Chapter Two

Lisa was tapping out a rhythm to the music in her head on the back of Luke’s chair as they came out of hyperspace. He was used to such behavior – her mind was never quiet and sometimes she needed to regulate the excess energy. Despite not recognizing the songs, he liked that the journey hadn’t been completely silent barring the sound of the engines. She could block it if it was distracting him.

The stars shrank back down into pinpricks of light as the ship slowed down. Luke reached out through the Force and activated the scanners. Lisa stopped tapping so he could concentrate.

Artoo beeped and the readout on the heads-up display translated the sound. Lisa had to wait for Luke to read it because even after all these years she still had trouble reading Aurebesh.

“ ‘Adjust angle – planet is off the starboard side’,” he read aloud. “Got it, Artoo.”

The X-wing banked and turned and, finally, they saw it.

It was a lot greener than Endor, in Lisa’s opinion, and Dagobah had more cloud cover. More land, less ocean, she thought, then noticed Luke hesitating. “Luke?” she prompted.

This is it.

She put her hands on his shoulders again. I’m here. You’re not doing this alone. We’re in this together.

Luke huffed out a breath and nodded. “Prepare for landing procedures.”

In contrast to that first landing on Dagobah, entering the planet’s atmosphere and scouting for a place to touch down couldn’t have gone any smoother.

Where do we land? Luke shut his eyes and relaxed. Lisa kept a hand on his shoulder in case he needed the grounding.

His hands moved automatically, adjusting pitch and roll and whatever else it took to get an X-wing on the ground safely.

They coasted for several minutes, then finally came to a stop and gently touched down in a grassy meadow.

Luke opened the cockpit and he and Lisa climbed out, shedding their flight helmets. Their feet touched the ground, and they both took deep breaths of the sweet, clean air.

“Lisa…” Luke whispered, almost in awe, “we made it.” Unable to help himself, he wrapped his arms around her, embracing her with utter joy. “We made it!”

Laughing, she hugged him back. “We made it!” she echoed with as much joy as he felt.

Even Artoo beeped happily as he removed himself from the socket and got his wheels on the ground, though now without the HUD readout they could only guess as to what he was saying.

As much as they wanted to get out there and explore, they knew not to rush anything at this point. They threw their flight suits and helmets into the cockpit – their normal clothes had been underneath – and pulled the shelter materials out of the cargo hold. They built it not too far away from their landing site, securing it to the ground in an event of strong winds. They didn’t really know what kind of weather this planet had; Luke’s visions had all been pleasantly sunny, but that didn’t mean it couldn’t change.

“Artoo,” Lisa asked as she drove in the last stake, “would you be able to keep track of the sun? Get us an idea of how many hours in a day we’ll be working with?”

The little droid gave an affirmative whistle.

“Great, thanks,” said Luke, stretching and looking around, wondering where and, more importantly, how to start.

Lisa waited patiently, taking advantage of the open air to stretch her wings out to their full fifteen-foot span. It felt good after sitting so long in the cockpit.

Luke noticed and asked simply, “Flyby?”

She nodded. “Sure. I’ll head up and take a look around.”

With a running start and a few pumps of her wings, Lisa was airborne. If she found anything interesting, she’d let him know telepathically.

End chapter two

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