NOTHING STAYS THE SAME

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mara shed her dark cloak as soon as she entered the docking bay.  It would be there by morning, she knew.  Leia had given her the cloak to cover the red hair that the holocams would surely pick up on and shadow her face.  It also fit well enough to hide the lightsaber and the two blasters.  Leia had given her the blasters, but no power packs.  The Princess reminded Mara that full power packs would set off alarms through the Headquarters.  Along every hallway were new sensors for that exact purpose, all placed immediately after the assassination attempt.  She'd assured Mara that Han would have power packs for both blasters.

Mara didn't recognize any of the dozen ships on this level, though she knew the Millennium Falcon, Solo's pride, was located a few floors up.  She was willing to bet Republic credits that her beloved Fire had been impounded.  If those incompetent Republic mechanics ruined her ship, she swore to hunt every last asshole down and shoot each one.  She'd invested too much money and time for a few mechanics to destroy in their inspired search for smuggled contraband they'd never find.

She pushed those thoughts from her mind as she approached the lone freighter apart from the other ships.  She recognized it as a YT-2400 Corellian freighter, a later model of Solo's Falcon.  She approached the ship and about ten paces away she heard a roar, and then the cussing of a well-known Corellian pilot.

"Get over here," he told her.  "Come on, we haven't got all day."

Mara walked up into the ship and Han Solo and Chewbacca followed her.  The Wookiee headed straight for the cockpit, only a step ahead of Mara and Han.

She could not express the relief she felt as the planet of Coruscant was left far behind them.

Leia spoke softly to her children the next morning.  She knew she'd receive a call from the Director of New Republic Intelligence, and she knew why.   She told the children not to let anyone know where their father was, or Chewie, or Aunt Mara.

"It is most important that no one know where they are, okay?"

"They're going to save Uncle Luke, aren't they?" little Anakin asked.  His blue eyes, so much like his uncle's, stared straight into Leia's brown ones.

"Yes."

"Good.  I told you Aunt Mara wasn't bad."

Leia stood up as soon as her personal comlink went off.  She took it off her collar and held it in her palm.  Finally she turned it on.  "Organa Solo here."   And then, "Iella.  Hello.  I didn't expect you to call me this early.  What's wrong?"  The twins looked at each other, confused.  "Mara's missing?  How?  I thought you said your security was the best!  I don't see how it is if she could get out of it!  Yes, I will gladly come down to talk to you.  I'll be there in a few minutes."  She snapped it closed.

"All right, kids.  Be good for Winter."  She ruffled Jacen's hair as she grabbed a light jacket and walked out the door.

"Leia, what the hell did you think you were doing?"

"Iella, at least wait until the door is closed," Leia said calmly.   As soon as the door slid shut, Leia looked the woman in the eyes.  "Luke is still alive.  Mara is the best chance to find him."

"What happened to the whole idea that Mara killed him?  Have you completely forgotten your confidence that we had Luke's murderer?  Do you remember any of that?"

"Yeah, well, I was wrong.  I have no trouble saying it.  I was wrong.  And because of that, I nearly let Mara be executed.  But Luke isn't dead!"

"How do you know?  Answer that."  The Director of Intelligence was pissed off, to say the least.  That the President of the New Republic broke her prisoner out and walked out of the NRI Headquarters was infuriating.  And Jade was due in the courtroom in less than two hours!

"I felt his presence.  I know he's alive.  Look, it's difficult to explain this to someone who isn't Force sensitive, but I can feel him when he's near.  And when he's alive, and he is.  He didn't die.  That body belongs to someone else.  Some poor bastard was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and just happened to look somewhat like Luke.  I suggest your Intelligence agents figure out who that corpse belongs to, because it doesn't belong to my brother."

"Leia, Mara is supposed to be in the courtroom in an hour and a half.  She's gone.  What am I supposed to do?"

"Say she's sick.  That always works."

"Organa Solo, this isn't school.  This is real life, and my ass is hanging on the line here.  What do you expect me to do?"

Leia glanced at Iella's desk.  The Director kept her desk clear, with only a few data disks in short piles.  The data reader was dusted.  There were few objects she obviously had from her home: holos of Wedge and her daughters, as well as a small globe of Corellia.  A globe.  If it was painted dull silver and had a small pin on it, it could pass for a detonator…

"Bomb scare."

"What?"

Leia picked up the globe and tossed it to Iella.  "Bomb scare.  Before Mara's supposed to come out, have a bomb scare.  Evacuate everyone for the rest of the day.  Say someone attempted to murder Mara again.  Run an investigation.  I'll help out."

"You want me to pretend that there is a detonator in a room holding every Republic Senator and important figurehead?  Damn, Leia."  Where did a Princess, of all people, think these things up?

"ETA is three days, twelve hours.  After that, it's only a time of finding where exactly the kid is on the planet."  Han slouched in a chair in one of the supply rooms.  Mara was asleep in the room they'd given to her.  She was in her own room; Corran and Talon shared one of the others, and Han and Chewie were in the last room.

"Mara can help with that.  I'm pretty sure if she's close enough, she can tell us exactly where Luke is," Corran added in.  The entire strike team consisted of Han, Chewie, Corran, Talon, and Mara.  Corran wondered whether that was enough people.  After all, they were attacking a smart smuggling group.  Maybe he should have gotten a Rogue buddy to come along, or Kam.  Another Jedi wouldn't have hurt.

"So what exactly are we doing?  Just landing on planet, and hoping we can find a smuggling organization that doesn't want to be found, rescue a Jedi who may or may not have access to the Force, and hopefully find a way off planet that will ensure all of us are still alive?"

"Yes, that's about it," Talon acknowledged.  "It isn't the best thought out plan, but with three and a half days in hyperspace, I'm sure we can refine it.  Besides, some of the wildest plans work the best."

"Yeah, I'm the king of crazy plans," Han said.  "But that doesn't necessarily mean this one will work."

"Oh, come on, Solo.  Don't be such a pessimist."

The three men and Wookiee turned to look at the woman leaning in the doorway.  Corran hadn't even noticed she was awake.  Some Jedi, he thought to himself.  You don't even know when another Force-sensitive is awake or not.

Anyone who didn't know Mara Jade wouldn't be able to tell the difference in her attitude before and after her incarceration.  She wore a black flightsuit tucked into knee-high matte black boots.  Her hair was plaited back and away from her face.  A lightsaber at her belt, as well as a holdout blaster and her forearm holster, she looked the same as always.  Beautiful and deadly.  But there was something else.  Her vivid green eyes could barely hide the emotions running through her psyche.  Corran could feel her mental barriers as tight as she could possibly make them.

"Are you just going to stare at me or are you going to continue with the plans?" she asked finally.

"We've already come up with the plans," Han said, somewhat defensively. 

"Oh, good.  So whose ship is this?  I thought only museums wanted these old fashioned YTs."

"It's one of mine," Talon said.  "She's a beauty, isn't she?  I got her for near nothing.  Just an extra ship, for things like this.  The Asteroid Belt.  I call her that because it looks like a blind pilot took her through one."

"Reminds me of Solo's Millennium Falcon.  Beat up and an antique."

"Hey," Solo protested.  The Wookiee repeated his pilot's protest.

Mara walked into the room and sat on one of the supply containers away from everyone else.

"So let me see if I've got this right.  We're just going to waltz into their base, provided that we find it, of course, find Luke, blow the place up, and leave."

"Yeah, that's about it," Corran confirmed.

"You guys are insane."

"Yeah, well, insanity is what's gonna save your boyfriend."

Mara snapped her heard around to glare at Solo.  He held his hands up, palms forward.

"Hey, sorry.  We all know about it, Jade.  So calm the hell down, okay?  Damn, and I thought you were jumpy before."

"Did you tell anyone else, Corran?  Maybe Borsk Fey'lya, and bel Iblis?  Ackbar?  Who else did you tell?"

"Just Organa Solo, Talon, and Iella.  Leia must have told Han—"

"Iella?  You don't mean the Director of Intelligence.  Oh, gods, you didn't.  What the hell were you thinking?"

"I did what I had to do.  I wasn't about to let you stay in that prison while there was something I could do about it."

The Force storm that had nearly destroyed the Grand Hall was still dying down.  The red-haired woman walked through to the twin tall doors.  She pushed one open and immediately went down to her knee before the older woman.

"News?" the old woman asked.  A stray lock of auburn hair pulled free from the clasp at the nape of her neck.

"No sign, my lady.  The storm was his doing, though.  We've all felt that."

"Bring in more ysalimiri, then!  I want this entire city to be blind to his senses.  Do not let him escape.  I will kill you if he does!"

Throughout the older woman's tirade, the woman on her knee did not look up.  First she failed her mistress with the failed attempt to terminate Jade, and now He escaped.  One more failure would mean her life.  She would not fail her mistress a third time.

Darkness.  The city was all darkness.  She could feel the evil in every doorway, in every creature.  Where was she?  She didn't know.  Was this city always this black?  The moon illuminated nothing.  Or perhaps the moon was only an illusion.  She remembered that from somewhere.  In order to keep the inhabitants of an underground colony from becoming claustrophobic, there were illusions of a horizon so when the citizens looked out the useless viewports, they saw mountains similar to those on Coruscant, where the artist had been from.  Although that worked for a little while, eventually the humans became suicidal and the project was deemed a failure.

Perhaps that's what she was.  A failure.  She was weaponless, blind, cold, and hurt.  Her delayed reactions showed her the drugs were still rampant in her system.  If she could only access the Force, then she knew that she would be able to purge her system.

Limping, she headed in the direction of a distant light.  Maybe she could stay here, because she did not want to stay in the dark.  But the dark was her friend.  In the dark, no one could see her.  In the dark—

Mara jerked away.

Corran was in her doorway, still half asleep.  "Mara?" he asked quietly.

"Go back to sleep, Corran.  You're imagining things."