Entry for Trillian4210 March 2007 Challenge - to the theme of "Corners"
Atton reached over the control panel and absently punched in coordinates. He paused silently and looked up in the short narrow cabin in thought. He ran his hand over his chin feeling the scraggy beard and rubbed his eyes in thought. He finally nodded to himself and punched in the final numbers.
"Must've been great fun mapping hyperspace routes, looking at space and stars," he thought. He looked out over the controls.
"Space… the final frontier," he said in a deep voice. "Nah," he chuckled, "too campy." He leaned back in the chair stretching his arms out behind him and then folding them behind his head closing his eyes.
"How long has it been, Rand?" he thought to himself.,"A year or so now?" The days were running into each other at this point.
She told him to stay behind… like he was some boyscout admiral or something. "Well, he has a Republic to watch. I, on the other hand, just have drinking. Drinking and Pazaak, but mostly drinking."
He spent one night staring at some sort of ale or the other, and the fact he wasn't sure what kind of ale it was was proof enough that he needed to find something else to do. Something to occupy his time while he waited and worried.
He could have done something community service worthy. One of those typical hooray-the-jedi-are-helping-the-needy type thing. Not that Atton was a typical jedi. Although, if he was a better jedi, he'd probably have a better idea about how to go about doing this.
This was him not staying behind, at least the best way he could interpret it. So, he went looking for her. She'd be furious probably. In fact, he counted on it. He imagined her face. Probably scowling, deep in anger, and then the smallest and briefest of smiles, but she would see his point in the end. She'd forgive him. After all, it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission.
"Wish I had better directions than beyond the outer rim," he thought aloud. He leaned forward to check on his progress and then leaned back again.
A small beep made him jump. He frowned, "A transmission…" He honed in on the signal and found that it was ancient. "Hope the translation software goes back that far," he fed the signal through several programs and displayed the results in the monitor in front of him.
"Thank you, you have reached Sector 41.596401, also known as Corner One of the Four Corners of the Galaxy. Turn back now you've gone as far as you could possibly go in this direction. Have a great millennium."
Atton sighed and reached back over to the controls, "One down, three more to go."