Chapter Thirty The Arrival
CHAPTER THIRTY
The Arrival
Sian took Starstall and left.
There were no long goodbyes. No more heated kisses.
I simply went through the preflight check for him, made sure he had enough fuel to go somewhere far, far away from here, and let him go.
Mom always said if you held something too tightly, it’d disintegrate in your arms, but if you let it go?
If it was meant to be, it would come back.
I didn’t fool myself into thinking Sian would ever come back.
When Starstall was a far-off glint in the sky, I sat down on a boulder outside of the facility and watched it disappear. I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the missing lander to Dad, but I hoped once I told him the story, he’d understand.
If I ever got to tell him the story.
“Do you think Lady Sosha got our message?” I asked the droids, who were sitting in the dust, picking up their sabacc game again.
“I hope so,” Veebee replied. Entoo had reattached her other arm, and probably did it a lot better than I could have. “I think you’re cheating.”
Entoo gave a warble of admonishment.
“Yes, I know I’m losing, but I do think you’re cheating. The odds of me losing this many times are abysmally low.”
In reply, Entoo gave another smart beep.
Veebee was quiet for a moment and then set her hand down. “You’re right, the odds aren’t zero.”
I closed my eyes and breathed in the cool night air, listening to the quiet of the planet.
The crackle of the fire Veebee had started.
The buzz of the cards as she shuffled them between her fingers.
The gentle chirp of bugs, the rustle of wind through the vines, billowing dust up.
I was sure by the time the ship arrived, I’d be dusted over.
That gave me an idea.
If I already knew what to expect, maybe I could plan a little in advance.
I couldn’t control what Val would do or what would happen once the Starfarer landed, but I could guide a little.
Ever since Val had come onto the ship, he’d done nothing but lie to me, and I was sick of it.
It was time to even the playing field—and maybe if I did, I’d find my brother somewhere underneath it.
“Vee, what do you think about experimenting while we wait?” I asked, plucking a bud from a vine and twirling it in my hand.
She looked up at me, intrigued. “What kind of experiment?”
“Remember how you made that fine powder from the starblossom?” I asked, and she nodded. “Do you think you can do that with these flowers?”
“I did not actually use the starblossom itself, but its roots,” replied the droid.
“That’s perfect, actually,” I replied. “Do you think you could?”
She looked around at what little Sian had left us with—some rations in a crate and a communicator. “With a will and a dream, I can do anything. And some rocks. I can use rocks. And Entoo’s blowtorch.”
Excitedly, the astromech popped out their blowtorch. “Bloop!”
“But why?” Veebee asked. “Care to fill us in? I can see the cogs in your head turning, and that is never a good sign.”
“If Val wants the lightsaber, he’s going to tell me why—whether he likes it or not.”
That was all either of the droids needed to hear to agree to the plan. So I went about digging up a few roots of the vines and finding rocks that Veebee could use as a mortar and pestle. I hoped this would work.
At what point over the past three years had Val fallen in line with the First Order?
At what point had he been so desperate that he joined a fringe group of zealots?
I didn’t understand it. He’d never liked the Empire—neither of us did, as kids of rebel fighters.
We grew up on Mom and Dad’s stories of running supplies and dodging firefights, and the terror they still felt whenever they heard the sound of ships breaking out of hyperspace, always expecting an ambush of TIE fighters.
The war had done so much damage to all the people who’d fought in it, and even to the ones who hadn’t, who simply existed in the galaxy and found themselves pulled in from the edges.
In the quiet of the planet, I could hear my childhood in the white noise, my brother’s bright laughter as we played rebels and fought imaginary foes.
“Pow-pow!” my brother cried, aiming his makeshift blaster at boxes stacked up and wrapped in white like stormtroopers, ducking behind a crate in the storage room of the Starfarer.
“Throw!” I cried, throwing out my hands. “I will send them flying with the Force!”
He scowled, peeking up from behind the crate. “You know the Force doesn’t work like that, Arie!”
“I don’t know how the Force works, so it can do whatever I want it to do,” I replied indignantly.
“No, it can’t!”
“Yes, it can.”
“Whatever. Pow!” he added, miming shooting the sheet-clad enemy. “They’re dead, anyway. Blaster bolt between the eyes.”
Of course he always had to have the last say. I hated that. So I gasped and cried, “Oh no, they’re taking over my mind!”
“What is?”
“Eeeevil! Terrible! The daaaaark side! It’s implanted nano-droids in my miiiind!” I cried, convulsing, and dropped to the floor. Then I gasped, reaching out for him. “Go! Save…yourself!”
But Val set his mouth in a thin line and pretended to reload his blaster. “Never! I’ll save you, Arie! I’ll always be on your side.”
In the end, he destroyed the “control box” that had taken over my mind, just in time for the Starfarer to kick out of hyperspace near Corellia, where the next tour would begin. When we finally walked into the mess hall for dinner, Dad came up to us and took us by our shoulders urgently.
“Where have you been?” he asked, face red with anger. “I’ve been looking everywhere!”
“We were in the cargo hold,” Val said.
I added, “We were playing!”
“Don’t ever do that again. I didn’t know where you were,” Dad said. “You can’t go down into the cargo hold again. It’s dangerous.”
“It’s on the ship, Dad,” Val argued, wrenching his shoulder out of Dad’s grip. “Where do you think we’d go?”
Dad shook his head. “This isn’t an argument.”
“It’s not fair! Mom would let us,” he added, storming out of the mess hall. He didn’t have dinner that evening.
Dad looked at me. Mom had been gone for two years at that point, and Dad hated having us out of his sight. I shifted on my feet. “I’m sorry, Daddy. We won’t do it again,” I added, because I knew that was what he wanted to hear.
He gave a relieved sigh and pulled me into a hug.
“You two are all I have left, love,” he whispered into my hair.
I looked past him, over his shoulder at the other crew members, some of them hired for only six months or a year, some permanent like Daaric and Maeve.
But what about them? I wanted to ask, but I never did, and Daaric and Maeve pretended nothing had ever happened.
The Starfarer was my home, but as I opened my eyes and looked out at the wide sky, I knew it was also my cage.
Nothing bad ever happened as long as I was on the Starfarer. That was what Dad had taught me. It was a lie, because bad things happened whether or not I was on the ship. He couldn’t protect me from everything—he shouldn’t.
I could protect myself, too.
Veebee had ground the roots into a powder. I began to dust it over myself, the grains so fine they were almost translucent. It made me shimmer a little more than usual, but I didn’t mind.
Like starlight on my skin. Maybe Sian’s nickname really did suit me.
I had nothing to hide anymore, nothing I wanted to hide.
Far above us, the only home I’d ever known pulled out of hyperspace, materializing in the sky like magic.
My heart hurt in my chest as I looked up at the metal bird, feeling equal parts homesickness and dread.
I stood and took a deep breath. The powder on my skin smelled sharp and sweet like the flower itself.
All this for a lightsaber.
Behind me, Vee told her partner, “You were the greatest pain in my ass, Entoo. If we don’t survive this, I will miss you. And our holochess matches. And our sabacc games.”
“Bleep-bleep-bloop.”
“I’m sorry. You cheated how many times?”
With a deep and calming breath, I said, “I guess I should radio up to them. It’s time to get off this planet.”
N2-0 tilted their cylindrical body forward with a dismayed chirp, and I couldn’t agree more. I really hoped the Force was with us, too.