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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2819563" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 314: Just ShootingShadow cursed.    It was a relatively exotic one, too, that she’d picked up many years ago. Despite everything, the Hutts sure knew how to curse. Considering that just a second before Shadow had watched all of the freighters and the Strike Cruiser jump to hyperspace, the curse felt perfectly appropriate. They hadn’t even bothered to fire at her when the X-Wing had emerged from underneath the freighter that had been their target.    As far as she could tell, Jyren had made it inside. This was due to the fact that, most importantly, she was alive...which meant he hadn’t been torn into hyperspace and killed and that since she couldn’t feel him anywhere in the area, he hadn’t lost grip and gone floating off into no where. In that case, also, there would have been a large amount of complaining through the link at her. So, at least, that was something.    “Loki! Get the hell over here!” she screamed into the comm, frantically pulling off the stupid, oversized helmet that just slid around her head instead of padding at all. The damned New Republic and their damned big-headed pilots. At least the suit fit...mostly. But orange?! Idiots! It was almost blinding to look at, and all the damned buttons and switches were even worse...especially the ones that blinked. They just begged to be fiddled with, but Jyren had spent a long time explaining to her that doing exactly that would be bad. She just wanted out of the whole thing. Yes, it had been her idea, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. In fact, it gave her even more of a right to complain.     After finally managing to get that horrible and awkward helmet off of her head and tossing it into the now empty seat in front of her, Shadow grabbed the X-Wing’s controls again. They were...awkward, yes, but they worked. It wasn’t as intuitive or nearly as responsive as Loki, but she had found, after that high speed loop and spin that nearly caused her to lose a few weeks lunches, that the starfighter could definitely maneuver...even if she stressed the inertial dampers a bit too much.    And then, finally, Loki appeared. His organic and distinct shape sliding across the empty black in front of her. [Problems?]    Shadow glared at the shape ahead of her and switched to a more natural form of communication, especially now that the comm(which was attached to the horrible helmet) was in the seat in front of her. [Sarcasm does not become you. Now shut up and let me in.]    As the ship began a slow spin around and the makeshift hangar opened, Loki couldn’t help but inquire further. [Where did they go?]    [I don’t know.] Shadow said flatly, now doing her best to now wreck either the X-Wing or Loki as she carefully brought the small starfighter in. [Couldn’t have been far. And they were aiming the wrong direction to continue on their course. Can you get us a short jump to the nearest star system on their heading.]    The fact that Loki didn’t respond right away should have been warning enough that something might not be just right. When, a moment later and, thankfully, after she’d gotten the X-Wing down, Loki spoke up, Shadow was immediately shown that there was a problem. [A squadron of fighters has been dispatched from Eriadu. They are...coming straight for us.]    Shadow’s eyes widened as the canopy on the X-Wing rose far too slowly, “What?! We’re supposed to be too far out of the system to have been noticed!”    [I believe the convoy got a distress call off before I was in range to jam their signals...] Loki didn’t sound apologetic, but then again, he never did unless she was really angry. At this point, she was only at annoyed.    “Fine!” her voice was muffled by the thud and the ‘oof’ sound she made from jumping straight to the deck below instead of using the ladder(which was still where she’d kicked it on the deck before they’d left). It was one of those times where Shadow forgot she was in a human body, and therefor roughly a meter shorter and much, much weaker. After a quick recovery, though, she yelled upwards, “Get us out of here before they get close enough to identify us! And jam their comms now.”    [The fighters will reach us half a minute before we can jump.] Loki announced, though Shadow could feel him readjusting his heading to prepare for the jump.    Yet again, Shadow cursed. This time, though, it wasn’t at the situation. Currently, she was attempting to run to the cockpit while peeling off the flight suit. A task that was proving to be much more difficult than it should have been. All the cords and straps and extra bits nearly threw her on her face more than once, but somehow she managed to just stumble forward. There were a few last hops before the last boot was off, and then it was only a few seconds before Shadow kicked the flight suit off completely. Now down to just her skintight morphsuit, she broke into a run down the corridors, changing back to her Alraxian boy in the process.    Tobias showed up around one corner looking excited, but didn’t get a chance to say anything. Shadow simply ran straight past, and then yelled over her shoulder in her normal, Alraxian voice, “Not now! Go play or something!”    If the child responded, she didn’t hear it. In a matter of seconds she was in the cockpit and swinging around into her usual seat and taking a quick look on both the sensors and the viewport. Distantly, she could see the star of the Eriadu system. She could also spot the fighters on the sensor board...they really were approaching fast. And then...    “Loki! Where the hell did that Star Destroyer come from?!”    There was a brief pause before the ship responded carefully. [It um...just exited hyperspace aft of us.]    “Loki, they’re trying to get a lock on us. They’re going to ID us!” she growled, trying to find some way to get them out of the system right that second.    And then an alarm went off. It wasn’t like the alarms in the X-Wing. This one sounded...well...Alraxian. It was more organic but just as annoying. There was, thankfully, no little blinking light accompanying it. Those would have been bad for Alraxians, as they could be easily distracted by such simple things at the worst of times. This alarm was one she knew well. It caused her to grip the seat very tightly and even dig her claws in, “Loki!!!”    [Its okay!] the ship screamed at her, now maneuvering at all and refusing to give her any kind of manual control. [They’re just shooting! They’ll miss a lot before they hit us!]    “Oh, really?!” Shadow started to run through the few override protocols she knew to get the stubborn ship to start moving and stop trying to be the hero. A green flash blinded her for a second and it took her a second to realize that it had, in fact, been a miss, “How much longer do we have until they hit us?!”    Loki shook violently and more alarms went off. A shock of pain ran through the Force and Shadow’s eyes caught sight of the damage. Aft shields were down and the sublight drives(well, the Alraxian equivalent) were down to half power...but the hyperdrive was still operational.    There was no chance to say a word of protest or even another curse before a sudden pang shot at her through the Force. It was not another shot hitting them. It was her danger sense. That was another feeling she knew all too well. And it was very, very urgent that they moved right that second. She had just finished getting control back and took hold of the console when, suddenly, the stars stretched and they rocketed forward into hyperspace.    Silence.    Through the low pain that still echoed from Loki in the Force, only one sound could be heard, “Loki...you’ve been around Jyren too much.”</blockquote>

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