"Arghh!" Luke was writhing in his chains again as Mara seemed to be determined to break his body and crush his soul.
She dialed it down a little. "Had enough yet? Ready to admit the Empire is far greater than the Republic?"
"N-no. The Empire doesn't care about – ARGH!" Luke screamed as Mara intensified the current again.
"Sorry, I didn't catch that," she said almost lighthearted. "You simply must learn to speak more clearly." She laughed at little. "After all, you must learn of the Empire's greatness before you die."
Luke's muscles complained about the treatment and he was gasping for air. Mara seemed to have found out that he could take more than she had previously believed, because she was really keeping it intense today whenever that was. And she had decided that today she would not stop until he admitted to the Empire's greatness, but that wasn't going to happen. If I die today, then I will die. But I will not admit to the Empire being greater than the Republic. "Nggh!"
Mara finally dialed it back down. "Sure you don't want to speak of the Empire's greatness?"
Luke just hung from his chains, too exhausted to speak.
Mara studied him a little then shrugged. "I guess we'll just have to continue the lesson later." She left the cave without another word.
I need to heal before she starts up again. Using the last of his last strength he managed to get back to the slap.
§
This is all too easy, Mara thought as she gathered her things. He's so predictable. She smiled to herself.
§ §
"Winter? I don't mean to disturb you, but do you have anything yet?" Leia tried to keep the anxiousness out of her voice and knew it probably wouldn't fool Winter.
Winter looked up at her. She looked as regal as always, and Leia often thought it was her who should have been raised a princess. She would certainly have been great at it.
"I'm still going through the data." Winter rose and walked over to her. "This takes time, Leia. I know you want answers now, but even I can't go through that much in such a short time."
"I know," Leia said hugging herself. "I just can't shake this feeling that Luke is in immense danger and that the longer we take to find him, the less likely we are to find him alive." She had to swallow the lump forming in her throat.
Winter hugged her. "We'll find him, Lelila," she said using Leia's old nickname from when they were kids.
Leia nodded. She really hoped so. She just knew Winter wasn't sure they would find him alive either. She squeezed her eyes shut.
§ §
Following the suspects from her short list wasn't as easy as she had hoped. Of course, if it had been easy then they probably wouldn't be on her list to begin with. She had started with the four known, tracking them down one by one, and had so far done – one. That woman she had managed to track to Onderon as her current location, and she knew a team had already been dispatched to check her out. That left five more, one of which she was now trying to track down and she was proving more difficult than the first. Why can't I find anything about her after she went to Corellia? It's been two years and Imperials on the run don't stay that long in one place. There must be some record of her leaving or at least some proof of her staying. Iella knew she was getting slightly frustrated. She was good at this so hitting dead ends like this was not something she was very used to.
She drummed her fingers on the table. She had been trying to get somewhere with this woman for almost five hours and kept hitting dead ends. Maybe it was time to push her aside and try one of the others? Then she could return to this woman again later. The quicker they could get teams dispatched to check on the suspects, the quicker they could either rule them out or find Skywalker, both things desirable outcomes though the latter was by far the preferred.
Iella made a decision. She swiped the woman away and pulled up the next one, starting a new search. Okay, let's see where you have gone to, shall we?
§ §
Mara was whistling to herself as she prepared for another round with Skywalker. The first time had been painful, but gotten easier as she kept going. This time she would make sure she had padding for her knees and shins. She liked being in control like this where the guy couldn't hurt her. It felt so much better that way. She stopped whistling as she remembered those she had been forced to have sex with in the past, those greasy, despicable bastards, who had leered at her and enjoyed her young body. Never again. When the Empire rise again I will be in charge and my child will be Emperor. At least she had got to kill some of them, too, and never had she felt that good about a kill.
Mara picked up her last item needed and made her way to the cave where Skywalker was out cold in a healing trance.
She smiled as she looked at his unmoving form. Ready or not, here I come.
§ §
"Han! Oh, you're finally home." Leia flung her arms around him and held him tight.
Han hugged her back. "Hey, easy, Princess, or you might break my ribs." He said it lightly, but Leia tensed and loosened her grip on him anyway.
"Sorry," she mumbled.
Han lifted her chin up so he could look into her eyes. "Hey, it's all right. I was just joking." He looked at her with worry. "What's wrong, Leia?"
Leia shook her head. "Not here," she said softly. "Too public." She leaned her head against his chest again.
Han looked around. They were in a private hangar in the palace and Leia thought it was too public? It didn't sound good to him.
"Come on, let's go somewhere we can talk then."
Leia nodded her agreement and, taking him by the hand, lead him out of the hangar.
§
"Okay, what's up, hon?" Han was studying her carefully. He had kept his mouth shut the whole way back to her apartment, but now the door was closed he wanted answers. "Does this have anything to do with Luke?"
When Leia suddenly tensed again Han knew he had hit the mark. Oh, fierfek, the kid is in trouble again. I knew it. He always gets into trouble.
Leia forced herself to take a deep breath and nod. "Yes."
"How bad is it?"
Leia looked at him fearfully. "It's bad, Han. Really bad. Luke has been taken by some crazy Imperial, who wants to kill him, but first she wants to torture him." A sudden lump in her throat forced her to stop speaking.
Han stared at her. "Shavit!" he exclaimed. He ran a hand through his hair in frustration. "He's been gone for the past week?"
But Leia shook her head. "Longer. General Cracken has come to the conclusion we are running at least on two weeks now and then some," she said in a small voice.
Han shook his head and cursed again. Leia was right; this was really, really bad.
He put an arm around her and gently lead her to the couch. Then he got himself a strong corellian whiskey before sitting down next to her. He needed something to fight the shock with.
After draining the glass he asked: "Do they know what happened?"
Leia nodded. "We know some of it. A few days ago Artoo and the remainder of Luke's X-wing was found by Captain Palan. He's bringing Artoo in now. Artoo showed us the security footage and we got a possible vector on the ship that attacked Luke. But so far nothing has turned up on the planet they were lead to and the visual records from that time were already deleted. The team on the planet haven't found anything else, but are still searching for clues there. General Cracken says it's likely the ship just came, changed course and left again, but with so few clues we have to check the planet. It's our best lead right now."
Leia took a deep breath and was glad to feel Han squeezing her shoulders slightly. She really needed to feel his warmth and had been desperate for him to get back this past week.
"General Cracken has other teams searching as well as people working day and night on suspect lists here, but even so it will be extremely hard to find Luke and that woman. She has completely eluded us so far."
"You said 'she'?" Han had realized Leia had been specific when talking about Luke's capturer.
Leia nodded. She could feel her anger rising when she thought about that cold, hard voice taking delight in Luke's pain.
"Yes, she. The Force-damned woman sent me a holovid of Luke being tortured by her." Leia had to stop talking as she could feel her voice rising and herself shaking with anger.
Han looked suddenly hopeful. "But if you know what she looks like – ," he began. Leia cut him off.
"We don't," she said bitterly. "She kept out of the frame, we just got a tiny tidbit of her voice, and the voice analysis haven't revealed anything either."
Leia looked at him with a mix of despair, frustration and anger. "Han, we haven't got anything! Luke could be anywhere in the galaxy and we haven't gotten any closer to finding him in over a week!" Her eyes shone with fear.
Han didn't know what to say and realized there really was nothing he could say. Instead he just pulled Leia into a tight hug. He would definitely need another drink.
§ §
"Wessiri, tell me you have something, anything new for me." General Cracken normally didn't like to disturb his agents in their work, but let them come to him, but things were getting critical. No matter how strong Skywalker was he had been under torture for at least two weeks now and that was a tall order even for a jedi. Especially if what they had seen had been typical of the woman.
She turned to him looking bleary-eyed. He thought she had probably slept even less than he had.
"Sir. We finally managed to track down the last of the four known women from my short list."
"And?" Cracken prompted.
"She's dead. Took sending a team to Corellia to check up on her, but it appears she managed to hide under a different identity there and get herself killed only a few weeks after arriving. No one ever realized who she really was, so her death wasn't recorded."
Cracken let his breath go in a sigh. "So another dead end."
"Yes, sir, quite literally." There wasn't a hint of humor in her voice as she said it. Cracken had no doubt she was feeling the pressure of time as well.
"What about the last two?"
Iella nodded and pulled up their images on her screen. "I have finally managed to get some info on them. The brunette turned out to be a favorite escort of both Baron Tiegan and Admiral Hooler, and the red-head has been identified as a palace dancer. Neither seems likely candidates, but I have started digging into their details nevertheless. They might have had special connections and could certainly fit with the description of having their comfortable life styles ruined by Palpatine's death and the subsequent chaos."
Cracken nodded. "Keep at it, Wessiri. If we're lucky something will turn up in relation to either of those women."
"Yes, sir." She hesitated for a moment. "Sir, how is the work going on the other lists?"
Cracken's mouth formed into a thin line. "Not too well. As you pointed out in the beginning of this search, the lists are too long. We have managed to shorten them down considerably, but we can only send out teams to check up on so many leads at a time. Even with the droids running the data nonstop, we still have hundreds to check up on and too many times we hit dead ends on our leads. The only good thing there have so far come of this is that we have got a lot of information pertaining to Imperials up to date and have been able to add more to the 'are dead' list.
"Otherwise the search for Skywalker himself isn't going too well."
"Do you want me to shift my focus and leave these two be?" She waved her hand towards the screen still showing the two women.
Cracken shook his head. "No. You might as well finish checking up on those who frequented the Imperial court first. If that doesn't give you anything, then we'll discuss what to do next."
Iella nodded. "Yes, sir."
She turned back to her screen, but Cracken put a hand on her shoulder. "Wessiri?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Take a break first. You will be more effective when you aren't close to dropping off your chair of exhaustion."
She smiled slightly and nodded. "Yes, sir."
As he left her office he saw her roll out a field mattress next to her desk and grab a blanket folded next to it. He had a similar setup in his own office. None of us are wasting time getting home anymore. Not while Skywalker is in danger and we are his best hope for survival.