Bibliophile
First Post
No problem at all! It's an awesome story, and I'll be glad to see it when it returns!
-
NOW LIVE! Into the Woods--new character species, eerie monsters, and haunting villains to populate the woodlands of your D&D games.
Star Wars: Heroes of Another Kind
- Thread starter Ankh-Morpork Guard
- Start date
trexmaster
First Post
THREAD UPAGE !
Even if there isn't any update (yet), this thread deserves to stay on the front page, for all the newcomers who might otherwise miss it.
Even if there isn't any update (yet), this thread deserves to stay on the front page, for all the newcomers who might otherwise miss it.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 235: Of Metal and Old Friends
As usual, things proved to be easier said than done. At the moment, the current problem was general physical health. Shadow was alright. In fact, she’d started walking without any trouble. Sure, she was tired and starving, but sleep, even though it had been barely an hour of sleep, worked wonders for her body. She could eat later.
But, just as she had started moving, Shadow suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of her left leg. Or rather, she felt something that should have been pain in her leg...but it was distant and she was walking fine. The pain wasn’t timed with her walking at all. Which meant...
Spinning around to look behind her, Shadow spotted Jyren a good five meters back and limping towards her as fast as he could manage. There was a neutral look on his face, but he was obviously fighting back pain with each step. She then took the time to actually notice he had a long, deep cut across his right shoulder. Why hadn’t he remorphed that?! Idiot! Didn’t he know that if he left it open and...and...it was half bleeding...she’d actually had her head resting on that shoulder! He was going to get the damned thing infected and get the both of them killed! With the ability to morph to the extent that Alraxians had, their immune system wasn’t exactly wonderful.
And if his leg was hurting so much that she felt it that strongly through the link, he really might just get them killed like that. Quickly, Shadow ran back to where he was and growled, “Why haven’t you remorphed those cuts?! If we die because you get an infected wound I’m going to kill you!”
Yes, she knew what she’d just said, but her point still stood...and Jyren knew she wasn’t lying. She’d find a way to do it. Which meant he had just a few seconds to make the necessary excuse. Even though it was the absolute truth, it was still an excuse and he knew it, “Metal!”
Shadow paused a moment from her anger to think. This lasted for a half second before she almost pounced his shoulder, eyes looking at the wound. At the same time, she was using the link to sift through his mind and find out what she could, while also using the Force to heal the wound at least slightly...not that she was that good at it, but some was better than nothing. And if anyone in the galaxy could multitask better than Shadow, Jyren wouldn’t believe it.
It took her a long half minute before she rolled her eyes. Then, grumbling under her breath, Shadow poked his shoulder, “Its fine. There’s nothing in it. You do realize that little pieces of metal don’t slide off of blades when they cut you, right?”
Jyren went red. What else could he do?! He didn’t know what he was looking for! He didn’t know what to do! He...he was making excuses in his own mind that she couldn’t even hear.
[I can. Now shut up and remorph it while I make sure your legs alright.] Shadow cut into his mind and she knelt down behind him. Quickly, she added. [Just in case you did something intelligent.]
Though he had passed out earlier, it had been at least some kind of rest for his physically exhausted body. Thanks to that, he at least had the energy to remorph the long gash across his shoulder. So in a moment, the lingering pain in his shoulder faded away as Jyren willed it in that odd way to pull itself back together. And not long after, Shadow stood up and gave a nod to indicate his leg was fine also.
With everything remorphed and back to relative normality, Jyren followed after Shadow, who had already started leading the way a second time. It was as they walked back, both looking beat up and exhausted despite remorphing and rest, when Jyren began to realize yet another very important factor that was currently missing.
Shadow picked up on his thought quickly. [No, I don’t have a plan yet.]
“Yet?” Jyren asked out loud, forgoing the speech through the link out of habit, “You mean I should expect one in the next few minutes before we start getting shot at again?”
“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes before turning them back in front of her to focus on what needed to be paid attention to. There was too much still wrong with this situation. Ket was no fool...and he wanted her(and Jyren, by default) dead. The Capital was not a planet known for its predators like Alraxia, so stranding them out in the forests was not a sound plan. Besides, Jyren had a ship out there somewhere. Maybe an ambush at the ship?
No...no that wasn’t Ket’s style. He would just kill them right away. Or rather, he should have. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and it was starting to drive Shadow crazy. Ket was making mistakes left and right, leaving too many chances for she and Jyren to get away alive. They shouldn’t be alive. As the Empress now, even if not technically official at this point, Shadow was even more of a threat to Ket, as she had the capability to pull the Alraxian Empire out of its current state of chaos. And that chaos had to be what Ket was aiming for. With it, he would have no trouble toppling what was left of the Empire.
There were still holes to be filled, and Shadow had the feeling they were going to have to fill them the hard way. Ket wasn’t one to talk. He wasn’t an idiot. So she came to a simple conclusion of what had to be done.
Get to Ket quickly.
“You will go no further.”
A voice cut through the trees around Shadow and Jyren like a knife. It was strong, dangerous, and familiar to the both of them. So much so that neither were surprised to turn around and see Delta Nine facing them. The older clone of Marix glared at her...original. No longer was Nine taller. They were both of even height and build, and the only way Jyren could tell them apart(save for the link, of course) was the morphsuit Shadow wore and the form fitting, off white armor that Nine had on. Jyren could only tell it was armor due to his link with Shadow, as she identified it immediately on sight.
[Why didn’t we sense her approaching?] Jyren asked through the link, quickly reaching out with the Force to make sure that Nine was alone. As far as he could tell, she was alone...but Jyren wasn’t so sure whether that was worth trusting at this point.
Shadow gave him a cursory glance out of the corner of her eyes, though made sure to keep her main focus and attention on Nine. [The same reason why you wouldn’t be able to sense me if I didn’t want you to.]
[Good point.] his response was emphasized with the slightest of nods. [Tell me we aren’t about to do what I think we’re about to do.]
[We don’t have much of a choice.]
It was the end of the stare down between Shadow and Nine...and while neither truly won it, both claimed a victory in that they didn’t lose either. But then Nine did something Shadow had no expected. Instead of attacking or even attempting a distraction before an attack, the clone took a step back and to the right. As her feet came to a stop, Nine’s voice could be heard quietly saying, “Kill the abomination.”
From behind a tree next to Nine, a figure stepped out. It was an Alraxian...a little taller, strongly built, and with thick, straight emerald coloured hair. He could be seen nodding before two anger filled eyes looked straight over into Shadow’s surprised face. His sword already in hand, Kyren Ka-BlueIce charged.
As usual, things proved to be easier said than done. At the moment, the current problem was general physical health. Shadow was alright. In fact, she’d started walking without any trouble. Sure, she was tired and starving, but sleep, even though it had been barely an hour of sleep, worked wonders for her body. She could eat later.
But, just as she had started moving, Shadow suddenly felt a sharp pain in the back of her left leg. Or rather, she felt something that should have been pain in her leg...but it was distant and she was walking fine. The pain wasn’t timed with her walking at all. Which meant...
Spinning around to look behind her, Shadow spotted Jyren a good five meters back and limping towards her as fast as he could manage. There was a neutral look on his face, but he was obviously fighting back pain with each step. She then took the time to actually notice he had a long, deep cut across his right shoulder. Why hadn’t he remorphed that?! Idiot! Didn’t he know that if he left it open and...and...it was half bleeding...she’d actually had her head resting on that shoulder! He was going to get the damned thing infected and get the both of them killed! With the ability to morph to the extent that Alraxians had, their immune system wasn’t exactly wonderful.
And if his leg was hurting so much that she felt it that strongly through the link, he really might just get them killed like that. Quickly, Shadow ran back to where he was and growled, “Why haven’t you remorphed those cuts?! If we die because you get an infected wound I’m going to kill you!”
Yes, she knew what she’d just said, but her point still stood...and Jyren knew she wasn’t lying. She’d find a way to do it. Which meant he had just a few seconds to make the necessary excuse. Even though it was the absolute truth, it was still an excuse and he knew it, “Metal!”
Shadow paused a moment from her anger to think. This lasted for a half second before she almost pounced his shoulder, eyes looking at the wound. At the same time, she was using the link to sift through his mind and find out what she could, while also using the Force to heal the wound at least slightly...not that she was that good at it, but some was better than nothing. And if anyone in the galaxy could multitask better than Shadow, Jyren wouldn’t believe it.
It took her a long half minute before she rolled her eyes. Then, grumbling under her breath, Shadow poked his shoulder, “Its fine. There’s nothing in it. You do realize that little pieces of metal don’t slide off of blades when they cut you, right?”
Jyren went red. What else could he do?! He didn’t know what he was looking for! He didn’t know what to do! He...he was making excuses in his own mind that she couldn’t even hear.
[I can. Now shut up and remorph it while I make sure your legs alright.] Shadow cut into his mind and she knelt down behind him. Quickly, she added. [Just in case you did something intelligent.]
Though he had passed out earlier, it had been at least some kind of rest for his physically exhausted body. Thanks to that, he at least had the energy to remorph the long gash across his shoulder. So in a moment, the lingering pain in his shoulder faded away as Jyren willed it in that odd way to pull itself back together. And not long after, Shadow stood up and gave a nod to indicate his leg was fine also.
With everything remorphed and back to relative normality, Jyren followed after Shadow, who had already started leading the way a second time. It was as they walked back, both looking beat up and exhausted despite remorphing and rest, when Jyren began to realize yet another very important factor that was currently missing.
Shadow picked up on his thought quickly. [No, I don’t have a plan yet.]
“Yet?” Jyren asked out loud, forgoing the speech through the link out of habit, “You mean I should expect one in the next few minutes before we start getting shot at again?”
“Shut up,” she rolled her eyes before turning them back in front of her to focus on what needed to be paid attention to. There was too much still wrong with this situation. Ket was no fool...and he wanted her(and Jyren, by default) dead. The Capital was not a planet known for its predators like Alraxia, so stranding them out in the forests was not a sound plan. Besides, Jyren had a ship out there somewhere. Maybe an ambush at the ship?
No...no that wasn’t Ket’s style. He would just kill them right away. Or rather, he should have. But he hadn’t. He hadn’t, and it was starting to drive Shadow crazy. Ket was making mistakes left and right, leaving too many chances for she and Jyren to get away alive. They shouldn’t be alive. As the Empress now, even if not technically official at this point, Shadow was even more of a threat to Ket, as she had the capability to pull the Alraxian Empire out of its current state of chaos. And that chaos had to be what Ket was aiming for. With it, he would have no trouble toppling what was left of the Empire.
There were still holes to be filled, and Shadow had the feeling they were going to have to fill them the hard way. Ket wasn’t one to talk. He wasn’t an idiot. So she came to a simple conclusion of what had to be done.
Get to Ket quickly.
“You will go no further.”
A voice cut through the trees around Shadow and Jyren like a knife. It was strong, dangerous, and familiar to the both of them. So much so that neither were surprised to turn around and see Delta Nine facing them. The older clone of Marix glared at her...original. No longer was Nine taller. They were both of even height and build, and the only way Jyren could tell them apart(save for the link, of course) was the morphsuit Shadow wore and the form fitting, off white armor that Nine had on. Jyren could only tell it was armor due to his link with Shadow, as she identified it immediately on sight.
[Why didn’t we sense her approaching?] Jyren asked through the link, quickly reaching out with the Force to make sure that Nine was alone. As far as he could tell, she was alone...but Jyren wasn’t so sure whether that was worth trusting at this point.
Shadow gave him a cursory glance out of the corner of her eyes, though made sure to keep her main focus and attention on Nine. [The same reason why you wouldn’t be able to sense me if I didn’t want you to.]
[Good point.] his response was emphasized with the slightest of nods. [Tell me we aren’t about to do what I think we’re about to do.]
[We don’t have much of a choice.]
It was the end of the stare down between Shadow and Nine...and while neither truly won it, both claimed a victory in that they didn’t lose either. But then Nine did something Shadow had no expected. Instead of attacking or even attempting a distraction before an attack, the clone took a step back and to the right. As her feet came to a stop, Nine’s voice could be heard quietly saying, “Kill the abomination.”
From behind a tree next to Nine, a figure stepped out. It was an Alraxian...a little taller, strongly built, and with thick, straight emerald coloured hair. He could be seen nodding before two anger filled eyes looked straight over into Shadow’s surprised face. His sword already in hand, Kyren Ka-BlueIce charged.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 236: A Pair of Idiots
A very large part of Shadow refused to actually believe that it was Kyren. It was the part of her...or rather, the part of Marix, that had grown up with him. The one that had saved his life...and while, at that point at least, he had never even really been a friend, Kyren was also someone she could trust. He was like a brother to her. Shadow couldn’t even speak to Jyren the way she could with this emerald haired Alraxian Knight. And never could she have imagined that he would try to kill her.
Thankfully, Shadow’s reactions were not frozen as would have occurred with nearly anyone else in the galaxy caught in the same situation. So when Kyren’s two quick steps brought him right up to her, and his right arm rose up to slash across her face, Shadow was moving. She sidestepped left, ducking slightly as her hands shot up and snatched Kyren’s wrist. Gripping tightly and taking the half second she probably had considering the ferocity she could see in his eyes, Shadow growled under her breath, “Kyren! Stop it!”
He didn’t stop. In fact, he didn’t even so much as look her in the eye. Instead, he wrenched his held arms to the side, catching Shadow off balance and throwing her to the ground. His being stronger helped a bit, too. Shadow hit the ground hard, and while she heard a snap, was glad to realize it was not her spine(or tail for that matter), but a tree root below. Not that it didn’t hurt, of course.
[He thinks you’re Nine!] Jyren’s voice cried out through Shadow’s mind suddenly. His voice almost caused her to lose concentration, and if she had, Kyren’s claws would have landed in her neck instead of the dirt where she rolled away from and up to her feet.
Taking a step back and giving Jyren at least a half look out of the corner of her eye, she sent back a short, very annoyed sounding response. [I’ve gathered that much, thank you.]
She knew that he wanted to help her...but he knew that she’d kill him if he tried anything, especially with Kyren involved. But Shadow knew that wasn’t going to stop Jyren’s usual idealistic streak...but, for once, she couldn’t keep her full attention on him and attempt to stop any stupidity that he charged head first into. Shadow was far too busy worry about Kyren, who was relentlessly matching her every step and movement with an attack. While she was able to block or dodge all of them, it was still tiring and Shadow couldn’t help but notice that the still-silent Kyren was backing her into a rather large tree.
Exactly what she would have done in the same situation.
Follow that line of thought. How would she keep her opponent from getting out of this? And immediately Shadow had it. Her arm was up in a flash, catching Kyren’s again and she took another short moment to search his eyes for something other than the outright rage she could see. He didn’t give her time to speak. Instead of yanking free of her tight grip(which was actually lighter than it would have been had it been anyone but Kyren), his eyes glanced straight over her shoulder to the tree that now had to be barely a step behind Shadow.
When his eyes darted back down, Kyren pulled his arm down, along with Shadow’s that held his, and his leg swept under hers to bring her to the ground and then pin her. But it had been what Shadow was waiting for. Just as his leg would have reached hers, she brought her knee up into his chest hard. The hit caused Kyren to fall forward and Shadow relinquished her grip on his arm. She had a half second before he recovered, gained his footing again, and attempted something else that she would have to figure out again.
Which meant she had to reverse their positions immediately. Her arms one step ahead of her thoughts, Shadow had already reached up to Kyren’s shoulders to spring over and behind him. She had just pushed off and forced him down hard when Shadow made an admittedly stupid mistake.
She looked forward.
And when she looked forward, she didn’t see a blank space of forest that would not have distracted her. Instead, she saw Jyren. His lightsaber ablaze and charging straight for Nine like some completely brainless fool...this much she did have time to send through the link before her lapse in attention gave Kyren an advantage.
Before she could scream and yell at Jyren, a hard something slammed into the back of her head. She tumbled over Kyren’s back before hitting the ground face first, and also feeling a rock dig straight into her left calf. The second that happened, Shadow heard Jyren yelp. Looking up, she saw him just lifting his left leg before tumbling to the ground right in front of Nine, his lightsaber sliding out of his grip and off out of the way.
Her fall had caused his fall. He hadn’t been expecting it just like she hadn’t expected him to be so stupid in the first place.
They were both idiots.
And now they were both idiots face first in the dirt. Above her was Kyren, pouncing down to rip out her throat from behind and destroy what he seemed to think was the abomination of Marix BlueIce. And in front of her, Shadow could see Nine casually approaching the now dirt-covered Jyren. Even though it had only been a pain through the link, he would not have time to get to his feet before she was on him. And Nine would simply kill him outright...especially considering the look Shadow could see on the demented clone’s face.
((As you can see, update time has now changed. I've got a good long hour and a half between classes this term, and have just discovered that I can access the wireless network here on my laptop. So, this is a perfect time for me to update every day.))
A very large part of Shadow refused to actually believe that it was Kyren. It was the part of her...or rather, the part of Marix, that had grown up with him. The one that had saved his life...and while, at that point at least, he had never even really been a friend, Kyren was also someone she could trust. He was like a brother to her. Shadow couldn’t even speak to Jyren the way she could with this emerald haired Alraxian Knight. And never could she have imagined that he would try to kill her.
Thankfully, Shadow’s reactions were not frozen as would have occurred with nearly anyone else in the galaxy caught in the same situation. So when Kyren’s two quick steps brought him right up to her, and his right arm rose up to slash across her face, Shadow was moving. She sidestepped left, ducking slightly as her hands shot up and snatched Kyren’s wrist. Gripping tightly and taking the half second she probably had considering the ferocity she could see in his eyes, Shadow growled under her breath, “Kyren! Stop it!”
He didn’t stop. In fact, he didn’t even so much as look her in the eye. Instead, he wrenched his held arms to the side, catching Shadow off balance and throwing her to the ground. His being stronger helped a bit, too. Shadow hit the ground hard, and while she heard a snap, was glad to realize it was not her spine(or tail for that matter), but a tree root below. Not that it didn’t hurt, of course.
[He thinks you’re Nine!] Jyren’s voice cried out through Shadow’s mind suddenly. His voice almost caused her to lose concentration, and if she had, Kyren’s claws would have landed in her neck instead of the dirt where she rolled away from and up to her feet.
Taking a step back and giving Jyren at least a half look out of the corner of her eye, she sent back a short, very annoyed sounding response. [I’ve gathered that much, thank you.]
She knew that he wanted to help her...but he knew that she’d kill him if he tried anything, especially with Kyren involved. But Shadow knew that wasn’t going to stop Jyren’s usual idealistic streak...but, for once, she couldn’t keep her full attention on him and attempt to stop any stupidity that he charged head first into. Shadow was far too busy worry about Kyren, who was relentlessly matching her every step and movement with an attack. While she was able to block or dodge all of them, it was still tiring and Shadow couldn’t help but notice that the still-silent Kyren was backing her into a rather large tree.
Exactly what she would have done in the same situation.
Follow that line of thought. How would she keep her opponent from getting out of this? And immediately Shadow had it. Her arm was up in a flash, catching Kyren’s again and she took another short moment to search his eyes for something other than the outright rage she could see. He didn’t give her time to speak. Instead of yanking free of her tight grip(which was actually lighter than it would have been had it been anyone but Kyren), his eyes glanced straight over her shoulder to the tree that now had to be barely a step behind Shadow.
When his eyes darted back down, Kyren pulled his arm down, along with Shadow’s that held his, and his leg swept under hers to bring her to the ground and then pin her. But it had been what Shadow was waiting for. Just as his leg would have reached hers, she brought her knee up into his chest hard. The hit caused Kyren to fall forward and Shadow relinquished her grip on his arm. She had a half second before he recovered, gained his footing again, and attempted something else that she would have to figure out again.
Which meant she had to reverse their positions immediately. Her arms one step ahead of her thoughts, Shadow had already reached up to Kyren’s shoulders to spring over and behind him. She had just pushed off and forced him down hard when Shadow made an admittedly stupid mistake.
She looked forward.
And when she looked forward, she didn’t see a blank space of forest that would not have distracted her. Instead, she saw Jyren. His lightsaber ablaze and charging straight for Nine like some completely brainless fool...this much she did have time to send through the link before her lapse in attention gave Kyren an advantage.
Before she could scream and yell at Jyren, a hard something slammed into the back of her head. She tumbled over Kyren’s back before hitting the ground face first, and also feeling a rock dig straight into her left calf. The second that happened, Shadow heard Jyren yelp. Looking up, she saw him just lifting his left leg before tumbling to the ground right in front of Nine, his lightsaber sliding out of his grip and off out of the way.
Her fall had caused his fall. He hadn’t been expecting it just like she hadn’t expected him to be so stupid in the first place.
They were both idiots.
And now they were both idiots face first in the dirt. Above her was Kyren, pouncing down to rip out her throat from behind and destroy what he seemed to think was the abomination of Marix BlueIce. And in front of her, Shadow could see Nine casually approaching the now dirt-covered Jyren. Even though it had only been a pain through the link, he would not have time to get to his feet before she was on him. And Nine would simply kill him outright...especially considering the look Shadow could see on the demented clone’s face.
((As you can see, update time has now changed. I've got a good long hour and a half between classes this term, and have just discovered that I can access the wireless network here on my laptop. So, this is a perfect time for me to update every day.))
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 237: Last Retreat
It wasn’t as if Jyren had planned things to end up the way they did. In fact, he’d had a rather clever plan in his opinion. Nine hadn’t been watching him. She was grinning and intently watching Kyren’s attack on Shadow. Jyren was off to the side enough that he was in a blind spot of sorts. So it was a logical conclusion to reach that it was the perfect time to attack. He knew that he couldn’t fight Nine alone. He knew she would tear him to pieces in a second. But he also knew that he could take her down if given the upper hand.
No, it wasn’t Jedi-like or in any way honorable to attack and strike her down before she even had a chance to see what had happened. No, it wasn’t something Jyren would normally think even consider attempting. But this was different. Nine was not like anything he’d ever been up against. If given the same advantage, she’d take it without hesitation...which was why Jyren had been watching her so closely. He had been waiting for her to dive in and strike at Shadow from behind.
Something in him, though, made his feet start to move. Not that his brain rejected the idea when it caught up and his lightsaber was grabbed. Jyren had been only two steps away from running Nine through from the side when there was a sudden, extremely sharp pain that shot up through his left leg. In his rush to take down Nine, he was not able to control the sudden shock that flowed through the link, and immediately lost his footing. The next thing Jyren knew, he was face first in the dirt, and the familiar weight of the lightsaber was no longer in his right hand.
He looked up.
He looked up and wished he hadn’t. It only confirmed just how stupid a mistake he’d made. Nine hadn’t even see him until he’d made that involuntary yelp of surprise at hitting he ground. But now he had her full, undivided attention...and a grin to go with it.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a grin. Jyren just couldn’t think of a better word for it. The expression was close to what he’d seen on Shadow. Teeth showing and something that would have been a smile had the eyes not been so...glaringly dangerous. It was obvious that Nine was enjoying the moment, but there was also a deadly intent right on the surface that made the word grin horrible inaccurate. Off to his left, Jyren could vaguely hear he sounds of Shadow and Kyren moving, but that no longer was even a blip on his scanners.
The large foot resting in the dirt just centimeters from his face was blocking out pretty much everything else. In a short second, he felt a tight, altogether unfriendly grip wrap itself around his body. He was given a violent squeeze that could have easily broken most of his bones if pressed for a half second longer before being moved.
Struggling against the Force grip around him was near useless, as he couldn’t even move his next from side to side. As his body was lifted up off the ground to near eye level with Nine(near because he was now taller, but it was as close as she could make it and keep him off the ground...besides, she was intimidating enough even being shorter than him), the only thing hat really moved were his eyes. A lot of good that did him.
“I wondered how long it would take you to try something foolish,” Nine commented, idly looking down over him and then back into his eyes...well, no, more through them, but it was close enough as he was concerned. Jyren did want to put in that necessary sarcastic response. Not only did it fit with his usual personality, but anyone in his situation was essentially required to make such a quip. Laws of the Force and all that...according to all hose holodramas, at least, but who was really counting anyway?
But he couldn’t respond. The grip was as tight around his throat as it was around his entire body, and while he could still manage to breathe, Jyren wasn’t about to push his luck any farther than he already had in one day. Obviously, it had run out hours earlier. At least he’d made good use of it while it had been around.
Nine had actually paused to give him a chance to respond, and even though he didn’t, her expression remained the same. Still in that calm, cold, and very Shadow-like voice, she spoke, “I could still kill you right now and the clone there would live just long enough for my pet to get his satisfaction out of it.”
Jyren didn’t like the sound of that for obvious reasons. The fact that he felt the grip on him through the Force starting to tighten didn’t exactly help the situation either. So Jyren did the only thing he actually could that might have proved slightly useful.
[A little help!]
He wasn’t able to turn his head to see if Shadow looked his direction, but he did feel her attention shift. And, proving that she did get a good look at things while the grip began to crush his body, he got a quick response. [I’m a bit busy!]
The grip was most definitely tightening, and nothing Jyren could do would break it. Managing a harsh cough, the first sound out of him which actually hurt more than the one that had caused the cough, Jyren pushed his sarcasm as best he could in Shadow’s direction, hoping the poor attempt would show the severity of the situation. [If you’d like to continue being busy, I suggest helping!]
It was poor. It wasn’t even really sarcasm. It was all his currently-being-crushed brain could come up with in a short amount of words. And if that didn’t work, the link sure had to be letting Shadow know just how much trouble he’d gotten himself into this time. In fact, it may well have been the worst he’d ever managed...because of this, Shadow made a note to beat some sense into him afterwards, even if they didn’t live.
Jyren was too busy choking, fighting the pain of crushing bones and a loss of the ability to feel anything that didn’t hurt to push on the need for assistance anymore. Though a tiny part of his mind managed to be amazed that he hadn’t blacked out just yet...the same part was also wondering why Nine was being so dramatic and taking her time instead of just crushing him that instant. He didn’t actually realize that she wasn’t taking his time and his thought processes had just sped up to deal with the problem in as quick a manner as was possible.
But then, suddenly in front of his reddened vision, Jyren saw a blur of movement. A vaguely greenish blur shot straight from his left and impacted the black-striped form he knew was still most likely Nine. In that instant, the violent grip on his body relinquished, and he dropped back down to the ground, hitting it face first for the second time in a matter of minutes.
When he felt an arm on him, Jyren attempted to lash out but his body was still hurting too much to do anything but tap Shadow somewhat roughly in the side. His vision clearing up, Jyren looked up to Shadow, who’s face was a mix of anger, concern, more anger, and something bordering on downright rage. With a quick glance the other way, he saw the body of Kyren over Nine’s about ten meters away.
“That was a serious push,” Jyren grunted out as Shadow roughly yanked him up to his feet.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t you I sent flying,” she growled under her breath, turning to face the two other Alraxians as both clawed their way to their feet. Obviously, Shadow was planning on continuing this fight...but now Nine looked like she was going to be getting involved.
Jyren was not exactly pleased with this new situation. [We need to get out of here.]
[Not without Kyren.] Shadow responded sternly, obviously also picking up on the fact that ‘here’ meant the Capital world and not just this current location in the forest.
[We have to.]
Jyren didn’t add anything else. Shadow knew the reasons. She knew that the two of them couldn’t handle both Kyren and Nine, even together. She knew it would get the both of them killed...but she didn’t care. It was Kyren. She was not going to leave him behind like...like his.
[We don’t have a choice.] Jyren’s words interrupted her line of thought like a knife.
Shadow didn’t actually respond in any form of words. Instead, she glanced to Kyren before running the other direction. Before following her, Jyren reached out and pulled his lightsaber hilt back to him. Charging through the forest after Shadow, he couldn’t help worrying about the sudden absolute silence that was now flowing from her through the link.
[Its not over, Shady.]
[This is the last time we run.]
It wasn’t as if Jyren had planned things to end up the way they did. In fact, he’d had a rather clever plan in his opinion. Nine hadn’t been watching him. She was grinning and intently watching Kyren’s attack on Shadow. Jyren was off to the side enough that he was in a blind spot of sorts. So it was a logical conclusion to reach that it was the perfect time to attack. He knew that he couldn’t fight Nine alone. He knew she would tear him to pieces in a second. But he also knew that he could take her down if given the upper hand.
No, it wasn’t Jedi-like or in any way honorable to attack and strike her down before she even had a chance to see what had happened. No, it wasn’t something Jyren would normally think even consider attempting. But this was different. Nine was not like anything he’d ever been up against. If given the same advantage, she’d take it without hesitation...which was why Jyren had been watching her so closely. He had been waiting for her to dive in and strike at Shadow from behind.
Something in him, though, made his feet start to move. Not that his brain rejected the idea when it caught up and his lightsaber was grabbed. Jyren had been only two steps away from running Nine through from the side when there was a sudden, extremely sharp pain that shot up through his left leg. In his rush to take down Nine, he was not able to control the sudden shock that flowed through the link, and immediately lost his footing. The next thing Jyren knew, he was face first in the dirt, and the familiar weight of the lightsaber was no longer in his right hand.
He looked up.
He looked up and wished he hadn’t. It only confirmed just how stupid a mistake he’d made. Nine hadn’t even see him until he’d made that involuntary yelp of surprise at hitting he ground. But now he had her full, undivided attention...and a grin to go with it.
Truthfully, it wasn’t a grin. Jyren just couldn’t think of a better word for it. The expression was close to what he’d seen on Shadow. Teeth showing and something that would have been a smile had the eyes not been so...glaringly dangerous. It was obvious that Nine was enjoying the moment, but there was also a deadly intent right on the surface that made the word grin horrible inaccurate. Off to his left, Jyren could vaguely hear he sounds of Shadow and Kyren moving, but that no longer was even a blip on his scanners.
The large foot resting in the dirt just centimeters from his face was blocking out pretty much everything else. In a short second, he felt a tight, altogether unfriendly grip wrap itself around his body. He was given a violent squeeze that could have easily broken most of his bones if pressed for a half second longer before being moved.
Struggling against the Force grip around him was near useless, as he couldn’t even move his next from side to side. As his body was lifted up off the ground to near eye level with Nine(near because he was now taller, but it was as close as she could make it and keep him off the ground...besides, she was intimidating enough even being shorter than him), the only thing hat really moved were his eyes. A lot of good that did him.
“I wondered how long it would take you to try something foolish,” Nine commented, idly looking down over him and then back into his eyes...well, no, more through them, but it was close enough as he was concerned. Jyren did want to put in that necessary sarcastic response. Not only did it fit with his usual personality, but anyone in his situation was essentially required to make such a quip. Laws of the Force and all that...according to all hose holodramas, at least, but who was really counting anyway?
But he couldn’t respond. The grip was as tight around his throat as it was around his entire body, and while he could still manage to breathe, Jyren wasn’t about to push his luck any farther than he already had in one day. Obviously, it had run out hours earlier. At least he’d made good use of it while it had been around.
Nine had actually paused to give him a chance to respond, and even though he didn’t, her expression remained the same. Still in that calm, cold, and very Shadow-like voice, she spoke, “I could still kill you right now and the clone there would live just long enough for my pet to get his satisfaction out of it.”
Jyren didn’t like the sound of that for obvious reasons. The fact that he felt the grip on him through the Force starting to tighten didn’t exactly help the situation either. So Jyren did the only thing he actually could that might have proved slightly useful.
[A little help!]
He wasn’t able to turn his head to see if Shadow looked his direction, but he did feel her attention shift. And, proving that she did get a good look at things while the grip began to crush his body, he got a quick response. [I’m a bit busy!]
The grip was most definitely tightening, and nothing Jyren could do would break it. Managing a harsh cough, the first sound out of him which actually hurt more than the one that had caused the cough, Jyren pushed his sarcasm as best he could in Shadow’s direction, hoping the poor attempt would show the severity of the situation. [If you’d like to continue being busy, I suggest helping!]
It was poor. It wasn’t even really sarcasm. It was all his currently-being-crushed brain could come up with in a short amount of words. And if that didn’t work, the link sure had to be letting Shadow know just how much trouble he’d gotten himself into this time. In fact, it may well have been the worst he’d ever managed...because of this, Shadow made a note to beat some sense into him afterwards, even if they didn’t live.
Jyren was too busy choking, fighting the pain of crushing bones and a loss of the ability to feel anything that didn’t hurt to push on the need for assistance anymore. Though a tiny part of his mind managed to be amazed that he hadn’t blacked out just yet...the same part was also wondering why Nine was being so dramatic and taking her time instead of just crushing him that instant. He didn’t actually realize that she wasn’t taking his time and his thought processes had just sped up to deal with the problem in as quick a manner as was possible.
But then, suddenly in front of his reddened vision, Jyren saw a blur of movement. A vaguely greenish blur shot straight from his left and impacted the black-striped form he knew was still most likely Nine. In that instant, the violent grip on his body relinquished, and he dropped back down to the ground, hitting it face first for the second time in a matter of minutes.
When he felt an arm on him, Jyren attempted to lash out but his body was still hurting too much to do anything but tap Shadow somewhat roughly in the side. His vision clearing up, Jyren looked up to Shadow, who’s face was a mix of anger, concern, more anger, and something bordering on downright rage. With a quick glance the other way, he saw the body of Kyren over Nine’s about ten meters away.
“That was a serious push,” Jyren grunted out as Shadow roughly yanked him up to his feet.
“You’re lucky it wasn’t you I sent flying,” she growled under her breath, turning to face the two other Alraxians as both clawed their way to their feet. Obviously, Shadow was planning on continuing this fight...but now Nine looked like she was going to be getting involved.
Jyren was not exactly pleased with this new situation. [We need to get out of here.]
[Not without Kyren.] Shadow responded sternly, obviously also picking up on the fact that ‘here’ meant the Capital world and not just this current location in the forest.
[We have to.]
Jyren didn’t add anything else. Shadow knew the reasons. She knew that the two of them couldn’t handle both Kyren and Nine, even together. She knew it would get the both of them killed...but she didn’t care. It was Kyren. She was not going to leave him behind like...like his.
[We don’t have a choice.] Jyren’s words interrupted her line of thought like a knife.
Shadow didn’t actually respond in any form of words. Instead, she glanced to Kyren before running the other direction. Before following her, Jyren reached out and pulled his lightsaber hilt back to him. Charging through the forest after Shadow, he couldn’t help worrying about the sudden absolute silence that was now flowing from her through the link.
[Its not over, Shady.]
[This is the last time we run.]
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 238: Next Stage
They had been given just enough of a head start that it wasn’t a frantic escape. One thing that Jyren immediately noticed, though, was that he was now leading the way. Shadow had gone silent, and no longer was heading towards the Capital. Somewhere along the way Jyren had started heading back towards where his X-Wing should be.
After ten minutes of running through the scattered trees, Shadow finally spoke up, though she didn’t actually stop. [This is wrong.]
That was new. Jyren couldn’t think of a time that she had ever sounded so...so...idealistic. Like him, really. He glanced over his shoulder to see her usual neutral expression was instead marked by concern and probably something close to anger. [We don’t have a choice, and you know it.]
[Kyren wouldn’t leave me.]
She nearly stopped after saying that, too. Jyren could feel her almost stop herself, though something somehow kept her moving. He didn’t know what to say, though. He wasn’t about to leave her after all he’d gone through to get this far on this horrible planet...but part of him felt like he should actually care what happened to Kyren. That part seemed to be impossible to find, and Jyren knew that couldn’t possibly be a good thing. This wasn’t some random individual...it was Kyren. Shadow’s only real friend in this corner of the galaxy. He only real person she had any connection to anymore, too. But Jyren couldn’t bring himself to care about this other Alraxian one bit...except, perhaps, at least a small amount of pity, but Jyren didn’t really even understand that.
The silence between them continued for a long while, but their pace didn’t slow at all. When they finally arrived at the small clearing with the X-Wing, Jyren had been expecting a trap. There was none. In fact, there wasn’t any sign of activity beyond his own leaving the ship all those hours ago. Again, something that just didn’t add up right. Even Shadow had stopped at the edge of the clearing, alert and ready for the nothing that was there.
When it became clear they were alone, Jyren moved over to the X-Wing and got the canopy open to climb in and prepare the starfighter to leave the planet. Shadow was still standing at the edge of the clearing. After reaching in and flipping on the main power switch and getting the sublight drives to warm up, Jyren looked over his shoulder to her, “Come one, Shady. We’ve go to go.”
But she’d come to a decision, “I’m not leaving without Kyren.”
Jyren sighed heavily. He then decided to play the card he’d held back, “Do you propose we stuff him in the cargo compartment?”
“I can morph to something small,” Shadow said calmly.
Fine. Card number two, then, “So you want someone who’s trying to kill you sitting in the cramped cockpit of an X-Wing in the perfect position to cut open my throat from behind?”
This time, Shadow didn’t have a quick answer. Sure, her mind ran through a thousand of them and she knew he heard all of them, but none of them were solid enough worth stating aloud. Jyren reached into the cockpit again, finishing up the last checks before the X-Wing could leave. By the time he’d turned back, Shadow had taken two steps closer and said firmly, “I will not leave him here with her.”
“And I’m not leaving you here with the both of them, Ket, and his whole damned army!” Jyren yelled, surprised at the sudden anger that jumped out of no where from inside of him. But there wasn’t time for this. This was just one of those times where arguments should be saved for later...but this was him, and this was Shadow. Neither of them were very good at not being stubborn, even at critical moments. Dropping down from the small ladder and back to the ground, Jyren looked straight into Shadow’s eyes, “I came here to get you. I didn’t come here to fight droids or Ket or Nine, or even to bring back Kyren. I came here for you.”
“Then leave!” Shadow growled at him angrily, “Keep being selfish and save your own tail! Go wherever you want but I’m staying here!”
“If you stay here, we’ll both be killed and Kyren will be in the same place just like he is right now!” Jyren snapped back, pointing off past her to the forest where they could both feel Kyren and Nine approaching, “Now stop doing exactly what you always accuse me of and actually think! If you want to do anything about any of this, we have to stop, regroup, and not rush in and get ourselves killed!”
He would have said more. The rant could very well have gone on for a full hour. And his mouth was even open to continue it...but a noise stopped it all. Off to the west there was an explosion. The west...the Capital. Both of them turned to see, but saw nothing to hint at what had happened. A few moments later, though, they saw something else.
Ships. Hundreds of them. All heading up into orbit. From this distance, it was impossible to tell what they were, but both Shadow and Jyren knew they were probably the landing craft used in the invasion. And they were all leaving. All of them. All of them were leaving.
They turned back and their eyes met. Ket’s entire landing force was leaving the planet. If they were leaving, it meant there was likely to be only one reason.
“He’s going home,” Shadow whispered quietly.
Jyren looked back from her up to the sky, then to his X-Wing, “Can we beat them there?”
It amazed him to see Shadow plow past him and climb into the rear seat of the X-Wing. He was right behind her, and heard her just as he sat down, “We can’t.”
“Then why are we rushing?” Jyren asked over his shoulder while hitting he switch to close the canopy and then cut in the repulsorlifts.
“Because I am the Empress,” Shadow said quietly in a voice that sounded so much like her mother’s, “And it is my duty to be there.”
Pulling the X-Wing around to follow the stream of starships ahead, Jyren cut in the sublight drives and opened the S-Foils to take a few shots anyway, “And its mine to be right there at your side.”
Shadow just nodded as her hands moved over the weapons controls she’d only used once before. But she had to do something. Something to get her mind off the fact that Kyren was back there with...with Nine of all creatures in the galaxy.
“We’ll go back for him,” Jyren whispered, even surprising himself.
Shadow nodded again, “I know...” after a deep breath and clearing her mind, she spoke more in her own usual voice, “Take as many of those transports as you can down. At least prove to Ket we aren’t tailless cowards like him.”
The weapons powered up right on cue.
((Note to self...do NOT get out of once a day schedule. Man its hard to get back into that after such a long break from it. But I will. I'll force myself to, as I've go nothing better to do anyway, and I ENJOY writing this.))
They had been given just enough of a head start that it wasn’t a frantic escape. One thing that Jyren immediately noticed, though, was that he was now leading the way. Shadow had gone silent, and no longer was heading towards the Capital. Somewhere along the way Jyren had started heading back towards where his X-Wing should be.
After ten minutes of running through the scattered trees, Shadow finally spoke up, though she didn’t actually stop. [This is wrong.]
That was new. Jyren couldn’t think of a time that she had ever sounded so...so...idealistic. Like him, really. He glanced over his shoulder to see her usual neutral expression was instead marked by concern and probably something close to anger. [We don’t have a choice, and you know it.]
[Kyren wouldn’t leave me.]
She nearly stopped after saying that, too. Jyren could feel her almost stop herself, though something somehow kept her moving. He didn’t know what to say, though. He wasn’t about to leave her after all he’d gone through to get this far on this horrible planet...but part of him felt like he should actually care what happened to Kyren. That part seemed to be impossible to find, and Jyren knew that couldn’t possibly be a good thing. This wasn’t some random individual...it was Kyren. Shadow’s only real friend in this corner of the galaxy. He only real person she had any connection to anymore, too. But Jyren couldn’t bring himself to care about this other Alraxian one bit...except, perhaps, at least a small amount of pity, but Jyren didn’t really even understand that.
The silence between them continued for a long while, but their pace didn’t slow at all. When they finally arrived at the small clearing with the X-Wing, Jyren had been expecting a trap. There was none. In fact, there wasn’t any sign of activity beyond his own leaving the ship all those hours ago. Again, something that just didn’t add up right. Even Shadow had stopped at the edge of the clearing, alert and ready for the nothing that was there.
When it became clear they were alone, Jyren moved over to the X-Wing and got the canopy open to climb in and prepare the starfighter to leave the planet. Shadow was still standing at the edge of the clearing. After reaching in and flipping on the main power switch and getting the sublight drives to warm up, Jyren looked over his shoulder to her, “Come one, Shady. We’ve go to go.”
But she’d come to a decision, “I’m not leaving without Kyren.”
Jyren sighed heavily. He then decided to play the card he’d held back, “Do you propose we stuff him in the cargo compartment?”
“I can morph to something small,” Shadow said calmly.
Fine. Card number two, then, “So you want someone who’s trying to kill you sitting in the cramped cockpit of an X-Wing in the perfect position to cut open my throat from behind?”
This time, Shadow didn’t have a quick answer. Sure, her mind ran through a thousand of them and she knew he heard all of them, but none of them were solid enough worth stating aloud. Jyren reached into the cockpit again, finishing up the last checks before the X-Wing could leave. By the time he’d turned back, Shadow had taken two steps closer and said firmly, “I will not leave him here with her.”
“And I’m not leaving you here with the both of them, Ket, and his whole damned army!” Jyren yelled, surprised at the sudden anger that jumped out of no where from inside of him. But there wasn’t time for this. This was just one of those times where arguments should be saved for later...but this was him, and this was Shadow. Neither of them were very good at not being stubborn, even at critical moments. Dropping down from the small ladder and back to the ground, Jyren looked straight into Shadow’s eyes, “I came here to get you. I didn’t come here to fight droids or Ket or Nine, or even to bring back Kyren. I came here for you.”
“Then leave!” Shadow growled at him angrily, “Keep being selfish and save your own tail! Go wherever you want but I’m staying here!”
“If you stay here, we’ll both be killed and Kyren will be in the same place just like he is right now!” Jyren snapped back, pointing off past her to the forest where they could both feel Kyren and Nine approaching, “Now stop doing exactly what you always accuse me of and actually think! If you want to do anything about any of this, we have to stop, regroup, and not rush in and get ourselves killed!”
He would have said more. The rant could very well have gone on for a full hour. And his mouth was even open to continue it...but a noise stopped it all. Off to the west there was an explosion. The west...the Capital. Both of them turned to see, but saw nothing to hint at what had happened. A few moments later, though, they saw something else.
Ships. Hundreds of them. All heading up into orbit. From this distance, it was impossible to tell what they were, but both Shadow and Jyren knew they were probably the landing craft used in the invasion. And they were all leaving. All of them. All of them were leaving.
They turned back and their eyes met. Ket’s entire landing force was leaving the planet. If they were leaving, it meant there was likely to be only one reason.
“He’s going home,” Shadow whispered quietly.
Jyren looked back from her up to the sky, then to his X-Wing, “Can we beat them there?”
It amazed him to see Shadow plow past him and climb into the rear seat of the X-Wing. He was right behind her, and heard her just as he sat down, “We can’t.”
“Then why are we rushing?” Jyren asked over his shoulder while hitting he switch to close the canopy and then cut in the repulsorlifts.
“Because I am the Empress,” Shadow said quietly in a voice that sounded so much like her mother’s, “And it is my duty to be there.”
Pulling the X-Wing around to follow the stream of starships ahead, Jyren cut in the sublight drives and opened the S-Foils to take a few shots anyway, “And its mine to be right there at your side.”
Shadow just nodded as her hands moved over the weapons controls she’d only used once before. But she had to do something. Something to get her mind off the fact that Kyren was back there with...with Nine of all creatures in the galaxy.
“We’ll go back for him,” Jyren whispered, even surprising himself.
Shadow nodded again, “I know...” after a deep breath and clearing her mind, she spoke more in her own usual voice, “Take as many of those transports as you can down. At least prove to Ket we aren’t tailless cowards like him.”
The weapons powered up right on cue.
((Note to self...do NOT get out of once a day schedule. Man its hard to get back into that after such a long break from it. But I will. I'll force myself to, as I've go nothing better to do anyway, and I ENJOY writing this.))
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 239: Flight
The small X-Wing easily caught up with the large convoy of boxy transport ships. Jyren didn’t recognize the exact make of them, but they were vaguely familiar at certain points. Maybe it was just that soft blue glow of the sublight drives that reminded him of home...well, no, not home. This was home. But...that wasn’t the point, and he knew what he meant.
[Are you sure about that?] Shadow’s voice cut into his thoughts curiously, sounding oddly like her old self again. Why that was odd, he wasn’t sure.
“No, I’m not,” Jyren grumbled over his shoulder before looking ahead to the group of transports. They were now following the last...four. Shadow had managed to look back towards the Capital city while passing over it and reported what they both had expected. It was still there, yes, but it was burned, scorched, and more dead that it had been from the initial attack. As his weapons locked onto the nearest of the transports, Jyren sighed, “This isn’t going to do anything but annoy him. Its not like taking out a few of these ships full of droids are going to help protect Alraxia.”
Shadow sighed back and nodded, “But its something. Better than just watching them fly off safely without us even doing a single thing.”
“Good point,” he agreed just as he squeezed the trigger. Four red lances of light arced out from the X-Wing’s cannons to the nearest of the transports. The bulky ship didn’t even attempt to maneuver, which made Jyren immediately assume they had strong shields. So he was just about to report this to Shadow and get her to read the...the...five or so proton torpedoes he had left in this thing. But an explosion of light stopped him.
The shots impacted straight into the rear hull of the ship, detonating the plating(which was disturbingly light), and then engulfing the engines for a brief second before the entire transport went up in flames. Old instincts took over his body, and Jyren quickly pulled on the stick to bring the X-Wing out of the way of the mass of falling debris.
“They don’t have shields!” he yelled back, both surprised and excited by this fact.
Shadow didn’t respond. Instead, she watched the flaming metal fall past them and back down to the ground below. Kyren was down there still. As was Nine...and...and something else familiar, but it was too distant to identify as anymore than painful memories.
Deciding this might suddenly be more useful than before, Jyren took another shot of quad lasers at the next of the transports, this time foregoing he hull and aiming straight for the sublight drives. Again, the ship didn’t maneuver, and again, it burst into a fiery chunk of debris as they rocketed out of the atmosphere of the planet and into the space beyond.
Just as Jyren was bringing the targeting reticle over a third of the ships, Shadow cut in quickly, “We’ve got some friends on the way.”
A second later, the sensors beeped a warning and Jyren’s eyes looked over to see small specs of light angling around towards them. Biting his lower lip, he decided that Shadow should probably know an important piece of information, “We don’t have any shields.”
Alright, so he could have been more elegant about it. Much more elegant. This was immediately obvious in Shadow’s reaction, “What?!”
He went red on instinct and put more power to the engines to weave through the mass of landing transports and use them as cover, “I ran into these guys before...they um...knocked out the shield generator with one shot.”
“You were planning to let me know of this when?”
“...now?”
Jyren could feel her roll her eyes. He didn’t even need the Force or their link for that. He didn’t even really need the link to know of the death threats grumbling through her thoughts. Instead of speaking them, though, she brought up a valid complaint, “You didn’t fix them before we left?”
“Not really, no...” was the best answer he could think of while pretending he might have at least looked at the shield generator to confirm it was, in fact, fried and dead. At the same time, he’d been able to visually identify the approaching ships as four of those same Mrrakesh starfighters that had been trouble before.
“Not really?!” Shadow growled, nearly reaching over the seat to hit him across the back of the head. Instead, since he was weaving so close to some of those transports, she just flicked his ear angrily, “How do you ‘not really’ fix something that important?”
Jyren shrugged, trying to ignore the slight stinging sensation in his right ear, “Well, you know me.”
Another loud beeping sound echoed through the cockpit suddenly. At an immediate protest from the now annoyed Shadow, Jyren cut it off and simply reacted by diving down deeper into the formation of transports. He didn’t need to report that the beep meant the starfighter were now in ‘normal’ weapons range. Shadow figured that out when one of those green bursts shot right over them.
“Fly faster!” she yelled anyway, completely believing that saying it and willing it to happen would make it happen.
“I’m trying!” was one of those necessary responses that just burst out of Jyren’s mouth. He was, too. Cutting power from the weapons and diverting them to the engines worked fairly well, but the Mrrakesh ships were so fast it barely did any good.
And they were angry.
Or at least, Jyren figured that when they were firing wildly and hitting(and destroying) their own transport meant they were sufficiently annoyed. Rolling to the side and around a transport just before it detonated in a red-green fire, Jyren yelled, “Your plan worked! We’ve annoyed them!”
At his point, Shadow was literally holding on. There was a console and stick in front of her. Both her hands were wrapped around it and claws were about ready to dig in, “If I get sick you’re cleaning it up!”
His only answer to this was a very fast snap roll the other direction before suddenly pulling up and out of the way of another few shots. Now they were nearing the middle of the pack of transports, and while many were being shot down, there were still hundreds of them to hide behind. Jyren found this to be an extremely nice thing, and was becoming very adept and maneuvering right around one to use as a makeshift shield.
“Shadow!” he yelled back, suddenly realizing that there were two of them and a task requiring two people was coming up disturbingly quickly. He didn’t give her a chance to say ‘what’. She might have tried, but a sudden corkscrew dive forced her mouth shut. Pulling out of it and wrapping around another transport with green all around them, Jyren went on, “I need you to plot a hyperspace route out of here! Not to Alraxia! Get us back to the fleet that left here!”
This time, Shadow was able to say, “What?! I don’t even know where they–“ she went silent when a transport exploded far too close to them, and a piece of a war droid dented part of an S-Foil loud enough to make Shadow cringe. She didn’t like being the passenger, “Don’t do that again!”
“I’m trying not too!” he growled back, pushing faster to an edge of the transport formation so they could jump to hyperspace quickly, “Use the Force! Feel! Something! I don’t know just do it! I would but I’m a little busy!”
Shadow grumbled a complaint about not knowing the systems all that well, but went about attempting to plot he course anyway. She closed her eyes...not out of need to for using the Force, but simply so she could cut out having to look around at the insane flying Jyren was currently doing. At least it was keeping them alive.
Something exploded nearby.
Keeping them alive for the moment.
While her hands relinquished their death grip on the control stick and worked their way to the navcomputer in front of her, Shadow’s mind raced in and oddly calm fashion. With the help of the Force, she slowly reached out through the mental Network shared by all of her species. It was the quickest way to find them and...technically, the Empress was supposed to keep it together.
It took her a moment to ignore the sudden chaos she found where the Network ‘was’, but she then quickly asked a few necessary questions. Random answers to ‘where are you?’ flooded through the link, but she did find one that was actually helpful. A pilot responded, and although he was obviously as panicked as the rest of the Alraxians, he was at least calm enough to due his duty.
So she had a location...and a general idea of where it was. Another explosion(this one louder than before) nearly forced her to open her eyes and look, but a laugh from Jyren made her decide against it. Instead, she raced to her next task. Using what she had to actually get them to that location. Exactly how she did it, Shadow wasn’t even sure of. But with the help of the Force, the once blank navcomputer was suddenly programmed with a series of things Shadow didn’t actually understand. Which mean she’d opened her eyes.
“Done!” she said, slumping back in her seat and immediately going back to gripping the control stick. The adrenaline rush also came back in that second, as her eyes opened to at least three ships around them burning in that red-green fire while the X-Wing rolled around and spun towards an opening of blank space. There was he mechanical noise that she identified as the S-Foils closing, with the green shots arcing past them in all directions as the X-Wing continued its tight spin away.
Then she heard a familiar and extremely relieved noise. It was accompanied by the elongating of the stars ahead, and then a sudden blue tunnel that arced around the cockpit. Both of them let out a long sigh of relief. After a few seconds, Jyren tilted his head to look around the seat and to Shadow. He was grinning that maniacal grin of an idiot who’d lived through what should have been certain death, “Want to go again?”
“Not with you flying,” Shadow said with a mild glare, through it slowly formed into a smile.
The small X-Wing easily caught up with the large convoy of boxy transport ships. Jyren didn’t recognize the exact make of them, but they were vaguely familiar at certain points. Maybe it was just that soft blue glow of the sublight drives that reminded him of home...well, no, not home. This was home. But...that wasn’t the point, and he knew what he meant.
[Are you sure about that?] Shadow’s voice cut into his thoughts curiously, sounding oddly like her old self again. Why that was odd, he wasn’t sure.
“No, I’m not,” Jyren grumbled over his shoulder before looking ahead to the group of transports. They were now following the last...four. Shadow had managed to look back towards the Capital city while passing over it and reported what they both had expected. It was still there, yes, but it was burned, scorched, and more dead that it had been from the initial attack. As his weapons locked onto the nearest of the transports, Jyren sighed, “This isn’t going to do anything but annoy him. Its not like taking out a few of these ships full of droids are going to help protect Alraxia.”
Shadow sighed back and nodded, “But its something. Better than just watching them fly off safely without us even doing a single thing.”
“Good point,” he agreed just as he squeezed the trigger. Four red lances of light arced out from the X-Wing’s cannons to the nearest of the transports. The bulky ship didn’t even attempt to maneuver, which made Jyren immediately assume they had strong shields. So he was just about to report this to Shadow and get her to read the...the...five or so proton torpedoes he had left in this thing. But an explosion of light stopped him.
The shots impacted straight into the rear hull of the ship, detonating the plating(which was disturbingly light), and then engulfing the engines for a brief second before the entire transport went up in flames. Old instincts took over his body, and Jyren quickly pulled on the stick to bring the X-Wing out of the way of the mass of falling debris.
“They don’t have shields!” he yelled back, both surprised and excited by this fact.
Shadow didn’t respond. Instead, she watched the flaming metal fall past them and back down to the ground below. Kyren was down there still. As was Nine...and...and something else familiar, but it was too distant to identify as anymore than painful memories.
Deciding this might suddenly be more useful than before, Jyren took another shot of quad lasers at the next of the transports, this time foregoing he hull and aiming straight for the sublight drives. Again, the ship didn’t maneuver, and again, it burst into a fiery chunk of debris as they rocketed out of the atmosphere of the planet and into the space beyond.
Just as Jyren was bringing the targeting reticle over a third of the ships, Shadow cut in quickly, “We’ve got some friends on the way.”
A second later, the sensors beeped a warning and Jyren’s eyes looked over to see small specs of light angling around towards them. Biting his lower lip, he decided that Shadow should probably know an important piece of information, “We don’t have any shields.”
Alright, so he could have been more elegant about it. Much more elegant. This was immediately obvious in Shadow’s reaction, “What?!”
He went red on instinct and put more power to the engines to weave through the mass of landing transports and use them as cover, “I ran into these guys before...they um...knocked out the shield generator with one shot.”
“You were planning to let me know of this when?”
“...now?”
Jyren could feel her roll her eyes. He didn’t even need the Force or their link for that. He didn’t even really need the link to know of the death threats grumbling through her thoughts. Instead of speaking them, though, she brought up a valid complaint, “You didn’t fix them before we left?”
“Not really, no...” was the best answer he could think of while pretending he might have at least looked at the shield generator to confirm it was, in fact, fried and dead. At the same time, he’d been able to visually identify the approaching ships as four of those same Mrrakesh starfighters that had been trouble before.
“Not really?!” Shadow growled, nearly reaching over the seat to hit him across the back of the head. Instead, since he was weaving so close to some of those transports, she just flicked his ear angrily, “How do you ‘not really’ fix something that important?”
Jyren shrugged, trying to ignore the slight stinging sensation in his right ear, “Well, you know me.”
Another loud beeping sound echoed through the cockpit suddenly. At an immediate protest from the now annoyed Shadow, Jyren cut it off and simply reacted by diving down deeper into the formation of transports. He didn’t need to report that the beep meant the starfighter were now in ‘normal’ weapons range. Shadow figured that out when one of those green bursts shot right over them.
“Fly faster!” she yelled anyway, completely believing that saying it and willing it to happen would make it happen.
“I’m trying!” was one of those necessary responses that just burst out of Jyren’s mouth. He was, too. Cutting power from the weapons and diverting them to the engines worked fairly well, but the Mrrakesh ships were so fast it barely did any good.
And they were angry.
Or at least, Jyren figured that when they were firing wildly and hitting(and destroying) their own transport meant they were sufficiently annoyed. Rolling to the side and around a transport just before it detonated in a red-green fire, Jyren yelled, “Your plan worked! We’ve annoyed them!”
At his point, Shadow was literally holding on. There was a console and stick in front of her. Both her hands were wrapped around it and claws were about ready to dig in, “If I get sick you’re cleaning it up!”
His only answer to this was a very fast snap roll the other direction before suddenly pulling up and out of the way of another few shots. Now they were nearing the middle of the pack of transports, and while many were being shot down, there were still hundreds of them to hide behind. Jyren found this to be an extremely nice thing, and was becoming very adept and maneuvering right around one to use as a makeshift shield.
“Shadow!” he yelled back, suddenly realizing that there were two of them and a task requiring two people was coming up disturbingly quickly. He didn’t give her a chance to say ‘what’. She might have tried, but a sudden corkscrew dive forced her mouth shut. Pulling out of it and wrapping around another transport with green all around them, Jyren went on, “I need you to plot a hyperspace route out of here! Not to Alraxia! Get us back to the fleet that left here!”
This time, Shadow was able to say, “What?! I don’t even know where they–“ she went silent when a transport exploded far too close to them, and a piece of a war droid dented part of an S-Foil loud enough to make Shadow cringe. She didn’t like being the passenger, “Don’t do that again!”
“I’m trying not too!” he growled back, pushing faster to an edge of the transport formation so they could jump to hyperspace quickly, “Use the Force! Feel! Something! I don’t know just do it! I would but I’m a little busy!”
Shadow grumbled a complaint about not knowing the systems all that well, but went about attempting to plot he course anyway. She closed her eyes...not out of need to for using the Force, but simply so she could cut out having to look around at the insane flying Jyren was currently doing. At least it was keeping them alive.
Something exploded nearby.
Keeping them alive for the moment.
While her hands relinquished their death grip on the control stick and worked their way to the navcomputer in front of her, Shadow’s mind raced in and oddly calm fashion. With the help of the Force, she slowly reached out through the mental Network shared by all of her species. It was the quickest way to find them and...technically, the Empress was supposed to keep it together.
It took her a moment to ignore the sudden chaos she found where the Network ‘was’, but she then quickly asked a few necessary questions. Random answers to ‘where are you?’ flooded through the link, but she did find one that was actually helpful. A pilot responded, and although he was obviously as panicked as the rest of the Alraxians, he was at least calm enough to due his duty.
So she had a location...and a general idea of where it was. Another explosion(this one louder than before) nearly forced her to open her eyes and look, but a laugh from Jyren made her decide against it. Instead, she raced to her next task. Using what she had to actually get them to that location. Exactly how she did it, Shadow wasn’t even sure of. But with the help of the Force, the once blank navcomputer was suddenly programmed with a series of things Shadow didn’t actually understand. Which mean she’d opened her eyes.
“Done!” she said, slumping back in her seat and immediately going back to gripping the control stick. The adrenaline rush also came back in that second, as her eyes opened to at least three ships around them burning in that red-green fire while the X-Wing rolled around and spun towards an opening of blank space. There was he mechanical noise that she identified as the S-Foils closing, with the green shots arcing past them in all directions as the X-Wing continued its tight spin away.
Then she heard a familiar and extremely relieved noise. It was accompanied by the elongating of the stars ahead, and then a sudden blue tunnel that arced around the cockpit. Both of them let out a long sigh of relief. After a few seconds, Jyren tilted his head to look around the seat and to Shadow. He was grinning that maniacal grin of an idiot who’d lived through what should have been certain death, “Want to go again?”
“Not with you flying,” Shadow said with a mild glare, through it slowly formed into a smile.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 240: Once Again in Hyperspace
Considering everything that had happened in the past couple of days(good and bad), the hyperspace flight was strangely quiet. Even the link was generally devoid of any kind of activity. Shadow was too busy dwelling on the fact that they’d left Kyren behind...and there was that odd feeling she’d gotten just before leaving. And Jyren...well...he was just not sure what he was supposed to do or say so he kept his mouth, and mind, shut. After everything, he figured it wasn’t worth it getting into an argument, and couldn’t help but worry any comment by him would become one.
“Thank you.”
The words broke through the silence of the cockpit about halfway through the jump(well, maybe...the ETA was very rough at this point). Jyren was surprised to hear the words in the first place, but then putting it together with the fact that Shadow had said them and he was even more surprised. Undoing the restraints so that he could turn around and look back around the seat to her, he raised an eyebrow, “For...?”
In typical Shadow fashion, she rolled her eyes, “You don’t have to push it.”
And, in typical Jyren fashion, he grinned, “Its what I’m best at.”
“That’s debatable,” Shadow said dryly, though there was a hint of a grin tugging at her face. After another short moment of silence, a question came to mind, “How in the Force did you manage to get away and do something this insane?”
Another typical expression crossed Jyren’s face...confusion, “What do you mean?”
The grin got slightly bigger, “The Redstars actually let you run off like this? Even though you’re technically Emperor now? How did you convince them of that? Dad...” she paused a moment, and though her expression didn’t change, Jyren felt a wave of sadness briefly through the link before Shadow tried again in a firmer voice, “Dad could never convince them to let him out of their sight when mother was away.”
Jyren grinned again, though this time it was forced. He may not have known Shadow’s parents well or for very long, but they were amazingly kind and wonderful people. He missed them more than he would have thought possible. Trying to keep that back, though, and focus on more positive things, he shrugged, “You know me. Stubborn to the last moment.”
“So you snuck out without them knowing?” Shadow asked, a real grin now completely filling her face.
He managed a sheepish look, “You could call it that. I prefer well timed escape.”
“They’re going to kill you when you get back.”
Jyren nodded proudly, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And then there was silence. Though it didn’t last very long, it felt like an eternity. Then, finally, Jyren asked in a much more subdued and quiet voice, “So what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Shadow said honestly with a sigh and a shrug.
Silence attempted to creep back into the cramped cockpit of the X-Wing. It almost had its chance, as neither of them wanted to speak the next part. After a deep breath, though, Jyren did, “We’re in over our heads this time, aren’t we?”
“We’re always in over our heads,” Shadow admitted, attempting at least a bit of levity, though it didn’t work...for either of them, “There’s no way to stop that army.”
Another one of those things neither of them wanted to admit, even if it was true. So, the next logical thing was for Jyren, “Then we go after Ket.”
Shadow shook her head, “Its not that easy. Knowing Ket, that probably won’t stop the army...and...”
Her trailed off sentence was finished by Jyren, who picked up on the end of it through a mix of instinct and their link, “And then there’s still Nine.”
“And Kyren,” Shadow added quickly and almost angrily.
And then that brought up another one of those subjects neither of them wanted to mention...Shadow least of all. But it had to be. Everything had to be if they were going to get out of it alive. So, slowly and carefully, Jyren asked, “What happened to him?”
Shadow wished she had a real answer to that. But she didn’t, and simply sighed, “I don’t know. I just...Nine’s done something to him. He thinks that...that I’m her or she’s me or...I don’t know.”
“He could be more dangerous than Nine or Ket,” Jyren said quietly, not mentioning the why. He didn’t think he needed to, though Shadow was still completely oblivious to the fact that Kyren loved her. Jyren, on the other hand, had both quickly figured this out himself and had been told by the other’s ship, Hermes. It was exactly what made the Alraxian so very dangerous. If he felt as betrayed as it looked like he did...then he’d likely go to any lengths to get what he thought was revenge.
“I won’t kill him,” Shadow said with a venomous glare, finishing Jyren’s unsaid thoughts.
Jyren just nodded. What else could he do? Even if he didn’t like Kyren, he would be able to kill he man...he had helped Jyren so much. And he was Shadow’s closest friend, even if Kyren would have liked it to have been more. No, Jyren couldn’t kill him either, “We’ll think of something.”
Soon, hopefully. A shared thought. They were both good a cutting things close, but this may have finally been the time where they’d past that point of no return. Not only would the two of them suffer the consequences, but from the looks of things, Ket would simply wipe out the Alraxian civilization in the process.
It was all far too depressing. And then an odd thought popped into Jyren’s mind. It almost seemed out of place considering the circumstances and the turn their short conversation had taken. But it was there nonetheless. It was there, and he was grinning out of no where.
Shadow saw this and raised an eyebrow, obviously reconsidering his sanity, “Dare I ask?”
That go a short laugh out of Jyren, which only heightened Shadow’s worry, “Just thinking about Toby.”
“Oh,” Shadow suddenly slumped back in her seat and sighed, “That thing.”
“Come on, Shady,” Jyren said, doing his best to reach over and poke her but finding it completely impossible to do, “He’s not that bad and you know it.”
An icy look shot out from Shadow’s eyes, “You really are out of your tree. Hit your head a few times falling down, too.”
It was finally Jyren’s turn to roll his eyes, “The kid cares about you, Shady. Quit making him into some kind of villain.”
“The brat is annoying,” Shadow said, emphasizing the word brat far more than any others. Then, before he could say anything else, she waved a hand, “He likes you. Fine. Its how it should be. Go raise him like a good Alraxian father is supposed to. Just keep me out of it.”
Jyren resisted the sudden urge to sigh. Instead, he said simply, “Before I left, Toby made me promise I’d bring back his mommy.”
Silence.
Then, slowly, Shadow grinded out, “I am not his mother.”
“He doesn’t see it that way,” Jyren responded almost quickly enough to cut off Shadow’s last word, “Look, its not like I expected any of this either, but what are we supposed to do? Tell the whole damned Empire that Toby’s the son of the Alraxian trying to kill them all...oh! And his mother is an insane clone of you! That would go over well.”
Shadow sighed, but stayed as silent as she could and stared down at her hands resting in her lap.
So, not giving her a chance to escape out of this(it was Jyren’s revenge, really), he pushed harder, “Like it or not, he loves you.”
There was a grumbled sound from her that almost sounded like, “He’s not so bad”, but before Jyren could comment on this, Shadow’s head snapped up and she put a finger to his face, “If you ever, ever tell him I said that I will harm you in ways you’d never imagine.”
Jyren couldn’t help grinning, “Awww, I love you, too.”
“Shut up and fly, Jedi boy,” Shadow grumbled, slumping back into her seat again but this time closing her eyes. The link wasn’t all that much more polite, but he could feel a hint of a smile hidden somewhere. It was good enough for him.
Jyren. Two. Shadow...too many. But hey, a pair of victories wasn’t something he was going to complain about. Especially not when he knew Shadow was listening to his thoughts and rolling her eyes with a grin on her face. If only they didn’t have to exit hyperspace to the hellish galaxy that awaited.
Considering everything that had happened in the past couple of days(good and bad), the hyperspace flight was strangely quiet. Even the link was generally devoid of any kind of activity. Shadow was too busy dwelling on the fact that they’d left Kyren behind...and there was that odd feeling she’d gotten just before leaving. And Jyren...well...he was just not sure what he was supposed to do or say so he kept his mouth, and mind, shut. After everything, he figured it wasn’t worth it getting into an argument, and couldn’t help but worry any comment by him would become one.
“Thank you.”
The words broke through the silence of the cockpit about halfway through the jump(well, maybe...the ETA was very rough at this point). Jyren was surprised to hear the words in the first place, but then putting it together with the fact that Shadow had said them and he was even more surprised. Undoing the restraints so that he could turn around and look back around the seat to her, he raised an eyebrow, “For...?”
In typical Shadow fashion, she rolled her eyes, “You don’t have to push it.”
And, in typical Jyren fashion, he grinned, “Its what I’m best at.”
“That’s debatable,” Shadow said dryly, though there was a hint of a grin tugging at her face. After another short moment of silence, a question came to mind, “How in the Force did you manage to get away and do something this insane?”
Another typical expression crossed Jyren’s face...confusion, “What do you mean?”
The grin got slightly bigger, “The Redstars actually let you run off like this? Even though you’re technically Emperor now? How did you convince them of that? Dad...” she paused a moment, and though her expression didn’t change, Jyren felt a wave of sadness briefly through the link before Shadow tried again in a firmer voice, “Dad could never convince them to let him out of their sight when mother was away.”
Jyren grinned again, though this time it was forced. He may not have known Shadow’s parents well or for very long, but they were amazingly kind and wonderful people. He missed them more than he would have thought possible. Trying to keep that back, though, and focus on more positive things, he shrugged, “You know me. Stubborn to the last moment.”
“So you snuck out without them knowing?” Shadow asked, a real grin now completely filling her face.
He managed a sheepish look, “You could call it that. I prefer well timed escape.”
“They’re going to kill you when you get back.”
Jyren nodded proudly, “Wouldn’t have it any other way.”
And then there was silence. Though it didn’t last very long, it felt like an eternity. Then, finally, Jyren asked in a much more subdued and quiet voice, “So what are we going to do?”
“I don’t know,” Shadow said honestly with a sigh and a shrug.
Silence attempted to creep back into the cramped cockpit of the X-Wing. It almost had its chance, as neither of them wanted to speak the next part. After a deep breath, though, Jyren did, “We’re in over our heads this time, aren’t we?”
“We’re always in over our heads,” Shadow admitted, attempting at least a bit of levity, though it didn’t work...for either of them, “There’s no way to stop that army.”
Another one of those things neither of them wanted to admit, even if it was true. So, the next logical thing was for Jyren, “Then we go after Ket.”
Shadow shook her head, “Its not that easy. Knowing Ket, that probably won’t stop the army...and...”
Her trailed off sentence was finished by Jyren, who picked up on the end of it through a mix of instinct and their link, “And then there’s still Nine.”
“And Kyren,” Shadow added quickly and almost angrily.
And then that brought up another one of those subjects neither of them wanted to mention...Shadow least of all. But it had to be. Everything had to be if they were going to get out of it alive. So, slowly and carefully, Jyren asked, “What happened to him?”
Shadow wished she had a real answer to that. But she didn’t, and simply sighed, “I don’t know. I just...Nine’s done something to him. He thinks that...that I’m her or she’s me or...I don’t know.”
“He could be more dangerous than Nine or Ket,” Jyren said quietly, not mentioning the why. He didn’t think he needed to, though Shadow was still completely oblivious to the fact that Kyren loved her. Jyren, on the other hand, had both quickly figured this out himself and had been told by the other’s ship, Hermes. It was exactly what made the Alraxian so very dangerous. If he felt as betrayed as it looked like he did...then he’d likely go to any lengths to get what he thought was revenge.
“I won’t kill him,” Shadow said with a venomous glare, finishing Jyren’s unsaid thoughts.
Jyren just nodded. What else could he do? Even if he didn’t like Kyren, he would be able to kill he man...he had helped Jyren so much. And he was Shadow’s closest friend, even if Kyren would have liked it to have been more. No, Jyren couldn’t kill him either, “We’ll think of something.”
Soon, hopefully. A shared thought. They were both good a cutting things close, but this may have finally been the time where they’d past that point of no return. Not only would the two of them suffer the consequences, but from the looks of things, Ket would simply wipe out the Alraxian civilization in the process.
It was all far too depressing. And then an odd thought popped into Jyren’s mind. It almost seemed out of place considering the circumstances and the turn their short conversation had taken. But it was there nonetheless. It was there, and he was grinning out of no where.
Shadow saw this and raised an eyebrow, obviously reconsidering his sanity, “Dare I ask?”
That go a short laugh out of Jyren, which only heightened Shadow’s worry, “Just thinking about Toby.”
“Oh,” Shadow suddenly slumped back in her seat and sighed, “That thing.”
“Come on, Shady,” Jyren said, doing his best to reach over and poke her but finding it completely impossible to do, “He’s not that bad and you know it.”
An icy look shot out from Shadow’s eyes, “You really are out of your tree. Hit your head a few times falling down, too.”
It was finally Jyren’s turn to roll his eyes, “The kid cares about you, Shady. Quit making him into some kind of villain.”
“The brat is annoying,” Shadow said, emphasizing the word brat far more than any others. Then, before he could say anything else, she waved a hand, “He likes you. Fine. Its how it should be. Go raise him like a good Alraxian father is supposed to. Just keep me out of it.”
Jyren resisted the sudden urge to sigh. Instead, he said simply, “Before I left, Toby made me promise I’d bring back his mommy.”
Silence.
Then, slowly, Shadow grinded out, “I am not his mother.”
“He doesn’t see it that way,” Jyren responded almost quickly enough to cut off Shadow’s last word, “Look, its not like I expected any of this either, but what are we supposed to do? Tell the whole damned Empire that Toby’s the son of the Alraxian trying to kill them all...oh! And his mother is an insane clone of you! That would go over well.”
Shadow sighed, but stayed as silent as she could and stared down at her hands resting in her lap.
So, not giving her a chance to escape out of this(it was Jyren’s revenge, really), he pushed harder, “Like it or not, he loves you.”
There was a grumbled sound from her that almost sounded like, “He’s not so bad”, but before Jyren could comment on this, Shadow’s head snapped up and she put a finger to his face, “If you ever, ever tell him I said that I will harm you in ways you’d never imagine.”
Jyren couldn’t help grinning, “Awww, I love you, too.”
“Shut up and fly, Jedi boy,” Shadow grumbled, slumping back into her seat again but this time closing her eyes. The link wasn’t all that much more polite, but he could feel a hint of a smile hidden somewhere. It was good enough for him.
Jyren. Two. Shadow...too many. But hey, a pair of victories wasn’t something he was going to complain about. Especially not when he knew Shadow was listening to his thoughts and rolling her eyes with a grin on her face. If only they didn’t have to exit hyperspace to the hellish galaxy that awaited.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 241: Never a Break
There had been a long tense moment when the chrono for the hyperspace jump was reaching zero. So far, they hadn’t crashed through a star, planet, etc, but that was still a distinct possibility. So when it was under ten seconds, Jyren couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth pulling back the levers. But what other choice was there? Make it this far and then let fear finally take over? That was definitely not a good course of actions...besides, if he didn’t, Shadow would kill him for ‘not trusting her judgement’ or something similar.
So when the chrono hit zero, Jyren pulled the hyperspace levers back. The swirling blue suddenly disappeared, fading into the familiar bleak nothingness of space. The bleak nothingness of space which was currently occupied by at least one nearby planet and so many ships the sensor readings were impossible to decipher where one ended and another began.
That was a good sign at least.
“There’s Thor,” Shadow said, adding to it with an arm reaching over the seat and pointing...almost into Jyren’s eye.
He tilted his head slightly to avoid losing his sight, “Yes, um...thank you, I see it...err, him. Him?”
Shadow didn’t dignify that with an answer. Not that it really needed one all that much. Sometimes Jyren just needed to figure things out for himself. Most of the time, actually, but she usually just got frustrated and explained things to him anyway.
There was a long silence as Jyren adjusted their course for the very large ship that was literally impossible to miss, even against the planet which it orbited. In fact, the silence generally stayed until they were set down in one of the Kanyak’s hangers. That had been an ordeal in its own...convincing the ship it was alright to have the metal starfighter dock took nearly ten minutes, but eventually Shadow managed to win with her usual authoritatively dangerous voice.
When they finally were able to climb out of the cramped cockpit of the X-Wing, they were met by a large group of guards, Redstars, and Jyren’s father. The last was less surprising that it could have been, considering the circumstances. Not that it bothered either of them all that much. In all this chaos, it was nice to see at least one really familiar face...especially one that was family...
Immediately setting foot down on the creamy white deck, the two of them were mobbed. A cadre of Redstars had first gone for Jyren, but when he waved them off(and, of course, at Shadow) they change course. Not that this got Jyren off the hook. A second later, his father stepped over and embraced him in that dangerous fashion where the son couldn’t help but wonder if he father was trying to kill him or not.
“You’re even more reckless than your mother,” the older Alraxian growled with a chuckle into Jyren’s ear.
“I’m alive, aren’t I?” was the best Jyren could come up with when drained of his ability to breathe correctly.
At this, his father relinquished the vice grip and instead rested his hands on Jyren’s shoulders, “Yes, you are. Next time you do something like that, though, please let your old man know. I just got you back and I’m not losing you again.”
Jyren managed a sheepish look before nodding, “I will.”
“Good,” Navik Keros nodded proudly before motioning over his son’s shoulder towards where Shadow was, “Now its probably a good idea for you to go save her again.”
When Jyren glanced over his shoulder, he saw Shadow surrounded by five Redstars who were almost literally combing every inch of her for even slight injuries. The guards were doing their best to...well...guard, but had given up and just stood back watching in a form of stoic amusement.
Just when Jyren made it over, however, Shadow threw up her hands, “Dammit, leave me alone!!”
They did.
In fact, they even took a step back, with one of them backing into Jyren and jumping with a slight surprise. It wasn’t the words Shadow had used, but the force with which she’d spoke. It was the voice of someone on the edge of blatant murder, which wasn’t actually all that far from the truth of the moment, either. One of the older Redstars in the center of the formation managed a bow, “My lady, we were simply worried after...after...”
“I know!” Shadow yelled, angry at none of them in particular, “And I’m fine now! Now go and do whatever it is you people are supposed to be doing!”
There was a pause.
It ended when the same Redstar pointed out, “The, ah...situation is already under control here, my lady. This is what we are supposed to be doing.”
Shadow looked over the Redstars and straight to Jyren. [Typical.]
He shrugged, now completely out of his element again and doing his best to stand there and look like he almost knew what he was doing. The tension, though, slowly faded from the air, and one of the younger Redstars, who Jyren recognized as the woman who had been helping him the day...or two? However long it had been....carefully, she said, “Word has already been spread through the Network that you are alive...however, it would do some good if you ah...spoke openly so that everyone could see you.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Jyren suddenly cut in, though it was the exact same thing Shadow was about to say. Either way it was technically just an excuse to escape the formal necessities, but it did also have some hint of truth. When everyone turned to look at him, he suddenly realized it would have been better for Shadow to say it so he wouldn’t have to deal with all the critical eyes...especially from the guards. But it was too late for that, and when he got confirmation from Shadow to go ahead, he said it, “The army is moving. They’ve left the Capital...all of them.”
“Where would they go?” that was his father from behind, though the question was in all of their eyes. Except for the guards, of course, but they were still remaining silent, simply watching with calm eyes.
Jyren sighed. He kept forgetting these people hadn’t experience real war for thousands of years. They didn’t have the tactical minds to pick Ket’s plans apart...well, Jyren didn’t either, but at least he had some vague ideas, which was more than most Alraxians, “He’s going to Alraxia.”
The words seemed to echo through the hangar for far too long. None of them had expected to hear that...it was unimaginable. This whole everything was. And to top that off with an attack on their home planet by one of their own...that was nearly too much. Before anything could be said, however, a door irised open on the other side of the hangar and a guard ran in at full speed.
He ran straight to Shadow before kneeling and bowing his head. Then, without even waiting for her to say anything, spoke quickly, “My lady, we have recieved an incoming transmission.”
But he was shaking. The guard was shaking. Jyren and Shadow once again exchanged looks, but this time it was her turn to talk, “From who?”
“From...ah...” the guard paused, not completely believing it himself, “From you.”
Nine.
Without saying a thing, Shadow ran for the main section of the ship. Jyren followed, feeling the same deep set fear of what was to come. The two of them could only think of one reason why Nine would contact them. The same reason Ket had contacted Shadow’s mother the day or two before. She was going to issue a challenge. A challenge to the Empress.
Even though they’d just escaped it, the need for Shadow to confront her clone had just risen is head again. This time, though, the entire Empire would know about it. Considering the last time this had happened barely over a day before, it was definitely going to cause panic. Never a break, it seemed.
There had been a long tense moment when the chrono for the hyperspace jump was reaching zero. So far, they hadn’t crashed through a star, planet, etc, but that was still a distinct possibility. So when it was under ten seconds, Jyren couldn’t help but wonder if it was worth pulling back the levers. But what other choice was there? Make it this far and then let fear finally take over? That was definitely not a good course of actions...besides, if he didn’t, Shadow would kill him for ‘not trusting her judgement’ or something similar.
So when the chrono hit zero, Jyren pulled the hyperspace levers back. The swirling blue suddenly disappeared, fading into the familiar bleak nothingness of space. The bleak nothingness of space which was currently occupied by at least one nearby planet and so many ships the sensor readings were impossible to decipher where one ended and another began.
That was a good sign at least.
“There’s Thor,” Shadow said, adding to it with an arm reaching over the seat and pointing...almost into Jyren’s eye.
He tilted his head slightly to avoid losing his sight, “Yes, um...thank you, I see it...err, him. Him?”
Shadow didn’t dignify that with an answer. Not that it really needed one all that much. Sometimes Jyren just needed to figure things out for himself. Most of the time, actually, but she usually just got frustrated and explained things to him anyway.
There was a long silence as Jyren adjusted their course for the very large ship that was literally impossible to miss, even against the planet which it orbited. In fact, the silence generally stayed until they were set down in one of the Kanyak’s hangers. That had been an ordeal in its own...convincing the ship it was alright to have the metal starfighter dock took nearly ten minutes, but eventually Shadow managed to win with her usual authoritatively dangerous voice.
When they finally were able to climb out of the cramped cockpit of the X-Wing, they were met by a large group of guards, Redstars, and Jyren’s father. The last was less surprising that it could have been, considering the circumstances. Not that it bothered either of them all that much. In all this chaos, it was nice to see at least one really familiar face...especially one that was family...
Immediately setting foot down on the creamy white deck, the two of them were mobbed. A cadre of Redstars had first gone for Jyren, but when he waved them off(and, of course, at Shadow) they change course. Not that this got Jyren off the hook. A second later, his father stepped over and embraced him in that dangerous fashion where the son couldn’t help but wonder if he father was trying to kill him or not.
“You’re even more reckless than your mother,” the older Alraxian growled with a chuckle into Jyren’s ear.
“I’m alive, aren’t I?” was the best Jyren could come up with when drained of his ability to breathe correctly.
At this, his father relinquished the vice grip and instead rested his hands on Jyren’s shoulders, “Yes, you are. Next time you do something like that, though, please let your old man know. I just got you back and I’m not losing you again.”
Jyren managed a sheepish look before nodding, “I will.”
“Good,” Navik Keros nodded proudly before motioning over his son’s shoulder towards where Shadow was, “Now its probably a good idea for you to go save her again.”
When Jyren glanced over his shoulder, he saw Shadow surrounded by five Redstars who were almost literally combing every inch of her for even slight injuries. The guards were doing their best to...well...guard, but had given up and just stood back watching in a form of stoic amusement.
Just when Jyren made it over, however, Shadow threw up her hands, “Dammit, leave me alone!!”
They did.
In fact, they even took a step back, with one of them backing into Jyren and jumping with a slight surprise. It wasn’t the words Shadow had used, but the force with which she’d spoke. It was the voice of someone on the edge of blatant murder, which wasn’t actually all that far from the truth of the moment, either. One of the older Redstars in the center of the formation managed a bow, “My lady, we were simply worried after...after...”
“I know!” Shadow yelled, angry at none of them in particular, “And I’m fine now! Now go and do whatever it is you people are supposed to be doing!”
There was a pause.
It ended when the same Redstar pointed out, “The, ah...situation is already under control here, my lady. This is what we are supposed to be doing.”
Shadow looked over the Redstars and straight to Jyren. [Typical.]
He shrugged, now completely out of his element again and doing his best to stand there and look like he almost knew what he was doing. The tension, though, slowly faded from the air, and one of the younger Redstars, who Jyren recognized as the woman who had been helping him the day...or two? However long it had been....carefully, she said, “Word has already been spread through the Network that you are alive...however, it would do some good if you ah...spoke openly so that everyone could see you.”
“We don’t have time for that,” Jyren suddenly cut in, though it was the exact same thing Shadow was about to say. Either way it was technically just an excuse to escape the formal necessities, but it did also have some hint of truth. When everyone turned to look at him, he suddenly realized it would have been better for Shadow to say it so he wouldn’t have to deal with all the critical eyes...especially from the guards. But it was too late for that, and when he got confirmation from Shadow to go ahead, he said it, “The army is moving. They’ve left the Capital...all of them.”
“Where would they go?” that was his father from behind, though the question was in all of their eyes. Except for the guards, of course, but they were still remaining silent, simply watching with calm eyes.
Jyren sighed. He kept forgetting these people hadn’t experience real war for thousands of years. They didn’t have the tactical minds to pick Ket’s plans apart...well, Jyren didn’t either, but at least he had some vague ideas, which was more than most Alraxians, “He’s going to Alraxia.”
The words seemed to echo through the hangar for far too long. None of them had expected to hear that...it was unimaginable. This whole everything was. And to top that off with an attack on their home planet by one of their own...that was nearly too much. Before anything could be said, however, a door irised open on the other side of the hangar and a guard ran in at full speed.
He ran straight to Shadow before kneeling and bowing his head. Then, without even waiting for her to say anything, spoke quickly, “My lady, we have recieved an incoming transmission.”
But he was shaking. The guard was shaking. Jyren and Shadow once again exchanged looks, but this time it was her turn to talk, “From who?”
“From...ah...” the guard paused, not completely believing it himself, “From you.”
Nine.
Without saying a thing, Shadow ran for the main section of the ship. Jyren followed, feeling the same deep set fear of what was to come. The two of them could only think of one reason why Nine would contact them. The same reason Ket had contacted Shadow’s mother the day or two before. She was going to issue a challenge. A challenge to the Empress.
Even though they’d just escaped it, the need for Shadow to confront her clone had just risen is head again. This time, though, the entire Empire would know about it. Considering the last time this had happened barely over a day before, it was definitely going to cause panic. Never a break, it seemed.
Ankh-Morpork Guard
First Post
Chapter 242: Breathing
The scene was hauntingly familiar, despite the fact that they were on a much larger ship this time. Hundreds of Alraxians were gathered around, guards and knights forming a perimeter of sorts to give Shadow, Jyren, his father, and the group of Redstars at least some breathing room. All around, whispered murmuring could be heard, but no actual words could be distinguished...for everyone but Jyren, the Network was also ablaze with activity.
Activity that quickly ended, as did any small noises around the gigantic cabin in the huge ship, Thor. What Jyren had come to figure as a form of a holoscreen was ‘built’(or grown, whatever) into the bulkhead(...interior?) Of the living ship at one end of he cabin. It was where everyone was looking, with Shadow standing in front, Jyren just behind her and his father next to him.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered quietly to the older Alraxian.
Navik Keros sighed and nodded, “No one does, son.”
Even if Jyren had figured something else to say(and he felt like he should...this was his father, and a man who deserved more than passing comments here and there after all these years), there was no longer a chance to speak. The image on the holoscreen shimmered slightly before forming a true image.
[Good luck.] Jyren sent through the link, only standing back from Shadow because he could feel she wanted(no, needed) to do this on her own.
She did allow herself a quick glance over her shoulder to him, though. [Luck’s not going to have anything to do with this...but thanks.]
When she turned back to face the screen, Shadow was looking into a mirror...well, if she had been grinning. Nine was. Shadow wasn’t. There was little other visible differences between the two of them. All of the Alraxians throughout the ship and even the fleet(if you could call it that) held their breath.
“No running away this time?” Nine asked, tilting her head and obviously trying to put on a show for the entire Empire which she very well knew was watching.
Shadow didn’t move, but her eyes did narrow and her ears flattened slightly, “I do not run.”
Alright, so that wasn’t a literal truth...but it was necessary. This was much, much more a show for the Alraxian Empire than it was for Nine, Shadow, or Jyren. The three of them knew where this had been, and where it was going...but the Alraxians didn’t...and they still couldn’t help but be unsure of their new Empress. It was her time to display resolve and strength, even if she had to lie.
The Empire collectively began breathing again.
Nine, however, laughed in that haunting laugh of a psychotic murderer. When the short laugh passed, her toothy smile remained...but she said nothing. When it became apparent exactly what she was waiting on to be said from Shadow, the Empire held its breath a second time.
“You have no honour, Nine,” Shadow said without emotion, “But to regain my honour and to protect the Empire, I challenge you...and only you.”
The Empire started breathing again.
Nine smiled, but something seemed to catch her eye out of view. It was only a slight shift, but Shadow caught it. Nine’s tone then quickly changed, “Coordinates have been sent. You have one hour before I grow impatient.”
And then it cut off. Shadow turned and saw the somewhat confused look on Jyren’s face. [She is not with Ket.]
[But what about...Kyren?]
Shadow did not show any sign of weakness, especially since all eyes were now on her and Jyren...and despite the fact that no one could hear them, it was obvious they were deciding what to do. [I will have to deal with that. Nine is more important now, though.]
Restraining a nod and trying to look as neutral as Shadow did, Jyren responded after a moment. [You can’t handle both of them at once.]
[Nine won’t try that.] then, noting the sudden confusion at this, Shadow clarified. [She will face me alone. It is the only way to prove how strong she is...the Empire will be watching.]
[She could still cheat.] Jyren admitted.
[But then she would look weak.]
The link echoed the silence of the cabin. It lasted for a few very long seconds.
Then. [You want me to stay here, don’t you?]
It was then that Shadow showed her first sign of emotion...a soft nod and a sad look. [You know why.]
Jyren took a step closer, suddenly not liking the fact that he wasn’t actually hearing her voice and instead just picking up on thoughts. Quietly, he whispered, “Can you do this alone?”
“I have to,” she whispered back, suddenly much more keenly aware of the fact that they were now speaking out loud and at least a few Alraxians would be able to hear them. She looked up to Jyren after catching a stray thought through the link. After a deep breath and a difficult decision, Shadow said quietly, “Do it.”
“Huh?” Jyren raised an eyebrow, oblivious as usual.
Shadow couldn’t help a hint of a grin, but it quickly faded when she completely realized what she was saying to him, “You don’t want to sit here and do nothing...and you don’t have to.”
It suddenly dawned on him just exactly what she was talking about, “You’re serious?”
She managed a slow nod, “I trust you.”
“Alone?” he raised an eyebrow, not sure if she was thinking that far along with him.
To his surprise, she nodded again, “Its too late any other way.”
Silence. Even those who had heard them didn’t know what was really being said. Half the conversation had been unspoken, anyway. Jyren even wondered if he was really on the same page as Shadow was. There was still that chance she actually meant something else...there was just no way...
“I’ll deal with Nine...you find Ket and protect our home,” Shadow said a little too loudly.
The few who heard and suddenly understood stared blankly at the two. Slowly, the realization grew that they both needed to move immediately. Separate paths again...suddenly not all that happy they’d actually agreed, Jyren embraced her tightly. Shadow returned the gesture and then surprised Jyren(well, and the Empire as a whole to a point) and kissed him.
[This is the one time you’re not allowed to do anything stupid.] she sent calmly through the link. That was, of course, ignoring the fact that the entire idea was, in the first place, not only stupid but completely and utterly insane.
The scene was hauntingly familiar, despite the fact that they were on a much larger ship this time. Hundreds of Alraxians were gathered around, guards and knights forming a perimeter of sorts to give Shadow, Jyren, his father, and the group of Redstars at least some breathing room. All around, whispered murmuring could be heard, but no actual words could be distinguished...for everyone but Jyren, the Network was also ablaze with activity.
Activity that quickly ended, as did any small noises around the gigantic cabin in the huge ship, Thor. What Jyren had come to figure as a form of a holoscreen was ‘built’(or grown, whatever) into the bulkhead(...interior?) Of the living ship at one end of he cabin. It was where everyone was looking, with Shadow standing in front, Jyren just behind her and his father next to him.
“I don’t like this,” he whispered quietly to the older Alraxian.
Navik Keros sighed and nodded, “No one does, son.”
Even if Jyren had figured something else to say(and he felt like he should...this was his father, and a man who deserved more than passing comments here and there after all these years), there was no longer a chance to speak. The image on the holoscreen shimmered slightly before forming a true image.
[Good luck.] Jyren sent through the link, only standing back from Shadow because he could feel she wanted(no, needed) to do this on her own.
She did allow herself a quick glance over her shoulder to him, though. [Luck’s not going to have anything to do with this...but thanks.]
When she turned back to face the screen, Shadow was looking into a mirror...well, if she had been grinning. Nine was. Shadow wasn’t. There was little other visible differences between the two of them. All of the Alraxians throughout the ship and even the fleet(if you could call it that) held their breath.
“No running away this time?” Nine asked, tilting her head and obviously trying to put on a show for the entire Empire which she very well knew was watching.
Shadow didn’t move, but her eyes did narrow and her ears flattened slightly, “I do not run.”
Alright, so that wasn’t a literal truth...but it was necessary. This was much, much more a show for the Alraxian Empire than it was for Nine, Shadow, or Jyren. The three of them knew where this had been, and where it was going...but the Alraxians didn’t...and they still couldn’t help but be unsure of their new Empress. It was her time to display resolve and strength, even if she had to lie.
The Empire collectively began breathing again.
Nine, however, laughed in that haunting laugh of a psychotic murderer. When the short laugh passed, her toothy smile remained...but she said nothing. When it became apparent exactly what she was waiting on to be said from Shadow, the Empire held its breath a second time.
“You have no honour, Nine,” Shadow said without emotion, “But to regain my honour and to protect the Empire, I challenge you...and only you.”
The Empire started breathing again.
Nine smiled, but something seemed to catch her eye out of view. It was only a slight shift, but Shadow caught it. Nine’s tone then quickly changed, “Coordinates have been sent. You have one hour before I grow impatient.”
And then it cut off. Shadow turned and saw the somewhat confused look on Jyren’s face. [She is not with Ket.]
[But what about...Kyren?]
Shadow did not show any sign of weakness, especially since all eyes were now on her and Jyren...and despite the fact that no one could hear them, it was obvious they were deciding what to do. [I will have to deal with that. Nine is more important now, though.]
Restraining a nod and trying to look as neutral as Shadow did, Jyren responded after a moment. [You can’t handle both of them at once.]
[Nine won’t try that.] then, noting the sudden confusion at this, Shadow clarified. [She will face me alone. It is the only way to prove how strong she is...the Empire will be watching.]
[She could still cheat.] Jyren admitted.
[But then she would look weak.]
The link echoed the silence of the cabin. It lasted for a few very long seconds.
Then. [You want me to stay here, don’t you?]
It was then that Shadow showed her first sign of emotion...a soft nod and a sad look. [You know why.]
Jyren took a step closer, suddenly not liking the fact that he wasn’t actually hearing her voice and instead just picking up on thoughts. Quietly, he whispered, “Can you do this alone?”
“I have to,” she whispered back, suddenly much more keenly aware of the fact that they were now speaking out loud and at least a few Alraxians would be able to hear them. She looked up to Jyren after catching a stray thought through the link. After a deep breath and a difficult decision, Shadow said quietly, “Do it.”
“Huh?” Jyren raised an eyebrow, oblivious as usual.
Shadow couldn’t help a hint of a grin, but it quickly faded when she completely realized what she was saying to him, “You don’t want to sit here and do nothing...and you don’t have to.”
It suddenly dawned on him just exactly what she was talking about, “You’re serious?”
She managed a slow nod, “I trust you.”
“Alone?” he raised an eyebrow, not sure if she was thinking that far along with him.
To his surprise, she nodded again, “Its too late any other way.”
Silence. Even those who had heard them didn’t know what was really being said. Half the conversation had been unspoken, anyway. Jyren even wondered if he was really on the same page as Shadow was. There was still that chance she actually meant something else...there was just no way...
“I’ll deal with Nine...you find Ket and protect our home,” Shadow said a little too loudly.
The few who heard and suddenly understood stared blankly at the two. Slowly, the realization grew that they both needed to move immediately. Separate paths again...suddenly not all that happy they’d actually agreed, Jyren embraced her tightly. Shadow returned the gesture and then surprised Jyren(well, and the Empire as a whole to a point) and kissed him.
[This is the one time you’re not allowed to do anything stupid.] she sent calmly through the link. That was, of course, ignoring the fact that the entire idea was, in the first place, not only stupid but completely and utterly insane.