Beyond - Legends Interregnum (Post-The Last Command Action/Drama | Luke/Mara, Wedge | Epic) [Complete]

Most likely

lol, in Luke Skywalker and the Shadows of Mindor, X-wing pilots are called "demented thrill-monkeys." It was pretty accurate Just think of all the commiserating Mara and Iella will have over the years on this subject

Han did seem to have a soft spot for Mara and her struggles on this front in TLC. Also, "besides, it was mostly Luke's problem," lol. Luke has no real problem with it

Absolute facts, right here

Aw, "Luke's... whatever she was" And yeah, not much to worry about with Mara and Iella on your side

 

Writing Han is fun. Writing Han thinking about Luke and Mara is funner! We're lucky: Han hasn't featured much up until now, but he's very much part of the story for Act 3. Much more of Han's POV coming before the end!

I like that Han is resigned to going to help when it's clear he's the right one for the job, or when it's clear that his friends and family are in danger. But Han would much, much rather be home with the kids, taking care of them while Leia and Winter are busy, uh, running the galactic government.

To be fair, I'm sure they'll give Luke and Wedge their fair share of worry right back.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part II

Whoever it was outside the Falcon didn’t wait for Han to lower the ramp. There was a heavy knocking on the outer hatch, followed almost immediately by it popping open. One of the locals must have a deft hand with electronics, they hotwired that quick, Han thought with a scowl. He and Chewie stood within as light—the simultaneously dim and glaring blue from Kessel’s star—flooded into the freighter, and the Falcon’s air flooded out.

Chewie hated Kessel even more than Han did, and the big Wookiee moaned softly as the air grew suddenly thin and stale. Heavy footsteps followed the light in; the men who boarded the Falcon wore a hodgepodge of armor and equipment, classic to Fringe operators. Some wore old Imperial guard equipment, but most didn’t. Unlike him and Chewie, the boarders wore oxygen masks that made Han instantly jealous.

The leader led them up the ramp, taller than the rest, with an extremely lanky build that made him look oddly scarecrow-ish. On his belt he carried a heavily modified (and very illegal) double-blaster; he also wore an Imperial blaster-resistant vest that was a size too small for him. The man offered Han a wide, mocking grin, holding his hands out wide in an expression that Han found oddly familiar, though with the oxygen mask covering the lower half of his face, Han couldn’t place the man.

“Han Solo,” the scarecrow-like said. Han couldn’t see his mouth, but the rest of the man’s body language bore every indication that the lips hidden by the man’s oxygen mask wore a mocking smile. “You’re going to wish you never came back to Kessel.”

His voice was familiar, and Han’s mind rang with recognition. Those eyes, that voice…

“I already do, Skynxnex” Han replied, crossing his arms. He was honestly surprised that Skynxnex was still alive after all these years. Back during the Imperial days, when Doole had been a corrupt administrator and part of Jabba’s criminal network (and thus Han’s primary contact on Kessel), Skynxnex had served as the Rybet’s bodyguard. Before his arrival on Kessel, the scarecrow-like figure had been a low-level Black Sun enforcer. Neither career put him on Han Solo’s current list of favorite people. Han put as much derision into his voice as he could. “We’re here on official business. Do you really think the New Republic is going to let you mistreat its envoys?”

“Mistreat?” Skynxnex sounded too upbeat and innocent. “I have no idea what you could possibly mean.”

Han’s spine shivered. He’d forgotten Skynxnex’s talent for making positively innocuous things sound sinister. “Doole and I go way back,” Han reminded him. “And what I have to offer him could make him rich.”

Skynxnex gestured at the men surrounding him, pointing them into the Falcon. “Search the ship.” Chewie made a soft, unhappy moan as six of the other men flowed past them into their ship, the heavy sound of booted feet on metal grating making Han wince. He hated having strangers on his ship, it always took weeks to fix everything, and sometimes even months later he’d stumble across something not quite right… “Did you hear me, Skynxnex?” Han asked, folding his arms across his chest and scowling.

“Did you bring any other company, Solo?” the Skynxnex asked, stepping forward to loom over Han, his flinty gaze appraising.

“Chewie and I don’t make a habit of carrying just anyone,” Han retorted. “We didn’t bring my wife, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“A pity,” Skynxnex said sarcastically. “I always wanted to meet a Princess.” He shoved Han in the back lightly, making him stumble. An attempt by one of his comrades to do the same to Chewie provoked a growl. Skynxnex sneered at the Wookie and gestured down the Falcon’s ramp. “Get moving. I’ll take you to Doole. He’s been wanting to catch up with Solo here for years.”

Well, that can’t be good, Han thought dourly. Doole had been Han’s contact on Kessel during his smuggling days, one of the many corrupt administrators who had been on Jabba’s payroll. The Empire had maintained strict quotas on Kessel’s production and sale, maintaining their effective monopoly on a substance which had a multiplicity of uses, ranging from therapeutic to recreational to… other more esoteric uses. Kessel’s glitterstim Spice was the purest and most effective of all the varieties of space the galaxy had to offer, and Doole had been able to syphon small amounts of it off the Empire’s official manifest and into the hands of smugglers.

Han had never liked Doole much, but he’d never disliked him either. He was just a contact, one of many. Still, it was possible that Doole held a grudge. Han had, after all, been forced to dump a particularly valuable shipment of Spice into the vacuum of space after his last visit to Kessel, and Jabba surely had imposed his unhappiness with that clear to Doole as much as the old slug had to Han.

It was a short trip from the landing facility to Kessel’s former Imperial administrator’s building. The massive structure loomed over them as they approached, the large flat face of the structure blocking the horizon like a giant, angled wall in space, the harsh rays of Kessel’s blue-white sun reflecting off its semi-reflective surface. Above the facility, Han could see the pair of boxy flight cruisers hovering in low orbit, distant but nonetheless clearly visible.

Han nudged Chewie. “Chewie, your eyes are better than mine. Take a look at those cruisers for me, will you?” he whispered, glancing back at the guards behind them, whose blasters were held with the casual readiness of a semi-professional.

Chewbacca rumbled softly, turning his head slightly to look up. They were pressed into an elevator and Chewbacca leaned towards him, a quick, throaty grumble quietly passing off what the Wookiee’s superior eyes had discerned.

Han’s chest tightened. The cruisers have their dorsal turrets trained on the building. It wasn’t surprising, in hindsight. Whoever the pirates were, they were ensuring Doole’s loyalty by putting him on the business end of their cruisers, corvette, and TIEs.

From the state of the administrative building’s interior, it was possible that the pirates had required a ground campaign as well to compel Doole’s loyalty. The building showed all the signs of decay from lack of regular maintenance, but there were also blaster scars which could’ve been new. Or, Han thought, those scars could date back to when Doole first conquered Kessel, shortly after Endor. It was impossible to tell just how old they were.

After a few more twists and turns they arrived in Doole’s office. The back wall was a long, broad panel of windows looking out over Kessel’s desolate landscape; the air between Han and those windows filled with a thin mist of moisture from the humidifier sitting near a short desk. Doole himself looked as if he had seen better days; the Rybet’s gaze turned on Han, but one of his eyes was a milky, sightless white. The reptilian alien fiddled with a mechanical contraption strapped over his other eye, lenses whirring and clicking into place. Han was reminded vaguely of Artoo, but Luke’s astromech was of much better quality. After a long inspection, Doole finally hissed in recognition. “It is you, Solo!”

Han frowned. “Been hitting the Spice too heavily I see, Moruth. Always gets the eyesight first.”

Doole didn’t look like a prisoner, but he didn’t look happy either. The Rybet’s expression tightened and he hopped off his chair, coming towards him with a menacing expression—or, as menacing as a more-than-half-blind Rybet could manage, anyway. Skynxnex was the one who’s expression was legitimately menacing, but—

Han frowned. Doole's lanky bodyguard wasn’t even watching him or Chewie. His attention was entirely on the two other men of his security team. Realization washed over him. Those guards weren’t here to keep an eye on him and Chewie—or not entirely, anyway—they were here to watch Doole and Skynxnex.

Vorru’s men.

“It wasn’t Spice that did this,” Doole snapped, pointing at the contraption over his eye. “Why are you here, Solo?”

Han’s realization fully in mind, he could hear the tension in Doole’s voice. It wasn’t just anger at Han for perceived old slights. The Rybet was scared. Han thought fast. “I’m here as a representative of the New Republic government,” he said. “You know we’ve been trying to get you to open up the legal Spice trade—it has plenty of legal uses, not just illegal ones—and since we’ve made our deal with the Smugglers’ Alliance, plenty of Fringe operators who used to avoid us have been thawing out a bit.”

“You’re a spy!” Doole exclaimed, disbelieving, and sounding paranoid. “Did you think you could just fly into our space, look around, and go back to your Republic with all the information they need to send a Star Destroyer over to take us over!” He clenched his tiny green fist, shaking it at Han, trembling. “We’ll be ready if you try it!”

“You have it all wrong,” Han exclaimed. “We don’t need to take you over! A little bargaining, maybe a chat with Talon Karrde, and you could triple your profits and on legal trade! Don’t be a fool!”

It was hard to tell, with Doole’s one sightless eye and his second covered behind the mechanical photoreceptor, but Han was pretty sure the Rybet was staring at him. “We’ll see.” Doole reached into the pocket of his waistcoat and withdrew a small, ornately engraved box. He fumbled with it, his webbed fingers shaking some more as he popped it open. Inside, the padded box was filled with short black-wrapped cylinders.

Han’s heart fell. “Glitterstim.”

“The purest that Kessel produces. With it, I’ll be able to read the truth of what you say.”

Han knew it was true. Glitterstim spice was highly addictive, but it wasn’t strictly illegal in the galaxy, just controlled. When ingested, it produced a somewhat pleasurable telepathic boost and higher mental acuity. That made it useful for interrogations and loyalty tests, and the Empire (and the Fringe) had long exploited it for both. It allowed two lovers to enjoy a fleeting telepathic touch, or to enjoy an emotional high of a crowd, or feel an emotion that a patient would otherwise be incapable of. In some its effects were even more potent. It even had therapeutic uses. Han had seen it used, and he also knew the after effects: the addiction, paranoia, and motor problems that could follow repeated use.

Doole’s hand shook as he extracted one of the black cylinders from the case, his hand shaking as he removed the wrapping and withdrew the Spice. He held the transparent, glassy fibers up, allowing it to absorb the light through the large exterior window; the fibers started to scintillate. When they turned a pearlescent blue and started sparking with energy, their color matching that of Kessel’s star, the Rybet placed the fibers on his long, purple tongue and closed his mouth around them.

Doole closed his eyes, breathing deep breaths. His trembling stopped, his hands growing steady and confident. His mechanical eye focused on Han, and while Han couldn’t see the Rybet’s eye underneath his mechanical contraption, he could tell Doole was watching him with the glassy focus of a Spice user in full high.

Chewbacca moaned softly, and Han took a sharp breath. There it was—the clawing sensation of Spice-borne telepathy, of memories drawn to the fore unbidden, flashes of images prompted by the urgings of a foreign mind. Han tried to fight it, his expression growing twisted and furious. He hated Spice intrusions… but he knew that the rage would be obvious to Doole. He fought it back, urging his mind to bring forward his many meetings with Leia and the Inner Council about the need for closer ties to the Fringes, about the value of Kessel, the therapeutic value of Spice.

He tried even harder to keep the more recent meetings that featured Kessel out of his mind. It was hard to keep thoughts from a glitterstim addict, but it wasn’t impossible. The duration of the effect was rather short, and Han had been told once long ago that you could hide some secrets if you offered others. Vorru, he thought. We’re here to investigate Vorru. Vorru, from Corellia. We think he’s working with Leonia Tavira, and she has a Star Destroyer. Vorru, Vorru, Vorru… He thought back to the HoloNet reports that had been common in his youth, of Moff Vorru’s rule over his home system, of what he knew of Vorru’s involvement with Black Sun, the little he remembered about Leonia Tavira. We think Vorru escaped, we think Vorru escaped, we think Vorru escaped…

He tried very, very hard not to think of the group of people who made up that “we”. Doole could have whatever else he wanted, but if—

Doole’s eyes opened wide and he turned towards the men with Skynxnex. “You fools!” he hissed. “Your master has brought him here. They know that Vorru has escaped, and they’re here because they want to find out what he’s up to.” Doole took a half-step forward, in a manner meant to be menacing and which did convey real fury and fear. “He’s going to bring the New Republic down on all of us!”

Han wasn’t sure if the glitterstim effect had worn off yet. Vorru, attack on Coruscant, working with a man with a lightsaber in bronze armor—

Doole spun around, staring at Han with the bright, glassy gaze of a fully-focused glitterstim abuser. He could still see into Han’s mind, could hear his thoughts for as long as the Spice high continued… Han’s surprise muted into suspicion as the Rybet resumed speaking. “The New Republic will be coming for us!” Doole hissed, and Han suspected that the Rybet’s glitterstim-induced high was also amplifying Doole’s paranoia. “I am not paranoid!” Doole exclaimed, gripping Han’s shirt in both his scaly hands and shaking him. “The New Republic wants Kessel for its own! Talon Karrde and the Smugglers’ Alliance will come to steal all that I’ve fought for, all that I’ve worked for, and it’s all Fliry Vorru’s fault!” He spun again, sending Han spilling to the floor in an undignified heap.

Han rolled onto his side in time to watch a furious, outraged Doole march towards the men flanking Skynxnex, his hands balled into angry fists. “Are you sure they’re here for Vorru?” one of the men was asking—

“Yes I’m sure! And you’re sure too, don’t tell me you’re not, I can see it in your mind!” Han could tell that the high was starting to come down, though, the Rybet’s energy was beginning to fade, rage transforming into audible fear. “Vorru and Tavira are going to destroy me.”

Vorru’s two men glanced at each other, their expressions hardening. “Did he think of Tavira?” one of them asked.

“Yes of course he thought of Tavira,” Doole sputtered. “Did you really think New Republic Intelligence wouldn’t find out! You decided to challenge Airen Cracken and you put me in the line of fire!”

“Are you sure?” the other insisted.

“Do you want to test them yourself?” asked Doole. He held the box out towards the man. “I have plenty more glitterstim, if you would like.”

The man blanched. “No,” he replied quickly. “Fine.” He turned to Skynxnex. “Put them in a holding cell,” he instructed. “We’ll hold them until we contact our superiors and find out what they want done.”

“No!” Doole hissed angrily. “Send them to the mines. Solo deserves no better.”

Han glared. “What did I do to deserve the mines?” he objected. Doole, however, was utterly fixated on Vorru’s men, and Han didn’t need the Force to see what the Rybet was feeling.

Doole’s anger was old and genuine—and empowered by fear. Vorru’s man frowned, hesitating, then nodded reluctantly. “All right. They won’t die down there will they?”

“If people died so quickly in the mines,” Doole glowered, “I wouldn’t have any workers.” He pointed at Skynxnex. “Skynxnex, take them to the mines! The Wookiee will at least earn its keep.”

Chewie rumbled menacingly.

Skynxnex stepped back before glowered at them. He moved over to Han and pressed his double-barrel blaster into Han’s back. The barrel ground painfully against his spine, making him gasp. “Move. And don’t try anything, Chewbacca, or I’ll cook your owner from the inside out,” Skynxnex growled.

Oh great. The Spice mines. This is getting better all the time. Han stumbled towards the exit, pushed by Skynxnex’s blaster.

As they exited the room, he could hear the faint rattle of Doole’s talons on the table again, indicating a glitterstim come-down, and Han finally allowed his thoughts to wander back to the two women hidden away in the Millennium Falcon. At least they had a chance.

That brief flare optimism faded along with the light as they descended down the long mine shaft into the pits of Kessel.

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Three, Part III] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Uh-oh.

 

Yikes. But I'm sure Han and Chewie will be fine. Mara will rescue them.

 

I'm sure Iella will help! I wonder if anyone can guess what is going to happen in the next scene...

 

Ain't that the truth

Kessel seems a thoroughly unpleasant place to be, but you describe it well, and it's fascinating to see spice in use. (Maybe it was shown in the EU at some point? If so, I apparently missed it and was thus unaware of glitterstim's telepathic effects, so I thought this scene was particularly interesting )

 

Actually, of the entire story this chapter was the one most directly inspired by something in the EU (which is also why it was the hardest one to write). The events and some of the dialogue in the last two scenes, and more in the scene I'm about to post, are from KJA's Jedi Search. The entire meeting with Doole is, including the glitterstim interrogation, I just put a twist on it since Han's reason for being here isn't the same as it was.

Speaking of, the last part of the chapter coming in a minute!

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part III

There was no light permitted in the Spice mines at all. Spice exposed to light began to ripen immediately and had to either be consumed or would be wasted, so the production and transport of Spice was as much about maintaining complete darkness around the product as it was collecting it. Surviving underground on Kessel as a Spice miner was about learning how not to rely on your eyes; touch, sound, smell, and instinct were what you had to work with, so you either learned how to use them or you died.

The Spice mines smelled distinctly of fresh air when you got closer to the surface; the deeper you got, the smells shifted depending on what you came near. Different minerals had distinctive scents that the miners could learn to recognize with time and experience, as did the varied creatures that could survive in the dark. Water deposits always meant a variety of molds, some of which could be toxic with extended exposure, and the Spice spiders often left droppings that every miner learned to recognize.

Some races, like Sullustans, were comfortable in the dark, and they tended to do well. But survival in the Spice mines was as much about luck and perseverance as it was about cleverness or senses. Humans could do well, once they got over their fear.

Kyp did quite well. Unlike most of his fellows, he’d arrived on Kessel young and had spent most of his life in the mines. The long working days were always spent in the total absence of light, and he’d long since stopped missing it.

The other miners thought him a wizard, when they thought of him at all. Even the Sullustans couldn’t match his daily output of Spice when he put his mind to it, but there was little point in over-achieving. The prisoners didn’t get promotions or privileges for excellent work, there was no dream of freedom for most. No one would be coming to get him out when his time was up. So he collected what he needed, supported the other prisoners when he felt it was safe and they deserved it, and avoided them when it wasn’t.

In the darkness, he dreamed of freedom, family, and blue seas.

The same drives that brought him success in the mines made him decide to change his routine that morning. Usually he’d take one of the mining cars with a hundred other sentients or so down into one of the less dangerous, less profitable veins. He always came out of it with what he needed to pay for meals and a bunk, so there was no reason to do anything riskier. But today he decided to take a different mining car down into one of the richest veins, with the greatest chance of encountering a spider. He didn’t have a reason to do that, really, but it felt right in a way he couldn’t articulate.

He glided onto the car, feeling his way to an empty seat. He heard a loud, plaintive rumble in the next row, and with it came the distinctive scent of a Wookiee.

“I know, I know, I can’t see anything either. It’s like Jabba’s frozen me in carbonite all over again.”

Kyp hovered next to the voice, not yet sitting down as he debated the wisdom of taking the seat. It was an older man’s voice, with the light sarcasm and accent common to the Corellian smugglers who came and went, cursing CorSec with every step. They usually didn’t live very long.

“Hey, you! Kid! Number fourteen! Go back to your seat!” the guard operating the car yelled at him. Kyp’s head turned in the guard’s direction; he couldn’t see the man, but he could feel his presence. The guard was one of the lucky ones, wearing infrared goggles to make policing the inmates easier.

Kyp debated, then sat next to the unfamiliar voice.

“I said go back to your seat!”

“This is my new seat,” Kyp said firmly, sending the guard a scowl.

“That is your new seat,” the guard echoed back.

Kyp shook his head. He wasn’t sure why that worked, but it was enough that it did. He leaned closer to the man now sitting next to him. The man had tensed during the exchange, attentive and aware, but utterly unprepared to deal with the reality of the Spice mines. “Are you from the outside?” he asked.

The man next to him took a breath, probably wondering if he was about to be slashed with a vibroblade, or pushed off the car. Such things happened often enough. The car lurched, beginning its motion, rolling down the rails and deeper into the caves, building speed. The sensation of stone rushing past, air brushing over his face and bringing with them new scents, was as familiar to him as his own skin.

“Yeah, we’re from out there,” the man said.

“I’m Kyp. Kyp Durron,” Kyp said. He still had the sneaking sensation that being here was a good idea, even if he didn’t know why… Behind them, the man’s Wookiee companion rumbled with a question, but Kyp didn’t understand him.

“How’d you end up on Kessel, Kyp?” the man asked. Kyp didn’t begrudge the man withholding his name; all new arrivals did at first. Everyone had enemies on Kessel.

“My parents were political prisoners, sent here by the Empire.” Kyp’s throat tightened. This was always the hardest part of meeting new people. He didn’t like remembering the past, even if there had been more sunlight. “They conscripted my brother Zeth and took him off to Carida to make him a stormtrooper, but I was too young.”

He heard the man grimace, could sense the twisting of his lips. The raw, sincere sympathy that Kyp could sense from him and the Wookiee reinforced the idea that meeting and talking with these two was a good idea, even if he still wasn’t quite sure why. “Sorry to hear that. The Empire does that to a lot of people, though not as much as they used to. What happened to your parents?”

Kyp swallowed hard. “During Doole’s revolt, they were accused of being trusties.” He swallowed again, fighting back sadness and loathing. “Imperial sympathizers. They… died.”

A large, adult hand found his shoulder. Kyp froze, his eyes widening, gasping the flowing air, the sense of moving stone just inches away still swirling around him. “Well, I’m Han. Stick close to me and Chewie, kid. We’ll look out for you.” The Wookiee rumbled something that sounded like agreement.

Kyp smiled despite himself, suddenly sure that he was exactly where he needed to be, when he needed to be there. It was the first time he’d smiled in… he wasn’t even sure how long. “No offense, but I think it’s going to be me looking out for you.”

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Four] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

KYP!

 

*goes back to the list of characters* Oh, hey look! *tugs it down a bit more* There was another name under "Prisoners on Kessel" that was hidden here the whole time...

 

Man, I'd swear I read the JAT at some point, but clearly I don't remember anything at all about it But despite that, I've always kind of liked Kyp, so I'm glad to see him here

 

It seems someone else has already seconded this, so....thirded.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty-Four

The Millennium Falcon’s smuggling compartment was the product of many years of clever space-making. Solo and Chewbacca had on several different occasions re-arranged the Falcon’s interior, taking advantage of the compartmentalized nature of the YT-1300 design to add hidden areas unique to the Falcon that a typical customs enforcement officer would overlook.

While the ship was in flight, this compartment—nestled between the ship’s outer hull and its major thruster assembly, in a narrow space just barely wide enough for a human being—would be deafeningly loud. But Iella and Mara had fit snugly inside after Han had set the ship down (and locked out the engines so that it would take a team of techs several hours at least to get the Falcon moving again).

They waited.

“I was a CorSec enforcement agent,” Iella groused. “And now I’m hidden in one of the Millennium Falcon’s smuggling compartments. This ship was notorious at the academy.” She sighed, wiggling to try to get just slightly more comfortable. “At least I’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that Solo’s going to have to rebuild the interior of this bucket all over again, just to fit in some new hidden compartments that I won’t know about.”

“You’ve been with NRI for a while now,” Mara pointed out. “Surely you’ve used smuggling compartments before.”

Iella smiled wryly. “Not only that, my CorSec partner went and married a smuggler. But it’s the principle of the thing. Besides, I have to complain otherwise I’ll lose my reputation for being tough on smugglers.” She twisted, attempting to stretch. “I’ve got a crick in my back and it’s starting to really hurt,” she muttered. “Can we get out of here yet?”

Mara closed her eyes, reaching out in the Force. This had been difficult, or even impossible, not that long ago, but in the last year her sensitivity had improved, better than ever. She could feel each mind as it traveled through the Falcon, feel their focus or distraction. The closer they came, the easier it became to sense each mind, candle flames in the dark. “No,” she murmured. “There is still a detachment searching the ship. They’re looking for hidden compartments like ours, but it doesn’t seem like they’re having much luck.”

“I hope they didn’t hire a CorSec inspection team” Iella muttered. “We know the YT-1300 inside and out. There are only so many places you can put a hidden compartment given its internal geometry.”

“They’re competent enough,” Mara said, her eyes still closed as she concentrated. “But they don’t have military discipline. Mercs, probably. Or other Fringers, maybe even former prisoners.”

Iella frowned. “Do you think they’ll find us?”

Mara opened her eyes, taking a second to withdraw her extended Force-sense, compacting her awareness back to its normal reach. “I have no idea,” she said bluntly. “But if they do, we’ll at least have forewarning.”

Iella wiggled, trying to get comfortable sandwiched between the Falcon’s inertial dampeners and the coolant line for the Quadex power core. “That’s something, I guess.” She sighed and slumped, finding a place to sit and rest her knees. “How long are we going to be hidden in here?”

“I don’t know that either,” Mara replied. “These guys seem diligent, but not paranoid.” She offered Iella a small smirk. “If I were in charge of searching the Falcon for intruders, I’d just flood the ship with something like Trion gas. It wouldn’t kill us, but it’d force us to evacuate or fall unconscious.”

“I hope they’re not as clever as you are,” Iella muttered. “Speaking of which, do we have our masks?”

Mara pointed at the box in the corner, stuffed with as many supplies as she could snag without leaving obvious items missing. “Over there.” Mara too sank down to the floor, groaning as she let herself relax. The Force would warn her if they were in immediate danger, she knew. “Might as well relax and just wait it out.” She winced, the hard floor already becoming uncomfortable. “As much as we can, anyway.”

* * *​

“How’d you end up in CorSec?”

The searchers were quite stubborn, but not very smart. It’d been two and a half hours since they’d landed, and Mara and Iella had started to run out of lighthearted conversation topics. Mara, somewhat reluctantly, had let the conversation stray into topics which had the potential for more depth.

It wasn’t that she didn’t like to talk to people. She could have friendly conversations. But real, deep conversations about her past, her present, her future? Those were reserved to a small handful of people. Karrde, on rare occasions. Skywalker. Leia, when the Councilor used her incredible conversation finesse to slip them into deeper waters before Mara had a chance to extract herself. Solo, exactly once. Madine too now, she supposed.

The list was growing.

Iella shrugged. “I didn’t know what else to do. I had a friend back home growing up who was taking the exam—her father was a CorSec investigator, pretty junior. So I went with her, took it on a lark. She failed the exam, I passed with flying colors.” She grimaced. “That was the end of our friendship, but it gave me a career path.”

Iella glanced over at Mara, who was curled into an awkward sitting position, one of the Falcon’s maintenance hatches pressing annoyingly into her side. “I’ve read your file.”

Mara nodded, her expression carefully blank. “I don’t have much of a recruitment story. Not one I remember, anyway.” She leaned back into the hatch, shifting a bit so it prodded a different spot for a while, a needling ache that matched the one Iella’s comment evoked.

“Why did you leave the Empire? After Palpatine’s death, I mean.”

“It wasn’t an Empire worth serving anymore,” Mara said bluntly. “I’d never had a high opinion of the sycophants and sociopaths that Palpatine surrounded himself with. As far as I was concerned, he was the Empire, everyone else was just necessary grease for the gears of state.” She thought back to those chaotic hours, after Palpatine’s last command had imprinted on her brain, leaving her near-catatonic on the floor of the Imperial palace. “They considered me a threat, and they were right to. Isard locked me up and I have no doubt she would have killed me, just to make sure I didn’t get in her way. I had no allegiance to her, or to power-hungry upstarts like Thrawn or Pestage. So there was nothing to stay for, and every reason to leave.”

Iella nodded, and to Mara’s surprise she offered Mara a sympathetic smile, a ghost of old pain leaving lines across her face. “I wasn’t all that fond of Isard either.”

“I doubt any Rebel operatives liked her much.”

“My grudge was personal.” Iella stretched out her legs, found that position didn’t help at all, tried again. Her combat-booted feet extended towards Mara, leaving the two women vaguely facing each other in the small space. “She killed my husband.”

Mara thought back to the pictures in Iella’s apartment. One in particular—the older man, in the black-bordered portrait which was nearest Iella when Mara had come in. He had looked kind, almost soft.

“Diric,” Iella said, with an old fondness that bespoke both happiness and pain. “Old Corellian name.” She stretched, or tried to, and winced as something prodded her. “He was kind and patient, and at the time I was overcaffeinated and bitter. He provided stability I’d never had before, certainly not at home. He came from old family money, and growing up the way I did, that felt like heaven, but he didn’t have the crass self-satisfaction that coming from wealth can sometimes give people.” She leaned back and seemed to find her new position more comfortable. “He was a roving lecturer, but somehow he ended up inviting himself into my CorSec offices and ended up a sort of ad-hoc advisor to Corran, Gil, and me. He always thought we’d missed something important.” She chuckled. “Usually we had. It was horribly aggravating.” Her voice grew fond, but the pain hung on every exhale. “He was home.”

Was this normal? Sometimes the Wild Karrde’s crew would talk about their relationships, but Faughn was always tight-lipped about hers, and Chin, Aves, and Dankin had different ideas about what constituted relationships—at least, that they were willing to share. She’d seen Leia and Han together, a handful of times, but in the Imperial Palace it had always seemed like every relationship was an arrangement, high politics by alternative means. That wasn’t what Iella was describing at all.

“Isard took him,” Iella said quietly, anguish heavy in her voice. “Lusankya.”

That one word was enough to make Mara grimace. Lusankya. It had been Isard’s prison, her lair, her Super Star Destroyer. It was where she took her prisoners and implanted commands deep in their subconscious, turned them against themselves—and everyone they loved.

“I don’t think he’d ever picked up a blaster in his life before that last night,” Iella said quietly. “I didn’t even realize who he was until after I’d already shot him.” The Corellian curled into herself, putting her forehead down into her knee.

Mara swallowed. Sorrow poured over Iella in waves, but it was scarred over; numb, without the agony of a fresh wound. The emotion swirled even still, love and pain and loss all mingled together. It was fresh and new, shocking and real and painful and Mara found herself both sympathetic and oddly jealous. “I’m sorry,” she said. That was what you were supposed to say, wasn’t it? It seemed woefully inadequate.

Iella offered her a weak smile. “At least Isard’s paid for her crimes.”

Isard had been the wiliest, double-dealing person in the whole Empire, with a twisted brain full of contingency plans, and Mara wanted confirmation. Iella’s hurt cut deeper than Mara’s own, but Mara had spent five years on the run, living in poverty, dodging Isard’s agents before she’d finally decided she was done hiding and had fallen in with Karrde. She felt uncomfortable asking, but she had to know. “Are you sure she’s dead?”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Iella said with certainty. “But you’re right to ask. We thought she was dead at Thyferra, but she popped up again a few months ago. And not just her. The real article, and a clone.”

Mara sat up, horrified. “What?!” At Iella’s sober look, Mara groaned. “Bad enough that I had to kill a Skywalker clone, there was another Isard, too? Are you sure they’re both dead?”

“Wedge killed the clone,” Iella said with grim satisfaction. “She tried to escape the same way the real one had at Thyferra, but Wedge recognized the double bluff. He hit her with a concussion missile.” Iella glanced over at Mara, and her eyes were hard. “I killed the real one. She wounded me, but my blaster took her in the gut.” Iella firmed her lips together with a ferocity that Mara recognized. She’d seen it on the face of particularly outraged Imperial officers.

She’d seen it on her own face.

“I watched her bleed out, then we spaced the corpse.” Iella’s voice was cold.

“So that’s how she went,” Mara said with no small amount of satisfaction. Isard had deserved no better. “I had wanted to kill her myself. When we get out of here, I’ll have to send you and Antilles both a bottle of Whyren’s Reserve.”

Iella laughed. “Don’t bother buying two—or do, and just send them both to my place. Wedge doesn’t have his own apartment on Coruscant anymore, so when we’re both on-world he stays with me.”

The implications of the statement took a moment to process. “You and Antilles?” she asked, surprised—and oddly relieved. “I thought he was just a fighter jock. You know, live fast, die young and leave a tremendous explosion?” She had met Wedge Antilles a few times, but only briefly each time. Mara mostly remembered that he’d seemingly lacked all skill in subterfuge. She knew Skywalker considered him a close friend, though.

“It took us a while to get there,” Iella said, “but, yeah. Wedge and I are together.” She sighed. “Even if we’re almost never actually together.” She adjusted her posture again, grimacing. “I’m getting horribly stiff,” she muttered. “And don’t underestimate Wedge. He may have spent his entire adult life flying X-wings for the Rebellion and the New Republic, but he’s got depths. You remember all those drawings back at my apartment?”

Mara thought back. Yes, she thought. She did. There had been one of Coronet City, at least judging from the landmark buildings that framed the skyline. And another of a playground at the famous Treasure Ship Row, another Coronet City landmark. And other Corellia-based landmarks: The Gold Beaches, the great Victree Falls, still others she hadn’t immediately recognized. There’d been at least one of a small space station, probably a fueling station from its design, which had seemed incongruous with the others. “Antilles drew those? I didn’t know he had the talent.”

“If our lives had turned out differently, he probably would have ended up an architect working on projects in Coronet. I’d bet a project manager, he’s an excellent leader.” Iella smiled fondly. “He’s a good man. More comfortable inside a cockpit than he is outside one, but a good man.” Her voice faded slightly. “And I love him.”

Mara could feel the sincerity in those words, and she could feel wisps of the emotion beneath them. The affection, the longing. Iella missed Wedge, missed his company and companionship, missed the sense of togetherness and place they had when they were together.

A pang snuck into her gut. A phantom pain of something that she was sure could never hurt her, because she’d never had it to begin with. But the pain was there, mixed with longing and desire and now was not the time to grapple with it.

Iella laughed, and the sound was so unexpected that Mara’s head snapped up. “It’s funny really,” Iella continued. “After Diric died, Wedge was there for me. He and Corran helped keep my head up, helped keep me going. Made me want something more than just Isard dead at my feet, and eventually I started to think… started to imagine, even expect that we’d fall into a relationship. That we were already in a relationship that neither of us had thought to acknowledge. But I could never push past Diric’s memory, I wasn’t ready yet, wasn’t comfortable. I was waiting for some sign that it was time to move on, to start over.” She smiled wryly at Mara. “I expected Wedge to give me that signal, and he never did. He didn’t want to put pressure on me, didn’t want to do anything that might be unethical, so he just hovered, waiting for me.”

Mara found herself curious. “So what happened?”

“It was after I killed Isard. After we both did. During that mission he and the Rogues went undercover and part of that cover was faking their death. I didn’t know he wasn’t really dead and all I could think was I lost another one. You think it would hurt less because we were never together but—” she shook her head “—trust me, it doesn’t. Then he was alive again and we were together again on Coruscant and,” Iella shrugged, “we were together, and alone, and I just kissed him.” She smiled at Mara. “Not much changed really. We’d already been together in all but name. The Rogues had a pool going. Ooryl won.” She smiled fondly. “Nothing changed, and everything changed.”

Mara was quiet. Imperial stormtroopers had never shared intimate details of their personal lives on missions before. Karrde’s people were tightlipped about such things too, or flamboyantly open about it, and neither described this conversation with Iella. She was reminded of Gorb, who had taken her in and given her a room to stay in—and told her how the room belonged to his dead son, who had died in battle. It had been an intimate conversation, one that she hadn’t really appreciated at the time. She had been the Emperor’s Hand then, still learning who Mara Jade would be without Palpatine.

Iella’s foot nudged hers, and Mara’s attention returned to the Corellian. “Whenever you want to share your stories, I’ll listen.”

Mara understood instantly what Iella was doing. It was classic small-unit doctrine, building camaraderie between members who had to be able to trust and rely on one another. It was also perhaps the nicest thing anyone had ever said to her. She didn’t really have any stories, exactly, but for now a nod was enough. As an afterthought, she stretched out with the Force to check on the people still searching the Falcon for stowaways, and found none. “It seems like we’re all clear.”

“Oh, great,” Iella said, grimacing as she struggled to her feet, wincing as joints cracked and muscles ached. “Let’s get out of here,” she muttered. “There’s only so long I can be locked in a smuggling compartment before I get angry and frustrated.”

Mara checked her blaster’s power pack as Iella saw to her own weapons. Fully charged. “I couldn't agree more.”

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Four, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

I absolutely adored this. Iella shared a lot and gave Mara a lot to mull over, eventually. To imagine a relationship or actually finding you're already in one ... Embarking on one to find that nothing and everything had changed.

 

I mean, honestly, that is kind of a satisfying thought.

Ooh, good metaphor.

That's our efficient girl

I notice Luke's is the only name she mentions without a caveat...

Such a learning curve Mara has, trying to figure out what normal life is. Not very much of what she ever saw or experienced came close.

Haha, yes, Mara didn't half like Luke saying appreciative things about Iella

Really good subtleties you have here, showing how much Mara already realizes and just isn't quite ready to face.

A good thing for Mara to hear, yes, thank you, Iella

I hope Wedge wins the pool on Luke and Mara

Aw, I really like Mara and Iella being friends

 

Iella and Mara do make a great pair and team! It's a shame we didn't get to see more of them together in the EU.

It is remarkable how often Luke appears in Mara's thoughts... oh, Mara.

I'm going to post the second half of Chapter 24 a day early, because I'm feeling antsy this morning. It'll be up in a minute!

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty-Four, Part II

The hangar wasn’t empty. There was a guard standing watch at the end of the ramp, an old blaster rifle slung lazily at his side. He was fiddling with a datapad, not keeping a very close watch, but they’d searched the ship and Mara figured he must feel sure there was no one left aboard.

She shifted towards Iella. “One guard at the bottom of the ramp,” she murmured. “I don’t sense any others nearby, but there are people on the floors below us.”

They were both wearing breathing masks. Kessel’s thin atmosphere was breathable but not without difficulty, and the particulates in the air could be irritating to both the skin and eyes with prolonged exposure. The Millennium Falcon sat atop one of Kessel’s many semi-covered landing pads, with an overhang that offered a modicum of protection to the ship’s more sensitive systems. The blue-white star that the planet orbited cast dim light that would stress the human eye.

All in all, Mara thought, there were worse planets in the galaxy, but not many.

Iella peeked around the corner, then nodded at Mara, pulling her light brown-blonde hair back into a tighter ponytail, then checking her blaster rifle again. “We should avoid a fight if we can.”

“I think we can,” Mara agreed softly. Poking her head back to peer at the guard, she debated trying a mind-trick and decided against it. “I’m going to distract him,” she murmured, “and then we’re going to duck down the ramp. Do you have a light step?”

Iella grinned. “Do you? I always used to wonder if Corran was going to give us away when we went skulking around a smuggler’s den.”

“I used to skulk around the Imperial Palace,” Mara scoffed. She focused on the hangar, then reached out with the Force. There was a piece of metal, old and rickety, dangling precariously from the overhang, not that far from the exit that led into the Correctional Facility building. It took her two attempts before she could pluck it in a mental grip. Curling her fingers back towards her, she tugged and—

The metal, which originally had been part of the particulate shield that prevented freighters like the Falcon from suffering engine damage while on the ground, fell. It clattered to the ground, bouncing on its edge before twirling around before falling still.

The guard jumped, dropping his datapad. “Shavit!” he exclaimed as the pad cracked, and his groan was audible from the Falcon. “What was that?!” He bent down and retrieved the pad, then started to walk over to the fallen metal, peering up and shading his gaze with a hand, wincing as the blue-white light scorched his eyes. “I kriffing hate this place,” he muttered to himself.

Mara and Iella waited until he was at the edges of their view, still peering up, then took quick steps to the top of the ramp. Iella swung over, dropping down and ducking behind one of the Falcon’s landing struts. Mara followed quickly and they huddled together.

“Serth to control, one of the hangar shades has fallen,” the guard was saying into his comlink. “It almost hit me! Damn thing bounced like five meters!” They could see his legs as he walked first towards the exit, then started pacing between the exit and the Falcon’s ramp. “Do I get hazard pay for this?”

They could overhear the tinny voice on the other side of the guard's comlink. “Are you getting shot at?”

“Well, no. There’s no one here.”

“Then you don’t get hazard pay. This isn’t a charity,” the voice came back, sarcastic and staticky on the other end of the link.

“This whole planet ought to be enough for hazard pay,” the guard retorted. “Between the sun, the air, and the people it’s amazing anyone survives for long. You know, when I signed on with Tavira I didn’t sign up to garrison Kessel.”

“People usually don’t survive on Kessel for long,” the guard’s superior responded dryly. “That’s kind of the point. And when you signed on with Tavira, you signed on to do whatever she asked you to do, and you did because the pay is good and the perks are great.”

Mara reached up with the Force and found a second loose metal overhang, pulling with the Force and—

“Stang!” the guard exclaimed, jumping and dropping his datapad a second time as the second metal panel struck the floor. This one fell flat, the sound of its impact with the floor a thunderous bang. “Another one fell!” He stepped around, out of their sight towards the fresh panel.

Iella nodded at Mara and the two women darted across, keeping the Falcon between them and the guard, now faced away from them, still complaining loudly on his comlink. Their quiet footsteps were drowned out by his voice as his anger and annoyance grew louder and more pointed, and the responses of his superior grew equally so. By the time he turned back around, pacing angrily, now nearly shouting into the comlink, they were ducked into the corridor.

“Now what?” Iella asked.

“We need computer access,” Mara replied softly. “We need to access Vorru’s communications records, figure out what they did with Solo and Chewbacca, and see if any of my old Imperial codes work here to help us plan an escape.”

Iella nodded.

The corridor branched in multiple directions, and Mara and Iella took the ones where Mara couldn’t sense sapient life. The metal deck-plating looked like it came off an Old Republic transport, which given the age of the facility, it might actually be of the same make. The floors were scuffed with age and use, but the air much better than it had been outside and they both removed their masks. “We need an officer’s terminal,” Iella murmured. “Maybe one of the residence dorms, or secure offices.”

“It doesn’t seem like the people who took this place from the Empire have made full use of the facilities,” Mara murmured, comparing a map of the facility with her own sense of the living creatures that filled it. She’d gotten much better of late doing this, using her spatial senses and Force powers to give herself a mental map of potential (living) threats, better even than she’d been at it while she served Palpatine. “Let’s try over here,” she murmured, gesturing at what the map said had been an officers’ dormitory, but which the Force told her was abandoned.

It was a ten-minute walk, and they’d had to stop and wait for passers-by more than once. “It seems like Doole has lost control,” Iella said softly after the second group of guards marched on past, with a step that was more stormtrooper imitation than genuine article. “Vorru and Tavira may be letting him run this place still, but all the guards we’ve seen so far look more like pirates than former prisoners.”

“From what I know of Vorru,” Mara replied softly, “he’d prefer to co-opt than overthrow. I don’t know anything about Tavira though, what’s her history?”

“She was a concubine of the Moff of Ado sector,” Iella replied quietly. “Assassinated and connived her way into the role herself, then used her new position to try to advance herself further. She lost control of the planet a few years ago, and has been working to re-establish herself ever since.”

“Sounds dangerous.”

Iella shrugged. “She’s definitely charismatic,” she replied. “And resourceful, and conniving.”

“Sounds like Isard.”

“More charismatic, but in a personal appeal kind of way. Isard had a way of making people believe in her ability to dominate the galaxy that Tavira lacks. And Tavira is much less clever when it comes to conniving. She doesn’t think big enough.”

Mara nodded. There were few people who were as clever as Isard when it came to conniving, which was why Palpatine had tolerated her. Or so he’d told Mara, anyway. “We’re clear.” They jogged some of the way, dodging two more patrols, then ducked into a lift that would take them up to the dormitory levels. “These feel abandoned,” Mara explained, watching the numbers of the lift shift as they rose up. They each took one side of the lift door, and exited cautiously when it finally arrived.

There had been a battle on this floor, and it had never been fully cleaned up. There were blaster scorches all along the walls, some gouged quite deeply by heavy weaponry. The air was thinner too, and Mara and Iella put their masks back on. “They must not bother maintaining the air up here,” Iella said. She gestured at the battle damage. “This was part of the fight between the Imperials and the prisoners when Doole staged his revolt?” she asked Mara.

“I think so,” Mara replied. “These would’ve been the Imperial officers’ quarters, so when the Doole’s people took over they would’ve come up here to kill them and loot their possessions.”

“I hope they didn’t pull all the computers out of the wall,” Iella muttered.

* * *​

The old Imperial garrison barracks had been looted beyond recognition. The walls had been pried open to rummage for expensive components; doors were laid off their hinges within or outside of different quarters. Blaster scars and worse darkened the old metallic structure. The building had been old and worn down even before Doole’s uprising, but the corridor-to-corridor fighting during that conflict ensured that this building would never be used again. There were too many loose components, sparking wires, weakened walls. Doole and his supporters had taken up residence elsewhere, parlaying their Spice-based fortunes into renovations of less grisly scenes.

Even still, there were places in the garrison that had been largely untouched. At the end of one of the halls was a set of senior officer quarters. These had been more heavily reinforced than the regular quarters, and while there were many signs that Doole’s men had attempted to breach them (their doors were scarred from blaster fire), it appeared that one of them remained sealed.

“Whoever lived here must not have been home when the uprising started,” Iella murmured as Mara pried off the outer casing of the door controls.

Mara nodded as she worked. These door latches were Old Republic vintage, which meant they should lack some of the more modern security that had been built into Empire-era facilities. Luckily, the controls were still powered; some of the buttons on the panel still gleamed green, though most of them had worn off. With a yelp she drew her hand back, the mild electric shock leaving her fingers tingling.

“What are you trying to do?”

Mara looked over at Iella, tilting her head to the side. “Is that hairpin you’re wearing made of wood?” she asked.

Iella frowned in confusion, then reached back and pulled the pin from her hair. She handed it to Mara as she tied her hair back into a new ponytail. “Here.”

Taking it, Mara wedged the wood against the console, using it to prod the controls carefully. “Palpatine had override codes programmed into just about everything,” she muttered softly.

“But this place predates the Empire,” Iella pointed out. “So there shouldn’t be any—”

The door popped open. Mara turned towards Iella, handing the Corellian back her hairpin. “Palpatine was Chancellor before he was Emperor,” she said. “And he was a Senator before that.” She stuck her fingers into the space between the two sliding parts of the door and pulled, forcing the door open halfway.

Iella stared at her. “That’s pretty scary,” she muttered, putting her hairpin back.

Mara shrugged, turning sideways to slide into the room. It was dark within—the lights didn’t respond when activated—so Mara activated the light on her blaster and swept it across the room. A second light joined hers as Iella slipped inside. They both stopped on the computer console in the corner, a small red light blinking to let them know it still had some power supply. “Hopefully its connection to the main computer didn’t get cut,” Mara said.

Iella nodded, walking over to the side of the room and pulling open the shades covering a window. Harsh blue-white light shone into the room, and they both winced and turned away. “I’ll search this place and see what I can find,” Iella volunteered. “You see what you can do with that terminal.”

“Right.” Mara holstered her blaster again, pulling the old chair out from the desk and settling into it. The terminal took a while to start, and by the time it was ready Iella had returned. She put a pair of goggles on the desk next to Mara. “What are these?” asked Mara.

“Infrared goggles. Probably for being able to see down in the Spice Mines,” Iella responded. “I found them in the closet, along with a few commander’s uniforms and some other private possessions.”

“Go grab me one of his rank plaques, there’s ID information encoded in those,” Mara suggested as she started to search through the extent of her computer access. She grinned as she found what she was looking for. “Good news. This system is still networked with the facility’s main computer, and that’s networked with both the HoloNet and traffic control.”

Iella handed Mara one of the officer’s rank plaques. “Here.”

Mara took it, examined it, then broke it open. From the split metal chrome she pried out a small cylinder, then plugged it into her datapad. “Commander Edverse,” she said. “Looks like he was one of the officers commanding the Spice mine security detail. Young for his rank, but he must have displeased someone to get assigned this detail.” She nodded at the infrared goggles. “Explains why he had those.”

“He must have died during the uprising,” Iella said.

Mara turned back to the computer, inputting the dead Commander’s information into the system. “It looks like Doole never purged all the old Imperial codes from the system,” she murmured. “From here, and with that,” she nodded at the chip she’d pulled from Edverse’s rank plaque, “I can override some of the security systems in the mines… that might come in handy later, although—”

One of the buttons on her keyboard started blinking green. “What’s that?” asked Iella.

“The holocomm is active,” Mara replied, already typing furiously. “Let’s see… if it was built after Palpatine served on the Senate’s military procurement committee, then—” There was a fuzz from the speakers. Mara grinned, working some more.

“. . . you ought to be able to handle a human and a Wookiee on your own, Captain Nive,” said a female voice, her tone bearing more than a hint of sarcasm. “Even if they are Han Solo and Chewbacca. It’s not like you had to deal with a Jedi.”

“Yes ma’am,” said a familiar, professional semi-military voice. “They’re in custody now. Doole had them sent to the Spice mines.”

Iella leaned towards Mara. “That’s the man who forced us down,” she murmured in Mara’s ear, listening. “Same voice.”

“I would prefer nothing happen to them,” said a new male voice with a smooth Corellian accent, confident and precise.

“And that’s Vorru,” murmured Iella. “I think the first voice must be Tavira.”

“Solo and the Wookiee are valuable assets,” Vorru continued. “They could be worth a great deal in ransom, and at the moment we’re not looking to make the New Republic an inexorable foe. They discovered us on Coruscant but we escaped, and I believe we escaped without causing any loss of life among the New Republic’s forces, which is a state I would prefer to maintain for now.”

Tavira sighed audibly. “Are you sure they’re there searching for Vorru?” she asked.

“Yes,” said Nive’s voice. “We confirmed that with a glitterstim interrogation of Solo, which Doole conducted.”

“I expect to be well compensated for the stress it put on me,” came Doole’s voice for the first time.

“Your glitterstim addiction is not my responsibility,” Vorru said coolly, “and I will not subsidize it. Captain Nive, if you would, please show Administrator Doole to the exit. I would like to speak with you privately.”

“Now wait just a minute, we had a deal—” there was the sound of scuffling and protesting, a door closing, and then all was quiet.

“He’s been removed, sir,” said Nive.

“Jacob,” came Tavira’s voice, like silk. “I want you to pick your two best squadrons and send them to meet Invidious at the local rendezvous. You know the place. Repairs on Invidious are complete and I believe it’s time for your pilots to receive long-overdue promotions. I also have some new clutch starfighters for your replacement pilots.”

Mara and Iella glanced at one another. “The local rendezvous?” asked Iella quietly.

Mara shrugged. “Good operational security. Nive is probably the only one here who knows where it is. Unless we can get aboard one of their ships, we’re not going to be able to trace them back to their source.”

“I wonder if we can get a tracking device aboard,” Iella mused.

Nive was speaking again. “Yes, Admiral,” he said. “I’ll send one of our flight cruisers. What do you want me to do with Solo and the Wookiee?”

“It would have been better were they not sent to the mines,” said Vorru. “The dangers down there are real. If anything happens to them, the New Republic will come down on Kessel with a fury. But what’s done is done. Hold them for now, they may be useful bargaining chips later.”

“Yes, sir. I’m sorry sir, Doole insisted.”

“Do try to make nice with Doole, if you can,” Vorru added. “His spice addiction does not addle him as much as it might appear at first, and he is an able administrator. More importantly, the New Republic does tacitly accept him as the legitimate ruling authority on Kessel.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll try, sir.”

“If you can’t, and the New Republic decides to take Solo’s imprisonment personally, make sure Doole receives the blame. You can point out he gave the order to imprison Solo in the mines, and that your men never fired on Solo when he arrived.”

“Yes sir.”

“You have done well, Jacob,” said Tavira. “I’ll be sending you and your people a large bonus for your work.”

“Thank you, Admiral.”

There was a click and the HoloNet link was terminated. Mara leaned back in the chair, Iella standing beside her with a thoughtful expression. “So, what now?” Iella asked.

“We can’t leave Solo and Chewbacca in the mines,” Mara said. “And I’d like to try to get out of here and surreptitiously follow Nive’s pilots when they head off to their rendezvous with Tavira.”

Iella turned and sat on the desk, frowning. “Our overall objective is to capture Vorru and Eliezer,” she said. “Ideally Tavira also, but Vorru and Eliezer are more important. Right now we know they’re together, and we know they’re aboard Invidious, so some way to keep tabs on their position would be ideal.” She sighed softly. “But we do need to get Solo and Chewbacca first,” she said with reluctant assurance. “I promised Councilor Organa Solo I wouldn’t let anything happen to her husband.”

Mara doubted Skywalker would be too happy either. “Maybe we will have an opportunity to slip a tracking device onto one of their ships on the way back out,” she suggested. “In the meantime, let’s see what else I can use this computer to do to help us get Solo and Chewbacca back.”

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Five] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Great as they work together to liberate Han, Chewbacca, and hopefully Kyp as well. I hope they can track down Vorru and Eliezer.

 

Just a small note of appreciation for the realism of someone tying long hair back before going into potential action. I don't care how pretty and dramatic it looks on film, no one with long hair is going to deliberately leave it down before any sort of physical altercation, for heaven's sake.

I love these girls

This is a very realistic detail, and one I had never thought of before. I like how nonchalant Mara is about it, too

Now that's a potentially useful bit of information

I'm with Iella on this, yet still amused by how casually Mara takes it into account

Deeply amused by both Iella's reluctance and Mara's thoughts automatically going to Luke

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty Five

“What’s Coruscant like?” Kyp asked. Even the pitch-black darkness couldn’t dampen the kid’s enthusiasm. If it wasn’t so exhausting—and distracting—Han would probably find it endearing.

“It’s just a big city, kid, people and buildings from horizon to horizon.” He slid his fingers through the crushed rock that lined the floor of the mine, his numbed fingers searching for strands of glitterstim. All around them, other bodies moved, silent and numbed even worse than Han’s fingers.

Chewie made a low, plaintive sound, and Han sympathized. His fingers weren’t calloused enough for this. On the bright side, he had no intention to be working down here for long enough to get the calluses that would make it easier.

The only enthusiasm in the whole, expansive mine shaft was Kyp. Somehow no matter how many years the kid had spent in this darkness, with only the brief breaks for meals and sleep to indulge in even dim light, he still had the energy for eager questioning. The fact that Kyp had already managed to find enough glitterstim fragments to account for Han and Chewie’s required sum, in addition to his own, built a knot of suspicion in Han’s gut.

It would be just like the universe to drop another Force-sensitive teenager on him, wouldn’t it. Of course it would. It wasn’t enough that Luke Skywalker had fallen into his life and never wandered out again, although the universe compensated Han for that by using Luke to introduce Leia, thus giving him a wonderful wife and brother-in-law. He’d even forgive the universe for dropping Jacen and Jaina on him.

(Okay, fine, he admitted silently. The twins were at least half his own fault. And he wouldn’t trade them for anything.)

But now to add another Force-strong teenager, if that was what Kyp was? Han wasn’t sure if he ought to be grateful or paranoid. He had more luck finding Force-strong individuals than Luke, and he wasn’t even trying.

“Wow,” Kyp said. “I remember Feiya on Deyer. It was on a lagoon, in the middle of a giant ocean. I can’t imagine a city as big as that ocean.”

Han grimaced. Deyer didn’t have any cities now. The Empire had bombarded them all from orbit after the planet had issued a formal condemnation of the Empire and formally seceded in protest after Alderaan’s destruction. Best not to point that out, he thought.

“So, kid,” he said instead. “Tell me more about what else is down here, and the daily routine.”

Kyp slid next to him, drawing still more glitterstim fibers from the layer of rocks on the ground. Han could feel the pouch they used growing fuller and fuller and became even more convinced that Kyp was Force-sensitive. It was either that or the kid could see in the dark.

“When we finish our shift,” Kyp explained, “they’ll bring us back to the mining cars and ship us back up to the barracks. They’ll feed us, ration bars if we’re lucky or nutrigruel if we’re not, then they’ll put us to sleep with a somno-inducer. In the morning they’ll give us some more food and send us back down and we’ll start over again.”

Han lowered his voice. “Can you tell me more about the layout? Any computer terminals we might access?”

Kyp turned and Han could feel the kid’s eyes on him in the dark. “Maybe,” he said finally. “Why?”

“Look, kid,” Han said, wishing desperately he could see and give Kyp one of his patented looks of entreaty. Leia claimed to have taught it to him, and Han let her claim credit, but the life of a smuggler gave plenty of opportunities to develop persuasion skills. “We need to get a signal out. My ship is still here, and if we can get to it, I can get you, and me, and Chewie all out of here. I’ll take you to Coruscant and you can see the city for yourself.”

He wasn’t sure if Iella and Mara would need help finding them, but Han wasn’t about to take any chances. A few minutes with the computer and he could make sure Iella and Mara would know where they were… though it might be a bit messy.

Kyp was silent for a long moment, breathing quietly. “I can get to it, if you tell me what to do,” he said finally. “I can resist the somno-inducer.”

Han blinked in the darkness. Somno-inducers weren’t particularly common around the galaxy, but they were sometimes used in prisons to put prisoners to sleep at night. They wouldn’t keep the subjects asleep indefinitely—they worked by amplifying the body’s natural fatigue, and if the subject wasn’t fatigued, or was sufficiently amped on adrenaline, they could resist its effects. But that didn’t seem to be what Kyp was implying. “I won’t be able to?” he asked.

Kyp's voice came back from the darkness after a moment. “No, probably not. I’m the only one down here who seems to be able to after a hard day’s work in the mines.”

If Han had needed further reason to suspect Kyp was Force-sensitive, he now had it. Instead of bringing it up, he just nodded, then remembered that Kyp couldn’t see the nod. “If I tell you exactly what to do, do you think you’ll be able to do it?” he asked instead.

“I’ve been a prisoner on Kessel for years,” Kyp said, his tone dipping into a quiet, calm rage that Han could sympathize all-too-well with. “I’m really, really good at following orders. And if you think it’ll get us out of here, there’s nothing I won’t do.” His tone shifted from hateful to a mourning lament that Han could also sympathize all-too-well with. “Besides. I’d like to see Coruscant. Maybe look up my brother.” He turned wistful. “Maybe see the ocean again.”

“Don’t worry kid,” Han said with more confidence than he felt. “Chewie and me have been in tougher spots than this one.”

Chewbacca quietly growled his agreement.

Even in the dark Han could feel Kyp staring at them, blank-faced. “If that was a recruitment pitch, it wasn’t a very good one.”

* * *​

Every night started the same. The guards would bring them up to the barracks, stunners in hand, and push them all into the mess. They’d eat the slop they were given, the tasteless, textureless nutrigruel that provided them with enough strength to see through the day, but only just. There would be an occasional fight, the rage and despair and hopelessness of the prisoners boiling over, fighting back if only for a change of pace; Kyp joined in sometimes, just to feel something other than the monotonous, dull, embittered and numbed sensation of life on Kessel.

That had attracted him to Han and Chewie. They were new. Lively. Hopeful. Defiant. On Kessel, those emotions died eventually. If it wasn’t after a week, it was after a month. Or a year. Or a decade. Those who could resist despair were few; Kyp could vaguely remember a cadre of Corellians who had still had the ability to laugh and plot, but they were all gone now.

Once they’d eaten their fill, they were herded into the bunks and the somno-inducer activated. Aliens who could resist it were always taken away; humans never could. Kyp could hear the sudden calming of Han’s breathing, of Chewbacca’s breathing, as they were drawn inexorably into sleep, unable to resist the device.

Every night he’d heard the hum of the somno-inducer. Every night he’d felt it amplify his fatigue, press down, make his eyelids heavy. He’d fade quickly into a restless sleep, plagued by chaotic dreams. The worst dreams weren’t the ones of his parents’ deaths, or the ones of the destruction of Deyer, or even the ones of his brother being taken away by the Imperial stormtroopers, before Doole’s revolt. The worst dreams were the ones of the Spice mines, the gravel under his fingertips, the filaments of glitterstim between his fingers.

He’d learned to resist the somno-inducer. It had been a slow learning process, one of months, perhaps years—who could say, when every day was the same. There was an ad-hoc calendar the prisoners kept so that they could know when their prison terms were at an end, but few ever reached the end of a term, and Kyp himself had never committed a crime in the first place. He’d just been caught in the wake of his parents’ resistance, resistance that he reminded himself every single day to hold on to. Resistance fed by the memory of Zeth’s kidnapping. Resistance because it was the only thing that felt alive down here.

The guards didn’t keep a close watch at night. There wasn’t any point; once the somno-inducer had put the prisoners out, they were out. He slipped off the bunk, peering in the very dim light out towards the rest of the complex. The lift shaft that went all the way back up into the main base structure was at the end of the corridor, green and red lights gleaming above the lift doors. Next to it was the security station, a room that would be sealed shut with a single guard inside during the day.

The Empire had been diligent about keeping it properly guarded even at night, but Doole’s men were not so careful. They trusted the somno-inducer more than they should, and Kyp crept towards the station and pushed the door open enough to slide through. He knew the basics of how to use computers, though it had been a long time since he’d operated one, and Han’s instructions had been very precise. He concentrated, focusing on the memory of those instructions, watching Han’s hands as they moved over the panel. He closed his eyes, taking a breath, his hands guiding their way over the control panel without reliance on his sight.

“We don’t need to do much,” Han had told him. “Just get a message out, and hopefully get a message in.”

He accessed the station’s communications system, then carefully input the string of numbers and letters that Han had made him memorize and then recite back a dozen times. The phrase Han had told him to enter next was gibberish, but Kyp dutifully entered it in anyway.

He waited, as Han had told him to. It took a few minutes. Maybe a lot of minutes, Kyp wasn’t sure… time could be funny down in the mines.

WILL COME TOMORROW. YOU’LL KNOW WHEN.

He blinked at the message a few times, then did what Han had told him to do to reset the terminal. Slipping back to the bunks, he hoisted himself quietly into his bunk and tried not to let the words get him too excited.

When was the last time he’d anticipated tomorrow, he wondered?

It was the first night he’d ever felt eager while letting the somno-inducer draw him into sleep.

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Five, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Kyp's POV was a true treat. He's a quick learner and a true survivor as you'd have to be Han's musings about finding Force sensitives without trying made me chuckle.

 

Han's not wrong, which cracks me up. Mr "Hokey Religions and Ancient Weapons" is a magnet for Force sensitives

Poor Kyp Honestly, the only books I remember reading that had Kyp in them were the NJO (he was probably in the ones that came after that too, but I am never, never reading them again to double check), and those were a long time ago, so I'm kind of getting reacquainted with him here. I like him

Ha, Mara and Iella will surely provide an exciting day

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty-Five, Part II

Han found himself jostled awake and forcibly bodied into the mess, shoved towards the slop that the guards laughably called food. He thought of his kitchen on Coruscant, of what he’d make for the kids for breakfast—of the fit they would have thrown if he’d fed them anything like the grey, tasteless gruel in his bowl.

Chewbacca yowled in pain as he was shoved into the mess, grunting as he slammed into the table next to Han. The other prisoners were already eating, and Han searched until he found Kyp. The dark-haired teenager didn’t have much of a sabacc face, Han noticed dourly, anticipation and excitement were both plain on his face. But after hearing Kyp’s story, and seeing the dull, almost lifeless gazes that the other prisoners never seemed to lose, he was just glad the kid could still smile.

“We’re going to take him with us,” he murmured to Chewie. “The kid doesn’t belong down here with all these criminals.”

The Wookiee growled softly in agreement, his large head nodding subtly.

Han sighed. “Right. Well, stick close to him and me, Chewie, and let’s find out what the score is.”

The buzzer that signaled the end to breakfast went off and the guards started moving them all towards the mining cars that would take them down into the Spice mines. Kyp managed to shimmy his way through the mass of prisoners and guards, sliding over next to Han and Chewie with the ease of long practice. A shove at his back sent Han stumbling into the nearest mining car, and Chewie and Kyp clambered in after him, clustering together at the end of the car, the lights growing dimmer and dimmer as the car started moving down into the dark.

Han waited until it was pitch dark before leaning towards Kyp. “Did you mana—”

Kyp’s excited whispers cut him off. “I got a message back,” he said, leaning into Han’s shoulder to make sure the sound didn’t carry, and to be heard over the steady, mechanical grating of the mining car. “Your friends said they’d come today, and we’d know when.”

Han frowned. They’d now returned to total darkness, the sense of stone just above his head, the somewhat moist smell of the stone and gravel growing stronger. But that didn’t seem to dampen Kyp’s enthusiasm.

“Do you know what that means?” Kyp asked excitedly.

“Shhh,” Han shushed him, feeling paranoid. In the dark, and with the noise of the mining car as it slid over the rail down into the mine, he couldn’t be sure no one had snuck near them; he hoped Chewie’s sense of smell wasn’t too dulled by the scents of the mine. When Kyp had gone quiet, he considered what Kyp had actually told him. “Well,” he murmured softly, “that means they have computer access and know where we are. Just be ready today.”

“Oh, I’m ready for anything,” Kyp said with fervent enthusiasm.

Chewbacca rumbled his agreement, thumping his big hand on both of their backs.

* * *​

The descent down into the mines was slow, but everything felt new. Kyp’s eyes were useless in the complete darkness, but his other senses all felt alive and sharp. The world may be dark, but there was color to it again, and imagination which had long since turned grey and dull had been sparked back to life. A city that stretched from horizon to horizon, he thought. What would that be like? How many people would there be? Would they be packed together tight, or would they each be able to move? And the sun… what did a sunrise look like in such a place?

Or who were Han and Chewbacca’s friends? The mysterious figure on the far side of the computer, who Han had such faith could come for them, despite all the guards they’d have to sneak past? What did he have to do to be ready?

He didn’t even notice as he finished filling his entire daily quota of glitterstim filaments in less than an hour, his calloused fingers pushing yet another filament into the now tightly-packed pouch. Oops, he thought. Should have worked more slowly.

Next to him, Han was grumbling and cursing with frustration, his blind hands groping in the dark. The Wookiee was doing a little better; his fur was better protection from the rough, rocky ground than Han’s now very torn pants. Kyp’s own knees were calloused over with tough skin, to match his fingers.

“Stop complaining and get back to work!” called one of the guards.

Han, not even sure where the instruction had come from, threw a profane hand gesture into the air, and Chewie let out an annoyed growl.

Kyp heard heavy booted footsteps coming their way; a guard wearing a pair of infrared goggles that let him see in the dark. “You’re new here, aren’t you,” the guard said, looming over Han. “Maybe we should send you deeper into the mines, hmm? Let you get a taste of Kessel’s natives—or let them get a taste of you.”

“Oh yeah?” said Solo, and Kyp could hear the frayed temper in the other man’s voice, fed by hours of largely fruitless searching for the glitterstim filaments among the thin layer of rocks under their knees. “You think that’ll make your bosses happy, you feeding the workers to the spiders?”

“Down here, prisoner, I am the boss.” Kyp heard the telltale sound of knuckles cracking. “Ain’t no one tells me what to do.”

“I’m sure Doole would be pleased to hear—” Kyp heard the all-too-familiar sound of a gloved fist striking an uncovered cheek. Han’s voice cut off with a grunt of pain, and all hell broke loose.

Chewbacca might not be able to see, but he had enough of a sense of smell to know where the guard was standing. His huge arms reached out in the darkness, found a human form, and heaved it through the air. There was a sound of a body falling a half-dozen meters away, the now prone form smacking into two prisoners who had been working closer to the cave wall. The prisoners, seeing an opportunity to vent old frustrations, immediately set upon the guard, hitting him and occasionally each other in their blind flailing.

Han rolled to his feet, clustered near Chewbacca. Kyp stepped near, felt Han grip his back. “It’s me! And the kid,” Han told Chewie.

Chewbacca growled an annoyed response. All around them prisoners had joined in a growing, aimless brawl, tossing punches blindly at anyone who came close. In the darkness, few made contact, and the first whines of blasters set on stun quickly settled the fight. Blue blasts gleamed in the dark, the temporary glow from the weapons fire making the glitterstim in the walls gleam momentarily in response, light echoing light. A blaster bolt struck Chewie and knocked the big Wookiee on his back, groaning and huffing for breath.

“Don’t fire your blasters you idiots!” yelled one of the guards. “You’ll make the glitterstim ripen early! Do you want to be the one to tell Doole that you wasted all the Spice in this shaft just to subdue a prisoner!” There was a heavy smacking sound. “He’ll re-assign you from guard to prisoner, and that’s if you’re lucky!”

A second voice—presumably the guard who had fired—responded with a nervy-sounding, “Y-yes sir.”

“Get the prisoners back to work, especially the Wookiee. We wouldn’t want to miss our quota—”

An alarm sounded. The klaxon echoed through the mine back from the entrance to the mine shaft, amplified by the stone and the tight confines. There was the sound of cursing and annoyance as the guards yelled at each other, confused. “What is that?”

“I don’t know, my comlink isn’t working,” another guard called back over the screaming klaxon.

“Guard detail calling security office! We’ve got an alarm down here. What is it for?”

The only response from the guard’s comlink was extended static. Kyp stared around in confusion. Was this what they were supposed to wait for?

Han clearly thought it was. “Get down!” he said, dropping down next to Chewbacca and pulling Kyp down with him. Kyp fell on the Wookiee, making them both grunt. Down the corridor there was the sound of scuffling; a body hit the floor with a hefty grunt. A blaster fired, the blue glow of a stun blast sending another shiver of light echoing down the corridor in response.

“Shavit! What did I just tell you about not firing your blaster?”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Well, when I get my hands on whoever it was I swear—”

“Funny thing about infrared masks,” a voice Kyp knew he didn’t recognize said casually. It took him a second to realize why the voice sounded so strange—it reminded him of his mother’s voice. It was a woman’s voice. But there were no women in this mining detail, they were kept separate—

There was a snap-hiss and a steady blue light filled the space. Kyp’s eyes hurt from the sudden, unexpected glow, lifting his hand to shade them as he adjusted, but the guards had it worse—they grappled with their masks, tearing them off with curses.

All around them the cave started to radiate light. It started surrounding the figure, the glow of her laser sword reaching the glitterstim filaments in the wall and ground; they reacted with a responding inner light, making it seem as if she were standing in the center of a glowing sphere that circled over her head and below her feet, radiating outwards… and growing. The light-sensitive glitterstim filaments, so hard to find in the dark, were crackling and fizzling, glowing a pearlescent blue that matched the gleam of the woman’s laser sword.

The woman had a blaster in her free hand and two quick blaster shots took the two nearest guards before they got their masks off, sending them to the ground. Ripening glitterstim made the floor below them glow, and before long the entire cave was an eerie, shining blue. The prisoners nearest the guards responded first. Now able to see and in a confined space with their captors, they grabbed the closest guards, fists flying.

The head guard had his mask off and was swinging his blaster towards the unknown woman. She darted forwards, dodging to the right, and brought the lightsaber up, driving it through the man’s chest. With a gurgling sound he fell to the ground, and then she was standing over Han and Chewie, staring at Kyp with an odd expression, her blade casting them in blue light. “Come on,” she said, never taking her eyes off Kyp. “Iella’s waiting for us at the security station.”

Kyp stared up at her, at the gleaming laser sword in her hand, then down the mine shaft. The light from the blade was continuing to reach more glitterstim filaments. Some of the prisoners were consuming them and that meant it was a good idea to get away as quickly as possible. Prisoners hopped up on glitterstim didn’t happen often, but it happened often enough that he was fully aware of all the possible consequences.

Han pulled himself to his feet, then helped the shaken Chewbacca, who was still obviously groggy after sustaining the stun blast. The light from the cave walls around them was starting to dim, as the ripened spice lost its potency, leaving the woman’s laser sword the only brilliant source of light. “Do you have any idea how much all this Spice was worth?” Han asked the woman, sounding stunned.

Kyp had no idea. He assumed it had to be worth a lot.

“Do you care?” asked the woman, using her lightsaber like a torch to maintain light even as the spice illumination was fading, leading them back towards the mining cars at a jog. As they moved into areas farther away from the combat, the spice around them was triggered by her lightsaber, sending another pulse of light down the cave ahead of them.

Some of the other prisoners followed; the smart ones had stolen the guards’ infrared masks but weren’t using them yet. The woman had one herself, hanging around her neck.

Chewie growled something Kyp didn’t understand. “The man I used to be would have,” Han muttered. “But still, that’s gotta be millions of credits worth of glitterstim she just burned!”

The woman shrugged. “Tens of millions, probably. It’s their own fault for putting you down here. Come on, let’s go, we don’t have a lot of time.”

* * *​

Mara held the lightsaber up, warding off the prisoners as the mining car started to run. “We’re taking the first one,” she said warningly as Han got the thing moving, the agonizing scraping of the rails forcing her to yell. She pulled a few glow-rods out of her pack and threw them into the middle of the crowd of prisoners. “Don’t waste those!”

The prisoners, offered a source of light, scrambled to claim their prizes and the guards’ fallen weapons. Distracted, by the time they were ready to turn their attention back to Mara and the others, the mining car was already moving away and up at a brisk and hastening pace. Mara double-tapped on the stud of her lightsaber to deactivate the blade, then ducked down under the rock overhang and fell in next to Chewbacca. The Wookiee wrapped one powerful arm around her to make sure she didn’t fall out.

“I’m fine,” she batted the Wookiee’s huge arm away, making sure she was indeed secure in the rickety mining car. “As fine as anyone can be in one of these things, anyway.”

The Wookiee brayed his amusement.

She felt the kid’s eyes on her. When she’d come down here, she’d expected to be rescuing a party of two, not three, and she could feel the hint of power, untrained, unharnessed, hanging around him, an aura of potential. “I’m Kyp!” he said, staring at her with unrestrained awe. “Are you Han’s wife?”

Chewie wuffled another laugh, and she saw Kyp’s enthusiasm abruptly wane as her gaze narrowed threateningly.

“That’s Mara, kid,” Han supplied. “My wife is a little smaller and much scarier.”

Mara didn’t feel like a round of casual introductions. “When we get to the top we’ll have to move fast. We can set up some diversions, but we will probably have to fight our way to the Falcon.” The mining car jolted, and they all jerked except Kyp. Mara took a breath. “Iella and I intercepted a communication from Moff Vorru to the forces in charge here. They’re loyal to Tavira.”

“Anything we can use to hunt Vorru and Cracken’s escapee down?” Han asked.

“Maybe. Some of the forces here are going to reinforce Vorru, so if we can get a tracking device on one of the fighters or on their escort carrier we can use that to find him.” The car was starting to slow now as they neared the top; light from above was beginning to trickle down. After another minute the car slid into its berth at the barracks. They all scrambled out awkwardly, passing the stunned forms of the two guards who previously had been on watch.

Iella was in the security booth, equipped for combat. “I went scrounging,” she said as they arrived, “and grabbed us a stash of ration bars for later. Detonators and tracking devices are in the knapsacks.” Her eyes went to Kyp. “I see we have a new recruit.” She extended her hand to him, and he took it, seeming awed. “I’m Iella Wessiri. I work for the New Republic,” Iella said.

“I’m Kyp. Kyp Durron. My, uh, parents were dissidents,” Kyp said.

“Nice to meet you, Kyp,” Iella replied with a kindly nod. She turned to the others; behind her Mara was stepping to replace her in the security booth. Kyp wandered after her, watching Mara as she worked while Iella talked to Han and Chewie. “We’re going to set up a series of diversions, triggering base alarms to announce prisoner riots,” Iella said. “Try to move as many guards as we can out of our path.” She jerked a thumb behind her. “When we leave we’ll send the cars back down and let the prisoners here run wild behind us. That should keep the guards too busy to stop us.”

“Right,” Han said. “What about these ships you want to track? Can we get to them?”

Mara ignored the conversation. She brought up the computer’s administrative access, and inputted her Imperial override codes—the Emperor’s own. She took a moment to examine a map of the entire facility, noting each of the mine shafts that descended down into the mines and their location compared to the Falcon’s landing pad. Then she checked to see where Doole’s forces—and Tavira’s forces—were being garrisoned.

“Ready?” she called over her shoulder. Kyp was still behind her, watching her work.

“Ready!” called Iella and Han; Iella sounded calmly professional, while Han teemed with obvious frustration. Iella had handed Han back his blaster pistol, and Chewbacca was now armed with his bowcaster. Both looked haggard but sharp. “I hate Kessel,” muttered Han.

Chewie growled his agreement, checking his weapon for damage, then nodding his big head.

“Good,” Mara said darkly. Then she started wreaking her own brand of havoc, disabling systems and triggering alarms. All the other mining shafts suddenly found their mining cars disabled, refusing to respond to commands, and that was paired with the sudden facility-wide wail of the prisoner riot alarm. “That ought to keep them busy,” she muttered. “Come on.”

* * *​

The alarms blared as they moved. Every so often Mara would hold up a hand and they’d all skitter to a stop, ducking into a corridor or hiding in a room, waiting for the sound of running boots to subside. Mara and Iella led them, Iella keeping an eye on the map of the facility while Mara used her abilities to make sure they didn’t stumble across trouble.

It took Kyp only a few minutes to realize what she was doing, and took him a few minutes more to realize that no other member of their party could do it.

Except him.

He could still remember the first time he realized he was different. Working with a group of prisoners who he’d semi-befriended, they’d been astonished by the sheer number of glitterstim filaments he could collect in an hour when he put his mind to it. He’d just shrugged and said he could hear them calling when he listened. Most of them had just laughed and chalked it up to a child’s luck, but one of the men had taken him aside, lowering his voice. “You shouldn’t advertise that you can do that,” he’d said. “The Empire has already taken enough from you. If the guards realize you have abilities, they’ll take even more.”

He hadn’t understood what the man had meant, but he’d known enough about the Empire to take the warning seriously. As the years passed, his powers had grown, giving him useful skills beyond just finding glitterstim. He always knew where the guards were, could sometimes instinctively know what they were thinking. He knew which days he should avoid the more dangerous spurs of the mines. Most alarming was the recent discovery that he could convince the guards to let him do things by commanding it with the right tone of voice, a commanding timbre he had only recently grown into.

Mara was like him.

The realization was stunning, an eye-opening awakening to what he might be capable of. She clearly was more accustomed to using her abilities than he was; her ability to sense the guards as they approached was significantly better than his, polished with age, experience and, he suspected, deliberate training.

“Move, move,” Iella urged as they traveled through more of the facility, passing through sections Kyp had never seen. The lights were still thankfully dim—the few times Kyp had seen the surface of Kessel he’d been forced to shield his gaze from the planet’s glaring star—but Kyp really only exited the barracks and mines for his occasional lessons with Kassar and Myda Forge, who had continued his education after the deaths of his parents. The Forges hadn’t been equipped or trained to teach a child through all his years of primary schooling—their job was to prepare adult prisoners for release, not educate children who had no scheduled release date—but they had done their best. Each trip to their housing unit had required protective lenses to avoid searing his unaccustomed gaze, and there had been days in the mines he would have been near blind even if there had been light to see.

Mara stopped at a doorway that led towards the hangars, fiddling with the keypad next to the lock. She got into the process of inputting a sequence before Iella’s yelp of alarm—followed by Chewbacca’s bellow—heralded the sudden end of her efforts. Mara was already in motion, dropping and rolling to avoid the sudden burst of blaster fire from down the corridor, coming up in a crouch with her blaster rifle held in a solid two-handed grip. She shot back at the collection of semi-professional mercenaries who had stumbled unexpectedly over them, but it was the explosive snarl of Chewbacca’s bowcaster that ended the fight.

“Everyone okay?” asked Han, and Kyp realized that the older man had instinctively put himself between Kyp and their foes. Kyp blinked a few times, staring at Han’s back with an awed confusion.

“I’m fine,” he said.

Mara grunted, looked back at the door and sighed. “Kriff,” she muttered, peering at the ruined keypad, at least one blaster bolt having struck it directly. “Okay. Option two.” She handed her rifle to Han then drew her laser sword, igniting it with a snap-hiss before driving it into the door, her expression tight with exertion as she started carving through the reinforced armor.

“How long?” asked Iella, glancing at her, her blaster rifle still covering the corridor behind them. “We’re exposed here.”

“I know,” Mara grunted with annoyance, the metal of the door starting to turn liquid hot as she twisted the blue blade.

Han turned to Kyp. “You know how to use a blaster, kid?”

Kyp shook his head, stepping away from the door as it started to radiate heat. Mara’s red-gold hair gleamed in the glow from the newly molten metal of the door and he turned away, the glow starting to become painful. “Uh, no,” he replied belatedly to Han.

“Here,” Han said, handing him the rifle. He quickly gave Kyp a tutorial in its use. “Just don’t ever point it at one of us,” Han glowered, “even if you have no intent to use it. Accidents happen with blasters and I’ve seen more than a few people get shot by their friends.”

Kyp nodded choppily, pointing it down the corridor.

“And don’t shoot unless you see us shooting first,” Han added. “How long, Red?”

“Stop… asking me that…” Mara glowered, sweating. The hinges of the door came free, falling at her feet. She jumped back as the door sagged, and Kyp could feel her push, sending the metal door to collapse inwards, away from them. There was a shuddering crash and Kyp glanced over; saw overheated, molten metal burning into the floor as Mara took a deep breath and pushed her hair out of her eyes.

Iella ducked past her through the now open doorway, then waved the others to follow. Mara followed last, re-igniting her laser sword and holding it up defensively to ward off any potential pursuing fire. To Kyp’s relief, none came. “I can’t close this door and lock it behind us,” Mara pointed out. “So we might have more pursuit, especially if they’ve figured out all our riot alarms were bogus.”

“Were bogus,” said Han with a scowl. “Who knows if they’re still bogus. I can assure you that after one day in the mines I was already up for a good prison riot.”

Chewbacca growled his frustrated agreement.

Kyp shook his head, pointing his rifle at the floor as they moved. “After a few months prisoners mostly lose the will to fight. Those that don’t end up dead, one way or another. Besides, no one wants to jeopardize their chance at release.” He felt all four sets of eyes looking at him and he shrugged self-consciously. “It’s true.”

Han turned his head and glared at Iella, whose grimace was more pained than Kyp thought was warranted.

“Enough chatter,” Mara’s tone was an order and one she expected to be followed. “Move.”

She seemed not to even notice Han’s irritated glare; with a gruff, annoyed sound Han pushed Kyp after Iella. “Keep your head down, kid,” he grunted.

The instinctive care from Han was alien to Kyp. It reminded him of Kassar Forge; the man’s clear, constant exhaustion had never prevented him from taking a minute to spend with Kyp. Some of Kyp’s fondest memories were of Kassar’s tiny dining room, of the expensive hot chocolate that Kassar could occasionally offer that Kyp had always savored. Han’s gaze was oddly like Kassar’s; exhausted but determined to offer him the protection and affection he could.

Part of Kyp oddly resented it, just as he’d always oddly resented Kassar. But he craved the fragments of affection too much not to take what he was offered.

It wouldn’t last. It never did.

Moving through these halls, surrounded by a party with blasters, brought back memories, and all of them were bad. The Imperial Correctional Facility had been built with the traditional Old Republic modular style, which meant each corridor looked almost exactly like each other corridor; each room was shaped almost exactly like each other room. Even as they moved further from the places with which he was most familiar, the sounds of boots ringing on impact with the floor, of blasters held in fumbling hands, of nervy breathing… occasionally, the sound of distant combat.

Half a decade before, when Doole had staged his great prison revolt and seized control of the facility from the Empire, the only difference had been the bodies. The Imperial corpses, broken stormtrooper armor, the cries of the wounded and dying. The sounds of victory from Doole’s ad-hoc army, looting the corpses and everything else they could get their hands on. The days of slow, ruthless re-imposition of order; the replacement of the Imperial stormtroopers with Doole’s very own, just as ruthless, just as brutal equivalent. The weeks of executions, by firing squad or by hanging, of any and everyone who had collaborated with the Imperials or—just as common—anyone who had wealth that Doole or his men wanted to loot.

“This way, kid,” Han grabbed the scruff of his collar and pulled him along the rest of their party. At the end of the corridor was the gleam of blue-white sunlight and Kyp had to shield his eyes from the glare.

“Stop!” Mara pulled them to a halt before they could exit into the hangar. Kyp could see—despite the glare, peeking through narrow slits—an old freighter sitting on its landing struts. Mara put her hand in front of Han and Chewbacca, staring at it. “They’re waiting for us.”

“True,” called a voice Kyp remembered all too well from his memories and nightmares. A man, armed with a double-barreled blaster pistol held in a comfortable two-handed grip, stepped in front of the Falcon’s landing ramp. Kyp hissed at the sight of him; the man who had led Doole’s mercenaries during the uprising, the man who had made the list of all the prisoners deemed trusties by Doole’s law. The man who had ordered the death of his parents.

Arb Skynxnex.

* * *​

“What do you want,” Han asked with a scowl. “Here to offer us a fond farewell?”

Skynxnex’s smile was as Han remembered it. Small, humorless, with an edge of viciousness that he couldn’t quite hide. There had always been something unnerving about him. There always had been. Han had always known he was a killer, but that hadn’t bothered him so much at the time—most people who worked for Jabba were—but now Han found Skynxnex’s gaze deeply unsettling. He wasn’t sure if he ought to chalk that up to Skynxnex becoming more dangerous and unrestrained as he’d become more powerful, or if it was something that had changed in Han himself.

Skynxnex alone would be bad enough. Even more unfortunate was the fact that he was flanked by multiple guards, armed and armored.

Han held his pistol in a firm grip, keeping it pointed at the ground but within a single easy motion of flicking up to Skynxnex. Beside him Chewie was less subtle, his bowcaster twitching.

“Hardly,” Skynxnex said. His own blaster was, like Han’s, pointed at the floor, and, like Chewie’s, twitching aggressively. “You see, Solo, I can’t let you leave.” He gestured to the side and a collection of additional guards could be heard waiting close by. “Doole doesn’t want you to leave because he has an old grudge; he’s never forgiven you for ruining his relationship with Jabba. And Vorru doesn’t want you to leave because he doesn’t want you interfering with his plans.” His smile grew thinner and more sharklike. “Doole wants you dead. Vorru wants you alive.” His eyes shifted to look at Mara and Iella, his gaze lingering on Mara and her lightsaber briefly. “Neither of them mentioned your companions, though.”

“Taking money from all sides then, Skynxnex?” Han asked.

Skynxnex shrugged. “I don’t see any reason not to maximize my earning potential. Vorru pays very well.”

Mara wagged her lightsaber in the air, the blade humming as it moved. “Forgive me for interrupting,” she put in sarcastically, “but what makes you think you can stop us?”

The scarecrow-like man looked at her, slow and confident. “Solo is predictable. He wouldn’t leave his ship behind. So I’ve always known you were coming here.” He smiled now, a wolf’s toothy smile. “Try me.”

Han thought Mara might take him up on that option. He glanced at Kyp to make sure the kid was in a safe location just in case she did, and found the kid staring at Skynxnex with a lethal glare that Han had seen before. It took him a second to place it and when he did his gut tightened with sudden worry: Kyp’s expression exactly matched Leia’s from Bespin, when she’d glared at Darth Vader.

Mara, Iella, and Skynxnex were continuing their verbal spar. Iella offered possible concessions, while Mara put in an occasional pointed threat (often echoed by a confident Wookiee growl). None of them were looking at Kyp, whose rifle was slowly starting to lift up towards Skynxnex. Han glanced between them, wondering if he could stop Kyp—

Three things happened all at once. Mara’s head snapped around, turning towards Kyp with a surprised expression, her green eyes sharp with sudden concern. Skynxnex saw her motion, saw Kyp at the rear of the group, and his double-barreled blaster started to come up. And Kyp, armed with Mara’s blaster rifle, lifted the rifle up to point it at Skynxnex.

The scarecrow realized abruptly that he had miscalculated, that he should never have stepped out into the open no matter how confident he was of his superior military situation. He started to move to take himself out of the line of sight, his blaster firing, the twinned barrels fusing dual blaster bolts into a single overcharged blast that erupted from his weapon. Mara twisted back, bringing her lightsaber up instinctively and deflecting the bolt up into the ceiling, sending fragments of permacrete showering in every direction. As she did, Kyp—his expression wrenched with pain and outrage and fear—fired his blaster for the first time.

It was a good shot and caught Skynxnex just below his solar plexus. The man’s surprised expression was almost comical, as if he couldn’t believe what had just happened, and Kyp fired again. The second shot caught him in the stomach and with a gasp and gurgle he fell onto his back, his blaster clattering to the floor, a second fused blaster bolt firing wildly into the wall.

Everything went mad. Blaster bolts ripped in either direction; one of Chewie’s large bowcaster bolts took the guard closest to Skynxnex in the chest, blowing him off his feet. Mara jumped back as still more fire poured into the narrow corridor at sharp angles, deflecting a pair of bolts away and sending one of them into the chest of Skynxnex’s second guard. Iella shot the third twice; his return blaster fire grazed her arm, but she held up a hand to let them know she was fine. The remaining guard scrambled out of the way, throwing himself down and out of sight; Mara and Han gathered against the wall. Next to them the blaster rifle slipped from Kyp’s suddenly nerveless fingers and fell to the ground. Mara scooped it up and slung it over her back with a scowl.

They found themselves clustered in the middle of a narrow hallway. Back the way they’d come there would surely be more guards at any time, though they hadn’t arrived yet, and in front of them were what sounded like at least a dozen blaster-armed men, occasionally firing into the hallway.

“Great,” growled Han over the sound of blaster fire. “Just great. Now we’re pinned down and have nowhere to go.” He didn’t look at Kyp, regretting the words even before he’d finished uttering them.

Chewbacca rumbled confidently.

“You’ll handle it?” Han stared at him. “How are you planning to do that? In case you haven’t noticed there are a lot of them and we’re caught like vrelt in a particularly nasty trap!”

Chewbacca rumbled again, rummaging through Iella’s pack. He pulled out a device that Han hadn’t seen before, started to activate it...

“How is that going to help us?” Han asked with a scowl.

The Wookiee’s growl was punctured by the sudden mechanical sound of the Millennium Falcon’s swivel blaster descending from its concealed location in the freighter’s hull and opening fire. The anti-personnel weapon rotated, blasting a furious hurricane of energy. Inside the hangar there was the sound of surprise and consternation—and the sounds of pain and bodies falling still. Chewbacca manipulated the remote, taking full advantage of the swivel blaster’s field of fire to clear their foes from at least one side of the room within; some blaster fire was now directed uselessly at the Falcon.

“We can use the swivel blaster remotely? Since when can we use the swivel blaster remotely?” Han asked, astonished. He turned to stare at Chewie at the Wookiee’s short answer. “Last week?” Han blinked a few times. “I thought you said those modifications were vital just so you could get out of watching Jacen and Jaina while I made dinner.”

Chewbacca growled and rolled his eyes.

“I do not take you for granted! Leia’d kill me. Luke’d kill me. I’d kill me!”

“Come on,” Mara said with an annoyed scowl. She stepped into the open space as the blaster fire towards them reduced, batting the blaster fire that did come at them back. Iella ran out next, darting onto the Falcon’s landing ramp and firing at the people shooting at Mara.

“Our turn, kid,” Han said, gripping Kyp’s collar and running with him and Chewbacca after her. They dodged at least one blaster bolt which came alarmingly close, then their feet thudded up the ship’s ramp and they were safe inside. He pointed at Kyp. “You find a seat and stay out of the way. Chewie, let’s figure out what these vrelt-for-brains did to our ship and get out of here!”

[Go to Chapter Twenty-Six] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Superb descriptions of the nonstop action!

I laughed out loud at this:
“I’m Kyp!” he said, staring at her with unrestrained awe. “Are you Han’s wife?”
Chewie wuffled another laugh, and she saw Kyp’s enthusiasm abruptly wane as her gaze narrowed threateningly.
“That’s Mara, kid,” Han supplied. “My wife is a little smaller and much scarier.”

This was a great, poignant bit of introspection from Kyp:
The instinctive care from Han was alien to Kyp. It reminded him of Kassar Forge; the man’s clear, constant exhaustion had never prevented him from taking a minute to spend with Kyp. Some of Kyp’s fondest memories were of Kassar’s tiny dining room, of the expensive hot chocolate that Kassar could occasionally offer that Kyp had always savored. Han’s gaze was oddly like Kassar’s; exhausted but determined to offer him the protection and affection he could.
Part of Kyp oddly resented it, just as he’d always oddly resented Kassar. But he craved the fragments of affection too much not to take what he was offered.
It wouldn’t last. It never did.

I just wanna hug Kyp LOL



Skynxnex is a scumbag of the worst order.

The characterization of Kyp continues spot-on with this:
Kyp’s expression exactly matched Leia’s from Bespin, when she’d glared at Darth Vader.

Uh-oh.