,” Jyren whispered, trying to shake his head but barely able to move, “Please don’t do this.”

Jen’s cold eyes stayed locked with his, and the longer it lasted the more Jyren just wanted to see her smile...or...or anything! But she didn’t, her face remained expressionless, and even when she spoke, her voice was no longer the one he remembered, “I will kill you for what you did to me.”

“No, Jen!” this time he managed to at least get some kind of emotion into his voice, “You know you can’t beat me!”

“Did that ever stop you?” her voice was biting and sharp...and her words were right.

What an example he’d been. What a wonderful Jedi he’d been for her to look to...charging in without thinking, risking his life and the life of those he loved just because he was a damned hot-headed kid with a deep set need to die...and even before that, a show off. Always doing something dramatic and barely making it out with his life. And so many had watched him do it over the years, even laughing about it...but only Shadow had really yelled at him for it...and now Jyren knew why. Now he really understood, deep down in his very core, the real problem.

He had blamed it on Shadow, Ket Halpak, and even simple destiny...but Jen had fallen because of him. Jyren had led her straight down that path because he never thought about anything. He hadn’t even taken the time to see just how much she was watching...he’d tried so hard to just show off or get himself killed that he never even considered the future. Never considered this.

The Sith Poison may have been the catalyst that had caused them to lose Jen Zaarin Voort, but Jyren had been the path. His own arrogance had done it, and instead of paying for it with his life he was paying for it with everyone else’s...from Mare’s, to Voort’s, and now to Jen’s.

Jyren took a very small step forward, reaching out with his free hand to the human woman, “Please, Jen...if you do this you’ll die.”

She didn’t respond. Or at least, not in words.

Jen’s only response was the slightest of grins before she charged straight for him, lightsaber up and preparing to swing right at Jyren.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 326

Shadow’s senses all returned to the same thing...a dizzying blur. Even her mind was swirling and, at the moment at least, she couldn’t even figure out what was going on. No...there was something...something...for some odd reason, she was surprised that she was still alive. And on top of that, none of her was even arguing with that little voice telling her she should, in fact, be dead. Why...?

At first, she made the mistake of trying to focus on all of her senses at once to get things to make sense, but that only made her head hurt more. A lot more. Okay. Stop. Focus. Focus. One thing at a time.

Her eyes blinked once or twice, but still she saw nothing but a black and grey blur. Alright, try something else. There were more important things than vision, anyway. Shadow quickly changed her focus to her thoughts, trying to put everything in line and make sense of things...most specifically, why she was convinced that she shouldn’t currently be alive.

Darkwing.

The word sent a jolt through her body but made everything(well, in her mind at least) fall right into place. She’d hit her head...hard, from the feel of it. Thrown...but she should be dead! Darkwing’s didn’t hesitate to kill their prey when it was down!! She reached out with the Force to find the same(or at least, a similar) overbearing Darkness around her.

It couldn’t be dead...not from just one blow like that...

Eyes. Now you need eyes!

Shadow closed her eyes for a long time before trying to shake off the dizziness. When she was relatively sure she wasn’t going to get sick on the deck, Shadow attempted opening her eyes again. Slowly, shades began to appear through the blurred colours. The medical room looked exactly like it had been before she’d...hit her head and, most likely, been knocked out.

And there was the Darkwing. It stood relatively close to its spot before, and because of this and the fact that it was just turning towards her, Shadow figured that she could have only been out for a few seconds at most. But that still might have been too long...the Darkwing was already diving straight at her, claws extended and ready to tear her to pieces, and she was still there laying on her side with a hand on her head!

Instinct took over where rational thought tried to slow her. Nearly anyone else would have been dead in that situation, but Shadow’s body(well, Marix’s) was used to acting without giving her time to think about anything. It was a survival instinct that too much of the galaxy lacked...a fact that would probably always be of continual annoyance to Shadow, as long as she continued at least.

But when the massive form of the Darkwing arrived at her position, Shadow was no longer there. Thanks to the Force and Alraxian reflexes, she was able to go from lying down to leaping up and over the Darkwing in a matter of half-seconds. She came down behind the creature’s powerful tail, took a moment to get her footing and push through he sudden dizziness that tried to return thanks to the acrobatic move. But there wasn’t exactly much time for her to reorient herself, as the tail of the Darkwing was swinging straight at her torso.

It was one of those times where it was good to move, and so, Shadow dropped back to the deck. She hit the floor face first before kicking herself back up and getting her balance again. There wasn’t really anything she could actually think to do to hurt the damned thing! There were openings all over the place, large creatures like that always had that, no matter how fast they moved, but Shadow knew all too well that she would just be leaving scars...and without her blade, she couldn’t even leave permanent ones.

Quietly, she cursed Jyren for not explaining to her just how he had...stopped her as a Darkwing. He had to know what he’d done! Oh, she was going to kill him the second she had the chance...which, of course, meant dealing with this Darkwing on her own, first. Part of her wanted to morph to a larger, stronger form, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to keep up with the Darkwing and being small right now was a large part of the reason she was still alive...not to mention that the medical room wasn’t exactly huge.

As she sidestepped and then flipped over another pair of claw swipes from the monstrous black creature, Shadow noticed that it was actually a bit easier to avoid losing half of her body to the Darkwing’s strikes...it was slower. Slower. Her eyes widened slightly just before she ducked under another strike and then rolled away from the snapping jaws. It was actually slower than before!

Maybe she’d actually managed to hit something...important with the knife! There had to be some kind of brain or central nervous system in there somewhere! And then an idea came to her mind...one that had her immediately kicking herself for not thinking of. She knew Jyren hated it, especially having to feel it through the link, but at this point, she didn’t have a choice.

Shadow turned and took a couple steps away from the viciously attacking Darkwing before jumping up into the lobby of the medical room with the completely destroyed desk. It gave her just a couple seconds before the Darkwing came at her...and that was, at least she hoped, all that she needed. Right away, she focused, naturally closing her eyes to force away the distraction of the rapidly approaching monster.

There was a reason that Jyren hated morphing. It was a mix of the completely alien feelings that it brought up, and the way it actually looked. There was something completely and utterly wrong about watching one thing become something else...even quickly. Especially when watching Shadow...or, for that matter, anyone he knew. Maybe it was just a quirk of not being born Alraxian, but it was something Shadow hadn’t actually noticed in anyone else but him. But, for some reason, the shift that her body made from organic to a strange metallic substance was the one that always got him the most. Maybe it was how it affected her...

Droids didn’t feel. They couldn’t. And while, technically, she wasn’t a droid in that form...it was the damned closest thing that either of them could think to compare it to. But her mind(or whatever it became in the morph) had a way of reverting to...older ways of thinking for her. As a Tam’Day’U, Marix had been stripped of her emotions and turned into nothing more than a weapon of the Empire. Once Marix was exiled and slowly returned to a normal existence...she was captured by the Galactic Empire and once again turned into a weapon...and that was where this metal morph had originated, as far as she knew. Some kind of genetic tampering with the clones, and something that was not Marix, but wholly Shadow. And when Shadow was back in control, the mindless weapon came with her...it was what she was. A child and a weapon...and, sadly, nothing more.

But right now, that was the only way she had to survive...and suddenly, the Darkwing could see its own reflection in the shining, metallic Alraxian that it was diving at to tear to shreds.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 327

Jen had learned a lot in the short few months that she had been away, but one thing she couldn’t possibly become an expert on so quickly was lightsaber technique. There was a very distinct line between learning from watching and learning from experience. Jyren had the latter, and Jen the former. Sure, Jyren had been just like her at first...swinging the sword like the old holodramas used to show. Long, dramatic sweeps that did nothing at all but make the wielder look like the amateur they were. There were even a few things here and there that had probably been picked up from actually watching...but that was not practice.

It had taken Jyren many years to even be able to parry a strike, let alone learn the necessary footwork that was always ignored by those just starting or trying to ‘teach themselves’. Even now, Jyren knew that he couldn’t stand up to any of the Jedi from the Old Republic...as his only edges were the Force and his own quick speed(with, of course, the help of an Alraxian body), the Jedi had both of those and extremely rigorous training. The Holocron showed that much...and had shown Jyren just how far behind he was.

But suddenly the situation was thrown on its head. He was no fighting for his life here...every swing of his blade was not a last ditch effort to avoid losing a limb...he was not pushed back or even forced on the defensive. Jen’s swings of her orange lightsaber were so predictable that Jyren had to force himself not to deflect them and then finish the fight right there. It was so difficult, after the vicious fights he’d experienced over the years, to slow down to this.

This was a fight for Jen’s life, and he knew it.

The worst part of it all was that she was actually putting all of her strength and effort into the fight...if it could even be called that. Her high swing would be easily blocked by Jyren’s blade far away from his head(despite the near meter difference in height, she still never got close), and yet she wouldn’t pull away for a quick jab towards his unprotected torso...all the while leaving herself open one simple attack that could end everything in a second.

Jyren completed two more simplistic parries, then finally gave in and used the Force to throw Jen back a good three meters. Before she could recover her already week footing, he swung his lightsaber down and away before deactivating the blade. With only a single humming from her weapon remaining on the bridge, Jyren shook his head, “I won’t do this anymore. I will not kill you.”

Jen stood up straight again, pushing a stray strand of hair out of her face and glaring up at him with her empty eyes, “You’re a coward!”

“Maybe,” he admitted with a slight nod as he clipped his lightsaber back onto his belt, “But I will not kill you...and this does not have to go on. You can stop this right here and right now. You can end all of this and come back to us.”

“After what you did to me?!” Jen growled, still actually holding her ground instead of charging at him again.

Seeing that there had to be something in the fact that she was actually talking(well...yelling), Jyren tried to push the point. He had to try. He knew he wouldn’t kill her...knew he couldn’t...and, at the same time, was fairly sure what he was going to try wouldn’t work either. But, still, he had to try...and so, keeping his voice as controlled and calm as he could, Jyren said, “The only thing I did to you was to make you put up with seeing me act like a child and never thanking you for the help you gave. You were a sister to me, Jen! A mother, even! If you honestly believe I would ever even dream of doing anything to harm you, then you really are lost.”

Jen’s eyes watched him, but he saw no hint of anything new within them. Instead, she simply shook her head and pointed her lightsaber at him accusingly, “You lied to me! You, Shadow, and Titus! You all lied to me! Your lies did this to me!”

Something there caused Jyren to snap. The control he had held before was gone in a second, and the words escaped him at a yell before he could even stop himself, “All Titus ever did was love you!”

“And you killed him!” Jen snapped back, the Force starting to reek even more of a deep rage than before.

“Yes! I killed him!” again, Jyren’s mouth let the words out before his mind could even think about them. And he wasn’t lying...in fact, for the first time, he found himself accepting the responsibility for his own actions. When this washed over him, he added just as forcefully, “But it was a mistake! A horrible mistake that I pay for every single day, Jen. But I know it was a mistake! Look at what you’re doing and tell me this is the right thing! Look at that damned monster behind you and tell me this is right!”

Jen actually glanced over her shoulder to see the Darkwing still standing in the destroyed ‘doorway’...watching and waiting, obviously ready for the simple word that it needed to be given for its attack. The word it wanted to hear...the anticipation could be felt, almost tasted, through the Force. When Jen looked back to Jyren, her eyes met his again and they held the gaze....and, for a moment at least, Jyren saw something. It wasn’t a smile...it wasn’t even the hint of one...in fact, it was barely a hint of anything...and maybe he was just imagining things, but there was...was something. Something he remembered.

And seeing that brought words to Jyren again, and he didn’t even try to hold them back anymore. He felt something through the Force from Jen, and suddenly thought he might understand exactly why she was doing all of this, “The man that did this to you is dead, Jen. I killed Ket Halpak nearly a month ago. There’s no revenge to be had past that gate anymore.”

Jen’s voice was lower now, and almost shaking slightly, when she said, “I’ll kill all of them anyway.”

“Why?” the question was simple and honest, but Jyren didn’t leave it at that, “Because of what one exile tried to do? He tried the same thing, Jen. He tried to kill all of them...you’d just be exactly like him...” he trailed off, and let that hang in the air, as it was obviously having some effect from Jen’s motionless state. When she didn’t say anything for a long time, Jyren finally added, “Please stop this. You can end all of this right now...you can end it all and come back to us. Please, Jen...”

Slowly, the human woman in front of him lowered her lightsaber. Their gazes held, and Jyren thought he could see that something in her eyes again...and even feel it through the Force. A...calming, if there was a word for it, at least. After another moment, there was a soft fizzle as her lightsaber was deactivated and then Jen let out a long sigh, looking down at the deck plates before closing her eyes.

Jyren even let out a quiet sigh of his own, feeling the tension and the Darkness slowly fading away from the room around him...the weight lifting.

And then Jen looked up and opened her eyes, a neutral expression masking her features as she seemed to look him over again. Whatever was going through her mind, Jyren couldn’t even come close to imagining. So...he just stood there and waited, still slightly worried, but allowing the calming in the Force to help to calm his own nerves in the process.

“Kill him,” Jen’s words were whispered as she stepped to the side. Jyren had only enough time for his eyes to go wide with shock before the Darkwing came at him at full speed.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 328

Darkwings did not seem to experience surprise...or anything similar to that. However, there was at least a moment’s hesitation from the huge creature when its powerful, clawed hand was force back with relative ease by the now-metallic Alraxian that was its prey...or...was supposed to be. But the mind of a Darkwing never considered running or even backing down. The only option was to fight harder until brute force and, if necessary, the Force itself, tore their prey apart. And while Darkwings had fought and easily destroyed droids before, this...Shadow was different.

Somehow, she seemed faster now...and horribly more aggressive. And this edge was all she needed. Two quick blocks and she stepped right into the Darkwing, not even using the Force to help her already heavy fist to strike the creature right under its jaw. There was a crack of bones and a growl before the monster snapped its jaws at her, but Shadow was still fast enough to easily bend and slide to inside the Darkwing’s defenses.

And as she slipped between its jaws and its right arm(that was about to catch her across the back of the head), an idea came into her...mind...if it was really anything like a ‘mind’ anymore. Shadow had never tried it before...hell, she’d spent so little time like this that there hadn’t even been time to imagine it. But why not? It should work...

The Darkwing’s claws came down for the back of the metal skull, but never reached their mark. Shadow quickly spun around to face the attack, reached up with her left arm...just as the metal changed shape to form a very large, very sharp looking point...that cut straight through the center of the Darkwing’s hand and forced the most alien of yells out of the creature.

It jerked it injured hand away, which caused even more pain to fuel its anger as the metal was removed, then took a step back to reorient itself before simply pouncing on its prey. But it never had the chance. Shadow was moving again, right into it a second time, but this time with a confidence that this idea really was working and that it was perfect. With a simple step forward, she sent the long spike straight up and through the Darkwing’s skull. The bones of the skull provided little resistance and it took barely any effort to simply skewer the horrible thing.

The second that the point of her ‘arm’ extended out of the top of the Darkwing’s skull, something happened in the Force. It...calmed. The weight lifted and the room felt normal again. Shadow easily removed her arm and let the massive form of the Darkwing drop to the deck with a heavy thud...and it didn’t move again.

As her arm returned to its ‘normal’ shape, Shadow looked down at the dead monster in front of her. It had been so easy...so very easy. She had always known why the Empire had attempted this, and why Faban Sunrunner had wanted control over her for it...but never really seen the reasons. Shadow really was the pinnacle of what the Tam’Day’U had always been there to achieve: the perfect weapon. No emotion to cloud judgment, unbelievable strength to end a conflict before it had started, and above all else, adaptable to any situation. This metal made her...unstoppable.

Shadow could feel no happiness or even sadness because of this, which was exactly why a terrified feeling creeping into her ‘mind’ surprised her. Real, true terror. But it couldn’t be hers...it wasn’t possible. Then how...?

Jyren.

The single thought jolted through her entire body and the mind-numbing effects of both the metal form and the control that Shadow had over it faded...into Marix. Again. And as this happened, the metal, too faded...and it wasn’t long before Marix BlueIce once again stood there instead of that metal...thing. But, despite the connection to a more normal person that Marix was, she was still a straight-to-business type...and didn’t dwell even for a second on just what had happened. It had. It was over. She needed to move on.

And she did.

[Are you okay?] she asked through the link, pivoting around and heading straight for the ruined turbolift tube that the Darkwing had come from.

Jyren’s voice returned to her head and it was surprisingly soothing to hear. It almost had a way of grounding her back into the reality that was instead of what could have been had she stayed in that metal form...[Are you?!] there was a pause, then in her mind he added. [Oh, and no!]

[I’m fine and I’m on my way.] Shadow(not even noticing that, while Marix was definitely in control, she still thought of herself as Shadow) reached out in the Force, finding that while this room had eased its oppressing feeling, much of the ship was still bathed in Darkness. But she forced through it anyway and found him. Down.

Her eyes looked down the long turbolift tube and she simply shrugged to herself. Why not? Climbing was going to take far too long and it wasn’t like she didn’t have ways to stop herself. Besides, it would get the blood flowing again.

A grin actually found its way onto Shadow’s face before she jumped.

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 329

The massive form of the Darkwing slammed into Jyren like a perfectly aimed turbolaser bolt...except that turbolaser bolts were generally green and usually didn’t have the kind of accuracy to hit a single humanoid. Darkwings, of course, did have that kind of accuracy...with the additional feature of claws, teeth, and a great strength in the Force.

But, then again, maybe it was a good thing that it hit him so hard. Thanks to the impossible speed at which the Darkwing caught him, Jyren didn’t actually feel a single thing. His body went from normal to numb faster than he’d have thought possible, and the next thing he knew he was on the other side of the bridge, jammed against the viewscreens that lined where the normal openings would have been on a main bridge. Through blue-tinged vision(which was odd enough on its own), he could see multiple splatterings of...well, more blue, but a deeper blue that he could immediately identify as his blood.

The Darkwing had moved back a few steps, allowing Jyren to slide down the wall to a dazed, sitting position. He managed to look down slightly and see...well, probably everything. At least, there couldn’t be much more inside of him than what was opened up and easy to spot already. And it was all...all...spinning...Jyren blinked a few times but things kept spinning around him. Maybe that was because of his head hurting so much. He had hit that wall pretty hard...

Lucky for Jyren, there were at least some natural survival instincts that his Alraxian body(well, and mind) had built in and could not be easily shut off. Because of this, despite the fact that his conscious thoughts were just as gone as the rest of him looked to be, his body naturally took the few seconds given to it as the Darkwing backed up to remorph the majority of the wounds. Mainly the large, gaping cuts through his torso. One of the two hearts was undamaged, with the other having been completely torn through...but Alraxians had two for a reason, and his body didn’t worry about fixing the first one for the moment.

Of course, wounds being healed quickly didn’t actually help Jyren’s foggy mind...and the Darkwing wasn’t exactly the kind of creature to wait for him to feel better and let him stand up before it pounced again. In fact, by the time the major wounds had been closed up, the Darkwing was diving straight down at Jyren again.

Jyren was definitely not Shadow, and didn’t have the kind of natural reflexes that she did even through serious injuries...but when his eyes caught sight of a large, black thing with sharp teeth and claws as big as his arm, his first reaction was to get the hell out of its way. And that reaction never, ever failed him.

Still dizzy and seeing things through blueish vision, Jyren immediately dove to his left, hearing the loud crack of the durasteel taking a violent hit just behind his feet. He wasn’t stupid enough to just stay where he’d moved to, either. His brain firmly set on flight rather than fight, Jyren didn’t even turn around when he rolled away from the wall and crawled as fast as he could manage straight for the nearest of the two crew pits.

There was a series of very loud, and very close smashes before Jyren was able to roll into crew pit. He fell the two meters without actually thinking about the consequences until he landed on his back and the crack of his spine echoed in the crew pit around him. As his head went back to spinning, Jyren heard other sounds around him....like quick moving of feet. He didn’t have to look around to know it was some of the droid pilots that were still somehow managing their stations. Were, of course, being the operative word, as they were now running to get out of the way of the imminent landing of the Darkwing that would take out a good portion of the consoles(and anything in the way) in the process).

Through a groan of pain, Jyren rolled over and looked up to see the Darkwing tilting its head to the side and peering down at him almost curiously. Then, it barred its teeth, flared its wings, and started to jump.

Then a familiar sound echoed through the bridge...three times. A half second later three red blaster bolts caught the Darkwing across the side of its large skull, sending it off balance and into the nearest viewscreen. Another second later, he saw a black thing fly over and hit the side of the Darkwing’s head before dropping to the ground and clanking on the deck loudly.

“Hey!” Shadow’s voice drowned out the other noises and then, when she spoke through the link, drowned out everything else. [Get up and remorph completely now, Jyren.]

[...you’re late...] Jyren ‘mumbled’ through the link, though he followed her strict...instructions right away, knowing that she was only being so pointed because it was that important.

[You always say you like the dramatic entrances best.] Shadow might have shrugged with that, but Jyren couldn’t actually see her to confirm that.

Through the link, she was also doing her best to help him think more clearly...and how that was happening was indescribable to the both of them, but it was working. Shaking his head slightly, Jyren looked up to see the Darkwing moving to the side to the pathway between the two crew pits that led directly to where Shadow probably was standing. [You kind of ruined the dramatic part when you threw the blaster at it.]

[It got the thing’s attention, didn’t it?] Shadow’s ‘voice’ was now much more distracted, and Jyren had a good idea that this had something to do with the fact that he could no longer see the Darkwing up on the walkway anymore. [And if you plan to stay down there, let me know now so I can do end this my way instead of trying to cooperate and do this our way.]

If there was one thing that could get Jyren moving, it was that...voice. Despite the fact that she wasn’t actually speaking to him, Shadow still had a way of conveying that tone through the link. It wasn’t an order, it wasn’t really a suggestion, it was simply a point. And he knew exactly she meant, thanks to their link. He had felt that...change in her earlier and did not want to have to deal with that again. Maybe it was a form of blackmail...but it sure as hell worked.

Though his body was still drained from the serious effort it had taken to remorph all of the damage that the Darkwing had caused, Jyren shook it off, pushed it away, and ran up the ramp and out of the crew pit. He ran around and straight for the path between the two crew pits to find the Darkwing’s back to him in between the sensor stations...or what was left of them. On the other side of the huge, leathery-black creature Jyren could see a white coloured movement that was Shadow’s morphsuit...he couldn’t actually pinpoint any other part of Shadow because she was moving too much.

And then he saw Jen. She stood off to the far side of the room, arms folded across her chest as she calmly watched the action in front of her. Jyren looked at her and still couldn’t believe she could just...just stand there!

“Dammit, Jyren!” Shadow’s voice yelled from the other side of the Darkwing, “I’m over here!”

It wasn’t the same tone she’d used before, but it sure had the echoes of it and forced Jyren’s eyes back over to the Darkwing. As his hand reached down and detached the lightsaber from his belt again, Jyren went straight for the Darkwing’s back. The sound of the blade coming to life was drowned out by an angry roar from the Darkwing as it glanced over its shoulder to Jyren for a half second before swinging its massive tail at him. Jyren dropped to the deck and rolled under the black tail that was almost as big as he was, swinging across with his lightsaber to cleave off a good piece of it in the process.

He got to his feet right when the piece of the tail hit the ground, though in another second it had remorphed the wound and the tail was swinging right back at him. [This isn’t exactly working!]

[There is another option, Jyren!] Shadow grinded out through the link...at the same time, Jyren could see her duck under a swing and spin out of sight right into the center of the Darkwing’s vision. He heard a thud and a crunch from that direction, but since there was no slight pain through the link, Jyren concluded it had been from the Darkwing and not Shadow.

After cleaving off another piece of tail and trying to find a way to move around to the front of the creature, Jyren looked over to where Jen stood and yelled, “You can still stop this, Jen!”

“Jyren, focus!” Shadow screamed at him before leaping over and landing on the other side of the stump of the tail that was remorphing. Before the Darkwing could spin around and swing at them with its thick wings, Shadow put a sharp claw through one and growled at him, “She’s gone! This is not the time to be distracted!”

“She is not g—“ his angry words were cut off by first a tail, and then Shadow, and then the back of the Darkwing’s wing slamming into him one after another. The two Alraxians were flung across the bridge, with Jyren hitting the bulkhead hard and Shadow hitting him a half second later...knocking the wind out of him for a moment. The Darkwing used the momentum from its spin to start another charge for the two, but Jyren grabbed Shadow’s back and literally threw her up to her feet again.

Ignoring the spinning in his head as best he could, Jyren got to his feet a second later just as the Darkwing reached them. Shadow actually caught the claw that was swinging in at her with her arm, even pushing it away like she would from any other attacker, which amazed Jyren due to the strength of the Darkwing...but it took so much effort that it left her back open to attack from the other claw...which had been on purpose, because she knew that was exactly where Jyren was supposed to be.

And he was. Stepping in, lightsaber ablaze, he swung up and took off the entire left hand of the monster before the other came around and hit him across the side, once again throwing him across the bridge...but with much more force. Jyren lost his grip on his lightsaber somewhere along the way before hitting the bulkhead head first.

Through once again blurred and blueish vision(likely from once again getting a strong head wound), Jyren could see the Darkwing turning back to bear down on Shadow...who was a white blur again, staying out of the way and just moving rather than trying to counter the attacks. The Force was growing heavier and heavier again...stronger...and Jyren found himself calling out, “Jen! Please stop this!!”

His vision returned to a more normal state in time for him to see the human woman turn to stare straight at him with the same intensity as before. She then glanced back over to the Darkwing and growled, “I said kill him!”

From behind, the Darkwing’s head could be seen popping up to look between its shoulder and wing straight at Jyren. It then directed its attention to Shadow again just long enough to cut her off mid-dodge with a sudden strike of the claws. Jyren could feel the phantom pain rip through his torso before seeing Shadow flung against one of the nearby sensor panels.

And then the Darkwing turned around again, growled angrily, and took off straight for him.

The pain in Jyren’s side went away quickly as he got to his feet, immediately telling him that Shadow had fixed the problem on her end and was already up and coming. But the Darkwing was much, much faster...and she knew it. They all knew it.

[Yell at me about this later.] the words echoed through Jyren’s mind the moment before he heard a sharp crackling sound. The air itself lit up with a bright blue light that burned everything in its path...and arcs of lightning could be seen from behind the Darkwing before they hit the creature in the back and sent it flying down into the crew pit that was between the creature and Jyren. The streams of Force lightning continued for another few seconds before Shadow let it go and charged straight for the crew pit. When she caught Jyren’s look of absolute shock, she said quickly. [Later!]

Jyren tried to push that aside, seeing that the Darkwing was already getting back up and preparing to pounce up and straight into him...it was still going to reach him before Shadow would, and he couldn’t even see where his lightsaber had gone. But it was already too late to worry about that anymore. The Darkwing was moving. It was jumping straight up and at the perfect angle to simply skewer Jyren again the viewscreen behind him.

He dove to the side in time to only take a sharp claw to the leg instead of through his face. The Darkwing held onto the leg it caught and flung him straight down into the deck with it. As it pulled around to bear over him, Shadow was still a good six meters away. Jyren’s eyes looked up and saw the Darkwing, and looked back to see Jen standing there just a two meters away, “Jen, please!!”

Out of the corner of his eye, Jyren saw the movement. His head snapped back to look straight up at the Darkwing holding him down to see its jaws open as they shot down at him. As Jyren stared up at the thing, unable to move thanks to both shock and the claws pinning him to the deck, one thing jumped into his mind...and it surprised him. It had never, ever been something that had shot to the forefront so suddenly...and yet it made perfect sense. The fear of it gripped him more violently than anything the Darkwing could ever have managed, and he cried out, “Jen, I have a son!”

Even more to his surprise, he felt the words shoot through Shadow just as strongly from the link. He knew, from that, that she was right behind the Darkwing but nothing she could do would stop it. It was too close...too fast...she knew she should have done it her way! It would have worked! It would have worked and he would have been okay! But his damned idealism had rubbed off on her too much and forced her not to and now it had gotten them right where she’d always told him it would...the end.

The end of everything.

And it came in a brilliant flash of white and...

...a roar of pain?!

Death meant one didn’t have any eyes to open...and for the second time in his life, Jyren opened his eyes after he was dead. Or...after he should have been. This time, though, he wasn’t alone. Shadow did the same thing...and from two different angles, they saw the same thing. Jen stood over Jyren, bright orange lightsaber bathing everything around her in light, and the Darkwing was headless. Its body still moved, though, as it violently thrashed around in its last moments, a clawed arm catching the blonde woman across the side and sending her hard into the crew pit.

And then it fell.

The massive, leathery-black creature dropped to the deck, sliding off of the small walkway and crashing into the consoles in the crew pit below. And then it was silent.

“Jyren!” Shadow’s voice cut through the silence like a lightsaber and in a moment his blurred view that had been a black maw of teeth for what had seemed like an eternity was replaced by her familiar face. She grabbed him and helped him to sit up, all the while cheating by using the link to force him to remorph the gaping holes in his leg that were leaking too much blood.

He just sat there again her, still not completely sure what all had happened, the adrenaline rush fading and the heaviness of the Dark Side doing the same. Slowly, his eyes found hers and he managed to reach up to rest a hand on her face, “Jen...”

Shadow understood thanks to the link, and also knowing he was going to be alright(well, physically at least, he was never alright mentally), she nodded and propped him up against the bulkhead before running around and down into the now-ruined crew pit. Droid bodies and consoles sparked here and there from the Darkwing’s fall, and in the back corner, bloodied and broken, she saw Jen.

When Shadow reached the woman and knelt down next to her, the first thing Jen said in a hoarse voice was, “...a son...?”

Suddenly completely lost as to what to do, Shadow found herself simply reacting...so she nodded. It was all she could think of. Her eyes looked over Jen and knew immediately that she was dying. Her entire stomach had been ripped open and most of her internal organs had probably suffered the same fate. But, just as Jyren had done, Jen reached up and rested a red-bloodied hand on Shadow’s cheek. The Alraxian reached up and found herself holding the other woman’s hand, right away feeling through the Force as the life faded from it. But quietly, through the sparks and the coughs, Jen whispered, “I’m sorry...”

It shouldn’t have been enough. Apologizing never was. But it was all there ever would be. Jen’s eyes did not close like in all those stories or holodramas. She didn’t even slump back and go limp. Instead, Jen Zaarin Voort died with her hand still in Shadow’s, sitting back against the corner of the bulkhead and looking up with horribly sad eyes at her old friend.

Slowly, Shadow rested the woman’s hand back over her before reaching down to close her eyes. As she got to her feet, Shadow picked up Jen’s ruined body and then carefully walked up and out of the crew pit. With Jen still in her arms, she looked over to where Jyren sat, still looking stunned and unable to move. In a soft voice that was still something new to even her, she asked, “Can you walk, Jyren?”

Eventually, he managed to nod...slowly pushing up to his feet. When he was up, Jyren’s eyes locked on the body in Shadow’s arms. She could see tears in his eyes...truthfully, she could feel the same on her own face. Letting out a low sigh, Shadow asked, “Can you set the self destruct before we leave?”

“Y-Yeah...” Jyren was shaking again, but forced himself to walk over to the still-together crew pit and find the correct station.

As he worked on auto-pilot to set the self destruct, Shadow looked at the ruined viewports and called out. [Loki...we need you in the hangar.]

 

[Ankh-Morpork Guard]

Chapter 330

Relatively quickly, things had been cleaned up after Loki had gotten them off the large capital ship. The Kanyak had already done a good job of leading the other ships through the minefield, and the detonation of the main ship’s self destruct cleaned up the rest of the small fleet. When it was all finally over, they quickly took up the job of destroying the last of the mines...just in case.

And then, as quickly as it had started, it was all over. The space around the ring that guarded the hyperspace route into the Hidden Worlds was empty except for the debris of the other ships and Loki. The overwhelming Darkness that had consumed the area was gone...though it had faded slowly rather than completely vanishing. It would also likely stay there for a good long time, the severe taint of all of the Darkness in one area was not something that was easily removed. But it was over.

“Are you alright?” Shadow asked quietly, looking down to Jyren. They had finally managed to find the time to relax in their quarters after Loki had made a hyperspace jump Coreward. Jyren was currently laying down on the bed, resting his head in her lap as she sat up and idly ran a hand through his hair.

The question, coming from Shadow of all people, surprised him enough that it took him a moment to respond, “I will be.”

She idly nodded to herself, looking back up and over at the closed door across the room. It was a miracle they hadn’t been assaulted by Tobias yet. Which brought up another thought...

“You have a son...?” Shadow asked in another soft voice, this time grinning slightly as she glanced down to see his face.

Jyren’s face went a little red and he mumbled under his breath, “It just...came out...”

That only made her grin grow more and she poked the side of his head not-too-gently, “This is at least the second time you’ve claimed him, so you’re stuck now.”

“Hey, now,” Jyren was just getting redder, but was doing his best not to show it...which, of course, made it worse. Reaching up, he pointed a finger at her, “You’re stuck, too.”

“Ahhh, but that’s the beauty of it,” Shadow grabbed his finger and then turned it around to poke him again with it, “You didn’t say ‘we’. So actually, I’m off the hook on this one.”

The look of sheer panic that shot across both Jyren’s face and the link was worth every second, and something that Shadow made sure to never, ever forget. At the same time, he tried to sit up but that took more effort than he’d expected and by the time Jyren was upright and looking her in the eye, Shadow was laughing. This just through Jyren off even more, and he opened and closed his mouth at least five times before any words finally escaped, “You know what I meant!”

Shadow just laughed more and shook her head, “No idea!”

“This isn’t funny!” by now, he was almost whimpering.

“Awww...” Shadow calmed the laughing into quiet giggling for a bit before leaning over and whispering, “Don’t want anyone to know you actually like the little brat, eh?”

“You’re one to talk!” Jyren grumbled, a little too loud for her since she’d moved in so close. He then reached over and got his own revenged by poking her nose, “You always yelled about hating him and then the first thing you say when I suggest bringing him along is ‘Fine.” You didn’t even put up a hint of a fight! Not even a word!”

Ignoring the slight pain in her ear from his loud voice, Shadow grinned, laughed again, and shook her head, “I was just being nice. You needed an equal around to feel good and I didn’t want to say anything.”

“I needed an equal?!” Jyren first sounded hurt, but then a very Shadow-like grin appeared on his face, “Well, dear, I’m glad you think of me as being so much smarter than you.”

“Smarter?!” Shadow laughed and thumped his skull, “Hear that, Jedi boy? Hollow! I just keep you around for your good looks.”

“And my cunning wit,” he said proudly.

Of course, Shadow rolled her eyes, “You can’t call it cunning when the comments are a good minute late, dear. That’s what we call slow.”

“Slow...?” the grin began to return to Jyren’s expression and he sat back a bit.

Shadow shrugged, “Slow is a bit polite, really. Just don’t want to hurt your fee—mmph...mmm...”

Jyren had taken the opportunity to cheat and shut her up with a kiss. It was really amazing just how well that seemed to work. Even the link went blank every single time. Of course, the weakness went both ways, but neither of them ever would admit that openly...well, not with Loki listening, at least.

When he pulled back from the kiss, Shadow idly leaned forward and rested her head on his shoulder. He made a surprisingly good pillow. A few more long, quiet minutes passed with the two of them just sitting there, but quiet was obviously overrated. To both of their surprise, though, it wasn’t Tobias that ruined the silence...but Jyren.

“So what do we do with...Jen...?” the words were a completely different tone that before, quiet and obviously hurt, but a necessary question.

It was also something that Shadow had thought about. Not moving, she simply talked into his neck and figured he’d listen carefully if he really wanted to know, “I had Loki take us to the Mid Rim. Should take us a half standard day to get there...but I know a good place for her.”

“Going to tell me?” Jyren asked, idly starting to rub Shadow’s back...almost trying to find a way to get a straight answer out of her, even if he had to ‘cheat’ more.

He felt her head move on his shoulder in what had to have been a ‘no’, “I was the one who trained her, Jyren...let me do this.”

“From the sound of it...I’m not going with you,” Jyren mumbled, suddenly becoming worried about what exactly she was planning and why he wasn’t involved...especially when it was Jen.

This time, Shadow did sit up to look him in the eyes, “I want you to do something else.”

“For you?”

Shadow shook her head...then stopped, and shrugged, “For all of us.”

For a moment, Jyren almost thought he had an idea of what she meant. When he latched onto the...the distant something in the link, Shadow actually nodded again and said, “There’s something you’ve been putting off for a good five years now. If we are going to make this work between us...if you really mean what you said about Tobias...you need to go and do it.”

There was a silence between them for a very long time before Jyren finally nodded. He did know exactly what she meant. In fact, Jyren had been surprised it had taken her this long to really push him into a position where he would have to go through with it. As he nodded, he drew her into another strong embrace and said quietly into her ear, “I will. One question, though...if you’re going somewhere else, where can I meet you afterwards?”

Shadow returned the embrace and let out a sigh. It was another thing she’d given a great deal of thought to. Something she hadn’t even really decided on until that moment. Then, almost too quietly to be heard, Shadow answered, “Back at the Gateway to Home.”