Chapter 11
After a moment of hesitation, Luke moved behind her to take off the speech-hindering leather. His movement brought more muted yells and screams from Mara.
Fully behind her, he noticed something written above her right shoulder blade. He lifted her hair out of the way, prompting a hindered attempt to get away.
"It's all right," Luke soothed, continuing to read.
I knew you two would run into each other again, see?
Enjoy!
- Andover.
Her hair fell back over the message, while Luke unknotted the strap. The leather band fell to the floor.
"What was that for?" Mara cried indignantly, once the muter was off. "I am not to be violated! Touch me, you'll sing soprano for the rest of your life!"
"I wasn't doing anything," he defended. "Andover wrote a message in permanent marker on your back. I was just reading."
Her eyes went wide. As soon as I get out of here, he is DEAD, she thought.
He easily read her thoughts. "First of all, you probably aren't going to be free for a while, considering your history. And you'll never find him."
"Overconfidence brought the Jedi Order down once, I'm sure it will happen again," she snapped. "And tell your friends, I am not to be used as paper."
He smiled inwardly, trying to look away from her form. The black bodysuit really didn't do her justice.
"Stop looking at me like that," Mara grumbled.
It was hard not to, Luke thought.
"You do realize I can hear what you are thinking, right?" Mara asked. "I don't know If you forced this Force-bonding or not, but I don't want you thinking anything like that while I can read your thoughts. Understand?"
He nodded.
"And get me out of this costume!" Mara ordered.
"I suggest you rephrase that," Luke commented.
Mara blushed ever-so-slightly, but soon re-donned her sabacc face.
"I still wonder how the Emperor's Hand got herself into this situation," he prompted.
"Your idiot friend sucker-punched me and then shot me with a tranquilizer," she growled.
"Idiot?" Luke asked, trying not to laugh. "Look what he did to you. I'd say he's very smart."
Again, Luke could feel the onslaught of violent thoughts in Mara's mind. "I'm not that bad, am I? It's not like I was the one who put you in that costume."
"You're his friend and accomplice. Guilt by association," she informed.
"Really? The Emperor personally taught you all your tricks. By that logic, I should kill you here and now."
Mara looked back at him evenly.
Sighing, Luke lifted her into the air and immobilized her with the force. Noticing a key on top of the crate, he unlocked the cuffs on Mara's wrists. Ending her immobilization, he held out a Jedi robe, which she grudgingly accepted. Picking the leather band off of the floor, she tied it around her waist.
"Why didn't you leave me immobilized?" she asked, ignoring the scratchy wool robe.
"Here, without a weapon, you pose no threat," Luke explained.
"You'd be wrong!" she shrieked, suddenly throwing a punch at his face. He ducked, agilely grabbing her right forearm and sliding behind her.
"With the Force helping me, you will find that I am correct more often than you guess," he announced, attaching the cuff to her wrist. He then wrapped it behind a vertical pipe in the room, and attached the end to her other forearm.
"I suggest you do not attempt any escapes," Luke advised. "Here, we don't paint walls with thermite."
With that, he left the room, locking the door to his quarters behind him.
"Commander Skywalker!" Wes greeted as Luke entered the briefing room.
"Hello, Wes," he addressed wearily, plopping down on one of the reserved chairs.
"What's the matter?" Tycho Celchu asked. "Still sad about Lt. Casimir?"
"Not so much him," Luke answered. "More like his quote-unquote 'present'."
"You got to keep his plane?" Wes asked in disbelief.
"No, but I got to 'keep' one of his 'war prizes'."
Wes furrowed his brow. "I don't follow."
"You can't tell this to anybody," Luke whispered, leaning closer, "but he lived. He somehow got up, beat the Emperors Hand in a fight, sent me a crate, and then went home to Chandrila."
"Hmm," Tycho thought about that for a second. "What was in the crate?"
Luke held his head in his hands. "Mara Jade in a slave girl outfit."
Wes sputtered, and Tycho laughed audibly.
"I always knew something was up with him," the latter said.
"Who knew he could turn Imperial assassins into Rebel courtesans?" Wes asked, a little too loudly. Half of the people in the briefing room looked over curiously at the three.
"Quiet!" Luke whispered, ignoring the piercing gazes of the Rebels gathered.
"Awful nice of him. He let you keep the best part of the ship," Tycho quipped.
Luke held his head in his hands. "I'm begging you, please stop talking."
Wes opened his mouth, ready to comment further, but Luke shot him the meanest glare a farm boy from Tatooine could make. It worked, though, and Wes and Tycho shut up.
"Hello, Luke," Leia greeted, standing over him. He nodded, and walked to the center of the room.
"Commander Skywalker, why are we here?" one of the pilots asked.
"I recently received information that suggests Lt. Casimir is alive," he began. "He escaped from the Star Destroyer over his home planet of Chandrila after defeating one of the Emperor's assassins, Mara Jade. It crashed into the Imperial base, destroying both the ship and the buildings."
The gathered pilots looked at each other, impressed. Luke kept talking. "Few Imperial troops are left in the system. Shouldn't we take action before reinforcements arrive?"
"How about an invasion?" Ackbar suggested, always militant. "Due to this serendipitous occurrence, I propose we attack the system to further rid it of Imperial presence."
Mara looked at the pipe she was cuffed too. It was durasteel, so she couldn't break it. Luke cleverly joined her hands around the pipe, almost as if she was hugging it. Low on options, she looked at the ceiling.
The support pipe was joined to the ceiling, but not permanently. As the base was still partially being finished, it was not bolted to the ceiling. The ceiling itself was just light, porous tile, like in a middle class house. Using the force, she pushed the ceiling upward. Then she jumped, sliding her hands over the top of the pipe near the binding attacking it to the roof.
She was no longer chained.
Mara looked around the room. Against the back wall, the key to her stun cuffs sat on the top of her crate. She called it to her hand with the Force, and unlocked the metal circles on her hands.
She frowned, noticing the red marks on her wrists. They would wear off in time.
She wondered what Emperor Palpatine was doing right now. Reaching out with the Force, she tried to contact him. She found nothing. In place of the bond with her Master, was a similar connection to Luke. She groaned in annoyance. Try as she might, she could no longer get in touch with Palpatine.
She strained her force aura to pick up any signal, but because of Luke's mind meld her connection with Palpatine had become too weak. She tried again, but could only pick up snippets of Palpatine's thoughts. It seemed like they weren't meant for her, but she could still sense the command:
"You will kill Luke Skywalker."
No problem there, Mara thought. Securing the leather strap around her waist, she opened the door. Using the Force as guidance, she turned right.
"Excuse me!" exclaimed a guard, coming from behind her. "I haven't seen you around here. I need to see your identification."
She pretended to reach into one of her pockets. "Miss…" the guard prompted.
Mara suddenly delivered a reverse-roundhouse kick to his chest, throwing him five feet backward into the bulkhead. He looked up at her, dazed.
"Here it is!" she mocked, with fake sweetness in her voice. She grabbed the guard's ID card, and punched him in the face, knocking him out. Searching him, she took a blaster pistol and a set of keys.
Turning away from her victim, she continued towards her destination.
(Back in the briefing room)
"Such a large scale attack on the entire system is too risky," Mon Mothma began. "As much as I wish to fully liberate my homeworld, I am afraid that cannot be done yet."
"Maybe not," Leia said. "The system is nearly devoid of all Imperial militarists. I suggest a full-scale attack."
"What about Andover?" Han asked, relaxing at one of the tables. "We don't have to pick him up, do we?"
"Probably not," Leia said. "His injuries are probably severe. When he is healthy enough, he will most likely come back to Hoth."
Luke watched as Leia, Admiral Ackbar, and Mon Mothma discussed the feasibility of an attack, completely ignoring everyone else in the room.
"Hello?" Han muttered loudly. "What about Rebel policy? We attack the Imperials whenever we have an advantage. I think, Miss Mothma, you would be the first to jump at the chance."
Mon opened her mouth to say something in response, but closed it soon after.
"I wasn't calling a war meeting," Luke reminded them. "I was just here to inform you of the situation."
"My home planet is an agriworld," Mon Mothma explained. "It produces food for much of the Core. We cannot blockade it or we would risk great anti-Rebel sentiment."
"If we don't blockade it we've already lost," Leia pointed out. "There's no way we could keep the Imperials off the surface."
"An attack would pressure other Imperial worlds and disrupt their economies," Ackbar said. He turned to Luke. "We will put together an attack profile in the morning," he decreed, like the issue had already been decided.
The pilots stood up, but sat back down on Mon Mothma's command. "The issue has not been decided," she announced stubbornly.
"I agree," Mara muttered, jumping through the doorway. She grabbed the first pilot on her right around his neck, who happened to be Dak, and held her blaster to his temple. "Anyone moves, he dies," she coldly told the guards.
"Let go of me! I don't want to die… Help!" Dak begged, uncharacteristically letting off a whine.
Nobody moved to help him. Most of the Rebels were frozen in fear, and the ones nearest to Mara were curled on the floor covering their heads.
Suddenly, her neck began to feel very hot. Luke, who happened to be standing immediately to her left, ignited his lightsaber and held it threateningly an inch below her chin. She turned to see him watching her with a slight amount of amusement.
"Go ahead," he challenged. "Make my day."
She hesitated, and Luke slid his weapon closer to her neck. "I don't want to kill you, Mara," he reasoned. Realizing who she was, the bystanders shrunk back in fear. "Let go of my friend."
"Why should I?" she asked, knowing her disadvantage.
"Let me quote you talking about Andover: 'You are hardly in the position to be your usual insolent self.'"
"Nobody cares about that pilot; just let me go!" Dak cried, struggling. Mara tightened her grasp on his neck.
Luke frowned. "Unlike on the Star Destroyer, Mara, you are in mortal danger here. It would be wise to cooperate. Andover took a blaster shot to let me escape. I think, as his friend, I know the definition of true peril."
I am not in mortal danger, Mara sent.
Yet here you are, Luke mused.
Let me out of this base, and you will never hear from me again, she bargained.
"You are hardly in the position to negotiate," he spoke aloud again.
"What could you possibly do without me killing your comrade?" she taunted, relaxing her grip on the blaster.
Luke smirked, and using the force, ripped the cloak she was wearing in half. The top part of it fell down as a sort of skirt held by the leather band, while exposing her very-revealing costume.
Mara gasped, furious. A series of murmurs and collective whispering passed through the room. She glared at Luke, who was biting his bottom lip in an effort to contain his laughter at the situation.
"I'll kill you for this, farmboy," she said, unusually calm. She threw Dak to the floor, and began shooting at Luke.
All of his possible options floated through his mind as he deflected every shot into the wall, away from his fellow pilots. Selecting his favorite idea, he angled a shot back at her chest. It impacted the decorative chain holding the halves of her bikini together. It melted, and the halves separated.
She momentarily stopped firing, bringing her right hand to her chest in an effort to keep her modesty. Like he did before, Luke took advantage of her distraction. Before she realized what was happening, he was pinning her, crossing a leg over her thighs and holding her down by her biceps.
Almost everybody was still frozen, slightly fearful and amazed at the fight they just watched. The individuals on the floor cautiously rose, as those standing relaxed slightly.
"So that's Mara," Han comprehended.
(Later)
Luke stood guard near the door of the interrogation chamber that Andover was once interrogated in. Instead of an insolent seventeen-year old strapped to the main chair, Mara Jade struggled to free herself from her bonds.
His holo on his wrist began to beep. He activated it, and stared eye-to-eye with a shimmering blue Andover, sitting in the cockpit of a TIE.
"How'd you get onto the holo?" Luke hissed, frowning.
"My flight computer. Listen, I'm orbiting my planet so I can send this, gotta make it short and sweet. D'ya get my present?"
"Yes," the Jedi groaned.
"Nice. She cause any trouble?"
"A little," he admitted. "She got Dak in a choke hold and threatened his life."
Now it was Andover's turn to frown. "She came handcuffed for a reason."
"Not funny." Luke said. His friend simply shook his head, laughing. Luke frowned, exasperated.
"If I don't laugh, I'm gonna cry," Andover wheezed out between chuckles. "Oh, shit." Luke could sense the craft rolling. "Luke! TIEs! Over a dozen of them, what do I do?"
Closing his eyes, Luke projected a force-blast through his holo, across the space-lanes, to the endangered pilot. Andover's less-adept force aura couldn't contain the blast, and it overloaded. The resulting shockwave resounded like a bomb; most of the nearby TIEs were ripped to shreds.
"Whew! Thanks!" Andover said, flipping around and picking off the last few fighters.
"Can I turn this off now?" Luke asked.
"Almost, yeah," Andover said, firing one of the laser cannons and blowing up the last surviving TIE. "I think I TIE-d them up nicely," he joked. "Now, where are Organa and Mothma?"
"They're both in the interrogation room with Mara."
"I want to talk with them. Take me there, please."
Luke rolled his eyes, and walked in the door.
"I'm not going to tell you anything," he heard Mara say, as he shut the door behind him.
"We know you're an Emperor's Hand, Miss Jade," Mon Mothma pushed.
"Hey, Palps's Hand is here?" Andover asked, looking around his own display.
"Word spreads pretty quick," she shot back.
"As quickly as you in that slave costume?"
"Why, you miserable…" she began, trying to break the metal sheets around her wrists.
Andover interrupted her, loudly humming as he pointedly ignored his holo. "I must commend your associates, Mara. So far two other Emperor's Hands have tried to kill me in this past week. But, alas, they are no match for an Emperor's Pain in the Ass."
"Of course, that's your official title," Leia remarked, momentarily looking away from Mara.
Mara stopped dead. The color drained from her face. "What?" she asked weakly.
"Yup, all dead," Andover continued. "There was this guy, Maarek Stele, he just got his ass shot out from under him. He has been following me for the past four days. And this other guy, Vess Kogo, was killed in an 'industrial accident'."
"Other hands?" she repeated, in a state of shock.
"From the number of people who have revealed their title to me while shooting at my face, it seems likely," Andover said. "Now listen, Leia, Mon, I nearly freed a system for you people. When are your fleets gonna come?"
"As of now, we aren't sure they will," Leia informed.
"What?" Andover cried, "Why?"
"We can't risk a blockade on an agriworld," Mon Mothma explained.
"But it's our homeworld! Remember, when I pulled you out of your burning house! You thanked me! You told me we were both doing our duty to free our planet!"
"We can't risk it," she repeated. Frustrated, he slammed his fist off the side panel.
"Listen, we are trying to restore democracy," Andover seethed. "Not bureaucracy. If you want to restore things to how they were exactly during the Clone Wars, I will never fight for you again. I thought we were trying to restore the Republic… You know what, I get it. Kriff you, Mothma…"
Luke shut off his holo before anything else could be said, while Leia and Mon's jaws nearly fell to the floor.
"He lied to me," Mara whispered, though only Luke was really listening. "Palpatine lied. This whole time."
"Of course he did," Leia said. "He's lied to everybody for years."
The Jedi weren't traitors, Luke sent. He is a Sith. He exterminated them.
"He told me…I was the only one," Mara continued, nearly oblivious to Luke's telepathic comment. "His hand. The Emperor's Hand. His weapon of choice. That miserable, under-handed, lying…"
"Sith," Luke finished for her, crossing his arms.
"Let me fight in the Alliance," she said suddenly, with determination. "I want to kill him. I have to."
Sorry for the long hiatus. At least, that was a really fun chapter to write.
Yes, I took "Go ahead, make my day" from Dirty Harry. But it seemed a fitting threat, and a good way to waste a line. So no flames, please.
And Mara turned! I read on Wookiepedia she was furious when she found out about her counterparts. So, I made a version of that here.
As always, REVIEW! My other Star Wars story has three times the reviews, and this one is just as good. At least, maybe it is. What are your thoughts? For those who missed it, that was a prompt.
Also, future updates will be spread out a bit. I am back in school, so that will take precedence to FanFiction. Sorry.
-ClaptonJr.