My new husband....

I couldn't help shuddering, nevermind if Sorben felt it or not. By this time I had no more strength to pretend any longer; I had used all that up in the three days it took us to get to this mysterious little hole-in-the-universe where I was finding myself keeping my promise I had made during that fateful moment on Aftershock. At the time I had really hoped that he might let me out of the Force cage, and in the time it would have taken to, well... go anywhere or do something, I might have come up with an idea.

I should have really known better. Before he had dropped the shimmering walls of force-dampering energy of the cage, he had reached into his armor and had drawn out two very familiar-looking gems. They were the force-blocking ones Seus had given to us on the day I had first been taken to the Guild world by Sorben.

"I don't want Dark or Desolist sensing us, babes. We can't risk it. Put this on, and keep it on you always."

He had then looped the necklace around my neck... and had stuck like glue to me ever since. Indeed, I had found myself hard-pressed to find a decent hidey-hole for my ring until I could retrieve it and place it on my person; funny how Kaladorian spidersilk dresses just don't come equipped with pockets.

I had mentioned this to Sorben... and immediately wished I hadn't. It seemed like from that moment on he couldn't keep his hands off of me, and I was bit by bit running out of excuses. The "I'm so worried about our daughter," and "I'm still a bit sore from the delivery, Sorben," were wearing a bit thin, having been repeated in various and sundry permutations until even my vocabulary -- hey, I wasn't the daughter of a professor for nothing! -- had finally run dry. Although he had politely backed off each time, and had finally found a flightsuit for me to wear... one which looked suspiciously like the one I had aboard Jester II, sans equipment ...there was still that strange hunger in his eyes that I had to continually fight against. Even though he never stopped pressing home the fact that he loved me, the words somehow fell short of his advances.

It was as if he was trying to get me pregnant again, sheesh.

Now my time had run out. As I pulled away from him and glanced around at the polite strangers who were our witnesses, I couldn't help the sudden onslaught of panic that was beginning to rise up in me.

We were married. Tonight was to be our wedding night.

The worry and fear and trepidation and shock of old love turning into this terrible travesty was too much. Everything wavered about me, then vortexed into blackness as the floor rose up to meet me, faster than even Sorben's lightning reflexes could prevent from happening.

...until memory whammed into me with the taunt that this nightmare was real.

I jerked up, my eyes everywhere at once as I sought to determine where I now was. The room about me looked strangely familiar, as though I had been there before. I frowned, straining to remember before it suddenly struck me: most hotel rooms have that "visiting passersby" look to them. Whether opulent or shoddy, they all had that one thing in common. They were hotel rooms.

Hotel room--???

My eyes widened as the rest of memory came slamming home. I turned my head to the side, only to be flooded by an even stronger sense of deja vu.

Beside me the bed I was laying in expanded out large enough to hold another two or so beings. Thankfully, the other side was at the moment unoccupied... although the rumpled bedclothes and indented pillow gave mute testimony that that state of affairs was perhaps only a transitory one at best. I gulped, letting my eyes now rove about the room.

Armor here, a belt there, a helmet laying in silent laughter on the table near the window... there the spidersilk dress I had worn to my wedding....

My arms flew about myself as I tried to keep the rest of my bravado and strength from leaking out of my body. For a moment I wavered on the very lip of despair....

OK, Galen ol' girl, SNAP OUT OF IT! There was no denying that voice was used to being instantly obeyed; I had only a moment to wonder about it before I realized it was coming from me.

Ok. So you're in bed. So you probably slept with the guy. Ok, deal with it. Use it. There is a way this can all be used, if you can only just quit being such a flit and THINK.

My mind raced. Nada. I tried to slow it down. Somewhere a little gem was beginning to crystallize...

My thoughts were interrupted as Sorben came into the room bearing a tray in his hands. Other than that he was wearing nothing but a smile. I gulped, clutching the sheets to me.

"Good morning, starshine," he smiled as if this was the most natural thing in the world to happen. He came over and sat down beside me, placing the tray over my lap. Then he leaned over and planted a kiss on my forehead.

"Hungry, babes?" he queried through the soft touches he was giving me. His one hand reached slyly for the sheets.

"Ahh-- YES, yes, as a matter of fact, I am!" I garbled a bit desperately, doing my best to settle my thoughts into their former alignment. He pulled back, that odd hardness beginning to swell up deep within his eyes.

Oh Khaandon, no...

"Hungry for you, love," I lowered my voice to a murmur before I kinda sorta accidentally moved juuuust the right way, knocking the tray from its shaky position across my lap. It spilled, sending a cup of freshly brewed -- and very hot -- caf spewing across his bare chest and, well.. other places.

"Yeeowtch!!" he screeched like a sandcat in heat, scrambling backward off the bed to jump up and down a bit before he turned and dashed out of the room to the 'fresher.

"Sorben!" I called out after him in the most lovingly concerned voice I could manage. "Are you all right?"

Nothing but the sound of running water....

I scrabbled from the bed now, moving quickly to his armor, digging, searching, seeking something, anything that would help me....

There, hidden deeply in one of his armored pouches, was the mate to the force-dampening crystal he had given me, and which I still had to wear in plain sight upon my person. He didn't have to adhere to such stringent rules concerning it, however....

I grinned an evil little grin as I took the crystal and tossed it into a nearby waste receptacle. In moments it was gone; from somewhere in the depths of the hotel I heard the grinding munch of the disposal unit enjoying its little unexpected snack.

I barely had the time to lay back upon the bed before he appeared in the doorway, dripping wet. A nice series of rising red welts formed a band which angled from his upper left chest to lower right thigh.

I fought the grin which tried to escape. I couldn't have made a better bull's-eye if I had planned it that way.

He stood there eyeing me a touch coldly. Then he softened. "Accidents happen, babes," he commented lightly, moving now to dress himself. I held my breath--

But no, he didn't check the little obscure pouch.

"Get dressed, babes," he mumbled over his shoulder as he now reached for his helmet. "We can't stay in any one spot too long."

"I'm on your heels, love," I smiled as I reached for my own flightsuit.

And I greatly and most sincerely hoped I wasn't the only one doing just that.

Sheesh. Force-induced sleep was better than a 2-week nap...

"Okay, what do you propose we are doing next?"

"We're going fishing. They've gotten married here. They've gotta be in a hotel or something here. We're calling in some favors and figuring out which one they are in," Terrin explained.

"I hope this doesn't take too long, this hunter is liable to be on the move."

Terrin frowned. "Yeah, I know. But the more he moves the more he risks drawing attention. And that's what I'm hoping for. I have a friend who frequently buys ships from me that owns a rather large hotel chain here. And he knows alot of other local hotel owners. I think we just might be able to fish up where they've been. And we just might be able to pull some more strings and see what ship they've been traveling in, that is if we can figure out where Tarnus parked her on this dustball."

"You think we can get something that classified?" Shawn questioned.

Terrin turned and actually directed somewhat of an amused grin at him. "Hey, you're the one with the information smuggling company..."

Actually...

"Maybe you have something there."

Terrin looked at him as if to say, Of course I do!

Then out of the far corners of his Force-senses he was slammed with the onslaught of someone somewhat nervous...anxious...worried?... Shawn wasn't quite sure why this had struck him but the Force was guiding, he knew.

"We're going that way," he suddenly said, pointing and then heading off, not asking anyone else for approval or disapproval of this move.

"What the--???" Jasyn started.

Terrin just shot the other man a Be quiet and do what he says look.

Jasyn shrugged at that, merely falling in step behind Shawn and Terrin, Matt close behind.

There it was...that unnerved Force-aura...

Could be nothing, but then...

...could be something. Shawn moved onward.

I strained my head as Sorben's steel-banded arm hustled me along, trying to capture a name or anything I could possibly pass along to someone along the way. Once again, nothing. This was a place peeps went to to be forgotten, overlooked... and quite often to die.

It wasn't long before we had left the realms of stardust and moonshadow for this particular district's Port Authority sector. There we hurried through clearance of a sort, and soon approached and boarded Sorben's sleekly deadly ship. The hatch closed with a finality of its own as Sorben barked for clearance, got it, and fired up the YT-1500's systems.

In moments we were in space.

Sorben seemed to sigh, and settled back into his seat, waiting for the results of his final bug sweep before he blasted us off into hyperspace. So far, no bells alarmed, nothing untoward revealed us as marked sentients. He reached for the control to the hyperdrive motivator...

...and quite suddenly paused when a darkly demonic face appeared on his comm screen. I shuddered in remembrance, closing my eyes and then opening them in disbelief.

Surely this was my mind playing yet another trick on me??? But no--

"I see you have completed your little task, Tarnus," Gravin Dark's slimy voice infiltrated the interior of Sorben's ship like the plague. I shrank into myself, wanting to run off somewhere and take a hot shower.

Sorben's jaw literally dropped. He ogled the screen a moment before turning to me; a wealth of questions passed through his features before one I could read only too clearly paused to take root. He began to frown....

My mind raced. I held up my gem, let it dangle from my fingers. "Does this mean I can take this ugly thing off now, love?" I asked sweetly before doing exactly that. I let it drop from my fingers where it clanged upon the decking of the floor, echoing the next hideous words Mr. Dark was now directing at us.

"Pray, mighty hunter, bring to us that which we have paid such a high bounty for." Gravin Dark's raptorial eyes glowed like liquid sulfur. A dark smile darkened his features further. It was now my turn to sober.

Yeesh. I had forgotten what Sorben had said about Desolist and Dark. Well, not exactly forgotten.... In my mad rush to somehow make ourselves force-known to the jedi in Terrin's group, "overlooked" would have been a better choice of words....

Quickly I scrabbled up the gem and went to Sorben, lacing the chain about his neck. "Maybe he doesn't remember my signature," I whispered into his ear before moving back into my seat again. Sorben looked to me, and then somehow found the strength to settle his features into a smile.

"Look, Dark," he began jovially enough. "I have what you want; don't worry, you'll get it. But sheesh, I just found her after all this time and all, and we're married now, so don't you think you can give a guy a break--"

His words were truncated by merely an ominous glare which emanated from the screen like a palpable thing.

"Bring her to us, NOW, hunter!" Dark hissed malevolently. "I would hate to have to come and relieve you of her myself."

With that the viewscreen went as blank as Sorben's face. He swallowed a few times, blinking.

I couldn't stand it. I went over to him and put my arms about his neck, resting my cheek on his head.

"Look love," I began. "You said it yourself. We used to lam from this guy all the time, and half the time we didn't have any Force gems to help us. We had only our own wits. We did it before; we can do it again."

To my horror, the eyes Sorben now turned to me were full of utter and soul-encompassing fear. He reached up and tore the gem from around his neck. "Not this time, babes," he whispered softly before setting our new course and sending us into the mystery of hyperspace.

Our destination? Only Khaandon knew. But I had a good idea as to what lay at its end.

The same damned docking bay that they'd just left the ZZ'Shzq in moments before.

"Petrolu, if you are going to tell me that..." Terrin started, clearly not amused.

He never finished the sentence. Not too far in their line of vision, a rather nice looking little ship blasted heavenward...a YT-1500. And Shawn was staring directly at it, completely ignoring Terrin and the other guys all together. Then, quite suddenly, he said, "Let's go, that's it."

"Petrolu, if you aren't sure..."

"We can verify it when we hit space. You said it yourself, I'm the one with the information smuggling business."

"You'd best be right. Cause if you aren't, I'm not gonna forgive you."

Heading for the ZZ'Shzq, Shawn muttered, "I know."

In mere moments, Terrin had the ship back in orbit around Ord Mantell. He turned and eyed Shawn suspiciously. "So where from here, almighty Jedi? That ship is gone, even if it was them."

"Oh, it was them," Shawn said rather darkly. "I sense an unusual amount of fear. And..."

Here he paused, as if a veil had suddenly been lifted from his eyes. "...I can sense her, Terrin." Then, he stood, keying up something on the navboard. The monitor flared to life, revealing an angle of space around the orbit of the planet.

There it was.

"Save that image to the computer hard drive's memory, Matt," he said to his copilot. "We're gonna find out who owns that ship."

"I think we already know, pal," Shawn said, looking more than just a little disturbed. "And I don't think it's too soon to say I've got a really bad feeling about this."

Terrin frowned. "Well buster, we'll be relying on your force-ability to track this peon, so you'd better pray you're up on your game," he said as the YT-1500 blasted off into hyperspace. "You'd better really pray you're on it. You know me, I don't like moving without hardcore facts."

"Well, you go for them. Find out who owns that ship. But I don't think you'll be..surprised. As for where they are heading...I sense the emerging of something horribly unknown and very evil lurking."

Terrin shot the Jedi a stormy blue gaze. "Dark and Desolist."

"You bet your every credit that's probably what it is. The fear I feel from that ship, along with the darkness it's heading towards, will be the two points that lead us right to the bullseye. But don't be surprised that it won't be over even when we get there..."

But that didn't mean he liked this one bit. What if they diverted from course?

He had asked Shawn that much, but the Jedi insisted that he would know. He knew he had a lock on Galen's Force-signature, and was more than just a little certain that he had Tarnus's signature as well.

At least, that's what he'd told Terrin.

Finding the registration for Tarnus's ship had been next to impossible. Not that this had surprised Terrin in the least. Bounty Hunters were known not to have registered ships, just like information smugglers. They were also similiar to info smugglers in that they usually had plenty of false identifications for their ships.

But then, no matter the name the ship relayed, there was always its very distinctive engine propulsion signature. And there was a 95.9 percent probability if you could match that with a specific ship, you probably had the right ship.

Matching the readings he'd gotten on the YT-1500 with a database of ships via Stargazer Corporation, Terrin waited for his search to hopefully pull up results.

Bingo. The Aftershock. Owned by, you betcha, Sorben Tarnus.

Ah, thank goodness for the databases of the information smuggling industry.

Terrin never thought he'd be returning to those databases he'd once spent so much time reveling in for something quite so very important...

...and for someone quite so dear to him.

Just to be doing...something...was better than the waiting around they were having to do.

Waiting to step right into the bantha's mouth, no less.

Matt turned and eyed Terrin. "I can take over for you if you like."

"No, thanks. I'll be fine," he said, stifling a yawn. No matter how nice Shawn's force-sleep had been, it could only last so long.

"Why don't we just use the Hornett, tractor Tarnus in, and get this all over with?" Jasyn questioned.

Terrin turned to look at him. "First off, the Hornett has gone to hyperspace in a different route than us now. And secondly, if we did use her, it won't be over even then."

Shawn nodded. "Dark and Desolist will catch on. Our ship might be strangely hidden from the Force, but Tarnus's is not. the moment we tangle with the Aftershock is the moment we blow our cover. We might be able to deal with Tarnus, but then we'll have a much bigger problem."

"Still," Terrin said, gazing into the depths of hyperspace thoughtfully, "We're gonna face these dark guys regardless. We could just yank her from Tarnus's ship and deal with the consequences..."

"And you aren't thinking clearly," Shawn corrected. Terrin just cocked a brow at him. "Chances are Dark and Desolist have more plans for Tarnus anyway. I think it might be best to let Tarnus complete his task before stepping in on the scene. As bad as this sounds, he might serve as a good distraction for us to step in behind."

Terrin pointed a finger and shook it in Shawn's face. "Are you suggesting we should just let Sorben Tarnus hand Galen over to these nasties, KNOWING what they might have in mind?"

Shawn turned a calm blue-green gaze right into Terrin's stormy blues. Still, his voice came out a bit...strained. "Are you suggesting that by snagging Galen back from Tarnus we'll somehow simply escape the true threat?"

Terrin didn't back down. "You really think you can fight two nasties at once?"

"Well, figure this. We're coming in on them blind in this ship. If we take Galen back before we get wherever Tarnus is headed, that'll blow our cover right away. And take away any possible advantage we have. I hope you do not believe I am playing games with your fiancee's life...

...on the contrary, I'm doing whatever I see in my power to get her back safely. And to hopefully keep her with you safely once we've gotten to that point." Something in the depths of Shawn's eyes...hardened just a bit with those words.

"Look...Shawn..." Terrin started, suddenly feeling extremely guilty. "I know you are doing your best. I'm unnerved by all of this, somehow even more than I was when Galen was snagged back on Khar Delba. At least then I knew who had her. At least then it was suspected."

"We do know where she is now," Shawn said, trying to present something positive.

"But do we know where she's headed? Where we're headed?"

"To something really evil, that's for sure," Shawn replied a bit blackly.

Terrin frowned at that. He could only hope they could meet that evil head on and succeed when they got where they were going.

He hoped Galen trusted that he was a step behind her and Tarnus, and that he was doing everything in his power to get to her...

But she didn't have a clue in hell as to what we were finding ourselves up against. Babes, I was going to tell you, but you didn't give me the chance!

That little thought brought another one ravening to the front of my mind. Those Force-blocking crystals, an awful little voice kept whispering in my ear. You know you had yours on you, just as sure as if you had been holding it in your hand. Suddenly ol Slimebucket himself can suddenly sense you out....

Now, Mr. Tarnus, how do you suppose he managed to do that?

My hand had made it halfway to my chest pouch before I grunted and and brought it to a conscious halt. I didn't need to actually feel in the pouch to know the crystal wasn't there any longer.

In fact, I didn't want to discover the fact that it was gone. Suffice it to say I had more than enough persuasive evidence to support that little supposition... I guess I just didn't want to face the fact that I highly suspicioned my new little wife had something to do with its disappearance.

Now I sighed, sitting back. We were suddenly in a pretty pot of poo-doo, and that was a fact. Before I had agreed to this awful bounty I did come up with a sort of a plan as to where we could go and hide for the duration if I just didn't follow through... hiding out in a few choice spots I knew of until my employer and his goons had finally crawled down from my back. Now that Dark had us pinpointed, however, that plan was as worthless as the space outside of Aftershock. There was no way I could elude these guys without some means of blocking our Force signatures from them, and we only had the one crystal.

I cut my eyes over to where Galen was sitting in a little ball, chewing on her lip. I did my best to frown and stay angry with her, but I was finding that a harder and harder thing to do.

In fact, I was beginning to feel a touch desperate for her sake. I knew what the plans were for her...

Forgive me, love, for doing this to you! I had no choice....

...and no matter how hard I worked the ol' brainpan I just couldn't come up with anything viable. The closest thing I could do was to go crawling back to Seus; after a year's absence with the twenty-thou he had given us-- don't even GO there, buddy --I'd be lucky to graze atmosphere before finding something mysteriously, not to mention remotely, having gone wrong with my ship, leading to the type of landing all spacers dread.

I sighed, sitting back and directed another scowl into mid-air. There had to be some way I could pull one of my infamous Sorben acts and save our hineys, something I could do to keep my wife out of the hands of....

At night, though, it haunted her. Find her daughter, insisted a voice within. She thought she could hear a baby cry. The Force? Perhaps. Cella had been too long out of touch to really know. The other Jedi? Perhaps dead, she thought bleakly. There had been some kind of catastrophe on Yavin IV. It killed her that she couldn't even tell whether Jeroc and Logan were alive or not.

They had been dead to her for a long time, anyway. She had left that part of her life behind. She had changed, and she could no longer go back to the Praxeum. Cella Poliani had no home.

Find her daughter. All else follows. insisted the voice within. Cella could no longer ignore the voice. She needed to talk to somebody, anybody. Flipping her braid over one shoulder, she stalked barefoot to the communit. "Put me through to Shawn Petrolu," she instructed it. She really needed the aid of another Jedi...and she had to talk to him about Galen's daughter.

Something was troubling her.

Sitting up and giving himself a moment to adjust to the light again, Shawn opened his comm channel. He didn't even bother with formalities. Cella knew it'd be him on the other end of the comm. "Cella?" he said calmly yet still with concern. "What is it?"

"And something else...I think I need to find Galen's baby. If we wait any longer, the baby may be in a great deal of danger." Cella paused. "That was the mistake I made with Shayla. I left her hanging far too long. She thought the Jedi had abandoned her, and I can't blame her for that."

Why was she trying to cover how she was really feeling to a fellow Jedi?

And how was she going to go off on her own to look for Galen's baby when she was obviously in such distress?

This was a bad idea. A very bad idea. Nobody needed to be out there alone. Besides, this issue currently facing them was of far more concern to him than even the baby, especially with the very convincing conclusions he and Terrin had reached regaurding why this had all taken place. The implications of what MIGHT be in store were just too horrible.

"If you think meditation would help you, that might be a good choice," he replied at length. "But going out alone looking for Galen's baby..." He hesitated a moment, trying to figure how to word it. "Look, I sense a huge amount of danger heading our way. Heading the way of every person on this ship. Let alone what danger Galen and this bounty hunter might be headed for since they will face it before we will..."

What the Sithspit are you trying to say, Shawn?

"I can't face this as a single Jedi on my own. I need your help as well. I'm only one man who happens to be a Jedi. And you can't expect to be anything more than who you are either. I sense that you think your weakenesses have somehow caused you to fail. But our weaknesses are what ultimately make us strong in that we need each other. I don't advise you going off alone, but the decision rests in your hands."

Quieting at that, Shawn waited to see if there was anything else Cella would add.

"Morning," Terrin said quietly as Jasyn took a seat at the copilot's station. Jasyn turned in the seat so he could look over to Terrin.

"How much longer to reversion?" he asked, crossing his arms.

"Could be any time now," Terrin replied almost nonchalantly.

Jasyn knew better. "So what are our plans? Strategies?"

"Well, with Dark and Desolist, I think our strategy rests heavily on our two Jedi."

Jasyn frowned, rubbing his chin in thought. "And what if Cella isn't up to it? I know Shawn healed her of the glitterstim and all, but honestly I think she's been making herself scarce because she is struggling with some things."

Terrin quirked a brow at his companion. Jasyn could be rather perceptive, Terrin knew. That was, when he wasn't drunk, a little voice in his head added, drawing an approximation of a smile from him.

Jasyn wasn't quite expecting that. "What?" he questioned.

Terrin quickly sobered. "Nothing important. And what you say about Poliani makes sense. But then...if we are going into this with just one Jedi..."

"...we could be in deep poodoo," Jasyn finished.

A moment of silence passed in which both men were trying to come up with something to remedy this possible delimma. Suddenly, Jasyn spoke up. "What about ysalamiri?"

Terrin turned a surprised look to the other man. "And where praytell are we going to get a hold of any of them this late in the game?"

Jasyn leaned back, propped his feet up on the navboard, crossed his arms behind his head and whistled innocently.

Terrin's eyes widened. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me."

Jasyn turned a lopsided grin in Terrin's direction. "Nope. I've been keeping those two little buggers that I pulled out of the tree in Khar Delba as pets ever since we went there. Granted, our buddy Admiral Actar nearly blew them up, but I've taken them along with me for the ride every time we've been somewhere since then."

Terrin laughed a small laugh, shaking his head in amusement. "So we have two ysalamiri...that could help us alot since we are dealing with dark Force users."

"Make that five."

Terrin shot Jasyn another wide-eyed look. "Five?"

"Hey," Jasyn said, shrugging. "How was I to know the little critters would take a liking to each other and mate?"

Terrin rolled his baby blues. "Hmmm. That's enough for each one of us to have one, minus the Jedi. Could help us a hell of alot."

"Yep, just call me your local ysalamiri breeder," Jasyn said with a lopsided grin. "Thankfully the little buggers don't eat anything much."

Terrin just shook his head again. "And to think you said they were ugly..."

Sheesh, what's going on? I couldn't help but wonder. We'd gone head to head with Mr. Dark several times in our shared past, and had bounced up unscathed each and every time. We had even battled with Desolist... although admittedly while separated, and victory over that dark and nasty creature had been at the unexpected assistance of another person.

I couldn't help but frown as I thought of that other mysterious benefactor; had something happened to him that Sorben was now so intimidated by Desolist? Or was there yet other unmentioned evil afoot? That thought provoked an instinctive little shudder of fear to glissade through me, one bringing along for the ride a sudden assurety that there was more to what was going on than my dear husband was willing to let on to me.

And since it concerned me, really now, didn't I have a right to know?

Or at least to have a hand in my own future....

That final thought bloomed into another direction, and I huddled more, my eyes now cutting sideways to take in the silent form Sorben presented to me.

He has to sleep sometime... maybe you can "facilitate" matters there, ol' girl....

____________________________________________________
____________________________________________________

Hours had passed since I had come up with my wild thought. I hadn't a clue as to whether or not it would work, but sure as there's Treasure on Roon I wasn't about to just sit there like the proverbial sacrificial lamb and let myself be taken to the slaughter.

Very carefully I inched my way from Sorben's sleeping side, moving silently beneath the covers until I managed to reach the edge of the bed. I paused a moment, holding my breath to see if there had been any change in Sorben's breathing pattern.

Nope, he's sleeping like a baby. Looks like the Walkn'Fall helped, or else you wore him out, may Terrin forgive you....

Terrin.

For a moment I paused, closing my eyes to better see his dear and familiar features which were yet displayed upon my inner lid, and had been ever since I had wooed Sorben away with a promise of at least for one night making his problems -- HIS problems??? sheesh -- a bit less significant. I don't know if I had succeeded or not, and quite frankly didn't care. All I knew was that I had to do everything in my power to get back to Terrin.

No movement from the so-called "better half;" still holding my breath, I slid out sideways and came to a quiet crouch on the floor. I blinked, waiting... nothing. Scarcely daring to breath, I slowly rose to my feet, turned, and quickly padded from our quarters, taking care to leave the door open so as not to run into any unexpected surprises on my return.

Should I return, that is. For all I knew the bounty on me was dead or alive....

With sandcat feet I made my way uneventfully to the bridge of the Aftershock, and for just a moment stood in the doorway watching the myriad lights flash and stutter as the ship went about her business keeping the status quo. Then I hurried to the navigational board, and quickly and deftly keyed in a certain sequence of codes and commands.

The YT-1500 shuddered as that command roused her from her sleep and forced her to drop from hyperspace. I took the short opportunity she provided me to drop a quick navigation buoy astern; then the sleekly deadly ship moved about herself, changing her orientation like a questing Nek, and shot back into hyperspace once again.

With luck I could keep Sorben away from the navigational board while we sped on toward our new destination... one I really didn't want to go back to at the time, but it was the closest place to us at the moment....

Moments later I was sliding between the cool sheets once again, forcing myself to snuggle up against Sorben and drape an arm about his shoulders in the pretense of love I had to maintain. He garbled a bit in his sleep, then settled down, not even rolling over in my direction.

I sighed and moved onto my back, staring up at the ceiling and wondering if I had calculated the timing of potential events correctly. It wouldn't do for the virus to attack the computer and shut us down if we were lightyears from anywhere to go; I wanted to be safely hidden on the world I had chosen when the bantha poo-doo hit the air circulation devices.

And I hoped and prayed that what I thought had been left on K'eel D'oba, the sister planet to Khar Delba, was still there.

Not too likely they'd pick up anything in hyperspace. Any course change is going to have to be indicated by Shawn.

But, no sooner had that thought crossed his mind than something on the navboard bleeped.

"What the...?" Jasyn, who had been sitting thoughtfully in the copilot's chair, blurted.

Terrin ignored the outburst for the moment, and merely turned to eye the navboard monitor, simultaneously keying something in.

Jasyn glared over in Terrin's direction. "Would you like to share this with the rest of the class?"

"We have an uncharted navigation buoy that just popped up right in our flight pattern."

"And this means...?"

"It means something in our plotted hyperspace course has suddenly been sensed by the ship's computer. She's warning us that we need to drop out of hyperspace before we slam into it."

"So how does something suddenly get in our plotted course?"

Just as Jasyn was saying this and Terrin was preparing for reversion, the new navigation buoy dropped off the chart.

"Look!" Jasyn said, pointing where the uncharted buoy once was. Then he turned to Terrin as the ZZ'Shzq dropped out of hyperspace. "You think...?"

"I certainly do." Then, hitting the ship-wide comm, "Shawn, get your Jedi brain up here. We're changing courses."

"Headed your way," came the reply. In moments, Shawn entered the cabin. "Any idea what vector she took?" Shawn asked, turning to look at the star chart still on the monitor.

Terrin bit his lip as he thought. "Well, there are several different probable vectors from the point of the buoy. Then he frowned, running a finger down the list of possible destinations associated with the vectors the ship's computer had calculated. "K'eel D'oba..." he muttered, still staring at the navmonitor.

Shawn just looked at his back curiously, while Jasyn's eyebrows shot clear up his forehead. "As in Khar Delba?"

"Sure the hell makes sense. She thought her baby was on Khar Delba," Terrin stated, rubbing his chin.

"So why not go there, instead of K'eel D'oba? And you're assuming that Galen's somehow convinced Tarnus to either let her pilot or change courses."

Shawn, meanwhile, had been completely quiet. Terrin turned in his seat to look at the Jedi. "Shawn?" he asked, noting the Jedi's gaze was distant.

Shawn refocused his attentions on everyone in the cabin, his vision clearing. "You're right. I can feel it."

Terrin arched his eyebrow a bit curiously at the choice of wording, then turned back around in his seat to key something in on the navboard. The ZZ'Shzq took a graceful 180 degree turn, and just as gracefully shot off into hyperspace to her new destination...