Chapter 2
Mara Jade placed her drink on the scarred bar top with a clink, her carefully neutral expression betraying nothing. "You never did know when to back off, Aves."
The tall, thin man, she addressed - Talon Karrde's right hand man - shrugged and shifted on his bar stool. "They're just rumors."
"Unfounded." Mara told him with an arched eyebrow. "You shouldn't believe everything you hear."
Aves picked up his own drink and took a sip. "After everything I've read - that Ghent could get his hands on - they're not that unfounded."
Mara shrugged, twisting the glass once in the circle of condensation, her gaze never leaving his. "Ghent needs to learn when not to get involved."
"This is a freebie, courtesy of Talon," he pulled a datacard from his sleeve with a practised movement and dropped it to the counter. She made no move towards it as he slid it several inches away from him towards her.
Mara felt Skywalker's attention focus on something regarding her for just a moment, feeling a surge of apprehension and worry. Without conscious thought, she was worried and then, alternatively, annoyed. Skywalker, though a backwater planet farm boy, was a grown man and could take care of himself. She could feel Skywalker's mind at the back of hers as she consciously pulled away. Skywalker believed the link was a message from the Force. Mara didn't think so; she saw it as another method of servitude, a way of being held hostage and was one she needed to break - fast.
She should have killed him when she'd had the chance.
Her mind snapped back to the present to see Aves looking at her strangely. She blanked her face and covered the momentary lapse by taking a sip of her drink. "What's on it?" She nodded to the data disk.
"Stories, mostly. Eye witness accounts. Memories and facts. What Ghent was able to lift from the Emperor's personal files on you before giving the access codes to Skywalker."
Mara palmed the disk and slid it into a thigh pocket without verifying its contents. Karrde's group had no reason to lie to her. If Aves said that's what was on it, then that's what was on it. She'd destroy it later. "Thanks. I'll owe you one."
"On the house; you're buying."
"Two employers, two paycheques." Her eyes sparkled. "You should come work for me instead of Karrde."
Aves shrugged noncommittally, but Mara had made the offer in jest. She knew Aves was loyal to Karrde, but he wanted nothing more than to strike out on his own as a Captain. He would eventually, just not yet. He downed the last of his drink and stood. "I have to get going. See you around, Mara."
She lifted her hand in farewell before turning back to the bar. Several of the patrons regarded her curiously, but swiftly went back to their drinks. One was pretending to pay no attention to her, but she could sense his interest. Her lips thinned. Her image had been plastered all over the Holonet before she'd put a stop to it for 72 hours after their return from Wayland. Someone had leaked a story to the Galactic Press about the battle to rid the Galaxy of another Emperor-like dictator, a Hero story, and supplied her name as the Heroine.
Damn Skywalker and his meddling ways anyway. She knew he'd been the one to talk to them, a way to exonerate her in the eyes of the public, but it had made her life hell. And she knew he knew that she knew. The Force-cursed link between them made it impossible for her to hide anything from him. He knew intimate details about her past.
Leaving her parents. Her first days with the Emperor. Her initiation as one of his Hands. Black listed missions; her first - she shied away from the thoughts, mentally blocking herself from Luke before he caught on to her resentment and tried to sooth her.
She disliked the invasion of her privacy, the violation of her freedom - but at the same time reveled in the similarly intimate details she knew about Luke. Details she would have bet no one knew, not even his twin. It was a powerful, and humbling, experience. And humiliating, knowing his thoughts and knowing he knew her thoughts on the matter.
She might not understand what had happened, but it was simply unacceptable for things to remain as they were. She had no desire to be someone's shoulder to cry on. She had no intention of being able to feel Skywalker's every emotional and physical bump and scrape for the rest of her life. No. He had to figure out what he'd done to connect them and then undo it. Nothing else was acceptable
Finishing her drink, she dropped a credit chip on the bar top and departed. She initially didn't pay any notice to the alien following her, there were always people following her now a days, as she headed back for her lodgings. She'd gone barely a block before the insistence in the back of her mind caught her attention. Her lips thinned just a moment before the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. The blaster in her sleeve dropped into her hand with a flick of her wrist, though she gave no outward appearance of having noticed the tail. She continued her walk, stretching her pace a little to see who sped up.
No one. She ducked around a corner and stopped, placing her back to the wall, the hold out blaster sitting comfortably in her hand. She took a deep breath and reached reluctantly for the Force. It came at her call, sliding through her veins like heady wine and stretched her senses around the corner.
The skill honing she'd done on Wayland paid off.
The dozen or so individuals in the street came into brilliant focus as individual entities, each a different, distinct pattern between them. Two she dismissed outright, focusing her attention on the other ten. No panic.
She silently cursed her own carelessness. Everyone on the planet likely knew where she was staying, she'd made no secret of it, so why would her tail panic? All they had to do was pick her up again when she returned. She felt several of the individuals coming her way and leaned against the wall, pulling off one half-boot as if to shake out a rock.
Waiting, making a show of examining her footwear for anyone who happened to notice her, Mara kept a covert eye on the people who rounded the corner. There. The fourth one's presence spiked the moment it laid eyes on her. She didn't so much as twitch, waiting for the operative to go by. No outward movements, no signs that she was his prey. She almost smiled; he was good.
Slipping her boot back on, she carried on her way, stepping up her pace until she was a half-step behind the tail. At the next turn, she grabbed the collar of his coat in one hand and propelled him into the wall of a convenient alleyway over one foot. He stumbled, starting to fall head first, but her grip on the coat checked the movement. The man was pressed firmly into the wall as Mara's blaster slipped into her left hand and she wedged it into the small of his back.
"Move and you're dead."
The man froze.
Mara glanced about to ensure no one seemed to notice them before focusing on the individual who'd been tailing her. "Why are you following me?"
"Orders."
"From whom?"
He didn't respond, struggling in her grasp a little, and she dub the blaster nose into his ribs.
"I don't like to repeat myself, but since you're a new acquaintance I'll make an exception. Who are your orders from?"
"NRI."
Mara's grip slackened for a heartbeat. New Republic Intelligence? Why? What could they possibly gain from trailing her; she practically worked for them for Force sakes! She focused her attention once more but that half second was enough for the operative to twist free and plant his shoulder into her chest, sending her stumbling backwards.
The blaster went off, the bolt ricocheting twice before the operative let out a string of curses and fled.
Mara caught herself seconds before she would have hit the ground, rolling with the impact and keeping her feet - but barely. She swore silently as the operative disappeared into the flow of traffic and holstered her blaster. She was getting soft; a move like that wouldn't have caught her off guard before this whole job between the Republic and the Smuggler's Alliance.
However, her tail's cover was now blown and she'd gotten a good look and sense of him. Confident he wouldn't be following her anymore; she stepped from the alleyway back into the general populace of the world and headed for her hotel.
A nice hot shower with real water was calling her name and after the alley encounter, she only hoped once would be enough to feel clean.
Mara stepped from the shower with a sigh, towelling her hair dry. She felt immensely better now that she'd had a chance to relax a little. But she couldn't completely relax; not with the NRI tailing her.
She frowned at her reflection in the steam covered glass.
What did they want anyway? Why follow her of all people - and why now?
Her gaze tracked to where she'd hung her clothes before her shower and she stepped closer, reaching into the thigh pocket where she'd left the disk Aves had given her. It was smooth against her fingers, cool to the touch as she withdrew it.
Discreet, it held no label, no indication as to the damaging information held within. She gripped it between two fingers, holding the disk up to the light. It was almost full too; she was going to have to have a chat with Ghent about putting his nose where it didn't belong. He should have just erased the information at the source.
But then, he wouldn't have been Ghent if he had.
Shaking away the thought, she gripped the disk in both hands and, with a bunch and pull of her muscles, snapped it in half. Once halved, she snapped it again into quarters, making the data virtually irretrievable. The pieces went onto the counter top as she hung her towel and pulled on a fresh jump suit.
Once dressed, she collected the pieces once more and retrieved a small contain from her bag. Opening the lid revealed a piece of electromagnetic material inside the heavily shielded compartment. She rarely travelled anywhere without it; one never knew when permanent erasure of information would be necessary.
She slid the pieces of the broken disk inside and snapped the lid closed. Exposure would erase the information permanently. She had just finished putting the case away when a knock sounded at her door. Her head came up with a snap, reflexes kicking in, and she spun from the open duffle to the nearest wall.
Listening, her head cocked, the knock came again. Feeling like a paranoid fool, she stepped to the portal, but on one side, and checked to see who her visitor was.
The hallway was empty.
She frowned, reaching reluctantly to the Force and stretching her senses into the hallway. No one. No sentient beings at any rate, but the nagging suspicion that something wasn't right didn't pass and she pulled her blaster from the table by the door where she'd dropped it upon her return.
Palming the door, she halted it a third of the way open and carefully checked the surroundings. Still nothing. She turned to the other hallway, and the glint of something on the ground caught her eye; a holo recorder. Carefully sliding her hand out, ready to yank it back at a moment's notice.
Nothing stopped or hindered her retrieval of the device as she slid the door shut.
She turned it over in her hand for a moment before placing it on the table and hitting the play button.
A distinguished figure appeared, the hologram someone she'd have recognized anywhere; Airen Cracken, the new head of NRI. First she'd accosted their agent, and now the head of the NRI was sending her messages - it was a bad sign.
The hologram appeared to be waiting for just a few moments before the recording kicked in.
"Greetings, Mara Jade. It's come to my attention that you're aware of our surveillance of you and I commend your talents for counter-intelligence. Under different circumstances, you would have made a star operative in my organization. Alas, that is not why I am contacting you." The image flickered as the hologram shifted position. "This is a message to alert you that you are more than under surveillance; you're under a full scale investigation. One that is almost complete. I can't say why, but your cooperation would go a long way towards proclaiming your innocence."
Her cooperation. Cooperation for what? She frowned. She'd never liked Cracken's riddles or half-truths even before he'd become the head of NRI.
The hologram paused, and straightened. "As I know you have a strong sense of survival, I expect you to return to Coruscant immediately. If you don't, there is every possibility you could be tried in absentee and found guilty. As I'm certain neither you nor I wish it, I have made arrangements for you to be on the first transport out and in my office before the sun rises tomorrow morning. I'll see you then. Cracken out."
Mara stared at where the image had been for a few moments, anxiety churning in her gut. Luke's comforting presence reached out to sooth her - an automatic reaction that was as unconscious as breathing - and she was sorely tempted for a briefest of moments to let him. Instead she pulled back, blocking him out and began to pace.
The head of the NRI had sent her an official summons, and while she didn't technically work for the New Republic, she couldn't afford to sour her relationship at this point in a very touchy negotiation with the Smuggler's Alliance. She could choose to stay and finish the deal, possibly ending up tried and sentenced in absentee for whatever cock-eyed charge the NRI had cooked up; or she could go and look after her own skin to ensure she'd be able to broker more deals with the Smuggler's Alliance.
It was really no choice at all as she proceeded to repack her duffle. Five minutes later she was headed out the door and signing out of her hotel. She'd taken the time for a single call, in which she left a message for Talon Karrde explaining her sudden disappearance and the necessity of clearing her name before continuing as their liaison to the New Republic. That finished, and certain Karrde would understand, she embarked on the high speed transport headed for Coruscant .