"Two thousand credits up front?" Khedryn leaned back in his chair, the hint of derision in the curl of his lip. "Marr?"

"Two thousand credits would barely cover operating costs."

"Barely covers operating costs," Khedryn echoed.

Jaden, in no mood for haggling, leaned forward in his chair. "I do not have time for this, Captain. Much may depend on this."

"For whom?"

Jaden stared into Khedryn's tanned, lined face. "For me."

Khedryn held his gaze for a time. "Didn't I say he had those eyes, Marr?"

"You did."

"And doesn't he?"

"He does."

"What eyes?" Jaden asked, but Khedryn ignored him.

"How do you suppose he'll look when he and his haunted eyes get out in the deep black and what he's looking for out there ain't there, after all."

"Not good, Captain."

"Not good. That's right."

"Why don't you leave that to me," Jaden said, fighting back irritation.

Khedryn stood. "Because you are sitting in my galley in my ship." He walked over to bar, refilled his caf. "Marr?"

"Yes, please," the Cerean said.

Khedryn returned to the table with the pot, refilled Marr's cup, even topped off Jaden's.

"I think this is where we part ways, Jaden Korr. This smells like some Jedi grand scheme, and I've seen what comes of those."

Jaden understood the oblique reference to Outbound Flight. Jaden had seen what came of Jedi grand schemes, too. Centerpoint and everyone on it exploded in a Jedi grand scheme.

"That's not really how we work," Marr added, and Jaden detected the hint of an apology in the Cerean's tone.

"Even after what Master Skywalker did for you?"

Khedryn stiffened, his fingers white around the handle of his caf pot. Still standing, he said, "I owe Luke and Mara Skywalker. Not the Jedi Order."

Jaden felt his plans crumbling. His own fists clenched. He saw Marr tense and took a moment to calm himself. "I don't want the salvage. I just… need to see it."

Marr's eyes formed a question. "Why?"

Khedryn said, "That sounds a bit more personal than you've let on."

Jaden offered the truth. "No one in the Order knows I am here. This may have consequences for the Order, but this… isn't about that."

Khedryn slid into his seat, and his tone softened. "Explain, please."

Jaden took a drink of caf, savoring the bitterness. "I had a vision. Given me by the Force."

He noticed Marr staring intently at him with his blue eyes and wondered if Marr had experienced his own visions.

Jaden went on: "I saw in that vision what I believe-now more than ever-to be your moon."

Khedryn smiled, shook his head. "I knew it was something like that. Those eyes."

"And?" Marr asked. "You saw it in what context? What drew you all the way out here?"

Jaden licked his lips. "The vision involved… symbolism that wouldn't make much sense to you." He sighed. "Listen, I am asking you to trust me. I am not interested in salvage or taking anything that's there. I just need… I just need to stand on it, see it, understand what it means."

The silence sat heavy between them. The stars streamed past in the viewport above. Thoughts turned behind Khedryn's and Marr's eyes. Jaden could do nothing but wait for them to render their verdict. He would not take the coordinates by force or contrivance. He had already taken a life-warranted, he thought-but he had no intention of pushing matters further.

Khedryn finished another cup of caf. "See, Marr, this I can understand. The man has something personal at stake here. And he's willing to pay five thousand credits up front to set foot on a frozen moon spinning out in the middle of nowhere. I can get behind that."

"As can I," Marr said thoughtfully.

"It's done then," Khedryn said.

"I said two thousand credits up front," Jaden said.

"Did you?" Khedryn asked.

Jaden smiled and shook his head. "All right. Five it is."

Khedryn smiled. "More caf?"

Jaden decided the man guzzled caf the way a star cruiser guzzled fuel. "No thank you," he said, and looked Khedryn and Marr in the face. "And… thank you."

"Marr will plot the course," Khedryn said, extending his hand. "We'll leave immediately. Done deal?"

Jaden shook his hand. "Done. And Captain… "

Khedryn raised his eyebrows, waiting.

"I look at you and I see the same eyes you see in me. So what is it you're looking for?"

Khedryn smiled, but Jaden saw that it was forced. "Nah, that's just my floater, Jedi." He pointed at his lazy eye. "Helps me see the angles. Me, I'm just a junk jockey flying the black. I'm happy with that."

"Of course you are," Jaden said, but he knew better. Khedryn was searching for something out in the black of space, the same as Jaden.

Jaden looked to Marr, who was staring at Khedryn. "Marr, the recorded signal?"

Marr nodded. "Certainly."

Marr disappeared for a time, returned with a data crystal and his portcomp. He inserted the crystal and pressed a few keys. The hollowness of an open channel started the recording, followed by a faint, repeated recitation, the encrypted sound unintelligible as language, but reminiscent in its repetition of an ancient rite, a magic spell of summoning.

Jaden leaned in close, his skin stippled with goose bumps, listening to an echo from the past, decades-old ghosts calling to them through time.

Marr said, "As I said, I haven't been able to decrypt it-"

"No need," Jaden said, and turned it off. "It's Imperial. I can tell from the cadence. Probably an automated distress call, as you suspected."

In the privacy of his mind, the voice from his vision sang out: Help us. Help us.

"Take me to this moon," Jaden said.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Junker was prepared to jump. Khedryn blew and popped bubbles with such rapidity, they sounded like a repeating blaster.

"You always jaw a chewstim before a jump?" Jaden asked him.

"Before liftoff, before a landing, before a jump. Sometimes just because I think things will get hairy."

Jaden smiled at Khedryn's superstition while he raised R6 on subspace. The astromech's questioning beep answered his hail. Jaden stared out into the black of the deep system as he spoke and made his last confession to his droid.

"Two standard weeks, Arsix, then return to Coruscant. Tell Grand Master Skywalker that I was doing what I thought I must. Do you understand?"

Khedryn and Marr pretended not to hear as R6 beeped acquiescence.

"Clear to jump," Marr said.

Khedryn swallowed his chewstim. "Do the math and let's turn her loose."

The Cerean tapped keys on the navicomp so quickly that Jaden could barely follow. Complex calculations appeared on the screen, numerological puzzles so baffling to Jaden that they might as well have been another language. Marr solved them as if by magic, relying on the navicomp processor only to confirm his calculations. His Force presence flared as he worked.

"Confirm," Marr said, after tapping a key, and the navicomp did so. Another string of numbers, another solution.

"Confirm."

Jaden had heard of Cerean math savants but hardly expected to encounter one on the fringes of the Unknown Regions, copiloting a salvage ship, much less one with Force sensitivity. He felt Khedryn's eyes on him.

"Like magic, ain't it?" said Khedryn, smiling.

"You have no idea," Jaden answered.

Marr seemed not to hear them, lost as he was in a world of numbers and operators. It took the Cerean longer than it would have taken the navicomp to plot their course, but not much.

"Course plotted," Marr said.

"Off we go," Khedryn said, and engaged the hyperdrive.

Stars stretched, giving way to the blue spirals of hyperspace.