"Well that could have gone better."
They'd linked back up with Garm and the Fire. In the chaos of the colliding Star Destroyers the Navy hadn't been able to maintain a blockade, and in a new and freshly stolen ship they reached the agreed-on coordinates. They arrived to see Garm watching the holonews, their exploits had drawn attention.
"'Separatist holdouts kill thousands' isn't really what I thought your distraction would consist of." If Luke couldn't feel the admiral's depression his expression would have been unreadable. "Do you think that it will build support?" Mara tensed next to him, but Luke spoke before she could defend them.
"We're going to be party to a lot of messy things in this war, but this wasn't one of them."
"Do you know how many-"
"I stopped keeping track a long time ago." He felt old suddenly, shockingly. "Shipyards are a military target, and smashing Star Destroyers at any stage in their construction will be a frequent occurrence."
Garm stared, as if he'd never truly seen them before erupting. "It was a civilian yard! They were-"
"Part of the Empire. Everything is, or will be." Mara's interjection silenced him. "Anything that doesn't serve the Emperor will be forced to, or destroyed."
"You can't know that." Garm didn't sound like the general they'd known. "Can you?"
Luke didn't answer. Artful truths could be useful, but he didn't have much taste for them. It didn't matter, Bel Iblis took it as confirmation.
"If that's what he's going to be able to do, then why even fight? If you can see the future so clearly, why bother? Take your daughter and flee to the Outer Rim!"
"Too late for that." Mara fished through her pockets before pulling a datachip free and inserting it into the holoplayer. "This guy's going to be after us, along with his friends."
The darksider appeared in the air, his pallor accentuated by the medium. The markings on his eyes and forehead were striking, Luke hadn't taken the time to study the blood red tattoos. They were unsettling geometric, unnatural. Combined with his yellow eyes and sharpened teeth the being was designed to intimidate. Everything Palpatine touched was twisted to horror.
"What is that? A Sith?" The prospect of a tangible enemy reignited something in the admiral. "You didn't kill him?"
"No, something lesser. He ran." Mara sounded satisfied, but it was faked. "We needed to get off the Destroyer so we couldn't run him down."
"Well that's encouraging." Garm was staring at the hologram, it might have been the first overt darksider he'd ever seen. "So, what now?"
"There is some reason for encouragement actually." Both of the others looked at him skeptically. "The fact that the Empire has these hunters running around indicates that there's a need. There are more Jedi."
"What good does that do if we can't find them?" Mara's doubt matched Garm's words.
"I've got a good feeling about at least one."
The impromptu debrief broke up shortly after. Luke knew it would only be a brief reprieve before Mara demanded an exhaustive review, but until then he was enjoying lying down. Flying out of an exploding Star Destroyer hadn't been the hardest thing he'd ever done, but wrestling a jury-rigged escape pod through debris fields without sensors or more than one window wasn't easy. Half an hour of rest would do a lot for him. Naturally Mara chose that moment to barge into his cabin.
"I didn't think you wanted to find others."
"I didn't think we could." He remembered the surge of fear he'd felt from Mara before he arrived to fight, as well as the sheer focus the dark sider exhibited. "But we might need to."
"If you're worried about me, don't be. I've got his number for next time." Without the force, he would have believed her.
"What was it he said again? 'Crippling overspecialization?' It makes sense, Yoda taught me to face my father, and Palpatine-"
"Did the same, I know." Mara looked contemplative, but if she wasn't vocally objecting she agreed. "I presume we're going to Dagobah then?"
"Risking Tatooine still seems foolish." The Empire wasn't the only threat there, Jabba had a galaxy spanning reach. The sheer concentration of bounty hunters in his service made the system far more dangerous than it should be. Many of those hunters wouldn't care that the ship wasn't a good match for the one that escaped Coruscant, even if it wasn't a match piracy was profitable.
"Have you thought about the impact on our cover then? Yoda won't know us and he was a big deal."
"We could just keep Garm on the ship with-"
"No, I know how you hero types work. Bringing along Mara will make us seem much more trustworthy." Luke didn't quite know how to respond to that, so he didn't. "Besides, if we keep her locked on the ship all the time she's not benefitting as much from her rescue as I'd like. I'm sure she'll enjoy it."
Luke had told many people that Dagobah was a disgusting swamp with no redeeming qualities, for some reason no one believed him. He assumed that they thought that after growing up on Tatooine he felt that any water was too much, but he hadn't minded Yavin. Mara at least would learn. "Well she did like the zoo."
Their reversion to realspace was careful and far from the planet. Dagobah interfered with navigation equipment, and approaching recklessly could lead to disaster. It was one thing to pry an X-Wing from the muck, the Fire would be another.
The swirling clouds concealed the forests and the slime, but all four of them were in the cockpit as they descended. It was a rare chance for Luke to be at the controls, Mara usually jealously guarded them. He had a rough idea of where the old Jedi Master was located, but it was vague enough that he didn't think he could describe it. Instead he let his mind drift, allowing the force to guide his hands.
Mara as ever hated being idle and used her temporary demotion to demonstrate the various controls to her doppelganger. The little girl watched with something approaching the studiousness that she'd first had, and before long they got to the scanners and flipped them on. The sensors could penetrate the fog and trees to reveal the terrain beneath, and to his surprise he recognized landmarks, if ravines and bodies of stagnant water could be called that.
"We're close." For the sake of Garm he closed his eyes theatrically. "I can feel his presence." If Yoda had been migratory he was about to look very foolish.
"Land there." Mara's finger stabbed at the readout, at an atypically solid patch of ground. "With the mats in the hold it'll support our weight."
"Alright, Captain." He did a quick circle around the area, and then with a burst of inspiration he adjusted the focus of the scanner, looking for refined metals. There was nothing, no beckon call lying in the mud. Mara raised an eyebrow, but he didn't explain.
He brought the Fire down, easing it into a clearing that was just large enough. He halted a meter off the ground, dialing the repulsors to hold the altitude before standing from the controls. "I'll set up the mats to give you some time to reevaluate hiking." He gave a wave at the damp mess visible out the windows, everything on the ship was probably already moldy. He couldn't wait for vacuum, or at least a real sun.
The young girl followed him as he strode for the hold. In a fit of what he could only describe as maternal activity Mara had dressed her in a hazardous environment suit. He didn't know where she'd gotten a child sized one, he was half convinced it was originally meant for Ewoks. She carefully observed Luke pull the appropriate crate from its pile, the force made rearranging the boxes easy, and walked after him as he floated it down to the extended ramp.
She sensibly stayed on the ship after he dropped into the mess with an audible squelch. Wishing he could do the same, Luke popped open the container and started yanking out the rolls. They unfurled easily beneath the landing struts, and a minor electrical current flattened them out in a rigid sheet. It was nice to have a clean surface on the planet, for however briefly it would last.
Mara landed the ship as soon as the pads were down, the repulsors cutting off and various systems spooling down shortly after. In less than a minute, the only noise was the mournful calls of avians and the swishes of vines and reeds.
"Keep the ship warmed up." Mara was talking to Garm when he got back to the ramp, and the admiral was visibly happy to comply. Luke tried not to look too jealous as he walked to his cabin and grabbed his supplies, it would have been awfully nice if Yoda had a commlink and a ship.
Mara and her younger self were waiting as he got back to the exit, identical expressions of trepidation on their faces.
He tried to think of something encouraging to say. "I don't think it will be that far." It didn't help.
He stopped just before he stepped off the ramp and picked up little Mara. She was going to be tired before they reached Yoda, and if he was going to be carrying her he'd prefer to do it before she was covered in mud. Besides, part of Dagobah's charm was best seen by carrying around a small occasionally irritating creature. It was Mara's turn to look jealous as the three of them set off, leaving behind an admiral and a ship with all the comforts of air conditioning, running water, and non-freeze-dried food.
This had better be worth it.