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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1826521" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 23: Unique IdiocyJen had complained at him for five minutes. She was going to go along with this, of course, but wanted to make it very clear that she thought Akan was being a complete idiot. He understood this, and was trying to alleviate her fears. Most of them along the lines of ‘we’ll get shot’. In fact, all of them. Some involved getting shot later...but still, that was getting shot nonetheless.     The Frigate had just left hyperspace and was finishing up the transfer of Ansion’s personnel over to the Claw. Akan figured this was about the right time, so he and Jen were walking down the long corridor to the ‘cell’ where the Imperial was being kept. It wasn’t as much a cell, rather a well guarded small room. Technically, well guarded meant two armed men at the door. This was really only to prevent the Imperial from leaving. No one could possibly be stupid enough to attempt to break him out.    No one, except Akan Ta...BlueIce. As they approached the door, Akan was glad to see that the only others visible in the corridor were the two guards. They wore simple vests and held large blaster pistols. Whatever conversation the two of them were having quickly stopped as they noticed he and Jen. Once he got close enough, Akan stepped over to the guard on the far side. Jen knew the plan. Hopefully she’d stick to it...    “Mind if I talk to the guy in there?” Akan asked innocently.    Both guards gave him one of those ‘are you stupid?’ looks that would have made Akan smile if he was as stupid as they seemed to think. The guard he stood in front of spoke flatly, “Not unless you’ve got some authorization.”    “Oh,” Akan smiled suddenly, “Good! I’ve got some right here.”    He then drew his blaster pistol fired a stun bolt at the guard. The blue rings covered the guard and he collapsed to the floor. At the same time, the other guard was drawing his weapon and opening his mouth to call for help. It was cut off by another stun bolt. This one from Jen’s blaster. Akan couldn’t help a smile as the second guard fell, “Thank you.”    “Lets get this over with,” she said, putting the blaster away. Akan nodded and knelt next to one of the guards. He shuffled trough the man’s chest pocket and pulled out a small card. It should unlock the door from the inside. When Akan stood up, Jen was reaching over and hit the switch to open the door. It slid open and revealed a room just barely larger than a storage closet. There was a small cot, and a desk that looked like it had been put together by Ewoks.    Sitting on the cot, the Imperial turned his head tiredly and gave them a slow look. He’d been about to say something then realized who was standing there. His mouth reformed new words, “You...”    “Listen,” Akan raised his hands to show he wasn’t going to attack, “You know where that man went with my friend?”    The Imperial nodded after a moment. His eyes widened slightly as realization dawned on him, “You’re breaking me out?”    “Only if you’ll help me,” said Akan, glancing back down the corridor and seeing no one still, “But you have to decide now. Don’t even think of betraying me, because she,” he nodded to Jen, who smiled to the Imperial, “She will shoot you. Are you in?”    The Imperial took no time to think about it. He nodded and started to get up, but Akan put up a hand to stop him and kicked in one of the guards, “Put on that. They’ll figure out you’re gone quickly, but that’ll at least give us some time.”    The man nodded and Jen and Akan waited. When the door closed again, Jen was grinning. Akan knew why. She might shoot that man, but not in the way Akan had threatened. It would be a stun shot. If it was normal bolt, it would be aimed at his foot and probably miss anyway.    “You realize that was the oldest line in the galaxy, don’t you?” Jen asked. Huh? What was she talking about?    “What do you mean?” Akan asked, genuinely confused. So maybe he was wrong in what she was grinning about.    She laughed and did her best imitation of Akan’s voice, “Good! I’ve got it right here.”    Akan couldn’t help but smile at that, shaking his head and shrugging, “He left it wide open. I had to. It was just too tempting to not say that.”    Jen was about to say something when the door opened and the Imperial stepped out wearing the guard’s uniform. In his hands was his olive green officer’s uniform. Akan sighed, but just told the man to hide it as best he could. They then made their way to the hangar. Once there, they had to explain that there were some things that the Imperial had that were left in the Y-Wing, and that’s why the guard was with them. Akan was going to give him the things before they left. Thankfully, it had worked and the hangar itself was fairly empty. The Y-Wing was also in an out of the way section that would provide at least some cover.    Suddenly, Akan winced. He’d forgotten to tell the Imperial an important detail. Carefully, he said over his shoulder, “Forgot to tell you something...important...”    “I don’t like this,” he responded slowly.    Akan grinned nervously, “We have a Y-Wing...and there’s not enough room...you’ll have to uh...ride in the cargo section.”    “What?!” thankfully, he kept his voice low with that one.        “We can turn around now and go back if you want,” Jen said before Akan knew how to respond. Whew. At least one of them was a quick thinker.    They walked around to the Y-Wing, and Akan moved to get the cargo compartment open, “Its cramped but we’ll take a short jump and then find a better ride.”    With a heavy sigh, the Imperial stepped over and climbed in the very small, cramped space. His last words were, “I’ve killed men for less than this.”    Then, Akan closed it and grimaced. Jen smiled and patted his shoulder, “That went well.”    They climbed up and got into the Y-Wing, getting clearance from the docking control to leave. He did not, however, contact the Claw. As they started to leave the small hangar of the frigate, Jen was preparing jump coordinates to a nearby system. Hopefully it wasn’t too long, because an irrate Imperial Officer like that man was not something Akan wanted to deal with after being cramped in the cockpit. There was something ironic in that, but he ignored it.    Just as the Y-Wing was pulling out of the hangar, the comm beeped and a voice came on, “Y-Wing! Return to the Frigate immediately!!”    “Great, they caught on already,” Akan cursed and quickly set the engines to full throttle, diverting as much as he could from the weapons systems. They rocketed out into space and Akan quickly started weaving as he knew they’d try to get a tractor beam lock on them. He glanced over his shoulder to Jen, “Get those coords quickly!”    “Power down your engines!” the voice called out over the comm, “If you do not comply we will be forced to fire.”    Yeah, yeah. They were always ‘forced’ to fire. On the HUD, a set of coordinates and a bearing appeared. Good, Jen had gotten it done. He started pulling the Y-Wing around when the frigate below lit up. Bright red blasts of energy shot up at them. That was not good. Nebulon-Bs, like Lancer Frigates, had been designed by the Empire as anti-starfighter ships. Their targeting systems were specifically designed to target small, faster ships. Y-Wings weren’t exactly the fastest, but a frigate like the one below them was better at aiming at such a ship than say, a Star Destroyer. A few shots missed, but suddenly the ship rocked violently. Akan cursed and called back to Jen, “Shields are out! Hitting it now...”    As he reached for the hyperspace lever, another of the frigate’s laser cannons fired and scored a hit. Where exactly the hit landed, Akan didn’t know, but there was a loud explosion, frying of systems within the cockpit, and they started to roll. The biggest problem was that Akan was already pulling the hyperspace lever...and from what happened next, he knew the system wasn’t damaged.    The stars extended, and they shot out into hyperspace. Except the roll had pulled them into a different bearing. Akan had no idea where they were going. Jen had cried out but a sudden silence engulfed the cockpit as they both realized the danger of what had just happened. Neither even thought about the fact that the Imperial in the cargo compartment(which was on the underbelly of the cockpit) could be dead. What worried them was that they were blindly flying through hyperspace. They could easily fly through a star, planet, or some object.    In a disturbingly calm voice, Jen said, “I’ll...try to figure out our trajectory...”    “Yeah...” Akan said with a slow nod as he went to figuring out the extent of the damage...not that it would matter if they didn’t make it out of hyperspace, “Yeah, you do that.”</blockquote>

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