Part 25 (1/2)
Lady Luckwas left drifting, the remnants of the cofferdam trailing from its airlock.
”Do we have a good track? ” Pakkpekatt demanded.
”Yes, sir. ”
”That's something to work with, ” he said.
”Sir, she jumped toward the Core. ”
Pakkpekatt's expression did not change. ”Dispatch a crew to recover the yacht. BringLightning around to the target's last heading and jump her out ten. We'll go out twenty, Marauder thirty, and then walk it out at intervals of one light-year till we get to the border. She's got to be out there somewhere. ”
”Yes, sir-but how far? She could have jumped all the way to Byss, for all we know. ”
The mere mention of the former Emperor's throne world, deep in the Core, darkened the mood on the bridge still further.
”Let's hope not, sailor, ” said Pakkpekatt. ”Let us earnestly hope not. ”
Chapter 12.
Long before they reached Lucazec, Luke Skywalker settled onMud Sloth as the name for Akanah s previously unnamed Verpine Adventurer.
He realized he had been spoiled by years in high-performance military s.p.a.cecraft, operating under wartime conditions or a military waiver.
But realizing that didn't make it any easier to adjust to civilian navigation restrictions. Not only wasMud Sloth a dawdler in reals.p.a.ce, but its hypers.p.a.ce motivator simply refused to enter or leave hypers.p.a.ce within a planetary Flight Control Zone.
Luke didn't object in principle to FCZ regulations. They helped ensure that less experienced pilots in less capable s.h.i.+ps made slow approaches to populated worlds and busy s.p.a.celanes. But he had never been subjected to a four-day reals.p.a.ce crawl just to leave Coruscant. He was accustomed to reaching for the hyperdrive moments after his s.h.i.+p cleared the atmosphere.
Mud Slothinsisted on waiting until it had cleared the star system.
But there was nothing to be done about it. The Adventurer wouldn't accept his military waiver, and didn't even have a System Configuration option on its c.o.c.kpit displays. It was designed to prevent such meddling.
Driven by impatience, Luke briefly considered powering down the hyperdrive and opening up the service access to see what he could do with it. But he soon talked himself out of it, realizing that reprogramming a motivator was beyond his talents as a tinkerer. Even a stars.h.i.+p as simple as the Adventurer was far more complex than the Incom T-16s and landspeeders he'd spent so many days hopping and rebuilding back on Tatooine.
No, when it came to hypers.p.a.ce, it was too easy for a small oversight to become a final, fatal error.
Anyone who'd flown for long had heard the stories and respected the danger. Of all the risks inherent in traveling unimaginable distances at incalculable speeds, the one that entered most pilots' nightmares was the one-way jump-never coming out of hypers.p.a.ce. Even Han and Chewie left the exacting business of rebalancing a motivator to professionals, and never begrudged them their hefty fees.
But that had left Luke trapped in cramped quarters with Akanah for just over eleven days on the way to Lucazec-something he had not been prepared for.
After months in isolation, he had not been prepared for that much close contact with anyone. Luke wondered how he would have borne it if Akanah had not been so willing to make allowances.
She did not force conversation on him, either idle or earnest. Nor did she make him feel as though he was being watched, that she was waiting for him to do something. Without his ever asking, she granted him the only kind of privacy available under the circ.u.mstances-the privacy of the mind and heart. She did not intrude there without his invitation, hiding her own needs and curiosity so perfectly that they seemed more like comfortable old friends than strangers.
At her suggestion, they adopted a watch schedule that had them sleeping at opposite ends of the day, s.p.a.ced so that neither of them had to climb into a hot bunk. She seemed to welcome the rea.s.surance that someone was awake while she rested, and did not seem to mind that the schedule reduced their time together to a few hours twice a day.
Luke thought Akanah must be accustomed to being alone, for she seemed to have mastered the art of keeping time moving without restless motion. She read from a battered old datapad, meditated in the copilot's couch, and intently studied the Adventurer's owner, pilot, and system helps.
At times she even sought privacy for herself.
Akanah practiced her Fallana.s.si craft in silence behind the drawn curtain of the sleeper, and stripped to a body-hugging monoskin to exercise only when it was Luke's turn in the zippered bunkbag. She even politely ignored him when he made both discoveries, making it unnecessary for him to apologize, or for her to explain.
They did take meals together, dipping twice a day into Akanah's modest cache of stabilized foodstores-many of them long-expired Imperial expedition packs, a telltale sign of desperately tight finances. But even meals did not become an occasion for substantive conversation until near the end, with Lucazec visible through the viewport and the reason for their journey too much in their thoughts to be ignored.
”Sixteen more hours, ” Luke said, tearing open a pouch of Noryath brown meatbread. ”I hate the waiting. I want to crawl back in the bunk and sleep until the autopilot starts asking whether we want to orbit or land. ”
”If I thought this was the end of our journey, rather than just the end of the beginning, I might feel the same way, ” said Akanah, and sipped at her flask of tart pawei juice.
”Do you think there's any chance the Fallana.s.si may have come back, after the war? ”
”No, ” said Akanah. ”You see, the Empire feared us as well as coveted our power. They didn't come down with weapons drawn to round us up, as they did with so many other populations they enslaved-”
”Yeah, I've seen how they work. But how did they even know you existed? I thought you were a secret sect. Or am I the only one who never heard of the Fallana.s.si? ”
”You are right, there is a contradiction, ” said Akanah. ”The explanation is simple, but an embarra.s.sment. We were divided among ourselves about the coming war and what our moral duty was. One of our community, for reasons of her own, went to the Imperial governor and revealed herself. ”
”You were betrayed. ”
”No-no, that's too strong a word. Even though her name is no longer spoken, she had a high purpose in what she did. She believed that by allying ourselves with the Empire, we could be the water that would quench the flame. ” Akanah's eyes were touched by wistfulness. ”But she was wrong. It was too late for that-the fire was already beyond control. ”
”Well-I don't know why you called it an embarra.s.sment, ” said Luke. ”The only communities that think with one mind are those that only have one mind. And I haven't met anyone yet who hasn't ever been pa.s.sionately wrong about something, sometime. ”
”You are generous, ” said Akanah, ”more generous than the circle was able to be. ”
”It's easier for me, ” he said. ”I wasn't the one betrayed. ”
She acknowledged him with a nod. ”The Empire sent General Tagge to Wlalu-who held the wand of privilege then-to offer us the protection of the Emperor. He said it was important for us to show our loyalty-that that was the only way we could escape the fate of the Jedi. We knew what that meant. The Jedi were being hunted down as traitors and sorcerers, and no one dared openly favor or befriend them. ”
”Forgive me-I don't mean to sound suspicious. But how do you know all this? ” Luke asked. ”You said you were just a child, and offplanet at the time. ”
”No, I was still on Lucazec when General Tagge came there, ” said Akanah. ”My mother-her name was Isela--was one of the women who met with Wialu in circle afterward, to decide what to do. And children are not protected from adult concerns in our community, as they are in so many places. Isela told me of the Empire's invitation, and what it might mean to refuse it. ”
”I guess I don't understand, then, ” said Luke, trying to remember where he had heard the general's name before. ”How did you become separated from the others? I a.s.sume the Fallana.s.si let Lucazec rather than either refuse or accept. ”
”No, that was months later, ” explained Akanah. ”Wialu did refuse General Tagge. She told him that the loyalty of the Fallana.s.si was to the Light, and that we would not let ourselves be used to further the ambition of generals, kings, or emperors. ”
”Tagge-I remember now, ” said Luke. ”He was on the first Death Star when Leia was a prisoner. ” He paused, then added, ”He was probably still on board when my proton torpedo blew it to bits. ”
Luke didn 't know what possessed him to make that claim before Akanah, and her response made him feel even more foolish for having done so.
She stiffened as he spoke, and he could feel her withdrawing from him, though she barely moved.
”Do you seek honor from me for this? In time you will understand that the Fallana.s.si honor no heroes for killing, not even killing one who has been our tormentor, ” said Akanah.
”I'm sorry, ” Luke said, and wondered at his own words. Everything suddenly seemed upside down. It was strange and unsettling that the deed for which he had been so lionized now became touched with regret-regret over the killing of an enemy who had been his own sister's tormentor. That moment had decided both his future and the galaxy's, and he had never, in all the years since, questioned the rightness of what he had done.
Akanah nodded, and her face seemed to soften. ”I will not speak of it again. ”