Chapter Two
Mara frowned as she walked lightly down the echoing corridor. She was in a small spacestation off of the Permelian Trade Route where her rendezvous was scheduled. She had arrived exactly on time, though with lingering by Luke had pushed her time very close. She would have preferred to get here early, but she did not regret the time spent with her husband.
Now she was trying to find her smuggler contact for their monthly meeting. This small station off of the Permelian Trade Route had been set up years ago by smugglers to divide their cargo if they suspect Imperial activity ahead. Now it was used by Talon Karrde to have a neutral meeting place for his jumpier smugglers.
Mara stretched out with the Force to feel where her contact was hiding himself. This one was a very skittish man who always hid before she called out to him, even if he had glimpsed her coming toward him. Now, she thought she sensed someone ahead of her to the left.
"Landon?" She called out gently. "It's Mara Jade Skywalker. Come on out."
Landon Veere's shaky voice came from her left two doors up. "If you're Mara Skywalker, come up here where I can see you."
Mara frowned. He seemed even more skittish than normal. If it weren't for Karrde and wanting to keep a good rapport going with his smuggler contacts, she would have let this pompous, scared little man have a piece of her mind. She did not enjoy being ordered around. She had had enough of that under Palpatine.
Sighing, she forced cheer into her voice and answered, "All right, Landon." She had taken two steps toward the room he was in when the Force screamed a warning at her.
Without wasting time to think, she ducked and rolled to the right, narrowly avoiding a stun blast. When she had rolled back to her feet, she pulled her lightsaber free and ignited the familiar blue blade. This was the lightsaber Luke had given her a few years ago, and she felt closer to him when she had to use it.
No, not just felt closer…he was closer. She could sense him approaching, though he would be too far away to help her with whatever this new threat was.
Pushing his worried sense to the back of her mind for the moment, she pressed herself tightly against the wall of the corridor, her senses alert. There was no cover of any kind in this small corridor and she mentally cursed Karrde for choosing this bucket of bolts to have a rendezvous in.
"Give up, Jade," a cold, feminine voice said from the same direction Landon's voice had come from. "You are outnumbered and have no where to go. Slide your lightsaber over here."
Mara scowled. "If you know me at all, you wouldn't think for a moment I'd give up so easily. And it's Jade Skywalker now, thank you very much." Her mind raced. The voice was so familiar…but it couldn't be her. It just couldn't. She had promised to stay away from Luke.
Inwardly, she scoffed at herself. Since when did she start believing that people actually acted on their promises? Luke's idealism was rubbing off on her too much.
The voice hissed, "I will never allow you to keep that last name, Jade. And if you make this difficult for yourself now, it will only make things worse for Luke later on down the road. If you love him, you don't want that, now do you?"
There was no doubt now who it was. Mara stepped fully into the corridor and raised her lightsaber in a defensive position. "Come on out, Callista. There are many things that I thought of you, but not one of them was a 'coward'."
A shrill scream erupted from the room on the left and suddenly the gray-eyed beauty charged into the corridor. Mara let a smirk cross her lips as they faced each other.
"Now, 'moldable', that was one I already knew…" She commented, trying to push her opponent past the sight of reason.
Callista balled her hands into fists, her chest heaving in ire. "You…" She started.
"Uh, uh, uh," Mara chided, swinging her glowing blade slightly. "Be nice."
Callista glared at her. "You don't deserve Luke. You never have. You were his deadliest enemy and now you dare to be his wife," she hissed at her. Force lightening played along her knuckles and Mara tensed her body, ready to leap as well as she could in the corridor to avoid the deadly electricity.
Callista suddenly let her visible anger drain away as she tilted her head to the side. "Ah, Luke approaches. This is not where I want us to meet again." She regarded Mara once again. "I promise not to harm you until Luke and I speak to each other. Come with me…don't make this any harder on yourself than it has to be."
Mara eyed her as if she were crazy…which she wasn't too sure if the other woman wasn't. "You really should know me better than that. I don't want to go anywhere with you to become a bargaining tool to get at my husband."
Callista flinched at her last two words, and anger reappeared in her eyes. "So be it," she whispered.
Almost faster than even Mara had suspected, Callista shot a bolt of Force lightening down the corridor. Mara flattened herself to the floor barely in enough time--she could feel the heat of it pass above her head. As quickly as she could, she leaped back to her feet, trying to get herself out of the vulnerable position she had had to lodge herself…
…and got slammed in the chest by a stun beam.
She gasped and fell flat on the floor, her lightsaber automatically turning itself off as it rolled out of her slack grip.
Callista stood over her, a cruel smile on her lips. "Too predictable, even for you, Jade. You see, I have studied you; I know that you try to anger your opponent to make them sloppy and careless. I also know your fight moves…which you can see. And now, it's time for you to sleep for a while."
The light brown-haired woman bent over Mara and suddenly Mara felt the irresistible urge to sleep. Right before her body rested, she sent out a wordless cry to Luke to stay away. Then the darkness of dreamless sleep took her.