I Want To Be Your Knight: Chapter Six

Kyp piloted us out to Mrykr himself. Three days locked up tight in one of the Jedi Order's shuttles. Why we couldn't have taken my ship, the Jade's Scion, Kyp never told me. Just said that he was piloting, so he'd pick the ship.

If I had to guess, I would have had to say that it was because the Scion had five cabins, while this shuttle only had two. Which meant that we were all tripping over one another the entire way there. Kyp was just cruel that way sometimes.

Three days crammed into that tiny shuttle with the girl who would love nothing more than to skewer me with her lightsaber and the girl who wanted to do nothing more than ignore me. Of course my Master was less than useless, what with spending all his time in the cockpit. Grumpy with me at the best of times, by the end of the second day Jysella's hostility was barely contained. If I got even too close to her personnel space she'd growl dire threats in my direction.

And honestly, I wasn't that much better.

I'd purposefully invade her space to get a rise out of her, to cause her to snap at me, so I would have a reason to snap back. The rest of my time, I spent trying to pick all the electronic locks on the shuttle.

By the time we dropped out of hyperspace near Myrkr, even the normally calm and collected Seha had begun to fray. She had snapped at me twice and Jysella once for the snide comments we were making towards one another.

Of course all of this was perfectly understandable. After all, it's one thing to be shoved into the cockpit of a starfighter alone for days on end, it's an entirely different thing for three people to be shoved into room that's designed for two for days on end.

Finally, Kyp put us into a standard orbit around Myrkr and we quickly got dressed in our outfits, gathered our supplies took up our seats around the small table. A few minutes later, Kyp emerged from the cockpit and came over to stand beside the table where we were all sitting.

Our outfit for this outing was a type of light armor. While not skin tight, it left little to the imagination, but it breathed and was supposed to keep us at a perfect temperature. Additionally, there were armored pads at various places on the body, which would be helpful if we ran into any vornskyrs.

Our supplies were stashed into a shoulder bag not much bigger than an attache case. We didn't need a lot of room, because we weren't allowed to take a whole lot of stuff. No medical supplies. No spare water. All we were allowed to carry was a blanket, a handful of ration packs, a knife, our lightsabers and a blaster, if we wanted one. I opted to carry everything we were allowed to.

He grinned at us, and dropped a holocube onto the table. It sprang to life, displaying a map.

"That's Hyllard City," he told us. "Your insertion should be somewhere between a hundred and a hundred-fifty klicks from it. You have a week to make it to the city. Most dangerous predator out there is the vornskyrs. They like Jedi a lot. I'm not going to lie to you three, you got the hardest planet there is. You'll be in the deep jungle so there's no Force powers. The metallic trees keep sensor sweeps from finding you. You each have an emergency recall button. Remember though, if you use it, you fail the practical."

Then he turned away, and pressed his thumb against the lock to a hold beneath the deck. I had wondered what was in there, as that was the only locked area on the ship that I had failed to gain access to. The door sprang open, and he pulled three seed-like things out. Grinning, Kyp dragged them into the middle of the room.

Once he was down, he gestured to them and with a smile said, "These are a gift from the Wraiths." At this point I had noticed that Jys pulled an odd face, something between a grin and a grimace, as if she wasn't certain if she should be amused or disgusted. "You have five minutes to get into them, and then the cabin will be depressurized and then you'll be falling towards the planet below."

He walked away, and went into the cockpit. We looked between one another, startled slightly by his abruptness. Suddenly, we all heard the pressure seals for all the doors being activated. Jysella uttered a less than feminine phrase, more than likely something she had learned on her grandfather's ship. We scurried out of our seats, and rushed over to the pods.

These things were just a bit over two meters tall, and a little wider and thicker than Artoo. I vaguely remembered hearing about them when I was in GAG. They were insertion capsules, designed during the Vong War, the original units had a rock exterior, but these appeared to be a simple metal alloy, probably the same stuff that the Scion's hull was made of. When I pressed the activation button, two seams appeared, one running down the middle of the capsule vertically, the other horizontal mid-line. The four leaves swung open to reveal what looked like a padded coffin.

Jysella cursed and I looked over at her to see her scampering backwards away from her capsule. When she reached the wall, she curled her legs up, and wrapped her arms around them, and a shudder raced through her body. "I... I don't think I can do this..."

I looked at her, and saw the fear in her eyes. Bright, shining, and quite irrational. It suddenly dawned on me that she was claustrophobic. I frowned and glanced at my own capsule, and then the chrono strapped to my wrist. We had two minutes before Kyp expelled us from the cabin. "I know it's hard Jys, but we kind of have to."

Anger flared in her eyes as she focused on me. "I wasn't asking for your opinion, Skywalker."

I shrugged. "I realize that, but we're about to experience explosive decompression. So unless you want to do so firsthand, get in there."

She rattled off a dozen words, two of which I could pronounce again, only one of which I had ever heard before. Though I didn't know the exact meaning, it didn't take an genius to figure out she was telling me to go kriff myself. Or something equally as bad. Correct that, it was probably something much worse. That one word I had heard before was Hutt.

Anyways, I ran my hand through my hair and looked over towards Seha for help and found that she had already gotten into her capsule, and the leaves were already closing. She looked at me apologetically, and then the leaves closed with a snick and a hiss of compression. She was in there, and utterly useless now. Jys was stuck with me to encourage her. Kriff.

I went over to Jys and knelt down beside her, looking into her eyes. "It's a fear. Hard and nasty to face, but I believe that you can do this. I know it." Then grinning, I said, "Tell you what, I'll let you hit me a couple times once we get down to the surface."

She chuckled, which made me realize that she was a lot more scared than she was letting on. I glanced at my chrono, and found we had 50 seconds left. It had taken Seha's capsule about 15 seconds to close up, so we were quickly running out of time. I held my hand out towards her. "Come on, we don't have a lot of time."

She grasped my hand and I stood up, pulling her up as well. Then we walked her back to her capsule. She laid down, and looked up at me, and I could see the fear still there, could feel it clouding her Force presence. Her voice quivered. "Promise I can hit you when we get planetside?"

I grinned and nodded my head, "Promise."

Then I reached in, buckled her safety harness and slapped the activation plate. Her eyes darted around, widening a bit as the leaves of the capsule closed around her, and with that final snick and hiss it was sealed. I glanced at my chrono again. Twenty seconds.

I rushed over to my own capsule, and a niggle of worry wormed at my heart. I paused and looked around, seeing the three bags still sitting beneath the table. Muttering a curse I dived for the table and grabbed them, at the same time as the decompression alarm starting blaring. The room's illumination suddenly switched from a bright white, to a murky red. I glanced at my chrono, and cursed again. Five seconds.

Running back to the capsule, I jumped in, and slammed the button, pulling the three bags to my chest even as I was straightening my legs out. I cursed again, as I realized I didn't even have enough time to buckle the straps.

With a loud clang the doors shot open, and I felt the capsule rattle and shake as it was pulled towards the exterior by the burst of wind. I inhaled deeply, and closed my eyes, praying to the Force that the leaves would close in time.

Then my capsule was ripped out into space, and it tumbled end over end. Bright squiggly spots danced in the darkness behind my closed eyelids as I suddenly felt the sensation of being in space without a suit.

Then I lost consciousness.