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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 1968175" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 129: Out of the Forest, Into the VoidShadow sat over a small patch of branches, loose earth, and other muck of Endor. In front of her was a pile of rocks, mixed in with the rest. She had just watched for a short time, but soon found that emotion of all things was beginning to cloud her ability to meditate. Five minutes passed before she got to her feet and looked up to the canopy far above. Birds and other creatures moved here and there, of which she could both smell and hear, but not see. However, that didn’t change the body buried at her feet. It didn’t change anything. It didn’t effect anything at all.    In a sudden bout of rage, Shadow screamed a curse and kicked at the heavy pile as hard as she could, “You damned fool! You should have known! You should have just stayed home!!” slowly, her voice trailed off and she stared down at the still covered metal corpse. Her voice returned, speaking in a near whisper, “You should have stayed home...we’re not supposed to kill each other. You deserved better than this. We all do.”    Akan had been standing behind her for only a short time. He kept quiet, not really sure what to say. Something about how she said ‘we’ didn’t seem to include him...or all Alraxians for that matter. He waited a little longer, watching as she knelt down again and just watched the pile. Through the link, he could feel her mind was racing through a million thoughts, but it was near impossible to understand any of it. Except for one thing. It was like he was sneaking into a place with the enemy’s hand on his shoulder the entire time. Shadow knew he was standing there. She also knew he was listening in on her thoughts.    Without turning to look at him and using that classic Shadow voice, she said, “So you’re walking now. Quick change of moods, too.”    “We have to go,” Akan said, ignoring her lighter comments. Outwardly ignoring, at least.    Shadow turned around to look at him, picking out the necessary information through the link(he either wasn’t good at hiding his thoughts, or didn’t try) and then nodding. She got to her feet and then started off towards Loki and the other ships, Akan right next to her. As she walked at a quick, yet still comfortably patient pace, she called out to her ship. [Loki, going for a little ride. Get yourself ready to go.]    [Oooh, finally!] the ship responded in his usual happy-to-be-flying mood. [Better get here quickly or I’ll leave without you!]    Even Shadow grinned at that. Somehow, it was just impossible to not love a ship that threatened to leave you behind. Sure, he didn’t have weapons. And even if he did, they wouldn’t pack that much of a punch. But that just added to Loki’s thirst for adventure. Shadow couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened with him if he’d not been given to her...Marix. Or maybe the adventurous attitude had been learned. Either way, he was the best ship she’d ever known.    Not too far away, but at the same time an entire galaxy apart from the Alraxians, the three humans crouched under the nose of the X-Wing. They had been there for about five minutes, trying to figure out how to get the small tracking device off. Simple pulling had failed, as had some more technical and probably less dangerous ways. Titus had mentioned that he could cut it off with his lightsaber(though that would require getting it off the Alderaan), but Jen had shot that down very quickly. Apparently, the thing was just too close to the main sensor array in the nose cone. Hansen had then asked about why they even cared about the X-Wing.    That had got the woman a glare from both Voorts, who knew Akan far too well by now. Especially Jen. New toys were bad enough with most males, in her opinion, but a new starship for a starfighter pilot? There was just no comparison to that. Of course, if they didn’t get the tracking device off the ship, then there was no way it could leave the planet with them. As she sat and stared blankly at the small, cylindrical object, Jen noticed that Titus had stood up.    Before she could ask, he motioned for the two women to get out of the way. Jen opened her mouth to protest, not liking that he wanted them to move. She did not, however, have a chance to speak before he acted. Titus planted his feet and then, after a deep breath, delivered a strong kick to the device. On instinct, Jen closed her eyes and shielded her face from what would have to be an explosion. But all that came was a loud metallic clank, a horrible ripping sound, and then a soft thumping and crumbling noise. When Jen opened her eyes again, she saw the small object on the ground on the other side of the X-Wing.    The two Voorts exchanged looks, and Jen shrugged, “Brutes will be brutes.”    “Quiet, brains. It worked,” Titus grinned and hugged her.    And then, a sound rang out through the clearing in the forest. All three of them knew it, and all three reacted in the same way. Dropping to the ground and reaching for weapons didn’t stop the blaster shot from nearly taking off Titus’ face. It did, however, prove to him that he should have been carrying that lightsaber with him. He didn’t even have a blaster. But that didn’t matter. They were in the open, just under the X-Wing. None of them had weapons on them from the look of it. And they were being fired on. That single shot was soon joined by many others, and all three of them caught sight of a group of soldiers emptying into the clearing just beyond where the Alderaan was positioned. In a moment, they would be between the three of them and the ship.    “Straight ahead,” Titus said, yanking Jen onto her feet and making sure Hansen was alright. She didn’t need help up. Probably didn’t want it, either. Everyone on their feet, the three started running, and Jen heard Titus quietly saying, “Focus on the ship.”    It was a twenty meter run from the X-Wing to the Alderaan II. The world was a blur as their feet, and Titus’ arm in Jen’s case, pulled them across the uneven ground to the small access ramp of the shuttle. Distantly, they heard the sound of a yell from one of the troopers on the ground, and a moment later blaster fire started. It was a barrage of red coming at them, but somehow Jen focused on Titus’ words. Focus on the ship. Straight ahead. The ship. Ignore the death coming at you. And then Jen heard a noise that made her heart jump to new heights. The sounds of footsteps on ground changed. They clanked. Metal. The ship! Her eyes had somehow missed the fact that they were heading up the ramp now!    As the last few steps were made up into the ship, the ground and trees of Endor were cut off by the sleek metal panels of the Alderaan II. Adrenaline faded and minds calmed down to focus on the next task at hand. And then another sound rang out. Or rather, a series of sounds. First, over the constant noise of the blaster fire, the Voorts heard a cry of pain. Both of them spun around at the edge of the access ramp to look down. They saw Hansen, a large black mark on the side of her right leg, spin slightly and then tumble back down the ramp in a series of painful cracks and bangs. Blaster fire followed her, and in a moment she was silenced. The smell of ozone and burnt flesh rose up into the ship’s cabin.    Out of both necessity and anger, Titus slammed his hand on the switch to bring the ramp up into the ship. Jen caught his eye, managing to speak, “Shouldn’t we—“    ”There won’t be time to mourn if we’re dead, too,” Titus said sharply, though his face showed a mix of grief and sympathy. He then turned and started off to the cockpit to get the ship into the sky. Jen was right behind him, dropping into her seat at his right and helping him to get the ship ready. With the two of them working together, they had gotten it down to an art. They could half the usual warm up time for the engines, though the shields and small weapon systems would still take a little while longer. Right now, engines were all that mattered. As they started the ship rising into the sky, tiny tremors arced through the ship. Blaster fire. Personal weapons hitting the still unshielded hull. It wouldn’t do any permanent damage beyond some blaster scoring on the underside of the ship, though it was unnerving.     “Plot a course to ahh...” Titus paused a moment to look over the star charts while Jen piloted the ship, “Anoat’s far enough away that it would be tough to track us.”    “Why would we ever go to Anoat?!” Jen gave him an are-you-crazy look but started keying in the coordinates anyway. At the same time, he took over the piloting.    Titus also grinned as the ship started through the atmosphere, the shields finally coming, “Exactly. Good place to stop and think.”    “What about Akan and Shadow?” Jen asked the question before she’d realized that she was speaking.    “Ah, right, almost forgot,” he then reached over and flipped a couple other switches to his left, “Once you’ve finished getting the coordinates ready, transmit them to Loki.”    The sensor system started beeping, and both Voorts looked to the screen. Two Nebulon-B Frigates and a small Corellian Gunship. They were orbiting the planet not far off, and all three were trying to get targeting locks. But no fighters. That seemed odd. Or at least, out of character for the way the New Republic usually worked. Unlike the Empire, they were very fighter oriented instead of capital ship based. The coordinates plotted in, Jen turned to fire up the meager weapons system on the shuttle. She did it more out of habit than anything. There wasn’t any good that the small weapons could do against capital ships, but it was comforting somehow.    Titus banked the ship off to starboard, putting more power to the engines and hoping to get out before finding out why the ship’s were trying to lock onto them. The problem, which Titus knew and had a feeling Jen knew nothing about, was that Gunship. Those things had strong engines, and would likely be able to catch up with them before the two frigates. And, per its namesake, the Gunship was much better armed. He managed a short look to Jen, who was focusing off in space and not noticing him.    Then the ship rocked. She turned to him with a surprised look just before it shook again, more violently. Titus pulled his eyes away from her to try putting more power into the engines. The third shake nearly threw them into the forward consoles. With a curse, he gave up and cut the power to the engines. He sighed heavily, and sat back in the chair, “Tractor beam. Strong one.”    “And we aren’t fighting it...why now?” Jen asked, leaning over and giving him a critical stare.    He motioned to the console in front of them, “Fight it too hard and we’ll blow the engines. We could try that, but this is a new ship, and I thought you liked it.”    Her looked became more understanding, and Jen nodded slowly, “Guess that makes sense. Now what?”    “Now we wait,” Titus said quietly, reaching over to put a hand on hers. He said nothing else, but Jen could tell he was worried about this. Obviously for her, not for himself. She squeezed his hand gently and wished there was something useful to say.    Eventually, after only a couple of minutes of being pulled in, she smiled and said, “The kids will come and cause some trouble.”    That even got a smile on Titus’ face, and he leaned over to kiss her cheek, “Wish I could be more useful. Am I so old now that I can’t cause some trouble with the kids?”    Laughing, Jen returned the kiss, “Save the best for last. You can show those two up when they least expect it.”    It was amazing how they had completely forgotten about Hansen. For the moment, at least.* * * *Back on the ground, the two Alraxians stood at the edge of the clearing. Between them, they’d counted ten troopers on the ground. All had heavy blaster rifles and actually looked to be well trained from the way they examined the area before starting to move in to the two remaining ships. The X-Wing was being ignore, and the troopers were focusing on carefully inspecting Loki. Both Shadow and Akan had convinced the ship to ‘lock up’ as it were but do nothing else to give himself away as being...alive. But it was lasting a little too long. And then, Loki said something worrying to the two of them.    [An orbiting ship is attempting to attain a lock on me.]    Shadow and Akan exchanged looks. Then, Shadow quickly said. [Can you throw the lock off...or...something?!]    Akan was surprised at how nervous and panicked she sounded. Those were desperate solutions, and the ship responded with a definite ‘no’. An idea came to Akan’s mind. Earlier, the ship had reported that the Alderaan II had been brought into the hangar bay of one of the frigates. Before then, though, a set of coordinates had been transmitted to him. He knew Shadow wasn’t going to like the idea, but Akan suggested it anyway. [Loki, can you get yourself out to those coordinates without us?]    Shadow shot him a horrified, angry, and all together ‘I will maul you’ look, but said nothing. There was a short pause, then the ship responded in a more careful tone. [I...can. But I do not want to go...go alone.]    [There’s no other choice] Akan said back, slowly and as kindly as he could manage while trying to ignore Shadow’s death glare. [Send the coordinates to the X-Wing’s computer. Its offline now, but should be able to receive them. We’ll be right behind you, Loki. I promise.]    In the short time he and Loki had known each other, they had developed a very strong friendship. Perhaps it was because of Akan being a pilot. It wasn’t that Shadow wasn’t a good pilot for Loki, and in fact she was still the closest thing Loki had to a sister. But Akan was new. Interesting. And a well trained pilot. Between them, they had developed an interesting trust along with the friendship. One very unique thing that Akan had learned about the ship was its devotion to promises. According to Loki, one never made a promise if they couldn’t go through with it. Shadow said that Marix’s dead brother, Tobias, had taught the ship that when Loki was young. A quirk that had stuck, and one that really wasn’t all that bad. If Loki could have nodded to Akan’s ‘words’, he would have.    [It...it is the only choice. Good luck. I will...see you when you get there.] And then, to the surprise of all the troopers who were getting out of the way already, Loki lifted off. The speed at which the ship moved was amazing, and it was only a matter of seconds before the Kanyak was shooting off into the sky. Akan looked to Shadow, who was still glaring violently at him.    Before she said anything, he just motioned to the X-Wing, “Lets argue later for once.”    “Fine,” Shadow said tersely, though a nod was added into it and she then asked, “Are you planning on leaving the Voorts like they left Hansen?”    They had both seen the body. However, it had not really had any effect on them. Neither of them had really been all that close with the woman...and Akan would have been lying to say he liked her. But a death was a death. And there was a body sprawled out on the ground not too far off. Tearing his eyes off of the corpse, he looked back to the X-Wing, which was now being swarmed by the troopers, “No, I wasn’t. Besides, I doubt you’d let me if I was.”    “Of course not,” Shadow said in that matter of fact tone, “We don’t leave friends behind.”    A silence. It was short, but long enough to let the point sink in for the both of them. Once it had, they both turned to look at how to get into that ship. Shadow had the situation analyzed quickly, and announced what they were going to be doing whether he liked it or not. [Morph. They won’t expect Alarix and you need to use that more often.]    Akan would have complained if he knew she wasn’t right. For a long time now, she had bugged him about using his ‘natural abilities’ more often. Morphing was one of those, and since she had a talent for it, he naturally would also. And also, an Alarix was enough to still terrify him. A large, panther-like creature that came up to waste height was worrying enough. The extremely sharp teeth, large paws with long claws on them, and mane-like fur running along the feline’s spine to its tail just added to the intimidation. Shadow gave him no warning before she started out of their hiding spot, morphing in mid stride. Akan followed her, though not nearly as quick to morph.Both of the large, feline creatures stalked forward with that dangerous predatory silence. Akan found it hard not to allow a soft growl out as they snuck up behind the troopers, but thankfully he had enough sense to not give away the element of surprise. There was an unspoken, mental ‘now!’ from Shadow, and they pounced. Literally. In a quick second, two of the troopers were face down, unmoving from long claw marks on the back and heavy teeth marks near the neck. The other two nearest to them had a quick moment to turn and even let out a yell before they were also pounced on. The two were pinned down and silenced with a thick bite to the neck. Akan still couldn’t get used to that...but it worked, and was the natural inclination for this body to attack with.    The two of them then began a charge around the X-Wing, attempting a simple circular attack until the reached the last of the troopers. But now the soldiers had more time to react. Akan jumped to the side, avoiding a quick blaster shot that singed some fur. With a growl, he pulled back on his back legs before diving in at the human. A paw batted down the blaster rifle, sending it to the ground a moment before Akan landed. The force of his weight brought the soldier down onto his back, and he managed a quick punch to Akan’s face before receiving a swift bite to the neck. Akan found himself having trouble fighting the urge to tear the rest of the man to pieces, and nearly took another blaster shot in the process. This wasn’t going to work any longer. Getting back onto all fours and starting in a run, he tried that multitasking technique Shadow had mentioned being extremely important. As he morphed back in mid dive, Akan finally understood why.    The sight surprised the trooper so much that he dropped his rifle and nearly fell back on his own. The poor man watched in complete detail as the huge feline changed into a large humanoid feline that had a...a grin on his face! That was the last thing that was seen before a strong punch hit the man, and he dropped with a thud. Akan didn’t even looked ahead anymore, this time turning back to the clearing they’d come from. His belt was still back there. Lightsaber and blaster were with it. Metal had this habit of not being a good idea to morph, so they had to be left behind in such situations. The only reason he didn’t worry about being shot in the back was that he knew...and could feel through the link, that Shadow had things handled on her own.    He was right. Shadow had taken down four of them by the time he’d morphed back. She knew the Alarix form very well, it being one of her favorites. So close to ‘home’ yet so very unique in its own right. Technically, Alarix were the ancient ancestors of Alraxians at a genetic level. That probably had a lot to do with her comfort in the form. And there was only one trooper left. This was another man, tanned skin and grizzled. He also smelled bad. And with the extremely sensitive sense of smell that this form had, getting rid of that smell was now top priority. He had dropped his rifle, drawing a large vibroblade and holding it in front of him with apparent skill. That, of course, didn’t mean a thing to Shadow.    Shadow pounced. The man brought up the vibroblade to slash at her face, but she quickly tilted enough to readjust her point of attack. Instead of his neck receiving the long teeth, his wrist did. Shadow bit so hard that it nearly took the man’s hand off, but somehow he didn’t even let out more than a grunt. He didn’t even let go of the blade, trying to slash back at her before receiving a claw to the chest for his moving. That pushed the trooper to the ground, and Shadow, still keeping a good firm grip on his wrist, slashed at him twice more. One sent long claw marks down his chest again, and the other got his face. The man let out a satisfying scream before Shadow let go of his wrist and finished the job quietly.    When Akan returned, he saw the panther-like Alarix curled up on top of the bloodied boy, licking at a few of the wounds in a bored fashion. Akan sighed and stepped over to pat her back, “Done yet?”    [I still say red blood is disgusting.] Shadow grumbled mentally before morphing back and dusting herself off. When she saw Akan’s look, she shrugged and said, “What? Just because its disgusting doesn’t mean I won’t pass it up here and there. You know how exhausting morphing can be...and blood has a certain way of adding a little energy back.”    “That is disgusting,” Akan said flatly over his shoulder before fitting his belt on finally and starting to climb up into the X-Wing. That was easy. But then again, that was also expected to be easy. Alraxians had the natural advantage when it came to combat involving humans. They simply were stronger, faster, and better than the average human soldier. In the sky, though...they were stuck with the same limitations as everyone else. No matter how fast one was, ships could only do so much at once. Akan looked up to the sky as the X-Wing’s canopy opened. [Good luck, Loki.]    As he helped Shadow up and into the ship without breaking anything(she didn’t like the ship for metallic reasons), he couldn’t help but wonder if Loki had even heard that. Shadow had. She had almost said something about it, but he had cut her off by showing her what to touch and what not to touch. Before they got up there, Shadow was going to have to address those lingering doubts in the back of his mind. This would be his first time really going after New Republic soldiers when it wasn’t necessary for his own survival. Going up there and getting both Voorts off of one of those ships was not required for his survival. She licked her lips. At least it was easy to pretend the blood tasted better than it did.</blockquote>

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