Iktri glowed green beneath them. Luke took the stick again and rolled them to fly upside down over the landscape below. He called into At'Bintar to report his presence and purpose and flew straight and true along the invisible hemisphere below. Artoo recorded photocaps of the handful constructions they saw. Clearly the At'Bintarians were hard at work building wooden structures that were probably monk cloisters and prayer temples. Kess had never eyed a lush geography as naked as this one, and it took time before she figured out certain square-ish shaped hills and raw cuts into the sides of mountains were signs of the planet's ancient archaeology. They found more new construction, and most of the time they couldn't figure out what was going up, but Luke reminded her it was not their place to judge, just report, and mediate any arguments between the factions if they disagreed about any of it.

Sailing further over the curve of the little moon they began to see Tyronan structures going up on the other side of the invisible line, staying in their own hemisphere as they should. These guys were building with stone instead of wood. The style of architecture was starkly different. Just in the differences in architecture and layout of all these budding settlements, Kess could see why these two planets needed a neutral party to help them get along.

It took some time to circle the moon on the bordering hemisphere, and they angled around to repeat the trip along three other latitudes. As they angled once more to finish the last, Luke pulled his hand back from the stick and took hers.

"Your turn."

"Uhhhhh," she smiled big and nervous.

He wrapped her hand around the stick and held it there. "You went to flight school," he reminded her.

"Yeah, but I barely passed."

He slipped his hand away from the back of hers and tucked his elbows back so she could have complete control. "You've got this."

Hesitant, Kess sat up a little and tugged the throttle gently back. Every twitch of her hand on the stick sent a bump in the yaw. Only once did he reach around and wrap his hand around hers to steady the thing out, instructing to keep her wrist loose. "The ship can feel how nervous you are. It'll panic from it. You have to relax."

"It's ship, not a pet."

"But it responds like a pet. Just like droids do. It's looking to you for confidence. Give it to it."

This helped somehow. Kess still breathed heavy to keep her cool, afraid to blink her eyes, afraid to move too fast. She flew the fast fighter over the dome of the little green planet and began to see why pilot's get so addicted to this stuff. Too soon, she noticed they were about to pass by a snow-capped peak in the shape she recognized. She pulled back the throttle and tapped the brakes.

"That's it, isn't it?"

"Yeah. You wanna land it?"

"No."

"Awe, come on," he whined softly. "It's not like there's anything out here to hit."

"Except for that mountain!"

"That thing is a dozen klicks away." He put her hand back on the stick. "Come on, grease monkey. I know you know how to do it."

Kess blow a careful breath out of her lips and took command again. She hit the dampers and eased the throttle to nothing, but she had to look around for the moorings because she wasn't familiar with A-wings. Luke pointed and motioned to something else too. "Don't forget the landing gear," he laughed.

She wanted to elbow his ribs, but she need to concentrate. She elbow him later. At first she felt they were lowering too slow, so she eased off the retractors, but then they were falling to fast, and she panicked to push them back to life. The A-wing wavered back and forth, confused, and Luke began to laugh heartily behind her.

"Shut up shut up shut up." She tried not to giggle, tried to keep command of the thing, tried to blink her dry eyes but stared in wide-eyed fear out the canopy. The tree-line rose into view ahead of her and the green field stretched all around -

THUD!

Their bodies jerked at the sharp landing. Luke dropped his head back against the seat and giggle madly.

Kess pinched her mouth with laughing anger and quickly flipped the switches to secure moors, shut down life support, release Artoo, and trigger the canopy.

Air hissed in. Her ears popped. She fidgeted with the five point harness to release this tight grip on their bodies. Once their veins had enough room to pump again, she scooted forward enough to twist her body around and glare at the man laughing at her.

But Luke settled. He kicked back in the cockpit like it was his favorite kind of easy chair and his laughter settled to a pink-cheek grin. Blue eyes shined at her like she was the only thing out here worth looking at.

She didn't elbow him. Instead, she fell into his chest and kissed him. And his arms wrapped around her like he was never going to let her go.

Artoo opted to stay in his socket just because it was too much of a pain in the ass to get in and out without crane help. Luke and Kess stepped out onto the trim wing and jumped down to the grassy field. They brought the academy notes, but didn't really need to take them out of the ship's compartment. Both already knew the first set of buildings that had to go up.

First, infrastructure. Water reclamation, on the beach or use the stream? Sewage, what part of this gorgeous landscape were they willing to permanently scare with the ugly tank. Landing pad, should new arrivals come down a ramp to see the ocean first, or that beautiful mountain peak?

They strolled around for a few hours, hiking the edge of the tree line for part of it, following the stream for part of it, admiring flowers they didn't want o have to disrupt with construction, took a few stops to drink in the smell of wet trees. They agreed that, after the infrastructure, dorms should go up first, and the beach house last. Everyone could stay in the dorms while the rest of it was being built, even the construction crews. Besides the beach house was a nice to have. And while Kess admitted how fitting his idea was to offer it, she pointed out that it really didn't need to be built on the cliff face. Just having a beach nearby was perfect enough by itself.

That's when Luke poked in a comment that wasn't entirely a joke. "Well, true, putting it up here would give us enough room to build a house with enough bedrooms."

Her mouth twitched confusion. She turned her feet and looked down the length of the field to the distant drop off to envision all this. "Sweet sandy, how many bedrooms do we need?"

His voice tried to sound casual. "Oh, fifteen or so." He cleared his throat and humor sparkled on the Force.

Kess elbowed his ribs.

He smacked her on the cheek and let go. "Let's go home."

Kess's feet didn't move right away. She looked over at him. "We are home."

His feet paused. He smiled back at her, then looked around the place, drinking in a breath of fresh green air, and let his eyes fall on her again. "Then let's go back and start building it."

She smiled too, looked around once more, not wanting to leave this perfect place, and skipped into a trot to pass him by, "I wanna fly the launch this time."

The visit to the Iktri field was cleansing enough on its own, but the two hour meditation on the way there and back cleansed them even more. Even when they weren't focused on Jedi peace, they still found peace having this simple fun together. Luke lowered the A-wing to the deck of Division One and Kess was a little bummed that the fun was over, but she also felt ready to take on the galaxy.

The canopy lifted and the droid suction inched over their heads to get Artoo. A ladder rolled up as Luke unlatched them from the belts and a face popped up.

Wedge draped an elbow across the cockpit edge. "So? How was it?"

Luke shouted through his smile. "She almost killed us!"

"I did not! I wasn't the one flying like our ass was on fire."

Wedge scrunched aside the ladder. Kess stood from the bench and Wedge offered a hand to help the ground pounder out. Luke stood too and waited for Kess to get down.

Wedge grinned at Luke, "How'd she handle?"

"I want one," Luke sounded horny.

"I'm sure you do," Wedge grinned. "I actually got in a little trouble for this though. I'm not going to be able to lend you one again."

Luke hid an unintelligible grumble, but sighed fast and nodded, "Copy that."

As they waited together while Artoo was lowered to the deck, Kess lowered her volume and eyed Wedge. "I know I shouldn't ask."

Wedge pressed his mouth and dropped his sights to his own shoes. Luke shook his head at Kess.

She struggled with it, but murmured quieter. "I am trying to keep my nose out of it. Really, I am. But."

Wedge lifted his face and sighed impatience through his nose at her.

She looked him in the eye. "For what it's worth, she wants you to comm her. She's just shy. Ever more so now that she can't talk."

Wedge stuffed his hands in his pockets and rolled his shoulders back, but his chin remained low to eye her with discipline and warning. "I will, but later. I have a project I have to complete first."

Her face scrunched. "What kind of project?"

Luke stepped up and touched her on the elbow.

She whipped her elbow away, and yelled in her whisper to Wedge. "All I'm talking about is a simple comm call! If you don't jump on it soon, Wedge, you're going to lose the chance. She's talking about tossing her career and moving to Yaga Minor."

He seemed to absorb that news with discomfort, but it didn't seem to motivate him at all either. He whispered defeated, and his eyes begged her to back off without the message being too obvious to any onlookers.

Kess tried to calm herself down from the frustration of this. She patted his elbow and nodded defeat, but she was still splintering with aggravation as she walked away.

Luke and Wedge exchanged glances, but didn't need to say anything. They patted the backs of each other's shoulders and turned away from each other.

Kess marched hard off the pad so fast that Luke needed to trot to catch up with her. Once they were around the corner and beyond, now burning fast through the wide public walk 'off base' Kess grumbled. "What kind of project would get in the way of a simple comm call?"

"Kess, let it go." Luke warned in a low voice.

"Do you know what the project is?"

He shot a warning glance across her bow.

"I'm just-" She huffed as she marched. "He's going to lose his shot if he doesn't move quickly. Why is he acting so shy?"

Luke grabbed her arm and stopped her in the street. He looked down at her with firm, kind eyes. "I know you care about Yana, but the only reason why you're pressing this this much is because you think you're fulfilling some promise to Kayla and Joanne."

Kess rubbed her lips shut and looked away. She hadn't thought of it on those terms.

"Kess, you know him extremely well," he challenged quietly. "Ask yourself: Is Wedge shy?"

She shook her head vaguely, "No, but . . . Do you know what the project is?"

He dropped his hand from her arm. "No. And I wouldn't tell you if I did."

That stung a little, but only for a moment. She straightened her back and nodded at nothing in the crowd. "I respect that," she whispered.

"Let it go," he whispered back.

She nodded again, swiveled on her heels, and resumed their fast walk away.