Ziv sat reflectively as their ship made its slow crawl to Tanaab. Only once did the goggled, young lad offer to help, “just to get us going a bit quicker”, but the growl of the soldier watching over him and the threatening motion of the rifle’s butt end silenced him.

He remained quiet for the rest of the ride, thinking mostly about how he might have done the repatch of the relays given a second chance, and what he would need to get the engines back on line, and how long that would take, and whether or not they could add a bypass toggle for short bursts of a few minutes before switching it back to normal.

All these questions were swimming through his mind, when a sudden movement caught his attention. Almost before his brain could register it, a passenger had gotten up and attacked one of the soldiers, a bothan.

A jedi! 

Ziv was fascinated by lightsabers. He had only seen one up close and personal… Akou, his mentor, had brought it into the shop once in his early teens… the squid had even allowed Ziv to touch it.

Wow! Neat, Akou! Where’d you get it? Ziv remembered asking.

Oh, it’s not mine… just holding it for a friend. the squid replied. Just holding it for a friend. 

Neato! Ziv exclaimed.

The fond memory faded into the background as a bolt from the bothan’s pistol hit the hull behind Ziv. The young man crouched down looking for some way to defend himself.

OOC: a) Can Ziv reach and use his pistol if he desires? b) Ziv will attempt to escape his bonds.

Lana and Ziv both stopped what they were doing at the sound of the boarding tube connecting with the Kul Kura.

“What was that?” Ziv wondered out loud.

Lana’s face paled. “Damn!” she cursed under her breath. “Bad news for us. Boarding tube by the sounds of things.”

Ziv looked at her, right eyebrow cocked, “Boarding tube? You mean like someone’s coming to take over the ship?”

The chief engineer gave her assistant a strain look. “Yeah! I mean some people are coming to take over the ship!”

“Why?” Ziv asked simply, uncertain as to what reason anyone would have to wanting to take over the passenger freighter.

Exasperated, Lana lit into Ziv, “Oh, I don’t know… maybe because, you know, were easy prey just floating out here without any power!”

“Ah, come on, Lan…” Ziv started to protest before the chief engineer tossed her heavy leather glove across the room and hit the young man square in the face. “Hey!” he shouted.

But Lana was fired up, “It is all your fault! You’re always comin’ up with these half cocked schemes to try and push this baby passed what she was built to do… like you know how she was made. Friggin’ by-passing relays. “Ten minutes for sure,” you say. Graaah! I should never had listened to…”

It was at this moment that the boarding party that Lana had suspected was coming showed up – Tanaab’s defense force. The soldiers indicated that Lana and Ziv were under arrest for suspicion of conspiracy to distribute spice.

“Spice?” Ziv asked. He nearly took a blaster’s butt end to the face for the question, but the soldier restrained himself when he saw the young man cower.

Ziv looked over at Lana. She was stone-faced. Caught off-guard, unsure of what was exactly going on, Ziv moved to allow the wrist restraints to be placed on him.

OOC: Looking for some direction from Lana… should she decide to fight… well, I don’t know what Ziv will do.

Captain Thom Dulo’s voice came over the intercom in the engine room. "Get me as much power as you can spare!" he barked.

Ziv and Lana scrambled around the tight space of the engine room, searching to squeeze every last drop of juice out of the Kul Kura’s engines.

Exasperated, the chief engineer threw her pliers across the room.

Her assistant looked up. “We’re going to need more than that,” Ziv stated, matter-of-factly.

“There is no more!” Lana shouted back.

“We could try what we were talking about yesterday,” suggested the young man, coolly.

"Damnit, Ziv, I don't have time for this!" scowled Lana

"Lana, I know, but if you bypass these relays," he indicated them. "you'll get a little more power for the next ten minutes or so."

"And burn them out!" she retorted angrily.

"And maybe stay alive longer," Ziv answered with a grin.

Lana blew out her breath, momentarily moving her bangs out of her eyes, but nodded. "Do it."

Hydroscanner in hand, Ziv made quick work of the relays. The engines responded immediately; showing their dissatisfaction to being pushed passed their limits, they whined with such intensity. Lana held her breath, while Ziv grinned all-the-more.

His idea had worked, and for a few minutes, they not only held the distance between the two ships, but even increased the gap.

“You’re lucky,” Lana said with a weak smile.

“What are you talking about?” Ziv retorted. “This is not luck… we went over this yesterday. By-passing those relays was a no-brainer to pumping out more juice. Only one question though…”

“What’s that?” Lana asked, putting her arm around her assistant.

“How long will it hold?” Ziv stated.

And then... the relays blew. Smoke filled the engine room, and the engines stopped functioning.

Ziv looked at his datatimer. “Six minutes, forty-seven seconds, apparently.”

"Damn you to the foulest hells, Ziv!" Lana screamed as she struggled to get the engines operational once more. "I knew I shouldn't have listened to you!"

He paled, but before he could respond, the ship rocked with the impact of a lucky shot. It wouldn't matter much longer.

The young assistant threw himself back into repairing the engines, “You knew I was right, Lana. We’re done now, likely. But if we had left things as they were… we would have been dead seven minutes ago. You knew that.” Hopefully, the captain’s got something up his sleeve to get us out of this mess, he thought to himself

OOC: Ziv will continue working to repair the engines.