Chapter Three

Murphy's Law

Luke always said to trust in the Force but lock your speeder. If anyone had asked Mara for her philosophy in life, she might have settled on, "Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong." It was an adage which the Emperor had adhered to religiously. It was in the Emperor's service that Mara had begun to wear a vibroknife in her belt, and two more in her boots. That way, she was prepared for all eventualities.

Except, it seemed, for the eventuality that her husband would hustle her back to their suite the minute she was discharged from the medcenter, pin her against the door and proceed to remove her clothes. Mara was so astonished at first that by the time she had found the presence of mind to say anything, Luke was already down to her undergarments, one hand supporting the small of her back, the other twined in her hair, his mouth busy at her collarbone. She didn't have to ask him what he thought he was doing. His need blazed like a beacon between them in the Force.

On an intellectual level, Mara the assassin was able to register that something was wrong, that it simply wasn't in Luke's nature to want quickies. Mara the woman felt an answering need flare within her, and was soon responding to his ministrations. They fumbled their way to the bed, where she landed on her back, Luke atop her. He had taken most of his weight on his elbows so that she would not have to bear it. Even in the throes of passion, he was nothing if not a considerate lover.

One of his hands snaked down her leg to remove her boot. Mara gasped, "Honey don't forget about the –"

Luke reached down and grasped the handle of the blade between two fingers while expertly wriggling the boot off with thumb and forefinger.

"– knife," she finished.

He laughed and leaned down for another kiss.

She figured it out later, as they lay spent amidst the tangled sheets. Rather, Mara woke alone, shivering from the lack of Luke's body heat. She could hear him slamming cabinets in the kitchen unit. He was whistling.

She grimaced. Luke was tone-deaf, a trait which Anakin had unfortunately inherited along with his uncle's ice-blue eyes and the earnest desire to save people. All kinds of people, not all of whom warranted saving, in Mara's opinion. But it was an opinion she mostly kept to herself, not wanting to dim the idealism that shone plainly in their eyes – Luke's no less than Anakin's. Even tempered by two decades of loss, the farmboy from Tatooine had never outgrown his idealism. It was one of the things she loved about him.

Luke appeared in a white bathrobe, his hair tousled, bearing a tray with two bowls of soup. "Eat," he commanded as he set it down.

She shook her head. "Hold me."

He crawled into bed and obliged.

After a while she said, "What in the six novas was that, Skywalker?"

"Mmm?"

"The mad lovemaking session in the middle of the afternoon."

"Oh, that." Luke propped his head on his elbow and pretended to think about it. "Well, there are a couple of possibilities. For starters, I could be a hormone driven sex fiend, a slave to my libido, as many of my male comrades are."

"Nice try. Except that I remember when we first got together. You were forty if you were a day. Had to teach you a few things, I did."

"Stang, I was hoping you'd forgotten that. What if I told you that Anakin is playing sabacc with Han, and likely will be for the next few hours? Privacy is hard to come by these days. I had to fight my nephew for the privilege of sitting up all night with my unconscious wife."

Mara rolled her eyes. "Please. Anakin is sixteen, old enough to know about the birds and the bees. Besides, you couldn't have managed it alone. Not even healing trances allow you to go days without sleep. You were lucky you had Anakin to relieve you."

"Good point. In that case, maybe," he said, pitching his voice very low, "I like to live dangerously."

And in that instant Mara understood why he had done it. She doubted there were many people besides her who got to see this playful, ardent, eager-to-please side of Luke. It was just as genuine a facet of his personality as the solemn face of the Jedi Master, but a facet which he did not often choose to display. He was displaying it now in an effort to remind her of why she had fallen in love with him in the first place, of what she would be losing if she were to relinquish the fight against the disease.

She said, "I'm not giving up, you know."

"I know, love."

"Then why did you attack me the second we were through the door? It's not like you. You've been treating me like I was made of clari-crystalline. I expected, after a week in the medcenter, you'd have wanted to be extra careful. That you wouldn't want to hurt me."

"Did I?"

"No, of course not."

"So it was worth it." Luke nodded, satisfied.

"So, you didn't have to go to the trouble of staging a big demonstration. I'm not going anywhere."

He sighed. "Don't you think I know that? You've been hanging on like grim death, determined not to yield a centimeter. But that's not how we're going to beat this thing. You're so busy building up walls that you don't have any energy left to enjoy yourself. I wanted to see you crack a smile again."

Mara mulled over this. "Has it been that long?"

"Too long." He pulled her a little closer.

She said, "What are we going to do about Kyp Durron?"

"We'll worry about that later."

"Okay."

"Do you know why Jaina has been avoiding me?" asked Mara.

Jacen nearly choked on his caf. "I hadn't noticed."

"You're a terrible liar, Jacen."

"Sorry. I know."

"More caf?" said Mara.

He shook his head. They were alone in the living room of the Skywalkers' suite. Luke had been called away to take a live holocomm transmission from Yavin, which was unusual and indicated a matter of some urgency. While Luke had refrained from speculating about the nature of the transmission, she could tell he had been troubled.

"She thinks it's partly her fault how you passed out," Jacen said reluctantly. "Ridiculous, obviously. I bet you were just worried about her. You need to take it easy, Aunt Mara."

Mara bit her lip. She remembered the overwhelming sense of impending doom that had dogged her throughout the Solo childrens' runs, culminating in Jaina's collision and her own collapse. She could not shake the feeling that something significant had happened out there on Lando's Folly that day. If only Mara knew what it was.

"It goes all the way back to what happened in the Yavin system," Jacen continued. "You remember?"

"You mean, when Jaina almost flew a frigate into the gas giant and I had to take the Sabre in after her? Pretty hard to forget."

"Yeah, well, that was the first time the disease … manifested. Right?"

"I see," said Mara, though she didn't.

"It's like this. Every time you get sick, Jaina is always close at hand, always doing something dangerous."

"Now I see. And I have to say, your sister is extremely – "

The door to the suite hissed open and Anakin stomped in. He grunted at Jacen, kissed Mara quickly on the cheek, and disappeared into his room.

Mara looked at Jacen, who shrugged. "How was the sabacc game, Anakin?" she called.

When Anakin emerged a few minutes later, he was dressed in loose-fitting utilities such as he usually wore to the gym.

"Wanna spar, Jace?"

"Not particularly."

"C'mon, best of three."

"I'm having a conversation with Aunt Mara."

"I didn't figure you for a wuss, Jace."

"Anakin Solo, what in the sithspawned Corellian hells is the matter with you?" demanded Mara.

He sank into the couch opposite Jacen. "Nothing. Jaina won. Dad chewed Kyp out for not showing Uncle Luke some respect. That's it."

More gently, Mara said, "Tell me what's wrong."

There was a long silence. "I've been having these dreams about Tahiri."

Jacen snickered. Anakin threw a pillow at him, which he ducked.

"Not those kinds of dreams, you dunce." He turned to Mara, blue eyes beseeching. "It's the same dream every time. She's being held down by this creature straight out of a nightmare. It's slobbering all over her. Aunt Mara, I think it's torturing her. Not just her body – somehow it's inside her head. And every time it's about to close its jaws on her, I wake up. What does it mean?"

"It means that you should tell your uncle as soon as he gets home." She was firm. I have a bad feeling about this. "In the meantime, maybe it would be a good idea for the two of you to hit the practice mats. It would take your minds off this doom and gloom. Jacen, you're welcome to stay for dinner."

"I can't. I always bring Jaina a tray from the mess hall. Best of three, you said, Anakin?"

When Anakin had first come to live with the Skywalkers, he had been a taciturn boy of eleven, disinclined to string more than two words together whenever monosyllables would suffice. It hadn't taken Mara long to determine that he was neither shy nor unsociable. He was brilliant. His brain tended to operate on an entirely different plane from his companions. Jacen and Jaina admitted their little brother was a genius, but they mentioned it in the same tone as they might remark that Kashyyyk was covered in trees. Clearly, they were so accustomed to Anakin's reticence that they took it for granted. This was the way things had always been, Anakin the single lonely planet circling the twin suns.

Which was why Mara had been overjoyed when Anakin had settled into orbit about his very own primary – a bubbly, barefooted blonde girl whose zest for life fairly sang in the Force. Last year during the school vacation, Mara had invited Tahiri back to Coruscant with them. By the end of the vacation, Anakin and Tahiri had been just as grease-spattered – and every ounce as unrepentant – as Jacen, Jaina, and Zekk. Mara never found out what the five of them had been doing in the undercity. Some things it was better to turn a blind eye to.

Yet Mara was remembering now a time before the advent of Tahiri, when Anakin had been so close-mouthed that Mara had suspected that the boy's jaw was permanently locked shut. He had been eager enough to learn lightsaber technique from Luke or Holocron lore from Tionne, but as soon as he came home he seemed to don a mask, and no amount of coaxing on Mara's part could convince him to remove it.

Until the night that she had woken with a cramp in her side and a craving for milk. As she had made her way past Anakin's door, the glass of blue liquid balanced in one hand, she had heard a muffled sound coming from within. Anakin was whimpering in his sleep.

She had put down her milk and remained with him until he had woken, stifling a scream.

Everybody has nightmares, she had told him.

Not these kinds of nightmares, he had assured her.

He dreamed about his grandfather – his namesake. He dreamed about him every night. He dreamed about becoming another Vader.

Looking back, that had been the beginning of their special rapport. Mara had been the first person Anakin had opened up to, even before Tahiri. Mara could never have imagined, all those years ago, how deeply she would come to care for him. It was different from the way she loved Luke. The fact was, she always felt that there was a selfish component to her love for Luke – Luke who was the center of her universe, Luke who understood her like no one else did. With Anakin, Mara never ceased to be astounded by how much she had to give. Mara had never considered herself an especially generous or maternal person. She knew better now.

It might have been maternal instinct that woke her this time. She was still, reaching out with her senses, and when she was certain of what she would find, she slid out from under the covers.

"Mara?" Luke's voice was groggy with sleep.

"It's Anakin. Nightmares again."

It was worse than usual. Anakin was thrashing on the floor, encased in a cocoon of blankets. Mara forbore to shake him awake. Last time she had done that, he had gone for a choke hold. He'd not gotten anywhere near her throat, of course, but Mara would rather not give him a shock if she could help it.

She sent a tendril of inquiry questing towards him through the Force. Within a few seconds, he had stopped thrashing and was staring at Mara, blue eyes wide with alarm.

"They've got her. I know what it means now, Aunt Mara."

"Who's got who?"

"Tahiri. They've got Tahiri."

"Who's got Tahiri?"

"The monster. They're going to torture her. I have to stop them." As he spoke he was shoving things into a carryall – glowrods, credits, datachips.

Mara opened her mouth to tell him to calm down but that was when she saw Luke standing in the doorway. Something in his eyes caught her attention. She took his arm and guided him into the corridor.

"Do you have any idea what's behind this? Your nephew is acting like a raving lunatic. Your nephew, who is normally one of the most levelheaded teenagers I know."

Luke rubbed the back of his neck. "I may have … some idea, yes. It's about that message from the Praxeum this afternoon."

"Yes?"

"I didn't tell you earlier because it concerns Anakin and you're no good at shielding from him when it comes to this sort of thing."

"Well, you better tell me now if you don't want me to stick you full of needles."

"It's Tahiri. She's gone – took off in a TIE fighter for parts unknown."

Mara felt the bottom drop out of her stomach. "I'm going to tell him."

"That's what I was afraid of," said Luke.