Coffee isn't called "coffee" in Star Wars. It's called "caf." Go figure.
Also, thankfully for Star, sugar does canonically exist in the Star Wars universe thanks to its mention by name in the canon novel Heir to the Jedi.
Some beings loath space travel. They find the empty vastness of space combined with the confines of their spacecraft to be maddeningly both claustrophobic and agoraphobic at the same time.
Captain Ordonia, on the other hand, had no qualms whatsoever with extended trips through space. Always a rebellious one who wasn't keen to follow society's expectations of her, Janna loved being anywhere where she could be herself, ignore social conventions, and do what she pleased. Takodonna was one such place, as were most desert worlds, but nowhere did she feel more free and at ease than on her own ship far from any semblance of society, in the infinite vacuum of space. There were times when, while Tom was off conducting business of his own, that she would jump to some random coordinates in deep space, far from any planet or space station, and just set her YV-560 freighter adrift, enjoying the peace and quiet of being completely alone. Some would consider that kind of extreme aloneness crushingly lonely. Janna found it very peaceful and relaxing.
And so, as the Raventalon drifted along silently, interior lighting dimmed, the fusion reactor's soft hum lulled Janna into a deep and dreamless sleep.
But while Captain Ordonia was sleeping soundly in her bunk, Star and Marco were having nightmares.
It began with voices. Two of them, right in front of Her, yet She could not see who they belonged to. They were familiar, but She could not place them. The words swirled around Her like a mist, making them difficult to understand.
"Star..." From among the gibberish, She was able to pick out Her name. "...Go...You must..."
And then She was suddenly traveling at a substantial rate, but She did not seem to be moving her body at all. Where was She? This place felt familiar. The blurred passing scenery was mostly greens and browns. Leaves. Trees. She was in woods. Familiar woods, but...where? She looked down. More green. A sandy color. Weeds. A path.
And then She came to a stop. There were screams. Lots of them. Blaster fire. A distant explosion. Everything around Her was a blur...
I've seen this before...somewhere...
A plume of smoke rose from over the assumed trees in the distance in the direction She had just come from. She watched it rise into the sky, coming from something that She could just see the tip of over the trees, but not enough detail to determine what it was.
"Star!" A familiar voice was calling out to Her, one She knew very well, and yet-
"Star! We have to go, Star!"
No. She did know that voice. It was a voice that She knew just as well as Her own. It was Marco, behind Her. A hand took Hers and She assumed it was his. He was trying to lead Her somewhere, but She could not see where. Her eyes were still watching the smoke curl into the atmosphere.
"Star! C'mon!"
She looked down. Her lightsaber was in Her free hand, the only thing in Her presence with any sort of clarity. She could feel it, almost pulsating, waiting.
For what? She had no idea.
But She knew what seemed like the right thing to do.
She ignited it.
"Marco...Marco..."
He looked around. He could see nothing. There was only darkness.
"Hello?"
"Marco..."
"Who's there?" His voice echoed in the emptiness around Him.
"...Maaaarrrrcooooo..."
He reached for His belt and found his lightsaber. He pressed the activation plate and was surprised to see the azure blade of His original lightsaber ignite from the hilt. This was not Kit Fisto's lightsaber, but His own.
The pale blue light given off by the blade did little to show Him His surroundings. He was in a hallway, the bare and drab gray walls reminding Him of the few military installations He been in on Coruscant.
"Marco?"
That time, the voice was different.
"Hello?" He called out.
"Marco! Come here!"
"Yes, Marco! We have something we must show you!"
Holding the lightsaber aloft, He began searching for the source of the voices. He spotted an open doorway and hurried to it. The doorway lead to a large, dark room. The blue glow of His blade did not illuminate much of the space, and did not reveal the source of the voices.
"Anyone in here?"
A pair of emerald lightsaber blades suddenly ignited across the room, nearly fifty meters away. One was held by Kit Fisto, the other by Star.
"Marco!" Star shouted out to Him excitedly, waving her sword in greeting.
"There you are, Marco!" Kit called. "We have something to show you!"
Smiling at having found His two best friends, He hurried toward them at a jog.
"Hurry up, Marco!" Star yelled. "We haven't got all day!"
He'd nearly reached them. Two dozen more steps and He'd be there.
Two shadowy figures suddenly appeared behind Kit and Star. He froze. "Guys!" He yelled in terror. "Behind-!"
Kit and Star screamed as red blades of light pierced their backs and erupted out of their chests. Master and Padawan fell to the floor, motionless, the green glow of their lightsabers replaced by the revealing red light held by the dark figures behind them. Star had been slain by the inquisitor that had chased Him across Coruscant, and Kit had fallen to the blade of Sheev Palpatine.
"No..." He gasped, taking a step backwards. "No!"
"Yessss," Palpatine hissed as he and the inquisitor stepped toward Him, quickly erasing the gap between them.
"No!" He barely realized that Kit's lightsaber had inexplicably appeared in His left hand beside His blue one on the right.
Palpatine crackled madly.
He found He could not move. He was frozen to the spot.
Palpatine's yellow eyes shone in the darkness, the light seeming to rival the red glow from his lightsaber. He smiled evilly at his prey, the inquisitor beside him silently mimicking the Emperor's movements.
His opponents raised their weapons in unison, and He brought his two blades to a defensive position.
They struck.
Marco bolted upright, panting for breath as if he'd just run several klicks at a dead sprint. He looked around, making sure he was no longer in the strange empty room. All he could see was the Raventalon's crew lounge, where he'd been sleeping on the small, curved couch.
"Just a dream," he whispered to himself. He plopped back down flat on his back and rubbed his face with his hands.
"Marco?"
He quickly sat up again, startled by how much the voice sounded like his nightmare. Star stood in the doorway to the crew lounge, still wearing her blue dress but lacking her horns and boots and looking both sleepy and confused. In a split second, Marco leapt up and bounded over to her, taking her by surprise when he wrapped her in a tight hug.
"Uh, happy to see me?" she asked jokingly as she hugged him back. Confused as she was, Star never turned down a hug from her best friend.
He squeezed her even tighter. "Yeah, actually. I am." He loosened his grip, holding her gently by the shoulders so that he could see her face. "I just had a terrible nightmare. And you...uh...died in it."
Star jumped slightly. "That's funny."
Never in his life had Marco been so confused by a two word sentence. "In what way is that funny?"
"Not funny haha, funny weird. I just had a super weird dream, too. I don't know that I'd call it a nightmare, but it did wake me up. That's why I'm awake."
Releasing her, Marco sat down on the couch. "What happened?"
She took a seat beside him. "I almost don't know. Everything was all like swirly and misty and I couldn't really tell what the heck was going on. All I know is, wherever I was, it felt strangely familiar. Oh, and you were there, too. I think."
"You think?"
She rubbed her temple with the heel of her hand. "I can't remember. What little bit of it I could see and hear starting fading away from my memory as soon as I woke up." She very lightly punched him in the arm. "What happened in your dream?"
Marco hesitated, not particularly wanting to relive that experience. Nonetheless, he recounted the dream as best he could remember it while Star listened with rapt attention.
"Yikes," she said with a grimace when he'd finished. "That's...super-duper creepy and weird."
"I practically jumped out of bed when it woke me up. It just felt so real!"
Star leaned against him and placed a comforting arm around his shoulders. "Well, don't worry. I'm still here."
He gave a small smile and put one arm around her, returning her half hug. "I'm glad you are."
They sat in silence for a few moments, each drawing comfort from the other's mere presence. Then Marco spoke.
"By the way, have you thought about where we should go? When we eventually escape deep space, I mean."
"Huh." Star put her hand to her chin thoughtfully. "You know, I keep forgetting that we actually need to figure that out. I haven't thought about it at all." She yawned. "And at the moment..."
Marco chuckled. "Yeah, I'm too tired to think about it right now, too."
"We should probably try to go back to sleep." Star stood up, stretching her tired joints. "Goodnight, Marco."
"'Night, Star." When she'd barely left the room, he called out, "Star! Wait!"
She turned around and looked back into the crew lounge at her best friend. "Yeah?"
Am I actually going to ask her this? "Um...could...could you..." I don't believe it, I actually am! "...stay? Here? With me? I...I don't want to be alone."
Star blinked a few times, Marco finding it difficult to read her thoughts based on the expression on her face. His heart thumped progressively harder the longer she remained silent.
At last, she answered.
"There's more room with me in Tom's cabin," she said simply.
Marco wasn't even sure how to respond. For a moment, he just stared in shock.
"You coming or what? I'm sleepy," Star said with another yawn.
"Yes."
For the rest of the night, the two best friends slept side-by-side in Tom's bunk with a respectful amount of space between them. No more dreams were had by either, and they slept soundly until PY-HD came and banged against the door to wake them for breakfast.
Tom groaned as he rubbed his neck.
"What's your problem, Lucy?" Janna asked as she stirred her caf.
"My neck is killing me. I slept in the copilot's seat last night and my head was all like leaned over on my shoulder and now it's all stiff and aches like crazy."
"Got tired of sleeping in the cargo hold, huh?"
Tom nodded, which only made his neck hurt worse. "I really thought the cockpit would be more comfortable. I was wrong."
Janna sat down beside him and kicked her feet up on the edge of the table. "My offer still stands, you know."
"If we're stuck out here much longer, I might actually have to take you up on that."
PY-HD beeped mockingly as it rolled into the room, followed by the two Jedi Padawans.
"Pony! Shut up! It's not like that!" Tom whisper-shouted in embarrassment.
"Not like what, Tom?" Star asked.
"Nothing!" The Demonicite turned red and quickly looked away.
Janna shook her head and grinned smugly.
"What's for breakfast this 'morning'?" Marco asked, making air quotes around "morning."
"Scrambled gorg eggs," Tom answered, still rubbing his sore neck. "Still in the pan, over there on the stovetop." He pointed with his other hand.
"By the way," Janna said as Star and Marco divided up what was left in the pan between the two of them, "that's the very last of the actual food onboard. From here on out it's supply bars, nutrient sticks, and ration packs."
The Padawans sat down opposite Tom and Janna. "How long will your emergency food last?" Star asked.
Janna shrugged indifferently. "Three months, give or take a week."
"Three months?!" Star and Marco exclaimed in unison.
"Why in the galaxy do you have that much emergency food supply?" Marco asked.
Janna shrugged and took a sip of her caf before replying. "Technically, this ship was built to carry up to eight months of supplies. The YV-560 was purpose built for extended orbiting of planets. I don't carry eight months of supplies because I don't plan on orbiting any planets and that space could be used to haul more cargo."
"Even so, though! Three months worth of supplies?" Star asked. "That still seems...excessive."
"When you're in the smuggling business, you deal almost exclusively with people who are doing illegal stuff. At some point, you're gonna have a customer that wants to kill you for one reason or another. Sometimes you end up having to lay low for extended periods of time."
Tom picked up the explanation. "First time it happened to us, we took shelter on Orto Plutonia and had to stay there for a month and a half. We only had two weeks worth of supplies on board." He shook his head slowly, still massaging his neck. "That was not a fun time."
Janna set down her caf. "After that, I swore I would never be unprepared again. That's why I have so many spare parts onboard, too. This is an old ship, stuff breaks. And I keep a couple months' worth of non-perishables onboard because you never know when someone may be out to kill you...or your friends, and you end up getting stranded in deep space helping them escape." She took another sip of her caf and tapped the side of the cup when she lowered it from her mouth. "Oh, and there's still plenty of this, too."
Marco finished his last bite of scrambled gorg egg. "Well, thank goodness you're so prepared, then."
Star wiped her mouth off. "So now that we got the fusion reactor back online, what's next?"
"Pony Head is going to work on the guts from the navicomputer and see if she can do anything with them. And the port side sublight engine and hyperdrive need to be addressed." She turned to Tom. "Can you and Marco handle the engine? I made a list of the parts that need to be replaced, nothing too difficult."
"Sure," Tom replied. "We shouldn't have a problem with that."
"Cool. While you guys are doing that, Star and I will remove the mortifications we made to the backup hyperdrive for our slingshot system so that it can actually function as a hyperdrive again. I bet we can have it all done by the end of the 'day' tomorrow." This time it was Janna's turn to make air quotes.
"Sounds doable," Tom said.
Janna stood up from the table and chugged down the rest of her caf. "Sweet. I'm gonna brush my teeth and then let's get to work."
After a relatively uneventful day of repairs to the Raventalon, Janna returned to her cabin and Tom reluctantly accepted her invitation to sleep in her bunk beside her and avoid another sore neck.
Janna folded her arms and smiled smugly. "So you finally couldn't resist your captain's charms any longer," she joked.
Tom could feel the blood rush to his cheeks. "Janna, I just want to actually get a good night's sleep and not wake up with a terrible pain in my neck," said Tom defensively. "If sharing a bunk with you is the only way for that to happen, then it's going to be polite and completely uneventful."
Tom went to the refresher for some privacy to change into his nightclothes while Janna did the same in her cabin. When he returned, he said a curt "Goodnight" to Captain Ordonia and climbed onto the bunk. He rolled onto his side facing away from Janna up against the wall to give her as much space as possible. Janna, on the other hand, was not going to pass up the opportunity to make her copilot uncomfortable. Once she was sure he was asleep, she scooted over closer to him until her arm was just barely touching his back, hoping she'd wake up before he did so that she wouldn't miss the look on his face when he realized that the two of them were making contact in bed.
Star, meanwhile, returned to Tom's cabin, and Marco returned to the crew lounge, neither feeling confident enough to ask the other to spend the night in close proximity despite the fact that they both really, really wanted to.
Once again, both had nightmares.
...And then She was suddenly traveling at a substantial rate, but She did not seem to be moving her body at all. Where was She? This place felt familiar. The blurred passing scenery was mostly greens and browns. Leaves. Trees. She was in woods. Familiar woods, but-
Wait...the way the scenery was passing. It was passing backwards. And She was far too high off the ground to be standing on Her own two legs.
She was being carried. Someone very large was holding Her over their shoulder. That's why She was traveling so quickly and yet not moving any of her extremities. Who was carrying Her? She tried to turn Her head, but found She could not. Her eyes were affixed upon wherever they had come from.
And then She stopped. Whoever had been carrying her set Her down and She once again stood on Her own. There were screams. Lots of them. Blaster fire. A distant explosion. Everything around Her was a blur...
...but not as blurry as before. She still could not move to look around, but in Her peripheral vision above Her head was part of the Raventalon. She must be standing at the bottom of the boarding ramp.
A plume of smoke rose from over the trees far in the distance in the direction She had just come from. She watched it rise into the sky, coming from something that she could just see the tip of over the trees, but not enough detail to determine what it was. She began to walk in that direction, slowly, as if in a trance. She made it a dozen steps before-
"Star!" A familiar voice was calling out to Her. Marco. Behind Her.
"Star! We have to go, Star!"
He took Her hand. She did not look at him. He was trying to lead Her back to the Raventalon.
Why? Where do we have to go? Why do we have to leave? It feels...like I need to stay.
Like I have to stay.
"Star! C'mon!"
She looked down. Her lightsaber was in Her free hand, the only thing with any sort of clarity. She could feel it, almost pulsating, waiting.
For what?
Only one way to find out.
She ignited it.
"Star, what are you doing?!" Marco yelled.
She broke free of his grasp.
Star opened her eyes. Her mouth was desert-dry. She felt like she had been breathing through her mouth for an hour.
Slowly, she rose from the bunk and headed out the door to the galley for a drink.
Something caught her attention as she passed by the crew lounge. A tremor in the Force, strong enough for her to feel without even trying to sense something.
Someone...was in pain.
Poking her head into the doorway, Star could see Marco asleep on the small, curved couch. As silently as she could, she crept into the room. "Marco?" she whispered.
Marco's eyes were clenched tightly shut, the lower lip of his half-open mouth trembling as if he were crying. Then Star realized that somehow he was crying in his sleep. Marco's cheeks glistened in the dim light from the corridor outside.
"Marco?"
"No..." He gasped, taking a step backwards. "No!"
"Yessss," Palpatine hissed as he and the inquisitor stepped toward Him, quickly erasing the gap between them.
"No!" He barely realized that Kit's lightsaber had inexplicably appeared in His left hand.
Palpatine crackled madly.
He found He could not move. He was frozen to the spot.
Palpatine's yellow eyes shone in the darkness, the light seeming to rival the red glow from his lightsaber. He smiled evilly at his prey, the inquisitor beside him mimicking the Emperor's movements.
They raised their weapons in unison.
His own lightsaber in His right hand, Kit Fisto's in His left, holding them out defensively, each one took a crashing blow from an angry red laser sword. He strained to hold back the pressing blades, but two opponents pressing against Him with all of their strength was too much for Him alone. His knees buckled and He dropped to the floor, holding the lightsabers above His head to hold back His attackers.
Palpatine cackled.
"Marco!"
Marco awoke with a start, sucking in a gasp of air and shaking as if he were freezing cold. Star was kneeling on the floor beside him.
"Marco! Are you alright?" The next thing Star knew, Marco was throwing his arms around her neck and hugging her tightly. "Had another nightmare?" Marco just nodded. "So did I."
Marco released her and met her eyes, still trembling. "What was yours?"
"Same thing as last night. Except it was a little clearer. And a little longer before I woke up."
"No way! That's the same thing that happened in mine! It was the same dream again, but slightly longer." Marco thought for a second. "What else happened in yours?"
"Not a lot. I..." Star closed her eyes and rubbed her temple, trying to remember. "I can't remember. It fades away so quickly when I wake up..." She shook her head. "I remember that there was more to it, but...I don't remember what actually happened. What about you?"
"It wasn't much more." Marco told her the extra part of his dream.
"That's a little bit extra creepy," Star described it.
"Yeah."
For a moment, they sat quietly in the dark crew lounge, neither side knowing what to say.
"Have you ever had nightmares before?" Star eventually asked.
"Not since I was like seven."
"Yeah, me too, me too. I was maybe eight."
"So why do you think we're having them now?" Marco wondered. "And at exactly the same time?"
Star sighed and slid her hand into Marco's, interlacing her fingers with his. "I really wish I knew, Marco. I really wish I knew."
Janna closed the access panel as Star connected the power cable to the backup hyperdrive. "Alright, that oughta do it." She picked up her commlink from the floor and hailed Tom's.
"Almost done here, Janna. Got about half a dozen bolts to put back and we're finished," Tom told her.
"Excellent. We'll meet you up in the cockpit." She ended the transmission and turned to Star. "Not bad, Star. Not bad at all."
"Thanks, Janna! If we're all done here, why don't we go see how Pony is doing with the navicomputer?"
Janna wiped off her hands on a rag and tossed it into the tool kit. "Sure. Let's go."
PY-HD was busily beeping out an explanation to Star and Janna in astromech binary when Marco and Tom made it up to the cockpit.
"I honestly suspected as much," Janna said with a sigh when the droid finished.
"What's going on?" Tom asked.
"Pony says it would take weeks to fix this circuit board," Janna said, holding up the scorched guts of the navicomputer.
"Weeks?" Marco moaned. "We can't stay on this ship out here in the middle of nowhere for weeks!"
"Sure we could," Janna reminded him. "We have three months' worth of emergency food supplies onboard, remember?"
"It's not that. I'm just gonna start going crazy soon. I'm already kinda starting to feel claustrophobic." He stared up at the ceiling nervously.
"Well, don't worry. We can still do it the hard way."
"What's the hard way?" Star asked.
"You've never heard of the hard way?"
"Nope. Sounds hard, though."
"Oh, it is. It involves the most difficult skill in existence."
"Oooh, what's that?"
"Math."
Star's excited expression instantly faded. "Aww, I hate math."
Tom raised his hand. "Uh, Janna? I know we could calculate a hyperspace route using star charts and the, uh, dreaded 'M' word, but doesn't that require knowing our exact coordinates as a starting place first?"
Janna pursed her lips in annoyance. "Oh, yeah, I forgot that we don't have a clue where we are. Drat." She sank into the chair behind the pilot's seat and took a deep breath in exasperation.
From opposite sides of the cockpit, Star and Marco exchanged a worried glance.
"Uh...so...what do we do then?" Marco asked.
"Well..." Janna put a hand to her chin thoughtfully. "There is one other thing we could try." She stood up and moved to the space between the seats, looking out the forward viewscreen at the pinpricks of distant light in the empty blackness of space. "If we take scans of the stars, we can search for changes in their patterns that suggest the movement of a planet. Then we just aim the ship in that direction and make a series of short hyperspace jumps until we get there."
"Works for me!" Marco exclaimed.
"Except it could take days to take enough scans to find a light that exhibits the movement of a planet."
Marco collapsed into the chair behind the copilot's seat. "Aughhhhh...we're gonna die out here."
PY-HD gave a sarcastic bleep-boop.
It began with voices. Two of them, right in front of Her, yet She could not see who they belonged to. They were familiar, yet She could not place them.
Who is talking to me? Why can't I see them? They're right in front of me, but WHERE ARE THEY?!
The words swirled around Her like a mist, but it was becoming slightly clearer.
"Star..." From among the gibberish, She was able to pick out Her name. "...Go. Now. You must leave..."
No. I can't leave. I need to stay.
Where is it that I need to stay? I don't know. But it's familiar. I've been here before, but...why can't I figure out where this is?
"Go, Star!"
No. I can't. I won't!
Then the voice addressed someone else. There was another person there.
Who?
And then She was suddenly traveling at a substantial rate, but She did not seem to be moving her body at all. She was being carried. Whoever that other person was must be the one carrying Her. She watched the scenery flow past her, the browns and greens and the sandy tan of the path.
And then She stopped. Whoever had been carrying Her set Her down and She once again stood on Her own two feet. There were screams. Lots of them. Blaster fire. A distant explosion. Everything around Her was a blur...
...but not as blurry as before. She still could not move to look around, but in Her peripheral vision above Her head was part of the Raventalon. She was standing at the bottom of the boarding ramp.
A plume of smoke rose from over the trees far in the distance in the direction She had just come from. She watched it rise into the sky, coming from something that she could just see the tip of over the trees, but not enough detail to determine what it was. She began to walk towards it slowly, as if in a trance. She made it a dozen steps before-
"Star!" A familiar voice...Marco. Behind Her, calling out to her.
"Star! We have to go, Star!"
He took Her hand. She did not look at him. He was trying to lead Her back to the Raventalon.
Go? I can't go! I have to stay.
I am needed here...wherever it is that I am.
"Star! C'mon!"
She looked down. Her lightsaber was in Her free hand, so clear and crisp among the swirls of confusion around her.
She ignited it. It was the right thing to do...somehow.
"Star, what are you doing?!" Marco yelled.
She broke free of his grasp and began took off. Where? Who knows? Toward that column of smoke in the sky. That was where She needed to go.
"Star! Stop! Come back!"
She ignored him. She had a mission. What is it? I have no idea. But I have to go.
"Star!" She felt Marco grab Her left hand again. She yanked away for a second time, breaking into a run.
And then Marco inexplicably appeared in front of Her. "Stop, Star! Stop!"
She tried to get around him, but he blocked her path. And then, not in control of Her actions, She swung Her lightsaber at him wildly.
Star abruptly woke, startled by her dream. Curiously, though, she immediately could not remember why. Something had startled her, enough to wake her up, but...
...what?
Try as she might, Star found that she could not fall back to sleep. Her mind swirled with questions about her dreams. Though she could barely remember any details about them once she woke up, the depths of her consciousness somehow knew that the dream was recurring.
In her state of sleepy semi-conscious but crazily racing mind, Star found herself too uncomfortable to lay still, and she was beginning to get a headache. Slowly, she climbed out of bed, thinking perhaps a hot drink would calm her head.
In the galley, Star brewed some caf and poured it into a cup. She'd never had it before, but Janna enjoyed it, and Star was not above trying new things, so she figured she'd give it a shot. When she was sure it had cooled to a drinkable temperature, she put the cup to her lips and slowly took a sip.
The caf didn't even make it down her throat. She let it run out of her mouth back into the cup.
"Blehhhk!" she whispered out loud. "How does anyone drink this stuff?"
She spied the sugar shaker in the rack behind the counter. "Oh, I think you put sugar in caf. That will probably make it better," she whispered to herself. She grabbed the shaker and poured a bit into her cup, stirring it in with a spoon from the drawer. She tasted it again and cringed, but did manage to swallow the small sip she took. "Nope." Star snatched up the sugar shaker a second time and dumped in so much that the caf could not dissolve all of it. A third taste brought a smile to the Padawan's face. "Mmmmm...gritty."
Taking a seat at the table, Star crunch-sipped her way through the over-sweetened cup of caf. It did succeed in making her feel better, and when she'd finished, she headed back toward Tom's cabin, thinking to herself that there was absolutely no way she was going to be able to fall asleep now.
As Star passed by the cockpit, she felt a tremor in the Force that suggested a presence nearby. She took two steps back and peered into the cockpit. "Marco?"
He turned around from his spot in the copilot's seat. "Oh, hey, Star."
"What are you doing?" she asked as she approached.
He returned to facing forward again. "I can't sleep."
She squeezed past where PY-HD was sitting motionless in low-power mode and climbed into the pilot's chair. "Had that nightmare again?"
"No. I couldn't even fall asleep. I think I'm too afraid of having the nightmare to let myself sleep."
"Oh. I had mine again."
Marco looked at her. "Do you remember what happened this time?"
She shook her head. "Not really."
For several minutes, the two friends sat in silence, staring out at the star-speckled nothing beyond the transparisteel viewscreen.
"Do you think our dreams are trying to tell us something?" inquired Marco.
Star laughed. "Maybe if I could actually remember what mine were, I could speculate about that."
"Okay, Do you think my dream is trying to tell me something?"
"I don't know. Probably."
"What do you think it's trying to tell me?"
Star shrugged. "I don't know. I'd say to ask someone on the Jedi Council, but you can't exactly do that."
"Right."
They sat quietly for a few minutes, just gazing out into space.
"How come you came up here?" Star asked.
Marco gestured to the viewscreen. "I figured I'd come up here and look at the stars. Better than just lying in the dark."
"Yeah...stars are pretty."
"Well, you would know." Marco immediately turned bright red. DID I JUST SAY THAT OUT LOUD?!
Star looked at him, and Marco met her eyes.
"Uh-"
Star was suddenly cut off as PY-HD abruptly sprang to life, beeping and squealing wildly. The astromech raced out of the cockpit, her various noises echoing back down the corridor.
"What the heck was that about?" Star wondered.
"Beats me. Could you understand anything she was saying?"
"I wasn't paying enough attention."
Before the two Jedi had time to speculate about what had gotten into the droid, the Raventalon began to tremble violently.
"What's happening?" Marco cried.
A second later, Janna and Tom, both dressed in their night clothes, raced into the cockpit, Janna flipping on the cockpit lights as she entered. PY-HD was right behind them.
"Move! Move!" Janna yelled, and the Padawans quickly yielded the front seats to the ship's crew.
"What's going on?" Star asked.
Janna and Tom began madly flipping switches, the sounds of the Raventalon's systems coming online making soft whines elsewhere in the ship. "You'll see in a second," Janna said, pausing to latch on her emergency belts as Tom did the same beside her. "You may want to strap in."
The Padawans quickly did so as Janna took hold of the control yoke and spun the ship one-hundred eighty degrees. To their complete surprise, the viewscreen was suddenly completely filled by a dark planet.
"What the heck?" Marco exclaimed.
"Janna! How long as that been there?!" cried Star.
"We've been drifting in space for a pretty long time," Tom replied as he and Janna fought with the controls. "I guess we were drifting backwards somehow? With only one engine we don't have the power to escape it's gravity, so I guess we're making an emergency landing!"
Janna shoved the throttle up to full power and pulled back hard on the control yoke, but the ship continued to fall. "Pony! Divert all available power to the one engine that still actually works!"
A few affirmative beeps made up PY-HD's reply. Star and Marco exchanged a nervous glance as the Raventalon began a semi-controlled fall through the planet's atmosphere.
"Everybody hang on!" Janna yelled. "This is gonna be rough!"
Anyone want to take a guess what planet they're about to "visit"? I'll give you a shoutout in the next chapter if you're correct.
Hint: Pre-existing planet. (I didn't make it up.)
Hint 2: The planet is "dark" because it's the side currently experiencing night time.