A firm hand shook Mariana awake from a much needed rest. She jumped, paranoid, recoiling in fear, longing for a fast retreat from Vader's ugly world. She opened her eyes, expecting to see his Dark mask and suit.
Instead, an Imperial trooper untied the rope that bound her to the bed fastidiously.
"Vader sent you to kill me, didn't he?"
The trooper continued to untie the knot of one leg, then the other. Mariana leapt from the bed and raced toward the veranda, smelling the fresh clean air. It was dark out, but she felt as though she could fly. How wonderful, how beautiful, the indigo colored star filled sky, her first breath of freedom.
She opened her arms as if to hug the clouds, tears streaming down her face when the Imperial trooper slid a hand behind her knee and drew her into his arms.
Her head fell back into his shoulders. She stared into his mask. It was a lot like Vader's, only white. The thought made her stomach turn and she found herself recoiling, body shivering, her hands trembling uncontrollably.
"Don't worry," the voice said. "You're safe."
Mariana pulled at the bottom of the mask, her fingers too weak to pull it from his face.
"Who are you?" she whispered through dry cracked lips.
The Imperial trooper pulled the mask from his head revealing a mass of curly dark hair and handsome face.
"Danny Maxo," Mariana exclaimed. "How did you...?"
"I'll answer your questions later. But first I'll need to take you away from here."
Mariana held tight to his shoulders as he carried her off.
"Don't. It's too late for me, if Vader finds out, he'll kill you."
"Then so be it," Danny answered. "I let you get away once. I won't lose you a second time."
Mariana sobbed into the thick steel body armor as he slipped down the stark white corridors, carrying her outside.
Danny's legs moved quickly as they raced across the garden toward his ship. It was not the kind that troops generally piloted. It was different, old, and disc shaped.
Suddenly, Mariana gasped.
"Vader knows you're here!"
"How do you know?" Danny asked, his voice in a panic.
" I can sense him. He's done something to me, he, he's sensed that I've gone, please hurry he'll kill you this time."
Danny opened the hatch, dropped her inside, then followed suit.
A young pilot stirring impatiently in the cock pit initiated lift off at Danny's signal. After the Prassius compound, grew smaller as they grew further away, Danny carried Mariana's bruised and battered body to the infirmery and laid her on a cot. "We'll be in the back, Han."
"Make it quick," the young man called Han Solo answered. "The last thing I need is the Empire firing rounds at my ship."
Danny left the grumpy sounding pilot to sit with Mariana as med droids worked on her sickly looking body. He smoothed wisps of hair away from her face.
"Now the emperor and Vader both want me dead," Mariana cried. "There's no escape, I can't get away," she sobbed.
"Those are Vader's words. He's in your mind. You must resist him, Mariana. Or he'll find us. In fact, there's something I need to tell you," Danny said.
Mariana pressed her eyebrows together worringly, a question in her gaze.
"The emperor never wanted you killed. It was another of Vader's lies."
Mariana drew a breath, the stream of tears from her eyes coming to a halt. "What?"
"My colleagues went through the trouble of telling me where you are. That Vader hid you here, telling you lies that the emperor wanted to kill you. The emperor knows nothing about you and Vader. He's kept it a secret. As far as the emperor knows, you and Vader parted on Rea, never to see each other again.
"Take me away from here, Danny. I can't let him hurt me again," she said.
"Don't worry," he answered. "You're safe..."
He ran fingers through her hair, shutting the sight of her wounds out of his mind.