well, it wasn't. good luck convincing the other girls in the ladies' dorm. and maybe yourselves as well.
and Soniee gets a start on her mom's journal.


"It wasn't a date," Soniee said for a third time but she didn't seem to be convincing the other girls.

Werda countered with a grin, "They were in the pub having a drink and laughing." She crossed her arms over her chest as if that settled the matter.

The part about the drinks was right. Soniee's head still felt a little fuzzy but Saw had walked her back to the ladies' dorm before she was too far gone. "He bought me a drink." She admitted. "We had a run in with some stormtroopers and…"

Chi'ann's hands were flying furiously and Myat translated, "zhe wants to know what 'appened wiz zee troopers. Eesn't eet obvious! Trouble follows Gerrera wherever 'ee goes!"

"He was trying to help a little kid," Soniee hurried to explain. "One trooper fired a blaster and then the other came around the corner…"

"And Saw came out blasters blazing and rescued you both?" Werda asked her already wide eyes even wider with excitement as if she were watching a holovid.

"Well no," Soniee frowned. "He didn't even see the second trooper coming. I knew he had the blaster in his belt so I grabbed it and I… shot them both."

Werda was too amazed to speak and Chi'ann's hands were still. Myat finally said, "You saved 'im?"

Soniee shrugged and said quietly, "I did what had to be done." Then she rushed on. "So you see that's why he bought me the drink. It was to, er, thank me… and to settle my nerves because I mean I had just…"

"Saved his life!" Werda had found her voice again. "That's fantastic!"

Chi'ann made a graceful motion with one hand and Myat rolled her eyes. "Zhe says eet eez romanteek."

"Oh it was nothing like that…" Soniee assured them.

"Yeah, not like you and Zal." Werda teased the Pantoran who blushed a lovely shade of violet.

Myat, however, was still looking intently at Soniee. "You do not feel zees way about Gerrera?"

Soniee stuttered, "Well, I … no … of course. I- I can't… there was…" She couldn't tell them about Korkie, her marriage, the possibility that he had already said the words to divorce her and move on with his life. And why wouldn't he? Their child had died because she couldn't save him.

"A tragic love affair back on Mandalore?" Werda guessed, hungry to hear more of the story.

Myat must have seen something in Soniee's expression. The Twi'lek reached out and laid a green hand on the other girl's cream colored. "Dara, deed Gerrera pressure you?"

"No." Soniee almost laughed. "He wasn't trying to get me drunk or anything like that. He said there was no reason to worry that we'd end up in bed together, this time."

"Zis time?" Chi'ann signed and then Myat translated.

Soniee sobered. What had he meant by 'this time'? She had been talking about the last time she got drunk when Fox had brought her back to Padme's apartment. But had Saw meant that there might be another time when he would end up in her bed, that he would like to have the opportunity some time when she didn't have a chaperon? "I'm sure he was only joking."

"Never know with Saw Gerrera." Werda said in a singsong voice. "He has seemed awfully interested in you since you arrived."

"You don't weesh for 'ees attention?" Myat asked.

"Well, I- I can't." Soniee shook her head.

Werda guessed again, a little too close for comfort. "Because of the boy you left back on Mandalore."

Soniee stared at her pleading that she not dig further into the past. "I don't know if he still…"

Myat patted her hand with a determined smile. "You are safe 'ere."

"Thank you." Soniee looked around at the other girls and by their nods and smiles she knew that she truly could trust them.

"So what will you do now?" Werda asked wistfully.

She was probably referring to the entire situation with Saw and her past but Soniee wasn't ready to deal with all that yet. She grinned. "I'm going to get some studying done. If I'm not too haryc b'aalyc ."

Werda's expression turned sour. "You mean Aunt Shara already gave you homework?"

Soniee who had begun to take out her holonotebook and mother's journal, turned and smirked. "Is she your aunt too?"

"Shara adopts everybody." Werda shrugged. "Well, if you're not going to talk about anything else interesting, I'm out."

"It's not really homework. I'm going to try to make a start translating my mom's journal." Soniee didn't look up but she knew the words had had an effect.

Werda came right back and sat on the edge of the bed. "You'll tell us all when you work it out?"

"Of course." Soniee smiled. "But I'm probably going to be extremely dull for the next twenty standard years or so while I do. And it probably won't even be that interesting when I do. How exciting could the life of a sixteen year old Onderonian girl be?"

None of them really believed that. Werda had lived through a droid occupation when she was that age. Chi'ann had already been performing on stage and Myat, who hadn't even reached sixteen yet, had enough life experience to fill several journals. Not that she would want to relive those moments by writing them down.

Soniee thought back to when she was sixteen. She had her first boyfriend. She told him that she was a Force user and he told her that his mother was a Duchess and his father was a Jedi. No she had a feeling that her mother, who two short years after she began penning this journal had died in a crash, running away, to give birth to her child, probably had not lived a dull life either.

She opened the book and turned to what was instinctively the end. This right to left arrangement was really going to take some getting used to.

She noticed out of the corner of her eye that Chi'ann's hands were moving. There was another language she was going to have to learn.

Myat translated. "Zhe zinks zat Gerrera would not find watching you so dull."

Werda laughed and even Chi'ann managed a wheezing sort of giggle.

"'Ee will not bozair you, Dara, and neezair will we." Myat shooed the other girls away so Soniee could have some peace.

This was not going to be easy. She had to translate the runes into their Aurebesh equivalent and then figure out phonetically what that word might be in the Onderonian to Baisc dictionary she had pulled up on the holonet. It was helped by the fact that, thankfully, her mother had begun her journal the same way teenage girls have been beginning journals for all of time, "Dear Diary, My name is..." And then there it was she had seen her mother's first name written in Aurebesh in the inscription in the cover but here it was in her own hand, "Melaana Ophelia Rash."

Soniee let out a laugh and at the same time tears sprang to her eyes.

"What is it?" Werda asked for all the girls who were now staring at her.

"Her middle name." Soniee smiled. "She was named for the princess of Onderon. I was in that play once. I played that character." She dropped her eyes to the journal again. She couldn't just go around saying things like that. Everyone knew that Soniee Ordo, Representative of Mandalore, was known as the Princess of Onderon because of the part she had played. But hundreds, thousands of worlds must perform the Bards plays every rotation. She wasn't alone in her portrayal of the character.

The girls just nodded, smiled at her, and went back to what they were doing. Of course it didn't really matter to them, but to her the connection was monumental and only in the first few words she had managed to translate.

She was tired but on a roll now. She wanted to figure out just one more word and then another and then another. She learned that the journal was not her mother's only lifeday gift that year. Her parents had given her something called a Cloud Hopper. She did a search and found that it was a sort of two seater ship with an open cockpit. Her mother had written how she always wanted to be a pilot, ever since she had read...

"Werda, could you help me with something?" Soniee asked. She didn't realize that the other girl had already fallen asleep.

"Hmm?" She sat up and stretched. "Find something interesting?"

"Oh I'm sorry I woke you. It can wait."

The shadow girl walked over and sat beside her. "'Sokay. What is it?"

"My mother is talking here about a book she read, I think. She says it's why she wanted to become a pilot. Only the girl in the story was the captain of a ship. The adventures of..."

"Sanya Harkon." Werda finished for her with a smile. "Yeah, it's a legend of the Northern Sea. Grandma Flint sent a copy of it down to my mom to read to all of us kids when I was little."

"Saw-nee-ah?" She carefully pronounced the syllables. It sounded so much like her own name. It couldn't be a coincidence.

"Yeah that's right. You can probably find the book free somewhere on the net in Basic. I'm sure it's been translated. It's pretty popular and I don't know a whole lot of people who can read runes. Need anything else?" Werda asked with a yawn.

"No." Soniee mused. "No, I think I'm about ready to call it a night too." She closed the notebook and journal and set them carefully on a side table.

She'd known her mother was a pilot. Of course, she was piloting a ship when she'd given birth to her daughter. But knowing that she'd always wanted to be a pilot and that she'd named her daughter after the character who inspired her, it was more than she'd ever hoped to learn from just a few lines of text.


After their date, that was most definitely not a date, Saw had also been unable to sleep. He had returned to his own apartment. He had found the place months ago, deep under the city, already almost completely furnished. He knew that it had once been the home of Bremon Kira's uncle Naidon.

He didn't care how many times his parents and Uncle Brem had warned him away from the place. After Steela had died, after Bonteri had sold them out to the Empire and the Stormtroopers had come and burned down the jungle, he needed a place to come to be alone. The apartment seemed ready made for a bachelor who needed an escape from the world above.

When the Blackwells had shown up and needed a place to stay it was easy for him to hand over the town house and his dad's old shop to them for as long as they needed it. There were too many memories for him to stay there day in, day out, anyway.

But he wasn't thinking about any of that now. He was thinking about Dara. As hard as it was to believe that Mel's daughter could sing or that Brem's daughter was afraid to ride a dalgos, it was becoming more and more obvious that she was theirs. Her expressions, her kindness, her humor, her stubbornness, it was all so much like the man he'd grown up with and the woman he remembered.

And yet he had Shara had agreed not to tell her, to let her find out on her own, to let her ask the questions. Surely when she started working on the journal there would be questions. Suddenly he wanted to ask her if she had been able to get a start on it.

Without even really thinking about what time it was, he lost track sometimes when he spent too much time in the tunnels. He jumped up and made his way toward the ladies' dorm.

He tried the door. Of course it was locked and then he knocked. "Dara, you up?" He called through the obstacle.

He waited impatiently for an answer and then finally heard a voice, Myat's, "Dara, does not weesh to speak to you Mr. Gerrera."

"She doesn't..." he asked confused. He checked the chrono on his wrist. It was late. "Well, she's alright, isn't she? Probably sleeping. Should have thought of that."

The voice came right back as fierce and protective as he had ever heard her. "Zhe ees een bed and does not weesh you to join 'er."

"Look, it wasn't like that." He leaned against the door and sighed. "It wasn't a date."

"So you say."

He stood up straight again, annoyed. "Just tell her I came by. I'll talk to her tomorrow."

Soniee had woken enough to hear most of the exchange. "It wasn't a date." She repeated quietly to herself as she rolled over and went back to sleep.