Pilots chatted while playing poker a few bunks away, and it made a comfortable white noise above the hum of the ship. The drawing on Luke's little sketchpad ticked and dotted gradually into full detail, and he eyed the two lockets trying to figure out which one should receive it. He didn't want to disregard the invitation from Han and Leia, but he didn't want it to feel like it was their idea either. He put down the stylus and nudged the two pieces together on the bunk, comparing them side by side, and found they each had a relatively flat spot in which they almost fit together like puzzle pieces.
With a wistful smile, he grabbed them both in his palm and hopped out of the bunk.
He found Wedge hanging a hand on a laser cannon and looking up at Rogue Three while Kayla kicked back on one crate with her feet propped up on another to explain passively what she did. Luke shattered the conversation with his arrival.
"Hey," he shoved Kayla's feet off the second crate so he could sit in front of her. He showed her the two pieces of bone in his palm. "Do you have a way to fuse these together?"
Kayla sat up and Wedge bent over him to look. Kayla plucked one up by her fingers and curled her lip. "What is it?"
"Bone," Luke told her, debating if he should tell her the whole truth.
"What are they for?" Wedge asked, recognizing them from earlier.
Luke chewed on his lower lip and sat up. And he admitted it. "You make wedding lockets out of them."
Kayla's eyes flashed up.
"It's a Tatooine thing."
Kayla smiled big. She sat up with one and she nodded. Her mind quickly got to work. She plucked the other out of his palm and bent over again to find the best way to fit the two pieces together.
Wedge slapped his palm on Luke's shoulder and shook it intensely. "Yes!"
The grease monkey fit them together in her palm and held them still. "Like this?"
"Yeah." He adjusted them together in her hand until they almost fit, creating a nice fat, squished symbol of infinity. "Can you do it?"
Kayla nodded and shot off her stool. "It'll melt them a little bit," she warned.
"That's okay." Luke rose to his feet and followed her. "Just not too much." He hovered over her shoulder at a solder station and Wedge hovered over her other shoulder to watch. She clamped them gently together with lock pliers and touched the pen iron on a piece of scrap metal to test its heat.
Luke took a deep breath and blew out a heavily breath. Am I really doing this?
Wedge poked his nose over. "Wasn't Kess wearing one of those already?"
"It's her grandmother's," Luke explained. "She's going to use it to try to pull Nik back."
The two watched as Kayla came down carefully with the pen iron. Luke held his breath.
Like a pro, Kayla drew down one gentle, smooth slice . . . and the two sides of bone melted together with a single white-gray line.
Wedge wrapped his arm around Luke's shoulder. "You put carving designs on these things, right? What are you going to carve it with?"
Luke scratched his head. His thoughts hadn't gotten that far.
Kayla finished her work and set the pen iron away. She set the lock pliers down gently to let the bones cool. She turned her head and shouted. "Yo, Ashten!"
Ashten stepped curiously over and looked at the strange project. "What are you doing?"
"Did we bring the chinkle tool kit?"
"Yeah, why? What is that?"
Kayla lifted it carefully, still in the locked pliers, and showed her. "It's Tatooine bone. For a wedding locket. But it needs a carving."
Green eyes bulged, on Kayla, on Wedge, on Luke . . . and stayed there with a slow-growing smile. She nodded and snatched the thing from Kayla's hands to trot away.
Luke freaked. He followed in a rush. Wedge and Kayla ran to follow.
"Make a hole!" Ashten yelled at the lounging grease monkeys so she could step through to the back of the tool closet. They sat up, alarmed at the hurrying crowd. Ashten handed the pliers back blindly and Kayla snatched it out of the green hand before Luke did.
Ashten looked over the stacked crates in the closet, reading labels.
"What's going on?" Seidrik peeped.
"Skywalker's making a wedding locket." Ashten said mid-scan and yanked off a crate from the top.
"What?" Seidrik stood just as Ashten shoved a crate into his arms.
"Help me with this."
Rogan sat up with a deep croon. Seth smiled and stood too, helping Seidrik get the excess crates out of the way as Ashten dug deeper into the stacks. Klivian stepped over with cringing curiosity. "Did I just hear that hell hath indeed froze over?"
As if they were playing the elementary game of telephone, the whisper rolled across the hangardeck at lightspeed, and with excited precision, until the whole compliment of Rogue Group knew what was happening. Skywalker's making a wedding locket!
Luke sighed until it grunted out of his throat in grinning defeat. "Boy, it's a good thing we're all on a different ship!"
Half the pilots and all of repair gathered into a gang by the time Ashten came out of the tool closet with the chosen crate and lowered to her knees to dig through it. Kayla handed the pliers and locket to Wedge in order to free her hands and help Ashten. They unpacked a dozen tools until they found the little kit they were looking for.
"I knew it!" Josey shouted as she jumped over to join them. She poked over Wedge's shoulder to peer at the thing.
Jewie came over and reached for it from Wedge's hand. "Let me see."
Luke shrugged his palms with impatience at them all. "Can I have it back please?"
Wedge patted the air at him to calm down. "In a minute." He motioned to the crew now passing it around for a closer look. "They worked for this too."
Janson stepped up behind Luke and slapped him on the shoulder with the strength of success. Luke closed his eyes with a grin and let his body nudge weakly by it.
Ashten jumped to her feet and Kayla popped up immediately afterwards. They opened the little kit and showed him the electric hand tool and all its various bits. They gang showered him with questions.
"When are you going to ask her?"
"What design are you going to put on it?"
"You want some help carving it?"
"Tarrin is a master at the chinkle tool."
"You could put words on it."
"I don't think May The Force Be With You is gonna fit."
"I don't think May The Force Be With You are the words it should have."
He waited until the questions dribbled to a silence. He looked around at what was almost the whole crew standing around him, all trying to figure out the best possible way to make this happen. Luke admitted it to himself: they did work for it.
Luke reached over to the person that had it and eyed hard for the locket to return to its owner. Ommis handed it proudly back. Then Luke turned to face Ashten again and held his other hand out for the tool kit. Ashten smiled and gave it over with a bow.
"The rest is on me," he told them. "But thank you." He looked around, meeting all the excited eyes and approving smiles. "All of you."
With that, Luke took both objects into his hands, and he strolled away.
The gang remained silent for a moment longer as he left, but he could hear the murmurs and laughter and victory flowing up as he turned into the tight corridor.
Luke smiled at his feet and thought to himself, "Well, Wormie, you're locked on target now."