The two Jedi said nothing, and he turned to go. When he stood in the hatch leading out, Khedryn glanced back and said to Relin and Jaden, "Listen, when we get back to Fhost, we gamble, all of us together. Yes? As reckless as you two are, I might actually win some credits. As long as Jaden doesn't cheat. You have credits in your time, Relin?"
"Yes, of course."
"Then you've got something I can win. You play sabacc?"
"I don't know it."
"I will teach you." Apparently thinking better before his exit, he returned to the food locker, poured and drank a final jigger of pulkay. "I'll get Flotsam prepped. Then I will pray."
Jaden smiled him on his way. After Khedryn had gone, Relin, too, rose but Jaden halted him with a word.
"Stay."
Relin eased back into his chair, grimacing at the pain in his ribs.
But Jaden knew that physical pain was not driving him. He waited until he was sure Khedryn would not return.
Before Jaden spoke, Relin said, "You do not need to say it."
But Jaden did. "Anger is pouring off you. I feel it more strongly than I do the effect of the Lignan."
"Saes must pay. My Padawan-"
"You will lose yourself, Relin. And you cannot do that. You have made yourself steward of Marr on this mission."
Relin's lip curled in a snarl. "He understands the risk.
And it was your words that encouraged him to do something meaningful."
Jaden heard the contempt in Relin's tone and knew the man was nearly gone. Yet he could not deny Relin's accusation. "You bring him back with you. Understood? I want your word."
Relin brushed his dark hair off his forehead, and Jaden was struck with how pale and drawn the man appeared. "I will see that he returns."
Jaden knew he would get no more. The silence sat heavy between them. More than just five thousand years separated them.
"What did you do, Jaden?" Relin asked at last.
At first Jaden did not understand, but when he saw the knowing look on Relin's face, his heart jumped at the implicit accusation. "What do you mean?"
Relin leaned forward, his watery, bloodshot eyes nailing Jaden to his chair. "Anger pours off me? Well, doubt pours off you; uncertainty. I know what gives birth to that. What did you do?"
Jaden drew on his caf, hiding his face behind the mug's rim. In his mind's eye, he saw the faces through the viewport, pleading with him not to do it.
Relin smiled, though he managed to make it look unpleasant. "Something that shattered your image of yourself, yes?"
Jaden set down his cup and confessed. "Yes."
Relin chuckled, the first genuine mirth Jaden had heard from him. "The Jedi have not changed in five thousand years. Our expectation of ourselves always exceeds the reality. I have no wisdom for you, Jaden." He stood, extended a hand. "Good luck. I need to figure out a way to get my lightsaber charged."
Jaden stood, took his hand, a bit puzzled by Relin's parting words. He considered offering Relin the lightsaber he had crafted as a boy on Coruscant, since it required no power pack. But he knew Relin would not accept it.
"Marr will be able to help, I'm sure," Jaden said.
"I am sure," Relin said.
Before he exited the galley, Jaden said to his back, "May the Force be with you, Relin."
Relin did not slow.
Khedryn found Marr in Junker's cockpit, checking its instrumentation, testing systems. Khedryn hesitated in the doorway, thinking of all the flights he and Marr had sat beside each other in the cramped space while Junker hurtled through the black. The ship had carried them through some dangerous times. He cleared his throat.
Marr glanced over his shoulder but did not turn to face him.
"She ready?" Khedryn asked.
"Indeed," Marr said. "The damage was minimal, and she weathered the strain on the engines remarkably well. Probably due to your fine-tuning."
Khedryn recognized the praise as a gesture of reconciliation. He put a hand on the wall, felt the cool durasteel of his ship under his hand, and offered his own gesture. "Been a while since she's flown without both of us sitting up here."
"Indeed," Marr said, more softly.
Khedryn shook off the sentimentality, stepped forward, and performed a cursory glance over the instrumentation, not really seeing it.
"These Jedi go all in, don't they?"
Marr smiled, stood, turned to face him. "They do. Push until it gives, right?"
"Right." Khedryn smiled, too, but it faded quickly. "I am still not entirely sure why we are doing this."
"It is the right thing," Marr said.
"How are you always so certain, Marr? This isn't math."
"I am not always certain, but I am about this."
"Because you learned you're Force-sensitive?"
Marr colored. "Maybe. Partially."
Khedryn did not press. He thought of all the scrapes he and Marr had been through the past six years and realized that all of them had been of his own making. Marr had simply followed his lead and respected Khedryn's call. Khedryn figured he owed Marr the same, at least this once.
"Try not to get Junker shot up, eh? And you are on shuttle service and that's an order. If it gets too hairy, you abort and jump out of the system, no matter what Relin says. If you get aboard that cruiser, you drop off that Jedi and get out. Flotsam can get Jaden and me out of the system if need be."
Marr did not respond, and Khedryn liked the silence not at all. "That's an order, Marr. Understood?"
"I will do my best," Marr said.
Khedryn gave him a gentle shove. "You come back with the same look in your eyes as these Jedi and I'm throwing you off the ship for good."
Marr smiled, the tooth he'd chipped in a brawl Khedryn had started on Dantooine a jagged reminder of his loyalty. Khedryn looked out the cockpit window at the grainy, rough surface of the asteroid on which Jaden had set Junker down.
"This didn't exactly go as planned, did it?" he said.
"It rarely does," Marr said. "Variables. Always variables."
A fist formed in Khedryn's throat. He stared at his reflection on the transparisteel and swallowed it down. He wanted to say more to the best and only real friend he'd had since leaving the Empire of the Hand as a young man, but managed only to turn, reach out, and say, "Good luck."
Marr took Khedryn's hand, shook it. "And you."
Khedryn took one last look around Junker's cockpit, moved past Marr, and started to go, but Marr's voice pulled him around.
"Captain. For you."
Khedryn turned to find Marr holding out a stick of chewstim.
He took it, supposing it said all that needed to be said.
When Khedryn had Flotsam prepped and loaded with envirogear, he got on Junker's shipwide communicator.
"All hands to the galley one more time. Attendance is mandatory."
He took a roundabout way to the galley, walking Junker's corridors, cognizant of the fact that it, and Marr, might not return from Harbinger's landing bay.
If they made it to the landing bay.
He knew he was getting sentimental; knew, too, that he could not afford to do so. He was the captain and as such had certain obligations.
Beginning with this one, he thought.
When he reached the galley, he found Jaden, Relin, and Marr standing at the table, looking questions at one another.
"Time is short," Relin said.
"Gotta make time for this," Khedryn said.
He went to the food locker, pulled four drink glasses, and poured all of them a double from the only bottle of decent keela he kept on the ship. He carried the glasses to the other three men, handed one to each in turn. Relin sniffed at the glass.