Free Star Wars: Scourge by Jeff Grubb Page A

over the horizon and flooding his room. He blinked and gathered himself. The dream was the same, and it left him with the same feeling each time—a feeling of sadness, or insufficiency. Was there something he could have done in the dream? Was there something that he
should
have done? It did not feel prophetic, but rather accusatory. That he had been judged and found, not guilty, but merely unsatisfactory.
    The
Imru Ootmian
had left the previous night, its next port of call wherever Popara’s business took him. The
New Ambition
, as Reen had christened it, was at berth X-13, and she and Eddey had already moved into it, running every diagnostic they could think of. Reen had insisted on taking a full day to sweep the ship, stem-to-stern, for any type of bug. She would have taken another day if Mander had not made clear that they needed to be on their way to Endregaad.
    Mander dressed and slowly packed his few belongings into a shoulder satchel: a spare set of clothing and the more formal robes he had worn to meet with Popara. He hefted his lightsaber.
    Once again he thought about how little affinity he had for the weapon. He had built it himself, harvesting the crystal at its heart and meditating over it, imbuing it with the Force. Yet he never felt he had the connection with the device, the extension of one’s own self into it. It was not a serpent, yet it wasn’t a part of himself, either. It was a thing, a tool that could be used.
    Mander Zuma shook his head and attached the lightsaberto his belt. Reen and the Bothan would be waiting for him. He shoved the dream to the back of his mind, where it would wait for another night to haunt him. Hoisting his satchel, he went to join his crew on the
New Ambition
.
    “The ship’s clean,” said Reen, coming back from the cargo hold. They had lifted off from pad X-13 at the Makem Te spaceport and were now heading to the initial jump point pre-programmed into the navigation system.
    She threw herself into the copilot’s chair in a frustrated tangle. Eddey was at the main controls, and Mander, his magnaspecs pinching his nose, was fussing with the jump calculations, trying to make sense of the program. He had spent much of the previous day at it, and realized that Reen was correct—despite his knowledge of space navigation in theory, the complexities of implementing a real-world example were a challenge. Reen said it looked okay. He would have to trust that the calculations were correct.
    Reen continued, “I’ve checked the cargo, the holds, and everywhere I would think to put a secret compartment. There’s nothing except what they claim to be there. The medicinal spice is standard issue, though I will admit that it is of a superior grade. Nothing illegal there. Went over the ship with a bug-buster, and no trackers or listening devices. Ditto the computers. Everything is just as it is supposed to be.”
    “I’m glad you’re happy,” said Mander. He removed the magnaspecs, folded them in on themselves, and placed them in his robe pocket, over his heart.
    “I’m not,” replied the Pantoran, pushing an errant dark hair out of her eyes. “These are Hutts. There has to be something going on here that they are not telling us.”
    “There is probably much they didn’t tell us,” said Mander, “as well as all the things they did not tell us until the last moment.”
    Reen looked over at Mander. “And maybe there’s more.”
    “Maybe,” said Eddey, “no one has ever tried these coordinates before.”
    Mander blinked and looked at Reen. She shrugged and walked over to the Jedi’s station, pointing at the unspooling code. “I’m not so sure. Most of this stuff looks like it was improvised. Pure seat-of-the-pants flying, nothing you could normally get a droid or a navbot to do. Droids are too linear in their thoughts. This is much more like the recording of a spacer who got herself into trouble and was shocked and surprised to find that she lived through the experience.