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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2423931" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 249: An Old FriendAs usual, Shadow was right. Having two lightsabers proved to be an extremely helpful asset when dealing with the war droids. Since they couldn’t actually block the energy blades, Jyren just had to hack at the metal droids until they stopped reforming. Usually that meant taking off the head...but Jyren was always careful and decided to take as many limbs as possible, too.    The Knights had, thankfully, backed off. It gave Jyren the room to really swing the lightsabers without having to keep part of his attention on not cutting something. And in a matter of minutes, the mass of war droids that the Knights had been attempted to hold back were filling the corridor in five times as many pieces as they arrived in. Overall, Jyren wasn’t going to complain.    Instinctively, Jyren shut off the lightsabers. So that he’d have a free hand, he clipped Shadow’s back onto his belt as he walked over to the five remaining Knights. Stepping in front of him, he pointed back down the corridor and asked, “Have you seen Halpak?”    The Knights stared blankly at him. After a pause, they looked to each other and spoke in Alraxian quickly. In it, Jyren heard at least one word he recognized...the Alraxian word for Emperor, except with the usual ‘la’ he’d been used to hearing on the end of it. Then the one in front of him turned and spoke a series of words that made absolutely not sense at all to him.    Jyren sighed. Typical, “You don’t understand Basic, do you?”    Another blank silence. Then Jyren thought about it and remembered their term for Basic and tried again, “Trade. Do you speak Trade?! Does anyone speak Trade in this damned place?”    Silence. The one in front of Jyren turned to a Knight next to him and ran of another series of what Jyren assumed to be words. Then the Knight turned back to Jyren and pointed to a break in the corridor that went right. Not completely sure of what was going on, Jyren decided he didn’t have much of a choice. So he shrugged, motioned that direction, and waited for the Knights to lead the way.    The six of them rounded the corner and then followed the long, identical hallway for two minutes before reaching another turn. They continued on until reaching a nondescript door(admittedly, all the doors were nondescript in the palace). When it irised open, Jyren looked in to see a large chamber like the dining hall...except there was no sign of any furniture. Instead, there was a countless number of Alraxians. Some armed with swords and wearing armor, definitely Knights, but most looked to be the usual civilian attendants that lived in the palace. There was also a large group of children, most of whom Jyren recognized...a fact which scared him on at least one level.    All eyes turned on him as the Knights led him to the larger group of Knights. The situation was...well, Jyren hoped it was explained. All he could tell was that the Knights he was with started talking with the others. For all he knew, they were discussing the best way to polish their armor. And considering just how polished most of it looked...they were experts.    After a few more moments in which Jyren started to grow self conscious, one of the Knights, who looked to be an authoritative type, motioned off into the crowd of Alraxians. A few Knights then charged off in, and Jyren shared an awkward silence with the other Knights...none of whom could understand a word he said. It was amazing how that could make the silence worse.    Then, finally, the other Knights returned from the crowd. At first, Jyren was relieved, feeling that they had at least found someone who could understand and do some translation. They had. And the second Jyren saw who, he decided that these Knights really could understand him and were just out to kill him.    The soft violet haired figure of Kato smiled in that annoying as hell smile and nodded to Jyren. The lead Knight was saying something to her, so her attention was, thankfully, not on Jyren. That changed. When the Knight had finished, Kato’s eyes shifted to Jyren, again doing that predatory examination of him that was impossibly unnerving before speaking in her usual silky voice, “Apparently, I am the only one here who can speak Trade well enough to understand you.”    “How wonderful,” Jyren grumbled, rolling his eyes and resisting the urge to harm Kato, “I need to know if they’ve seen Ket Halpak.”    Kato smiled to him again and opened her mouth to say something, but the glare in Jyren’s eyes, thankfully, shut her up. Instead, she turned to the Knights and spoke for a short time. The Knight had a long response for ‘no’...or at least, Jyren assumed it would be ‘no’. It was his luck, at least.    “The palace says there is an Alraxian two levels up,” Kato reported to Jyren, idly taking a small step forward and putting herself far too close to him.    He quickly reached up and pushed her back two steps, “Don’t try it. Especially not now. Tell them I need a group to go with me to get Ket.”    A hurt look passed over Kato’s face and she suddenly looked like Tobias did when he didn’t get his way. Somehow, this didn’t surprise Jyren. Slowly, she turned to the Knight and relayed the information. When this was done, it didn’t take long for Jyren to have a group of ten Knights ready to go with him. The others, a large majority thankfully, would stay here and keep the civilians as safe as possible. The palace was, thankfully, not relaying any information to Ket and so he would have to be doing his searching the old fashioned way.    At least that was something.    But when things were ready and the eleven of them started to leave the room, Jyren realized that he was getting in far more over his head than was necessary. He had no form of communication with these Knights. In this kind of situation, that would definitely be a bad thing.    So he made a choice, “Kato! Come here!”    He’d spoken in just the right way. It only took a short moment before Kato was, quite definitely, right there. She also had an odd expression on her face and was giving off an equally odd feeling through the Force. Jyren didn’t care. Roughly, he grabbed her wrist and smiled, “You’re coming, too.”    Before she could protest, Jyren led the way and literally dragged her along.</blockquote>

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