CHAPTER 5

Mara closed her eyes and concentrated. She visualized herself back in the Shadow, sitting in her cabin in front of the Sith Holocron. As she moved out of the flow she could feel the physical sensation coming back to her arms and legs. Mara smiled. No matter where she was she was back to the land of the living. She slowly opened her eyes and then jumped back in surprise. There standing over her was Emperor Palpatine.

It only took a few seconds for her to realize she was looking at a holoprojection.

"Sith!" she swore.

"Yes, I am," the holoprojection replied.

"What?" Mara asked.

The projection gave her a strange look. "You wish to know about the Sith. Let me tell you about the power of the darkside."

"Stop," Mara said while holding up her hand. "If the darkside was so great I would think it would have a better dental plan."

"What?" Palpatine's projection muttered as he brought his hand up to his decaying teeth in a self-conscious manner.

"Never mind, I want to know something different," Mara said. "What do you know about an entity named Abeloth?"

Palpatine sneered. "Abeloth is the name of one of my Hands. She was strong in the Force and grew stronger every day. She desired to be more than a Hand, but a true Sith. She deluded herself in thinking she could overthrow me and rule the galaxy…she was wrong. I discovered her plan and made arrangements for her elimination."

Mara was taken aback by the knowledge that Abeloth was another of the Emperor's Hands.

"How did you kill her?"

"My child, it would be a great waste of talent to simply kill her," Palpatine gave her a vile smile that made Mara shudder in revulsion. "I discovered another use for her that removed any chance of her usurping my power. I used Ssi-ruuk entechment technology to trap her Force essence in one of my greatest creations: The Eye of Palpatine!" The Emperor shouted the name of the station forcefully as he balled his fists up over his head for dramatic effect.

Mara rolled her eyes over his theatrics.

"There she would spend an eternity within the operating systems of the battle station forced to do my bidding." The emperor glared down at Mara. "When she was hooked up to the entechment rig she experienced exquisite pain as her life-force was dragged from her body. I was told that agony would remain as long as she stayed in the Eye of Palpatine. But the pain was the least of her worries. There is no greater horror than for a consciousness to be trapped in a device. It is worse than any solitary confinement. After a decade I'm afraid she became quite mad." The Emperor cackled with pleasure.

Mara felt like the wind was knocked out of her. If Abeloth was trapped in the Eye of Palpatine then how did she get off before it was destroyed? Unless, it wasn't Callista the Force spirit of an Old Republic Jedi that occupied Cray's body, but Abeloth instead. Perhaps Callista the Jedi never existed…or if she did exist her persona was being used by Abeloth to convince Luke to help her. Mara now wondered if Cray actually volunteered her body.

Now everything made sense. Callista could only touch the darkside of the Force because she wasn't Callista, Jedi Knight, but Abeloth an insane darksider. She didn't want Luke to sense her deception so she made herself small in the Force, just like Ben learned from Jacen. That was the reason she appeared as void in the Force-it was the only way she could deceive a Jedi Master. In the few times that her disguise had faltered she made up an excuse that she could only touch the Darkside. She probably stayed with Luke just long enough to learn his secrets and then she took off so she could work on her plan for galactic domination.

'What is it with Luke kriffing the Emperor's Hands?' Mara wondered. 'This makes three that I know of.'

Mara shuddered at the thought of Luke sleeping night after night with an insane darkforce 'thing'.

'Well it's not going to happen if I have anything to do about it!' she thought with conviction.

Mara scowled at Palpatine. "I need more information," she demanded.

"What knowledge do you seek," the hologram asked.

"I need override and self destruct codes!"

Mara turned off the Sith holocron and put it back in its hiding place on the Shadow. She was getting better at arriving at the proper time and location it seemed. When she ended up at the funeral she probably overshot getting back to the Shadow probably by a week or two. Her last flow was right on the mark. To get to the proper place in the past she needed to remember where she was at a particular date. She went to her small cabin desk and picked up her datapad and did a quick history search.

"Where was I in 11 ABY?" she muttered to herself. Then she remembered. How could she forget? Luke was almost killed by Exar Kun and Corran stole her Headhunter. Not the best of years, but it is better to be early than late. Mara tossed the datapad into her desk drawer and went back to her bunk. She laid down and tried to relax. She concentrated on when and where she wanted to flow. She was thinking of Corran as her Force essence slipped into the time stream.

"I know, but at least I have a place to start," said a familiar male voice as Mara came out of the flow.

"What?" she said somewhat disorientated.

Corran Horn gave her a concerned look. "Are you okay Mara? Calrissian hasn't slipped any narco-spice in your drinks has he?" He gave her a wink that let her know he was joking.

"No," she paused collecting her thoughts. She looked down at her clothing and blanched. She was wearing Lando's clothing!

'What the…' she thought with a start, but then the memories came rushing back to her.

Lando flew her to the Errant Venture so she could find Corran and ship he 'borrowed' from her. What a mess he made of her Headhunter. The only reason she wasn't mad was he mangled it saving Luke's butt and that was one cute backside worth the price of a Z-95 Headhunter…hell it was worth the price of the Fire.

Calrissian offered to buy Mara a change of clothing while on the Venture, but only purchased her revealing outfits he wanted to see her in. In retaliation she raided his closet. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but that probably is what fueled Luke's jealous suspicions about her and the gambler.

"Mara!" Corran said loudly startling her out of her musings. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah," Mara said. "Listen Corran, I know you will find Mirax." She hesitated for a moment, "I need to ditch Calrissian for a short while and go run some errands, do you think Booster will lend me a shuttle since his son-in-law tore up my ship?"

Horn furrowed his brow, "Sure, what's up? Is it a new mission? Something I should know about?"

"No, its personal," Mara said in a way that closed the subject.

Corran shrugged. "When do you want to leave?"

"As soon as possible. I just need to buy a few things and make a couple calls and I can be on my way."

"I'll talk to Booster now," Corran promised. "You should be out of here within the next hour or so.

Mara waited until Lando was out gambling before she took off in an old GPE-7300 space transport provided by Booster Terrik. It was a model popular with smugglers and pirates. She suspected Booster acquired the vessel from an unfortunate gambler who didn't know when to fold his sabbac cards.

Mara punched in the jump coordinates and activated the hyperdrive. The stars streaked across the cockpit window as she dropped into hyperspace.

"Next stop Pzob," she said to herself. She hoped she could pull this off.

"There it is," Mara said to herself when she dropped out of hyperspace near the planet Pzob. The blue-green planet hung low in the cockpit window. Around the planet were various asteroids floating in a loose orbit around the planet.

Mara looked over her instrument controls until she found what she was looking for. She looked out the transparasteel window and maneuvered her shuttle closer to her intended destination—a large ashen colored asteroid. She double-checked her sensors to make sure she was in the right place. It looked like an asteroid but her instruments picked up large amounts of metal and electronics located within the round structure. She had found the Eye of Palpatine.

Quickly, before the battle station could fire upon her she punched in the memorized override codes given to her by the Sith Holocron's Palpatine. It took her a couple attempts but finally she received a response from the station.

• The Will recognizes authorization codes.

Mara typed in Menu.

A long list of authorized actions scrolled across her screen. She first stopped at Weapons Systems and put them off line. Next she clicked on the Evacuation Notification part of the menu. She went to Fleet Communications and typed in:

[Urgent and Priority One: All pilots report to shuttle bays and prep for ship evacuation. All ship crew report to any functional shuttlecraft and evacuate to the planet surface. Repeat: All personnel report to shuttle bays for evacuation. All pilots will serve as commanders of their vessels and personnel on board.]

Mara then pressed the evacuation alert button. She couldn't hear or see any activity on the dreadnaught, but she hoped this was working.

• The Will requests clarification concerning purpose for personnel evacuation.

Mara was going to ignore the message, but knowing The Will was actually Abeloth the person who took over Cray's body, slept with Luke, and later was Force caressing her man on the Jade Shadow made Mara furious.

[Purpose is to evacuation crew prior to destruction of battle station]

• The Will requests that the station remain operational to complete its mission.

Mara scoffed, "Yeah, I bet you do."

[Battle station mission has been terminated] Mara wrote back.

There was a pause.

• Are you a Jedi? I can sense the Force. I am a former Jedi trapped within the computer systems of this battle station. Please do not destroy the ship until I can find a way to exit the mainframe system.

Mara had a smug smile on her face. She figured a former Emperor's Hand would use lies and deception to save her life…that is what she would do if the situation were reversed.

Mara typed in:

[Who are you?]

• Callista.

Mara shuddered. It took will power not to push the destruct button then and there.

[You mean Abeloth, don't you? What happened to Callista?]

Mara was waiting for a denial, but it didn't come.

• I have direct orders from Emperor Palpatine to complete my mission, cease and desist your actions!

[First tell me what happened to Callista, Emperor's Hand! Tell me and I will spare the station for another mission] Mara typed.

There was another long pause.

[You say you can sense the Force. You know I am telling the truth] Mara typed trying to persuade The Will to tell her more—to confirm Mara's suspicions.

She thought it wasn't going to answer but then something started scrolling across the screen.

• Callista and her companion sabotaged some of the ship's programming. Both Jedi were eliminated. Callista attempted to meld with the computer system upon her death, but the results only lasted a few days before her consciousness died.

Even though Mara suspected this, seeing the truth scroll across the screen stole the air out of her lungs. Luke was never dating an old world Jedi, just a darksider who acquired Callista's memories after a failed meld with the computer systems.

A very strange feeling overcame Mara, a feeling she never thought she would ever possess. She actually felt bad for the real Callista and a little bit ashamed for thinking such disparaging thoughts about the woman. Callista, the old order Jedi, was a hero. She sacrificed herself in an attempt to end Palpatine's rule. She intended to meld with the computer system to render it harmless, but she failed and the end result was Abeloth stealing her memories and using them to trick Luke.

• Did Emperor Palpatine order you to take control of the Battle Station?

[Palpatine is dead] Mara typed as she plugged in a datachip into her communications system and started transmitting information over to the Eye of Palpatine.

• What are you doing? You said you would not destroy the Eye of Palpatine.

Mara smiled.

[I'm not going to destroy the battle station. I'm reformatting the computer systems. It will purge the sentience programming called The Will and update it with modern programming that will be controlled by me]

• You must stop. I must complete my…

The screen suddenly went blank.

"Bye-bye Abeloth." Mara said as the reformat transmission was complete. She hoped that the reprogramming ended the entechment of Abeloth. If not, it would be done when she destroyed the Eye. But she wasn't going to do that right away. She could use the battle station in the future.

The computer screen started to flicker as the new programing came on line. Mara got to work on programing a new destination for the battle station. Luckily the dreadnaught had hyperdrive capability. That would come in handy since she had to program in various jumps to get it to Helska IV. Not that there was any hurry it had at least a decade to get it there.

.

.

.

Mara returned the borrowed shuttle to the Errant Venture then went back to the quarters assigned to her. Fortunately she didn't see Lando or Corran on the way back her room. She didn't want to explain where she had been the last few days.

She settled down in her bunk and stared at the cabin ceiling deep in thought. She wasn't sure if what she was doing was right or not. She was sure that once she slips back into the Force-flow the Mara of this era is going to be wondering what in the blue blazes is going on. The Mara of yesteryear will remember going to the Eye of Palpatine and remember everything she did. She will remember sending the Eye to Helska IV, although she won't know why.

Mara blew out a deep breath in frustration. She had to keep things from deteriorating into a major carbon flush. She thought about it for a while, considering all her options. Eventually she rolled out of her bunk and went to retrieve her datapad out of her luggage. She went to the small desk in the cabin and set the device down, adjusting the built-in holocam to focus on her features. She pushed the record button.

"Hello, Mara," she said in a recording to herself. "First of all, you are not going crazy, and this is not a holofake. In order to prove this is being recorded by the real Mara Jade Sk…" she caught herself almost giving out her married name. "…Mara Jade the Former Emperor's Hand I will use the Imperial Authorization code given to me by the Emperor himself: Sabre Dawn 88 Ember Light 6331."

Mara looked to the ceiling in thought. What could she say that would make sense to the Mara Jade of 12 ABY about the new memories she would wake up to? She could lie, but Mara knew she was very good at ferreting out deception. The best bet was to tell the truth, but only put in the details needed at this time.

"You are probably wondering why you flew to Pzob…" Mara continued, hoping she didn't mess up her future too much.

After she made her recording she pushed the secure button so only the owner of the datapad could read the contents. She then found a flimsi and wrote herself a note telling her to access the message on the datapad…while alone.

She hoped this helped as she lay back down on the bunk and entered a meditative trance concentrating on a specific time and place. Soon she felt the familiar feeling of her slipping out of her body and into the flow of the Force.