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!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ankh-Morpork Guard" data-source="post: 3723600" data-attributes="member: 10079">Chapter 509: The Blink of an EyeOnce, all she had known was death. Causing it, seeing it around her, and feeling like the very essence of it centered on her. First it was family, then strangers whose names she knew only for the purposes of tracking them down, then friends, something she was never supposed to have, followed by more family, and then...and then even closer family. So close that, even more than those friends, should never have been possible for her. And ever since then, it was strangers again. A cycle...a horrible cycle that wouldn’t end...    Marix ducked under the fist of a Mrrakesh twice her size, then used the Force to propel her body upward. She jumped up into his chest, dagger driving under his ribs first, and the Force helped her to push both herself and the Mrrakesh up to the ceiling of the corridor before she removed the dagger and dropped down first.    The second she landed, Marix his the ground rolling forward, and a thud behind her indicated the fallen Mrrakesh. Rolling up to her feet, Marix turned and fired a quick shot from her wrist blaster to finish off the warrior, then took off running down the corridor again.    Two more were behind her, unarmed as this one had been. She was likely passing by crew quarters from the way these Mrrakesh were unarmed and unarmoured. They’d simply caught her smell and looked outside to see if they were dreaming. The now-dead Mrrakesh had been the first to do so, and he’d managed to get in her way before she could dash past.    The other two, however, were farther behind down the section she’d already come from, and were now running to catch up. They were fast, with powerful leg muscles, but Marix was doing something that someone she knew very well had always called cheating. She was using the Force to push her faster.    One night, over a decade ago, she’d said something completely by accident. There had been a smile on her face, and she grabbed him suddenly, wrapping her arms around him in a tight, and terrifying for the sudden way it had happened, embrace. A light in her eyes that was as alien as a bath to a Hutt shined brightly as she told him she was free. She told him that everything could be different. And then, without thinking, she told him they could start a family.    Coming to a stop at a pair of large, rectangular shaped doors, Marix knew she’d found the lifts.  Her eyes darted around, and then, at eye level, found a single console between the two. Thankfully, the switches and buttons looked straightforward enough, and Marix found the right switch right away, opening the left to reveal a rather boring looking lift.    She ran into the thing, hitting the nearest button just to get moving, as the two Mrrakesh were almost there. The doors slid shut, and she felt it moving. Good.    Marix then took the time to look at the console and try to figure it out. Find the bridge. Kill the commander and disable the ship from the inside. She’d done it before, and she could do it again. But by the time this lift got to its destination, they’d know, for certain, that someone was aboard that shouldn’t be. Those two Mrrakesh were the only two that had crossed her path and lived, and they would report the encounter right away most likely.    Start a family. She’d never figured out why that had been the first thing to escape. Maybe because it was normal. That had to be it. She had been freed, and that meant she could be like everyone else. And everyone started a family at some point or another...at least, that was what she figured people were supposed to do. Her experience with that was limited, to say the least.    A normal life. Looking back, she should have known that was impossible. All of the contradictions within her made it so hard to even bring her close to normal, and then putting her along with someone like Jyren? There was just no way. But back then...back then it felt possible. She could just settle down somewhere away from all of it with him right there the whole time, and they could start a family and just live quietly for the rest of their lives.    That was what people were supposed to do.    The lift came to a sudden, but not unexpected, halt. Marix steadied herself as best she could from the somewhat violent stop, and immediately noted that the door hadn’t opened. Of course that was going to happen. Marix looked up to see no hatch or any clear way to open the top of the lift. Then, just to make sure, she looked down. No...still nothing. Hm.    And that was when the lift started moving again.    Marix’s brain put the pieces together right away and she knew what was coming. Stop the lift in an empty area for long enough to decide on a good place to send it to, and then have the troops there to blast whatever was there when the door opened. Looking up again, she figured it wouldn’t be too hard to get up there and avoid the initial volley of fire, but it wouldn’t last long. With no where to go or hide in beyond clinging to the ceiling, which only a being of her small size could do, the Mrrakesh would know exactly where to look.    Not that she wasn’t going to do it. In fact, she was pulling herself up as her mind worked out the rest of the situation. It always came down to one important question though. How many Mrrakesh would there be?    The two she had escaped would have reported the death of one of their comrades. That meant it would be at least four. Three hadn’t been enough to stop her and the Mrrakesh would simply overstep the already proven minimum, even if the circumstances hadn’t amounted to a straight fight. So at least four...but what was the upper end? Only about two average sized Mrrakesh could stand side by side in their corridors. Four would mean they’d have to shoot over one another...two could charge in, two could stand back. Six meant two to charge in, two for the middle ground, and two more as a just-in-case measure. Considering how far she’d gotten, they’d likely be working on the upper end.    So six made sense. Plan for that and work from there. But that did present an important question. How many could she fight at once and survive? Two, definitely. Four, probably. Six...six would be pushing it. But if she was fast, if she was at her best, Marix knew she could do it. Despite how far she’d gotten, to the Mrrakesh, she was still just an Alraxian. She wasn’t the Empress, and she certainly wasn’t any good at fighting...just at running. That gave her at least a few seconds worth of an advantage. Long enough to drop two of them, maybe three.    Normal. That was normal. Life and death...weighing how much she could survive.  It wasn’t odds, it was just...reality. That was supposed to have changed. Mothers weren’t supposed to be so focused on killing other beings. They were supposed to...to help the father raise the children. To enjoy the connection with the children in a way their father never could understand. To raise her daughter to be a strong Empress without forcing her to fight.    Eleven standard years. It had been like that for eleven standard years. But to an Alraxian, that was nothing. A species that lived centuries saw a decade pass in a blink. And when she’d opened her eyes to see the world again, Marix saw the Vong come into the galaxy and push the Mrrakesh across the border. They would have come eventually, but likely not that soon. And then it was back to what she and Jyren considered normal...fighting. Fighting and killing.    But it was different. It was one thing to be young and a fighter, back to back and making short quips about the other’s relative sanity. It was something else entirely, though, to be young, face to face, and with children to protect. At the same time it was so much easier and yet so much harder to fight. Maybe normal had found a way to hang onto her for once...    When she’d blinked again, Marix opened her eyes and there was no one in front of her anymore. Normal had lost its grip again, and Jyren had gone with it. And ever since then...    The lift stopped, and Marix had to dig her claws into the metal to keep from falling. The sound of the door opened was drowned out by a flurry of green laser fire, which completely covered the section of the lift below her. Thank the Force the lift was a half meter larger than the door. The weapons fire stopped as they attackers realized they had no target, and Marix heard metal sounds that indicated blades being drawn.    She let go and dropped to her feet, morphing as she fell. In a flash, a metal Alraxian was face to face with two large Mrrakesh soldiers coming at her with blades the size of her arm. But more important, the droid-like-Alraxian’s empty eyes looked past the two nearest attackers...    And they saw seven other Mrrakesh.</blockquote>

Verification