Tahiri opened her eyes to find she was not alone in her room. She could feel he was awake beside her, and had been that way for sometime now.
"You didn't leave," Tahiri said, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes.
"Is that okay?" Anakin said, sitting up on the mat.
"Yeah, I kinda liked having you here," she confessed, playing with a strand of her hair. "I didn't have any nightmares,"
She looked like she wanted to say more but refrained from doing so.
"Hey," he said, gently lifting up her chin so she would have to look at him. "What is it?"
"Last night you made me feel safe. It's the first time I've felt that way in a long time,"
He smiled at her. "I'm glad I was able to make you feel that way,"
Leaning back against the moss-covered wall, she said, "you know, we haven't really talked about what's going on with us,"
He stared at her blankly. "What do you mean?"
She gave him an incredulous stare. How could he not know what she was talking about? Was she going to have to spell it out to him? "The stuff that happened while we on Tatooine,"
"Oh, you mean this," Anakin said, leaning forward and kissing her on the lips.
When he pulled back, she said in a slightly breathless voice, "I guess this means you, uh, want to pick up where we left off?"
Grinning, he said, "what do you think?"
Her answer was pulling him close to her and kissing him back. Then she shoved him playfully when the kiss finally ended. "You really had me going there when you pretended not to know what I was talking about,"
"Who said I was pretending?"
She rolled her eyes at him. "I can see you've developed a wonderful sense of humour while I've been gone. I'll have to fix that," she said and started tickling him.
Anakin laughed uncontrollably and grabbed her hands to stop her. "Two can play at this game,"
Tahiri tried to free her hands, but Anakin was stronger than her. She fought harder and ended up knocking Anakin off balance and fell right on top of him. She had gotten what she wanted: her hands were free, but now she found herself in quite a compromising position.
Anakin reached up and pushed back a lock of hair out of her face, letting his hand linger there. He felt more than a little awkward with Tahiri lying on top of him, but at the same time he was glad she had made no move to get off him. He liked being this close to her.
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They just laid there, staring at each other, until Tahiri, her face turning a bright crimson colour, said, "we better go," and then she got off of him before the situation could get too awkward. "We should find Eus-ai Raak, and talk to him about setting up a meeting with Master Skywalker at a secret location,"
"Zekk's probably looking for me anyways," Anakin said, getting up as well.
"How much longer do you think it will take you to fix the Lightning Rod?"
"Not long. It could be ready to go sometime later today," he saw her face fall in just the slightest at the mention of leaving. "That is, if you're ready to go," he added.
"Of course I am," she assured him. "It's time to get back to the real world. And the sooner we can work out some sort of alliance with the Tsirran, the better,"
Anakin had just about finished his inspection of the Lightning Rod's outer hull. He should have been done more then twenty minutes ago, but he was dragging out the examination process because he was waiting for Tahiri to return.
Tahiri had managed to arrange a meeting with Eus-ai Raak right away. She and Anakin had gone alone to meet with him, while Zekk finished up the last of the repairs on his ship. They wanted to get back to the Academy as soon as possible so they could fill Master Skywalker in on the latest development in their war against the Yuuzhan Vong.
Anakin had felt weird and more than a little anxious to be sitting less than five feet from the alien and yet not having to draw his lightsaber. If everything ended up working out and this was not some elaborate hoax set up by the Tsirran, he was going to have to get use to spending time with them in close quarters.
Even though he did not completely trust them, he had to appear as through he did. It would be up to his Uncle to decided whether the Tsirran were sincere in their willingness to help the Jedi win the war. Anakin's job had been to act like the Jedi Knight he had been trained to be. He and Tahiri were the first ones to open up relations between the Tsirran species and the Jedi. If their offer of hope did turn out to be genuine, it would be in the galaxy's best interests that he not screw up the first talks between the two 'allies'.
Eus-ai Raak had provided Anakin with immediate and direct answers to all of his questions. Without the force, he had had to rely heavily on his other senses to make sure the Elder had been telling the truth and not hiding anything back. He had tried his best to keep it from turning into an interrogation, but Eus-ai Raak knew what he was doing. However, he had assured Anakin he had not minded his thoroughness. He said he knew Anakin was only looking out for his kind and that was a commendable trait.
Eus-ai Raak had skipped the story about how his race had come to this galaxy, since Tahiri had already explained it to him. Instead, he went on to emphasize the fact that the Jedi and Tsirran would have to work together in order to stop the Yuuzhan Vong before they did the same to this galaxy as they had their own. When Anakin had asked point blank if this was about revenge for them, Eus-ai Raak had not hesitated in saying yes. But the elder was also quick to add that they would follow whatever orders the Jedi Master Luke Skywalker gave them. They respected Luke, and their fascination with the Jedi Master had led them to read every bit of information they could get their scaly hands on. They knew all about Luke's adventures with Anakin's parents during the Rebellion and the early days of the New Republic. They were also familiar with all his accomplishments once he had established the Jedi training facility on Yavin Four.
That was a relief to know that the Tsirran would not start running around wild, killing Vong. Anakin, though, was not sure if his Uncle would want to cooperate with a species whose main motivation to help them was revenge. But they were running out of options. If they did not accept the Tsirran's help, whose ships and weapons were an equal match for the Vong's own cruisers and weaponry, they might never defeat them.
His Uncle rarely talked openly about the possibility of losing, but Anakin knew that if the Vong continued on their present course of destruction and domination, the galaxy would be theirs in a little more than a standard year.
Anakin had wondered if maybe they should bring Master Skywalker to the Tsirran hideout, but Eus-ai Raak had said it would be too risky bringing him there. He was concerned about the Yuuzhan Vong discovering their hiding spot before they were ready. That was why he had asked Anakin if there was a system or planet somewhere that no one would suspect a meeting between the Jedi Master and the Elder.
There were not a whole lot of relatively unknown systems or planets that would be safe enough for a meeting, especially when they did not have an exact estimate of how much space the Yuuzhan Vong had overthrown or were secretly infiltrating. Then Anakin had been struck by an idea, and he could not believe he had not thought of it from the start. Anoth. It was the planet he and his siblings had spent nearly the first two years of their life on. It was definitely out of the way and it was uncharted. Most beings did not even know of its existence, and even fewer knew how to get there. Luke was one of the few, and so was Anakin. He wasn't supposed to know, but he had 'stumbled' upon it when he had been bored one day at the Academy and hacked into some of his Uncle's private file. He had a gift for memorizing numbers without even having to practice remembering them, and now his Uncle was going to find out what he had done, when he explained how he had been able to give the coordinates to the Tsirran. He might even be making a huge mistake by giving up the location of Anoth to a species that had yet to prove their trustworthiness, but it was worth the risk if they could rid the galaxy of the Vong once and for all.
The meeting had ended with them deciding on the plan that a Tsirran ship with Eus-ai Raak aboard, would show up at Anoth in about a standard week's time. They would then wait around for a few days, and if Luke still did not show by then, they would assume that he had rejected their offer of help, and they would find their own way to fight the Yuuzhan Vong.
Anakin had been unable to make any promises, but he was almost positive his Uncle would come to Anoth and they would work something out.
He finished with his outer sweep of the hull, satisfied that neither he nor Zekk had missed any cracks or punctures in it during their original repairs. He knew when he had done his first inspection that there was nothing wrong, but it didn't hurt to be extra careful, especially with the Tsirran technology attached to the ship. He didn't want any surprises happening once they were in the air.
He was going to give up on waiting for Tahiri and head inside, when he felt her familiar bright glow – which was somewhat dimmer then usual he noticed – approaching him. A small pack looked to be made out of the same jelly that had been used to fix the ship was slung over her shoulders.
"Ready to go?"
She nodded eagerly. "And for once I'm traveling light," she said, patting the pack on her shoulders. Giving Anakin a curious look, she said, "were you out here waiting for me?"
"The hull needed checking," he said.
"You were doing that when I left,"
"Uh huh," she said, not believing him for a second. Anakin had always been a terrible liar.
"We better get going," he said. "It's a long flight back to Yavin Four,"
"I'm sure we'll find a way to pass the time," as soon as she had spoken the words she clamped her mouth shut, blushing furiously.
"Tahiri, it's okay," Anakin said, taking her hand to show her it was all right, even though his cheeks were reddening as well.
Still embarrassed, she said, "I guess I should probably think about what I'm going to say before I actually say it. Starting right now,"
"Maybe that would be a good idea," Anakin agreed, and for once Tahiri did not argue with him.
As he led her into the ship, Zekk appeared from around grinning from ear to ear when he saw them. Having had enough embarrassment for one day, Tahiri let go of Anakin's hand and went to throw her bag in one of the storage lockers.
"I see you took my advice," Zekk said, walking over and slapping the switch that would seal up the newly fixed boarding ramp.
"I'll be in the cockpit," Anakin said, ignoring his comment.
Still grinning, Zekk followed after him. He had a feeling this was going to be a most interesting trip.
