Chapter Nineteen
The remaining day passed easily into night. Luke slumbered curled up with Mara. Sex was denied them, but Mara's condition hadn't put a stricture on cuddling and kisses. He expected her to reject his embrace every night now, but she had not. Nor had Sidious appeared with orders not to touch the experiment. Pain constricted his gut and woke him up. Mara groaned through gritted teeth as she shifted away from him. He turned on the lamp on his side of the bed. "Mara?"
"It's dead." She sucked in air. "I'm fairly certain it's dead."
He ignored the increased throbbing from the headache to extend his Force senses over her. The spark of life she had carried was gone. "He's dead." Then he saw the bright red stain on her medical trousers. "How did you cut your leg?" He grabbed the top sheet to wad against the wound.
Her amusement was cut short by another vicious cramp. All those anatomy references didn't cover that?
"Sorry, I didn't think." Both sheets were stained with blood, too much blood. "Artoo, get Doctor Akura on the comm."
The droid whistled his suggestion as he rotated his dome in front of the console.
"No, we can't pretend she's still pregnant. She's hurting and a medisensor will discover the miscarriage." Luke wrapped his arms around Mara's shaking form. He didn't turn on more lights, partly to not confirm the pallor of her skin. He put his worry into suppressing her pain instead.
"Akura."
Luke climbed out of the bed and approached the console. "Skywalker. The fetus has died and Mara's cramping and losing blood. I want to put her in a healing trance to stop the bleeding."
"The substitute for a bacta tank? No, we'll have to start all her hormones levels over again. Keep her conscious until we get there."
"Wermo piholetka," Luke muttered to the inactive comm unit. Korora was still asleep on her cot and he stepped between it and the bed to kneel at Mara's side. "If I find damage to the blood vessels, I'm healing that." He set his hand on her stomach and looked into her body.
She squeezed his free hand. "No argument from me."
Luckily, he hadn't found any blood vessel damage by the time a medic escorted a medbed into the room and turned on all the lights. Mara's pallor was as bad as he feared, nearly matching the crisp white sheets on their bed. They moved Mara to the medbed and the medic didn't care how noisy she was. "I'll send maintenance droids to replace the bedding. Bloodstains never come out easily."
Korora jolted awake with a strange voice and the lights, but not aware. Luke scooped her up and sat in the armchair. She leaned against his chest. He rubbed her back as the medbed and medic left with Mara. They'd heal this and bring her back. If for no other reason than Sidious wasn't through toying with them. His stomach churned harder when he blocked more of the pain, so he let himself feel it, to know Mara was alive on the other end of the bond.
Artoo beeped his question quietly.
"Yeah, we both need more sleep. I doubt it happens now for me. Let's stay quiet for Korora."
Artoo followed with an interrogative whistle.
"They're torturing her because she sided with us. And because I love her, like they did Leia, Han, and Chewie on Cloud City."
Now the droid warbled his concern for Luke, and raised concern over the likelihood of Mara dying from the torture. No one liked it when he gave the odds, but….
"She's not dying here." Luke cut the droid off before he rattled off any numbers and breathed deeply to prevent his arms from crushing Korora to his chest. "Trusting the Force is what I'm doing; you keep looking for anything that can help." Artoo went back to interfacing with the console.
Korora remained quiet throughout their exchange, but Luke's hope that she had dropped back into sleep was ruined when a pair of maintenance droids barged into the room with a repulsorlift-pallet with a new mattress. Their clanking and banging into the walls caused Korora to shriek and sink her fingers into Luke's undertunic. He soothed her while the droids exchanged the mattresses and smoothed fresh sheets and blanket over the new one.
"Mommy? Where's Mommy?" She jerked away from Luke sliding off his lap. "Where is she?"
"She had to go back to the medcenter."
The scowl made her face darker. "Mommy wasn't sick before they brought us here."
"No, she wasn't." He sighed. "Let's get dressed and eat breakfast."
Korora had evidently had enough of their imprisonment and Mara's treatment and transformed into a Jawa-sized sandstorm. Toys hit the walls, fists and feet hit the furniture, clothing sparked a marathon at top speed over the furniture and floor with yelling at the top of her lungs. Artoo decided to encourage the anarchy by chasing her where the furniture permitted him movement. Or maybe the droid thought he was helping herd the child. None of it helped when Mara's pain level increased and hit Luke again. Sithspit, why hadn't they sedated Mara or given her better pain blockers? He nearly blacked out from that one and scorched breakfast. How was Mara still conscious?
"Food, now." He set the bowls of porridge number two on the table with less than his usual grace and dropped into a chair.
"Not eating!" She held onto the back of the armchair and jumped on its seat.
He stared down at the lumpy mass he had no appetite for. Years of giving Janson KP duty was no preparation for this.
The door slid open. "Mommy!" Korora jumped to the bed and then bounced off the other side to the floor. Luke knew it wasn't Mara—she was much further away—but he wasn't able to get up fast enough to stop her. She stopped before the foyer and scowled at Kam Solusar. "You bring Mommy back right now!"
Solusar spread his hands. "I don't have her. She's in the medcenter."
"Get her out!" She stomped her foot. "Right now!"
"Korora, he can't," Luke said. "The Emperor put her there." His teeth clenched together. This was how Sidious rewarded loyal service with pain and death threats. He forced his jaw to relax. His daughter didn't need to pick up on his turmoil.
"Who?" she demanded.
"The man on the throne back when Mommy danced."
That finally abated the sandstorm. "He was mean."
"Yes, he is, and we don't want him to do worse to Mommy. Come eat." That finally got her to climb the stool.
Solusar stared at the mess Korora had made of their quarters. "If running off some energy will help, I found a gymnasium set up for children. It's in this section of the Citadel."
"What is that?" Korora shoveled more porridge into her mouth.
"A place where you can play once you get dressed."
She slid off the stool. "I pick my clothes."
Luke rubbed his face. "I don't care as long as you put them on."
Korora pulled a jumpsuit from the closet and went into the 'fresher. Solusar picked a pillow off the floor and put it back on the bed. "Rough night?"
"Mara miscarried and we haven't been asleep since." He put a spoonful of porridge into his mouth. He should eat more, but the pain from Mara was stealing any appetite he possessed. He pushed the bowl aside. Artoo moaned, concerned about Luke's caloric intake. "I'll be fine, Artoo. I'll make up for it at lunch or supper."
"Packing snacks will be easier than taking you to the dining facilities." Solusar found a bag and rummaged in the cabinets. Luke roused himself to clean up breakfast.
The large room that Solusar led them to was only about three levels away from their residential floor and most of its space was filled by a colorful climbing frame made of pipes, tubes, netting, and blocks arranged to resemble buildings with at least three different types of slides branching off of it. Korora blinked at it before dropping Luke's hand and running across the floor to it.
Adult-sized benches and tables were set at angles with the structure to keep an eye on the children using it. Luke dropped onto one without a table. Pain from Mara receded and so did her awareness in the bond, drifting into something like sleep. They must have finally given her a sedative. How many hours had it been, the dotkohus.
Korora slid down the wavy four-level slide with a happy shriek. Solusar sat on the other end of the bench, placing the snack bag between them. "She's enjoying it at least," he said hesitantly. "That should help take her mind off things."
"Where are the other children who use this?" Luke asked, mostly to be polite now that he wasn't feeling the cramps. "Are we a bad influence to be kept away from them?"
"There are no other children in the Citadel, even though it was built to include them." Solusar waved his hand at the equipment.
"Waging war does put a dampener on procreating." Leia had waited until the major battles were done and the New Republic settled on Coruscant before seriously considering children and she was hardly in the minority. He was glad not to have to account for any more innocents to rescue when he and Mara destroyed this evil place.
"Why procreate when you can take? Starting with your niece and nephew."
"Sidious wants to kidnap Jaina and Jacen." Luke pushed his feet against the spongy mat covering the floor. It kept him in his seat instead of charging away. "Ask Grand Admiral Thrawn how well going after Jacen and Jaina went." The entire Noghri population would stand between the Imperials and the twins. It might be beneath him as a Jedi to not warn the Imperials, but well, they were torturing Mara.
"It doesn't matter. They are Force sensitives and will be Force users. My Master wants all Force users to obey him. The Adepts most talented at farseeing are pinpointing their location." Solusar looked haggard and defeated at the news. Interesting, Sedriss would be gleeful about sharing this. Gloating that Luke was helpless to prevent it.
Preventing a kidnapping was up to Leia and Han. Maybe the Force had brought him and Mara here for a rescue if they failed. Not that they would; Leia was vicious when you threaten what's under her protection. "Are you guys sure the flash memory template hasn't degraded or something?"
"I don't have any access to the cloning technology, but why?"
"Because the original Palpatine must have had memories of my sister." Solusar frowned in confusion. "You haven't been in a firefight with Leia, but I expected that someone over the military would have figured out why we rallied behind 'Remember Alderaan'."
"Because billions of people died thanks to Tarkin's madness?"
"That and my sister's reaction. Then again, Mara was complaining about Sidious' lack of military strategizing." Solusar shook his head. Luke closed his eyes, feeling the light of the Force reaching past all the suffering on Byss to find him here. "Search your feelings; you know this isn't the right path for the galaxy."
"Darth Sidious is too powerful to stop," Solusar whispered.
Certainty filled Luke, pushing away all doubts. "He will be stopped. The dark cannot snuff out the light. He will never get the twins or Korora." Korora yelled for Luke to come push her on the swing, so he left Kam on the bench to think about it.
They stayed in the children's gymnasium for hours until Korora dragged her feet moving between activities. She whined until Luke carried her through the corridors and on the turbolift. "You still have to pick up all your toys," he told her as they reentered the suite. "You're lucky no one stepped on them or Artoo hasn't rolled over them."
"Fine," she protested as he set her down on the floor.
"I'll make cheesy noodles."
She gave a cheer and bent down to pick up the puzzle pieces. Kam looked amused as he followed them in and straightened the bedside lampshade. "You bribe her with food?"
"Food is a very effective bribe. Number one on the list of things I learned from my military career." He removed the ingredients from the cabinets and the conservator, and tried to pinpoint what felt so odd about the room. It wasn't Kam's presence using straightening as an excuse to linger. Luke had that the man simply preferred their company to everyone else in the Citadel bolted down by Kam's second visit. The buzzing was gone. Why were the Force dampeners off? He glanced around the room again. Did Artoo find a way to turn them off? The droid wasn't acting like he pulled a con on the Imperials.
"It's hard to picture you with a military career." Kam found a plastic animal under the blanket and carried it to the side of the room with the window. "Where does this go?"
The main door of the suite slid open and Luke heard the hum of the medbed as it floated in. "Mommy!" Korora shouted before she cringed back sliding between the two armchairs. Artoo moaned as he backed up. Kam's face also paled. Luke stepped out of the kitchen area, going to the foot of the bed to help move Mara and to see what had them reacting like that. Her anger was bitterly cold and focused, and no hint of fear unlike Korora, Kam, and Artoo. Doctor Akura pushed more medical equipment towards the bed. A black robed figure followed him through the foyer and stepped aside into the kitchen portion of the room. His hands rested on a gnarled black wooden cane and cold power emanated from him, filling the room.
Luke ignored him, looking at the medical equipment. A shorter and thinner version of a MedTech FX Medical Assistant droid rolled around Luke and stationed itself next to the other bedside table. He looked at Mara as the medbed's droid hands lifted her onto the bed. He didn't recognize the device strapped to her upper left arm. Her color looked better than her last go in the medcenter, but there was an obvious baby bump swelling under the fresh medical gown she wore. They put an older and larger fetus in her. His rage was as hot as the suns on Tatooine. No time for her uterus to recover and they didn't use an ovum.
Her green eyes blinked at him and then slid past him to focus on Sidious. A blast of icy rage that reminded Luke of the wind sweeping off the plains of Hoth filled the bond between them. It wasn't aimed at Luke, and Sidious' red-tinged lips smiled thinly. Luke remembered that smile taunting him to finish killing his father. He inhaled deeply as he released his anger; he did not want to feed the Dark Side with it.
Doctor Akura sent the medbed out of the room. Luke focused on the man's grateful eyes amid a pinched expression. "The working theory we have on the previous failure," he swallowed hard with a glance at Sidious, "is that the Hand's hormone levels dropped too low for a pregnancy and her body attacked the fetus as a parasite. So this fetus contains some of her genetic material to prevent that."
Luke looked at Mara as disgust roiled through her icy rage. There was nothing he could offer that would make this better except for; he projected an image of them sitting side by side on one of the veranda sofas while Korora added more splashes to the fountain. Mara rejected the offer telepathically. We have to take him out and his back-up copies. But that declaration didn't dent the level of her anger.
"The infusion set monitoring and correcting her hormone levels is on her arm," Akura continued. "The sensors on her torso connect to the medical assistant droid, and it will remain here to prevent another miscarriage. She must remain on complete bed rest. That's all the additional instructions I have at this time, your Highness." He glanced at Sidious again with a hard swallow.
"Leave us," Sidious ordered. Akura's relief at the dismissal battered the other emotional currents of the room. He bowed and trotted out of the room as fast as he could without running. Luke wished he could throw Kam and Korora out the door with him. Mara wasn't considering them at all with her laser-scope focus on Sidious. She hadn't felt this angry or bitter since Jomark.
"You're doing this to make me despise you." Her words were carved from ice.
Sidious chuckled and the familiar malice crawled over Luke's skin. "My dear child, you are mine to do with as I wish. You have always been mine to craft into something useful."
"To join you on the Dark Side."
"I have no need for a worthless failure such as you in my cause. You are another regrettable miscalculation that must be purged from the Empire, like those warlords who also suffer from a lack of vision."
Crushing pain ground Mara's ice, cracking her rage. "A failure? I only failed you once."
"Oh, I remember. The Gamorrean guards kept you imprisoned until the barge left." His voice scraped with contempt. "I should have sent a Hand who would not have been swayed by a handsome face." His hood shifted so his gaze fell on Luke.
Mara's pain twisted under a stab of worthlessness. Luke hadn't expected Mara to project a memory of a blue humanoid face with red eyes glowing in the dim light. "You carried out his will," Thrawn said sharply. "No more. Whether you heard his commands more clearly than the rest of his Hands is irrelevant." The faded pain of that memory flared again.
Sidious sensed it and his lips curved with pleasure. "Still such a needy child. Had you focused that need on power instead of affection and approval, something could have been salvaged from all this. But you never saw through the inducements, you never grasped your potential, you never showed worthiness of my complete trust."
She was reeling from the rejection, and Luke wanted to wrap his arms around her. "Why go to all this effort for my hate?" And Luke recognized the plaintive need under her words. He remembered clinging to the antenna against the wind that had wanted to tear him off of it. Ben, why didn't you tell me?
"Your hate is inconsequential."
Luke found the yellow-eyed gaze on him again when Mara shared her bitter conclusion. Of course, I'm nothing compared to a Skywalker in your grip. I never had the level of Force abilities you truly wanted. So weak, only good for baiting a trap.
It was true, he realized. Not the tear-down of her abilities but of Sidious' motives to hurt her and to entice Luke down the dark path. Was this how Palpatine seduced and lured his father to the Dark Side? The Emperor Reborn had misjudged the son. There was nothing dark when anger fueled justice for the wronged and protection for the powerless as long as it remained anger and didn't descend into hate. He stepped forward inserting himself in the line of sight between Mara and Sidious. "Get out."
Sidious' wrinkles slacked into an impassive mask.
Luke took another step toward him. Certainty had filled him again, echoing the last time he had confronted this malevolent soul. He lacked his lightsaber for a defiant gesture now, so words rolled out of him instead. "You're not standing here insulting a woman who believed she was serving a noble cause—"
Sidious lifted one hand and the bolt of lightning from it hit Luke square in the chest, knocking him off his feet. He landed next to the bed and had no air in his lungs to scream with. Mara screamed for him instead. He laid there gasping and waiting for the next barrage. "You will learn your place, Skywalker." Sidious turned and left their room, leaning heavily on his cane.
The room filled with the breathing of four people and Artoo's frantic moaning. The droid rolled around the end of the bed to look down at Luke and began to chide. Luke rolled over onto his back and tested his right hand. It curled into a fist. Good, he wasn't too worried about the fading muscle spasms.
"Can you please stop defying Sidious with your mouth, Farmboy?" Mara's voice ached. "Solusar, help him up would you?"
Artoo trilled that using his lightsaber was a better idea and if Sidious returned Luke should do just that. Kam moved around the bed and Artoo with a face as pale as his white-blond hair. Luke accepted the outstretched hand and leverage up and over to the bed. He stretched on top of the blanket. Mara rolled over onto her side to look at him. "That one wasn't the worst he's ever hit me with." She glared at him. "It wasn't," he insisted.
"That makes it so much better when I feel it too." Luke jerked to look her over. "I'm fine, but you scared Korora."
He balanced up on his elbow. Korora's wide eyes stared back at him and her whole body vibrated with fear. "I'm fine. Come see. It's all right." She jerked out from between the armchairs and crawled up between them from the end of the bed. Luke laid back down and pulled the trembling child against his chest. "It's over now." He kissed her forehead.
She squeezed him as hard as she could and he was glad that her arms were around his chest and not his neck. "He was mean and scary," Korora said.
"Yes, he was, especially to Mommy." He looked over to Mara's stoic face. She had her end of the bond shielded. "You know he just wanted to hurt you. You are not worthless."
"You're biased."
"Fine, I'm biased. But what about Korora? And do you really think Karrde would promote anyone that had no skills or abilities? And Aves and the rest of them I've met like you just fine. Leia invited you over for dinner because Han likes you, and she told me that Sian Tevv never takes work colleagues to the opera." He shifted without dislodging Korora and dropped a kiss on Mara's lips. "Are they all biased too?"
Korora slid so she was able to wrap Mara's head in her arms and kissed her face without landing on Mara's torso. "I love you, Mommy!"
"I love you too." Mara returned Korora's kiss and dropped her mental shield. Luke sent in his reassurances, his faith, his love. She felt fragile, but she reached out to him mentally and physically. Their fingers twined together and she sighed. He caught a glimpse of everyone he had mentioned in her memories. He felt the fierce protection to keep Korora off the path she had been forced on as the little girl curled against her on a bed. Karrde and Mara sharing a meal and camaraderie with the rest of the crew on the Wild Karrde. His sister and brother-in-law at a function he didn't recognize; Tevv at the Galaxies Opera House. Those remembrances and their collective goodwill were shattered by a memory of his face twisted with fearful fury and singed slightly. The lightsaber blade entered the line of sight to strike down the clone that C'baoth had made of him.
Mara yanked that memory away as she tried to yank her hand back. Luke refused to let go. "Don't, please don't," he said. Her face was mostly hidden by Korora, but he felt her dismay. "I have never held that against you, Mara. You did what you had to against an enemy combatant. It's not like C'baoth left anything of my clone's mind to save."
Her dismay turned bitter over his incomprehension. He let go of her hand and shifted Korora down between them, so he could see Mara's disbelieving glare. "With that damned command in my head, it would've been you!"
He smiled, reached out, and smoothed the red-gold wisps escaping from her braid. "Never. You weren't using Karrde's resources to destroy me, just rebuilding your life. And after you found out it was all because of Vader, you would have come to me for help digging the command out." His fingers moved from her hair to delicately stroke her skin. "You're stronger than you realize. That's why Sidious attacked you so hard."
Her glare softened into something close to gratitude. "Thank you." The fragility was still there along with a desire to lash out and to answer pain for pain. He made sure to send compassion through the bond. "You didn't have to defend me," she continued.
"Of course I did." He took her hand again. "You deserve protection."
She didn't know what to do with that assurance and tried to dismiss it. "Feel free to be more offensive with your defense of others."
"What? Hit him with one of the chairs?"
Artoo made a dismissive squawk and rolled back to the console. Kam copied the sound. Luke sat up to look at him and Korora squirmed between him and Mara. Kam's whole body twitched. "Hit Darth Sidious with a chair?"
Luke shrugged. "He was there, chair is there, she didn't agree to have a baby with him just incubate his clone."
"He will kill you for that defiance!"
"Strategically, it won't work unless we neutralize all the opposition." Mara patted Luke's arm. "But thanks for the offer."
"You can't encourage this," Kam told Mara. "He will kill you, Skywalker, if you continue to defy him."
"I'm a rebel; it's what we do." Kam gaped at Luke. Luke continued, "And I'm a Jedi, we use the Force to defend and protect, never to attack. Sidious became someone to defend against when he assaulted Mara, when he assaulted the galaxy, when he assaulted you. If defying him keeps my family safe, I'll keep defying him." Kam's face hadn't regained any color with Luke's declaration. If anything, mentioning family made his jaw drop further. "There are holes in your memories, Kam. They wouldn't be there if you had joined the Dark Side willingly."
He shook his head, slightly recovering from his daze. "I must… I have to go." They didn't say anything as he left the room.
"Family, Luke?" Mara asked softly.
He swiveled to look at her pinched expression. "We have a kid now." Korora giggled and batted his hand away. "Family is the easiest way to describe it."
"I don't know if I can do the family thing." Her doubts were tinged with everything Sidious had just said including an added fear of losing him. His getting hit with the Force Lightning had not helped her deal with that fear.
He leaned over—careful not to crush Korora—so their faces were closer. "We're both too stubborn to fail."
Mara smirked before kissing him.
Author's Note: "Wermo piholetka" translates into "stupid medical doctor" in Huttese with the Coruscant Translator. I had fun trying to figure out what it would be before finding the Coruscant Translator. According to Complete Wermo's Huttese Dictionary, they used Hindi and Quechua for the movies dialogue, but I never found anything I liked from them. Considering how prevalent Huttese must be on Tatooine adds an extra layer of insult to Luke's childhood nickname of Wormie. That just dawned on me while writing this chapter and looking at the translations.
"Dotkohus" is Huttese for "bastard."
"Oh, I remember. The Gamorrean guards kept you imprisoned until the barge left." — Okay, Zahn wrote himself into a corner with the whole Mara on Jabba's sail barge thing. Luke's introduction to her via creepy cave/tree Force vision is powerful stuff, but also in Heir to the Empire Zahn had her explain what happened.
Her lip twisted. "Jabba wouldn't let me go with the execution party. That was it—pure and simple. I tried begging, cajoling, bargaining—I couldn't change his mind." "No," Luke said soberly. "Jabba was highly resistant to the mind-controlling aspects of the Force."So this worked for the novel and fits Jabba's character too. I like Jabba's hubris leading even more into his downfall, especially since I have always thought Luke would have gritted his teeth and paid Jabba had the Hutt given a price. But Luke knew Jabba wouldn't (I grew up here you know) so we got a Sarlacc feeding frenzy and burnt sail barge.
Five years later (publishing order), we see this fiasco of an operation from Mara's point of view in the short story "Slight of Hand" collected in the Tales From Jabba's Palace. I actually enjoy the whole fiasco up until she has to beg Jabba for the ride. I have to agree with Frangipani that our girl Mara gives up way too easily.
So new headcanon time like I did earlier with The Courtship of Princess Leia. The fiasco happened: Mara's attempt to shoot Luke in the main chamber is interrupted by Melina Carniss thinking it was an assassination attempt on Jabba, the merry chase Mara leads them on ends with her getting injured and trapped in a dungeon. By the time she breaks out and fights free, the sail barge had taken off. She finds something that will fly out that far and snarls at the burning sail barge. Sources in Mos Eisley cannot find a freighter as distinctive as the Falcon, and Palpatine sends her to Svivren. When Luke later asks about it while they're hiking on Myrkr, he gets an angry spiel over how everybody on Tatooine must have wanted to kill Jabba. By the end of the whole thing, she wanted to kill Jabba and didn't even get that satisfaction thanks to Luke. Luke explaining that Leia strangled Jabba before the whole explosion doesn't make Mara feel better.