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"The agents who ambushed us are dead. No one tried to stop us at the
port. The flight controllers gave us clearance without a peep. The
skies are empty. What will it take for you to feel safe?"
"I won't feel safe until we've found the Fallanassi," Akanah said. "I
can't bear the thought of failing. I've waited so long--and so have
you. If anything should stop us this close to the end--" "How close
are we?" Luke asked. "What did the Current writing back there say?"
"I already told you--it pointed the way home."
"But you didn't tell me where that is."
"I was afraid to say anything until we were away from there," said
Akanah. "I couldn't risk having anyone else hear."
"We're alone now," Luke pointed out.
"But they could have placed a listening device in the ship while we
were on the North Plateau. I want to wait until we're in hyperspace.
Then I know they won't be able to follow."
"No one's been in the ship but us," Luke said firmly. "And this isn't
going to be much of a partnership if you're keeping secrets from me.
Don't you trust me, Akanah?"
"I know you to be a good man," said Akanah. "But some of what you do
and believe makes me uncomfortable.
In the long run, I have never known a warrior or a soldier to be a
friend." saber now only comes to my hand to protect people I care
about. Is that a warrior, or a friend?"
Akanah was silent, looking down at her lap. "We have to go to Teyr,"
she said at last. "The circle may not have been able to stay there,
but that is where they went from Lucazec."
"Teyr is--um, that way," Luke said, pointing up and to the right.
"More or less," she said, and reached out to raise his arm slightly.
"That's closer. I was planning on a double jump, in case anyone is
thinking about following US."
Luke nodded his approval. "That's one of the worlds the children were
sent to."
"Yes," she said.
"Didn't you say you'd already been there, looking for them?"
"No. I said I couldn't find them there," Akanah corrected.
"I was never able to make the journey. I made inquiries, from
Carratos, when I could." She looked up then. "But the Fallanassi
change names, styles of dress, habits of speech, even the way we groom
our hair, to blend in, to disappear. Unless I can be face-to-face with
them, exchange the signs, let them feel me beside them in the Current,
they would not reveal themselves, out of fear that I was not what I
seemed to be."
"You think they're still hiding?"
"After what just happened, can you not say we have reason?"
Luke nodded. "I think we need to talk about what just happened."
"So do I," she said. Her eyes flashed darkly. "But I would prefer not
to have that conversation with an Imperial interrogation team. Can't
you do something so we can jump out of here sooner rather than
later?"
"I don't really want to. I think so far, we've managed to slip out of
here without attracting any special attention," Luke said. "But if we
suddenly blast out of a
Flight Control Zone, especially in this bucket, we're going to go right
to the top of the alert list. And when we arrive at Teyr, they're
going to insist on talking to us.
They might even insist on inspecting our ship and pulling its
license."
"I had not thought of that," she said, frowning.
"But what if you're wrong, and six hours from now an Imperial warship
comes out from behind Lucazec, or drops out of hyperspace in front of
us? Wouldn't you like--" "To be able to show them our tail? Yes." He
squeezed his eyes shut, as though trying to visualize something without
distractions. "Maybe there's a way to do this without getting near the
motivator. What do you have for tools?"
"I--I'm not sure. I thought you would use the Force somehow," she
said. "Bend a contact, or break a trace--" Luke shook his head. "You
have to know exactly how something's put together before you try that
sort of trick' and I've never even had my hands inside the access panel
of an Adventurer."
"You're destroying all my illusions about the all-powerful Jedi,"
Akanah said with a hint of a smile.
Laughing lightly, Luke climbed out of the pilot's seat. "The truth is
that, most of the time, the Force is no substitute for a tech droid or
a tool kit. And I've never known a Jedi who wanted it to get around
that he could fix broken appliances."
Her smile broadened at that.
"Did you get a key to the equipment bay when you bought this thing?"
"No," she said, suddenly worried.
"It's all right," Luke said, touching her shoulder as he slipped by
her. "I can handle an idiot lock without a tool kit. Stay here and
keep an eye on the nav scanner.
I'll see what I can do about giving us another option."
Luke sat on the edge of the open drive compartment, his feet dangling
inside, just above the fuel pumps for the realspace thrusters. It felt
both strange and pleasantly familiar to be tinkering again. It took
him back to the hot breezes of Tatooine, to surprisingly fond memories
of his years in the Lars household.
"Boys and machines," he could hear his Aunt Beru saying with
bemusement. "What is it about boys and machines?"
His life then had consisted of little more than tinkering.
The greater part by far of his chores on the farm had been trying to
keep Uncle Owen's motley collection of secondhand droids and
second-quality moisture v aporators running. After chores, Luke had
invested his free time in coaxing a little more speed from the XP-30
landspeeder he had rescued from the Anchorhead salvage yard, and
tweaking the performance of the family's T-16 skyhopper for those races
in Beggar's Canyon.
Teenage impatience had made him view Tatooine as a wasteland and the
farm as a prison. But that world looked better seen through a filter
of time and experience.
And he realized belatedly just how much he had enjoyed those hours with
his head and hands inside an engine service panel, in a simple,
knowable world of which he was the master.
"You look happy," said Akanah softly. She had returned from the flight
deck without his noticing.
"I am," he said, twisting and looking up at her. It was a surprising
discovery.
She nodded toward the drive. "Do you think you'll be able to fix it?
Or break it--I suppose that's more descriptive."
"It's already done," he said. "It wasn't that hard once I got into
it.
The lockout doesn't go into the drive at all--it's here at the nav
controller, see? If it doesn't get a signal from the FCZ interface,
the controller can't enable the drive--" He saw her expression and
stopped himself.
"Anyway, I'm just studying up for the next problem now."
"Already done? That's wonderful!" she said. "I'm terribly
impressed--I've never had so much as a single home tech course, and
when I look down in there, I have no idea what I'm seeing. You could
probably tell," she added.
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