Chapter Five
Luke woke slowly and groaned. He had hit his head on something sharp on the way down and had blacked out, but for how long? Callista was sure to not waste any opportunity that presented itself to her.
Callista. He should have never trusted to take even one step with Callista beside him…not with Mara imprisoned. What had happened to the level-headed Knight he had fallen in love with? He supposed the dark side had completely changed her, that the lure to power of any kind had seduced her. It was a shame, really. She had been such a strong presence in his life when he had desperately needed someone.
Now Mara filled that role, and so much more. And she might die before he could get back to the surface to save her.
But how to get out of the kyyrat hole? He glanced up to see the hole so far above him and the twin suns setting. Even with Jedi abilities there was no way he could get himself high enough to just leap out of here.
And getting out of here was the first priority, and a fast one. Kyyrat dragons usually roused at evening to roam the sands at night. From the large, unevenly rounded space he found himself in, he guessed he must be in the kyyrat's main hole. Which meant he needed to either get out, or find a really good place to hide until the kyyrat left for the night.
Slowly, Luke dusted himself off and surveyed the chamber better. The stone was damp and cool, the way kyyrat's liked to keep their lairs on this hot and miserable planet.
"Something that would do anything to hurt you," he remembered Wennai saying to him, and he sighed. Well, he now had two suspects on that list…Callista…and the kyyrat dragon.
Cautiously, he took a step, then winced in pain. Evidently, his 'fast escape' had just been slowed considerably. He wasn't sure if he had broken or sprained his ankle, but either way he wasn't going to be able to go quickly.
He sighed. Looked like he'd have to find a way to hide. Using the Force to help him sense ahead of him, he began limping farther into the dragon's hole.
Mara woke with a start in her small cave. Luke was awake, and in pain. She narrowed her green eyes. Callista was being more than just a trifle childish in this whole affair. What ever happened to loosing gracefully?
She sighed. Luke was not going to be able to hardly help himself, let alone her. Once again, she would have to fend for herself. Oh, not that her husband didn't try, but sometimes living a life with the Emperor had its own advantages.
As in lessons on how to break past any kind of electronic lock's code system.
The problem was only in reaching hers.
Callista was a stupid woman, but she wasn't a complete idiot. She had placed the controls for the lock, and the actual lock, in the hardest possible places to reach.
Mara smiled. Yet, Callista was still out of her league when dealing with the ex-Emperor's Hand. She was never without resources of some kind.
She reached down deep into her boot. She wasn't after her boot knife—it was already gone, taken by Callista. What she wanted was much smaller, thinner, and harder to detect.
Her lockpick.
Mara smirked as she pulled it out of her boot. Married to a Jedi Master she may be, but she still never went anywhere without it.
Now she needed to survey the lock better, but the angle it was situated at made it extremely hard to see or reach. She squinted at what she could see and discovered that Callista had made a bigger mistake than she had realized.
The lock to her little cave was a very simple lined electronic lock. All she had to do was somehow get the lined portion of the lock to be disrupted…the lock would pop open and she'd be free.
That just left her with how to reach it.
Mara bit a portion of her lip as she thought, then sighed. She would have to touch the bars. This would not be pleasant. She gritted her teeth, got a firm grip on her lockpick and then reached through the bars.
Almost immediately, she felt the current run through her arm to travel through her body. She tried to use techniques Luke had taught her on how to shunt pain aside, and marginally succeeded. Once most of the distraction that the pain and uncomfortableness caused was gone, she concentrated again on the lock.
Her arm just reached…her fingertips brushed the bottom of the lockbox that the controls were contained in. All she had to do was find a way to interrupt the flow of the charge to the lock's alignment.
She thought a moment. Perhaps…
Mara smiled, then tilted the lockpick at a right angle to where the lockbox was. She tightly focused into the Force and felt where the lockpick was in front of her. Slowly, she bent the pick into a spiral shape. Once she was done, she once again brought the lockpick to the box. She waved the spiral in-between where it seemed as if nothing was except for two durasteel rectangles.
There was a slight hum as the electricity around her, passing through her, intensified. For a moment, though, nothing else happened.
Then, with no ceremony at all, the door popped up as the electricity field shut off.
Stealthily, Mara crept out of the cave, glad to stretch her muscles freely. Her eyes immediately sought the tent where Callista was, then spun back to the hole where Luke had fallen and was injured. She didn't want Callista escaping, but she didn't want Luke to have to face the kyyrat dragon that was still down there alone and injured in the fast-approaching dark.
She sighed. Her duty to her husband came first. Even if Callista discovered her missing and left, she was sure the insane beauty would try to get at them again.
Almost as if it were re-enforcing her decision, she heard a loud roar and the ground underneath her shook slightly. Luke must have found the dragon, and by his sudden busy sense in the Force, the dragon was not happy. A flash of pain from her husband and the sense of grim determination that she knew he got when he was facing very low odds. He needed her.
Taking a deep breath, Mara jumped down the hole.