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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1851091" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 43: Some Days Never End“Yes!” Voort growled as he wove the smoking airspeeder between two of the larger buildings at the edge of the city district, “Yes! I said we’re going to jump!”    “You’re insane!” Jen cried, having to yell over the sound of the laser blasts behind them and the fire on the back of the speeder.    In the distance, the folded wings of the shuttle on its platform could be seen. There wasn’t much time left for arguing, and Jen knew Voort was right. There was no way they’d have time to slow down and land the speeder without getting themselves killed. So...jump onto the platform and get the ship up and running and hope that it doesn’t get shot to pieces before lifting off. Again, unlikely.    “I can slow the fall with the Force,” Voort said, his voice growing strangely calm as they neared the shuttle more and more.    Jen was undoing the crash webbing over her and took a deep breath, “I thought they wanted to arrest us, not kill us.”    “Priorities can change,” replied Voort, hitting a few switches and undoing his own restraints, “We’ll pass in a way to need to go out your side. You go first, I’ll hold onto your hand and then slow us both.”    “They’ll see us jump,” grumbled Jen, taking Voort hand anyway and edging towards the side of the closed hatch.    Voort shrugged, “Hopefully it will surprise them so much that it’ll buy us more time.”    Another shot then hit the ship, shaking it violently. The biggest problem was how they were now shaking...not the fact that there were multiple other explosions in the back of the speeder. The ship was rocking so that the sides were moving up and down in such a way that ever few seconds, Jen lost sight of what was below her. Talk about a leap of faith...she glanced over her should to Voort, who nodded but said nothing.    Jen took one deep breath, then hit the switch for the hatch. It opened upwards, sending a huge rush of air caused by their tremendous speed to slam into Jen. She was surprised for only a moment, and then just jumped, not even having heard Voort yelling for her to go because of the roar of the wind. They were probably about thirty meters above the platform. Which meant another few...hundred meters to the ground below if they missed. But it was too late now, they were falling. Voort had pulled her back and grabbed onto her, and looked to be in a state of deep focus. He was...and they weren’t slowing. Jen got no chance to look back, but could hear the roar of the starfighters shoot past them, which was soon drowned out by a very loud explosion. The airspeeder.    The whole time, she was simply watching the platform below, rising up at a very alarming rate. Luckily, it looked like they were going to miss slamming into the shuttle and becoming a nice smear on the ship. Though Jen was starting to think they were just going to make a smear on the platform next to the ship. Then, finally, she felt something. It was like a large wall almost, surrounding them and pushing against the fall. As the force of the resisting push increased, Voort did his best to roll them around so he was under her, meaning he would take the brunt of the fall.  Of course, now they were both facing upwards, not able to tell how close the platform was anymore. But they were slowing...hopefully it would be–    Jen’s thoughts were quickly cut off by the hard and extremely painful thud of landing on Voort who’d hit the platform less than a second before her. Pain shot through her spine, then neck, head, and entire body as she rolled across the platform. Her vision was blurry by the time she’d come to a stop, and when a hand grabbed her arm and yanked her to her feet, she had trouble standing. Not just from dizziness, but also from the pain the fall had caused. But she didn’t fell all of it...shock hid most of that for the time being.    From what she could tell from the speed she was being pulled along, Voort was in about the same state. Except he seemed to have more willpower than she did. Before she knew it, Jen found herself inside the shuttle’s main cabin being placed not so gently into one of the seats. As her vision and awareness returned, she started to wonder which bones she’d broken. Left leg at least...the shuttle rocked. A laser blast. But it didn’t detonate. Which meant Voort had gotten the ship online and brought the shields up. Not a moment later, the hum of the repulsorlift engines sounded through the hull.     Feeling the ship beginning to rise up, Jen did her best to stand up and got to the cockpit as best as she could. Flopping down in the co-pilot’s chair, Jen watched the skyline of Coruscant fall below them. Voort had said something, but she didn’t hear it. She could barely hear much beyond the sound of the sublight engines, which had kicked in and were sending them out of the atmosphere of Coruscant. They were still being pursued, though Jen’s only notice of this was through the soft rocking of the shuttle as its shields were damaged. Thankfully, the shields were very strong. Though at the same time, Voort wasn’t at all a bad pilot, maneuvering the ship safely out of the way through the few things that the shuttle could manage. The debris and many ships in orbit around Coruscant was dizzying.     Jen caught sight of more than one capital starship angling towards them, with many other smaller ships doing the same. Her head was still spinning and the adrenaline was slowing down, pain and exhaustion returning in its place. She looked to Voort, deep in focus as he tried to keep them alive, and opened her mouth to say something. No words came out, though, and the blackness she’d been fighting back for the last few minutes finally consumed her.</blockquote>

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