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

I know, I feel guilty about that. This series of chapters really should be read all at once...

 

Credit where credit is due: I think it was originally DrMckay's idea to do this scene from the perspective of Imperials. I struggled with that chapter (readers may note that I was saying for quite a while that Chapter 16 didn't exist yet, and it really only came together recently), because I had no interest in turning the Rendili heist into its own mini-novel: I wanted the whole thing resolved in one chapter. (Also, Sabacc is hard to write.) I had actually made the decision to cut it entirely and have the cloak be something that Mara and Karrde had acquired on their own before the story started, and just have this chapter be Luke aboard the Wild Karrde interacting with Karrde's crew, but DrMckay pushed me to do the scene and made the suggestion that ultimately made it work. And as usual, he was right.

I knew the scene would have to involve a mind trick, and the idea of doing the mind trick from the target's perspective is ultimately the inspiration here. Artoo-Detoo is rolling around literally right in front of Mendelholm and Farwell, but by offering a bit of drama (combined with some Force-trickery), Luke is able to keep the droid out of their consciousness. After that, the rest of the scene just ... came together all at once. After about three months of fighting with it.

Plus, doing it this way I get to surprise the audience, and that's always fun. There are more surprises for the audience coming! I do enjoy holding back a vital piece of information until exactly the right moment for maximum dramatic effect...

I'm fond enough of Mendelholm and Farwell that I'm tempted to bring them back. Maybe they'll get a little short story someday.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Eighteen

Coruscant had not always been named Coruscant. Sometime in the distant past, so far distant that even how long it had been was forgotten to all but a handful of historians, the planet had a different name. Mara didn't know what its name had been. Perhaps no one did.

But she had grown up here—at least, for all the years she could remember clearly. She had stood on this very rooftop more than once, contemplating tasks, assignments, dangers, foes. Then the planet had been simply Imperial Center. She had known the planet's previous name was Coruscant but never stopped to reflect on the name. Not until she had returned here, fresh out of a brief dip in a bacta tank, the Emperor's last command banished from her mind for good, had she ever stopped to look.

Coruscant glittered. The buildings stretched skyward, reinforced by repulsorlifts that allowed them to reach far higher than they would have naturally. Windows flickered as airspeeders and spaceships soared lazily through the urban canyons. The planet's sun was nearly set, casting an orangish-reddish glow that sparkled and shaded the buildings alike. Above the horizon she saw the planet's semi-spacebound Skyhooks, massive stations tethered to the planet's surface in geosynchronous orbits, gleaming like rubies. Below her she could see Senate Hill, the dome of the old Senate building cast in a reflected glow. Palpatine's placement of the Imperial Palace had ensured that the Senate dome was always cast in shadow when the sun rose, and always cast in reddish, somber light when the sun set again. Palpatine had always liked to gloat.

She watched as the red faded into black, the dome now cast in shadow rather than its usual gleaming white. Of all the planets in the galaxy, few had prospered as much as Coruscant had under the empire. Palpatine had insisted on drawing all the power and wealth within his grasp he could and destroying the rest and under his rule Coruscant had become a black hole for the galaxy's rich and powerful. All came. Few escaped—until Isard had deliberately sacrificed the planet in a gambit to destroy the nascent New Republic. Now, with Thrawn dead and the New Republic firmly entrenched both on Coruscant and in the galaxy, the gravity of the old Imperial Center began once more to draw wealth and power into its hungry maw.

It was that or starve.

Mara sighed as that thought finished ricocheting around her brain. The image was hardly conducive to finding inner peace. But few of her thoughts had been the last few days.

She leaned on the chest-high wrought stone railing at the edge of the palace roof, wondering what she was doing here. Her Smugglers' Alliance office in the Imperial Palace—her office!—still felt wrong, like a bizarre reflection of reality. The first week she spent in it had been a dreamlike haze, walking the hallways that had raised her, shaped her, built her, and housed her; had taken the child that Palpatine—or his agents (perhaps even Vader, her lightsaber whispered to her)—had found and shaped her into the Emperor's Hand, two words which could only be spoken with capitalization and dread.

One thing that hadn't changed was the respect. It was remarkable, really, how little had changed in how people treated her in the Palace. Her history was no secret, not anymore, certainly not to the people who were high enough placed in the New Republic government to work in the Imperial Palace. Everyone who approached her did so with a wariness that bespoke both fear and awe. When she had been the Emperor's Hand it had annoyed her greatly when people like Isard had dared treat her otherwise. Now it just reinforced that she did not belong here. The palace no longer felt like home but more like the prison it had, in hindsight, always truly been.

What was it, she wondered, that had brought the sense of inner peace she had felt the last time she stood on this roof, the last time she had leaned against this stone railing? Why had then been soothing, reassuring, a glimpse into her future and this time it was instead into her past?

She didn't know. And the quickening of her heartbeat when she tried said she wasn't ready to think about it just yet.

Twenty meters behind her, the door out onto the roof opened. She stretched out to the Force, her brow furrowing. Her first thought was of Skywalker, but the Jedi wasn't on Coruscant. The presence she felt was vaguely familiar, but not familiar enough to instantly recognize.

"Palace Security said I could find you here," a brisk voice that would have sounded perfectly at home in the Imperial Palace when Coruscant had been Imperial Center said. She turned towards it, keeping her hand carefully away from the lightsaber on her belt. The man had longish reddish blond hair that covered his ears and a neatly trimmed beard. Both were starting to go white—whiter than they had been the last time she had seen the man. Of course, then she'd had a blaster against his jaw and he'd been wearing sleepwear—not a General's uniform.

"General Madine," Mara said in surprise. The two had encountered one another on Kintoni about five years before, while Mara had still been flitting from system to system to evade Ysanne Isard's intelligence operatives. She had taken the opportunity to warp up old business. The encounter had ended amicably enough, although not before he had tried to kill her with her own lightsaber. "This is a surprise."

"I can assure you, Miss Jade," he replied, his intonation carrying the barest hint of amusement, "it is not as much of a surprise as our last meeting." He approached and his bearing had none of the expected wariness. Instead he held out his hand. "Let me formally introduce myself, since we weren't the last time. I'm Crix Madine." He ducked his head in a nod as he waited for her to take his proffered hand. "Thank you for your help on Kintoni, by the way."

Mara paused for a moment, evaluating the man, what she remembered of his record, and his sense in the Force before she took his hand. She didn't bother to return the introduction. "I take it you were satisfied with your share of Governor Barkale's ill-gotten gains," she said.

"It covered the New Republic's expenses for the better part of a year," Madine replied as he released his grip on her hand. To her surprise he stepped past her to the stone railing, looking out over the view. "I haven't come up here before," he commented, watching the view. It didn't seem to offer him any more inner peace than it was currently offering her.

Mara watched him cautiously. Madine wasn't acting like an enemy, but there were only so many reasons for him to have approached her like this—for him to have deliberately sought her out. Leia Organa Solo had assured Mara and Karrde that there would be no punishment meted out for her time as Emperor's hand—Leia's voice had been so soft, so understanding, so forgiving in that meeting that it had only added to Mara's anxiety—but Leia was not the New Republic's Empress and her word was hardly law.

"I did my research after our encounter," Madine said. "I wasn't sure who you were at first. Imperial Intelligence was my first guess, but you didn't seem like one of Isard's. The way you let me go and let us have Barkale's stash told me you weren't ISB. The only useful hint was—"

"The lightsaber," Mara finished for him.

"That's right. Only a handful of Imperial Agents carried lightsabers. So, I started collecting intelligence reports and I asked General Cracken to send me all the reports he had. Put together a little dossier on a mysterious woman who went by the title Emperor's Hand." He rested both his hands on the rail and Mara could see in her peripheral vision that his belt had a blaster holster. She could also see that it was empty. "The dossier was incomplete, of course."

"Of course," Mara echoed stiffly.

"I gave it back to Cracken when the word started going around that we had the Emperor's Hand in custody, and he quietly passed it around the Provisional Council members when you escaped again." Madine paused, letting the cool Coruscant breeze flow around them both. "I wasn't surprised when you came back with Jedi Skywalker as a confirmed ally."

Mara was abruptly tired of the conversation. "Because Skywalker has a history of turning foes into friends? Or because I once held a blaster to your head and didn't pull the trigger?"

Madine's head turned towards her, seemingly not put off by her scowl. "Because over and over again your record was of someone who punished the guilty and protected the innocent. Poln, Kintoni, Qiaxx, Ghel Daneth, Neftali… every mission was a display of careful precision. And yes, because if you'd really been an enemy of the New Republic you would never have let me live on Kintoni."

Mara firmed her lips together and locked her gaze on the glittering skyline. I just didn't want to run from the Rebellion and Isard at the same time, she thought. "What do you want, Madine?"

"You know Governor Ferrouz said something else in his report," Madine's voice was soft, understanding – he sounded like Leia, and she abruptly knew that Leia had sent him, or at least discussed this meeting with him before he'd deigned to come up here, and she felt a burst of indignation that she had to be handled like some kind of asset— "He said you brought Imperial Justice."

Mara's anger flamed away into surprise. "What?"

"Imperial Justice," Madine repeated, and she could hear the capitalization for each of the two words… but there wasn't any dread. "I believed in it too," he said after the words had fully diffused into her thoughts, and this time there was no mistaking the compassion in his voice. "During the Clone Wars the Old Republic had fallen apart, gone to chaos, and service in the Imperial Army, service to the new Empire was how I could make a difference." She could hear the darkness of the memory, of gleaming past purpose darkened by the shadow of experience. "I could make a difference," he repeated. "But then Dentaal, and I finally saw Palpatine's Empire for what it was." He looked down. "I remember what that was like. Twenty years of loyal service and I had been the enemy all along."

Mara's anger flamed back into existence as quickly as it had fled. "And you think that's what I'm feeling now, is it? Guilt?"

Madine shrugged. "Of course. But dealing with guilt is easy—it drives us to act. The hard part was realizing that I never really knew who I was, and that if I didn't know who I was before then how can I know who I am now?"

Mara scowled at him and his presumptions. She especially scowled at how close he was hitting home. "I see your lips moving but I'm hearing Organa Solo's voice." She crossed her arms across her chest and glared at him. "She put you up to this."

"Not exactly," Madine demurred. "We discussed it but I would have come even if we hadn't. You made an impression on Kintoni and I thought it was important that we talk, after what happened on Wayland." He gave her a small but genuine smile and Mara got the impression that Madine wasn't a man who smiled very often—it looked uncomfortable, almost alien on his face. "I just wanted to tell you that if you ever wanted to talk about it, I know a lot of ex-Imperial defectors who have faced exactly this, and so does General Skywalker. We'd all be happy to talk about it, if you ever want to."

She could stay angry—with Leia, with Madine. Or get angry with Luke, because she was sure this was all actually his fault—he had probably asked Leia to look after her while he was away. She'd just have to remind him that she didn't need looking after when he and Karrde got back from Ukio. But she found that her anger was hard to sustain. "Fine," she said sourly. "Was that all, or were you also going to try to recruit me for some mission just vital for galactic security?" She narrowed her green eyes at him, and if they'd been blasters his impeccable uniform would have had two smoking craters in it.

"Not this time," Madine said. He shrugged one shoulder. "But if something comes up, I'll be sure to ask. Or send Karrde a request for your services."

"I don't come cheap," she retorted, as if to remind him that she hadn't gone and done anything stupid like sign up for the New Republic Defense Force.

"Nothing Talon Karrde provides does," Madine replied dryly. He pushed off the stone railing and straightened his uniform. "Well, I've said what I came to say. I'm sure you can find me if you want to continue this conversation." He nodded and headed back towards the door.

She heard him turn back briefly to look at her, but she was gazing out over Coruscant again.

Mara sighed and leaned forward, her chin lowering toward her chest as she closed her eyes. Her anger—which had been mostly for show anyway—passed back into an ache of loss and loneliness and uncertainty. She should have stayed with Talon on the Wild Karrde, she thought. At least there she had routines and a sense of what normal meant. She knew who she was, the role she was supposed to play. Here she was still trying to figure it all out, figure herself out, and with Skywalker gone the closest thing she'd had to constancy was missing.

But at the same time, talking with Madine had helped, which surprised her. And as she opened her eyes back up and peered out over the cityscape, watching all the people go about their evening business, she found a bit of the inner peace that she'd found the last time she stood up here. And pride.

Imperial Justice.

"Madine?" she called.

"Yes, Miss Jade?" he asked, his voice distant.

She breathed in the Coruscant night air and wondered if she'd ever be free of the weight Palpatine had laid on her shoulders. "There's a service elevator down the hall on the left. It'll return you to the ground floor from here much faster. The passcode is 5997." She waited another two seconds, until she heard the door open, and then called out again. "If you want, General, I'm free for lunch tomorrow."

He turned back, regarding her curiously.

His regard made her self-conscious. "You're right. I need to talk about it and … no one understands."

He nodded. "Certainly. I'll make the time. See you tomorrow." There was the opening and then the closing of the door, and he was gone. She sat and watched the city, alone again.

[Go to Chapter Eighteen, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Superb introspection! I soak it up like oxygen.
LOL I know where Mara's earlier sense of inner peace came from

Loved her talk with Madine ... She does need to talk about things with those who served loyally what they thought was one sort of thing but turned out to be quite another. He's right too--she never went beyond the mandates of her mission into senseless cruelty.

"ache of loss and loneliness and uncertainty", a very poignant description.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Eighteen, Part II

The longer Mara spent working on the shipping part of the Smugglers' Alliance's responsibilities, the more she hated the liaison job. Now that the business relationship between the New Republic and the Smugglers' Alliance was formal, the list of requests for shipping had started to grow. And grow. And grow.

No wonder the New Republic was so desperate to bring in independents, Mara thought, astonished at the sheer volume of requests. They are starving for shipping. Even with the Smugglers' Alliance and all the independent shipping cartels we represent, we still don't have enough for all this.

She still didn't have a droid to help her manage, but Ghent's computer program did almost all the work for her. It automatically took requests, pinged the HoloNet for available ships, and then sent out possible shipping assignments. The ships then took the assignments they wanted, sent their confirmation back through the HoloNet, and the database updated which jobs were available. Much of it was automated, so Mara found herself in the utterly dismal position of being customer service.

Just that morning, she'd met with the Senator from Exodeen and personally assured him that their 'vital' shipment of Juju powder had already been picked up and was on its way. And there was a rather lengthy list of dignitaries all with their pet project or concern, all who insisted on speaking personally to the Liaison from the Smugglers' Alliance.

This isn't going to work out, she realized. Karrde and Leia and Skywalker had talked her into taking this position because she had a degree of trust from both the New Republic and the Fringe; she had one foot in both worlds, so to speak. She took it because they had all been right. But she was already bored. Mara, even more than most smugglers, was used to a life of action and adventure and challenge, and she felt woefully suited for the life of a bureaucrat. In a few months they'd have a full staff on duty, with droids and personnel hired that would take the onus off her to do all the day-to-day communication herself; she hoped that would make it less frustrating.

There was nothing to do but do it for now, and talk to Karrde when he got back. She'd made a commitment, and she intended to keep that commitment. Maybe once the bureaucracy (her mind shied away from even the word) was established, she could focus on the big picture organizational practices and diplomatic responsibilities of the role. That might work, although diplomat sounded only marginally better than bureaucrat. And that was assuming she didn't get frustrated and blast someone for being an idiot.

Her terminal beeped and she brought up the message, which was, like the previous two from the same sender, labeled urgent. She read it, growled with irritation, and shut down her terminal. Exodeen didn't need Juju powder badly enough to warrant the Ambassador requesting three personal meetings with her in three days! She fervently regretted that Karrde had not yet found her a reliable office droid.

Mara practically stormed out of her office, wishing that Luke was still on Coruscant. She missed having the Jedi around to practice with; what she needed was a good spar. But that required a quality opponent and with the Jedi gone she was unlikely to find one.

The aircar ride to Woonseer's Cafe was short, but helped her relax a bit as the familiar skyscape whizzed by her but really, it was the distance. The distance between her, the office, and the bland aura of a stolid respectability. Which was, she thought as she stepped onto the tastefully-appointed docking pad, why she'd decided on Woonseer's. The maitre'd knew better than to attempt smalltalk, given her expression, and ushered her to her usual, secluded table with a view of the Senate building, and the Palace looming beyond.

She recognized Madine even before he rounded the ornamental plants hiding her from sight. He had the unmistakable step of a stormtrooper, one that echoed of the teachers Palpatine had brought in for her when she was young. Mara moved her menu down slightly from her eyeline and slightly arched an eyebrow.

"Miss Jade," Madine greeted her.

"General Madine," she replied with a nod in the direction of the empty chair. "Won't you join me?"

He sat, looking around him with a tired expression.

"Long day?"

He took a look at the menu, then put it back down. "It's been a long time since I was here," he said, and his voice was as tired as his face. Through the Force, she could sense an old, painful ache. "I hadn't realized they renamed Doriana Tower when I got your lunch invitation, or I'd have requested we meet somewhere else."

Mara frowned. "We could go elsewhere, if you would prefer?"

Madine shook his head. "Oh, no. It's fine. It's just that I haven't been here since before I defected." He sat, looking at the menu again. "I had a fiancée. A life even, before." Madine explained without looking up. "Karreio. She was a member of the Imperial aristocracy who saw something in a rough-edged trooper that I hadn't seen in myself. She introduced me to this place. A secret hideaway, in the heart of the Palace District. Privacy in public."

That had always been what Mara used it for, too, when she'd been pretending to be a member of that aristocracy. Of all her personas, Countess Claria had been most comfortable cycling through those rarefied circles, but Mara had always found that particular persona tiring.

"I left her behind when I defected," Madine continued. "She was still a true believer, so I never could tell her about the things I did. The things they asked me to do. Perhaps I should have." He glanced over the menu at her, taking a sip of his water before putting the tall glass back down. He looked back at the menu. "She died during the invasion of Coruscant."

"I'm sorry."

"Me too," Madine sighed. "I never looked up how she died, if any of her family survived. This war, brought about by the need of the powerful to have still more power… it killed her, surely as it killed everyone on Alderaan, but living in that system, even at the middle rank, we were both a party to evil, and we incurred a debt. Eventually, that debt comes due. Perhaps a blaster bolt, perhaps a trial, perhaps a grey existence on the Fringe."

Mara frowned.

"I suppose that's as good a transition to the reason we're meeting as any," Madine said wryly. The waiter came over and the conversation paused as they ordered.

"The Imperial guilt conversation, you mean?" she asked, resting her hands on the table. She sighed and turned to look out the window. The external towers of the Imperial Palace loomed, the old gunnery platforms visible and still manned, but now by Republic soldiers instead of Imperials. The skyline of Coruscant was beyond, with a long near-wall of towers glittering in the evening sun. Beyond that were the Manarai Mountains, steeped in white and orange that was steadily turning purple as the sun rapidly set. "I think you said all you intended to say when we spoke on the roof."

"But you didn't say very much at all."

She sighed and turned back away from the view, her attention returning to Madine. "Palpatine groomed me from childhood to be his agent. He molded me, my strengths and weaknesses, my abilities, my mindset. He turned me into … a living testament to his cleverness and his power." She scowled. "I was a trophy as much as I was an asset." She shook her head. "You know all that already. So do I. What else is there to say?"

"Maybe nothing. Maybe a lot," Madine replied. "We—former Imperials, I mean—all live with a great deal of guilt. We all have a different reason for not acting sooner than we did. Sometimes, often, it was fear; resistance against the Empire from the ranks is dangerous, what with ISB always on the lookout for the enemy within. Sometimes it was because we didn't see. Most of the time though, it was because we chose to look away." He frowned. "That's for those of us who had consciences, though. Many in the Empire weren't conflicted at all, they didn't care as long as it brought them wealth or power."

Mara was quiet, her gaze turning back to the mountains as the orange fully faded to purple. She found herself wishing Luke was here instead, but she felt certain there were things that Luke, with his farmboy innocence and endless optimism, should never have to face. Madine would understand. "He could have warped me fully," she said quietly. "Could have broken me to his will, turned me completely into a puppet. He didn't. I don't know why he didn't… I don't know why he left me…" she shrugged helplessly, groping for the right word and not finding it. Innocent was certainly not accurate.

"Why do you think?"

Mara shook her head. "The only thing I can think of was I served his purposes better as I was. That because I believed in Imperial Justice, he could use me as his tool to convince everyone else that it actually existed."

Madine surprised her with a humorless laugh. Her gaze darted to him, expression darkening. "What?" she asked, tone dangerous.

"Miss Jade, we all believed in Imperial Justice. At first. Everyone told us it was real, that the Empire was a force for good, for order, that the old Republic had been an unstable relic. That last part might even have been true. But we all believed that the Empire was a force for good, outside of the darkest souls in ISB. Even Isard believed in the Empire, I think." He leaned forward. "The difference is how far could you push us before we broke and stopped believing. Some never did. Men like Rogriss and Pellaeon, they still believe. For me," he sighed, looking weary, "for me, it took being ordered to kill every living being on Dentaal. It took me a long time to break, because I believed."

"He never gave me orders like that one," Mara whispered.

"No," Madine agreed darkly. "He saved them for those of us he'd already pushed to the brink and had nonetheless remained loyal."

"But why not?" Mara demanded. "I would've followed those orders. I would—"

"Would you?" Madine interrupted her sharply. "Would you have followed those orders, Miss Jade?"

She swallowed hard. No, she thought, and knew in her gut that it was true. If Palpatine had broken her more, warped her, molded her… but the Emperor's Hand had believed in Imperial Justice, believed in it more than anything else in the galaxy, upheld and fought for it. The Emperor's Hand had detested Grand Moff Tarkin for what had happened to Alderaan, because it had been the antithesis of the Imperial Justice she had believed in. The Emperor's Hand had always believed the Empire and its Emperor were better than that.

Because Palpatine had let her believe it.

"That's why he didn't give them to you," Madine said, almost kindly. "Because he knew you wouldn't follow them."

Mara wasn't sure if that made her feel better or worse. She wasn't sure how that made her feel. Good? Bad? Prideful? Ashamed? Yes, there was a fair bit of shame in that mix.

"One thing I have learned, something I tell all of us, Miss Jade," Madine said quietly, "is that ultimately, the most important thing is how we move forward. Some of us…" he shook his head, "some of us, it doesn't matter how much good we do, we'll always be damned for the evil we failed to stop. We will spend the rest of our lives paying back our debts, and what matters is that our payment has meaning to the living people we help in the present."

The living people we help in the present.

She'd never been ordered to destroy a world. Never been ordered to murder an innocent—at least, someone she had been told was an innocent. But it almost didn't matter, she thought. Palpatine could have made her do those things. She would have done them, all he had to do was twist her mind a little more… and the knowledge that he could have made her do them, but didn't, somehow made her feel even more guilty. Why spare her what he inflicted on others?

And then, of all things, she thought about Tatooine, the Tuskens, the venality of Mos Eisley and the Hutts, and all the hard choices Luke had doubtless grown up with, followed by the subsequent challenges of his life. He had remained a beacon of light through it all.

She had only just realized what she had thought, started to interrogate it, when her train of thought was interrupted by a familiar beeping, one that sent shivers down her spine and made her instinctively inhale. She froze, anticipating a mental touch, a knife of telepathy pushing into her mind—but no. Palpatine was dead. She forced the spasm of dread back, then patted herself down, looking for the source of the beeping.

Mara pulled the wristcom she had found on L6000-H-82688 out of her pocket. She'd entirely forgotten about it since she and Skywalker had found her old ship, and she stared at it in confusion and mounting alarm.

"What is it?" asked Madine.

She glanced up at him, saw his own confused and mildly alarmed expression, and shook her head. "I'm not sure," she said, fumbling with the wristcom. She'd always worn one on Coruscant, at least when she was younger; the device had been one of Palpatine's less invasive forms of communication, and a way for her to communicate with her myriad handlers (when she had still needed handlers). She pressed on it, following the alert to a more detailed explanation of its cause—

"Miss Jade?"

Her frown deepened. "I found this in my old possessions," she said without looking at him. "It's something Palpatine used to communicate with me. I'm… not sure why I took it." She scowled at the device. Damn Skywalker and his Force intuitions.

Madine had the grace not to press, perhaps recognizing a Force thing when he saw it. "Why is it beeping?"

"It says one of my old safehouses—I had about a dozen of them, scattered all over the planet in areas I operated in when I was younger, while I was still in training—has been compromised." She glanced up at him, saw his eyebrows lift with curiosity. "The one in Argosy District. Apparently someone is trying to breach the main door… and just succeeded." She frowned, thinking back and trying to remember everything she could about the Argosy safehouse. "I operated in Argosy District about fifteen years ago," she mused, "there wasn't much at the safehouse, but I have reason to believe Isard co-opted all my old facilities after Palpatine's death."

"Fifteen years? How old were you?"

Mara shrugged, pressing the wristcom and trying to elicit more information. "I'm not sure. Ten or eleven standard," she replied distractedly. "I'm going to go check this out," she continued as she moved her lightsaber from its concealment in her clutch to its more convenient location on her combat belt. "I doubt it's a coincidence that I explore my old facility here in the palace, and a week later someone breaks into another of my old facilities on the other side of the planet." She stood. She'd need to go back to the office first; her primary blaster was there, and her extra power packs. It was too bulky to wear easily concealed, but it wasn't wise to go into a potential fight without it. Her holdout was already in her sleeve. "Shavit, I need to call Cracken too," she cursed, annoyed, and reached for her comlink.

"I'll come with you," Madine volunteered. "If it is related to Isard, you might need backup."

She frowned at him. "General Madine, I work very well alone," she said. "I don't want to have to protect you while I investigate—"

Madine held up at hand, his gaze hardening. "Miss Jade," he said stiffly, "I am not some desk jockey. I was an Imperial Storm Commando. I was the Imperial Storm Commando. I'm probably one of the few members of the New Republic military who can rival yourself in terms of field experience." He smiled thinly. "And, most importantly, Mon Mothma hasn't allowed me to go on a field mission in years. I'm craving a chance to stretch my legs, and this sounds like fun." He nodded at her. "You call Airen and let him know where we're going. I'll arrange transport to Argosy District; I guarantee I can get us there faster than you can."

There didn't seem to be much room for argument. Besides, he was probably right.

And it did sound like fun.

[Go to Chapter Eighteen, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Fantastic discussion!! Very true on all counts and thought-provoking. I like the idea of Mara going there with "backup."

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Eighteen, Part III

Ultimately she hadn't needed to go back to her office for her blaster. The transport Madine commandeered was small, fast, and equipped with enough commando gear to storm Coruscant all over again. Mara smiled, remembering the best Stormtrooper units that had served with her. That Madine reminded her of them shouldn't surprise her given Madine's history, she thought as she finished equipping herself, pulling on a lightweight blaster-resistant vest. I should've asked Cracken if I could recover my old gear, she thought with a frown. It was all much more expensive than this. Nothing but the best for the Emperor's Hand.

Still, the equipment Madine provided was better than mere trooper grade, and it was much better than harsh language. She checked her borrowed blaster pistol and her holdout, plus the vibroblades at the small of her back and the lightsaber secured to her belt. It was nice to be well-armed, but the whole arsenal didn't mean much until she knew what she and Madine might be facing. Weapons were tools, and it was always important to have the right tool for any job.

Madine had offered to call up a commando unit, but it would have delayed them by half an hour and Mara thought that too long to wait, so they would be coming along behind as reinforcements. In the meantime, Mara quickly briefed Madine on the facility as the transport finished its low-orbit hop.

"It's located in the mid-levels of a nondescript apartment building," she explained. "Three floors, taking up what appears on maps of the building as a condo unit and empty space, close to one of the building's landing pads. On the inside it's essentially a three story loft. The first floor is a living space; refresher, bedroom, kitchenette. The second floor, at least while I was using it, was the primary workspace, with computer access to the planetary intelligence network and the Imperial palace. The third floor had a holocom, which I could use to confer with the Emp—" she wrinkled her nose with irritation "—with Palpatine, without needing to return to the palace."

Madine nodded. "And the defenses?"

Mara shook her head. "Not much. Its primary defense was anonymity. When I used it, I had a Kaythree protocol droid, which interfaced with the computer network, and two Imperial officers; one was a tutor, the other was a computer expert, who served as my handlers. This was before I started operating independently. The safehouse was designed to be abandoned if found, and had one escape route on each floor. We can use them to enter as well, although I'll have to cut through the walls."

"A tutor?"

She thought back, remembering the two men. Her teacher had been rather elderly even back then, but she remembered him as an excellent teacher with just the right amount of patience for someone as young as she had been. The other man had been one of the many faceless Imperial officers who had shuffled in and out of her life without leaving any impression at all, as replaceable as spare parts for her blaster. "General Alsdoxe," she said, his name coming to her in a moment of remembrance. "He didn't teach me for very long. Two, three months. I assume he had to get back to his normal duties."

"Alsdoxe?" Madine said in surprise. "Dertimo Alsdoxe?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, I never knew his first name. I'm pretty sure he was on leave from Carida when he was teaching me, though. Palpatine mentioned that."

Madine hummed thoughtfully as he tugged his own protective gear on, then checked and double-checked his blaster. Unlike Mara, who was content with her pistol and her holdout, he had shrugged on a black New Republic shock trooper combat plastron and bore a customized E-11 with a pair of extra powerpacks in long, slim pockets on his back. "General Dertimo Alsdoxe was a veteran of the Clone Wars," Madine said, "and was one of the better trooper instructors at Carida. I think he taught there for thirty years, going back to pre-Imperial days." He chuckled. "I haven't thought about him in years, but he was one of my instructors too, although about a generation before he was yours, and for a command-level course. I assume he's retired by now, but he may actually still teach at Carida. He transferred to instruction young; a lot of the existing army back then was displaced when the Republic introduced clones to its fighting force."

That was curious. Mara wondered if he'd remember her. Almost certainly, she thought; she doubted General Alsdoxe had often been assigned to teach preteens Stormtrooper commando tactics. "How long until we reach Argosy District?"

The transport had made an orbital hop; darting up out of atmosphere so it could use its engines at full burn around the planet, before dipping back down into the atmosphere. Madine had been right about being able to get her here faster than she could herself; there was no way Mara would have gotten clearance to perform the maneuver in a ship of her own, even if she'd had one. She really needed to replace the Z-95 she'd lost at the Katana battle.

"Just a few minutes. I'll have an airspeeder waiting for us at the docking bay, and from there we can get to your safehouse in maybe ten minutes; more if we hurry. I assume you'll want to be circumspect, though?"

She nodded. "Best not to give whoever has breached the safehouse warning. I doubt they'll know we're coming."

Madine nodded again. "Acknowledged." He strapped the rifle to his back, adjusting his Republic-issue armor to make sure he was well protected, and then settled in to wait.

It was an odd sensation. It had been a long time since Mara had sat in a commando transport headed into a mission with an Imperial officer or Stormtrooper contingent at her side. Madine's presence reminded her of those days; steady, quiet, speaking only what needed to be said (at least now that they weren't discussing her Imperial past). It was like any dozen missions she'd done with some faceless Imperial officer, all trained and disciplined the same, all obedient and patient.

For a moment, she felt like she was the Emperor's Hand again. The old routine and habits settled around her easily, were welcoming and familiar, bespeaking stability and normality and damned if she didn't crave them sometimes.

As they came down the transport's landing ramp, waiting for them was an airspeeder with a protocol droid sitting in the pilot's seat. Mara excused him and took the seat herself; Madine hopped in the passenger side. It was a decent enough vehicle, and Mara kicked it into gear and entered the thinning lines of nighttime traffic. She didn't rush, but she did take the most expeditious route.

Her mission in Argosy District had been one of her first. It hadn't been particularly difficult; surveillance of a Black Sun meeting, attended by some of the lesser Vigos at the time. The details were blurred in her memory, but she remembered that the exercise had been about stealth, infiltration, and exfiltration. She also remembered that her lack of size had been both an advantage and a disadvantage, making tasks that required strength more difficult but tasks that required squeezing through tight spaces a breeze. Alsdoxe had been patient and kind, which was more than she could say about a lot of her tutors at that age.

She brought the airspeeder down into the landing pad, trying to fly casually. The vehicle's repulsors went silent as she put it into park, then she hopped out of the car, glancing around and hoping that no one would be there to see them approach. She wasn't trying to hide the blaster in her belt holster, and Madine's E-11 was rather prominent as he unstrapped it and carried it in a Stormtrooper's professional two-handed grip.

Luckily, she still remembered where the secret door on the third floor was. It exited directly onto the landing pad, although there was no sign of its presence from the pad. She stepped over to the wall, reaching out with the Force as she ran her hands over the wall, looking for the hidden seams.

There.

"Stand back," she said to Madine, gripping her lightsaber and pulling it off her belt. She thumbed the weapon on with its familiar snap-hiss, tracing the blade gently along the hidden seam, careful not to punch it through the wall just yet as she skimmed with the tip of the blade.

She could feel Madine watching her, watching their surroundings. His awareness was keen, nervousness suppressed under a professional's intent.

Mara ignored him. The pressure of the Force grew in her mind as she reached out into the space beyond—and then she felt it. A presence in the Force, a powerful one. One skilled and perceptive and one who had just become as aware of her as she was aware of them.

The Force also told her something else—that she had reached both the place and the moment to strike. With Skywalker's persistent lessons to let the Force guide her echoing in her head, lessons that said she needed to let the Force show her what she needed to do when she needed to do it, she placed both hands on her lightsaber and thrust the blade through the wall to the hilt.

[Go to Chapter Nineteen] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

I adore efficient Mara She is focused and undistractable. I enjoyed the glimpses of her past and the common acquaintance she and Madine may have in Alsdoxe.

 

I suppose I should mention that there may come a time in the future that I change Alsdoxe's name. In the event I decide to use the character in some future fanfiction (he's just an offhand mention in this one) and want to incorporate some existing figure who might fit in this role, I'll retcon this conversation with a different name.

 

I really like the inclusion of this line, which shows that she knows more than she's letting herself realize.

This poor girl, such a life that she's lived that someone being kind to her makes her uneasy.

I feel your pain, Mara

Not "couldn't understand" - "should never have to face." Look at her, trying to protect Luke as much as he's trying to protect her

This is a very insightful line, and shows just what an accomplished manipulator Palpatine was. Better to keep as many useful assets as possible, so why risk alienating any of them?

Another good way to illustrate how completely inexcusable Mara's early life was, for Madine to be shocked that she was already in active service when she was still a young child, and Mara doesn't give it a second thought.

Like in Survivor's Quest, where Luke pointed out - ever so gently - that she slipped back into the role of Imperial commander with unnerving ease. It's just a bone-deep familiarity she'll probably never entirely shake, poor thing.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Nineteen

Vorru jerked back in surprise as Eliezer cursed. "I just lost the connection to the HoloNet!" the Drall exclaimed, his beady eyes searching out the holocomm on the floor above. He started in his chair as he saw what Vorru and the Tevas-kaar had already seen: the blue lightsaber now carving down through the wall one floor above. "Oh, sithspit," the Drall breathed in horror.

The Tevas-kaar was the least surprised. His body position shifted and he drew his lightsaber, igniting the blue-white blade with a snap-hiss. "Get behind me," he said, his resonant voice echoing under the mask he wore.

Eliezer was still scrabbling out of his chair while also trying to do something on the terminal when a foot kicked in a door that had been camouflaged into the wall, cut open by the lightsaber. The hidden door slammed against the interior wall with a horrendous, echoing bang. For a moment all was silent, and then a flicker of motion on the floor above drew Vorru's attention. He squinted, trying to see in the dark, and stepped back involuntarily as the slim, feminine figure rose from the floor, a blue blade extending from the lightsaber hilt held securely in her hand, the hum of the weapon filling the silence of the room.

He'd snapped off a shot before he'd even realized he had, survival instinct and fear both screaming at him to strike first. It was a mistake. The woman's lightsaber caught the blaster bolt with an economical movement, tilting to the side to intercept it. The bolt ricocheted back towards them, blowing a hole in the computer terminal just inches above Eliezer's head. Sparks and flame ignited and Eliezer's gasp of agony and frantic matting at his fur told Vorru that firing a second time would be another mistake.

"Prepare for evacuation," the Tevas-kaar said firmly, one of his hands pulling the flailing Eliezer behind him, then pushing both Eliezer and Vorru towards the spiral stairs down to the first floor of the safehouse, never taking his eyes off the woman.

Vorru got his first good look at her and had no idea who she was. She had striking red-gold hair—a relative rarity, but hardly distinguishing—and youth. One of Isard's, Vorru guessed, although the idea of Isard training a Force adept was almost too ridiculous to seriously contemplate. But who she was and how she'd come to be there were questions for later. Eliezer had gotten at least some of the funds in Isard's black account, and even a fraction of the credits would be more than enough to serve his immediate needs, which meant now they just had to survive.

Hurry, Roeder, he thought as the woman stalked down the spiral staircase after them, her lightsaber held in a comfortable, confident defensive grip. His only reassurance was that the Tevas-kaar looked equally confident. Who knows, Fliry, he thought almost casually. Maybe you'll finally find out if that armor of his is purely for show or actually serves a purpose.

[Go to Chapter Nineteen, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Awesomeness, just.

 

So many different elements in this story and you balance them so well

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Nineteen, Part II

Mara kicked through the emergency exit she'd carved free with her lightsaber, hearing the heavy metal slam into the wall on the inside, the bang sending trembles through the building. She held up a hand to Madine, telling him to wait, paused two seconds, and then rolled into the room, confident she'd avoid any blaster fire. She came up in a crouch, rising as she re-ignited her lightsaber, and it was then she heard the echoing hum of the equally blue blade one level down.

There were three people down there. The sight of a Drall was surprising; the small alien was clacking at a computer terminal with a distracted expression. Standing behind the Drall there was an older human holding a blaster in his hand; he actually looked familiar, though she couldn't immediately place him. The barrel of his weapon was snapping up towards her and snarled, sending a bolt zinging towards her. She casually deflected it back, sending it through the computer terminal's interface.

Her focus was on the third figure. He was very tall and clearly powerfully built, wearing bronze armor that covered him from head to toe. It was a light armor, not appearing particularly protective, but appearances weren't always indicative of usefulness. Most distinctive was the white mask, carved to give a furred appearance, and the calm brown eyes that gazed through that mask at her. He held a lightsaber, blue blade looking quite like her own, comfortably in his hand.

Skywalker had told her he thought it was important that they practice lightsaber sparring, but hadn't been sure why. She was pretty sure that she now knew why.

She stepped onto the staircase, not saying anything, her gaze on the tall figure. He ushered his two companions behind him—the one armed with the blaster didn't try shooting her again—and hurried them down the spiral stairs towards the first floor. Beyond the spiral staircase, framing his back, was an enormous Imperial emblem, which hung three-stories high along the external wall.

Dozens of times Mara had stalked after her prey. All those corrupt governors and administrators, crooked nobles… She had been the Emperor's Hand, and when she approached, her slow and steady and purposeful step had carried justice closer. Some had bartered, others begged; justified or cowered. Occasionally—rarely—they had even fought. They had known, all of them, that the game was up. But she was not the Emperor's Hand anymore, and none of her previous targets had ever held a lightsaber in his hand.

"New Republic armed forces!" she heard General Madine yell from the floor above as he took up a sheltered position at the top of the stairs. "Throw down your weapons!"

The armored man didn't seem inclined to obey; the other two figures continued to hurry down the stairs. Madine took a shot at them, the stun blast charring the Imperial iconography behind them. They hit the floor, ducking behind a heavy table; the older, armed man fired back blindly, sending two shots into the ceiling. Dust glittered in the air as it descended from the damage done by his wayward fire.

Mara never even noticed. Her focus had narrowed to the Force adept before her; as blaster fire continued between Madine and his two elderly foes, she gazed solely at the very tall man before her. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to surrender peaceably," she asked sarcastically.

Unsurprisingly, the tall man didn't reply, but she could feel a sort of grim, sympathetic amusement hovering between them.

He didn't feel like Vader or Palpatine had; there was no persistent sense of menace, no suffusive chill. But neither did the other man have Skywalker's calming presence, his warmth or light, purity tempered by pain and experience. Skywalker was the child of Tatooine moisture farmers at heart, one who had never stopped dreaming even after all the pain and uncertainty; one who'd had the temerity to hope and dream even more because of it.

The man who stood before her was no Skywalker. She wasn't sure what he was.

But there was no time for her to ruminate. Harsh tongues of blaster fire licked between their companions, and the bronze figure's lightsaber reached out and deflected one of Madine's bolts back towards him, sending the General dodging to the floor with a grunt. Mara stepped forward and the blue-white blade flicked towards her, humming with purpose. She caught the blade with her own, deflecting it away, shifting her footwork to keep his attention on her and away from Madine.

They faced each other, twinned blue lightsabers humming, gleaming in the dark as the Imperial crest hung from the ceiling beyond them. The Force sang, empowering and encouraging, and warning her that time—for whatever reason—was not on her side. She struck.

Their lightsabers buzzed and hummed, blue-white blade clashing with blue-white blade. He was taller than she was, and stronger, and he was well aware of both facts, his blows endowed with more pure power than she could hope to produce. But she was faster, more nimble, and power was wasted (and indeed, could be dangerous to the wielder) if it did not find a target.

Against Skywalker, when they had sparred, she had been aggressive almost to the point of recklessness, taking advantage of her physical conditioning to put him under siege. But Skywalker had merely deflected her advances and snuck in occasional blows, light taps really. They had all healed by the next day, but if they'd been using lightsabers she would've lost a limb. That lesson firmly learned, she now fought more like Skywalker; reserved, focusing on her positioning, making sure she was aware of not just where she was standing but of where she would be standing next.

He came at her with a potent downward slash; she flowed backwards, shifting her weight as she dodged the blow and sent her lightsaber clashing against his. His strength prevented her from batting his blade aside for a quick lunge, and their blades screeched as they ground against one another, his forcing her back. She spun away, feet moving with a dancer's grace.

Above them, Madine was back on his feet, his custom blaster spitting fire at the other two intruders. The Imperial banner standing on the three-story wall had caught fire in two places, flames licking dangerously upwards, curling the hard edges of the Imperial crest. She could hear the white-haired human hiding with the Drall talking on a comlink, but she didn't have the time or attention to spare enhancing her senses to listen; Madine was also shouting in his comlink, no doubt calling the commando reinforcements he'd promised would be available.

Mara dodged left, avoiding another powerful downward slash. Her opponent's lightsaber carved through the chair that the Drall had been sitting in, tip of the blade catching the computer terminal and splitting the monitor in two. A crash of electronics equipment sent a cascade of sparks down over her, and Mara rolled away, coming up on her toes and springing forward for a daring attack. He was ready for her, blocking her lunge with the center of his blade and using his strength to physically push her back. If not for years of dance training she might've fallen, but she caught her balance and dodged his retaliatory stroke, hearing his lightsaber buzz alarmingly close.

Her foe backed away, taking slow steps down the spiral stairs to the first floor, never turning fully away from her. She pursued, and with a leap she landed on the first floor of the apartment. She deflected a blaster bolt back towards the old man as she landed; he didn't try shooting at her again.

Her danger sense was screaming now, but she already knew there was danger—and then she saw it. The armored Force adept had made a mistake as he swept at her and she reacted to the offered opening, thrusting forward with a lunge and flicking the tip of her lightsaber up to sever his sword arm at the elbow—

Her lightsaber made contact with the man's bronze armor and its blade abruptly vanished, its hum dying with a sickening mechanical spasm.

The moment of sheer shock and disbelief at the abrupt betrayal of her weapon mingled with sudden, intense melancholy, because she was finished. She was extended, defenseless, and within easy reach of a skilled swordsman with a lit blade.

It was odd, she thought in the heartbeat between moments. Serving as the Emperor's Hand she'd always expected to die in his service, had known it could happen at any moment, but since she'd been freed from his voice she'd come to believe that she would have more time.

* * *​

The redheaded Jedi—for that was what she had to be, she was too skilled and too well trained to be a mere padawan learner, as he had first assumed—slipped her lightsaber through his defenses. It carved up to catch his elbow, and ought to have ended the fight right there.

But the Tevas-kaar's armor was spun with cortosis ore. His order, tied to Tavira through debts of fealty neither he nor they would easily break, had mastered its secrets a century before. When he had first come to the Jensaarai, when they had found him, his soul mangled by the competing teachings of his fallen Master and his subsequent keepers, they had not trusted him. But he'd earned their trust, joined their order, taken a title appropriate to their ways. They had taught the secret of their armor, the importance of their anonymity, and the vital truths that they held so dear.

A lightsaber would not pierce his armor. At least, not without repeated strikes. Clearly, the Jedi had not known his armor for what it was.

They hovered in that moment; she had extended in her vital lunge. His blue-white blade hummed, a simple stroke away from cleaving through her shoulder and chest. She had brilliant green eyes and he could see both in them and in her Force sense that she knew as well as he did that she could not get out of his reach faster than he could bring the killing stroke. Her moment of frozen horror would not hold her for long; it being useless did not mean she should not try. After all, there was always a chance he would make a mistake. She was already starting to twist away, moving in a futile attempt to perhaps sacrifice an arm instead of her life.

Her Force sense sang with regret.

He hesitated, and that hesitation cost him. His focus so inerrantly on the Jedi, he had forgotten her companion. His blade moved without thought to intercept the blaster bolt aimed at his head, deflecting it back; he deflected a second, and a third, taking a step back to improve his body posture—

The Jedi had rolled away. A double-tap on the stud of her lightsaber and it sprang back into existence to her obvious relief. Instead of his blade carving through her, she caught the killing stroke and batted it back, then retreated towards the stairs, covering the man who had just saved her life; she reflected Vorru's blaster fire back towards the Moff, bolts leaving embers in the apartment's furniture, each one slowly stoking greater flames.

* * *​

Mara reached Madine's side in two quick steps. He was sprawled on his back, using one of the apartment's comfortable lounge chairs for cover. His armor had absorbed a lot of the energy of the blaster bolt that had saved Mara's life, but not all of it, and his pained expression and blood-soaked tunic told the rest of the story. He offered her a painfully wry, genuinely amused smile, gasping as she peeled off his armor to put pressure on the wound. "T-this is why Mon Mothma doesn't let me have any fun," he bit out as she fumbled. "You never know when you're going to run into a lightsaber," he hissed as she applied a compress, taking a hitching breath. "How bad is it?"

"You'll live," Mara replied shortly, risking a glance from behind the chair. She pulled out her blaster pistol and fired a few quick shots in the direction of the now huddled trio on the other side of the living room, who were hiding behind a table turned over onto its side. She put a few more shots into it for good measure, making sure they kept their heads down. "But I think you're out of the fight for now." She paused, holding the pressure on the wound, wishing the Force had more convenient tools to offer for healing than the healing trance. "Thanks," she muttered, her eyes flicking to meet the General's. "For saving my life."

"Oh, that," Madine gasped, his hands squeezing tight, gritting his teeth. "What happened to your—" he flailed as she applied more pressure to the wound "—ooof… t-to your lightsaber?"

"I don't know," she grated. "I hit him and it just vanished on me." Memories of the Imperial Palace, of the material that Palpatine had used to line the walls around his most important working and living spaces, material that would prevent a lightsaber from cutting through it… she didn't think she'd ever learned its name. "His armor must protect against lightsabers," she said, trying not to reflect on just how close she'd just come to death. There would hopefully be time to be philosophical about it later.

"Reinforcements… should be here soon," Madine assured her, his expression slackening a bit.

Indeed, outside Mara could hear the sound of sirens. Airspeeders from the Coruscant Constabulary, probably… they would've been dispatched when the neighbors started reporting the sound of blaster fire, and maybe called automatically by the building's fire detection system. Flames had now fully consumed the banner with the Imperial crest, sending embers down in a mockery of a Tanaabian firelight show. Other, smaller fires were burning elsewhere, a legacy of errant or deflected blaster bolts. "Sounds like that's them now," she said, leaning out from behind the chair to fire a few more shots over the table the trio of enemies were hiding behind.

Except they weren't there anymore. The three of them had moved as one, dodging away from the large wall and its blazing, hanging Imperial banner, ducking into the apartment's bedroom. She frowned, staring after them in confusion. There is no way to escape the apartment from there, so why?

The sounds of sirens were louder now; she could hear them screaming just on the other side of the apartment wall. It sounded like at least three airspeeders; the vibrations from their heavy repulsorlifts shook the entire building at this proximity—

She reacted without thinking. Grabbing Madine, she dragged him and threw him down in the kitchenette, protected by the heavily reinforced island counter, then hit the ground next to him and covered her head. There was a moment's pause, the only sounds the hum from outside and Madine's labored breathing, and then a barrage of energy fire tore the apartment apart.

Three airspeeders, each one armed with vehicle-mounted anti-personnel cannons, opened fire as one. Red lasers burned through the exterior wall, blasting through the apartment and vaporizing what was left of the furniture. The smell of fresh night air and burning ozone came in as one as the wall shredded under the barrage, lasers ripping through transparisteel and the table and the chairs, through even the apartment's far interior wall. Mara could now see the three airspeeders—marked in Coruscant Constabulary colors—hovering over the deep chasm that separated the towering apartment building with the adjacent ones, flickers of starlight and windows across the urban canyon as every person in a kilometer radius woke up as one.

Clearly, they did not actually belong to the Constabulary. Either that, or the Constabulary had been bought. Both were real possibilities.

The barrage stopped, leaving the apartment fully aflame. Mara poked her head up higher, saw the trio of intruders heading towards the newly made void in the wall; a nondescript airspeeder had approached, avoiding the falling permacrete and transparisteel to sidle up with the building, its side door gaping open. They were helping the Drall into the vehicle—he looked worse for wear—while the bronze armored Force adept held his lightsaber up protectively. She took a shot at them; the armored figure deflected it down into the floor.

Madine was recovered enough to be on his comlink. "Coruscant Control," he gasped painfully as he held his link up to speak into it, his breathing labored. "This is… General Madine… require immediate military support and lockdown—"

Then Madine's comm cut in over his transmission; a steely female voice with a Corellian accent: "Authorization Vermillion-Niner-Four. Friendlies attempting main entry. Keep your heads down."

The apartment's front door burst open and the thump of combat boots resounded from the hallway. A human woman in light armor and a combat helmet entered, sweeping the room with a blaster rifle while a red-skinned, sharp-horned Devaronian came in hot on her heels lugging a nasty heavy-barreled repeating blaster. While the human posted up on the side of the large hole and began laying down sharp bursts of covering fire, the Devaronian leveled his cannon at the center of the gaping hole in the apartment wall, took careful aim, and pressed the firing stud. Four heavy bursts drilled into the rightmost airspeeder, punching holes in the canopy, the heavy turret, and the vehicle's gunner. Mara focused through the Force, sensing other New Republic forces arriving, and a loud panicked buzz from the civilians scattering through and out of the building.

Out the window, two tiny forms suddenly leapt from the third story landing platform, trailing slender wires, and landed on the middle airspeeder. They were small, little larger than Jawas, but the ferocious aliens had nimble balance and incredible strength. Noghri, Mara realized.

The airspeeder's gunner was gutted before he could react; the Noghri who had killed him heaved his corpse into the urban canyons below and commandeered the cannon, swinging it to bear on the other speeders. His partner had blasted a hole in the vehicle's canopy, popped it open, and slaughtered the three men inside with a vibroblade almost before they had realized he was there. The airspeeder swayed, twisting as the Noghri fought for control.

The third airspeeder opened fire again, and the heavy blaster bolts forced the woman to spin back and drop to her belly while the Devaronian hustled into cover next to Madine. Mara grabbed Madine's heavy blaster and swung it over the counter, firing back.

The old man, the Drall, and the bronze-armored Force-adept had vanished along with the nondescript airspeeder. Mara wasn't even sure how long it had been since they'd made their escape.

"Hey General," the Devaronian said to Madine casually. "Been a while since I last saw you in the field. Looks like you had a blast."

"Shut up, Kapp," Madine coughed, wincing and holding a hand to his wound. "I thought you were detailed to Intelligence."

"Still am," Kapp replied with a devilish grin that faded when he noted the extent of Madine's injury. "You don't look so good. Should we call the medics?" He stripped a bacta patch off of his belt and slapped it on Madine's chest, covering the wound.

"Already did," Madine groaned. "My shock troopers should… ugh… be arriving any minute now. But… thanks… for the backup," he wheezed exhaustedly, taking long breaths between words.

"Anytime," Kapp said half-cheerfully, easing the heavy gun around for a few more shots. The fire in the apartment still raged, and out the now open wall Mara could hear additional sirens, these from the planetary fire and rescue service.

Mara finally started to come down from her adrenaline high when she heard the booms of twin Novaldexx engines. A pair of A-wings screamed by outside, rattling every window in a three kilometer radius. The fact that Rebel ships could evoke a sense of ease in her was not something Mara wanted to unpack just then.

She watched with a rattled detachment as the airspeeders tried to make a run for it, but with A-wings around there was no chance they could get away. Mara just hoped they could down the vehicles without sending them into any inhabited buildings. The Noghri who now controlled the middle airspeeder brought it to land above them.

Finally Madine's commandos arrived, two entire tac-teams of some of the most dangerous-looking sapients Mara had ever seen, some carrying fire suppression gear, and one carrying a medpac who rushed over to Madine. None of them looked visibly concerned, but all of them took up positions around Mara and the general, shielding them both with their bodies and heavy armor.

This, Mara thought with fierce appreciation, is service you can't buy or instill through fear. This is years of pure unadulterated respect and professionalism repaid instantly. And it wasn't earned through lies.

"Clear?" It was the woman who led the first insertion, crouching with her rifle held low—ready and finger off the trigger.

"Clear," Kapp replied confidently. He waved one of the commandos to search the apartment; they fanned out carefully, blasters sweeping the dark corners as lights from the far side of the urban canyon and the sound of sirens peeked through the now gaping hole in the apartment.

Fresh night air swept in, sending a chill over Mara's skin.

The woman rose slightly to look around her, then safed and slung her rifle before moving over, still low, through the smog between them to the nearly indestructible cover the three of them were hiding behind.

Streaks of grime and soot accentuated her fine, pale features, while a wisp of blonde or light brown hair (Mara couldn't tell with all the smoke), emerged from underneath the helmet. She brightened with relief when she saw Kapp with Madine and Mara.

"Hey, Iella," Kapp waved her over, gesturing to the supine Madine. "Look who decided to go on a field operation, and at his age!"

Iella? Mara thought, surprised and giving the woman a second look.

Madine himself didn't even have the grace to look abashed, "Excellent timing… you're Agent Wessiri, correct?" He grimaced, pushing the bacta pack against his wound again, "ouch—remind me to… have Colonel Dendo spend a few months doing budget analysis. I think that's the agreed-upon penalty… for quipping about a General's age…"

The Devaronian grinned, but didn't say anything more as the woman, apparently Mara's partner-in-waiting, the storied Iella Wessiri, finally gave Mara her undivided attention. She had kind eyes, which clashed with her focused expression. "You must be Mara Jade," she said, her gaze meeting Mara's. "I hear we're going to be working together." Iella extended her hand.

Mara took it. Wessiri was younger than she had expected, without the perpetual hard-bitten expression or sinewy age she'd guessed the woman would possess. She certainly looked nothing like Ysanne Isard. "Agent Wessiri," she replied, trying to keep the still aching anxiety from just how close she'd come to death out of her voice and expression. Get it together, Mara. You've come close to death before. "Thank you for the help. I've heard a lot about you."

"All of it good, I hope."

Mara thought about how complimentary Karrde and Cracken had sounded, and of the warm affection she'd heard in Skywalker's voice when he'd talked about the woman who now, finally, stood before her in well-worn tactical gear. "All good," Mara agreed. "From a truly remarkable range of people."

Kapp was taking Madine's vitals; the General looked pale, but his breathing was steady. "Sure you're not a little old for field work, Crix?" Kapp teased him, though his tone didn't quite match the lighthearted words.

"Sure you don't want to spend a month doing the military's budget reports?" Madine grimaced, his breathing growing steadier. "But, ugh, maybe Mon has a point." He shifted uncomfortably; the screaming of engines and the rattling of windows had subsided, so if there was any fighting ongoing, it was more distant now. "I think that was Black Sun," Madine added absently.

Iella's eyebrows both rose. "Black Sun? I didn't see any markings or characteristic tactics."

"I recognized one of the men who was here." Madine sighed, his breathing becoming more relaxed as the bacta soothed the pain from the wound. "Oh, that's better… I doubt there's any Corellian my age who wouldn't recognize Moff Fliry Vorru."

Wessiri's kind eyes went cold and her tone even colder. "Vorru? Are you sure?"

Madine nodded seriously, his expression still pained. "I'm sure. I met him once, before Palpatine removed him as Corellia's Moff, and saw him in plenty of news bulletins when I was younger. He looked older, but it was him, or a damn near likeness. Or a clone, I suppose."

The combat haze started to fade from Mara's mind. She'd never met Vorru—Palpatine had taken him out of circulation before she'd been fully active as the Emperor's Hand—but she knew him by reputation. The Imperial Moffdom had been of two minds about him; either he was a genius, a real rival for the likes of Grand Moff Tarkin, or he was a lowlife criminal whose only success had been the product of playing with the Fringe. Either way, Vorru was someone the Emperor's Hand had been predisposed to distrust.

The fire in the living room was still burning; outside the window, a fire suppression speeder was starting to spray large amounts of anti-fire foam into the room, putting out the flames around the building's open wound. It gave the air a heady, humid weight.

Iella seemed not to notice; her expression tight. "Last time I saw Vorru I was throwing him back on Kessel. I hoped he was smart enough to stay there, or maybe just escape to quiet retirement." She shook herself, then nodded slowly. "Okay. So Fliry Vorru's out and involved. That makes a certain amount of sense. It also presents some new avenues for investigation." She nodded at her partner. "Kapp, Hospital is five minutes out. Comm Cracken, let the authorities clean this up, and tell him to send a team of techs to toss the computers here to figure out what they were up to." She gestured at the melted wreck of the apartment. "Assuming there's anything left to find."

Mara barely heard her. The burning Imperial tapestry on the wall had been extinguished, but not before the crest emblazoned on it had been burned half away. She heard Iella and Kapp discussing objectives, answered direct questions when asked, but she remembered that tapestry. Remembered the little girl she'd been, determined, fierce and obedient, brought to this apartment with an Imperial General who'd tutored her in infiltration and commando tactics.

She also remembered the white-masked Force-wielder, a blue lightsaber in his hand. She remembered the moment of desperation when her lightsaber died. And she knew that despite Madine's intervention, she was only alive because her foe had hesitated before delivering the killing blow.

"Miss Jade?"

Wessiri was peering at her, with an expression that bore a mixture of concern and curiosity.

Mara shook herself. There would be time to think about it later, when the mission was done. Recalling many a post-mission debriefing, she began her recitation of what had happened.

[Go to Chapter Nineteen, Part III] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

This: He didn't feel like Vader or Palpatine had; there was no persistent sense of menace, no suffusive chill. But neither did the other man have Skywalker's calming presence, his warmth or light, purity tempered by pain and experience. Skywalker was the child of Tatooine moisture farmers at heart, one who had never stopped dreaming even after all the pain and uncertainty; one who'd had the temerity to hope and dream even more because of it.

Lovely.

Superb duel details between Mara and the Tevas-kaar.


Whew, that was close; pesky cortosis.

Vital clues for Iella and others to unravel; but the final confrontation with Vorru and the Tevas-Kaar is yet to come.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Nineteen, Part III

It took Vorru, Eliezer, the Tevas-kaar, and their pilot six hours to circle back around to their ship, once they were very, very sure that it hadn't been given away.

Vorru had no idea how the Republic had found out about his presence on Coruscant and his operation in Argosy District, but it was obvious that it had, somehow. General Crix Madine did not just appear on a whim, and the Republic had sent not just him, but also a Jedi. They'd been keeping the fact that they had more than one very quiet. It was evident, though, that he had not been fully betrayed; the timing of the intervention, combined with the lackluster amount of men who had been accompanying Madine, suggested that whatever they'd done to give away the game, it was a mistake they'd made relatively late.

The hangar holding Lefler's Rose was not particularly busy at this hour in the morning, so they were able to return to the freighter without further incident. The pilot immediately headed for the cockpit, getting them ready for departure, while Eliezer settled into his normal seat in the lounge and started clacking away at his terminal.

The Tevas-kaar was quiet, as usual, but Vorru thought he saw a bit of additional stiffness in the man's stance. His face was revealed, his helmet sitting in his lap as he sat on one of the other chairs in the lounge, staring into space. Vorru couldn't even begin to guess what the man was thinking, but he had saved all their lives with his skilled confrontation of the female Jedi. Vorru hadn't seen much of it, distracted as he'd been with communicating with Roeder to make sure the reinforcements served their purpose and trading blaster fire with Madine, but he'd seen enough.

Eliezer made a satisfied sound and Vorru looked over. "How much did we get?" he asked. The question had been churning in his gut ever since the Jedi had plunged her lightsaber through the apartment's holocom. How much they had gotten of Isard's black accounts, of Xizor's seized fortune, would determine how ambitious they could hope to be…

The Drall's beady black eyes focused on Vorru. "Sixty-five percent," he said with satisfaction. "And we still might get more, depending on if the Republic manages to find all my pre-programmed credit transfer requests. I've got the credits stashed away in two hundred different accounts all across the galaxy for easy access no matter where we end up."

Sixty-five percent. Sixty-five percent. The number bounced around in Vorru's head, avarice and joy and ambition ballooning in his head. That would be enough. That would be more than enough. "Transfer half of the agreed-upon sums into the accounts of our Black Sun colleagues," he said, barely hearing the words as he spoke them. "Save the other half for now; a taste will assure loyalty. We'll wait until we're back at Linuri to give Tavira her cut," he added, glancing at the Tevas-kaar. While the armored man didn't react to their conversation, Vorru suspected he heard every word. "In the meantime, let's get clearance to depart and get off this rock before the Republic tracks us down."

Eliezer nodded, his expression gleaming with the same success-driven adrenaline that Vorru felt. Sixty-five percent, his inner voice echoed. It's not a hundred, but it's still more than enough.

Fliry Vorru was now one of the richest men in the galaxy. And he knew exactly how he would use that wealth.

* * *​

Their departure was delayed.

Eliezer sat at his computer terminal, working away to ensure that their hidden freighter would not be discovered. He'd scrambled their escape in a dozen different ways, each designed to ensure they couldn't be tracked, and was currently working his way through the traffic control computer network to make sure their exit would be clear.

Vorru watched him, a ridiculous combination of giddy and paranoid. Sixty-five percent. That would give him a hefty financial foundation to work from. Not quite forty billion credits, give or take, depending on exactly how much had been let in Isard's black budget. It wouldn't compare to the fortunes of the Kuati aristocracy—not even close—but it was nonetheless an ample sum, and one that on the Fringe would give him real, tremendous power.

Or he could use it to try to buy his way into the domain of polite politics again. A donation to a Senator here, a sector governor there, and just maybe he'd be accepted into the edges of the New Republic's political society. Once entrenched, he could steadily grow his influence.

Options, options. Of course, he was inclined to go where he saw the most potential for growth, and that meant there was really only one option. He'd have to remind Eliezer to resume his tracking efforts, once they were safe. If they were safe.

Eliezer's nails ceased their steady clacking on the keyboard, and Vorru looked up in response to the silence. "We're going to have to wait to leave," Eliezer said. "Not very long. Maybe half a day. The New Republic's intelligence agencies are scouring the system right now, they must have a small army of droids doing data collection, taking down the information on every ship that tries to leave the system, and their customs enforcement has ramped up just a bit to get a closer look at outgoing ships." He coughed, rubbing his mouth with the back of his furred hand, looking utterly exhausted. "I can make sure we blend in with the crowd, but I think we should wait."

"Is waiting safe?"

"Yes," Eliezer nodded weakly but confidently. "I've covered our trail thoroughly, and the mess Roeder made should keep the local authorities very busy for at least that long."

That raised a different issue, and Vorru frowned. "Do you have any idea who that was who attacked us? The Jedi?"

Eliezer shrugged. "I assumed you would have some idea."

He didn't. Vorru didn't like that, either. It was one thing to know your enemies, to anticipate their countermoves. If it had been Cracken's men, he would've understood; it would have meant he underestimated NRI. There was always a risk of that. But General Madine and a Jedi? Alone? "I don't," he admitted. "I can try looking into it, but only once we're off Coruscant. I don't want to risk reaching out to Black Sun and leaving open a communications vulnerability that might be traced back to us."

Eliezer stood, sliding from his chair and onto the deck of the freighter. He walked gingerly across the lounge, pressing on a button on the wall underneath the freighter's original name, Lefler's Rose. The lounge window—previously sealed—slid open slowly, with a grating, cranking sound, letting the morning sun cast through it and over his dark fur.

Vorru walked over to join him at the window. Outside, Coruscant glittered. Even Argosy District, which was a shadow of the glory of the Palace District, cascaded with shining light. "It reminds me of Coronet City back home," Vorru said.

The Drall scoffed, coughed, and shook his head with disgust. "No. Coronet is a wonder and deserves to be known as one. For all this planet has a gaudy name and reputation, it's a pit. The bright center of the galaxy," he said sarcastically, "is only bright because it steals the light from the rest of the galaxy, like an Anzati sucking the life from a victim." He scowled out at the urban canyons, the rows of airspeeders above their landing pad, and the carefully controlled clouds of the sky above. "The Empire is dead, and nothing has changed," he said with a pained, contemptuous grimace. "Nothing at all."

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

 

Ooh, they did get quite a good haul of credits. Interesting comparison of Corscant to an Anzati

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty

Under the early morning light of a new day, Councilor Leia Organa Solo surveyed the wrecked safehouse apartment with awed detachment, managing to suppress the low whistle she was sure she'd picked up from Han. Given all the years Leia served with the Rebellion, she was hardly unaccustomed to battle damage; being a dignitary didn't make her immune to the dangers of combat, and she had served as a soldier when needed. Still, it had been some time since she'd been in a lightfight, and longer still since she'd stuck around to investigate the results of high-grade blasters up close.

The room still stank of ozone and tibanna gas effluent.

Next to her, one of the people who had been in that room and survived grimaced, holding a hand over the bacta patch he still had affixed to his chest. "Next, Trader Jade took us into cover in the kitchen," Madine nodded over to one of the few parts of the apartment that was still recognizable. "She must have remembered that the material here was reinforced to stand up to heavy blaster fire. Or made a very lucky guess. The suborned Constabulary speeders wrecked everything else on this floor with their opening barrage, and our quarry must have escaped in the confusion. After that Kapp and Agent Wessiri made a tactical entry and opened up on the enemy to clear the bought cops out."

"With our Noghri team," Iella added modestly. "Kapp and the Noghri did the hard work." Iella glanced at Leia's Noghri bodyguard, Cakhmaim, but Cakhmaim was studiously silent and still. Only Leia could feel his quiet approval of his kinsmen's actions.

"How'd you get here so fast?" Madine asked curiously. "You got here ahead of my commandos, and I didn't call you."

"No, but Miss Jade contacted General Cracken," Iella said. "We'd tracked Eliezer to Coruscant; I pulled a few of his computer programs off the prison hardware and we got lucky and found one of them active here; we were already on-world to investigate. The program lit up on our tracker, but we couldn't narrow it down to a specific location other than 'somewhere on Coruscant.' It wasn't even five minutes later that Jade called to tell Cracken that she thought there was an infiltration at an old Imperial facility; he put two and two together."

"Have we had any luck tracking down Vorru, Eliezer, and the Force-adept?" Leia asked.

Iella's expression darkened. "No. They escaped on an airspeeder, and then Eliezer did something to scramble Coruscant's traffic control computers. It randomly reassigned identifying tags to all vehicles in Argosy District, and in two of the neighboring districts besides. Traffic control's admin thinks he'll be able to sort it out in two or three weeks. It's probably not worth the effort, but we might be able to use it to identify their ship."

Madine and Leia both frowned. "Clever," Leia said. "So what now, then?" She gestured at the hole where the building's external wall had been. "I'm going to be playing peacemaker between local authorities and the New Republic government for the next week. The District Comptroller is furious and wants to know how and why the local Constabulary ended up in a running fight with the New Republic military, complete with A-wings running close air support through one of the busier streets on this side of the planet."

Coruscant's local politics could be a nightmare, which was why despite the changeover from Empire to Republic (and before that, from Republic to Empire), municipal government on the planet had remained effectively unchanged for centuries. Each district had its own rules, and even someone like Leia, as well-versed in galactic politics as anyone in that galaxy, found Coruscant's local political traditions arcane.

"So do I," Madine growled.

"I think that's an easy enough question to answer," Iella said. "Vorru has ties to Black Sun, and Black Sun makes a point of infiltrating local governments and police services everywhere they do business, especially Coruscant. It wouldn't surprise me if a third of the Constabulary in Argosy District receives supplemental income from Black Sun. The better question," she mused thoughtfully, "is what did Vorru use to pay for that support? Black Sun doesn't work for credit or loyalty alone."

"I can answer that question," said a new voice from the floor above. The stairs between the three floors of the lofted apartment had survived more or less intact, but General Cracken descended them gingerly, with the light tread of a professional spy. "The techs just finished their examination of the terminal upstairs, and have started sorting through the networks that they infiltrated from it." The older man's expression was pale, and Leia felt her guts tighten at the sight of Airen Cracken looking anything less than in total equanimity. "It linked directly into what used to be the Imperial banking establishment, among other things." He sighed. "Vorru and Eliezer stole something on the order of fifty-eight billion credits."

Leia felt her mouth drop open. "What?"

Cracken nodded miserably. "Fifty-eight billion. Eliezer routed it offworld through the HoloNet with about fifty million independent, automated transactions. It's really a remarkable piece of work. I think we'll be able to hunt some of it down, but not that much." He shook his head, his expression turning to one of wry amazement. "Apparently, the Empire buried a handful of credit accounts after seizing them upon the death of their original owners. They all got quietly added to Imperial Intelligence's black budget. Isard's doing, no doubt. The account that Eliezer emptied originally belonged to Underlord Xizor of Black Sun."

Leia's mouth closed with an angry click. She'd had the misfortune of meeting Xizor while Han had been in carbonite. But Xizor had died not long after, when in a fit of pique Darth Vader had ordered Xizor's personal Skyhook destroyed and Executor scattered its debris across Coruscant's orbit.

Xizor had been an extraordinarily wealthy man, both because of his legal and his illegal businesses. His legal business, Xizor Transport Systems, had been broken up by the Empire and its assets seized. A fair number of its inheritor companies were now members of the Smugglers' Alliance.

"You said a handful of credit accounts? There was more than one?" Iella asked curiously.

"There were, but the others were all already closed. I've got a team of forensic accountants looking into it. It looks like what was left of the Motti family fortune and Darth Vader's personal fortune were all stashed in there too, but either Isard spent it all or someone else had already gotten to them before Eliezer got here."

Cracken's eyes flicked meaningfully to Leia when he mentioned Vader. Leia paled. Vader's personal fortune?

Cracken's gaze didn't linger over Leia for more than a moment. He might know of her genetic parentage—many of the New Republic's inner circle did, at this point—but he'd never made a point of it in the past. "So," he continued tiredly. "We've now got Vorru, Tavira, Eliezer, and this unnamed Force-adept working together, with a Star Destroyer, unlimited access to the HoloNet, and fifty-eight billion credits to their name." He rubbed his temple. "Ugh."

Leia felt her stomach tighten. Put that way, it sounded disastrous. "So what do we do?"

"I'm working on leads," Iella said. "This isn't a total disaster. If Jade hadn't been alerted to the breach here, I wouldn't have clocked Vorru and we still wouldn't know he escaped Kessel again. Vorru is our best lead I think. I know he was on Kessel not that long ago; I had to put him there so he wouldn't start working on people who owed him favors. I can take a team to Kessel and investigate the circumstances surrounding his escape. Maybe I can dig into his communications history there, try to figure out what else he's planning." She frowned. "I'll need a fast ship to get out to Kessel as quickly as possible, and I'll need a fringer who's more familiar with the planet than me."

Leia felt her stomach tighten even more, but put that way there was no avoiding it. "I'll ask Han," she sighed, regretting every syllable. "He knows Moruth Doole personally from his smuggler days, and you can't find a faster ship than the Falcon."

Iella's gaze was sympathetic, but she knew better than to turn down the offer. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Leia said tiredly. There was always something to pull one or the other of them away… "Just bring Han back in one piece."

"You should also ask Miss Jade to accompany you," Madine suggested. The others turned to him, and he shrugged. "She's good in a fight, and she's invested in this now."

"I agree. You're going to need someone to even the odds against their Force user, and Luke has already gone off to rejoin the Rogues in case this Force adept shows up again there," added Leia.

"It does make sense," said Cracken. "I can't believe Vorru would stay on-world after almost getting caught here. He got what he came for—he'll be off to safer grounds where he can spend his new fortune, especially if he doesn't know how we tracked him down to start with."

Leia nodded at Iella. "You two are going to be working together. It seems like a good opportunity to develop your partnership."

"Where is Miss Jade?" asked Cracken with a frown.

Leia remembered Mara's expression when Leia had arrived; finding her dazedly observing the New Republic commandos as they searched every inch of the apartment. They had been tearing into a closet filled with the armor of the Emperor's Hand, sized for an adolescent. The haunted look in her eyes… "I sent her home," Leia said firmly. "She needed to rest." She crossed her arms in a way she'd learned drew all attention to her and expressed displeasure. "There is something else we must discuss. Why exactly was it that I had to find out about all this from the Holonews? Did you not think to comm me last night?" she asked archly.

Cracken and Madine exchanged a very meaningful glance, then both looked at Iella, apparently throwing her under that particular hoverbus. Iella's expression paled as she regarded their expressions and visibly braced herself before answering.

Leia hid a smile. It was good to know that she could still intimidate Generals with the merest hint of displeasure. If only that extended to Han, but perhaps reprobate Corellian ex-Generals were immune.

"Madam Councilor, please forgive me—I just sneak around and write intelligence briefs. I figure with the twins and your job you need all the sleep you can get," said Iella cautiously.

Leia's eyes narrowed. "Do all Corellians interpret directives as creatively as possible, or is it just the ones who dare defy the Diktat?"

"That's a highly general statement Madam Councilor," Iella said, mouth quirking briefly into a smile. "I couldn't possibly be expected to comment on it. Although if a homemade rhyschate appears at your apartment later today, you might view it as a peace offering."

"I'll take it," Leia smiled back, but the smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "With you borrowing my husband for your expedition, I'm going to be in want of good home cooking."

[Go to Chapter 20, Part II] [Go to Table of Contents]​

 

Excellent strategy. I adore the fact that Leia can still make grown men and Generals cower with a glower And Han and Mara on the job Doesn't get more awesome than that. Oh the snark!

 

I like the description of how Vader and Palpatine felt through the Force, but the near-poetry of how she thinks of Luke is just the greatest. She'd be a little dismayed at this point if she let herself realize just how much thought she's put into this

Love the practical details like this - it really adds depth to the action sequences.

I also really like the illustration of the differences between fighting styles. There's a handful of stories that I think portray duels realistically enough that I make mental notes to use them as references should I need to write one myself, and this is definitely one of them.

I'm always pleased to see Mara's dance training come into play. She absolutely would have gained a great deal of grace and balance and core strength from that, and would know how to parlay those skills within the context of a fight.

This is a really successful narrative tactic, to have her misinterpret her danger sense the way visions are so often misinterpreted, and the way you write it, it's not immediately obvious that's what's going on. The fight moves so fast that you're swept along with Mara and don't see her mistake until she does. It's extremely effective.

Very, very well written. The middle paragraph here in particular has stayed with me. So much emotion, expressed so concisely. Beautifully done.

Same as the previous bit: the emotion is handled so well, the rhythm of the fight itself never falters, and switching POVs at this moment was a very clever tactic. Just masterfully done.

I never would have thought that Mara and Madine would make such a good team, but they really do. And I like how you expand into the bigger picture here, of other actors coming into play. Personally, I have a tendency to write more intimate scenes, focusing on just a few people. I'm making mental notes as I read about how you handle writing the larger plot and a wider cast of characters than I usually do, because your balance is unfailingly excellent, and the transitions from smaller scenes into larger ones, like here, are so smoothly handled.

Genuinely laughed out loud at this.

Mentioning the specific type of engine isn't a detail I would have thought of, but I really like the way it works here. Mara would certainly know which models of ships use which engines, and would be able to ID them from sound like that. And yeah, she's got enough going emotionally here without trying to come to terms with the way A-wings would have become a comforting factor for her.

Love this. The phrase "with fierce appreciation" is really excellent. And this is what Mara had always thought she was fighting for with the Empire, and one of the many ways the Empire always fell short. It's nice that the poor girl finally gets a chance to experience it for real.

Really good introspection all the way through.

Love this. And pretty close to my own opinion of Coruscant, despite its central role in the GFFA.

Very realistic detail to include, I can totally see this.

I'm currently rereading HttE, and this feels exactly right. Perfect tone for this exchange.

One of my (many ) favorite parts of TLC is how Leia immediately sees through Mara's bluster to the foundational trauma that underlays it, and I'm glad to see her doing the same here. As strong as Mara is and as much as she can and does withstand, there's still a traumatized little girl deep down, and at this point in time Mara essentially has a foot in each world: while she may be deliberately trying to shed her Emperor's Hand persona, it's still very much a part of her, and while she's beginning to see how profoundly Palpatine wronged her, she's not yet emotionally stable enough on her own to consciously face the full depth of that betrayal. And mostly, I think, the effect of that unstable balance is just a lot of pain that she's wading through until it subsides enough for her to begin to truly deal with it. It bothers me a lot when fanfic (or profic, and heaven knows a lot of it did exactly this) just distills Mara down to her surface characteristics (abrupt, sarcastic, cold, etc) and ignores her depth, or the genuine abuse and brainwashing that created a lot of what might be read as her more off-putting qualities (a kidnapped and brutalized child soldier stolen from her family and deprived of love or affection and trained to be a killer might occasionally not be warm and fuzzy? I'm SHOCKED), especially when Zahn established from the very beginning that Luke and Leia in particular saw how much more there was to her. I really, really appreciate that you're following in Zahn's footsteps here and giving her her due, as well as Luke and Leia for their insight and consideration.

Love Iella, love the snarky "are all Corellians such pains in my neck" sentiment from Leia, love that Han's the cook of the family. It is absolutely my headcanon that Han and Luke are good cooks and Leia and Mara are not (a princess/senator and a covert agent/assassin just aren't likely to have a lot of time for cooking lessons), so I'm always pleased to see someone else write them that way.

Just gorgeous writing overall, as always

 

Oh, Mara. She has all these feelings but doesn't know what they mean or how to grapple with them. She really ought to ask herself why Luke is never far from her thoughts... and why when she thinks of him (especially when he's not right in front of her), her emotions get all poetic...

Luke is not going to be an aggressive duelist (not after his fight with Vader in ROTJ), I think. He's a fencer, he fights defensively, protecting himself and others, attacking only when necessary. Mara's first instinct, by contrast, is to attack, to identify and eliminate threats with extreme prejudice, something which meshes well with her athleticism. One of the many reasons they make a good team.

(The Tevas-kaar is just enormous!)

Leia and Mara are a pair that I think a lot of profic and fanfic get wrong. They had exactly one scene alone together in the Thrawn trilogy, and in that scene Mara tells Leia she was going to kill Luke (which she would never have done if she really wanted to kill Luke, it's like she's begging Leia to stop her), and Leia says "no, you don't actually want to do that." We don't get another scene with them, but in a lot of subsequent fic Leia has this distrust of Mara which ... is kind of baffling, given the characterization. Leia would be much more likely to grab Mara's hand and drag her into normal society, kicking and screaming, and just treat her as a normal person until Mara realized that was okay.

Mara can't cook. Ration bars are cheap, provide for all the body's caloric needs, and can be easily carried and stored. There was never any reason to learn. (She also loves fine food, but never aspired to learn to make it herself. There are more important skills, like fixing hyperdrives.)

Leia can cook, but not well because she never does. She works all the time.

Han is the primary cook. He has Winter to help him sometimes (who very much can cook), but she's also Leia's primary administrative aide and doesn't have time to do both, so ... Han is responsible for basically all the at home tasks (with some "help" from Threepio). He is also happier than he has ever been in his entire life.

Luke isn't the best cook, but he's a bachelor who lives alone and travels all the time, and unlike Mara he's not content with ration bars just because they're practical. Plus Beru taught him.

 

[Go to Table of Contents]​

Chapter Twenty, Part II

It was midday, and the bright noontime sun shone through the pillars that lined either side of the broad open space, down through the slightly shaded glass roof. There were distant sounds beyond, repulsorlifts and starship engines, humming through the sky to their myriad of destinations. Closer, there were voices, instructions, the sense of motion and of meditation, of energy and potential.

"Conserve your movements," a mature male voice said firmly, with the sense of long experience in the art of instruction. "The lightsaber is about grace, not power, and grace is found in your wrists, not your arms."

The youth receiving the education—a boy, perhaps nine years old—had white-blonde hair. He was tall and powerfully built for a child his age, lanky and awkward. The boy followed the instructions as best he could, but clearly didn't know exactly what his teacher intended for him to learn. "I don't understand," he complained, his voice pitched with the whine of an adolescent.

"Move as I do, young one. Stretch out and feel the Force. We will show you the way."

Mara woke with a pounding headache. She was still fully dressed from the night before, her lightsaber set next to her on her nightstand. With a groan she sat up.

She was halfway through with her morning preparations, showered and dressed and working through breakfast—a soothingly anodyne Imperial ration bar she'd pulled out of one of her stashes—when the dream finally returned to her consciousness. She'd had a few confusing dreams after missions, but she'd had a starring role in most of them. In this one, it had been like looking through a holoprojector, a mere observer.

She took a bite out of the ration bar. It didn't taste like much, but she knew from experience that it'd satiate her need for food for the entire morning, and she didn't have the appetite or the desire for social camouflage exemplified at Woonseer's. With Skywalker offworld, the place had lost much of its appeal. It was odd, how a sanctuary when she wished solitude, so often her default state, suddenly became unappealing when she was without company.

She wondered what Luke would say about…

About the dream, she meant…

Mara froze, her ration bar hovering halfway towards her mouth. She and Skywalker had many conversations during their meetings at the Cafe and their training sessions, and she distinctly remembered him telling her about his visions during his meditations. A man and a boy in lightsaber training. The man giving instruction, the boy complaining, and Skywalker being at a loss as to what the Force was trying to communicate.

Kriffing wonderful. She spends a little bit of time with the Jedi and now she was the one getting his damned Force visions with no way to tweak context menus or change the blasted channel. He had warned her that her Force intuition would grow stronger, but visions and dreams were Jedi business! And if she knew anything, it was that she was no Jedi, the words emphatically slotting into her psyche as if to confirm her tainted spirit and unsavory history.

Sighing, she rubbed her temple and took another bite of the ration bar. Well, she supposed, the best place to start, as with any investigation, was by reviewing the available facts. She thought about the two people in the vision, running through a Force memory enhancement technique, focusing on faces and features…

Her eyes widened. Scrambling for her jacket, she slung it over her shoulders and raced out the door.

* * *


​

Luckily, the museum pass that Leia had given Mara still worked. Unluckily, Mara had arrived at the museum during the morning rush. Children and teachers swirled around, conducting traffic to exhibits as she tried, mostly unsuccessfully, to make haste through the flood of bodies. She stepped into and through the crowd, dodging passers-by and darting through openings when they presented themselves. It took considerably longer to make her way than it had the last time she had come here.

The doors to the Jedi exhibit were closed, but as before they opened dutifully for her. She swept down the darkened corridor, her feet clicking against the stone floor and into the darkened, cobweb-ridden museum. She didn't pause to meander, but made a straight-line beeline down the same path she had taken the last time she was here, this time giving in to the temptation to clear her path of dangling spiderwebs with her lightsaber. It only took her a few minutes to return to the statue of Ranik Solusar. The faceless man stood there, silent, but as she lingered the exhibit triggered and the hologram of the man was projected, smaller than the statue but large enough for a close examination, on the floor next to her.

"Ranik Solusar, Jedi Master. He was known for his service in the Outer Rim, combating piracy and misuse of the Force."

Ranik Solusar was tall, with a square jaw. In the holo he was smiling, which matched laugh-lines that crinkled his face. As in her dream, he had white hair despite looking too young for it. There wasn't any doubt—it was the same man.

"Shavit," Mara muttered. It was one thing if she'd been wrong. But she hadn't been, she'd been right, which meant the dream had been Force-inspired. And that was most emphatically a Jedi thing. She frowned, scrolling through the other data available on the exhibit idly as she resolutely ignored the implications.

RANIK SOLUSAR. HUMAN. BORN IN LASLOW, ON SOLON, ON 9\8\45, PRE-EMPIRE DATE. ATTENDED JEDI TRAINING CENTER ON SOLON 2\15\37 TO 8\14\27 PE. PRIVATE JEDI TRAINING BEGUN 9\27 PE WITH JEDI MASTER THOLME. GRANTED TITLE JEDI KNIGHT 12\14\23 PE. JOINED TEAM OF ANTARIAN RANGERS COMBATING BLACK SUN EXPANSION IN COR'RIC SECTOR 2\23 to 5\22 PE. LED TEAM OF ANTARIAN RANGERS COMBATING BLACK SUN PRESENCE IN KIBLINI SECTOR, 2\21 TO 7\19 PE. GRANTED TITLE JEDI MASTER 9\9\17 PE. SERVED AS INSTRUCTOR ABOARD JEDI TRAINING VESSEL MAY'THANA 10\17 TO 6\15 PE. GRANTED LEAVE OF ABSENCE FROM JEDI ORDER 8\15 TO 5\7 PE. RETURNED TO JEDI ORDER 5\7 PE. SERVED AS INSTRUCTOR AT JEDI TRAINING CENTER ON SOLON, 5\7 PE TO 11\1 PE. DEATH REPORTED BY DARTH VADER ON NEFTALI, 10\2, STANDARD IMPERIAL RECKONING. HIGHLIGHTS SUMMARY ENDS.

Mara ran her hands through her hair, frustrated. Okay, so the Force was giving both her and Luke a vision, specifically of a dead Jedi Master, Ranik Solusar, and a student. Receiving it herself wasn't quite ideal, but unless she wanted to hide in a Ysalamiri bubble the Force wasn't giving her much of a choice in the matter. But why? There had to be something important in the timing; the dream had to be useful somehow.

Maybe Wessiri could help her sort it out. After all, an NRI operative would have access to records and information that Mara lacked. Wasn't that the whole point of their prospective partnership? She searched for her com while grabbing at Solusar's personal belongings and taking what she could.

"Wessiri," the comlink reported when the connection was made.

"Agent Wessiri, this is Mara Jade. I need to talk to you. Can we meet?"

* * *


​

Iella's apartment didn't feel like home. It had been years since she had actually lived on Coruscant. After she and Corran had crossed Imperial Intelligence and been forced to split up and flee Corellia, she'd made Coruscant her refuge. She and Diric had blended in with the crowd, living quiet, reasonably prosperous, anonymous lives with the throngs of people, many of whom were barely aware of anything outside of the kilometer radius around their house. They'd barely realized the Republic had fallen and the Empire had risen, and it would have been so easy to just live that quiet, prosperous life.

But she'd never been one to tolerate tyranny, even if it meant a life of comfort.

The apartment had all the accoutrements of a home. There were several different hand-sketched drawings of Corellian scenery on the walls, only one of which Iella had ever had the opportunity to see with her own eyes. They had been gifts from Wedge, a first attempt at taking her sterile apartment and transforming it into something more. A holo of Corran and Mirax sat on the table in the middle of the living room in pride of place, her former CorSec partner and his smuggler wife. On the other table was an old holo of Wedge and his comrades from their time on Hoth. Luke Skywalker had his arm slung around Wedge's shoulders, the two of them grinning at something Dack had said, while Hobbie, Tycho, Zev, and Wes laughed in the background, all wearing their orange flight suits.

Even with the trappings of a home, it wasn't. A home was more than a place to sleep, it was a place to belong, with love and friends and routine. With neighbors, and family.

She picked up the last holo in the apartment. Diric had been a good man, patient and kind and trusting, but not naive. He had been older than she was, possessing enough family wealth to be comfortable, but without the entitlement that so often came with privilege. Their love hadn't ever been passionate, but she hadn't been looking for passion. Their apartments on Corellia and Coruscant had been home.

Ysanne Isard had killed him.

However driven she had been before Diric's death, however incapable she had been of just quietly living well, after Diric had died, the way he had died, she had been a single-minded torpedo aiming to burn her way through the Empire and Isard. The only thing that had kept her from self-immolating was Wedge, his hand finding hers, letting her know that she could live again, someday.

Dreaming of a new life after the Empire, a home she and Wedge would make together, didn't mean she burned any less hot, though. Which was why her apartment had a fully-secured intelligence suite, including two full-access terminals. The attached weapons locker wasn't really her style—she preferred to outthink her enemies than outfight them—but it was better to be safe than sorry.

The fact that she came here more often to work than to spend time with Wedge was probably the other reason it didn't feel like a home. Not all that different from the burned-out apartment she'd spent much of the previous day in, really.

There was a chime at the door and she checked the security monitor. Mara Jade was outside, glancing down the hallway in each direction to make sure she hadn't been followed. Iella buzzed her in.

Mara was shorter than Iella, brimming with focused energy. She glanced around the apartment, drinking in the surroundings, her eyes lingering over first the holo of Diric, then the holo of Wedge and the Rogues—her back stiffened slightly, Iella noted curiously—and then Mara focused on her. "We didn't really get a chance to really introduce ourselves," Mara said cautiously. "I'm Mara Jade."

Iella laughed and extended her hand. Mara took it. "Hello, Mara Jade," Iella said with a slight bow of her head. "I'm Iella Wessiri. I hear our bosses have decided that we're going to be working together."

"For the good of the galaxy, I'm sure," Mara replied dryly, visibly relaxing at Iella's informality. "Thank you for the help last night," she continued. "General Madine and I weren't sure what to expect, but a company of the Coruscant Constabulary and three fully loaded combat airspeeders wasn't it."

"You're welcome," Iella replied, guiding Mara to sit on her couch. The furniture was rarely used and stiff to sit on, resisting their weight as she sat across from the former Emperor's Hand. "Thank you for being alert to their presence. Without you, they would've gotten in and out without anyone being the wiser."

"Have you had any luck tracking them down?"

Iella sighed. That had been a battle she never had any chance to win. "No. I'm quite sure they're either offworld or about to be. We considered a temporary blockade of Coruscant, but do you know how many transports arrive and leave this planet every day? Even a temporary blockade would've caused serious shortages of vital goods, and the politicians vetoed the idea. If Vorru hasn't escaped already, he soon will."

Coruscant was an ecumenopolis and couldn't even feed itself; the minimal agriculture the planet did produce was barely sufficient to satisfy the members of the planetary aristocracy who had the wealth and clout to demand truly fresh produce. The wealthiest of the planet's population would be able to eat under a blockade that lasted more than a month; everyone else would starve.

Mara nodded her understanding, a small grimace on her lips.

"I discussed this with Councilor Organa and General Cracken this morning," Iella continued. "I'm going to be traveling to Kessel tomorrow on the Millenium Falcon."

Mara blinked in surprise. "Solo is letting you borrow his ship?"

Iella laughed. "Oh, no certainly not. But he's agreed to ferry us and introduce us to Moruth Doole when we arrive. I want to get there as soon as possible; our lead on Eliezer has just about gone completely cold, and whatever tracks Vorru left during his escape from Kessel might evaporate at any time." She wrinkled her nose. "If we were willing to delay our arrival a day or two we could bring a Star Cruiser as an escort, but that's just too long."

It was a risk, Iella knew, but it was one they had to take. Mara didn't seem either surprised or critical, merely another professional considering a problem.

"The Councilor and General believe that you ought to accompany me," Iella added.

Mara frowned. "I have responsibilities here as the Liaison of the Smugglers' Alliance. Right now I'm our entire administrative apparatus, and I've been fielding questions and concerns from our customers all week—"

"General Cracken has suggested that you might be amenable to a gift. We have a number of espionage-grade protocol droids who would be capable of providing administrative assistance."

Mara quirked an eyebrow in surprise. It was quite a gift. Espionage droids were rare and expensive—the good ones, at least. Ones with good administrative and logistics programming were even more rare. "And in exchange for this gift?"

Iella smiled, folding her arms across her lap as she relaxed into her uncomfortable couch. "I think General Cracken said something about him already owing Karrde, and preferring not to stay in debt for long."

Mara snorted. "If Karrde's mission on Rendili went well, I can assure you that an espionage droid is an inadequate repayment. But all right. I want to get to the bottom of this as much as you do, and if we are going to be working partners it would be impolitic at best to let you go off to a place like Kessel alone." She folded her arms across her chest. Mara had quite a gaze, Iella thought, resisting the urge to fiddle with any of the nicknacks she had on her living room table.

"Why don't I tell you everything I already know, then," Iella volunteered, leaning forward towards Mara. "Vorru, the HoloNet slicer, what little I know about the Force adept. Then…" she inclined a finger towards Mara, "you can tell me why exactly you wanted to meet."

Mara regarded her, then nodded.

* * *


​

"So that's it," Iella finished, sighing as she tried to get comfortable. "Our leads on Eliezer have dried up for now. NRI thinks they'll be able to give us some new ones once he starts using his programs to slice the HoloNot again, but until then there's nowhere to go. That leaves just Vorru, and the only thing we really know is that he escaped from Kessel, presumably with Tavira's help. So, Kessel it is."

"How many credits did Vorru and this Eliezer get out of the black accounts?" Mara asked curiously.

"Fifty-eight billion, give or take a few million," Iella said, rubbing her hands over her face wearily. "Enough to buy a fleet of Star Destroyers, or a dozen." She sighed and stood, fetching an amber-colored liquid from the drinks cabinet. The touch of the wood brought back memories—it was the only piece of furniture she had kept from her first apartment on Coruscant, the one she had shared with Diric. She poured two glasses and returned, handing one to Mara. "The Empire had appropriated a few prominent fortunes, including Xizor and Vader, though it looks like Vader's was already gone."

Mara took the drink, pausing midway through a sip when Iella mentioned Vader. "Interesting." She finished her sip slowly and felt the smooth burn of quality whisky, then turned towards Iella. "Maybe Kessel is not our only lead." To Iella's surprise Mara actually looked vaguely abashed. "I think I might have something on the third of the trio."

"The Force adept?" Iella asked, surprised. "We haven't been able to find anything. I've got people scouring the records looking for any reports of an armored man wearing a white mask, but I'm told that I shouldn't get my hopes up." She leaned forward, the stiff couch crinkling under her. "Is this some kind of Force hunch? Luke would get those when we worked together."

Mara's expression tightened at the mention of Luke's name, Iella noted. She filed that fact away for later. "You could say that. I had a dream. Last night, after the fight," Mara admitted.

"A dream?" Iella asked skeptically.

Mara nodded. "Skywalker was having visions that were similar before he left. A man and a boy doing lightsaber training." She took a datapad out of her pack and slid it across the table to Iella, who took it. As the NRI agent surveyed the information, Mara continued. "The man was Ranik Solusar, a Jedi of the old Republic."

"It says here he died on Neftali," Iella said as she finished the quick read. "What does this have to do with our Force adept?"

"The mask he was wearing during our fight," Mara explained. "It looked familiar to me, but I couldn't quite place it until I read that." She nodded at the datapad in Iella's hand. "Neftali has a few notable native animal species, but the most famous is the d'oemir peak bear. White fur, very intelligent, it's been hunted to near extinction. It's known for being extremely protective of its young and for being surprisingly social for a bear species."

Iella understood. "The mask resembled a d'oemir bear?"

Mara nodded. "Yes. Stylized fur, similar eye structure, the jawline was also stylized but still reminiscent. I did some memory enhancement techniques and I'm sure the resemblance was intentional."

"So you think there's a connection to this Ranik Solusar," Iella mused. "Well, let's try something." She stood up and moved over to one of the secure terminals she kept in her apartment—her safehouse, she quietly admitted to herself—and put some information into the terminal. "The database said that Vader reported him dead—do you think he's still alive and that was him in the armor?"

"No," Mara said with certainty. "No, his statue in the Emper—in Palpatine's Jedi museum was faceless. I think that was Palpatine's way of announcing that Vader had killed him." She paused, considering, before continuing thoughtfully. "No, I was thinking about the boy. The Force can be unclear and frustrating but it's also purposeful; it has a reason for showing us what it does, even if we don't know what that reason is." She grimaced. "It tried to warn me during the fight that I shouldn't strike him directly, but I didn't understand that until afterwards."

Iella glanced at her, hearing the self-reproachment in Mara's voice. The computer beeped and she looked back at the screen. "Come here," she said, her tone suddenly hushed with astonishment.

Mara leaned over her shoulder, reading the same information that Iella had already seen. "Yes," she said softly, distantly. "Yes, that's him."

"Kam Solusar," Iella read. "I'm a little surprised he didn't change his name. It says he was part of the Imperial Inquisitorius." She glanced back at Mara, saw a thoughtful and slightly perplexed expression on the other woman's face. "Even now we don't know a lot about the Inquisitors," Iella added. "They were secretive to the extreme, worked only in small cells, and seemed largely autonomous in the Imperial command structure. We're not even sure if they reported to ISB or the Emperor himself. There were long rumors that at least some of them were Force adepts, though."

The former Emperor's Hand's gaze had grown distant, and Iella could almost see her thinking back, considering her old experiences. "I never interacted with them," Mara said. "Perhaps Palpatine kept us separate on purpose, I don't know."

"He may not have wanted to give his Force-strong agents the opportunity to conspire together against him," Iella pointed out. She turned back to the information on Solusar. "There really isn't much that's valuable here, just a name and brief history. He was reported operating on half a dozen different planets in the Rebellion years, but after Endor there's nothing at all. Like most of the Inquisitors, he just vanished."

"That's him," Mara said with certainty. "It makes sense. The vision was of father and son, training in the Force." Her voice faded. "He could have killed me," she admitted softly. "He didn't."

"What do you think that means?" Iella asked cautiously.

"I don't know," said Mara. She reached down to her belt and drew Ranik Solusar's lightsaber, staring at the Jedi's weapon. "I don't know."

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

 

Fantastic interchange between Iella and Mara. Love the insights into Iella's work and private life.

 

I completely agree with all of this, and most emphatically believe that no one raised by Beru Lars would ever be unable to feed themselves.

Ah, Mara. So very determined in her denials

Aw, I just love this detail

She and Mara are a matched pair, they really are

Ha, I love that even as relatively early in their association as this, Mara is shocked at the thought of Han lending out the Falcon.

Why, hello there, Kam Whew, the thought of all the work Palpatine put in to keep all these myriad manipulations going for decades is just exhausting

 

You know, I'd never really sat down and thought about that before? The amount of lies the man told, and different lies to different people, and the need to keep them all consistent... I wonder if he had a perfect memory like Winter. Although now I'm imagining that in the basement of the Imperial Palace there's a dedicated army of droids reminding him of everything, talking through a tiny earpiece, and really they're the ones who run the Empire...