As promised I have a shocking revelation at the end of this chapter. A partial cliff hanger for the sequel. Now sit back and enjoy Zak's definitive vision of the second installment to the Unknown Son trilogy.
Chapter 23: Partial Disclosure
The Imperial district shook as though an earthquake was currently hitting it. The palace was as a bowl balanced on top of the eraser of a pencil, it leaned one way, then the other. The Force was a combination of everything; it was as though a hurricane, a tornado, an earthquake, a thunderstorm, a blizzard, and a volcano erupting all going on at the same time. Concentrated over one small valley that served as home to those who knew how to use the Force, this was caused by one person . . . Leia.
She had to stop, she was sucking in so much power her capacity for destruction was as unlimited as Alecto's body count (from the days she had been an assassin) was enumerable. Leia had jumped atop Ravan's advanced TIE fighter, which was slowly losing any parts that Leia could rip off and throw. Mara dodged a wing; Ravan the pilot's seat, Vader stopped the dashboard with the Force.
Leia hurled more parts, a solar panel, the yoke, and the entire fuel tank. She reduced the ship to the skeleton of its cockpit bubble, on which she stood. Vader took cover behind the turbo lift, Ravan and Mara under the platform that held Leia. Kallisto and Alecto still barely alive were miraculously shielded, Leia had tossed the entire left wing at Mara but it had missed and formed a barrier over Alecto and her former boss. Both critically wounded and Mara wanted neither to die. For one thing she did particularly like Alecto, and as for Kallisto she would rather kill her herself once she was rested and well enough to take it. That is if Leia didn't kill everyone first.
The catwalks began to unscrew themselves, the situation table snapped in two, the pillars broke off and began to swing like bats. Every object in the room that wasn't bolted to the floor (except for the wing shielding Alecto and Kallisto since it had wedged itself into the turbo lift shaft by ripping a gash in it) floated up the ceiling. Leia moved them so when the objects fell they would hit every inch of the throne room except the place she was standing. She dropped them and they hit the ground with an earsplitting bang, made up of metallic clinks and stone thuds.
Vader reached above him to stop a pillar from crushing him, he tossed it to the side with the Force. Mara and Ravan leaped out from under the platform, which collapsed and stopped a load of mechanical parts and half the situation table from falling on them. At that, Mara had an idea. She hurled the half of the table at Leia and discretely let a block of duracrete that had broken off from a pillar fall into her hand. Leia, as she had anticipated, stopped the table and crushed it, Mara threw the block hard and it glanced off Leia's left temple.
She lost her concentration and everything stopped shaking. Mara, Ravan, and Vader leapt up at her, Vader with his saber blazing, Mara with Kallisto's discarded shiny vibro blade and Ravan with one of Alecto's secret long vibro knifes. Vader was the first one Leia stopped but she could do no more. She hit him with a wave of Force and he flew into the wing that covered Alecto and Kallisto, slipping down it and bonking his head on the ground. He was rendered unconscious, again.
By this time, Mara and Ravan were furiously striking, hacking and slashing at Leia who had activated her own blood red blade and was parrying the blows. Luckily, vibro weapons could stand up to lightsabers.
Mara spun and slashed at Leia's feet, she jumped and Ravan stabbed her in the thigh. She screamed in pain and involuntarily let a wave of Force go knocking Mara and Ravan back, Mara tumbled off the last circular chunk of the platform and fell into the rubble, landing on a load of junk and narrowly missing a sharp twisted hunk of metal. Ravan did a kind of backwards summersault off the platform and grabbed on at the last second with one hand.
Leia's features were returning to normal but her eyes remained crimson and deadly, as did her intentions for him, at least the deadly part. Healing the wound in her thigh partially with the Force she summoned her scarlet blade, which she had dropped, and began making her way to the ledge. Ravan wanted a sword fight. Hell yeah! Bring it on!
When she reached the ledge and looked down, she was surprised to see Ravan not hanging there. Then she sensed him and turned around.
"Looking for me sis?" He asked. Before she could retort with a swipe at is head he balled up his fist and threw it into her face. She fell off the ledge, flipped once in the air and landed next to Mara, wiping a bloody nose she stood up. She began to tap into the Force again and summon her awesome and terrible power. Ravan would not give her the chance; he didn't think he could stop her again. Mara throwing the block of duracrete and actually hitting Leia was a miracle, not luck. In his experience there was no such thing as luck.
Ravan jumped at Leia and tackled her onto the pile of rubble; he held his vibro knife to her neck, ready to slit it at any possible moment. It sang in his hands, the vibrations traveled up his wrist to his muscle, edging him to push down and slice. Not yet.
"Why not end it now?" Leia hissed. "Kill me."
"No, I want to make sure you're looking into my eyes. You were never my sister, just some desperate woman who lost her father and wanted to kill me and my dad."
"Let's all cry now, that was so touching." Leia cried with sarcasm. "Kill me and end it before you open yourself to attack, emotionally and physically."
"Emotionally?"
"I can sense your… primitive feelings for Mara. I'll cut your limbs off and make you watch me kill her. Then I'll leave you to bleed and I'll restore the Republic!"
"That's what this is all about?"
"Of course! You think I would join you simply to just learn from you and then stab you and Vader in the back. No! That only gets rid of two monsters. It doesn't erase the government their former master created! A government so cruel and evil—"
"The Empire is noble and fair!"
"Listen to yourself! You moron, that is exactly what the Empire is not. Take the Death Star for instance; they would use it to destroy an entire planet that had a minority that would not pay taxes!" Leia cried. "Tell me, is that noble and fair."
"It's harsh, but fair. The Empire cannot tolerate disobedience."
"Why the hell am I even having this conversation with the man that has a blade to my neck? I'm striking up a political debate with my murderer of a brother, not to mention someone to naïve to see the facts. The Empire is a monster the Republic is a cure. Through it we can live in peace."
"I've heard enough." Ravan said raising the blade.
"And I've had enough." Leia replied. Ravan brought the blade down to strike but he flew off Leia instead and back onto the platform. Curse political debates! Leia leaped up and delivered a hard roundhouse kick to his face, a chunk of metal fell off her leg, revealing black and dead skin. Ravan stabbed the tip of his knife into it before Leia kicked it out of his hand. She raised her blade and flipped it twice. Then she brought it down at Ravan's chest. He closed his eyes and waited for it to sink in and his world to turn dark. However it never happened. Kallisto's smart disc zoomed through the air and hit the lightsaber out of Leia's hand. It didn't return to the person who had thrown it however, it fell to the ground. Leia looked down to see Mara jumping up, vibro blade outstretched in her hand.
Leia tapped into the Force and grabbed anything she could; the trap door that led down into a shaft that eventually turned into the training maze flew at Mara. She cut it in two with the vibro blade and landed in front of Leia. She plunged the humming sword into her stomach and twisted. Leia gulped, blood ran down from the edges of her mouth. Mara preformed a front snap kick that hit Leia's lower gut, she fell backwards and the sword slid out of her. She fell into the shaft and into darkness. She would die now, there was no power to kick on the anti gravity generator. Mara listened and heard a dull smack. It was over; the ultimate power in the Force was gone from the universe, Mara almost felt sorry about it for a moment. If things had been different perhaps, Leia could have revealed some secret to her great power. Alas, Mara did not dwell on what ifs. She learned at a very young age not to, what if she taken away from a mother and a father she barely knew or remembered. What if Palpatine hadn't forced her into this life of death and darkness, what if….
But that was too painful to dwell on. In most ways, the Emperor was a homicidal maniac whose teachings meant nothing, but in some ways, they did. "Dwell only on the present, the past is a distraction; use it only for memories of anger to channel your power through. Dealing in what ifs will get you killed," He once said, and it wasn't meaningless.
She would deal with the present now. From the ground, Ravan held up his hand, she took it to help him up as he rubbed a sore back.
"Damn that hurt." He said. "I guess I don't owe you now though. You just saved my life."
"You didn't owe me anything before farm boy." Mara replied.
"Do not flirt with my son around me." Vader yelled, standing up. "We're still at war. Mara you will call the attackers off immediately."
"I'm not sure the admiral will listen." Mara replied. "She was a real loyalist to the Emperor."
"She?" Vader asked. He knew very well that the Emperor would never promote a woman admiral. He was very prejudice about that and about aliens as well. The only exception that Vader knew of was that of Mara Jade as his hand (Kallisto too but he wasn't around to hear about it so technically he had not heard about it) and that was it, unless the Emperor had promoted an alien an admiral or something, but he doubted that.
"Yes her name is Admiral Daala."
"I've never heard of her." Vader said. "Perhaps she was made an admiral without the Emperor's knowledge; I know she is not listed in the rankings."
"It was Grand Moff Tarkin." Mara said. "He promoted her, I did some digging. I had a lot of free time waiting for an army to arrive."
"Fascinating," Vader replied sarcastically. "Call her off; make it clear she'll have a place in my navy as an admiral. She must have been damn good to coordinate this."
"Her and a man named Pellaeon." Mara put in.
"Pellaeon… Pellaeon. He was part of one of my fleets at one time. Interesting, it is of no consequence. Convince Daala or kill her. Whatever way you do it I don't care. Stop the attack and claim all of the ships for me."
"What's in it for me?"
"Life, a place in the Empire, further training in the ways of the Force, you can even become my hand if you wish. And the other super star destroyer is yours as well as Ravan's."
"Deal."
XxX
Thankfully, after an hour of persuasion Daala agreed to join with Vader. The Empire's civil war that lasted only a day was over. Vader threw a celebration on Coruscant and publicly executed select captains of ships in Daala's fleet who refused to join him, he promoted Daala as Admiral of the Knight Hammer, serving under Mara, Ravan decided he would rather use the Executor as his capitol ship and have Piett serving under him, which seemed to put Piett's spirits down some. He of course thought Ravan could be quite dim at times.
Kallisto and Alecto were currently being treated in the palace's secure infirmary. Alecto would be allowed to serve with Mara and Kallisto would be charged as an enemy of the Empire and would possibly be executed or spend life in a Coruscanti prison. She would occupy a dark cell with zero human contact, a slow way to die.
It ended, the next day and life returned to normal. Reconstruction on the palace began as well. Mara found herself walking down the hall behind the throne room that she had once known so well. She went past her old quarters, Ravan walking with her. The two had been getting along well since… yesterday. With the minor exception of small and usually sarcastic verbal fights, Vader disapproved of all of it of course. He would just as soon Force choke Mara then let her socialize with his son. Especially since, he could sense Ravan's developing feelings for her.
Mara snapped back into reality as an Imperial doctor came up behind her. He was a particularly boring man with gray hair.
"Yes, what is it?" Mara asked.
"Kallisto is demanding to see you."
"Fine. Tell her I'll be there." Mara said crisply, not knowing exactly why she agreed to see that woman.
XxX
Mara walked into the infirmary of the palace with a frustrated air about her. She walked past Alecto's bed (she was in a medically induced coma since Kallisto's smart disc had punctured a lung) and to Kallisto's. The red head look up at her and smiled.
"I hoped you would come." She said.
"What do you want?" Mara spat.
"Have you ever wondered about your parents?"
"Excuse me. Did you just say my parents?"
"Do you have metal in your ears? Of course I said your parents!" Kallisto snapped.
"Do I wonder about them, you mean like what happened to them after I was taken? No, I don't dwell on what ifs. Besides they are dead."
"You couldn't be more wrong."
"What do you mean?"
"When you were taken… from your parents, your mother… she never wanted to let you go." Kallisto said her voice suddenly sad, and light. "And so the Emperor made her a deal, that by joining him and learning the ways of the Force she could watch over her daughter. She did and turned to the dark side like you, like… her daughter. But for whatever its worth know that she never stopped loving you—"
"Kallisto what are you saying!"
"My name is not Kallisto; it's an alias, an identity I fashioned for myself when I joined the Emperor. My name is Helena, but you must call me Kallisto."
"Helena…"
"Helena Jade."
"What did you say?" Mara asked, as though she had heard wrong.
"My name is Helena Jade, Mara. I am your mother."
"No." Mara said. "No, my mother is dead!"
"She is alive. I am her."
"You tried to kill me, my mother would—"
"I never wanted to; I told you the Emperor used me as a vessel! It had an effect on me, I was totally bound to his orders and I had to try to kill you. Ravan freed me when he threw the knife into me; it drove out the Emperor's soul. He was in me all along ever since Vader died. The woman you have known since Cato Neimoidia is partially me and partially Emperor Palpatine. I know it sounds strange—"
"You're insane! You are not my mother, even if the Emperor was controlling you all of that time…"
"Search your feelings Mara, it makes perfect sense. With the Emperor's control over me, there was nothing I could do. When the time came for his plan… my plan… our plan to carry out it was painful because my love for you has stayed with me. All those years I watched you grow up under the Emperor's tutelage I wanted to kill him. I wanted to gut him like a pig, but if I ever tried, I knew he would kill you and I couldn't let that happen. When he died I fled, I didn't know what to do. I established the smugglers camp on Cato Neimoidia for I knew smuggling. Then the Emperor's voice came to me and drove me mad, he told me that I must willingly let him use my body as a vessel and finally I gave in. My conscious blocked with his. However, I was still there. That's where the effect of me came in, that's why… that's why I was like… you know… like that. Half of that was me, the other the Emperor."
"Which… which parts were… you?"
"The sassiness, I've always been like that but I have never been cruel or bitter, or a cigarra smoker. That was the Emperor, and the little moments when you say perhaps… evil was him as well. The subtleties you saw were me. The rest was the Emperor."
"But… how come… how could it be you and him?"
"He had other matters to attend to, his subconscious controlled me, and it is so hard to explain my daughter."
"You can't be my mother."
"I am Mara… I am your mother. I will be tried as a traitor to the Empire and killed. I know you think it's all a lie, that I am not actually your mother but the twisted lunatic you saw as Kallisto. Kallisto is who I am now, but long ago I was Helena Jade and that part is still alive in me today Mara. I am your mother."
Thus Unknown Son 2 is concluded. Thanks again Darth Gladiator45 for beta reading. Keep me on your author alert list. The next fic I post will not be Unknown Son 3, I am going to do an Alias fan fiction which I am currently plotting. Unknown Son 3 will be after that. Keep watch though, there might be a one shot Unknown Son fic. Not sure. I'm open to suggestions for the third (yes I am going to have a minor to major Mara/Ravan relationship and some dark revelations about Mara and Kallisto or something as well as the true character of Kallisto coming out. What you read as stated was half Sidious half Kallisto. I have ideas about the real Kallisto, she'll be subtle, less sarcastic and stuff. Anyways that you for all the wonderful reviews. This is my longest story by the way 51000 something words.