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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2665511" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 291: Putting the Pieces TogetherBarely ten minutes later, the three of them sat in their usual places in the cockpit. Shadow in the right, pilot’s chair, Jyren in the left, co-pilot’s chair, and Tobias bounding between them before finally settling in Jyren’s lap and watching the holoprojection of the galaxy curiously. Though the datapad hadn’t been able to be completely decrypted due to the mixing of multiple types of encryptions, they had gotten one critical piece of information from the line just above the Loki-shaped symbol that was quickly becoming infamous.    “So where again is the Ison Corridor?” Jyren asked, looking over the projection of the galaxy that sat between them.    Shadow reached over and pointed to a section near the lower left edge of the great swirl of stars, “Right around there. Smuggler route, mostly. It cuts straight into the Corellian Run and avoids the old Imperial outposts near the Sluis Van shipyards.”    “Anything of interest there?” he asked, noting that the holo zoomed in slightly to the section of stars Shadow had indicated. It didn’t make it any easier to pinpoint one from another, though.    “Bespin’s about midway through the route,” Shadow said, pointing to the general area of one of the faint stars, “Anoat’s nearby, too.”    Jyren ran that through his mind, trying to put together any memories. His knowledge was really of the Core, though he did have a faint idea of what else was all out there since his time as a mercenary. But he had heard of the Ison Corridor before. And there was something important about it that he just couldn’t pinpoint...    “How long was Jen with he New Republic?” he asked after a few minutes.    Shadow gave him a curious look and shrugged. There was also a movement in his lap and Jyren glanced down to see Toby doing the same thing. It was hard not to grin. But, thankfully, Shadow spoke up to distract him from Toby, “Not sure...why?”    Jyren’s eyes again went to the holoprojection, “Could she have been with them when they were just the Alliance?”    “A Rebel, you mean?” Shadow asked a little too quickly, and with almost a hint of contempt in her voice. It quickly went away and she was left with a slightly confused face for a half second before wiping that away, “Its possible. Again. Why?”    “Loki,” Jyren said upwards, “Where is the Hoth System?”    A small blue(of course it was blue, everything was blue with these Alraxians) dot appeared right near the lower end of the Corridor and close to where Anoat should be. [Right there.]    Silence.    It took only a moment before Shadow knew exactly what Jyren was thinking, and right away she folded her arms across her chest and shook her head, “No.”    “It makes sense,” he said slowly, and Toby ‘helped’ by nodding a few thousand times at Shadow as if he knew exactly what Jyren was talking about.    “I know it makes sense!” Shadow snapped back, “It makes perfect sense! But no, we’re not going!”    “Awwwwww...” that was Toby.    The sound got a sharp glare from Shadow, but Jyren ignored that and pointed to the little dot, “Shadow, we have to go. It’s the perfect place to hide from us.”    “Of course it is! Its bloody cold on that planet!” Shadow growled, though she sounded more accepting somehow, “It’ll kill us!”    “As Alraxians, maybe.”    “As Human, too!” her glare was now up at eye level with Jyren, “There’s a reason the smugglers that go there leave quickly!”    But before Jyren could attempt to argue back, Shadow threw up her hands and sighed, “Loki, get us to that damned system!” she then turned back to Jyren and grumbled, “Where’s the best place to hide from an Alraxian?”    “Cold place!!” Toby jumped up, hand waving in the air as he screamed the answer.    Shadow and Jyren exchanged a look, with Jyren trying not to grin again as he said, “Exactly, Toby. And how would Jen pick a cold place?”    Toby looked straight up to Jyren, “Uhhhh...I dunno?”    “Somewhere she’s been,” Shadow answered out loud, sounding actually helpful and slow enough to almost be trying to teach the little Alraxian something...but no, that wasn’t possible, “Somewhere out of the way.”    As Loki reoriented himself and got ready for yet another very long jump completely across the galaxy, the holoprojection of the galaxy faded away. Not that they needed it anymore. The annoying part to all of it wasn’t that it made so much sense and all connected perfectly, but that it felt right. Through the Force, both Shadow and Jyren knew that they were right about all of this. They had hoped otherwise.    But it all fit too well. The Sith poison that would drive a human to sheer rage...the last moments they saw Jen. The trail they’d followed across the galaxy...faint, yet most definitely there and left by someone who didn’t have much experience in covering their tracks. The use of an old New Republic encryption mixed in with what were probably Kuati codes. And then Hoth. An old Rebel base, abandoned for so long it was probably forgotten, and the perfect type of planet to hide from Alraxians...a species which would die rather quickly on planets that weren’t as warm and tropical as their own homeworld. Even their technology couldn’t protect them on a planet as icy and freezing as Hoth.    And far away, on the other side of the galaxy, someone waited.</blockquote>

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