The Awakeningby Ash Darklighter

Disclaimer.The characters and situations in this story are the property of Lucasfilm Ltd. I am only borrowing them for my own enjoyment, no matter what torture they put me through. My thanks to Jackie, Mona, Molly and AJ for suffering through this with me.

Chapter 12

Mara awoke gradually with the dawning knowledge that something awaited her. Carefully stretching out with the Force, she amended that to - someone. Cautiously, she disentangled herself from the arms of the Jedi master. He was sound asleep, his still boyish face almost free from the recent strain it had been showing. Reluctantly, she eased away from his warm body and groped about the floor for her scattered clothing.

Luke muttered something unintelligible and fumbled for her presence in the bed, his head turning and burying into the pillow. Mara quelled a moment of amusement as she was presented with a shapeless lump under the bedclothes, with a mop of tousled, overlong fairish hair, the only visible part of him.

"S'all right, Kam. She's strong…"

Mara caught the muffled words and knew who was awaiting her.

Kam Solusar. Trained by his father, the Jedi Master, Ranik Solusar. But saved from the darkside by Luke. She cast another amused glance at the lump under the covers. His hair needed cutting.

Kam was waiting outside for her. She cast a quick glance at her chrono. It wouldn't be light yet. So, he'd been meditating as promised and had more to tell her. Mara's stomach turned over nervously. Scoffing at herself, for she'd faced far worse than this, she picked up her tunic.

Dressing quickly, she cloaked her presence and moved silently from the cabin. She hoped Luke would remain asleep for some time; he badly needed his rest. He'd probably argue against this, but it was her decision and her origins. She had to be strong and being strong meant looking out for Skywalker and his overprotective genes. The fact was that part of her wanted Skywalker with her to hold onto her hand, but Mara squashed it into the darkest corner of her mind. If they were to spend time together in a… her mind balked a little at the word 'relationship' but that was what they had - she needed to make sure it was an equal one. Still, a trickle of fear wormed its way past her carefully erected barriers.

Kam Solusar stared resolutely away from the Skipray behind him and out into the dawning morning on Greoa Prime. He'd been sitting there now for several hours just watching the sun come up. He knew enough to distress Mara Jade and perhaps not enough to give her what she craved.

'S'all right, Kam. She's strong…'

Luke, always the Jedi Master, had picked up his troubled thoughts. Kam pulled his barriers down tight around his worries. Luke would become familiar with them in due time, he was sure of that. First he had to tell Mara everything he knew. It wasn't much, but she had a right to know.

"I'm ready for anything, Kam."

Her voice was clear and strong. It surprised him and he whipped around to face her, startled as he'd not felt her approach him.

"Practising your cloaking techniques, Jade?" he asked.

Mara cocked her head to one side and gazed at him. He felt himself shrinking beneath the intensity of the fabled stare. She made no reply. Although it took courage, Kam returned the steady look, taking in her mood and every aspect of her appearance. She seemed calm enough; her hair pulled tightly back into a thick rope of burnished fire. But a few fiery strands escaped and framed her face in a feminine display of gentle curls. He took a moment to appreciate her stunning beauty, but then he nodded - her expression was composed, her eyes clear. It was time to tell her. She was prepared to face the truth.

"I get the feeling this won't be easy, Solusar. So let's get it over with."

"I…"

"Don't have much to tell me - I know."

Kam hunched into his black cloak, pulling it securely around his shoulders as he shivered in the chill of the morning air.

"This is not entirely clear, Jade. I meditated on it and some memories returned, other things happened, but I think they are visions of what happened - things that I couldn't possibly know. The images were blurred, tumbled - confusing…"

"I understand," Mara whispered. "Tell me."

"Are you sure you want to know?"

"The Force wills it." Her tone was resigned, but something more profound lurked in her clear green gaze. Kam hesitated. She'd spoken words that Luke might have said himself. Kam closed his eyes and bowed his head in a silent prayer before beginning to talk.

"I didn't know Mirahn well - in fact, I met her only twice. She was a Jedi, but not a master, I believe. My father talked about a spark of defiant independence that she kept within herself. She was too stubborn to ever accept totally the dictates of the Jedi Council. He disapproved of her, but admired her too. She had a freeness of spirit that was refreshing. You've inherited it, Mara Jade."

Mara smiled a little. "Yes - I suppose I must have. I am stubborn. Luke always says so, but then again he should recognise the trait, for he has it himself."

Kam opened silvery grey eyes, which gleamed agreement. "When we met, she was playing with some of the children in the temple. I was too old to play, yet too young to be with the adults. You know, that painful, adolescent no man's land. She must have sensed my envy of the younger children, for she stopped what she was doing and came and talked to me. I can remember the conversation clearly, as if it were yesterday. That in itself is strange as I've not thought of Mirahn for years. Much of my past is painful to me. I have no wish to remember…" His voice tailed off, a far away expression clouding his grey eyes.

"Padawan?"Mirahn asked.

"Not yet, Lady."

"But you hope to be?"

"More than anything. I want to serve the Force."

"Even in these dark times?"

"If the Force wills it, Lady."

"Then it will happen," her eyes sparkled green fire. "You're Ranik's son!" she exclaimed. "You have a strong look of him and a powerful presence in the Force."

I nodded and gave a furtive glance towards the unconsciously happy children. "Are we in danger?" I blurted it out.

She gave me a keen glance of sympathy and understanding. "A Jedi's life is never easy. We live in difficult times." Her mouth pinched a little at the corners and her vivid presence in the Force dimmed just a little.

"Jedi Mirahn!" The deep voice belonged to a close friend of my father's. He stood tall and grave before us; a narrowed stare at me, indicating it was time to make myself scarce. "The Council will see you now."

Kam looked at Mara's rapt expression and shrugged. "Mirahn grinned at me and began to fish around in the capacious pockets of her Jedi robe. When she produced a packet of sweet things, I was surprised. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had such a treat."

"Here," she said. "You have them. I won't need these."

"Why not?"

Her grin was infectious and I smiled back.

"I'm in trouble again."

"Big trouble?"I asked. I knew all about that. My father was still serving me stern glances a week after I'd dismantled his lightsaber to see how it worked.

"Pretty big, but I'll get by. I usually do. I have to… this time."

"Kam!"It was my father's voice. "We have to go."

I looked at Mirahn and dipped my head in the way I'd been taught was a mark of respect to a lady. "May the Force be with you," I told her, with real sincerity. I could feel my father's disquiet and for a momentIwatched as his eyes met Mirahn's. Something shuttered and she turned swiftly and strodeinto the council chamber. My father grabbed me painfully by the arm and hustled me from the building still clutching the bag of sweets she'd given me. We smuggled ourselves off Coruscant, my father finding passage for himself in an old beat up freighter and I hid in a crate of spare engine parts. "

Mara's eyes were moist as Kam finished his tale. "That was the only time you met her?"

"No, but this is the hard part. I didn't know what happened, but things got harder and harder for the Jedi. We were being hunted down like criminals. The Jedi Temple had been destroyed in a great explosion and the remaining adepts had scattered.

We went from world to star system, never staying longer than a few months at most. I think I must have seen twenty places in little over two years. My father and I were hiding on an agri-world in the outer rim colonies. We worked in the fields; they always needed casual labour and didn't ask too many questions. If my father thought it safe, he would train me in the ways of the Jedi. I was his Padawan learner - a great honour that he trusted me enough to train."

"Padawan!" Mara echoed the unfamiliar word slowly.

"We had moved to a different continent seeking work. We'd heard a farm on the outskirts of the spaceport required manual labour. We headed towards the fields and I remember the sensation of tension emanating from my father. When I saw her, I recognised her almost immediately. She too, was working in the fields. I felt my father stiffen and he grabbed hold of my belt. I would have run to her, for I still remembered her smile. But she'd changed. She had no lightsaber at her waist, her reddish brown hair was dull and her face haggard and worried. She was toiling in a field with other beings - some human, but mostly alien. When she stood up I knew it was she and it was with a sudden dread that I spotted the tall Imperial walking towards her.

"Do they know we're here?" I hissed frantically at my father. He shook his head, something in his bearing sinking under a kind of fatal acceptance of something. He'd known she was here.

"The Imperial officer walked tall in his invulnerability though there was something about him that didn't fit and I never knew what it was. But my father recognised him. I could feel that much."

"Who is he?" I whispered to my father.

"Captain Jaden," His words were clipped.

"I'd heard of him, who hadn't? He was one of the Emperor's brightest and most loyal soldiers. A man going places in the new order of things. A man to be feared, not trusted. I watched him move towards the overseer and speak quietly. Mirahn lifted her head a little as the overseer came to her. He began to drag her towards the Imperial. She gave him a cold look and brushed his fingerprints from her dusty homespun tunic as if banishing the imprint of the man's hands from her person. Very much as if she were the essence of nobility.

With a dignified nod, Mirahn followed the Imperial towards the farm buildings where my father and I had hidden ourselves. We'd been hoping to find work there for a few days; at least that's what my father had told me. Later on I discovered he'd been following Captain Jaden.

As soon as the tall Imperial and the small woman had disappeared from the view of the workers, they turned and enfolded each other in a desperate embrace. I was startled but couldn't turn away as they kissed as if they'd been apart for too long. Suddenly they both jerked apart, and Mirahn stared worriedly around her."

"There are other Force users near," she told him in a harsh whisper.

"You sure?"

"Can't you feel them?"

"I think so, but I'm not strong enough to really tell."

The words may have been bitter, but I couldn't tell. My father had placed a hand over my mouth just in case I had decided to cry out.

"It's not the Sith lord?" Mirahn's voice shook.

Jaden looked hunted. "He's away on other business near the core, but Palpatine will send him out here eventually. No trace of the Jedi must exist."

Mirahn's face paled. "You shouldn't have come, you've placed us all in great danger."

"I know, but I couldn't bear to be apart from you any longer. It's tearing me apart, Mirahn."

"And you still believe Palpatine's a good man?" This time her tone was bitter.

"Mirahn, we've talked about this before. I don't trust Vader, but the Emperor has only our best interests at heart. The Jedi have grown corrupt and the rot has started from within. It must be cleansed."

"That's not true. If you really believe that, then you are a fool and I'm a bigger one for loving you." Her voice held real anguish. "What did I do, to suffer in this way?"

"You made your choice."

"I did, didn't I? Do you think I'm corrupt, that…." She tore herself from his arms and stood breathing heavily, her gaze averted from the entreaty in his.

Jaden held out his arms in an appeal. "Look, Mirahn, we must find these Force users. Suppose they are tracking us? I don't like it."

"No, nor do I."

"My father slammed down Force shields and cloaked our presences. We left the place at a run and caught the first transport off the planet. I never saw Mirahn or the Imperial Captain again.

Once we were off the planet, I asked my father why we'd been there."

"I was seeking truths."

"Did you find them?"

"Perhaps yes, or maybe no."

"I don't understand."

My father's wise bearded face gazed down at me, something strange flickering deep in his grey eyes. "I'm not sure I do either, Kam."

"She's a good person," I insisted with the fervour of a boy in the middle of his first crush.

"Perhaps, but she's made her choices and if they were the correct ones for her, we'll maybe never know." My father shook his head sadly.

I still didn't understand why the Jedi could abandon her out here, for instinctively I knew that was what had happened.

"She let herself be distracted by this Captain Jaden, and together they had a liaison. We thought that had ended."

"You were looking for her?"

"We've found no trace of her up until now. None at all. She may be completely innocent in all of this. But if she's still involved with Jaden, then the safety of the Jedi is compromised. You heard him. He's Palpatine's man. If the Emperor and Vader get their hands on Mirahn, she is not powerful enough to resist them both. She was banished from the Temple until it was clear that her mistakes hadn't endangered more Jedi lives."

"Mistakes!" Mara screeched, outraged.

Kam straightened, an apologetic expression crossing his face. "Calm down, Jade. I never knew she was pregnant. Perhaps my father did, but he didn't choose to enlighten me. I'm sure Mirahn never felt you were a mistake. I'm not even sure if you even existed when we were there on the agri-world. She might have let things slip when with Jaden - things that betrayed other Jedi.

Once we left there, we ended up further than ever from the Core Worlds. The Jedi Temple had been destroyed so we'd nowhere to go back to, and all the time the Jedi hunters were casting their nets and closing them around us. Think about the time we were living in. The Jedi were hunted, persecuted, imprisoned and killed. They were purged from society. All the things that were good and true were smashed and broken. I survived that time and you came to be because of it. Mistakes were made, but never consider a good soul to be part of total folly. Mirahn bore you and somehow you survived. The Force made that possible. Never discount that fact."

Kam sighed heavily. "Mirahn took the consequences for her actions. She knew she had to do that. You have always done the same for anything you have done."

Kam's tired eyes followed a stray bird as it cut a lonely path across the early morning sky. "My life was never the same after that. Something in my father… died. We ran for another year and then one day he disappeared. I learned he'd been caught and killed by Vader. I ran until I could run no more and lived out a few more years roaming the outer dregs of the galaxy, with bitterness feeding the darkness in my heart."

"So you had a brush with the darkside forces of evil, but you came through it." Mara's tone was flippant. "I lived with it too."

"You only lived with it. It never became a part of you, feeding off any light and hope you had. It wasn't destroying you."

Mara shook her head in disagreement. "I was heading that way, before Luke saved me. I too was bitter and the darkness in me was growing. If I hadn't awoken to the danger I was in, I would have been consumed by it." She poked at a tuft of something vaguely green with the toe of her black boot. "You think that the dashing Imperial Captain was my father?"

"It does make sense. You could have been named for them - Mirahn and Jaden. Your own name, a combination of theirs. But there is something else that just makes me certain…" Kam let his voice tail off.

"What?"

"When Mirahn dislodged his hat in her haste to embrace him, he had the reddest hair I've ever seen. Yours has streaks of gold in it, but his was as fiery as the heart of the volcano that destroyed this city."

"It's a start," she whispered. "There must be something about them somewhere. Information must have survived."

"Mara…." Kam's voice hesitated. "I saw other things too in my meditations - things that I hadn't experienced, none of which made sense. I saw the Jedi Temple explode, the people shouting against the Jedi and the Emperor's yellow eyes laughing at me."

"The Temple?"

"Palpatine built the Imperial Palace on its founds."

Mara chuckled derisively. "That sounds like the kind of stunt he would do." But her smile faded when she sensed the trepidation coming from the older Jedi. Kam Solusar wasn't quite so sure how to break the next part to her. "Just say it. Spinning it out won't make unpalatable truths any sweeter."

"I don't know if they are truths or what might have beens."

"Just tell me," Mara insisted.

"I saw Mirahn on her knees in what was the Emperor's throne room. She was bloody, battered and bruised, but still with that spark of stubbornness I'd reacted to. And Captain Jaden stood next to her in the same physical state. But he had a blank look on his face as if his mind had been wiped and he…he was holding a blaster to his lover's head."

"What!" Mara's head jerked, as she recoiled in horror. "That's not true. It's impossible!"

Kam's shoulders sank. "I don't know, Mara. It may only have been one of a dozen possible explanations." He shifted uncomfortably and then told her the rest. "Sitting on Palpatine's knee was a small red-haired female child - watching."

"Watching?" Mara's face drained of all colour and the word emerged through bloodless lips. "I saw my father murder my mother?"

Kam closed his eyes. "I… He may have been partially Force sensitive. Not enough to train as a Jedi, but enough for Palpatine to be able to bend him to his will."

"Why can't I remember? Why did this have to happen to me?" Mara said bitterly. "You Jedi always have an explanation."

"We don't. We try to seek the truth, but it can be worse than an asteroid field and - Mara…"

Mara lifted a heavy head and stared into his face. "Yes?"

"Are you not one of us? Are you not a Jedi?"

"I… I…." she stuttered, caught, her mind urging her to deny it.

"Yes, Mara." A new, but very familiar voice echoed behind her. "Are you not one of us?"

"Luke!" she exclaimed thankfully and ran into his arms pressing her head into his shoulder, his comforting presence anchoring her whirling mind into focus.

He tipped her chin up and his blue eyes bored into her. "Mara… Have you no answer for me?"

Suddenly it all became clear. "Yes, Luke. I am a Jedi."

"Thank the Force," he whispered and drew her close. "Thank the Force."