The stars over Gulvitch warped to actinic lines, then exploded into the blue roil of hyperspace. With the Ebon Hawk safely outside the comprehensible universe, the beings in its cockpit shrugged off their restraints and blew out the breaths they had been holding.

"Well... Wasn't that fun," remarked Atton as he wiped imaginary sweat from his brow with the back of his hand.

"No, it wasn't," said the statue in the co-pilot seat that might have been a Human being.

"Yeah, I know. Just wishful thinking." Atton's thoughts drifted as he and Kaevee went through the post-jump check together. It occurred to him that hauling jets out of Telthek Nest was the first exciting thing they'd done since Malachor V. Briefly, he also thought of a certain incident in the Ord Lonesome system; that was the last place the Ebon Hawk had made a hasty exit from.

They were wrapping up the check when Mister Normal Person broke his silence from the comms station chair. "So what happened back there?"

"I got us away without a scratch, as usual," Atton replied as he checked the power drain on the turbolasers—minimal. "Don't everybody thank me at once."

To Atton's complete lack of surprise, Cole didn't seem to be in a grateful mood. "Scratches aren't a big deal when there's a hole in your head. Now, is anyone else wondering just why we ran into a Sith back there—an actual Sith, with black duds and lightsaber and all?"

There was a pause as the question—a good one from Cole, for a change—sank in. Gulvitch was a skraghole of a mining planet kept only barely under Remnant control by a token detachment of soldiers and security forces, one of many such worlds in the Gordian Reach. Not only that, but Telthek Nest was as far from the reach of the nominal planetary government as it could be. It wasn't important enough even to keep under surveillance, which made it an ideal spot for a pair of Republic agents to set up shop—and to use for a rendezvous. As for why a Sith would be found in such a place, there were a few possible explanations, none of them pleasant to think about.

Atton swiveled his seat around to face Cole. "If I had to guess, somebody who knew about Lannik Mai and his rendezvous with us got caught. They made him talk, then came hoping to crash the party. Probably strong-armed the Gran into trying to nab us at the cantina."

Cole raised an eyebrow. "They did?"

"They, he, whatever," said Atton with a wave of his hand. "I only sensed the one we saw in the hangar—you know, who almost killed me. If Lannik and Rittu are real lucky, the mynock's nest got stirred up enough for them to get away in the confusion."

"Yeah, and if they're only a little lucky, they're dead."

To Atton that was a simple fact, deserving no more than a nod, but it just about killed the conversation for a good five seconds. As Cole's look—suggesting slight unease, boredom, or both—sank to the floor, Atton took note of Kaevee. The girl was still facing the viewport, taking no part in the conversation. Whether she was preoccupied with the fates of the two Intel agents—whom she had tried to get to accompany them—or with something else entirely, it was impossible to tell.

Besides which, letting her get too preoccupied could lead to trouble.

"Hey," Atton told her, "stop staring into hyperspace like that. It'll drive you crazy. Gives you hyper-rapture."

The girl regarded him, her brow furrowing. "You do it all the time."

"Because it's too late for him," offered Cole. "He's crazy already. Got nothing left to lose."

"It's too late for you too, buddy," Atton reminded him.

As Kaevee slowly turned her chair around to join them, a twitch of a smile played across her lips and vanished like a spark. When she finally spoke, her words were grave as any sullen, elderly Jedi Master. "The Sith could've recognized us or ID'd the ship. Or captured Lannik and Rittu. That means we're in a lot more trouble now than before."

All of that was possible, though some parts were more probable than others. For instance, Atton felt sure that if the Sith in the hangar had recognized him, the guy would have said so; he didn't seem like the type who could keep his mouth shut about anything.

Now it was Cole's turn to give a cocky wave of the hand. "Same difference for us. And you heard what Lannik said back there, kid. Let him and his buddy worry about themselves while we get on with our mission... Uh, speaking of which, what is our mission?"

"Lannik told me our objective's in the Torque system—the sector capital," Atton explained as he produced the datacard from his pocket. "Full mission details are on this, but he said we should go to some dustball called Krylon first. There's a contact there, some black market merchant who'll get us whatever gear we decide we'll need at Torque. In the meantime..." He twisted his head to glance back at a timer on the main console. "We'll drop out of the emergency jump soon. A few random skips around, and I'll plot a course for Krylon."

Kaevee brought her hands together and rubbed at the wrists idly. "Will you need me here for that?"

"Nah, I've got it." He handed her the datacard. "Get this plugged in and tell it to run the decrypt program. The sooner we can figure out what's what on Torque, the better."

The kid mumbled something and left the cockpit. Cole rose from his chair then, and Atton turned back toward the viewport, assuming he'd have some time to himself now. He watched the digits of the hyperspace timer run down for a minute before noticing Cole lingering out the corner of his eye.

The spacer gave the co-pilot chair a spin and plopped himself down in it like it was some deep, profound pleasure he'd been missing.

Atton frowned at him. "I said I don't need any help."

"Yeah, I heard you. I just like it up here." An edge came into Cole's tone. "You know, I kind of miss flying a ship."

The barb behind that comment could hardly have been more obvious. Still not gonna let that go, thought Atton. To be honest though, he wouldn't have either, had their roles been reversed in the incident at Ord Lonesome; it had only been a few standard months ago. "That freighter you had before, what'd you call it again?"

"Sharp Turn."

"Right. Heraklon-class, right? Real ronto of a ship. What'd you fly before that one?"

Cole paused. Maybe he'd wanted to start an argument and was disappointed that Atton hadn't obliged him. "I flew a Lowik W-5. Czerka-designed. A little bigger than this thing, but about the same space for cargo. W-5s are cheap flying crates, but they fix up good, long as you know what you're doing. Not my preference... but y'know, they might have sent us in one of those if they wanted us to attract less attention."

Atton couldn't argue with that point. When you got right down to it, the safest part of flying Remnant star lanes in a ship that was stolen from a Dark Lord of the Sith or two was that it was a very they'll-never-believe-we're-this-stupid kind of thing. The new paint job and other modifications they'd gotten on Ord Vaxal could only go so far. "If the Hawk didn't have a Class One hyperdrive, they probably would have," he said.

Cole whistled and rolled his eyes at the ceiling as if he didn't know this already. "Class One. And packed into a ship this size? No wonder it's so famous, gets people chasing it across space. It's got nothing to do with Sith or bounty hunters—everyone just wants that hyperdrive. Hell, if I was still running cargo, I'd kill you for it."

The spacer was looking sideways at Atton now, grinning like a real son of a murglak, and Atton grinned right back at him. "Remember how it went for you the first time you took a swing at me?"

"You fracking son of a—"

An alarm sounding like the chirping of a cairoka bird on engspice cut their bonding short. "Dropping out of hyperspace in ten," Atton said into the intercom as he silenced the alarm and he and his sort-of-co-pilot buckled themselves in. Watching the instruments, he unlocked the throttle and carefully eased it up. The Ebon Hawk returned to the black with a lurch.

Cole sulkily punched a few keys on his own console, performing a quick sensor scan. "Just us out here, looks like."

Already more than enough company, thought Atton as he pulled up the navicomputer.