Still there, along with Marr's speeder bike. Good. Khedryn loved that swoop.
By the time he reached the galley, Relin was already there, sitting at the central table. Sweat glistened on his face, and his eyes looked like glassy, distant pools sunk in the deep pits of his sockets. His breathing came fast, like that of a rabid animal.
"You are sick," Khedryn said.
Relin looked up, squinting at Khedryn. "Yes. Radiation."
Khedryn tried to look sympathetic. "I have nothing aboard, but we can do something for it back on Fhost." He left a maybe behind his teeth, seeing no reason to further burden the Jedi over Farpoint's limited medical facilities.
Relin stared at him for a long moment. "Thank you."
"And the ribs? The arm?"
Relin looked at his stump. "I am all right."
Khedryn could see otherwise but did not push. He held up a caf cup and changed the subject. "Caf? It's a bitter, uh, caffeinated beverage served hot."
"Tea?"
"Sure," Khedryn said, and prepped some tea for the Jedi. It was old, something he'd picked up on a whim months ago, but it was tea.
Jaden and Marr entered, neither talking. Jaden looked drawn behind his beard. Sweat dampened the fringe of his brown hair. Marr, of course, looked like Marr-solid, calm, as certain as an equation. Khedryn wondered how the Cerean managed such balance.
"I will take some of that caf," Marr said, staring at Relin with unabashed curiosity. "Jaden explained… matters to me."
"I'll take some, too," said Jaden. His voice had the sound of a man who had not slept in a few days.
"Take a seat, please," Khedryn said to them both, his tone more formal than he intended.
Marr looked a question at him as he crossed the room but Khedryn, still composing his thoughts, ignored it. He spiked his caf with a jigger of pulkay, then poured caf for Jaden and Marr, joined it on a tray with Relin's tea, and took it to the table.
"Nice flying," he said to Jaden.
"It was," Relin said, wincing in answer to one pain or another. "Well done, Jaden."
"Thank you," Jaden said. He seemed to notice Relin's physical condition for the first time. "Are you… all right?" he asked, the question as loaded as a charged blaster.
Relin sat up straight, cleared his throat, and it turned into a soft cough. "I am fine."
Khedryn distributed the drinks. "He's not all right. He's sick. Radiation. And the arm and ribs."
"I know all that," Jaden said, his eyes still on Relin. "That's not what I mean."
Khedryn realized that the Jedi were having a conversation at some level invisible to him.
"I am fine," Relin repeated, but he glanced away.
Jaden sipped his caf and looked unconvinced.
To Relin, Marr said, "Assuming both ships got to near lightspeed, you would have traveled… a long way for five thousand years to pass relatively."
Khedryn knew Marr must have been discomfited to use words like near and a long way.
"Yes," Relin agreed. He looked at Marr. "My name is Relin."
"Marr. I have so many questions."
"They'll have to wait," Relin said.
"I suppose so," Marr said.
"Good caf," Jaden said to Khedryn, holding up the mug.
"Thanks," Khedryn said as he took station at the head of the table. He swallowed, then dived in headfirst. "I have been thinking hard about this, and… we are done. This is over." He cut off whatever Jaden and Relin would have said with a raised hand and a raised voice. "Junker is my ship. Mine. And I am not risking her, or my crew, over a salvage job."
"This is more than that," Relin said, his glassy eyes fixed like glow lamps on Khedryn.
"You know that already, Captain," Jaden said.
Khedryn gave no ground. "I know it is to you two. To me, this is just another job, and it's gotten too hairy. Do you know why I don't have weapons on Junker, Relin? Because I run." He wagged a finger between himself and Marr. "We run. I am a salvager. This is a salvage ship."
He realized that he was breathing heavily, that his tone was overly sharp. He took a moment to control himself. Between the calmness of the Jedi and the placidity of Marr, he felt like he was the only one who grasped the danger they had been in.
Jaden started to speak, but Khedryn pointed a finger at him as if it were loaded.
"And don't you even consider trying that mind trick nonsense on me again."
Jaden half smiled, put his hands on the table, and interlaced his fingers. He studied them as if they were of interest, then looked up at Khedryn. "You were going to take me down to the moon. We had a deal, Khedryn."
That hit Khedryn where he lived. He did not renege on deals. "I know. But… "
Jaden continued in his infuriatingly calm voice. "But our agreement aside, I want you to step back and consider what has happened here. You and Marr discovered a distress beacon on a backrocket moon in the Unknown Regions."
"Chance," Khedryn said, but Jaden continued.
"I received a Force vision of that same moon. In it, voices pleaded with me for help." His voice intensified a degree. "For help, Captain."
"You received a Force vision?" Relin asked. "Did you see anything that suggested my presence or Harbinger's?"
Jaden had eyes only for Khedryn as he drove home his point.
"We meet under extraordinary circumstances in Farpoint, then journey here, and at almost the exact moment of our arrival an ancient Sith ship appears."
Relin piled on. "And that ship bears an extremely dangerous cargo."
Khedryn's response was knee-jerk defensiveness. "So you say."
"So I say?" Relin said, heat leaking into his tone.
Jaden held a hand up. "Please, Relin."
Khedryn shook his head. "Look, this was supposed to be a simple job. Instead it's… "
"Something bigger," Jaden said.
"I was going to say complicated," Khedryn said. "But if it is about something bigger, then that makes it a Jedi concern. Not mine. Not ours. Right, Marr?"
Marr drummed his long fingers on the table, taking it all in. He gave a noncommittal grunt that Khedryn liked not at all.
"No, this isn't just a Jedi concern," Jaden said. "It concerns you, too. Consider all the things I mentioned, the synchronicity of them. It is not chance that we are here together at this moment."
"It could be chance," Khedryn said half-heartedly, but he did not believe his own words. "Marr could put a probability to it, had he a mind. No, I am not doing this."
Relin slammed his fist on the table with the suddenness of a lightning strike, startling them all. Caf and tea jumped over cup brims. "You are a stubborn fool, Khedryn Faal."
Khedryn could handle anger more easily than Jaden's inexorable reasonableness. "Better a live fool than a dead fanatic, which is the course you've charted for yourself. You've got radiation poisoning, broken ribs, a severed arm. You haven't even paused long enough for treatment. You haven't even asked for some pharma for the pain or bacta to help the healing."
Relin rose to his feet, anger in his eyes. Khedryn's mouth went dry but he held his ground and made certain nothing on him shook.
"I do not stop for treatment because I will not shirk doing what needs to be done. Even if it causes me pain. You cannot always run, Khedryn."
Khedryn stared into Relin's haggard face, saw there a deeper pain than that of his wounds. He wilted under its weight, sighed, sat.
"You spilled your tea," he said quietly.