CHAPTER 7
Helska IV appeared as a bright white orb in the distance. It was a frozen inhospitable world with no indigenous life. No indigenous life, but there was life on the planet now. Deep within the core of the planet the Praetorite Vong had placed their yammosk a creature used to coordinate battles. It would to be used in the first wave of their invasion of the galaxy. If Mara's memory was correct, Danni Quee and her contingent of scientists would not be arriving to the planet for another day or two. She knew as soon as she traveled closer to the planet the Praetorite Vong would immediately detect her presence. She just hoped the assassination of Nom Anor would not rouse them out of their hiding place and attack the Sabre.
She punched in the Eye of Palpatine authorization codes she meticulously memorized from the Sith holocron. Data streamed across her screen. The Eye of Palpatine did make it to the planet and had been lingering in orbit, systems inert for the last ten years—waiting for Mara to activate it. The battle station was on the opposite side of the planet, but she didn't need line-of-sight to communicate with the vessel. She typed in various commands powering up the Eye and firing jets to turn the dreadnaught so the main laser would be facing the planet. She hoped the Vong would be more concerned about the arrival of her ship than the movement of what appeared to be an asteroid caught up of the planet's orbit.
Mara programmed in two commands: One command to fire on the frozen planet below destroying the yommosk and the first wave of the invasionary fleet and the second command to initiate the self-destruct sequence of the Eye. Mara wasn't sure if the second set of instructions would work since Luke had once told her that Cray and her companion Nichos had to manually initiate the self destruct sequence due to damage on the station. Mara suspected Abeloth may have said that in order to separate Cray from Luke and allow her to take over the younger Jedi's body.
Mara for a moment wondered if she should turn the station over to the New Republic after destroying Helska IV, but she realized that would open up a whole line of questioning from NR intelligence and also from Luke. She was pretty sure what she was doing would be frowned on by the Jedi Master.
She finished up the preparations and then set a course out of the system where she would be safe from the shock wave.
Mara looked at her chrono as the time seemed to crawl by in an excruciating slow manner. Finally she saw a bright light in the distance followed by an intense explosion. The vacuum of space was silent, but she could feel the Sabre shudder as the shockwave caused by the destruction of the planet hit her ship. Five standard minutes later a second explosion lit up the darkness of space as the Eye of Palpatine detonated.
'I guess Callista a.k.a. Abeloth was lying about the extensive damage on the Eye of Palpatine,' Mara thought seeing that the self-destruct sequence appeared to work properly.
She reprogrammed the Sabre's navcomputer to its original destination of Yavin IV. She really didn't care if she missed the Ascension of the Sunesi. In fact it was probably best that she didn't return to Monor II any time soon…just in case the Monor Criminal Investigation Division was better than she suspected.
She put on the autopilot and then went to her cabin. She considered leaving another message for herself, but she figured the Mara of 24 ABY would figure out what was going on. She thought back and tried to separate the new memories created after her excursion to 12 ABY. The thoughts weren't perched at the forefront of her brain; she had to concentrate to remember. It appeared that her past self saw the holomessage and was at first suspicious of what happened, but eventually decided to believe the message and keep quiet about the Eye's presence in the Doldur system.
Mara dropped down into her bunk and concentrated on returning to the Jade Shadow at the time and place she first started flow-walking. Hopefully the horrific events the galaxy endured for the last two decades have been adverted. She was thinking about her family when she dropped into the flow.
Mara woke up in bed and stretched as her eyes adjusted to the light. The first thing she realized was she was not on the Shadow as she hoped to end up. The bed she was in was not the hard mattress found on most starships. She turned and saw an outline of a man lying on his side, the covers pulled up over his shoulders. Obviously she over or undershot her time frame and she was now in her apartment.
She smiled as she reached over and ran her fingers through her lover's hair; Her hand suddenly stilled. Mara frowned as she felt the texture of the hair. It wasn't the soft straight locks she associated with Luke, but tightly curled hair cropped short to the head.
"Lights!" she shouted urgently. The overhead lights switched on by voice command bathing the unfamiliar room with harsh light.
"What's going on?" the man next to her asked.
"What the kriff are you doing in…" she was about to say 'my room' but she realized she wasn't in her room. "What are you doing in bed with me?" She yelled at the man who definitely was not Luke. Mara quickly jumped out of bed dragging the sheets with her, wrapping them around her body protectively.
Lando Calrissian gave her a confused look. "Why shouldn't I be in bed with my wife?" he asked.
Mara stared at the dark-skinned man in shock. "Wife," she muttered as the blood drained from her face. She started to feel dizzy as she leaned an arm against the wall for support. Lando's face went from confusion to concern. He immediately leaped out of bed and ran towards her to prevent her from collapsing into the nightstand.
Mara looked up and panicked when she saw a completely nude Lando Calrissian running toward her.
"Sith! You're naked!" she screamed.
Lando came by her side and wrapped his arms around her protectively. "So are you," he said with a mischievous smile. Mara looked down in shock. She peeked under the sheet she had wrapped around her as she bolted out of bed.
"Force! Why am I nude."
Lando gave her a broad smile. "Well, it is pretty difficult to do those maneuvers we did last night fully clothed."
"Oh, no, no, no," Mara said distraught. She looked over and saw a 'fresher off of the bedroom and made a dash for the room. She slammed the door and locked it behind her. She went to the sink feeling ill. She turned on the cold water and splashed it on her face.
There was a soft rap at the door. "Mara, are you alright?"
Mara leaned heavily against the sink counter. She felt a bit dizzy from the shock. If she was with Lando that meant Ben was never born. The sudden feeling of loss was overwhelming as tears formed in her eyes.
"Mara?" Lando said again lightly knocking on the door.
"I'm sorry," she said in a shaky voice. "I thought I was going to be sick."
"Mara, do you think you're pregnant?" Lando exclaimed happily. "Did the last in-vitro fertilization work? That would be awesome if you were carrying a little Lando Jr."
Mara's stomach lurched.
'I did in-vitro fertilization in my late fifties, did I go crazy in this timeline? I would be in my seventies and have a teenager in the house!' she thought dazed.
She needed to get back to Luke and Ben and she needed to do it now!
"Mara? Can I come in?"
"No," Mara said quickly. "I need to meditate!"
"In the 'fresher?" Lando asked.
"It's a Jedi thing," she said trying to end the discussion.
She heard Lando laugh. "Since when did you become a Jedi? I thought you said you were never going to return to the Academy. After what Luke did."
Mara's head snapped up suddenly. "What did Luke do?"
"Mara, maybe you should see a medic," Lando said concerned. "You don't sound right."
"Just humor me," Mara said impatiently. "What did Luke do wrong?"
There was a pause on the other side of the door. "I really didn't think Luke did anything wrong, but you said it was completely unprofessional that he started dating and married a young Jedi student."
"What student!" Mara screamed.
"Cray Mingla," Lando said from the other side of the door.
Mara collapsed backwards against the bathroom wall. "Force what did I do wrong?" she whispered to herself. She had to think. How could this happen? She searched her memories. Finally she found the memory timeline that occurred after she took over the Eye of Palpatine over Pzob.
It appears that Luke, Cray and Nichos went to search for the children of the Jedi together, but this time they didn't find the battle station. Instead they found the evac-shuttles from the missing dreadnaught. Luke called for a large passenger rescue shuttle for the survivors. While Nichos was on the Jawa shuttle arranging for their transfer into the rescue ship he suffered a terminal error in his cybernetic brain. By the time Luke and Cray found him the Jawas had cannibalized half his body parts.
The shock was unbearable to Cray and she sought comfort from the Jedi Master. Obviously she needed a lot of comfort because soon they were dating. Mara found out about Luke's new relationship soon after she finished up her undercover mission with Lando. Although Mara of 12 ABY would never have admitted to liking Luke, she was devastated. And, of course, being the young brash person she was back then, she started dating Lando mainly to show Luke she didn't care he was dating Cray. When Cray and Luke finally wed she gave up her pursuit of the Jedi and decided Lando wasn't too bad of a guy. After a decade of on-and-off dating he finally convinced her to marry him.
Mara closed her eyes as these new memories flowed over her. Lando wasn't a bad husband, but she wanted her family…her real family back. She would never stop trying to return to Luke and Ben.
One thing confused her though, if she never married Luke why did she have the Sabre instead of Jade's Fire? After concentrating for a more few minutes that particular memory returned to her. She had gone to Nirauan and Luke had come to rescue her, but they both were married to other people at the time. Mara did use the Jade's Fire to assist their escape. Luke, Karrde and Lando combined funds and had purchased the Jade Sabre to replace her lost ship. It was simply a generous gesture on their part, not a wedding present from Luke.
'Thank the Force I was never able to have kids with Lando,' Mara thought. 'That would deeply complicate matters'. Thinking about it she realized Luke and Cray never were able to have children either. It was almost like the Force knew these pairings weren't meant to be and wouldn't allow children to come from the ill-fated unions.
She needed to make sure Luke married her, not Cray, Callista, Jem, Gaeriel or any other random woman whose path might have intersected with Luke's anywhere in the new timelines.
She needed to get to a time where she could guarantee Luke would become her husband.
She ignored Lando's persistent rapping on the 'fresher door and concentrated on a time and place much earlier. Finally she drifted into the flow.