Lyra looked up from her book every few minutes to see if Taz had moved. Time after time though, he sat nearly motionless, his breathing and an occasional whisper the only evidence that he was still awake. After an hour she stood up and walked around, as much for a change of scenery as to keep her legs from cramping.
The time stretched on—three, four, five hours. The bright orb of Beta Fonidian grew lower on the horizon, turning orange as it dipped, splashing the stringy clouds with dusky hues against the fading blue sky. The air grew chillier and still Taz sat, immobile and entranced, apparently.
I hope he's getting something out of this, because I'm bored out of my mind. She tried to think of what made her agree to tag along with him, out to the middle of nowhere, in search of Moons knew what. Even after working with him for months she didn't know what to make of him. He was by turns annoying, obtuse and naïve. But he was also earnest and curious. He was grieving, too. She wondered if his feelings over losing Tess were anything like the depths of despair she'd felt for Allegra and her parents. If they were, she could understand why he'd been on edge and acting so cold for the past couple of weeks. She knew that pain all too intimately, and she kept as far away from it as she could.
She watched him as he meditated, idly timing the slow, steady pace of his breathing. If I'm being perfectly honest, he's not bad for the eyes.
She shook that thought right out of her head. Personal relationships with crewmates was a guarantee of disaster. That lesson had been drilled into every academy cadet. When crew members got too close, efficiency suffered. It led to favoritism and inequity. And when the inevitable happened and the relationship soured, morale plummeted and tensions rose. Crew efficiency could drop by as much as thirty-five percent according to studies the navy had conducted a decade before she'd joined. They were required reading for every first-year cadet. Standing orders were to reassign crew members immediately upon the first violation. Three months in the brig and reduction in rank by two grades for the second. The third violation earned you a court martial and unceremonious discharge that dogged you the rest of your professional life. Not that that happened very often. Plenty of people found ways around the regs despite the reinforcement of daily orders and the occasional CO's Mast or Court Martial.
Life on a Customs cruiser left Lyra little time for such things in any case. She'd been angling for a command position ever since her rookie patrol and she wasn't about to let something as stupid as an infatuation ruin that. As a bonus, keeping to herself meant that she didn't have to talk to anyone about why she'd joined up in the first place. She dreaded the thought of reliving that ordeal, the memory of the night she'd had to identify bodies of Allegra and her parents at the morgue, shredded nearly beyond recognition by the flechette canisters of the Rebel terrorists at the Sakoola festival.
Lyra hugged her arms to her sides and shuddered. She uttered a little whimper and pushed the horrible memory away. She got to her feet, dusted off her hands, and stalked back to the airspeeder, cursing herself over and over for bringing up the recollection.
Her time in Customs had taught her how to erect barriers around herself. What it hadn't prepared her for was living and working in the close confines of a ship like Allegra's Heart. The kind of distance she could maintain on even some of the smaller Customs vessels simply eluded her on a twenty-meter ship where her crewmates insisted on being friendly. Reiko Hudson was particularly quick to warm to Lyra, and even though Rendix was the ship's captain, she came across more like an older sister. Not that she could take Allegra's place. That would never happen.
She yanked open the door, snatched her jacket and threw it on. From the small cargo compartment she grabbed a heater and some instant meals. She started for the ruins, but after a few steps turned back to the speeder. On a whim, she added bivy kits to her burden. Juggling everything in her arms was a chore, but she managed to get it all back to the circle of broken stones after only a couple of stops to pick up a dropped item. Her anger and self-recrimination had cooled by then, mostly.
The air began turning colder. She held a brief internal debate over whether she should drape Taz's jacket over his shoulders and risk rousing him. She settled for putting it beside him. She set the six-sided fusion lantern a couple of meters away, adjusted the output dial, and switched it on. The unit emitted a soft hum, the heat coils quickly taking on a pleasant yellow glow.
Lyra's stomach grumbled; she hadn't eaten since the morning. She grabbed a meal, set it atop one of the plentiful flat stone blocks, and pulled the activation tab. Steam vented almost immediately from the relief valve in the corner of the package. The clear plastic covering the divided tray bulged from the heat and expanding vapor. Carefully she peeled back a corner, then pulled off the rest of the protective film.
While it cooled to a more manageable temperature, Lyra unfolded a big tarpaulin from the bivy kit and staked it out near the perimeter of the round foundation. She extended a pair of collapsing rods at the corners and shoved them into the ground, forming a wind barrier, and ran stabilizing lines to keep the big plastic sheet taut. She laid out the bivy bags and inflated the insulative ground pads.
She sat cross-legged in front of her meal and tucked in. Dinner turned out to be some kind of roasted fowl in a spicy brown sauce, slender fingerbeans that were mottled orange and lavender, smothered in herbal butter, and an unidentifiable starchy mash with a pungent smell. She took one nibble of that and ignored the rest. The blue milk in her canteen was still refreshingly cold, though she thought she wouldn't mind a nice warm mug of khaff instead.
Lyra started to clean up when she felt a tingle wash over her. At the same moment, the crook of her arm where Taz had repaired her gouged flesh and shattered bone grew acutely warm. She took her arm out of her jacket to see if she'd been bitten by some local creepy-crawly. The skin was intact but it was so sensitive that when she brushed it with her fingers she let out an uncontrolled gasp. At the same time she felt Taz's presence very close to her. She glanced over at him and saw little twitches in his shoulders and arms, like someone in the throes of a kinetic dream. A sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead.
Concerned, she took a step toward him, but something made her stop. The warmth in her arm spread to the rest of her body, chasing anxiety away. It felt pleasant and soothing. She recalled feeling that way once before. It was the day they'd first met, when he'd used the Force to heal her. She'd been terrified at what Rebels would do to a captured Imperial pilot. His unexplainable skills had healed her body. And for all his intrusiveness, his compassion had reassured her.
Lyra sat, feeling a little weak-kneed, but kept an eye on the former Alliance medtech. To the twitches he added mumbling, too low for her to catch what he was saying. Hell, as far as Lyra could tell, he was just babbling. She tucked an errant lock of silvery hair behind her ear and slipped her arm back into her jacket. The warmth of the thermogenerator and the tingling waves rippling through her pushed her toward ennui. She felt her eyelids droop and thought that some sleep might be an excellent idea.
She'd almost decided to lay down right where she sat when the ground began to rumble and shake. The stone blocks started vibrating all around and Lyra was quite certain she saw the inscribed runes on the tumbled, eroded column glowing with a faint blue-white aura. A few meters to Taz's right a little rubble pile rose into the air. At nearly the same instant his lightsaber did likewise, hovering in front of him at arm's length.
She watched, fascinated and a little frightened. Her hand crept toward her blaster as the lightsaber also began to vibrate, then come apart before her eyes. Every constituent piece of the weapon separated from every other until they all floated before him, each piece slowly rotating around the lightsaber's long axis, like an exploded engineering diagram on a holoprojector.
Lyra heard something odd, almost like someone singing far in the distance. From the pile of rubble levitating nearby a little crystal shard emerged, no bigger than her thumb. It flashed dimly in the lantern's glow, floated to where Taz sat, and displaced a similar blue crystal that had come from inside the lightsaber. The discarded stone fell to the ground, unmoving. Gripped by sudden curiosity, she picked it up and folded it in her hand. She witnessed a soft glow that enveloped all of the lightsaber's components as they recombined themselves in a reverse enactment of their earlier disassembly. The completed weapon rolled in the air for a few seconds more, then dropped gently to the ground.
Taz wobbled as his eyes opened and Lyra reached for his shoulder to steady him. "You alright, Oktos?" He was hot, almost feverish, his face covered in perspiration.
He wiped the back of his hand across his clammy face. After a second he seemed to remember where he was. "Yeah," he said, his voice unsteady. "I'm okay." He blinked and looked at the last of the evening light, then down to his wrist link. "Six hours?" He looked spent but placid, like some weighty burden had fallen away. He shivered when the breeze blew. Lyra nodded at his jacket and he put it on. "Thanks."
"Don't mention it," she replied in that standoffish tone that kept everyone at a safe remove. "So? What happened?"
Instead of answering Taz clapped a hand to his stomach. "I'm starving."
Lyra angled her head toward the low stone block where she'd taken her dinner. He started to rise but his legs were numb and weak. Lyra helped him to his feet. He took a wobbly step and leaned against her. "Easy, Oktos, you'll knock me over!"
"Sorry," he said, looking embarrassed. He steadied himself and stood up straight.
In a kinder tone she suggested, "Take a walk around, get some of your circulation back."
Taz held his hand out over the lightsaber, palm down, eyes closed. It vibrated on the ground for a few seconds, then shot up firmly into his grasp. He opened his eyes, grinning like a flight cadet who'd just aced his hyperspatial mechanics practical.
Lyra drew in a sharp breath. "Whoa," she gasped, "you learned to do that?"
"Nanvarr taught me the basics, but yeah, that and a lot more, I think. It's all jumbled up in my head."
He thumbed the activation button and the weapon sprang to life, a meter-long beam of coherent plasma glowing with a rich amber hue, like a sun rising over the horizon at first light. It made a buzzing, hissing tone with a deep bass undercurrent that modulated as he moved the blade through the air. He assumed the ready position from the Jedi combat master's recording, took a couple of test swings, then executed a clumsy attack and parry sequence. The weapon moved differently with the blade ignited, though he couldn't understand why it would do that.
Returning to the guard position, he extinguished the blade with a long shhhwooop sound, smiling from ear to ear. "That's more incredible than I could ever have imagined."
Lyra was too awestruck to say anything. After a moment she held up the crystal she'd found. The light from the thermogenerator refracted dimly through it. She turned it this way and that before handing it to him. "This is yours. It fell out when you were—fixing?—the lightsaber." She dropped the crystal into his hand. "It's pretty. That's what they've been mining here, isn't it?"
Taz nodded. "It's a kyber crystal. They focus and intensify the plasma energy." He rolled the cracked blue crystal in his fingers. "This one's been fractured. It's too damaged to use." Then he looked at her with narrowed eyes. "How'd you know I fixed it?"
"I saw it float in the air, come apart, then go back together. How else?"
"It felt like that all happened in my head, but I guess it couldn't have." He thought about it for a moment then clipped the blade to his belt and started walking out the stiffness in his legs.
Lyra pulled the activation tab on his dinner tray and moved the portable heater a little closer.
"You've been busy." He seemed steadier after a couple of laps.
"Been working my fingers to the bone, as usual, Officer Oktos," she quipped. "Sit. Eat."
"Yes ma'am, Ensign Nimor," he joked, throwing a little mock salute at her. He picked up the tray, sat on the rock, and ate eagerly.
When he finished she held out her canteen. "Milk?" He took the offered flask and drained it, then handed it back. She scowled, shaking the empty container. "I guess you really were starving."
"Sorry," he cringed. "I'll go to the speeder and get more."
"Don't bother," she waved, "it's fine."
She seemed to be in better spirits. So was he. "Don't take this the wrong way but you're being unusually kind."
Lyra shrugged and held out her hand. "Don't get used to it." She took his food tray and put it in the waste bag with hers, then sat on her bivy bag, sinking into the inflated ground pad. She drew her knees under her chin and clasped them with her arms. "Will you tell me what happened?"
"I—" he started, then chuckled self-consciously. "I'm not sure where to start."
"How about the beginning?"
"Yeah, okay." He unzipped his bivy bag and sat on it. "This place was a temple for a faith called Dai Bendu."
"What, like the Bendu monks that hang around starports selling trinkets and chanting incessantly?"
"Maybe," he shrugged. "It's thousands of years old. Tens of thousands. Older even than the Jedi Order." Quickly he added, "Don't ask me how I know that, I just do." Then he told her everything that he saw and felt, as much as he could put into words. After he finished he leaned back on his hands, lost in thought.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
"What do you suppose it means, the light and dark?"
"I don't know. Good and evil?" He didn't sound convinced.
"Hmm… Sounds too simple."
"Yeah but I could feel a difference. The light part was, I don't know, alive somehow. Like it had a special affinity for life."
"So what's the darkness, then, death?"
He shook his head. "No, I think both the light and dark aspects of the Force represent life. Everything I know about the Force says that it binds all living things in the universe together. It's more like... the light wants to encourage life, protect and invigorate it. The dark wants to control life and shape it."
"Want to hear something crazy? Right before you started doing—whatever you did with that lightsaber, I swear I could feel your presence. Like when someone comes right up behind you and you can't see them, but you know they're there. That's what it felt like."
Taz grinned. "It's not crazy. I sensed you in the Force, just like I sensed everyone on this planet, and even beyond." He said the words as if he couldn't quite believe them himself.
"What's that like?" Lyra asked, her curiosity piqued.
"It's hard to put into words. It's not like I'm actually seeing people, well, except for Sha'ila Kal'ii. More like, I can tell who it is from the way they feel in the Force."
How do I feel in the Force? Lyra wasn't sure she wanted to know the answer. Taz yawned, arching his back and stretching his arms over his head. He looked up at the darkening sky and she followed his gaze. The clouds had cleared and stars began appearing in the inky blackness. After a few seconds she chanced the question. "What did I feel like, to you?"
Taz didn't answer for a time. When he looked at her his expression was intense, but kind. It reminded her of the first time she'd met him. "You felt... bright, like when you look into a glimmerwick flame and it blots out everything else, you know?" She blushed and her eyes went wide. She started to respond but he spoke first. "Sad too, for your family. And confused, and scared. And… maybe a little lonely."
"You read my thoughts, Oktos?" she bristled, alarmed and suddenly angry.
He raised his hands. "No, no, just feelings! Thoughts are—" He was quiet, thinking hard. "I wouldn't do that unless you let me."
She was still on edge. The kind of power he was talking about, the kind of power he had, frightened her. Growing up, everyone in the galaxy had been taught the treachery of the Jedi and their mythic, magical Force. But if the Force was real—and she'd seen it for herself—then those who wielded it must have been monstrous.
The more she considered it the more she felt like running back to the aircar now and leaving him amid the old stones and extinct religion. But everything he'd told her, and everything she knew about Taz made her think he wasn't the kind of person who would use that sort of power. At least not on her. Still, she held her suspicions. "You couldn't take them from me, if you wanted to?"
Taz looked away. "I don't know. This is all new to me. It'll probably take me weeks, months even, just to figure out what I've learned today." Then in a smaller voice he admitted, "I think I could, if I wanted to. Force someone's thoughts from them, I mean, like Nanvarr did to me."
He looked at her and Lyra saw the fear in his eyes. He was grappling with the enormity of it, too. "But I wouldn't ever. Not to you. Not to anyone I… cared about." He said the last words carefully.
Lyra's stomach knotted. What's he saying? The hair on her arms and the back of her neck stood up. Was she actually feeling something for him? Sure, his boyishness was attractive in its way, but she had no interest in a relationship.
Do I?
In a moment of honesty that surprised her, she'd admitted to him that she'd never had one. Now she wondered if that might have been her subconscious trying to tell her something. For some reason she thought back to the warmth and deep solace she felt when he'd healed her on Jakku. Maybe those feelings were his, projected when he was using the Force, or maybe they were hers and he'd somehow drawn them out of her.
How long had it been since she'd really cared for someone—most of a decade? She'd loved her parents and Allegra madly. They'd made her feel warm and peaceful. Taz did too, she realized, even when he annoyed her. And that soothing warmth she'd just experienced, the sense of him close by had made her feel calm and comfortable. And happy.
She didn't want to admit it, but he was right when he said she seemed lonely. And when she really thought about it, she hated that feeling. In the service she'd convinced herself that detachment was the way to stay safe and get ahead. What she got instead was passed over for promotions and command positions, distrust from the Navy, and an unceremonious sendoff at the point of a blaster from her fellows on Jakku. Loneliness and detachment had gotten her nowhere. The first people to care about her were the ones she'd been fighting against. They offered her a home, made her a part of something that felt a little like family. And he was part of that, too.
Are you seriously going to let him in, Lyra?
She leaned away from him, her heart jumping, her face flushed. She hoped he couldn't see it in the heater's wan glow. To hide her discomfort she stood up. "Turn around," she ordered.
"What, why?" He looked confused.
Good. I need to keep him as off-balance as I am. "I've had enough of today. Just do it, Oktos."
"Oh. Alright," he acceded, turning away.
Lyra took off her jacket, belt and pistol, and laid them on the ground next to her bivy bag. Then she undressed. She shivered in the dark. It felt like her body was moving on its own. Her heart pounded even faster, and she was breathing hard.
I can stop if I want to. I know I can stop. She hesitated, then knelt next to him and touched his shoulder.
He turned around, eyes going wide. "What are you—?"
"Shut up, Oktos," Lyra blurted, astonished at her boldness. Before she could change her mind she grabbed him behind the ears and kissed him. His mouth was warm, soft, and after a moment, willing.
He drew back a few luxurious seconds later. "I, um," he stammered, "I don't understand."
Moons, I didn't think his lips would feel so good. She trembled with sudden desire. "Are you saying you don't want to?"
He was trembling too. "No, of course not, but—"
"Good," she cut him off, "I'm not in the mood to take no for an answer." She kissed him again and pushed him to the ground.
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Afterward, Lyra lay with her head on his shoulder and pressed herself against his hot skin. His arms fell loosely around her waist. It felt good to her. Scary, but good. It would be so easy to lose myself in… whatever this is.
"You okay?" Taz asked, brushing the top of her head with his lips.
"Sure. You?"
"I thought you didn't like me."
"I'm pretty sure I don't," she teased with a chuckle, caressing his chest absently with her fingers. "What about you?"
"Are you asking if I like you?"
She nodded without lifting her head.
"Yes, I do."
It sounded like he'd only just realized it himself, but hearing him say it made her feel warm all over. The steady rise and fall of his chest made her recall a time when she'd been sick with one of her fevers. Her father had held her, rocking gently in a hand-carved sakoola wood chair that seemed massive to the six-year-old Lyra, and creaked as it moved. She'd fallen asleep to the comforting deep dump-Thump of his heart and the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest. She pressed closer to Taz and shivered at the memory.
"Are you cold?"
She hadn't felt that kind of comforting embrace in a long time. And now… Why does he make me feel like this? She sniffled. "It's just the air." Taz tried pulling the top of his bivy bag over her, but the sleeping cocoon was made for one. "Don't worry about it. I'll go to mine," she said.
He held onto her as she started to rise. "You don't have to go." His eyes begged: I don't want you to go.
"This might not have been such a good idea," she began, but stopped trying to get away. "I'm not ready to—"
"I know you aren't," he assured her gently. "I won't ask anything of you, I swear." She let him pull her closer, offering only token resistance. He held her, stroking her hair. "It's okay to need comfort, Lyra. It's okay to want this. It's okay," he soothed, brushing her neck and shoulder with his fingers. The tingling was electric.
It felt like he might need comfort as much as she did. Lyra wanted to speak but a sudden lump in her throat stopped her.
"Wait a tick." He rolled over, pulled her bag next to his and zipped the two of them together. She took the opportunity to admire the lean muscles in his naked arms and shoulders. "There," he said, tucking the warm fabric around her.
"Now I can't get away, is that it?"
"You've seen through my devious plan," he said, his voice low.
She settled back against him. Lyra wasn't sure where this was going, or how she'd feel about it tomorrow. But she decided, at least for now, that he made her feel content and wanted. The rise and fall of his chest, the steady thumping of his heart, and the comfort of his arms lulled her to sleep.
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A stirring made Lyra open her eyes. Taz was awake, staring into the night. Brilliant cascades of orange, green, blue, even some red and yellow, draped themselves across the sky. They rippled in slow motion, forming radiant, scintillating curtains.
She let out a sigh of wonder, her breath misty white in the cold midnight air. "It's an aurora. I saw them at home a couple of times but they were rare. I've never seen one this brilliant."
"We didn't have them on Filve. Something about the magnetosphere." He was awestruck, like she was. "It's beautiful." He looked at her. "So are you, Lyra."
The darkness hid her blush. "Stop flattering me, Oktos."
"I'm not," he insisted. "Hasn't anyone told you you're beautiful?"
"Not... for a while. My parents' artist friends always asked for Allegra when they needed a model. I couldn't match her beauty. My chin was too square, my nose didn't have the right proportion, my forehead—"
"They had it all wrong," he interrupted, caressing her cheek.
She smiled in the darkness. "I didn't mind, truly. I wasn't after attention or adoration. And Allegra always said I was pretty. That's all that mattered to me. After they were gone and I went off to the academy, well, the military didn't really care what I looked like as long as I did my job." She was quiet, watching the celestial tapestry move on the solar winds.
"Well you are. Beautiful, I mean. Fierce and passionate too. Does it bother you that I think so?"
The way he said it sent thrills racing through her. "No, I'm just... not used to hearing anyone say it, Oktos."
He got up on one elbow. "You can call me Taz, you know. After all, we've—"
She stopped his lips with her finger. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that you talk too much?"
"Filvians are a chatty lot, just ask us," he answered, curling his fingers over her hand and kissing her palm.
She fixed him with a playful, fervent look and whispered in his ear, "I guess I'll have to find a way to shut you up then, Taz." And she did just that.
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Lyra sat up, rubbing sleep from her eyes and yawning. The dawning sun sat low on the horizon, half of its disk still obscured by the planet's curvature and the rolling grassland. She felt refreshed and light. Last night was still so fresh in her mind, the sensations reverberated even now, making her stomach tumble deliciously. And Taz…
Taz stood a little way off, staring at the sunrise. He turned his lightsaber absently in his hand. When she stirred, he looked over and smiled. "Good morning, Ensign Nimor."
"Officer Oktos," she replied, returning his smile. He'd already dressed. There was a flask of sarna steaming on the fusion lantern's top plate. Beside it, a small pot of porridge, to judge by the spicy aroma. "You've been busy."
"Not too much. I shot off a quick comm check. Sera was concerned when we didn't show up last night."
"What'd you tell her?"
He smiled at the tacit subtext of her question. "That the survey took longer than planned, so we decided to hole up here rather than fly back at night."
"Think she believed you?" I wouldn't, she thought to herself.
He shrugged and took a long drink from his mug.
She teased some of the tangles out of her hair and regretted not having brought a brush. But then she hadn't really thought they'd spend the night under the stars, in the middle of nowhere. Jerric's off-handed remark about getting away with Taz came back to her, along with her firm rejection. All of that went right out the airlock, didn't it, Lyra?
She started to get out of the bivy bag, then remembered she pretty much wasn't wearing anything. "Eyes front, Mister."
Taz looked confused. "But after last night—"
"I'm still… processing last night. Just humor me."
"Sure, okay," he mumbled, turning away.
She wondered if she'd made him feel bad. Twelve hours ago she'd have hardly cared. Now… She pulled on the tan form-fitting pants, belted her blaster into place and slipped into her boots. She remembered to fasten her blouse, then zipped her jacket to blunt the morning's cool bite.
She filled a mug and stepped beside him. "Don't misunderstand, Taz. Last night was—"
"I don't want you to regret it." His quiet voice thrummed with emotion.
Lyra smiled. "I don't, not at all. It was… amazing." He perked up. "I might even let you do it again in five years or so."
Taz gave her a wounded look that was only for show. "I… hope it might be sooner than that," he hinted, turning sheepish for a moment, "but I'm not—Like I said, I won't ask you for anything."
The conversation was rapidly growing too serious. Lyra had a lot of things to sort out, not least of which was how deep her feelings for Tazbarada Oktos might run. But she'd think about that later. She pointed with her mug. "What's with the lightsaber?"
"Oh, um, the Jedi knight who owned it, the one I told you about? She kind of bequeathed it to me."
"Like she had a choice in the matter," Lyra quipped. "She's been dead over two hundred years, isn't that what you said?"
"Yeah, but, it meant something for her to do that. I'm starting to understand that things steeped in the Force like lightsabers and kyber crystals, have a connection to their owners. Maybe that connection endures, even after death. It was in her family for a long time, over a thousand years, I think. So her letting it go, giving it to me, well, I think it's important." He hunted for more to say, but couldn't seem to come up with the right words. "Anyway, since it's mine now I thought I should give it a name."
"Did the Jedi name their lightsabers?"
"No idea," he answered with a chuckle, "but... it feels like the right thing to do."
His explanation made sense in its own way. She didn't pretend to understand how he knew what he knew. At this point she was willing to take what he said on faith alone. Lyra lifted her head affirmatively. "Did you come up with one?"
He looked at the rising brilliant orange disk of Beta Fonidian. "I've heard that dawn is called aurora on some planets." He ignited the lightsaber, held it before him as if comparing it to the rising sun, then extinguished it again. "Orange sun, orange blade. I guess it's more like amber but you get the idea," he smiled. "I think I'll call it Aurora Ascendant. For this sunrise, and that light show last night."
"I think that's perfect, Taz," Lyra agreed and kissed his cheek. "Now, mister-would-be-Jedi, let's eat, do some surveying—whatever that means—and get back. I'll bet that intel officer wants to find out more about what's going on at the mining site and he's going to be none too happy if we hold him back."