Reath nodded, which was easier and more tactful than saying, Why does anybody in their right mind want to leave the known galaxy for the back end of beyond? Much less Dez Rydan?

Probably it had to do with what Master Jora had said about her second Padawan not wanting enough adventure while her first craved adventure too much.

Dez had been Master Jora Malli’s apprentice before she took on Reath. Sometimes younger Knights became mentors and close friends to their former masters’ next charges. While Reath and Dez didn’t have as tight a relationship as that, due to Dez’s missions farther away in the galaxy, they were friendly and had practiced dueling together. This made Reath the envy of many Padawans, several of whom had chosen Dez as a role model.

Despite Reath’s more academic bent, he admired Dez as much as any of the others. Handsome, driven, tall, with golden skin and thick black hair, Dez made friends readily. Though he had passed his Knighthood trials only eight years previously, he’d already distinguished himself in both diplomacy and battle.

“Where’s the transport?” Reath said through the blur of those beverages he’d drunk, hoping Dez wouldn’t notice his condition. (He didn’t fear a lecture, in any case. Reath had it on good authority that Master Jora had once caught Dez after a party at which far, far more beverages had been consumed, and that she didn’t let him entirely off the hook until after he’d passed his Knighthood trials.)

If Dez did notice the state Reath was in, he apparently saw no reason to point it out. “It seems our original transport has a blown subalternator,” said Dez. “Obviously there’s not much to be done with that. They claimed to have arranged a substitute for us, but even the substitute is running late.”

“What if they don’t show?” Reath asked, half hoping the answer would be, You get a whole new assignment and start over!

Dez shrugged. “We’ll find another ship. Surely somebody’s headed out there in another day or two.”

“A day or two? Forget that.” Orla Jareni folded her arms across her chest as she leaned against one of the nearby struts. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere, almost luminous in the dark gray mundanity of the spaceport. While Reath and Dez wore common mission attire, she had on snowy robes that were uniquely hers. “I’m ready to get out there. Trust me, there’s at least one ship in this spaceport that wants our money badly enough to take us straight through the Maw, if need be.”