Destiny at Work
Part 3: Partners
by SJ 23-03-99/2002 (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
__________________________
Disclaimers: Nothing in the Star Wars Universe belong to me; everything belongs
to George Lucas. Also, if something is related to the spoken parts of Dark Force Rising, it belongs to Timothy Zhan. I'm only borrowing it to make more sense with Mara's or Luke's missing thoughts (when we follow Luke's thoughts in the novel, and vice versa ;). Naturally, everything related to events of Dark Force Rising also belong to Timothy Zhan. Please don't sue me, it's only for fun; I'm not making any money out of this. See my home page for more details.
Http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/3702
Special thanks to Adrianne for her help with beta-reading. Thank you for
giving me some of your precious time, my friend; I appreciate.
_________________________
Far away from the small ships, somewhere in the core of the galaxy, Emperor Palpatine tightened his mental, heavily shielded grip on his slave; the young woman was once again within his reach.
For the past year or so, he had completely lost contact with her subconscious, thus unable to torment her in any way to make her go after the cursed Jedi. Hence, he had watched from afar, plagued with the worry that his initial manipulations and plants had not been strong and deep enough to resist the effects of the trice-cursed ysalamiri creatures.
When he had purged the galaxy of the Jedi order, the lizards had served him well to render his enemies helpless, but now that they had been used against him like this, he promised himself to quarantine the planet Myrkr as soon as he would be back on the galactic throne, on Coruscant.
His true palace.
And one of the ways to hasten that return was to get the last remaining Jedi out of the way, via his pet assassin.
He sent yet another nightmare in the mind of the young, weak-minded woman, forcefully keeping her asleep until her soul would be so blinded by the vision of the past that the sickening influence, which Skywalker seemed to have on her, wouldn't keep her from doing her job.
Once and for all.
As he continued to torment the woman's soul, he roamed freely amongst her memories of the recent events, trying to figure out how the Jedi could have had an influence on her while in the ysalamiri dampening field.
The first time he had discovered what 'exactly' had happened while on Myrkr, he had almost lashed out and revealed his living presence to his unfaithful, close-to-treason slave, then had remembered his grander plans and had changed his mind.
Instead, he had punished her by sending her more vehement recriminations in the form of his 'last' command, then in the form of unrelenting nightmares. To add to the effect, he now even showed her variations of the events, of how she could have saved him had she been there or done her job well. More than anything else, to see herself present but unable to intervene tormented her soul to no end.
It pleased him; he sent more of his hatred into the young woman's heart.
When he would allow her to wake up, he promised himself as he scanned the surroundings of the young woman, young Skywalker would never know what hit him.
Then, he decided, machiavellian, he would reveal to the Jedi that he had just been killed by the woman he loved. Oh yes, he cackled gleefully to himself, that would be an even sweetest revenge, and would slightly make up for the brat turning his slaves into traitors while he was with them.
First Vader, now Jade; the young fool truly had a knack for piercing through the veils of lies that he artfully wrapped around his servants' minds... not to mention that he was even able to free them from those.
But not for much long-----
Even as he intended to send his strongest surge of hatred to finish it, he realized that he was no longer in touch with the young woman's mind.
Instead, he was----
Ysalamiri, he growled inwardly, aware of 'who' had just put that lizard between him and the girl.
Skywalker.
Instantly seeing red with fury, he focused his anger on the far away mountains that were visible through his viewport; he Forcefully slammed into them.
The resulting volcano was but the tip of the molten hatred that he was now feeling.
*******
The moment that Mara entered the ysalamiri bubble, her groaning subsided, as did her erratic, sporadic movements. Relieved that he had been right about his gamble, Luke exited the Forceless bubble and took a deep breath to recover his orientation.
He had been meditating about his next actions when his companion had begun to show signs that she was not sleeping well. At first, he had debated hard and long with himself if he should intervene this time or not, then had delicately reached out to soothe her imagination.
That's when he had felt the strange tug in the Force that was pulling at Mara's mind, constantly activating the Emperor's plant in her mind. Worried by his discovery, he had withdrawn in shock, then had quickly made up his mind and had picked up the ysalamiri frame to bring it closer to Mara.
Despite his prolonged experience on Myrkr, Luke was still most uneasy with the strange creatures who were nowhere to be found in the Force. To hold it, he now thought as he threw another gaze at the quiescent animal, had been even stranger, as if he himself had become a hole in the Force.
However, it had been worth it, he reminded himself as his gaze settled on the top of his companion's head. She had calmed down almost instantly and even seemed to be recovering from the bad treatment she had been undergoing.
Which now left only one question, the young Jedi reflected as he sat back on the deck. What had been that strange, diffuse tug on her mind? Closing his eyes once again, he brought back to memory the sensations he had felt when he had encountered the strange presence.
It hadn't been definite, yet did remind him of something... Something which his mind told him he should remember.
It had been cold, calculating... then it clicked! Even dead, the Emperor was able to establish a contact with Mara just like his own mentors had remained 'attached' to his mind after their deaths. So his theory had been true, he gaped in awe as he opened his eyes to study the now quiet profile of his friend. Jedis did have the ability to remain attached to the ones they were closest to just before dying.
Considering how Ben had told him that his death had made him more powerful than when he had been alive, he could only shudder at the thought of what a dead mind such as the Emperor's could do now that it was dead and attached to Mara.
For the briefest of moments, he considered pulling the ysalamiri away and forcefully breaking the link between master and servant before Mara had lost her sanity to it, then he conceded that he wouldn't be any better than the despot if he did such a thing and calmed down.
He didn't move from his chosen seat.
For a long, long time, he just sat there, gazing at his endangered companion and pondering how he could help her.
Eventually, when his own eyes began to droop close once again thanks to his new tiredness, he admitted that he couldn't 'help' her by taking away the menace.
Only she had that power, and she had proven to him already that her will power was already strong enough to hold the compulsion of killing him at bay.
He decided that the best he could do to help her was to trust her in her fight against her old self.
Against the lie of her life.
Out of support for her struggle, he joined her in the ysalamiri bubble. As he settled in his chair for another nap, he checked the chrono. They were less than eighteen hours away from the Wistril system.
And another adventure with Mara Jade. He dimly wondered if this new episode would end differently than their last one had.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts about their first meeting that he almost didn't notice the fact that he couldn't touch the Force for the moment.
******
When Mara woke up, she felt unusually rested and well. At first, she just basked in the most welcome feeling--- then snapped awake as she realized that she wasn't waking up from yet another nightmare.
Considering the past weeks, it was too unusual to pass up as an accident. The only time she had slept that well had been on----
Straightening herself in her seat, she instantly searched for the Jedi who had used the ysalamiri against---
The moment she spotted his presence, she gaped in confusion. Skywalker was also asleep and in the ysalamiri bubble. Suddenly weary that they had been attacked, she whirled around in her seat, her hand going for her pocket blaster.
Once again though, other than spotting the ysalamiri frame behind her seat, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Puzzled, she frowned at the far wall as she lowered her aim.
A loud yawn attracted her attention back toward her companion. She was just in time to catch the end of his stretching before he yawned once again. Unsure as to how to approach the subject of their actual circumstances, she merely gazed at him as he pulled himself out of his last remnants of tiredness.
When she saw him boyishly rub his hair before combing them back in place with his hands, she couldn't help but stare blankly, unsure about anything except one thing: she was really beginning to like Skywalker. Fortunately for her though, she used his checking the chrono to recover her composure so that when he turned toward her, she was her normal self again.
At least outwardly.
"Slept well?" he inquired simply, smiling at her.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked him, affecting as much a miffed expression as she could.
Her blaster was still in her hand.
"About what?" he shrugged in confusion.
"About this," she pointed at the lizard before standing up and pushing it back to the back of the cabin with her foot.
"oh, well..." Skywalker paused, then began once again after he recovered from the shock of recovering his touch with the Force, "You were having a nightmare again. I felt something strange about it and just thought that this could help."
"Something strange?" she asked, looking down at him from her upright position.
As Mara looked about ready to drill him right there and then with her green glare, Luke mentally scolded himself from slipping on his resolve to not talk about this until she was ready.
"Uh, well, I was just meditating when I felt a Force locus around you... that wasn't you..." he continued hesitantly.
Mara's eyes didn't soften; instead they hardened.
"So??" she prompted him, her armed hand going to her waist, as did her other hand.
"So... well," he fumbled, slowly standing up from his seat.
Mara's hand pushed him back in it before she practically loomed over him from her upright position. Her blaster was still in sight and not showing any sign of disappearing once again.
"Spit it out, Skywalker. What do you know about my dreams?"
"They... they were planted in your mind by the Emperor just before he died," he finally revealed in one breath, then waited for the outburst.
At least, he comforted himself, he hadn't talked about the remaining contact between the Emperor and Mara, nor about the images she kept seeing.
Judging from Mara's narrowed eyes, then her tightened grip on her blaster before she took a step closer to him, he decided that he had already said enough to be in serious trouble.
Next he knew, she had gripped his tunic with her left fist and had wedged her blaster in his jaw. Her glare was sulfurous, at the least.
"How do I know that it isn't your doing, Jedi?" she asked him acidly, the old Mara reclaiming what had always been hers before.
Luke swallowed hard as a memory of how close it had come on Myrkr came back to him. If he didn't do it right this time, the Emperor would win and Mara would kill him.
End of story.
"Read my mind, Mara, and you'll see what I saw... what I felt, and how I'm just trying to help you to not suffer anymore," he offered earnestly.
For a long moment, blue eyes met green ones across an ocean of confusion.
Shocked by his offer, Mara locked her eyes on Skywalker's, desperately looking for a sign that, for once, the Jedi would be lying to her. He couldn't be right, she argued with herself. He was not reading the Force energies right.
The Emperor had 'not' planted anything in her mind, it was just a memory of his last contact with her, she had been too far away from the other man for him to do anything... like mind manipulation...
No!, she silently denied even as she tightened her grip on Skywalker's shirt; he grimaced more obviously as her blaster dug harder and harder in the hinge of his jaw... yet he remained silent.
Willing to accept her decision about the outcome of their present face-off... because he trusted her, she realized.
Skywalker, the man she had sworn to kill, trusted her to not kill him... because her compulsion was not coming from her but from her late master...
Slowly, hesitantly, she focused her senses and reached out to feel the other's presence. To her surprise, she found him almost instantly and could have entered his already opened mind right away. However, she remained cautious and took a quick peek in his mind, bypassing everything he was to focus solely on what he had felt while she had been asleep.
She gasped in shock and withdrew from his mind even as she let go of him. He had told her the true. He hadn't made up the images of his mind, and he had really felt something which fed her nightmares...
And that something had greatly reminded her of the Emperor's Force presence.
"How can it be?" she wondered even as she sat in her own seat; her knees were suddenly too weak to support her weight, as if devoid of any strength.
"It seems that Jedi have the ability to remain attached to their beloved, or closest Force-sensitive companions when they die."
Mara glared at him from under her eyelashes. "How reassuring."
For a moment, their gazes met yet again, his filled with compassion, hers, with an attempt to remain cold toward him and his friendly approaches.
"Well, in a way, it is," Skywalker finally commented. "You see, if your compulsion to kill me comes from this, then---"
Her blaster was once again aimed at the infuriatingly earnest Jedi, if only to shut him up.
"Even if my master's spirit activates my memories, Skywalker, 'I' still want to kill you, this is my decision, not his. You still destroyed my life, everything I had. In due time, I will have my revenge," she finished, aware that she wasn't giving herself a specific window in time to be true to her words.
Skywalker for his part kept his gaze locked with hers. She thus noticed that his eyes were totally devoid of defiance or anger; instead, they were filled with understanding... and worry about her.
"I know Mara," he finally nodded as he stood up from his seat, pointedly ignoring the fact that she was aiming a fully-loaded blaster at him. "I'm sorry if I upset you, that wasn't my intention. If you ever want to talk about this again, remember that I will be there."
And with this, he turned his back to her and disappeared in the small 'fresher unit of the ship.
She herself remained in her seat, staring blankly at the spot where he had been.
She simply couldn't believe what had just happened between them. Even worse than when they had been on Myrkr, that she had threatened his life and that he had not counter-attacked, he had now proven to her that even her aiming at him wasn't convincing him anymore.
He 'knew', somehow, that she didn't want to kill him... at least not when he was the gentlest being she had ever dealt with. In fact, even when he was irritating her, she didn't really want to kill him... maim him, perhaps, or simply hit him good, but kill...
Eradicate the life out of his mesmerizing blue eyes, make his caring heart stop beating for the others...
And yet, in a way... she knew that somehow, she would someday kill him.
It was her duty... perhaps the only way to get rid of the nightmares which were plaguing her sleep, not to mention the harsh voice that kept reminding her of those... of the vicious Skywalker and Vader who were killing her Emperor, over and over again.
Somehow, she could feel the truth of the vision... but she also knew that it wasn't 'entirely' truthful either, and that was what was really stilling her hand and heart.
Suddenly Aware that her blaster wasn't of any use, she set the safety back on it before putting it away in her wrist-holster.
******
In the small cubicle, Luke finished to wet his face with cold water before he stared at his partial reflection in the small mirror.
His gamble had paid off and he was still alive, but it had been close once again. Just like on Myrkr, he 'knew' that Mara didn't want to kill him, and yet...
He 'had' hurt her when he had destroyed her life. Whether the Emperor managed to force her hand or not, this unfortunate turn of events would always remain between the two of them. In the end, he suspected that she would always hold a grief against him, something that would, along with her fiery temper, make any real relationship with her impossible.
He could understand why she didn't want to trust him about this, even to help her. He had, in a way, an excellent motive to perhaps twist the truth yet again. She wanted to kill him, hence, if he managed to sway her hand... yes, he understood perfectly why she was seeing him the way she did... Although that wasn't the case, far from it.
He wasn't manipulating the facts on his behalf; he wasn't, unlike the Emperor, trying to hide the truth from her. He had seen her nightmare, had seen how he had made 'him' look to insure Mara's hatred of him. If she kept seeing it as often as he had witnessed while with her, and if it had been going on for five years steady...
Indeed, he now agreed that it had become a dark cloud of anger and hatred in her life, one that wasn't leaving her alone... and might never do until he himself... was gone.
While he didn't feel any comfort in the thought of not seeing another day, of not seeing his family and friends anymore, if that was what Mara needed to find peace, then, perhaps----
"Skywalker?" the comm called, pulling him out of his grim mood.
"Yes?"
"If you're about done, we're coming up on Wistril."
Upon hearing those news, he took a second to gather his composure, then stepped out of the small space.
"How can I help?" he inquired as he stepped out of the ysalamiri bubble and sat down in his seat.
"Monitor the approaching signals, I'll handle the landing," she answered him, business-like.
Luke affected the same attitude; minutes later, they were on an approach vector with the forest that was surrounding yet another imperial base.
******
After a smooth landing which went unnoticed, they silently crept through the small forest that was circling the Imperial base. Luke's senses were alert; Mara's blaster was at the ready... and aimed away from the Jedi's location.
No more time for empty threats or distrust; they were in enemy territory now and she needed him as a partner which she could trust implicitly.
About fifty meters away from their target, they detected an approaching patrol. Skywalker jumped on a branch; Mara followed suite. She had jumped high, but she didn't master her Force abilities so she wasn't able to boost herself like the Jedi had done. However, her more able partner felt it and provided her with the missing Force boost.
Even though she was beginning to know what to expect from the Jedi, which was almost anything when it came to care and paying attention, she was still shocked by his reflexive action. Still, she feigned ignorance to cover her 'too kind' gratitude. Skywalker didn't mention it either.
Per unspoken agreement, they let the patrol march off in the distance before they jumped down from the tree. While she jumped straight down, her partner tumbled once before he landed on his feet.
'Just another Jedi trick,' she reflected while she noticed that his landing had been much softer than hers.
Her still slightly sensitive ankle had felt the impact with the ground. However, it hadn't given under it so she forced herself to walk and push her slight tenderness out of her preoccupations.
Walking besides Mara, Luke noticed her slight limp but didn't comment on it. He knew that if the tough-as-nail woman had decided to not pay attention to it, it was because it was not important for the moment.
They progressed quickly, silently.
Minutes later, they reached the clearing and hid in the bushes. As he laid on his stomach besides his companion, Luke felt an eerie sense of deja vu.
They had been doing almost the same thing a few weeks ago on Myrkr. However, he was not her prisoner this time but her ally and she wasn't aiming her blaster at him.
"Which one should we take?" he half-whispered, aware that she was better trained about this kind of detail than he was.
"This one," Mara indicated, pointing her finger at the furthest shuttle. "It is the furthest from the guard post over there and it seems ready to go."
Luke nodded in agreement, then focused his senses a second.
"There are four men aboard it or nearby. They're checking it out," he informed her as he recovered his full awareness.
His gaze met Mara's awed gaze; he silently raised an eyebrow in question, wondering what he had done this time. As if aware of what he had seen, she hurried to turn away from him to recover her composure.
"How do you separate them?" she asked, nodding in the direction of the shuttle. "I could only feel their presence."
"It's an easy trick," he reassured her, suddenly aware that she wasn't as trained in the Force as he had thought she was. "I'll show you later if you want, but for now, let's go."
She silently agreed and pushed herself back to her feet. She followed him around the landing field and to the wall near the shuttle. There, they
flattened themselves against the wall and prepared for battle.
Luke almost reluctantly unhooked his lightsaber, aware that he would probably kill with it, exchanged a grim gaze with Jade, then charged silently around the wall.
While Mara killed the two at the foot of the ship, he took care of the techs who were coming out from the shuttle, relieved that he managed to knock one out with the handle of his lightsaber instead of taking his life.
Between his and Mara's attack, it was over before it had started. He closed down his blade and pulled the two techs inside.
Meanwhile, Mara grabbed hold of one her own victims and pulled him toward the bushes before she dumped him there.
She was tackling the second one when Skywalker lifted the man's legs and helped
her to carry him to a spot next to his friend. He never said a word, didn't even look at her, yet she could feel that his motivation was to really help her as a friend would, not just because it was more efficient.
Once again though, she never said a word about his behavior. They climbed aboard the ship and checked its hold. The supplies were already aboard, as Skywalker had surmised, as was the equipment they needed.
It was perfect.
"What now?" he asked her as he sat in the pilot's seat.
"We wait," she answered shortly before she sat down in the copilot's seat.
As they waited for their permission to lift off, she admitted to herself that Skywalker truly was a perfect partner. In fact, the two of them made a good team when they were working together.
And that, she sighed in annoyance, was yet another element that would scramble her brain and heart about the fate of the Jedi.
TBC in part 4: Winding down
Copyright 1999/2002, SJ (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
Webmaster : Skyjade(Any positive stuff is welcome, but any mean stuff won't even
be read.)
Part 3: Partners
by SJ 23-03-99/2002 (skyjade@globetrotter.net)
__________________________
Disclaimers: Nothing in the Star Wars Universe belong to me; everything belongs
to George Lucas. Also, if something is related to the spoken parts of Dark Force Rising, it belongs to Timothy Zhan. I'm only borrowing it to make more sense with Mara's or Luke's missing thoughts (when we follow Luke's thoughts in the novel, and vice versa ;). Naturally, everything related to events of Dark Force Rising also belong to Timothy Zhan. Please don't sue me, it's only for fun; I'm not making any money out of this. See my home page for more details.
Http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Quasar/3702
Special thanks to Adrianne for her help with beta-reading. Thank you for
giving me some of your precious time, my friend; I appreciate.
_________________________
Far away from the small ships, somewhere in the core of the galaxy, Emperor Palpatine tightened his mental, heavily shielded grip on his slave; the young woman was once again within his reach.
For the past year or so, he had completely lost contact with her subconscious, thus unable to torment her in any way to make her go after the cursed Jedi. Hence, he had watched from afar, plagued with the worry that his initial manipulations and plants had not been strong and deep enough to resist the effects of the trice-cursed ysalamiri creatures.
When he had purged the galaxy of the Jedi order, the lizards had served him well to render his enemies helpless, but now that they had been used against him like this, he promised himself to quarantine the planet Myrkr as soon as he would be back on the galactic throne, on Coruscant.
His true palace.
And one of the ways to hasten that return was to get the last remaining Jedi out of the way, via his pet assassin.
He sent yet another nightmare in the mind of the young, weak-minded woman, forcefully keeping her asleep until her soul would be so blinded by the vision of the past that the sickening influence, which Skywalker seemed to have on her, wouldn't keep her from doing her job.
Once and for all.
As he continued to torment the woman's soul, he roamed freely amongst her memories of the recent events, trying to figure out how the Jedi could have had an influence on her while in the ysalamiri dampening field.
The first time he had discovered what 'exactly' had happened while on Myrkr, he had almost lashed out and revealed his living presence to his unfaithful, close-to-treason slave, then had remembered his grander plans and had changed his mind.
Instead, he had punished her by sending her more vehement recriminations in the form of his 'last' command, then in the form of unrelenting nightmares. To add to the effect, he now even showed her variations of the events, of how she could have saved him had she been there or done her job well. More than anything else, to see herself present but unable to intervene tormented her soul to no end.
It pleased him; he sent more of his hatred into the young woman's heart.
When he would allow her to wake up, he promised himself as he scanned the surroundings of the young woman, young Skywalker would never know what hit him.
Then, he decided, machiavellian, he would reveal to the Jedi that he had just been killed by the woman he loved. Oh yes, he cackled gleefully to himself, that would be an even sweetest revenge, and would slightly make up for the brat turning his slaves into traitors while he was with them.
First Vader, now Jade; the young fool truly had a knack for piercing through the veils of lies that he artfully wrapped around his servants' minds... not to mention that he was even able to free them from those.
But not for much long-----
Even as he intended to send his strongest surge of hatred to finish it, he realized that he was no longer in touch with the young woman's mind.
Instead, he was----
Ysalamiri, he growled inwardly, aware of 'who' had just put that lizard between him and the girl.
Skywalker.
Instantly seeing red with fury, he focused his anger on the far away mountains that were visible through his viewport; he Forcefully slammed into them.
The resulting volcano was but the tip of the molten hatred that he was now feeling.
*******
The moment that Mara entered the ysalamiri bubble, her groaning subsided, as did her erratic, sporadic movements. Relieved that he had been right about his gamble, Luke exited the Forceless bubble and took a deep breath to recover his orientation.
He had been meditating about his next actions when his companion had begun to show signs that she was not sleeping well. At first, he had debated hard and long with himself if he should intervene this time or not, then had delicately reached out to soothe her imagination.
That's when he had felt the strange tug in the Force that was pulling at Mara's mind, constantly activating the Emperor's plant in her mind. Worried by his discovery, he had withdrawn in shock, then had quickly made up his mind and had picked up the ysalamiri frame to bring it closer to Mara.
Despite his prolonged experience on Myrkr, Luke was still most uneasy with the strange creatures who were nowhere to be found in the Force. To hold it, he now thought as he threw another gaze at the quiescent animal, had been even stranger, as if he himself had become a hole in the Force.
However, it had been worth it, he reminded himself as his gaze settled on the top of his companion's head. She had calmed down almost instantly and even seemed to be recovering from the bad treatment she had been undergoing.
Which now left only one question, the young Jedi reflected as he sat back on the deck. What had been that strange, diffuse tug on her mind? Closing his eyes once again, he brought back to memory the sensations he had felt when he had encountered the strange presence.
It hadn't been definite, yet did remind him of something... Something which his mind told him he should remember.
It had been cold, calculating... then it clicked! Even dead, the Emperor was able to establish a contact with Mara just like his own mentors had remained 'attached' to his mind after their deaths. So his theory had been true, he gaped in awe as he opened his eyes to study the now quiet profile of his friend. Jedis did have the ability to remain attached to the ones they were closest to just before dying.
Considering how Ben had told him that his death had made him more powerful than when he had been alive, he could only shudder at the thought of what a dead mind such as the Emperor's could do now that it was dead and attached to Mara.
For the briefest of moments, he considered pulling the ysalamiri away and forcefully breaking the link between master and servant before Mara had lost her sanity to it, then he conceded that he wouldn't be any better than the despot if he did such a thing and calmed down.
He didn't move from his chosen seat.
For a long, long time, he just sat there, gazing at his endangered companion and pondering how he could help her.
Eventually, when his own eyes began to droop close once again thanks to his new tiredness, he admitted that he couldn't 'help' her by taking away the menace.
Only she had that power, and she had proven to him already that her will power was already strong enough to hold the compulsion of killing him at bay.
He decided that the best he could do to help her was to trust her in her fight against her old self.
Against the lie of her life.
Out of support for her struggle, he joined her in the ysalamiri bubble. As he settled in his chair for another nap, he checked the chrono. They were less than eighteen hours away from the Wistril system.
And another adventure with Mara Jade. He dimly wondered if this new episode would end differently than their last one had.
He was so absorbed in his thoughts about their first meeting that he almost didn't notice the fact that he couldn't touch the Force for the moment.
******
When Mara woke up, she felt unusually rested and well. At first, she just basked in the most welcome feeling--- then snapped awake as she realized that she wasn't waking up from yet another nightmare.
Considering the past weeks, it was too unusual to pass up as an accident. The only time she had slept that well had been on----
Straightening herself in her seat, she instantly searched for the Jedi who had used the ysalamiri against---
The moment she spotted his presence, she gaped in confusion. Skywalker was also asleep and in the ysalamiri bubble. Suddenly weary that they had been attacked, she whirled around in her seat, her hand going for her pocket blaster.
Once again though, other than spotting the ysalamiri frame behind her seat, she didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Puzzled, she frowned at the far wall as she lowered her aim.
A loud yawn attracted her attention back toward her companion. She was just in time to catch the end of his stretching before he yawned once again. Unsure as to how to approach the subject of their actual circumstances, she merely gazed at him as he pulled himself out of his last remnants of tiredness.
When she saw him boyishly rub his hair before combing them back in place with his hands, she couldn't help but stare blankly, unsure about anything except one thing: she was really beginning to like Skywalker. Fortunately for her though, she used his checking the chrono to recover her composure so that when he turned toward her, she was her normal self again.
At least outwardly.
"Slept well?" he inquired simply, smiling at her.
"What do you think you're doing?" she asked him, affecting as much a miffed expression as she could.
Her blaster was still in her hand.
"About what?" he shrugged in confusion.
"About this," she pointed at the lizard before standing up and pushing it back to the back of the cabin with her foot.
"oh, well..." Skywalker paused, then began once again after he recovered from the shock of recovering his touch with the Force, "You were having a nightmare again. I felt something strange about it and just thought that this could help."
"Something strange?" she asked, looking down at him from her upright position.
As Mara looked about ready to drill him right there and then with her green glare, Luke mentally scolded himself from slipping on his resolve to not talk about this until she was ready.
"Uh, well, I was just meditating when I felt a Force locus around you... that wasn't you..." he continued hesitantly.
Mara's eyes didn't soften; instead they hardened.
"So??" she prompted him, her armed hand going to her waist, as did her other hand.
"So... well," he fumbled, slowly standing up from his seat.
Mara's hand pushed him back in it before she practically loomed over him from her upright position. Her blaster was still in sight and not showing any sign of disappearing once again.
"Spit it out, Skywalker. What do you know about my dreams?"
"They... they were planted in your mind by the Emperor just before he died," he finally revealed in one breath, then waited for the outburst.
At least, he comforted himself, he hadn't talked about the remaining contact between the Emperor and Mara, nor about the images she kept seeing.
Judging from Mara's narrowed eyes, then her tightened grip on her blaster before she took a step closer to him, he decided that he had already said enough to be in serious trouble.
Next he knew, she had gripped his tunic with her left fist and had wedged her blaster in his jaw. Her glare was sulfurous, at the least.
"How do I know that it isn't your doing, Jedi?" she asked him acidly, the old Mara reclaiming what had always been hers before.
Luke swallowed hard as a memory of how close it had come on Myrkr came back to him. If he didn't do it right this time, the Emperor would win and Mara would kill him.
End of story.
"Read my mind, Mara, and you'll see what I saw... what I felt, and how I'm just trying to help you to not suffer anymore," he offered earnestly.
For a long moment, blue eyes met green ones across an ocean of confusion.
Shocked by his offer, Mara locked her eyes on Skywalker's, desperately looking for a sign that, for once, the Jedi would be lying to her. He couldn't be right, she argued with herself. He was not reading the Force energies right.
The Emperor had 'not' planted anything in her mind, it was just a memory of his last contact with her, she had been too far away from the other man for him to do anything... like mind manipulation...
No!, she silently denied even as she tightened her grip on Skywalker's shirt; he grimaced more obviously as her blaster dug harder and harder in the hinge of his jaw... yet he remained silent.
Willing to accept her decision about the outcome of their present face-off... because he trusted her, she realized.
Skywalker, the man she had sworn to kill, trusted her to not kill him... because her compulsion was not coming from her but from her late master...
Slowly, hesitantly, she focused her senses and reached out to feel the other's presence. To her surprise, she found him almost instantly and could have entered his already opened mind right away. However, she remained cautious and took a quick peek in his mind, bypassing everything he was to focus solely on what he had felt while she had been asleep.
She gasped in shock and withdrew from his mind even as she let go of him. He had told her the true. He hadn't made up the images of his mind, and he had really felt something which fed her nightmares...
And that something had greatly reminded her of the Emperor's Force presence.
"How can it be?" she wondered even as she sat in her own seat; her knees were suddenly too weak to support her weight, as if devoid of any strength.
"It seems that Jedi have the ability to remain attached to their beloved, or closest Force-sensitive companions when they die."
Mara glared at him from under her eyelashes. "How reassuring."
For a moment, their gazes met yet again, his filled with compassion, hers, with an attempt to remain cold toward him and his friendly approaches.
"Well, in a way, it is," Skywalker finally commented. "You see, if your compulsion to kill me comes from this, then---"
Her blaster was once again aimed at the infuriatingly earnest Jedi, if only to shut him up.
"Even if my master's spirit activates my memories, Skywalker, 'I' still want to kill you, this is my decision, not his. You still destroyed my life, everything I had. In due time, I will have my revenge," she finished, aware that she wasn't giving herself a specific window in time to be true to her words.
Skywalker for his part kept his gaze locked with hers. She thus noticed that his eyes were totally devoid of defiance or anger; instead, they were filled with understanding... and worry about her.
"I know Mara," he finally nodded as he stood up from his seat, pointedly ignoring the fact that she was aiming a fully-loaded blaster at him. "I'm sorry if I upset you, that wasn't my intention. If you ever want to talk about this again, remember that I will be there."
And with this, he turned his back to her and disappeared in the small 'fresher unit of the ship.
She herself remained in her seat, staring blankly at the spot where he had been.
She simply couldn't believe what had just happened between them. Even worse than when they had been on Myrkr, that she had threatened his life and that he had not counter-attacked, he had now proven to her that even her aiming at him wasn't convincing him anymore.
He 'knew', somehow, that she didn't want to kill him... at least not when he was the gentlest being she had ever dealt with. In fact, even when he was irritating her, she didn't really want to kill him... maim him, perhaps, or simply hit him good, but kill...
Eradicate the life out of his mesmerizing blue eyes, make his caring heart stop beating for the others...
And yet, in a way... she knew that somehow, she would someday kill him.
It was her duty... perhaps the only way to get rid of the nightmares which were plaguing her sleep, not to mention the harsh voice that kept reminding her of those... of the vicious Skywalker and Vader who were killing her Emperor, over and over again.
Somehow, she could feel the truth of the vision... but she also knew that it wasn't 'entirely' truthful either, and that was what was really stilling her hand and heart.
Suddenly Aware that her blaster wasn't of any use, she set the safety back on it before putting it away in her wrist-holster.
******
In the small cubicle, Luke finished to wet his face with cold water before he stared at his partial reflection in the small mirror.
His gamble had paid off and he was still alive, but it had been close once again. Just like on Myrkr, he 'knew' that Mara didn't want to kill him, and yet...
He 'had' hurt her when he had destroyed her life. Whether the Emperor managed to force her hand or not, this unfortunate turn of events would always remain between the two of them. In the end, he suspected that she would always hold a grief against him, something that would, along with her fiery temper, make any real relationship with her impossible.
He could understand why she didn't want to trust him about this, even to help her. He had, in a way, an excellent motive to perhaps twist the truth yet again. She wanted to kill him, hence, if he managed to sway her hand... yes, he understood perfectly why she was seeing him the way she did... Although that wasn't the case, far from it.
He wasn't manipulating the facts on his behalf; he wasn't, unlike the Emperor, trying to hide the truth from her. He had seen her nightmare, had seen how he had made 'him' look to insure Mara's hatred of him. If she kept seeing it as often as he had witnessed while with her, and if it had been going on for five years steady...
Indeed, he now agreed that it had become a dark cloud of anger and hatred in her life, one that wasn't leaving her alone... and might never do until he himself... was gone.
While he didn't feel any comfort in the thought of not seeing another day, of not seeing his family and friends anymore, if that was what Mara needed to find peace, then, perhaps----
"Skywalker?" the comm called, pulling him out of his grim mood.
"Yes?"
"If you're about done, we're coming up on Wistril."
Upon hearing those news, he took a second to gather his composure, then stepped out of the small space.
"How can I help?" he inquired as he stepped out of the ysalamiri bubble and sat down in his seat.
"Monitor the approaching signals, I'll handle the landing," she answered him, business-like.
Luke affected the same attitude; minutes later, they were on an approach vector with the forest that was surrounding yet another imperial base.
******
After a smooth landing which went unnoticed, they silently crept through the small forest that was circling the Imperial base. Luke's senses were alert; Mara's blaster was at the ready... and aimed away from the Jedi's location.
No more time for empty threats or distrust; they were in enemy territory now and she needed him as a partner which she could trust implicitly.
About fifty meters away from their target, they detected an approaching patrol. Skywalker jumped on a branch; Mara followed suite. She had jumped high, but she didn't master her Force abilities so she wasn't able to boost herself like the Jedi had done. However, her more able partner felt it and provided her with the missing Force boost.
Even though she was beginning to know what to expect from the Jedi, which was almost anything when it came to care and paying attention, she was still shocked by his reflexive action. Still, she feigned ignorance to cover her 'too kind' gratitude. Skywalker didn't mention it either.
Per unspoken agreement, they let the patrol march off in the distance before they jumped down from the tree. While she jumped straight down, her partner tumbled once before he landed on his feet.
'Just another Jedi trick,' she reflected while she noticed that his landing had been much softer than hers.
Her still slightly sensitive ankle had felt the impact with the ground. However, it hadn't given under it so she forced herself to walk and push her slight tenderness out of her preoccupations.
Walking besides Mara, Luke noticed her slight limp but didn't comment on it. He knew that if the tough-as-nail woman had decided to not pay attention to it, it was because it was not important for the moment.
They progressed quickly, silently.
Minutes later, they reached the clearing and hid in the bushes. As he laid on his stomach besides his companion, Luke felt an eerie sense of deja vu.
They had been doing almost the same thing a few weeks ago on Myrkr. However, he was not her prisoner this time but her ally and she wasn't aiming her blaster at him.
"Which one should we take?" he half-whispered, aware that she was better trained about this kind of detail than he was.
"This one," Mara indicated, pointing her finger at the furthest shuttle. "It is the furthest from the guard post over there and it seems ready to go."
Luke nodded in agreement, then focused his senses a second.
"There are four men aboard it or nearby. They're checking it out," he informed her as he recovered his full awareness.
His gaze met Mara's awed gaze; he silently raised an eyebrow in question, wondering what he had done this time. As if aware of what he had seen, she hurried to turn away from him to recover her composure.
"How do you separate them?" she asked, nodding in the direction of the shuttle. "I could only feel their presence."
"It's an easy trick," he reassured her, suddenly aware that she wasn't as trained in the Force as he had thought she was. "I'll show you later if you want, but for now, let's go."
She silently agreed and pushed herself back to her feet. She followed him around the landing field and to the wall near the shuttle. There, they
flattened themselves against the wall and prepared for battle.
Luke almost reluctantly unhooked his lightsaber, aware that he would probably kill with it, exchanged a grim gaze with Jade, then charged silently around the wall.
While Mara killed the two at the foot of the ship, he took care of the techs who were coming out from the shuttle, relieved that he managed to knock one out with the handle of his lightsaber instead of taking his life.
Between his and Mara's attack, it was over before it had started. He closed down his blade and pulled the two techs inside.
Meanwhile, Mara grabbed hold of one her own victims and pulled him toward the bushes before she dumped him there.
She was tackling the second one when Skywalker lifted the man's legs and helped
her to carry him to a spot next to his friend. He never said a word, didn't even look at her, yet she could feel that his motivation was to really help her as a friend would, not just because it was more efficient.
Once again though, she never said a word about his behavior. They climbed aboard the ship and checked its hold. The supplies were already aboard, as Skywalker had surmised, as was the equipment they needed.
It was perfect.
"What now?" he asked her as he sat in the pilot's seat.
"We wait," she answered shortly before she sat down in the copilot's seat.
As they waited for their permission to lift off, she admitted to herself that Skywalker truly was a perfect partner. In fact, the two of them made a good team when they were working together.
And that, she sighed in annoyance, was yet another element that would scramble her brain and heart about the fate of the Jedi.
TBC in part 4: Winding down
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