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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1871647" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 61: It Never Seems to Get BetterThere is a saying that pertains to the best laid plans of mice and men. For some reason, this excludes felines and reptiles. Currently, in two locations across Arranis at nearly the exact same moment, three of those types of creatures were finding that their well laid plans were most definitely crumbling. While in the middle of the desert under the dim moonlight, the humans and reptiles did what they could to salvage their lives from a costly and foolish mistake, within the walled city of Haladin, a pair felines were having a similar problem.    All had gone well as they got to a landspeeder to leave the city with, when something just snapped, not unlike what occurred in the desert. It was hard to figure out exactly what it was that went wrong, but there were likely a number of factors. Major ones included the shredded and hole-ridden condition of Akan’s robe, the fact that Shadow refused to morph back to human, and the three unconscious bodies now strewn across the ground in front of the speeder. They’d asked a question in a language Shadow didn’t understand, and before Shira had a chance to answer it, weapons were drawn. Shadow reacted by knocking them out, but there hadn’t been time to hide the bodies before more arrived.    Now, the three of them were crouched behind a low wall, ten meters from the speeder. A short distance that they were tempted to make a break for, if not for the group of angry Narani who were firing slugthrowers at them.    “I didn’t see anyone else!!” Shadow growled at Akan as he fired his blaster over the wall, not really doing anything but trying to keep the Narani back.    Akan just glared at her, crouching down carefully and trying to find a way out of this. They’d be in a lot of trouble if the Narani came around from behind them. Shira, who had drawn a small slugthrower pistol fired off a couple of shots in the direction of their attackers before ducking back behind the wall. Accusingly, she looked to Shadow, “I was about to tell them that they were invading our privacy and insulting our honor! They would have left us!”    Shadow’s glare was icy cold, though she said nothing to the girl. Akan ducked back down below the wall and cursed as a shot skimmed right off the top, nearly taking some of his hair with it. With a relieved look on his face, he turned his attention to the two females who looked about ready to murder each other. Or rather, Shadow would skin Shira. No question about that. Raising his blaster and getting ready to fire another volley, he said to them, “Will you two stop bickering and figure out how we get to that speeder?!”    After only getting off two shots, Akan was dragged back down under the cover by Shadow. She gave him a ‘you’re an idiot’ look and ‘said’. [Give me the blaster. Then stand up, draw attention, and do what you’re best at.]    Akan paused a moment, but handed her the weapon and figured out what she was saying. He unhooked the lightsaber from his belt and looked to Shira, “Stay with Shadow.”    Then, he pivoted up to his feet and activated the blue-green lightsaber. All the shots started turning on him, and he rolled to the side to give the other two a good amount of room as he did what he was best at: Getting shot at. If his shredded robe didn’t prove that, then nothing in the galaxy could. It was no problem at all deflecting the shots from the slugthrowers. These Narani were definitely good marksman, but the speed of the weapons was much less than that of a blaster, giving Akan even more time to allow the Force to guide his lightsaber.    Through their link, Akan relayed the positions of where the Narani were. It was problematic, as they were using the speeder and garage for cover. Shadow seemed to be working something out, and every few seconds she sprayed the area with blaster fire, as Shira did with her slugthrower. It kept the Narani on their toes and forced them to deal with Akan now directly in front of them(which played havoc with their cover) and the two others firing from off to the side. As Akan continued to move, attempting to get even more attention by slowly moving forward, Shadow grabbed Shira’s arm.    The girl gave Shadow a confused look, and Shadow said sharply, “Five more steps, and we run to the speeder. Understand?”    Shira nodded, then turned to fire off two more shots. She sighed when she turned back, sitting back against the wall. Out of ammunition. Shira had fired off so many shots she’d lost count, and hearing that sudden ‘click’ was horrible. At least Shadow...no, Akan’s blaster was still firing without trouble.    Akan took the steps.    By the time Shira noticed this, Shadow had already jumped over the wall and was charging in with the blaster blazing. Shira spun around and got to her feet, following and noticing that Akan was only a few meters from the speeder now. The Narani had mostly fled behind the garage itself, though a couple of foolish ones had stayed in the garage itself. They quickly received blaster bolts from Shadow. This did not, however, stop the others from shooting once they’d gotten to more cover. Akan was now standing on the opposite side of the speeder, though, keeping the shots from getting to either Shira or Shadow, behind him.    The two of them got in, and Shira started up the speeder while Shadow tugged at Akan, “Get in!”    Because there was no cover over the speeder, all Akan had to do was step back and then hop into the back section while watching where his lightsaber was. He managed to turn around, sitting up and turning back to face the Narani who continued to fire on them. He continue to deflect the shots just as Shira cut the main engines on, and they shot forward and out of Haladin.    The sudden motion had sent Akan to the side, nearly falling off the back of the speeder in the process. The lightsaber was deactivated by reflex, and it was a good thing as Akan’s face would have contacted the blade if it was still there. Pulling himself back down to the seat, Akan gave one last look to the dim lights of the city, then turned back to the night ahead of them.    The speeder wobbled slightly for a moment, and Shadow spun around to look at Akan as if it was his fault. Managing a weak shrug, he turned his attention to Shira. She looked...well, no it was hard to tell in the dark, but she did look pale. Pale. Strange. Then he noticed her robe looked darker on her shoulder.    “Shadow can you pilot this thing?” Akan asked, moving over and getting ready to drag Shira into the back.    [I can try...where are we going, all knowing one?] Shadow asked in a far too casual manner considering the situation they’d just gotten out of.    [Anywhere but Haladin.] replied Akan as he reached over and, to Shira’s surprise, pulled her up and over into the back of the speeder with him. This was easy because he’d taken the time to return to his stronger Alraxian form. That was a second surprise from Shira, but it quickly passed as he pulled the robe off her shoulder, “You should have mention you were hit.”    She just shrugged, “Its not bad.”    “Its bad enough,” Akan commented with a shiver, realizing the sudden drop in temperature. In fact, his body was feeling more uncomfortable that usual. Trying to ignore this, Akan did his best to tend to the Shira’s wound. Quickly, he found that she could do much better herself, and he was soon just holding the robe while she cleaned the blood off herself.    Shadow’s voice suddenly interrupted his thoughts. [Human again...we’ll freeze without the morphsuits.]    As she ‘said’ that, Akan noticed that the dark shape that was Shadow shrunk slightly, and the white hair became fully black. Waiting until Shira wasn’t looking, Akan followed suit and was back to his human body after only a few minutes. Sure, it was his...but he was getting used to being Alraxian and all this changing was getting to him.    “There should be a small cave somewhere near one of the larger rocks,” Shira commented.    Neither Akan nor Shadow had to mention that there were a lot of rocks that qualified as ‘large’. And then, Akan heard a noise which horrified him. It was not something that one usually worried about while in a landspeeder, but considering where they’d just left, it was most definitely something to worry about. It was the distinctive sound of a turbolaser battery firing.    And not half a second later, the ground behind the speeder erupted in a shower of sand, rock, and flame. Shadow had barely enough time to react, pulling the speeder to the side enough that instead of flipping back over front, it went into a roll. The strength of the repulsor units within the speeder itself was not enough to hold them in as they usually did, and the three of them were thrown to the ground as the speeder slammed into a rock not twenty meters away. None of them had stopped moving when a second shot from the turbolaser battery was heard, but Akan had been too disoriented and hit a rock hard before getting a chance to truly identify it.</blockquote>

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