Breaking Destiny's Bonds
Chapter 10: Searching
A/N: Let's get this out of the way. I am just a young idealistic Star Wars fan. But I am not so jaded that I do not understand that good and evil coexist with one another in a constant struggle. Therefore, someone needs to become Palpatine's apprentice and as long as it's not Anakin or anyone with the surname Skywalker (at least for the moment) I'm okay with that. As always, reviews are appreciated and encouraged because, like most writers on this site, I crave them
"Mara," a small voice called from the doorway of her room. Mara awoke and sat up to see Leia standing in the doorway. "Mara," she repeated quietly "Come on. You don't wanna miss the match."
"What match?" Mara asked as she slid out of bed.
"Luke and Kiera, Kiera swears she's going to beat him this time," Leia smirked "But she always says that."
Mara rose from the bed "I'll be right there," she whispered back. Leia's face disappeared from the doorway and Mara pulled on a pair of leggings and a plain white tunic. She could only assume that any match that two children of a Jedi would be having would have to involve lightsabers so she hurried to join the other children.
She stood between Leia and Athin on the East hilltop, watching the duel. Mara was captivated by the blades of light as they danced, dipped, parried and struck. It was an incredible sight.
It didn't take long for Luke to be declared the winner on this morning as Kiera yielded rather quickly to repeated swipes at her saber by Luke's emerald weapon.
The three members of the audience cheered and applauded for both victor and the defeated. Kiera climbed to her feet and glared at her brother "That wasn't fair," she snapped.
"It was," Luke countered "You're skilled enough to make your own lightsaber which means that I don't have to go easy on you anymore."
"Go easy on me," Kiera frowned but decided not to continue the argument.
Luke turned to his audience and just to rub it in, he bowed rather grandiosely to them. Leia couldn't help laughing at this. She collapsed to the ground in fits of giggles. Mara smiled and giggled a bit herself but Athin soon joined Leia on the ground, rolling around and laughing loudly.
"Quiet you guys," Kiera warned, though she was laughing as well, though not as loudly "You don't want to wake Uncle Owen, do you?"
Leia was the first to recover. Standing up she looked sternly down at her cousin as if she had been standing their stoically the entire time.
Athin stopped laughing a little while later and stood up. The second sun was already starting to rise. The children would have to hurry if they were going to avoid landing Athin in trouble.
Mara found herself walking beside Luke. Her eyes were drawn repeatedly to the lightsaber which he held out in front of him "Why do you still have it activated?" she asked "You aren't planning to duel some sort of imaginary beast are you?"
"You've never been outside of Mos Eisley have you?" Luke enquired.
"Until a couple days ago, I'd never been more than a block away from our apartment," Mara admitted.
"You've got a lot to learn," Luke said dismissively.
Mara grabbed his arm and spun him around "I know more about the galaxy than you ever will farmboy."
"Farmboy," Luke countered indignantly.
"You live on a farm don't you?" the others had run ahead long ago, leaving the two to their argument. The decision had been made that they would rather face Sand People than listen to what Leia was jokingly deeming a "lovers quarrel".
"Yes," Luke replied, following her train of thought and attempting to formulate a comeback. He had unthinkingly deactivated his lightsaber as the two continued to fight.
"And you're a boy, I assume," Mara countered sharply with a bit of an evil grin.
Luke glowered at her "I see your point," he conceded.
"So don't tell me I have a lot to learn," Mara ordered him.
"What do you know about Tatooine?" Luke asked.
"What is there to know?" Mara asked "It's dry, it's hot, it's got two suns. End of story."
A noise from behind them soon confirmed that what Mara had stated was indeed not the end of the story. A small group of Sand People came riding their banthas over the Eastern hilltop towards them.
Luke handed Mara the lightsaber that he had constructed for Kiera. "What am I supposed to do with this?" Mara asked, looking down at the object in her hand.
"Use it," Luke called, activating his own and waving it in the direction of the approaching Sand People. The raiders were not deterred.
"But I can't," Mara objected, her hands shaking as she stared at the approaching horde "I'm not a Jedi. I have no training…"
"Just activate it," Luke told her sternly as the Sand People began to bare down upon them.
Mara did as she was told and the blue blade sprang to life in her hands. Something awakened deep inside her and she seemed to know how to move it, and how to keep the energy confined in the blade.
"Their headed for the farm," Luke said, thinking immediately of his unsuspecting family. The two children shrieked and ran at the Sand People. The beings were frightened into retreating.
Mara and Luke deactivated their lightsabers and looked at each other. Mara was smiling broadly. "You did very well for your first time," a voice from behind them said.
Both children turned to see Anakin, standing there. Upon sensing the approaching danger that the Sand People posed, and seeing Leia, Kiera and Athin return without Luke or Mara, Anakin had run off in the direction of the Eastern hilltop. He had arrived just in time to see the two children frighten the Sand People off.
Mara bowed her head to the Jedi "I don't know why," she said quietly "But it felt right."
"The Force is strong with you young one," Anakin told her, placing a hand on her shoulder.
Mara's eyes grew wide. She had read enough about the Jedi to know what that meant "I can be trained?" she asked. Anakin nodded and the child smiled brighter than both of Tatooine's suns.
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Lya arrived in Mos Eisley, suddenly wondering why this was the planet she had chosen to come to relax. It was true that many familiar faces resided here but there were very few things, if any that were relaxing about Tatooine. If nothing else, she could have a talk with her Master about the fight she had had with Raile. Perhaps he could assuage some of her misgivings?
Of course, Anakin was the one who had warned her to stay away from Raile in the first place. She wondered if his reasons had been valid. But despite the things that Raile had said, despite the fear he had instilled in her from their encounter, despite everything, she had fallen in love with him. Force help her, she loved Raile Eros.
She decided to stop off at a cantina and grab a drink. It would be a long ride out to the Lars/Skywalker homestead and under the brightness of the Tatooine suns one could become parched, quite fast. She ordered a bribb juice, a drink that she had practically been raised on since coming to live with the Skywalker's.
As she nursed the juice, her stomach began to complain of hunger. She hadn't been able to eat anything on the ride from Dantooine to Tatooine. She decided to order a large plate of pancakes with frill syrup.
As she ate, she kept her senses spread out, to warn her of any possible danger. Five minutes into her meal and she recognized a familiar presence entering the cantina. But why would her Master have come to Mos Eisley? Lya looked up just in time to see Anakin and Vella approaching her.
"I thought you were still on Dantooine," Anakin said as he took a seat across from Lya.
Lya let her eyes drift downwards towards the food on her plate before she answered "I decided to come back for a rest," she replied with a shrug.
Anakin sensed that something was wrong but he dared not pry either with the Force or with questions. He simply put the feeling away at the back of his mind to be revisited at a later time.
"So," Lya decided to turn the tables on her old Master "What brings you to Mos Eisley?" she looked over at Vella "It can't be that you are headed back to Dantooine so soon."
"We've come to find someone," Anakin told her "The mother of a little girl. She has been missing for over a week and I believe she has met with an unpleasant end."
"How can you be sure?" Vella asked. Anakin had not previously informed her of his theory.
"The Force," he answered simply "It offers me a vision, one that I hope isn't true. The vision entered my mind sometime early this morning as we approached Mos Eisley. I saw the woman, Fiana Jade, lying on the ground. It was night time and she was bleeding."
"Have you been able to find the location in your vision," Lya asked, rising from the table and dropping a handful of credits beside her unfinished meal.
"Not yet," Anakin said glumly "But perhaps, with the assistance of another Jedi…"
"I will be more than happy to assist you Master," Lya told him. She left the cantina with Anakin and Vella soon after.
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"Very good," Luke smiled. Mara had begged him to show her how to use her powers. While Luke had refused at first, saying that it was a job more suited to the experience of his father or perhaps Lya, he had finally given in.
He had begun, quite nervously, with a lengthy lecture about the Dark Side and how dangerous it was and why hate, anger, fear and aggression were not emotions that a Jedi could feel freely. He had told the story that his father had told him about his near fall to the Dark Side. He told of how his father had dreamed of losing his mother in childbirth and how later, upon their arrival on Tatooine, his father had been given the answer through the Force that the future he had seen was the future that would exist had he turned to the Dark Side.
Finally, Mara had declared that she understood and that he had talked enough about the Dark Side of the Force. So Luke had decided to show her a game. So the two of them sat, cross legged on the bed in Lya's room and took turns levitating a ball.
As Mara gained better control of the ball Luke began to use the Force to pull it away from her. At first she complained, decreed that he wasn't playing fair but he informed the more he tried to take it from her, the harder she had to try to get it back.
Soon the ball was whizzing around the room, bouncing off of invisible barriers and making impossible pivots and turns. The two children laughed gleefully as the ball danced above them.
Mara sent the ball in a loop across the room and back to her without Luke's interference. Luke smiled at her "You're getting good at this."
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"This is the place," Anakin declared, looking sadly upon the dismal alleyway. The alley was stained in so many places by blood. Anakin tentatively reached down and touched one such stain, searching for an echo of the Force to show him to whom it belonged.
Suddenly, it was night. He saw a frightened young Twi'lek girl, perhaps fifteen standard years, being chased by a gang of ruthless looking males of varying species. The poor thing tripped and they were upon her, beating her mercilessly.
Anakin withdrew his hand from the stain as if it had burned him and wiped at his eyes with his artificial arm. This alley had seen many sorrows. Anakin was hesitant to touch another spot of blood.
Lya stepped forward, laying a hand gently upon her master's shoulder "I'll do it, Master," she whispered. She stepped forward, taking a deep breath. She reached down to another large stain.
It was late afternoon and a Bothan was just closing up one of the shops at the mouth of the alley. A rather tall light skinned human dragged the other sentient into the alley and after a brief struggle he stabbed the Bothan. Lya watched in horror as the Bothan fell to his knees, gasping, trying to scream for help but no one heard, or cared.
She was back in the present now, with Anakin and Vella. She let her head drop as a few tears escaped. "It was, so horrible," she whispered, weakly.
Vella simply watched the two Jedi. Anakin and Lya both shivered "The Dark Side," Anakin whispered.
"I feel it Master," Lya whispered in return. This alley had a definite aura of darkness to it. That was why the deaths of non-Force-sensitive beings were so clear.
Anakin, feeling an icy coldness in his stomach, reached to touch another stain of blood. This one was halfway up one of the walls of a building that bordered the alley. It was early morning and a red haired woman was running at breakneck speed through the alley. An armored human following close behind. The armored human reached out and grabbed the woman. She fell and cracked her skull on the side of a building, she went limp. The armored man checked her pulse and apparently didn't find anything. "What a shame," he said in a voice that sounded very familiar to Anakin.
He snapped back into reality and stood up. The voice had been that of the clone troopers. But the man's armor had not been that of a clone. Anakin remembered Obi-Wan saying something about the bounty hunter that had provided the initial DNA for the clones. He would have to speak with Obi-Wan about it the next time he saw him.
Anakin looked at the ground for a moment "We'd better go," he said finally. Lya and Vella followed him out of the alley without question.
"Well?" Vella asked as they emerged "What did you see?"
"She's dead," Anakin replied. He did not relish the idea of going back to Mara with this news. He was reminded of when his own mother had died and what he had done. He had touched the Dark Side to take revenge, murdering men, women and children of the tribe responsible.
He walked sullenly back to the speeder. He did not wish to do this. He wanted to return to Mara with good news. He wanted to tell her that her mother was alive and well, but that was not the case.
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Raile got on the speeder bike and just road it, he just road, road attempting to distract his mind off anything and everything. But no matter how fast he could push the speeder, how far he road, he could not escape his thoughts or his raging emotions.
Hatred was not the path of the Jedi. Revenge was not the path of the Jedi. How could he not be angry? How could he not want revenge after what had happened to the Jedi at the hands of the clones and the Emperor?
Lya was right though. He couldn't feel this way. He shouldn't feel this way. All life was sacred, even the lives of merciless Imperials. The war within raged. He just wanted to be able to forgot, forget all the visions of pain he had had and all of the painful things he had seen that day at the Jedi Temple. He wished Anakin had never saved him. He wanted to forget. So that Lya would forgive him.
But he would never be able to forget. There was only one way that he could resolve his inner conflict. The Empire had to be defeated. He made up his mind and returned to the base. He got into his Z-95 and headed off. If all went well, he would reach Coruscant within three days at sublight speed.
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Palpatine smiled. His new apprentice was coming. He could feel the conflicting and hateful heart drawing nearer. He would soon have his enforcer and his control over the galaxy would be cemented.
He got on the comlink. He made a few not-so-empty threats about efficiency. He called a few of his senior officers into the throne room and watched them squirm. And just because he could, he signed for and attended a number of executions. It was all in all, a good day and the days would only get better with his new dark apprentice soon to arrive.
He was sure that his apprentice would be able to lead him to the rebels and he knew that his victory and total control over the galaxy would come. His wait was nearly over.