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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2663732" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 290: A Time to ThinkHyperspace again. One day, it was going to get tiring. Very, very tiring. At least Loki seemed to be enjoying himself and getting some exercise as it were.    Currently, they were on their way to no where in particular. It was safest to get out of the Core as quickly as possible, especially a planet like Kuat with so much traffic. But, for the moment at least, their destination was not at all important. What was important was dealing with decrypting the datapad...and considering that neither Shadow nor Jyren had any experience in such an activity, it was proving to be fairly interesting, to say the least.    The two of them lay on their stomachs on the large bed in their quarters with the datapad sitting on the bed between them. Thankfully, Shadow had changed...both her clothes, back to the morphsuit which, while it was form-fitting, wasn’t nearly as distracting as that other thing, and her physical form, which was now back to the usual Alraxian body. Jyren was also back to that, somehow glad to be back in what he was slowly coming to accept as ‘him’.     But they weren’t alone. Normally, the two of them wouldn’t have been literally shoulder to shoulder while actually trying to work as it was, admittedly, nearly as distracting as what Shadow had been wearing earlier. But there was an actual reason for this breech of normal working conditions...and the reason weighed enough that it was at least mildly annoying.    Tobias, bored to tears, had refused to allow them anymore time alone to work on what they felt was important. Of course, he had no problem with them ‘working’ as long as he was allowed to ‘help’. Currently, ‘help’ meant the little Alraxian was perched on each of their shoulders, leaning down between them to peer curiously at the datapad.    “We’ve been staring at it for over an hour, Shadow,” Jyren commented, having already gotten used to talking through Tobias’ head that was in the way of seeing her, “I still don’t know what to make of it.”    “That one looks like Loki!” Tobias exclaimed just a little too loudly, pointing at one of the odd symbols.    There was a silent moment as both Jyren and Shadow turned to look at each other(well, at either side of Toby’s skull), but it was Shadow who sighed and said in the perfect parent-like tone, “Yes, Toby, yes it does...” her voice then returned to normal, “And, Jyren, we’re not trying to decrypt it ourselves right now. Just see if you’ve seen anything like this before. Think, remember?”    Shadow heard a sigh from Jyren’s direction then a mumbled, “Oh. That again.”    “Yes, that,” Shadow said loudly enough to let Jyren know she’d heard him, “Look, we’re almost sure this trail will lead us to Jen, right?”    Tobias nodded.    That forced a break in Shadow’s train of reasoning for some odd reason, but she quickly managed to attempt to ignore that and went on, “If this takes us to Jen, then think about her. What encryptions would she know?”    Though that could have narrowed things down, it didn’t immediately settle things in Jyren’s mind, “Who says she encrypted it? The Kuati could have easily done it themselves.”    “Yes, well, that will just leave us within nothing,” Shadow grumbled, turning back to look at the series of symbols that meant nothing at all to her. Though Toby was right...that one down near the middle did kind of look like Loki...    “How does knowing who encrypted us do any good?” Jyren asked, breaking Shadow out of her attempts to make anything of the rest of the symbols.     Shadow rolled her eyes and decided he wasn’t going to figure it out, “Because if we know the source, Loki can probably figure out most of it. And no, we can’t just throw it at him and hope he can do it himself. He isn’t a computer.”    [I’m better.] Loki helped, and all three Alraxians couldn’t help but feel as if someone was looking over their shoulders...well, in Shadow and Jyren’s cases, their other shoulder.    And it went quiet again as they went back to the seemingly futile attempt of deciphering the mess in front of them. After another ten or so minutes, Jyren shrugged, which nearly threw Tobias off, and said, “She was with the New Republic for a while.”    “Then you know what it is!” Tobias said, bounding back up to his spot after nearly sliding away. Jyren looked passed the happy face of the little Alraxian to see Shadow giving him a flat, ‘I’m waiting’ look.    “No,” Jyren grumbled, “I don’t.”    “How many years were you with them?” Shadow asked over Tobias, who was making a sad face and obviously getting to the point where this was boring and he wanted to play.    Jyren sighed and tried not to move so as to throw Tobias farther off, “I didn’t work with any encryptions! I used them, sure, but I have no idea what they looked like! All I know was that they worked!”    Shadow did not reply. In fact, she didn’t move a single muscle, still holding the exact same expression and that almost disturbing gaze. This time, Jyren sighed louder and more dramatically, “Fine! That one that looks like Loki is a bit familiar!”    “There,” she smiled the devilish smile which reminded Jyren all too much of Toby and then looked up to the ceiling, “Time to get to work on this, Loki!”    As they got up(and Tobias moved to his usual position perched on Jyren’s shoulder) and headed to the cockpit to feed the data to Loki(or however it was done), Jyren couldn’t help but notice that something was off. Finally, he asked, “Loki could have done all that on his own, couldn’t he?”    [Of course I could have!] Loki snapped, suddenly letting out something similar to an annoyed sigh.    When Jyren’s accusing gaze fell on Shadow, she laughed and patted his back, “We’re not in a rush anymore and you still need to learn to use that thing you call a brain.”    “Oh, thank you,” Jyren grumbled. Of course, Tobias just laughed and poked the side of Jyren’s head a few times.</blockquote>

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