Dear Readers -thank you to all who have reviewed. If you are reading this story, please drop a note to say you're there. I promise it motivates me write faster on the next chapter. A little action and a little angst up ahead. Enjoy! - T.

.

.

.

.

"Luke!" Mara cried, scrambling over the hulking carcass of the beast to reach the Jedi's side. He was drenched, his parka torn in a long gash from the collar to midway down his left arm, a dark bloodstain seeping through the fabric. Her hand went to his mouth - was he breathing? - to his hairline, a ruby line of blood seeping down his cheek, over his ear; to his right eye, an enormous bruise forming, purple and gray, over his eyebrow. "Luke!"

The shoulder wound was deep, crimson blood blooming across the ripped gash in the parka, making it difficult to see the extent of the injury. She examined it closely, tearing the remainder of the sleeve away and off his arm, trying her best not to jostle him.

Luke stirred with a groan, eyes snapping open to stare, startled, into Mara's.

A strange feeling of relief turned her limbs into Cava noodles, her expression crumbling into a grin. "You're alive," she gushed to his confused features, wringing the wet parka sleeve over the dirt. "That was a close one, Skywalker."

Another groan and he was trying to sit up. "Is it dead?" He mumbled, his words a mush of vowels.

She urged him back down. "Just lie still. You're bleeding all over the place." Once satisfied he was going to stay put, she took off her own parka, ignoring the cold breeze that permeated the tattered fabric of her own blood-crusted tunic. She had to get Skywalker warm and dry somehow.

"Where does it hurt?" she asked, dabbing carefully at the oozing wound on his temple. It didn't look bad now that the blood was cleared.

Luke barely flinched. He was trying to sit up again. "Got...my shoulder, I think," he mumbled.

"Will you hold still a moment?" Mara huffed again. "Head okay? Do you remember what happened?"

"S'fine," he slurred, frowning at her now. "We have to get out of here."

"Medkit's back with the pack," she muttered. "Think you can walk that far?" He didn't answer, wincing as she tore the remaining shreds of the sleeve of his dark tunic away from his wounded shoulder. It was bleeding, but not as bad as it could have been. She had nothing sterile to bandage it with, so the sleeve of his parka would have to do until they returned for the survival pack. She tore it into two strips, using the remainder to wrap turban-like around his head to curb the bleeding on his temple.

Luke raised his other hand cautiously to his head to figure out what she had just done. Mara sat back on her haunches, pondering for a moment the scene they made: her, wearing a torn, blood-crusted tunic and misfitting shoes; him, his parka shredded into makeshift bandages around his head and arm. They looked pretty pathetic.

Luke caught her expression; a smile - rare for her. "What?" he croaked.

She shrugged, suddenly self-conscious. She was still strangely giddy that he was all right. "Just...we make a strange pair is all."

It was Luke's turn to smile faintly in return, dissolving into a half-grimace as he tried again to sit up. Mara helped him this time, careful to avoid his injured shoulder.

"Here," she offered him her dry parka. "Put this on." It wouldn't do much, considering the rest of him was soaked to the bone, but it was hopefully better than nothing. Her previous thought about hypothermia seemed especially relevant now. What was left of the gray light of night had faded into morning - a sunless mist that would probably be as close to full-light as they would get. They couldn't rely on anything drying out in the sun. Their best hope would be to get to the ship as quickly as possible.

It was difficult getting his injured arm into the sleeve of the parka, but eventually they managed it, Luke wincing soundlessly as Mara tried to wrangle the other sleeve in place. She found herself talking to distract him. "We'll get back to the pack and you can rest. A healing trance ought to fix that shoulder in no time."

"No." Luke shook his head slightly. "There's not time."

She frowned at him. "Not time for what?"

It was then that he uncurled the fingers of his left hand. A small fistful of crushed microchips lay in his palm.

Mara stared, still confused. "I'm - I don't understand. What is it?"

Luke's eyes went pointedly to the dead creature behind her. "A tracking tag. This thing was dispatched by Forder. The tag was behind its ear...transmitting a signal back to the cartel as to our whereabouts."

The animal had been tracking them? At his words something clicked in Mara's brain. "You knew about this?"

He managed the impression of a shrug without actually moving his shoulders. "Well...I do now. I sensed it nearby when we were in the cave. It came close enough several times." He glanced down at the crush of microchips in his hand. "Though I didn't realize it too was in the employ of Forder."

Mara shook her head. They were being followed not only by Forder's men with their scanning equipment, but being tracked by a large animal. She understood now why Luke had led them across the water repeatedly in the darkness.

"To throw off our scent," Luke agreed to her unspoken thought. He frowned. "For what good it did in the end."

Again, his eyes went to the carcass of the creature, an emotion flitting over his features that Mara decided was regret. "The animal wasn't inherently bad. It didn't deserve to die."

Mara raised her eyebrows. She would have zero second-thoughts about taking out a beast that had dragged her through the forest and took a bite out of her shoulder. "I guess that's where we can agree to disagree," she muttered.

Luke's eyes slid back toward Mara. She saw the exhaustion there; caught a momentary flash of pain and a bottomless well of grief from him before the walls came down and his expression became a neutral facade. "We'd better go."

She frowned at him. He was hurt. Not just physically, but emotionally. She herself had helped carve new, fresh wounds into his psyche not more than two hours before. And hadn't she thundered down the riverbank, realizing only then what they might have had, what she stood in danger of losing?

He was struggling to his feet, unsteady enough that he looked about to topple. Mara stepped in to offer support from his uninjured side, wrapping an arm carefully around his ribcage as he straightened, allowing him to lean some of his weight on her. The exchange of favors between Old Friends felt balanced out now. This somehow made up for being rescued from that cell and carried across the landing bay.

"Luke," she began, not knowing what she was about to say. That she hadn't regretted that kiss after all, no matter what she had said afterward? That her real regret was the amount of time - the wasted years - it took her to realize she would not regret that kiss? "I - I'm sorry."

Luke glanced down at her, a grimace still fixed on his features. How they were going to make it all the way back to where they'd left the pack she didn't know. He looked to be in no condition to walk just yet. "You have nothing to be sorry for," he murmured softly. "I'm the one who's sorry. I was completely out of line. It won't happen again, Mara. I promise you."

She felt hollow at that. As they stumbled through the brush, a strange sort of numbness took hold of her brain and put her on autopilot. Thoughts on regrets and impulsive decisions swirled through her mind.

It was only once they had neared the stream again that she realized belatedly they had been heading in the wrong direction, away from the pack and its medkit; away from that small rock shelter that was made from the same ore as the cave, that would help shield them from the scanners and allow Luke a few hours' recovery time.

"Um, Luke, the pack's back this way," she mumbled. He was shivering in the cool air; had been for some time, in spite of the parka and the physical exertion of their hike.

"There's no time, Mara," he repeated his words from earlier, not slowing his unsteady gait down the rocky terrain, though he was still leaning as much of his weight on her as he dared. "We can't return to the pack."

Mara scowled up at him. Skywalker's face was pale white, his wet hair clinging in ropey strands to the makeshift parka-bandage around his head. Not return? How in the universe did he think he could get to the compound in this condition? "Do you think," she began, ready to deliver a lecture of her own, "that if I didn't want to storm Forder's place with you five days sleep-deprived that I would want to do so now, with you in this condition? You've got to rest, Skywalker. Go into a healing trance or something. I can't carry you to the ship."

Luke stood stiffly, unwilling to waste precious energy arguing with her. "The location has been compromised, Mara." He spoke slowly, as if doing so would help her understand the situation better. "If we return, we'll be caught."

"If we keep going like this, we'll be caught," she fired back. It would be untenable for them to try to steal her ship back with him like this.

"We have no other choice." His voice was firm. And then, as if to raise her confidence in his ability to cope, he shifted his weight away from her and took an unsteady step forward. "It will be okay. See? I'm feeling better already."

She snorted at that, but followed after him, because he was right. What choice did they have? "I'll do my best to catch you if you drop into a dead faint," she offered sarcastically.

"Thoughtful of you."

Luke's balance started to improve as they walked on. Initially he caught most every boulder and tree branch as a way to stay steady, but after another hour or so, didn't seem so reliant on that. He was using the Force, Mara could tell. Still, she was hopeful. Maybe he wasn't hurt as badly as it had initially seemed.

They stopped for a quick rest after another hour. Mara's stomach growled in hunger, but she ignored it.

"I hate to say it in case I jinx us," she began, easing aching muscles as she stretched, easing to sit carefully on the fern-laden forest floor. Tall conifer trees towered above her to a gray-blue sky, parsecs long. It would be very beautiful if they weren't currently being pursued by Forder's goon squad. "But I'm going to say it...do you think we've lost them?"

Luke turned toward her carefully. He was standing against the base of a tall tree. Mara had the impression that to sit down and try to get up again might cause more pain and drain on his energy than simply remaining upright. His hand gripped a nearby branch. "I hate to say it in case I jinx us, but…" a one-shouldered shrug. "I think they think the creature killed us."

Mara nodded in satisfaction. "Now they can just search for our bodies."

"Hopefully it keeps them occupied until we can get out of here. Ready to go?"

She groaned. She had just barely started to work the feeling into her numbed toes again. But, dutifully, she regained her feet. "How much longer do you think?"

"At this pace?" Luke eyed the weak direction of the sun as he pushed off from the tree, calculating thoughtfully. "Before nightfall, hopefully."

She nodded curtly, letting him set the pace again, walking along beside. "You calculate answers to my questions with all the instincts of a geo-planetary satellite. True farmboy fashion."

She was surprised to see Luke actually smile, his left hand snagging another branch for balance, his expression a mixture of amusement and chagrin. "I do?"

She shrugged. "Maybe it's the way you check in with the angle of the sun before answering - even if it's not shining - or our planetary position if we're in space."

Luke glanced away. "Funny, Callista used to say that every time I…" he trailed off, glancing sidelong at her, noting her arched brows and hedgy expression.

"Sorry," he amended. "We don't have to talk about that."

Mara frowned. Luke was trying not to offend her again, she could tell. Was that why he thought she was angry? Because she disliked Callista? "No, it's okay," she murmured, waving the comment away.

A thick silence ensued. Again Mara thought of wasted years and missed opportunities; time lost - time that perhaps could have been spent with him. If Luke wanted to talk about Callista, he could. Hadn't she been itching to pry information from him only weeks ago at her apartment? She herself held no special dislike for the woman, apart from the appalling way she had treated Luke. She should say something - what, she did not know. "You shouldn't feel sorry for talking about it," she offered finally. "She hurt you far more than anything she did to offend me."

Luke only nodded, looking weary. They went on this way for several more drawn-out minutes, the clomp of their boots against the undergrowth the only sound, apart from the occasional chittering animal noises. "It was too hard to be with me," he finally offered.

"What?" Mara startled out of her own thoughts, realizing after a belated minute that he was talking about Callista again.

Luke cleared his throat, his gaze fixed steadily ahead. "I was a reminder of everything she had lost. She couldn't bear it anymore."

Mara was silent, casting him a sidelong glance, sensing this sentence was simply the tip of a giant snowberg. There was a heaviness to Luke's grief that somehow implied a bottomless depth.

"She thought…" he cleared his throat, and suddenly it was as if Mara was no longer there. His eyes, under the tattered bandage around his head, were distant, lost. "We both thought the - the baby - "

"Baby?" Mara echoed, startled. What baby? Callista had been pregnant?

He nodded slowly. His gaze was still fixed ahead, on the underbrush "We both thought it would be a new start, give her purpose and focus. Something that was not about the loss of the Force. But…" he trailed off.

Mara peered at him suspiciously, knowing this story was not about to end well. "What happened?"

Luke turned toward her, his eyes momentarily that same wild sea of crazed grief, focused past her. "She begged me to save it," he whispered. "Him," he amended. "It was a boy. It happened so suddenly - blood everywhere, she was screaming in pain, begging me to do something. I - " he broke off, his voice cracking, clamping his mouth shut.

Mara's heart froze in her throat, her feet stumbling to a halt. She stared at Skywalker in shock. Every time she had seen Luke in the past year, he had seemed preoccupied, even deeply unhappy. She realized she had absolutely no idea what he had been going through during that time.

Luke halted in his own place in the brush. "There was nothing I could do," he whispered. "It was already too late." His eyes glistened, but tears, if they were there, refused to fall. "I couldn't save him."

Mara tentatively reached out to his arm, her expression tight, and then just as hesitantly, dropped her hand. "Oh stars, Luke," she offered finally, her words sounding paltry to her ears. "I had no idea."

Stay with me, Luke had implored her frantically from where she had landed on the craggy hilltop. It had been the voice of desperation from someone who felt solidly to blame for so much loss already.

"She blamed you." It was not a question. She already knew.

Luke nodded fractionally. "In a way, it was my fault. With the Force - " he swallowed thickly. "I should have been able to do something."

Mara stared at him. "Is that what you think?" She demanded, incredulous. "That you could have prevented all this? Are you something beyond human that is supposed to stave off death and make everything right in the galaxy?"

Luke fixed her with a baleful stare.

Mara didn't flinch. "She was wrong to pin that on you."

"She was hurting," Luke offered, unwilling, still, to let Callista be criticized too harshly. "It felt better to blame something...or someone. I - I understand why she did it."

"Convenient, since you also blame yourself," Mara pointed out, her tone harsher than she intended.

He was silent, his gaze dropping to the ground.

"Luke, this is not your fault," Mara whispered, unsure if he heard her. He began walking again, pushing aside branches and thick brush. Mara opened her mouth to repeat the mantra, only to stop short.

A strange electronic whine suddenly filled the air, both ears catching the sound equally so that she could not determine the direction of its origin.

"Trackers!" Luke snapped, his voice tense, lightsaber suddenly in his hand, ignited with a hiss that cracked the air. "Mara - drop!"

She did so just as two red laser beams shot overhead and buried themselves in a massive tree trunk behind her. Mara rolled beneath the thick ferns, cursing under her breath as branches and twigs clawed at her arms.

Another staccato of laser fire echoed over her head as she pulled her blaster from her hip, taking aim at the machine hovering above them. Before she had a chance to fire, the deep thrum of Luke's lightsaber spinning through the air drew her eye. The weapon sliced through the tentacled tracker droid like it was made of a Beder milk cheese, dropping the two halves to the ground before her.

Two more! she yelped silently to Luke, just as a pair of identical droids, a row of red-eyed sensors, turned in her direction, tentacled appendages hanging down like some deep-sea invertebrate. Definitely old Imperial tracker droids. Certainly it seemed like Forder's style of acquisition - salvage, loot and plunder.

Mara palmed her blaster, took aim at the nest of sensors, and fired.

The shot was true. The droid - too well-shielded to simply explode - at least lost its sensor-capability. Its next shot went wild.

Luke locked his saber on and finished the remaining two droids in one fell swoop; the weapon arcing gracefully to his hand as the amputated droid chunks thundered rock-like to the forest floor.

Luke heaved a breath, staggering back an imbalanced step as he turned back to Mara, who was still crouched among the ferns. "I may have jinxed us."

Mara pursed her lips, pushing to her feet, shoving the blaster back in its holster. "It was too good to be true, I guess. We'd better get out of here." She eyed him. He looked pale, perspiration gathering at his forehead, giving his face a wax-like sheen. "You okay?"

Luke swallowed, seemed to hesitate, and nodded slightly. "Come on. I don't know if there are more of them out there."

Mara sighed. It was a good bet there were. They needed to stay alert.

They had reached the edge of a precipice, not unlike the one they had scaled in the darkness hours before, Forder's speeders circling like mynocks. This one afforded them a limited view of the valley, shrouded in mist though it was. Unfortunately, it could also give the valley a view of them if they were not careful.

They hung back in the trees, leaning against the decomposed mound of an old, fallen tree trunk, its once hard wood mulched into a pile of sawdust. Mara glanced sidelong again at Luke, who had finally acquiesced to sitting, leaning heavily against the mound and straining his eyes to see over the valley. She could feel the pain and discomfort radiating from him, in spite of his mental shields.

"This might be a good place for us to stop and rest," she suggested cautiously.

He pretended not to hear her. "There's the compound," he pointed vaguely with his good hand. "See? The sun glinting on the roof?"

Mara followed his gaze. She could see...nothing. "I believe you," she muttered anyway. "What's your plan for getting down…" she nodded toward the cliff's edge. "...There?"

Luke seemed to sink deeper into the give of the sawdust mound, as though a weight pressed him down. "We climb," he answered faintly.

Mara studied him with a frown. His clothes had dried, after a fashion, the damp chill of the morning air replaced by humidity that collected under her collar. He had unwrapped the makeshift bandage from around his head a few hours ago; the dried, crusted blood still caked garishly to the side of his face. If he had a concussion, it was nothing he couldn't deal with, he had assured her twice.

Still, something seemed off. She eyed the bandage she had tied around his arm and shoulder. It looked okay, No blood had soaked through.

"Are you sure you're up for this?" she asked quietly. "You don't look so good."

Luke squinted at her, blinking rapidly for a moment. "Honestly, I don't feel so good," he admitted. "But we can't stay here."

Mara bit her lip. "Let me have a look at that shoulder," she ordered. "It will just take a minute."

It was probably a testament to Luke's exhaustion that he did not protest, huffing a small sigh of resignation as he turned and rested his head back against the sawdust mound. "Fine," he whispered. "But just hurry."

When Mara peeled back the shredded sleeve of the parka, careful not to pull against the places the dark blood had made it stick fast, she was startled enough at what she did see to curse under her breath.

In a ten-centimeter radius around the bandage, Luke's skin had turned black, almost gangrenous.

"Kreth."

"What is it?" Luke whispered, cracking his eyes open to see what had startled her, and frowning when he saw his shoulder. "Oh."

"Does it hurt?" her voice was sharp. Mara felt cold suddenly, a creeping sense of dread. A reaction such as this might be caused by venom. Some sort of slow-acting toxins may have been present in the creature's saliva. Or perhaps in its teeth. Some animals stored their venom in hollow fangs.

"It's numb," Luke murmured. "I can't feel anything above my elbow."

"What other symptoms are you having?" she demanded. Why was a feeling of panic building under her collar bone? The poison may or may not be life-threatening. Luke had the Force. She knew he was capable of healing himself, if given just a few hours to rest.

He squinted again at her. "My eyesight's doing funny things," he answered finally. "I thought it was because of hitting my head."

She peered at him. "What sort of funny things?"

He waved away her concern, pushing with effort, to sit. "It will be okay, Mara. We don't have time to stop."

She halted him with a heavy hand on his arm. "Do you know what kind of animal that was?" she snapped, her voice sharper than she had intended. "Because I sure as hell don't. I know nothing about the strength of its venom or if this is how it really kills its victims. But I suggest we take this seriously and stop playing hero for a minute and rest."

The next moment, Luke jerked suddenly, her words forgotten. The same moment Mara felt it too.

They had company.

"Forder's men," Luke hissed, moving with obvious effort to sit back on his haunches. "We have to go."

Mara lurched to her feet, feeling ill. They were literally backed up against a cliff, two weapons and one injured person between them. Fighting it out seemed no better option than running. Still she pulled Luke up, apologizing quickly for jostling his injured arm, and staggered with him toward the cliff edge.

It was a vertical incline, the sparse jagged potentials for hand- and foot-holds few and far-between. The sheer drop was enough that it would certainly kill them if either of them fell. Mara turned toward Luke. He was hardly in shape enough to help himself, much less assist her down the cliff face. "How are we going to do this, Skywalker?"

Luke's expression was pensive. Mara could feel the weakness radiating from him, the doubts oozing up from the edges of the mental shields he had in place. Why did he bother to try and hide it from her? She wondered. She could feel his thoughts with startling clarity. Pretending it was anything otherwise seemed a waste of energy.

Luke looked sharply at her, his hand grasping for balance against a protruding dead tree limb. Whether he had followed Mara's train of thought or not, she didn't know. The distant hum of Forder's speeders were gathering in the background, like the foreboding whine of a collection of giant insects.

"Wait," Luke told her, his hand landing on her arm, forcing a weak smile for her benefit. He was in no physical shape to do this, Mara realized, her heart sinking. They were literally trapped up against the cliff edge.

"I have another idea."

.

.

.

.

.

.