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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2407764" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 245: Over the Ocean and Through the TreesIn the emptiness of space, there hung a nearby star. It was large, a bright yellow-orange, and shimmering in a way that was beyond comprehension. Multiple planes orbited the lone star, but it was the nearest one that was of interest. The turquoise and bright green sphere was only a tiny dot when compared to the star it orbited...but that did not make it any less important.    The planet was Alraxia. Covered in oceans and forests, all of which were much harder to see against a large series of metallic dots that lined is surface. Jyren’s X-Wing had exited hyperspace not long before, and he was now heading in system and trying to get a feel for the situation. Currently, it didn’t feel good.    The very fact that he could see what could only be Ket’s fleet was extremely unsettling. Not that it was any larger than before...but he’d never had the chance to see it against the Capital world like this. It brought a whole new perspective to things. It almost looked like a swarm of insects was surrounding and preparing to engulf the planet...which was not all that wrong when looked at from a certain point of view.    “I don’t know where he is...” Jyren said quietly, more to himself than the still active holocron, which rested on an unused panel off to his left side.    The holo of his mother nodded in that way that all mother’s could, “I should not have to tell you to reach out and feel.”    “No,” Jyren sighed, “You shouldn’t.”    But she did. It had been a long flight and he wasn’t exactly in the best of conditions anymore on the mental side of things. No longer was he so confident in...well...anything. His mother’s words on the Dark Side had confused him, as he’d gotten far too used to ignoring any such warnings and just doing what he needed to get the job done. But now that hung over his head far more than he would have ever expected.    The holocron surprised him again, though, and picked up on the unsaid thoughts, “Trust your feelings, but do not dwell on them,” she paused, then smiled softly, “You have a task in front of you that requires your concentration.”    Jyren nodded slowly as the X-Wing arced around towards the southern pole of Alraxia. He was heading that direction due to the lack of metal gleaming there, which he took to mean as either no, or a small amount at least, of those ships. At the same time, he started to reach out with the Force, not for anything in particular, but just feeling his way through this and looking for some hint of...well, anything.    Below, he could feel the strength of the life-covered planet...but above, emptiness. Or at least, mostly emptiness. There were a few pockets of dim light which he interpreted as living beings. None were very strong, either too distant, weak in the Force, or hiding themselves. All of them were equally possible at this point. And despite the fact that this hadn’t located Ket(which was, of course, at least a slight hope), Jyren had a destination.    If he was in Ket’s position, the first target would be the Palace, if only because it was a symbol, and Ket truly seemed to be after crushing those symbols first. So he started the X-Wing in that direction even before reaching the planet’s atmosphere.    There was a quick series of beeping noises from the sensors. Jyren cursed. Of course it wasn’t going to be easy. Glancing down at the panel, he saw six objects moving in quickly towards him from what would be the north section of the planet. Very, very quickly. So quickly, in fact, that Jyren only had about three minutes to decide whether to fight or run.    Alright, so that wasn’t a tough decision. The real choice was whether to fight while running or to just put everything to the sublight drives and go. He bit his lip as the chrono counted down. It wasn’t completely accurate, as these ships had an odd range on those weapons, but it was better than nothing. And at least the shields were back to working...which meant he could take one hit this time and survive. In all honesty, it wasn’t all that comforting, but it was something and Jyren wasn’t about to complain anymore.    Reaching up, he set the shields to full rear, not sure if that would even do him any good but deciding it was worth a try. Then, glancing down at the planet below, Jyren picked up on the location of the Palace and started his dive for it.    Just as the starfighter began its descent through Alraxia’s atmosphere, the other fighters had come into range. This was immediately apparent not through the sensors, but through the two bright green flashes that shot past his cockpit on both sides. Instinctively, Jyren glanced back over his shoulder. It was nearly useless in this two-seater, as he only really saw the gunner’s sea behind him. And got no real view of the ships on the X-Wing’s tail. Sighing at this realization, Jyren then turned back and, almost prying a hand off the control stick, reached over and switched the holocron off.    It was a distraction for the moment, and he needed to focus. He retook he stick just as the snubfighter exited the atmosphere, revealing one of the larger, blue-green oceans below. Jyren quickly arced the ship around to head north, but also tilted the nose down and started a steep dive. He fighters were right on him, though, and so the dive became more of a swerving and spinning fall as Jyren did his best to stay out of the way of the now-constant attack of the six fighters that were pursuing him.    Quickly diverting power from the weapon systems to the engines, Jyren did his best to push the X-Wing faster and faster, as the other ships were getting closer with every second. Just as his full attention went back to piloting, the realization of just how close he was to the surface of the water hit him. And, before the water also hit him(or rather, the X-Wing), Jyren pulled hard on the stick and half-rolled to avoid dunking only half of his starfighter into the water.    Skimming only five or so meters above the surface, Jyren heard two loud crashes behind him. With a quick, and truthfully, unwise, glance back, he saw huge plumes of water behind him, and quickly through them came four more of the fighters, still spewing their green-coloured weapon’s fire from underneath the two stubby wings.     Now there was a problem Jyren hadn’t considered. This close to the ocean’s surface, it was near impossible to maneuver. Banking too hard to avoid the shots would mean submerging half one of the S-Foils. And, obviously, this would not be a good thing.    At least there were only four of them now.    A sharp jolt hit him through the Force, and Jyren immediately did his best to pull the X-Wing to the side without taking a dive into the ocean. It worked...to a point. The X-Wing didn’t drop into the water, but the warning through the Force proved useless, as a half second later the entire X-Wing rocked violently from a strong hit to the rear shields. But they held. Barely, yes...but he still had rear shields thanks to putting all the power to that side.    So it hadn’t been such a futile move after all. For that second, at least. Another second and it nearly was.    Jyren’s attention returned from the shield’s readout in his HUD to the viewport ahead of him. Very quickly, he realized that skimming the ocean on a planet like Alraxia was really not something he was going to try again if given the chance. Alraxia, or at least this section of the planet, did not have beaches. It had cliffs, and then densely forested mountains. Currently, a cliff was approaching at lightning speed.    Suddenly no longer caring that he was being shot at by four ships with some serious firepower, Jyren decided that, no, the shields wouldn’t do him any good if he slammed straight into the rock face. At least that was something. Not something he planned on, however. Almost praying it wasn’t too late, Jyren pulled the nose up as hard as he could. The X-Wing shot up at a steep angle, just barely passing over the rock wall and grazing through the tops of a collection of trees that rested there.    He didn’t continue the steep angle, but instead pulled down more to start skimming the tree line. Not learning from part mistakes, however, Jyren looked down to the sensor board. Two of the previous little dots were no longer visible. So it wasn’t all that bad.    A green energy blast grazed quiet literally grazed the top of the S-Foil on his left. Jyren’s eyes widened in surprise and tried to ignore the new scorch marks. He managed to bank to the side just in time to avoid a similar shot to the other S-Foil...one that would quiet definitely have taken the entire thing off and ended this flight before he’ d had a chance to at least thank Ket for such a warm greeting.    And then, as if to make things worse, there was a sudden roar that even Jyren could hear loudly through the cockpit and the sublight drives. A deep instinct in him that really wasn’t even his identified the sound right away, causing him to pull back on the stick again and start climbing up. When Jyren realized this, though, he didn’t fix the angle, as it became apparent that there were not green energy blasts following him up. Rolling the X-Wing to get a look down, Jyren looked...well, up through the cockpit at the ground below.     A huge, reptilian creature with great wings had risen up out of the forest. Underneath it, a burning wreckage in the tree could be seen. There was still one of the fighters in one piece, though. It was no longer after Jyren, but instead spinning around and heading out towards the ocean. The...dragon, did not simply let the intruder on its territory escape. With an amazing speed that caused Jyren to realize why the Alraxians were so terrified of the creatures, the dragon darted out and its massive jaws suddenly clamped down on the rear of the fighter. There was a detonation, but it didn’t seem to phase the large reptile at all.    And then Jyren came to another realization...he wasn’t leaving the dragon’s area. Deciding it was mostly likely a bad thing, he rolled the ship back over so as to not get sick on himself, and put everything to the engines...heading north towards the Palace, which wasn’t very far off now.    He didn’t bother looking up, though. If he had, Jyren would have seen a sky eerily similar to the one on the Capital just days earlier.</blockquote>

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