Luke coughed. His throat was completely raw and it hurt coughing. A little blood came up with his cough; he could taste the metallicness of it. Another cough pressed its way through despite his attempts to prevent it and it ended in a coughing fit where he spit out the blood that came into his mouth. His wrists felt numb, which was actually an improvement; normally they just hurt from the cuffs cutting into them, making them bleed again and again. Funny how quickly this had become 'normal'. It didn't matter how much he healed himself; he would just end up getting tortured again and be in as bad a shape as he had been a few hours ago. But he couldn't give up. If he did she would kill him. Is that such a bad choice? It's not like this is any fun. Luke finally managed to get the coughing under control and raised his head to look at his capturer and torturer. No, I can't give up. I have to keep on fighting until Leia and the others find me.
"Had enough, Skywalker?" She squatted down so they were on eye level. She seemed to search his eyes. "I see you still have some fight in you." She smiled. Luke shook. Her smile was chilling to the bone. They had been at it for what felt like hours, her relentlessly torturing him with different intensities and brief breaks before she started again. Luke was sure she was determined to break him or kill him before stopping. But he wasn't going to break. He refused.
Her smile widened. "Yes... you do still have some fight left in you. Good. It makes it so much more fun. I'm not near to being done with you, Skywalker."
"Luke," he croaked.
"What?" She blinked, showing the first sign of surprise.
"Luke." It hurt talking. "My name is Luke."
Her face turned hard and unreadable. "I don't care." She suddenly stood up, turned on her heel and walked to the entrance. Then she stopped looking back over her shoulder. "I think you have had enough for now. We will resume our little session later." With that she walked out of the room.
Luke stared after her for a minute before another coughing fit sent him into uncontrollable shaking, spitting more blood unto the floor. Gathering whatever strength he had left he managed to half walk, half drag himself back to the stone slab. He needed rest. He couldn't take another round like this without some serious healing. Sighing he got as comfortable as possible, closed his eyes, and started the process of healing as much as possible before her return.
§
She was furious. How dare he speak to her like that?! Like she cared whether he preferred one name or another. She could call him bantha poodoo for all she cared and it wouldn't make a difference! He belonged to her now and she would have to teach him that nothing, NOTHING, from his old life, even his name, meant anything anymore. It all belonged to her, and if she said it didn't matter, then it didn't matter!
At least he put up quite a fight. Even chained his power shone through. A little smile appeared. She understood why the Emperor had wanted him so badly. His power would have been a great asset to the Empire. Unfortunately he had chosen differently and it was her pleasure to show him the error of his choice now. Oh, yes, she would show him. And he would regret ever hearing of the Rebel Alliance.
§ §
Leia wanted to break something. Or several somethings. She paced back and forth in her apartment unable to sit still now knowing her brother was somewhere out there being tortured by some evil woman. Right now Leia didn't care about anything else; her job, the beautiful view, Han, anything. Han... I really need you now. She wanted him home so badly. Then she would at least have one of them back here with her, but he was away and wouldn't be back for another few days, almost a week.
Cracken had told her not to tell what there had been on that disc to anyone and not to mention it on the holocom. He wanted to play it close to his heart. Leia had had to agree with him; it could be disastrous if the public learned what had happened, but they could also have been a great help in getting information. So now she was stuck here in her apartment until she got herself under some sort of control and it was driving her crazy.
Leia forced herself to be still. At least Luke was still alive. She knew she would have felt it if he had died. It was a small comfort, but any comfort was good at this time.
She took a deep breath. Okay... I know he's alive; I would have felt it otherwise. But I don't have a clue to where he is and neither does General Cracken despite his assurance he will find him. The restlessness threatened to take over again. Leia shook it off. Maybe I can find a trace of him. She knew it was a long shot, but she had to try. Sitting down on the floor she crossed her legs and stared out the window. Meditation wasn't her strong suit; to be honest nothing within the Force was her strong suit, but she had had a connection with Luke even before she knew she was Force sensitive, so maybe that would be enough to get a sense of him and where he was. She took a deep breath and slowly let it go.
§
With a sigh of frustration he ran a hand through his hair. His agents had been searching for clues for days and nothing. Except for those first informations about Q'tar and not showing up on Folor Skywalker had completely vanished. He still felt sure they would find him, but he wasn't so sure they would find him alive. Even a jedi would break sooner or later under that kind of pressure. And Airen felt sure that when he did crack he would be killed. He just prayed Skywalker was as willstrong and tough as his reputation said he was.
He drummed his fingers on his desk looking at his holocom. Maybe he should call Ackbar and see if he had any news. Of course, Ackbar had already promised to call if he got anything, so it would be pointless at this moment. It was not like Airen had anything solid yet.
He looked at his screen; it was running potential suspects, which at this moment included every known Imperial female with either military, medicine, intelligence or special ops training that they knew of. Even being able to sort out all that had died, defected or whose whereabouts was known, the list was rather long. And he knew it was also likely that the person they were looking for wouldn't be on their list at all. He also knew she was probably working with others. She would have to be very well trained and very, very, very dangerous to be doing all this by herself. And that was honestly not a thought he wanted to dwell upon.
A knock sounded on the door.
"Come in."
The door opened and Iella Wessiri walked in. Cracken waved her to the chair in front of his desk.
"Sit down."
"Thank you, sir. I have a preliminary list of suspects."
Right to the point. "Let's hear," Cracken said folding his fingers.
She nodded. "The list is unfortunately rather long. Even with women being few and far between in the Empire's hierarchy, those that did make it all did so because they were extremely skilled. Some we have been able to sort out for different reasons, but with known military persons alone we still have more than a hundred."
Cracken nodded. It wasn't unexpected.
"Then we have the intelligence trained. Those are trickier since we generally only know of those either because we caught them or they died. It's pretty much the same picture with the special ops. We got 19 suspects in this category. Finally there's the medically trained persons." Her eyes looked very serious. "General, I have to be honest here; there are so many women, who are trained within the medical arts, that even looking through them to identify possible suspects is going to take months."
"I know, Wessiri. We'll have a cross check them with any martial arts training or military background to limit the numbers."
"I already did that, General. The list still contains thousands of people."
Cracken leaned back in his chair. "In other words too many to look through in time."
"Yes, sir."
He nodded. It wasn't unexpected that the list would be that long, but they needed to cut it down further. "Focus on the military, intelligence and special ops suspects and see if you can narrow them down further. We need to identify the most likely suspects so we can check them out."
"Yes, sir. I'll get right on it." She stood up.
"We are running out of time, so hurry."
"I will." Iella turned around and left the office.
Cracken watched as the door closed. The list was too long. He had faith that Wessiri would find a way to shorten it, but it would still take a long time to track all those people and determine whether they could be their suspect. And that was time they didn't have.
§
Leia opened her eyes. It had grown dark outside while she had been sitting on the floor and her legs were protesting being in the same position for so long. She didn't move. She had been searching for so long and had found nothing, except a renewed certainty that Luke was alive. But she had failed in getting a sense of where in the galaxy he might be. She sighed with frustration at her own inability and moved to stand up. She almost fell over when her legs couldn't carry her and she got a prickling sensation as the blood started to come back. Patience Leia. Problem was she had never been the most patient person when it came to these things. She wanted to do something, but didn't know what. Ackbar and Cracken had both said the best she could do was go about her business as normal, but how could she do that? Luke needed her! They were both doing something useful and she was doing nothing. Maybe it was time to interrupt General Cracken for an update.
Leia stood up gingerly. Her stomach reminded her she hadn't eaten anything for hours and she decided it would probably be wise to eat something before going anywhere. Luke would berate her if she didn't take care of herself when he came back. Please come back safe, Luke. Please come back.
§ §
The pain was everywhere. Around him, inside him, tearing him apart. Or at least it felt that way. Somehow he was still in one piece, but he knew it couldn't last. His muscles protested the mistreatment, screaming their pain to his brain and his brain just wished it didn't have to listen. His organs felt like they were continually being stabbed, jolted and cooked, while his skin was being pierced with little red hot needles and stung by angry bees. He didn't think he would last much longer if she kept it up like this.
The electricity stopped as suddenly as it had started. Luke hung limply, scraping his knees on the floor and barely feeling the trickle of blood running down his arms. A hand grabbed his chin and forced it upwards so he was looking at her. Her green eyes burned into his.
"Had enough yet, Skywalker?" she hissed.
Luke had to swallow a couple of times before he could get any words out. "Depends."
She raised an elegant eyebrow. "On what?"
"On whether you plan to kill me now or later." He didn't break eye contact.
They stared at each other for a long moment before she let him go and started laughing. His head fell down to his chest, but he forced himself to raise it again.
"Oh, such a humor you got. A shame it will soon be gone."
"That won't happen," he got out.
"Oh, but it will. You can't keep this up forever. You might try, I know you will, but eventually you will break and then ..." She smiled evilly.
His body shook. He wasn't afraid of dying; he had looked death in the eye on the second Death Star, but if he died there would be nobody left to pass on the jedi teachings and the last remains of the Jedi Order would be gone. He couldn't let that happen. "I'm not afraid," he said softly.
"No ..." she replied thoughtfully. "Fear isn't predominant in you. But don't worry; I'll change that." Her voice was almost cheerful.
"What is your name?"
"Again? Why are you so obsessed with my name, jedi?"
He licked his lips to get some moisture back. "I want to know who is torturing me and who will kill me."
She smiled. "Oh, so you know you will die here. Good. But why should I tell you anything? I know you jedi has a way of coming back and I'm not stupid enough to risk you telling anyone who I am after your death."
This time it was Luke's turn to laugh mirthlessly even though it came out more like a wheezing sound. "Tell who? I'm the last jedi. The Emperor made sure of that."
"Yes, he did that right." She looked hard at him for a long moment without speaking. "Mara."
"Mara." He repeated the name though his lungs didn't have much air left for talking.
"Rest up, jedi; we will continue later." Then she turned on her heels and left him alone again. But he had a name now.