fandomhighdorms | On the Maru - Beka and Anakin

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On the Maru - Beka and Anakin - locked

Beka found herself in an incredibly buoyant mood as she and Anakin hurried across campus out to where the Maru waited for them. Not only was she getting the hell off this rock, but she got to go with someone else who loved to fly, and, probably best of all, didn't care what anyone else might think about them being out together.

Her meeting with Anakin had been sheer chance. Just a lonely wander through the dorms after Shep's doctored flyer and her meetings with the Doctor and special mission for Janet that led her into a hall she rarely had reason to enter, and a friendly conversation with someone she'd grown to respect.

And now they were going flying! Tomorrow Shep would spread the word that she and Anakin had been screwing or whatever, but it wouldn't be true, and Anakin wouldn't care and neither would she.

"Hurry up, Anakin! Time moves faster out there but we still need to be back tomorrow," she barked orders like a captain, but she was grinning ear to ear.

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Anakin stopped for a moment to look at the ship. "Oh..." he said, putting his hand out to stroke the metal, "...it is good to see something familiar." He looked closer. "Familiar-ish."

He laughed. "Not zombies or chickens with uzis, in any case." He looked over at Beka. "Tell me about her."

"Anakin? I like you." She smiled.

"Meet the Alpha Maru. I named her that after my dad's ship, the Eureka Maru. Lived my whole life on that ship. Never spent more than a few days dirtside before now.

"When Pop and Uncle Sid decided to send me off here, Uncle Sid gave me a big send-off stipend. I think he knew what I'd do with it." A broad grin lit her features. "Buy an old but serviceable freighter with tug capacity, and get in as much damned trouble as possible with her."

Beka ran a hand over the plumbing shafts. "Plumbing, waste, all the non-vital systems are on the hull to make for cargo space. Not so pretty too look at, but functional. Conventional engines, plus slipstream, which is an almost instantaneous transit through navigable..." The words wouldn't quite translate to FH-standard. "Subspace is the nearest I can come up with."

Setting her hand in the coded lock, she spoke her passcodes and the hatch opened. "C'mon. I'll tell you anything else you want to know once we're up."

Anakin walked inside, stopping to stare along the way. "I'll never mock a ship for the way it looks on the outside. The first ship I ever built was made from scraps left over at a junkstore where I was en-, um, working." He gave the ship another pat. "The heart of her is what matters."

Beka liked the way Anakin talked about ships, and the comfortable way he moved, familiar with the spaces, even though they were new to him. Affectionate, in just the right way, even though he didn't know the Maru.

"She's a good girl. And she's all heart." She motioned Anakin into the co-pilot's seat, but didn't bother to tell him to strap in like she would've with someone else.

"We won't be in FH-verse as soon as we're about five miles up. We'll be in my universe. We should stay away from inhabited systems. Anything particular you'd like to see?"

He thought back to Tatooine, the way two suns would set in a blaze of red and yellow. He shook his head, trying to banish the vision of his mother from his mind. Now was not the time to deal with that. There was never going to be a time to deal with that.

He strapped himself into his seat and turned to Beka. "Anywhere is fine. Just want to see the stars. I'm not that particular as to what they're called."

Beka caught a glimpse of an old hurt in Anakin's eyes, but she wouldn't press. With someone else, maybe. But Anakin was a lot like her in some ways. He'd talk if he wanted to, and no amount of pressing would get him to open up if he didn't.

She thought about her nebula. The one where she'd taken Cam. That still stung. She hadn't been back since then. Might be good to go with someone else, someone who would help her appreciate it again. "I know just the place. It's one of my favorites."

The familiar vibrations of the engines felt good. "Slipstream may be a bit weird for you. Cameron didn't mention anything odd, but there's a time dilation effect for me and there's a..." How to explain? "Time and space sort of stumble and stutter when we transit out. It's normal."

Anakin blinked at her description of heading into space. Definitely different than the lightspeed he was used to. But hadn't Obi-Wan sent him to Fandom High to learn new things? Besides, this ship could handle it. He could feel it.

He gave the console another pat and felt the wiritng humming under his hands. It wasn't a living thing, as Obi-Wan was constantly pointing out to him, but there was something about a ship that was loved.

"I trust you," he said to Beka. "Let's get out of here."

He trusted her. Well that was a switch. People who knew her trusted her, but Anakin barely did. She nodded, then grinned. "Yeah."

The trip to the transuniversal boundary went quickly and quietly. Beka felt it when they slipped past it, because the mudball's gravity gave way suddenly and they were in vacuum.

A few quick measurements confirmed that she'd exited to the same place as always. "Slipstream now, Anakin," she spit out as the engines kicked in and she plunged herself, the Maru into the twisting branching purple-blue ecstatic agony. It felt so good she couldn't breathe, hurt so bad she had to gasp for breath.

And then they were through. Time stumbled and fractured as the ship transitioned into real-space, her nebula within visual range. (http://www.noao.edu/image_gallery/images/d4/horseheady.jpg)

He picked up on her surprise at being trusted and repressed a smile. He was Force-trained, after all, and could pick up on when someone was trying to be deceptive. Well, most of the time. Politicians lied like they breathed.

His stomach roiled a bit at the entrance into what Beka called the slipstream. Yeah, he definitely preferred hyperspace. Not nearly as jolting.

He looked through the window. The view was hard to beat, though. He closed his eyes, extended his feelings out into the void. The Force thrummed through his body. Here, in the cold of space that he had found so unfamiliar as a child, he found himself again.

He opened his eyes and smiled. "It's beautiful," he finally said.

Beka sat quiet in the glow of starbirth. They'd come to give Anakin a distraction, maybe a little bit of peace. If silence was needed, she could do silence.

She unbuckled her harness and drew her knees up to her chest, curling into her seat. So much had happened in such a short time. She'd gone from knowing no one but Cam to having more people in her life than she ever had. Friends, even. Everything was so different at Fandom High. Mostly, it was better than here, but she missed being free. Missed the stars too.

And her frelling weapons, but at least she had those with her now.

Anakin opened his eyes and smiled. "It's beautiful," he finally said.

She blinked, startled. He'd been so quiet, she'd almost forgotten he was there. How strange.

"It's one of my favorite places." She kept her voice low and even, enjoying the...peace.

"I can certainly see why," he said, not taking his eyes from the view. "Obi-, Padme would love this. There's a place like it near Ryloth that I saw when I was, oh, twelve, I guess. Took my breath away then." He looked out in silence for a little longer. "Takes my breath away now."

Something this beautiful can hold the dark back a little bit longer, he thought.

He tore his eyes away from the view and looked at Beka. "How did you find it?" he asked.

He sounded so wistful, Beka almost asked why. "I'm glad you like it, Anakin. I hoped it might help, with...whatever."

How had she found it? Seemed so long ago now, but it wasn't, not really. A year at most out here. Less on FH time. "When Pop and Uncle Sid started talking about sending me away, I got really upset. Bobby and I took off, we were going to leave, start up our own salvage business. I'm a good slipstream pilot usually, but I lost my temper...and we got lost. Here. By the time we figured out where we were and I could slip-pilot us home, I'd fallen in love with the place. And realized that Pop and Uncle Sid might be right."

She shrugged, a little uncomfortable with so personal a truth. "If you haven't noticed, I have a tendency to lose my temper first and get smart after."

Anakin smiled. "I think my old teacher would say we were two of a kind, although he might leave out the part of me getting smart after I lose my temper."

He thought about it. "He might actually have a point, but if you meet him, I never said that."

Beka grinned. "Promise I'll never tell. He probably wouldn't think much of my 'smart after the fact' either, would he?"

With a wry smile, she lifted her hand to stop him before he could respond. "No, I don't think I want you to answer that... You mention your teachers a lot. I never had any before I got here." ~~Except Sid and the things he taught me hardly count.~~ "What was it like, to have people helping you figure out who to be?"

Oh... she hadn't meant to ask such a personal question. "I'm sorry. If that's prying, just ignore me."

"Well, Jedi don't have families." He wasn't about to talk about his mother.

"During training, we're assigned a master. We work together as a pair until the Council decides that the Padawan--a fancy name for apprentice, really--is ready to face the trials of becoming a Jedi Knight. My master is Obi-Wan Kenobi," Anakin said, his tone warming when he mentioned Obi-Wan. "He's one of the greatest Jedi, not just of his generation, but of any generation. I'm lucky to be trained by him. As almost every single being in the Temple has told me. Twice."

Anakin rolled his eyes. "He's a master negotiator, deeply tuned to the Force, almost endlessly patient. It's impossible standard to live up to, really."

He looked at Beka. "I'm not explaining this well. When Jedi discover a being attuned to the Force, they are taken to the Temple. If they can be trained, they are. If becoming a Jedi is a path that's open to you, it's the path you walk. There's not really much choice in it."

He spread his hands. "I've been a Padawan for eight years. I am Jedi. It's inevitable."

She pursed her lips. "Sounds a lot like being a tramp-freighter's brat. If you have an ounce of skill at negotiation, distraction, or anything useful," like sex, "then that's what you'll be. It's inevitable."

After a few seconds, she looked at Anakin. "I don't want you to think I'm mocking you. I'm not. You said before we're two of a kind. I think so. Different worlds, different training, similar skills -- bet you'd make a hell of a slipstream pilot -- and very few choices."

She bit her lip, risked another question. "Do you want to be a Jedi?"

Anakin blinked with surprise at the question. "Do I want to be a Jedi?" He thought about it for a moment.

"More than just about anything. Jedi are the protectors of the galaxy. They bring peace, unity. They are respected. They are beings that are larger than life--younglings on hundreds of different worlds are put to bed with tales of Jedi adventures." He smiled. "One day my name will be one that everyone will know." He could see it in his mind. He would be greater than all the Jedi. He was the Chosen One. There would have to be stories about him.

"The training is hard, the restrictions on us incredibly difficult, and Master Kenobi can be embarassing beyond mere human endurance," he said. "But the price will be totally worth it. It has to be."

Beka stared out at the blues and purples and reds. She didn't know what to make of Anakin's response. On the one hand, he'd said more than just about anything. Which made her wonder what he wanted more. On the other, he seemed to really believe in this, which felt dangerously idealistic. On still another, if she had another, it felt incredibly familiar, like being with Bobby, who always wanted to go after the Cause.

And yet again when he talked about it, he seemed to glow. She could almost see the unity and peace he talked about. Like the stories of the old Commonwealth. "You almost make me believe it's possible, Anakin. Peace, unity, goodness..."

She turned back to him. "We have nothing like you in my world. No Jedi. No protectors. Just people like me."

"Oh, I've seen peace, unity, and goodness." He scrunched up his face. "Brief glimpses of it, at least. We're not exactly in the middle of peace and joy in the Republic at the moment."

"There aren't enough Jedi to handle everything that's breaking apart. Not by half. There's a debate raging in the Senate about forming a standing army for the first time in the history of the Republic." He snorted. "I'll be as old as Master Yoda before they decide on anything."

"Politics", he said with disgust.

"On that, we definitely agree." She grimaced. "It's a filthy word. But, the more I watch, the more I learn... everything is politics. I'd like to hear more about your Republic sometime. If you want to tell..."

She ran a hand over her ship console, reassuring herself. No one would take this from her. Not even the damned school. And she'd find a way to be herself again, too, without worrying about detention all the damned time.

Beka studied Anakin. He could be an ally, if he wanted to. She'd meant to talk to Angelus first, but she actually trusted Anakin. "You say peace and harmony. To me that conjures visions of people being free and unafraid. What does it mean to you?"

Anakin sighed and looked out at the nebula once more. "I think I'm feeling too good right now to talk about the Republic and its myriad issues," he said.

He thought about Beka's question. "Peace and harmony. I see quiet. Beings living together without fear, with understanding. Without the endless miscommunications and petty agendas and willful misconceptions. Where disagreements didn't need to be settled with a lightsaber, or a blaster or an army." He grimaced. "A fantasy world. But a pretty one."

"A very pretty world. Our Commonwealth was supposedly like that once..." No. She wasn't going to think about Nietzscheans or her DNA now.

Beka put out her hand, palm up. No one touched her without her permission, and she'd bet Anakin was the same. But apologies and comfort went together. He'd reach out if he wanted to. "I understand, about home, and not wanting to think too much about it. I'm sorry to have brought it up."

He saw Beka's hand out but ignored it. It would be cold comfort right now.

"Home is..." Painful? he thought. Impossible to explain? Hard to deal with? "...complicated," he finally said. "I understand why Master Kenobi sent me here, but at the same time I feel like I should still be there, working to hold the Republc together." He grimaced. "With duct tape and wire, if necessary."

Beka understood Anakin's reaction, because no matter how much she comforted other people, it was rare that she let anyone comfort her. She returned her hand to the Maru's consoles, loving her ship, and

"Do you have duct tape and wire back home?" She offered a warm grin.

"Anakin... I brought you out here to distract you, and I have the feeling that this is at least part of what you wanted a distraction from. I'll listen, if you want to talk, but... if not, we can talk about other happier things... Or we can talk about nothing and just enjoy the peace awhile longer."

"Everywhere has duct tape and wire. They're part of the foundation of every universe, I think." Anakin smiled for a brief moment.

"I haven't been a very interesting guest, have I? My old teacher was always on me for focusing on the negative." He tried to smile again, but it didn't make it up to his eyes. "You have given me a wonderful distraction. Thank you. I guess it just reminded me of something else that I should find a distraction from. Inner demons, outer demons." He shrugged. "One I can't fix from here, another that I'm not sure I can ever really conquer." He shook his head. "Anyway. Is there anything on your Maru that could use a little tune-up? I'm accounted a pretty fair mechanic. Think of it as a thank you for a wonderful trip away from school problems."

"Don't be silly. I enjoy talking to you. We're similar, and I have my own demons that I have a hard time putting away for long. Anytime you want to come, be distracted or not be distracted, just call." She grinned. "I come out here to do my homework sometimes. More time to do it in."

She thought about the Maru and her systems. Thought about Bobby, and the people who'd have helped her take care of the ship if she weren't away at school. On a planet. With a bunch of people who never had and never would understand about space. "On a ship like her, something always comes up. I'll call you the next time? Not because you owe me, though. Because I miss other spacers. And it's just nice to spend time with someone who gets it. Deal?"

"That's a deal." Anakin grinned. "I need to head over to Jayne's soon--I told him I'd look at that scrapheap Wash had discovered before disappearing. See if it can fly, get the Flight Club off the ground." He scowled. "Pun not intended."

He gave another look back at the nebula, reached out into the Force and felt life pulsing through him. He felt a little more grounded out here in space. He smiled a little at the thought. "I needed the trip out here. Thank you."

She tracked his gaze out to the nebula, and wondered if he felt it like she did, felt a connection to the universe in the face of that beauty. Or if his Jedi training gave him something more, because the way he talked about it made it sound like it might.

"You're welcome. I needed it too. It helped clear my head about some things." It had too. She had people to talk to. "Especially all the politics we didn't talk about, like JA's 'tenets', but we should when it won't rob us both of the peace out here.

"And hey, about Flight Club? I'm in, signed up from the beginning and wondered what happened. Tell me what you need for that wreck." That made her grin, because both she and Anakin would fall head over heels with that wreck if they could get her flying. "You, a fair mechanic. Me? Very resourceful, and in possession of a ship and an entire universe to find parts in."

"Well, I say 'fair mechanic' because most beings consider 'insanely talented' to be a bit immodest." He grinned. "You can ask Padme about it if you think I'm being full of myself."

He rolled his eyes at the JA. "I don't think they're nearly as frightening as people at school give them credit for. I mean, they invited me to join. Somehow I don't see myself as the 'killing everyone in sight because I've had a bad Tuesday' type." He didn't dwell too much on what had happened on Saturday. Surely that hadn't' been what they wanted to encourage.

"And I say 'very resourceful' because most beings take exception to me saying I'm the best there is at what I do." She grins back. "There's more up here--" She taps her temple. "--than a lot of people give me credit for. I watch. I see things. I don't doubt that you're an exceptional mechanic. Really."

His observations about the JA make sense. "And yet, they didn't invite me. But to hear you tell it, on a bad day, I might take out a handful of folk, just because." She smiles. "I wouldn't you know."

"I never really thought you would. I just think you on a tear would probably be scarier to witness than, oh, Chihaya on the after-effects of gremlin juice." Anakin smiled.

"Sark and I'll be watching out for each other when the JA meets again and invites us. And Faith's good people." He thought of Angelus. "Besides, I don't think Angelus is going to be 'welcome to our secret club, join us in taking over the world, bwahaha.' It doesnt' really seem his style."

Anakin understanding she's not a trigger happy spacebunny makes her happy. "Being scary's all right. Kept me alive plenty."

"Faith's all right. The lapdance is a bit much. But hey, we're running as the Hottest Ticket Ever. Which was my idea of a joke. How was I supposed to know they'd be serious about it?" She sighed, irritated. "No. Angelus is smarter than that. Much. I don't trust him, but he's smarter than Parker. Everything's about the short game and the revenge with her."

"Faith's giving out lapdances?" Anakin coughed. "Sorry. Haven't been listening to the radio lately."

"Angelus is smarter than just about anyone," he said. "But I kind of like him. He's got style."

Beka laughed at Anakin's surprise and wondered whether to torment him with her party platform of lots of nakedness for the victory party, but decided not to, since it was already starting to annoy her. "Just as well. They say a bit more about me than I'm comfortable with."

"Angelus is smart. Very smart. I've been talking with him a lot." ~~*cough*~~ "I'll give him style points, too. He's also very persuasive."

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