Aryn seemed unbothered. She stared out the cockpit as they flew into the velvet of space, waiting for him to explain. He tried.

“I’m going to piggyback Fatman on an Imperial ship.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means what it sounds like. I heard about it in flight school, back in the service.”

“You heard about it?”

Zeerid continued as if she had said nothing. “Centuries ago, smugglers used to jump into and out of hyperspace milliseconds after a Republic ship, say a big supply ship, heading for Coruscant. Smuggler comes out of hyperspace and goes cold except for thrusters.”

Aryn considered it. “Hard to pick up on sensors.”

“Right, but only if you come out in the supply ship’s shadow. And only if you come out and get cold right away.”

“You’d have to know right where they’d come out.”

“And they did then. And we do now.”

Zeerid knew all the details of every hyperspace lane in the Core. If he knew where the Imperial ships entered hyperspace and their ultimate destination, he knew where they would come out.

“Then what?”

“Then you latch on.”

Aryn’s eyes looked as wide as a Rodian’s. “You latch on?”

“An electromagnetic seal. That part’s easy to do.”

“They’ll feel it.”

Zeerid nodded. “Gotta be a big enough ship and you’ve got to latch onto a cargo bay or something similar. Something likely to be empty. Then, once you get through the atmosphere, you disengage the seal and float away into clear sky.”

It sounded ridiculous when he spoke it aloud. He could not believe he was contemplating it.

Aryn blew out a sigh, stared out the cockpit. “This is your plan?”

“Such as it is. You have something better?”

“Who’s ever done it?”

“No one I know. When the Republic learned of it, they adjusted their sensor scans to look for it. No one’s done it in centuries.”

“But the Empire won’t know about it.”

“So I hope.”

He tried hard not to see the doubt in her expression. It echoed his own.

“This is all I’ve got, Aryn. It’s this or nothing.”

She stared out the cockpit, the turn of her thoughts visible behind the green veil of her eyes.

Fatman was almost clear of gravity wells.

“I can still drop you somewhere,” he said, hoping she would not take him up on it. “You don’t have to hitch a ride with me.”

She smiled. “This is all I’ve got, too, Z-man.”

“Aren’t we a pair, then.”

She chuckled, but it faded quickly.

“Aryn? You all right?”

“I feel like I left Alderaan a lifetime ago,” she said. “It’s been hours.”

“A lot can happen in a handful of hours,” he said.

She nodded, drifted off.

“Aryn?”

She came back to him from wherever she’d been. “I’m with you,” she said. “And I think I can help make this work.”