The Emerald Price Chapter 19
By Ash Darklighter
Disclaimer:- The characters and situations used in this story are the property of George Lucas and Lucasfilm Ltd. I am only using them for some entertainment and will not even make one Republican credit from this endeavour. This is set around eight to ten years after Luke and Mara met each other for the first time. This one is for all the girls on the AA list and of course for Mona – what would I do without you?
Aaris III
Mara, Karrde and Aves left the Jade's Fire accompanied by the Rodian, Heeto, the human, Erzon and the Agorffi, Zen'khas. All were armed. They headed out of the spaceport on foot and after a few minutes found themselves in what appeared to be a business sector. Offices and governmental building lined the narrow alleyways making the whole area somewhat oppressive.
"Force! This looks just like the bureaucratic centre on any Imperially held world," Mara commented with surprise.
"The Empire did reach all the way out here, Jade," Aves declared.
"I know that," she retorted. "I came to many places like this. They were all constructed to the same design using the same materials. Conformity pleased the Emperor. Personally, I hated everything being the same." She arched a red-gold eyebrow. "I would never have divulged that small piece of rebellion to my former master."
Aves grinned. Mara was returning more and more to the woman he'd first met over ten years ago. Perhaps she wasn't quite the same. Time had mellowed her a little although he would be the last one to ever suggest that to her. He valued his skin.
"They were never much for imaginative architecture," Mara said taking in the drab, box-like structures. "And they may have reached out here but they never controlled out here. Much to the Emperor's anger." She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand. The skies were leaden and grey but the whole atmosphere had turned hot and humid.
"It's this one." Karrde stopped before a tall grey building.
"It doesn't look damaged," Aves said.
Mara's critical eye took in the whole construction. "There are cracks in the duracrete façade. The gate has been partially torn off and…" she peered at the structure, "it's listing to one side. It could collapse at any time."
"Your friends sure did a number on this one."
"Not my friends," Karrde muttered. "Skywalker and Solo know them."
Mara froze. Luke and Han knew the anti-slavers coalition? "They do?"
"Negotiations with the New Republic," Karrde admitted. "They're sending a delegation out here."
"Oh!" Mara mumbled but she was quite sure that there was more to this part of this story than Karrde was letting on. How did the Jedi Master and Solo come to know an obscure organisation on a third-rate planet at the wrong end of the galaxy? She was sure they hadn't met over a negotiating table. These were not the types of groups normally invited to such talks.
She waved her hand at the building. "So what exactly did these people do?"
Karrde pulled a data card and a reader from his pocket. "My information states that the thermal detonators were shot into the building as if they were proton torpedoes and that they hit the other side of the building."
"Round the back," Aves put in helpfully and Mara sent him a withering green stare.
"They were fired from a building over a mile away."
"Impressive," Mara said. "What do they do at parties?" Karrde gave her a look that told her that he wasn't amused at her levity. "I was trying to lighten the situation," she grumbled like a small child.
"Hardly the time or the place, Mara," Karrde said reprovingly.
"Sorry," Mara apologised.
The remnants of the durasteel security gate creaked as it hung precariously from its hinges. Heeto pulled out his rifle and headed cautiously into the back compound.
"Shall we?" Karrde waved his blaster pistol which he'd transferred into his hand.
"Why not," Mara replied airily, although a strange nervousness gripped her. She'd been here as a potential slave. They'd been going to sell her. The thought was unsettling.
The whole area was eerily silent. Mara didn't like the feeling but assumed that was because she'd been a prisoner there. The small group cautiously followed the Rodian around the building until they reached the vehicle park. A few pathetic burned out speeders and mangled swoop bikes were the only things left. Closer up it was obvious that the façade was merely a shell. Mara could almost see and touch the durasteel frame that had once kept the building strong. It was a ruin.
Mara advanced closer to the building and began to examine a buckled structural support.
"Careful, Mara" Karrde called.
"Yeah," she mumbled. "They really hit this hard didn't they?" A large gaping aperture caught her eye and she peered closer. Something shifted in the Force calling her. "I'm going inside," she decided suddenly.
Karrde's mouth dropped open. Had she gone mad? Perhaps she'd been released from the medicentre far too soon and the stress of being back on Aaris III had finally caught up with her. "Mara!"
"I have to go inside," she repeated more firmly. "I can't explain why."
"That's not good enough. This is a foolish notion…Mara!"
"It's not safe," Aves said worriedly looking at Karrde for guidance.
"Tell me something I don't know." Mara closed her eyes and reached out to the Force. "I'm still going in," she said opening her eyes. They glowed more brightly if it was possible. "It's calling."
"What is?" Karrde moved to stop her but was too late.
"Don't know," she mumbled as she stepped inside.
"Mara!" Karrde shouted, but she'd vanished. "Hell!" He stamped his foot in frustration. He didn't need this right now. "We'd better go in after her."
"Keep the com channel open, boss," Aves advised nervously. "I don't know if this pile of bricks is up to too many people wandering around it. Give her a chance to have a quick look around and then tell her to get out."
"I'd rather she came out now," Karrde gritted but pulled out his com and thumbed it on.
The thermal detonator had completely compacted the inside of the building. The fourth floor was presumably now right on top of the first with the others squeezed in between. Mara suspected that looters had also ransacked the place. They were possibly more efficient than the thermal detonators had been. She stepped carefully over fragments of something that looked to have been made from boa-wood. A chair or a table? It was difficult to tell. Whatever it had been was immaterial. It was now smashed to pieces.
Luke had owned a boa-wood trunk, she thought. Did he still have it? She could see it in her mind's eye in his suite of rooms on Yavin. Obviously of great age, it had been intricately and beautifully carved. It had once belonged to Obi-Wan Kenobi and was something the Jedi Master now treasured. Yes, Mara decided – Luke still had the trunk. It would be worth a small fortune by now but Luke would never part with it. He was right, she was sure of it. There was more to life than credits. Being a Jedi was important – no, it was vital.
Her footsteps crunched over pieces of fallen masonry and smashed possessions. Something that had probably once been a desk lurched drunkenly to one side, drawers gaping open like a slack jawed clawfish. Durasteel girders were painfully twisted and exposed, the guts of the building ravaged as if torn asunder by a wild beast. Mara assessed the safety of what she could see. She gauged that she had very little time. The building was ready to collapse at any moment.
She crouched down beside the desk and scrabbled in the residue left in the drawer. Her hands closed over something that felt like a pile of data cards. "It might be nothing," she said to herself. "Might be nothing at all but you never know." She reached a little further in and her hand closed around something soft. Reaching around and into the small backpack she was wearing Mara pulled out a compact luma and checked her finds. Yes, there were some data cards and a small jewel pouch. Tipping it up, Mara grinned as a shower of small gems glittered onto her outstretched palm. That amount of jewels would buy her and Karrde a small cup of caf each. Not worth very much but better than nothing at all. She'd stumbled onto Aaris III's version of the petty cash.
The Force whispered once again to her. There was something else for her here. Mara stuffed the data cards and the jewels in her backpack and crawled forward towards a narrow space between two fallen struts, the luma grasped firmly in her hand. As she moved beneath a slanting ceiling support, Mara noticed that the floor dropped away from her. Carefully, she slipped her legs over the edge and dropped down to the lower level where a welcome draught of cold air greeted her. She hadn't been aware of how stuffy and hot it was. There was an exit around here somewhere. Mara bent down to examine some more data cards, but these looked too damaged for her to take with her. A pity, as she'd always been told that information was power and there might be something that could help these anti-slavers gain the upper hand. Tharakan had escaped the blast. All he would do would be to lie low for a little while and then start up his business once more. He had to be stopped for good.
Suddenly, she heard the noise of approaching footsteps. She exhaled an angry breath. It had to be Karrde. Didn't he trust her not to get into trouble? She'd flown the galaxy alone for years before she'd hooked up with him. She was not some fragile female who wilted and ran screaming at the first sign of danger.
"Karrde!" Mara said quietly. "I don't need…"
There was no answer so she began to sift through some more scattered data cards, message cubes and cracked glass information rods, all the time her senses on full alert. Someone was close and it didn't feel like Karrde. She grabbed a handful of cards and a couple of cubes and shoved them into one of her pockets.
"What do you think you are doing?" It wasn't Karrde. This was a new voice and not the cultured tones of the smuggler chief. This voice was eerily familiar and her stomach knotted alarmingly.
'Idiot, Jade,' she castigated herself silently. She'd ignored the promptings from the Force that her danger sense normally gave her. She realised that her feeling of dread had been building since she'd moved to this part of the property. Karrde would not induce such feelings within her. Mara swivelled sharply, her hand automatically moving to the hilt of her lightsaber and to her horror found herself looking at a tall hooded figure. Her danger sense began to scream.
She knew this tall alien. She'd seen him before in her nightmares. This was the being behind her capture.
Tharakan stood balanced on a pile of crumbling permacite blocks. He'd been able to salvage some of his possessions before the looters had taken the rest. At least they hadn't taken…his hand closed mover the object in his pocket. No, at least it was safe. Gingerly, he made his way across the room until he faced the woman sifting through various objects lying on the ground, his blaster trained on her figure. It was a pity his business was currently non-operational. She looked as if she might have fetched a decent price. "Well, well, well," the Ho'Din drawled. "What do we have here? I thought there was nothing left to loot."
Mara lifted her chin and prepared herself for action. This bastard had robbed her of months of her life. He was not taking her down a second time. Her hand drifted towards her belt.
"Keep your hands where I can see them," the alien snapped.
"Your eyes can deceive you." Mara tauntingly uttered one of Luke's oft repeated Jedi phrases.
Tharakan's heart catapaulted into his mouth and back into his chest again. The sharpness of the vivid green eyes, the creamy perfection of her skin, and the colour of the tightly braided hair added to the slim, athletic figure. He'd seen this woman before. Recognition finally sunk in. This was the slave he'd sold to the Prince of Mittenden IV.
"You!" he hissed.
"So you remember me," Mara drawled insolently. "I have that effect on people." Where was Karrde when she actually needed him? She ignored the fact that it had been her own idea to enter the building. "I, surprisingly enough, remember you, too."
"But you were sold. We sold you. You were dying so we sold you."
"Sold!" Mara's lips were white. "You sold me?" Her anger instantly rose. She belonged to no one. Mara's saber leapt off her belt and into her hand before Tharakan could react. The blue blade ignited with a furious snap-hiss. "I was sold? Someone bought me?"
'No, Mara, no! Anger is of the dark side.'
A familiar voice sounded inside her head. "Shut up," she snarled. The voice was clear.
"What!" the slave lord exclaimed.
"Not you," Mara bit out through clenched teeth. "Him." She advanced towards the Ho'Din, hate in her eyes. "You sold me."
Tharakan raised his blaster. He couldn't see any one else but that did not mean that they weren't there. "Yes, that's what I do. I'm a business man. I buy and sell. My stock just happens to be slaves. It pays rather well, and you were a premium item. There weren't many slaves who garnered the amount of credits for me that you did. How did you escape from your owner? He will not be pleased that his property is loose and picking through rubble when it should be pleasuring him in his bed."
Mara's ire threatened to explode once more but that would get her nowhere. "Sold," she grated out again.
"How you do fixate on that one word. It wasn't personal." The woman was glaring at him with her magnificent eyes. Would she take him on and did she…could she have backup? But he couldn't see anyone else with her. Again he tried to covertly scan around him. They were alone.
He had no doubt at all that she was the slave the prince had bought. He had only ever seen one woman with eyes so clearly green in a face so beautiful with hair like fire. But she was wielding a weapon he had only seen on the holonet – a lightsaber. Had he managed to capture a Jedi Knight and hadn't known it? Jedi Knights didn't wander around Aaris Spaceport alone.
How had she achieved her liberty? Had the prince been unhappy with her performance? She couldn't possibly be a Jedi. She must have acquired the weapon somehow and learned how to use it. The blue blade buzzed making the snake-like tentacles on his head writhe uneasily. Had she been freed by the prince or the anti-slavers coalition? Nervously he returned to the notion of a possible ambush. Were there more of them waiting for him? His gripped his blaster more tightly. Was she the bait? He would not be taken by them. He would use the woman as a hostage. He cast a regretful look over her figure. What a waste of a quality piece of merchandise.
Mara spoke into the com attached to her collar. "Karrde…"
"Mara, would you get out of there…Where the hell…"
"I've hit a small problem."
"Problem?"
"I've got…company."
"We're on our way."
"Hurry. Go round the far side."
Tharakan's amusement was cold as he flicked the setting on his blaster from stun to kill. He was right. It was a trap. "Your pitiful friends cannot save you a second time, mistress." A calculating arrogance on his face, his eyes raked up and down her figure. "I think I should contact the prince. He paid most handsomely for your charms the first time around. I wonder what he might do to get you back a second time?"
"No one is getting me anytime if I have anything to do with it. "Mara raised her lightsaber.
"Surrender to me and you won't get hurt," Tharakan tried to persuade her, his voice seductive.
Mara snorted and waved the saber nearer to the man's face and laughed. "No."
"I will have to kill you."
Mara laughed again, the sound mocking the dark chill that had entered the room. "I would like to see you try. How many of your men did it take to capture me in the first place? How many of them will never open their eyes again?"
Tharakan shrugged. He'd forgotten that but he had a top of the range blaster and she was waving a lightsaber at him. There was no contest, surely.
"I used to be an assassin. An Imperial assassin," Mara said sneeringly. "I have faced worse than a single being with a blaster and survived. My opponent did not."
Tharakan experienced the first stirrings of fear. She was bluffing.
Mara raised her saber ready to strike him down.
'No, Mara! Not in cold blood. Release your anger.'
"Luke!" She heard his voice again and stretched out to find the source of the light and warmth she always craved. "Luke!" What was happening? She was hearing Luke's voice as clearly as she had once heard Palpatine's.
Tharakan could see the confusion cross the woman's face and, sensing her distraction, fired. Mara instantaneously jerked her saber up in front of her face and deflected the bolt; it hit one of the naked durasteel supports making the whole frame creak agonisingly.
"That's not possible," the Ho'Din gasped in shock and for the first time felt real terror. He raised his blaster once again and began firing rapidly at his former captive. Mara blocked every single shot until one of them deflected straight back at the slave lord, drilling into his forehead.
With a muffled oath and a surprised expression on his face, Tharakan toppled forward. As he hit the ground with a crash something shiny dropped from his hand and rolled towards Mara. Bending forwards to pick it up, she wondered if it was her imagination or were the walls shaking?
Shaking...! Oh, Sithspit!
"Mara!"
She could hear voices shouting to her left and through her open com. She thrust the object into her pocket and stood up trying to get her bearings. One imperial building was very much like another.
"I'm not far from the port side exit," she yelled. "Heading that way." Swiftly she turned and ran along a passage until she could go no further. Igniting her saber once again, she began to try and cut through the wall in front of her.
"Mara!"
"I can hear you, Karrde," she shouted. "Stand back. I'm going to use my lightsaber." Mara plunged the weapon into the wall and could see that it had been weakened by the original blast. Soon she could see daylight and then Aves and Karrde were pulling her through.
"I'm okay," she told the two anxious faces, Karrde's hair turned prematurely grey with white permacite flakes and Aves wielding a large metal strut.
"Company?" Karrde queried.
"Would you believe that Tharakan hadn't left the planet?"
"He showed up," Aves supplied.
"You guessed correctly," Mara said glibly. "However, Tharakan met with a little accident." Mara gave a wry grin which turned serious. "One of the shots I blocked deflected straight back at him - killed him instantly."
"Good," growled Karrde. "Saved me doing it. You did the galaxy a favour."
"He came back to look for something," Mara commented, turning her head as there was a creaking groan followed by a crash inside the building.
"You got out just in time," Aves said quietly.
"Yes." Mara handed Karrde a stack of data cards. "I don't assume these will help the anti-slavers much but you never know. I picked up message cubes and data rods." She indicated a bulging pocket.
"Thank you." Karrde pocketed some of the items. "I'll see they get passed on to Adremetis. Now let's get out of here. I've spent all the time that I want to on Aaris III."
"Adremetis?" She'd heard that name. It sounded very familiar.
"Leader of the…"
"Anti-slavers coalition," Mara finished. "I understand."
They escorted Mara back to the Fire and waited until she and Aves were airborne. He thanked Erzon and Heeto once again before boarding the Wild Karrde.
"Belgaroth system, Dankin," Karrde ordered."
"Course already laid in, boss."
"Good. Get us out of here.
The Jades Fire
The ship had moved into hyperspace, Aves had retired to his cabin for the night and Mara was left alone in the cockpit gazing out at the streaming lines of stars.
Gingerly she put her hand in her pocket and withdrew the object she'd taken from Tharakan. All at once a vision assailed her. She saw tanned hands holding arcane tools in a desert hut. She could feel the emotions of grief and pain as a wild wind surrounded him.
With an exclamation of surprise Mara dropped the object and looked at it properly for the first time. It was a large green multifaceted crystal. Carefully with trembling fingers she picked it up and placed it in the palm of her hand. As she did so, the jewel came alive and glowed with an inner light.
Mara stared at the crystal, shaken to her core. She knew what this was and who it belonged to. But how had the focusing crystal from Luke Skywalker's lightsaber come to be in the hands of a slave lord on Aaris III?
Mara suspected that she knew the answer to that one. The recollection of a man with Skywalker's handsome face but with eyes colder than Hoth pressing her against him, teased her memory.
Coruscant
Mara's return to the Core System was largely uneventful. Aves had left her alone to join Faughn on the Starry Ice. She cleaned her apartment and dealt with months of ignored record keeping. She built up her fitness again to the level it had been before her abduction and subsequent rescue. Every night she returned to her apartment and confronted the green jewel glowing on her desk. Every time she touched it she saw a vision or experienced a memory belonging to Skywalker and the Jedi. It was unnerving.
There was only one explanation for why the jewel had been found there but Karrde hadn't seen fit to tell her the truth. Hell, there was someone else who should have given her the explanation. He'd had ample opportunity. She hadn't been unconscious all the time. What did he think she would do when she found out – run him through with the saber he'd once owned, the one he'd gifted to her, for saving her life?
A light flashed on her com console. Mara pushed the gem away from her and flicked the switch to receive her call. Seconds later the handsome, grinning face of Lando Calrissian filled the screen. She stifled a groan and attempted a smile in return.
"Hey, Jade." Lando's voice was jovial. "I heard that you were back in town."
"I wouldn't exactly refer to the jewel of the Core Worlds as a town…" Mara's eyes tracked to the green gem in front of her.
"I thought we could celebrate."
"Celebrate what?"
"We'll think of something," Lando said. "Your return to Coruscant will do for starters. I've booked a table at the Gilded Thranta."
"You don't say," Mara muttered. It was almost impossible to obtain a table there. The food was reputed to be the finest that Coruscant currently had to offer. "Pick me up in two hours," she said. He'd been extremely attentive to her since she'd recovered and she'd almost found pleasure in his company. They'd fallen back into their pattern of dining together until he'd left for Systra on a short business trip and she'd returned to Aaris III. That last trip to Aaris had made up her mind for her. She couldn't continue this relationship that was going nowhere with Lando.
Calrissian had answers that she wanted to hear and if he'd booked the Gilded Thranta, she could hear them there.
Lando gazed admiringly at the exotic beauty of the woman sitting opposite him. She'd appeared outside her apartment door dressed in a gown of gauzy, shimmering gold, her hair swept into a sophisticated chignon fixed with gold and crystal pins.
Mara sipped her sparkling white wine. She'd tried not to search for any hidden agendas and stifled her constant urge to snap at the man. Something in her wanted what Lando was offering yet, paradoxically, not with him.
"I have several bolts of glimmer silk lying in one of my warehouses," Lando told her, his eyes tracing her lovely features. "They could only be enhanced by your beauty."
Mara raised a cynical eyebrow. Lando knew all the lines. "A trade?"
Lando shook his head. "A gift." He reached across the table and took her slender hand in his own but Mara immediately pulled it away.
"Don't."
"But Jade, I…"
"You don't love me, Calrissian." Mara's voice was so low that he had to strain his ears to hear it.
"You don't believe in love."
Mara frowned. "Whoever told you that?"
"You did. Love is a valuable commodity…"
"But I have no use for it?" Mara finished the sentence. "I did say that but I never said that I didn't believe in it."
Lando looked at the white perfection of the table linen as if he were making his mind up about something. He lifted his eyes and gazed at her. "Would it be so strange for me to fall in love with you, Mara Jade?"
As Mara gazed into his dark face, a shiver ran through her. 'His eyes weren't blue', was all that she could think as Lando reached for her hand once more.
"I am falling in love with you, Mara."
Mara gave a cynical little chuckle. "I don't believe you. I've said 'no' too many times before."
"Mara!"
She moved her hand, holding it up in a graceful staying motion. "You enjoy the chase. If I'd given in, you would have moved on to someone else by now. I've tried to feel more for you," she admitted. "I thought perhaps gratitude could be enough for a relationship. I had hoped that something could grow between us."
"'Gratitude?' 'Something could grow?'" he repeated.
Mara flicked him a calculating glance from her green eyes. "You and Karrde travelling all the way to the Outer Rim and saving my life. It's not enough. I like you, Lando. You can be good company but I don't love you and I know that for me to pursue a relationship with anyone, I would have to love them."
"I see," Lando swallowed. "Have you anyone in mind?" For a split second Lando could see that he'd startled her.
"No. I may never find that special person. I have to be honest. But I know that it isn't you."
"Oh. What are you planning to do next?"
"First, I want to complete my Jedi training. I'm ready to do it now."
"Ah!" Hostility coloured Lando's voice. "What's Skywalker saying about that? I suppose he may be almost happy."
"This is not about Skywalker," Mara said wondering about the ill-feeling she could sense. Surely Luke and Lando hadn't fallen out? She had noted a strained atmosphere in the medicentre but had concluded that they'd been worried about her. "This is about me and what I want and need." She gave Lando a quizzical look. "Have you and the Jedi boy had a disagreement? I thought I was the only one that argued with him."
"Skywalker doesn't argue."
Mara grinned. "Oh, but he does."
"We had a disagreement."
"About what?" Mara wondered aloud.
"It doesn't matter." Lando's face tightened.
"Maybe it does," Mara commented sagely. She had the notion it had quite a lot to do with her. "Luke doesn't like to be at odds with his friends."
Lando dipped his head. "I'm not proud of this, Jade. I'm jealous of him."
"Jealous!" Mara's voice shot up. "Of Skywalker? You are joking. I thought you considered him the friend you looked down on. No fashion sense, no love-life, no interest in money…"
"I'm envious of his purpose…his goal. He knows what he wants in life and is prepared to give everything to achieve that. He will die trying."
"That's what worries me," Mara whispered.
"You have no need to be grateful to me," he said quietly. "Karrde brought you back to Coruscant. I was never near the Outer Rim. I was on Systra finalising my deal to take over the Klaz Kasino chain."
Mara knew of the multi-credit spinning business. She gave a little whistle. "Congratulations." Her mind began to tick over. Lando hadn't gone for her but someone had. Karrde had brought her back. Lando was only confirming what she already knew but someone else had been there too and he'd said nothing.
"I should have been with you." Lando's voice interrupted her thoughts.
She sighed. "My nerf-like obstinacy was at fault – not you. I should not have gone alone but I was stubborn and that nearly got me killed. If you had been with me there is no guarantee that they wouldn't have gone for both of us." She found the stem of her glass and wrapped her fingers around it. "I don't blame you."
"Mara…can't you give me anything more? I thought after all the functions we've attended together, all the appearances we've made that you liked my company."
"I did…I do…most of the time." Mara shook her head. He was handsome, charming and financially independent and he thought he was in love with her but Mara knew that it wasn't enough. She shook her head again. "Just not like…that."
"Then we must end our 'affair' and not see one another. I'm ending our arrangement. Our relationship is over."
"Not see one another," she echoed. Mara's mouth dropped open. He was dumping her? Illogically, the thing that she'd wanted to happen for months had happened and she wasn't pleased. She'd grown to enjoy being wined and dined in the best restaurants. Somehow she didn't think such things would happen on Yavin IV. Last time she'd been there places for fine dining hadn't been much in evidence.
"Karrde was right and so were you. This has gone on long enough. I have feelings for you – rather inconvenient as you can't return them. This time I can take the hint. As you said yourself, you may never find that special person – perhaps you are incapable of loving him."
Mara wiped her face of all expression and hid her irritation. She'd given him so many hints that she'd practically painted him a sith-spawned diagram – pompous idiot. He thought it was her fault that she was unable to love him. Deep down, Mara knew she had the ability to love. She just hadn't set it free. There was a man out there in the galaxy waiting for her and she would know him when she saw him. Momentarily Skywalker's face flashed into her mind's eye and she dismissed him immediately. He was attractive; Mara admitted that much, but far too distracting.
"I should have realised that you were incapable of loving a man like me. Pity you'll never realise what you are missing."
Mara clenched her fists. She would not punch him in the mouth. She would not punch him, she repeated to herself. She would not…
"Perhaps you should go and see Skywalker…finish that Jedi training. He'll be glad to see you after he went all that way to get you out of trouble." Lando motioned the waiter over and swiftly paid their bill. "He hasn't had much luck in the love stakes either."
"He has a good heart," Mara defended the absent Jedi, then stopped as his face refused to stay banished. "What do you mean 'went all that way'?"
"Wouldn't you like to know?" Lando muttered, a sneer on his face.
Mara placed her wrap about her shoulders. The evening had come to a rather sudden and uncomfortable end. "Tell me," she demanded.
"Yes, Jade," Lando said as he ushered her towards the speeder. "I guess he does have 'a good heart'. It wasn't me who rescued you, nor was it your devoted boss. Your knight…" he laughed bitterly. "Your knight in threadbare black Jedi robes was none other than Skywalker himself. He put his whole Jedi order on hold until he rescued you."
She'd known it – somehow, for the first time, everything made perfect sense. "I don't know what to say," Mara murmured trying to appear bemused by it all. Lando had just told her what she'd suspected. Luke had come for her. She'd called for him and she'd heard him answer her. Of course Luke would rescue her. She would do the same for him. They were friends. But the lightsaber crystal – where did that come in?
Lando's voice was hard. "I don't take credit for another man's work. I was on Systra the whole time finalising my deal. I only arrived in time for you to wake up."
"I don't understand," Mara said. "Why all this subterfuge?"
"You'll have to ask the Jedi for that one. He has all the answers."
"No, not all of them," Mara disagreed. "But he's left me with many questions and I intend to find the answers." She gave Lando a penetrating stare. "You came to visit me in the medicentre, you've taken me out on many occasions since this whole thing happened and not once…not once have you given me any indication that this was all a lie. I wouldn't exactly say that was not taking credit for another man's work."
Lando glowered darkly but she was right.