Chapter Nine
Mara's snug bunk held them both without reality-based discomfort, but the second occupant found its size a fascinating topic for discussion. Luke Skywalker propped himself above her. "You wouldn't lose that much floor space," he assured her with good-humored intent. "Han didn't when he installed a double bunk for him and Leia on the Falcon."
She ran her fingers along the faint scars on his face and he leaned into her touch. His blue eyes darkened, but they remained open. "I can't believe you're talking about ship mods right now," she said.
His smile was so broad and warm. "I can help fix the ship. I'm not good with words in situations like this."
Her hand slid into his thick hair. "What about a demonstration?"
His muscular arm slid under her back and pulled her closer, flattening her breasts against the planes of his chest. Her hand carded out of his hair to run down his neck and gripped his shoulder. She wrapped her legs around his hips, and their lips finally, finally pressed together—
An electric jolt sent Mara out of the bunk for the deck plate under it. Luckily, she had picked the bottom one closest to the cockpit, so she didn't have far to land. One blink, then she was back on her feet and tearing into the bunk's bedding, looking for the loose wiring that must have shocked her. The autochef didn't work, the deck hiding a smuggling compartment did not fit back into place properly and tripped her, and now faulty wiring! The dream had just gotten to the good part! She had no idea who Karrde had assigned to maintain this ship but when she caught up with them, they would be rebuilding it under her supervision.
She didn't find any loose wires. And now that she stopped to consider that, she recognized her danger sense flaring. She charged into the cockpit. Nothing was signaling for attention. The sensors showed that nothing was happening in the docking bay outside. No messages waiting for her. No planetary alerts either. What was the Force trying to tell her? With the danger sense, she clarified for herself. That hadn't been her first sex dream starring Luke since she left Coruscant and if the Force was trying to send her a message with them, she had no idea what it could be.
Luke would suggest meditation. She leaned back in the pilot's seat with a smirk playing at her lips. She closed her eyes and brushed against the bond with him. Her danger sense flared stronger. He was in danger. Skywalker? He was out cold and the stun field that had hit him raced across the bond to her own nerve endings. Getting hit with one did feel like getting shocked if it was at a high enough setting.
She jerked out of the pilot's seat to copilot/gunnery/comm station that took up the rear of the cockpit. As the signal reached out, she realized she hadn't checked what the local time for Coruscant was. Too late if she woke everyone up, the comm was already accepted. She ran a hand through her wavy red hair so it wouldn't look so disheveled.
Leia Organa Solo's head and shoulders appeared in the blue holovid. Her long hair was still coiffed for the office. "Mara." She smiled. "Luke said you were off planet."
"Still am, though I was planning on leaving after local dawn. Your brother's hurt."
The other woman's gaze went unfocused, probably checking Mara's assertion with the bond the Skywalker twins had. It didn't last long before Leia focused on Mara's blue image on her end. "He is. How did you know, Mara?"
Mara hadn't expected that question just a quick 'thank you' before Leia signed off to go check on Luke. It startled the truth out of her. "We're experimenting with a Force bond. I felt it when he got zapped." Leia's head tilted as she considered Mara. "So I thought you'd get your yelling in first before I get back to Coruscant. Where did he find a stun field to knock himself out with? Or is that a setting on those remotes we haven't tried yet?"
"Luke's not on Coruscant." Leia's dark eyes pinched. "Damn, I told him he should take back-up. He must have found a stun field in Vader's fortress."
Mara felt her stomach hollow out. She had never been invited to one of Vader's fortresses, but rumors had abounded in the Imperial Court. "Where?"
"Gromas 16," Leia said. Mara turned to the nav computer and pulled up the charts. "One of Vader's fortresses is there and he got a report of trespassers. He only took Artoo to scout it. He always finds trouble on a scouting mission, always. He probably triggered some trap Vader left in it. And I'll have to send Han after him, so he should've just saved us the trouble and took Han to begin with."
"Why did Vader build a fortress on Gromas 16?" Leia shrugged and shook her head. "I'm only about four sectors away." Mara double-checked the math. "If I leave now, I can be there tomorrow. That's quicker than Han from Coruscant even with the Falcon."
"You'll go get Luke?" Leia's smile was relieved and hopeful. "You are closer, but you're not obligated, Mara. Though if you do it, you'll get to yell at him for being an idiot first. Maybe he'll actually listen if it's not me or Han yelling at him."
Her danger sense had ebbed just slightly. The situation on Gromas 16 was probably more complicated than the possibilities she or Leia could think of from here, and the only solution was for someone to go. "I'll go. I'll comm you with what I find tomorrow. Hopefully, I'll have Skywalker giving his own account."
"Thank you, Mara. Transmitting the coordinates and the entry code to the fortress to you now. May the Force be with you."
"And with you." Mara received the information and contacted Balamak's spaceport for a departure time. Luckily, no one else wanted to leave planet in the middle of local night, so she was in hyperspace within an hour.
She slept while in hyperspace and no sex dreams interrupted, though she had to start off with meditation to get her danger sense to shut up long enough to fall asleep. It remained low key while she changed into a jumpsuit, braided her hair, went through the crew lounge to the galley, and tripped on the stupid deck plate again. She growled as she tore a bite out of the ration bar and hopped over the decking seam to go to the cockpit. Coming out of hyperspace was as smooth as shimmersilk; at least the maintenance issues hadn't affected the engines any. No central space docking facility hailed her, so she focused her sensors on Leia's coordinates. The location was fifty kilometers away from the local town. No sense bothering the locals if she didn't need to. She flew straight to the coordinates.
The fortress was carved into the end of a wide box canyon with only a spire rising above the bedrock like a tower. Did Vader have it built or did he just take over an ancient stronghold? Mara leaned toward the take-over option; it just looked too old to have been built within her lifetime. Nothing was parked near it, but luckily the canyon was wide enough for the Jade's Escape to set down right in front of the main door.
She kept the heavy blaster pistol in her hand and her lightsaber on her belt as she keyed open the door. The massive metal doors split open along the center and pulled into the stone walls. She eased into a sunlit hallway, extending her senses for any signs of adversaries. The shrill whistles and beeps of Binary nearly shattered her eardrums.
She cleared the corners at the end of the hall. Sunlight streamed into the shadowed space through the outer windows. Artoo was attached to the wall with a restraining collar. Nothing else was in the cavernous room, so she cautiously stepped out into the open. The astromech stopped the shrill whistles. Its dome rotated until its photoreceptor saw her and it moaned.
"That's a fine way to greet the rescue party," she said softly. Her feet crunched on gravel as she approached the droid. "Are we alone?"
Artoo's affirmative beep was forlorn. She unfastened the restraint collar and the droid scooted out of reach as soon as his traction returned. She dropped the collar with a sigh and gazed around the main room once more. Holes from blaster bolts pockmarked the stone walls, which had rained down gravel onto the floor. A gleam of metal to her left caught her eye; the only metal except for Artoo and the restraining collar in this space. She strode to it and her danger sense thrummed in time with her sinking heart when she recognized it. Luke's lightsaber, the only weapon he carried, was warm in her grip. He wasn't defenseless—she of all people in the galaxy knew that—but she'd feel so much better right now if he kept a hold-out blaster up his sleeve too. Artoo rolled closer to her and she turned to him. "What happened?" She asked before considering just how weak her Binary comprehension was. Before she could offer a datapad or something for him to interface with, his holographic projector aimed toward the floor and flashed.
She watched the silent holovid of the battle with growing dismay. The blue-tinged Luke deflected blaster bolts from a Clone Wars era battle droid before the metal balls uncurled into lethal killing machines. "Droideka?" Luke angled a blaster bolt at one of the two on the right and a deflector shield absorbed it. He shifted his stance further from Artoo. "Why in the Corellian hells is he advancing against three droideka?"
Artoo moaned his own commentary. The angle of the fight shifted and another battle droid appeared in the recording holding a struggling human child instead of a blaster. "A hostage, of course Luke would try a rescue." His focus shifted minutely off the attack; whatever had caught his attention wasn't captured by Artoo's holorecorder. But the droideka took advantage of the lapse. One of the droideka to Luke's right rolled into a ball and then slammed into the Jedi knocking the human into the air. Artoo kept the holorecorder focused on Luke as he slammed down mostly on the metal platform of a round cage and lost his grip on his lightsaber. Mara gasped in sympathy. Before Luke could recover, the battle droid without the child flipped him fully into the cage and slid the bars shut. Luke raised himself up on his arms before a white glow expanded from the cage. His black-clad form dropped to the cage floor. "The stun field," Mara said weakly. "A trap, a perfect trap for Luke. Did you get who set this up?"
Artoo chattered at her and it was too sarcastic to be complimentary. That holovid ended and another began. A male human with light colored hair addressed the droideka and battle droids. His back was to the holorecorder but Artoo had turned on the sound recording for this one. "Droideka return to the ship. Take her to the ship and secure her."
"Roger, roger." The battle droid answered and they moved en masse toward Artoo and the hallway beside him. She saw the little girl clearly now, her miserable features and defeated slump of her body. Luke was still unmoving in the cage at the very edge of Artoo's recording.
The man turned and strode toward Artoo and bile threatened to rise in Mara's throat. A white beard covered the bony jaw she remembered, but the curly hair was the same even if it was more gray than brown now. His long nose and high cheekbones were the same but more wrinkles filled the pale skin covering them. "Anor," she spat out and she was surprised at how furious his ghostly presence made her.
Anor stopped in front of Artoo. "You will record a message and deliver it to the one calling herself Mara Jade, or your master will suffer for your insolence." The holovid played the droid's subdued affirmative beep. Anor straightened his shoulders and looked straight ahead. "You have forgotten your place, kriff-toy. This dalliance of independence ends now. You will come to Columex and resume your submission to me, or I will keep your lover to enjoy instead."
"My what?" Mara blurted.
The droid helpfully replayed the beginning of Anor's speech. Hearing the repeat of the word lover didn't diminish her bewilderment. But Anor took a remote from his belt pouch and moved the cage holding Luke—it must have a repulsorlift on it—next to him so Artoo clearly caught Luke's inert form. "You have a week to arrive," Anor said. He stared down his long nose at Luke. "After that your lover is fair game. I don't understand the appeal you have for the Rebel scum, kriff-toy, but I must admit he would look attractive bent over in the stocks." He leered at the captive. "But I'd rather have you in bondage where you belong." He made the stop recording gesture, though Artoo rebelliously kept Anor and the cage in view until they disappeared down the hall. Now it stopped the playback.
Her hand tightened on the grip of Luke's lightsaber as she tried to bring order to her jumble of thoughts. Columex, Anor was the funtihruo who had hired a vandal to destroy her quarters in the Imperial Palace. Luke lay unmoving on the floor of that cage. Anor had filled her with renewed doubt about who she had allied with this time. The dark-skinned face looking at the floor with quivering lips, an unfamiliar face but she deserved comfort she would not receive from Anor. The bashard called Mara's life a dalliance. He had set his collected droids on Luke. The man had always been an idiot, but provoking her with all this was worse. Basing this trap around Luke was damn near suicidal. Even with a cage that had a built-in stun field, there was no way Anor could keep Luke Skywalker locked up for a week or longer. They had only kept him several days on Myrkr thanks to the lack of the Force and sedatives. And he still had managed to escape one day after he woke up.
But then with a lurch of her guts, she remembered Wayland. "Let them go and I'll stay." The little girl, Anor's taste started after puberty but Luke didn't know that and he would submit to Anor's whims to protect a child. And Anor would get more aroused over mind-kriffing Luke along with raping him.
"Shavit," she muttered. "Palpatine should have let me kill Anor when I asked." Artoo twittered at her. "The Emperor told me no because Anor was still useful to him. Now I wish I hadn't asked and just dealt with the consequences after he was dead." She shook her head. "Okay, time to go to Columex and give Anor the largest disappointment of his life and get Skywalker out of that cage. Or give him a ride back to Coruscant if he managed to get out already."
Artoo whooped and scooted in front of her. It stopped and she paused to not bang right into its barrel-shaped chassis. The droid continued to berate her.
"What now? Look they have a day's head start on us and I still need to comm Organa Solo and Karrde about the travel and rescue plans. We don't have time for your trust issues."
The maintenance grasper arm extended from its dome compartment and reached towards Luke's lightsaber while the droid continued its beeping tirade.
"Really? I have my own; I'm not stealing it. Pop open that compartment you used on Myrkr." One of the blue panels above its photoreceptor slid open and she dropped the lightsaber into it. It closed, concealing the lightsaber from view and probably weapon scanners. "Speaking of your trust issues." Artoo made a sound like a human unvoiced linguolabial trill as it retracted its grasper arm. Mara ignored that. "I'm going after Skywalker, because Anor is my problem. You can stay here, but the Minister sent me after her brother, so nobody else is headed here. You can roll back to wherever Skywalker docked his X-Wing and fly it back to Coruscant, if Anor left it behind. Or you can come with me and be of some use rescuing Skywalker." She stepped around him. "Your choice, but don't take too long to decide."
Artoo caught up with her before she reached the middle of the foyer hallway to the main door.