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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3128251" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 405: Short JumpOther than the hum of the ship and a few other noises from the cockpit, the shuttle was relatively quiet. So far, they weren’t dead yet, which was a good sign. For all any of them knew, a star could be coming right into their path and then there would be nothing left. The three conscious people in the cockpit of the shuttle were, however, ignoring this fact as best as was possible.    “She’ll have a bad headache for a while, but she’ll be okay,” Jyren said after sitting Rea’s still unconscious body up straight in the co-pilot’s seat so that he could get a look at how bad she’d been hurt. From the looks of it, just a good pounding to the head from the sudden hit they’d taken. Yes, there was blood on the console where she had hit, but it was a small amount, thankfully.    After making sure she wouldn’t fall over again, Jyren turned around to look behind her to where Loro sat holding his webbed hand, “How are you holding up?”    “Its broken,” the Mon Calamari said in a rather bored tone while nodding his large head to the hand, “But I’ve had worse.”    Jyren nodded, and turned his eyes behind his own seat to the Jedi woman, “You going to make it?”    The blonde haired woman gave him a simple nod, “I’m fine...” she paused a moment, and then spoke up again, sounding a bit cautious all of a sudden, “What about you?”    “I’ve had worse,” Jyren repeated Loro’s words but in a dismissive way.    He would have turned around then to look forward, but he caught sight of Venda’s face forming a thoughtful stare as he eyes narrowed slightly, “I saw you when we took the hit...you went forward as fast as she did. I can believe you caught yourself, but not without breaking your own wrists in the process...” she trailed off, then added, “I would have felt the Force if you’d used it.”    Jyren’s face went blank. It was a defense mechanism he’d learned all too well from Marix. He became as unreadable on the outside as he was doing his best to be on the inside, and managed to somehow not sound trapped when he said, “Just lucky, I guess.”    That was when he took the opportunity to turn back to the consoles in front of him and pretend to be busy. The thing that bothered him now was just how damned aware of everything this Venda was. He was sitting directly in front of her so she shouldn’t have seen a thing, but he could tell she knew something was up. And something was, in fact, up. The sudden impact had broken both of his wrists as he pushed himself back from going face first into the consoles as Rea had, but Jyren hadn’t felt it. Years with remorphing meant that it happened far too naturally in most cases, and in seconds his bones were fine and he was grabbing the hyperspace lever and getting them away from Obroa-Skai as if nothing was wrong.    Just lucky.    That wouldn’t fly for long.    But now he had another problem.    Her mind was likely trying to figure this out, and that would just bring more questions. Not to mention the fact that Loro was also giving him a somewhat odd look. Though most looks from a Mon Calamari were a bit odd compared to human-like faces, Jyren had been around enough to know when they were thinking hard. It was in subtle shifts near the eyes, not unlike in humans, but off to the sides and not where one would normally look for them.    A beep from the navcomputer pulled Jyren out of his thoughts and he could only hope it did the same for the other two. He gave each a quick glance over his shoulder without saying a word before reaching over to the hyperspace levers. Part of him felt like he should say something or be dramatic about it in some way...but another part, the part that was likely Marix from the link, told him that was stupid and would likely have found a way to hit him if he did.    So, Jyren simply took the levers and pushed them back. The stars slowly came back into existence, and there they were again...Realspace...    A new beep picked up, and Jyren knew that one, too. The comm system. He quickly looked over to the IFF broadcaster and made sure it was saying something helpful, then opened up the channel to hear the familiar voice of the Araddon’s comm chief, “Unidentified vessel, this is the ----“    ”This is Captain Jyren BlueIce of Zephyr Squadron,” he cut the officer off, truly not in the mood to deal with the usual formalities, “I’ve got two of the other pilots that were on the ground with me and a Jedi here. I’ve got wounded, so I suggest you get a medical team to meet us in the hangar bay.”    Before closing his end of the channel, he made sure to transmit his clearance code just so they knew it was actually him. Or, of course, something that had killed him, sounded just like him, and was about to blow them up. The latter was unlikely.    After a few short moments, the comm chief’s voice returned, “Good to hear you made it off that rock, Captain. The Admiral and Commodore Nok would like to see you immediately after you have landed.”    And then the other end went silent. Good. Jyren wanted to meet with them, anyway. He still had no idea what he was going to do about the information Venda had, but maybe she would push the two into doing something...and then Jyren would just have to nudge a little more. He closed his eyes and shook the thoughts away for the moment.    Right now, he still had to land the half-beaten hunk of junk that had, before their leaving of the planet, been a shuttle.</blockquote>

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