******

He was left alone in his rooms for several days, the occasional servant making an appearance to bring him food and water. Luke did not talk to them, and they did not talk to him.

The suite, despite its glamour and comfort, was completely devoid of things to occupy one's attention. But Luke was far from bored.

In the long hours with nothing to do, his mind kept coming back to the enticing idea that there might be a way to escape from this place. At first, he dismissed it as unwise and next to impossible, but the notion kept coming back, tagging at the heels of his deep craving for freedom. He spent the hours warily recalling Yoda's sketchy lessons on Force-shielding, cautiously going through his mind how it could be done. He did not want to practice doing any of it, lest he call unwanted attention to himself, so he hoped reviewing would be enough.

In the end, his plan was vague. He did not have a precise idea how he was going to escape the palace, only a mental map of several of the palace floors etched in his memory. But, he had his wits, anticipated acquiring a blaster before he made it very far, and was filled with a consuming desire to escape. Blindly, he hoped it would be enough, and almost didn't care if it wasn't.

The night for his escape presented itself nearly four days after his lightsaber ordeal. It had taken him that long to mostly recover from the injuries he'd received.

It was fairly late in the evening, and a servant had just left. If they followed their standard routine, no one would come to his rooms until morning. He'd be long gone by then.

The wide corridor outside was another issue, though, as Luke stretched out with the Force. Imperial guards lined both sides of the hallway at regular intervals, and they were all armed to the teeth with various weapons. At this moment, two of them were outside his door, speaking in low voices.

Straining his ears for the unalarmed conversing of the guards, he knelt beside the door and carefully began to take off the coverplate, using a small writing tool he'd painstakingly filed and sharpened during the long hours spent alone.

Luke smiled grimly. Han's long, and often frustrating lessons on how to hotwire locks would not be a complete waste of time after all.

As noiselessly as possible, he got to work.

*******

"My Lord, the eradication of the Rebels may take some time," Admiral Otley said quietly, spreading his hands across the dark polished table of the large conference room. Huge windows against one wall showed Vader that it was quite dark outside, and he was beginning to feel tired and irritable after a seemingly endless day. He wished this meeting would end. "They did strike a rather crushing blow to our fleet, and the loss of the Death Star--"

"How soon can we mass our fleet to launch an attack," Vader interrupted impatiently.

The man stood his ground against the Dark Lord and did not show the fear that was radiating from him, much to the astonishment of the others seated around the table, Vader was sure. How Otley had ever made it this far up in Imperial ranks was beyond the capabilities of even the Dark Lord to comprehend.

"Well," the Admiral began, hastily checking his notes. Vader did not hear any more of the report as suddenly, in the back of his mind, the steady, constant, light-suffused presence of his son winked out, leaving a gaping whole in the Dark Lord's mind.

Oblivious to the others in the room, their cautious questioning and confused glances that they traded, Vader lurched to his feet, his large repulsor chair bobbing away from him.

"Lord Vader?" Otley queried in bewilderment. The Dark Lord ignored him. He spun in a billow of black cloak out of the conference room, and made a beeline toward Luke's prison suite.

******

The change of guards was right on schedule, and Luke was ready. He waited for the Imperials to get a little further down the hall, and then initiated his Force-shield a moment before he connected the wires that would make the door open.

With a quiet hiss, his escape route was free and clear. He carefully glanced around, sending out the Force to subtly distract anyone who happened to look his way and melded into the deep shadows, the door snapping shut behind him.

He could spot several security cameras throughout the hall, and grimaced inwardly. There was nothing he could do about them at this moment except to hope whoever was watching them wasn't being too observant.

His senses extended to the fullest, he moved stealthily down the empty corridor.

Moments later, his ears registered voices coming toward him, and he quickly ducked into a dark corner, using the Force to hide his presence. He couldn't have hoped for a better opportunity: A single red-clad guard strutted past him through the vacant hallway. Luke's hand flashed out, reaching for the guard's blaster that was suddenly sailing from its holster through the air. Its satisfying weight landed in the Jedi's hand, and the suddenly alerted guard was bearing down on him with an enraged cry, force-pike swinging. The man dropped with a thud and a deflated swish of his red cape as the red blaster shot hit.

Luke quickly glanced up and down the corridor to ensure that the commotion had not attracted any attention. He then seized the unconscious Imperial under the arms and dragged him into the corner, quickly collecting the man's other weapons--the force-pike and a vibroblade.

Luke then started briskly down the hall. His plan would only work if he went quickly.

********

Mara Jade felt the Emperor's urgent summons from her balcony in the Imperial Palace moments after she felt Skywalker's aggravating presence disappear from her mind. Skywalker was shielding himself, and Palpatine suspected the Jedi to have escaped his rooms.

* Find him quickly and bring him to me,* was the mental command. She acknowledged, and, slapping her blaster into its holster, quickly stepped out of her apartment into the silent corridors.

******

The weak-minded stormtrooper guarding the small access stairway near the turbolift was more than happy to accommodate Luke's order to let him enter. Carefully punching the entry code, the trooper opened the door. It hissed open to reveal a steep permacrete flight of stairs, brightly lit and infested with security cameras. Luke suppressed a grimace, knowing that half the palace was probably hot on his trail by now.

He spied the access panel, almost completely indistinguishable from the rest of the wall, save for its coded keypad. As the door behind him slid shut, Luke turned to it, his blaster drawn, and shot the lock, melting the mechanism inside. He then faced the access panel, held the blaster at arm's length and fired, the panel flying open in a spray of sparks. A high-pitched, wailing alarm pierced the silence. Behind the door, Luke heard the angry shouts of the alerted stormtrooper, and his useless pounding on the durasteel barrier.

Luke didn't hesitate as he dove with both hands into the nest of colored wires. He could not begin to determine which one operated which system; he just took the vibroblade and began cutting. The first few were severed and nothing happened. He cut two more wires, and the florescent lights sputtered out, the entire stairway suddenly bathed in dim, red emergency lighting. Another cord and the alarms were silenced, the sudden quiet making his ears ring. Behind him, was the loud but useless thumping of blaster fire against the door. Luke jerked the knife through the last remaining wires and quickly pocketed the vibroblade. The cameras ought to be inoperational now, and with their sensors gone, he had to cover as much ground as he could to get out of their radius and avoid being captured.

The banging and blaster shots behind the door continued and Luke didn't wait to see the outcome. Taking the steps in twos, he stumbled up the darkened stairway.

*********

"I want a guard to be sent to Skywalker's suite immediately," Darth Vader ordered to his comlink. "Check to be sure the prisoner is still secured."

There was an inaudible reply and the Dark Lord strode toward the nearest bank of turbolifts. He was halted in mid-stride by the high-pitched wailing of an alarm.

Luke, he thought instantly. Of course it was Luke. He should have know the boy to act fast in whatever foolish thing he was attempting. He brought up his comlink again.

"Lieutenant?" he rumbled. "What is the meaning of this?"

"My Lord," the tinny voice on the other end reported. "We have an intruder on level 520." There was a long pause, and then the voice of the Lieutenant came back, the panic in his voice risen a few notches. "Sir! We're losing control of several systems on level 520-524. Maintenance is on its way now."

Vader did not reply as he abruptly changed course. If Luke Skywalker was causing trouble, it would take far more than a maintenance crew to stop him.

********

Mara stifled a curse as the lights of the corridor blacked out, followed a moment later by the relieving quiet of the silenced alarms. Skywalker, she thought fiercely. Somehow he'd made it into the maintenance corridors and was now wreaking typical Jedi havoc on the palace.

As she approached the utility stairways, she saw several stormtroopers gathered around the closed door, their white armor reflecting the crimson lighting. They were obviously having no success in getting in, and she doubted Skywalker would simply be waiting for them when they did. She turned and slapped the turbolift entrance code. The Jedi would not escape HER.

*********

Subtlety was not a stormtrooper's strong suit, Luke reflected, as he listened to several pairs of boots thundering down the flight of stairs above him. Calmly, he drew his blaster and settled into a crouch next to the wall, waiting for them to come. They saw him, and with a shout, began shooting. There were four of them and they all dropped like swatted insects. Luke hastily stepped over the bodies, keeping his blaster ready.

Sloppily, the door was left open to what, he had calculated, was four levels up from that of his rooms. He didn't know how much higher the palace went, or how he could get to a landing platform, but the lights were out on this level, so he figured it would be safe to search for an exit.

He peered out into the empty corridor, eyes straining in the dim light.

With a searing flash, tracing a darkened line across his vision, a blaster bolt embedded itself into the wall next to Luke's head. The Jedi reeled backward, getting off a shot of his own, just to keep their heads down. Someone fired from the darkness again, and Luke saw the dull glint of red armor under the dim lights.

Beneath him, in the stairwell, was a resounding crash, followed by a triumphant shout and several pairs of footsteps and angry voices coming up to him. He would soon be trapped if he did not get rid of this Imperial guard.

He caught the flash of armor again, and this time took aim, dropping the man prone.

Senses extended, Luke slipped into the shadows again, welcoming the security of the darkness, when the quiet click of a blaster safety stopped him in his tracks.

He whirled, mind racing. He hadn't sensed anyone in the corridor--

Her shimmering red-gold hair reflected the dim light of the passageway and her green eyes flashed. She was brandishing a T-748 blaster in her slender hand. The weapon was illegal on most planets.

And it was aimed at him.

"Hiding from someone, Skywalker?" she asked, giving him a chilly smile, seeing the confusion on his face. "Well, two can play that game. Come on out with your hands up."

Could this fiery young woman use the Force then? Luke wondered as he glared back into her eyes, unmoving. That would explain why she was personal agent to Palpatine.

"Don't think I won't use this if I have to," she warned, hefting the blaster warningly. "I'm sure the Emperor will understand. He might even thank me for it. After all, one must appreciate the special problems of making sure a Jedi stays where you put him." Her voice was a rich alto and rather pleasant to listen to, even when angry. The expression on her face was purely venomous.

"I guess it's a toss-up," Luke said quietly, his blaster still in hand, "of who gets who first."

"If you shot that at me, you'd still be dead," the woman warned.

"True," Luke agreed. "But then I don't think the Emperor would be very happy with you. Dead is a little more permanent than incapacitated. He obviously wants me alive, or he would have killed me already." He shrugged.

"Don't overestimate your own importance, farmboy," she sneered, raising her weapon a little higher. "Drop the blaster."

"I will take care of this, Mara Jade," rumbled a deep, familiar voice.

The young woman whirled to see Darth Vader and two of the ever-present red guards emerging from shadows of the long corridor. "Luke, stop this childishness and put the weapon down."

The woman, Mara Jade, turned her glare on Vader and growled, "you will address me as the Emperor's Hand."

Vader ignored her, his black mask gazing intently at Luke. The Jedi just shook his head, hand tightening on the blaster.

"If you insist on being difficult, you can receive prisoners' treatment," Vader growled threateningly, stepping forward to seize this insolent child. Luke fired at him and Vader's hand flashed out, blocking the bolt.

The Jedi fired again, and, instinctively falling into the guidance of the Force, his left hand brought up the force-pike blindly deflecting a shot from Mara Jade's blaster, which melted his stolen weapon into slag. Luke dropped it to the ground and got off another blaster shot at Vader and a poorly aimed one at the Imperial guard who was advancing to him with his own force-pike when a searing electrical shock suddenly tore through him.

With his concentration on his other opponents, Luke's Jedi abilities had tuned out the second Imperial guard. Now, as they cuffed his hands, Luke remained doubled over, struggling to draw a breath and cursing his own inattentiveness.

"I am taking you to see the Emperor," announced Vader, standing triumphantly over him. Dimly, Luke saw Mara Jade give the Dark Lord a look of pure venom, but held her tongue as Luke was wrenched to his feet.

*******

"Skywalker has been recaptured, Master," Mara Jade reported almost smugly as she knelt in front of Palpatine. The Emperor looked very pleased. "Excellent, my young Hand," he praised her. "You have done well."

Behind her, Luke stood defiantly, hands cuffed, and Vader at his shoulder, his black-gloved hand at the back of Luke's neck, keeping the Jedi still.

Palpatine looked past the redhead to Luke with a patronizing smile on his face. "And what do you have to say for your feeble attempt to escape, my young apprentice?"

Vader's hand suddenly shoved Luke with brutal force to the floor, and with a surprised cry he fell to his knees, facedown against the stone, his hands bound awkwardly behind.

The Emperor peered down at him. "Did you not like your accommodations?"

"No," Luke said stiffly, managing to push back up to his knees, and begin struggling to his feet, determined not to bow to this...thing. No one moved to stop him.

"Ah," Palpatine sat back, as if hearing a spoken response from the Jedi. "So, it is your freedom that you wish, more than all these other things that have been offered you."

"Stay out of my mind!" Luke cried in fury as he straightened, reflexively snapping up his mental barriers and then arching forward with a pained gasp as the Emperor just as quickly tore them down.

"And I suppose," Palpatine went on as if nothing had happened, "that once this freedom was yours, you would return to your noble little rebellion and into the open arms of your friends."

The Jedi didn't answer, trying to make his mind empty, keep his thoughts blank. It was the only way he could think of to keep the Emperor from invading.

"Actually," Palpatine murmured thoughtfully, "I think it is a brilliant idea for you to return to your comrades." Luke froze. "After all, what better way to quickly locate that confounded Rebellion and crush them once and for all? Don't you agree, Lord Vader?"

All the color drained from Luke's face, and Palpatine laughed at the Jedi's reaction. "Yes," he chuckled. "Or did you think I would not be able to locate you once you had escaped the confines of the Palace?"

His eyes suddenly lit up, gauging Luke with an expression that made the young man's skin crawl. "But then, this brings me to another idea," he smiled to Vader. "Who more fully qualified than our young Jedi here to infiltrate the Rebellion and learn its secrets?"

Luke's face went whiter, if that was possible, and he back-stepped into Vader, shaking his head. His hands were trembling with rage and a new sort of fear that gripped him when he thought of his friends in the clutches of this monster.

Palpatine eyed him with glee. "Does this idea not appeal to you, little Jedi?" The Dark Lord's hand tightened on Luke's shoulder and the young man's eyes fluttered shut in brief despair.

Vader prodded him forward and the Emperor reached out one gnarled hand to his shoulder in an almost comradely gesture. "Freedom is very important to you," he said kindly. "And the freedom of your friends is even more so, is it not?"

He saw the defeat in the Jedi's eyes and nodded sagely, a triumphant expression on his face. Surely the boy would soon be his. "I see that you would not willingly put your friends in danger. If you attempt to escape to them, you will only hurt them. We wouldn't want that, now would we? Do I make myself clear?"

Luke nodded fractionally, the heart-wrenching anguish in his eyes going unobserved by his captors.

"Answer me!" Palpatine snapped, a dangerous flame lighting his eyes.

Luke's sudden, overwhelming despair, and the dark knowledge that he was now pulling the noose of captivity tighter around his own neck combined into a single broken reply. Almost inaudibly, he whispered, "Yes."

********