Sian leaned against the copilot console, toward the viewport, squinting out at the planet’s rings. His eyes reflected the golden glow of the planet, which turned the white specks yellow. He caught sight of something and jabbed a finger toward it. “Found her.”
I followed the direction of his finger, and—there, hidden in the rings.
TheStarfarer.
Home.
Relief flooded through me. The scanners hadn’t picked it up, but I pushed the worry aside as I scooted to the edge of my seat. “Veebee!” I told the droid. “The short-range comms!”
Veebee, from her seat, punched herself into the communication terminal and activated their short-range transceiver. “Go ahead,” she said.
I pressed the button for comms and leaned into the microphone. “Captain? This isStarstall.”
“Tell him I said there is a rack of shaak defrosting that needs to be put back in the cooler or cooked—” Vee started, but I threw her a look.
“I amnotdoing that.”
“Shaak is expensive! And it might already be—oh, what are they doing?” Veebee asked in horror, watching theStarfarer’s engines flash brightly.
I gave a start. “That’s the hyperdrive!”
The crackly comms parted, and my dad’s voice rang out in the cockpit.“Ardent, love?”
I scrambled to the transceiver. “Dad! We caught up to you. Let us dock and—”
“Run,”he said, sounding urgent and desperate. There was a loud noise, something that fizzled. Then static rushed through the link.
I ordered Vee to radio them again, but the communication went unanswered. Fear clawed up my throat as I grabbed the controls, ready to push the lander back to the ship as quick as I could. TheStarfarer’s engines flared brighter. “No,” I whispered. “No, no, no—”
And in a spark of white, the ship was gone.
Again.
It was gone.
The fear that had crawled into my throat turned into a lump, and I forced myself back into my chair. My hands were shaking, so I clenched them into fists and pressed them still on my thighs.
Veebee looked at me. “Did the captain tell us to run?”
Entoo blooped in confirmation.
He wouldn’t do that unless—
I spun back to the navicomputer. “If I know anything, it’s that there’s only a few routes theStarfareris already preprogrammed to take without a new calculation, and the most likely is Yavin 4—”
“Maybe we should listen to him,” Sian advised, interrupting me.
I shot him a look of betrayal. “Seriously? Something is wrong and you want me to—to just runaway?”
“Yeah, actually,” he replied. He looked paler than usual. “That’s what your dad told you to do.”
“No!No, I’m tired of doing what I’m told! I can get us to Yavin 4. I know the way and…”
Veebee gently placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed it comfortingly, but it was Sian who spoke. “We don’t have the fuel, Starlight.”
My gaze fell on the orange fuel light.Oh.
My hands slipped off the controls. The panic in me had turned numb.
