The Menetet's Messenger dropped out of the swirling lights of hyperspace into blackness. No stars nearby, but uncountable lights shone in the distance.
Korlan flicked a few switches on the ship's command console and most of the lights in the Messenger went out. He turned his chair around to look at Eric and Leannon. "I've turned off everything I can, including heat." He stood up and added, "You hairless monkeys better put on a coat," before striding out of the cockpit.
Eric continued to stare at his hands as they rested in his lap. Then he noticed Leannon looking out at the stars. Her face reminded him so much of his own. He looked down. What could he possibly say to comfort his daughter?
"We're hiding again," Leannon said. She thought back to the two weeks they flitted around the galaxy before taking-abandoning-Ahlea on Coruscant, followed by her own trip to Korriban.
Eric nodded.
"For how long?"
Eric took a deep breath and sat up straight. "We've got to figure that out. We need to make sure we are safe first and then plan for the future."
Continuing to look out the windows, Leannon said, "Did you figure out how to get rid of the trackers that mom put on the ship? I'm pretty sure that's how she knew I was coming to Korriban."
Eric felt a hollow pit in his stomach. He clenched his jaw and he felt the muscles in his neck and back stiffen. "Well, your mother was too clever for me. We need to ditch The Messenger. I tried to get rid of the trackers and failed. She turned the whole circuitry of the ship into a tracker." He shook his head and thought to himself, I never thought she'd turn that cleverness against me. Against us. Eric did his best to hide his rising anger as he spoke. He didn't want Leannon to think he was upset at her.
"Dad? Can we go somewhere quiet? I liked that planet, what was it called? Aylay?"
Eric raised a finger to his lips. They shouldn't talk about their destination. He gave Leannon a pointed look before saying, "No, better to get lost in a crowd. We could ditch the ship out on Nar Shaddaa." Eric stood up and shook his head to relax the muscles in his neck and back. He'd sort out his feelings later. Time to get things done. "I'll go talk to Korlan about it. Why don't you go see Ahlea and Kura?"
"I want to go with you."
Considering his daughter for a moment, Eric couldn't think of any reason why he shouldn't include her in the decision making. He realized that he'd trust her decisions more than many of his troops back in the day. "Sure, come on. But Korlan was right, we better put on some warmer clothes. We might get cold before we sort things out."
They walked the short distance to their rooms and grabbed some clothes. Leannon got Ahlea's jacket and went to the med bay. She heard laughter as she approached.
Monte laughed and said, "Then, I was her punching bag. I'm not sure what was worse." Still plastered in bandages and gauze, his smile made his wrappings wrinkle around his mouth.
Ahlea interjected with a grin, "I was her lightning rod," she paused, "well, her droid's lightning rod."
Kura followed quickly with, "Love hurts, especially Sith love." She smirked. "Plenty of us have had more than enough."
Monte hung his head and smiled weakly, "I'm with you on that."
"Me too," Ahlea said, but her eyes no longer smiled. She forced a grin that looked like a grimace. She closed her eyes, trying to block out an image of her mother in black with glowing red eyes.
"Monte and I have given out Sith love before, eh? So it is only fair that we receive some." Kura gave Ahlea a knowing look. "Try not to follow our bad example, padawan. That way you'll be able to loudly protest that your treatment is unfair."
Ahlea and Monte grinned at Kura, but Monte's eyes were tired and sunken. He slouched back on a few pillows on the operating table. Zed had put three thin blankets on top of him and Kura. They lay shoulder to shoulder on the operating table. 5R-Zed pestered anyone who would listen until Kura finally gave in. The medical and protocol droid insisted on having both of his patients in the small medbay with him.
Ahlea leaned up against a wall of drawers, her eyes bright.
Leannon walked in and handed Ahlea a heavy coat, a red one that she had worn back home on Menetet. "Ahlea says everything is unfair." Leannon turned to her sister with a wicked grin, "So she must already be perfect."
Frowning, Ahlea said, "That was when I was a kid."
"Hate to break it to you, sis, but you are still a kid," Leannon said triumphantly and walked out of the crowded room.
As Ahlea fumed, Kura tilted her chin up and said, "I would claim perfection, or near perfection." She waited for Monte and Ahlea to give her their attention. "If I could stand."
Everyone laughed, except 5R-Z, who said, "Your condition is no laughing matter, Master Kura. Despite my continued searches…"
"And your caring service is exemplary, Zed," Kura said. "I'm sure I'll improve under your watch."
Monte held up his hands, so thoroughly wrapped in bandages he looked like he was wearing thick, white mittens. "I've never been more safe."
The droid, not sure if his two patients were mocking him or not, nodded stiffly and stood still in a corner to avoid further verbal abuse.
Ahlea said, "That does make me think, Kura. We need to get you back to Coruscant so Master May and the others can help you." She pulled her coat on against the growing cold.
Smiling slightly, Kura said, "I may know more about my problem than most on Coruscant. We may go there, padawan, but I doubt it will do me much good."
"Why not?"
"Your mother fed off my connection to the Force." She gave Ahlea a warm expression and reached out with her mechanical arm and held Ahlea's hand. "Thank you again for saving me, by the way." Ahlea smiled nervously at Kura, who continued, "I may recover with time, or not at all. There isn't much that can be done to speed things up."
"There must be something we can do," Ahlea said, frowning.
"These things take time, Ahlea," Monte said quietly. He had closed his eyes and laid back to rest as Kura spoke. Kura looked a bit paler than usual, but Monte seemed to have shrunk in captivity, with dark circles around his eyes and emaciated limbs.
"We should find a healer. I heard there are healers on Tython, too." Ahlea gripped Kura's robotic hand. When Kura was healthy and wore a long glove over her left arm, Ahlea almost forgot that Kura's arm and leg had been replaced. For some reason, 5R Zed insisted on removing Kura's gloves and boots before taking care of her.
"You are a healer, Ahlea," Kura said.
"Oh, not a very good one," Ahlea said. "I have no idea what I'm doing."
"You have talent. I'd rather teach you than go back to Coruscant and, aren't you lucky, you have two great patients to practice on." Kura gave Ahlea a crooked smile.
"It is best to rely on scientific approaches to medicine, masters," Zed interjected, waving his arms for emphasis. "Studies have shown that meditation and other techniques may provide some benefits, but they are difficult to replicate under rigorous analysis."
Ahlea looked at the droid with an astounded expression but Kura and Monte chuckled. Zed, again not sure if he was being laughed at, returned to standing stock still.
They could hear footsteps in the corridor and soon Eric stood in the hallway with Leannon and Korlan. The med bay wasn't an ideal place to gather as it was barely big enough for an operating table and one other person to move around and practice medicine. At the moment, it was completely full.
Eric said, "We overheard you all talking about getting Kura and Monte help. If we have to go to Coruscant, we can, but I'm still concerned that we would be easily found there."
Korlan nodded, "Djurisk's outfit has connections at almost every level of Coruscant and where they don't have connections, they can get them." Unlike the humans and Twi'lek onboard, Korlan hadn't put on a coat or extra blankets yet.
Leannon said, "I think mom bugged the ship. So we have to get rid of it." She looked at 5R-Z, "And probably Zed, too. Sorry, Zed."
"Masters, no! I would not leave you, especially not while there are patients to care for." Zed haltingly took a step forward, but there was no room to move.
"She's right," Korlan said, "the family droid is the perfect bug."
"I object, I am no bug," said Zed.
Leannon giggled in spite of herself, "No Zed, you are a droid. But we aren't safe with you around. Mom could be listening through you right now."
"Please, masters, I do not wish to be sold."
"Is there any way we can keep him? Find the bug and remove it?" Ahlea sighed. Zed had treated her scrapes and bruises all through her childhood. She didn't want to lose yet another piece of home.
Korlan shook his head, "We'd have to remove his memory core, wipe everything, get a new chassis. Might as well get a new droid."
"I am willing to have my memory wiped, masters. So long as I may continue to serve."
Eric looked around the hallway and the small room. Ahlea gave him a pleading look. He'd bought Zed just before Ahlea was born. There had been no doctors on Menetet. As he thought about it, he felt resistance to letting Lilija take one more thing from him. When he looked at Leannon, his second daughter shrugged. Finally, Eric said, "I'll think about it."
"Thank you, master," said Zed.
"Anyway," Korlan added, "we'll need some kinda droid to take care of our patients here. Especially if we are going to be on the move. But the kind I have in mind is a bit expensive."
"Menetet sold," Eric said. "Money's not an issue."
"Oh, Dad, we sold our home?" Ahlea asked.
Keeping a straight face, Eric said, "Sorry, honey, there's no way we can return and we need the money."
Ahlea nodded slowly. Leannon stared off into space.
Only Korlan seemed cheered by the news of the sale. "Good. It'll be easy to find what I need on Nar Shaddaa."
"Nar Shaddaa!" Zed exclaimed. "Master, please, do not sell me on that crime-ridden planet! They do terrible things to droids there."
"They do terrible things to everyone on that Hutt-slime rock," Korlan grunted. Eyes still closed, Monte nodded his agreement.
Kura looked at Eric and said, "How long do you plan on staying?"
"As short a time as possible. Now I'm going to ask that no one talk about our plans on Nar Shaddaa, or what we want to do after, until after we get off this ship. Since we've basically announced where we are going, we better get there and away again as soon as possible. Come on Korlan."
Korlan and Eric went up to the cockpit to set the hyperspace coordinates. Leannon stayed behind with everyone else. She looked at Monte, laying still on the operating table resting, if not asleep. It made her think of home, before all this happened. She'd been restless there. Now she wished she could go back.
Kura spoke up, but she looked exhausted, "What do you young ones wish for? What do you want to do?"
Ahlea said, "Can we continue training? I want to be a better Jedi. Are you strong enough?"
Leannon examined her sister with a surprised expression. "Now you want to train? You always ran off whenever Dad tried to get you to back home."
Monte chuckled, proving he wasn't quite asleep.
Ahlea looked to Monte for backup, but he didn't add anything, so she said, "I ran off to practice with Monte, not to hide, like you always say."
Leannon grinned. "Sometimes you hid." Ahlea rolled her eyes.
Waiting for a quiet moment, Kura said, "I think I can train you, Ahlea. And you, too, Leannon, if you want. You have a lot to learn from each other, as well."
The two girls gave Kura quizzical looks, but Kura had closed her eyes.
Monte whispered, "How about you, Leannon, what do you want?"
"I don't know."
"Come on. The girl I know always has a plan."
"We shouldn't talk about it. Not yet." But Leannon couldn't help envisioning the dense forests and incredible mountain peaks of Aylayl or climbing beautiful, tall trees; the smell of the undergrowth and how they had set up perimeter alarms to prevent being hunted by the wildlife at night. Hiking in the snow up the mountain until she'd left her father and sister behind and made it nearly to the peak alone until Eric called her back.
Leannon blinked, refocusing on the glaring white walls and cluttered cabinets around her. "Are you still awake, Uncle Monte?"
No response. His chest rose and fell slowly. Leannon looked at 5R-Zed, but before she could say anything, the robot whispered just loud enough to be heard, "I will take the utmost care in watching Master Monte's and Mistress Kura's health, masters."
Leannon and Ahlea smiled at the droid before padding out of the medical bay.