NOTHING STAYS THE SAME

CHAPTER TWO

                Han's stomach plummeted.  "What?"

                "Some drunk found his body this morning.  Retina scans proved it was him."

                "What about DNA?  Did they do DNA tests?"

                "They said his bloodstream was full of cary-something.  It screwed up the DNA.  No DNA match will be entirely accurate.  They don't even know which strand to begin with."

                "Did they double-check the retinas?"

                "The politician said that the medical examiner triple-checked it.  She couldn't believe it, either."

                "Luke, dead?  That's impossible.  There's got to be a logical explanation."

                "I felt him die last night and I didn't even know it," Leia murmured.  This couldn't happen…

                "Wouldn't it be…well, more explosive?  Don't you think you would have really felt his death?  And Anakin…he's so attached to Luke.  When you were in that explosion, with those droids, remember, they all knew it.  Wouldn't they have felt Luke?"

                "They said he'd been drugged and beaten, and he was probably unconscious when they killed him.  I just felt him, his presence cut-off, disappear.  He's really dead."

                "He can't be," Han said.  Luke couldn't have died in the streets like just another person.  Wouldn't he have gone out in a fight, not drugged like an animal?

                "Who did it?" he asked, anger rising.

                "They don't have any suspects yet."  Leia hugged her husband and cried like she'd never stop.

                Talon Karrde sat back in his chair and glanced at the data disks on his desk.  All of them were from members of his intelligence gathering team, each of them written by a professional (though what talent they excelled in was not always public knowledge.)  All of the disks were the same grey color, but as he looked through them, he found three on the bottom that said "IMPORTANT".  Talon shrugged as he inserted one of these disks into the data reader.

                "Key-Corellia-Nine-Bravo."

                It was a medium level code, so her knew instantly that it wasn't from anyone on his personal ship or anyone directly below him.  The holographic screen materialized and Karrde found himself staring at some report, a New Republic Intelligence report.  Interested, he read it carefully.  He had two people in the NRI, but both of them knew not to send the reports like this.  They used voice messages and a higher-access code.

                It started off stating the date of the information and location.  Coruscant's NRI headquarters, yesterday morning.  Someone worked hard to get this to him quickly.  What he read next made his blood run cold.

                The murder of Luke Skywalker?

                Talon stared at the report for a few minutes.  Luke Skywalker?  How did someone actually kill Skywalker?  The Jedi Master always found a way to escape, if just barely.  A copy of the autopsy was also included.

                "Holy shit," he said loudly.  This happened yesterday, and no one informed him about it until today?  How could someone keep something like this from the media?  The businessman part of his mind noted he'd have to recheck his contacts on Corellia.  For something like this to get past him, someone must have screwed up somewhere.

                He had to reread the next section twice before it registered.

                Talon reached for his comlink, switching it on before it was even off his desk.  "Aves, prepare the Wild Karrde.  We've got to get to Coruscant.  Mara's going to be arrested."

Mara Jade disembarked from her ship, the Jade's Fire, and looked around.  She couldn't see any other people in the docking bay, and that bothered her.  Usually, especially here on Coruscant, the ships were swarming with pilots and mechanics alike.  She'd already unloaded her cargo, and the Fire  would remain docked for a day or two.  She went back on board her ship and grabbed some clothes as well as he comlink and slave device for the Fire.  She stretched out with the Force after finally being able to sense it again.  She had been transporting ysalimiri in her ship for a buyer here on the capital of the New Republic, and although she had adapted to the emptiness the Force void had caused, she greeted its return gladly.  It had taken five days to reach the capital after her short stop on Paqrisa, where she picked up the shipment of creatures.  Before then, she had been on Corellia, delivering a sealed package to one of the planet's ambassadors.  Altogether, she'd spent eight days on her ship; eight days of old holofilms she kept onboard because she couldn't receive messages or even the HoloNet while in hyperspace.  That was one thing she hated about light-speed—she couldn't receive any news while traveling.  She'd been effectively cut off from the rest of the galaxy for seven days.  Sure, she could pull the Fire out of hyperspace whenever she wanted to pick up news, but these ysalimiri had been a priority delivery.  Some research facility, most likely.  Mara snorted.  She was a Master Trader, not a delivery boy.

                She felt a group of people coming towards her ship and she could feel hostility towards…her? in them.

                "Miss Jade?" one of them yelled into her ship.  Mara recognized his uniform as one belonging to the New Republic Guards.

                Mara quickly thought back.  She hadn't done anything wrong.  Everything on her ship was legal, except for…well, if they could find that, then they were welcome to it.  That crystal was so well hidden no one could know where it was.

                "Yes?" she asked.  Might as well play polite, she thought to herself.  Three of the Guards stepped forward.

                "Please step off the ship, hands above your head.  Slowly, now."

                Confused, Mara did what they told her.  Her danger sense hadn't flared up, but even so, she cautiously walked towards them.

                "What the hell is going on?" she demanded.  At least two of the guards had blasters pointed straight at her.  And one of them carried stun cuffs and a ysalimiri nutrient cage on his back.  He wasn't close enough so that the Force-free bubble affected her.

                "You are under arrest, Mara Jade, for the murder of Luke Skywalker.  You have the right to remain silent…"

                Mara stared at the lead Guard in complete disbelief.  The murder of Luke Skywalker?  Luke was dead?  Impossible.  She'd have felt his death.  Instinctively, she reached out with the Force for Luke's familiar presence.  Nothing.

                The Guard searched her, confiscating the small blaster from her forearm, as well as the lightsaber at her belt and the sheathed vibroblade also attached to her utility belt.  Her holdout blaster was in the bag they also took and two Guards went on her beloved ship.

                "I have no idea what you're talking about," she began, but the Guard cut her off.

                "I suggest you don't speak until you get a lawyer, Miss Jade.  I also suggest rather strongly you don't try anything.  A lot of people here admired that Jedi and these Guards are trigger-happy."  He slapped the stun cuffs onto her wrists, and she just stared at them, and then schooled her face back to its empty look, totally expressionless.  She'd have to wait to contact Karrde.

                "Look, Miss Jade, we know about your Imperial past.  Chief of State Organa Solo herself admitted that you had threatened her brother.  We've got motive already.  We have witnesses you saw you on Corellia.  Your ship was on Corellia until his murder and then you left.  There's your opportunity. "  The Intelligence agent sat on the table next to the Master Trader.  "We know you were there, we know why you did it.  We know how.  You were sloppy, Jade.  I'd have expected better from the Emperor's Hand."

                Mara Jade just stared at the wall on the other side of the room.  She knew that to her right and left were observation rooms, where a dozen or so people were watching her every move.  Is she nervous?  Is she scared?  Mad?  What is going on in that brain of hers?

                Normally she would reach out with the Force just so she could feel the people that she knew would be there, but the ysalimiri prevented it.  They had surrounded her with the creatures; obviously afraid she'd be able to escape with the Force.  So instead she just sat there, her mind automatically recording everything this sorry excuse for a Guard was telling her while the other part of her mind allowed itself to think everything over.

                How could Luke be dead?  She had just seen him on Corellia.  She'd convinced him to come with her on the brief vacation from the Jedi Academy.  She'd spent most of her time with him.

                She never felt him die.  Wouldn't she have felt him die?  She knew that she'd been surrounded by ysalimiri, but, somehow, wouldn't she have known?  The Emperor's death had nearly killed her, and she'd felt nearly every other Jedi's deaths, a sudden hole where she never knew they actually existed.  When Luke had been nearly killed by Kyp Durron, she knew it, a deep ache until he was able to rejoin his body.  And he hadn't even been dead.  Surely she would have know had he truly died.

                But what if Luke's murderer—murderers—used ysalimiri, like her own captors were doing now?  That would explain the feeling of him being cut-off, rather than dying.  Dying.  He's dead.  Impossible.  How could he die?

                She always told him that one day she wouldn't be there to save his ass.  He'd remarked, like the farmboy he was, that when that day came, he'd find another way out.  He was a Jedi Master, in case she didn't know.

                The Intel agent sighed to himself.  She wouldn't say anything.  He knew it.  Just like the Imperials, she was taught to be patient, never giving anything away.  He wished momentarily that the New Rep would allow torture to be used to get details or a confession.  Gods knew this Imperial deserved it.

                It took all of Leia's self control to identify Luke's body.  Even though the Medical Examiner's Office in Coronet City had cleaned away the blood and covered the half of his face, she still couldn't see the corpse as having once housed her brother.  The body looked like a sand panther had gotten a hold of it.  The face looked like his, and there was no mistaking the color of the eye.  She felt like she'd aged fifty years as she walked away.

                Luke had been wearing a loose tunic and pants, as well as his knee-high black boots, all clothes she had bought for him or had watched him buy.  It was something hearing that he'd died, but something else entirely to actually see his body on the clean sheet, knowing that under the cloth covering the right part of his face was meat and brains.   There was no stench; the medical examiner had immediately frozen his body.  His corpse was the same as when the drunk tripped over it.

                Once Leia got back to the apartment, she collapsed, sobbing.  She couldn't help it.