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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2288639" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 226: Rough Flight, Simple LandingFive minutes in the blue swirling hyperspace and Jyren was still having second thoughts. By this point, though, they could argued as third and fourth thoughts. And between them all, one thought continued to resurface.     This was stupid.    Stupid and foolish and an act that only the brainless would ever have attempted. It was well beyond any of the crazy things he’d done before..and he’d done a very large number of crazy and idiotic things in his relatively short life. But this topped them all. So much so that Shadow likely wouldn’t have been able to add one of her usual insults directed at his intelligence. She’d probably just stare at him with a shocked look on her face without saying anything.    And yet, here Jyren was, watching the blue of hyperspace out of the canopy of his X-Wing. One hand still on the stick, a control device so rarely used by pilots anymore but one that Jyren felt uncomfortable when he wasn’t using it, with his other hand gripping the hyperspace levers a little too tightly. The chronometer on the HUD was not counting down as it normally did during a hyperspace jump. Normally, of course, the navcomputer was used and the chrono was tied in with that.    But this was not normally, as Jyren was continually reminding himself every few seconds. It was why he gripped the hyperspace levers so tightly. He was flying by the Force...literally. Retaining the calm that was necessary to stay in tune with the Force so that he didn’t pull the lever too early or too late was an impossibly difficult task. But somehow, he was managing it. There was no other choice. Even the slightest mistake in timing, and who know where he’d end up, or whether he’d even get there in one or a few billion pieces.    If he’d have actually been trained rather than self taught when it came to the Force, things would have been so much easier. But he wasn’t, and the most distracting thing for him was wishing that he was, so he pushed those thoughts away as best he could while just feeling. Feel. Letting the Force guide his hand and his mind. But how long was it going to be?! How long could he keep this up?! How...    Jyren’s suddenly panicked thoughts were cut off by what could only be described as an unseen, yet very strongly felt, spike. Without even thinking and simply reacting, Jyren realized his hand was pulling the hyperspace lever back. The force with which he jerked it back nearly ripped it off, but there was at least some restraint applied. One of those little things he was going to have to train himself to be careful with...as the Alraxian body was still much stronger than what the X-Wing was designed for.    But that was only a thought in the back of his head. The rest of him was frozen in silence, staring ahead through the canopy as he waited for whatever it was that would happen next. If it was the end...then at least he had tried. If it wasn’t...then...then he’d keep trying.    Hyperspace retreated into the black, emptiness of space. Empty?! Great. So he’d made the jump alive, but now he was stuck in the middle of who knew where! Truthfully, he’d been asking for it. Really...what were the chances? It was stupid to think it could actually work, even more so than the fact that Jyren had even attempted it. So now he could attempt to make another jump and at least try to find a planet...or...    Something started beeping. Jyren’s eyes shot across the console in front of him. The sensors had picked up something. The sensors had picked up something?! After blinking to make sure he wasn’t seeing things(and ignoring the fact that it would have no effect on his hearing), Jyren examined the sensor readout on the HUD. To the rear of the ship, the sensors were overflowing with moving objects...many of them heading his direction. So this wasn’t the middle of no where..    Both hands on the stick now, Jyren pulled the X-Wing around to face the objects. But he didn’t see them. Instead, he saw a planet. A planet he recognized since the last time he’d seen it had been barely two days earlier. It was the Capital world. He hadn’t missed...he’d just been facing the wrong direction. That was something Shadow would definitely have insults for, though Jyren would do his best to hide the moment from her.     But what were the sensors picking up?! Looking more carefully, he noticed that the planet looked to be dotted all across its surface. Some of them were moving. Ships. It had to be ships. And after a short glance back at the sensors to make sure, he reached out with the Force to try and figure out what was coming for him. But these ships weren’t alive like Kanyaks. These were metal. They were same ships he’d had quick glimpses of when leaving the planet.    And four of them were heading towards him. Out of an old instinct, Jyren powered up the X-Wing’s weapons as he opened up the S-Foils. His eyes scanned a few other of the ship’s systems to make sure the shields and engines were still operating properly. Jyren didn’t know what kind of weapons, if any, these ships had, but he wasn’t about to take any risks. Which meant that he was going to have to resist the natural urge to get into a fight if it came right down to it.    He wasn’t here for a dogfight. The X-Wing was fast, and from the speed that the other ships were approaching, faster than whatever was coming at him. Jyren needed to get onto the planet. Shadow was down there...he could feel her, both through the link and the Force, much more clearly as they got closer.    Keeping his mind and focus on the planet, Jyren’s eyes searched for the approaching ships. It didn’t take long for him to spot them heading straight for him in a diamond formation. From the front, they looked similar to Y-Wings, though with much thinner ‘wings’ which were set low, and a main body that looked more like it was the size of an Assault Transport rather than a starfighter. Though he couldn’t see any weapons, it didn’t take long for him to discover they were armed.    From the ships’ noses, sickeningly coloured dark green blasts of energy shot out at him as quickly as any laser blast. But it hadn’t yet. He saw it, but just like what used to happen in his days flying for the New Republic, Jyren’s natural talent in the Force gave him a quick sight of the danger with just enough time that he could react. Just in time, he pulled the stick and the X-Wing rolled off to the left while Jyren squeezed the trigger to return fire with a short series of bursts from his laser cannons.    But one roll wasn’t going to do it, as the ships were still firing on him. Pulling up, Jyren managed to time the maneuver so that the next series of shots went both over and under the ship. This time, though, he didn’t return fire, as the X-Wing shot over the formation in a dash towards the planet below. The sensors were showing the four ships arcing around to come after him from behind....no surprise. He really didn’t want to get hit, as the look of their lasers(if that’s even what they were) worried Jyren. He had no idea if his shields would even do anything if they weren’t actually lasers.    In another moment, the straight path he was attempting to follow to get down to the planet was abandoned. Now, Jyren was weaving and rolling back and forth as he did his best to avoid the shots of his pursuers. At least they weren’t good shots...or maybe they just weren’t used to shooting at something that maneuvered like an X-Wing could.  The fact that he was quickly pulling away from them proved that speed of his ship was at least partially factored in. And so far...he’d managed to avoid even a shield hit.    The sensors started beeping again. Jyren took a quick moment as he dove under a series of attacks to check the readings, and immediately realized he was going to have to do this differently. Four...no...five...no...six more ships of relatively the same size were heading straight for him from the planet. And now that he was getting extremely close to the planet, that meant they were practically on top of him.     Hoping that the ships behind him would stop their attack to not hit those coming to cut him off, Jyren put more power to the sublight drives and charged straight for the new arrivals. The second he could even see a slight speck of what he knew was coming at him, Jyren squeezed the trigger and held it down, littering the space in front of him with a stream of bright red laser fire.    The next second seemed to happen in slow motion. Two of the ships heading straight for him detonated in flames as Jyren’s shots found their marks. At the same time, all of the ships around him opened fire despite the fact that they would likely end up hitting each other. In the midst of the barrage, Jyren suddenly found himself flying through a formation of dissipating flames instead of the attacking ships. He even managed to roll under a large piece of debris, which likely would have done serious damage to the shields.    But the second came to an end with a violent jolt that rocked his X-Wing. It nearly sent his face into the console in front of him, but thanks to the restraints, Jyren didn’t have to endure a head injury. The insanity that was now behind him seemed to prevent nearly all the original pursuing ships from being able to fire on him...though one had managed a shot that had got through. And, just as he’d feared, the shields were gone. At least it hadn’t gone through to the hull, but another hit like that would be it if the shields were taken out so quickly.    Now the X-Wing was charging through the Capital’s atmosphere. Due to the ships behind him having to maneuver out of the way to avoid any collisions with their allies, Jyren had been given enough of a lead to pull away even farther. And, as far as he could tell, there wasn’t anything else heading his direction. So Jyren focused on the ground below, scanning the immediate area for the large, central city. It didn’t take him long, and so he angled the ship to set down in the forest near the border. Though there weren’t any anti-ship defenses within the city itself, Jyren knew it would be stupid to just walk right in.    As he started to power down the ship’s systems and got the canopy open to the sparse forest borering the Capital City, Jyren couldn’t help but worry. Anyone would. It would be naive not to. That had been far too easy. Maybe Ket just hadn’t assembled any fighter defense...as far as Jyren knew, Kanyaks didn’t have weapons ‘built’ into them, so it really wouldn’t matter. Still, getting down to the planet and even this close to the city without even a hint of an attack was too easy. Something was up...but that didn’t change things.    He was on the ground. He was alive. That was all that was necessary for the moment. Now Jyren just had to get into that huge city, track down Shadow, get her out, then get off the planet...and he had to stay alive. He was going to need more than his lightsaber for this one. What he really needed was Shadow. She’d be able to think up a way to get in and get herself out while not getting killed. But that wasn’t going to happen...so it was up to Jyren. At least he’d have a chance to prove to her that he wasn’t completely useless.</blockquote>

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