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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2914846" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 318Jyren stared at the two rows of landspeeder sized, cylindrical orbital mines and sighed heavily. His eyes searched the cargo hold for a moment before they locked onto a patch of white with some black about halfway down the left row, “At least some of them work, right?”    The patch of hair raised up until Shadow’s eyes could be seen over one of the mines, “They all work...we just only have the activation codes for this row.”    Jyren rounded the corner to stand next to her, looking at the small panel that she was inspecting on the side of the mine. He was now taller than her again, having gotten rid of the orange flight suit so he could morph back to his Alraxian form without completely ruining the thing. It was still strange to feel comfortable in a body that he wasn’t born to, but Jyren had reached the point where he did his best to just not think about it too much.    He looked up again and counted the number of mines in the row before saying, “So we can detonate half of them.”    “We can detonate all of them,” Shadow corrected, closing the panel on the mine and shrugging, “Just going to have to put the others near these so they go, too.”    “Can we block off the whole entrance to the hyperspace route with just twenty eight mines?”    Shadow shook her head, but then motioned around them, “We’ve got this ship, too...and that cargo skiff. Together with the ring, we should be able to stop anything bigger than a starfighter from getting through.”    There was silence between them for a few long moments. The link even stayed relatively dormant, save for the usual surface thoughts that even Shadow couldn’t push away despite her control. But then, turning back to face her, Jyren asked, “If there’s enough ships, all she’ll have to do is throw enough before the path is clear.”    Nodding, Shadow stared down at the deck plates, “It can’t be a huge fleet, though. There hasn’t been enough time for that.”    Jyren sighed again and rested a hand on the mine next to them, being slightly cautious despite the fact that he knew it wouldn’t explode that easily, “She’s...she’s not stupid. She knows we’re going to try something.”    Again, Shadow nodded, but this time she looked up at him, “You’re starting to think too much, Jyren. Let it go for now. We’ll deal with it when we get there...” slowly, a smile crept onto her face, “At least let us get out of hyperspace before you crack.”    “Oh, shut it,” Jyren said, fighting back a grin and turning to leave the cargo hold.    Shadow fell into step next to him and they headed for the turbolift. When it was heading up to the bridge again, she decided it was time to ask a very important question, “Jyren...where exactly is Toby?”    “He was too wild so I told him to go run around the ship...” the sentence trailed off as Jyren thought about that, then he laughed slightly, “You know, I think he actually went off to try it.”    Shaking her head, Shadow stared at Jyren until the turbolift stopped and the door slid open. As they stepped out and looked out into the swirling blue hyperspace, she finally said, “He’s as bad as you are.”    “Ironic, isn’t it?” Jyren grinned over his shoulder, though he regretted the statement after he’d spoken it.     The whole situation with Tobias’ actual parents was still a bit...touchy. In all truthfulness, the two of them got stuck with Toby more than anything else...both through the pressures of all the Alraxians back in the Empire and from Tobias himself, who’d latched onto them almost right away after certain little details had been worked out.     There was still a slight...unease about the little Alraxian, though. This was the child of two very cruel, and very insane Alraxians who had tried to kill their own people...and even brainwashed their own child, turning him into a weapon. It was hard not to wonder if anything else was still there, hidden away. Yet, despite all of this, Tobias had latched onto the Shadow and Jyren almost right away...it was, of course, unsurprising when it came to Shadow, as being a clone(well, and the original) of his real mother, there was at least some resemblance, but Jyren still wondered how he fit into the whole equation exactly. And that didn’t even get into the fact that Tobias looked much more like Jyren did than Ket Halpak.    Though all of this could be felt through the link, Shadow was currently doing her best to focus on the moment and, because of this, was the first to have a seat and check the chrono. Glancing over to Jyren, she said simply, “Two more minutes and we’ll be there.”    “Want me to find Toby then head down an get the mines loaded onto the skiff and ready to be deployed?” Jyren asked, already turning back around to head back before he’d finished the sentence.    But he stopped in his tracks when Shadow said, “No. Wait here. I think we should...see how things look first.”    “...right,” and so he turned around yet again, but this time walked over and had a seat next to Shadow, watching both the viewport, the chrono, and glancing over to her every few moments.    The time passed fairly quickly, but it was still nice to have those few moments of quiet. But soon, the chrono reached zero, and Jyren pulled them out of hyperspace. The stars returned, and so did the giant, metallic ring that sat as a shield of sorts outside the only safe hyperspace route into the Alraxian Empire and its neighbors out in the Unknown Regions of space. There was the hazy glow in the center of the ring that indicated the shield(which was controlled from a small outpost a few star systems inside the hidden worlds) was still active.    That was a good sign.    Not that it couldn’t be destroyed, but it meant they were probably here before anything else...how much time they had, though...    “Now go find Toby,” Shadow said, quickly sliding out of her seat and up to head for the turbolift, “I’ll go get the mines ready. Take Tobias over to Loki and then come over and help me.”    She was talking as fast as she was moving, and Jyren knew exactly why. He could feel it, too. A strong sense of tension flowed through the Force towards them. They may have arrive first...but they didn’t have much time to get ready.</blockquote>

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