The freighter raced out from the lightning-storm of hyperspace, leaping suddenly into a tunnel of decelerating starlines, and then, with a growl of engine noise, the reversion into realspace was complete.
As the starfield spun back to normal, Anakin reached forward, pulling back the jump levers to set the hyperdrive to idle, and activating the autopilot to take them into Bespin.
"Time to get up," he said, shaking Tahiri's bare shoulder, leaning back with her into the comfort of the chair.
"Hm?" She looked up at him. "Oh." She gave a frown. "Should I put some clothes on?"
"Up to you. Depends if you want my sister and my Wookiee to see you naked?"
She laughed, hiding a flicker of another reaction, and reached down for his t-shirt. "Your Wookiee has already seen me naked, Anakin Solo," she said, fondling him pointedly through his underpants.
"True." He grinned, and wrapped his arms around her, stopping her from shaking the t-shirt any further down than the top of her waist. "C'mere."
"No." She kissed him anyway, feather-quick, before slipping out of his lap, and straightening the hem of the t-shirt around her hips. Anakin gave her a glance, and turned back to the flight console, smiling. She watched him, smiling too. "What have we got, hero-boy?"
Anakin's eyes flickered in a dance, from her, to the stars, to the sensor displays, and back again. "There's Bespin. Comms are quiet-not a total surprise these days. Not much freighter traffic in-system. Uh-oh..."
"Trouble?"
"Yeah." He breathed out. "We have an Imperial Star Destroyer parked at Bespin's L1 point..."
"The Errant Venture?" she asked hopefully
"Nope," he frowned. Even from the long-range sensor telemetry, he could tell it wasn't Booster Terrik's outsized pirate ship. "ImpStar Ace, running very pretty power curves and a full screen of TIEs. Definitely military. I didn't see it there until we swung around..."
"You don't need to apologize to me, dummy." Tahiri smiled. "You know none of that means anything to me, right?"
Anakin gave her a lopsided frown. "I lost you at L1 point, didn't I?"
"I think you lost me at Star Destroyer," she said fondly. "Could it be one of ours? New Republic, I mean."
"I don't think..." He turned, with an eyebrow raised, and smiled at Jaina as she stepped back into the cockpit. "Oh-hi, sis."
"Did someone say Star Destroyer?" she asked, folding her arms and looking annoyed, as if this was all his fault.
"Imperial-class," Anakin nodded, unable to quite stop grinning in response. "Running an Imperial transponder. Wait. The Chimaera."
"Great." Jaina scowled at him, definitely not amused, and wanting to know what the Imperial command ship was doing on the wrong side of the Galaxy. "Have they spotted us?"
"If they're paying attention, yeah. We in came straight out of the deep black. Even with a Class Nine hyperdrive, it's kinda hard to hide a re-entry spike against the cosmic background this far out on the Rim."
Jaina's scowl darkened, shadowing her eyes. "But no attempt to contact us yet?"
"It's only been a couple of minutes..."
Now her eyes widened. "And you're not worried about a kriffing Imperial cruiser sitting in orbit around Bespin? With its comms silent? Even if that is the Chimaera…"
"Hey," he protested. "I thought you liked Imperials."
Jaina tensed, scowling at the grin he was trying to hide. She folded "Jag Fel isn't an Imperial. He's a pilot with the Chiss forces."
Anakin grinned openly. "There's a difference?"
Jaina pointedly ignored him, and sat down in the right-hand seat beside him, deactivating the autopilot, and taking control. "Lowie, get up here!" she yelled. "Anakin, let me know if they make any hostile moves, and I mean any."
"They're on our side these days," he reminded her. "Relax."
Tahiri was more on edge than she appeared, too with the deceptively loose poise she slipped into when there was fighting to be done, calm and clean and balanced in the Force, like a blade.
He loved her when she looked like that.
She smiled back. She seemed to love him, too.
Jaina sighed, then glanced up as as Lowie ambled in, asking what was gong on. She gave him a wry, reluctant grin. "Hey, big guy. Anakin's gone and dropped us into a system full of Imperials, without a working hyperdrive."
Lowie let him know what he though about that.
"Yeah, yeah," Anakin shrugged, and glanced again at the comm board, its lights still showing no sign of incoming signals from the Star Destroyer. If this lasts much longer, I'll have to run a diagnostic on the rectenna...
"Anakin?" Tahiri asked quietly, leaning forward. "You think maybe they haven't seen us?"
Anakin thought about it, then smiled, and shook his head. "Nah. These are Imperials. It'll just take a couple of minutes for the sensor tech to inform his pit officer, the pit officer to report to the deck officer, the deck officer to inform the captain..."
Tahiri picked up his line of thought. "Then the captain has to decide what to do, and then the message has to go all the way back down to some communications tech in the other crew pit, right?"
"Gotcha," Anakin grinned, proud of her in all sorts of ways.
To prove his point, the comm light on Anakin's console flashed.
"You'd better get that," Jaina reminded him, a little tartly.
Anakin hid his amusement at her mood, and opened the channel.
"Attention, unidentified freighter." The voice had a Mid-Rim twang, which sounded odd coming from an Imperial ship. "This is the Imperial Star Destroyer Chimaera. Identify yourself and state your business."
"Uhh," Anakin frowned. "This is the freighter Yavin Turtle, one day out of Varonat for Darlyn Boda. We had a hyperdrive malfunction a few hours back, so we headed towards Bespin for repairs."
"Copy that, Yavin Turtle," came the answer. "Now proceed inwards to rendezvous in sector L5, and stand by to accept an Imperial boarding party."
Jaina and Tahiri exchanged glances, frowns. Lowie muted an unhappy sound.
The light on the comm board switched back to white. The Star Destroyer had ended the discussion without even waiting for them to answer.
"Guess we're getting visitors," Anakin shrugged, standing up. "Tahiri, you'd better put on some clothes?"
"You sure you don't want me naked in front of the Imperials, Anakin?" his girlfriend teased, putting her hands to her hemline, as if to pull the t-shirt off.
"Underwear, at least," he grinned, realizing as he stepped out into the corridor that he was barefoot on the metal deck himself, only wearing boxers.
"I was wondering when you'd notice?" she grinned, nudging him.
As they hurried back into the cargo hold, they found themselves spinning into each other's arms again, and they ended up with Anakin's back pressed up against the bulkhead beside the door, and Tahiri pressed close against him.
"This is not the time," he murmured, liking the way they could snap into comfortable intimacy at a moment's notice. "We might have an audience..."
"All the more reason," she teased, wrigging her t-shirt up across her breasts, and stretching her body against him.
"You're lucky I know you love me when I hold back," he said, putting a hand on her shoulder, and holding her gaze.
"Maybe," she challenged, pulling, and naked against his. "Maybe I want to find out whether I really like it or not."
Lowie's voice echoed down the corridor, reminding them that they were on a ship with two other trained Force-sensitives.
"And one of them's your sister!" Jaina called out after him.
They both sighed.
"We'd better..."
Both their faces hovered between rueful frowns, and flirty grins.
"Yeah."