Chapter 1

A/N- The line in italics is from The Last Command, by Timothy Zahn. Have also fixed some formatting errors; so much for preserving it in the upload!

A hooded man sat in the deep shadows of the spaceport cantina, his eyes gleaming with the reflected light from the bar. He had been in the same place for hours; eyes staring blankly at the wall in front him, the hand in his lap periodically clenching so tightly the knuckles stood out white against his dark cloak. The tumbler on the table stood empty; none of the serving maids would go near him and he hadn't made any attempt to retrieve a second round. The barman would normally have thrown him out for spending so few credits and taking up a valuable table, but something about the man was dangerous, even more so than the regular clientele at the cantina, which was saying something; so the man was left to his own devices.

Abruptly he nodded, as if he'd come to some sort of conclusion. He reached inside his cloak and pulled out a tiny, stoppered vial, studying it in the half-light of the room. He popped out the stopper with his thumb, then sniffed the luminescent green liquid that swirled inside the glass. His hand shook as he brought it to his lips with a grimace. "Imperatur vult," he murmured as he tipped back the vial and swallowed.


Behind her, she heard Luke open the roof door. "Hang on a minute," she called after him. "I'll come with you."

Luke smiled slightly and turned, hand still on the door. "You're sure?" he asked as she pushed away from the wall.

Mara rolled her eyes and shrugged. "About the whole endeavor? Maybe. About me heading it up? Not at all." She paused for a moment, looking pensive as she walked through the door frame. "I don't see how I'm someone both sides can trust."

Luke glanced up, slightly startled by her uncharacteristic insecurity. "How can you even ask that? The smugglers trust you as far as they trust anyone and just look what you've done for the New Republic: it's going to be very difficult for anyone to ignore your help on Wayland."

Mara shot him a wry half-smile as they turned a corner. "I have a hard time ignoring my help on Wayland," she said as she gestured to the bruise fading around her eye.

Luke chuckled as he pushed the call button for the turbo-lift. "Even with a healing trance I'm still not feeling at my peak; Force lightning seems to take a while to come back from." At the reminder he'd been present at not one, but two scenarios where he'd encountered someone that powerful in the dark side, Mara's expression slipped. Luke was instantly contrite as he realized his mistake. "Too soon?" he asked quietly.

Mara took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she considered his words. "Look, Skywalker, " she finally said. "It's only been ten days since I killed that clone; ten days since I stopped hearing the Emperor's voice in my head every time I looked at you. Logically, it shouldn't bother me anymore. I know what really happened. I know the kind of person he was." She pushed a hand through her hair in a distracted gesture and entered the turbolift as the doors hissed open. "I know it shouldn't still bother me," she repeated wearily, "but it does."

Luke nodded solemnly and pressed the button for the floor of the conference room. Mara leaned against the silver wall of the lift and closed her eyes, giving Luke the opportunity to look her over. She'd taken her hair down from the tightly woven braid she'd worn earlier and the bright strands tangled around her shoulders. Her fair skin was paler than normal; a stark contrast to the fading bruises and dark smudges under her eyes. Her dark green jumpsuit hid any number of other injuries and hung loosely on her frame. She looked battered, far too frail, and exhausted.

They'd been back on Coruscant three days and had both been engaged in endless meetings and debriefings. The standard week long journey back from Wayland had been, thankfully, rather uneventful. Han, Leia, Chewie, and the droids had flown back in the Falcon, while Luke and Lando had accepted bunks on the Wild Karrde. Not only had they wanted to give Han and Leia some privacy, but the crew bunk space on the Falcon had, in short, the worst beds in the galaxy. Luke and Mara had limped on-board and been sent to their respective bunks straight away. After some food, Luke had immediately put himself in a hibernation trance and had awakened three days later feeling largely better. He'd wandered to the cockpit for lack of anything better to do and was startled to see Mara sitting at the controls, plotting a course. "Should you be up and around?" he'd asked, concerned. She'd taken a serious beating on Wayland; she had a black eye, a split lip, a sprained ankle, and too many bruises to count. Additionally, he was well aware of how much the burns on her chest must hurt. His own burns at the hands of the Emperor had not healed for weeks, despite his attempts to hasten the process.

"Shut up, Farmboy," she'd growled. "These hyperspace routes don't plot themselves." Resisting the urge to say that, no, technically they didn't plot themselves, but that's what a NavComputer was for, Luke retreated back the way he'd come. He wasn't at his best and wasn't in the mood to deal with a very prickly Mara Jade. A meal and a few more days of sleep and healing sounded like a very good plan: even Jedi have their limits.

The second time he awakened, the ship was preparing for the descent into Coruscant. He'd been wandering around the corridors, poking into various rooms when he'd run into a preoccupied Talon Karrde. "Skywalker!" he'd exclaimed with a smile as he'd looked up from the data pad he'd been reading. "Feeling better?"

Luke had smiled back, genuinely pleased to see the man. "Fine, Karrde, thanks. Just a bit sore still."

"You and Mara took quite a beating; glad to see you're alright, though you look like hell," the older man said as he thumped Luke on the back.

"Thanks," Luke said dryly. "I saw Mara at the controls a couple of days ago. I know you run a tight ship, but is she well enough for that? Shouldn't she have been given the trip back to rest?" he asked.

Karrde laughed without much humor. "Skywalker, we tried. Short of tying her to bunk, there wasn't much we could do. I'd much prefer she stayed in bed for the entire duration of the flight: she'd already been out of commission for a month with the neural regeneration and then hopped straight into all this. But Mara is. . .Mara." Luke nodded grimly. He knew exactly what that meant: stubborn, head-strong, and volatile. Not a combination to be challenged lightly. Karrde looked down at the datapad in his hands and turned it over thoughtfully. "It's not just physical damage is it?" he asked quietly. Luke hesitated a moment, then simply shook his head. It wasn't his story to tell. Karrde sighed sadly. "I thought not." An alarm pinged, alerting them of the beginning of the descent into the atmosphere. "Better strap in," Karrde threw over his shoulder as he started down the corridor, "You don't need any additional bruises."

The New Republic had a medical team waiting for them upon arrival, but their injuries had been relatively minor and not nearly severe enough to land them in a med-center or the Bacta tank, a fact for which Luke was eternally grateful. They'd been rushed into a debriefing before they'd even been given a chance to change clothes and the pace had continued, unabated, for the last three days. They were all exhausted: Han had finally threatened to kidnap his wife if they weren't allowed to go home. They had newborns that weren't going to raise themselves, he'd told Mon Mothma when all other pleas had fallen on deaf ears. The council had relented, but neither Luke nor Mara had such leverage. Luke suspected that he might just be able to walk out of meeting and defend himself with: "I'm the last of the Jedi," and it wouldn't be questioned too much. But that didn't seem ethical somehow.

The chiming of the lift brought him out of his reverie and he glanced up at Mara with a small smile. "Ready?" he asked as he stepped into the atrium, a stray thought about how lovely her hair was floating across his mind. He wasn't sure he'd ever seen it down.

"As I'll ever be," she muttered, squaring her shoulders and beginning to tie her hair back.

"That's a shame," Luke blurted out before he could stop himself.

Mara shot him a sardonic look. "What, that I'm ready?"

"No, uh-, no." Luke gabbled. "I- uh- I meant your hair."

Mara scrubbed her hands over her face and strode down the hall, Anakin's lightsaber swinging from her hip. "Skywalker, I am far too tired for you to tell me what a shame my hair is. Even I'm sometimes too weary to fight with you."

Luke hurried to catch up, the click of his boots sounding loud in the nearly deserted hallway. "No, that's not what I meant," he protested as he drew up alongside Mara. "I meant it was a shame you were pulling it back. It's just. . ." he averted his eyes and looked for the right words, though nothing suitable came to mind. "It's pretty down," he finished lamely.

They'd reached the door to the meeting room and Mara's hand froze over the controls as she looked incredulously at Luke. "I'm sorry, what was that?" she asked, both eyebrows raised nearly to her hairline.

Luke looked down and fidgeted with the lightsaber at his waist. "I just meant that you have lovely hair." If it was possible, Mara's eyes widened even further. In a twist of fate Luke was grateful for, the door suddenly hissed open, effectively cutting off anything Mara was going to say.

"Ah, Mistress Jade," the councilor in the doorway, a pinkish tinted humanoid by the name of Zereshk T'ama, boomed. Mara was ushered through the door to the waiting council with rueful glance over her shoulder at Luke. Luke grinned and bowed slightly, then turned on his heel and strode away, hoping Mara wouldn't remember his comment about her hair.


Mara palmed open the door to her flat and walked through the living room, not even bothering to turn on the lights. She moved through to her bedroom and sat on the edge of her new bed to pull off her boots. She still wasn't entirely sure why, but she'd accepted the position as liaison to the Smuggler's Alliance. It meant a number of things; less time with Karrde's organization, reams of paperwork, an office, maybe even some staff. But none of these things affected Mara more than the knowledge that not only was she now irrevocably linked to the New Republic, but the thought that she'd be living on Coruscant again gave her pause. The memories that haunted the hallways and anterooms of the Imperial Palace were too numerous to count and too painful in many cases to dredge up. Her arms shook as she reached up to unfastened her jumpsuit; she hated to admit to any weakness, but she felt terrible. A month of inactivity in the med-center followed by weeks of hiking through forests with very little sleep, followed by near death at the hands of an insane Jedi master, followed by days of endless meetings had left her exhausted and irritable, not to mention that every millimeter of her body ached. Her limbs felt heavy and fluid at the same time as she struggled out of her jumpsuit, as if they were filled with liquid lead. She managed to pull on a sleep tunic and crawl under the covers before she was sound asleep, but only just.

She awakened with a start to an insistent, loud buzzing. She cast her mind out to investigate even as she threw back the covers and stood, still a little unsteady. Her brain catalogued the sound of the door chime even as her Force sense recognized the presence on the other side. She snarled as she pulled on a pair of worn exercise leggings and stalked to the door. "What do you want?" she hissed as she slapped the controls for the door.

Luke didn't flinch from either her tone or her expression. He simply nodded and inclined his head in her direction. "Good evening, Mara," he said, perfectly pleasant as he gestured to the door. "May I come in?"

Mara was instantly suspicious. "Maybe," she said as she narrowed her eyes. She propped herself up against the doorway and crossed her arms, regarding him and his uniform of black. "Why?"

Luke sighed. "Mara, I'm not here for nefarious purposes. I'm just making sure you're alright."

She snorted. "Skywalker, I saw you not two hours ago. What could possibly have happened in two hours?"

"Quite a bit," Luke retorted dryly. "But Mara, that was two days ago."

"Not possible," she spat as she pushed herself away from the frame. "I don't know what you're trying to pull-" Finally losing his patience, Luke pushed past her and into her front hallway. "Skywalker," Mara growled, the warning in her voice clear.

"Mara," Luke stated, his tone suddenly soothing.. "I'm not trying to pull anything. You seemed to have disappeared, and we were concerned."

"Who's we?"

"Karrde, Leia," Mara snorted again and Luke ignored her. "Han and myself."

"Cut to the chase," Mara attempted to say sternly but was thwarted by yawning in the middle of her statement.

Luke smiled a little sadly. "You're not quite as alright as you'd like everyone to think you are, are you?"

Mara shuffled away from the doorway, gesturing for Luke to follow. She sank onto the one piece of furniture in the living room; an enormous, deep violet couch, and tucked one leg under her with a sniff.

"I'm also not quite as bad off as everyone would like to think," she muttered as Luke sat on the opposite end of the couch and angled to face her.

"You've been through a lot recently," Luke said simply. "And you've been AWOL for two days; your friends have every right to be concerned."

"I don't have friends," Mara shot back before she could stop herself.

"Oh Mara," Luke breathed. "That's not true. I hope you know that's not true," he said earnestly as he leaned forward. "Karrde thinks the galaxy of you. Leia and the twins owe you their lives. Han owes you for the lives of his family, which are infinitely more precious to him than his own life." He paused and looked down at the artificial hand resting on his thigh. "And I-I owe you for more things than I can count," he said softly.

She'd never have admitted it, but Skywalker's little speech touched her in some elemental way. Her emotions swung from wary and defensive to wistful and sad in the space of a heartbeat. "Owing someone isn't the same as friendship," she responded, just as quietly.

"No," Luke conceded, flexing his hand and sensing Mara's turmoil. "But it does mean you're stuck with us, whether you like it or not. We owe a debt that can never be repaid." He looked up and grinned suddenly. "Makes it easier to be stuck together if you're friends."

Mara surprised both of them by letting out at small bark of laughter at the boyish expression on his face. The sound was rusty and by her startled expression, Luke knew it had been a long time since she'd heard it herself. They sat in awkward silence for a moment before Luke shifted and changed the subject. "Are you feeling better?"

"I'm fine, Farmboy," she said with a dismissive wave and then yawned again. "And since you've seen that, I would like to go back sleep." Luke's expression became unnaturally closed off and Mara sighed. "You didn't come just to check on me, did you?" Luke shook his head. "And I'm not going to be able to go back to bed, am I?" The blond head shook again. "Fine," Mara said with a resigned sigh as she stood. "But whatever it is can wait until I change."

As it happened it could, and did, wait for Mara to change. And then it waited for an aide to go get the right data cards. Which turned out not to be Imperial standard, which meant that they broke the large data reader in the conference room, which then necessitated three techs jury rigging a small data pad to an ancient screen that had been wheeled into the room. By the time they'd gotten to the rigging part, Mara was livid. "If this is how you people function all the time I'm shocked and appalled you're the ones in charge of the galaxy," she railed at Luke as she prowled behind the hideously uncomfortable swivel chairs that surrounded the conference table.

Luke spread his hands in a conciliatory gesture, then tugged at the hem of his over-tunic as he sat. "No one ever said bureaucracy was efficient. And we didn't certainly didn't win any wars on the strength of it."

Mara considered him for a moment; she knew exactly what had won those wars, and it wasn't paper pushers or politicians. It was men like him, who'd had the courage to fight for what they believed in and create a better galaxy; whether it cost them their lives or not. Rather surprisingly, she'd always admired Skywalker for his commitment to the Rebellion and the subsequent Republic. It hadn't meant she'd liked him of course, but she recognized his determination, loyalty, and sense of honor: traits she had been brought up to revere. "No, I suppose you didn't," she finally mused.

Luke gave her a strange look but said nothing and they remained silent until the techs announced they had the screen working again. As if on cue, a blond woman wearing the NRI insignia on her otherwise nondescript light grey uniform sailed into the room. Luke's face brightened and he smiled at the newcomer. "Iella," he said with a friendly nod.

"Luke," she nodded back. "It's good to see you."

"Mara; Iella Wessiri. Iella; Mara Jade," Luke said as he gestured to each woman in turn.

"I know you by reputation, of course," Iella said calmly. Mara just gave her a steely-eyed gaze and crossed arms by way of an answer. Iella didn't seem offended; she merely held Mara's gaze a few seconds longer than was absolutely necessary. Eventually, Mara gave a jerk of her head in acknowledgment and Iella wasted no time in getting to the matter at hand. "This footage was sent to us from the NR officials at the Fortuna City spaceport."

"Edan Two, right?" Luke said as he leaned forward and peered at the datapad.

"Correct," Iella said, trying to get the image to appear on the larger screen.

"How the hell do you know that, Skywalker? Edan two is the back of beyond." Mara asked as she uncoiled herself from the corner and walked with cat-like grace toward the table.

Luke shrugged and stood to see if he could assist Iella. "It's not as far out as Tatooine. We had a base there, what was it: a good nine years ago?" He looked askance at Iella and she nodded, still fiddling with the screen. "A couple of the Emperor's less gifted Force adepts were holed up in Fortuna City trying to take out the base, which they managed."

"But the Alliance maintained, and the New Republic continues to maintain, control of the planet," Iella added as Luke reached across her to flip a switch or two, a look of consternation on his face.

Mara glanced heavenward, as if seeking guidance or patience and stepped to Luke's side. With a move that startled Luke and Iella equally, she brought her fist down hard on the side of the ancient data screen and it spluttered to life. She smiled thinly at the startlement on their faces. "I was getting bored. Can we get on with this?"

Without further ado, Iella pressed play as Luke used the Force to turn off the lights. Mara shot him a look he couldn't decipher and therefore chose to ignore.. The footage was clearly from an older model security holocam: the black and white images were grainy and blurred around the edges. For a few moments, it appeared as if there was nothing unusual about the film. Beings ambled or rushed across the screen, some in groups, others singly. Suddenly, there was a bright flash of light and the sounds of screams. Humans and aliens pushed against one another in panic and a dark hooded figure came into frame. It was a human male, judging by the boots that kicked forward the hem of his long, dark cloak, and every few seconds a bright bolt of energy shot from his fingers. Long, wispy tendrils of faintly crackling energy emanated from his body and formed a sort of living aura; on the screen he appeared to be walking in a bubble of light. As they watched, a shudder wracked the man's frame and all hell broke loose at the spaceport. Beings and ships were thrown across the dusty landing pad landing in broken and inelegant heaps as a man's corona expanded outward at an alarming rate.

As the New Republic trio watched, the light swirled back toward the cloaked man in an instant. He fell to his hands and knees for the space of a few heartbeats, the struggled upward. He loped off, limping slightly and clutching one arm to his chest and was out of frame a matter of seconds afterwards. "There were at least a hundred fatalities," Iella said calmly as she reached over to switch on the lights. "And at least double that wounded, most of them quite seriously. In fact, anyone that was in a twenty meter radius of the blast, for lack of a better word, is either deceased or in a coma."

Luke glanced over at Mara and was in no way surprised to find her expression stony and closed off. He reached out to touch her through the Force, trying to gauge her reaction but was rewarded with the mental version of a slap. Stay out of my head, he heard in his own and grinned slightly despite himself and the seriousness of the situation they'd just witnessed. "Any leads?" he asked Iella as he turned to face her again.

The blond woman shook her head. "Only what you've just seen. We were hoping you could help."

It was Luke's turn to shake his head. "I've never seen anything like that," he said as he gestured toward the darkened screen. "It looked like some kind of storm in the Force."

"So it was a Jedi," Iella said darkly.

Luke shook his head again. "I don't think so. Master Yoda was pretty adamant that I was the last of the Jedi; that's not to say that there aren't others strong in the Force out in the galaxy," here he inclined his head to indicate Mara, "But I don't think he was a trained Jedi."

"What about a dark Jedi?" Mara inquired very softly and Luke could sense her anxiety about facing down yet another dark Force user: she'd barely recovered from the last one.

"I don't think so," Luke said, just as softly as his eyes caught Mara's. "But I can't be sure."

Mara stood abruptly and headed for the door. "Then I'm done here. I'm not a Jedi and I don't work for you people. This is none of my concern."

"Mara!" Luke called sternly as he made to follow her and lightly grasped her arm. She bared her teeth but didn't outright growl, which he considered a vast improvement. "Mara," he repeated, gentling a bit and looking into her eyes. "I understand your reluctance; I do more than most." He looked down at his black boots and released her arm. "But Mara, if it is a dark Jedi, I'm going to need backup."

Mara snorted derisively. "This from the man who took down Vader and held his own against the Emperor?"

"I didn't take him down," Luke stated firmly, hurt lingering in the back of his eyes. "And I certainly didn't hold my own very well against the Emperor. I would have died, slowly and in excruciating pain, if my father hadn't turned back to the light and saved me."

Mara searched but could find no hint of manipulation in his face or in the Force. She mulled over his words and the intent of the NRI. It already didn't sit well with her that she'd accepted the position as the liaison; working directly for the intelligence department really stuck in her craw. But as she studied Luke, she thought about what he'd said earlier about friendship: she imagined that friends helped one another when they were needed. Ultimately, that was what swayed her. "Fine," she said with a firm nod. "But I'd like to get something clear," she looked up at Iella jerked her chin up, "I don't work for you. I don't take orders from you. I'm going for Skywalker."

Iella nodded back solemly. "I think we can handle that." Suddenly, her pretty face lit up in a smile. "Besides, Luke's been operating outside of orders for years. We wouldn't expect anything else."


"Operating outside of orders?" Mara said with a smirk and a raised eyebrow as they left the conference room after sorting out details regarding a ship and departure time.

Luke returned the look. "I thought you'd read every file the Empire had on me."

"Yeah, well they clearly didn't seem to think it was important to note that you didn't follow orders very well."

"I'd like to think I'm a good commander," Luke said, as humbly as possible. "But I was never a very good follower. It's one of my greatest faults"

Mara rolled her eyes and rested her hand on the hilt of the lightsaber at her waist. "You wouldn't have lasted two weeks in Imperial service."

"Probably not," Luke agreed good naturedly. "But whether it was his wisdom, or the will of the Force, my uncle never allowed me to go to the Imperial Academy. A decision I fought for a long time, but one that I'm now grateful for."

"Would have been a lot harder to defeat the evil Empire if you'd been one of us," Mara stated with just a trace of bitterness.

Luke looked at her, startled. "No, that wasn't what I meant. Was the Empire good for the galaxy? No. But the reason I'm most grateful for all of this: the rebellion, my Jedi training, my combat experience, is that I was able to find my family."

Mara stared hard at him, wondering if he could really be telling the truth. No one was that earnest. "You're just full of surprises, aren't you, Skywalker?" she finally murmured.

He shrugged, vaguely uncomfortable with her scrutiny. "I think most people are."

Mara laughed without humor. "No, Skywalker. Most people are a boring, open data pad you've read at least twice before."

Luke wrinkled his brow. "I'm going to choose to take that as a compliment, rather than an insult to most of the galaxy."

They arrived at her door and she shrugged. "Take it however you wish." She turned to palm the lock, but could sense Luke's hesitation. "Yes?" she inquired.

"I just wanted to say thanks. Thanks for agreeing to go with me."

Mara smiled ever so slightly. "That's what friends are for, right?" Luke's face split into a grin so wide he didn't need words to convey his pleasure. Mara opened the door and leaned in the doorframe. "Goodnight, Skywalker. See you in twenty; docking bay D73; ." Luke snapped a quick, though perfectly precise salute, with a faintly mocking grin. Mara waved him away, mildly irritated with herself for finding him amusing. As he loped down the corridor though, she couldn't stop herself from smiling.