Marda smiled softly. She led them through the rest of their catechisms while members of the Path worked noisily, the future sanctuary of the Gaze Electric surrounding them in a comfortable nest. Yet Marda could not help thinking of the Jedi boy holding out his open hands to her, and how badly she had longed to open her hands to him in return.

  “Hey, that’s a nice ship.”

  Kor gestured to the skiff a few meters away, and Yana nodded. They were leaving later than scheduled, Treze having to disentangle himself from a very lovely human before they could depart, and Yana’s temper was short because of the delay. But even in her ill temper she had to agree with Kor. It was the only other ship in the docking yard besides the Harmony, and truthfully every ship looked nice compared with the beat-up Path shuttle with its sloppy blue markings. The Path wasn’t as poor as it used to be, but they still tried to keep down appearances.

  “We should get something like that when we buy ours,” Kor said, lowering her voice and nuzzling nearer so Treze wouldn’t hear. Yana stroked one of Kor’s head tentacles and nodded.

  “I have to learn how to fly first,” she said, and Kor laughed.

  “If Treze can do it, you definitely can.”

  Yana boarded the Harmony with Treze and Kor in tow. They all wore the robes of the Path, but underneath were their work clothes, Treze wearing his knives and Yana her slicer set. They would have to work quickly once they got to Port Haileap. The new Jedi outpost there was a problem, and there wouldn’t be time to properly change.

  The smell of the ship hit Yana as soon as her foot left the boarding ramp and she entered the interior: lompop incense. They burned it constantly so it was the predominant thing any witnesses would remember about the Path’s shuttle.

  As they crowded into the tight cockpit, Kor cupped Yana’s cheek affectionately before she turned her large liquid eyes on Cincey. “How long will it take to get to Port Haileap?”

  “The Mother gave me an unmapped route, so only a few hours,” they said, excited. “Strap in and relax. We’ll be back in time for the naming.”

  “Is the Mother having visions of hyperspace paths now?” Treze sneered, the Mikkian’s short head tendrils undulating.

  “She may have traded them,” Kor said, waving away Treze’s sarcasm. “I was with my mother in the caves and saw the Mother greeting a human who looked like one of those prospectors.”

  Yana didn’t say anything, but she agreed with Treze that however the Mother had acquired the paths was fishy. What else was she trading for, or buying, without telling anybody? But then again, Yana never stopped worrying, because if she did, bad things happened. She sat in one of the chairs arrayed nearest the cockpit so she could watch Cincey pilot the ship.

  “Did you check out the Jedi in the outpost?” Yana asked Cincey once they’d made the jump to hyperspace. She wasn’t superstitious, but she never liked to talk about the details of the job until they were on their way, and at some point Kor and Treze had begun to follow her lead.

  “Yep, it seems like they’ve left on some mission, although no one is quite sure what it might be, so you’re in the clear. You’ll only be dealing with the usual security forces, which should be easy for you,” Cincey said. The compliment warmed Yana, even if she wouldn’t show it.

  Yana let her mind drift as the blue of hyperspace swirled by outside the grimy viewports, and when they exited a few hours later with a bump, she was the first on her feet. Kor stood, as well, and began to move through her cantos, the series of exercises she used to keep her body limber. Kor was unnaturally acrobatic, a gift from the Force, and on more than one occasion her gift had saved all their necks.

  Treze’s purpose was a little less elegant, and he also began to prepare, juggling his throwing knives and eyeing their sharpness. Yana somewhat hoped he would slip up and slice open something important, but he never did. The heated looks he kept giving Kor as she stretched and moved made Yana wish she had the Force powers of the Jedi. She’d love to be able to pluck a throwing knife out of midair and send it hurtling toward Treze’s eyes.

  They landed not long after leaving hyperspace, and Yana’s excitement to be off the ship grew exponentially as they flew past towering swirled-bark trees. Marblewood, Yana thought, and adjusted her robes. As Cincey opened the door and extended the boarding ramp, Kor produced a bowl of brikal-shell paint and carefully drew the wavy lines across Yana’s forehead before doing her own lines and handing the bowl to a slightly aggrieved Treze. Yana smiled at the boy, showing her teeth. It would do him well to know his place.

  “You have no more than two hours if you want to be back in time for the naming,” Cincey said. “So be quick about it.”

  The Children nodded before turning toward the boarding ramp and disembarking.

  Port Haileap didn’t smell like Dalna, but the sharp scent of the marblewood trees and the fecund smell of the nearby forest were a welcome change from the heavy incense of the Harmony. It was the middle of the day, but there was little traffic heading into the main hub. Yana resettled her robes as she took in her surroundings.

  The trees towered over them, but there were a variety of small flowers nestled in and among the roots. Kor immediately went to gather them, picking huge bunches that they would use as their “gifts freely given,” a core part of the Path’s recruiting methods. Give away flowers or interesting shiny rocks and get random passersby to listen to the gospel of a truly free Force. Yana thought it was silly—who wanted a handful of flowers?—but she had to admit that it was also stunningly effective. It drew people in, well enough that the Children used it as a distraction for these missions.

  Once Kor had a good bunch of flowers, they began making their way into the main terminal in Port Haileap. The storefronts weren’t much to look at; the outpost was little more than a place to land one’s ship and take a short walk. Port Haileap boasted a single lodging house, a single dockside tavern with a gleaming new server droid, and a government office that oversaw the place.

  “Why would they bring anything valuable here?” Treze asked, and Yana shrugged.

  “Good question,” she said. “Maybe the information was wrong?”

  “Cincey has never been wrong before. Besides, the Mother would have known this wasn’t worth the trip and advised against it. The Force flows through her. She would have seen something,” Kor insisted, and Yana laughed.

  “Maybe the Force thought it was irrelevant that it was sending us to a place with a grand total of five people.” Their ruse wasn’t going to work, because there was no way to draw a crowd.

  Treze scowled and grabbed the flowers from Kor. “We can still do this. Follow my lead.”

  Yana and Kor exchanged looks before shrugging and following Treze to the dockmaster’s office, the only official-looking building in the entire port. It irked Yana that Treze was trying to lead her team, but she also wanted to see what the Mikkian had up his sleeve. His short head tendrils knotted and unknotted like they usually did when he was planning something particularly nasty. Just what did the boy have in mind?

  The door to the dockmaster’s office opened with a quiet whoosh, and the human male at the desk looked up as they entered, a scowl twisting his pale features. “Can I help you?”

  “No,” Treze said, his step so light he basically floated into the office. His voice was like the softest jaran fur, and he smiled gently. “But we can help you, my friend.”

  The dockmaster stood, his hands on his hips. He was a stout man with brown hair that had thinned to bare skin on the top of his head. He glanced at Kor and Treze with annoyance, but when his gaze slid over Yana, he could barely suppress his flinch. “Look, I don’t have time for this nonsense. What do you need?”

  “We were wondering if we could set up a giving station in your main thoroughfare,” Treze said, looping his arm through the dockmaster’s and steering him through the door. “Can I show you the spot we’re thinking? We know we need to get your permission first. Unless there is someone else we should speak with?”

  “I’m the only one who works here,” the man said, and Yana felt sorry for the poor bantha herder. Especially when Treze’s expression lit up.

  “Well then, let me show you where we were thinking.”

  The door slid open and closed, and Yana and Kor remained where they were. The dockmaster’s office was tucked into an out-of-the-way corner. A mistake, to be sure.

  “Let’s get this over with before Treze returns to gloat,” Yana said. She had no desire to hear the Mikkian brag about how easily humans died.

  Yana pulled out the small rig she liked to use to slice locks, a board salvaged from one of the newer lines of astromechs after a particularly nasty job on Klynan. There was only one interior door in the office, and she opened it quickly. As the lock released, Treze returned, wiping red blood from his hands onto the hem of his robe.

  “Did you kill him?” Kor hissed, her eyes narrowing in agitation as Treze befouled his robes.

  The Mikkian shrugged. “That blood was shed for the Path. I don’t think the Mother will mind.”

  “That’s murder, Treze,” Kor said darkly. “It isn’t what we’re here for. That is not living in harmony with the Force.”

  Yana tried to ignore them and ignore her own dislike of Treze taking such drastic measures. It wasn’t the killing itself that bothered her but that Treze was such a wild card. “Can you two save it? I’m concentrating.”

  Kor put a solid hand on her shoulder, and Treze leaned casually against the wall. “How goes the slicing?”

  “Done,” Yana said, standing back from the door so Treze could lead the way, throwing knives in hand. Kor followed him, and Yana took up the rear, sealing the door behind them so there would be no unwanted surprises. Beyond the door was a small anteroom, and beyond that was a larger warehouse area that looked to hold cages of confiscated cargo. The bins were marked with numbers rather than descriptions of what each one held, and Kor sighed.

  “Not as straightforward as I’d hoped,” she said, squinting at the labels. The shelves were high, at least ten meters, and there wasn’t a ladder or cargo droid in sight.

  “There should be a master file here with the contents and dates confiscated,” Yana said as she stripped off her robes then used the material to wipe away the face paint. Treze did the same. Kor looked aggrieved for a moment before following their lead, then piling the robes into a bundle they would grab on their way out.

  Yana went to the room’s lone data terminal and booted it up. She was about to attach her slicer rig to the machine when Treze produced a strange trinket.

  “The dockmaster had this around his neck. Do you think it unlocks the terminal?”

  Yana took the small metallic object and inserted it into the front of the data terminal. It fit perfectly, unlocking the system. Rows of options appeared, each of them containing an item and date.

  “This is odd,” Kor said, her liquid black eyes filled with worry. “Why would the Republic keep such precious cargo here without a guard?”

  “Maybe they trust the Force to defend itself,” Treze said with a smirk, back to juggling his knives.

  “More likely they have no idea what it is. Either way, I think I found it,” Yana said as she scrolled through the records. “Bin five-eight-four-three. It’s marked ‘rare weapon,’ and the place of origin is ‘ruins of Moraband.’ Where is that?”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” Treze said as he walked over to the shelves. “Kor, I think that’s it, all the way up there. Can you reach it?”

  Kor said nothing, just glanced at the shelves before running and leaping toward the wall opposite. She ricocheted off of the wall, leaping toward the shelves. She hit the shelf a few meters below her goal and scampered up the side, a feat that both Yana and Treze would have found impossible. It was an impressive move, and as Kor lifted herself onto the shelf to perch next to a cargo container, Yana’s stomach lurched. If Kor fell from that height, she would be grievously injured. Yana hated thinking about such things, but it was times like this that she found it difficult to work with her girlfriend on such dangerous jobs. Nothing bad had ever happened, but Yana was Evereni. Even within the safety of the Path of the Open Hand, she had heard so many tales of the awful things that could happen when things were finally going well. It was hard to forget that, especially when she was watching the girl she loved scale a tower of shelving.

  “Got it,” Kor said, holding up a box that was much smaller than Yana had expected. The container was made of dark gray plastoid, and there was a curious locking mechanism on the front.

  “Why is there an energy sink on the box?” Yana asked, recognizing the dial next to the locking mechanism. Such a device was usually reserved for items that emitted a low level of energy, like batteries and other electrical components. Not a Force artifact.

  “No clue, but it isn’t heavy. Yana, can you catch it?” Kor asked.

  “I got it,” Treze said, stowing his knives quickly. At Kor’s questioning look, Yana gave a short nod. Let the boy feel useful.

  Kor dropped the box, and Treze grabbed it while Kor leapt down, dangling from the top shelf for a moment before arcing her body and flipping backward to land in a soft crouch. Once she was safely back at ground level, Yana deleted anything related to her search, logged out of the work terminal, and shut everything down. She kept the digital key, though. It was Republic property, but that just meant it could be useful. Who knew what kind of lock codes she could pull from the device?

  They gathered up their robes and made their way from the dockmaster’s office back to the Harmony. Yana was a jangle of anxious nerves the entire way, but there was no trouble. No one paid them much mind, and if they looked odd with their small cargo container and armful of robes, no one remarked on it.

  Once they were back in the Harmony, Cincey wasted no time taking them into orbit. No one spoke until they hit hyperspace, and once they did, Cincey left the cockpit to join them in the seating area.

  “Well?” they asked.

  Treze had left the box in the middle of the floor, and they all shrugged. “That’s it,” he said.

  Cincey sighed audibly. “Did you open it?”

  “No,” Yana said.

  “Then how do you know it’s the thing we’re looking for?”

  “It was the only thing logged as being from ruins, and a weapon,” Yana said. “Do you want me to open it?”

  “No,” Cincey said. “We should allow the Mother the honor.”

  Kor sat on Yana’s lap, settling her tentacled head on the Evereni’s shoulder. “There’s something weird about that box. I just…” Kor’s voice trailed off, but Yana could feel the tension in her body. “I don’t like that thing. Whatever it is.”

  Yana was used to this. Kor had a bit of Force sensitivity, and if she hadn’t been a member of the Path, she might have become a Jedi. But her father hadn’t been willing to send her away from the Path to Ferdan when she was younger, as was usually done when children of the Path were found to have some sensitivity to the Force. The artifacts they liberated often gave Kor a sense of unease, but the expression on her face was pained. That was new.

  “Are you okay?” Yana asked, and Kor responded by wrapping her arms around Yana and burying her face in the hollow where her neck met her shoulder.

  “I cannot wait to travel the galaxy with you,” Kor said, her words muffled by the fact that her lips were pressed against Yana’s throat.

  “Me too,” Yana said, wrapping her arms around Kor. They stayed that way for a very long time, and Yana told herself that the sense of unease in her middle was just the usual Evereni existential dread and had nothing at all to do with the box nearby.

  Kevmo found Master Zallah easily, as she was still speaking with the proprietor of the lodging house when he entered. Her blue-white skin was a stark contrast to the fuchsia skin of the Theelin woman she spoke with, and she turned when Kevmo entered, bags of provisions in either hand.

  “Jara, this is my apprentice, Kevmo Zink. He will be in the adjoining room.”

  The Theelin woman had silver streaked liberally through her hair, and as she moved Kevmo got the impression of age. He grinned widely. “Well met, Lady Jara.”

  “Hmph. A charmer,” the old woman said, her scowl deepening at Kevmo’s enthusiastic greeting. “I run a respectable establishment,” she added, and Kevmo stood a bit straighter.

  “Of course,” Kevmo said, looking to Master Zallah for help. He was usually able to make allies easily, but this old woman didn’t seem to care for him all that much. Did she fear Jedi, as well?

  “We should rest,” Master Zallah said, saving Kevmo from figuring out what else he was supposed to say. “Thank you, Lady Jara, for all of your assistance. I will be meeting with the town elders tomorrow.” She gave the old woman a bow of respect, and Kevmo felt like smacking his forehead. Why hadn’t he thought of that?

  Jara’s face split into a delighted grin. “No worries. No worries at all. And if you’d like me to accompany you, I am happy to. Now, the evening meal will be served promptly at sunsdown, so do not be late. No one likes late guests.”

  “Of course,” Zallah said before turning toward the lift at the back of the room. Kevmo tried to give the old woman a bow as he scooted past, but her scowl returned, deeper than before. So he ducked his head and hurried after his master.

  Zallah did not say anything until she had pointed them to their rooms. “I got us an adjoining set,” she said, and the door slid open. Kevmo walked into a small sitting area and placed his parcels on the table. “Your room is on the right, although I was assured that all of the rooms were virtually the same.”

  The place was simply appointed but clean, without a hint of vermin or even dust. It was a rarity to have such nice accommodations on the frontier, and Kevmo’s spirits picked up a bit. Perhaps Dalna wasn’t all dark-eyed girls who thought Jedi abused the Force.

  Zallah frowned at Kevmo. “Something happen in the market?”