Leia went into the briefing room both excited and scared. She wasn't sure what to expect, but there had seemed to be a sense of satisfaction to General Cracken's voice when he had called her. She hoped that meant there was finally some good news in all of this.
"Leia." Admiral Ackbar greeted her warmly.
"Admiral Ackbar," she smiled back. She appreciated the informality of his greeting. She took a look around; Han had arrived, too, and Cracken stood at the head of the table getting everything set up. She couldn't see Iella Wessiri or Winter, but she felt sure both women would be here, too. After all they had worked tirelessly on finding Luke.
"Hi, hon. Are we all there's going to be for this?" Han slipped an arm around her.
"No, I think Winter and Iella Wessiri will be here, too."
"They will," Ackbar said gravelly. "General Cracken said we would be six people for the briefing."
Just as Ackbar finished speaking the door opened again and both women came walking in. They looked tired and Iella steered straight for the caf pot while Winter went over to Leia, Han, and Ackbar.
"Your highness."
"No titles right now, Winter," Leia said with a small smile. "I just want some good news."
Winter inclined her head in acknowledgement. "I believe the general is ready to begin."
They all sat down around the table and turned to face General Cracken.
Cracken leaned forward in his seat, looking around at each of them. "I have called you here, because you are all either involved in the search or will be," he said, nodding to Han. "And because we have a breakthrough in finding Jedi Skywalker."
Leia felt a rush go through her and she sat up straighter. "You know where he is?"
Cracken shook his head. "Not yet, but –" he pressed a button and a star field appeared over the table, quickly zooming in on a particular part of the galaxy "– we have a vector.
"Our captor has made a mistake in sending us those holovids, because we have been able to use what we know about them and the time frame to narrow down the search. We have already managed to backtrack the last package to this planet," a light in the map glowed brighter for a moment, "and I feel confident we will be able to backtrack it further." He looked around at the others with an intense light in his eyes. "By correlating everything we know about when Skywalker disappeared, where he disappeared, and when the holovids were received, we have been able to narrow the most likely sector down to this." He nodded to Winter and Iella as another part of the galaxy lit up in green.
Leia felt her spirits soar. It was still a large space, but much more manageable than before.
"That doesn't look too bad," Han said.
General Cracken lifted a hand. "That's because that's the area we consider most likely, but there's also another, larger, area that is still within the realm of possibility. After all, we don't know who or how many she might be collaborating with." He pressed another button and another area of the galaxy lit up this time in yellow.
Leia swallowed. The search area had suddenly become much larger and thus harder to comb through.
"The fleet cannot cover that large an area, General," Ackbar said swiveling one eye towards him. "And not just because a large part of that area is still under Imperial control or at best independent; it's simply too much space."
"I agree," Cracken said. "Which is why the fleet won't cover any of this space until we have a target worthy of the scrutiny." He looked around. "I know we're all anxious to go out and find Jedi Skywalker, but until we can narrow our search down even further, the best we can do is stay here."
"Why?" Han demanded. "Surely you already have at least one target; the planet you have tracked the package back to."
General Cracken nodded. "And a team has been dispatched to that planet just before this briefing. But we don't want to alert our opponents of the fact that we are unto them. If we do they might very well decide to kill him now."
Leia felt a chill run down her back. The thought of losing Luke was too much; she had already lost so much, she could not lose her brother, too. She looked to Han, who kept his gaze on Cracken.
"Don't tell me there's nothing we can do. I could fly out and take a look around at some of those places. The Falcon is nondescript enough that it can get through most places without trouble."
A slight smile crossed Cracken's face. "I know. Which is why I want you ready to do just that. But we need some target planets first." He looked to Leia. "I was thinking you could both go; you sensed his distress through the Force. Perhaps you can sense it if you are on the right planet?"
Leia frowned. Luke had taught her some jedi techniques, but the truth was that she hadn't had much time to practice them. "Perhaps ..." she said slowly. She had heard Luke when he had called for her back on Bespin. She looked at Cracken. "If he calls out I should be able to hear it if I'm near, but there's no guarantee that I will be able to sense him if he doesn't."
"You think he wouldn't call out to you?" Iella asked. Her voice was curios.
Leia bit her lip. "I'm more worried that he might not be able to. He's been imprisoned for a long time; he might be too weak to do it." She blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her at that thought.
"I see," Cracken said. "Well, it's still a strategy we can pursue and hope for success."
"The fleet is ready to assist at any time, General," Admiral Ackbar said. "If we need to make a push into Empire controlled space, we will do so."
Cracken nodded to him. "Thank you, Admiral. We might very well have to do that, because a large part of our current search area are outside our jurisdiction. I suggest you best start making plans in case we need to make use of them."
"Of course," Ackbar replied.
Cracken looked around the rest of them. "Wessiri and Winter will continue their work to narrow down the search area together with the field teams and hopefully we should soon have some clearer targets. Make no mistake; we did have a breakthrough here. They made a serious mistake in sending us those discs and we'll mine them for all the information we can get." He gave them a tight smile. "It is now a race between them and us to discover them without them discovering us. If we do this right, and if Skywalker can hang on a bit longer, then I'm confident we will have them."
The others nodded, their spirits lifted and eager to get to work. Leia also felt better, but she still had a knot of ice in her stomach. All of it depended on Luke being able to withstand the torture for a few more days or even a week or longer. And it also depended on the kidnappers not realizing the New Republic were unto them, because if they did ... if they did they might very well kill Luke before they could rescue him. It was a truly chilling thought and Leia knew she would not be able to relax or let go of her worry until Luke was safely back with them.
"All right, people, let's get to work," Cracken said standing up and turning off the star chart.
Leia shook off her bad feelings. There might not be much for her to do right now, but if things went as Cracken hoped then she would soon need all the jedi skills Luke had ever tried to instill in her and that meant she needed to train and practice her skills.
She nodded to Winter as she left with Han, knowing that Winter would find the connections if there were any to be found. Yes, they all had their own work to do and it was time Leia focused on hers.
§ §
Luke was writhing in his chains in what felt like a never-ending, bad dream. He had lost all sense of time; he knew it had been at least a couple of weeks, but for all he knew it could also be several at this point. It didn't really matter. What mattered was that he survived, that he found a way out of this situation. He just didn't know if he could.
"Had enough, jedi? Just say 'The Empire is great' and it will stop." Her gaze was as cool as her voice was laced with sweetness. A sweetness that scared him almost as much as her cruel hate had.
No, he couldn't allow himself hopelessness. If he did he would be giving up and she, and Palpatine, would win. He would not give Palpatine that satisfaction.
"N-ng-no, I – ah – the Empi-re isn't – ngh!"
She dialed the power down. "What was that? Let's try again: 'The Empire is great'."
Luke shook his head. "The Empire isn't great," he said a little breathless. "It lied to you, it destroyed Alderaan and so many other planets and species, and it – ng!" She dialed back up before Luke could finish.
Mara gave him a critical look. "Y'know, Skywalker, I'm almost beginning to think you enjoy this with how you just keep on refusing to acknowledge the Empire's superiority."
Despite the pain Luke found the strength to lock eyes with her. "If this is supposed to, ngh, convince me of the Empire's so-called greatness, then you know nothing about – gasp – what greatness means, Mara. Torture, suppression – those things are not great." He shook his head slightly though it felt more like a spasm and added in a quieter voice: "Those things are never great."
She gave him a look of contempt. "Well, correcting you aren't easy. It requires stronger methods."
"And everyone else? Did they require 'stronger methods', too?"
For a moment she didn't answer, but just looked at him. Then she shook her head. "You are quite stubborn, jedi. But you'll see the error of your ways soon enough." With that she dialed it further up again so that any attempts at controlled speech became impossible. It was another few minutes before she finally turned it all off and let him rest again.
§ §
"What have you got?" Winter said as she came back into the office she now shared with Iella.
Iella gave her a tired, but satisfied smile. "The ground team got us another lead. We're getting close, Winter, I can feel it."
Winter sat down and looked at the data, then she smiled herself. "Yes, that does narrow it down further. I believe we can narrow down the green area by 40 per cent with this data and the yellow area with 55 per cent."
Iella shook her head, still amazed at how Winter's brain worked. "I haven't had the chance to compute the data yet and correlate it with everything else, but I'll take your word for it."
"Oh, please do correlate it. I might not have the percentages quite right," Winter said with a smile at her.
Yeah, right, Iella thought. If it's off it won't be by more than one or two per cent in either direction. But she just nodded her agreement. No matter what data like this needed to be double and triple checked. But she still felt a great sense of satisfaction; the net was tightening around their would-be murderer and torturer.
They both went to work, a fresh pot of caf between them to keep them going until they could present the latest results to General Cracken.
§ §
She hesitated. She doesn't want to talk about the Empire's dark sides. Luke drank a little water to try and will away the hunger gnawing at him. It had been at least a few days since he had last had any real food. And she's not hateful anymore. She tries to be, but it doesn't feel real. But what will it take to finally break through that shell of hers, the lies of Palpatine? Luke didn't know. He just knew that if things kept going like this he would end up dead or wishing he was dead.
He took another mouthful, then slowly laid back down. His body was constantly tired from the repeated torture, but his mind was still strong. Even so Luke could feel the cracks in his own mental discipline and knew that sooner or later he would crack if this kept up long enough. And that is what she wants; for me to break.
He started to curl a hand into a fist, but then forced himself to relax it again. He took a deep breath. No. He couldn't allow himself anger or frustration or hopelessness. He had to keep going. Leia and the Republic would be searching for him now. He had to buy them time to find him.
Leia ...
He closed his eyes wishing she could hear his call.