NOW LIVE! Today's the day you meet your new best friend. You don’t have to leave Wolfy behind... In 'Pets & Sidekicks' your companions level up with you!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2914844" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 317It took ten long minutes before Loki managed to dock with the bulk freighter and Shadow was able to find her way from the lower deck’s airlock to the bridge where Jyren was trying to fix the things he’d...broken. Broken being a bit of a light term. Completely destroyed fit much better, from the look of the burnt console, but neither were willing to say a word about it. It wasn’t worth it, really.    “There was a homing beacon that tried to activate mid-jump...” Jyren mumbled, not having actually looked up from the console he sat at near the center of the relatively large bridge. His right arm reached over to point to the far bulkhead, “That’s what’s left of it.”    Shadow slipped around a couple of the back rows of consoles and then stepped over behind him, idly leaning on his shoulders and looking at the sensor screen in front of him, “You know that there are other ways to fix things like that without using your lightsaber.”    Jyren leaned back in his chair and looked over his shoulder at her with a sheepish look on his face, “There wasn’t any time.”    “Check the cargo yet?” Shadow asked, quickly changing the subject reaching over him to press a small switch to bring up what she hoped was the manifest. It wasn’t, but it did happen to be the jump log, which she made a mental note to make a copy of just in case. One never knew when that kind of information could come in handy.    Reaching over and hitting another couple of switches, Jyren brought up the manifest, “Twenty eight orbital mines and twenty proton torpedoes.”    “...and a cargo skiff and some replacement coils for blasters,” she finished, reading the parts of the list he’d glossed over. For a moment, she just leaned back and thought about that, “Does this feel too easy to you?”    “N...no?” Jyren mumbled. It suddenly became apparent to Shadow that his voice sounded somewhat off from usual. That stutter didn’t exactly help. Neither did the actual answer to her question.    Shadow was still not anywhere near an expert on these kind of situations. It was part of the reason that, more and more, Marix was coming through and the child part of her that was Shadow was fading into the other. Not that Marix was all that great with it, either, but her personality was just a little bit softer...and she at least felt the need to try. Which was exactly why she grabbed a chair from behind her and slid it over next to him to have a seat before asking, “What is it?”    “It just got a little...close,” Jyren shrugged, obviously trying not to bring attention to himself for the first time she could remember. Usually, he seemed to try to go for the over dramatic panic attack, but now he was actually trying to compose himself. Inwardly, Shadow smiled. Took him long enough, but maybe he was finally listening to her after all this time.    “Its always close,” she said after a few moments, idly resting a hand on his arm...mostly because she felt stupid just resting them in her lap.    But Jyren shook his head and turned to face her again, “Not that close. I almost...didn’t make it. Twice.”    “But you did make it, Jyren,” Shadow squeezed his arm and tried to be helpful...despite feeling absolutely useless as she usually did when he got like this, “Don’t dwell on what almost happened. A lot of things almost happen all the time. The important thing is that they don’t.”    When Jyren didn’t say anything and just nodded, Shadow noticed that she hadn’t actually seen his left hand since she’d stepped into the bridge. Normally, that would have been a very odd thing to notice, but when something in the link told her to look, it was hard not to notice. Sighing to herself, and trying her best not to sound annoyed, Shadow reached over and took his hand, which was shaking very noticeably once it wasn’t hidden from view anymore, “That’s a new one...”    Alright, so it wasn’t the best thing to say, but it just slipped out. And, thankfully, Jyren didn’t take it the wrong way. He even half smiled and shrugged slightly, “It hasn’t done that in years.”    “You’re cold as all hell, too,” Shadow mumbled, not taking note of the fact that she was in her Alraxian form and he was still Human and wearing the glaringly bright orange jumpsuit. It meant that her hand fairly easily covered his, but it also meant that she was that much more sensitive to the temperature in the ship. Her morphsuit was combating that little difficulty without any trouble, but her hands and face were still slightly chilled and touching his hand sure didn’t help.    Jyren just shrugged again, suddenly forgetting about the close call he’d just made it through, “I guess it’s a bit colder in here than Loki...but we do need to make the jump from the freighter and not Loki. Can he hang on through hyperspace?”    “Loki will be fine,” Shadow said with a smile, starting to rub Jyren’s hand to try to get the damned thing warm so it didn’t freeze her to death, “He might not like being carried along, but he’ll live. If you can get things set up and ready here without breaking anything else, I’ll head back over to get the coordinates ready for you.”    “It won’t take long?”    Shadow shook head, “Not long at all if I don’t have to deal with Toby.”    Silence.    Jyren bit his lip and Shadow started to grin.    After a few minute, Jyren finally laughed and nodded, “Fine, fine, get the little fur ball over here and I’ll keep him busy.”    “Good,” Shadow smiled and patted his hand, getting up and starting to head back to Loki. Over her shoulder, she said, “I’ll also check out the cargo bay to make sure we can actually use all these explosives we stole. All this would be for nothing if we need access codes. But I won’t be long, we’ll need to get moving as soon as possible...”    The sentence just trailed off. Shadow’s smile faded mostly, but she managed to hold it as best she could until back in the turbolift. Through the link, one of them(neither was sure which), had finished the sentence. They had to do it as soon as possible because they had no idea how far behind they were...or even if it was too late.    And if it was...    Well, if it was too late, then it really wouldn’t matter at all anyway.</blockquote>

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