Mara stared at her husband. "You can't get to Helska in two weeks! You would have had to leave two days ago at least. Helska is all the way out to the Tingle Arm!"
"Not in a normal ship, no," Han said, a sly grin crossing his face. "But in the Millennium Falcon we should get there just in the nick of time."
"'We'?" Luke raised an eyebrow at his friend.
Both Leia and Mara nodded and chimed in, "Yes, 'we'." The two women looked at each other for a moment.
Luke shook his head. "Leia, you have too many responsibilities here. And, Mara…"
Mara placed her fingertips on his lips. Her eyes flashed dangerously. "If you even think about saying that it's too 'dangerous' for me, Skywalker, so help me I'll be a widow…" She threatened.
Mara's threat helped break up the gathered tension in the room as they all laughed. Luke tenderly took her hand and kissed it.
"All right then. But Leia is staying here," he glanced at her sharply. His eyes spoke to his twin of his fear for her safety.
Leia stubbornly crossed her arms. "We don't have the time to debate this in a committee," she shot out at her brother. Han chuckled softly into his hand and she threw him a sharp glance. Turning her attention to her brother again, she added, "And I'm on leave of absence from the Presidency, remember? The kids are at the Academy and I have nothing better to do than to help protect my brother. I'm going."
Mara hid her smile and rapped on Luke's chest. "Come on, Skywalker. We need to get our things packed and get on our way if we're going to make it to Helska in two weeks."
Luke sighed and gave up. "Fine, but if I sense too much danger or fear, you all will stay on the ship with no arguments, understand?"
Han smirked. "Sure thing, kid."
As Luke walked away shaking his head, he wondered why he didn't believe Han's agreement.
"This is the Falcon requesting liftoff," Han was saying into the comm in the cockpit as Luke and Mara walked by it. Leia and Chewbacca were already seated and waiting.
"Granted," Admiral Ackbar's voice came back gruffly. "Protect all that you can on your journey. May the Force be with you."
Han switched off the comm and grumbled, "So much for some peace and quiet for once." He and Chewbacca began to adjust levers and toggles to get the Falcon off Coruscant.
Luke suppressed a vague feeling of unease as he stared at his sister and brother-in-law. A strong sense urged him to leave them on Coruscant, but he knew that they would not stay there, no matter what he said to them.
Mara tapped him on the shoulder. "Luke, where are you? Because you sure aren't here." She gave him a knowing look.
Luke plopped into a chair behind Chewbacca and sighed. "I'm sorry about this happening on our honeymoon, Mara. I guess we'll have to go to the beaches of Ord Mandell at a later time."
Mara rolled her eyes. "Luke, I was never really that fond of the whole relaxed beach scene anyway," she confided. "I was just going because I thought you wanted to go there."
Luke blinked in surprise. "But I was just going because I thought you wanted to go. I've had enough sand to last me a whole lifetime from growing up on Tatooine."
The couple stared at each other for a moment and then started laughing.
Leia smiled, grateful to see her brother finally happy and with a great woman who appreciated him, not just for his Force talent, but for himself.
Luke stood on a cliff, facing a setting sun. Life was all around him, bursting and full of energy. He soaked in the feel of the Force around him, having it mold into him into in a way he had never experienced before. It was rapture.
Then a ripple of darkness made up of fear and malcontent swam to his senses.
Luke turned, and then saw his student Brakiss.
Brakiss had aged considerably. Gone was the boy full of promise and hope; that boy was replaced by an older man filled with hate and loathing.
Brakiss glared at Luke across the cliff's surface. He pointed off to a speck in the distance.
When he spoke, his voice was deeper and raspier than on the transmission. "See the people, Master Skywalker? I have a decision for you to make and you have to make it before you arrive."
Luke calmly regarded his former student. "What would that be, Brakiss?"
Brakiss sneered at him. "You die…and they live. No one else has to die; no more innocents will suffer needlessly. All I want…is your death."
Luke's heart nearly stopped. He forced himself to remain calm. "Why do you want my death so badly, Brakiss? What happened to you to turn you all the way to the dark side?"
The brown-haired man swallowed and Luke saw a tear in his eye. "My mother. She told me of the time you spent with her in her home. You turned her against me. She was the only one I had left in this galaxy that truly believed in me and you turned her against me!"
Luke frowned. "How did I do that? She saved me from death right before you delivered your warning to me about Kueller. How did I turn her against you?"
Brakiss scowled and his eyes flashed. "You told her about what you sensed about me. You told her that I was headed for the dark side but that you thought I could be saved."
Luke was puzzled. "I suppose I did, but how…"
"She tried to make me return to your Academy!" Brakiss screamed in rage. "And when I wouldn't go back, she begged and pleaded with me. She said she couldn't bear to see me wasting my life and when I wouldn't go back, she killed herself. Left a note stating that she was a failure as a mother. A failure!! It's all your fault!!"
Luke was stunned. Brakiss' mother had seemed more stable than that to him when she had rescued him. A little odd, perhaps, but stable.
Brakiss had spittle flying out of his mouth now. "You ruined the last part of my life that was good! You must die, or millions of others will first!"
He jabbed at a small button on his belt. Suddenly, Luke could feel hundreds of voices cry out in pain…and then were silenced.
Luke gasped and sat upright in bed. The pain lingered in his mind from the innocents who had just been killed. He closed his eyes and pressed a hand to his forehead.
Mara, reacting more to his Force sense than his waking, snapped out of her light doze immediately. "Luke? What is it? What's wrong?"
"You…didn't feel that?"
Mara shook her head in the darkness and wrapped an arm around his shoulders. He was trembling. "Luke, what happened? Tell me," she urged.
Luke turned big eyes to her and she saw tears gathered there. In a whisper, he answered, "Hundreds were just killed. Because of me. All because of me." He buried his head in his hands.
Because of me.