Dashira, Alderaan

1 BBY

He learned first that her name was Mara.

Errol filled him in after the concert as he guided Eli along the shaded paths of campus to the building that would be his residence. It was a graduate student residence hall on the south end of campus. Errol had secured him a room there prior to his arrival on the promise that it was for a Very Important Person from a Very Important Family. This Very Important Person would be auditing classes at the Academy to determine if the school was right for his advanced studies, and a sizable contribution might result from his decision to stay.

As they walked in the cool evening, Eli had time to survey the campus independent of Errol's filters. Even after dark the walks were filled with students in excited groups or couples leaning into one another. There was a minimal storm trooper presence, but what few Eli saw were alert and would signal one another occasionally. There wasn't an educational institute in the empire that wasn't closely watched. It was highly unlikely he was the only pair of watching eyes in plain clothes.

He had never seen so many trees, and of a size that boggled the mind. The diameter of the smooth silver trunks looked bigger than five encircled men with their arms outstretched. The trees dropped emerald green leaves veined in gold.

"Is it autumn?" Eli asked, kicking at the leaves.

"Autumn?" Errol asked in confusion. It turned out some trick of Alderaan's rotation created only two seasons; a mild spring and a deep winter. The lead-in to winter was so brief as to warrant no name at all.

"What kind of trees are they?" Eli asked.

Errol shrugged and kept walking.

At last they arrived at something that looked like it was out of a holodrama; a long, five story building with actual parapets and battlements. "This is a residence hall?" Eli asked, lifting an eyebrow.

"That's it," Errol said. "It's substance free, but death sticks and glitterstim flow through like water anyway. Let me know. And..." He waggled his eyebrows. "...Newly co-ed. Shared bathrooms. Nothing like accidents with skimpy bath towels to start off the morning."

Eli kept his impassive expression with effort, but his palms itched for violence. "I would be interested in speaking with the magnolin player again."

Errol waved his hand. "Be cool. No worse cologne than desperation. She's into all that esoteric bullshit, so you'll easily run into her in the library. Pretend it's an accident and you are interested in it too and she will be eating out of the palm of your hand."

Suddenly Eli liked her all the better. He'd had about all he could take of Errol's guidance for one evening. "Well, I believe I can find my way from here. Thank you for your assistance. It will not be forgotten."

If Errol could have transformed his eyes into credit signs, he would have. "Very well, I'll leave you to it. Page my communicator if you need anything, day or night."

He shoved his hands in his pockets and slouched away, whistling. Eli breathed a sigh of relief and walked toward the residence hall.

He saw a group of students lounging around the outside, sitting on the steps and leaning against the wall. As he drew closer, he realized some of them were female, the human females favoring the intricate braids that Leia was noted for. They wore flight jackets, though he was sure not one of them could pilot anything larger than a speeder bike. Many of their jackets bore the symbol of the Alderaan royal family on the upper arm – an upright crescent with a flower sprouting from the middle. Clearly Leia had quite a cult of personality going on campus. A few of them were reading an anarchist flimsy pamphlet, and Eli smirked at the irony of a bunch of anarchists sporting the crest of a hereditary monarchy.

Their unofficial leader, a human male with shaggy hair hanging into his eyes, clearly didn't like the smirk. "You coming in here?"

Eli gave a short nod.

"Looks like an imp' to me," He grunted to the others, looking Eli up and down.

The others slowly stood, folding their pamphlets and trying to loom over him as he approached the door. But he had the height advantage of most of the humans and a quick assessment told him he could put any one of them on the ground inside a minute. He pushed past barely looking at them and went inside

It was quite dim, with old fashioned bulb lamps protruding from the walls and a floor with intricate designs in tiny tiles of antique porcelain. The doors were wood. Actual wood. Well, they did have plenty of it with all the trees. He let his fingers slide over its cool, granular texture, almost feeling as if there was a spark left from the living creature that had grown it. Such a strange sensation for one who had grown up surrounded by transparisteel and polymer.

He found the room number Errol had given him. His fingerprints were already programmed into the lock, so his forefinger to the panel beside it was all that was needed for the heavy wood door to slide open. A single, as requested. It was minimally furnished and small, but seemed opulent with all the wood accents. There was a small bed, a desk with an implanted holonet device, and an upright wooden wardrobe with an ornate top made to match the rest of the building's design. And a fireplace. Wood was so plentiful here that they could burn it for warmth. Eli shook his head in amazement and slid his bag to the floor.

He commed Pestage first, but didn't even get him. Instead, his assistant Janus, a stone-faced Chagrian, appeared by holograph. "Yes?"

Eli sighed. So he was delivering reports third hand at this point. "I've arrived. This is my contact point for further instructions."

The Chagrian nodded and ended the communication. Eli turned off the holonet device and kicked his bag into the corner of the room. He threw himself onto the bed without folding it down, letting himself drift off as he studied the imperfections on the darkening ceiling.


When morning light sliced its way through the huge window, Eli was already up and seated on the floor, hands resting on his knees. His eyes opened just as the ray of light touched the floor. It was time. He dressed quickly and started out of his room. The halls smelled of caf and of savory and unfamiliar foods. His heart beat fast. He didn't fully understand his own excitement as he walked out into this shrine to youth, to possibility, and even to revolution.

The Academy library was huge and domed, with columns of the style so prevalent all over the campus and city. He took the steps two at a time and then let himself flow along with the throngs of students into the heavy silence of the grand interior. Youthful voices ricocheted off the stone walls and marble floors. Other than its size and grandeur, it was a pretty typical academy library with rows and rows of glowing data pads and numerous holograph projectors, all running and playing academic lectures or demonstrations. There was a long wooden desk along the back wall so the droids and clerks could look down on the students. Eli approached it. "I'm looking for someone who works here...Mara?"

The protocol droid peered down at him with its photoreceptors expressionlessly. "Mara Wayfair. Current location, antiquities. Down the stairway to your left, three levels."

It didn't say much for campus protection of privacy, but Eli was happy enough to follow the droid's instructions. He found the stairs spiraling down past little nooks with priceless statues inset into the stone walls. Passageways branched off the upper floors, but at the bottom there was only a single door marked "Antiquities." No room for error there. Eli opened the door.

It was the smell he noticed first; a sweet, smoky perfume. It took him awhile to figure out what it was because he had only smelled those smells a couple of times in his entire life and never in such quantity – wood and leather and dust together. Then he was able to wrap his mind around what he saw. There was a huge, arched gallery crowned with complex wood work, and below that soaring edifice, shelves upon shelves of books reaching toward the ceiling, so high that they were crisscrossed by spiraling metal staircases. Flimsy books. Hundreds. No, thousands. He had never imagined such quantities in one place before. In the middle of the left hand wall there was grand fireplace you could have roasted a bantha in and before it deep armchairs as well as a long gleaming table. Eli realized that the wealth contained in this room alone could have outpaced the GDP of a rim world. It was empty aside from the girl sitting at the table, her nose deep in a hefty book bound in leather.

She looked up at the sound of the door. Mara. Again he could feel the uncomfortably close examination of a force user, as if the information was being sucked right off his skin. The sensation was so familiar that there could be no doubt. Eli wondered again if anyone knew of her presence here. Surely not. If they had, they would have warned him.

"Can I help you?" She asked irritably.

"We met last night," Eli said.

Her eyes flickered with recognition. "Of course. You body checked me. Errol's friend."

The last was dripping with contempt. How could he blame her for that?

"He told me I could find you here," He said.

She gave a sigh and closed her book, sliding it aside. "I work here. Why were you asking?"

His palms were actually sweating. It occurred to him that no one had ever bothered training him in the art of talking to a girl. "Actually...I was wondering what I could do to score a sweet gig like this."

She narrowed her eyes at him. Then the corner of her mouth turned up. "It helps to have influential friends."

"Like Princess Leia?" Ari asked.

"Of course you noticed that right off, didn't you?" She said.

Touché, he thought. Apparently he was not the first to try to get to the royal family through Mara. Inwardly he cursed both Errol and Pestage's shortsightedness. He approached a nearby shelf and selected a book, opening it and breathing deeply the smell of the leather, dust, and bookbinding glue. It hit his brain in a rush as potent as a hit from a death stick. Mara watched him and then stood up and came to stand beside him.

"Stop." She said, taking the book from him and closing it. "I know Errol instructs all of his pets on how to approach each and every girl he knows. You don't have to pretend to be interested in..."

"Yanjon the elder. 5th century BSW. One of the four sages of Dwartii who codified ancient Republic law," Eli finished for her.

Mara blinked, her mouth slightly agape. Then she shook her head. "Whatever. Why are you invading my campus?

"I might ask how you obtained personal ownership of a state institution."

"Let me guess," she said, making a show of looking him up and down. "You are from one of the high Core families. A second son, probably, set to inherit some but not all with no other prospects. So you set off for an artists' colony hoping and longing for someone to tap into the deep spiritual truths of your soul. Or at least you might find some heiress to seduce. How close am I?"

It was an excuse that would do as well as any. "Tolerably. Is that really such a crime?"

Mara smiled. "Admitting it is new. I assure you Mr..."

"Malek. Eli Malek." It was his mother's name. He probably shouldn't have given her that much personal detail, but with force users it was often best to plant a seed of truth.

"I assure you, Mr. Malek, that if it's an heiress you are after you have definitely selected the wrong girl."

"I assure you, Miss...?"

"Mara."

"I assure you, Mara, that I am quite adaptable," He returned in kind. "And what is your course of study here? Music? Debate? Comedy?"

"Those are just hobbies," She tucked Yanjon tenderly back into his place, taking care not to let the binding drag too much on the shelf. "My future career is as yet...undiscovered."

"Aren't those third year classes?" He asked. He peered at the labels on the datapads near her bag that she pointedly hadn't been studying.

"You sound like my mother," Mara muttered. "What's your major?"

"Interplanetary relations," Eli smirked.

She sighed and turned away.

"Give me a break," Ari said. "I'm a lonely off-worlder with only a classless buffoon to guide me. You are interesting."

She glanced at him sidelong, and he felt the crack in her facade. Just a tiny chink. He took a step closer and felt her response to his height and nearness. He'd been told he could be imposing, attractive even. He'd been taught to use those qualities as weapons, and he didn't let his training fail him now.

"Come on," He said in a lower tone. Her pulse kicked up a jot. "Show me around."