And Never Return Chapter 3, a star wars fanfic

AND NEVER RETURN

CHAPTER THREE

After two days spent avoiding the artificial intelligence unit, Luke finally submitted when Cat started setting off random alarms in his room. He thought he had sensed something the evening before, but nothing had come of meditation. Although the Jedi Master was often thought to have infinite patience, not even the Force could fully deafen him to the blaring of a proximity klaxon every four minutes. He left his room and the ship fell eerily silent.

Cat finally spoke up in the kitchen. "Wanna play dejarik? I have a board."

Luke found it aggravating not to be able to address an actual droid body. "Will you leave me alone after that? No alarms, or anything like that?"

"Yes," she said in a small voice.

"Promise?"

"Promise."

Luke wondered what had created her personality, it was almost childish. Like a teenager.

"Alright then."

"I'll set it up in the common room," she said happily. Luke shook his head as he poured himself a mug of hot chocolate. He'd had to substitute one or two ingredients, but he thought (hoped) it would taste okay. He brought the steaming cup with him to where the dejarik holoboard was waiting. The room was completely quiet and Luke assumed Cat had gone somewhere else momentarily. Walking towards one of the chairs, he lifted the drink to his lips to blow on it.

"I wanna be red," Cat announced, startling the Jedi and nearly making him spill the hot liquid all over himself. He managed to burn his tongue.

"Blast it! Stop sneaking up on me, Cat! Make a sound or something—I never know when you're here or not."

"I did make a sound. It's not my fault you're jumpy," she sniffed, then added accusingly, "This hasn't been much fun. Joran warned me that you'd be boring. I should have believed him. He said I should shut myself off for your trip."

"I'm sorry," Luke apologized. After a pause, he said, "I know I've been a boring guest. I'm edgy. The reason I'm here is because I'm trying to find a friend of mine, her ship was attacked. I've been meditating, trying to see if I could make sense of the visions the Force sent me." He felt slightly foolish explaining this to a strange droid, but he also felt better telling someone. The only other person who knew where he was going was Talon Karrde.

Aw, sithspawn. Luke crossed his fingers in hope that his twin sister wouldn't decide to comm him until he returned. He hadn't even thought of Leia since Mara went missing.

Cat was silent for a moment. "Waitaminute…you're Jedi?"

Luke nodded.

"I thought you looked familiar, but Joran told me you weren't who I thought you were. You're Luke Skywalker."

"Yes."

"Cool!" If she were human, Luke imagined she would have a quirky grin. "I've never beaten a Jedi at dejarik before."

Luke guessed that she had accepted his apology. "We haven't even started playing yet. How do you know I'm not a good player?"

"No one can beat me at dejarik."

"Pride is of the dark side," Luke muttered automatically.

"I'm a computer. Pride does not affect me," she said in a superior tone. "It's the simple truth. I'm the best."

"Then why should I even bother trying?" he asked, trying hard to hide his growing grin.

"Because it will amuse me and you owe me at least that since you ignored me for one hundred and fifty-two hours and thirty-two minutes. Fifteen point five seconds."

"Fine, fine. You want red?"

"That's what I said."

Luke tapped his side of the board to make his holographic creatures appear. "Prepare to lose, Cat."

Consciousness came quicker the second time around. Her headache wasn't as intense as before and the Force eased it completely away. The lights in the room were not as blinding as they'd seemed before, though Mara wasn't sure whether the intensity had actually changed or if her eyes had just been hypersensitive the first time she woke up.

There was this feeling of surrealism, as if she were still dreaming. She could almost pretend she hadn't spent time in a bacta tank, or whatever these people used. She pushed herself upright again and this time it was easier. Her chest still ached and her muscles were sore from lack of usage, but she knew that would go away eventually.

She turned and touched her bare feet to the warm floor. The room stayed in place this time and for this small miracle Mara was grateful. Her body didn't feel steady enough to stand up quite yet, so she picked up one of the datacards and inserted it into a reader.

She immediately recognized the format, set up like the old Imperial databanks. Mara skimmed through the information. There were three habitable planets in the system of eight: Kath'alon, Eqiirsa and Javsret. From Treneda's parting comment, Mara knew she was on the capitol. There were a few paragraphs written about local plant and animal life and just to be on the safe side, she scanned through them. The author was a colorful writer and Mara thought some of the phrases were oddly worded. Something stuck in her mind, a mention of the carnivorous Ithorian redleaf bloom. Those plants were famous in horror stories as three-meter-high, seven-petal flowers that were capable of catching and digesting a human-sized meal. The writer had made two mistakes: the plants were actually called "blueleaf" despite their color, and two, they had never existed.

Code. An old Imperial word play code that hadn't been used since she had first begun training as an infiltrator.

She went back and read through the first and second paragraphs again, memorizing the third word per sentence. Then she arranged them in the predetermined order and took the second-to-last letter per word to spell out the name of the agent: konnerdonteril.

Konner Donteril.

Mara's mind read out the rules of approach: locate author, comm author and ask for "Calyn Xerom". Agent would give the forwarding address. From there, the contactor goes to the mentioned address three days later, a the time he or she originally called.

Even as these rules were mechanically read off, one thought kept running through her mind: Konner was alive.

"Now that wasn't fair," Luke complained. "You cheated."

"I did not," Cat responded indignantly. "Don't blame me if you play like a nechivno."

"Oh, great, they taught you Old Corellian insults."

"Besides," the computer added, "are you going to try and convince me that the other five games were flukes?"

"I was just warming up," he said defensively.

"As if I actually believe that. I'm sure it must be strange for you; you can't use your Jedi powers to influence my mind."

Luke started laughing. "I don't use my powers that way." Imagine what his sister would say—Luke Skywalker using the Force to win a measly dejarik game. No, forget his sister—what would Mara say? He'd never live it down.

"I'm sure, Jedi-boy."

"I don't," Luke insisted. "I'm don't trivialize the Force like that."

"What if you were playing saabac?"

"No," he answered. Cat wasn't the first one to ask these questions. Numerous diplomats and countless dinners refused to believe that the Jedi Master wouldn't abuse his powers.

"No, listen to me. You didn't let me finish. You're playing saabac to win money for your little Jedi Academy and you're playing against murderers who stole the money they're playing with. Would you use the Force to win that money so that you could expand your Academy to fit more students to increase the future number of Jedi in the galaxy?"

"That's not fair."

"Life isn't fair. What would you do?"

"You know, it's easy for a computer to come up with these hypothetical questions, because you know you'll never have to answer them for yourself."

"Excuses, excuses, Skywalker. What would be your choice?"

Oh, why the hell not? "Sure, it's for a good cause."

"So you would let the ends justify the means?"

"I can't believe that a computer is trying to get me involved in a discussion on my morals."

"You don't want to talk about that? How about we change the topic?"

"Gladly."

"Okay. This woman you're looking for. Who is she?"

"Mara Jade." Luke pushed his chair back. He didn't even want to look at the latest massacre on the game board.

"I didn't ask for her name. I want to know who she is."

"She's a Trader, one of Talon Karrde's."

"Look, Jedi-boy, I don't know whether you are consciously acting stupid or not. Simple info like that I can access in a heartbeat. I want to know why you're searching for her."

"She a friend of mine." He cleared his throat.

"A close friend?"

"Yes."

"How close?"

"We're friends," Luke answered, trying to find a way to evade more interrogation. He thought having a computer question his morals was bad enough. This was worse.

"Girlfriend?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"I am not going to answer that."

"Oh, come one," Cat whined. "I rarely get to see the sludgenews and I want gossip."

"I can't believe you watch that crap, Cat."

"A girl needs to keep herself occupied somehow. Anyhow, you know what you need? Besides a girlfriend?" Just as he opened his mouth to say something, she answered her own question. "You need to lose another game of dejarik to get your mind off this."

Luke found himself smiling. "Bring it on," he challenged.