A human woman, one of the dancers dressed in a gauzy green outfit that showed as much as it covered, walked into the room. Seeing Kell standing over Reegas, she froze just inside the doorway. The cup she held fell to the floor, spilling keela. Her mouth hung open, her eyes bulged. A small, abortive scream emerged from her throat. Perhaps her mouth was too dry to muster much more.

Kell's feeders snaked into his cheek sacs, leaving a spatter of blood on the floor. He eyed the woman and held a finger to his lips.

"Shh."

He blocked himself from her perception and walked out of the hole in the wall, following Jaden Korr and Khedryn Fell.

Her screams started when he hit the street.

The swoop and speeder bike blazed into the lightless airspace over Farpoint's landing field. Jaden shielded his mouth from the dust with his sleeve and looked back toward Farpoint from time to time, but saw no signs of pursuit.

A few dozen ships, freighters mostly, dotted the dusty plains of the field below, framed in ad hoc halo lighting mounted on tripods. Upturned faces greeted the arrival of the swoop and speeder.

"Start the remote launch sequence," Khedryn shouted over the wind to Marr.

The Cerean was already tapping keys on his speeder's data pad, controlling the craft with only one hand and his legs. The wound in his arm caused him to wince as he worked.

"You are used to rapid exits, I see," Jaden said over the swoop's engine.

Khedryn nodded. "Comes with the work. Where's your ship?"

"The Z-Ninety-five." He pointed to the far edge of the field at his yellow-and-white starfighter. "Over there."

Khedryn squinted against the dust and erupted into a laugh as short and abrupt as a blaster shot. "Does the Order put all their Jedi into flying cans these days? That thing's an antique even out here."

Jaden smiled. "It's a bit more than it looks."

"I hope so," Khedryn said. "Because it looks like something I'd have trouble selling for scrap." He angled the swoop for it. "I'll drop you there. Let's get offplanet, then we can talk about this business proposition you have. And you can explain to me how I-how we-cheated in the sabacc game."

"I'd prefer that we stay together," Jaden said.

"You would? Other than the fact that you fly a ship as old as the galaxy and I don't, why is that?"

Jaden heard the suspicion in Khedryn's tone. He assumed it came with life on Fhost. "You'll have to trust me. We can talk on your ship."

"Trust?" Khedryn smirked over his shoulder. "We don't do a lot of that out here."

"If I had meant you harm, I could have done it already."

Khedryn nodded, looked over to Marr. "This fellow better be a Jedi or we're going to be in real trouble."

"He could be a Sith," Marr said absently.

"You a Sith?" Khedryn asked, half smiling.

"Of course not."

"He says he's not," Khedryn said to Marr.

"Sith are liars," Marr said.

"That's true," Khedryn said.

"You both know better than that," Jaden said, not quite sure if they were jesting or not. "You can trust me. I am telling you both that you can trust me."

Khedryn and Marr stared at each other across the void between their speeders. Finally the Cerean shrugged.

"I trust Marr's instincts," said Khedryn. "So you're in luck. But I'm captain on Junker, even when a Jedi is along for the ride. Understood?"

"Understood. I have an astromech that you could-"

"I do not allow droids on my ship."

The statement took Jaden aback. "Never?"

"Never. I don't even like them dealing my cards, but there's nothing for that. Still want to hitch that ride?"

"Yes," Jaden said. He activated his wrist comm.

"Arsix, activate the remote launch sequence and the autopilot. Get her into orbit around Fhost's largest moon and wait there. If you don't hear from me in two standard weeks, jump back to Coruscant and alert Grand Master Skywalker."

Jaden felt Khedryn tense at the name.

"The job will take two standard weeks?" Khedryn asked.

"That's going to depend on where it is."

"You don't know where it is?"

"No," Jaden answered. "But you do."

To Marr, Khedryn said, "This is a mysterious man."

"So it seems, Captain."

"I know what I said outside The Hole but I don't consider this a firm deal until I hear more," Khedryn said to Jaden.

"Understood."

They watched Jaden's Z-95 levitate upward on its thrusters, sending swirls of dust into the air before it turned and accelerated into the night sky. Jaden felt odd watching R6 go off without him.

"To whom will I confess?" he said, his voice overwhelmed by the swoop's engines.

"Droid works fast," Khedryn said. "Seems we're not the only ones used to rapid exits."

"Comes with the work," Jaden said. "How do you know Master Skywalker?"

Khedryn looked back at him, his lazy eye off to the side. "Let's talk about that aboard Junker, too. There she is now." Khedryn nodded down at a Corellian freighter visible in wall lights through the open top of one of the field's many makeshift hangars. He circled, then started to descend.

"A YT-Twenty-four-hundred," Jaden said. "Sticks out a bit here, doesn't it?"

"I salvage junk. I don't fly it."

Jaden saw. The disk-shaped freighter normally sported a cylindrical escape pod connected to the starboard side of the circular fuselage, but Junker featured an attached Starhawk shuttle.

"Must have taken some work to replace that escape pod with a Starhawk. How'd you manage the fittings?"

"By not using droids."

Junker's engines were already venting gas and warming. Jaden noted further modifications to the ship. A pair of universal docking rings-rarely seen outside of military rescue ships-and a complicated assembly on the rear that looked vaguely similar to a laser cannon.

"Is that a tractor array on the rear?"

Khedryn nodded. "Short-range, yeah. Sometimes we dock with a derelict and take what's worthwhile. Sometimes we have to tow the whole thing back for disassembly."

"And you make a living at that? Doesn't seem like there'd be enough floating free out there."

"You'd be surprised. You just have to know where to look."

"Indeed."

They descended through the open top of the hangar and set down beside Junker. Khedryn and Marr bounded off their speeders.

"How are we doing, Marr?" Khedryn asked the Cerean.

"Thrusters are already hot. We lift off in twenty-five minutes, Captain."

"Get to the cockpit and finalize the launch sequence.

Then we see to that arm. Jaden, help me get these speeders aboard." He stopped. "Wait: Did you catch a shot back in The Hole, too?"

"Trivial," Jaden said, showing the wound.

Khedryn examined it with a practiced eye while Marr hurried into Junker.

"Looks a little more than trivial. But if you say so." Khedryn and Jaden muscled the speeders up the landing ramp and into Junker's hold. Jaden's arm screamed every time he flexed his biceps, but he bore it.

"Hurts, yeah?" Khedryn asked.

Jaden tilted his head to acknowledge as much.

"We'll see to it when we get aboard. A blaster wound, even a graze, is nothing to take lightly."

"I've had blaster wounds before."

"Yeah, me, too. That's how I know they're not to be taken lightly." Khedryn chewed his lip, as if gathering his thoughts. "You asked how I knew Luke Skywalker."

Hearing the Grand Master's first name rather than his title sounded incongruous to Jaden. He had not heard anyone other than the Grand Master's close friends and family refer to him as Luke in many years.

"My parents were children on Outbound Flight. They survived the crash in the Redoubt. I was born there, thirty-five standard years after the crash, give or take."

The admission surprised Jaden-he imagined there were few survivors still alive. He was not sure what to say. He did the math in his head. "You were an adolescent when Grand Master Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker rescued you."