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# Four weeks later #

Finished!

Toward the end of the journey, I was not only bored, I was counting the days left until I left hyperspace. As I sat in the hangar, studying the academy program, a thought occurred to me - why did I stop at a cruiser? I probably could have found a hyperdrive of the same type if I had poked around in the sands a little longer, but I settled for the reserve one. Of course, we're all strong in hindsight, but it was too late now, and I waited. I waited for the exit from hyperspace, like a demob waiting for an order, like a boy waiting for his first relationship, like a sailor of the pioneer era waiting for the cry of "land" from Mars. And he waited. I should have looked for another hyperdrive after all. As far as I understood, the story was the same as with processor sockets - the Corellian hyperdrives were the oldest, in the form of large metal plates, there were others - the Kuat ones, which were a large cylinder of many layers of metal, there were also more original ones, like those docking hyperdrives rings, but they were rather a kind of cylindrical ones. On my cruiser there were plate hyperdrives, the form factor and size of which was designated as "14/Cor1-T900-C2" and the reserve "10/Cor1-T120-C9". As is not difficult to guess, this stood for the fourteenth and tenth model, the Corellian First Series, nine hundred and one hundred and twenty tons, respectively. The last number was the class.

My transport had a three-ton hyperdrive, the three hundred and seventieth series, which, with the same second class, was much more economical and reliable. Exploring the hangar, I found several fighters under the rubble, which, to my surprise, had quite explosive materials at their core. I took all the stuffing out of at least two of them, too, and decided to assemble my own speeder-machine. This activity was much more interesting than just memorizing the academy's materials, especially since meditations and working with my own memory helped me to quickly absorb the material - after each lesson I diligently arranged the knowledge in the shelves of my mind. Now I went through the basics of public education and international business etiquette. Extremely useful subjects, not counting the rather fascinating history of the galaxy, which was also very interesting in places.

Creating the machine didn't take as long as I thought it would - I quickly riveted the frame and hull together, focusing on the aerodynamics and design of early twenty-first century earth machines, the repulsors and reactors were shared by the interceptors, and from the fighters I stuck inside fairly powerful deflectors that would protect me from even massive shelling. After a couple of days of tinkering with the new wonder of technology, I sold the cockpit and the seats taken from the interceptors into it. I had a place to drive it - the hangar allowed me to do so. After two days of more or less fascinating work, the silver, aerodynamically shaped speeder with its Spartan interior was ready, and I sank back into waiting.

The moment the exit from hyperspace was scheduled, I was sitting on the bridge, in the chief pilot's chair. Erdva was right there-the jump exit was right in the Corellian sector, so some difficulty was expected in wiring the battleship inside. When the ship came out of hyperspace, and Erdva pulled away from the control panel, handing the helm to me, I felt an incomparable relief.

In front of me, the screen showed Corellia-actually somewhere far out in space, but the magnified image was shown by the computer. I gave the throttle, and we crawled forward on one sublight engine. The other two were too damaged, and not just the metal parts, so it was impossible to repair them by force. Watching the blackness of space in front of me and the view of the giant surface of the cruiser's upper "shell" was a pleasure - I was in control of the whole thing. But, no sooner had I flown a few minutes, than the Corellian frigate appeared and approached me.

- Erdva, contact! - I said to the droid. He came quickly up to the radio post and after a minute the radio operator's voice was heard all over the bridge:

- Cruiser, come in! This is Corvette F4430, come in!

- This is the cruiser speaking..." I leaned over to the console, can you hear me?

- We hear you well. State your destination and home port.

- The purpose of arrival is to repair the ship. No home port.

- Repeat, say again, home port..." the frigate's operator kept repeating.

- The cruiser is assigned to..." I glanced at Erdwah, and the inscription appeared before me, "Sith Empire. - To the Sith Empire. No port is listed.

The operator was silent for a long time this time. Probably a minute. Then a voice came through:

- "Request permission to inspect the ship.

- Yes, please," I shrugged, "look as much as you like, I'm opening the hangar gate.

- Acknowledged," they answered me over the comms.

A minute later, a CR70 corvette in the colors of the Corellia spacefleet approached the base of my ship, and disappeared under the lower claw. From there I had to watch through the cameras as they came closer, cautiously. I could see why, one shot from one turbolaser would incinerate a corvette along with its shields, and the Forbidden had five batteries with two dozen turbolasers in each. That's not counting the usual anti-fighter laser cannons, which were also quite dangerous. But there wasn't enough power to power the weapons from the backup reactor, and even the shields weren't available. A small shuttle separated from the corvette and flew into the hangar. Inside it landed next to my transporter and two men in uniform emerged from it. I knew the laws, so I wasn't afraid to meet the dear guests. I had to leave the bridge, shut down all systems and go to the hangar. Erdva stayed in the deckhouse.

It was about two hundred meters from the bridge to the hangar, not counting the two elevator descents, so I walked fairly quickly to the inspectors. I came out, obviously piquing their interest. The first person to speak to me was my superior officer:

- Lieutenant Hojo Anthony," he introduced himself.

- Anakin Skywalker," I said, "what did you want to see? - I glanced at the other man. Ordinary clerks - one young and one older, wrinkled, and the look of a typical Justiciar.

- To enter the Corellian sector in a warship, you must obtain permission.

- Please, this ship is more than a thousand years old, and the power from the backup reactor is barely enough to maintain life support. And not in all parts of the ship.

- If your ship is unarmed..." the lieutenant pondered.

- Armed, but unarmed. Besides, not counting the droids, I'm the only one on the ship," I smiled, seeing the elongated face of the young man accompanying the lieutenant.

- I need to make sure of that," he said, nodded at his subordinate, and then turned to me.

They told me to go through, we'll go through, no problem. I headed towards the reactors, leading the two inspectors. The young one was very nervous, because this ship is supposed to be a very formidable weapon, and during its peaceful existence the science of war has moved backwards, and the Forbidden is on a par with battleships, which only the most belligerent systems have in armaments.

We walked through the passages to the reactors-we encountered a couple of droids the entire trip, but not a single human, which reassured the inspectors a bit-I was the only one on the ship. That's what they believed, since all the posts where the crew members should be were empty. Some parts, like the self-defense system consisting of laser turrets, had been broken out by me because they were obsolete and could theoretically be dangerous even for me. Who knows what the iron machine that is the ship's computer will put into its iron brain?

We reached the first shutdown reactor, which stood dead weight. From a distance it looked like a giant cylinder standing in a hall, surrounded by many layers of protection. The reactor was silent. The inspector asked my permission and reached into the reactor control terminal. After the self-diagnostic system confirmed the lack of fuel and unsuitability of the unit for startup, we moved on. In addition to the backup, the cruiser had three reactors, and only two were needed for full operation. Then the picture repeated itself - having made sure that all the combat systems were unusable, the inspectors, back in the hangar, wrote me several documents that allowed me to take the ship to Corellia without restrictions. After sincerely thanking them and receiving a word of encouragement, I watched them return in the shuttle to my corvette. Actually, they were a bit slow on the uptake - there's a legion of droids on one of the decks, and they blew it off by making sure there were no weapons on the ship. Well, the hell with them.

The officers looked at the pieces of Interceptors piled in the corner as scrap metal, and rightly so-I would never fly that.

The way to Corellia was open. But before I could land my pepelats on the planet, I had to negotiate with the operator where to land. The KMK hangars were located in a region far from the capital, on another continent. And negotiations again, only this time with KMK, who had to spend an hour trying to explain exactly what I wanted, and that the other hangars would not fit. As a result of long negotiations with the managers of the company, I got a lead on the ground complex of the shipyards and sent the ship there.

Landing wasn't easy either - the cruiser was too big, and even a couple of correction droids had trouble making an accurate entry into the hangar.

Since I was late to the academy, I was in a big hurry - I threw the bike and the assembled speeder into the cargo hold of the G9 and ran to the shipyard manager, explaining how to contact me, from whom to get money to repair the ship, and what kind of extras I needed. In addition to hyperdrive and the removal of weapons for the sake of shields, these were luxury cabins for the captain and crew, the reduction of the crew to the possible minimum, the creation of several halls on the topmost deck, "and in general, I will send you later drawings and descriptions, but you should try. Such haste was justified - I was not a complete idiot and could work with the ship's blueprints, but after I had shown myself on Alderaan.

On my chart I found... Fifteen million credits. Yes, thirty tons of Beskar was worth exactly that-about half a million a ton. True, they had deducted taxes and some other fees, which I had agreed to, so there was more than fifteen million on the map. The cost of a new ship, of a class and size like the Forbidden One, was about thirty or forty million. The repair, or rather modernization of the ship could cost me more than the new one, because a purely military ship Prohibiting was of no interest to me, while the civilian modification with all the gadgets was needed - I had to go broke and give ten million as a deposit at once. Having smelled money, even if it was immaterial, the repairmen became much more compliant, their indignation practically disappeared, and in general, it seemed to me that their life priorities had drastically changed. Anyway, the meeting on repair and modernization was quick - I had time to think over what and how, while still in hyperspace, and now I gave them a rough plan-scheme of the main modifications and told them my thoughts. Unlike me, an amateur, professional shipbuilders quickly understood what I needed and promised to do everything quickly and qualitatively. We parted pleased with each other.

Having finished with the repairmen, by the way, I never learned the name of the chief engineer with whom I communicated, I immediately took off for Alderaan, without bothering with preflight preparation, refueling, and everything else. I would see Alessia in a few hours, and the whole cruiser thing would be postponed until I had a good night's sleep and a mental break from the subject. I'm a whole month late to the academy, but I think they'll accept the "flew in an alternate hyperdrive" excuse.

This time, having learned from the bitter experience of months of travel, I jumped as quickly as possible and bypassed the hyperspace route, relying on the force to manually steer the ship in hyperspace, thereby reducing the travel time to a minimum - the jump to Alderaan took two hours instead of six.

Sitting in the transporter seat, I even thought that I had developed a special obsession with the speed of ships. If this went on, I would seek out the fastest ships in the galaxy, or build them-a desire to spend as little time in hyperspace as possible was burning.

The ship came out of the hyperdrive in a giddy fashion-right in Alderaan's orbit. One more millisecond and it would have crashed to hell, but I'm an ace pilot, I can show off! I had to take my eyes off my piloting to calm the local controllers - their hyperspace sensors must have been shrieking when I dived right under their noses.

There was another reason for this rush, and it was quite significant: Alessia. More specifically, what she would do to me when I was a month late, with no warning whatsoever. As I was descending toward Alderra's spaceport, I had time to mention the Force, and all the Sith I knew, and Yoda and Master Windows. Or something like that, I don't remember exactly!

* Alderaan, Alessia, First Day of School

Returning to the dormitory was rather sad - parting with family, Jedi Order friends, and everyone else was sad. There was a bright side to coming back, though: Ani.

When I went to Anakin's room on the first day, dropping my things off, he didn't answer. The dorm door was locked tight. Maybe that kind of attention would have made me look bad in any other way, but only the deaf don't know that Anakin and I have something. Though a deaf person is more likely to know. Just in case, there was a secret button in the door lock that Ani had attached, just in case. I reached through the force and touched it. It was already hard to do, because my connection to the Force was so weak. But the door obediently slid aside, letting me in. And inside...

No one, not even a trace. The closet was open, with Ani's clothes, only a couple of travel suits missing, the rest either in the closet or lying on the couch. On the nightstand is a scrap of paper with some squiggles in an unknown language, similar to the Thudarian that Anakin is fluent in.

I went inside and looked around, peering into the refrigerator. Thankfully, I didn't have to open the door; I could see through it that a piece of pie had been petrified on one of the shelves for a long time.

So Anakin hasn't arrived. But classes are supposed to start tomorrow!

Bummer overtook me, leaving me hoping that Ani would make it, since he was always punctual... relatively punctual. And while that slob was gone, I tidied up what I'd noticed-hanging my clothes in the closet and consigning the stiffened remains of the pie to the garbage chute.

I stayed in Anakin's room for another two hours, until I was sure he wasn't going to come. Since it wasn't a good idea to be late on the first day of school, I went to my room to get a good night's sleep.

In the morning I went back to Annie's room, but it was just as empty. I had to go to the Academy. There were introductory lectures today, not counting the traditional welcome ceremony for new students.

The first part of the celebration was short, the newcomers were accepted, a few words about diligent study were said, they blabbed about the importance and value of education and let us, the sophomores, unlike last year, had to go to the lectures. It was at this point that my consciousness sounded the alarm - Anakin was nowhere to be found. He usually sat next to me, but he wasn't in the classroom at all. Some man came up to me first:

- Alessia, have you seen Skywalker? - he asked.

- No. He's not in the dorm, either.

He seemed upset. I hurried to ask him why:

- Why?

- Yeah, we have the opening of the fall racing season in two days, and the guys and I wanted to invite him.

- I hope he can make it," I shrugged. The guy nodded in response and left upset. And then the questions started pouring out in a steady stream. Among those who asked there was not a single one of the so-called "golden youth", or rather majors, but it seemed that almost everyone who had studied in our course on scholarship asked about Anakin. So I found out that my friend turned out to have lent some money to a couple in love for a romantic trip over the vacations, and now grateful they were waiting to pay him back, four were waiting for some new repulsors from Anakin that he had promised them, another was asking, since Anakin regularly helped him with his homework, and at the end of a short break two girls asked him, who were almost more upset about Anakin's absence than I was! I even started to get jealous when they had already left. I had no idea Anakin would be so popular, since he didn't seem to interact much with his classmates.

At the end of the day, the flow of inquirers dried up, and I had no choice but to believe and wait...

So a week went by. Two weeks, three, four...

By the end, I had already given up a lot in my studies, because the thought that something had happened to Ani kept me awake. But...

One morning when I woke up, I felt someone in the room. Before I got up, I looked, and it was Anakin.

I jumped up and attacked him, and gave him a good beating for all the pain he'd caused me:

- "Where the hell have you been, Sith, do you know how worried I've been?

- I know, Ali, I know. Please forgive me," he said, and so he wouldn't get more blows, he took me by the shoulders.

- Just this once! I'm worried about him, I can't sleep at night, and he's in the middle of nowhere...

- I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I got held up in hyperspace. I had to jump on a back-up ship, so I was bored out of my mind for nearly a month.

- I thought something had happened to you... you know how you are about to get into trouble!

- I know. Don't worry, it's alright..." he answered, "I just got a little delayed, it's alright..." he took a box from somewhere behind his back. - This is for you, Ali.

- Do you want to pay off, you wretch? - I asked him proudly.

- Yes. Will you accept it? - He took something metal out of the box. Judging by the fact that in the power I saw it very clearly, and not as usual, the object was filled with power to the brim.

- What is it?

- A pendant. I made it for you while I was in hyperspace. Melted the metal out of an ancient hyperdrive. - he twisted his heart and put the pendant around my neck. I had to tilt my head and lift my hair so Anakin could clasp it.

- Someone's been looking for you.

- Me?" he wondered. - Who? - And clearly worried.

- My classmates. Have you forgotten that you borrowed money? Or have you forgotten that you promised the repulsors to our technicians? Also, some chicks and local race organizers were looking for you. They wanted to invite you to join their team...

- I don't need that for nothing," he answered with a sour expression, "I don't need to cheat in a race, you know how I am.

- I'm not sure that I can cheat in competitions, you know what I'm capable of, you know.

- Oh, it's a pretty specific metal. Cortosis. Can't be defeated by a lightsaber! - He glanced at the nearby droid, and hurried me, "You should get dressed, because the class is in an hour...

I noticed then that I was standing in a see-through nightgown in front of the guy. My heart raced, but I wasn't angry enough with Anakin to punch him in the face. Just enough to get him out of the way.