Midrim Sector
0 BBY
The screaming would have been enough.
But along with the screaming, in tandem with its crests and valleys of sound, the entire shuttle was rocking and shuddering violently. Initially Elian thought it was the shock wave from the explosion and the debris rocketing by, some pieces the size of buildings. He fought to dodge it all, using the very limits of his senses. When the debris finally started to clear, he found himself wondering how it had all missed them.
Still the ship rocked, as if pummeled from within and without. And still Mara wailed, losing her voice. Her cries degraded into frantic bleats and sobs very like those of an animal when its predator bends its head to tear flesh. He felt waves of raw power rolling off of her, so strong it brought bile to his mouth. If he didn't do something she was going to crash the shuttle.
Closing his eyes and gathering himself, he pulled her from her fetal position on the floor. She was as limp as a rag doll, but the eyes she turned on him were filled with pure, undiluted hatred. He pressed his hand to her forehead and gave a focused push. The hatred and all other signs of life left her eyes and she slumped to the floor, unconscious.
That problem attended to for the moment, he turned back to the controls.
He realized he could not risk leaving the area yet. The massive energy release from the explosion would temporarily mask their heat signature from any patrolling Imperial forces. But if he left the cover of the interference, they would spot him. They were probably very inclined to shoot any potential witnesses on sight.
That said, this wasn't a shuttle built for long travel, and it was half fueled. There were only the most rudimentary of emergency provisions aboard. If in a day or two he couldn't see anything nearby, he would have no choice but to limp to the nearest planet for provisions. In the meantime, their best chance was to shut down all nonessential systems and wait. The Imperials wouldn't have any reason to linger.
Elian glanced at Mara, Her lifeless hands were stretched out as if in prayer, her ginger-colored hair spilling around her face and on the deck. What was he to do with her? It was very likely she would try to kill him when she woke, and with her powers completely unpredictable and unrestrained, it was not outside the realm of possibility that she could do it. Even if she could somehow be persuaded not to kill him, he had no idea where to take her for safety.
His only choice was to focus on survival in the next moment, and the one after that. It had worked so far. He flicked off every powered application except for heat and life support. The lights dimmed until only the blue emergency running boards still glowed, and he stared out the cockpit window at the cold light of the indifferent stars.
He might have slept, but lightly. He was woken by the sense of a stirring nearby; not of movement, but of thought. She was surfacing, gradually coming back to awareness. He sensed her eyes blinking open, focusing on a spot on the ceiling and realizing it was unfamiliar. He felt the confusion, and then the memories. He winced against the crashing wave of unmitigated grief.
But all she said in a hoarse voice was, "What have you done to me?"
He stood from the pilot's chair and knelt at her side. She was in pain, he could feel it. It wasn't only grief. His eyebrows flew up as he understood. "You were shielded before."
"What are you talking about?"
"Before..." His eyes turned reluctantly toward a port window where they could clearly see the drifting, spinning debris cloud. "You were shielded. It was your mother."
She lunged at him, knocking him to the floor. She planted a knee in his side and gripped his throat with her hand. She pressed. His vision swam. "Tell me what the hell you are talking about so I can kill you and be done with it."
"I can't...unless...you let me breathe," He rasped.
She pressed a bit harder. The edges of his sight turned red. But then she released him and scrambled back against the bulkhead. "Talk."
"I'm not sure exactly what is happening to you, but I think it is because your shields collapsed when your mother..." He couldn't bring himself to complete his thought.
"She died," Mara said, voice blank.
He swallowed. "Yes."
"Everyone died."
He nodded.
"Leia?"
"I don't know," He said. "Everyone on planet."
"Did you know?" He saw her hands flex again, and felt how badly she wanted to hurt him.
"No. I didn't know until I saw the weapon. Don't you understand? He destroyed a planet I was supposed to be on. We are both supposed to be dead right now."
"I would have gladly died if it meant you were dead too," she said flatly.
He let out his breath. "I know."
"What did you mean my shields collapsed?"
He pushed himself into a sitting position. "I was like an egg...a cocoon, or...an insulator around an electric wire. Keeping everything inside contained. Hidden. Keeping everyone outside from sensing it. Mostly, anyway."
"Sensing what?"
"The Force. The Force is strong in you. Your mother seemed to be protecting both you and Leia. It must have taken every ounce of her strength to hide you every day of her life."
There was a moment of quiet as she absorbed what he'd said. Then-
"What is the Force?"
A short bark of bitter laughter escaped his lips before he could stop it. Then all the air exploded out of him in a whoosh as she hit him across the face. He felt hot blood pouring from his nose. He pressed his hand to his face, wiping it away. "I guess I deserved that. I"m sorry. It's just ludicrous that the Force has literally enveloped you your whole life and you don't even know its name."
"How do you know all this?"
The way she asked, he understood that she was at least acknowledging the possibility of what he was telling her. "I have it too, the abilities. They disappointed my father, but they still exceed those of most people."
She sagged against the bulkhead. A tremor passed over her face. "It hurts."
"I know," He said more gently. "You are like a raw nerve right now. I can help you."
She asked a different question than he expected. "Why?"
"I don't know," He admitted. "I just have to."
"How could I possibly ever trust you?"
"Do you really have a choice?"
She did not reply, just stared at the ceiling with dead eyes.
He moved slowly, showing her his hands, and then reached for her cold hand lying limply on the deck. She didn't pull away. He closed his eyes. It had been a very long time since he had done something like this with the Force. And yet, with a skeptical eye, his father had once observed that it was a skill he had a natural aptitude for – one of the few. How ashamed he had been! His lips quirked bitterly at the memory, then he brought his attention back to the hand in his. Small. Long tapered fingers. Not a callous to speak of. A hand accustomed to a sheltered life of making music, handling beautiful art, turning pages in great books. Such a delicate thing, a delicate person, hurtling through the galaxy in a little tin can. That was the secret of generating; feeling the smallness of the thing, the fragility. Only then could you let go of a bit of yourself to help it grow. He smiled. Something flexed. It seemed as if the hand he held lit from within.
Mara gasped and snatched her hand away. But her brow smoothed, the beads of sweat there disappeared, and after a few measured breaths the pink came back to her lips and cheeks. She rubbed her hand and glared at him.
"I didn't take anything away. Only added," He said.
"Don't do it again," she hissed, curling into herself and turning her face to the wall.
And so they sat, for two days. The large pieces of debris kept their slow spin and drift outside. The heat dissipated. Mara didn't speak. She barely ate. She only began drinking when he threatened to restrain her and start a saline infusion from the med kit.
It was a boredom so acute that he teetered on the edge of reason. He had never been so directionless, so unsure of where to go next. That had been dictated for him for as long as he could remember. There were no books aboard and only an audio feed from the Holonets. He spent a great deal of the day in meditation to push back on the hysteria flirting on the edges of his mind. When the silence became too much at last, he turned on the audio feed, but only when he was sure Mara was sleeping. As he expected, the news feeds were overwrought with coverage of the destruction of Alderaan. The Imperialists were blaming it on a terrible accident related to rebel weapons experiments. That was all he was able to hear before he sensed Mara surfacing to wakefulness. He switched the channel quickly, hitting upon a music frequency. His brow furrowed at the exotic and yet familiar sound.
A magnolin. It was wailing and sweet, just as he remembered. The melody was unbearably sad. He reached out to change the frequency again, and Mara chose that moment to speak for the first time in days.
"Don't you dare change that," she said, her voice hoarse from disuse.
He looked at her. She was sitting up, the blanket he'd put over her fallen away. Tears were streaming down her cheeks, but her face was otherwise pale and immobile.
"Have you decided then?" He asked gently.
"Decided what?"
"Whether or not you want to survive."
She looked at him, startled, the corpse-like impassivity falling away.
"Because it would be good to know, to save some effort," He said. "If you've decided not to survive, there will be nothing I can do. People die of sorrow quite a lot, actually."
Anger gave more life to her eyes, sparking in their depths like red-hot coals. That was good, he decided. "How can you dare to be so cruel?"
He jumped to his feet and pulled an object from his belt. It was a knife. She drew backward, but he flipped it in his hand, offering it to her handle first. She took it with shaking hands as he pulled apart the front edges of his tunic, baring his chest. He kept eye contact, deadly serious.
"Here," He said, finding a spot with his fingers between the fourth and fifth rib. "In and up. It would be over in minutes."
She stood slowly and pressed the blade against the spot. A bead of blood swelled at the point and then ran down over his skin. Simultaneously, a fresh flood of tears leaked from her eyes and ran down her face, dripping from her chin. "What if I want it to take longer?"
He didn't move. "That's your choice."
"I can't fly a ship. I don't know where I am or how to find out," Mara said, her eyes impossibly wide.
"You could maybe figure it out. Maybe not."
A sob escaped her lips, and she flung the knife away. It skittered across the floor as she sank to her knees, covering her face with her hands. "I didn't want anyone to die!"
He waited as she shivered there for a few moments. Then she lifted her hands away and opened her eyes. There was life in them again, and not just from the fire of rage. "I want to live. I want to survive."
A tiny person in a tin can. Her mother was gone, her friends were gone, her school, her planet, everything dear and familiar to her wiped out in a single instant. She was hurtling through space with only an enemy to assist her.
It was the bravest thing he'd ever heard anyone say.
He took a breath. "Then I will help you. And when you want to leave and you are able to, I won't stop you."
He moved back to the controls, checked their position. "But we have to decide where to go now. I'm afraid to leave the mid-rim just yet. We could draw attention to ourselves. We could really use safe harbor somewhere until the Imperial ships have gone back to the Core."
"Naboo," Mara said, with a surprising lack of hesitation. "If you truly are trying to save me, you'll take me to Naboo."
