VI

Luke met Leia in the indigo-colored hallways of the Senate, that huge mushroom-shaped building cushioned by floors and kilometers of other structures. He wearied of telling his swirling thoughts to her politician's face as she greeted passing dignitaries and endlessly reassured him with how financially stable he was and how he "could do anything you want."

As her route steered them toward the burgeoning Jedi academy, a calm annex, he could sense the candidates' potent minds and their hodgepodge thoughts' jitters/serenity/excitement. Luke stopped in his tracks, piqued by the silence.

Leia looked up at him, her sharp face holding the mix of ferocity and caring she had always been able to achieve.

"It's no good taking me here, Leia. I don't want to see them." Please.

"Maybe you'll feel better! See that they can succeed."

Words failed him until he softly admitted, "I already know they can go on without me."

She sighed, and forced her hand around one of his. "I'm sorry. I voted for you. None of them were there...on Endor, or Bespin, after."

Stoically he said, "Pain does not make a man powerful."

She shook her had. He could see in the cogs of her mind an unwillingness, and a fear, to use trained political persuasion-maneuvers on him. "Look, I didn't bring you here for torture. Mara Jade, if you remember her, is meeting us here. She needs to finalize arrangements with the smuggler's organization before joining the Jedi. These arrangements happen to go through Lando."

Luke vaguely remembered an intense woman who tried too hard not to hide her fit femininity. "Lando will be thrilled."

Leia nodded, smiled. He could see through the compelling relaxation, but followed her anyway a few more steps. In this the next hallway Luke caught a glimpse of a room where the Jedi students sat in a circle each with a little item sitting in front of them. He sensed their concentration, inhibition, closeness, a break in the circle...broken...

Mara Jade stomped out of the room, wearing a surly smile and a complex green bodysuit. Luke stepped aside for she and Leia to greet each other, unable to rise or fall out of his introspective state. Mara's former life as darkside assassin had been mostly covered over and soothed, but he did not want to deal with it now. Nor to stand just over the threshold of this door...he led the two women away, drawing his white cloak close.

Leia maneuvered them into a friendlier configuration like a mother hen as the siblings retraced their steps through the Senate hub. "Lando is stationed on a planet called Utapau." She said. "He plans on mining mineral deposits in a certain section of sinkholes. Just be careful this doesn't turn into another adventure..."

Luke said, "It's just a visit."

Leia touched his near hand again. "Well be careful."

Mara said, "The coordinates?"

"Have been downloaded into your snubfighters."

The Jedi trainee nodded.