Lump did not like the idea of taking on a passenger. Rey wasn't crazy about it either, but she could not share in Lump's suspicion, only because she was able to keep close tabs on their guest in a way he could not. Lump typed in the coordinates on the ship's navi-computer and they lifted off from the docking bay.

"Those are not the coordinates for Tatooine," Alik said, looking down.

We're obviously trying to avoid being tailed, Lump said. I would think you'd be familiar with that.

Rey glittered up at him mischievously. "I know, right?"

"Wait," Alik said. "You can understand Wook-ese?"

Rey rolled her eyes about as hard as she ever had. "I can understand him just fine, because he's speaking Basic just like you or I. I don't happen to speak Shyriiwook, but at least I have manners."

"Whatever," Alik said, sitting down in the copilot's chair. "I'm just glad to be getting out of there. Awful place."

"That's my seat," Rey said. He toodt up quickly and moved to the back row. He had the decency now to keep his mouth shut. Rey sat down in her spot beside Lump, and looked over his work on the computer. They rose quickly out of atmosphere and jumped easily into hyper space. It was a relatively short journey to the next system, then a slightly longer one to the one after that. "Look, I'm gonna go in the back. You boys be nice."

She ignored the appalled look on Alik face as she shut the door to the main room behind herself.

With the Force, it was easy to untwist the metal around the lock on the smuggling compartment. She lifted out her bag, which contained all that she owned in the world: a couple of dresses that Malla had made for her from rough homespun scraps around the house; the clothes she'd been wearing when she left Ajan Kloss, too dazed to pack anything else; three lightsabers, Luke's, Leia's, and her own; and the sacred Jedi texts she had taken from Ahch-To. She reached in one slender arm to pick up the text she read most often, a guidebook for Jedi living, whose language was modern enough that she could understand it well.

The door from the cockpit slid open and Alik emerged. "I was just gonna go to the refresher," he said, as he saw her kneeling protectively over her pack.

"No, you weren't," Rey said. "You're lying."

"You're right," he replied, sitting on the bench near the dejarik table. "I don't think your friend likes me much."

"I don't like you much either," she said under her breath.

Alik sighed. "Look, I'm sorry I made you take me with you. I didn't know what else to do and you at least seemed like you weren't going to kill me."

"Which makes me wonder," Rey said, closing up her bag, taking care he did not see what was within. "Why was that guy trying to kill you?"

"I wasn't being very cooperative." Alik's careful, patrician accent was one she couldn't quite place. It was clear, however, that he felt he was entitled to ask questions without answering any himself.

"That's quite obvious," Rey replied. "If you're going to come with us, you're going to have to tell me what your business is."

He looked at her, considering her very carefully. "I suppose I owe you that," he said, resigned. "I'm an arts dealer."

"That guy wanted to kill you over… art?"

"Perhaps it sounds silly to somebody like you," he said glancing down at her rough spun brown dress and hose. "But where I'm from, we take art very seriously. People pay a lot of money for beautiful things from all over the galaxy."

This guy, Rey thought to herself. It was becoming a little clearer to her why Sargon had not felt bad about threatening his life.

"I really don't believe that that guy was interested in artwork," she said, meeting Alik's eyes with a steely glare.

"You're right there too," he said, after a moment. "I travel all over, and I have pretty high security clearance. His boss wants to make me pack a little something extra with the artwork when I travel."

Rey quickly put that together. While he could've been talking about any number of kinds of contraband, the fact that he was traveling so lightly, without a ship of his own, made her think that Sargon was trying to get Alik to carry spice.

Plague of the galaxy. She knew as many people who had died for spice, either to get their hands on it or because they had too much of it, as had died of violence on Jakku.

She liked him just a little bit better then.

"Where are you really trying to go?"

He shrugged. "At the moment, I'd be glad to just get rid of what I'm carrying and go home."

"And where is that?"

"Naboo."

Naboo. She had her own ties to that system, and she had no interest in pursuing them. "We'll take you as far as Tatooine, and that's it."

"Look, I know what you're thinking."

"I doubt that very much."

"You're thinking about the Emperor." Just that word struck her like a blow to the chest with a quarterstaff. Could he see it in her, the darkness? "I promise you, we're not like all like that. In fact, we're nothing like that. Naboo is a very peaceful planet, even more so since we started making new treaties with the Gungans. We're focused on the arts, and we do not tolerate sorcery."

Sorcery? Is that what he thought of people like her?

The contents of her pack weighed suddenly very heavily in her lap. She stood up quickly, holding the bag in her two arms against her body. "We'll take you as far as Tatooine. You're welcome to get off on any planet between here and there, but that's as far as we're going."

Alik was surprised by her sudden icy sharpness. "Yes. Sure. I completely understand. Thank you for the ride."

She picked up her bag and moved to the very back of the cabin, into a little nook, as far away from Alik as she could get. She pulled out her book and laid it over her knees. It was a guide to using the Force, collected wisdom of Jedi sages through the centuries. She did not know, of course, exactly when any of the books have been written, but her literacy had been limited for so long to practical matters, like mechanical repairs, and a book of instructions felt so much more comfortable than the others. One or two of the books in fact, seemed so arcane that she could hardly make sense of them. Without Leia to help her stumble through, much of that text was lost to her.

"Listen," Alik said, suddenly near her, having found her hiding place. "I am an ass. Can we please start over? I'm Alik."

She looked up at him, feeling suddenly vulnerable with her book of sorcery. But his face was so earnest; she could feel his remorse. She sighed. "I'm Rey. He's Lump."

"Your mate?" Alik asked.

"More like my brother," Rey said, trying to hide her slight flicker of horror at that thought. Alik nodded.

His eyes caught sight of the book in her lap. That's a beautiful text," he said. "I work with a lot of rare books. Would you let me –"

"It's not for sale," she replied, even more quickly than she meant to. Alik was unfazed.

"No, I wouldn't imagine so. But I always love to look at a thing of beauty."

"No."

He thought about that for just a second. "All right then. I guess I'll just go… wait over here till we get to Tatooine."