Saga - Legends Reclamation (AU, Rebellion era, L/M, ensemble cast)

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

Thank you!

@vader_incarnate

I love Tycho, Elli. And Luke is just a sweetheart that way, always concerned for other people

Terrible murder cyborg, lol We all hope he'll eventually be glad he didn't do terrible things, but terrible murder cyborgs can be unpredictable!

He's just the best that way

It's really not And in canon, Alderaan wasn't enough to make Mara lose faith in Palpatine, but if she had someone she really trusted to gently point out the problems with her beliefs here, that could have made a big difference.

*shakes fist @ boards*

@Cowgirl Jedi 1701

You had not! Thank you for letting me know!

 

Chapter Eleven




The abstract swirls and eddies of hyperspace resolved themselves into star trails and then pinpoints of light, and Mara found herself looking at a bland, reddish ball. No blues or greens, just a dusty brownish red. A planet, she was reminded suddenly, was a very big place.

It was easy to forget that sometimes, in a large galaxy with many populations interconnected by hyperspace travel. When most civilizations were well aware of each other and interacted regularly, and travel between those planets was only a matter of days, or perhaps a few weeks at most, you could forget that even a small planet was actually a lot of ground to cover.

Even a city was, really. Even the smaller cities, like the ones that passed for metropolitan areas on a sparsely populated planet like Tatooine. A lot of unfamiliar territory, a lot of people for one or two individuals to hide amongst if they wanted to. And whatever Organa had originally come here for, it was very likely that the Emperor would have announced Alderaan’s fate on the HoloNet by now, and something as big as that would make ripples even in the Rim. If the announcement was made, Organa would have heard it and come to the obvious conclusion; she would be acting like a fugitive, avoiding recognition at all costs. Mara had faith in her own ability to track suspects—her training had been second to none—but time wasn’t on their side here.

And yet…

The Force still beckoned, she was sure it did. The odd pulling sensation had grown ever stronger as they drew closer to Tatooine, and now, in orbit, Mara felt it as clearly as if someone had reached out and taken her hand. She’d never felt anything like it before this, and it was surprisingly unsettling. But she’d discussed it privately with Luke the night after they’d left Kattada, and he’d felt the same sort of pull toward Tatooine that she did. He’d also suggested that both of them might have unknowingly made use of subtler Force proddings throughout their lives; after all, how many times had either of them played hunches that turned out to be exactly right, even though there was no logical reason for them? Maybe Force-sensitive people didn’t get ordinary hunches, maybe they just heard the Force whispering to them.

Mara thought the whole concept was slightly creepy, to be honest. But if it got results…

She tilted her head to gaze a moment longer at Tatooine, then locked them into orbit and went back to the lounge, where Luke was leaning his elbows on the table and contemplating the map before him. He looked up as she entered.

“We’re here,” she said. Still feel it?

He nodded minutely, and she huffed a quiet sigh. Okay, then. “Any ideas?”

Luke looked back at the map with a sigh of his own. “You understand I’m guessing—even a planet like Tatooine has multiple population centers she could have any reason to visit.”

Mara nodded as she sat down beside him. “But you’re the local. If you could only pick one?”

He pointed to a spot on the map. “Mos Eisley. It’s notorious for pirate and smuggler activity, and as a place where you could blend into a disreputable crowd and disappear. Whether she’s looking to meet someone surreptitiously or just go to ground, Mos Eisley is her best bet.”

Mara pulled up Mos Eisley on her datapad, scanning its description, and her stomach sank. “There’s an Imperial garrison there.”

“Is there?” Luke leaned back, looking both wary and resigned. “There wasn’t when I left. Or if there was, they were laying very low.”

“No,” Mara said with another sigh. “Looks like it was established a couple of years after you left. That could complicate matters.”

Hobbie eyed her from one of the lounge’s reclining chairs. “Don’t you outrank everyone in a garrison like this?”

“Yes,” Mara said, still skimming the entry on Mos Eisley. “Assuming we haven’t been discovered, and my authority and codes are still intact. But even if that’s the case, any contact I made with Imperials here would get back to the Emperor one way or another. There’s no one else in the Empire who would use my recognition codes.”

“Which means if you use them, he’ll know for sure we’ve been here,” Tycho said quietly.

“Well, hopefully no one knows any of you are with me,” Mara said, leaning her own elbows on the table and rubbing her eyes wearily. “Though that depends on whether we avoided all the usual surveillance on Coruscant, and whether anyone thinks to check that surveillance once he realizes I’m not coming back. But yes, the second I say anything to pull rank with the garrison, it’ll send up a homing beacon that he’ll see eventually. I doubt any Imperial commander would fail to note a visit by the Emperor’s Hand in their log.” She sighed and sat up straight again. “If I have to, I will, but it’s an absolute last resort. Far better to avoid them altogether. Which could be complicated.”

Luke slid an arm around her waist, resting his hand lightly on her hip. “You’re the one who actually knows what she’s doing in a situation like this. We’re at your command.”

Mara looked them over and smiled wryly. “A handful of hotshot fighter jocks—yes, you’ll be naturals at undercover work. So glad to have you on board for this mission.”

She leaned back and briefly covered her face with her hands. How was she going to do this? All their lives potentially depended on her navigating this successfully; it was her area of expertise, not theirs, so the responsibility was hers too. Somehow she had to avoid the garrison, find and make contact with a Rebel leader, and convince her to take four strangers back to her hidden base—without making use of any of her usual resources or authority, and all with three utter amateurs in tow who could torpedo the whole thing without even realizing it.

Luke drew her closer against his side. “Even hotshot fighter jocks are used to taking orders, and you’re used to giving them. We’ll be fine.”

She looked at him sideways, trying to muffle her worries. There was no sense in distracting him with them—and really, where was her own discipline, to be letting them distract her? But it was hard, knowing how compromised her usual methods were, and how much was at stake. No way around it, though; she would have to brazen this out and hope the Force really was nudging them the right way.

“Okay,” she said. “Mos Eisley it is. And here’s the fun part: we need to assume we’ve already been identified as deserters, and that the garrison has holos of all of us. That’s in addition to the other threats of the Rim’s usual lawlessness.” She cringed slightly, realizing her own words, and glanced back at Luke. “Sorry.”

“What, you think I’m going to argue?” he asked, sliding her datapad in front of him and scrolling through a few pages. “I could tell a few stories that would probably surprise even you. We need to fit in, and as it stands, none of us are going to pass as locals.”

“Not even the local?” Tycho asked mildly.

Luke shook his head. “Not in these clothes. We all look like Core Worlders.”

“Can you find us local clothes, quickly?” Mara asked.

Luke’s shoulders lifted in a shrug. “There’ll be sellers in the main market with the basics, sure. What currencies do you have with you?”

“Let me guess,” she asked resignedly. “They don’t take Imperial scrip here.”

“Oh, they probably have to now, if there’s a garrison here. But it sure won’t help us keep a low profile. Have anything Huttese?”

“Hang on.” Mara went to the cabin she and Luke were sharing and rummaged through her bag for her store of credit chips, then brought them back and fanned them across the table. Luke studied them, then pulled out a couple.

“Truguts,” he said. “Pretty standard here. But take a couple of Imperial chips too, as backup.”

“Okay,” Mara said, distributing the chips among them. “Luke, you get to inspect everyone’s clothes, see what we all have that’s least likely to be noticed down there. If we need to, we go to the market and buy local garb. Then we split up. Luke and I will go to the main civil affairs building, see if there are any leads in the publicly available arrival and departure records, then we’ll scout the cantinas around the spaceport that could be likely meeting places for Organa and Retrac and whoever their contact is. You two wander the marketplaces, see if you spot them there. If you do, don’t approach them, comm me. Avoid Imperials at all costs, and if you have any doubts, lay low yourselves and comm us. If we miss Organa here, we can either find another Rebellion contact somehow or just go to ground until we figure out some other plan, but if we’re caught ourselves, that’s it—we’ll never see the outside of a cell again unless it’s for our own executions. Keep a map and your comlinks on you; we’ll update you on where and when to meet.”

“Right,” Luke said, standing. “Everyone, go dump your clothes out on your bunks. Mara, you too, and let me handle our landing negotiations.”

“Far be it from me to turn down expert help,” she said, gathering the rest of the credit chips. “Bet you didn’t think you’d be coming here again.”

“Not like this, anyway,” Luke replied. He shook his head, then added quietly as Hobbie and Tycho entered their own cabin, “I’ve never been to Mos Eisley, Mara. Remember that I left here at only sixteen. Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru would never have let me come here. They worried enough about occasional trips out to Mos Espa, and that’s way more respectable than Mos Eisley.”

Mara took a deep breath to calm her own nerves and reached out a hand to touch his arm. “And I’ve never run a mission with anything like these parameters, either. You still know Tatooinian culture far better than any of us, and I’m sure you saw some disreputable locales before you hit Coruscant.”

Luke grinned suddenly, irrepressible humor coming to the fore even now. “Disreputable locales? In the TIE corps? I’m shocked that you would think such a thing.”

Mara snorted before she could stop herself. “Uh-huh. Go find those two something that doesn’t make them stand out like a Wookiee in the Palace so we don’t give this whole thing away in the first five minutes.”

He put an arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to kiss her forehead. “May the Force be with us.”

She reached up for a proper kiss, then pulled away to go lay out her own clothes. “We’re going to need it.”

---

Mara was sitting at the lounge’s table, sipping caf and reviewing her data on Mos Eisley, when Luke returned to the ship with a large bag. She looked up at him as Tycho and Hobbie set aside their ever-present cards to do the same.

“Okay,” Luke said, dropping the bag on the floor and rummaging through it. “Here’s yours—“ he threw a rolled up bundle at Hobbie, who caught it smoothly “—and yours” another bundle thrown at Tycho. “Go change. Make sure you have your credits and comms.”

“And maps,” Mara added. “We don’t need you getting lost.”

Hobbie raised an eyebrow as the two of them stood and headed for their cabin. “I like how it’s obviously going to be me and Tycho who get lost, not you and Luke.”

“This is Luke’s home,” Mara replied, not bothering to mention that he didn’t actually know his way around Mos Eisley. “And I’ve spent my time studying this planet and city, while you’ve spent yours playing sabacc.”

Hobbie made a face at her as he closed the cabin door behind them, and Luke grinned. “Is it any wonder I love you?”

Mara looked at him coolly, tamping down a smile. “I’m not letting you get away with any nonsense either, Skywalker.”

“Worse than any drill master I’ve ever had.” He winked at her. “Very enticing.”

She laughed, ruining her stern facade. “Quit being weird.”

“Mara,” he said as he reached into the bag again, “the first time I met you, I literally almost knocked you over. At a formal occasion. Where you knew perfectly well I was a hick from the Rim. You knew what you were getting into.” He tossed her a cowl of some roughly woven fabric that was somehow still soft to the touch, then lifted the bag to his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”

He disappeared into their cabin, and Mara held the cowl against her arm for a moment. It was almost exactly the same color as the long-sleeved tunic she wore. Leave it to Luke to pay attention to a detail like that. She smiled to herself and put the cowl on, then continued sipping her caf and reviewing her data. There were a lot of cantinas in this city. Tycho and Hobbie would certainly finish their initial search first, then she would have to send them to a different cantina than wherever she and Luke were at the time. They’d never cover the whole area if they didn’t stay split up. Mara absently tapped the datapad with a fingertip, mentally dividing the spaceport section of town into search areas.

Luke was the first to emerge, having only added a light hooded cloak and a utility belt to the most casual of his own clothes. She glanced up at him and smiled. “You look nice.”

“You look dangerous,” he replied approvingly.

Mara shrugged. She was only wearing a nondescript dark blue tunic and black pants with a side-laced brown vest and boots, but instead of keeping her weapons concealed, she’d strapped on visible holsters and a belt and was conspicuously armed with two blasters and a vibroblade. The cowl hid her pinned-up hair and would hopefully keep her face from getting sunburned. “Sometimes you want to blend in, sometimes you want to warn people off. Mos Eisley seems like the sort of place where the latter is more useful.”

He sat beside her, putting an arm around her shoulders, and took a sip of her caf. “Almost certainly. I wouldn’t mess with you.”

She reclaimed her mug and sipped from it. “He says as he takes my caf.”

“I meant if I didn’t know you,” Luke said, taking the mug back as she set it down and taking another sip. “But since you agreed to marry me, I figure I have a measure of immunity.”

Mara elbowed him and took her mug back again, but before she could say anything else Hobbie and Tycho reemerged, almost entirely covered in fairly shapeless garments in earthy tones.

“Luke,” Hobbie said, “You come from the least fashion-forward planet in the galaxy.”

“Do you realize how hot it is out there?” Luke asked, unimpressed. “You dress for practicality on Tatooine.”

“And yet you put this much on for extreme heat?” Tycho asked doubtfully.

“It’s all loose-woven, the wind will blow right through it and cool you off,” Luke said. “You don’t leave your skin exposed here. Especially fair-skinned offworlders like you. You’d be burnt to a crisp.”

“Mara’s fairer-skinned than any of us,” Hobbie protested, “and she’s not wearing these grain sacks.”

“Mara,” Luke said, rising, “is an undercover agent who carries a wide assortment of clothing with her to fit into a variety of situations. You, as she so astutely pointed out, are a hotshot fighter jock. You needed more to fit in. Stop complaining.”

“I said you were a hotshot fighter jock, too,” Mara said, amused.

“Sure,” he replied, placing a hand on his chest in mock offense. “But from the Rim, not the Core. There’s a difference.”

Mara shook her head as she turned off her datapad and rose. “Uh-huh. You’re all a pain in my neck, is what you are. Come on, it’s already midmorning and we have a lot to do. Let’s get going."

---

Mos Eisley’s civil affairs building was a small and dingy thing, as befit such a small city that brandished its disregard for actual civility so blatantly, and the public research room was unpleasantly tiny, with only a handful of terminals. Fortunately, no one else so much as walked past the door in all the time Mara and Luke were there.

Which wasn’t long at all: it took less than half an hour to scan all the arrival and departure records and realize that there were no more obvious leads here than there had been on Kattada.

Mara sighed heavily as she shut down the computer. “About what I expected, but we had to try. Cantinas next, I guess.”

“Mara,” Luke said quietly. “If we don’t find them, do you have a plan for what we all do next?”

“No,” she admitted. “But that’s the next step, if we don’t find them here within a day or two. It’s unlikely they’ll stay here longer, and by that time we really do have to assume that the military will be looking for us.”

“Mm,” Luke said, then smiled ruefully at her. “I wish we had time for me to show you the farm. Or Beggar’s Canyon, or Anchorhead. None of it is anything spectacular, but…”

“It’s home,” she finished softly.

“Yeah,” he agreed.

A thought occurred to Mara, just a glimmer at first, but it quickly shone brighter, like the sun rising above the horizon. “Luke.” He looked at her inquiringly, and she caught her breath at her own impulsiveness. “Luke, let’s get married right now.”

His eyebrows lifted nearly to his hairline, and Mara laughed. “Is that what I looked like when you proposed?”

Luke snorted. “Probably, yeah.” He took her hand. “And here I thought you said this was an insane idea.”

“I also said yes. Are you trying to talk me out of it now?”

He lifted her hand to his lips. “Never. But Mara, it’s not legal if we don’t use our real names. Is that something we should be doing right now?”

Mara thought furiously for a moment. “No one knows we’re here. There shouldn’t be any way to trace us after Kattada. What are the odds that anyone would look for us on Tatooine at all, let alone Mos Eisley specifically? Anyone trying to trace you wouldn’t assume you’d go right back home, and anyone looking for me wouldn’t think of Tatooine at all. We’ll be gone in two days at the most, either with Organa or looking for some other obscure place to hide. And we only have to use our real names for this; we can use false ones everywhere else if we want. There still wouldn’t be a trail.”

Luke was starting to grin at her. “This is by far the craziest thing you have ever suggested.”

“You suggested it,” Mara said archly. “I’m just continuing the thought.” She caught his other hand, held them both tightly. “Luke, we can’t go back to Coruscant, maybe not ever. Neither of us have any family to stand with us. This is at least your home. And if we do find the—” she stopped herself, abruptly mindful of her words in case of passersby “—if we do, and we arrive already married, there’s a better chance they’ll keep us assigned together instead of splitting us up. I didn’t come all this way just to wind up on the other side of the galaxy from you.”

His grin was fully fledged by now. “You’re sure?”

She squeezed his hands. “More than sure. And if ever there was a place where you could bypass the ordinary regulations and get a rush job wedding—”

Luke laughed. “So Mos Eisley’s good for something after all. Who’d have guessed?” He stood, pulling her up with him. “Come on, let’s go find whoever officiates weddings around here. I bet we’ll be married in twenty minutes, then I can take you on a whirlwind tour of Mos Eisley’s filthiest cantinas for a honeymoon.”

Mara laughed too, suddenly giddy. “You’re on.”

---

It was closer to thirty minutes before they were married, in a ceremony that took less than five minutes, officiated by a thoroughly bored civil employee and witnessed by a clerk and a janitor, the former of whom repeatedly checked her chrono throughout the brief exchange and the latter of whom apologized awkwardly afterward for his tears. “I always cry at weddings,” he told them, and Luke and Mara took turns shaking his hand and thanking him for his help. He wiped his tears away and wished them well, then returned to his duties as Luke and Mara returned to the dusty streets outside and began to make their way back toward the spaceport, holding hands tightly.

“We are insane,” Mara muttered to him, trying hard to wipe a silly-feeling smile from her face. She was supposed to look coolly threatening, not like a lovesick teenager.

“So what?” Luke asked, squeezing her hand. “I’d rather be happy than sane any day.”

Mara laughed. “The first cantina is three blocks to the north. We have to look casual by the time we get there.”

Luke pulled her into an alleyway, ducked into the shadows, and took her in his arms, kissing her. “How casual?”

She wound her arms around his neck and kissed him back. “Much, much more casual than this.”

He kissed her again. “You’re sure?”

Mara grinned but pulled away, just a little. “Luke, stop. We don’t have time for this.”

“You’re no fun at all.”

She kissed him again. “Liar.”

The clatter of armored footsteps in the street behind them caught their attention. Luke’s eyes flashed alarm at her, and she pulled him quickly behind a garbage receptacle. She peered through the crack between the receptacle and the alleyway’s wall, watching the stormtroopers pass by.

“Okay,” she breathed as the footsteps continued away from them and disappeared into the ambient street noise. “I guess we pick up that line of thought later.”

“Good idea,” Luke agreed. “Let’s go this way.” He took her hand again and led her to the alleyway’s other end, then wove his way through the tiny back ways between the mostly domed buildings that all looked the same.

“I thought you hadn’t been here before,” Mara said, slightly breathless from their close call.

Luke shrugged. “The layout isn’t all that different from Mos Espa, and as long as we go north we’ll hit the spaceport. We’ll just start at whatever cantina we come upon first.”

“Casually,” she reminded him, then couldn’t help but laugh at the comically reproachful look he gave her.

“There’s one,” Luke murmured, and Mara took a deep breath as the cantina came into view. She smoothed her clothes and made Luke stand still while she straightened his cloak.

“Okay,” she said again. “Follow my lead. You remember what Organa and Retrac look like?”

“Yes,” he said, then leaned in for another quick kiss. “For luck.”

She smiled and squeezed his hand. “I love you. Watch my back.” She stepped away from him, concentrated a moment on making sure her expression was the don’t-mess-with-me sort that everyone else in a place like this would be wearing, and walked into the cantina, Luke following at a slight distance.

Back to work.

 

GAH, Gabri, the way the alarm bells went pinging in my head waiting for something terrible to be around the corner. I literally had to take a break from reading to calm myself down because my heart was going too quickly. But nothing happened, at they were sweet and happy, and also this version of this proposal is so true to them and I love it.

Mara! <3 That's a response.

Many would agree with you, Leia, and yet the powers that be keep sending us back here for all the shows.

Small thing, but I enjoyed this clerk's hamhanded reassurances. It's just ... a nice picture of a person trying to be kind and helpful and absolutely failing, and then also showing their own biases.

The Obi-Wan greeting, in every universe. And helpful for Leia to have found one parental-ish figure amidst all this, someone who can help her grieve if she needs that

Spoiler: Lego Star Wars Holiday Special

They riff off this in the Lego Star Wars Holiday Special, it's cute.

I really enjoy that it was Mara being the impulsive one here. Because that's usually Luke! But she's happy and in love, and she gets to be a little impulsive, too.

Aaaah, that concise and in character wedding. The small one she wanted to have in the EU.

Back to work indeed. <3

I'm happy to be all caught up and eager to see where you take us next!

 

@vader_incarnate

lol, I am not accustomed to freaking readers out like this! This is the sort of reaction I would expect Vi to get I feel the same way about the proposal, though, and I'm glad I'm not the only one

Mara calls it like she sees it

LOL, my poor maligned Tatooine

People are complicated like that!

I could not resist, Elli Obi-Wan really does wind up being a parental sort of figure in this story and it is so great, I love it so much Also, I really have to watch some of these SW Lego specials

Right? I love that too. Just because Mara isn't usually impulsive doesn't mean that she never is, and she is happy and in love despite everything, and look at this golden chance to marry the man she loves right away and also make him happy by having that connection to his home! She's so adorable, I just can't even stand it

YES. This wedding (and the Renewal!verse one) may or may not have been influenced by the fact that Mara outright said she wanted a small, private, dignified ceremony, and then the EU gave us Union

You're the best, Elli

 

Chapter Twelve



They’d gotten a later start than planned, but Leia, Winter, and General Kenobi—Ben, Leia reminded herself—reached the outskirts of Mos Eisley by late morning. At his insistence, Ben had driven the speeder while Leia and Winter caught him up on what they knew of the Death Star, and the Alliance’s current status and strategies. Although he’d mostly listened in silence, his occasional comments revealed a sharp mind that didn’t match his raggedy appearance, and Leia was beginning to feel almost relieved despite everything. Whatever else had happened, she had found General Kenobi, and he would certainly be a great help to the Alliance in the fight against the Empire.

Her cautious optimism lasted until they reached the docking bay where she and Winter had left their ship.

The empty docking bay.

“No,” Winter breathed as they pulled in.

Leia stared, climbed out of the speeder and inspected the entire bay as though the ship might be hiding in the shadows, then swore viciously.

“Now, Leia,” Ben said with what Leia could almost believe was amusement.

“But our ship!”

Ben shrugged. “Mos Eisley’s reputation as a hive of scum and villainy is well-deserved. The other side of that coin is that we’ll find many a pilot for hire in the cantinas.”

“We can’t take a hired pilot to the base,” Leia protested.

“No,” Ben agreed. “But we can hire someone to take us to another planet, to a city perhaps less crime-riddled than this one, and without an Imperial garrison overlooking everything, and get a new ship there. I knew Mon Mothma well once, and she would never have let you go on an important mission without sufficient credits to cover even such a setback as this.”

“Credits aren’t an issue,” Leia admitted.

“Well, then,” Ben said with a note of finality. “Come, girls. I know of a small restaurant that served excellent food last I was here, and breakfast was a long time ago. We’ll get some lunch, and then find a pilot. All will be well, Leia. The Force is with us, I can feel it.”

I’d rather the Force had been with Alderaan, Leia thought bitterly, but there was no point in saying it aloud. And she was hungry. Mad, but hungry.

“All right,” she said with a sigh, and climbed back into the speeder. “Let’s go get lunch.”

---

Mara wound her way through the smoke-filled cantina, crowded even at this early hour. Various sets of eyes glanced over to assess her before flicking away; she met each of them with the same indifferently threatening air they offered her. She reached the bar and leaned against it. “Two brandies,” she told the bartender, then turned away to scan the room—casually, she thought, and had to bite her lip against a grin.

“Hey there, pateesa,” a voice said from behind her, and Mara turned to see a grubby-looking human male a few meters over, probably a decade older and a couple of heads taller than her, leering in her direction. She looked him contemptuously up and down, then turned away. The sound of footsteps approached and a hand came down on her shoulder. “That’s not very friendly of you, now, is it?”

The bitter smell of spice hung around him, along with other even less pleasant odors. Mara looked at him very deliberately. “Ee chu ta.”

His bloodshot eyes narrowed. “Pateesa, someone needs to teach you some manners.”

He grabbed her wrist, and without hesitation Mara yanked that arm down with all her strength, bending him over slightly as he hung on to her. Using his hold as leverage, she swung the edge of her other hand hard into his throat, then brought a knee up into his stomach. He doubled over, letting go of her wrist as he gasped, and Mara dropped into a crouched spin, swinging her leg around to catch him behind the knees.

He went down hard, the thud echoing, and all eyes came back to Mara, who stood back up and gazed around, waiting for the eyes to flick away again.

After only a moment, they did; places like this saw brawls too often to be impressed by a quick exchange like that. The bartender set her drinks in front of her as though nothing had happened, and Mara handed over a credit chip. “Keep the change.”

She hadn’t seen where Luke had gone, but his Force sense would have been a beacon to her even if it hadn’t been incandescent with amusement. She followed the sense to a small table at the edge of the room and set the brandies down. “Quit smirking,” she muttered.

“No, no,” Luke said, barely suppressing his grin. “Not smirking. Admiring. That was very casually done.”

Mara took a sip of brandy to hide the quirk of her lips. “Oh, shut up.”

“I suddenly feel very fortunate you didn’t floor me in that ballroom when we first met.”

“And risk tearing my gown?” Mara asked, scanning the room. “Don’t drink more than a few sips, we don’t know how many times we’re going to have to repeat this whole routine.”

“Including or excluding you beating up random patrons?”

“Random, nothing. No one else grabbed me.”

“That’s a fair point,” Luke agreed, sipping his drink. “By the way, try not to touch the tabletop. I don’t think it’s been washed in our lifetimes.”

Mara wrinkled her nose. “Nothing in here has. Including the guy who grabbed me. Any sign of them?”

“Not that I’ve seen so far,” Luke answered, his eyes scanning the crowd. “Should we stay here, or move on to the next?”

“Let’s give it ten or fifteen minutes,” Mara said. “It really should be an hour or two for a proper surveillance session, but there’s just too much ground to cover in too little time.” She took another sip and surreptitiously glanced around again. “The odds really aren’t with us here, you know.”

“No,” Luke agreed thoughtfully. “But it still feels like we’re on the right path, somehow.”

Mara swirled her glass, watching the dim light glint off the brandy. “The problem with that,” she pointed out, “is that even if we’re interpreting this correctly as some sort of direction from the Force, we still don’t know exactly what it is we’re doing that’s right. Or if the right conclusion to this path leads to Organa, or away from her.”

Luke tilted his head in a half-shrug. “You’re right, but I don’t know how to narrow the feeling down any more than that.”

“Me either,” Mara said with a sigh. “For now we stick with the plan. If we don’t find them today, we hold another planning session tonight, and decide whether to stay on Tatooine another day or head somewhere else. Pull out your datapad, will you, and double check the map. Let’s see exactly where we are, and pick the next few cantinas to visit.”

---

They were passing an intersection on their way to the third cantina of the day when Luke started to turn right instead of going straight, pulling Mara to a stop in the process. They both turned to look at each other, still holding hands.

“We’re going this way,” Mara said, tugging his hand slightly.

Luke frowned and looked in the direction he’d turned. “Are you sure?”

“Positive.”

He still didn’t move, gazing down the street to the right. “I think we should go this way first.” His eyes came back to her. “Just a hunch.”

Mara looked down the street, back at him, then closed her eyes and tried to listen for whatever subtle whispers the Force was offering. “I don’t feel anything that specific.”

“I do, Mara. Really. I don’t know why, but we have to go this way.”

She opened her eyes and tilted her head at him. “I guess I’m following you, then.”

They turned down the street and walked for another block, with Luke’s eyes only half focused as he concentrated, and Mara guiding him to avoid collisions with other pedestrians. Eventually Luke stopped and looked around, then jerked his chin toward a smallish building set a little further back from the road than its neighbors. “There. We need to go in there.”

Mara thought back to the map they’d consulted in the first cantina. “That wasn’t on our list. I don’t think it’s a cantina.”

Luke was looking at the building with a strange intensity. “I don’t understand it, Mara. I just know it’s calling.”

Mara watched him, feeling a shiver go up her spine. “Okay. Let’s go check it out.”

He turned to her, eyebrows slightly lifted. “Casual?”

“I’m never going to live that down, am I?”

“Nope,” he said, squeezing her hand.

Mara shook her head fondly. “Casual, but not cantina casual. This place looks more respectable—an actual restaurant, I think. We just landed at the port, supply run from Sullust for our employer. Sick of ship’s rations, looking for something with local flavor.”

“I have such a talented wife,” he said, smiling at her.

She returned the smile, a warm glow spreading through her. Talk about letting herself get distracted on a mission, she thought. Her childhood tutors would have been appalled. “Don’t get all mushy. We’re still on the clock.”

He gestured with their joined hands. “After you.”

They strode into the building with Mara in the lead, looking around with open interest rather than the detachment she’d shown in the cantinas. It was indeed a small restaurant, with a scattering of tables and a counter toward the back with a holo menu on the wall above it, where you apparently placed your order and carried your own food back. Mara eyed the menu as though weighing her options, then glanced around the room. It was beginning to fill up for the midday rush, with only a few tables left open. They should take one and pretend to discuss the menu, that would give them a few minutes to scan the place…

“Mara,” Luke said quietly. “Starboard, thirty degrees.”

She looked that way, sweeping her gaze smoothly as if searching for an empty table. A dark-haired young woman sat alone, looking back over her shoulder to see who’d entered. Her eyes met Mara’s, weighed her briefly, then went back to the datapad in front of her.

It was Leia Organa.

“I’ll be Kesseled,” Mara muttered, continuing her sweeping assessment of the room as though nothing had happened. She turned back to Luke and smiled sweetly. “Over here, I think. What looks good to you?” She guided him to an empty table several meters behind Organa, and sat down, pulling him with her. Stay here unless I call you. Luke nodded, and Mara stood again. “I think I’ll go get a closer look at the menu. I’ll be right back.”

She walked toward the counter with the menu above it, passing right next to Organa’s table, and bumped into the empty chair that was next to her. Organa jumped slightly and looked up at her.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Mara said brightly. “Not paying nearly enough attention—I’m absolutely starving. Is there anything you recommend here?”

Organa glanced toward the counter, then back at Mara. “Um, no, sorry. First time here.”

“Just at this restaurant, or Tatooine itself?” Mara asked. “Because let me tell you, this heat is something else.” She dropped into the chair she’d bumped into, making a show of fanning herself with her hand. “I don’t know how the locals stand it. Hopefully I’ll be leaving soon, just have to pick up some cargo.”

“Right,” Organa said, looking at her datapad again, clearly determined to avoid a prolonged conversation with this overly friendly stranger.

“And meet someone,” Mara added. “Fortunately she’s right here. Hello, Leia.”

Organa jolted and looked at her sharply.

“Steady,” Mara murmured. “We’re all friends here.”

“Somehow I doubt that,” Organa replied, glancing coolly at the counter again, then back at Mara.

“I want to join the Rebellion,” Mara said quietly. “I don’t know how to contact anyone else to ask. You’re my only hope.”

Organa’s eyes narrowed. “How did you know where to find me? And why should I trust you?”

“Because I’m a high level Imperial agent, sent to assassinate you. And I’m risking my own life by defying that order and telling you about it.”

“Sounds like a decent cover story to infiltrate the Alliance as a spy,” Organa murmured.

Mara’s throat tightened. “Yes. But it’s not. I don’t know how else to convince you.”

An older man wearing a cloak with a deep hood smoothly joined Organa, setting a plate before her, then one in front of his own chair. He was followed by Winter Retrac, who was carrying another plate and eyeing Mara with alarm. “I see we have a guest,” the man said.

Mara grimaced. She’d thought Organa was alone; an amateur mistake that might cost them all their only chance. Retrac was a known factor, she could have worked with that, but she had no idea who this man was or how to continue this discussion with him as a part of it.

Organa saved her the trouble of deciding. “This is a high level Imperial agent sent to assassinate me, or so she says.”

“She left out the part where I said I was disobeying that order,” Mara said.

“Oh, yes,” Organa added, looking at Mara again, then back at the old man. “Apparently she also wants to join the Alliance. Because that’s not an obvious enough ploy.”

The old man’s eyes rested thoughtfully on Mara, and she had the unsettling sense that he was looking into her soul. “Is that so?”

“It’s a genuine request,” Mara insisted quietly. “Not everyone in the Empire agrees with its recent actions. There are three others with me who are also defecting. Is there somewhere we can go for this interrogation in private? I should be the only undercover Imperial agent here right now, but that’s hardly something you’d want to bet on. And as I said, my companions and I are risking our own lives trying to join you.”

“Where are your companions?” the old man asked.

Mara beckoned Luke through the Force and felt his acknowledgement. “They’re on their way,” she began, then stopped to look more intently at the old man, whose eyes were sharp on her now. Had he sensed that ripple in the Force? But that would mean…

Organa glanced back and forth between them; opened her mouth to speak—

Luke stepped up beside Mara just then, and the old man glanced over at the same moment as Luke noticed him.

“Luke?”

“Ben?”

They stared at each other as the other three stared at them, then the old man murmured to Organa, “They’re safe. We need to speak with them further.” He looked up at Luke. “Have a seat, my boy.”

Luke looked at Mara, then sat down beside her. “Is this really where we should be having this conversation?”

“No,” Mara said pointedly.

The old man gave her a smile far too knowing for the circumstances, then looked back to Luke. “It’s good to see you, Luke. I didn’t expect to see you on Tatooine again.”

“I didn’t expect to be back,” Luke answered somewhat warily.

The old man took a bite of his food, seeming entirely unaffected by the clear tension of everyone else at the table. “Winter, my dear, perhaps you could get us some boxes to take our meals with us? We may be leaving in a moment.”

Retrac stood, glancing uncertainly toward Organa, then went back to the counter.

“Luke,” the old man said, “Perhaps you and your companion would like to order something as well, to take with us?”

Luke blinked. “Um.” He glanced again at Mara. “No, thanks, Ben. We have food on our ship.”

“Ah,” the old man said with a nod. “You have a ship. That is excellent news. Will it hold three more passengers, do you think? And did you intend to stay long?”

Organa snapped her head around to stare at the old man. “You can’t be serious.”

“Oh, indeed I am, my dear. Luke and I are old friends. Isn’t that right, son?”

Luke hesitated, just noticeably. “Yes.”

Mara raised her eyebrows at him, and the old man chuckled. “Yes, I know what your uncle said of me. He wasn’t entirely wrong, but neither was he entirely correct. Luke,” he said more quietly, “I am terribly sorry about your aunt and uncle, and for what you went through at that time. I didn’t know of it until after you had left Anchorhead. I would have tried to ease the burden for you as much as I could have, had I known in time.”

“Thank you,” Luke said quietly.

Retrac returned to the table with some boxes and a bag, and the old man smiled at her. “Thank you, my dear. You’re sure you won’t order anything yourselves?” he asked, turning toward Luke and Mara again. “I can recommend it.”

Luke watched him sliding his food into a box, and said, “Actually, is that bantha milk custard?”

The old man smiled. “Of course. They also have excellent ahrisa here, and fresh lamta.”

“Okay,” Luke said. “Mara, you really do have to try that. I’ll be right back.”

“You have got to be kidding me,” Mara said to no one in particular, as Luke headed toward the ordering counter and the old man, Organa, and Retrac continued boxing their food, Organa watching Mara warily the whole time.

“My dear,” the old man said to her as he placed their boxes into the bag Retrac had brought, “Didn’t you say you had three companions?”


Mara hesitated—nothing at all about this had gone as she would have expected, and for a moment she wondered if she should grab Luke, head back to the ship without Organa and Retrac and their bizarre friend, and just pick some remote planet to start a new life on. But it seemed they were well and truly committed to this encounter now, and besides, however cautious Luke seemed, he hadn’t once felt genuinely alarmed or worried in the Force. Whatever his history with this odd man whose courtly manners made her think far more of the Imperial Palace than Mos Eisley, it wasn’t a contentious one. “Yes.”

“Perhaps you’d like to call the others to meet us at your ship? If I know Luke, he’s getting food for all four of you, and I’d hate for their meal to get cold.”

Mara had been rendered speechless very few times in her life, but this was definitely one of them. She looked over at the counter, and sure enough, Luke was handing a credit chip to one employee while another stacked four boxes in a bag. Mara had the strangest feeling that she had somehow slipped into another reality. “Um, can I just talk to Luke for a minute first?”

“But of course—Mara, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said, standing as she eyed him. “Ben?”

“Indeed,” he said with another odd smile.

Mara nodded slowly, and went to meet Luke just as he had accepted the bag of food and thanked the employee who’d handed it to him. “Luke,” she said. “Are we really taking them back to the ship?”

Luke took her arm and led her a few steps away to the restaurant wall, away from the other patrons. “Isn’t that what we always intended to do?”

Mara glanced back at the table she’d just left. The others were just standing up. Retrac took the bag from Ben, who smiled at her, while Organa never took her eyes off Mara. Mara looked back at Luke, at a loss for words.

“Mara,” Luke said softly, “I have no idea what Ben is doing with Organa, but I’ve known him my whole life. It’s not like we were close or anything, but he’s always lived near Anchorhead; my aunt and uncle knew him well. We can trust him. And we specifically came here to make contact with Organa, and here she is.”

“I know,” Mara said. “I know.”

Luke set the bag down and took her shoulders. “The Force guided us here, Mara. To Tatooine, to Mos Eisley, to this restaurant where we found them all. I think we should take them back to the ship, yes. I think it’s what we were supposed to do all along. You don’t sense anything wrong with that course, do you?”

“No,” she admitted.

“Well, then.” He leaned a little closer to her, sliding his hands down her arms to hold her hands. “If it makes you feel any better, if they come on board our ship instead of the other way around, we’re the ones with control. The three of them couldn’t overpower you, let alone all of us. If we don’t come to an understanding you like, we can drop them off somewhere and go our own way, nothing lost.”

Mara took a deep breath. She really didn’t sense anything wrong, not specifically. And everything Luke said was perfectly logical. What was even the point of all of this if they found Organa only to walk away before getting a real chance to join the Rebellion? Her growing unease was probably just a combination of the very real threat of being AWOL right within a garrison’s sights and being thrown off balance by Ben’s odd composure. She’d always had a sharp danger sense; she would know if this nebulous foreboding transformed into a real threat. She took out her comm and keyed Tycho’s code.

The click of connection sounded as someone on the other end picked up, then: “Celchu.”

“Tycho, it’s Mara. We’ve found them. Meet us back at the ship as quickly as you can get there without looking suspicious.”

“Casually,” Luke added, and Mara made a face at him.

“Acknowledged,” Tycho said, and the connection cut out.

Mara took a breath, looking back up at Luke, who kept hold of her hand and picked up their bag of food. “It’s okay. I’m sure it is. Come on, let’s go get all this sorted out.” He met Ben’s eyes and tilted his head toward the door, then led Mara that way. Outside, they waited the few seconds it took for the others to catch up. “This way,” Luke said when they did, and started back toward the spaceport. Mara felt Organa’s eyes boring into her back all the way, and was unable to shake the feeling of an impending storm.

 

Exquisite L/M scenes with banter and sweet loving expressions of how valued and valuable she is as a person and how right they are for each other. Loved the proposal and the spontaneous wedding!

 

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha
Thanks so much!

 

Chapter Thirteen



The amount of bureaucracy required by the Empire almost equalled the level of devotion required by the Emperor, and both had grated on him even more than usual since Vader had returned from the Death Star’s inaugural mission, the memory of the Force-sensitive TIE pilot ringing through his mind always, preoccupied with the sudden sense of familiarity he’d felt. He didn’t dare think deeply upon it in Palpatine’s presence, not until he’d sorted it out for himself—and Palpatine had required his presence near constantly, for meetings with admirals, meetings with the many teams of designers responsible for the Death Star’s massive amount of technology, to parade before the Court the night after the announcement about Alderaan had been formally made.

Thus it wasn’t until the afternoon of his fourth day back on Coruscant that Vader finally had time to himself to truly consider the matter. Back in his quarters after yet another meeting and with several hours yet before Court commenced, he sat at his personal computer terminal and pulled up the roster of the TIE squadron who had escorted him down from the Death Star to the Palace. He began to read the list of names: Benja, Ilex, Davi, Ashir, Vai—

Skywalker.

Vader stared at the screen, only his automated respirator keeping his breath steady. He hadn’t even thought that name in so long…

And yet. There had to be many other people surnamed Skywalker. Certainly the sum total of Skywalkers in the entire galaxy couldn’t have been his mother and himself.

Almost without conscious thought, he brought up the pilot’s profile. Luke Skywalker; home planet, Tatooine; age—

Vader stood up abruptly, his chair toppling over unnoticed, his hands flexing against the sudden desire to crush someone’s throat. This was some monstrous joke, impossible, unthinkable. A preposterous obscenity forged to torture him.

He spun, his boot colliding with the fallen chair as he did so, and before he even realized it Vader had hurled a Force blow at the obstacle. The chair crashed against the wall and rebounded, skidding into a console table that stood along the adjoining wall. He focused another furious blow, shattering both table and chair to splinters.

Seething, Vader turned back to the computer, his fist raised—and then he saw the alert alongside the pilot’s name.

AWOL.

Barely four days after returning to Coruscant? Vader pulled up the entire file. This supposed Skywalker had actually gone AWOL the very next day after the Death Star had returned, as had two others from his squadron. No sign had been seen of any of them since; all Imperial bases and garrisons had been notified to be on the watch for them.

His curiosity suddenly overcoming his anger, Vader opened a new search field: all legal records on Tatooine for Luke Skywalker.

One residence, with—

For the first time in years, maybe decades, Vader felt nauseated. One residence, with Owen and Beru Lars, now listed as deceased, near Anchorhead. Schooling, Anchorhead. Owner’s registration for a T-16 Skyhopper. And from Mos Eisley—Vader frowned behind his mask as he saw the timestamp. Barely more than an hour ago, a marriage registration.

To Mara Jade.

Thunderstruck, Vader could only stare. The coincidences were too much, it had to be—Obi-Wan! Obi-Wan, who had left him on Mustafar and taken Padmé with him when he left—she must have given birth before she died. It wasn’t enough that Obi-Wan had maimed him, abandoned him, turned his wife against him; he’d also stolen his son. And taken him to Tatooine, to Owen and Beru—his son had been right there for years, and Vader had never thought to look, never wanted to remember his last visit to Tatooine, believed his child long since dead.

His son had been standing right in front of him, only four days ago. And now he was halfway across the galaxy, and with Palpatine’s pet assassin—

Another line of thought caught up to him: did that mean that Jade was AWOL too? Did Palpatine know?

Did Palpatine know of his son?

Vader stood motionless, lost in thought. Surely if Palpatine had known of his son, he would have sought to either control or eliminate the boy. The fact that he had been stationed on Coruscant, in the very shadow of the Imperial Palace, and as a lowly TIE pilot, seemed proof that Palpatine was unaware.

And what of Jade? It was unlikely that Palpatine would yet know of this development, either. The girl was given a great deal of autonomy, and if, as seemed to be the case, she and his son had left Coruscant together, then she had only been gone four days. She frequently went far longer without direct contact with Palpatine; unless he had something specific to communicate to her, he would think nothing of four days of silence.

Whatever mission Jade was ostensibly on, she would have no reason to be with any TIE pilot at all; she always worked alone. She couldn’t be unaware of his son’s AWOL status. She certainly would know that Palpatine would never condone her marriage to anyone. And it was highly unlikely that Palpatine would have had reason to send her to Tatooine under any circumstances; it was still as insignificant a planet as it had been when he was a boy, with no major Imperial holdings, no elites or suspect high-ranking military officers for her to investigate.

No, clearly she and his son had run off together. Vader’s fist clenched tightly at his side. How had the two even met, let alone gotten to the point of marriage? The audacity, that his own son would choose an impertinent nuisance like Jade. And that she, who had been taught to serve from near-infancy, would defy the Emperor so utterly… Palpatine’s rage would be terrible.

Hiding his son entirely from Palpatine, as he would have preferred to do, was now out of the question. Wherever Jade was supposed to be, whatever she was supposed to be doing, eventually Palpatine would realize that she was overdue. He could communicate with her via the Force, but if she refused to answer, as now seemed inevitable, a focused search would bring up this marriage record, her name linked with his son’s. And while Palpatine would naturally want vengeance upon her for this betrayal, even his wayward Hand would likely fall to near-insignificance once he realized that Vader’s son lived.

But with his son light years beyond reach, and Palpatine ensconced on Coruscant while Vader frequently traveled with the Fleet, Vader would be in the better position to search, to find his son, to reveal his parentage, to ally with him. This was the chance that had always lain beyond his grasp since Mustafar, the chance for true power and authority, the chance to throw off Palpatine’s shackles. Vader knew himself unable to defeat Palpatine alone, but his son’s Force-sensitivity had shone with potential, if only he was properly trained.

Jade would be a difficulty. If the boy cared for her enough to marry her, she could be an obstacle between Vader and his son. Even if Vader were able to turn her to the dark side as well, there would always be the possibility that the two of them would conspire against him. No, far better to remove her. If he could do so in a way so that no blame would attach to himself, so much the better; the boy would be all the more likely to cleave to his father, the only family he would have left.

The thought suddenly occurred that he could use all of this to his own advantage. If he brought this news to Palpatine’s attention immediately, it would be seen as an act of loyalty and trust. Finding a way to destroy Jade for her treachery would also be seen as loyalty to Palpatine, thus keeping Vader close, in a better position to slide the knife between his ribs when the time came. In the meantime, he would be able to observe the reaction, gauge the likelihood of various responses, be better able to respond to and, if necessary, counter them. Once he had gained his son, together they would eliminate the Emperor and rule the galaxy as they saw fit. As Vader saw fit.

As Palpatine himself would have said, anything you wished could be yours, so long as you had the determination to take it, at whatever cost to those who stand in your way.

Vader wished for his son. He wished for the ultimate power he had been cheated of so long ago. He wished to end his subjugation to Palpatine.

The cost to others was irrelevant.

---

Tycho and Hobbie were waiting in the ship by the time the rest of them arrived.

“We were at the Tekla marketplace, only a few blocks east,” Hobbie explained, as he met them at the boarding ramp. “Tycho’s putting the engines on standby so if we need to leave in a hurry we don’t have to do a cold start. Are we leaving in a hurry?”

“Wait just a minute,” Organa said, stopping at the top of the ramp and propping her fists on her hips. “I haven’t agreed to any of this yet.”

Mara, already a few steps into the ship, looked over her shoulder. “Let’s talk about it inside, shall we?”

Organa took a step back down the ramp. “Why would we have to leave in a hurry?”

“Leia,” Ben began soothingly, but Mara was faster. She turned back, grabbed Organa’s arm, and yanked her forcibly inside the ship.

“Because,” she hissed, “all of us are AWOL, and you’re marked as a Rebel, and therefore a traitor to the Empire. So how about we have this argument out of sight from the whole damn spaceport?”

Organa angrily jerked her arm out of Mara’s grasp, only to back into Ben, who took her shoulders. “Leia, we’re perfectly safe, I promise you.”

“With someone who literally said she was here to kill me?” Leia snapped. “And now we’re in her ship, and they’re getting the engines ready to go. That’s safe?”

Mara took a step toward Organa, and to her side, Luke swiftly handed the bag of food off to Hobbie and took hold of her upper arm. “Mara, don’t. Let’s all go sit down and talk this out. Princess, I promise we’re not trying to trap you. We’re trying not to be trapped ourselves.”

“He’s right, Leia,” Ben said, gently propelling Organa forward. Luke did the same with Mara, while Retrac followed silently and Hobbie closed the landing ramp behind them, eyebrows raised the whole time.

Herded by Luke and Ben, they all settled around the small lounge table, joined a moment later by Hobbie and Tycho. “Now,” Ben said calmly. “Perhaps a few introductions are in order. Luke, if you would be so kind?”

Luke cleared his throat. “I’m Luke Skywalker; this is Mara Jade, Tycho Celchu, and Hobbie Klivian. And like Mara said, we’re AWOL, because we want to join the Rebellion.” He glanced at Organa. “Mara’s not wrong that we all need to keep a low profile here. There’s a very good chance that this garrison already has all of our information, and the Imperial military doesn’t really approve of deserters, for some reason.”

Ben smiled that odd smile again. “They would certainly like very much to know about all of us, as well. I believe you all must know who Princess Leia and Winter are, since you were looking for them anyway. My name is Ben Kenobi.” He paused, then added, “Once, before any of you were born, I was known as Obi-Wan Kenobi, Jedi Master.”

Mara eyed him sharply. Luke and Retrac stared. Tycho and Hobbie looked puzzled. “Why would you tell them that?” Organa all but wailed.

Ben patted her on the shoulder. “Every revelation has a due time, Leia.”

“You did sense me using the Force back there,” Mara said.

“I did, child,” Ben replied, his voice gentle. “Which leads to the question: how did a Force-sensitive come to serve the Emperor? He orchestrated the purge of the Jedi, and as far as I know, all Force-sensitives who come to his attention are still under a death sentence. But not you.”

Now everyone but Luke was staring at Mara, and this was a subject she didn’t even really like discussing with him, let alone in front of an audience of people she hardly knew. She shifted uncomfortably. Beneath the table, Luke took her hand, and Mara held his tightly. “He—the Emperor found me when I was very small, and he took me back to Coruscant and trained me to serve him.”

“But why you?” Ben asked softly. “Do not mistake me, Mara; I am grateful that you escaped the fate that overtook so many others. But I assure you, there were many Force-sensitive children in the Jedi Temple at the time of the purge, some of them very young indeed. They were all killed. There must be a reason Palpatine chose to spare you.”

Mara sat very still, fighting the intense urge to slam the lid shut on this conversation. She had always been so proud that the Emperor had chosen her, so proud of her service. The memory of kneeling, terrified, in the throne room as her entire world shattered around her was so razor-sharp as to be painful. “I—I can speak with him by way of the Force, over great distances. He always said it was a rare talent, and very useful in his service.”

“Ah,” Ben said. “What sort of distances are we talking about, my dear?”

“Anywhere, as far as I know,” Mara said stiffly. “Anywhere in the Empire.”

Organa tilted her head. “That’s ridiculous. You mean anywhere on Coruscant?”

Mara looked at her, holding to her composure with an effort. “I mean anywhere in the galaxy.”

Everyone stared at her again, and Mara wanted to squirm. Instead she held Luke’s hand more tightly under the table and kept her head high. She had been taught from earliest childhood that to display vulnerability was to invite attack. You never showed your weak points. Mara would be damned if she would do so now in front of a group of strangers.

Ben, meanwhile, was stroking his beard thoughtfully. “There have been many documented cases of such communication between trained Force-sensitives, but at such distances—that is indeed unique, Mara. I can see why Palpatine would find such a skill valuable.”

Luke had said almost exactly the same thing, when she’d first told him of her abilities. She still remembered the hard, unforgiving look in his eyes, the fear that he was angry with her, the shock of instead hearing his admission that he was angry with the Emperor on her behalf. The confusion of it all, and now the still-new realization of how thoroughly she’d been used. Mara’s heart ached, and she kept her expression absolutely still.

“This is all very interesting,” she said with forced calm, “but it doesn’t address the salient point, which is that we’re all risking our lives to join your fight against the Empire. And frankly, we should be off the ground before we have that conversation. Let’s hit space, already.”

“If you think I’m just going to take a bunch of unvetted strangers to an Alliance base—” Organa began.

“I’m not saying any such thing,” Mara interrupted her. “I’m pointing out that every single person on this ship is wanted by the Empire, and there’s a damned garrison not ten kilometers from here. Even out here in the Rim, there are plenty of planets to choose from. Pick one, any one. But to sit within spitting distance of Force knows how many stormtroopers while we have an extended discussion is just asking for trouble.”

Organa glared at her, those dark brown eyes practically firing blaster bolts. She had probably intimidated any number of senators more than twice her age in open debate. Mara, who had been raised by the Emperor himself, couldn’t have been less impressed.

“Your Highness,” Retrac murmured, “It is their ship. We can’t exactly stop them from taking off, which means either we go with them or we go back to the cantinas and try to hire a pilot.”

“While within spitting distance of a garrison full of stormtroopers,” Mara repeated impatiently. “If we had wanted to hurt any of you, we had plenty of chances before we got near the ship, and if we tried anything now, do you really think a Jedi Master couldn’t protect you?”

“Leia,” Ben said. “I know this is an unusual situation, but trust me. We’re safe with them.”

Organa turned that high voltage glare on Ben for a moment, then glared at the floor instead. “Fine. But nowhere near any Alliance bases.”

Mara rolled her eyes. Hardly the most diplomatic response under the circumstances, and truthfully, she did sympathize with Organa here. But however intelligent and daunting a senator Organa had been, it was obvious that her strategic training hadn’t come close to Mara’s own, and the sense of foreboding she’d felt earlier was stronger now, making the skin of her back crawl. Luke had been right, she was sure of it now: the threat wasn’t from Ben or Organa or Retrac. It was from something outside this group. The garrison? Or some other threat she’d failed to identify? Either way, the urge to get off-planet was growing by the heartbeat. If Organa was going to quit arguing and let common sense prevail, Mara would grab that opportunity.

“Fine,” she said. “Tycho, Hobbie, take Retrac to the cockpit, let her pick some destination. Any place that doesn’t have a large Imperial presence is fine. Lay in the course and get us the hell out of here. Organa can start her vetting—” she eyed Organa sideways, and Organa glowered at her “—with Luke and me.”

Quietly, Retrac stood; equally quietly, Tycho and Hobbie led her to the cockpit.

“Now,” Mara said, standing, eager to regain control and leave discussions of her own abilities and relationship with the Emperor behind. She picked up the bag of food that Hobbie had left in the walkway—naturally—and held it out to Luke, who also stood to take it from her. “Can you put that somewhere more appropriate so we can get on with—” She broke off, her danger sense narrowing suddenly to an intense focus, right here, right now, as though she was within a sniper’s sights—

MARA.

It was a shout inside her head which left her ears ringing despite the absence of physical sound. She felt herself inhale sharply. He’d never spoken to her like this before. He must have realized she was gone. She couldn’t answer, couldn’t let him track her—could he track her? She didn’t know; caught up in the stress of walking away from everything she’d ever known, she hadn’t even thought to wonder.

ANSWER ME.

She reflexively put up the strongest mental shields that she knew how to create, terrified that it wouldn’t be enough. Through the pounding of her heart, she could dimly hear the others, speaking as though from a great distance.

“What’s wrong with her?” That was Organa.

Ben’s voice: “The Force—it’s like she’s at the center of a storm—”

She was vaguely aware that she had Luke’s hand in a death grip. She was probably hurting him, didn’t even remember reaching out, couldn’t let go as the pain knifed through her. She threw every bit of her concentration into shielding herself and blocking the contact, knew she wasn’t entirely succeeding, felt an unfamiliar sense buttress her failing strength…

And suddenly the Emperor’s presence in her mind was gone, leaving an intense, intangible ache throughout her consciousness. How had he done that? What had she given away?

“Mara?”

She jerked as though she’d been struck, but it wasn’t the Emperor’s voice this time. She slowly became aware of her surroundings again. She was on her knees, bent nearly double over them, clutching her head so tightly that it hurt. It was Luke speaking to her softly as he knelt before her and stroked her hair. “Mara, I’m here. You’re okay, you’re fine. Is he gone?”

For a long moment, all she could do was breathe, trying to calm her racing heart. Luke leaned over her, whispering reassurances as he gently pried her hands away from her head and held them. Still half-gasping, she looked up at him. “He knows I’m gone. What if he found me?”

“He didn’t,” said Ben quietly. “You’re too far from Coruscant to pinpoint. But we should work on strengthening your shields, both to prevent him from potentially learning anything and to protect you. I don’t think he can do any lasting harm at this distance, but clearly he’ll try.”

As he spoke, Organa bent to reach into her own bag of takeout food; coming up with a napkin, she silently offered it to Mara. Mara managed to sit up straight and take it, only then realizing that there were tears streaming down her face. Exactly the impression she’d hoped to make, she thought, deeply embarrassed but too drained to do anything but scrub at her face with the napkin.

“Can you protect her?” Luke asked, looking up at Ben.

Ben was looking at her with an unreadable expression, and Mara felt sick. She was a liability—of course she was. What guerrilla organization would want to shelter a living homing beacon to their enemy? She’d irrevocably cut her ties to the Empire and put a personal death mark from the Emperor himself on her head; if the Rebellion didn’t want her, where could she possibly find any measure of safety? And she’d put Luke into this danger, too—she’d never be able to convince him to leave her now. Why had she been so stupid? Better to stay with the Empire regardless of the personal cost than endanger everyone she ever came near.

“I can teach her defensive measures,” Ben said. “She’s clearly strong in the Force, and she has a measure of training. That will help.”

“Can the Emperor track her, though?” Organa asked quietly. “I don’t want to leave anyone to Palpatine’s mercies, but we have to protect everyone else, too.”

Ben rubbed his chin. “Mara, has he ever been able to locate you through the Force?”

Luke was sitting beside her now, his arm protectively around her shoulders, and Mara leaned into the embrace, far too exhausted and sore for pride. What difference did it make after all that, anyway? “Not that I know of,” she said with a sigh. “He has asked me where I was before. I suppose if he knew he wouldn’t need to ask that, but I don’t know everything he’s capable of. I didn’t think about him tracking me before now.” She glanced guiltily at Organa, but surprisingly there was no condemnation there, just concern.

“If she was closer, say, in Imperial City itself,” said Ben thoughtfully, “I would be more concerned about the possibility. But locating someone precisely when they’re not relatively nearby is difficult, often impossible, and she’s many light years away from Coruscant. And between us, I’m sure her shields held.” He crouched before her. “Mara, child. I know you don’t feel up to it right now, but I think we should soon discuss your shielding. Your technique is good, but against Palpatine’s strength, you’re no match head on. I know some methods that will help you prevent a recurrence of this. If you can avoid the brunt of his contact, it will help protect both your location, however near you may be, and your well-being.”

Mara took a deep breath and pushed herself upright, supported by Luke, only then noticing that Tycho, Hobbie, and Retrac were watching from the cockpit door, eyes large and worried. Wonderful, just wonderful. “Whatever I have to do.”

Ben patted her shoulder the way he’d patted Organa’s earlier. “There’s time. The contact was broken when we jumped. I’m assuming your communication with him can’t reach into hyperspace corridors?”

Surprised, Mara extended her awareness, wincing slightly as she did so. It felt like her brain was sunburned, tender to the touch of her Force sensitivity. But as she tentatively reached out, she realized that they had indeed jumped to hyperspace, the distinctive rumble of hyperdrive almost too low to hear but ever so slightly vibrating the deck beneath her feet. The contact with the Emperor had been so intense that she hadn’t even noticed the ship taking off, let alone jumping.

“No,” she said. “I’ve never been able to contact him in hyperspace.”

Ben smiled reassuringly and picked up their bag of food, the one that Mara had handed to Luke just before the attack, and which he had apparently discarded when he came to her aid. “We’ll work on it a little later, then. Right now, I think you could use something to eat. Why don’t we all finish our meal? Serious discussions are always better held on full stomachs.”

 

Aw Even just in writing these few scenes, I started to feel really bad about still killing Bail and Breha; I like them so much. I gotta get on that "everyone lives" story. (...after finishing like a dozen others...) That is one of the things I liked about writing in this time frame: SW has been around almost fifty years now, and basically every tiny detail is old news to the fandom. It's easy to take things for granted. But right here and right now to these characters, these are new and shocking developments. It was a fresh perspective that I enjoyed getting into

And yeah, destroying Alderaan was an expensive lesson even for Palpatine himself. Destroying an entire planet doesn't just foment rebellion ("there's fomenting out there, sir" ); it eliminates a source of production and exports and - well, I'm not an economist or strategist, I can't comprehensively list off all the consequences of that, but imagine that one day a random country on Earth is totally destroyed out of the blue. Here today, a smoking crater tomorrow. Heck, not even a country. Just a state, or a province. Just a single big city, even: imagine that suddenly Taiwan or London or Tokyo or NYC is just gone. Think about the massive repercussions that would have globally. Alderaan had to have the same effect on the GFFA. Palpatine can't just do that on a whim every week; you can only punch so many holes through a screen door before it loses integrity. So what was the Death Star's purpose? It felt a lot like nukes and mutually assured destruction, except in this case there's not even the semblance of any balance of power. Only Palpatine has the nukes. If that's the case, then yeah, it sure makes sense to me that this is supreme psychological warfare, meant to cow planetary and system governments into submission without so much as an argument. It almost seems like the next logical step in Palpatine's constant quest for more power: Senator; Supreme Chancellor; Emperor; Emperor with a planetkiller, try your petty diplomacy now, senators and governors and queens and so forth, let's see how long you protest when the Death Star is in orbit around your world.

That's my take on it, anyway.

The undisputed worst

Thank you! I read Alderaan's Wook entries looking for some event that would be prominent enough that the Queen and Viceroy's presence would be required, because otherwise, wouldn't one of them have gone? Maybe Breha would always have been an unlikely candidate for that, but Bail was a senator who traveled extensively and we know from multiple sources and canons that he played an active role in the Rebellion, so why send Leia specifically? Well, the Wook said that equinox celebrations were very much a thing on Alderaan, so there you go, the royal couple has to put in appearances, but the princess/senator could realistically be called away on other duties.

Me tooooo. I haven't read a lot of new canon books, and I pick and choose what I accept from all the canons, but Leia, Princess of Alderaan by Claudia Gray was a pretty good book, and iirc, in it education was Breha's big passion. And obviously all mothers are going to be teaching their children, but Leia's the crown princess and her mother is an educator at heart anyway, so it made sense to me that Breha would have put immense effort into teaching Leia everything she could ever need to know.

Right? I even feel that way about my niece and nephew, so it seemed realistic.

I know I've read in an interview or the HttE anniversary annotated edition or somewhere that Zahn's said he never wants a character in the story just for superficial reasons or because the audience expects it; they need to play a crucial role in the narrative somewhere. The plot has to need them. I knew I wanted Winter in this, because I like Winter, and because I feel like she got neglected overall in the EU. Even in TTT, even though she did play a crucial role and clearly had a close and affectionate relationship with Leia, there was also an underlying sense that a good part of the reason for her existence was that Han and Leia were going to have babies in the trilogy, but they couldn't go running off on adventures without someone super trusted to watch those babies. Which is fair, but Winter clearly had a lot of potential beyond that, and this story at this point in time let me expand on Leia and Winter's early relationship a bit, and show them really being sisters, at least a little. But the first step for that was "where does the plot need her?" and the first answer to that was this, let her carry the plans so that there's nothing to be intercepted.

I do still feel in a number of ways that I could have done better in balancing a large cast, but this story was the first time I'd ever even attempted such a thing, or any story longer than 20,000 words, so, y'know, training wheels. Hopefully I've laid the groundwork well enough for this story to work, and for there to be room for to do better in the eventual sequel and any spinoff stories I might write, and working on this gave me the confidence to attempt Renewal, and it's all a process *gestures expansively*

It only makes sense that Leia would be good at the politics and diplomacy; she certainly did the haughty senator thing beautifully in ANH, and canon kept expanding on her qualifications there in various ways: she was raised by a senator and a queen, she was the youngest senator ever elected, her biological mother was also a senator and a queen, she helped build the NR government - but also, come on, look at her in the OT. The politics and diplomacy were a job she could do very well, but it wasn't her natural state. Her natural personality was, "This is some rescue. When you came in, didn't you have a plan for getting out? Into the garbage chute, flyboy!" Which, when you add in the PT, makes perfect sense; she's more Anakin's daughter than Padmé's. And we see in ESB that she can and does step right into the position of military leader as opposed to governmental. So you just can't tell me that this girl would have sat through every Senate session paying rapt attention the whole time. Winter, though, would.

So much of this story stemmed directly from me saying, "how can I explain this?" Leia was the crown princess of a pacifist planet, but look how she threw herself into the military actions of the Rebellion. How do you reconcile that dichotomy? She didn't see any other realistic option, and even though she didn't like warfare and all that went with it, the more action-oriented approach did match up with her own personality, so it was probably easier for her than it would have been for Bail or Breha. (Not to mention that Leia hadn't seen active warfare in her lifetime, at least not to the extent that Bail and Breha did with the Clone Wars, so it makes sense that since her parents had, they'd try every other possible option before going down that road again, while Leia might not fully realize just how bad that can become.)

That just always does seem to be a constant in the GFFA, that Leia winds up sacrificing so much personally for the greater good

SO MUCH PAIN

*curtsies* Just - that planet has to have parks, at least, right? Living creatures will go mad surrounded by nothing but cement day in and day out. And even though Mara is a shadow agent who should be able to pass unnoticed, she also would want to keep a low profile here, so a quiet park would be better than a big plaza with a bunch of people all the time, right? Besides, I really wanted these two to have something approximating a normal courtship in this story

Thank you! Neither the Jedi nor the military stuff comes naturally to me, so I'm always pleased when I manage to make it work

You know how I love the flirty banter

They're the best

Right?

You're right, they worked well together from the very beginning. Han pointed it out after Myrkr, and Luke said it in TLC. They're just super compatible; Zahn did a brilliant job crafting a character who was compelling on her own but also was such a perfect counterpart for Luke. I do like writing stories where I get to let that relationship develop a little more naturally than the EU did (That is the greatest transcribing project ever and I am keeping it in mind )

It does and he does. But poor Mara genuinely doesn't see it, because she's never been outside of that abusive bubble. This is her normal; she doesn't realize that there is anything else.

And that's honestly the biggest crux of this story upon which everything else hangs: in canon, Alderaan's destruction alone wasn't enough for Mara to turn against Palpatine and the Empire. We don't know exactly why; maybe she made the same excuses that she does in this story, maybe Palpatine lied to her about who authorized its use (Tarkin being already dead, he's a great scapegoat), maybe at that point she honestly thought that the Death Star was a necessary evil. But in a 'verse where Mara meets Luke early and learns what it is to have a friend, and to love someone, and be valued as a person, and have a different viewpoint come from someone she trusted - that Mara might just rebel.

It really is, the poor girl

She's just not, not yet. It would mean turning her whole world upside down, and she hasn't been faced with any incontrovertible evidence that would prompt such a painful realization just yet. If Luke tries to force the issue, he's only going to hurt her and probably wind up looking like the bad guy himself. Luke is highly emotionally intelligent, and in this 'verse where he's been away from Tatooine and in the Imperial military for four years already by the time he meets Mara, he's more mature than he was in ANH, so it seemed right that he would recognize this reality.

This was another example of me running into a potential plot problem and just trying to think my way through it: I don't think that ordinary TIE pilots are likely to see all of the worst atrocities of the Empire, but Luke couldn't have missed it all, could he? So what would he do with that knowledge? I've occasionally seen fans say things like "just defect," as though that's an easy decision to make, and a small thing to do. Luke loves flying, and he doesn't have a home anymore, and in a lot of ways he can tell himself that he's doing a good thing with the Imperial military, but surely he'd still wonder about the problems he does see, and try to rationalize them somehow?

Tangentially, that's another thing I enjoyed about this narrative: when they do decide to defect, both Luke and Mara are very much, "yes, it's a sudden realization but I can't be part of this, let's go do what we can to oppose it" - but there's also that undercurrent wherein it's clear that they're going to choose each other over both the Empire and the Rebellion if it comes down to that. It's easy to write noble, self-sacrificing characters who give up everything for The Cause, but individual people are complex and it's not so easy to give up someone you love even for a cause you believe in, and anyway, they're both very new to the whole idea of the Rebellion; they just don't want to be on the side that uses a Death Star. I'm rambling But I wanted them to be people, not tropes, is what I guess I'm getting at. And that absolute loyalty to each other will come into play later on in ways that shape the plot

Always!

It's bad for a reason, folks

She IS

He's just not an uplifting guy, you know?

Exactly! I definitely paid attention to Mara and Vader's relationship in Allegiance and CoO, and they're really not antagonistic most of the time. Vader is short with her on multiple occasions, but that's because either he doesn't want her knowing about his search for Luke (smart move, since she'd definitely inform on him if she thought he was disloyal) or because she pulled rank on his own officers (and let's be fair, she absolutely doesn't outrank him and shouldn't have done that). Mara, meanwhile, thinks that it's pointless to be at odds with him, they both have their own jobs to do and they're working toward the same cause - but also, when he does turn on her, she instantly realizes that she's in very very deep trouble, the kind you might not live through, and basically has to cheat and stall until he realizes that killing her isn't the best move he can make, and then afterward she's all, "yeah, I'm not going to be stepping on his toes for a while, let's give him some breathing space." In general, I'd characterize them as wary co-workers who mostly respect each other, but Vader's not putting up with any insubordination from her, and Mara knows that she'd better not push him too far. What I take from that is: Vader and Mara can work together, they can be respectful, but they also both see danger. Mara cannot take Vader on in a fair fight and knows it, and Vader isn't particularly impressed with Mara, isn't about to let her think she can pull any of her precious rank on him, and knows that she could be a potential danger to him, should she tell the Emperor anything that Vader doesn't want him knowing. @Bel505 also pointed out that it's entirely plausible that Vader might hold a measure of contempt for Mara because of her faith in the Emperor, because he'd once been in that place as well and now knows the truth.

It's not exactly that Vader sees Mara as a potential rival, as she thinks here. It's that she senses his overall distrust and contempt, and doesn't know how else to label it, because she's missing some key information. What she knows is that she has one of the highest ranks in the Empire, enough so that she can address Vader almost as an equal, and that he clearly doesn't like that. (In Allegiance, too, Mara does at one point think that surely Vader doesn't think the Emperor would replace him with someone as young and inexperienced as her, so even in canon the thought has crossed her mind that Vader could see her as a future rival.) And she knows that he is a threat to her - she has to know that even if he killed her, Palpatine's unlikely to discard Vader. Punish him, sure, but kill him? Unlikely. So they have this wary truce, essentially, but Mara knows that he has less to gain from maintaining it than she does, and less to suffer if he breaks it, and she doesn't know exactly what might make him turn on her. She'd be a fool not to be cautious around him.

No one really wants to hang out with Vader

It is! This was pulled almost directly from Allegiance: there's a moment where Vader is stiff and abrupt with her and then stalks off, and Mara sighs and thinks basically what she says here: they're both working toward the same cause and they both know the Emperor would never be disloyal to either of them, why is he so touchy? And honestly, I can completely see that naiveté annoying the heck out of Vader, as Bel said, so they've got this little negative feedback loop between them where they're never comfortable with each other.

Yay! It was a little on the dark side (heh), but a Mara who's just been thrown off her balance by unexpectedly running into Vader and then feels disrespected by both him and Amedda would surely have these thoughts, right? She's not actually going to kill Amedda - but she could, and he knows it, and he's supposed to be respectful to her... She'd just have to be thinking about what she could do here.

I almost thought maybe I should drop the adjective because maybe it was a little unwieldy for Mara to think in the moment, but it was so perfect

Sorry about that But since canonically Tycho and Hobbie both defected from the Empire, it just felt right to have them here

Mara likes her personal space

They're so young and cute, Mira!

Thank you!

He's...he's just not super sociable

I'm so glad it worked! I don't actually think that Luke and Mara are the sort to argue often (if they're on the same side ), but this just felt right, that there would always be this almost-conflict between them that was bound to be triggered by something sooner or later. and maybe also I early on thought of the "there's a difference between combat and assassination" "yes, there's less collateral damage with assassination" exchange and had to work it in because how could I leave it out

Luke always has good intentions. He doesn't always handle things right, but he's always trying hard. And he loves Mara so much and hates to see her being used like this

YES. Luke is so quick-tempered in ANH and ESB! You still see glimpses of it even in RotJ - look how instantly he snaps when Vader threatens Leia. Mara could never have afforded to not control her temper like that; her very life depended on always keeping a cool head and thinking analytically. Even in TTT, when she is in fact angry with Luke much of the time, she never once loses control. She never yells, she never even really snaps, and if she was really hot-headed, wouldn't she have taken the first opportunity to tell Luke exactly why she hated him and what she planned to do to him, even if only to try to intimidate him? But she doesn't. It takes three days of hiking through a forest with an injured ankle and no sleep and then nearly dying in a vornskr attack on top of all that before she cracks enough to tell Luke anything at all. Mara's the farthest thing from temperamental. And while she can certainly be sarcastic, she's not mean-spirited. She's just not. People really misunderstand her so much of the time.

I love writing arguments, Mira, and these two really have the potential for explosive ones if they're set off

LOLOL but he's not exactly wrong either

suddenly reminded of Ronan snapping at Nadira in Fractured and it just clicked that Nadira fights surgically like Mara oh my gosh that's where she gets it from

Luke's anger can pass just as quickly as it comes up, I think, and Mara couldn't hold out against that. If it had been anyone else, she could have, but Luke's words did hurt and she doesn't want to walk away any more than he wants her to, so his ending the argument that way pretty well disarms her. And you know the phenomenon of someone saying something unkind to another person they love, and then that bad thing you wished on them actually happens, and you can't shake the superstitious feeling that it happened because of what you said? That's what I'm imagining Mara feeling like here, like she said aloud something that could genuinely kill him and now she's terrified of it actually happening.

You have no resistance at all to Mara sniffing back tears, I love it And yeah, Luke's words were well-aimed too

Also:

Sometimes he does that

I don't knnooooowwww

lol, we all have that one co-worker

That was interesting, to try to think about what ordinary pilots would think of Vader and an assignment anywhere near him! Because there had to have been rumors all over the fleet, right? And rumors always exaggerate, but Vader's literal actions were already horrifying enough, so what must everyone have thought? But also, if Vader liked you, you could rise fast ("you are in command now, Admiral Piett"). So many of them must have been terrified yet hopeful.

They're the best I don't remember exactly when it was established that Winter was Sheltay Retrac's daughter and actually Leia's adopted sister, not just a friend growing up in the Alderaanian court at the same time (TLC says only that they grew up in the royal court of Alderaan together), and even Wookieepedia says that no canonical source has yet addressed why, if Winter was adopted, she wasn't also made a princess. And even in TTT, it seemed a little odd that they were so obviously close, yet Winter was still addressing Leia as "your Highness." I've attempted to find a middle ground in this story, showing that Winter was absolutely part of the family and the Organas loved her just as much as they did Leia, but also explaining why Winter kept up the formality to such an extent. I don't know exactly how well I succeeded, because it was kind of a weird scenario to begin with. But there's just no way that Bail and Breha didn't love Winter; they weren't the sort of people who could ever not love a child in their care, and I wanted that clear despite Winter's affinity for using everyone's titles.

Seriously, the Death Star was a monster. It's another of those things that's so accepted that we fans don't think about how strange it really was, but like those quotes show, characters in the OT were shocked and disbelieving that it even existed. (Which should have been circumstantial evidence enough that superweapons were a rare thing even in the GFFA, so that maybe the EU didn't have them pop up every other book...)

Right? Leia is capable of immense calm and self-control, and she was a serious overachiever who accomplished a lot at a young age, but she is still young, and would have to feel excitement like this sometimes.

Can't you just imagine Bail and Breha quietly telling Leia and Winter stories about the heroic Jedi during the Clone Wars and before it? Imagine those little girls with huge eyes listening to those stories, and now finding out that one of those legendary heroes was still alive after all and they might get to go meet him and convey an official message, wouldn't they just be so excited?

Why take it easy on my readers

*collects readers' tears* But also, I kind of suspected that Leia might have felt exactly like this in canon, before she was sent to Obi-Wan

Thank you!

Remember ANH, Vader stepping on the Tantive IV and standing in the middle of all the bodies, surveying the scene with his hands on his hips? That's what I was thinking of here. But also, I don't know if I sent you this meme yet, but I saw some Tumblr post or something that said something along the lines of, "Vader actually saved Luke in RotJ because he realized that, at that moment, saving his son and throwing his master down a service shaft haloed in a cloud of Force lightning was by far the most dramatic thing he could do, and if there's one thing Anakin could never resist, it was being extra like that"

Rebels got it right; Vader would 100% stand atop a TIE fighter he was flying with the Force while also whipping up a non-existent wind just to billow his cape dramatically

It's always so great to know that the practical stuff like sentence structure and pacing accomplished what they were meant to

Yay!

lol, honestly, I'm not sure if I've ever written Vader before outside of one very short crack vig, and he only had a few lines even in that, so it's a relief I got him right

SW is simply full of such understatements

Aw, shucks It was entirely worth the wait to read all this lovely feedback!

 

Chapter Fourteen



Mara doubted she even could eat after all that, but she quickly discovered that she was in fact ravenous. Well, not ravenous enough to eat the lamta, which she took a single bite of and then slid onto Luke’s plate instead, much to his amusement, but to her surprise, she loved the spicy ahrisa with its tangy sauce, both tucked into a hollow chunk of haroun bread. If their lives ever actually calmed down enough that she could hold Luke to that promise to cook for her, ahrisa would definitely be her first request. Much to her relief, everyone else was tactful enough to discuss things other than her during the meal, mostly the sort of meaningless pleasantries one would hear at any random dinner party.

Afterward, Ben took her aside in one of the cabins for a lesson in resisting any further attacks through the Force. His way of teaching was vastly different from that of Palpatine, she found: calm, assured, even gentle, as opposed to demanding. It was a surprisingly welcome change, and Mara wondered how much of what she knew of the Jedi was based on lies, like her own life. Had anything at all been true?

By the time Ben was satisfied that she would be safe if Palpatine contacted her again, Luke and the other two had apparently convinced Organa that their defection was genuine, and the ship reverted to realspace in orbit around Rodia. Luke and Tycho did a quick inventory of the ship’s supplies against Organa’s estimate of travel time to reach the Rebel base—she still wouldn’t tell any of them where it was, and Mara respected that almost as much as she was annoyed by it—and decided that even with extra passengers they didn’t need to take on more provisions. That settled, Organa and Retrac went into the cockpit alone and set the course to the mysterious Rebel base.

Tycho and Hobbie spent the next couple of hours playing sabacc, and rather to Mara’s surprise as she watched them from the other side of the lounge where she sat leaning against Luke as he kept an arm around her while discussing mutual acquaintances back in Anchorhead with Ben, Retrac joined in and won as many hands as either of the other two. The game apparently hadn’t been part of Organa’s royal education; she sat beside Retrac and watched silently but with acutely observing eyes.

It was only mid-evening, ship’s time, when everyone agreed to retire. Mara felt like she’d lived half a lifetime in this single day, and she suspected that everyone secretly wanted to divide off into private little conversational groups and discuss everything that had happened. There was some argument about who got the two cabins, but in the end it was her own group that prevailed, insisting that as their guests, Organa and Retrac would take one and Ben would take the other. Tycho and Hobbie would take the cockpit, where the pilot and co-pilot’s seats could be reclined, and she and Luke would take the two recliners in the lounge. They divided up the supply of blankets, and at last everyone vanished into their own private sections of the ship.

Once they were alone in the lounge, Luke settled into one of the reclining chairs and held a hand out to Mara, and she took it and slid onto his lap without hesitation. Normally she would never have done any such thing with other people so nearby, but after the Emperor’s unexpected attack, she was utterly exhausted and desperate for the comfort of his nearness. Luke reclined the chair to its full extension; it still wasn’t nearly as level as a bed, but it went back far enough that Mara was now leaning against his chest more than sitting on his lap. She curled her legs on top of his, tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder and neck, and relaxed into the warm security of his arms around her.

“I’ve never been so embarrassed in my life,” she whispered against his throat.

His puzzlement was obvious, and Mara loved him even more for it. Her whole life, Mara had faced criticism far more than praise: from the Emperor, from her tutors, from the superior officers she answered to in her early training, before she’d earned her autonomy as Hand. Perfection was expected from her, by everyone, and any slip was relentlessly excoriated. That was as it should be, she’d always thought; she had been chosen for the very highest levels of Imperial service. Of course she needed to be perfect. Of course no failure could be tolerated, however small.

Then came Luke, who, it seemed, saw only good in her. Who thought she was marvelous, and told her so often. Who defended her fiercely against any criticism, even her own. Of course it wouldn’t even have crossed his mind that she should be embarrassed by the day’s events. Once, she would have scorned such support; now, she relied upon it like she relied upon her next breath.

“Why would you be embarrassed?” he asked quietly.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered with a sigh. “Maybe that complete breakdown where I lost all control and cried in front of strangers. You think that could be it?”

His arms tightened around her, and his expected protectiveness rose swiftly to the surface. “You didn’t lose control, you were attacked.”

Mara snuggled a little closer against him. “My reaction was ridiculous. I should have kept it together better than that.”

Luke lifted a hand to stroke her hair. “You expect far too much of yourself. You got us all off Coruscant, you found Organa, you fought off an attack that took you completely by surprise. There’s not a single thing in any of that to be embarrassed by.”

“You found Organa. Besides—” She tilted her head so that she was looking up at his face. “Luke, I broke down. I did. And I did it in front of Organa, whose entire family and planet were just murdered. There’s no excuse for that.”

He frowned down at her. “It seemed to me that she sympathized with you. The person who attacked you was the same person who destroyed Alderaan. She probably feels a kinship with you after that, honestly. A common enemy, and all that.”

Even after everything that had happened, part of Mara recoiled from hearing the Emperor described as her enemy. She shoved that reaction ruthlessly down. He was her enemy, and she wouldn’t be bound by old indoctrination telling her otherwise. He had betrayed her, not the other way around. He had betrayed the ideals she’d always fought for, by turning against his own people with the Death Star. She wouldn’t let herself be blinded to those truths, no matter how painful they were.

Luke was still watching her, his eyes concerned, and she took a deep breath. “Even so. I cried. I don’t even remember the last time I cried, not even as a child.”

His hand pressed her head gently against his shoulder, his fingers threading through her hair. “No matter what he taught you, Mara, you’re allowed to be human. You’re not a droid.”

She turned her face back to the side of his throat and closed her eyes, feeling his pulse against her cheek. “I’m still embarrassed.”

Luke kissed the top of her head. “Well, that’s part of being human too, even if it’s not one of the more fun parts. But I don’t think you have anything to be embarrassed about. If it makes you feel any better, it probably convinced Ben and Organa that we’re sincere about defecting, more than anything else could have.”

Mara thought about that. “I’d argue that it could have been planned on our parts, if we really were infiltrators, but I suppose Kenobi would have sensed that sort of deception in the Force.”

“You would have,” Luke pointed out. “Even I would have, I think. If it had been a deception on our parts, it would only have worked if it didn’t happen in front of a Jedi.” He was silent for a long moment. “I had no idea that Ben was any such thing. Never had the smallest inkling that he was anything but the hermit my uncle always said he was. I wonder if Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru knew the truth?”

“If they did, they only would have because Kenobi himself told them,” Mara said. Her whole body rose and fell lightly with each of Luke’s breaths, and it was unexpectedly soothing. “Ask him.”

“Huh,” Luke said. “I suppose so.”

They were quiet for long enough that Mara was at the brink of sleep before Luke spoke again. “Should we tell him that I’m Force-sensitive?”

Mara blinked, forcing conscious awareness for a few moments more. That was actually a very good question. “How much do you trust him?”

A deep breath from Luke; silent thoughtfulness she could sense without sight. She had loved him before she’d realized his Force-sensitivity, even if that love had been so new then that she didn’t know to call it that, but what a comfort it was to be able to sense each other like this, to be able to read each other’s emotions and mental states simply as a constant background awareness. She wondered if non-Force-sensitive couples could attain the same level of casual intimacy she and Luke had without even trying.

Of course, how would she know what being a couple was like in any sense, she thought with a flash of amusement at herself. It wasn’t like she had any particular experience with such matters.

“I don’t really know,” Luke admitted. “I always kind of liked Ben, and he feels trustworthy through the Force, as far as I can tell. But honestly, I never really interacted much with him at home, and Uncle Owen always—well, it’s not that he spoke badly of Ben, he never said or implied that he couldn’t be trusted. But he used to call him a crazy old man. He doesn’t feel crazy to me. Maybe that was a tactic to keep me away from him, for some reason?”

Mara shrugged. “I don’t know. You would think that Kenobi would have realized your sensitivity himself—maybe he never got close enough to you to sense it?”

“I have no idea.” Luke was starting to sound as sleepy as she felt. “Could Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru have known anything about me being Force-sensitive? Would they have tried to keep me away from him because of it? Why would they even do that, if Ben could have trained me?”

Mara shook her head slightly, her hair rubbing against Luke’s shoulder and throat as she moved. “If they had known, they could have wanted to keep you hidden for your own safety, like how I taught you shielding. It’s not exactly a secret that the Jedi are still branded as traitors to the Empire. But they couldn’t know unless another Force-sensitive told them. Unless one of them was Force-sensitive?”

“Not that I knew of. There’s a lot of unknowns in this equation, Mara.”

Thoroughly relaxed at last and with sleep tugging at her, she kissed his throat lightly, too warm and comfortable and content and tired to put much thought into a question as serious as this. “Too many to make a good decision, I think. Let’s keep it to ourselves until we understand the situation better.”

Luke sighed, but his sense was as content as hers, not worried. “Probably the best course. It’s not like we have to decide everything right this minute anyway.”

“Nope,” Mara murmured. She felt his arms lift from around her as he shook out the blankets they’d been allotted and settled them on top of them both, then his arms encircled her again and held her tight. Mara gave up the fight for consciousness and let sleep take her.

---

Leia awoke with a start, jerking out of a dream full of vague explosions. She lay still in the darkened room, letting reality coalesce around her again. She was on Jade’s ship, that’s right. Winter was asleep in the cabin’s other bunk. Ben would be in the other cabin, and the rest of the ship was full of strangers. And Alderaan and her parents were still gone.

She closed her eyes again, then opened them and pushed herself upright, glancing at her wrist chrono and beginning to get dressed. It was very early, early enough that she might be able to creep out to the ship’s tiny kitchen, make some caf, and maybe have a bit of time to herself before everyone else woke up.

No such luck, she realized as she tiptoed into the lounge area. Jade and Skywalker were already awake, deep in quiet conversation at the table, with steaming mugs of caf and a plate of what looked like a type of flatbread before them. Leia stopped in her tracks, but before she could decide whether or not to retreat, they both looked up at her. Skywalker smiled. He had a nice smile, Leia thought; very genuine. It was hard to imagine him trying to deceive anyone. Jade, on the other hand—well. Ben had vouched for her, and the Emperor’s attack on her only made sense if she was in fact telling the truth about defecting. Still, her abrasive and unyielding manner was a sharp contrast to Skywalker’s open and welcoming one. She wondered what exactly they saw in each other.

“Good morning, Your Highness,” Skywalker called softly. “Come join us. Would you like some caf?”

“I can get it myself,” Leia said, stepping closer.

“Don’t be silly,” he said, getting up and heading toward the kitchen. “Go sit down, I’ll get it.”

Leia hesitated, indecisive again.

“You really might as well sit down,” Jade said.

Leia glanced at her. “What?”

Jade gestured to the empty chairs at the table. “Trust me, you won’t win that argument with him. He’s not doing it because you’re a princess. He’s doing it because he’s Luke.”

Leia sat down gingerly and looked at her more closely. Jade still wasn’t exactly warm and friendly, but the edge she’d had yesterday seemed blunted this morning. Leia wondered if the Emperor’s attack had shaken Jade’s seemingly endless supply of confidence, the thought flashing through her mind that she might well be easier to deal with if so, and was immediately ashamed of herself. Just because she didn’t especially like the woman was no excuse to wish her ill. “Can you read minds, like Ben can?”

Jade’s gaze didn’t waver, but Leia got the impression that she’d stepped on an invisible tripwire that caused the other woman to close in on herself, shutting Leia out that much further. Terrific. She was just making friends all over the place, wasn’t she?

“I don’t read minds,” Jade said. If she was picking up on Leia’s burst of self-castigation, she wasn’t letting on. “I rather doubt that Ben would, without much better cause than this. But sensing people’s background emotions is a constant; I can’t turn it off. And I was taught a great deal about reading body language. Comes in handy in my line of work.”

Leia eyed her, both reluctantly admiring Jade’s composure and noticing that she hadn’t said she couldn’t read minds.

Skywalker returned, with another mug of caf and a plate of flatbread. “Here you go. You’re up early, Your Highness.”

“Can you call me Leia?” The words were out before Leia realized she was even thinking them.

“If you like,” Skywalker said, sitting beside Jade again and taking a sip from his own mug. “You have to call me Luke, though.” He gestured to a group of containers in the center of the table. “There’s sweetener for the caf, if you want it, and some spreads for the flatbread. We were going to make a proper breakfast once everyone was up, but we both needed the caf and figured we might as well have a snack with it.”

“Luke was going to make a proper breakfast,” Jade said with a faintly amused air.

“Oh, no you don’t,” Skywalker told her. “I’m going to teach you at least some of the basics of cooking. You’re my new project.”

Jade smiled at him, a private sort of smile that made Leia uncomfortable. “Am I, now?”

Skywalker gave Jade the same sort of smile in return. “I have to make sure you don’t starve when we’re not together, don’t I?” To Leia’s immense relief, he then turned slightly away from Jade and shifted the conversation. “Once Tycho and Hobbie are up, we can check our course. We’ll be coming up on the crossroads of the Run and the Hydian Way in a few hours. You said we need to take the Way?”

“Yes,” Leia said, examining the spreads and pretending she felt more at ease than she really did, wondering if Jade saw right through her. “We should have another day’s travel on the Way, then a bit of trickier navigation toward the end, but nothing too time consuming when you know the route.”

Jade’s eyes were steady on her over the rim of her mug. Leia looked right back at her, unwilling to back down. Skywalker watched them both, taking a sip of his caf. “You know,” he said, “I think you two didn’t exactly meet under the best of circumstances. Let’s try a redo. Mara, meet Leia. Leia, this is Mara.”

“How do you do,” Jade said smoothly. “We’re pleased to have you as a guest on our ship. I hope you slept well.”

“Very well, thank you,” Leia lied. “I greatly appreciate your hospitality.”

Skywalker laughed loudly, then covered his mouth to muffle the sound. Jade turned toward him, raising an eyebrow. He shook his head, lowering his hand. “There’s two of you now. I should have expected that. That’s on me.”

“Excuse me?” Leia asked, annoyed.

Skywalker just grinned. “Mara’s Court manners, you have them too. I forgot you both grew up in royal circles.” He waved a hand between them, shaking his head again. “Fight if you’re going to fight, as long as it doesn’t come to blows. Better to be honest than all that exquisite civility you don’t mean a word of.”

Jade snorted. “We’re not going to fight.”

“Of course not,” Leia agreed, not at all sure it was the truth.

Jade eyed her knowingly, and Leia thought there was a glint of genuine humor in those vivid green eyes. “I do apologize for introducing myself as your potential assassin, Your Highness. Perhaps not the most diplomatic way I could have handled that.”

“You think?” Skywalker asked, reaching for one of the jars of spread and covering a piece of bread lavishly with the contents.

“I’m not talking to you,” Jade admonished him, then looked at Leia again and shrugged slightly. “I did immediately say that I wasn’t going to do it, though, I’d like to point out. And in my defense, I’ve never defected before.”

Leia felt her lips quirk into a smile. “Maybe I overreacted. Slightly.”

Jade smiled back, just a little, then sipped her caf. Leia looked at her, assessing her anew. Since the announcement about Alderaan, Leia had been mired in misery, unable to see beyond the event horizon of her own grief. Now as she watched Jade, she remembered the undercurrent of stress and urgency in her voice yesterday once she’d dropped the friendly stranger routine. She remembered that as aloof as Jade seemed, she clearly felt responsible for the lives of all in her party, and had tried to safeguard those of Leia’s party as well. She remembered the obvious pain Jade had been in during the Emperor’s attack, even at such a distance, and realized for the first time that the threat hanging over Jade’s own head was very real, and probably worse even than the standard sentence of execution generally handed out to deserters.

It wasn’t the same as losing your entire family and planet. But it wasn’t nothing, either. Jade had been brave and resourceful and determined to do the right thing no matter the cost, and that was exactly the sort of person the Alliance needed, and the sort that Leia herself should value, even if they didn’t always get along personally.

“Can you call me Leia too?” she asked impulsively.

Jade hesitated, seeming taken aback, then brought herself under control again. “All right. If you call me Mara.”

“All right,” Leia echoed. “I should have asked this earlier, Mara: are you feeling okay this morning? After—after everything yesterday?”

Jade—Mara—set her mug down and took a breath, looking briefly uncertain. “Yes.” She glanced at Leia. “Something of a headache still. Nothing worse.”

Skywalker—Luke, rather—flashed a quick smile at Leia, and she got the distinct impression that Mara had been more forthcoming than he’d expected her to be. Encouraged, Leia smiled genuinely at both of them.

Just then, there was a brief thud from the cockpit, followed by a bout of swearing. Mara rolled her eyes skyward, and Luke calmly continued eating his bread. “Um, should we—” Leia gestured toward the cockpit, where silence had fallen again.

“Nah,” Luke said. “That’s just Hobbie. He has a habit of getting out of bed—or chair, I guess, in this case—when he’s still half asleep, and then he walks into things.”

“You’d really think he’d learn,” Mara muttered.

“Hey, you’ve only been on the same ship with him for a few days,” Luke pointed out. “I’ve shared a barracks with him for months.” Leia blinked at him, and he shrugged. “You get used to it.”

Klivian stumbled into the lounge, thoroughly disheveled, and continued past them all toward the refresher without so much as glancing their way. Mara and Luke watched him go, glanced at each other, shook their heads in unison, and continued eating. A moment later, Celchu also appeared at the cockpit door, looking exasperated. “I’m guessing Hobbie already got the ‘fresher?”

“Shouldn’t you have faster reflexes by now?” Luke asked. Mara sipped her caf and rolled her eyes again, this time at Leia, including her in the joke. Leia grinned back.

Luke took a last sip of his caf and stood. “Come sit down, Tycho. I’ll make more caf. And you can throw some bread at Hobbie when he comes out, if it makes you feel any better. Your Hi—Leia, if you think your friend will be all right starting the day this early, why don’t you see if she and Ben are up for some breakfast? Come on, Mara.”

Mara sighed, but dutifully rose and followed him. “You said you’d cook for me, not that you’d make me cook.”

“You have to know something about it…”

They disappeared into the kitchen, and Celchu bowed to Leia before he sat down. “Good morning, Your Highness.”

Leia smiled at him as she stood, beginning to feel genuinely at ease for the first time in what felt like years. “It’s Leia. Don’t let Klivian drink all the caf before I get the others.”

 

Chapter Fifteen



The trip to Yavin IV went by far more smoothly than Leia would have believed when she’d first boarded the ship, and by the time they were almost ready to leave the Hydian Way for the more nuanced navigating through the Gordian Reach, both groups had melded into a largely friendly whole, enough so that Leia felt almost apologetic as she briefed them on what to expect. “They’ll want to have our Intel officers interview you at some length, I’m afraid.”

“That’s standard procedure,” Mara said with a shrug, Luke beside her as usual. “I’d worry about your security protocols if you didn’t.”

“I have no doubt you will all be cleared for duty soon,” Ben said with a calm smile. “The Alliance will certainly have use for such talented young people as yourselves.”

“You’ll all be assigned quarters right away, of course,” Leia continued. “I know the base reasonably well, and while most of the rooms used for personnel quarters are on the small side, there are enough that we don’t need to resort to barracks living here.”

“That’s a relief,” Tycho said, sending a mock glare toward Hobbie.

“Winter, maybe you can find the head quartermaster when we arrive and get that arranged, while I talk to Mon Mothma about scheduling the interviews?”

“Of course, Your—“ Winter caught herself. “Leia.”

Leia sighed inwardly. Almost a decade and a half as part of the Organa family, and Winter had never been able to shake the habit of using formal titles for them all. Their parents had long since given up on trying to change that, deciding that whatever made Winter feel comfortable was acceptable to them. Leia herself had always been slightly uneasy with it, much as she loved Winter. Titles were for formal occasions and strangers, not friends, much less family, and to have her own sister constantly addressing her as “Your Highness” had never felt right. Now, though, Leia was determined to be merely another Alliance fighter, not a princess, and Winter was having a difficult time coming to terms with that.

Well, she’d get used to it eventually. Leia turned her thoughts back to the practical matters of getting their new recruits settled. “So we’ll need seven rooms—“ She glanced at Luke and Mara. “Unless you two prefer to bunk together?”

Oddly, Mara seemed to brace herself as she looked over at Luke, who met her eyes before turning back toward Leia. “Considering we’re married, bunking together does seem the most logical course,” he said.

Leia raised her eyebrows. They were obviously a couple, but she certainly hadn’t heard anything about their being married. She looked at the rest of the group; like herself, Winter seemed mildly surprised but not shocked. The same couldn’t be said for anyone else.

“You’re what?” Tycho asked, eyes wide, then turned to pound the back of Hobbie, who’d choked on his drink.

Even Ben seemed to be taken by surprise for once. “Did you say—“

“How long has this been going on?” Hobbie managed to sputter between Tycho’s thumps on his back.

“The relationship or the marriage?” Luke asked, quite calmly.

Hobbie glared at him, then waved Tycho off. “Luke.”

“Since Mos Eisley,” Luke answered, ignoring the glare.

Leia blinked, and exchanged inquisitive looks with Winter.

“You—“ Tycho had to pause to gather himself. “We were AWOL, in a serious time crunch trying to find the Prin—“ he glanced at Leia; technically her subject, he was having an even harder time calling her by her given name than Winter was. “—Leia, with a garrison looking over our shoulders, and you two stopped to get married?”

Mara tossed her head defiantly. “We were right there in the civil affairs building anyway.”

“It only took half an hour, Tycho,” Luke added soothingly.

“Half an hour while we were trying to avoid stormtroopers in the streets, who probably already had alerts out at least for the three of us,” Hobbie exclaimed, throwing his hands in the air.

“It was important to us,” Luke insisted quietly. “And we didn’t know when we’d have another chance.”

“It all worked out, you’ll notice,” Mara added.

A beeping sounded from the cockpit, the alarm Leia had set to warn her when it was time to get ready to jump off the Hydian Way. “We’re probably less than an hour out now,” she said. “I’m going to go take care of the last leg of navigation. Mara, maybe you can come help me?”

The look in Mara’s eyes made it plain that she knew Leia’s intentions. Equally plainly, that was preferable to staying here. She headed for the cockpit with Leia, and took the copilot’s seat without a word.

Leia sat down in the pilot’s seat and checked the course; there were still three minutes left before she needed to exit the Way. She turned to Mara, who kept her own eyes on the swirling mass of hyperspace ahead of them. “Why is everyone so shocked by this?”

“Tycho and Hobbie didn’t know we were engaged,” Mara admitted, still watching the hyperspace corridor.

“But they knew you were a couple?”

Mara nodded.

“How long was the engagement?”

Mara flicked her a sideways glance. “We got engaged the day we left Coruscant.”

Leia felt her eyebrows rise. “You were engaged for less than a week before you got married?”

Mara settled more deeply into the chair, crossing her arms and sighing. “It was a spur of the moment thing.”

“The engagement or the wedding?”

“Both.”

Leia considered that. “But you’re happy together?”

“Yes,” Mara said softly. “It—things changed when we left Coruscant. Different opportunities opened up. We’re sure it’s the right thing, it just happened kind of quickly.”

“Well,” Leia said, shrugging, “it’s ultimately your business, not theirs. If you’re happy, what difference does anyone else’s reaction make?”

A genuine smile crept across Mara’s face, then she glanced away, still smiling. “Thank you.”

“Sure,” Leia said. So. That no-nonsense facade of hers did crack sometimes. Leia turned her attention back to the countdown. Three, two… She pulled the hyperdrive lever back, and the ship dropped back into realspace. A few minutes to put the destination into the navicomputer and wait for the course to be calculated, then they jumped again. Leia checked the ETA; she’d been right, they were not quite an hour out now. She glanced back at Mara. “Feel like rescuing your husband from the interrogation committee? We’ll be landing soon, they need to get their things together anyway.”

Mara smiled again. “Sounds good to me.”

---

The humidity seemed to wrap itself around him like a cloak as Luke stepped off the boarding ramp, sweat beading immediately on his forehead in a way it hadn’t in Tatooine’s familiar dry heat. That probably shouldn’t have been a surprise, considering how very green the entire place had seemed to be when they were in orbit, but after letting them all look at the moon that would be their new home, Leia had shooed everyone but Winter out of the cockpit so that she could handle the landing procedure, and he hadn’t realized from space that the green was a jungle, not more temperate forests or grasslands.

“I like the scenery here better,” Mara murmured from beside him, “but at least on Coruscant you didn’t feel like you could cut chunks out of the air if you tried.”

A slender woman with short red hair stood at the edge of the landing pad, waiting. She took them all in with a single sweep of sharp, observant eyes, then turned to Leia and Winter, who she hugged tightly.

“That’s Mon Mothma,” Mara told him quietly. “Senator from Chandrila. The Emperor’s had her marked as a dissident since the Clone Wars. I guess he was right.”

Luke glanced over at Mara. Her expression was calm, but her sense in the Force was slightly unsettled. He squeezed her hand. “You all right?”

She nodded, still looking at Mothma and Leia and Winter, then sighed and looked back at him. “It’s all very strange. But this is the right thing to do.”

Ben came up beside them and laid a hand on Luke’s shoulder, smiling briefly at him, then strode forward to greet Mothma, who stepped forward with her hands out to grasp his.

“Obi-Wan,” she said warmly. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re still safe, and for your willingness to assist us.”

“Mon,” Ben said, leaning forward to kiss her lightly on each cheek. “It’s been a very long time. I’m glad to see you still in good health.”

Mothma’s eyes grew very serious. “No thanks to Palpatine.” She turned slightly, encompassing Leia and Winter in the conversation. “Had you heard that he’s dissolved the Senate?”

“What?” Leia exclaimed. “How can he possibly maintain control without the legislative branch?”

Mothma glanced darkly at Ben, then back at Leia. “Sector governors will now wield ultimate control.”

“With the Death Star as their ever-present potential enforcer,” Leia said, scowling. “Rule by fear, that sounds about right for Palpatine.”

Luke squeezed Mara’s hand again, suddenly concerned about how she would handle being surrounded by people who so openly hated the man she’d devotedly served for so long. Somehow he hadn’t quite thought about the everyday realities like this that she would have to face.

You worry too much. Mara’s voice was soft in his head. She glanced over and smiled, a slightly grim smile, but a smile nevertheless. I knew what I was getting into.

She’d eviscerate him if he tried to hug her in front of all these people, so he sent her a mental wave of affectionate support instead.

He suddenly realized that Leia and Ben were leading Mothma over to the rest of them. “May I introduce Mon Mothma of Chandrila, leader of the Rebel Alliance,” Leia said. Court manners again, Luke thought irreverently. At least she and Mara made it look good. The last time Luke himself had tried to pull off such formality, he’d—well. Met his wife, actually.

Pay attention, flyboy. This time Mara’s mental voice was laced with laughter. He flicked a sideways look at her, biting back a smile.

“…Klivian,” Leia was saying, “—Mara Jade, and Luke Skywalker.”

“Skywalker?” Mothma asked sharply. Her eyes darted toward Ben, who nodded slowly at her. Luke frowned. So did Mara.

Mothma looked back at them, and Luke could almost see her forcing a calm veneer as she smiled at them. “We’re indebted to you for helping Leia and Winter, and bringing Master Kenobi to us. We can get started with the process of integrating you all into the base tomorrow, but for now I’m sure you’re all tired and hungry. Winter has gone to get rooms assigned to you, and Leia, perhaps you’d like to take them to the mess hall in the meantime? You’ve arrived just in time for lunch. By the time you’ve eaten, I’m sure your rooms will be ready, and you can clean up and get some rest.”

Mara, perfectly comfortable dealing with such personages as senators and fluent in the sort of manners that made Luke’s brain itch, smiled as calmly at Mothma as though she herself were the one welcoming a newcomer to her home. “We thank you for your kindness, Senator, and for the opportunity to join your fight for justice.”

Mothma looked at her appraisingly, clearly recognizing Mara’s demeanor as genuine familiarity with such courtesies rather than a facsimile, and Luke wondered if Mothma had ever seen Mara on Coruscant, and if she’d have had any idea of her true identity if she had. He hoped fervently that she and the other Rebel leaders would see the value of Mara’s defection, not just the actions of her previous Imperial service.

“We in turn appreciate your willingness to serve, Mistress Jade,” Mothma replied smoothly, with a new spark of interest in her eyes. “I look forward to speaking with you further. Leia, if you would?”

“This way,” Leia said, leading them toward the huge pyramidal building that appeared to house the base.

---

Mon Mothma led Obi-Wan through the base, chatting about inconsequential pleasantries until they reached her office, where she locked the door behind them and turned to him. “This Luke Skywalker—he can’t be…?”

“Perhaps you should sit down, Mon,” Obi-Wan said gently, taking a seat himself.

She did, rather heavily. “Then he is.”

“He is Anakin’s son, yes.”

Mon leaned forward, her blue eyes intense. “I thought such relationships were forbidden to Jedi.”

“They were,” Obi-Wan said. “Anakin always did have a tendency to ignore rules he disagreed with.”

“Did you know?”

It was an ordinary question, with no shades of condemnation, yet Obi-Wan still felt a twinge of guilt even after all of this time. He should have known earlier than he did. Even when he’d suspected, he’d turned a blind eye. Anakin was wildly stubborn, after all, and there had been a war to fight, and he never had come up with any sort of response that he’d thought would carry any weight with Anakin, so he’d merely hoped that things would work themselves out. Even now Obi-Wan wondered: could he have changed this devastating course of events if he’d acted differently?

With an effort, Obi-Wan pushed the old doubts away. They accomplished nothing, and this was going to be a difficult enough conversation without his adding unnecessary emotional complications.

“Not until nearly the end, not for sure,” he said. “Mon, do you remember Padmé’s pregnancy?”

Mon frowned briefly, then her eyes grew wide. “This is Padmé’s son? Knight Skywalker and Padmé…?”

“Luke was born just before Padmé’s death. We—Yoda, Bail Organa, and myself—hid him for his own safety.”

“Bail—“ Mon sat back in her chair. “Wait. Bail knew? Since this boy’s birth? And for his safety—his safety from whom? Palpatine? Does this mean that Luke Skywalker is Force-sensitive?”

Obi-Wan chuckled, despite the seriousness of the moment. “Oh, yes, he is very strong in the Force. As is his sister. And his wife.”

Mon blinked at him. “Perhaps you’d better start from the beginning, Obi-Wan.”

“That would probably be easiest,” Obi-Wan agreed. “Very well, then. Anakin—“ He hesitated briefly, steeling himself. “Anakin did not die in the purge of the Jedi. Anakin committed the slaughter. Palpatine is a Sith Lord; he hid in plain sight and corrupted Anakin to the dark side of the Force. Anakin led the attack on the Temple, and afterward, when Padmé confronted him, he attacked her as well. Anakin and I fought; I won. I took Padmé to safety on Polis Massa, where Senator Organa had helped Master Yoda to escape. It was there that Padmé gave birth to twins, then died. Yoda and I agreed that to protect the children, we would separate them, in hopes that even if Palpatine found one, the other might survive. We later discovered that Anakin had also survived, though he was so badly injured that he was confined to a life support suit. He still serves Palpatine.”

Mon’s sharp intake of breath was quiet, but Obi-Wan heard it nevertheless. “You don’t mean…”

“Yes,” he said, sorrowfully even after having had two decades to come to terms with this hateful truth. “Darth Vader is Anakin Skywalker.”

Mon lifted a hand to cover her mouth, and they were both silent for a long moment. “That explains much about Vader’s abilities,” she finally said. “Does he know about his son?”

“If he did,” Obi-Wan said, “Luke would surely not be with us today. Vader and Palpatine would have either turned him or killed him.”

“You spoke of his sister,” Mon said slowly. “And you spoke of her as though you knew her right now, not as a newborn infant twenty years ago.”

“Leia,” Obi-Wan said softly. “Leia is his sister.”

He could almost see the lightning-quick calculations going on behind her eyes. “Yes, the timing is exactly perfect, isn’t it? And Bail was so close to Padmé, and Bail and Breha had long wanted a child…” Those sharp blue eyes came back to him. “But I’ve known Leia her whole life, and I’ve never seen any indications that she was Force-sensitive.”

“It has been a tremendous relief to me,” Obi-Wan said, “and doubtless was to the Organas as well, that Leia’s talents have not manifested themselves as outwardly as they could have. But she is very strong indeed in the Force. As is Mara Jade, Luke’s wife. Mon, you should know that Mara was a personal agent for Palpatine—she frequently acted as his personal assassin, in fact.”

Mon’s eyebrows lifted. “I just welcomed Palpatine’s personal assassin onto our main base? And you didn’t think to mention this before now?”

Her voice was so very dry that Obi-Wan couldn’t suppress his smile. “Oh, was that something you would have wanted to know?”

Mon lifted her hands to rub her temples. “I am guessing,” she said, “that despite her background, you’re going to vouch for her.”

“I am,” Obi-Wan said. He leaned back in his own chair, stroking his beard absently. “She is absolutely sincere in her defection, and very determined.” He looked at Mon. “Her background is damning. You may well face resistance from your own officers in accepting her into the Alliance. But I assure you, Mon, you must take her. Because she is sincere, because she will surely be an asset to you, and because if you do not allow her to stay, neither will Luke stay.”

“You want to train them all,” Mon said, regarding him thoughtfully.

Obi-Wan’s throat tightened. “When we sent Luke and Leia into hiding as newborns, Master Yoda said that when the time was right for them to be taught, the Force would bring them to us. And so it has. And so I must. Mara’s presence was not foreseen, but here she is, and with a very similar potential. If they agree, and if the Force is with me, three powerful Jedi learners would be no small addition to the Alliance.”

“That is true enough,” Mon agreed. Another sharp glance in his direction. “Do Leia and Luke know any of this? Their relation to each other, their Force sensitivity?”

Obi-Wan shook his head. “They certainly do not know they are siblings. As far as I can tell, neither are they aware of their abilities. Mara does know of her own Force-sensitivity, for the Emperor trained her in it.” He held up a hand as Mon opened her mouth. “Before you say it—she is not Sith, that much is clear. I would not have brought her here if she were. I ask you to trust me, to make sure that both Luke and Mara are accepted into the Alliance, and that you not let on to Luke or Leia about their relationship. I will do so, and soon, but let me pick my time. They all need at least a few days to get settled in before I attempt a conversation of such import.”

“Very well.” She sighed, then looked at him with a glint of humor in her eyes. “I trust you don’t have any more shocking disclosures for me today?”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Today, no. Though I can make no guarantees about tomorrow.”

Mon returned the smile. “Nor can any of us, old friend. Nor can any of us.” She stood, and gestured for him to do the same. “Come, Obi-Wan, I wish you to meet General Dodonna and a few others, then we’ll get you settled in as well.”

---

The young deck officer assigned as their guide took them to their new quarters and informed them of the scheduled dinner time that evening, adding that to accommodate the many varied shifts within the base, the mess hall was open with assortments of simpler fare at all hours, should they require anything in between meals. Luke, effortlessly kind as always, smiled and thanked him, then they entered their assigned room while the deck officer headed off for other duties.

Mara turned to Luke almost before the doors had closed behind them. “Did you catch Mothma’s reaction to your name?”

“Of course,” Luke answered. “I didn’t identify any emotion but surprise, though. Did you?”

“It was almost like…recognition,” Mara said slowly.

“Shocked recognition,” Luke said with dry humor. “I don’t think I have quite that much of a reputation.”

Mara huffed exasperatedly. “It has to mean something.”

“I’m sure that either we’ll figure it out or she’ll tell us eventually,” Luke said. “However shocked she was, we haven’t been treated like we’re under suspicion of anything.”

“No,” Mara admitted. “Not yet, anyway.”

Luke smiled at her. “Always the optimist.”

Mara scowled at him, but he only shook his head, still smiling. “You worry too much,” he said, turning her earlier words back on her. “Meanwhile, have you even noticed that we apparently merit an actual suite?”

Startled, Mara looked around for the first time. They stood in a rather small conversation area with a half-size couch, a couple of chairs, and a low table; along the far wall was an arch leading to another room. She went through it and discovered an equally small bedroom with a double bed, a single large chest against the wall, and an attached refresher station.

Mara inspected it all before she commented, “It’s still pretty small for two people, isn’t it? Not that I’m complaining,” she added hastily.

Luke leaned against the doorway between the two rooms, watching her as she stood just inside the bedroom. “Looks normal to me—but I grew up on a smallish farm and you grew up in a literal palace, so…” He shrugged.

“I’m really not complaining,” Mara said, a little awkwardly. They were fortunate to have this much, she knew. The quarters for noncommissioned officers on Imperial vessels weren’t any better, and the Rebellion had vastly fewer resources. It was just that she had never had to live in such small spaces herself.

“I know you’re not,” Luke said, and took her hand. “Look at it this way, Mara: it’s our first place together.”

Mara blinked at him. Oh, right. Married now. That would take some getting used to. She looked around again, seeing the space with new eyes. Their own apartment; small, yes, but private, and all theirs. And neither of them had any appointments until tomorrow. She glanced up at him. “You locked that door, right?”

“What do you think?” Luke asked, with a slow smile.

“Good,” she said, and stepped closer, into his waiting embrace.

 

So I binge-read this a couple of days ago and it was a great way to return to reading fanfic

I particularly enjoy your characterisation of Mara in this story. My feeling very often in Hand!Mara stories is that she's portrayed as a much harsher person than I would expect her to be at this point in her life. My understanding of her character story is that the very harsh person we meet in TTT is the result of the fall of the Empire and sheevy Sheev's last command, not who she actually is. I saw in one of your replies above that you mentioned Allegiance and Choices of One as sources you used for this story, and I completely agree that this young Mara should be a person who makes harsh decisions, not a harsh person. I find that you captured this beautifully and I love that we're seeing her softer side in this fic.

There are many individual moments of this story that I could mention as favourites, so I'll limit myself to two. The first is Luke witnessing the destruction of Alderaan and experiencing it in the Force; that was a fantastic piece of writing where I could feel. the. pain. The second is Mara's first encounter with Leia; Mara approaches her in such a Mara way and with such Mara bluntness Again fantastic characterisation. The scene in the following chapter when Mara says "In my defence, I've never defected before" was just priceless.

And then there's that massive yet discreet plot twist, where Vader finds out not only about Luke's identity but also about the fact that he got married to Mara flippin' Jade not an hour ago on Tatooine. I know deep in my gut that this will prove super-important for what happens next and I can't wait to see where you take this story.

Lastly, an unimportant detail but one that reassured me as a non-native speaker: you use "she" for ships. Everything I read lately used "it", so I was beginning to wonder if my use of "she" was something bizarre or quaint, but if a writer as skilled as you is doing it, it makes me feel more confident

I'm not a very disciplined reviewer, but I'll do my best to keep up not only with reading but also leaving comments on this story. At any rate, please know that I'm settling in for the ride!

 

@Chyntuck

Aw, what a lovely thing to hear, thank you

I was excited to read this, because I completely agree, and I think that far too many people took her TTT characterization as who she fundamentally was (and even went farther; it's such a common fanfic thing to see Mara written as having a hair-trigger temper, whereas in profic she actually has pretty iron-willed self-control and rarely if ever loses her temper), as opposed to understanding that she was dealing with an immense amount of trauma. She wasn't just an Imperial military officer; she'd been raised almost from infancy as part of Palpatine's inner court and taught to genuinely revere him. Losing both him and the Empire was a massive blow for her, and then you have to add in that she went in a heartbeat from having immense authority and power and wealth at her disposal to being a fugitive scrounging to get by. Plus Palpatine's voice in her head, constantly telling her that all of it was her fault, personally, it was her failure that had destroyed everything she'd believed in. It's a testament to Mara's inner strength that she didn't go mad under all that pressure, and instead actually managed to build a new life for herself.

Allegiance and Choices of One were invaluable to the writing of this story, just for the sake of seeing a lengthy portrayal of how Zahn saw Mara's personality at this point in her life, and you're right that she was completely willing to make harsh decisions, but was not personally harsh. Those books gave us numerous examples of Mara being willing to grant mercy and even protect people that her overall mandate would have let her be much harsher toward. Emperor's Hand Mara honestly believed that she was someone who dispensed justice, and being just mattered immensely to her.

Two other bits of profic Mara characterization that contributed significantly to how I wrote her here were her comment to Luke in Vision of the Future that "there wasn't a single person in the inner court with a scrap of what I'd call decency or morality," and Luke's observation in Survivor's Quest that Palpatine had been careful to not expose Mara to many large scale injustices of the Empire's, like the intended betrayal of Outbound Flight, because if she'd seen things like that, she might have started questioning him, and her service to him. Both of those things make perfect sense to me, but what about Alderaan? She couldn't have missed that, and it didn't even put a crack in her loyalty. The answer I came up with was: Palpatine probably told her that Alderaan's destruction was Vader or Tarkin overstepping their mandate (as she protests to Luke in this story); after all, Tarkin was dead and it wasn't like Vader was going to be comparing notes with Mara. (If the Rebels had lost at Endor, Palpatine might have had more difficulty on his hands explaining to Mara why other planets got zapped ) But in Reclamation, Mara has that example of decency and morality in Luke, and that gives her a viewpoint she didn't have before, and then Palpatine makes the fatal mistake of admitting that he was behind Alderaan's destruction, and those two things together make it impossible for her to ignore the incident. Voila, defector!Mara

I always find writing perceptions of the Force to be challenging, so I'm glad the scene of Alderaan's destruction worked so well! And those Mara and Leia scenes are some of my favorites too Mara and Leia have turned out to be so much fun to write together

His son is so impertinent, marrying an upstart like Mara, who could have believed it Vader is definitely not happy about that development

I mean, first of all, at the compliment, thank you very much But also, huh, I haven't noticed that trend myself. It's possible that calling ships "she" is becoming less common, but to my knowledge it's not antiquated yet, and especially for something like SW where there are so many pilots genuinely attached to their ships, I definitely feel that referring to them as "she" is still acceptable. The Falcon certainly gets that sort of anthropomorphism in the profic, so I'm happy to follow that example

Thank you so much! Hopefully it won't disappoint And I really need to get working on finishing it so I don't leave everyone hanging forever right in the middle; I'll try to do that

 

Chapter Sixteen



“I’ll tell you this, though,” Luke said the next morning as he shaved in front of the mirror in their tiny refresher, “someday we’ll be able to live normal lives, and then we’ll have a proper honeymoon. Somewhere isolated and quiet. Just us, for at least a month.”

Mara pulled her tunic on and sat on the edge of the bed to buckle her boots. She smiled at him through the open ‘fresher door and raised her eyebrows teasingly. “Not Tatooine.”

He glanced over at her, returning the smile. “It wasn’t high on my list of candidates, no.” He set the razor down and ran a hand through his hair, then reentered the bedroom and opened his carryall, set on the storage trunk off to the side—they hadn’t bothered to unpack last night. “Though I’m pretty sure that by marrying a citizen, you’re now technically a Tatooinian as well.”


Mara laughed. “Just what I always wanted.” She leaned back on an elbow and watched him dress. “Fairly sure you’re technically Coruscanti now, too.”

“Well,” Luke said, his voice briefly muffled as he pulled his shirt over his head, “we’re not honeymooning in either place. We’ll find something nicer.”

“Kattada is pretty,” Mara said with some wistfulness. “When you’re not in a rush to avoid being picked up as traitors.”

“Mmm.” Luke sat down on the bed and leaned over to tug his own boots on. “I was stationed on Chandrila once. It has some gorgeous beaches too.”

“So the common feature here is beaches,” Mara said, letting her elbow slide so that she flopped backward. There was a long, narrow window high in the wall above the head of the bed behind her, and light reflecting off the endless leaves outside danced in abstract patterns along the length of the ceiling. “We will someday have a honeymoon by a beach.”

“A beach it is,” Luke said, sitting up straight now that his boots were fastened. He turned to look at her and smiled. “That’s just entrapment, right there.”

Mara smiled back. She couldn’t seem to stop smiling this morning. “You’d say that no matter what I was doing.”

“Probably,” Luke agreed. He leaned over to kiss her, then took her hand and stood, pulling her along with him. “Come on, we have to go convince Rebel Intelligence that they want to keep us.”

Mara twined her arms around his neck and stood on tiptoe to lean her forehead against his. “Or we could just stay here.”

“You,” Luke said, sliding his arms around her waist, “are a terrible influence on me. You know that, right?”

“You love every minute of it.”

He leaned in to kiss her again, and for long moments all other thought fled. When they finally parted to breathe, Mara laid her head on his shoulder and held him as tightly as she could. This—this was worth everything she’d given up. He was worth everything. They were worth everything. She would happily spend the rest of her life as a fugitive, living out of tiny rooms and dodging mental attacks from the Emperor, as long as she and Luke were together.

“Well, not the whole rest of our lives,” he whispered into her hair. “We have that belated honeymoon by a beach to get to eventually.”

“Stay out of my head,” Mara murmured against the side of his throat, smiling again despite the retort.

Luke kissed her temple and disengaged himself from her grasp. “Then quit thinking so loudly.” He again leaned his forehead against hers, then pulled back with a sigh. “Seriously, we can’t skip our very first—what did Leia call it?”

“Vetting,” Mara said with a sardonic grin.

“We really shouldn’t make fun of that,” Luke said, trying and failing to stifle his own grin. “We are defectors. We wouldn’t trust them if they didn’t vet us.”

“She’s so straitlaced, though,” Mara said, wrinkling her nose. “She reminds me of—“ She groaned suddenly and leaned her head against Luke’s shoulder. “She reminds me of me.”

Luke laughed and hugged her tightly, then held her out at arms’ length. “You’re prettier, though.” He stroked back a loose tendril of her hair, smiling softly at her, and took her hand. “Let’s go be good, cooperative recruits and get our new assignments, then we can come right back here and get on with the current not-by-a-beach honeymoon.”

He led her toward the door, and Mara wondered if she’d ever stop smiling.

---

As Vader had anticipated, Palpatine had hardly stopped raging since being informed of Jade’s betrayal. Also as anticipated, Vader had been largely required to attend these outbursts. As adept as he was at remaining in the shadows, Palpatine always did prefer having someone to vent his anger upon, and with his rightful target absent, Vader had been pressed into service as audience for the storm of threats and vows of vengeance.

This afternoon, Palpatine was focused on a complaint he’d had since his attempted contact with Jade. “She had help in pushing me back, I know she did. My Hand is not strong enough to resist me directly.”

Vader doubted this, though he kept the doubts to himself. Palpatine’s judgment of others was usually sound, but he had a blind spot: his utter belief in his own complete superiority. It was true enough that few, if any, could defy him outright and survive—Vader himself surely had the best chance of that, yet he would not risk it alone. But in believing all others so inferior as to be beneath his notice, Palpatine often overlooked the strengths they did possess, and although Vader had never liked Jade, he did not underestimate her. The girl was stronger in the Force than even she knew, and had a profound willfulness that had enabled her to survive years of brutal training that would have broken most other children—not only that, but she had thrived and excelled, becoming a confident and self-possessed young woman with the skills to back up even her own opinion of herself.

Not, Vader thought, that she would have been able to resist Palpatine’s attack had it been in person. But when Palpatine was on Coruscant and Jade herself half a galaxy away in the Outer Rim? Privately, Vader thought her entirely capable of that. He had warned his master more than once during Jade’s childhood that training her to the extent that he did was a dangerous game.

As always, Palpatine had brushed Vader’s concerns aside. As had the Jedi Council before him. As had Obi-Wan. As had Padmé.

Vader noticed Palpatine’s attention begin to turn toward him, and consciously relaxed the hand that had begun to clench into a fist at his side. “As you say, my master.”

“Ah,” Palpatine said, a new glint in his sulfurous eyes. “You think otherwise?”

Vader lowered his head submissively. “No, Master. I merely wonder who else was there to help her.”

“Your son was there, Lord Vader.” Palpatine all but spat the words.

“He is untrained, my master.”

“Is he? Is he indeed?”

“I brought you the news of his existence as soon as I was aware of it, my master. I would never have done otherwise.” The lie came easily.

Palpatine fixed him with a hard glare, then turned and paced back to his throne. Seating himself, he tapped his fingers impatiently against the throne’s arm. “Perhaps it was Jade herself who trained him, so that he was able to aid her when the need arose. If she is capable of such treachery as desertion, then she is capable of anything. She will see the error of her ways soon enough, when she is brought back to Coruscant to face the punishment she deserves.”

Vader saw the opportunity. “I will leave Coruscant in search of her immediately, my master.”

“No, my friend,” Palpatine said, lifting a hand almost languorously. “You will lead the search, both for her and for your son, but we must first know where to look. They surely are no longer on Tatooine, and it is a waste of your skill to comb the starlanes aimlessly.”

Translation: He would tell no one else of the possibilities inherent in the discovery of Vader’s son, nor admit to anyone else the betrayal of his loyal Hand, so until they had a solid lead, Vader was stuck on Coruscant listening to him rant.

“You said that her mission was to search for and eliminate the Princess Organa, my master. Has Intelligence found any further signs of the princess? Perhaps a lead on her might give us a better idea of where Jade has gone.”

Palpatine laughed, a dry, harsh sound. “Lord Vader, if Jade has abandoned her rightful loyalty to her Emperor, what reason would she have to continue her assignment? I fear your desire to find your son—“ he paused just long enough to send another fixed, suspicious glare at Vader “—causes you to grasp at phantoms.”

With an effort, Vader forced back the reflexive spike of anger that Palpatine’s scorn always generated. He had more to gain by soothing the suspicions than by feeding them. “I desire only what benefits you, my master. My son’s inherent abilities could serve you well.”

“This is true,” Palpatine allowed. “But then, Jade was also a great asset once, and look at what she has become. If she and your son have joined forces, perhaps it would be better to kill him along with her rather than leave him as a threat.”

“Jade has more than earned her destruction,” Vader returned, “but we have no indication that either she or my son are even aware of his potential, let alone that he has aided her in any way beyond the mundane. If he could be turned, he could be a powerful ally.”

Palpatine leaned forward, his eyes seeming to glow beneath his hood. “You sensed his abilities, Lord Vader. What makes you think that Jade would not have?”

“Jade lacks both the skill and the focus in such an area, my master.” As if the girl who had been trained to be merely an obedient spy and assassin could match the awareness of someone twice her age, who had spent one lifetime training as a Jedi and another as a Sith Lord. Vader bit back his indignation at the insult. “You said yourself that you sensed great fear from her when you last spoke, and that she admitted to clandestinely meeting a TIE pilot late at night. It would seem that she and my son were having an affair, and that the emotional attachment sparked her treachery. None of that indicates that she would have had any reason to suspect Force sensitivity on his part.”

“A possibility,” Palpatine admitted, sitting back slowly. “Your insight on these matters is of great value to me, Lord Vader. But then—“ Palpatine let a mocking smile lift his lips. “Who else would know so well how such an emotional attachment could turn someone into a traitor?”

Oh, the barb sank deep. Palpatine always did know exactly how and where to strike. Vader stared at the floor, a maelstrom of old emotion sweeping over him: guilt, rage, loss, loathing. They fed the anger within him, and he felt the dark side answer. If he played this carefully, he had everything to gain—power, his son, the overthrow of the sadistic old man who’d held him captive for decades. “My experience, as with all else I have to offer, is at your service, Master. Allow me to prove it by bringing them both back to you. Jade, to her destruction, my son, to his fate as your servant.”

Palpatine lifted a hand to his mouth and gazed at Vader. “And where would you start, Lord Vader?”

“On Tatooine, Master. As you said, they are surely not there now—but they were. We know they were in Mos Eisley only days ago; more, we have a confirmed sighting at the civil affairs building where they were married. Jade is talented in undercover operations, but whatever disguises they may have donned, that may well have been her fatal error. People there will remember them, and from there it will be an easy thing to send the stormtroopers from the local garrison into the city with their current descriptions. There will be a trail, however faint, and from there I can extrapolate their destination.”

Palpatine sat silently, but Vader felt the change of his sense in the Force. Before, Palpatine had been too furious to let Vader, the one person at whom he could safely rail about these matters, out of his sight. Now, whether it was Vader’s words or simply that he had finally vented enough anger to begin to reach for vengeance in earnest rather than merely threaten it, his master’s mood was shifting from pure fury to contemplation.

“You believe you can track them from this one mistake?” Palpatine asked at last.

Vader inclined his head. “I have tracked down and killed fully trained Jedi from less information, my master.” As you well know.

A flash from amber eyes made Vader wonder if Palpatine had caught that last thought, but it hardly mattered. After two decades, Palpatine knew perfectly well how much Vader resented him, just as Vader knew perfectly well that Palpatine would betray him just as easily as he had betrayed the Jedi and the Republic, if ever a more promising candidate happened to appear.

Vader was not fool enough to believe that Palpatine wasn’t even now contemplating doing exactly that, for the sake of gaining his son. The trick was to keep Palpatine from suspecting that Vader was planning the same betrayal, and the best way to do that was to bury his deeper animosity beneath the ordinary subdued hostility that his master expected from him.

“Go then, my friend,” Palpatine finally said. “Hunt them down in my name, and bring them before me.” He smiled thinly. “Then Jade will die, and we will see if the son follows in his father’s footsteps.”

“It will be done, my master.” Vader bowed, and strode from the throne room. He had ordered the Executor to be on standby in orbit days ago, after he had first informed Palpatine of his discovery; he would be on his way to Tatooine within the hour.

Now his own plans could truly begin.

---

Leia was just stepping from her own room into the hallway when Mon Mothma came around the corner. “Ah, Leia,” she called. “Would you have a moment?”

“Of course,” Leia said. “What is it?”

Mon came up beside her and gestured toward Leia’s door; Leia reopened it and led them both inside. “I have a favor to ask of you. You know that the pilots you came in with yesterday have debriefings scheduled today.”

Leia frowned. “Just the pilots? What about Mara?”

“Therein lies my request,” Mon said with a smile. “Can you keep her busy for me this morning?”

“Keep her busy?” Leia echoed. “Of course I can, if you need me to, but why?”

“She does have something of an interesting history, Leia. That needs to be addressed.”

“That’s what the debriefing is for,” Leia said. “So why is it being postponed?”

Mon sighed. “Bringing the Emperor’s personal assassin into the fold is something a little different from our average defector. There are things to be discussed before we begin the process.”

Leia frowned some more. “Ben vouched for her. The whole reason Winter and I were sent to find him was that the Alliance needed his wisdom and guidance, and now we’re going to ignore his advice before he’s been here a full day?”

“Certainly not,” Mon replied. “He has vouched for all in Mistress Jade’s group, and I fully trust his judgment in the matter. But I do not wish us to become an autocracy like the Empire. I need to discuss the matter with some of the others among the leadership. Master Kenobi will join me in the discussions, and I hope to have her debriefing started by this afternoon. And in the meantime, I would rather not instill distrust in Mistress Jade herself. Hopefully the matter will be smoothed over by midday. It would be a great help to me if you could step into the breach until then. Say there was a scheduling conflict, and spend the morning showing her around the base, perhaps. Talk to her, see if you can draw her out at all, and let me know how it goes afterward.”

Leia sat down in one of the chairs in her little conversation area. “I’ll show her around. I’ll talk to her. But I don’t like the idea of spying on her.”

Mon sat down in the chair next to her and leaned over to take both Leia’s hands in her own. “I’m not asking you to spy on her, Leia. Just to help her get settled in and feel comfortable and let me know how far you think you succeeded, and if anything else needs to be done.”

“I can do that,” Leia said slowly. The idea of a full morning one on one with Mara was a little daunting. They were certainly on more friendly terms than they had been when they’d first met, but that wasn’t saying a great deal, either. And aside from the brief conversation in the cockpit on their way back to Yavin, she and Mara really hadn’t been alone together at all, they’d always been in a group. And even in a group, Mara was far from chatty or outgoing. Still, Ben had vouched for her, and Leia knew her duty, both to the Alliance and to its recruits, which included Mara.

“I knew I could count on you,” Mon said warmly. “I’ll get in touch with you by midday. If all goes well, she’ll start her recruitment process today the same as the rest of her party, just a few hours later.”

“All right,” Leia said. Somehow she thought that she’d rather go into pitched battle than spend half a day trying to make small talk with Mara Jade.

Well, no one had ever said that being a member of the Rebel Alliance was going to be easy.

 

I'm here!

I'll begin my review of this chapter with the middle scene, because that was particularly grand. I loved how you had these two creeps exchanging barely polite barbs while despising each other.

This is a snide comment that I enjoyed probably more than I should have. To me it's a direct throwback to the "ultimate powah" scene, which is the epitome of Palpatine hamming it up. Yes, he does love an audience – although there is something slightly pathetic about having an audience that can't choose to leave (though I guess that's a common trait of dictators, and Palps is just a space dictator after all).

Now this was interesting. The thing Palpatine, the Jedi Council, Obi-Wan and Padmé have in common is that they were important people in Anakin Skywalker's life, but that's about it. That Vader would lump them all together tells us how single-minded he is at this point in his life, but also how badly he needs to blame everyone else for failing him.

Ugh. What a sheevy sheevster. It will certainly be very satisfying to see him get his just deserts in this story

Now, returning to the Rebel base storyline, two unconnected but related bits that stood out to me are:

There's such an ironic undertone to the fact that what makes them uncomfortable around each other is how similar they actually are, but, funnily enough, Leia, who is supposed to be the consummate diplomat of the two, can't put her finger on it.

I'm curious to see what decision the Rebel leadership will come up regarding Mara. I suspect that there will be a snag somewhere. Also, I don't really expect Mara to buy this "scheduling conflict" poodoo; she's way too smart for that [Mara_emoji]

 

I'm feeling sick and curled up in bed, but the first section is so fluffy and happy Gabri I love them

I love this dynamic for them. And also beaches for them. With sandcastles. And little fishes that try to nibble at Luke's toes, to both his horror and fascination. And Mara laughing at him. And the sparkling web of life in the ocean that they can both sense, that's just so beautiful and also so foreign.

!!!

Oh Mara, you're being happy so loudly.

Aaah it's so much fluffier than my thinking too loudly moment and aaah I didn't even know this was here when I wrote that; how do brain bugs spread?

And yes, what a fun concept.

What an insight, Mara

This feels right. Also enjoying the phrasing of "storms of threats and vows of vengeance."

Your overconfidence ...

I love this? As an accurate and succinct portrayal of Mara, but particularly Vader making that assessment of her. I have this giant soft spot for a Vader-Mara relationship of some sort, any sort because I think they'd just play off each other in such wonderful and interesting ways.

Eee, I like this as a continuation of Anakin's sore spot of feeling minimized, ignored, and dismissed.

Stop thinking so loud, Vader.

He would never.

I'm just so amused by this window into Vader's bleak and sardonic humor.

Ouch. Way to kick a guy in the nuts.

I'm sick and curled up in bed, and I have a lot of thoughts I can't quite articulate right now about how I love the concept of hiding emotions under other emotions and creating a smokescreen and how the Sith should be really good at it

I find myself thinking back to the Clovis arc in TCW and Anakin's reluctance to follow the Council's orders in spying on the Chancellor and appreciating how Leia is unwittingly mirroring this not liking the idea of spying on people trait of her parents

small talk is the worst :mara:

 

@Chyntuck

I do like that dynamic between them. All through RotJ, it's "my master" this and "my friend" that, but all the while we know that Vader's trying to overthrow Palpatine and at the end Palpatine quite calmly orders Luke to kill Vader and take his place. They maintain surface civility at every turn, yet each of them only tolerate each other for the sake of what they themselves can gain

Palpatine is all about control. He's not a sadist who tortures others for fun, and for all that he likes an audience, he was never in this for fame (notice how once the Empire is established, he apparently becomes nearly a hermit compared to what he'd been as Supreme Chancellor. He's a puppet master, and he absolutely loves not just having ultimate control over others, but having them know that he does. The only thing better for him here than Vader being unable to choose to leave is Vader's awareness that he can't leave, and why

Vader does excel at holding a grudge

lol @ "sheevy sheevster", that's perfect

Heh, Leia is the professional diplomat, but Mara's been staking her life on her ability to read people for as long as she's been an active agent, too. Honestly, I'm fascinated by the similarities between the two of them. In a lot of ways, their lives are inverted parallels of each other: Leia's the princess who was taught to be an undercover agent for the Rebellion on the side, while Mara was raised to be an undercover Imperial agent yet was simultaneously one of the Empire's most elite, who could hold her own with the highest echelons of society. Anyway, they're both deeply insightful people in general, but for all the stress they're both under here, Mara has a little more emotional breathing room right now than Leia, to be able to make these connections

She's a bright girl, all right :mara:

@vader_incarnate

So do I

Ahhhh, I love this *makes notes*

Elli, I love writing young newlywed Luke and Mara so much, they're so adorable and sweet

She's not used to being happy, she's still learning how to handle this new development :mara:

I don't know, but they do. Like, Mira had an adult character refer to a child as "sweetling" in her KR week 2 and then I did the same thing in my week 3, but I absolutely swear I hadn't had time to read hers until after I'd posted mine. And I don't know that I've ever even written that word before; it just felt right for the character I was writing that day. How did both our brains go separately to that same term of endearment? I don't know

There's room for so many different interpretations of just how Force-sensitivity works. My take on this is that most Force-sensitives are good at picking up others' emotions, even if they don't fully realize it, and that this ability increases with training, but that if you're trained, you're probably also trained to keep low-level shields up most of the time, in much the same way as people learn to have filters with what they say aloud and what they don't. But I'm also firmly of the opinion that Mara's telepathic ability is a very rare one (can other trained Force-sensitives manage borderline telepathic communication? Yeah, probably, at least to some extent. Can they all have literal precise conversations with each other in their heads when they're half a galaxy apart, even with training? No, come on now, other Jedi have also had rare inborn talents, like Mace's shatterpoint recognition, or Quinlan's pscyhometry. This is Mara's), so imo that would make her more likely to pick up on others' thoughts or to project her own, and between Luke's intense empathy and their close relationship, I do think that they'd be deeply attuned to each other's thoughts and emotions, thus leading to more frequent than usual occasions of "thinking too loudly" :mara:

It's a whole other experience to be on the receiving end of that tendency

Palpatine is more than capable of keeping secrets - look at the man's entire life, for heaven's sake. But he's also a consummate showman, and he's arrogant right down to the bone, and his favorite thing in existence is to control others, and Vader is the perfect audience for him for all of these reasons: he still gets to play a facsimile of his smooth-talking Supreme Chancellor role, and it's a sham, and Vader can't do anything about it, and Vader knows all of this. He knows it's an act; he knows that everything he's lost, he lost because of Palpatine; he knows that (at the moment, at least) there's not a darn thing he can do about it; he knows that Palpatine knows all of this and is enjoying rubbing his nose in it. And especially in this instance, where Vader is actually connected with Mara's defection by virtue of Luke's heretofore unknown existence, I think that Palpatine would want Vader right there as he threatens and swears vengeance, partly because for the sake of his own satisfaction there is no better audience for it, and partly because Vader would also implicitly understand that those threats are directed at him too, should he be found to be party to this, or to be using it for his own advantage in any way

Always. That one insight of Luke's got right to the heart of the matter.

Vader has his own blind spots, but they're not the same as Palpatine's, you know? I think that Vader would see Mara pretty clearly overall. And in reading Allegiance and CoO, they have an interesting canon dynamic. Admittedly, Vader is at the time deeply preoccupied with his discovery of Luke, and he's extra abrupt with and wary of Mara because of that (for good reason; she'd surely report any disloyalty to Palpatine if she was aware of it), but it's obvious there's a measure of mutual respect between them - and that right there is extraordinary, considering how young and relatively inexperienced Mara still is at the time (she's only 17 in Allegiance, whereas Vader is 41 and has experienced being a slave, a Jedi, a general in the Clone Wars, a Sith, and second in command of the galaxy). I do not think that Vader sees Mara as a personal threat, as Mara herself speculates in this story (unreliable narration is a thing, after all; every character sees events through their own subjectivity), but he actually did respect her, that much is clear. And for him to grant her that respect, he'd have to have the opinion I give him here, that Mara has exceptional talents and abilities and self-possession.

That does not, as we see in Allegiance, mean that he's going to put up with any sass or interference from her. But when she's properly respectful and stays out of his way, he seems entirely willing to tolerate her. And that's saying a lot for Darth Vader. So in canon, my summation of their relationship is: mutual respect, tempered with awareness that each of them could be a threat to the other in different ways if they wanted to be, but for the most part neither of them actually wants to be; kind of a "you do your job well; if you leave me alone, I'll leave you alone" sort of deal.

I think that there's room for so many different takes on this in various AU scenarios: you could turn them into rivals, or Vader could see her as a genuine potential threat, or he could resent her for being so near the age of his own lost child, or he could almost turn her into a substitute for that child and lavish whatever affection he's left with on her. It's really kind of a mostly untapped goldmine. We should write more of these AUs, Elli :mara:

Exactly. Anakin's got a whole long history of being sensitive to this sort of treatment, and I sure don't think that becoming a Sith is going to make him more patient and understanding.

lolol

Never ever

The essence of Anakin is still in there somewhere, right? In between all the hatred and resentment, there's got to be a few moments where he's just rolling his eyes behind that mask

I literally laughed out loud here, thank you, Elli

I'm sure not going to say that I haven't put conscious thought into this sort of thing, because between writing this and Renewal I definitely have. But also, I kinda didn't until I started writing those stories. I'm more interested in individual characters and their relationships than I am the worldbuilding, and that includes exactly how Force stuff works, so unless it affects characters I love (or is something that just instantly strikes me as very right or very wrong), I pretty much take explanations and descriptions from canon at face value. So I don't have a long history of thinking about these things, and ultimately when I'm writing, I go with gut instinct, and what feels right both in general and for the character. I don't pretend I'm always getting it right, so honestly it's always extra nice to have readers say, yeah, this makes sense, I like it

I DID NOT SEE THIS PARALLEL AND I LOVE IT

It IS :mara:

 

Chapter Seventeen




Leia found Mara in the mess hall with Luke and the rest of their party. She went up to their table carrying her tray and tried to look cheerful. “Mind if I join you?”

Luke smiled at her, his usual broad, open smile that no one would ever think was anything but genuine. Beside him, Mara’s lips turned up just enough to technically qualify as a smile, then she turned quickly back to her breakfast. Tycho inclined his head in a deep nod that Leia thought he probably wanted to turn into a bow, and Hobbie grinned at her.

“Good morning, Leia,” Luke said. “I wasn’t sure if we’d see much of you once we landed.”

“The base is on the large side,” Leia said, seating herself. “But it’s not so large that we don’t all see each other pretty regularly. Anyway, I wanted to see how you were all settling in. Have you gotten your debriefing schedules yet?”

“Someone came by with them a few minutes ago,” Tycho said. “Luke and Hobbie and I are all supposed to report to the same area in an hour.”

“Because we’re all hotshot fighter jocks,” Luke said, nudging Mara with his shoulder. An odd turn of phrase for a pilot to use to describe himself, Leia thought. “Mara’s an excellent pilot, but her specialties are in other areas. I’m sure someone will be by soon with her assignment.”

“Actually, that’ll be me,” Leia said, trying not to let her smile flag. Mara looked up from her meal tray and fixed those inscrutable green eyes on her, and Leia had to put a little more effort into the attempt. “Mon Mothma met me on my way here and said there was a scheduling conflict this morning. She asked if I’d show you around the base while they got it sorted out, Mara.”

“Oh,” Mara said. She glanced at Luke, then back at her meal tray. “All right.”

Leia kept the smile on her face by sheer force of will. “Have you spent much time in any jungles, Mara?”

Mara wrapped her hands around her caf mug and looked at it rather than at Leia. “Not really.”

An uneasy silence fell. Tycho and Hobbie looked at each other, then went back to eating their breakfasts with a slightly determined air. Luke gave Mara a sympathetic look.

“Well, I think you’ll like it here,” Leia said, as cheerfully as she could. She had a sinking feeling that it wasn’t very cheerful at all. “These buildings we’re using were actually built by the Massassi thousands of years ago…”

---

Two hours later, they had finished their breakfast, the other three had headed off to their debriefings, Leia had shown Mara the highlights of the base, and Mara had said as little as possible. Leia was beginning to wonder somewhat desperately how she was going to fill potentially another two or more hours alone with the woman.

“Would you like to check on your ship before we continue the tour?” Leia offered. Maybe that would give her a few minutes alone with her thoughts to come up with some way to survive the rest of this morning.

Mara’s eyes flicked over to her, then back toward the bit of architectural detailing Leia had been pointing out a minute ago. “Sure.”

Almost in despair, Leia turned toward the landing pad they’d used yesterday. “It’s over this way. You probably already remember that, of course, but it’s easy to get turned around in a new place. I remember the first time I came here…”

With a heroic effort, Leia managed to keep up a steady stream of idle chatter until they reached the ship. Mara lifted a hand to touch the hull, then trailed her fingers along it as they walked to the docking ramp. She tapped the code into the control panel by the ramp while Leia politely looked the other way, then stood aside and gestured for Leia to enter first. Leia did, wondering if there was any possible way to get Mara to keep up her end of a conversation.

Inside the ship, Mara just stood still, looking around.

“I guess it brings back memories?” Leia asked. “The ship, I mean. Did you use it often on Coruscant?”

“No,” Mara said quietly, still not looking at Leia. “We changed ships on Kattada.”

“Oh,” Leia said, surprised. “You were on Kattada? Winter and I were just there, right before Tatooine.”

“I know.”

I’m a high level Imperial agent, sent to assassinate you.

Leia’s blood suddenly ran cold. “Oh,” she said again.

Mara looked over at her, then away again. “I do want to keep the ship, though.”

Leia frowned despite her apprehension. “It’s your ship. Why wouldn’t you keep it?”

Another quick glance, just as quickly flicked away. Mara shrugged, then walked over to one of the recliners in the main hold and trailed her fingers over the edge of it. “I have something for you.”

The innocuous-sounding words were still enough to make Leia’s breath catch, considering the source. Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself firmly. Ben vouched for her. “What’s that?” she asked, with another dose of false cheer.

Mara turned to look her straight in the eye. “I already told you that I wasn’t going to kill you.”

“I know that,” Leia said, guilt suddenly hitting her like a punch in the gut. Mara was Force-sensitive. In her worry over how to handle this morning, Leia had completely forgotten that. Sensing people’s background emotions is a constant; I can’t turn it off. All morning, Mara had been sensing Leia’s own reluctance and discomfort. No wonder she hadn’t spoken much. And now those flashes of fear that Leia couldn’t entirely stifle…

“Don’t worry about it,” Mara said, looking away again.

“Mara…”

“It’s not important.” Mara walked over to a storage compartment built into the wall of the ship’s conversation area, one that Leia hadn’t seen opened in her time on the ship. Mara slid the door open to reveal rows of shelves full of datacards. “This is the library from my old ship, the one I used to take on missions, and sold on Kattada. I didn’t dare keep the ship, in case of trackers, but I thought the Rebellion could make use of the data.”

“Mara,” Leia breathed, almost reverently this time. She stepped forward to touch her fingertips to the rows of datacards. “This—this isn’t ordinary information, is it?”

Mara was still looking at the datacards, her expression steady. “I had one of the highest security clearances in the Empire. My library reflected that.”

Leia turned to her. “You’re really just giving it to us? Seriously?”

“What would I do with it now?” Mara asked with another shrug. She turned away to another wall, featuring another storage compartment, and slid open that door too. Within was a small but elaborate armory, featuring blasters and blades of all kinds, from hand weapons to a wicked-looking sniper rifle. “I thought—“ Mara’s voice caught, ever so slightly, and Leia saw her swallow before she continued, chin held high. “I thought you might be able to use my weapons collection, too.”

This time Leia looked at Mara instead of what Mara was offering. That quaver in her voice just then… “They’re yours,” Leia said cautiously. “We were never going to confiscate your belongings. Surely you didn’t think that.”

“Not exactly.” Mara didn’t turn from her contemplation of the wall full of blasters and knives. “But I doubt the Rebellion really wants former Imperials running around well-armed, either.”

Leia took a step forward. She almost reached a hand out to the other woman, but stopped herself. “We do have other Imperial defectors here. Even Mon Mothma and I were Imperial senators, remember.”

Mara stood very still, eyes remaining on the weapons. “I imagine those other Imperial defectors have already proven themselves. And probably didn’t spend their entire lives in personal service to the Emperor.”

And with a sudden flash of insight, Leia understood. It wasn’t unfriendliness that made Mara aloof. It was uncertainty.

Leia could have kicked herself for not seeing it earlier. The Yavin base was almost like home for her, full of friends and allies and familiar surroundings. For Mara, it was entirely new, full of hundreds of people she didn’t know, who she thought were probably suspicious of her, who might not want her there at all. She only had three friends here right now, and they were all off having their official debriefing and orientation sessions, while Mara had been shunted off alone, her own debriefing postponed, her position uncertain. Under the same circumstances, Leia would have been worried and unsociable, too.

“You haven’t taken the caf machine out of the ship yet, have you?” Leia asked her.

Mara glanced over, surprised. “No.”

“If I were you,” Leia said, “I’d set it up in your apartment. There’s no regulation against that, and you don’t always want to go to the mess hall and be with everyone just for a cup of caf. But for now, we could have a cup in here, just us? I’ll make it.”

“All right,” Mara agreed, looking back at the collection of weaponry.

Leia headed toward the ship’s little galley kitchen. A few minutes later she returned to set two steaming mugs on the table. Mara was still standing in front of the weapons, a hand caressing one of the blasters, but at Leia’s approach she let her hand fall and turned toward the table instead. She sat across from Leia and took one of the mugs. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” Leia said. “Mara, about this morning—“

“You don’t have to try to make me feel comfortable here,” Mara interrupted, looking into her caf.

“Yes, I do,” Leia insisted. “More than that, I want to. I’m sorry I wasn’t—wasn’t very genuine this morning. It’s—“ This time it was her voice that broke, and she swallowed hard before continuing. “It’s been a hard week. I don’t have a lot of emotional reserves left right now, to be honest. That’s nothing to do with you, and I’m sorry if I made you feel unwelcome.”

Mara looked up at her. “I’m sorry about Alderaan,” she said quietly. “We—all of us, we defected the first chance we got after we knew about it. We didn’t support it.”

Leia blinked back the tears that threatened. “Thank you.”

Silence fell, but it was nowhere near as fraught as the rest of the morning had been. Leia took a sip of her caf. “I suppose Luke was right,” she said after a few minutes. “We didn’t meet under the best of circumstances. You and me. Want to try an actual redo?”

The smile Mara gave her was slow in forming, but it reached her eyes as it did. “We could try.”

Leia smiled back. “How long have you two known each other?”

Mara’s gaze turned inward as she seemed to calculate. “A little more than six months.”

Leia felt her eyebrows lift. “You’ve had something of a whirlwind courtship, then.”

“Have I?” Mara took a sip of her caf, then added, “Seriously. Have I? Do most people take longer than that to get married?”

“Generally,” Leia said curiously. “Lots of people know each other for years before they marry.”

“Huh,” Mara said. She noticed Leia’s eyes on her and shrugged, somewhat self-consciously. “I was never—involved—with anyone, before him. Being the Emperor’s Hand—that was my whole life, for as long as I can remember. There wasn’t room for any personal relationships.” She drank some more caf, then added quietly, “I suppose I always knew, deep down, that the Emperor wouldn’t approve. But I didn’t intend to actually get involved with Luke, either, and by the time we were—I didn’t want to give him up. So I told myself it didn’t matter, I could balance both of them.”

Leia wasn’t entirely sure what to make of this admission. “Well, like you said earlier, it did all work out.”

Mara gave her a small, tentative smile. “Yes.”

More silence. This time Mara was the one who broke it. “Are you supposed to be keeping me busy while they figure out what to do with me?”

Leia set her mug down and sighed ruefully. “I thought you said you didn’t read minds.”

“It was the obvious conclusion,” Mara said quietly. “I know I’m a high security risk.”

Her voice was almost resigned, and again Leia was tempted to reach out to her, as she would have to Winter, or any worried friend. She didn’t think, though, that five minutes of conversation was enough to break Mara’s reserve and make such a gesture welcome. So instead she just said, “Ben vouched for you, and Mon Mothma told me she trusted Ben’s judgment. They do plan to accept you, Mara. They’re just—just smoothing the path with the rest of the leadership.”

“There’s not the same issue with Luke and the others, is there?”

“Well, no,” Leia admitted. “They didn’t hold anywhere near your rank.”

“Or do what I did,” Mara added softly. “Luke told me once that there was a difference between combat and assassination. I didn’t understand what he meant at the time.” She sighed. “I accept responsibility for my actions. I know that the Emperor being able to contact me through the Force is a risk. But I am sincere. I won’t serve an Empire that kills whole planets. And I do have skills that would be useful to you. I do. And I meant it when I told Ben I would do whatever I had to do to learn to avoid contact with the Emperor and keep him from tracking me.” She almost said something else, but fell silent instead.

She has nowhere else to go. This time Leia did reach out to her, touching her hand. Mara took a quick breath, but didn’t react otherwise. “I trust you, Mara. You’ll stay here. I promise you.”

“Hello?” Ben’s voice came through the open ship’s entrance off to their side before Mara could respond. “Mara? Leia?” His head poked through the entrance. “Ah, there you girls are.”

Leia noticed the faint edge of worry in Mara’s eyes, even as she greeted Ben with a more genuine smile than Leia had received all morning. Of course—she and Ben had had several training sessions on the way here. She’d had more time to get to know him than she had Leia.

Suddenly, Leia was determined to fix that. They might not ever be close friends, but she would at least be a friendly face that Mara could feel safe around until she’d truly settled in. She needed that much, and it was the least Leia could do for someone who was trying so hard to do the right thing.

“Would you like some caf, Ben?” Leia asked.

“Maybe later, thank you,” he answered with a smile. “I’m here to collect Mara for her debriefing. I’ll be sitting in on it with you, my dear.”

“To assure everyone that I’m not lying,” Mara said.

Ben sat down beside Leia. “Yes,” he said gently. “I know that you are here genuinely, Mara. It’s not that I don’t trust you to give honest answers, not at all. It’s that I want to erase that doubt for the others, as well, to give you the most productive start possible. Best to build on a solid foundation, don’t you agree?”

Mara sighed, so silently that Leia would never have noticed if she hadn’t been looking at her. “Yes. I’ll do whatever I have to.” She stood, and added, “I won’t close up the ship, Leia, so you can take the library, and the weapons.”

Leia looked up at her. “The library is an immense gift, and on behalf of the Alliance, I thank you for it, and I’ll make sure that Mon Mothma and the others know where it came from. But weapons?” Leia stood as well, and walked over to slide the storage compartment door closed, hiding the blasters and knives whose prospective loss had actually sparked a reaction from Mara, however slight. An unusual thing to be emotionally attached to, but then, she clearly hadn’t had a very normal life, either. There was time enough to sort out what Mara truly wanted to give away and what she simply thought that she should. “I don’t see any weapons.”

There was a sudden sheen in Mara’s eyes, visible only for a moment before she blinked it away. She nodded, then turned and quickly left the ship. Ben stood and smiled warmly at Leia, then followed Mara.

Well. Her mother had always said that the best way to cure your own sorrows was to help another with theirs. Leia took the mugs back to the kitchen, then took out her comm and tapped in a code. “Winter? Can you meet me at Mara’s ship?” She glanced over at the rows of datacards, the spines shining in hypnotic blue lines along the wall. “And bring a couple of boxes, please. Mara’s given us a present.”

---

It was late afternoon when Luke felt the wordless mental question. He looked up from the datapad he’d been studying and concentrated, sending a mental image of himself on the tiny couch in their conversation area. He received a flash of acknowledgement in return, and went back to reading his datapad.

Ten minutes later, Mara entered their apartment and smiled wearily at him. She sat down beside him and tucked herself under his arm. Happy to oblige, Luke held her close. “Did you get your debriefing?”

“Eventually.” Mara sighed. “I’m not sure they really trust me much.”

“It’s our first full day,” he said reassuringly. “They don’t trust any of us much yet. Give it time.”

“Mmm,” she said noncommittally. She touched the datapad he held, where diagrams of X-wing starfighters shimmered. “So you’re still a pilot.”

“It’s not like I have any other particularly useful skills,” Luke said with a grin.

“Stop that,” Mara said. “You’re a natural leader. You’re smart and insightful and calm under pressure and good at reading people.”

Luke squeezed her. “Flatterer. But even if you’re right, those are all things that have to be proven over time. They don’t know me yet. The skills I bring to the table are piloting and fixing things, and while I’m a decent mechanic, I’m a better pilot. This assignment only makes sense.” He shrugged, then added, “Still, I was hoping for this. I’d have hated to be grounded, and X-wings are interesting fighters. Not as fast as a TIE, but almost as maneuverable and more sturdy.”

“With shields. I like that part.”

“Can’t say I’m against them myself, despite the Empire trying to convince us we didn’t need them.”

Mara snorted. “Bantha spit. They’d just rather not spend the money. The navy brass would far rather use the budget on some big shiny Star Destroyers to show off than upgrade that massive fleet of TIEs.”

“That was always my read on it,” Luke agreed. “Where did they put you?”

Mara hesitated, and Luke felt her uneasiness. “I don’t have an assignment yet.”

“Oh.” That explained a lot about her current mood. “What did they say to you?” he asked gently.

She twined her fingers together in her lap, and Luke’s concern rose. Mara had few nervous tics, but that was one. “Just a lot of questions.” She was quiet for a moment, then added, “Ben sat in on my debriefing. So they would know whether or not I was lying.”

Luke rubbed her arm comfortingly. “That doesn’t sound like Ben.”

She glanced up at him. “He admitted it to me beforehand. He said he trusted me, but that his being part of it would help the others to trust me too.”

“Okay, that actually does sound like Ben,” Luke admitted.

Mara sighed. “I don’t blame them. But—it’s hard, Luke. I want to be with you more than anything in the galaxy. I’m willing to fight with the Rebellion. But…”

“But you thought the Emperor trusted you, and he didn’t,” Luke said softly. “And now the Rebellion doesn’t trust you either.”

“Yes,” she almost whispered.

Luke hugged her close. “I trust you, Mara. The rest of them here will trust you soon. Really they will.”

Mara leaned into his embrace, then said unexpectedly, “I like Leia.”

Luke glanced at her, but she kept her head down, eyes on the datapad in his lap. “I like her too,” he said. “Maybe the two of you will become friends.”

Mara lifted the datapad and scrolled through a few pages—trying, Luke thought, to appear nonchalant. “I don’t have any friends but you. I never did.”

The one part of being a fighter pilot that Luke had always hated was killing, but there were times when he thought that if someone stood the Emperor in front of him and handed him a loaded blaster, he could pull the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. He held Mara a little closer against his side and kissed the top of her bowed head. “Pretty sure that’s about to change.”

She tucked her head into the crook of his shoulder without looking up. “Maybe. If it does, you have to promise to explain what I’m supposed to do.”

“I think,” Luke said, “that you won’t need any help from me. But if you did, I would always give it. You know that.”

Mara set the datapad on the table in front of them and slid her arms around him. Luke turned slightly toward her and lifted her legs to drape them sideways over his own, then wrapped both his arms around her and held her tightly, resting his cheek against her soft hair. They sat like that for a long time before Mara finally broke the comfortable silence. “Where do you think they’ll eventually put me?”

“Intelligence,” Luke said, without hesitation.

Mara didn’t lift her head, but he could sense her faint amusement. “What is it with you insisting I’m Intel?”

“And wasn’t I right?” He lifted her hand to kiss her fingers. “Seriously, Mara, they’d be fools to do anything else. For one thing, you have extensive experience in that area. But far more importantly, you have current, personal knowledge of the Emperor himself, plus all his highest ranking people. Vader, Tarkin, the other Moffs, the Grand Admirals, the Court. The Rebellion may have intelligence reports on those people, and they may have good analysts to interpret the reports, but you know them personally. You know their abilities, their personalities, all the rivalries and political realities that could be exploited. Even using you as a field agent here would be a waste, not because you’re not a good field agent—”

“A very good field agent.”

“—a brilliant field agent, but because what you already know is invaluable. They’ll make you an analyst, and you’ll divide your time between writing reports on what you already know and analyzing new reports that come in. Aside from Leia and Mon Mothma, it doesn’t look like they have all that many people here who knew any of the Empire’s highest ranking people personally, and Leia and Mothma were senators. They knew the politicians. You knew the military.”

Mara lifted her head and met his eyes at last. “That’s solid reasoning. Maybe you should be the analyst. The question comes back to how far they trust me.”

“If they’re smart, they’ll have you write reports about things they already know and can verify first.”

“And once they decide I’m reliable, shift me into analysis,” Mara agreed with a sigh. “Should have thought of that myself. You’re making me look bad today.”

“You have more things on your mind.” Luke trailed a finger down the length of her thigh and rested his hand on her knee. “Did you even eat lunch today?”

Mara shrugged. “I’m fine.”

“Which means you didn’t.”

She looked at him sideways. “I wasn’t hungry.”

Luke sighed. “Remember what I said about having to make sure you ate when we weren’t together? I didn’t think that extended to absences of only a few hours.”

Mara lifted her hand to his cheek. “You worry too much,” she said, twitching him a teasing smile.

“Only about you.” Luke leaned in for a kiss, then slid her legs off his and stood. “It’s almost dinnertime. Let’s go see if we can be first in line, so I can make sure you get double portions.”

“Don’t you dare,” Mara said, but she was almost laughing.

“Watch me,” Luke said, pulling her to her feet. “Afterward, I’ll take you to the hangar and show you my new ship.”

“Do you think there’s an empty crate or something in the hangar they don’t need, that we could salvage?” Mara asked. “So we could put the ship’s caf maker in here. For when we don’t want to be with the whole base.”

“Huh,” Luke said, looking around their little conversation area. Yes, there was just room between the edge of the table and the wall where they might be able to fit such a thing. “That’s a good idea.”

Mara smiled, more to herself than at him, and Luke felt himself smile in response anyway. However frustrating her day had been, something had obviously gone right. He knew she wouldn’t let him keep his arm around her shoulders in front of anyone else, but he took her hand in his and held it tightly, then kissed her forehead and tugged her hand gently. “Come on, let’s go eat.”

 

Having read up to this point I feel this is a broadly plausible (Luke randomly meeting Mara can be chalked up to the will of the Force) AU that generally nails how it feels these characters would act under these circumstances. Luke, in particular, makes a great deal of sense and feels spot on. Canonically he had a tendency to fall for his various girlfriends hard and fast, so what basically unfolds as love at first sight with Mara works perfectly. Mara's side of things is a little more challenging, but I think the plot you've setup, where she ultimately chooses Luke over Palpatine but only after he forces her to choose works and it critically maintains hubris as Palpatine's central flaw - and honestly underestimating Mara's self-determination is probably a better plot point than underestimating the combat prowess of Ewoks.

 

@Mechalich

Well, it can really just be chalked up to narrative necessity. Pretty much every story involves random coincidences, just like life. The important thing isn't that coincidences exist, but what people do with them

Thank you!

I'm glad it works! Though I do just want to say real quick that because this story happens at about the time of ANH (roughly a year later) and there were already considerable canon divergences well before that, in that Owen and Beru died four years before this story begins and Luke subsequently left Tatooine early and joined the Imperial academy instead of the Alliance, basically all canon sources have been jettisoned from the get-go here, so they're irrelevant

I'm basing the characterization and personal interactions on the OT, which is the foundation for all SW and certainly for most of the main characters in this story, and TTT, which launched the modern EU and introduced Mara, as well as Allegiance and Choices of One to some extent because those show us how Mara's creator envisioned her characterization at the age she is in this story, and a pertinent detail from VotF upon which her entire character arc here pivots (but more about that below).

At the root of this entire premise was the question of how Luke and Mara's relationship would have developed if they could have met without all the baggage that was between them in TTT, and we see in ANH and ESB that Luke is still very impulsive, and we see in TTT that he was drawn to Mara almost immediately (he sensed that she'd been hit and incapacitated in the Katana fleet battle, and Han observed that the kid looked like he'd lost his best friend rather than someone who was trying to kill him). And when I start with the OT characterization of Luke, the Allegiance and CoO characterization of Mara, the obvious immediate chemistry between them from TTT, and no obstacles between them aside from differences in rank and social standing, this is what developed naturally

In VotF, when Luke suggests that Mara may have had a role model to base her integrity off of, she replied, "not a chance. There wasn't a single person in the inner court with a scrap of what I'd consider virtue or morality." And this is Mara's pivot in Reclamation: Luke is the first person she's met in that environment who does possess virtue and morality. He's different, and that fascination (and draw to those traits of his that she shares) combined with the inherent attraction between them is why she gets distracted by him in the first place, and why she agrees to see him again. And his influence and obvious example of how a virtuous and moral person acts contrasts sharply enough with Palpatine (and Luke has already sown the seeds of doubt with his reaction to her personal history, and she already loves him and knows it) that when she's confronted with Palpatine's open admission of an action she's already horrified by, and that she knows Luke is horrified by (and Palpatine also turns so harshly on her for what Mara feels is, at worse, essentially her first offense, and he characterizes both Luke and her feelings for him as tawdry and disposable) she clearly sees the right thing to do in an instant, and she does that right thing no matter how hard it is. There are a lot of details that went into the groundwork for her reaction, but the core of it is Mara's own integrity, once she's given the tools (via Luke's example and contrast) to see what that integrity demands of her in this particular circumstance.

This corresponds with her sudden realization of Luke's identity in TLC. Mara had spent five years with the voice of the man she'd been raised from near-infancy to revere and obey unquestioningly ringing in her head, telling her to kill Luke Skywalker, but what happened when the Noghri let on that Luke was Vader's son? In an instant, she realized that the last command was a lie, that Palpatine had betrayed her for the sake of vengeance against Vader, and she defied him:

Suddenly, finally, after all these years, the last elusive piece had fallen into place. The Emperor didn't want her to kill Skywalker for his own sake. It was, instead, one final act of vengeance against his father.

YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.

And in the space of a few heartbeats everything Mara had believed about herself - her hatred, her mission, her entire life - had turned from certainty to confusion.

YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER. YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER. YOU WILL KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.

"No," she muttered at the voice through clenched teeth. "Not like that. My decision. My reasons."
​

It's not very many people who would even acknowledge such a complete overturning of everything they'd ever known or believed - most people would deny or rationalize. Mara doesn't. Mara sees the lie, she acknowledges it as such despite just how thoroughly it upends her own life and sense of self. And more than that, she immediately pushes back against the lie. This is a woman who was trained from such a young age that she can't even remember her own parents to obey Palpatine implicitly. We see that automatic and reverent obedience from her multiple times during Allegiance and CoO; it's a reflex for her. But when the undeniable truth smacks her in the face, she doesn't fight it, she aligns with it. She turns her back on everything she knew and believed, not for Luke's sake - they certainly aren't even friends yet at this point, never mind anything more - but for the sake of the truth, and acting with integrity and morality.

That's who Mara is. That's the essence of her as a person, that should be the baseline of all her characterization: she can be misled, but she won't lie to herself. She'll face up to immense pain for the sake of doing the right thing, and she'll do it immediately, and she'll be ferocious in her determination.

And that's why Mara chooses Luke when Palpatine forces her hand in this story. Not even because she loves Luke, but because Palpatine - in his arrogance, yes - makes it incredibly plain that he is in no way the paragon of virtue she'd previously believed. This is her TLC moment transferred to Reclamation, where her life is turned upside down by the revelation of Palpatine's deceit, and she chooses truth. Palpatine's hubris is a key component, but it's secondary to Mara's own integrity and determination.

Not only have I never minded the Ewoks, but the older I get, the more apt I think their inclusion was. The whole Rebellion vs Empire conflict was always insanely lopsided and openly portrayed as such - "rebellions are built on hope", after all. The Alliance never had a chance with straight head-on military might, and to end the conflict by a sudden reversal of that would have been a narrative and thematic cheat. The Ewoks are the perfect ally for the Alliance in that final climactic battle because they parallel the smaller, more personal conflict simultaneously happening on the Death Star: Palpatine and the Empire are arrogant; their overconfidence is their weakness. "[The Death Star's] defenses are designed around a direct large scale assault...The Empire doesn't consider a small one-man fighter to be any threat" - yet it was that small one-man fighter that saved the day in ANH. In ESB, the Empire brought in that ridiculously oversized military might, and we saw both on the larger scale (Hoth) and the more personal (Vader vs Lando, Han/Leia, Luke) how hopeless head-to-head resistance was. The Alliance could never outfight the Empire; Luke could never overpower the Emperor. The Alliance succeeds by slipping that snubfighter through the outer defenses, because the Empire didn't even accept such a small thing as a threat. Luke succeeds because he believes so wholeheartedly that Darth Vader, of all people, still has enough good in him to take a stand. And the Ewoks succeed, not because they have overwhelming combat prowess, but because this has been the whole story all along, from the very beginning. The Ewoks are the final small threat that the Empire ignored, but in exactly the wrong place and at exactly the wrong time. It's perfect thematic continuity, and I, for one, love it

 

Chapter Eighteen



Luke led the way to the mess hall, but Mara could have easily made it without a guide. Thanks to Leia’s tour this morning, she had nearly the entire base’s layout memorized now. She wondered if Leia would have shown her anything at all if she’d known how thoroughly Mara had been trained to memorize her surroundings as quickly as possible. Probably not. But then, maybe she was wrong. Maybe Leia did actually trust her. She had seemed sincere when she’d said so, but Mara wasn’t sure whether that was genuine sincerity or a momentary impulse.

Mara was surprised by how much she hoped it was genuine.

As it turned out, they were in fact among the first to line up for dinner. To her relief, Luke didn’t follow through on his threat of insisting on getting her double portions. He did, however, choose one of the larger tables near the center of the room rather than something off in a corner, as she would have. Part of that, she was sure, was just Luke’s natural gregariousness. Part, she suspected, was him trying to subtly drag her into being part of the crowd as well. That was a hard thing for her. She’d been trained to blend into a crowd when needed, yes, but that was superficial friendliness, a front so that she could analyze strengths and weaknesses of targets and devise a plan of attack. It dismayed her, now that she had stepped out of the role of Emperor’s Hand, that she couldn’t turn off that part of her brain. Always, behind her words and her attempts to be just a normal person, to just try to connect with people as Luke seemed to do so easily, the calculations were running, unbidden.

Even now, as Luke guided her to the table, smiling at everyone they passed, greeting those he’d met and introducing her, as she tried to smile and follow his lead and just look normal, like everyone else around her, a part of her brain clinically noted the room’s exits, the way the chairs were light enough to throw, the fact that the pilot off to her left had a slight limp and should therefore be attacked on his weak side if need be, how many people in the room were carrying blasters that would have to be accounted for if violence broke out.

Survival instincts, she told herself. They would serve her well no matter where she was, what she was doing. She didn’t want to turn off something so useful.

Deep down, though, it scared her a little that she might not be able to. Once, on the occasions that she’d thought about her training at all beyond the effort to excel in everything that she was taught, she’d considered it simply another tool to be used when needed. The more tools you had and the more skillfully you used them, the better chance you had of success and survival. Now, she wondered if she’d just been programmed, like a computer or a droid.

Tycho and Hobbie were the first to join them, and Mara was relieved. She wasn’t exactly comfortable with them yet, but certainly more comfortable than with anyone else here besides Luke.

Leia and Winter were next, and Mara didn’t know exactly what to feel. They were at least familiar, and Leia in particular was still obviously trying to be friendly to them all, and maybe a little extra friendly to her. Maybe. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking on her part.

And why would she be hoping for something like that at all? She had Luke; she didn’t need anyone else. And it wasn’t like she knew how to respond to such overtures, anyway. Mara smiled at them as genuinely as she knew how and resisted the sudden urge to throw her meal tray in frustration. Luke managed to squeeze her knee reassuringly under the table while never missing a beat in his conversation with Tycho, and Mara ducked her head in contemplation of her mashed tuberoot so that no one would see her blink back sudden tears.

It was fine, she told herself as the others conversed. She was just a little overwhelmed. All of her training had been practical, with emotional matters rarely mentioned except as tools to be used against a target, or to be simulated as part of a cover. Her own emotions were always to be downplayed, never to interfere with her objectives. Now it felt as though the emotions she’d unthinkingly suppressed her whole life were rising up all at once, no longer willing to be ignored, and Mara wasn’t very good at knowing how to deal with even one emotion, let alone a dozen in the span of an hour. But she could learn. She could learn anything, if she had to. She just had to withstand the wave until it subsided to a manageable level.

After dinner, Luke did take her to the hangar, where they wandered among the X-wings and A-wings and Y-wings and discussed how the ships compared to each other and to various models of TIEs, and Mara gradually relaxed, with only Luke’s unconditional acceptance and the comforting familiarity of immersing herself in technical matters.

They met a dark-haired man about their own age near the X-wing Luke had pointed out as the one assigned to him, and Luke introduced him as Wedge Antilles.

“Wedge is putting together the squadron I’ll be in,” he explained. “Wedge, this is my wife, Mara Jade.”

He said it very casually, as though he’d said the phrase “my wife” a thousand times before, but through the Force Mara caught his hidden burst of pride, and the warmth that sent through her made her smile a little more brightly at Wedge.

“Glad to meet you, Mara,” Wedge said, shaking her hand. “Have you ever flown an X-wing yourself?”

“No,” she said, glancing at Luke a little uncertainly. “But I’ve flown TIEs and some other standard Imperial models.”

“He knows we defected from the Empire,” Luke said, squeezing her hand.

“Oh, yeah,” Wedge said, patting the X-wing they stood beside as though it was a beloved pet. “We have plenty of Imperial defectors here. We don’t care so much where someone comes from. It’s what they’re willing to fight for, you know? The way I see it, if someone from the Empire can see clearly enough to know that it needs to be stopped and they’re strong enough to make that commitment themselves even when it means leaving what they know behind, then that’s someone I can trust to fight at my side and watch my back. Mara, you should come down and fly the sims with us sometime. Former TIE pilots are still a minority here, so we could learn some things from you. And it’d give you a chance to try out our starfighter models, too.”

“I’d like that,” Mara said sincerely. She did enjoy flying, and had rarely gotten the chance to fly fighters after she’d finished her initial training on the subject.

“Any time you like,” Wedge said. “We’ll be planetside until we finish getting this squadron together, so there’s plenty of time for sims and other training. I’ve been thinking about organizing some hand-to-hand lessons for our pilots to help keep them busy in the meantime—can’t hurt to know how to fight outside of a cockpit too, right? But the only person I have qualified to teach the subject right now is—well, undisciplined. Talented, but undisciplined. I’d have to figure out how to make him be serious for more than ten minutes at a time, and unless we’re in a dogfight, that’s a challenge with Wes.”

“Is that so?” Luke asked, so very casually, and Mara glared at him, knowing what was coming. “Mara here is an expert at hand-to-hand.”

Wedge looked at her with a new spark of interest. “Are you? Happen to be interested in teaching a bunch of reprobates how to knock each other out properly? I could probably get you some time in an actual X-wing in return if you wanted it. Not an official mission, but as part of a training flight or something. Unless you’re going to be assigned to another squadron?”

“No,” Mara said hesitantly. “At least, I don’t think I’ll be assigned to piloting. I don’t have an assignment yet, but I mostly worked in Intelligence with the Empire. Luke thinks that’s where I’ll end up here, too.”

“Oh, definitely, if you have Intel experience,” Wedge agreed. “Pilots and Intel, we always need more of both. Well, we always need more of everyone and everything, but fighter pilots and Intel are specialized areas that take a long time to teach from scratch, so if we get someone with previous experience in either, it’s a real catch. I bet Mothma and the others are thrilled to have you. But seriously, if you have time to teach a few classes in between your own work, I’d consider myself in your debt. Hopefully it won’t take too long to finalize the details for Rogue Squadron, but until we do, I have a bunch of bored pilots on my hands, and that’s nothing but trouble.” He shoved his unruly hair back and sighed.

Luke raised his eyebrows at Mara, and despite the twist of nervousness deep in her gut, she knew he was right. She had to try to fit in here. Personal interactions, now that they were genuine and really mattered in her life rather than being passing mission requirements, kind of scared her. But you didn’t let fear dictate to you, not ever, and at least hand-to-hand combat was familiar territory.

“I don’t have any obligations tomorrow,” Mara said. “At least, right now I don’t. If you wanted me to come by.”

Wedge’s face lit up, and it made him look even younger. Mara thought she might like him, too. Luke was still the only real friend she had, but she’d never before liked so many people as she did right now. She wasn’t entirely sure what to make of the feeling.

“That would be fantastic, if you could,” Wedge said. “If you really don’t have anything going tomorrow, why don’t you come over with Luke after breakfast? We have sims scheduled for the first part of the morning; you could join us for that and then you could run a class until lunch.”

Luke was positively beaming at her, and it both pleased her and made her feel slightly awkward. “That sounds good,” she said.

“Great,” Wedge said, grinning. “I’ll make sure they behave for you. Mostly. As much as I can. Then I’ll see you both tomorrow morning, unless there’s anything else you need tonight?”

“Actually,” Luke said, “do you have any empty crates we could take off your hands?”

---

Ten minutes later they were heading back to their apartment, Luke carrying the larger crate and Mara carrying two smaller ones. “That went well,” Luke said cheerfully.

“Yes,” Mara agreed. “Wedge seems nice.”

“I like him,” Luke said. “I think he’ll be a good squadron leader. He seems the type to keep everyone in line without getting fanatical about it.” They reached their apartment, and Luke set his crate down to open the door for her, then followed her in. “Okay, this one goes in here, those in the bedroom.”

Mara set her crates down and watched Luke slide the larger crate sideways between the wall and the little low table that sat in the center of the conversation area.

“There,” he said, after only a brief struggle to get it to fit. “We can put the caf maker on top and the mugs inside the crate. That will be nice, to stay in here occasionally and have some extra time to ourselves.”

“It was Leia’s suggestion,” Mara admitted. “I don’t know if I would have thought of it. I’ve never really—“ She paused, and waved a hand vaguely around the room. “Done this before. What exactly are we doing? Is it decorating?”

Luke smiled at her. It was an understanding sort of smile, and she’d seen it from him before. It was the smile he gave her when he knew she was uncertain about something. Somehow it never made her feel self-conscious or lacking because of her ignorance; rather, it made her feel like she had an ally as she was learning. She’d never quite understood how he did that.

“We can call it decorating,” he said now. “Aunt Beru would have called it ‘setting up housekeeping.’ I don’t think the terminology matters so much. We’re just making our living space more—” He shrugged. “Livable, I guess.”

“I never did much to my apartment in the palace,” Mara said. “It was already set up when I got it.”

Luke wound his way through the narrow space between the table and the couch to come back to her side and hug her. “No reason to do anything to it if it already worked for you. We’ll figure out how to make this space work together.” He picked up the crates she’d carried and grinned at her. “Like this.”

She followed him to the bedroom and watched from beside the ‘fresher door as he carefully wedged first one long, slender crate, then the other, standing on their ends between the bed and the wall, at the head. There were only a handful of centimeters between each crate and the side of the bed; they’d probably have to move the crates each time they changed the sheets. But that was probably just the way it was in such a small space, and now they each had a tiny bedside table. She smiled at him as he edged sideways back toward her—the space on either side of the bed was narrow enough that neither of them could really walk properly through it.

“What do you think?” he asked, standing beside her and putting an arm around her shoulders.

She slid an arm around his waist and rested her head on his shoulder. “It’s perfect.”

“Well, almost,” Luke said. “We need lamps on the tables, so we don’t have to rely on the overhead.” He gestured toward the lights set into the ceiling, certainly sufficient for such a small area, but awkward for a shared space, she agreed. If one of them needed light while the other slept, they really didn’t have any options right now. It was either the awake one fumbled in the dark, or the sleeping one got woken up by the brighter overhead lights.

“And where are we going to get bedside lamps?” she asked, glancing up at him. “I didn’t notice any furnishings shops in the area.”

“Funny,” Luke replied, lifting an eyebrow at her. “There’ll be something in the storerooms, or I might wind up with an assignment escorting a freighter somewhere where I could stop by a market or something. In the meantime, we can bring glowrods from the ship when we get the caf machine tomorrow; they’ll do for the time being.”

“Hmm.” She put her other arm around him and sighed, mostly contentedly. As overwhelming a day as it had been, she felt much better now that it was just the two of them and the rest of the base was shut out until morning. Still… “Luke? Did we have a whirlwind courtship?”

He laughed. “I guess you could call it that.”

“I didn’t, Leia did.” She lifted her head to look at him properly. “She asked how long we’d known each other, and when I told her, she said I’d had a whirlwind courtship. She said lots of people know each other for years before they get married.”

“Well, then,” Luke said. “Aren’t we lucky, to not have wasted all that time?”

Mara smiled and reached up to kiss his cheek. “But you are sure? You don’t regret it?”

“Mara,” he said, looking at her seriously, “I knew I wanted to marry you long before we left Coruscant.”

She pulled back to get a better look at his face. “You did? Really?”

He shifted her around so that she was standing in front of him as he leaned against the wall, their arms around each other’s waists. “You’re easy to fall in love with.”

“After only a few months?”

“No,” he said with a smile. “Pretty sure I was in love with you before I left that ballroom the first night we met. Would have married you three months into our relationship if I could have figured out how to make it work.”

Mara felt like she might actually be blushing, and in her horror at that thought she said the first thing she could think of to cover up the sudden surge of her own emotions that she didn’t know what to do with. “So that’s why you wanted me to defect.”

“No,” he said again, lifting a hand to smooth her hair. “But I wouldn’t have left without you. And once you did agree to leave, well. Our different ranks and assignments didn’t really matter any more. Or what the Emperor would have thought of it.”

“Oh,” Mara said, and leaned forward to hide her face against his chest.

He stroked her hair some more, then asked, “You don’t regret it?”

“You know I don’t,” she whispered.

Luke held her very close and kissed the top of her head. “Good.”

And in that moment, Mara was perfectly happy.

---

The beeping of her wrist chrono pulled Mara from sleep. She reached out blindly, patting the surface of her new bedside table until she found it, then turned off the alarm and dropped the chrono back on the table. Groaning, she rolled back onto her side and pulled the blankets up to her ear. She felt the bed shift as beside her Luke inched closer. He slid his arm over her waist, his fingers stroking her back lightly.

“Don’t you start,” she murmured into the pillow. “I already don’t want to get out of bed.”

“I didn’t do anything,” he protested.

Mara opened an eye to look at him, sleep-tousled and unshaven. It was a nice sight. She put her own arm over his waist and pressed herself against his chest, breathing in his scent. “I hate mornings.”

Luke laughed softly and shifted his arm so that his fingertips traced soothing circles between her shoulders. “You’ve gotten up earlier than this thousands of times, I know you have.”

“Doesn’t mean I have to like it,” she muttered.

His sense through the Force was warm and gentle and amused. “You still have to get up. You have to teach me and my new squadmates how to beat each other up.”

Mara kissed his throat sleepily. “Didn’t you get self-defense lessons at the academy?”

“Sure,” he said, beginning to trail his fingers up and down her spine. “But not like you did. I am looking forward—” he kissed her temple “—to completing—” then below her ear “—my education.” His lips trailed down her throat and settled at the join of her neck and shoulder, and Mara allowed it briefly, curling her fingers around his shoulder and arching her neck to grant him better access before reluctantly pushing him away.

“I’m serious, unless you really want to explain to Wedge why we didn’t show up this morning, you’d better stop that.”

Luke rolled onto his back and muttered something that she didn’t recognize but which sounded like a curse. Against her better judgment, she reached out to stroke his arm. “Honeymoon. Beach. At least a month. We just have to survive that long.”

“Oh, I’m surviving that long,” Luke muttered. “No matter what it takes. And it’ll be at least two months to make up for this.” He turned his head to look at her. “You want the refresher first?”

“No,” she murmured, burrowing a little deeper into the pillow. “You go ahead.”

He leaned over to kiss her cheek, then sat up. “Don’t fall back asleep.”

Mara closed her eyes and listened contentedly as he stood and rummaged in his bag for his clothes—they really did need to unpack properly—which got tossed on the foot of the bed. The refresher door opened, and she heard the shower turn on. She rather agreed with Luke’s cursing: they hadn’t had a single full day to themselves since their wedding.

Actually, she realized, they’d never had a single full day to themselves. That didn’t seem fair at all.

Well, not much for it, she supposed, except to do as she’d said and survive long enough to reach a point where they could have normal lives. What exactly did that entail, she wondered? The Emperor would never stop looking for her, not after a betrayal like hers. Luke would always be listed in the Imperial military as a traitor, subject to execution for desertion. Nothing would change either of those circumstances.

Unless—unless the Rebellion actually won the conflict? What did that look like? Overthrowing the Emperor? Incapacitating Vader? Capturing or destroying the Death Star? And what of the massive fleet, and the stormtrooper corps? Surely this little ragtag group couldn’t manage any of that, let alone all of it?

Mara groaned and pushed herself upright, rubbing her hands along her face and finger-combing her disheveled hair back. It was too early to try to figure out the course of the galaxy. She would get up, she would meet Luke’s new squadron and teach a combat class, she would maybe track Leia or Ben down after lunch and see if someone had found a place for her yet. And she and Luke would find a balance here between their new marriage and their new duties, and they would hold on to that idea of a normal life.

She climbed reluctantly out of bed and smoothed the blankets, then reached for her own bag. The collection of clothes she’d brought with her was fortunately versatile, but she thought wistfully of her extensive wardrobe back in the palace—not so much the dozens of fancy gowns, though there were a few of those she’d been fond of and would miss, but the vast collection of outfits designed for workouts and sparring. Still, there were some items here that would do for a combat session. She laid out her underthings, a sleeveless jumpsuit that fit snugly and stretched well, and a pair of soft-soled ankle boots, then found her comb and a handful of hairpins.

Just then Luke reentered the bedroom, a towel around his waist, and raised an eyebrow at her. Mara lifted a finger. “None of that,” she said. “We have to work.”

He made a face at her and she laughed, slipping past him for her own shower. Afterward, she dressed and braided her hair as an already fully dressed Luke sat on the bed with his datapad full of X-wing schematics and pretended he wasn’t watching her. By the time she started pinning her braid into a coil at the nape of her neck, Luke had given up the pretense of not watching. “You know,” he said, “that brawl in the cantina is the only time I’ve actually seen you fight.”

“That wasn’t a brawl,” Mara said, securing her last hairpin.

“No,” he agreed. “Which makes me wonder if you’re just going to do the same to each of us. Your class would be over in five minutes.”

“What would be the point of that? I’m supposed to be teaching you those maneuvers, not just incapacitating you all for the fun of it.”

Luke grinned. “See, that choice of words just makes me worry.”

Mara reached over to pat his knee. “I’ll go easy on you because you’re my favorite.”

Luke caught her hand and entwined their fingers. “The fringe benefits of marriage just keep on coming.” He set the datapad down and stood up, still holding her hand. “Don’t get me wrong, I’d rather stay here. But this does promise to be an entertaining morning. I’ll be untouchable in this squadron because everyone will be scared of my wife.”

Mara laughed, and held his hand a little tighter as she let him lead her from their apartment.

 

I failed to review each chapter as you posted it, and because these were big fat chapters my review won't be doing them justice now But I'll do my best.

I loved the Leia & Mara interaction in the penultimate chapter. Leia was trying so hard to be friendly, and Mara was trying so hard to prove that she's trustworthy, and they were just talking past each other! And while it makes perfect sense that the Alliance would sweep on Mara's intel datacards like hungry beetles, Leia doesn't quite get that Mara expects to be perceived as a security risk and therefore surrenders her weapons, because Leia knows just how many Imperial defectors are members of the Alliance – and for once, Mara is in the position where she has no idea.

This was such a great moment, and all the conversation that followed about the "whirlwind courtship". Under the circumstances we tend to forget that these two are young women barely out of their teens and figuring out their place in life.

Yet another fantastic moment!

I also loved all the Mara introspection and the fact that her understanding of interpersonal relationships is stunted, first with her comment to herself that she can't just leave her training behind and not look at people as potential targets, and second (and most importantly) that she can't actually handle people being genuinely friendly to her.

This was so revealing. She can't even understand yet that a person who is whole establishes relationships with people as a whole. Her only relationship before meeting Luke was the Emperor, and now Luke is occupying that space, but she still needs to realise that this space can be so much bigger.

I am so settling along for the ride to see Wes have his sorry behind handed to him by Mara in the next chapter, you have no idea

I guess this qualifies as progress!

You'd be surprised, girl!

This bit of banter made me laugh! And, somehow, I do feel that someone will be incapacitated by the end of the session, and that Mara's reputation in the base will be quite something after that.

All caught up! I'm enjoying this story very much, and I'll be sitting over there waiting patiently for more.

 

Superb mixture of getting acclimated to the Rebellion and to married life Your Luke and Mara are so natural and wonderful with each other, confiding, tender, and teasing by turns. Superbly realistic progression of gaining trust amongst Leia and the rest of the Alliance and Mara. She really grapples with the whole connecting to others thing as far as feeling she belongs.

 

@Chyntuck

Yes, indeed, there's a lot these two just don't understand about each other yet. And honestly, they're both under an awful lot of stress and dealing with very recent and very deep trauma. When you consider all of that and how strong-willed both of them are, and how they've grown up on opposite sides of the galaxy's political divide, it's not surprising that it would take them a little while to begin to be on the same page.

Ha, honestly, in this story Mara 100% had a whirlwind courtship, I might as well hang a lampshade on it And of course, doing so helps to expand on her characterization: she doesn't at all realize it; she has no idea how long the average relationship takes to go from first meeting to wedding, because she's never had any life outside of service to Palpatine.

One of the failings of the EU was that so many stories were so plot-driven that they didn't take much time to either establish or expand on the relationships between the characters. Not all the stories; some writers were actually very good at that. But a lot of them. And well, me, I'm a character study writer to the core. I base stories off the introspection and personal interactions that I really want to write, and plot is very, very secondary And Leia and Mara's friendship didn't get nearly enough page time in the EU, if you ask me. These two have a lot in common: they're both incredibly intelligent, capable, courageous, strong, cool under pressure. They were also raised in a rare combination of utter luxury and extraordinarily high expectations (Leia, of course, had a family who genuinely loved her, so she's better off than Mara here, but she was still the youngest Senator the Republic Senate had ever had, and the crown princess of an entire planet). Writing their relationship, from the initial personality clash on into genuine friendship, is one of my favorite parts of this story.

Mara in TTT had had five years of life away from her existence as Emperor's Hand. It wasn't exactly a normal life, no; she was on the run, forever isolated, scraping to get by, and haunted by the last command. But it involved far more genuine interactions with people than she'd had as an elite undercover agent with no personal life at all. She wasn't emotionally healthy yet, nor particularly at ease making emotional connections with other people, but she was making progress in that direction. This Mara is about seven years younger, and has never had those training wheel experiences. It's like she reflected back in the very beginning, that one of Luke's strong attractions was that he cared about knowing who Mara was, not who the Emperor's Hand was. She's comfortable with Luke at this point, but they've always interacted one on one, and now she's in the middle of this large group of people who are all more like Luke than like her, and it's overwhelming, and she knows she doesn't fit in, and she doesn't know how to change that. And for someone used to being in control at all times, that has to be terrifying.

In Choices of One, there are a couple of moments where Mara reflects that she doesn't have any personal connections in her life, but either immediately or after only a moment's vague regret, she thinks that she doesn't need such things anyway, she has a purpose in life, and she has the Emperor's approval. So yeah, during her time as Hand, she honestly thought that she wasn't missing anything important in life. Here she has Luke, and she loves him enough to choose him over Palpatine when that choice is forced on her (and she realizes how Palpatine's been lying to her, and Luke was telling the truth), but it would have to feel awkward, I think, for her to even consider letting anyone else in her life like that. At the same time, she sees that all these other people have multiple relationships with others, so there's an undercurrent of self-consciousness and defensiveness here - she doesn't have what everyone else seems to have, but then, she really doesn't need it, either; she has Luke. Whereas Luke, of course, wants very much for her to make friends and have a full, ordinary life, because he does know both what she's missing and what she has to offer.

It'll be brief, because I can't write action to save my life, and written action scenes in general bore me far too much to try to overcome that weakness, but hopefully it'll be worthwhile despite that

It absolutely does! At least she recognizes and acknowledges that feeling of liking other people, even if she doesn't yet know what the next step might be

True Though to be perfectly honest, that section was also me laying out all the things the Rebels somehow need to address for this story to have a satisfying ending, and thinking, "what have I gotten myself into"

That's pretty much how I see it too I'm imagining her being held in the same admiring awe that Shalla Nelprin was in the Wraith Squadron books. But the best thing of all, which is entirely canon, is how very proud of her Luke is

Patience will be good from here on out, I'm nearly at the end of the ready-to-go chapters, with plenty more to write But we'll get there eventually

@WarmNyota_SweetAyesha

Thank you! Zahn did such a good job of crafting Mara both as her own person and as a complement to Luke that they're always easy to write together. And it is fun writing a younger and less experienced Mara trying to find her way around just being herself and having her own life