I could have either made up another lie or told herthe truth—but frankly, VB-35 and N2-0 were two of the most trustworthy people on the ship, and come to think of it, maybe they could help me hide him.
So I told them what had happened. About finding the little shop in Spindlehub Square and finishing Mom’s serial collection and meeting the old Rodian shopkeeper. They knew about Mom’s trunk. They knew I kept it in the storage room down the corridor, in a crate labeledextra blankets.
Sian commented, surprised, “You were there for an obscureromanceserial? Then you left?” His eyebrows furrowed in confusion. “What made you go back?”
The celestialabe. I’d never had the chance to return it to the shop, though I had no idea what use it would be at this point. “He accidentally gave me something I didn’t pay for, so I went to give it back.”
“You wanted to give back something you got for free?”
I fished out the last wire to connect the pinky to Vee’s hand. Really, he didn’t have to sound so full of disbelief. People had knowingly risked their lives for less, surely. “I know it’s silly. You don’t have to rub it in.”
He must’ve realized how he sounded, because he quickly shook his head. “I don’t think it’s silly—”
“I do,” Veebee interrupted. She flicked her gaze to Sian and studied him for a long moment. Noola popped her head out of the neckhole of his jacket, blinkingsleepily. The droid looked back at me and said, “This is a terrible idea, Ardent.”
“I know,” I admitted, “but it’s just until Alderaan—”
A long low beep sounded over the ship’s intercom.
Our guests had arrived.
CHAPTER SIX
The Crew
Our guests arrived neither late nor early, but exactly at the most inconvenient time.
I quickly finished reattaching Vee’s pinky, and warned Sian and his creature not to leave the galley for the rest of the day. “No corridors, no nothing. If you go, get Entoo to disable the cameras first, yeah? They’re always fussy on the bottom deck, so no one will think twice. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah,” he replied easily.
“I mean it. If my dad catches you…”
“I’ll be spaced?” he asked skeptically.
I gave him a level look. “Worse. He knows a few uninhabited moons. No one’ll ever know where you went.”
He paled. “Um—okay. Heard.”
I winked and hurried back to my room to change into my uniform. Did Iactuallythink Dad would maroon him on a moon? No, but Sian didn’t know that, and I was much better at bluffing than I’d thought I was.
I wished I had time to at least shower, wash the city off of me, but there was no time, so I fixed my braid, tucking in the errant curls so I didn’t look like I had run halfway across Coruscant, dodged blaster shots, and found my way onto some weird wanted list.
In the mirror above my dresser, I looked at my reflection and took a deep breath. I was like a ghost of my mom—curly copper hair and pale skin brushed with freckles that grew warmer whenever I was planetside too long. I’d even gotten her hazel eyes.
Audra Quay was beautiful in all the holovids I’d seen of her. She was a descendant of Wild Space cartographers, and it was like the unknown parts of the galaxy had seeped into her skin. She was like a star. She lit up every room she walked into.
Mom had met Dad just before the Galactic Civil War, when the Rebellion was looking for capable pilots and navigators who could run supplies to far-flung bases. They were teamed up, and over near-death experiences and long hours in hyperspace lanes, they fell in love. Dad came up from nothing. His family were merchants on Corellia who disowned him the second he joined the Rebellion. On the other hand, Mom had been the last in a long line of Quays, and so Dad took the name, too. For him, it was like shucking off a coat he didn’t need in exchange for his favorite one.
And while Dad didn’t have the Quay bloodline, Val and I did.
So it stood to reason that at least one of us would have Mom’s skills.
Dad called it lucky that we both did.
Most ships used droids or a navigational computer to calculate the astrogation of a ship through hyperspace, to ensure that it didn’t collide with mass shadows—the gravitational wells around massive celestial bodies like planets and stars and rather large asteroids.
But my mom?
