Disclaimer: Star Wars does not belong to me, nor do any of the established characters from the Star Wars books. Only the ones that I am creating, including the ones in this chapter.

Chapter Three: Many Meetings

After several hours of bored waiting and trying to patch through the comm link back to Yavin IV every once in a while, the twins finally decided to explore the rest of the ship.

"C'mon, Jaina, give it up," Jacen pleaded after she tried the comm again.

"Fine. There's nothing I can do, and I don't need to pilot the ship, so I guess I'm free to explore. But the only place to see is the back, and there's barely enough room for a human to squeeze in back there with the droid."

"Well, I need to get the damfpai anyways, so I'll climb behind the seat and get them." Jacen climbed out from where he had been cramped beside Jaina beside the seat.

"This sure wasn't made for two!" She grunted as he squeezed past.

"Get used to it," Jacen retorted. "We don't know how long we'll be in here. Good thing I'm not as fat as you, sis," he added, teasing his older twin, grinning to himself as he poked his arm into the space behind the seat. She growled.

"Look, I'm going back up front. There's obviously not enough room for both of us back here!" She grunted, pushing her way back to the seat.

Jacen shrugged and swung his arm around in the space that should have contained the droid compartment, and promptly connected solidly with something that definitely wasn't a damfpai or a droid. There was a noise that sounded like a stifled gasp of pain. Jacen swung his hand more gently towards where he'd felt the thing and grabbed what felt like cloth and pulled. There was only a slight tearing sound and a boy's tousled red head popped out. The head turned up to Jacen and a pair of green eyes peered up at him. Jacen stared.

"Who are you?" the boy asked. He looked about fifteen. Jacen shook himself out of his shock.

"Uh... uh..."

"Why are you named 'Uh'?"

"Jacen, don't try and play tricks on me," came Jaina's voice from in front of him. "It's getting rather annoying. I know that we're the only ones in this ship, and don't tell me it's the damfpai or something equally ridiculous, because I know they're too stupid to speak."

"They're not stupid!" The teenager protested, dragging out the male and handing him to Jacen.

"Jacen, stop!!" Jaina sounded irritated.

"Are you Jacen?" The boy asked, turning to Jacen.

"Uh... yeah," Jacen replied.

"Jacen, if you don't quit, I'm going to come back there to get you, and we'll get squished in and we won't be able to get out." Jaina sounded angry now.

"Gemeia, come out," the boy called, turning back towards the hold he had come from. Another head poked out, this one brown haired, streaked with gold. The girl turned up to the boy, and then glanced at Jacen through blue eyes.

"Morring, who's this?" She asked, almost suspiciously. She looked about Jacen and Jaina's age, fourteen.

"Jacen!!" Jaina all but screamed his name. The three of them winced.

"What?" Jacen asked in an almost meek voice.

"If you don't stop with the voices, I'm going to throttle you! I think Mom and Dad would like us both back in one piece!" She gritted the words through clenched teeth. She was really annoyed now.

"It's not me!!" Now Jacen was almost yelling. Morring and Gemeia winced again.

"Can you guys not yell so loud?" Gemeia implored.

"Okay, that's it!!" This time Jaina really did yell, and then screamed. She quickly climbed around the seat, and then froze at the sight of three people, almost falling on them.

"Oh... uh... uh... um..." Jaina stuttered. "Sorry, Jacen," she whispered, still staring at the two strangers.

Jacen shrugged. He knew he would have reacted the same way.

"Who's this?" She asked almost suspiciously, echoing Gemeia's words.

"Morring and Gemeia," Morring answered for Jacen, indicating himself and his sister. He held out his hand and Jaina shook it as she slid in beside Jacen. Now they were all very squashed, so Jacen and Morring stood up as far as they could in the fighter, leaning on the walls to make a little more room. They sat in silence for a little while before Jaina finally spoke.

"So, what are you two doing on here?"

"We could ask you the same thing, but I'll answer you first," Morring replied. "Truth to tell, we're not completely sure. We're orphans, and we were shipped off to our uncle when our parents died last year. He works in the shipyards and considers himself too busy to watch two 'kids'." He grimaced at 'kids', obviously not considering himself one. "I know he wasn't too happy with having us there, but I didn't know how unhappy until two weeks ago when he invited us to come look at one of the ancient prototype E-wings. We were exploring the controls, which we thought were dead and dormant. He stepped outside when one of his underlings called him away and then I accidentally pressed a button and we lifted off." He blushed and looked sheepish.

"Which button did you press?" Jaina asked, almost suspiciously. Morring leaned over his sister and the pilots seat and pointed. "That one." Jaina pushed her head up to look. She shook her head.

"That's not the ignition trigger." Morring didn't look especially surprised.

"I didn't think it was. I figured most of the big, obvious ones were somehow rigged for one-time use to ignite the ship and turn on the autopilot."

"Well, I wish we knew where the autopilot was taking us this time," Jaina sighed.

To make accommodations slightly more comfortable, they took turns sleeping in the droid compartment and cockpit. There were some boards that Morring and Gemeia had dragged into the fighter that had served as a table that were now used as a bed. Since Morring was only slightly bigger than Jacen and Jaina was a little smaller than Gemeia, Jacen and Gemeia started out sleeping in the droid compartment and Morring and Jaina had to share the boards that were balanced together in the cockpit.

They all bundled their jackets under their heads for pillows and used the blankets Morring and Gemeia had used during the cold Yavin nights. The droid compartment was only slightly more comfortable than the cockpit because there, they could stretch out completely. The cockpit, on the other hand, had been built to be sat in, not slept in, so they had to scrunch up considerably more.

Morring and Gemeia had a considerably good store of food, considering that they had been in space and on Yavin IV for two weeks and had had to forage so as not to deplete the rations too much, so at least the quartet didn't starve.

They took turns sleeping in the droid compartment and the cockpit every night so no one got too cramped. Since Morring and Jaina were the most experienced pilots, they were usually up in the cockpit when no one was sleeping there, pouring over the control panel or the manual they had found wedged in between the droid compartment and the deflector-shield generator, while Jacen and Gemeia huddled in the cramped space behind them. There was a lot of shoving at first, but after the first day, they got reconciled to the situation.

"There, that's what we want to be ready to program in if it comes off autopilot," Jaina told Morring on the third 'morning', pointing out the coordinates for Yavin IV after they had finally realized that they must be approaching their destination since they had already jumped to hyperspace a day and a half ago. She wasn't sure why it had taken so long, but at least they had just jumped out an hour ago.

"That may be what you want to program in, but what about us?" Morring asked.

"We'll make sure you get back to your uncle's shipyard," Jaina answered distractedly, still absorbed in the manual.

"What if we don't want to go back?" Morring asked, almost sounding irritated. Jaina looked up.

"Huh? What'd you say? Oh. Well, you could probably stay and help out at the Academy. Or we could ask Uncle Luke if he could test you for Force potential."

"What if we don't want any of that?" Morring asked again in exasperation.

Jaina looked up this time. "Then what do you want, Morring?"

"Maybe we want to take the E-wing around and see the galaxy," the boy replied uncertainly.

"It would be rather cramped," Jaina said, rolling her eyes. "You don't really know what you want, do you?"

Morring paused, and then shook his head.

"Then come back to... what's that?" Jaina trailed off, pointing to a small speck in the distance.

Morring peered in the direction she was pointing at. "A planet!" He suddenly cried. "It's a planet!"

Jacen and Gemeia popped their heads over the top of the seat, cracking them together in the process.

"Where, where?" The younger girl asked, looking around.

Jaina pointed. "Ha, I win." She was referring to a bet as to who would spot a planet first. She stuck her tongue out at Jacen.

"Yeah, but just 'cause you can 'drive'!" Jacen said scornfully, emphasizing the word 'drive' since she wasn't really driving, and stuck out his tongue back at her.

"Hey, come on," Gemeia said, staring at the planet. "What do you think it is?"

"It's a planet, laser brain," Morring replied sarcastically. She glared at him.

"I meant which one is it and you knew it, motor mouth."

The other twins smothered grins. They wondered if everyone behaved like little kids when they had been cooped up together for days in a small space.

"Well, we'll just have to wait and see," Jaina replied logically.