Disclaimer: Disney owns it now, so I use Legends.

Urazz: I appreciate the feedback, even if is negative; I did consider doing it that way at first but trying to rewrite all of 'SOTE' would be a massive undertaking, far beyond my own limited abilities. But keep reading, the flashbacks are almost over.

"'Peace without emotion, serenity without passion', what a load of garbage; I wish I had a time machine so I could give that arrogant idiot Odan-Urr a piece of my mind."

Jedi Master Djinn Altis

Chapter 5:

Now… The Millennium Falcon, Hyperspace

"I think my eyes are getting better," Han said, blinking rapidly, "Whoa!"

Luke was wearing all black with a lightsaber at one hip and a blaster at the other. Leia was his total contrast, wearing a simple white jumpsuit and a tan utility belt with an off-white shawl, her hair was in a bun on the back of her head; she also had a silver armband, tan-colored boots with light shin armor, and a utility belt with a lightsaber at one hip and a blaster on the other.

Mara Jade had green eyes and red-gold hair that fell to just below her shoulders. She wore a dark combat suit with high black leather boots with knee guards, a brown shoulder harness with a silver buckle on her back, a tan cowl around her neck, a brown leather belt, a tan cloak and tan gloves. A compact blaster was holstered against her right hip, her lightsaber rode her left.

"What?" Leia asked.

"Well, for one thing I wasn't expecting to see you with a lightsaber," Han said, "I'm also struck by how much Mara physically resembles Shira in addition to your similar pasts."

"Believe me, I know," Mara said tightly, "It's been said before."

Then… Four and a half months ago, the Millennium Falcon, Hyperspace,

"So," Luke said, drawing out the word, "I think we should talk."

Mara looked up at him, "About what?"

"You know about what," Luke said.

"As I said at the time—,"

"—do you really expect me to believe that?"

Mara stood and crossed her arms, glaring at him, "You believe what you want, Farmboy." And with that she stood and left the room.

Luke let out a frustrated sigh and rubbed his eyes.

"Do I even want to know what that was about?" Lando asked

"No, you don't," Luke said.

Then…Four Months Ago, a secret Rebel Alliance base

At a large transparisteel window looking out from the surface of the asteroid into the blackness of space, Mara Jade stood with Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, Lando Calrissian, Chewbacca, Threepio and Artoo.

Luke was contemplating the recent dustup with Xizor and the death of Dash Rendar during their escape. Moreover, the Bothans had just come through with information that not only revealed that missile that had killed half a squadron of Bothans at Kothlis—the missile that hotshot braggart Dash Rendar had supposedly missed—had been one of the Empire's new diamond-boron missiles and thus impervious to blaster fire.

Worse still was that Luke had actually felt a bit glad—not for the deaths, but at seeing Dash taken down a notch; even worse was that Luke knew that he of all people should have been the one to sympathize most with Dash for up until very recently, Luke too had believed he'd caused the death of a comrade. And not just a comrade, but a woman he'd been attracted to and who had given every indication of reciprocating. It hadn't been love, but it could have—might have—turned into that if Luke hadn't unknowingly shot her down. A woman named Shira Brie. But the Bothans had also just discovered confirmation that Shira had been an Imperial agent, in the form of her own official dossier which described in terse and simple terms her mission to subvert his loyalties as what spies called a 'honey-trap.

Luke turned back to Lando, "How do feel about getting a job as a security guard?"

Lando pursed his lips for a moment and then nodded, "It's a good start, but I can't just walk into Jabba's Palace in a disguise and Jabba doesn't hire just anyone as a guard. Setting up a cover and infiltrating an organization takes time, months at least. What are you going to do in the meantime?"

Months? If it was going to take that long…

"I have an idea," Luke finally said.

Then… Four Months ago, the Millennium Falcon, Hyperspace

"Look," Mara said to Luke as they sat around the game table, "just because I defected and want to bring down Palpatine, that doesn't mean that I want to become a Jedi. Do you even know what being a Jedi entails?"

"It means committing oneself to a higher cause," said Luke, "a cause of service to the galaxy, to life itself, and to the Force. And only a Jedi can truly conquer Vader and the Emperor. And you could be a Jedi, Mara; a powerful Jedi."

"Right," Mara said. "And all I'd have to do is declare that I'm ready to serve the galaxy and possibly lay down my life for it. Sorry, I can't do that."

Luke frowned, and she caught the flicker of puzzlement from him.

"What is it about that that scares you?" he asked. "You served and worked for Palpatine all your life—,"

"And that is what terrifies me," Mara said, "I was loyal to an evil man and willingly blinded myself to all of his wickedness." Mara squeezed her hand into a fist. "I can't just offer that kind of loyalty again," she said and grimaced. "And that's something I don't understand," Mara said "how I was able to serve someone as evil as the Emperor without falling to the dark side?"

"I have a theory," Luke said

"I'm listening."

"The dark side is inherently selfish," said Luke, "It is the elevation of one's self and one's own desires above all else."

Mara nodded. "And?"

"Well, my point is that all that time you were serving the Emperor, you weren't doing so for selfish reasons," Luke said, "You were serving someone else, even if that other person was Palpatine and his selfish ends. And service to others is the essence of being a Jedi."

Mara thought about that and then shook her head. "No," she said, "I don't like that. Serving evil is evil. Doing something wrong for good motives is still wrong."

"I agree," Luke said. "But that's not what I said. Certainly, you did some wrong things in the service to the Emperor, but they weren't done for your own purposes, and so they didn't open you up to the dark side."

Mara glowered at the table. "I see the difference," she said. "But I still don't like it. The thing that keeps bothering me is why the Emperor even cared about trying to deceive me; I mean, he said it was because it 'made me more useful', but I don't get why didn't he just train me in the dark side like Vader and the other adepts."

"Because the dark side is inherently selfish," Luke said, "if you'd been trained in the dark side, you would have eventually had to face the contradiction of being selfish while serving someone else; even the Sith can barely that make work and you wouldn't have been a Sith. So, because the Emperor needed a servant who would serve him selflessly, he trained you to be…something else, something in between a Jedi and a Sith."

"So it was a matter of keeping me under control?"

"Partly," Luke said, "Look at the Star Destroyers of the Imperial Navy. They've all got nasty names like Executor or Devastator, and yet from what people like Tycho Celchu have told me, many in the Imperial navy are honorable people. Yet the vast majority of them continue to serve the Emperor and commit evil deeds in his name, just like you once did."

"And?"

"Think of it this way: Put someone in a situation where he or she is obligated to take actions they find personally abhorrent; fill their ears with words that their actions are honorable but surround them with constant reminders of their wrongness. The victim will cling to the words but also be aware—at some level—of the wrongness. He or she can't escape it, no matter what they do, because they are surrounded by symbols that won't let them forget. They're aware of their descent slowly towards the dark side but they can't stop it. Someone like the Emperor would find this knowing acceptance of corruption, a half-accepting, half-struggling process of being corrupted, quite amusing."

Mara was silent for a long moment. "You may be onto something," she finally said, "in fact, that sounds a lot like how I used to be: always aware of the corruption within the Empire but clinging to the words that the Emperor at least was honorable and that the wrong was just a few bad apples instead of symptoms of a much bigger problem. I think even the Emperor occasionally sparing lives when I asked was not for their own sake, but to give me something to cling to, some reason to go on ignoring what I already knew in my heart." She clenched a fist and brought it down on the table. "Until I finally found something I couldn't ignore that opened my eyes, like Alderaan did to so many others."

There was a long moment of silence.

"So, I was some kind of 'grey' Force user with morals," Mara frowned, "some kind of experiment, perhaps, to see just how far a righteous person could be pushed into unwittingly serving evil."

"Something like that," said Luke.

"That's not very Jedi."

"If you had an opportunity to ensure the death of the Emperor at the cost of only your own life, would you do it?"

"Yes," Mara answered without hesitation.

"Then you are already halfway down the road to becoming a Jedi," said Luke. "You are already selflessly dedicated to a cause that will better the lives of countless people you've never even met, not just because you feel personally betrayed; that sense of betrayal was merely the catalyst."

Mara was silent for a long moment. "Perhaps," she finally conceded, "Let's see what your Jedi Master has to say."

From a distance, Leia watched Luke and Mara talk with mixed feelings. Mara Jade joining them had been an unexpected surprise and at first Leia hadn't been sure what to make of her or if she could be truly trusted, especially given her blunt admission that she'd been ordered to kill Luke. Luke's attraction to her had been obvious from the start and for a while Leia had been worried—especially given Mara's physical resemblance to Shira Brie, whom Leia had never liked. Something else was going on between them now; although Leia didn't know what, she'd noticed a new tension and awkwardness between them over the past month or so.

Then…Three and a half Months Ago, Dagobah

Princess Leia Organa—who had learned quite unexpectedly a few weeks ago that her birth name was 'Leia Amidala Skywalker' —collapsed on the ground, exhausted from the run she'd just completed. Although Leia had always been athletic and fit, nothing had prepared her for the grueling physical aspects of Jedi training. She'd thought at first that such things wouldn't be necessary since the Force could elevate all of Jedi's abilities to supernatural levels anyway. But Yoda had explained that, all other things being equal, a Jedi who was out of shape and overweight would have to use more of the Force to match the feats of a fit Jedi and while the Force itself was limitless, even the greatest Jedi had limits.

But before Leia could catch her breath, Yoda threw a silvery rod at her eyes. Leia instantly reacted by drawing and igniting the lightsaber Yoda had given her; it was only a Shoto and thus felt awkward in her hands; Leia swung the green blade at the rod—and missed; the bar fell to the ground untouched, much to Leia's frustration. A Jedi Knight, Yoda had said, would have cut it into seven pieces before it fell. Luke had managed six pieces in his latest test and even Mara had managed four pieces the very first time Yoda had tried this on her.

"I can't," Leia moaned, "I'm tired."

Yoda, showing no sympathy, retorted, "Strike from the shadows, the Sith do, when we are at our weakest; be prepared, a Jedi must always be."

Leia could only nod, breathing heavily and stood up again to begin the next exercise, determined to master the Jedi arts. She had at first seen the training as merely a means to an end, to help rescue Han and bring down the Empire, but Yoda had taught that the path of a Jedi was an end to itself in service to a much higher cause, the cause of life itself in service to the galaxy at large. A cause that the Jedi of old had lost sight of as they'd gotten too entangled in the politics of the Old Republic. And just as the New Republic the Rebels planned to establish would be built on the lessons learned from the Old Republic's mistakes, so too would their New Jedi Order correct the mistakes made by their predecessors.

Then…Three Months Ago, Dagobah

Leia was now glad that she'd never laughed at Luke during his many blind-remote training sessions over the past three years, because now she was in the same position, with a blast-shielded helmet blocking her vision as she used Yoda's green shoto to fend off a swarm of seeker droids. Yoda's droids were set to a much higher difficulty level than Luke's, which made them both more difficult to track and their shots—though still not lethal—certainly stung a lot more.

At the moment, though, Leia was feeling anything but glad; for every blast she did deflect, there were three that she missed and the sting of each one added to her growing frustration. She gritted her teeth and tried to concentrate but another stinging blast caused something to well up inside of her and then burst free; with a loud cry, Leia suddenly began moving much faster but the seekers abruptly halted their attack and fled behind Yoda.

"No, no, no!" Yoda declared, "That will not do!"

"I feel the Force," Leia vehemently protested.

"Anger is what you feel," said Yoda, "Anger, fear, aggression, the dark side are they; easily they flow and quick to join in a fight. But beware, the power that comes easily demands a heavy price."

"Price?" Leia lowered the lightsaber, "What price?"

"If you fight darkness with darkness, become the very thing you fight, you will."

Leia shivered, then said. "Is the Dark Side stronger?"

"No," said Yoda with a rap of his Gimer stick, "easier, more seductive, but not stronger."

"But the Emperor killed four Jedi Masters," said Leia.

"Powerful the Emperor is," Yoda admitted, "Defeated even I, he did; but the power of a Sith is a power without restraints. Not so the Jedi. Appear stronger, the Sith do; appear weaker, the Jedi do. An illusion that is."

Then… Three Months ago, Dagobah

Mara watched, somewhat puzzled as Luke and Leia bounded off into the swamp, following Yoda's instructions, and then turned to the Jedi Master, wondering why he had specifically held her back.

"Many questions I sense you have, youngling," Yoda said, "speak your mind."

Mara was silent for a moment, then said, "I'm not sure how much help you could be."

"Once, I too admired Palpatine," Yoda admitted, "During the Clone Wars, before I learned the truth; know much about him, I do."

"Okay," said Mara, "I keep wondering 'why me?' Why did the Emperor make me think I was someone special and unique; if I had known the truth from the start, I—," Mara took a deep breath and let it out slowly; what she was about to say she had never told anyone, especially not Luke. "I might still be loyal to him now, so I don't understand what he gained by deceiving me like that."

"A Sith, the Emperor is," said Yoda, "a creature of the Dark Side, full of lies and trickery; loyalty, compassion, attachment, all these things he does not and cannot comprehend, except in how they can be twisted for his own purposes."

Mara shivered. "He lied to me because he was incapable of thinking in any other way?"

"Gained power through lies, he did; retains it through lies, he does," said Yoda, "Sees everyone as either a tool or a threat, and sometimes both, he does."

"He sees me as a threat?"

"Strong in the Force, you are," Yoda said, "Stronger than you think; in another era, an excellent Jedi Shadow you would have made."

"Jedi Shadow?"

"A Jedi trained in subterfuge and espionage, specially tasked with hunting the Sith and other darksiders."

"I see."

"But now," Yoda continued, "Talk we must about your attachment to Luke."

Mara blinked, "I—I'm not certain what you—,"

"Do not think me blind, youngling," said Yoda, "Eight hundred years have I trained Jedi; you may lie to yourself and to him, but lie to me you cannot."

"I just—I don't know what to do. He drives me crazy sometimes and yet I feel...drawn to him somehow; I've never felt that way about anyone before and it—it scares me to see just how much a part of my life he has become in such a short time. I don't want to feel like I need anyone and yet—." Mara sighed. "I don't know what to do."

"Trust your instincts," said Yoda, "And you will know what to do."

Then…Two Months Ago, Dagobah

Luke and Mara sparred with their lightsabers. Again and again, Mara lunched at Luke but although the pattern and direction of her attack changed each time, Luke's blade was always there ahead of hers to block or parry her strikes. Mara made a slash-stroke that Luke intercepted and brushed aside. Mara raised her lightsaber high over her head and brought it down on Luke, who brought his own lightsaber up to block. For a moment their sabers locked in a contest of both will and strength.

But whereas Luke's face remained a serene mask, Mara's look of concentration and determining was becoming one of frustration, with sweat beading down her face. Mara started to pull back and that was when Luke finally made his move, altering the angle of his blade to impact hers in such a way and with enough force behind the blow to knock the hilt out of Mara's hand. Before it had even hit the floor, Luke had called it into his other hand.

For a moment Luke held Mara under both lightsaber blades and then shut them off. He extended the hand holding her hilt, only for Mara to suddenly grab the whole arm. The next thing Luke knew he was flying through the air and hit the ground painfully. He groaned and started to get up but Mara was on him. Letting go of the lightsabers, Luke tried to fight back hand-to-hand but here Mara had the edge and before he knew, she had him pinned on the ground with herself on top.

For a long moment their eyes locked as they both breathed heavily know. Suddenly Luke flipped Mara over so that he was the one on top. For another moment Luke stared into Mara's green eyes and then, following an instinct he didn't fully understand, Luke kissed her. Mara's surprise lasted only a second and then she eagerly reciprocated.

Then…One Month Ago, Dagobah

Leia stepped into the dark cave unarmed, shivering as she did from a cold that wasn't entirely physical. She halted, startled, when a dark figure emerged from the shadows. After a moment she saw that it was Darth Vader. Leia resisted the urge to turn and run and stood her ground.'

This isn't real' she told herself, 'this is an illusion.'The image of Vader lifted up its hands and began removing his mask. Leia gasped when she saw the face that was revealed, for it not was a man's face, but her own! Then, as suddenly as it had appeared, the illusion faded. Leia staggered and almost fell, suddenly realizing that she had somehow continued walking the whole time. Shaken to her core and breathing heavily, it was a long, long time before she emerged from the cave.

Then…One Month Ago, Dagobah

Mara Jade stepped into dark cave, unarmed. She longer doubted whether she even could fully commit to becoming a Jedi, as over the last several months, many conversations with Yoda, Leia and Luke had helped her to put things in perspective. Mara had spent much of her life so closed up emotionally that, until meeting Luke, she hadn't even realized how much a part of life she'd been missing. That emotional openness of him drove her crazy sometimes and yet she'd hungered to feel it for herself; Luke had accepted her unconditionally, dark past and all.

The cave swirled around her and was suddenly replaced by a dimly lit room. At the far end of the room was a throne like the one the Emperor had, and beyond that was window into space. At either side of the throne stood two more dark figures.

As Mara drew closer, the throne and the two figures turned towards her, and Mara was taken aback by what she saw. Sitting in the chair, and wearing the dark robes of the Emperor, was Luke Skywalker—his blue eyes now yellowed like the Emperor's. With a start Mara also recognized one of the other people: it was Leia and, like her brother, her eyes were yellowed. The other person Mara had never met but had only seen a picture of: Shira Brie. Her hair was a darker shade of red, her once green eyes yellowed like the other two, and she had a different facial structure—with different features—but nonetheless the physical resemblance was striking.

"So," Shira sneered, "You have come at last, but you are too late." Shira sat down sideways across Luke's lap and even knowing that this was all an illusion couldn't stop Mara from feeling a surge of anger and jealousy, "You think he cares for you?" Shira mocked her, "He doesn't, you're just a stand-in for me, because nothing can replace me in his heart. I was there for him when no one else was; I cared for him before you had even heard of him. And now that I am back, he doesn't need you anymore."

"Lies!" Mara declared, "Luke would never do that to me, you don't know him."

"Oh, but I do," Shira replied, "I know him better than you possibly could."

Shira's image reached up and kissed Luke; the illusion swirled and changed, suddenly it was the Emperor sitting on the throne, with Vader by his side.

"Come, my Hand," the Emperor said, in that oozing tone of false civility that had fooled her so many times in the past, "look upon my new apprentice."

For a moment was confused. 'New apprentice?' She could see Vader here, but when turned to look at him, Vader removed his helmet. And what Mara saw underneath it almost stopped her heart for it was Luke's face.

"No," Mara declared, "This won't happen; this isn't real!"

And suddenly, just like that, she was back in the cave; she staggered and nearly fell, her heart pounding and breathing heavily. It was a long time before she was able to move again.