XXV

In the swoop hanger, Bao-Dur's bandoleers and equipment belt clattered to the floor. For a moment Anna thought that he was going to take his shirt off as well, but he didn't; he simply looked at her, unburdened, with a slight smile, and bent to pick up the discarded items. He piled them on a shelf set into the wall while she frantically tried to think of something to say.

It was a task to think of something to say, so the first thought that surfaced was it's my turn to fix dinner tonight.

It was not a chore, but rather easy and natural, to keep silently watching Bao-Dur. He did not move like Mical; it was care and solidarity, not grace and impetuous, that Bao-Dur personified.

What did he expect? What did the crew expect; what would they feel?

This blasted inner conflict would be so much easier without Force users around.

But the others didn't matter. Because as soon as she reached for the Force, his need to be with her was there, just like her need for him. At ease, soldier floated into and out of her thoughts as a possibility of something to say. She crossed her arms and leaned against the bulkhead. Silence seemed the only option which would not lead to more conversation.

She was tired of conversation, tired of relationships too stressful to be comforting. But Bao-Dur had been comforting, when they were alone on the rocks, had been everything.

How could something so critical in Anna's battle against uncertainty be wrong?

Even if it founded more uncertainty?

She ghosted away to the prep unit before he could react.

"What's this?" Admiral Onasi grunted as she reached to pass a platter of meat over his shoulder. "Boiled gizka?"
"Sorry, Admiral." She set the tray down on the makeshift table, the central computer. "We were all out of gizka. I think it's fried pockethare."

"You think?" Mission asked wryly.

"I just pressed a button and told the galley to defrost the stuff; I didn't take much time to read the labels." Laughs sprouted around the circle. Anna sat down on a folding chair between Bao-Dur and Zaalbar when she had finished setting trays between the crewmember's plates. Food was passed around, clattering and steaming; Anna's stomach growled, although it was a bit queasy from the sight of the very red meat that the prep unit had decided was proper fare for a Wookiee. She speared a piece of spiceloaf, set it in front of her, and found it easy to focus on something besides Zaalbar's plate.

The back of her hand touched Bao-Dur's, stimulating rarely noticed nerves. Watching the hair on her wrist stand up, she compared the colors of their skins. There was a grey shade to his veins which seemed very natural, very suited to his alienness. The tan of her skin was brighter than his, and his skin was warmer, soothing the ridges that ran toward her wrist from her knuckles.

Focus, she told herself. I need to be all right for the Duro mission.

Mission swallowed a forkful of meat and spoke. "So you found the first crystal."

"Yes," Gwen replied, smiling for a moment. "We need more of a plan next time. I was lucky to find that."

"The locations the Star Maps gave us were vague too," Carth said. "But I don't think we're guaranteed that these things will be as untouched as the Star Maps were."

"Duro," said Bao-Dur calmly, "is a very industrialized world. The Mandalorians attacked it a few years ago….a few years before we left our time. They were one of the first species to take to space and invent the hyperdrive." He looked at Luke. "Do you know what it is like now?"

"I'm not sure. I think…I think I remember that it's like Ithor, a bit—no one lives on the surface. There are farms and factories down there, but everyone lives in space stations around it."

"The crystal could be anywhere."

"It could," said Gwen. "We can't trust that we'll find it as…easily, as randomly, as on Iridonia."

"Why not?" Luke interjected. All eyes turned to meet his widened blue ones. "We trusted in the Force, and found help and the crystal. We can trust it again."

Anna broke the resultant moment of silence. "I don't know about you, Master Bolwyn, but when I was looking for the Jedi Masters when I owned this ship I didn't have much of a plan for each planet I visited. I assigned my crewmembers their tasks and then went and looked for information."

"I didn't strategize much either," Gwen replied. "Remember that I lost my memory. I couldn't plan an attack—I was just a soldier, like any of us, determined and uncertain." She set her hand over Carth's, and without much thought about it Anna eased hers away from Bao-Dur.

Luke pulled the subject back to something he understood. "I was in a space battle once, piloting a snubfighter against a battle station the size of a moon. No one could do that on their own—older, wiser pilots than me had tried and died. But the Force told me—my Master told me—to let go of worrying and of relying on things, and to just trust the Force. And we won that day, against the Empire."

"You're right." Gwen nodded. Again the small smile. "Strategies are more appropriate for large-scale battles, and can never mesh with the unpredictability of life itself. However, we still need to decide who should go planetside."

"Has anyone been to this planet before?" Bao-Dur asked.

Heads shook around the makeshift table.

"We'll explore then." Gwen said. She ate a bite of food, and Anna finally focused on her own meal. The rest of the mealtime was spent eating.

When dinner was finished, Anna carried the plates back to the galley and set Mission to washing them. ("Don't we have machines for this?" the Twi'lek asked. "Not working at the moment," Anna replied, truthfully.)

Nightshift was approaching, so Anna began to walk back to her dormitory in the wake of Gwen. But in the darkening corridors her eye caught a glow of blue, and she changed direction, making for one of the more labyrinthine corridors below the turret guns.

Bao-Dur was standing near a wall, not unlike she had been doing earlier, except that he wasn't leaning, and he seemed to be waiting…She drew close to him and tucked herself between his side and his living arm, reassured by the smooth response when he circled her with his false arm, cold hand against her waist. She casually wondered whether the energy humming across her stomach was lethal.

Lasers dove toward Coruscant. On their heels came TIE fighters, purely for show and to absorb the antiaircraft lasers driving back up the gravity well toward the Imperials. It was the capital ship, the Super Star Destroyer, that was doing the work, looming over the city low enough that the horizon must look flat from it, pounding at the skyhook which floated just beneath the planet's smoggy atmosphere.

Pressed against the back of his seat as his X-Wings landing claws pressed against the barren surface of Coruscant's half-populated first moon, Wedge Antilles watched the battle play out in hologram form on his lap. Lime-green circles, indicators which clashed rather vividly with his orange flightsuit, pointed out the skyhook's defenses.

A comm signal came through from the Rogue in charge of sensors. "That's Prince Xizor's skyhook—he's the leader of Black Sun!"

The Rebellion hadn't had much contact with the galactic underworld—for all they could provide, the criminal organizations of the galaxy did not uphold the values the Rebels did, and were woven tightly in with the Empire like vines around a tree. Wedge could not imagine why this battle was happening now, unless infighting had grown severe and vicious.

Which wasn't, he supposed, too unlikely.

"Should we help out the skyhook, Rogue Leader?" Wes Janson asked.

"No," Wedge replied immediately. "We shouldn't risk twelve of us under those guns for Black Sun. This infighting is an advantage for the Rebellion. We should take it."

"All right, Lead."

On the hologram, Wedge watched a vast flap of the building's metal skin slough off, trailing sparks from the shear edges. Debris and the occasional TIE fighter slammed against Coruscant's shields, sending sparks streaking around them in a sunburst. The rest of the planet would be fine, with its massive shields, and the Empire would of course explain to, if not reimburse, its citizens. This was just one example of the battering fist of the government. This was what he stayed in the Rebellion to fight, these overpowering starships—but he couldn't fight the Imps for Black Sun. It would be putting the Rogues in undue danger.

He sighed with relief that Coruscant as a whole was safe.

He turned the holo-display off, and leaned comfortably forward into where it had been. "Let's move out, Rogues. We'll jump to point B a few systems away and contact the princess, tell her this isn't about us."

But I wonder if we can take advantage of it. The Empire is vast enough that sending one Super Star Destroyer to another battle wouldn't split their forces in any way that we can use.

Wedge unlocked the landing claws, hearing the gentle thud as they released their hold and folded back into the ship. The Rogues arrayed around him, and they accelerated away.