-Chapter 11—
Kiera hid within a maintenance closet and watched a sentry droid scurry down a barren corridor. Her head throbbed from a headache wasting countless hours avoiding security personnel searching for their missing colonel. Fortunate for her they would never find him unless they sifted through piles of debris in the garbage compactors. But the delay worried her, for in one hour's time the superweapon would be tested, and she had hoped to be far from Starkiller base when that happened.
She whisked down the passages searching for an elevator. A majority of the personnel had already gathered outside for General Hux's speech, but a few stragglers lingered behind causing her more delays. Skirting around more security checkpoints, she finally reached an elevator and sighed in relief when the doors opened to an empty compartment.
Without hesitation she dashed inside, slid the colonel's access card in a security reader, and pressed the option to take her to the lowest section; the place forbidden to anyone but the highest ranked individuals in the base. The elevator rumbled and whistled as it lowered and then came to an abrupt stop.
The doors opened to darkness. Kiera turned on her lightsaber and stepped out; the weapon was the only source of light for the moment. After a few cautious steps, a spotlight flicked on illuminating a hallway. In front of her was a single steel door with a camera above it and a pair of mini-turrets on the upper left and right corners. A red light on the camera scanned her and then an alarm tripped.
"Mismatch in identification…Intruder detected…" A mechanical voice blasted out of a speaker in the camera and then the turrets fired.
In the skilled hands of the young woman, Kiera's blue lightsaber deflected the shots back at the turrets. The security system was not prepared for an intruder bearing a lightsaber and succumbed easily leaving a pair of smoldering holes in the wall. Kiera allowed herself a moment to calm her rapidly beating heart and then slid the colonel's ID card in the access slot to open the door.
It was a single chamber with six recessed lights in the ceiling. On the furthest wall hung a carbonite case. Kiera pressed a switch on the wall to lower the casing and then activated her spider droid to interface with the thawing controls.
In a few seconds, the little droid worked its magic and the case vibrated as the thawing process began. The inauspicious tomb began glowing red and then a bright light appeared to punch its way out through the hardened outer cocoon. Kiera watched the carbonite coating peel away revealing a living woman of flesh and bone inside. When the processed completed, Mara Jade collapsed within her arms.
"Mara, can you hear me?" Kiera held the shuddering woman in her arms and glanced over the residue clinging to the woman's tunic and shorts.
Mara ran her fingers along Kiera's face. "What did you do to me? I can't see."
Kiera brushed aside a lock of red hair from the woman's emerald-green eyes. There was a white foamy substance in them and she gently wiped the muck away. "It must be a side effect of the carbonite freezing. Damn it. I hope your eyesight returns quickly or else you are going to be a burden to me. I wasn't counting on this when I decided to free you."
"A burden?" Mara shook her head. "I don't know who you are, but I assure you if anyone will be a burden it will be you. I may not be able to see for the moment, but I am not completely blind. What's our situation?"
"We are trapped inside a stronghold of the First Order. They are about to annihilate an entire star system with their new toy. Almost all of their personal is gathering in their main entry welcoming area. I have rigged their superweapon to blow apart their flagship as well as some other surprises but we need to get out of here. I have a ship waiting in one of the hangars."
Mara closed her eyes and said, "Just give me a moment." She stood there and steadied her breathing and reached out to the Force and allowed its energy to flow through her, sooth her, and clear the cloudiness in her mind. Then she opened her eyes and her vision slowly gained focus until she took in the full details of this young woman and those familiar wolf-like yellow eyes. "Kiera?"
"How…How do you know my name?" Kiera took a step back. "Do you have the ability to read minds?"
"Can you not feel the bond between us?" Mara smiled. "Do you not sense something familiar in me?"
Kiera stood silent a moment and allowed her own senses to reach out and then her eyes widened in disbelief. "It's impossible…This is a trick."
"No, Kiera, you are my daughter." Tears gleamed down Mara's cheeks. "You have grown into a beautiful woman. I am sorry I missed seeing you grow. How long have I been frozen?"
"At least twenty years. But I don't understand. What happened?"
"I was taken from you when you were only two years old. We were on Dathomir at the time. I assume the witches raised you without telling you about me or where you came from."
"All I remember is growing up on Dathomir before a bounty hunter captured me and sold me to the First Order. No one ever told me I was not born there."
"Probably to protect you. If anyone knew you were Luke Skywalker's daughter, they would have exploited you worse than you can possibly imagine."
"I'm Luke Skywalker's daughter?" Kiera felt faint and put her hand against the wall to hold herself up. "Why are my eyes so different from yours or his?"
"It's a long story and one I will share with you another time." Mara put her hand on Kiera's shoulder. "We have to leave this place. I promise I will explain everything once we are safe."
The spider droid whistled interrupting mother and daughter.
Kiera glared toward the spider droid. "You are just telling me this now?"
"I'm sorry, what did he just say?"
"The First Order's superweapon draws energy from the sun before firing. I instructed my droid to reduce the superweapon's containment field to limit how much power it could draw. But my insidious droid here didn't want to chance destroying the sun. So it decided to have the weapon create a magnetic field around the intended target and suck in anything orbiting the stronghold. Every ship in space around this place is going to be pulled into the base and destroy everything including us."
"How cute, an android with a conscience," Mara said with a wry smile.
"Yes, I'll be removing that flaw if we ever get out of here alive." Kiera began panting. "We need to be gone from here before my android's genius plan goes into effect."
"I sense a lot of anger, fear, and aggression within you; emotions that are synonymous with the dark side." Mara grinned sheepishly and then added, "Your father is not going to like that."
***Author Note*** - Sorry if there was confusion in the last chapter at the end. I actually went back and re-wrote it to make it more clear. Up to this point, we know Ben and Rey are Ezra's children (two different mothers). Kiera is Luke's daughter. And there is still the mystery around how Ezra knew Kiera was Luke's daughter and how she got the yellow eyes, but that will be explained in a future chapter. Anyway, I hope everyone is enjoying the story so far and thank you for following.
