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Jaina bit her lower lip, and her cheeks flushed pink at the compliment.

"It was all of us really, working together as a team... including you, Zekk."

The young man nodded. He knew what she was hoping, but he couldn't stay.

He couldn't change his mind. "I'll be leaving as soon as we're finished with the Lightning Rod," he said.

"I know, I know,' Jaina said. "Have you decided yet where you'll go once you leave Yavin 4?"

"I've got a lot of possibilities, I guess." He shrugged. "I asked Peckhum if he'd give me agit back to Coruscant. From there... who knows?"

Jaina looked away. "Whenever you finally decide what to do with your life, I hope it includes us." Zekk wasn!t sure what to say. He couldiyt make any promises at this point. He could no longer be certain of who he was or what he might become. The silence stretched like a taut wire between them.

'Come on,' Jaina said at last, breaking the tension and meeting his eyes,

"let's go help Jacen and Tenel Ka finish patching the outer hull."

Two days later, his bags packed with a few meager possessions, Zekk stood with his old friend and companion Peckhum, saying his goodbyes to the young Jedi knights before boarding the Lightning Rod.

With one hand on Zekk's shoulder, Peckhum said, "This old ship's seen some hard use, boy-of course, so have you-but you'd never know it to look at 'er now. Like a brand-new transport, with a dozen years of service left in her."

Zekk felt a warm tingle of pride at what he and his friends had accomplished. "It's like the Lightning Rod has a new life," he agreed.

"Yep," old Peckhum said, looking with great seriousness at the young man beside him. He cleared his throat, as if he had to force the words past some internal blockage. "That's... why I want you to have her. Take her for your own, Zekk-the Lightning Rod is my gift to you."

Jaina gasped. Lowie gave a curious rumble, and Em Teedee added, 'Oh, myt"

Zekk blinked before shaking his head, not certain he'd heard right.

"I couldn't.

1-1 How would you make your living?"

"Well," Peckhum said slowly, 'truth is, Chief of State Organa Solo has been after me to modernize a bit. Wants me to use some newfangled cargo ship the New Republic has. They got it for me a year or more ago, because I've been doing so much work for the Jedi academy. But you know me and new things, so I've been resisting the offer. Guess it's got some kind of improved guidance system, a code encryption whatchamacallit, and a bigger cargo hold.

Gotta have more space now that there'll be more supplies to bring back and forth to Yavin 4, you know-what with all the new guardian systems and added troops stationed in orbit."

'But you!ve had the Lightning Rod ever since I've known you, Peckhum,"

Zekk said.

A fond smile crossed the old mails grizzled face. "Yep, I'd had'era few years even before you stowed away aboard her. You were a bold scamp, all right, stowie away from ship to ship after that disaster wiped out your family and your colony on Ennth." Zekk remembered. "They wanted me to live in their refugee stations before finding me some sort of foster home."

"Yep," Peckhum said. "And instead you found yourself a home with me."

Zekk's throat tightened. 'You've done a lot for me over the years, Peckhum. I can't take your ship, too."

"lib tell the truth, the Lightning Rod's more of a junk heap than anythinga menace to the galaxy, really. You'd be doin' me a favor to take

'er off my hands for me.

ThaVs the only way I'll ever get around to using that new ship. We've all got to move up to bigger and better things, boy. Don't be so resistant to change."

Despite his bold words, Zekk could see that old Peckhum was choked up at the thought of parting with the Lightning Rod.

It was as if it were a part of him. Oh, well, Zekk thought, at least this way he'd have a piece of his friend wherever he went. A piece of home.

"All right," he said. "I accept. But only if you're sure."

"I'm sure... I'll miss you,' Peckhum said in a low voice. Then