The docking bay was darker then either Cail or Jax had ever seen it. Only the dim, flickering lights were keeping the town from abject darkness.
Jax worked under the greasy yellow lights, totally unaware of the whispering scratch of the night dwellers running from shadow to shadow. It had taken him nearly an hour to repair the armor. He hadn't realized how intense the damage had been. If Nelkf had used the common sense she seemed to have acquired now, they might have been out of here by now! Well, at least he was almost done now.
Nelkf noticed Cail hadn't been helping them much. In fact, the boy seemed to have been moping around. What was wrong, she wondered. "Hey, glitbiter," she called curiously. "Want to give us a hand, maybe?"
Cail shook his head. "No, I don't think so."
"What's eating you?" Jax asked his friend. "You're not even making wisecracks. That isn't like you."
"Nothing." Cail lied. When he caught the nasty looks from both Nelkf and Jax, he decided to tell them. "Well, it's just that you guys are going off all over the Galaxy and I'm going to be stuck behind. There isn't much a guy can do around here with no friends and-"
"Do you want to come with us?" Nelkf asked.
"What?" Jax looked at her as if she were crazy.
"What?" so did Cail.
Nelkf ignored Jax. "I think you should come with us to Yavin. Even if it isn't your Force powers you were able to use, you did use the Force. You could be trained as a Jedi, I think."
Jax shook his head. "You're making a mistake, Nel. I'm telling you."
"I think not, Jax." she growled. "Come on, Cail. You can come."
Cail looked puzzled. "Are you serious?"
Jax seemed to be asking her the same question. "He's your friend too," she hissed at him. "I think you know that. You can't be so dark."
"You should be one to talk!" Jax replied quickly. But there was no contempt in his words.
"I'll help," Cail said quickly. "I'll help work on the Casino, I won't get in the way-"
Jax shook his head. "If you keep your hands off the Casino's wiring, I think we may be able to let you come."
Nelkf smiled. She knew he wasn't serious. Soon all three of them would be heading towards Yavin four. Perhaps the Galaxy wasn't such an unfair place after all.
Then, the Sklinth heard the spattering sound of a blaster bolt hitting something in the darkness. "Jax," she asked, afraid to know if her hearing was correct, "did you hear..?"
"Oh no," The smuggler muttered. "Not again."
Another bolt was snapped off in the darkness, this time, illuminating the bay slightly red. Another soon followed it, closer still.
"Maybe they don't know we're here?" Nelkf suggested.
"Sklinth, don't you dare say that." Jax practically threatened. "Don't ever think that they don't know we're here. Don't you dare."
"Why?" Nelkf asked.
A blaster bolt spanged just to the left of them, showing where they were. All three ducked down to avoid the following blast. "That," Jax told her. "is why you never should think that. Now come on, get in the ship!"
"You two find yourselves in firefights often?" Cail asked calmly.
"Only recently, glitbiter." Nelkf muttered, dodging into the Casino. "Only recently, and never again."
Inside the ship, the shots seemed distant. An illusion Nelkf wished more then ever was true. Cail was less then three paces behind her. She didn't blame him. Nobody wanted to be caught out in a firefight. Cail was much more frightened then he let on, apparently. Nelkf didn't know how she knew it, she just did. This frightened her, too.
Jax's hands moved quickly over the controls. It seemed as if he didn't even need to look at them to know what they did. "Nel," he said, his eyes not even shifting from the dashboard. Nelkf could hear the engines starting up, the life systems coming on. "There's a switch someplace in the back that controls the sound control on the Casino. Shut it off."
"What?" Nelkf looked at him in disbelief.
"Nel, trust me!"
"Jax, you've got to be crazy-"
"Nelkf, if you don't shut off the noise control, we won't get out of here, so shut the controls off." When Nelkf showed no signs of complying, Jax snapped the same instructions at Cail, who obeyed. How could he know that would deafen every being for twenty meters? Nelkf wondered what it would be like to lose her hearing...
The sound of the engines grew deafening outside the ship. The attackers dropped their weapons and covered their ears in a futile attempt to drown out the awful din. People six blocks away awoke from their beds wondering what in the name of all that is, was, and forever will be sacred could be making that horrific noise!
But inside the Casino, the sound was only slightly louder. Nelkf dropped her hands from her ears in puzzlement. "How-?" she began to ask.
Jax grinned. "The Casino's been modified to give the people outside her and earful and the people inside a clean get away."
Nelkf shook her head. "You're going to keep proving me wrong until I'm convinced that Humans aren't stupid, aren't you? It's not nice to alter a being's instinctive beliefs, Jax."
"Speaking of getaways," Cail cut in, "shouldn't we be making ours while we can?"
Jax nodded and the Casino gently lifted up. "Right. Put the noise control back in place, Cail. We're outta this interstellar dust bath."
Once more, the Galaxy Casino left Tatooine behind. This time, she would not return.
