CHAPTER 5

"Did you see Jade today?"

"No, is she here?"

"Right over there—sitting by herself in the corner. Looking fine as usual."

"Oh…yeah. Mmm, she looks hot in that flight suit."

"You haven't seen her in her officer's uniform. Her skirt is nice and short…I'd kill to get my hands on her…"

"Hands? That's not what I want to get on her."

Unable to take anymore, Mara pushed back from the table in disgust. The group of officers thought they'd be safe talking about her from halfway across the room, but they didn't realize that she was able to augment her hearing through the Force. Not that they would care if she heard them, anyway. She grabbed her tray and headed for the waste receptacle, taking a path that led directly behind the group she'd been eavesdropping on. As she walked past them she moved closer and wiggled her hips, enticing them to reach out and grab her…

One of them was stupid enough to try. As he leaned towards her, Mara used the Force to lift up the corner of his chair ever so slightly. Caught unawares, the sorry excuse for an Imperial lost his balance and fell flat on his face.

Mara feigned surprise, then turned around and backpedaled a few steps. "You should be more careful," she said sweetly, raising her voice over the roaring laughter.

She left the mess and leaned against the wall, breathing slowly and trying to force the anger inside her to dissipate before heading off to her TIE. She had been onboard the Accuser for three months, and it seemed that every day she learned something new about the Empire.

Things she had never wanted to learn.

The sexist comments had begun an soon as she stepped foot on the Destroyer. She'd expected them, as women were still very rare in the Imperial military, but she also expected them to die down once she proved herself as a pilot. After all, the Empire that she knew had no problem recognizing women who excelled at their jobs. Iceheart was proof of that, as was her own title of Emperor's Hand.

It appeared that the men on this ship never received that memo.

It took a month before she realized that the comments were never going to stop. This was what being a woman in the Empire was like. She vowed to bring this to the Emperor's attention as soon as she finished her mission and returned to the Palace. He would be most unhappy that some of the Empire's best assets were being treated so poorly.

It took two months for her to realize that the Empire she knew so well was nothing like the Empire that existed in the rest of the galaxy. As the Emperor's Hand, she commanded respect and resources just by quoting a simple recognition code. The rest of the Empire was not nearly as efficient. Perhaps things were different on Vader's flagship, but on a standard fleet Destroyer such as the Accuser, bureaucracy reigned supreme. It was frustrating and needed to be changed. The Emperor would definitely learn of the military's inefficiencies once Mara returned to Imperial Center.

It took three months for Mara to wonder if she really, truly belonged in this Empire, a thought that staggered her to the core. The reason for her questioning came from a source she would have never expected: Tycho Celchu.

It appeared that she had made the worst possible choice when deciding who to befriend and later betray. Tycho was loyal, honorable, an extremely competent pilot, well liked among his peers, and well respected by his superiors. He was the ideal Imperial officer, exactly the kind of man that the Empire needed.

And he was going to join the Rebels.

What did that say about the Empire, that someone like Tycho had lost faith? If someone like him could want to defect…couldn't anyone?

His viewpoint wasn't difficult for Mara to understand, and that was what disturbed her the most. The Empire's attitude towards women was disgusting. The abuses she'd been forced to participate in were overwhelming. She'd attacked the remains of Rebel bases and killed innocent civilians who happened to live nearby. She'd executed Rebel sympathizers who could have easily been brought into custody. As the Emperor's Hand, she killed out of necessity. As an Imperial officer, she killed to incite fear.

And of course, there was Alderaan, the topic of conversation that would never truly go away.

And yet she was still prepared to go through with her mission. She was in regular contact with the Emperor to inform him of her progress. She had gained Tycho's trust and had been invited to defect to the Alliance with him and several of his friends. She'd participated in their secret meetings and knew that as soon as she knew their definitive plans, she'd turn right around and give them to the Emperor.

Tycho had become a genuine friend, and she was going to betray him. He was a traitor, and that's what she did—she took care of traitors. She didn't know how she'd be able to look him in the eye after he'd been brought into custody. She hoped that she could disappear before that happened.

This was exactly what her instructors had warned her against—getting close to a mark. Getting personally involved. She was a servant of the Emperor, trained to carry out his will without question. She needed to remind herself of that fact. She needed to finish her mission as planned and go back to the life she knew.

But on the beginning of her fourth month infiltrating the Imperial fleet, the Emperor's Hand began to wonder if the life she thought she knew had ever been real at all.

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"Are you sure you want to go through with this?"

"Tycho, you've asked me that question every week for the past month. It's beginning to get really annoying."

"And I'm going to keep asking until it's over, just to make sure."

Mara rolled her eyes. Her plan to establish herself in a little sister role had been an overwhelming success. Tycho had grown extremely protective of her since she told him she wanted to defect with his group. He constantly asked her how she was holding up. She'd even heard that he'd gotten into several altercations on Mara's behalf. Apparently he also didn't appreciate the way other officers spoke about her.

He's a defector, Mara repeated to herself. He's a traitor. You take care of traitors. That's what you do. You're the Emperor's Hand.

He's a traitor.

She took a deep breath. But he's my friend.

She knew that she should leave, and get away from all this while she still had her head on straight. But then what would she tell her master? She had vowed to never fail him. And despite everything that had happened in the past several months and everything that she had learned, she clung desperately to that vow. It was the only thing that could keep her grounded. She might be disillusioned with the Empire, but she still had faith in her master. She couldn't fail him, no matter what.

"Mara?"

She turned and met Tycho's blue eyes, searching her own. "Yes. I'm sure. I'm sure I want to do this."

She was no longer disturbed by how easily the lies came.

Tycho nodded. "Don't worry; it won't be too long now." He wouldn't say more while they were still in the Accuser's public areas. They walked in silence until they got to the restricted area—Mara still hadn't figured out how Tycho had gotten access—and entered an empty mechanical room. It was the perfect place for a meeting with defectors. Mara had snuck inside on her own one night to sweep for listening devices that the others might not have caught, but had found nothing. She had briefly considered planting her own bug, but didn't want to risk someone uncovering it and then scratching their defection plan. Besides, she didn't need listening devices to remember what went on in these meetings. She would never be able to forget.

The door closed behind them and Mara tried to make herself comfortable on the hard floor. Across from her and Tycho sat the other two defectors, Zurel Darillian and Rade Ticarus, also TIE fighter pilots. Darillian, similar to the Mara in her cover story, had recently graduated from the academy and had many close friends from Alderaan. Like Tycho, Ticarus had been stationed on the Accuserfor several years and had been born on Alderaan. Ticarus was fortunate, however; his family had been off planet when Tarkin had decided to turn the Death Star against Alderaan.

Mara had never gotten Tycho's entire story out of him. All he would say was that his family had died on Alderaan, but she knew there was more to it. There had to be, to make such a loyal Imperial want to defect from the Empire.

"Next week," Tycho began without preamble. Mara and the others leaned forward in anticipation. "We make orbit at Commenor. All pilots will be granted twenty-four hours leave." He met each of their gazes in turn. "I can get us off Commenor before the leave is over."

"Where will we go from there?" Darillian asked. He was young and he was nervous, but he was certain that he was doing the right thing. Mara was almost jealous of him, for she had once held that same strength of conviction.

"Dantooine. I've been in contact with an old academy friend, who's now with the Rebellion. He's assured me that there will be an official Alliance group to meet us, just in case there's any trouble."

"Why should there be trouble?" Ticarus asked sharply. "You don't trust us?"

"We're defecting, Rade. I'm not going to take any chances. And if I didn't trust you, you wouldn't be in this room right now."

Mara studied her hands as if they were the most interesting things in the universe.

"This is the last chance we'll have to meet before we arrive at Commenor. If you have any doubts, now is the time." Tycho paused, but nobody spoke.

Mara continued to stare at her hands.

"Good. We'll meet outside the capital's main spaceport on Commenor. Good luck…and may the Force be with us."

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Luke sat in General Cracken's small office, which felt even smaller now that it was crowded with three additional chairs. Next to Luke sat Wedge, Hobbie, and Commander Narra. Cracken hadn't informed him what this meeting was all about, but judging by the look on his face, it was something very serious.

"Thank you for coming, gentleman," the Intelligence director started. "I'm sure you're all wondering why I called you here. Well, everyone except for Lieutenant Klivian, that is."

Luke turned to Hobbie, curious. "What's going on?"

Cracken nodded at Hobbie, indicating for him to speak. "I've been in contact with an old friend from the academy. It appears that he's changed his mind about defecting to the Alliance."

Luke and Wedge turned to each other, murmuring under their breath. For the past several months, recruiting defectors had become one of Alliance Command's favored strategies to undermine the Empire. It had been surprisingly easy; after Alderaan, there had been a good number of Imperials who decided that they could no longer live with the Empire's more horrific practices. It was still a relatively small percentage of the overall Imperial military force, but the ones who did defect brought with them expertise and intelligence that had proven to be priceless to the Alliance.

Rogue Squadron had been sent on several rendezvous missions with defectors, almost always accompanying Leia. To everyone's amusement, the Princess had taken to recruiting defectors as if it were the newest fad in galactic sports. For some reason, she was certain that she could convince even the most loyal Imperial to join the Alliance, if given enough time. Luke had to give her credit; she'd probably try to convert Darth Vader to their cause if she didn't despise him so much after Alderaan.

Glancing at his chrono, he briefly wondered why Leia wasn't participating in this meeting. Then he remembered that Han was due back from a supply run, and Leia had probably gone to meet him and help unload. Luke was still very close with Leia, and knew they'd always have a strong connection, no matter what happened. He could read her better than anyone through the Force. But in the recent weeks he had finally accepted that Leia was never going to see him as anything other than a friend. Maybe it was because she liked Han, maybe it was because she didn't want any distractions, or maybe it was because she thought of Luke like a brother—it didn't really matter. All that mattered was that he and Leia would always just be friends.

And to his surprise, he was absolutely fine with that revelation. After all, he had plenty of other things to be concerned about. A serious relationship would be a distraction.

Of course Wedge, being the exemplary executive officer that he was, immediately picked up on the shift in Luke's mood and decided to make it his life's work to get Luke a woman. Wedge didn't seem to care that he had no desire to "hook up" with any random girl and turned a bright shade of pink whenever the other Rogues discussed their seemingly endless sexual conquests. (Although Luke did believe that they were embellishing their stories just a tad.) He had punished his XO with an endless amount of kitchen duty…and by dragging him to this meeting, along with many others.

General Cracken's next words pulled Luke from his thoughts. "Intelligence has determined that Lieutenant Klivian's contact is genuine. Therefore, a team will be heading out to pick them up from Dantooine shortly."

"Sorry for not telling you before, boss, but I was under orders to keep quiet," Hobbie said, looking worried.

"Don't worry about it, Hobbs."

"Both the Rogues and Renegades are available for this mission. General Bryl has authorized one of your groups to accompany the pick-up team."

"We'll go," Luke volunteered automatically.

"Geez, Skywalker, you never even give the Renegades a chance!" Commander Narra teased.

Beside him, Wedge suppressed a laugh. Luke volunteered the Rogues for any mission presented to him, and he had earned a reputation among Starfighter Command as the eager farm boy willing to do any job for the Alliance. Thankfully, the rest of Rogue Flight shared the same spirit. We're Rogues; we can do anything!had become their rallying cry.

"Sorry Narra, but like I always tell you, the Rogues are faster than the Renegades."

Cracken raised a hand and smiled. "Alright, before it gets nasty in here, let's finish our preparations. Now Lieutenant Klivian, your contact will send a transmission after they take their leave, correct?"

"Yes, sir," Hobbie confirmed.

"Good. Once we establish contact, Intelligence will transmit them the rendezvous coordinates on Dantooine. You'll be heading out on escort duty in the next few days."

"Who will be the pick up team for this mission, general?" Luke asked.

"Princess Leia and Solo on the Millennium Falcon."

"Good." Luke preferred flying with Leia and Han more than anyone in the Alliance, even if they did tend to bicker senselessly. Thankfully, Luke would be far away from them during the journey, safe and sound in his X-wing.

"They'll be a group of four defectors. They're all TIE fighter pilots, so who knows, maybe you two can fight over them when they get here," Cracken said, nodding to Luke and Narra.

The two commanders shared a glance. "That should be fun," Narra grinned.

Luke grinned back. "I look forward to it."

"I've got nothing else, unless Lieutenant Klivian can think of anything?" Hobbie shook his head. "Then you're dismissed. Commander Skywalker, I'm transmitting all our information to your datapad."

"Thank you, general." The four pilots saluted and filed out of Cracken's office. Luke turned to Wedge as soon as they left. "Alright, my trusty XO, I'll let you inform the others that we have a pre-mission briefing tomorrow at 0900."

Wedge groaned. "Can't you make it a little bit later? Like, say, 1300?"

"Sure, I can do that. I can also make you wake up at 0600 and help with breakfast duty."

"On second thought, the 0900 briefing sounds fine. See you later, Luke." Wedge took off down the hallway with Hobbie, leaving Luke alone with Narra.

"Skywalker, I wanted to talk to you about Cracken's suggestion," Narra said.

"What? About fighting over the TIE pilots? I thought that was a joke."

"You know, I can never tell if you're serious or not when you say stuff like that. But yes, of course it was a joke. The Renegades have already expanded to a full squadron. Have you considered filling out your roster?"

Luke shrugged. "I hadn't really given it much thought, to be honest. We haven't gotten many new pilots."

"Well if these new ones check out, I can find you two additional bodies pretty easily. I know a lot of pilots who would give their right arm to be a member of Rogue Squadron."

"That's very nice to hear, but we already have Hobbie. We don't need another pilot prone to losing limbs."

Narra laughed. "Just give it some thought. Take a look through the records Cracken transmitted and see if you think they'd make a good fit."

"I will."

Luke said good-bye to his fellow squadron commander and walked back to his quarters, lost in thought. Once inside he pulled up Cracken's information and began to flip through it, idly considering Narra's words. Over the past six months, Rogue Flight had grown into a cohesive, competent group of pilots. Could they really take on six new members and become a full squadron? Was he up to the challenge? He had finally gotten used to leading six pilots…was he ready to take on the extra responsibility?

Once again he wondered what everyone saw in him, and why he didn't have the same confidence in his abilities as they did. There were times when he was extremely sure of himself—when he was flying, when he was practicing with his lightsaber and fell into one of his rare meditative states, when he was in the middle of a mission. Once in action, it was like a switch was flipped, and Luke knew exactly what to do.

But afterwards, he always questioned whether or not he could have done something better. Even when he knew he'd acted to the best of his ability, he still questioned himself. He wondered what it would take for him to be as confident as Leia. She was always in control. He was just very good at faking it.

Placing his datapad on his bunk, Luke took a deep breath. He stood up and unhooked the lightsaber from his belt. After a moment he thumbed on the switch and the blade hissed to life, sending a shiver down his spine. His weapon had once belonged to his father. Anakin Skywalker had wielded it in battle, and it had served him well. Luke closed his eyes and tried to imagine his father standing next to him, guiding him through exercises, teaching him about the Force just as Ben Kenobi had. How different would his life be if his father were still alive? Would he have more confidence? Would he feel more secure in his abilities as a pilot and as a Jedi?

Stepping out, he went through a few strikes and parries before closing down his weapon. It was pointless to think of such things. His father was dead, murdered by agents of the Empire…just like his aunt and uncle had been. Just like Leia's family. He had no control over the past. He could only concentrate on the future.

He plopped back down on his bunk and began to pour through Cracken's information. The four pilots had very good flying records and he made plans to put them through the sims as soon as possible. The leader of the group, Tycho Celchu, had attended the academy with Hobbie and Luke's late best friend, Biggs Darklighter. According to Hobbie, Tycho was a superior pilot. Luke didn't know anything about the other three pilots—Darrillian, Ticarus, and Jade—but their records showed them to be exemplary pilots as well. Squinting, Luke took a closer look at Jade's record. Mara Jade…well that certainly was interesting. A female TIE fighter pilot? Luke hadn't been sure that such a thing even existed. Not that the Rebellion was any better. There was certainly a lack of female fighter pilots, a fact that troubled Luke deeply—but not for the reasons it troubled Janson. Perhaps that was about to change. Luke was more than willing to give Jade a chance to become the first female Rogue. He smiled to himself, imagining the competition that would rage among the other pilots for her affections.

That would be quite the show, indeed.