SIX

Anakin was busy underneath the supply transport Lucre, micro-adjusting the repulsor pads, when a pinkish pair of bare feet appeared. He couldn’t see the person the feet belonged to, but he knew who it was immediately.

“Hi, Tahiri,” he called.

“Hi yourself,” the indignant reply came. Knees squatted down onto the feet, then a pair of hands braced against the floor, and finally green eyes surrounded by a cloud of golden hair appeared. “Come out from under there, Anakin Solo.”

“Sure. Just let me finish up.”

“Finish up what? You have some reason to be tinkering with this ship?”

Uh-oh. Anakin sighed and pushed himself out from underneath the transport.

“I was going to tell you,” he protested.

“I’m sure. When, just before you smoked jets out of here?”

“Tahiri, I’ll be back. Corran and I are going for supplies, that’s all.”

She was staring down into his face now. He could bump her nose with his own by raising up a few centimeters. Her eyes were huge, and not all green, but striated yellow and brown along her iris rims. Had they always been like that?

She punched him in the shoulder, hard. “You could have told me yesterday.”

“Ow!” He pushed farther away and sat up. “What was that for?”

“What do you think?” She straightened, too, and the rest of her face came into focus. Her forehead was etched by three nasty vertical scars, like crouching white worms. The Yuuzhan Vong had tried to make her into one of their own. The scars were the most superficial reminders of the process.

“Look, I know I promised you I wouldn’t leave you yet, but this won’t take long. I’m getting jumpy.”

“So what? Who cares? Didn’t it ever occur to you how I might feel?”

“I thought I had considered that,” Anakin speculated. “Come on, Tahiri. What’s really the matter?”

She pursed her lips. In the background, Fiver whirred and bleeped happily at his task of preparing the ship, with a strident note or two aimed at Corran’s astromech, Whistler. Across the broad bay, one of Terrik’s men cursed as something clanged against the ground. The pain of an insulted thumb wisped by the two Jedi.

“They don’t like me here,” Tahiri said softly. “They all act like my skin is about to split open and a krayt dragon will step out.”

“You’re imagining things,” Anakin soothed. “Everyone understands you’ve been through a rough time.”

“No. No one understands it at all. Except you. Maybe not even you. They’re either afraid of me or repelled.”

Anakin tried a sentence or two in his head, didn’t like the sound of them, and tried another.

“Have you thought about having those scars removed?” he asked. “Booster’s MD droid could do it.”

Oops. Anakin realized he should have replayed that one a few times before speaking, too. He saw Tahiri was about to erupt into a full-out verbal assault, and he braced for it.

Wrong again. Her face calmed, and she shook her head. “I paid for them,” she said. “I won’t give them up.”

“Maybe that’s what worries people,” Anakin said softly.

“Let them worry, then. I don’t care.”

“But you just—”

“Hush. You don’t understand anything after all.”

“I don’t understand what you’re asking me to do. You want me to stay here with you?”

“No, dummy,” Tahiri said. “I want you to take me with you.”

“Oh.” He felt a profound confusion, and suddenly a lot of his father’s complaints about women made more sense. Or less, as the case might be. Tahiri had been his best friend for five years, since she was nine and he was eleven. They had a strong bond in the Force, and were together far more powerful than either was alone. The Jedi Master Ikrit had seen this long ago, and lately had been proven correct. Due to this bond, Anakin and Tahiri could communicate at a level far beyond language.

So why did he spend more than half of his time bewildered in any conversation with her?

“You’re sure you’re ready for that?” he asked.

“For what? It’s just a supply run, right? Minimal danger? Nowhere near Yuuzhan Vong space?”

“Right,” Anakin said cautiously. “But there’s always danger.”

“Especially when you don’t trust everyone on your ship.”

Anakin’s eyebrows dropped. “Okay, now you’re being dumb. You know I trust you.”

“Really? I almost killed you back on Yavin Four, you know.”

“I know. And I know that wasn’t really you.”

“No?” Tahiri’s face went curiously blank. “I’m not sure. Sometimes I don’t know who I am anymore.”

Anakin put his hand on her shoulder. “I do,” he said. “You aren’t the same as you were before the Yuuzhan Vong captured you. Neither am I. But you’re still Tahiri.”

“Whatever that means.”

“If you want to go with us, I’ll talk to Corran. I honestly didn’t think you would want to get out so early.”

Tahiri shook her head emphatically. “I’ve spent enough time crying and curled up in a ball. You think you’re the only one the walls are closing in on? Whoever I am, I’m not going to figure it out moping around here.” Her voice took on a softer, pleading note. “Let me go with you, Anakin.”

He mussed her hair, the way he had done a hundred times. It suddenly seemed too familiar, and he felt his face warm. “Okay,” he said. “Next time, just ask, though. You don’t always have to come after me like I’ve done something wrong. We don’t have to fight everything out.”

She smiled. “Sorry. You never mean to do anything wrong. But most times it just turns out that way.”