Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 2914985" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 342“You gave him what?!” Marix’s voice was surprisingly calm considering that her tone could probably have destroyed entire fleets.    “My comlink,” Jyren answered for the third time, trying not to incite any more anger than he already had by being as neutral as possible. They were sitting in their usual, comfortable seats in Loki’s cockpit. There had actually been a long conversation with Loki not twenty minutes earlier about the whole war that was going brewing in the remainder of the galaxy. But then they passed through the Gate to the Empire and made their second jump to Alraxia...Jyren had decided that was the best time to bring up what he’d hidden.    Loki had gone...suspiciously silent after Jyren had first brought it up and, honestly, Jyren couldn’t blame the ship. It was the smart thing to do, and he’d do the same if he could have. But, instead, he had Marix glaring turbolasers at him and almost completely at a loss for words. Almost working it out herself, she said, “You gave that Jedi your comlink. The one we modified to transmit an Alraxian security code to the Knights that guard the Gate so that the message will go directly to the Palace.”    Jyren simply nodded in response.    There was a short pause where she continued to just stare at him, then she let out a long sigh, “Jyren we’re having enough trouble opening up the damned Empire slowly! Now you’ve given some random Jedi, who is definitely nothing like the Jedi in our history, direct access to our home! The second he uses that the word will get out and people will go crazy!”    “I was just some random Jedi!” Jyren suddenly snapped, “By the Force, I never even was a Jedi and these people latched onto me anyway!”    “This could pull the entire Empire into a war that even the Mrrakesh aren’t equipped to fight!” Marix yelled back at him, “We can barely hold our borders against them and now we could be dragged into a galactic conflict with powers that make the Mrrakesh look like children!”    “I did it so he could contact me, not the Empire!” by now, he was yelling back.    Marix bit her lip and did her best not to throw something at him, “How can you still be so damned stupid after so many years?! You are me and I am the Empire! You get involved, I get involved, everyone gets involved!”    “I can’t just sit in the Palace and listen to our scouts reporting what world has fallen next!” Jyren growled back, just as angry all of a sudden(mostly due to the link, of course, which definitely had a habit of making arguments even more heated than they should have been), “You’ve felt the same thing I have! This is not something we can just ignore. These Vong are prepared, and they are something that the New Republic has never dreamed of seeing. They will keep plowing over world after world while that damned government sits back and claims they don’t know a think!”    “And you can’t stop them!” Marix snapped back, a bit more quietly but still just as angry, “The galaxy will have to deal with this on their own. That is what the Jedi are supposed to be doing. Protecting people.”    Jyren sighed and shook his head, “There aren’t enough Jedi for that.”    Marix raised a finger, “One person won’t tip the odds to their side.”    And then they went silent. She was right, of course. About everything. He was just one person, and no matter how idealistic he may still have been, no amount of that could save a galaxy on its own. But at the same time, it wasn’t so easy to just sit there and watch...not that Marix didn’t understand. She, however, had always been much better at thinking with her brain rather than her hearts. That was Jyren’s specialty, and was the reason they usually ended up in trouble...but also, a good amount of the time, why they got out of trouble.    But things were so much more complicated now than they were ten years earlier. Then, maybe, he could have run off to fight this fight and she would have been right there with him the whole time. But now...now it wasn’t a good idea for either of them to go. And, whether Jyren liked it or not, it applied to him as much as it did to her.     An hour of silence passed as they both drifted into their own thoughts while casually watching the lines of hyperspace in front of them. But, finally, Jyren said quietly, “Have you ever been to Ithor?”    “Once,” Marix answered just as quietly, her eyes still looking off into no where, “About a year before we met. Had to pick up some kind of food supplies for transport to some blockaded planet.”    “What was it like?”    “Ithor?” Marix turned to look over to him and, when he nodded, went on, “A lot like home, really. The forests were...amazing. I just wish they would have let me down on the ground but it takes some long ritual and a lot of approvals to even fly a speeder over it. They’re...very protective of their home.”    Jyren nodded, smiling slightly as he couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the Ithorians an the Alraxians. He let out a long sigh before shaking his head and whispering, “I want to help them, Shady. I need to. I know you don’t want me to, and I know its not exactly the best idea considering things but...but I need to.”    Slowly, Marix reached over and took his hand in hers, “Lets just get home...we’ll worry about this later.”    Jyren smiled and squeezed her hand and managed a nod, “Deal.”</blockquote>

Verification