Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2000913" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 143: We Go Two by Two“Tell me the truth, Titus,” Jen said quietly, watching out the viewport in front of them, “Is it possible, by any random chance in the galaxy, that we’re being set up?”    Titus looked out the viewport. Ahead of them, the green, forest planet floated there, taking up at least half of the view. In fact, that was all they could actually see. But the scanners had much better eyes than they did. They had just arrived in the system a few minutes earlier to find a small battle group heading their direction. It didn’t look New Republic, and it was currently on the other side of the planet’s distant moon. The initial scan had shown four patrol craft, six Y-Wings, and a single, outdated Dreadnaught heavy cruiser. Not the most dangerous fleet in the galaxy, but more than a match for Alderaan.    But Titus had his focus on the planet they were approaching, “Definitely being set up...but we’ve got at least a few minutes before they slingshot around the moon. Should be able to set down on the planet by then.”    “Set down?” Jen raised an eyebrow, then looked over the most recent scan they’d done of the planet. Nothing. Hmm...Titus seemed sure of this. Why? There had to be a reason. She paused and closed her eyes a moment. Reach out. Feel. There. Distant, but definitely on the planet. Jen had no idea how to describe exactly what ‘it’ was, though. She just knew that it was Nine. Or at least, something very similar to Nine. That feeling just radiated it like a hot beacon.     When she opened her eyes, the planet was filling the viewport and he was smiling, “See? Not all that hard to do.”    She nodded and grinned, but it suddenly faded, “Its...nice and all, but...” Jen paused, trying to figure out how to put it right, “...we still don’t know where she is. And that is a planet. You know. Big. Round. Seemingly endless when you’re searching for one tiny, single being.”    The look that Titus gave her was actually worrying, but his voice was calm, “I’ll be able to find her. It won’t be the first time I’ve searched this planet for a single Alraxian.”    Jen mouthed an ‘oh’ just as the comm beeped. Glad for the sudden change, and knowing it had to be Akan(should be...had better be...), Jen turned and hit the switch. Before she could even say a ‘hello’, Akan’s voice crackled through, “Sorry we’re late. Um...” there was a pause, a sharp intake of breath, and then Akan’s tone changed to a mix of worry and sarcasm, “Well, looks like you saved the party until we got here.”    “Yeah,” Jen commented flatly as Alderaan started through the planet’s atmosphere. She looked to Titus, who nodded to her, figuring out her question quickly. Jen smiled, and continued, “Forget the company. Get down here and catch up with us. I have a bad feeling about this place.”    Akan laughed shortly, “On our way. Should be caught up soon. “    The comm then went silent, and Jen leaned back slightly in the chair. By now, she could see a large green mass of trees extending across the planet below. Titus was still angling the Alderaan down, so the trees were growing until they were only a few hundred meters above the tree line. As they flew over the canopy, he ran his fingers over the scanners. Searching. Looking. Even reaching out with the Force. Jen attempted it some, too, and was amazed by the amount of life on the planet. It was so strong that it almost blinded her, like turning on a bright light in a pitch black room. She tried seeing through it but the feeling just didn’t refocus like her eyes would.    Jen did her own scan of the surrounding area, only finding that the X-Wing had caught up considerably and was a half kilometer behind them. She sighed and closed her eyes a moment, just trying to rest a moment. When she opened her eyes again, she caught sight of an odd thing off far too the east near the horizon. Almost black...no...no, maybe just a trick of the eye. Wait. Black. There it is again. Quickly, she grabbed Titus’ shoulder and pointed, “Smoke!”    He turned, immediately saw it, and banked the Alderaan hard in that direction. His voice was still calm, and he managed to hold an emotionless expression still, “That could just be the natives.”    “Oh, really?” she half grinned and leaned forward and over so he had to look at her, “Just don’t want to admit that I saw it first, do you?”    Thankfully, it got a laugh out of him and he leaned forward to kiss her gently, “No, no. You have much better eyes than I do. Though then again, just because they look beautiful doesn’t mean they work very well.”    Scowling, Jen lightly punched his shoulder, “That’s going into the vacation tab, you know.”    “Ouch, just a little joke?” he smiled warmly as they approached the large plume of black smoke, “So what am I stuck with now.”    “Expensive dinner,” she shrugged, “Every single night of those two weeks on Hapes.”    “Thought it was one week.”    She tapped his shoulder gently, “The Force is weak with this one.”    But before Titus had time to respond, they were almost in the thick smoke cloud. They passed over it, Titus tilting the ship so they could look down, and saw a large clearing in the trees. Down below them was a scattered village, small huts across the ground...all burning. Brightly. And just off to the edge of the clearing was a very distinct shape. Loki. Just sitting there. In a rough series of spins and turns, Titus maneuvered the Alderaan down and did his best to get on the ground as quickly as he could. As the shuttle neared the ground, they could see bodies. Hundreds of them scattered across the ground in various conditions. All were dead, and from the looks of it, the death wasn’t pretty. Limbs were removes, heads in some cases, and many had deadly burns scarring them. Humanoid, all. And then, off towards where Loki was set down, they saw movement. Wind caught the smoke to reveal the two meter tall Alraxian just standing there, arms folded across her chest and tapping her foot. They both knew she was grinning.    By the time Alderaan was completely on the ground, Jen was already out of her seat and out of the cockpit. Titus called after her, but at least took the time to take the engines offline before following after her. On her way down the still lowering ramp, Jen got her blaster pistol and charged out, immediately turning straight for Nine. Jen ignored the bodies as she ran towards the very tall Alraxian, raising her blaster pistol. She was about to scream something, when Nine started laughing, “You’re a little late! Typical of a human to be late!”    Jen growled a curse and squeezed the trigger. The blaster bolt was aimed perfectly, and it even hit. It hit Nine square in the chest, but she didn’t stumble back. For a moment, Jen got a chance to see the black scorch mar before the Alraxian remorphed and smiled, “Temper, temper.”    Lazily, Nine raised her hand just as Jen began to squeeze off another shot in anger. But her body stopped moving. Jen let out a whimper and then a yelp of pain as it felt like an invisible hand was crushing her, and as her vision blurred from the pain she realized her feet were no longer on the ground. The painful grip on her body got multiple cracks from bones, but it suddenly eased up and the white hot pain faded out of her vision. It was replaced by Nine, right there in front of her and smiling. Quietly, the Alraxian hissed, “Tell my clone Ket and I will await her on Nar Shaddaa.”    Suddenly, the grip on Jen was let go and she dropped to the ground, gasping for breathing and trying to ignore the pain still wracking through her. Nine returned to her vision, looking over her and still smiling. Faintly, Jen heard, “An interesting toy you could make with that temper.”    And then Nine faded from her vision. Jen heard multiple blaster shots a second later, and immediately knew it was Titus. He had taken time to get a larger rifle out, knowing the need to at least knock the wind out of the clone and sure that only a good rifle could even come close. But the shots didn’t hit, and Titus charged forward firing as Nine casually ran back towards Loki. Titus quickly gave up on firing(as Nine was already up the small ramp and inside of Loki) and just ran to Jen, kneeling down next to her. It took effort, but she gasped, “Nar Shaddaa! Shadow!”    And then Loki started to lift off of the ground. Titus looked up to see Loki already beginning to shoot off out into space. He also caught sight of the X-Wing, looking like it was getting ready to land but quickly changing plans. He was surprised to see the S-Foils on the X-Wing opening as it charged after Loki. Was Akan actually going to fire on Loki?! Knowing that speed was necessary, and seeing that Jen wasn’t in the best of shape, he turned back to her and did his best to get her back to Alderaan. Quickly. Everything had to be quickly these days.    On board the X-Wing, there was a screaming match going on. Currently, it was Shadow’s turn, “Don’t you dare fire on my ship!!”    Akan continued to put more power from the shields to the engines to keep up with the much faster Kanyak, still keeping full power to the weapons, “I can hit his drives! It’s the only way to stop her!”    “You’ll hurt him!” Shadow screamed, nearly to the point of tearing out of the restraints and beating Akan to an inch of their life.    “Nine is going to get away again!” Akan growled, trying to focus as the two ships left the atmosphere...also trying to ignore the fact that the motley battle group was readjusting its course to follow them, “Loki will understand!”    “You think he can understand anything right now?!”    He had a shot. They would be out of the gravity well of the planet in a matter of seconds. If he took the shot, it would stop her from escaping. It would stop all of this chaos. But Loki was his friend. No. Loki would understand. He’d have to. Breathing heavily and knowing time was running out, Akan squeezed the trigger.    Shadow screamed another stream of curses at him, but suddenly went silent. Waiting. Watching. The four laser shots from the cannon extended out all as one, aiming straight for Loki’s main drive. They arced in, quickly coming together at the point where he had aimed...but suddenly, in a blinding speed that could only be possible from a Kanyak, Loki banked to port. It was just enough that the shots missed the drive, instead hitting the underside of Loki. Akan was stunned, and it slowed his chance to take a second shot enough that by the time the thought even crossed his mind, the ship rocketed off into hyperspace.    Gone. Again. So close...he had been so close. It should have hit! But instead...he sighed. [I’m sorry.]    But before anything else could be said, alarms started going off. Akan’s eyes widened and he quickly yanked the X-Wing off to the side, yelling to Shadow, “They’re trying to get a missile lock!”    The X-Wing went into a loop, a tight spin, and through the blur they could see the pilot’s surprised faces within the Y-Wings that had easily caught up, and for a moment Akan even saw one of the pilots in the nearest patrol craft before the X-Wing looped around it and continued in a mad attempt to avoid any shots. Shots which were lighting up the blackness of space. The Dreadnaught was still in the distance, but it was going to catch up soon. The comm beeped. Akan didn’t do anything about it, instead frantically re-diverting power back to the shields before some lucky shot got through...all the while using the Force to assist his reflexes. The comm continued beeping. Akan still didn’t do anything.    Shadow bit her lip and looked around at all the switches and buttons surrounding her. In a mad attempt to avoid looking at the blur outside while trying to figure out what was the right switch, she picked one at random. It was immediately obvious she’d picked the comm, as Titus’ distorted voice yelled through the cockpit, “—Shaddaa! Go after her! We’ll get the attention of these boys and drag them somewhere else!”    “What are you talking about?!” Akan managed to yell through the chaos of his multitasking. The ship shuddered from a fairly good hit from one of the Y-Wings before Voort responded.    “Nine’s going to Nar Shaddaa! Jen says that Ket is there, too!” he called out, “I’d bet you there’s some kind of tracking device planet on Alderaan. You go after Nine and we’ll meet up later.”    “What?! Where are you going?!” that was Shadow, who was at the same time yelling at Akan through the link. [You heard him! Nar Shaddaa! Now now now!!”    Akan quickly pulled up the coordinates to Nar Shaddaa, allowing the computer to do the navigation checks while he tried to get out of the skirmish. Closing the S-Foils for more speed and pumping the weapons power to shields(which were nearly dead from a large amount of shots they were taking), Akan barely heard Titus’ response, “Just get out of here! If we don’t find you in a day, forget us.”    Akan glanced back to check on the Y-Wings’ pursuit, seeing shots going around him and a few shaking them and impacting the rear shields. But then, in a flash, a barrage of green laser fire tore through the nearest of the fighters. It went up in a short flash before the ship split to pieces. A second later, Akan saw the Alderaan jet through the destroyed fighter, its only two laser cannons blazing. All but one of the Y-Wings pulled off their pursuit of Akan, and the one that did was quickly falling behind. The Y-Wings were not designed for speed.    After a quick glance to the small navcomputer screen, Akan said into the comm, “Good luck, Voort.”    And then they were gone.</blockquote>

Verification