Note: This Chapter and the next take place within the next five hours, we'll start out five hours ago and work our way up. This chapter is also a gift for you since it is Halloween today. Happy Halloween today! I shall be wearing my good ole' Darth Vader helmet while I hand out candy to the little peoples.

Chapter 10: Luckily Double Crossed

Five Hours Ago

The voices came back once more, driving Mara crazy.

"Avenge me! Kill him! Kill Vader and his offspring!" It cried in her head.

"I am going to! Shut up!" She snapped back at it, pacing her quarters. She came by a mirror and kicked it square in the center, it shattered and the pieces fell to the floor.

"Trying? Then why are they not dead!"

"It's not a simple assassination!" Mara yelled smashing a vase with the heel of her foot and hurling her pillows across the room so they smacked into the small holonet screen and slid down.

"Perhaps not, but you're not a simple assassin." The voice taunted. "You're moving to slowly!"

"I am not!" Mara retorted. "It's these damn people that are helping me."

The voice didn't reply, and Mara thought she knew the reason when Alecto knocked on her door. She went up to the lock pad and disengaged it, the door slid open allowing Alecto passage.

"What is it?" Mara asked snappily, her back turned.

"Well I came in here to tell you something, but now I have to tell you something else." Alecto answered. Mara turned to face her, making no attempt to hide the annoyance on her face.

"Something is bothering you. I know it, I heard you yelling."

Mara was surprised to hear it, she herself wasn't sure that was out loud.

"Nothing is wrong." Mara said.

Alecto shook her head. "Whatever, I'm only trying to help you."

"You are by getting me to Doole. Now what do you have to tell me?"

"Doole made contact. Kallisto says she can leave whenever you're ready."

"Tell her I am ready now."

Four and a Half Hours Ago

It took about half an hour to prepare the shuttle for flight. When it was ready Mara met Kallisto in the main hanger of the palace. She stood in front of its boarding ramp dressed in all her normal clothing, everything red. Her forehead tattoo glistened today under the harsh lights of the hanger bay. But today she did look different than when Mara first met her. She still wore her same clothing as was said, but there were a few pouches strapped to her belt now, and Mara assumed she had some pretty fun evil toys in there. She still had her mirror shiny pistols holstered to each side, and her smart disk was hanging from a leather hook clipped firmly to her belt. The most noticeable different was one giant blaster rifle strapped to her back, as mirror shiny as her pistols.

"Are you expecting to be attacked by an army?" Mara asked sarcastically.

"No." Kallisto snapped. "I carry my weapons with me whenever I leave."

"Because you expect to be attacked." Mara stated, after all why else would someone carry a fifty pound blaster rifle on their backs. Well Mara of course would if it had the right capabilities but right now she was just wearing her usual assassin suit, with her blaster pistol holstered on her shoulder and her lightsaber clipped to her belt.

"Let me put it this way, I would rather have these and not need them, rather than need them and not have them."

"Wise."

"Perhaps." Kallisto replied gesturing to the shuttle ramp. "Now will you board first or shall I?"

XxX

The interior of the shuttle was fine, not nice, not horrible just fine. It was also quite spacious, walking in there was a passenger compartment where five armed men sat wearing hodge-podge armor and carrying various assorted weapons. Directly behind where you walk in was the entrance to the cockpit, and directly in front was a small circular room with two doors, one that led to the cargo hold, the other that led to the main passenger section. Kallisto quickly went into the cockpit and gave orders to the pilot, she came back as the ramp was rising brushing past Mara and entering to main passenger hold. Mara followed wordlessly.

The main passenger hold was also fine. It had three comfortable looking seats in it with a holoprojector in the middle. Mara took a seat on one, and Kallisto the other. Kallisto sighed bored as the ship lifted off and sped away from Cato Neimoidia.

"So," Mara began, feeling a sense of mixed boredom, curiosity and slight uneasiness. "do you completely trust this Mourth Doole?"

"Of course not." Kallisto replied casually. "He is as slimy as they come."

"Did you ever consider then, there might be a double cross?"

"No, he's not a moron, a lot of things he ships to the Imperials come from me, without me he only has a half full bag to give them. Why? Are you afraid of a double cross?"

"No… maybe. I just have this feeling."

"That's called motion sickness. Just ignore it."

Mara's face flashed red and she could imagine her eyes bursting into flame.

"I do not get motion sickness." She said intensely. Kallisto shrugged.

"You keep telling yourself that sweet cheeks."

Two Hours Ago

Mara and Kallisto were both in the cockpit, gazing at the star lines when the ship slowed and was spat out of hyperspace, in front of what looked like a gray potato with cloudy mist hanging over it. It was the planet Kessel, so small it could not hold onto its own atmosphere, so factories worked twenty four seven belching out oxygen. It helped a lot, but not enough to create an atmosphere and so you could get by with a small breath mask. To the side of the planet, a couple hundred thousand miles away was a cluster of flowing circular gasses, or black holes, and colorful novas here and there. The Maw Cluster, or the black hole cluster. It was nearly impossible to navigate, though there were a few paths considered safe. That only applied however that you didn't even more an inch off course, lest you ship get ripped apart by deadly gravity fluxes. Or worse then that, you fly to close to one of the black holes and you and your ship gets crushed or you get sucked into the black hole and go away. No one ever knows what becomes of you.

The shuttle did not turn toward the Maw Cluster however, it headed on a straight course for Kessel. As the planet grew bigger Mara noticed something hanging above it, it looked like some intercept cruiser at first and that worried Mara, she looked at Kallisto and pointed at the floating object.

"What the hell is that?"

Kallisto took her eye line up as well and saw the thing.

"That's Doole's Skyhook. He's got a small army of pilots in there and quite an arsenal of ships." Kallisto replied somewhat dully. The shuttle continued to inch its way forward, and that is when Mara took note that there was absolutely no other ships in space. Her uneasiness began to grow, and she wasn't so sure it was just a simple feeling anymore, if this was the Force working through her as it did then there was some real danger. Just as she was about to alert the pilot the comm crackled and a voice, interrupted by occasional small bursts of static filtered through.

"Unidentified shuttle, state your business and passengers or be shot down." It said.

"Myself, the pilot." The pilot answered. "As well as Kallisto, her honor guard and a guest."

"Ah Kallisto, we've been expecting you." The voice replied talking to Kallisto with some cold happiness in its tone. "Doole gave use special orders on what to do with you, please land on docking bay six on the Skyhook."

Before Kallisto could reply the comm went dead, Mara's uneasiness grew ten times stronger. As the pilot changed course she spoke up.

"No, stop!" Was all she said. The pilot did so and both he and Kallisto turned to look at her. "I have a very bad feeling about this."

"Like I haven't heard that before," Kallisto replied sarcastically. "We'll be fine. Doole just probably wants to meet us on the station."

"But why? I thought you said he was in some sort of spice mining business down there. Don't you think he would like to stay there?"

"Perhaps…" Kallisto replied, pondering it. "But why would he want us to land in the Skyhook?"

"Force! Are you that dim?" Mara shouted. "You said yourself he has a small army there and an arsenal of star fighters."

"Yeah," The pilot replied, looking at the radar. "He does have an arsenal of star fighters, and he just deployed them."

"WHAT!" Kallisto cried, looking out of the viewport. Indeed a small cloud of ships were pouring out of the Skyhook and coming on an intercept course towards them, the majority of the them some type of beat up TIE fighter, but Mara also picked out a couple of blastboats, Z-95 headhunters, X-wings, B-wings, Y-wings and more.

"This is not good." The pilot said.

"You think!" Mara cried. "Turn this piece of crap around, we need to jump to hyperspace."

"Yeah," The pilot agreed. "Yeah I think you're right."

The man jerked the controls and the ship flipped, righted itself and headed back as the pilot busily began making calculations. Kallisto didn't try and stop him. Her eyes were on the radar, a few fighters had broken off from the main group and were coming to surround them. And then they opened fire. Most of their multicolored laser blasts lanced off the old ships armor, a couple penetrated and rocked the ship, others completely missed and flew on until the disintegrated.

"Sheild up." The pilot said. Another wave of fire crashed into their ship, rocking it extremely hard this time.

"Damn it!" The pilot shouted.

"What?" Mara asked concerned.

"They just blew out our hyperdrive."

"No!" Kallisto cried. "No, now what in the hell are we going to do."

Mara thought frantically. And an idea came to her, a bad idea, but the only one she had.

"Give me the controls." Mara ordered.

"No, what are you going to do?" The pilot asked.

"I'm going to fly us into the Maw Cluster."

"Have you totally lost your mind?!" The pilot yelled. "We'll be torn apart."

"Oh no we won't." Mara snapped, after all she could use the Force to a good extent.

"No, no, no, no, no, no!" The pilot snapped.

"Oh yes." Mara replied standing up and smacking her boot across his face, he flipped off the chair and landed on the floor unconscious. Kallisto didn't twitch a finger. Mara yanked the controls up and threaded through the swarm of ships, blasting a few down. She turn the controls and sped up towards the black hole cluster.

The fighters, seemed to hesitate and hang back for a few moments, trying to figure out whether Mara was bluffing, or she was actually going to fly straight into the Maw Cluster, Mara used these precious few seconds to slam down on the throttle and get the ship quiet far ahead. Then the fighters decided they didn't care either way and came to pursue them further. As Mara wielded the controls Kallisto spoke in a calm voice.

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" She asked.

"Yes." Mara snapped. "If I didn't then I would never go into the Maw, it's suicidal, I know what I am doing."

"I hope so, this is my nicest shuttle."

"You care—" Mara pulled the steering curved Y shaped bar to the left as a particularly dense cluster of laser blasts issued from a group of three TIE fighters and a blastboat. "more about this ship then you do your life?"

"No, I trust you know what you're doing, I just don't want anything to happen to the paint job." Kallisto replied, no emotion in her voice, not even sarcasm. Mara could dimly sense high nervousness, not exactly fear, though it had the potential to grow.

"Please do not try to be funny." Mara said icily. They were so close to the Maw now the fighters had pulled back. Mara closed her eyes as they entered, trying to find the clear paths. Now Kallisto's nervousness evolved into fear.

"What the hell are you doing! Open your eyes."

"Shut it red head I am trying to concentrate." Mara snapped acidly.

"Trying to concentrate with your eyes closed?" Kallisto cried, ignoring the fact Mara had just called her a red head, when she was one as well, and now Mara could sense the presences of the five honor guards Kallisto had brought in the cockpit. They all had the same fear as Kallisto, only their's were far more… intense.

"Yep." Mara replied. "I can use the Force."

"You what! Why didn't you say this before?"

"You didn't ask."

"Oh yeah, when I first meet anybody the first question that pops into my mind is 'say can you by any chance wield the Force?'" Kallisto exclaimed with sarcasm. "How do even know how to use it?"

"Someone taught me." Mara said simply, getting annoyed with Kallisto's constant interruptions of her concentration.

"Who?"

"Some other time please Kallisto, our lives are at stake."

This seemed to knock some sense into Kallisto and she immediately shut up. She sat back, her hands clutched on her armrests, eagerly awaiting the end of this nightmare ride through the Maw. After what seemed like an hour or two of flying they came out into a clear patch, at the very center of the Maw. There was a small asteroid island in the center of it, surrounded by four Imperial class star destroyers.

"Oh shi—"Kallisto said, cut off by Mara.

"We're turning around." Mara said. She pulled the steering bar up, but the ship didn't respond.

"Oh shi—"

"Will you shut up already?" Mara cried cutting Kallisto off again. "Yeah, they've locked us in their tractor beam. I'm shutting all systems down."

Mara began the task as the pilot stirred and raised his head.

"Wazzgoinon?" He asked slurring his words.

"Shut it Nigel." Kallisto snapped.

"Nigel?" Mara muttered, chuckling slightly. "Nigel?"

And then as she thought it would, the comm crackled as the star destroyer made contact.

"Unidentified shuttle, this is Commander Kratas of star destroyer Gorgon. Respond or be shot down."

Mara and Kallisto exchanged looks, that was defiantly not standard Imperial procedure. Perhaps these people were just tired of unoccupied ships coming into their area, as if. More than likely ships that had entered a black hole had been spit out here a few times, with dead crew inside, it was after all possible.

"Acknowledged, Kratas." Mara replied crisply.

"Prepare to be boarded." The commander said, and the comm went dead. Kallisto looked at Mara.

"I have a bad—"

"—feeling about this." Mara finished. "So do I."

I must apologize for my small little pieces of bad comedy, but I love Kallisto's line "Shut it Nigel" to the pilot. That's great bad comedy! And so it the "Oh shi--"or at least I think so.