.

.

Luke came round slowly, struggling to surface, exhaustion and confusion dragging him back down as he blinked tired eyes. He moved just slightly, and the pain sang up his side and into his skull, making him gasp and tense against it momentarily, waiting for it to peak and subside.

Seconds ticked by as he counted down from a hundred, bright scarlet and white flares flashing in his vision, hands pulled to tight fists as they trembled against…marker!

His hands balled tight, Luke had felt the finger-long shard of broken plasteel he held pressed into his palm and remembered that he had to mark the day…or had he done so already?

He needed to keep his sense of time. Here, with no natural light, it was difficult to mark the days, no way to judge when one day was up, and he knew he needed to keep that clear because Leia said he had fourteen days when she was here—or was it nine days… The drugs were beginning to take their toll and his mind was lapsing into long stretches of disorganized, exhausted confusion, so that he struggled to pull the relevant facts up now. Nine days or fourteen? Fourteen days…yes, fourteen, but she had said he'd had only nine days left out of fourteen. Yes, nine days—how many days ago was that?

Again Luke remembered the plasteel shard in his hand and his fingers reached out to the hard metal edge of the canvas bunk he was laid on, a trail of deeply scratched lines rough against his fingers in the darkness, counting carefully… Fourteen lines; he'd been here seven days, plus today, which meant there were… the momentary mental pause stretched, and Luke let out a laugh in the darkness at his own inability subtract eight from fourteen. His ribs ached against the action, shoulders spiking in pain, but he couldn't stop, loosing silent, hitched breaths as he tensed against stabbing twinges.

All this; all Madine's caution and vigilance and planning, all these armed soldiers and strict procedures laid in place, all to hold a man who was, in this moment, incapable of basic math. It seemed insanely surreal, ridiculously amusing…

Somewhere at the back of his mind a small, logical voice said that this was the remnants of the drugs in his system. That this wasn't funny at all; that if he didn't get a handle on it, it would kill him…but it still took a long time for his silent, racking laughter to die down so that he finally stared ahead in the absolute pitch darkness, no idea whether his eyes were capable of focusing or not. As he thought to lift his hand before his face, he remembered again the shard of plasteel and the reason he was holding it.

How many days? Seven days; it still made him grin insanely, mind grasping at anything to deal with this situation.

Seven days; seriously, concentrate…seven days marked down. But he was still holding the shard in his hand; was it because he'd just scratched today's line into the bunk, or because he was still intending to do so?

No; he always hid the shard right away; he mustn't have used it yet or he would have pushed it back under the rough blanket to hide it with the others. He knew—he knew—how important it was to mark the days, to keep track. Hard though, here.

Food and water came irregularly when it came at all, and the lights of the cell were turned on and off at random, either glaringly bright or completely absent for hours or days without order or reason. But Madine, regimented man that he was, always came in twice a day, early morning and early night, Luke suspected, so he had unknowingly become Luke's clock; every time Madine came with the interrogator, when it was over and Luke was dragged back across the cell and chained onto the heavy bunk by his ankle, he would wait until he was left alone then fumble beneath the crumpled blanket for one of the half-dozen or so shards he'd retrieved from the vo-corder he'd shattered days ago, to scratch a single line into the rough metal of the bunk frame as soon as he could. Sometimes that was minutes later, sometimes it was hours, if the drugs had been bad or they'd tried a second dose, but it was something he had to keep in perspective. If he lost that, he lost everything.

Lost everything… For the first time in too many years, Luke felt like he had something to lose here, and before that fear, the threat of a slow defeat by the drugs was terrifying. Palpatine had used them often on him, but only to subdue, or keep him talking, keep his tongue and his mind loose. Still, he'd learned the techniques to counter them; had taken the time to get to know about such things. But this was different; because now he had something to lose—and someone trying to take things away.

It had never, ever been a game, but for years he'd always worked hard to play tricks with his own mind to hold onto his sanity; told himself that really, he had nothing at all to lose save his life, and as his old Master had said so very, very often, that was nothing. Now, a flare of titian red hair lit the darkness at Luke's thoughts of Mara. Of his son.

Laid hour on hour in the darkness, mind untethered and adrift, searching for some anchor, for something to believe in, something to cling to, he'd come to rely more and more on Mara. And that was a terrible thing.

Because again and again, his tangled thoughts recalled those last few moments they were together; the look in her eyes. Even though at the time he'd though that his words to her—that she should leave because she was the only one capable of rescuing him—were spoken for no other reason than as a persuasion to get her out of there safely, that wasn't the whole truth.

Because he knew absolutely that if there was any way in the galaxy that she could find him and get back to him, she would. Now, with all else stripped away, he realized that completely. And what should have been a moment of triumph in realizing just how much he truly trusted her, had transmuted into a bone-deep fear that she'd try to live up to his accidental admission of trust; that she'd come for him, and put herself and their child under Madine's gun.

Worse, now Luke could unknowingly give Madine that target in a few words uttered from a drug-haze. That fact, that fear, flared again in the darkness and Luke clamped his jaw against it, terrified that it would become a self-fulfilling prophesy; the more he thought of his fear of revealing it, the more it remained in his thoughts, and the more likely he was to speak it.

Stop thinking about it then; stop thinking about her...

Luke turned over in the darkness, his barked and blistered ankle smarting, the binder there cutting into his skin whenever they used it to drag him forward or yank him awake, the open wounds beginning to infect in places, burning now. If he could just soften the edge of the heavy metal binder—Luke's thoughts went immediately to the only soft object in the room; the blanket he was laid on right now, too tired to bother covering himself despite the cold. Could he tear a strip to wrap about his ankle and…a slow smile came over his face as he glanced blindly across the pitch-black cell to the unreachable door…

Turning away from the lens at the far side of the cell, he reached with trembling hands between the canvas bunk and the metal a-frame of his bunk, and slid the anti-surveillance scrambler free. Quickly he lifted his hand to the side of his face as if resettling…and put the scrambler into his mouth, taking a few seconds to subtly position it between his back teeth. Then he counted to a hundred, so his movement was forgotten.

Without moving visibly, he bit lightly on the scrambler, activating it. Almost immediately the lights of the cell came on, but it took a good minute for the powered locks to release the vacuum between the doors and two soldiers to enter…then they were in the room, blaster rifles drawn.

Luke turned slowly to sit up on the edge of the bunk, blinking as if just waking as the first man in trained his blaster. He knew his name…what was it—think! Tinel; his name was Tinel.

The man lifted his blaster to ready-position. "Just stay right where you are. Keep sitting. Hands out where I can see them."

The second man, clearly on a comlink earpiece, went straight to the lens. "Caro, how's that? You got anything?"

Squinting in the light, Luke listened to one side of the conversation, keeping his face suitably confused, the small scrambler still between his back teeth. The second soldier pulled slightly at the short cable which went from the back of the lens into the curved wall, then paused. Finally he gave the lens a heavy blow with the heel of his hand—and Luke bit down just slightly, deactivating the scrambler in his mouth.

"Yeah? That got it?" The man backed off, waving a hand before the lens, and Tinel risked a glance back.

"Working?"

"Seems okay now."

Watched by Luke, the two soldiers backed out of the room, the lights dousing as they did so. Luke watched the door in silence for long seconds, then turned and lay down again.

He waited as long as he could stay awake before doing it again, the scenario running exactly as before. But this time when surveillance was down, listening closely to the staggered, grating release of the powered doors and judging the guards' entry time by their delay, Luke risked heaving the bunk's substantial weight about three inches closer to the door before throwing himself back down as if asleep.

When the soldiers had left, believing the fault corrected, he carefully hid the scrambler in the angle of the metal bunk frame as before and tried to get some sleep.

..

Mara lay wide awake in bed, staring at the soft shadows of the coffered ceiling in the cool darkness of the night, the hour so late it was early. She and Nathan had called it a night an hour or so ago, with messages of solidarity and support still amassing in ever greater numbers, and Mara had stayed in Luke's apartment to slink into his silent bedroom and slide beneath the covers of his bed, hoping that at least here she could sleep.

Instead, in the still silence and so close to all that reminded her of him, the images from the holo played over and over in her mind until her throat locked with stubbornly-unshed tears. Seven days, it had said

She couldn't do this…she couldn't be here in the Palace, having seen those images. She knew what it meant to Luke that someone he trusted was in command, keeping watch…but it couldn't be her; it just couldn't. Not this time, not like this.

Nathan was right; he'd placed her in power for a reason, one she'd never really considered before; one that she wondered whether even Luke had looked at too closely.

He had faith in her; faith that she'd honor his goals and intentions. And she did; more than that, she shared them. She knew that now.

Now…too late to share that awakening with him.

Here, in the detention centre beneath the Imperial Palace, at the very centre of the old Empire that she'd served her whole life, staring at Wez Reece, a man whose views and actions personified the old regime, she'd had an epiphany.

She didn't want the old Empire any more. She didn't want a society where narrow-minded men like Reece prospered at the cost of others; where those like him were encouraged to do whatever was necessary to maintain that absolute Imperial State without conscience, believing themselves and the regime they upheld above the law. She didn't want it back.

So it was no longer a question of trust, proud as she was to finally hold it, determined as she was not to betray it. It was a question of belief, of realization that they were her own wishes too… Which made her decision that much harder. Because still…still she couldn't do this.

At any other time—any at all—Mara would have knuckled down and got on with it. Would have opened that damn file, followed it to the letter and made in his memory the Empire Luke had given so much to guide into being. But this was the one situation he hadn't planned for, the one situation that Mara couldn't accept. For herself to be in power whilst Luke was still alive.

For her to remain here, helpless, whilst the realities of changing an Empire, even for the better, ripped them both apart.

Of all the ways she thought she'd lose him; years of his surviving at the very edge with Palpatine, disobeying and deceiving and just plain ignoring him for no other reason than to goad a response…all those hours and days and weeks spent in Nathan's medi-centre listening to the steady pips of a life-support machine while Luke remained comatose… She glanced to the darkened balcony beyond the bedroom doors, remembering vividly the flash of horror at watching him step off from the it—just stepoff into empty air one hundred-forty-four story's up, assuming that Mara would get there in time to grab him! Moments…so many moments when she'd thought she'd been so close to never again seeing him, never again hearing his voice, his laugh, his quiet, dry wit. All those moments…and not one had prepared her for this. For those images. For the fear and the fury which alternately scalded and froze her to numb indecision.

Seven days…

And now this, this final spur; the brief message from Leia Organa, Commander in Chief of the Rebellion, denying connection or endorsement or any part in the whole debacle.

And wasn't that what Luke had said, on that last day—that she had helped him, that she'd told him of the trap?

To Mara's mind that meant Organa had known about the trap and not informed Luke earlier, but if he'd wanted revenge he would have taken it at the time; Mara had seen what Luke could and would do to those he believed deserving. Had watched more than once when anger or provocation had finally slipped the leash on Palpatine's wolf; had privately wondered what, if any, control he'd had when he did so.

She questioned again why he'd waited there in the Wasp for Organa to come through; why he seemed always so patient with her, so tolerant. He trusted so few people—why her, the leader of the Rebellion against him? Of all people, why trust her?

The message from Organa had been a private one professing personal regret, her voice charged with that same mix of earnest sincerity and absolute commitment that so often animated Luke's own. Perhaps that was why he trusted her; because despite their political disparity they had always been kindred spirits, even Mara could see that.

For all of that, Mara could remember only a few words of Organa's brief message, one single fact overriding all else…because at the end of it had been a contact frequency.

A way to get to Home One. Or to the same system, at least.

If even one Imperial Star Destroyer showed up, Mara was pretty damn sure the Rebel vessel would be gone before they'd even opened a comm channel. But it hadn't escaped her mind that she could easily send six or eight Interdictors in first, strategically placed about the system, then take in Star Destroyers with guns blazing, crippling the Rebellion's elusive headquarters and taking any remaining Rebel leaders hostage, offering their release in exchange for Luke. Then the impossible task of trying to track one man at one spot on one planet in a galaxy of stars would all become academic. But even as she'd calculated the strategy, Mara knew she wouldn't do it, because that voice at the core of her being kept on asking the same question; "What would Luke do?"

And it sure as hell wouldn't be that; would probably be the polar opposite, in fact. Because Luke's words, mingled with the sharp, charged crack of close blaster fire in the landing bay that final day, still reverberated through her thoughts; "Don't let this derail it, Mara. Don't let a few radicals destroy seven years of my life and everything I was pushing toward."

What she needed was a line of action which was more in line with the iron will and quiet voice that Luke had so often employed with surprising results in his dealings with the Rebellion. What she needed was a different strategy—and she had one. But to achieve it she needed help from the one person she'd never thought that either she or Luke needed, the one person in the galaxy that she'd never thought in a million years she'd ask for anything, let alone this.

..

Kiria D'Arca had retired to the privacy of her opulent apartments for the night when Mara arrived, but she rose immediately, entering the waiting room in a richly-embroidered dressing gown of deep ruby red, her long black hair falling loose down her back, dark, almond eyes blinking rapidly awake.

"You have news?" It was instant, her fear; as dense and intense as the crimson robe she held in bunched gathers about her.

"No," Mara said quickly. "No news."

D'Arca didn't know about the message from Organa—right now nobody did outside of Intel.

For a moment the Empress seemed to wither, hands pulling tighter, head falling. Then she pursed her lips and lifted her gaze, her face that perfect, neutral mask. "Then you have some reason to be here?"

Oh, this was going to be hard. "In the event of his absence Luke left stewardship of the Empire in my hands…"

"I'm well aware of that, Madam Regent."

Mara clamped down on a sharp retort. "I was thinking…about what you said earlier—"

"I have as much right of be at those meetings as you do."

Mara halted momentarily thrown, "What?"

"I have as much right to be at those meetings as you do, and I won't be sidelined, not even by the Regent."

Fierce, unyielding eyes held her own, and for once Mara recognized the value of that. D'Arca was tough and she was smart and she was cool under fire, gracious even, in a way Mara would never be. The perfect Empress. And right here and now, that didn't seem such a bad thing.

Because Mara had a plan—and, Force forgive her, but right now it was more important that Luke's.

She shook her head quickly, not wanting to be derailed, "No, I'm not talking about the Chief of Staff meetings."

D'Arca settled just slightly, "Well then?"

Mara sighed, returning to the argument she'd run countless times in her own head now. "I gave my word to Luke that I would be custodian in his absence and now…"

"You're finding it difficult to hold to that promise."

Had it been so obvious? "What's happened…it was all my fault."

D'Arca frowned, "You fault?"

"I was bodyguard on the day. I shouldn't have let myself get separated from him. I was trying to call in help."

"No you shouldn't," D'Arca said firmly—then her voice softened fractionally. "But I've read the debrief report; there were…extenuating circumstances. Wez Reece should never have been on that gunboat. We both know that he should have already been in an Imperial cell."

"But the fact remains; I was with Luke. I was responsible—and I should do something about it."

"As far as I am aware Madam Regent, you are doing everything in your power. If I believed for one instant that you were not, I would consider it my duty to tell you such in no uncertain terms."

"I was thinking about what you said—about relative strengths. About Luke always expecting those he trusts to act to the very best of their ability…and that's what neither of us are doing right now—not even nearly. You can make all the speeches you want—and I'm not denying that last night's was an impressive one—but that won't find Luke and it won't get him back. And it can't continue like this."

"I think you underestimate the assets that the Emperor has left you, Madam Regent; he has assembled everything that you need to continue. The Emperor was a very astute man. He took great care to surround himself with every facet of aid that he believed he would need in his intent to hold the Empire together through any test. I look at the people who attend your meetings on a daily basis and I see General Arco, who will always step back and remain detached because he knows that this will net the very best analysis of this or any complex problem. I see Commander Clem, who will staunchly hold firm and do his duty no matter what, very much the view of the establishment. I see General Reiss, promoted on his merits and not his connections, always pushing for action and, despite his rank, very much reflecting the view of the average military man, I see Admiral Joss, the tactician who forever looks to the greater picture and views all things in terms of objectives and results, the quintessential Officer. Closer to him, I see Nathan Hallin who keeps his sharp wits well hidden and is forever the civilized conscience. And I see yourself…"

D'Arca paused, back straight, the unfaltering Empress, those dark, smoky almond eyes softening not a whit…which made her next words that much more surprising.

"You keep his feet firmly on the ground; you question everything, you push him constantly, yet…I believe that you are completely, unconditionally loyal—though not necessarily in the most appropriate ways. And I see myself—a conduit to the mindset and the support of the most influential beings in the galaxy, with the political and judicious aptitude to use this in his support. For that reason, I will not allow myself to be removed from this equation. We are neither of us here for our ornamental value, Madam Regent, I promise you that."

"Do you have point?" Mara said brusquely.

"I am saying that even we can work together well when the situation demands, Madam Regent, because like everyone else in the Emperor's close entourage, we were always meant to. He was, as I said, a very astute man."

"Have you finished?"

Kiria paused just a moment, her poised confidence unaffected, "Yes, I believe I've said everything I wish to say."

"Fine, then listen." Mara lifted her chin, "Firstly, he still is an astute man. But the fact remains; he didn't plan for this. Maybe you're right, maybe Luke did assemble this team to continue his work if he were to…if he were gone. But he's not. He's still alive, and I can't be here any longer knowing that. As long as he's alive, I cannot do this. This is not my strength. I should be out there, getting him back. That's my strength; I trained for years as a soldier in Palpatine's Royal Guard, trained as an infiltration specialist, as an assassin, undertook covert operations working outside of the usual bounds.

D'Arca remained silent, so Mara pushed on, "I have a plan, and I should be the one to follow it through…but I can't do that from here. You're…you held it all together without the public even knowing until Madine put out the images…" Mara paused for a second; last chance to bail. "Luke…he told me that you'd gone to him with your suspicions about Wez Reece. He told me he trusted you."

"Kiria said," that was what Luke had told had taken that information to Luke when she could so easily have remained silent; could have allied herself with a man who was offering to invest her as Empress in deed as well as name. Could have simply remained silent and waited to see what happened, giving empty lipesrvice to both sides. But instead she'd taken that information to Luke. She'd backed him—was very visibly doing so again in the present crisis, putting her name and her House and her political savvy behind an absent Emperor.

She may be the best actress in the world—Force knew, Mara wouldn't put it past her—but Luke had invested Mara with vision beyond sight, skills that were still growing and now, thrown together daily by this crisis, Mara knew what Kiria D'Arca was truly thinking and feeling—and she knew why Luke trusted her.

"I…need you. I need you here, the stateswoman, the public face, the diplomat, doing what you do best…then I can do what I do best. Because I can't do that from here."

Ever the consummate politician, D'Arca watched Mara steadily, face a mask. But her eyes—this close and free from make-up, Mara could see that they were glassy, rimmed in red, dark from loss of sleep, just like Mara's own—and that was what gave her the faith to push on.

"We each have our arena. Yours is here, stabilizing Luke's Empire. Mine is out there, making sure he gets back to see it. I'm asking you to take over the Regency."

Kiria remained silent. Mara had expected her to grin, to gloat, to show some kind of pleasure, however hidden, at the attainment of absolute power. But in the moment she simply stared, lips pursed, brow puckered into a frown.

"You'd hold executive powers," Mara said. "You can't rescind, change or redirect existing policy, but you'd be acting Head of State. You'd be the public and political face of the Empire and this crisis. You'd be…what we need right now."

Kiria's chin lifted a fraction, "Understand this; if you give me power, I shall use it. To Luke's aid—always that—but I shall use it as I see fit."

"Fair enough." Mara said. "I'd expected no less. But you understand this—you try anything, anything at all, any attempt to usurp, claim or redirect power, and that's it. I will come for you. If you give me reason, when this is over, I will come for you. And don't think for one moment that this Palace will protect you, because I have lived and worked here visibly and invisibly my whole life, under the reign of two Emperors. No matter how tight you think you have it locked down, I know easily a dozen ways to get in beneath the radar and move around freely even here, without anyone ever suspecting anything, and I will come for you."

Mara held D'Arca's gaze, meaning every single word of what she'd just said, and the Empress met that stony stare for a few seconds more before tilting her head just slightly in acknowledgement without ever backing down.

"Fair enough."

..

The executive order was signed three hours later, with six witnesses, Nathan among them. The document had been quickly drafted, but it contained all the relevant details; Mara Jade, present executor of Imperial power, handed over the stewardship of the Empire in all its facets to Kiria D'Arca, until such a time as the Emperor returned. The transfer took less than fifteen minutes. Mara was aware that her hand shook as she signed the document, but in truth her mind was already on the upcoming mission; she fully intended to be gone at dawn.

.

Mara had already managed to retreat to the deserted Council Cabinet when Kiria—the Empress Regent—entered, motioning casually for Clem's ever-present bodyguards to wait at the door, as if it were something she had always done.

Mara nodded once, "I'll give you about two days."

"With what?"

"The guards—I'll give you about two days before they drive you insane."

"They are, I promise you, the least of my worries, Commander Jade."

The two women stared at each-other for long seconds, silently readjusting the status-quo.

"Whatever you need for your mission, contact me directly. Anything at all." D'Arca said at last.

"I will. You need to…there are some papers; legislature that was already approved by Luke but needs implementing. Changes to the Recognition of Inalienable Rights and the Custody and Detention Statutes." Suddenly all business, Mara was feeling insanely like she was leaving instructions for someone to care for her apartment whilst she took a break. "They're in the Cabinet's secure file system. They should have been enacted eight days ago."

Kiria pursed her lips, nodding once, "If they were part of the Emperor's planned revisions then they'll be implemented."

There was an unswerving finality to her decisive words. Mara nodded once, then started for the door. She was almost there before she turned about, pursing her lips as she took a step back, unable to let this go.

"Let me just clarify; this isn't an alliance in any way shape or form. It's a temporary truce, nothing more. When this is through, we go back to how we were. I still don't like you."

That flawlessly serenity remained typically unassailable. "I would say the same Commander Jade—but I really don't think about you that often."

"Just so we're clear on that," Mara said. "I don't like you, and nothing that's happened has changed that. I think you're a good politician, but before you congratulate yourself too much, I happen not to like most politicians. I think you're scheming and manipulative and have no idea how you manage to look yourself in the eye every morning when you put those layers of paint on and string black pearls through your hair, knowing that you're insinuating yourself into the life of someone who doesn't want you there but is too polite to say. I just wanted to clarify that."

"Really? Well since we're baring our souls, I find you're irascible, stubborn, opinionated, gauche, tactless and patently unsuitable as a consort."

Mara stared, eyes ablaze, and Kiria arched those perfect eyebrows. "However, you're also loyal, determined and, surprisingly, intelligent enough to realize the best course right now and actually commit to it." The faintest pucker lined her smooth brow as she tilted her head, unmoved by Mara's glare. "… Don't make me add 'wasting time' to your bad points."

"So when I get back, its business as usual."

"Business as usual," Kiria confirmed, holding Mara's eye.

"Fine." Mara nodded once and turned away. She was at the door before D'Arca spoke, always the one to get the last word.

"Oh and Commander Jade—until you actually have the Emperor, don't bother coming back."

..

Nathan's eyes grew wide as the door to his apartment slid open to reveal Kiria D'Arca, flanked by two Royal Guards.

"May I speak with you, Commander?"

Nathan backstepped, uncertain, "Yes, yes of course."

He walked quickly into his apartment, followed by Kiria alone, aware that she was glancing about at the widespread disarray.

"Please forgive the…it's been a hard few days and…"

"Please don't apologize." Kiria said softly, the smallest smile touching her lips but never her eyes. She looked tired; drawn. Nathan had an idea he looked much the same.

She glanced to the ring she still wore on her index finger—Luke's ring. Nathan felt a burst of grief crush in on him at the memory of Luke's panic when he'd thought he'd lost it once before; sufficient that he'd been willing to face Palpatine down to retrieve it.

Kiria cleared her throat, but it gave no power to her voice. "I came because I wanted to be sure that you understood why Mara handed over executive power?"

"She's explained her reasons, yes."

"We both felt that this was the more prudent course, Commander; it was joint decision. Commander Jade's abilities lie elsewhere, and mine are here. Together we can ensure the best possible outcome to this…deplorable state of affairs."

Nathan frowned, uncertain why she was bothering to tell him this, "Yes, I understand."

"I hope you also understand that I will do everything in my power to bring the Emperor back safely. Absolutely anything, without hesitation. I consider that my duty and my privilege, as well as my responsibility."

"That's good to know."

She nodded, pausing just slightly, "To that end, I'd very much like you to tell me everything you know."

A wave of anxiety washed over Nathan, his thoughts immediately of Mara, though he kept his face straight and his voice steady. "There's nothing you don't already know, Excellency."

She sat, voice determined, "Then perhaps you'd indulge me by going over it again. I've already spoken in depth with Commander Jade this evening and she explained everything—her reasons, her responsibility, her failures. She very much blames herself, and I can well understand why. She now wishes to correct those mistakes, and for obvious reasons I would like to see that happen. To that end, I'd like to discuss the facts with you too—sometimes a fresh eye brings a new perspective."

Very aware that Mara would not have told the Empress one particular fact, Nathan went through everything; the trip out, the comm from Argot that came minutes too late, Mara's revelation as to Wez's betrayal. Everything. When he'd finished, he sat staring at his hands, fingers entwined and clasped so tightly that his knuckles were white, acutely aware that he could afford no slip about Mara's condition before the Empress's shrewd eye.

"… and there's nothing else?" D'Arca said quietly. "Nothing that could give us any lead, anything at all?"

"No, nothing."

"You're sure? Anything could be of value at this point, anything at all."

Nathan let out a ragged sigh, guilt at Wez's actions still gnawing at him. How had he not seen it? "There's nothing else—nothing I know."

"Anything here, since you've returned? Anyone else's actions that now seem out of place in respect of all that's happened? Anything that isn't common knowledge?"

Again nerves burned in his chest, thoughts on Mara. "No, not at all."

"Any contacts who may have been overlooked?"

Nathan glanced up, glad to move the subject on. "Luke uses a smuggler group, but I don't know how to contact them."

"Smugglers?" there was the barest thread of distain in her voice though she sought to hide it.

"Karrde; Talon Karrde. He's the chief, the only name I know. He was an information broker. Luke used them for intelligence; grass-roots stuff. They hired out the clean-registered small ships Luke used occasionally, but I don't think they ever knew what they were for. Luke's more cautious than that."

"Can you contact them—get their position—we could send troops out, bring them in."

"No. They had no set base and only Luke had the call codes. As far as I know they're not written down. Mara would have contacted them long before now if they were."

"We should follow that up. It may be nothing, but if they're mercenaries they're not above selling information from either side to either side."

Nathan shook his head, "No, Luke trusted them. He's used them for years."

Kiria tilted her head just slightly, "As few people as the Emperor trusted Commander, it clearly turns out that it was too many. As much as I have faith in his judgment, I think it only reasonable that we detain any and all of those under even the slightest suspicion until we have clarified their position. I'm sure you can understand the logic and the necessity of that?"

"I suppose." Nathan glanced down, nodding.

"Is there anything else, Commander Hallin? You were close to Wez Reece, you must know with whom he spoke regularly, his routines?"

"I really don't know more than I've already supplied Intel with. Right up to the day I didn't know." Nathan glanced about the devastated room, drawers still open, their contents piled haphazardly on every surface. "And…as you can see, Intel have been rather thorough in their checking of my apartment. Twice."

The Empress's dark eyes skipped momentarily about the apartment in realization, "Commander Jade authorized this?"

"No, actually it had already been done when we arrived back on Coruscant. Twice. Mara was the one who stopped them from search number three."

"And you haven't spoken with Wez Reece since?

"No," Nathan said quickly. "No, I…I went down to the detention centre with Mara but that was the day he told her about the vial, so it was all confusion after that. We needed to verify the viability of the contents."

"Of course," Kiria nodded. "Viability?

"The vial had expired over a year ago—self-replicating drugs tend to have a short shelf-life for obvious reasons, and this was a tailor-made drug designed specifically to control Luke. There may have been little or no study of long-term viability or deterioration. If this was the only sample Crix Madine had to go on, he may be synthesizing drugs from a flawed template, which could instigate any kind of adverse reaction from reduced potency to harmful degeneration.

Kiria nodded, "So you tested for this?"

"As much as we could. Everything to do with the drug had been destroyed at Luke's order almost two years ago, so we had no reference, no chemical breakdown to work from, nothing."

"But you have those results now?"

"We have limited results. In tests, the drug broke down in a sample of Luke's blood from my medical bank in around forty hours. It's fully effective for ten hours or so in the samples we tested, but after that it failed to maintain self-replication."

"And Wez Reece confirmed that he passed this vial on to Madine."

Nathan nodded. "He knew Mara had held vials of the drug originally, when Palpatine was alive. He must have checked at some point; had…had time to break the safe in her apartment—we were occasionally here at different times, and Mara in particular was never away from Luke's side."

The Empress tilted her head down, a scowl setting fine lines between her eyebrows as she lapsed into thoughtful silence, remaining still and silent for so long that Nathan felt his own fragile nerves fray ever shorter before she finally looked up to speak.

"So, just to clarify, there was a tailor-made drug which was designed specifically to overcome the Emperor's ability to use the Force. A drug that was generated specifically for use against him." As she spoke, Kiria's tone and manner cooled and hardened to incensed accusation. "The Emperor quite rightly ordered all samples destroyed…yet Mara Jade not only kept some, but allowed it to fall into hostile hands…and then chose not to disclose that fact."

Nathan straightened, eyes wide, "But…you said Mara had explained everything!"

"I thought she had. Apparently not."

"Wait, it was a mistake, an oversight, nothing more."

"I see…and then she accidentally failed to pass this information on to the Emperor's own Intel department—the unit which is officially in charge of this situation?"

Nathan shook his head rapidly, "No, she would have made the information available when needed. She simply didn't want the knowledge of the drug's existence to pass into the public arena. Luke had always been adamant that…"

The Empress was already rising. "It is a pity that neither yourself nor Commander Jade shared his caution—or failing that, the ability to execute a simple order."

Nathan stood, panicked, "You have to understand that Mara…"

"No, I don't think I do. What I understand are the facts—and they are that even knowing it could put him at risk, Commander Jade disregarded a direct order from the Emperor and then compounded that error by withholding its existence, further endangering the Emperor and compromising any rescue mission which may take place. Either one of those actions is a serious breach of trust."

"Mara wouldn't…"

The Empress was already turning away, anger hardening that delicate face, "But she did, Commander. And now I'm left to deal with the consequences. And deal with them I will."

Nathan set after her as she made to leave, "Wait! Where are you going?"

He hurried behind, following her into the main hallway hoping to diffuse this…and stopped dead, eyes drawn to the block of scarlet robes in the hallway beyond his door.

Eight Imperial Guards were now waiting to smart attention. It wasn't that which bothered him so much; even Luke often had two Royal Guards in tow. But the fact remained that when he'd first opened his door to her, there had only been two—and the four plain-clothes agents behind this wall of guards brought his gaze back to D'Arca with a frown of confusion.

"Forgive me Commander Hallin, I should have clarified earlier; I came here to inform you that you were being detained in the Emperor's name until your status can be clarified or a case can be brought against you on suspicion of aiding and abetting Wez Reece, a known insurrectionist. However, in recognition of your rank, past service and the trust the Emperor held in you, you are to be held under house-arrest. Don't give me cause to reconsider this allowance."

Nathan stepped out slightly, "Wait—you're arresting me?! For what?"

She turned those guileless almond eyes on him, "Actually you were simply being detained, Commander. However, according to your own words, by negligence or device you allowed a dangerous, restricted substance to fall into the hands of a known subversive. Worse, you then intentionally conspired or aided in concealing that fact. Treason, Commander Hallin. You're accused of treason."

So shocked was he that Nathan stood in silence as she turned and walked away, only coming to his senses when she was halfway down the long, wide sweep of the grand corridor, two Red Guard and the four plainclothes remaining about Nathan's door. "Wait! I would never do that—you can't possibly think...!"

The guards closed about him, and one of the agents—Dyso, Hallin thought he was called—stepped forward to press against Nathan's chest, pushing him gently but firmly back over the threshold of his apartment, clearly uncomfortable but intending to follow orders. "Please remain within the confines of the apartment, Sir. Don't make us take action."

He pressed the release to close the door from the outside, stepping back into the corridor beyond as it slid shut, leaving Nathan alone.

..

Mara was busy laying everything she thought she'd need out on her bed to make sure she forgot nothing in preparation to be packed into a holdall when the call came through. Immersed in her task, she almost ignored it, but hope that it could be a lead sent her reaching for her comlink. On the ID bar, it said simply, '9'.

Mara frowned, confused; it was one of the old call signs from when those around Luke had felt it best to keep their identity hidden, the connections scrambled and coded. She was pretty sure that this one was Nathan's.

"Nathan? What the hell are you doing using this frequency?"

"Mara, thank the Force! Listen- "

"Why aren't you using the internal comm system?"

"Because they've disconnected me—all my authorized comlinks are down. I remembered I had this one stuffed into an old boot in my closet. Listen to me-"

"Your comlinks are down?"

"Listen! Kiria was here, just a few minutes ago. I think I'm under arrest for treason."

"What?!"

"Mara, I think she's coming for you. You need to get out of your apartment."

"She wouldn't dare."

"….. Oh, she looked pretty mad when she left here."

"Why would she be coming for me?"

"Because I…I told her about the vial."

A lead weight hit the bottom of Mara's gut, leaving her cold. "You're kidding."

"No, I'm sorry—Mara I'm so sorry—I thought…she acted like you'd spoken with her, she said you'd explained everything, that she understood now. I thought you'd told her. I didn't know, I didn't know she'd do this, I swear. We were just talking…I was just..."

Mara was rushing now as she spoke, pulling the rest of her gear together and stuffing it into the holdall, "Nathan, why, why would I tell her of all people that? Why would I tell anyone that until I had to?! I ought to come over there and bounce you off every wall."

"I wish you would, I really do. I might feel a bit less guilty. But there's no time, you need to get out. Get out of the Palace. Now."

.

Nathan paced alone his empty apartment, knowing that he'd be the last to hear anything, even if Mara did get out. If she didn't and they caught her, they'd be back pretty quickly, he figured. Either way, it seemed likely that he'd be in the detention centre before the night was out, come to think of it. Irrationally, he paused, wondering what he should wear…

How long had it been? He glanced to the chrono on the wall; less than ten minutes—surely that wasn't right? He wasn't very good at subterfuge. Good grief, had it been like this all the time when Palpatine was alive? How had he coped? He was a nervous wreck—the slightest thing could probably-

A hand came down on his shoulder without warning, making Nathan jump a foot in the air, shouting out as he spun round. Mara lunged out for him and slapped her hand over his mouth, her head turning to the closed door. "Would you be quiet?!"

She lifted her hand away as Nathan was still heaving for breaths, his heart pounding against his ribs. "How the hell did you get in here?"

"Passages." Mara whispered quietly. "You have an exit in the window return of your study—the moldings hide it."

"Seriously? How long has that been there!"

"Really?" Mara whispered dryly as she returned to her entry point, Nathan following her. "That's actually the most important thing going on in your life right now—that's the one thing you need information about?"

"Never mind. You got out okay?"

"Pretty much as they came in. Where's that comlink you were using?"

"I have it here. Mara," Nathan reached out to grab her arm as she reached the low, narrow entrance, his voice trembling half with fear and half with determination. "Don't leave me behind. Don't leave me here to watch, helpless. Let me come. Let me help. I deserve that much. He's my friend and I won't abandon him and nothing you can do will make me, so if you're intending to just shout at me a bit then leave, I should warn you that you're going to have to knock me out first because that's the only way you'll stop me from following you."

Mara turned nimbly inside the entrance to the body-width passageway. "That and the fact that you don't know how to open this door from your side when I close it."

"And that." He allowed quickly. "Mara please—please don't leave me behind. I have to come, I have to."

Mara simply stared, face unreadable. "Are you finished?"

"Mara…Sith, Mara, let me come. Let me help—please."

"What the hell do you think I'm here for, nerf-brains?"

.

It turned out that Mara's allowance didn't extend to her cutting him any slack in her rant as they made their way through shoulder-narrow passages, barely more than head-height, within the Palace walls. Fortunately both Nathan and Mara were lightly built, though she seemed to move with typical smooth grace, even here. As he fazed in and out of his telling-off, Nathan wondered idly if people in the vast, quiet corridors beyond heard the mysterious ebb and flow of a woman's irate voice in the empty hallways when there was no-one in sight, and perhaps put it down to a particularly irked ghost.

He should be feeling worse, he knew, but somehow a buzz of elation was rushing through him at the knowledge that they were on their way; after eight agonizing days waiting for Intel, they were finally moving. No leads, no news, but even like this, it felt good. Because if anyone could do this, anyone in the whole galaxy, then it was the woman jogging down the corridor ahead of him, furious and ferocious and radiating resolve.

"Are you listening to me?" she growled without slowing.

"Yes, of course I am."

"You realize what you've done, don't you? You've cut us loose; we're now operating outside the law and more importantly, without access to its assets. We're on our own. We're on our own with no access to incoming Intel and no manpower."

"That's really not good, is it?"

"What the hell possessed you to trust her?"

"Me?! You'd just handed the Empire over to her!"

"Because it freed me up to go after Luke with the whole damn fleet in tow! Now we have nothing. No resources, nothing."

"What are we going to do?"

Mara moved through the narrow corridors at a jog, Nathan rushing to keep up, breathless. "I'll tell you what we're going to do, we're going to call in that network that I know damn well that Luke must've had in place before Palpatine died. Chances are, everyone he trusted then will still be trustworthy now. They'll still be loyal to Luke and not the office of Emperor. You have a hell of a lot of comms to make as soon as we get airborne."

"How will we get airborne?"

"Commander Arco has a full unit of Intel ships assigned to him in their own landing bay in the North Tower—don't even try to tell me that Arco wasn't one of Luke's allies. He'll get us an Intel ship with Intel authorization and he can keep it quiet—for a few days at least. Then we need a new ship."

"Is that why you broke me out—because I could get you access to that network and you knew you'd need it? .........Mara?"

"Please—if I'd wanted you for that, I'd have taken the comlink off you in your apartment."

Nathan straightened slightly, "I wouldn't have handed it over."

"I wouldn't exactly have asked."

"Well then why did you come for me?"

The figure sliding with nimble grace through the confined space before him was silent long seconds. When she finally spoke, her voice gave not an inch. "We got him into this together…we're damn well gonna get him out of it, you understand?"

A slow smile spread across Nathan's face, "I do…thank-you."

..

The viral had been release in the early hours of the morning, Leia roused from sleep to go down to the comms room onboard Home One, the situation explained to her on the way, Tag Massa taking pains to prepare her.

Nothing could, of course—not for that.

Even Han had turned away, cursing, outraged.

On every possible level it horrified Leia; that one human being could do this to another. That Madine, who had allied himself with the Alliance, would do it. That he would then send such images out over the HoloNet—that he would claim this was the work or the will of the Alliance...

That this was her brother.

Half the Council were already awake, gathered around to watch the images in silence. Others were arriving by the minute.

Already comms were coming in from other units; what was happening? Was this real? Was the Alliance actually responsible for this? Were they monitoring the HoloNet—had they heard what was being said already, on official and unofficial channels?

Leia turned away, thoughts afire. "Get Madine on a comm line."

"We're already trying. We can only leave messages at set locations and wait for him to pick them up."

"I don't care how you do it, just do it—and pull the Council together. We meet in an hour."

.

It was unstoppable; within the hour everyone in the fleet knew, incoming messages from other Rebel groups and outside contacts flooding the comms, Leia already beginning to feel like they were under siege, and this was a fraction of what was happening out there. They could not support this and she knew it; the Alliance was already losing credibility within its own fleet, let alone the galaxy at large, fracturing into two camps; those who thought Madine's actions were justified and those who knew that this was a step too far; they didn't stoop to this.

She shook her head as she stared, struggling to concentrate on the galaxy map in her cramped office, Han close beside her as Tag reached through the holo to point to a star on the Hydian Way.

"Kwenn Station's here. Madine's first jaunt after rendezvousing with the Zephyr was here, at Agamar. That's where the transfer of non-essential staff took place—presumably where he got rid of anyone he didn't trust completely. We're pretty sure now that his next jump was another short one from there to the Raioballo Sector. That's where we eventually tracked his first message with the Council back to; he was in orbit around Sinsang. It's highly industrialised and has a constant stream of incoming and outgoing freighters; nobody would look twice."

Han straightened, "Any chance he could still be there?"

He was, Leia knew, simply waiting for a direction to point the Falcon now, before he gunned the engines. If he didn't have one by midday, she knew damn well he'd set off anyway.

"I very much doubt it." Tag shook her head. "He wouldn't stay more than a few days in any location, but Sinsang's inside the Empire's interdicted area now anyway. He'd be long gone before the search net reached him. Initial logic says he'd go further out; to the Braxant or even the Dolobian Sectors, but I wouldn't put credit on it."

Han too was shaking his head, staring at the maps, "He's been forced to change his plan. There's no way he would have stayed that close to Kwenn for that first jump if he didn't have to."

Tag nodded, "We know he took a few heavy hits at Kwenn Station and we know the damage was repaired on the run, which is never ideal. Based on the proximity of those first few jumps to Sinsang and Agamar, I think the damage sustained may be forcing Madine to make only short jumps at the moment."

Han nodded, stepping forward, "If so, he chose the wrong direction. He could hide at Sinsang pretty easy in a freighter, but it's skirting the edge of the Unknown Regions. He could jump further out, but he's risking limiting his options 'cos there ain't much out there by way of hyperlanes, and the Empire would be expanding that cleared area the whole time. He'd be skirting the Empire's expanding safe zone and its Interdictors the whole way—that's a hell of a risk."

Leia frowned, "Then he'd jump the opposite way, towards the Core worlds."

"Yeah," Han leaned in, bringing a pilot and a navigator's-eye view to this. "Only as far as he absolutely had to, but in his boots I'd jump Corewards, hopin' to outrun the search line somewhere in the Inner Rim. There's a huge belt of planets on the edge of the Expansion Region—that'd slow the Empire down. That's where I'd look to slip through."

Leia shook her head, "That's still a big tract of space."

"It's also the best bet we got, sweetheart," Han said gravely. "If Madine manages to get the Wasp past that bottleneck, we've lost him again. There's no way to track him in the time he's given us; the systems are just too close together after that point."

"Then we need to get ships there quickly." Leia said, squaring her shoulders.

"I have one suggestion," Tag said cautiously. "We tell the Empire what we know."

Leia turned, aghast, "The Empire?"

"If we're right, they're wasting over half their task force searching and clearing the wrong regions; if they targeted their forces on a slow sweep from Sinsang through the Inner Rim and everything turnwise from the Perlemian Trade Route..."

"Wait, you want us to actually tell the Imperials where to look? Why would they even listen?"

Han was nodding in support of Tag, "Fact is, there's no way in hell the Alliance could cover an area that size, even if you wanted to risk taking the fleet into the Inner Rim."

"I'll say it again," Leia held. "Why would they listen to us?"

Tag had the decency to look down as she spoke, Leia noted. "They'd listen to us if we denounced Madine publicly; if we disassociated ourselves from his actions."

"The Alliance is already being torn apart from the inside by this, and you want me to issue a statement that will finish the job?"

"Madine's losing more support than he's gaining with this."

"It's splitting the Alliance down the middle."

"If I may Ma'am, it's hardly down the middle. It's separating off the more radical element."

"Madine's supporters are starting to feel like they're under siege, Tag, and that's just here. Think how common opinion is running in the galaxy at large! Maybe I should do what Luke asked and cut Madine free..."

Tag frowned, "The Emperor asked you to do that?"

"He said if we didn't disown him, we'd get pulled down with Madine and the talks would falter...but if we do, it'll fracture the Alliance completely!"

Han stepped forward, "Wait a minute, are you serious? If you cut Madine free, you cut that last line of contact and you lose all control of him. You know that."

"Han, I have a Council meeting in less than an hour. What am I supposed to say? Because of Madine, the Alliance, is going to come under fire from all sides for hard-line tactics which in truth we didn't know about and have no control over. This will get universal condemnation—not just official, but right across the board. We'll lose any credibility, and rightly so—if it were us doing this."

Tag straightened, "Well then maybe we admit that we're not."

"What if I took this to the Council myself, now. Everything—the meetings, the fact that Luke's my brother, everything. Then Madine has nothing, no hold on me, no way to keep me quiet."

Even Han balked, knowing it would be the loss of everything Leia had fought for and held close her whole life. "Wait a minute, I thought Luke said not to."

"He was just trying to protect me."

Massa, clinical as ever, had the knack for putting it into the bigger picture. "If you take your lineage to the Council now then whatever happens, you'll be removed from office, even if at first they claim it would only be until it can be investigated further. This is a huge admission and no matter what, it would hang over you like a cloud, even among your supporters. Your reputation and your leadership would be compromised at what you know yourself is a crucial time, and you'd certainly be removed from any involvement whatsoever in the Emperor's plight. Your opinion would be considered biased."

"My opinion is biased—I want him out!"

"So do I, but that doesn't make this the right time to admit your heritage. If the Emperor is killed, the disclosure not only gained you nothing, it damaged the Alliance and the Council irrevocably. Even if he lives, it places the peace talks under threat because your neutrality has been compromised."

Leia shook her head, past listening to the kind of flawless logic that Tag always maintained. "There are too many secrets here…someone's going to start speaking them eventually."

..

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

.

.

They walked in and Luke roused, hands trembling, blinking at the rush of light. He'd not even nearly risen when powerful arms grabbed him and hauled him up and over to the table, pushing him down onto the chair and forcing his hands out before him, holding them tight as they clamped the binders around them though he hadn't the strength to struggle. He wasn't really together from the earlier session yet, his numb mind still tumbling in freefall, his chest still burning, limbs too heavy to fight as the medic Kalter walked in and straightened his arm, the syringe already poised.

"This is not good," Luke murmured. "Not good. Not good at all… This is not good."

"Just relax," said the medic. "There's no point in fighting it."

"You don't understand," Luke mumbled. "This is…don't push me to that edge…not good."

"Luke, you need to relax."

He tried to pull away but the binders held him there as the medic worked. "It doesn't work, can't you see that, the drugs don't work because…I…st……"

Within seconds it became incredibly hard to say individual words, the concept of pulling a rational sentence together seeming insurmountable, his breathing slowing as every muscle fell loose. His head rolled loosely as he slowly tumbled to the side, but unseen hands caught his flightsuit from behind and held him upright, head lolling.

Somewhere at the very edges of his consciousness Luke was aware of people talking, but trying to process what those words were was near impossible, each one lost to him the moment it was said.

Aware of the medic's eyes on him, Luke dragged a ragged breath into burning lungs as the room swam hideously, refusing to stop or slow. He tried to lift his hands to his head, but felt a jarring halt yank at his wrists and wondered distantly when they had tied them down; he didn't remember, couldn't summon even a fraction of the memory. All he could do was stare at disjointed images as he floated, the sound of his own trembling breaths filling Luke's ears.

Something…was important; something he'd been thinking about just moments before, something he knew he absolutely shouldn't say…someone…

It seemed hours—hour upon hour—before the medic leaned in again, lips phasing in and out of synch with the pale, reedy voice which emanated from them as if from a great distance. "This is different Luke—this is stronger, a higher dose."

Luke stared as a second face leaned in behind the first; some tiny, fragmented thought said, Madine.

They spoke, both staring at him, and all Luke could do was stare back as the room spun sickeningly, his lungs burning now, every breath a struggle. He knew he was having to rally almost every conscious thought on taking the next breath, sure that if he didn't he would simply cease breathing, his lungs collapsing down and stopping, nothing he could do forcing them to draw air again…concentrate; breathe…

And still they just spoke on, staring at him as if… How long had they been speaking now—hours? Days? Was it a day? How long had he been like this? His mouth was painfully dry yet he had no concept of how to ask for water, how to string enough words together to make a sentence, no idea of how to swallow it if they gave it to him…

And still they were talking…still just staring and talking…how long now?

Words filtered through the thick haze as he stared; "… maintain.. levels…"

"… dangerous toxicity…"

"Can't breathe…" Had he said that, words so quiet and broken? Breathe…remember to breathe…

"… come easier…trying….listen."

Luke shook his head slightly in confusion and the world reeled again, his mind dulling further as the blood leached in a cold, seeping ebb from his head, leaving his skin numb.

"….on me." Kalter's hand reached in, seconds missing from the move, a hundred after-images strobing about it. One moment it was at the periphery of Luke's vision and the next it was close to his face, fingers snapping, incredibly loud. "…at me. Luke, look at me. Concentrate on me."

"It…won't work."

Madine leaned in, face hard, the movement disconcertingly fast, causing Luke to recoil slightly. "Do you want us to give you more?"

"No, no more."

"Then tell me what I want to know."

"It won't work."

"Why?" The medic Kalter; too many people asking questions—too many.

"Because…." once again, it became incredibly difficult to pull words and thoughts together, the drug's effects washing over him in waves.

"…codes from him—I know he…it." Madine's voice, clipped with frustration.

"Luke—Luke, look at me. Just me." Luke blinked rapidly as the medic leaned in, his movement disorienting.

"What shall we talk about, Luke? Let's talk about secrets."

The man's voice was calm and smooth and distant beneath the pound of Luke's own heartbeat in his ears as he shook his head, eyes lowering to the table before him, possessed of a desperate desire to collapse forwards and rest his head on it. But he knew someone would grab at his hair or his collar and shake him awake again; they always did. Instead he stared at the binders which held him, at the catheter which had been taped roughly to the back of his hand, at the needle which rested on the table before the medic.

"Just the little secrets today, I think. The unimportant ones. Things that couldn't possibly matter, you understand? These things don't matter."

Secrets; the word brought a touch of a smile to Luke's face, cracking drying scabs; he remembered—remembered the secret. Mara—Mara and… Luke jolted slightly, glancing up at the Madine. Don't think about it! Think about something else. Concentrate—think about something else…

"Luke, look at me, not him. Luke—we need to talk about what you know."

Secrets…Mara.

"Let's talk about numbers, Luke. I need a code that you know."

Momentarily Luke grasped at the question, at the chance it offered to turn his thoughts away from greater secrets…but weren't these secrets too?

He shook his head carefully, "No."

Kalter sighed, resting his jaw on his hand, elbow on the desk, and Luke envied him even this, his own hands bound and tethered to the table, pulling his arms forward awkwardly. The medic studied him for long seconds, and Luke pursed his lips, blinking slowly.

"Are you saying no, you won't tell me? You know that's not true, Luke. The longer we talk about them, the more likely you are to tell me—you know that."

"Perception..only.." Luke scowled, annoyed at the sluggishness rate that his own mind was dragging, aware of how slowly and deliberately he was speaking but unable to stop. "Drugs don't make you tell truth...they just make you talk. If I think they'll…make me tell the truth, then I'm more likely to tell it."

"These make you tell the truth. You know that."

"No…make me talk. You make me tell the truth—if you can."

The medic lifted the syringe from the table before him, "I think we'll give you a little more…"

"No—no, wait, wait!"

Kalter reached out and again Luke tried to pull back but again the binders held him, Luke pulling away hard enough to bark fine curls of skin away where they dragged against his wrists. The drugs went buzzing through him and he let out a gasp, reeling, moments shuttering together with no concept of time, until that voice fazed slowly back in again, every other word lost.

"Do y…know how…long…been here…"

"Do I know that?"

"Yes."

"It won't work." What was he denying? He couldn't remember….

"I want you to think of the codes again Luke; the codes you know… Think of the code which you have called the doomsday code. You remember that?"

Codes! That was what…what they wanted. Had they asked already, or had he imagined it? "Doesn't exist."

"Yes it does." Amusement in his voice; patronizing and superior. "We know it's hardwired into the fleet Luke. It can't be changed or overridden. It was a little insurance put there by Palpatine in case his fleet turned against him, we already know that—and we know you have it now."

"Too hard."

"No, I'm sure it's not. Just think of that one code—I'm sure you know it very well."

"No codes…no….. too many numbers."

"Too many numbers? No, you can remember this one."

Luke shook his head slightly, "Very long…got…."

"How long? How many numbers?"

"Very…v…" the drug was washing over him again now, dragging him down like a riptide, nerves firing as he seemed to buzz, his skin crawling, reality falling back behind a darkening haze as his heart pumped loudly. If he could have, he would have brought his hands up to hold his head against the spin, but his limbs were too heavy and he had to concentrate again simply on breathing.

"How many numbers Luke? You don't have to tell me the code, just the amount of numbers…that's safe to tell me. It's completely safe, I promise you."

"I…don't…"

"Just how many numbers—are they grouped?"

"… Yes."

"Yes? How many groups?"

Did that matter? If he told them, would that matter? He couldn't remember, couldn't comprehend whether that was important or not, knew only that he shouldn't tell them without quite grasping why. Was the code important? More important than…what? Something…someone...

"Mara."

The medic's face crawled to a frown, "What?"

Luke felt a slow smile take him, "Mara."

A second face leaned in, a blurred smudge physically and mentally. Madine; he shouldn't tell Madine…what?

"No, we're talking about the code—the doomsday code." his voice was sharper, clipped with frustration. "How many groups? How many groups of numbers?"

"…seven."

"Seven groups. How many numbers in each group?"

"Very bad…."

"You?" That overbearing presence leaned away slightly, a grin splitting Madine's face open. "Yes, I suppose you are. Does it hurt?"

"Yes…burns."

"Burns? Painful, I imagine." There was no scrap of concern in that voice. "Would you like me to stop it?"

Luke grinned manically, ridiculously amused at the concept. "You won't."

"I will if you tell me what I want to hear. Then I'll stop it."

"If I tell…numbers you know it won't be..right ones." Had he said that? Admitted the thoughts going through his head; that he could give them anything, any numbers. He hadn't meant to—was he slipping?

"I'm sure you will at first. But you know this won't stop until you tell me the right ones, and I know how much you want it to stop."

Luke smiled again, "Other questions."

"Other questions?"

"You'll just ask….other questions."

"Not today, Luke." Kalter again, leaning in, voice so friendly and indulgent when Luke knew it was nothing of the sort. "Today we'll stop and you can sleep. You want to sleep, don't you Luke? You're tired, I can see that. You need to sleep. Or shall we continue…that would be bad, wouldn't it?"

"Bad…" Luke tried again to bring his hand up to his face, but it clacked where his wrist was chained to the table. "This is...bad."

Didn't they understand why? That they couldn't make an enemy out of him—not and live. Didn't they understand what he was—that if they pushed him to that edge, as Palpatine always had, he'd lash out?

The medic dripped hollow compassion. "Only you can stop this Luke."

"You alone can end this." Palpatine's words, whispered long ago across grazed and bleeding skin, in a cell so similar to this.

Palpatine…the cell beneath the Palace, pushed to the very edge of endurance… That memory, that mindset, that moment; the coppery tang of blood a fine mist in the air, warm on his skin… Palpatine, so clear in Luke's thoughts that he could have been stood beside him now, grinning that death's-head grin, yellow teeth against bloodless lips; "We are the same, you and I. Didn't I always tell you we were."

He looked to the medic, trying to focus, to remember that face, to commit it to memory. "Oh, if I get the chance I'm gonna kill you."

"I don't think you're in a position to hand out threats, Luke."

"No…not a threat. Fact—I will do it. Too close…to that edge. I will do it."

"Stop it."

Luke grinned again; felt the split on his lip seep warm over chilled skin. "You're already dead—you understand that, don't you? Too close to the edge and you're a threat, and threats should be…never leave a threat at your back." There was no animosity in his voice, neither anger or blame, just the absolute knowledge of fact.

"Luke, you're threatening someone who has the power of life and death over you."

Luke could only smile loosely, "Dead…I'm sorry."

"Hey," Madine's hand took Luke's jaw, turning him roughly about and making the room pitch and yaw sickeningly, Luke gasping against chaotic disorientation.

"I want numbers—the doomsday code."

"No."

"Give him some more."

"He's too close to overdose." The medic…what was his name? Didn't matter; he was dead anyway. Just a matter of when.

"Do I look like I care?" Madine's voice came from the edge of Luke's perceptions, his frustration clear.

"Let me try something else; he's talking, he's just a little too together. Let's try some co-fralodiost."

Another bloom chased through him making his skin crawl, this one cold, his tensed shoulders dropping as he closed his eyes, awareness of his body numbing to absolute stillness. His hands were shaking—he couldn't feel it, but he could hear the binders against the surface of the table.

"Codes." Madine.

"..no." Barely a whisper within a breath.

"Give him a minute, let it cut in."

Tired…

"Open your eyes—hey, open your eyes!" Madine slapped his face hard twice but Luke didn't react, rolling loosely with the blows.

"That's alright, let him keep his eyes closed." The medic, cool and unmoved. "Luke, tell me about the codes…seven groups. Are they numbers, letters, words? I'm not asking you to tell me the code, you don't have to do that. Let's just talk about what it's made up of?"

"Equations."

"It's made up of equations?"

Luke smiled, "One hundred…"

"One hundred equations?"

"One hundred…ninety four, eighty eight….eighty two…" Luke fell back on the same technique, concentrating on counting down, knowing it would tune out the medic's questions…

Someone grabbed him and shook him wildly, hauling him halfway from his seat, and Luke opened his eyes, grinning into Madine's fury, "Seventy six."

"Don't you start with this chaff again, or I will turn you inside out, understand?!"

"Seventy…sixty four…"

Another slew of movement; something hard and cold pushed beneath his chin, pressed painfully inwards. Madine smiled, a scarlet slash across his blurry face, "I pull this trigger and that's it, no more Sith, understand? The line ends with you, right now."

Luke smiled slowly, "No."

"No?"

"No. Too late."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Luke laughed…

The blow came from nowhere, far too hard to be flesh and blood—a split second of scarlet flaring brightly, then cool darkness.

.

Kalter, who had risen when Madine had first grabbed Skywalker and hauled him upright, watched the General throw him back down and storm from the cell. He turned back to the unconscious man, sitting back into his chair, disgusted. "Frag."

..

He came round slowly, the drugs still prickling through his system, making his skin crawl and the harsh lights of the cell painfully bright. It took a while to force dry, gritty eyes open, the desperate need to sleep slowly giving way to the realization that the medic was still sat in the chair opposite, watching him.

Luke blinked dully, dragging himself back to awareness by sluggish increments. As no-one tried to yank him upright, it slowly percolated that he was alone in the cell with the medic.

It was a gaping, indefinite time before he managed to haul himself up to sitting, weaving unsteadily, risking turning his head slightly to look about him.

"They're gone. They got tired of waiting," the medic said companionably. He tilted his head, leaving Luke with the impression that the room was slowly slanting the opposite way. "You are a very stupid man, you know that?"

Luke grinned, head still spinning, gravity tumbling, "Made him leave though."

The medic laughed lightly, nodding, "Yeah, you made him leave. You think he's not gonna come back again?"

"That's tomorrow."

The man nodded again, looking down in consideration, and Luke tried to rally his thoughts, aware of just how sharp the medic was, recognizing distantly that he couldn't say the same of himself as he struggled to keep his eyes open, slipping repeatedly back into numb darkness and jolting awake again.

"That's an interesting method you have to counter the drugs," Kalter said at last, voice sociable as ever, "where did you learn it?"

Luke smiled loosely, glazed eyes blinking repeatedly, "You think…Empire don't use them? Palpatine probably funded their development."

"But how did you learn it?"

There was of course only one way—the most obvious of all; "They used them on me—he did."

The medic frowned, "Who did?"

"Palpatine—in the cell underneath the Palace." The words were out before he'd even realised what he was saying, but the look in the interrogator's eye gave Luke a small burst of self-satisfaction before he turned away, unable to deny the intensity of emotions raking through him at painful memories, "I hated that cell. I hated that room… I hated him. Some days that was all that kept me going. I didn't know…didn't know hatred could be a strength. He taught me that."

"Why would Palpatine drug you?" The man tried to keep his voice level but his shock was evident on his face.

Luke turned away, blinking sluggishly, the room turning a slow loop as he moved, nerves afire. "Why did Palpatine do anything—for control of course. If I questioned or if I refused or refuted…anything, he'd drag me back down to that cell…" he trailed off, lost in memories made intense by the drugs. "They came every hour, day and night. Every hour. Twelve; always twelve of them."

His voice was distant, quiet, mildly curious, examining his memories as if from afar; as if they had no association to him at all. "After a while you stop counting how many times…you don't make a noise, you stop even trying to react. You just curl up in a ball and wait for it to be over. See, the hollow bars were the worst. They had shock-sticks and force-pikes but it was the bars…" He let out a small laugh at this; at the irony that something so simple could outdo all the technology. "It's the hollow tip; takes gouges out of you—just takes big gouges out of your skin. And then Palpatine, arguing, tormenting, provoking, until you just…you can't pull a rational thought together; you just can't do it anymore—you can't do it. You stop even trying. Stop caring. You just…stop. That's how I lost him, right there in that damn white cell that I hated so much—that's where I lost him." His voice faded, remorse pulling him down.

"Who did you lose?" Kalter asked, his own voice hushed in response.

"Luke Skywalker." He let out the name with a sigh of regret, melancholy and empty. Fascinated though; this was the first time he'd let his own guard drop enough to even consider these facts.

"You think I'm Luke Skywalker, but Luke Skywalker died in a cell underneath the Imperial palace seven years ago. Sometimes I think…Leia says sometimes she sees the wolf in her shadow…she says she sees the wolf stood in her shadow and sometimes I think, if I turn around fast enough, I'll see Luke Skywalker in mine…but I never do. I lost him in there—left him in there. I wanted to care; to feel something, some loss…but I couldn't do even do that anymore. There was nothing left. I didn't just forget who he was, I forgot why he was fighting; why it had meant so much to him. It was all bled away a little at a time, beating on beating. I remember one time… I had…my hands were bound and I remember Palpatine taking the cord and pulling it to him and he said, 'You understand don't you—that everybody breaks in the end. There is no if; there's only when.'

"And I did, I knew that, but…as words. As warnings given to us as soldiers in briefings and lectures when I first joined the Alliance. But to be there…to be the one being taken apart hour on hour and day on day… See, I thought… I couldn't understand why he wouldn't just kill me. I thought he saw just one more Jedi; one more Rebel—I thought that was what this was; just torture and torment me until I died. I didn't understand, I didn't know what he saw when he looked at me."

"What did he see?" the medic's voice was less than a whisper now, completely mesmerized.

"He saw himself." Wasn't that obvious? "How could he not? He saw his past reaching out to become his future. He saw his Wolf. He saw Darkness and destiny and his precious Sith dynasty.

"And what did you see?" the medic asked, moved to ask in spite of himself.

"In him? Luke glanced away, drug-glazed eyes amused and distant, a lopsided smile pricking the open gash in his split lips. "It doesn't matter. The same, perhaps—it was the same in us both you see, we circled round that same flame… Darkness and destiny. The truth was, it didn't matter what I saw in him. It didn't matter, because I knew one day I'd destroy him. One day his precious wolf would turn. I saw what he hid…I'd long since turned his secrets and his soul inside-out and seen an old man who was afraid and desperate but unable to back off from a power that he thought he deserved; thought he could control. But I couldn't control it, so I knew—I always knew he wouldn't. So you see it didn't matter what I saw in him or what he did, because I knew what haunted his darkest visions, I knew what he was afraid of. I knew it was me. I knew just how dangerous that made him...but truthfully, from the first time I left that cell, he'd ceased to be what really scared me."

"And what was that?" the man asked, barely a whisper.

A feral grin came easily to Luke's face, the slightest laugh, the barest pause; "He always asked me, 'Tell me your worst nightmare; tell me what you truly fear—what do you see in the dark when your demons come?' I never told him…I never once told him what I saw, the one thing that truly scared me…" Pale, mismatched eyes lifted to the medic, voice broken and dispassionate; absolutely chilling, "I never told him the one thing I really fear, the one thing which haunts my own visions and nightmares, that demon I see in the darkness…is myself."

.

Kalter frowned, staring for a long time at the man before him who, drugged and bound and barely awake, had moved so effortlessly from powerless prisoner to brooding menace. "You killed him, didn't you?"

"From the moment I saw him, I knew I would." There was absolute, cold conviction in those words. "Maybe that was my flaw; maybe that was why I fell. I spent five years struggling against that; manipulations he'd wrapped about me like chains against my own absolute knowledge that I wanted him dead. I wanted to put a saber to his throat and ram the blade home. I wanted to be there—to be close enough to see the life dim from those yellow eyes. Wanted to know I was the one who'd done that. But every time I got even close to thinking about trying he would drag me back down to that cell and beat it out of me. Year in, year out. Break me to pieces one more time…until I couldn't even remember what I'd lost anymore, let alone why that was important. But I knew...I still knew I'd kill him one day."

He turned to the face of his inquisitor, uncanny, disquieting eyes possessed of an insular calm and brittle composure. "He made me what I am, took everything that I was. Every hope; every future, he shattered the pieces and ground them to dust. Because they were nothing, he said; because I was nothing." There came the smallest dry laugh, no trace of humor in it, piercing, mismatched eyes holding a disquieting clarity in that moment; "And now you think I'd be afraid to die…you think you can threaten me by saying you have the power of life and death over me. You don't understand—I'm already dead; I died a thousand times in a cell just like this…once more won't make any difference."

..

It wasn't going well. The present Council meeting onboard Home One was only minutes in, and already the arguments were starting up. The response from the galaxy at large had been pretty much what Leia had expected; universal condemnation.

She'd argued long and hard with the Council over the last two days to officially state that the Rebel Alliance had no part in Luke's situation, but again and again the Council had cited greater responsibilities; that if they did this, they were effectively admitting publicly that there was a split in the Alliance leadership sufficient that one faction would take this kind of radical action without the other's knowledge or blessing. And they simply couldn't afford to admit to that kind of crippling weakness. Duty, they said, came first.

Heeding Tag and Han's warnings, Leia had remained silent—but her unspoken question rung loud in her ears; "Even before my brother's life?"

Luke had clearly believed so, though he'd cited exactly the opposite, telling Leia to make the split between the Alliance and Madine public as soon as possible, regardless of his own fate—but then she'd come to realize that the values of the man who'd risked and lost everything to save her at Bespin hadn't really changed so very much; just the lengths that he was prepared to go to achieve them. And even that was tempered by the knowledge that he was asking nothing of others that he wasn't himself prepared to give, the memory of his words, spoken with absolute conviction even as he'd sat tethered, battered and bruised in Madine's cell, came vividly to mind; "You cannot be involved in this! There'll be no difference in the public's eyes between Madine's actions and the Alliance's… You can't be associated with this, or everything we're trying to achieve will be lost—and I won't give that up to him, I won't let him take that away."

She wasn't blind; despite all that had happened the wolf still stalked through her dreams and stood in her shadow, but now…now, when she looked into its expressive, mismatched eyes, a greater resonance tugged at her soul.

When Alderaan had been destroyed, she'd thought she'd lost any possible link with family. To be given this chance now—not just an adopted family, no matter how much they meant to her, but a brother; a twin brother—this was incredible, was everything to her. But she couldn't abandon that which she'd fought for her whole life—and Luke didn't even want her to. Somehow that made it harder not easier; that he wanted her to stand by her beliefs. That deep down, they were his too.

How could she abandon someone who was so much a part of her that he understood that?

She had already sent a private message to Coruscant offering sympathy and denying any part in this. It had been Han's suggestion to send it to the red-haired bodyguard who had always been seen close to Luke, and Leia trusted his judgment; it was, after all, the same redhead whom Luke had trusted enough to bring her with him to every meeting. The message had been unofficial, made and sent from Tag's offices in the Intel department with no-one else's knowledge, and even at the time it had seemed pitifully little.

Tag, who spoke out now, bringing the Council's discussion back to its roots.

"I will say this, Sirs; I can pretty much guarantee that General Madine is no longer interested in a trial—you know that don't you? He wants an execution and he wants to put it out over the HoloNet…and I think he's going to do it. He's already put…contentious images of the Emperor out on viral. He's already said that more will be put out soon. I genuinely think that the next set of images will be an execution. Do we really wish to be connected with that, by even the most tenuous association? Can we afford to be?"

"We're finally taking decisive action," Commander Odig, always a strong supporter of Madine, cut in.

"We're giving protection and credibility to a radical," Leia countered firmly.

"Backing an execution, if this goes ahead," Rieekan added gravely. "We should withdraw any tie or support whilst we still have that option…before it looks like a knee-jerk response."

Even knowing that it was Luke's wishes, Leia still squirmed, backing off from that ultimate option, "We cut Madine free now and we relinquish any and all control of him."

"He's no longer following orders or policy anyway," Ackbar said in husky tones. "He's effectively…"

"Ma'am?" an aide stepped into the council chamber, stopping when he reached Leia. And now—of all times, now—came the comm Leia had been waiting on for almost two days. "We have a comm—General Madine's made contact."

Leia straightened, the Council falling to silence, "Patch it through, Lieutenant."

..

"General Madine," Leia tried hard to have her tone articulate only cool confidence and not her abhorrence of the man who held her brother now.

The susurration which travelled about the Council Chamber wasn't nearly as discreet, and she realized that despite her personal feelings, she may well find herself the mediator here, trying to hold this together from both sides as the Council grew ever less inclined to trust Madine.

The man himself sat tall and straight, the slight flicker of the holo hiding none of his self-assured arrogance, "Ma'am, Sirs."

Leia felt her hands curl to fists, fingernails digging into her palms.

It was General Gall who spoke out first though, another ardent supporter, "General, you have my respect, Sir. You've put the Alliance's name on everyone's lips."

General Cotta turned to him, her manner frosty, "You seem to think that's a good thing, General Gall."

Gall straightened, "You think it's not? We've finally elicited some kind of reaction—the news is on everyone's lips."

"For the wrong reasons." General Rieekan said tersely, never one to mince words.

"Wrong reasons? How could this do anything but further our cause?"

"Our cause?" Rieekan asked, fuming. "Those…images were supposed to further our cause?"

"Those images and words were intended to light a fire under the dour complacency that has spread in the last few years General," Madine said forcefully. "Both in the galaxy at large and the Alliance itself."

"They certainly did that, General." Leia said with feeling. "Though I question whether they were a little too…inflammatory."

"The words were spoken with strong intentions and absolute commitment, Chief Organa," Madine said, tone hardening. "We seem to have let such things slide under recent leadership."

Leia nodded. "It's a pity that all those strong words and absolute commitment failed even once to mention the Alliance's cause or intentions—that its fight is with injustice that the Empire embodies, not the man who…"

"The Empire and the Emperor are synonymous," Madine cut in forcibly. "We strike out at one and we deliver a blow to both. Are we so toothless now that we won't even take a stand for…"

"Forgive me," Leia countered, cutting Madine off with a conviction all her own. "But I served in the Senate, General. I know when my hand is being forced by divisive words…and actions. You made a public statement on behalf of the Alliance and now if we don't stand by it we lose credibility…and if we do, we lose integrity, and with it any right to claim connection or commitment to the values of the Old Republic."

"We have a chance to turn the path of the galaxy—permanently! We hold the Emperor!"

"We are all very well aware of that General," Rieekan didn't seek to hide his disgust. "We have seen the images."

"You're seeing only what you chose to. Look at the bigger picture! Right now I have in my possession the means to bring this war to an end—a decisive end, in our favour."

"By murdering one man?"

"Murdering? Let's talk about murder—I'm bringing a mass-murderer, a dictator, to justice."

"Justice?! What gives you that right to do so like this?" Leia asked. "Who gave you that jurisdiction?"

Madine turned on her, "Perhaps you should ask Mon Mothma that, Chief Organa."

"The man you're so very eager to kill didn't execute Mon Mothma, General. However much we dislike the fact, however wrong we know it to be in principle, he arrested her and passed her on to the state. She was under Imperial jurisdiction, not his."

"He is the Empire!" Madine was almost shouting now. "Whether he took her to her fate or did the deed himself is splitting hairs. He knew what he was doing—what the outcome of any circus of a trial would be."

"And are we any better for doing the same now," Leia argued. "Less even; you have no intention of offering even some travesty of a trial, do you…do you?"

Madine's voice dropped to a low growl, "I wonder if you could explain to us why exactly it matters so very much to you whether I execute a known dictator, Chief Organa?"

Leia fell to silence at the u7nspoken threat, but Rieekan was quick to step in. "We would defend any life for its basic sentient rights, General. Even the Empire recognizes those now."

"Shams to pacify the masses," Madine dismissed. "The Emperor has no intention of relinquishing even a fraction of his power. He's a new face for the same old regime."

Ackbar spoke out, glassy eyes swivelling to the holo, "If they are shams, General, then he moves mountains to give them every possible reality. A cunning trick on his part, to abolish the Slave Edicts and reintroduce inalienable rights." He was more entitled than most to cite such things, Leia knew, his own race having long suffering under Palptatine's Slave Edicts. "This is a new Empire and a new Emperor, General—and I never thought that I would find myself in the uncomfortable position of fearing that it may hold the moral high ground. Because of your actions."

Leia watched Madine's face harden; watched his realization that despite his advocates, he was being frozen out. Watched any chance to bring Madine back into the fold, and so gain access to Luke, slipping away from her.

"I think we all need to calm down," Leia tried. "What's happened since Kwenn is an emotive subject which has polarised our opinions, but it's by no means…"

"Kwenn," Madine bit out. "Why don't you tell the Council what exactly you were doing at Kwenn Station that day, Ma'am?"

Leia raised her chin, refusing to be intimidated again. This was it; she wouldn't cow-tow to the likes of Madine any longer, wouldn't give him that power over her. "Why was I at Kwenn? You know as well as I do Madine… I was there to follow up unofficial talks with the Empire—peace talks intended to lead to a summit between Empire and Alliance. I was there for a face-to-face meeting with the one person who you yourself just admitted could be held as a true reflection of Imperial policy—I was there to meet with the Emperor…again."

The tumult was instantaneous, swelling through the Council in a surge, General Gall going so far as to rise, his chair toppling behind him.

Tag Massa was on her feet in a moment, hands out before her, "Sirs…Sirs!"

Leia held firm, jaw clenched, heart pounding as the uproar continued.

It was long moments before it died down enough that Massa tried again, "Sirs! This was done with the full knowledge and co-operation of Intel and myself. I advised Chief Organa to hold back on telling the Council the details of a dialogue that was in its earliest stages. I stand by that decision. Due to the sensitivity of the issue and the fact that we had nothing concrete to bring to the Council, I advised the Chief to wait. She was acting on my recommendations."

Through her shock at the solidarity that Tag had unquestionably shown, Leia felt a thick pang of guilt shake her at the realization that if she went down, she would now take Tag Massa with her.

Distantly, she realized that in the first flush of commotion, Tag had leaned forward to pause the comline to Madine, the General's image frozen at that moment in time, a smug air squaring his jaw as he'd stifled a grin.

General Rieekan was stood too now, his hands out before him in a shushing motion, shouting to be heard, "Chief…Chief Organa, let me clarify this; you've met with the Emperor?"

The reasonable tone of his voice was almost instantly drowned out by Gall's outraged shout, "You actually stood in a room with him?! When?"

Leia pointedly ignored Gall's outburst, keeping her eyes on Rieekan, "I've spoken with him, yes. That was why I was at Kwenn."

Gall was again quick to jump in, "Then I think we should all should consider it very lucky indeed Ma'am, that General Madine was able to intervene when he did."

She couldn't let that one pass, "What exactly are you saying, General Gall?"

"I am saying Ma'am, that the Emperor always plays his games over a larger canvas. I'm saying, not surprisingly, that the Emperor cannot be trusted—that he's a well-known strategist and a consummate liar. May I remind the Council again how he removed the Alliance's previous leader—there was no direct assault on a Rebel base; it was a lengthy, carefully-constructed operation carried out over an extended period designed to lure Chief Mothma out into a vulnerable position. I am saying, Ma'am, that I am concerned that the may be up to his old tricks."

"If he'd wanted to arrest or remove me, he's had more than one opportunity to do so, General. I've spoken face to face with the Emperor on three separate occasions, discussing terms that would enable the Alliance and the Empire to come together to negotiate a cessation of hostilities on the strength of the new rights and edicts already instigated since he came to power. He wants to do more—intends to do more—and he wants our cooperation."

"For what?" General Gall challenged.

"He wants the troops presently committed to the ongoing conflict to be turned instead to policing the continued slackening of the Imperial Constitution. To do that, he needs all actions against the Empire to stop. In return, he was offering concessions and a staged…"

"Concessions?!" Odig's voice dripped chary dismissal. "What possible concessions could he be willing to cede?"

"He's already given us more than you would imagine. On our first meeting, I asked for proof of his intentions. On our second meeting, I was given the co-ordinates for a moon at Endor. When I arrived there, in orbit around it and protected by shields…was a new Death Star. I witnessed its destruction, offered by the Emperor as proof of his intentions. I asked for more; he gave us Fondor—a very public concession."

Somewhere in the back of her mind, Leia didn't miss the fact that she was now defending the Emperor's actions before the Council—and yet she didn't stop. "Now I'm asking you the very question he asked me when we first stood face to face; I'm asking you if you can put old prejudices aside and take this one chance, take this step in the dark? I'm asking you, Sirs, which is more important, a chance at peace and democracy, or our own outmoded sense of identity in, as Admiral Ackbar so rightly pointed out, a changing Empire? I'm not saying we capitulate—never that—I'm saying we go the table and talk. I'm asking which one of us, in good conscience, can refuse. A wise man once said, "'It's not what you call us and it's not where we stand. It's what we do which defines us'. He was my…he was Bail Organa, and he gave his life for his beliefs. And I can tell you without a shadow of doubt that if he were here today, he would be the first to say, this is right; this is an opportunity as never before. I was told that it's not enough to have a goal. You have to find a path to get there. And if you see it, you have to seize it with both hands…because it may never come again.

"Madine was right; in amongst all his prejudices and intolerance, he was right about one thing; we do have a chance to turn the path of the galaxy. The question is, are we brave enough to take it? I confess, it took me a long time to look within myself and know my answer—and it's taken until this moment to know that whatever happened, I will never regret my choice. I'd ask you all to consider yours."

Leia took long moments to rest her eyes on every face at that table, then she turned and left the room, head high.

She was six steps down the corridor beyond before the shakes cut in.

.

By the time she'd reached her office, Tag was already running to catch up. As ever, the Intel Chief didn't waste words; "The debate's continuing—I have to get back in there. Meanwhile, Madine's still on that comline. I'll cut the link when I get back to the Council room. You should take it in your office, try to talk him down. You probably have until the meeting folds and Odig or Gall get a discrete distance from the Council Chamber before he knows what went on."

"You think I can talk him down?"

Tag pursed her lips, and Leia knew that the discussion she'd just walked out of had been a breeze compared to the one she was about to enter into.

.

Han stood as Leia entered her office close to the Council rooms. He was leaving shortly, Leia knew; he'd waited only to see if anything came of the Council meeting. "What the hell's going on in there, it sounds like a Wookie wedding?! I could hear the shouting from here."

Leia hesitated , looking back to Han before she activated the comlink. So many times since she'd taken office, she'd told herself that she shouldn't allow her own feelings to rule her head for fear of losing perspective. Shouldn't allow herself to become involved at a personal level. Well she couldn't get much more personal than this…and it felt absolutely, categorically right.

"You should get the Falcon prepped. I need to take this comm—I'll tell you what happened en-route."

Han was already two steps to the door before he halted, "Wait a minute…en-route?"

"You got a spare berth on that rustbucket you keep claiming is so very fast?"

"What about all that stuff you said, y'know, bigger picture, greater cause, larger responsibilities?"

Leia arched her eyebrows over fiery eyes, "It'll all just have to stumble along a few days without me. I'm going to get my brother."

.

With Han gone, Leia activated the comlink and spoke immediately, giving Madine no chance to kick off, "Well, should I go back in there and tell them the rest? I'd like to do it to my own schedule, but if I have to, I'll work to yours—and I'll work damn hard to make sure I take all your little powerplays apart in the process."

Madine's eyes narrowed, "Powerplays? I haven't even started yet."

"Who the hell's side are you fighting on?"

"My own," Madine said, seeming very comfortable with that decision. "In view of recent events, I find I have faith in no-one else's. And looking at things from that standpoint, I think that the convenience of our continued association is coming to an end. You are, frankly, becoming more of a hindrance than a help, and I have my own methods of dealing with those, as your brother will attest. Though not for much longer, I think. He too, is coming to the end of his usefulness. He has just one more purpose to serve."

Leia felt her chest constrict, knowing it was no empty threat. Finally, now, knowing she could hold Madine back no longer, she issued the ultimate threat, "You do this and we'll disown you. We'll renounce you publicly. You do this and you're on your own Madine."

Madine's face set hard and his chin rose, "Thank-you Chief; you've made a difficult decision so much easier. Because of old loyalties to Mon, I was struggling with my wish to resign my commission. To hand a successful campaign over to a Council fool enough to place you in power. And it will be successful; the Emperor's death will kick-start the war your docile Alliance seems unable to bring itself to muster without my intervention, and the information he carries would have supplied them with the means to end that war decisively. On their terms. Now you've clarified just exactly where I stand in this…new Alliance—and it is, as so much of your Rebel Alliance, a deep disappointment but hardly any shock. I resign any link to the weak, pale little disobedience that the Alliance has become. I renounce any and all ties… I hereby resign my commission, Chief Organa."

"Wait! Madine…" But Leia was speaking to static, the line cut… along with any chance of controlling him. Sith, what had she done? Leia slumped forward, head in her hands; now they had nothing, no access, no control… Leia straightened quickly, realization pulling her from her despair.

She switched the comlink channel and Tag's voice came on reassuringly quickly, "Chief?"

Leia let out a shaky sigh, and when she spoke, her voice was firm and self-assured. "Tag, you need to have all of General Madine's access codes disabled right now. Everything. Seal him out of the system. Then we need to put out an official message stating that Crix Madine is no longer part of the Alliance. We don't advocate his actions or his intentions."

Tag frowned, the alarm in her voice tightly controlled, "He resigned?" she paused, calculating as ever, "…or was he dismissed?"

"By his own choice, the General's no longer with us—and we need to distance ourselves from his actions publicly."

Tag's voice tightened, her breath leaving her in a rush. "He's going to execute the Emperor." It wasn't a question.

..

In her office, that first flurry of commands executed and wondering whether to put a watch on Madine's known supporters, Tag Massa slumped back, momentarily at a loss for what to do.

She pursed her lips, jaw tightening as she ran the numbers. They should go after the Emperor—she should persuade the Alliance to do it by any means. If they lost him…

A coded call came in on the private comlink in her desk draw and she fumbled to pull it out; "Yes?"

"I have a clearance code; Felucia, Kashyyyk, Dorin, one-one-three-nine-three."

Tag heard the tremble in her voice as she acknowledged the code; "Confirmation is Dorin, Dorin, Skako, five-five-nine-zero-nine. Who is this—do you have a safe identity?"

The unknown voice ignored her question, "Give me a report?"

Tag barely hesitated; she was that desperate. "Madine's cut free; resigned his commission. As of now, I have no way to access the General and no control or influence on his actions, short of trying to claim allegiance and join him. Do you have any updates?"

"Sith!" The channel broke for a few seconds, and Tag knew the contact was relaying this fact to others, then it reopened with a static click;

"As a matter of fact I do." The voice said grimly. "I need fine co-ordinates and a clearance code for Home One…and I need access to dock."

"Here!?" Tag hesitated, "You understand that if I do this, my cover is blown."

"Just get me in."

..

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

.

.

Leia sat in her office staring blankly at the opposite wall waiting for…something. Some miracle. Grief, let there be…

A knock at the door jarred her from her reverie and she straightened, blinking her eyes dry. "Come in."

Tag Massa entered, and Leia had never seen the woman look so afraid. She felt her own heart lurch, distraught, her mouth suddenly too dry for words.

"You need to come with me." Massa said, voice grave.

"Why?"

"You need to come with me, right now."

Leia rose, driven by the tone of Tag's voice. "Where are we going?"

.

They reached the hangar in silence before Tag turned to Leia, unsmiling. "I'm asking you to trust me on this. Talk to them—just talk to them."

Leia frowned, turning to glance about the familiar hangar…and there, in the far corner, was an unknown ship, a long-range scout-fighter hybrid. She walked forward without hesitation—was it bounty hunters, someone Tag thought she could trust…?

She got just two steps up the ramp before she saw the truth. A lithe redhead and a small, slight, olive-skinned man were stood tensely inside, eyes on the entrance. Leia went for her non-existent sidearm, tensing…

"Wait!" the man—Leia knew him as Nathan Hallin, one of Luke's Aides—was already a half-step forward, hands out before him. "Wait, please."

Leia froze, eyes narrowing, "You have the gall to come here…"

"Chief please—" Tag started, and Leia turned on her.

"And you! Letting them inside our shields! How did they even find…" she trailed off, the terrible truth occurring. "You…you gave them co-ordinates. When you sent my message, you added coordinates, didn't you? You actually gave an Imperial ship the co-ordinates of Home One. Did… are you…" She couldn't even say it. How long had she known Tag—five years, six? "Tell me this is the only time."

Tag remained still, expression pinched and stony, eyes searching Leia's.

"It was you, wasn't it?" Leia couldn't believe she had the presence of mind to even speak. In all the years she known Tag, she'd trusted her; a gut feeling, a sense of constancy, of shared purpose. "All along, it was you. You were the spy."

Tag shook her head, "I only…made my choices a year after The Heir surfaced on Coruscant—that was when he contacted me."

"Before that…?"

Tag shook her head again, "It was never him, Chief; it was never Skywalker... But I'm guessing you know that now. Your mole was a Communications chief named Leemarit."

Leia shook her head. "Leemarit died but the leak remained."

"Leemarit was Palpatine's spy. I only ever collaborated with the Heir—with Luke Skywalker. I'm not a traitor Ma'am, I'm a true believer—and I believe this is the way to accomplish peace...the only way. The loyalty I give to the Emperor is no less than the loyalty I feel for you and for the Alliance, and for the self-same reason; in the genuine belief that he will use it wisely. He told me that between you, you two would be able to broker a peace. He had—has—a vision and I trust him absolutely to bring it into being…and I see it as my duty, my mission, to do everything in my power to aid him in that. Don't think me a traitor Ma'am. I was never that."

This was going too fast for Leia to absorb. Tag the mole… Tag, who had looked after Leia and backed her and…grief, she was backing Skywalker's choice for leader of the Alliance! That was why she'd looked after Leia so closely! That was why she'd become a confidante—to guide Leia's actions! To influence her choices!

"Did you ever believe in me?" There was simmering anger in Leia's words.

"Always Ma'am. I have always believed in your vision and your standpoint. I always knew you had the strength to take us beyond the fighting."

Leia shook her head, "You betrayed me."

"I never once did Ma'am. I always sought to protect and to aid you—and the most basic tenets of the Alliance—"

Another though occurred to Leia and she cut across Tag's words, "Why did you help him—you didn't even know…" she trailed off, and Tag nodded.

"I went on several missions with him when I was still a field officer, before I was recruited into Intel. I knew him as well as many. I saw in him all that I see in you Ma'am; all the same drive, the same honor and the same principles. The same intent. I was devastated when he was taken by the Empire. He didn't contact me for well over a year after he disappeared, and by that time I was already in Intel, so I knew the facts that very few others who'd known him did. So I listened…I thought I owed him that. When I'd decided, well, it was an easy job to scrub a few files and swap a few details so that officially, I'd never once met Luke Skywalker. Those were high-security special-ops missions; practically no records were kept."

"Why did you listen?"

Tag raised her chin, "Because I didn't believe them—the rumors at the time. I'd fought beside him; you see people for what they are under pressure like that. You see them at their best and at their worst. I'd already trusted Luke Skywalker with my life more than once…and I believed I could trust him with my hope and my future and my galaxy. I knew him… that was what I did Ma'am; I evaluated—intel, people; it's all the same…and even then I knew I was very good at it. And I didn't believe a word of what was coming out of Coruscant—but then, I had the luxury of choice. You were in a very different position. You were already being groomed for leadership and you couldn't afford that luxury of personal opinions, I understand that. I believed…I still believe I'm doing the right thing. Or maybe…I think Skywalker said when he first contacted me that he was asking me to do the wrong thing for the right reasons. That was what gave me faith; he knew his error, even then. He still does."

"He's a very persuasive man."

"Yes he is Ma'am." Tag replied, holding Leia's eyes unabashed. "It's because he believes absolutely in what he's saying. And he's saying that between you, you and he can broker peace…so I believe him, absolutely. And forgive me Ma'am, but I think you do too."

The redhead—the redhead Leia knew very well; had seen her in a thousand Intel images—straightened, her arms still folded across her chest, all business. "Well this is fascinating, it really is. Meanwhile the trail's going cold." She turned hard eyes on Leia, "What you said on Kwenn Station—were you serious?"

Leia frowned, and Jade lifted her chin, "You said you wanted to change all this—that you wanted to make it work. Well the only man who can do that is presently being held by one of your Generals…so I'm asking you again—do you really want to see this end?"

Leia remained silent, and Jade spoke again. "Luke trusted you—he always trusted you. Right from the very beginning, despite everything, he picked you out. He doesn't trust a lot of people, let me tell you."

"He never trusted me."

"He trusted you enough to step onboard the Wasp, even though he knew it was a trap."

Leia felt a twist of guilt lurch in her stomach. "We have people looking for the Wasp now. I have nine units at its last known location."

"Nine units?" Jade said dryly. "You might like to know that the Empire has one hundred sixty five Star Destroyers, ninety-seven Interdictors, one-hundred thirty-five frigates, three hundred corvettes…"

The slight man stepped forward just slightly, voice no more than a whisper. "I think she gets it, Mara."

Jade raised her eyebrows, gaze remaining on Leia, "No she doesn't. Because they won't do any good—Luke will still be just as dead. They won't be fast enough. He needs something else; he needs the one thing he was fighting so hard to bring into being. He needs cooperation...here, now. Because we'll respond faster; this mix. What we believe in, which side of the divide we stand right at this moment, is immaterial. Luke was right; when it comes down to the wire, it shouldn't matter. Political views, personal standpoints…they divide us because a very clever, manipulative old man told us they should, and we were all gullible enough to listen and think it was important. But now something genuinely important has happened and compared to that…I don't care. I don't give a damn about all that politics—it's a difference of opinion, not a difference of intent. All I know is that right now, between the people in this ship, we've got the best chance of working this out. We have those closest to the problem, and therefore the facts; we have everyone he needs right here... So I'll ask again, were you ever serious, in all those talks with Luke? Because if you were, you need to come with me right now."

The slight slender man coughed and straightened slightly, clearly feeling he should be the mediator in this. "You should probably know that this is the nearest I've ever heard Mara come to saying please in my entire life."

Leia stared at Jade, unabashed. "You should know, this is the nearest I've come to listening to an Imperial in mine."

"Is that a yes or a no?" Jade said. "Because I'm on a schedule and we're wasting time."

Leia tilted her head, "What makes you think I'll let you leave?"

Jade didn't blink, "What makes you think you can stop me?"

Hallin took a tentative step forward, "Maybe we should all…"

"Quiet!" both women said it at once, then glanced to each-other.

Jade shrugged, "He talks a lot. Fortunately, it's generally useful stuff…eventually."

Leia licked her lips; "If we do this it's on my terms." Was she even considering this?

Jade shook her head, "If we do this, there are no terms. We do it. For Luke. We get him out, then we go our separate ways."

"I won't lead Home One into a dangerous situation, and I can't risk the fleet in close quarters with Star Destroyers."

"I'm not asking the fleet, I'm asking you. The fleet'll only slow us down."

The medic leaned in, "Mara, we may need that backup…"

"There's a fleet looking for him already Nathan—bigger and better equipped than anything the Rebels can muster. This isn't about numbers."

Leia raised her chin, "I thought you said he gave good advice."

"I said eventually," Jade maintained—but she paused. "Fine; you can keep your fleet updated—but you should know I've no intention of taking Luke out of one prison just to hand him over into another. And we travel alone; I'm not waiting for any fleet to synchronise before we make every move."

"Fine."

The redhead nodded, "Fine."

The silence reigned for tense seconds before Nathan Hallin stepped forward again, "Are we supposed to…shake on it?"

Jade turned to look at him for long-suffering seconds before turning back to Leia, "So, I understand your two-faced ratgash just upped and resigned." She turned to Tag, "How many days ago did you last peg the Wasp?"

"We're running a trace now, on a HoloNet link he used. But if he's just resigned he'll probably have jumped already and knowing Madine, chances are that he was bouncing his signal off a good half-dozen boosters and routers anyway." Tag turned to Leia, "I'll get the co-ordinates sent to you—they may confirm our earlier suspicions—but that's still an awful big area to start dredging for one freighter."

"We have a make and an ID broadcast code for the Wasp, taken at Kwenn, which is obviously fake." Jade added. "Presumably you have more?"

"I'll send you everything we have," Tag said. "We don't have much on the freighter—it was one of the General's little finds—but I've been reading through Madine's recent technical personnel and requisitions and based on those, aside from the shields it hadn't been modified too much. I also have a list of all of Madine's fake ID broadcast codes."

Jade nodded, all business. "We also need a new ship."

Leia frowned. "What's wrong with this one?"

"This one is hot," Jade said casually. "The Imperial Military probably have our ID code by now."

"And why would that be a problem?"

"It's not…if we have another ship."

.

"You got another ship. And believe me, it's way, way better than this one." Everyone turned at the new voice as footsteps came up the ramp.

Han Solo squared his shoulders, "Chewie's just gone to warm the Falcon up. We should get movin'; time's wasting."

Jade hoisted a bulky holdall onto her shoulder, resettling her holstered blaster as she nodded in approval, every inch the professional soldier. "A man after my own heart."

..

Madine walked into the observation room where Kalter was slouched back on a chair, eyes on the virtual screen, watching Skywalker as he slept.

He nodded as Kalter rose, glancing to the screen, "Time to get him up. How long's he slept?"

"Densun says they hauled him up three times last night, sir; he did about an hour sat at the table each time, so…maybe two hours sleep, max. That makes it nine straight days of two hours or less. Plus he got woken up three more times 'cos the lens was fritzing out again."

Madine nodded, looking briefly to the innocuous small plasteel box which housed the range monitor in the corner; his little insurance policy. The single status light flashed green, the small scanner box holding the power of life and death with a single coded pulse to the chip-charge implanted at the base of Skywalker's skull if it no longer detected its presence within a set radius—or if he chose to enter the activation code.

Kalter's attention was on his open medi-box, a variety of ampoules within. "I mixed up a new combination last night, changed the ratio of co-fralodiost to tricliptidine. It seemed to work pretty well in the last session—eventually."

Madine let out a grunt, "All it seemed to do to me was make him talk more."

"That's what we need."

"No, we need information. Time's wasting and I'm not interested in listening to his life story."

Kalter shrugged, "That's how this is how this works. The more he talks, the more comfortable he gets speaking and the less he's censuring what he's saying."

"It's too slow. I need that code."

"It goes as fast as it goes, Sir. You heard the recording, he's used to the drugs. Too used to them."

"Then give him higher doses."

"We're past safe levels already, and administering them way too often, even by Imperial standards. Go too far and he could have a psychotic episode that'll take weeks to pull him back from—longer maybe."

"Fine," Madine bit out, "then I'll ask the questions. He answers me."

The medic shook his head, "You get his guard up and that's actually when he starts falling back on method avoidances like the countdowns. Look at what he's actually saying and he doesn't give you any more answers than me. In fact given the last session when the co-fralodiost cut in, I'd question whether we're even asking the right things…"

Madine's eyes narrowed, "What does that mean?"

"It means, for a start, I don't think he was a spy."

"I told you not to pursue that line of questions," Madine rumbled.

"I didn't, sir. You heard the recording, he volunteered it."

"So you wasted time listening to him? We have just five days left before he's dead—I need those codes."

"I think it's very relevant. If he wasn't a spy…"

"It doesn't matter who he was. What matters is who he is now, and the information that means he holds. Information that I need." Madine glanced to the medi-box as he closed it down, "You're giving him twelve milliliter doses, right?

Kalter glanced down, lips pursing, his reticence obvious. Madine let out a low sigh; Skywalker was a piece of work, he really was, to start one of Madine's own troops thinking. He glanced back to make sure the door behind him was closed, then back to Kalter.

"Let me tell you something about the man in that cell, Lieutenant; he's one of the best agents I ever saw, a consummate soldier trained by Palpatine himself, and he'll do anything and twist anything to get what he needs. He'll find any weakness—anything at all—and use it. I know that without a shadow of a doubt because he did it with me for three years—and the rest of the Council."

Kalter glanced up, and Madine nodded, confirming the whispers which had never quite gone away in the Alliance; that Skywalker had walked among them once. "They're all true, the rumors; he did infiltrate the Alliance as a spy, and he did it to Command level. For three years he walked among us like he belonged and no-one—not one person—suspected anything. You want to know how good he was? I promoted him to Special Ops status, I was one of the Council members who approved the recommissioning of the Rogues as a specialist unit on his request, gaining him access to all kinds of information. I even put him forward as one of Mon Mothma's bodyguards. I thought he'd be a General in five years; on the Council in seven. No-one once questioned him, right up until he returned to Palpatine. Hell, there are still a few pilots out there who he took in who don't believe it to this day. That's how good he is. He's doing exactly the same thing to you right now…and you're letting him."

Kalter frowned, jaw tensing as he looked away—but it wasn't enough, Madine knew. He sighed, lifting the box; "Twenty milliliters, right?"

Kalter nodded, understanding that Madine had made his decision and wouldn't take him into the cell again. "Start him on ten, then ramp it gradually to a total of twenty. No more than that and no closer than eight hours between doses—seriously. That's already pushing it. Watch his breathing—and let him talk."

..

By the time Madine walked in with the medi-box, Skywalker was already tethered to the table, hunched forward, at the edge of his endurance physically if not yet mentally. Madine clamped his jaw as he slammed the box down hard on the table, annoyed that he'd lost Kalter to Skywalker's tricks; lost the inventive edge that the drug-specialist could provide.

Maybe it was time for a different kind of approach anyway.

He turned, glancing to the soldiers who always stood guard in the cell when interrogations were taking place, nodding once to them as he walked to the surveillance lens to unplug it, "Outside."

Skywalker glanced about, wary, looking to the door as it cycled closed, the black eyes and bruises from his beating when they'd filmed the images two days ago still darkening, cuts still scabbing, though the swelling that had almost closed one eye had gone down. He kept his head down now, his breathing already so labored that it moved his whole frame with every breath.

Madine sat, opening the case and taking out the loaded syringe to place it on the table before him, seeing Skywalker tense at the corner of his vision.

He put the case to the floor and sat back slowly, wrapping his fists one in the other before him, Skywalker watching him guardedly; good.

"Ready to start?" he asked levelly.

"You forgot your other half."

There was the hint of a slur to his voice and he blinked slowly; tiredness or residual drugs, Madine didn't know which.

"Kalter won't be back again—no more good guy, bad guy. Just me now."

No movement; no reaction. Madine leaned in and lifted the syringe, turning it about in his hands. "You should know that things have changed while you've been in here, Skywalker, big-time—and not in your favor. It's time for a new game...I know you're so fond of them. Only you might not like this one so much, because it's my game. No Alliance involved, not any more."

Skywalker straightened slightly in the chair but his stony expression didn't change, leaving Madine to wonder if he'd been expecting this all along.

"That means no rules but my rules, and I'm guessing you can figure out just how few and far between they are. I want some real answers, and I'm not prepared to wait any longer, you understand what I'm saying?"

"I understand exactly what you're saying," Skywalker nodded his head slowly. "It's all starting to fall apart for you isn't it? All those years of work on the Alliance's behalf and this is how they thank you… I'm betting they couldn't drop you quick enough when they realized what you were going to do."

Madine sat back, squaring his jaw against the provocation, "I left them."

Skywalker glanced down, letting out a brief laugh, "So what, the Alliance is out of the picture and you're starting your own little faction, claiming this victory in its name?"

"I may just do that. Quite an opening statement, don't you think; the execution of the Emperor?"

Skywalker nodded slowly, "Too much of one for the Rebel Alliance."

"Because the Alliance is no longer the Rebellion. It's losing its way, becoming nothing more that a pale shadow of the Empire it was formed to fight against."

"The Alliance isn't becoming like the Empire, the Empire's coming closer to the ideals of the Alliance; we're relaxing laws, we're changing—it just takes time."

"And you just happen to remain in power while all that time is being taken? No, that's not going to happen any more; I'll take you down, then I'll rip your travesty of a regime apart."

"That's just barbed words—words are easy. What would you actually do? How would you—"

"I'll dissemble the Imperial military for a start. Take it apart—blow it apart if I have to."

Skywalker shook his head, but already he was beginning to slump, his voice weakening even as he pushed on. "That's not a policy, it's anarchy. It's a gut reaction. What do you put in its place, how do you maintain law? How do you ensure that the power vacuum you're creating doesn't fire up a dozen local warlords? What about criminal organizations like Black Sun—do you think you have more funds and facilities than them? What will you do when they start bankrolling individual Royal Houses who have a good chance at taking power in the vacuum you've created? That's assuming all those disgruntled Moffs and officers don't simply start forming their own private little armies from those you've just dismissed. How do you police that new democracy when you don't even have enough troops to maintain order? How do you make sure it's not simply a manifestation of the highest bidder or the most influential..."

Madine rose, slamming his hands down, but Skywalker only smiled, head still lolling, looking to Madine through his tangled hair, "Or doesn't that matter? Are you exactly what you seem, Madine; just another anarchist looking for justification. For a way to hurt something that hurt you."

"You think you're so smart, think you're the only one who sees things on a galactic scale, don't you? Well I have news for you; I see things too, and I have plans. Big plans."

"If that was them, I'm not impressed."

"You think your execution is going to force me out of the Alliance and give your sister free reign? You couldn't be further from the truth. See, I've taken a leaf from your book; right now I don't need to be there to control what they do. I can still see what they need to push them forwards, and how to bring that into effect from right here in this cell. They've let themselves become complacent, thanks to your sister. They've let themselves be pushed further and further out into the Rim Systems whilst you put out empty shams of reform and ease the Alliance from everyone's mind—that's what you're doing, I can see that. They'll finish not with a bang, but with a whimper. Except that I'm not going to let you—in fact, I'm gonna use you to do exactly the opposite. Executing you and claiming responsibility on behalf of the Alliance will force everyone's hand. Our new Empress seems so touchingly concerned for your safety," Madine said dryly.

Skywalker actually straightened, voice hardening, "Leave her alone."

Madine couldn't hide the smile from his face at that reaction, "Do I detect concern? And here I thought you weren't capable of such things."

Skywalker reigned himself back in, but the tension was still there, visible in his sharpening eyes, in his fingers curling about the metal cable that tethered his wrists.

Madine grinned, "If you ask me, she seems a little too eager to step into your role, but I'm betting that if I execute you, she'll respond, if only because it's expected of her—and I'll take that, because it'll still kick-start the war that your sister's made the Alliance so very reticent to instigate and you know it, don't you?"

"You're wrong. It won't start a war—Leia won't let it."

"I don't think she'll be around. Unlike our vaunted new Empress who's just starting her reign, your sister's nearing the end of hers. See, I need an army to fight that war and take that victory for me—and she has one just ripe for the taking, whenever I'm ready, as well as a means to take it."

Madine had the satisfaction of seeing Skywalker blanche, realization opening dark-rimmed eyes. "You'll tell them who she is."

"That's right. When I'm good and ready, and not before. When I'm the only hope they have of stopping the avalanche. When they're realizing just how bad it can get—how little some slip of a barely-grown girl can do to stop the war…then I'm gonna step in there and tell them one hell of a reason why she hasn't. Why she turned them all against me. I'll walk back in there as their savior because I have the means to victory. But to do that, I need those codes; I need the doomsday codes and I know damn well you have them."

Skywalker shook his head wearily, "They don't exist."

"Please, you've already said they do." He glanced to the vo-corder on the table, "You want me to pull the conversation up? One code, seven groups of numbers, that's what you said."

"Not that code. It never existed. It was only ever a rumor to keep the fleet Captains in line, another little game by Palpatine for his own amusement." Skywalker lifted his head to look Madine squarely in the eye, "It never existed."

"No, I was a General, Skywalker; I was a General in Palpatine's army. I know those codes he had, the hard-wired overrides in every ship and every major installation. Palpatine was a paranoid man, he didn't like to think that anything was beyond his control or his retribution. One code, seven groups of numbers."

"Doesn't exist."

Madine's eyes went to the syringe as he lifted it and began to turn it in his fingers, "Kalter told me the safe limits of this stuff. Told me what would happen if I went over them…how likely do you think it is that I'm gonna hold to them in this new game?"

Skywalker straightened slightly but didn't speak as Madine continued to finger the syringe. "I should clarify that don't care what condition you're in when I put you up in front of that firing squad—I couldn't give a damn. If you can't stand any more I'll have you dragged in there and shoot you laid down on the floor—I'll shake you awake just so you can see that it's me holding the gun.

"Myself, I'd want the last view the galaxy ever saw of me to be stood straight and looking the men who held the blasters in the eye, rather than tied down and drugged up and covered in cuts and bruises for the sake of holding out just one or two more days," Madine paused, eyes lifting to Skywalker, who sat in a slump, eyes on that syringe. "That's the choice you're looking at now—do you die by being stood up against a wall and shot or do you die like this, off your head and just waiting for the time that your heart gives out from another overdose. Its your choice. You're dead either way, and either way, you're sharing your last minutes with the rest of the galaxy. How many of them'll clap, do you suppose? How many will cheer? More importantly, how many will stand, outraged, and demand the reprisals that will kick-start my war and stop those spineless pathetic people everywhere being able to hover safely on the sidelines and not get involved." Madine grinned, eyes alight as Skywalker finally met his gaze. "You and me, we're gonna start a war, Skywalker. A wind to shake the stars."

"Don't do it—don't start a war thinking you can control it…you want to see change, we can achieve the same things without-"

"Huttslime. I'm sick of hearing your rousing little speeches Skywalker, they won't even scratch the surface anymore and they sure as hell won't save your life." Madine grinned as Skywalker stopped dead at the use of his name, the first time Madine had said it out loud. "Oh yes, I know who you really are. I got to wondering when Solo first started mouthing off about your cell onboard the Executor; worked it out first time I saw those plans—why bother to go to all that trouble and complexity for a cell that worked like this one, otherwise? And let me tell you a hard truth; I don't give a damn. I don't care who you were, I only care what you did and what you're worth to me now. You're the man whose death can spark a war. You're the man who knows the one thing that stands between me and returning to the Alliance in triumph as the General who can cripple the whole Imperial fleet in one fell swoop, and win that war."

"The fleet?"

"Imagine… I know I can single out individual vessels by their call signs, but why bother? Why bother at all? If you have a weapon, you shouldn't be afraid to use it."

"The fleet holds the peace on thousands of worlds. It polices civilian populations, it keeps the criminal…"

"D'you think I'm afraid of a little anarchy? It's all grist to the mill—keeps your government occupied whilst we move; ties them down in details, limits their responses."

"You bring down the whole fleet and it removes any law. You'll never control it, you'd throw the whole galaxy into chaos, it'll spread like wildfire. It would be years of fighting—decades even. This needs to stop, not escalate—our children deserve the chance to grow up in a galaxy that isn't at war. I can give you peace by-"

"Your peace, on your terms. I'm not interested."

Skywalker shook his head, "Always the soldier—all you know how to do is fight."

"And you're a Sith—all you know how to do is lie."

"Listen to me Madine-"

"I think enough people have listened to you Skywalker. I think it's time to stop that—dead. You can't talk your way out of this one—you can't argue your way out or order your way out like you have some divine right. There's no throne here. I don't give a damn who you are. It changes not one thing, because you still killed Mon."

"Mothma came after me…"

"That's right she did—and I'll finish the job she started."

"She also wanted peace—do you really think she'd…"

"Don't waste your breath. You have so little of it left now." Madine smiled tightly, "Can't you just feel those seconds ticking away? Do you think this is what Mon felt in her last hours? Do you think you'll feel the same as she did when I stand you in front of a firing squad, have the same final thoughts whipping around in your head—do you think you'll have her strength when you face them, her courage?"

Skywalker glanced down, face falling to regret as his voice softened, "She was a brave woman..."

"Don't!" Madine slammed his fist down on the table, furious. "Don't you dare talk about her! Don't even utter her name! You killed her, you son of a Sith, you killed her! You're not fit to speak her name."

Skywalker remained still, flinching just once as Madine's hands came down on the desk, but holding his eye without shying back. "You killed her, Madine, just as much as I did...because you talked her into signing that warrant to make the assassination attempt, didn't you? You made her put her name to it. What did you expect me to do? You killed her just as much as…"

Madine lurched up, reaching out to grab Skywalker by the loose flightsuit he wore, hauling him upright, his hands coming instinctively up in defense only to be jolted to a halt as Madine drew his arm back, hand curling into a fist.

..

Han slowed in his walk across the main hold of the Falcon, still stretching muscles wound tight half from sitting too long in the cockpit and half from worry.

They'd set out almost nine hours ago, heading for the narrow crossing-point close to the join of the Perlemian and the Hydian way, on his and Massa's hunch that it would be somewhere in that closely-massed sector of stars that Madine would try to slip the Imperial blockades. It was, Han had to admit, about as tenuous a link as he'd ever followed, and he had no idea what they'd do when they got there in two days time. He was hoping that Tag Massa, who had stayed behind to maintain the pretense that Leia was still onboard Home One, would have uncovered something to narrow the search by the time they got there.

With the uproar in the Council from Madine's resignation, Tag was now closely monitoring every single piece of outbound data from Home One looking for anything out of place; that single message sent by one of Madine's lackeys on the state of play, which would blow the Wasp's co-ordinates. Still, he was uncomfortably aware of the fact that time was ticking down; they were now on day ten of that fourteen-day deadline Madine had so confidently announced in the short holo-message and the fact was, even with their combined knowledge, the odd mix onboard the Falcon right now had painfully little to go on.

Now, as he'd headed aft to get something to eat whilst Chewie took the helm, Han paused in the main hold to stare at its one remaining occupant; Jade was sat at the dejarik board, her attention centered on reassembling the impressive-looking rifle she'd clearly taken in pieces from her open holdall.

"Nice piece," Han said conversationally. "Tailor-made?"

She glanced up, cagey as ever. "Maybe."

"Stealth sniper." he said knowingly, pleased at the surprise in her eyes though he kept his voice casual. "I've seen a few, with mercenaries."

"Not like this one," Jade said simply, working on the pieces with a practiced hand; Han bet she could've continued assembling that thing in the dark.

"Looks like it's had some use," he observed as he picked up the power coupling.

Jade reached out to take it off him and return it to the exact same spot on the table, "Not so much recently. But I think I remember where everything goes."

Han leaned loosely against the edge of the holo-table, studying the readhead. She had that same tough, no-nonsense sense about her that he remembered from seven years ago in Luke's quarters in the Palace, but there was a brittleness to it now; an anxious vulnerability.

"So where do you fit into all this?" he asked at last. "And don't say you're his bodyguard, 'cos I wasn't born yesterday."

Jade arched an eyebrow, "How about it's none of your business."

"Hey, you're on my ship and we're after my buddy. I think I got a right."

Jade paused in her work, looking up, "Okay, I have a question for you…why are you helping Luke—returning a favor?"

Han frowned, and she raised her eyebrows, "From when Luke broke you out of the Palace. Force knows, you both spent weeks planning it—or did you think I didn't know?"

"You didn't seem too eager to stop us at the time."

"I didn't think whatever the hell you were planning would work," Jade said pointedly. "Luke had absolutely no way to get out of his quarters and even if he did, as long as he had to waste time getting down to you in the main monolith, I thought I had all the time in the worlds to stop him. I didn't expect him to pull that splitting up stunt."

"Neither did I," Han said with feeling.

"You didn't know?"

Han frowned, halfway between injured and insulted, "You think I'd've just left him there? He told me he was already out of the Palace, on the Falcon."

Watching Jade's eyes roll, Han realized it was only now that she understood that he hadn't let Luke risk his own life just to get Han out; he'd been as in the dark as everyone else. He watched a slow smile come to her lips as she nodded. "Figures."

Han grinned lopsidedly, "Drives you insane sometimes, doesn't he?"

Jade shook her head wryly, and with a smile on her lips, she looked pretty good, Han had to admit.

"You have no idea," she said dryly.

"That a fact? You know, the whole time I knew him, I swear sometimes he just seemed to go from situation to situation. He got it down to a fine art."

Jade smiled again…then her expression turned pensive, "He's not the man you left there—you know that don't you?"

Han shrugged, "He is to me. Just better dressed."

"You're wrong. He's still Luke but…"

"With an edge," Han said simply. It wasn't like he hadn't seen it.

"It's more than that. Do you…know anything about the Force?"

"I know it's got a lot to answer for."

"Luke's…the Force is split into two; Light and Darkness. In every single teaching I've ever read, both Jedi and Sith, it's always written that you are one or the other—you use one or the other side of the Force exclusively. I can't…I can't even tell you what Luke is—I don't think he could either."

"Same as everyone," Han shrugged. "A little bit of both."

"No, the Force doesn't work like that, it never has. Either you hold to the light or you get pulled down by the Darkness. There are no shades of gray, not in this."

"There must be a point at which light meets darkness?" Han asked. "That's where he is."

Jade was silent for long seconds, clearly lost in thought. When she spoke it was quietly; more hesitant than Han had ever seen her. "You can't stand there…you can't span that divide. You haven't seen him when the Darkness takes him. If he's pushed too far, when that balance fails…he snaps spectacularly."

Han sighed, uneasy, pushing her worry aside with a joke, "Yeah, you should see me working on the Falcon some days."

He paused as Chewie's holler came down the corridor from the cockpit, walking to the console in the main hold to activate the comm, "Hn."

Jade looked over, "What?"

"Someone's leavin' messages for me all over the place."

She straightened a little, voice tightening. "Who?"

It had already come out just exactly why Jade and Hallin had needed to lose their scout fighter when they'd arrived at the Alliance baseship. One more reason to avoid the Imperials, as if they needed one—and here, Han had been pretty much hoping that Jade's rank would buy them safe passage around that Imperial interdiction zone when they were looking for Madine. Still, Jade seemed pretty confident she could count on a good portion of the military if she had to; he just didn't want to find out which ones she couldn't the hard way.

"Some guy named Karrde." Han frowned, reading the short message. "Where've I heard that name before?"

Jade was already on her feet setting forward, "Talon Karrde?!"

Han glanced over, surprised, "Doesn't say his first name, but…wait a minute, I remember now, I saw him onboard the Patriot, right?"

Jade broke her step momentarily, "When were you onboard the Patriot?"

"Oh, er….Fondor, that's all." Han swiveled his chair quickly back from the console, effectively changing the subject by leaning back to shout down the loop corridor, "Leia! Get up here."

.

They all sat crushed into the cockpit of the Falcon as the holo-transmitter there flickered into life on the channel they'd been given in the message…and Talon Karrde's face came into view. Han frowned, remembering the burly Corellian smuggler, his long, grey-tinged hair and thick handlebar moustache instantly recognizable.

"Solo," he greeted somberly—and already, Han could see those sharp eyes flicking about the holo that would be before him right now, obviously taking in the unlikely mix of Imperials and Rebels he was speaking to. Still, he held a neutral tone as he continued, far from fazed. "We met onboard the Patriot…through a mutual friend, I believe?"

"That's right."

"I've been trying to track you down for several days now."

"I've been busy." Han said simply.

"So I see," Karrde replied, moving quickly on to business. "I believe we may be busy looking for the same person?"

"Very likely," Han allowed. "Care to tell me what you know?"

That wide handlebar moustache was curved by a smooth grin, "I was thinking more of a two-way exchange."

Han settled back, face wary, though in truth he wasn't too worried; Luke trusted this guy, and if Karrde had bothered to contact them, chances were he was reliable. Plus, they could use all the help they could get right now. "Well unless you know a hell of a lot, it'll be a short exchange. I could spend an hour tellin' you what we don't know, but I can fill you in on what we do know in about two minutes."

"I think I have two minutes to spare." Karrde's eyes flicked again across those he could see in the Falcon's cockpit, coming to rest on Leia. "I would assume you have access to more…across the board knowledge, given where the images on the HoloNet claim to have come from."

"We don't have him," Han said categorically. "The Alliance don't have him. We don't know if or how they're moving him around, and we don't know where they're holding him, or how. All we know is, the threat's genuine."

Karrde's face hardened momentarily. "Yes…I think that pretty much sums up our side of the fence too. We are, however, working on it."

"So…a little less than two minutes then," Han said. "Unless you got something else?"

Karrde stared for a few seconds longer, clearly considering his options…then sighed, leaning forward slightly, "I think I can pretty much tell you how they're holding him," he allowed. "Someone was in the market for a copy of the plans used to construct a specific cell not too long ago. A domed, double-walled cell built onboard the Executor with a very unusual spec…a cell designed to hold a Sith."

Han felt Leia jolt in surprise where she leaned against him…and in the far chair, Jade turned quickly, studying her a fraction too long with narrowed eyes.

Leia didn't notice, her attention taken by Karrde's words, "That's the cell! That's the cell I saw in the Wasp's hold. It's a half-dome, like being inside a half-sphere. All the walls are curved and there's a double-skin with an inner and outer doors, connected by a short corridor."

Karrde paused; "Yes, it's to facilitate a vacuum between the walls."

Jade nodded, "It was built so that if a Force-sensitive blew out the interior wall, he'd open the cell to vacuum—explosive decompression—and it would knock him cold. How do you know details about it?" The last she aimed at Karrde.

"I was given a set of those plans by the Emperor to try to draw out who your mole was sending information on to. We entered negotiations, then he pulled out—I assume he got a set elsewhere. I happened to…leaf through them though. I did notice they require TSC, which should be easy to trace, since no-one uses it any more."

"TSC…wait!" Jade twisted round to Leia as a stray memory fired. "The alloy—the alloy stolen by your Rebellion in the Fondor raid about five months ago!"

Leia nodded, "That was…his operation from beginning to end. It was approved on the strength of it being a raid on the military shipyard. We didn't know at the time that he was using it to steal something. What is it?"

"A super-strength alloy used in shielding and military bunkers," Jade supplied. "We didn't understand why it had been taken because the product itself was upgraded and replaced about five years ago by a new product."

On the comlink, Karrde nodded slowly, putting the pieces together, "But the original plans for that cell were eight years old and would have specified it, so your…unnamed man followed them to the letter. Better safe than sorry when you're trying to cage a Sith, I would imagine."

"Madine." Han volunteered, knowing the way things went in this arena; that some return of trust was needed here after Karrde had taken the time to contact them, and was himself volunteering information without reserve.

Jade turned to glare at him, but he didn't acknowledge her.

"So it is Crix Madine." Karrde said with interest, everything clearly falling into place for him. "The viral I saw claimed this was on behalf of the Rebel Alliance." He looked meaningfully to Leia.

"It's not." Leia said simply.

"But he's one of your people?"

"Not any more. We're trying to get that fact out there now."

"I see…" Karrde said slowly; still tying all the loose ends together, Han figured. "I did hear that your Rebellion has just publicly disavowed him—presumably because of this?"

"The Alliance didn't know what he was planning, and he didn't return to us when he'd done it," Leia said categorically. "This was Madine's own actions, we had no part in it, and we can't and won't condone it now."

"Madine was always a loose cannon," Han growled. "We couldn't get rid of him soon enough, if you ask me."

"Really? I would have said that you got rid of him a few days too early. Why didn't the Rebellion simply nod politely and keep him happy until they could get a commando team together and take the Emperor from him?"

Han shook his head, "He's kept Luke well away from the Alliance. Has him on a different ship—a CEC Class Six bulk freighter that was running under the ID of the Wasp when he did the job, though I doubt it is any more. He went rogue a few days back; took his prisoner with him."

Karrde nodded, "I have the freighter's ID, though I didn't know whose show it was. We're…pursuing a few enquiries of our own to try to track it down."

Jade straightened, frowning, "How do you have the ID?"

Karrde shrugged casually, "It's been being relayed from one end of the galaxy to the other for the last week or so."

"On secure Imperial channels."

"Whatever," Karrde dismissed.

Han leaned in, looking to break up the deadlock, "You get anything?"

"No, not yet, but hopefully I will do shortly. As I said, I spoke to the man who wanted to buy those cell plans—twice in fact—and both times, it was through the Vendaxa Relay Station on the Rimma Trade Route. If he's still using that station to relay bounced messages, we'll try to backtrack the comm signals from there."

"A track like that would take days to cut in and slice," Mara said. "We don't have that long."

"My slicer tracked the message back to that relay when the original deal was being discussed," Karrde said, unconcerned at her suspicion. "We placed a backdoor access into the relay program then. When we're within sublight comm range we can access it."

"How far away are you?"

"A few hours. We just made a brief drop out of lightspeed so I thought I'd make another attempt to contact you."

"We have five days." Han said gravely.

Karrde blinked a few times, "Yes, I saw the holo."

"We're going through our own records, but Madine hasn't used the Alliance's official channels to get anything in this; he's too shrewd. Given time, we might pick something up but…"

"Ghent's fast." Karrde said simply, his brusqueness and confidence reassuring. "Plus he has standing codes to slice that relay station. Madine will presumably have used a modulator though; he always was a slippery fish. A clean, digitized voice sample would speed it up and give us greater accuracy."

"I can get one sent to you from Alliance Intel." Leia said immediately.

"Good. It'll be a day or so, but I think a list of every comm Madine made from that relay station may well be an enlightening piece of information."

Mara leaned in, "If you give us the frequencies Madine's using, I can pass that on to our Intel people too."

"Really?" Karrde asked levelly. "From what I've heard, you might not necessarily be listened to."

Again Jade straightened, her tone a dangerous mix of offence at his insinuation and annoyance that he knew her status in the first place. "Do you have access to classified codes?"

Karrde remained impressively unfazed, given the tone of Jade's voice. "I would say the codes we should be discussing right now are the ones that Crix Madine is using."

Han spoke up, more interested in what other information Karrde had than where or why he got it; "We think he might be somewhere in the Perlemian Crush," he said, of the cluster of close systems, "You got any guesses yet?"

Karrde frowned, "The Crush is barely clear of the present Imperial interdiction zone—I would imagine he'd be further out."

"He has a fault on his hyperdrive, we think. He's limited to short jumps. We know his first was to Agamar, then Sinsang. Trouble is, going after him is putting us at the edge of the Imperial interdiction zone too."

"Yes…" Karrde seemed to hesitate a moment, obviously turning something over. "I think I can help you with that. I have a high-level recognition code given me by the Emperor. If you broadcast it, you'll have unhindered passage anywhere in Imperial space."

"You're kidding me?!"

"I've used it several times to pass in clear sight through military blockades and interdicted planets and never once been challenged." He glanced to Jade, "Presuming it's still active."

She shrugged, "I didn't know you had it, so I'm pretty damn sure Kiria D'Arca won't."

Han kept his eyes on the holo, wondering if anybody else had missed the inference that came with Jade's casual words; certainly not Karrde, whose shrewd eyes remained on her just a moment too long before he continued.

"I'll have Aves patch it through to you on a coded channel. Try not to do anything too imprudent when you're using it; I'd rather like to utilize it again myself." Karrde glanced away and nodded to someone out of pickup range, "We're ready to move on. I'll contact you on this frequency as soon as we have anything."

"Uh…" Solo paused, "thanks Karrde."

"No problem. Oh…" the mercenary loosed the slightest of sardonic smiles, eyes flicking to Jade. "I will, of course, be billing the Empire for my time."

..

"So, useful to get that Imp clearance code, huh?" At the rear of the trail of tired people heading back through the main hold to their bunkrooms, even though they all knew damn well that none of them would sleep tonight, Han paused to speak to Jade.

"Provided it works," she allowed. "I'll run it by a friend in Intel before we use it—make sure it's still operative."

Han nodded, "Useful friend."

"Luke's, not mine." She'd stopped to pick up her sniper rifle from the dejarik table, but she turned to him now, expression coolly calculating as she looked him up and down. "Apparently he has them all over the place."

Han grinned at the underhand compliment. "Nice to know I'm appreciated."

"I wouldn't go that far."

She hefted the long-barreled sniper-rifle onto her shoulder before she too turned to leave, and Han nodded his head at it, "Got it assembled then?"

"Pretty much." She hesitated, then surprised Han by holding it out. He took it, impressed by its balanced weight as he lifted it to stare down the sight.

"What's the prism?"

"It has a distance beam for focus, invisible to the naked eye. The prism sight lets me set the focus of the actual laser bolt. With a heat or motion detector on the sight, I can set it to pass unfocussed through walls without any visible damage, focused on a target within a room."

"No tracer then?" Han asked, of the visible tracer beam which enabled the firer to see where a standard blaster fired.

"Well that'd just spoil the effect, wouldn't it?" Jade said grimly, taking the range rifle back and re-shouldering it.

"I'm figuring you got a specific target for that thing?"

She lifted uncompromising green eyes to him, "Do you have a problem with that?"

Han affected a half-shrug, "I got no love of Madine. Never did understand what the hell was going on inside his head."

"Well then you'll be happy to know that this may be your chance to find out," Jade said tightly as she turned to leave, "because the first chance I get, I'm spreading its contents out on the wall behind him."

Han watched her go, grinning; yeah, he could see why the kid liked her.

..

Karrde rubbed thoughtfully at his greying moustache as he walked down the Wild Karrde's main corridor, lost in thought. For a self-confessed information-junkie, that had been a very…interesting conversation.

He considered the unlikely group he'd just spoken to, freshly amused as one more of the Emperor's many secrets came to light, in the choice of those he clearly trusted. The Rebel Alliance's leader, no less…if he'd have been told it by someone else he would have laughed in their faces. Leia Organa; she seemed the immensely capable, no-nonsense type that had always fascinated him. She also seemed…unreasonably anxious, given who she was trying to track down.

Karrde narrowed his eyes, considering that other little nugget this talk had brought to light; because everyone in that discussion clearly believed that the Emperor's given name was Luke. Karrde might still have doubted, but considering the people who'd been sat around Solo when he said it, none of whom seemed particularly eager to correct him, he was inclined to believe it.

And Luke, it seemed, was being held by Crix Madine, in a Class Six freighter, in a cell designed specifically to hold a Sith…which was strange, because when Karrde had spoken to him about that very possibility, the Emperor had seemed quietly confident that the cell couldn't hold him.

In that same talk he'd all but admitted that the original cell built by Palpatine had also been specifically to hold him…which beggared the question; why would Palpatine feel the need to restrain his own Heir, the man whom he'd given the rank of Commander of the Fleet?

True, the Heir was sharp and he was calculating and if the rumors were to be believed, when he needed to be he was ruthlessly dangerous, but to Palpatine?

Ambition, of course, was a serious incentive, and with anyone else Karrde might have shrugged and nodded knowingly, but the Heir? No; he'd had no great desire to claim Palpatine's title—every single action he'd ever taken, before or since, underlined that fact.

Karrde knew all the theories of course, about one of the most enigmatic men in the Empire, following his out of the blue appearance aged twenty-one, with no history, no past, no explanation. No name.

A few facts came to light over the proceeding years. They were few and far between, but Karrde was a collector of information, and he'd come to have a vested interest.

The Heir was, they said, an Imperial Intel Commander in Palpatine's elite forces—an infiltration specialist. They said he'd been Palpatine's spy in the Rebel Alliance, and the occasional rumor that flared and faded there bore it out. Karrde had read the files Black Sun had on The Wolf, read nearly the same from Bothan Intel; undercover mole, special tactics, Carida-trained. Everything knitted; not perfectly, not even close, but just enough conflicts and omissions to make a career as one of Palpatine's infamous Emperor's Hands seem legit.

The old Emperor's spy; his wolf, his protégé…or maybe not.

Maybe Palpatine wasn't nearly as confident of his Wolf as he seemed, if he'd built that cell.

Karrde ran back through what little the reticent new Emperor had said about the cell when he'd spoken of its existence…

Reinforced, double-skinned cell, originally built onboard the Executor a little over seven years ago, designed to hold a Jedi…only there were no more Jedi. Maybe if Madine had…

Karrde slowed, examining that last thought—because that was what the Emperor had said; a cell to hold a Jedi.

At the time, Karrde had made the obvious connection; for Jedi, read Sith. He remembered thinking it so clearly; that it had been the ever-paranoid Palpatine making sure he could control his budding protégé. Had assumed exactly the same thing when speaking of Madine's replica cell with Solo, had thought it again just moments ago; for Jedi, read Sith. But what if he was making exactly the wrong assumption…and the Emperor had made an unnoticed slip?

For Sith, read Jedi…

What if that cell had actually been built to hold a Jedi?

Only there were no more Jedi—the last one might have been alive seven years ago, when the cell had been built, but he'd fought and died for the Rebellion.

Fought for the Rebellion…as a pilot, wasn't it? The Rebellion's vaunted new hope, the hotshot pilot who'd destroyed the first Death Star with a single shot. All those rumors that he was a Jedi; that that was how he'd been able to make the impossible shot. What was his name…began with 'S'.

He'd died on Hoth maybe three years later; Karrde remembered hearing the news; remembered shaking his head, thinking that the first Jedi to reappear in over a decade actually chose to fight for the Rebellion, and they'd been fool enough to let him go out on front-line missions; gained and lost him within three years.

Three years….would that put him in the timescale of the original cell? What had his name been, the pilot who…

Karrde came to a stop in the corridor. Skywalker—Luke Skywalker!

A cage to hold a Jedi… For Jedi, read Sith… For Sith read Jedi…

Luke Skywalker, the Rebellion's vaunted new Jedi…how soon after his death had the Emperor's mysterious Wolf come into existence?

Was that why Palpatine had felt the need to cage his Wolf?

It all came together with a terrible clarity, making his head buzz at the implications.

The spectacle at Fondor, less than a year ago; the Emperor himself showing up in a pitch battle, scoring a resounding blow…then letting the Rebels free.

Leia Organa's face today as she'd spoken, earnest and determined and genuinely worried.

Karrde shook his head, walked on a few steps…

He remembered speaking to the Emperor about Toprawa…about the Rebels' failure there; remembered watching, fascinated, aware that it had been the most uncomfortable he'd ever seen the self-possessed Emperor. Remembered that the Emperor admitted to having hidden an error by the Rebels which had cost civilian lives…only he hadn't said Rebels, he'd stumbled over another word; Alliance. Not the Rebellion; the Alliance. Only Rebels called themselves that; no-one else, just them.

What if those occasional rumors that there were still pilots in the Rebellion who swore they'd known the Emperor were true, not because he'd been a spy there, working for Palpatine, but because…

Luke Skywalker, the Rebel pilot. The hero who, as everyone in the information-selling business knew, had died at Hoth. Those were the claims of the Rebellion itself; he'd died a hero, at Hoth.

But what if he hadn't died…what if the Emperor who'd admitted less than a year ago that Palpatine's cell was built to hold him was Luke Skywalker, the man who shot down the first Death Star. Because if you linked those two events then pretty much everything that the new Emperor had ever done suddenly made a twisted kind of sense to Karrde.

The kind of sense that needed further investigation? Or the kind of sense that could very easily kill you?

If it was true there was, Karrde supposed, only one question left to ask; which was he now? Was that present cell holding a Jedi or a Sith?

..

It was another two hours before they reached Vendaxa, time which Karrde spent pulling dates from old reports and chasing up anything he could find on that dead Jedi's past...which was incredibly, implausibly little. The Empire, it seemed, had not only robbed the last Jedi of his future, they'd taken his past too. And the new Emperor? Everyone knew he had no past...and the way things were going, Crix Madine seemed determined to make sure the Emperor shared another feature with that mysterious Jedi that he'd probably known; no future.

Was any of this true, or was Karrde connecting coincidences? Because there was absolutely no information out there to back this little theory up. There was, he supposed, just one person who knew the whole truth—and Crix Madine seemed to be doing his level best to make sure that man took it to the grave.

Pulling his priorities into line, Karrde stopped outside Ghent's quarters, pressing the door release.

The moment it slid open, the young, blue-haired slicer jolted straight from the four screens he was presently staring at, all of them flicking to runs of code in the same instant. "What—I wasn't doing anything!"

Karrde narrowed his eyes but let it pass. "I have a job for you—an urgent one, so turn off the fluff channels."

Ghent looked guiltily down, but Karrde continued, undaunted. "We're back at the Vendaxa Relay Station you sliced into a few months ago—you said you left a backdoor, right?"

"Hey, I ain't no amateur!" Ghent seemed slighted that Karrde would even bother to check such a thing.

"Good. I need you to get back in. You need to go over the relay logs from maybe a few weeks before you first sliced it to the present day and look for anything on the same voiceprint or frequency you cracked before. I need to know if it's been used recently, what was said, where it was coming from, where it was sent to and if anyone using that frequency has been using another channel."

Ghent scowled, "Would ya like to know what they had for breakfast that day too?"

"Would you like to remain in gainful employment?"

Ghent pursed his lips, leaning back in his chair to glance out of the small viewport at the tall, cylindrical bulk of the Vendaxia Relay Station, spinning slowly on its own axis a few hundred clicks from the Wild Karrde. He glanced back to the lists of code running on the four screens before him. "How important is it, cos I'm kinda in the middle of something here?"

Karrde made to lean back against the edge of the desk, but had to push the massed rubbish on it back first. The whole room was a constant tip, the expensive state-of-the-art devices Karrde constantly provided his slicer almost lost among sweet wrappers and hard-copy mags and abandoned plastic plates. Even the walls were crowded out with vintage swoop-racing one sheets, stuck over every available surface at every conceivable angle.

Ghent put his hand out in warning as Karrde pushed the mess back, "Careful with that stuff, it was expensive!"

"I know, I bought it," Karrde deadpanned, eyes on an old mug balanced on a high-tech alufleck dispersal housing, lights ticking on its fascia. "…is that mug actually growing?"

"It's fine." Ghent moved the old cup over a little, resting it on another surface.

Karrde grimaced, trying to look at the walls and keep his mind on the reason he was here. "How important is it? I could tell you it was of galactic relevance, but I'll bring it down to terms you understand, shall I? It's the man who gives me all the credits to buy this constant string of new and very expensive technical toys so that you can balance old food trays on them. It's the man who pays my wages, and therefore yours. It's the man who keeps you in the…manner which you seem to enjoy, for some unknown reason. And it's a personal friend."

Ghent looked up through his trailing fringe at the last, "I didn't think you had any."

"Why, because you're not one of them?"

The slicer seemed genuinely surprised, "Aren't I?"

"Not if you don't get this right, no."

Ghent frowned, "Is this the guy I do all the ciphers for?"

"Yes, it is."

Ghent grinned, blowing his fringe from his face, "Cool—I like that guy."

Karrde blinked once, "Just…who do you think that guy is exactly?"

"I dunno—military, I guess," Ghent said with a shrug. "I always seemed to pass my stuff on to him in military bases…or near them. I'm not an idiot, you know. I work stuff out."

The last he said with genuine affront, making Karrde stifle a smile. "I'm sure you do. You're awareness of larger galaxy is…devastating."

Ghent grinned, "Be sweet if he was Intel or something—you know, a spy maybe—something cool."

"Yes, it would." Karrde deadpanned, and Ghent grinned as he spun his chair in a full circle, clearly pleased with himself.

He turned about, calling up new screens. "You want everything, right?"

"Yes, even fragments, anything with any voiceprint from that frequency which you can pull from other messages or frequencies. I want to know where every single message with that voiceprint came from and went."

"Be better if I had a clean voiceprint to sample for the search that hasn't been encoded or compressed."

"Already on its way," Karrde said. "I'll get it sent down to you."

"Great. I can set up a subroutine to search for voiceprint easy, but tracing them'll take longer."

"They'll probably be coded too."

Ghent shrugged confidently—but then it was with reason, Karrde knew; otherwise he wouldn't have hired him.

"I got a few programs, I can untangle 'em and clean 'em up."

"How much longer to trace their end point?"

"Depends how many messages they sent and how far away that end-point is and how many relays they used."

"Let me clarify," Karrde drawled pointedly. "You have one day."

"See, I was thinking maybe three or four."

"In three or four days, my friend will be dead—which, I'm sure even you would agree, makes the message-tracing rather academic."

Ghent glanced quickly up, "Four days?"

Karrde held his eye, knowing that Ghent, sharp as he was, would have just put together the viral that was all over the HoloNet and Karrde's last words. "Four days. Do this on time and you get to write home to your parents and say, 'Dear mom and dad, thought you might like to know that your son, the embarrasing dropout, just saved the galaxy'."

Ghent held Karrde's eye for long seconds, then looked away, grinning, "Ah, they'd never believe me."

"I know," Karrde said, rising to leave. "That's why I'll let you do it. If you can actually…" Karrde paused, his eye caught by one of the faded one-sheets on Ghent's wall. "Can I have this?"

He'd already torn it free, the door closing behind him as he left by the time Ghent spoke out, "Hey—hey!"

..

Luke came round on the bunk, face down, the cell dark. For some reason, that amused him; that they'd bother to move him back to the bunk rather than leave him on the floor where he'd fallen. Then a blinding flood of panic set in as he leaned back, ignoring the spike of pain it caused, hands trailing along beneath the blanket he was laid on top of… still there—the plasteel shards he'd managed to hide and keep when he'd broken the vo-corder were still there; they hadn't moved the blanket which covered them.

He fell back into the bunk, rolling over onto his back, relief quickly overtaken by the fresh cuts and bruises, head spinning from the sudden movement.

Up; sit up. Walk, don't get too stiff to run.

He sat up in stages, waiting for the room to settle to an even keel between each movement before he finally made himself stand, weak and shaking, his father's words coming back to him; words he'd fallen back on so often in a cell so similar to this, "There are times when to exist, simply to survive, is the greatest victory of all."

He'd lived by that rule for so long… it had been all that he'd had left. But it never had been enough—not once. He'd wanted more; he'd wanted free will, not just for himself—for the whole galaxy.

And now it was falling apart; all that he'd planned and worked toward, all that he'd driven everything and everyone toward for long years. All his work, all his hopes…they were being torn apart by the actions of one man and it was Luke's own fault for not seeing it. He'd purposely goaded Madine for so long, allowed him to live and to fester, knowing he'd keep attacking the Empire. He was a soldier, not a politician or a dreamer. And in the company of dreamers, that had made him the easy target for Luke, the predictable one; the useful tool to split the Alliance in two to ensure he took only what was worth saving.

But he'd misjudged; Madine had gained the advantage and now Luke stood to lose everything. Absolutely everything…more than he'd ever thought he could. His eyes lowered as he dropped tiredly back to sit on the edge of the bunk, thoughts going to Mara; to the ultimate loss—and it hurt more than he'd ever anticipated.

Because of Madine, Luke would never see his son. The boy would grow up without ever having a father, as Luke had; feeling always that some vital part of his life was missing… Because of Madine, Luke's son would grow up in a galaxy torn by conflict and war.

For a moment he wallowed in this regret, floundered in it…

"There are times when to exist, simply to survive, is the greatest victory of all."

He remembered the words exactly; the timbre of his father's voice as he'd said them, the unspoken support, the faith in Luke's strength, in his ability to endure.

In the absolute dead silence of the cold, empty cell, numb from exhaustion and drugs and grateful for the freezing cold which deadened the pain from endless cuts and scrapes and bone-deep bruises, Luke found himself seriously considering…

Perhaps this final victory was bought at a very different price. Because for the first time he began to wonder…could his death at Madine's hands buy more than his survival?

Madine was wrong; Leia wouldn't let it escalate—she wouldn't. And neither would Mara, as Empress—and Luke's death would make that title official.

His death could still polarize the Alliance, bringing those willing to talk to the table and rendering those for whom talks had never been an option to the outcast minority. It could buy for him everything he'd ultimately wanted—he simply wouldn't be around to see it. That didn't mean he didn't have faith in the two women he'd placed in positions of power.

And the truth was that if this continued, Luke knew he'd tell Madine everything eventually. Not just the codes, but about Mara as well. He knew he'd slipped again today and he hadn't even been drugged. His mind was numb enough from exhaustion and frustration and the last trailing tendrils of the previous session working their way out that he'd slipped anyway.

His death precluded that risk, any risk; the codes, his son, everything.

Wasn't that what he'd wanted? He was closer than he'd ever been to realizing it; it simply had a cost involved…didn't everything? Shouldn't he be prepared to give anything to achieve his goal—hadn't he always claimed that, and believed he'd meant it?

The door cycled open with a last breath of vacuum from the corridor beyond, and Luke glanced up, bracing.

The young soldier Tam walked in hesitantly, a bowl in his hand. He looked once then turned quickly away, frowning, seeming reticent to even look at Luke again as he walked along the edge of the line painted on the floor, "Food."

Luke looked away, thoughts turning inwards, "I'm not hungry."

"You should…probably eat."

Luke looked back, and saw the young man glance quickly away. He wondered briefly what he must look like now, after… "How long have I been here?"

Again Tam looked away, "I'm not supposed to…"

"How long till my execution?"

The young man flinched, deeply disturbed, his denial automatic. "I don't know what you…"

"Tam, I already know they're going to do it." He couldn't keep the fatigue from his own voice; couldn't even be bothered trying. "Madine's told me many, many times."

The young soldier looked up, and Luke shook his head, "It's okay, just tell me. How many days, Tam?"

"Four days," Tam said quietly, confirming Luke's count. "I'm sorry…"

Four days…he wouldn't hold out for four days, he knew that. He wouldn't. Decision made.

"I need to speak to Madine."

.

When the two soldiers came in Luke was already stood waiting, as close to the chair as the chain on his barked and bloody ankle would let him. They pulled him over anyway, pushed him to sit, then bound and tethered his wrists to the table, and he waited, staring at his hands, holding his nerve.

Madine came in with his usual noisy bluster, dragging his chair loudly behind him, and Luke looked up immediately, speaking quickly, wanting to lock himself into this path before he backed down. "Get your holo-link set up. I'll confess…I'll read whatever you want—on one condition; you do it now. You kill me when I've said it."

Stood opposite him, Madine smiled just slightly, "You got a death wish now?"

"You're right," Luke said, "I don't want to play these games anymore, I just want it over."

"I want the codes."

"The codes don't exist." Luke repeated, looking up, putting every inch of persuasion he could into it despite the hollow within him which should be charged by the Force.

Madine's eyes narrowed momentarily as he looked down at Luke, then he glanced once to the lens in the corner. Without hesitation, he drew his blaster, leveling it at Luke's head, and Luke tensed but held still, feeling his jaw tighten as Madine spoke, "Right now?"

"Right now." Luke looked down, staring without blinking at his tethered hands, breaths coming short and fast.

The blaster pressed closer as Madine leaned in, "Say everything you did was a lie."

"Everything I did was a lie."

"Everything you are is a lie."

"Everything I am is a lie." He could hear the pound of his heart in his words.

"Say, long live the true Rebellion."

"Long live the true Rebellion."

The blaster pressed a little closer, the sound of the safety snicking free grating through Luke like a rough blade.

"Say you want me to pull the trigger."

"I…want you to pull the trigger."

The outburst was incredible, an explosion of noise to Luke's overwrought senses, his whole body jarring—

as Madine kicked his chair away behind him, pulling his blaster back at the same instant, letting out a rough, mocking laugh that bit deep into Luke's tattered nerves.

"Not interested," Madine said at last, still grinning. "Oh it's going ahead anyway, we gave a date for your execution on the viral we put out. But first, I want those codes."

He backed up, the other soldiers leaving with him, Luke not yet able to pull himself from the edge enough to lift his head or speak as Madine looked him up and down, words laced with sardonic concern, "You really should try to get some rest. Long day tomorrow…and you look dead on your feet."

.

The door grated closed, the hiss of the vacuum beginning seconds before it slammed, leaving Luke tethered to the table and staring at his hands, every muscle locked to absolute stillness, every heartbeat a punch to his ribs, reality a distant haze.

The cell fell to darkness and Luke's frayed nerves jolted once at the jarring change. It was a long time before he became aware of the fact that he was sat bolt upright, muscles still so taut that he'd begun to sway slightly forward and backward as they pulled in contention. Thoughts came back slowly, hazy and muddled but sharpening to an almost painful clarity, one single memory settling out of the mass of adrenaline-fed thoughts…

His father. His father's death…and with it, Luke's slow, total, bone-deep understanding of Vader's actions on that final day, a perspective that until today, Luke could never possibly have comprehended—though now it seemed the most natural, innate thing in existence;

Because for the first time, Luke's perspective was that of a father, who would do anything—anything at all—to make his son's way in life easier. To protect him.

Was this what Vader had felt when he'd faced Palpatine? Had it been for Luke and not because of him, that he'd died that day? Had it been a choice?

Nathans words came razor-sharp to Luke's reeling thoughts; "…Give him this; this claim, this resolve, this decision. Give him this and be proud of him—because that's what he would have wanted."

Luke had been truly willing to do the same here, tonight, believing that his own son would understand one day that he'd done this of his own free will, done it because this was a bond deeper than any other. He would hate to think for one single second that his son would ever hold himself responsible…

"Give him this and be proud of him—because that's what he would have wanted."

More words; his father long ago, plucked from memories and moments with a clarity given only at this edge;

"The Darkness has not taken away what I feel for my son… No matter how at odds or how powerful the Darkness I cannot deny it. This is stronger."

This is stronger… Had his father, in the last, stepped beyond the Darkness that had bound him for so long? And if his father could do that…

Luke sat in the darkness, head spinning, stomach churning, holding it all together by nothing more than force of will because he'd be damned if he'd hand the Empire over to Madine. Damned if he'd die on that bastard's terms.

That same willful obstinacy that had always been at his core flared within him and he laughed, feeling scabs crack and twinge, remembering his father's fierce pride; "You will look for a path, you will find a way and you will make it happen."

The demon—that demon that he saw in the darkness, that unbreakable, inexorable creature that Palpatine had forged from the shattered fragments of Luke Skywalker, that Darkness which Palpatine had bound inescapably within him… "We are the same, you and I. Didn't I always tell you we were."

His father's words came in reply, old reassurances against Luke's constant doubts;

"If Darkness could claim you it would have done so long ago."
"How do you know that it hasn't?"
"Darkness would not ask. Darkness would not care… You are slave to no-one Luke—neither Palpatine nor Darkness. You are beyond both. Understand that…"

Could he be both—could he step beyond existing lore, take what strength he needed from the Dark path he'd walked and survive, intact?

"…if Darkness could claim you it would have done so long ago... You are slave to no-one Luke—neither Palpatine nor Darkness. You are beyond both."

The demon, that hated demon was, Luke knew, the very thing which was keeping him alive now, that dark, detested past had honed within him the tenacity and willpower and the edge to survive.

And he reached for it; for the first time, he reached for it with the belief that it might save and not damn him. For the first time, he clung to it like a lifeline. It wouldn't pull him down because he wouldn't let it. He was, in every possible way, at the very brink; of life and death, of Light and Darkness, of realization...of choice.

..

Han leaned back in his chair, turned away from the status console in the Falcon's main hold towards the dejarik table, where Leia and Jade, sat to either end of the L-shaped acceleration couch, with the medic Hallin looking suitably nervous, considering he was dwarfed by a seriously short-tempered Chewie to his left.

After the information exchange yesterday with Karrde, people seemed a little more willing to come clean, so the day had started with everyone gathering in the hold, looking at the standard plans for a CEC Class Six freighter and starting to try to figure out what the hell they were going to do if they…once they actually found Luke.

"Okay," Jade was first up, running her hands through her russet hair, "the first thing is, whatever you think he can do because he's Sith, he can't—not there."

Leia nodded, "Ysalamiri."

"Yes…how do you know about them?" Jade's surprise turned into narrow-eyed suspicion.

"Madine told me. He has them in…in plexiglass bubbles at ceiling level all over the ship. I think he had some being carried on some kind of portable frame too."

Jade nodded, "He can move them around, they're small enough—and as long as Luke's inside their influence, his connection to the Force is severed. That holds true through floors, ceilings, doors…you may not be able to see one close to him, but it could still be influencing him."

"How big-an area are we talkin'?" Han asked.

"I don't know…four meters, maybe six."

"Well which is it?"

"I told you, I don't know. It doesn't seem to be a constant and not surprisingly, we weren't in the mood for a little leisurely experimentation last time. The other side of that is, Madine's men don't know either. There's no man-made sensor capable of assessing it, which means they can't know if or when Luke has access to the Force, once we can get him moving. Unless they actually have a live ysalamiri laid at his feet, they have no way to be sure."

"I didn't see one in the cell he was in." Leia said.

"Probably it was on the outside somewhere," Jade replied. "I told you, their influence works through any substance. Under those conditions, they'd keep them beyond reach. That way there's no chance of him getting to them."

"Okay, we see any of the little…hairy..snake-things, we shoot 'em. Right?" Leia had given Han a description of the things, and really, that was as close as he ever wanted to get. Wildlife wasn't his thing, even when it wasn't likely to get someone he knew killed.

Jade nodded. "The fewer there are, the smaller the area they can cover and the more likely they are to leave gaps without even realizing it."

"I think we have a bigger problem, too." Leia said, eyes on the ship's schematics.

"We're talkin' aside from the forty or so professional soldiers shooting at us?" Han asked dryly from his seat across the bay.

"Forty's not too bad," Jade shrugged.

"S'alittle bigger than my lucky number, which is zero," Han said. "Never yet gotten shot with those odds."

"We might yet have time to get a full strike team onboard," Leia said.

They'd been updating the Rand and the Zephyr of their path every time they came out of lightspeed for a route change, and both ships had strike teams onboard, but right now both ships were roughly a day behind the Falcon, which was now coming dangerously close to the leading edge of the Imperial search teams as they passed from the Mid Rim to the Inner Rim, Alliance ships not generally risking coming this far in. Everyone was now relying on the code Talon Karrde had given them, and it did nothing to cool the general atmosphere.

Typically, Jade wasn't willing to wait. "Once we see what's going on, we can make the decision as to whether to go in or wait for backup, but until then, we should assume we're going in alone." She glanced to Han, "If we do it right, they won't know we're there until we're leaving, which makes the number irrelevant."

Han leaned back, unoffended, "It's not the amount of guys shooting sweetheart, it's how good their aim is."

"Which is true of us too," Jade said confidently.

Han's eyes drifted towards the slight, well-spoken medic, who straightened, "What?"

"Nothin'."

Hallin leaned back, folding his arms, "You'll be thankful of me if you get shot."

"I'd rather be thankful of you because I didn't get shot, thanks," Han replied.

"I think we may well need a medic." Leia said somberly, bringing all eyes to her.

"Throw it out then," Han said. "Might as well hear 'em all."

Leia hesitated a moment, "I think they've put a slave chip in Luke."

Jade straightened, instantly tensing, "Why?"

"He…when I spoke to him onboard the Wasp Luke leaned forward at one point, to rest his head on the table…there was blood on his collar and in his hair, a lot, from a single wound at the base of his skull—that's where they put them, isn't it?"

Han let out a rough sigh, "That's where they put 'em."

Jade leaned back, eyes closing, voice grim. "I saw that, when he was face down in the holo."

"Plus one of the soldiers said something about…Luke couldn't go outside of ninety meters, something like that."

"Ninety meter radius," Han nodded. "That's pretty limited. How big is the Wasp?"

Jade glanced to the plans, "One hundred-eighty."

"Great, so we can't actually get him off the Wasp without killing him."

Jade turned to Nathan, "You can cut it out."

Han shook his head, "You can't remove them surgically, not without disarming them first. They trigger on contact with air. Some of them trigger on sudden changes of light or temperature." He shrugged as all eyes turned to him, "I knew a few slavers in my time…Jabba dealed and dabbled regularly. I saw what happened when one of those things went off once as well."

"Is it survivable?" Jade asked too quickly.

"Not if it's at the base of his skull," Han said, shaking his head, trying to ignore the cold weight settling in his stomach. "The guy with it in his shoulder didn't survive; dropped him like a blaster shot…he never got up again. Blew a hole in his back big enough to put your fist in. I think he bled out—or maybe it was shock."

Leia turned anxiously to Hallin. "How quick could you get one out if you had to?"

The medic shook his head, his disgust obvious. "Captain Solo's right, they're millisecond-accurate—they're designed to prevent just this kind of tampering. I don't know a lot about them really—they're seldom covered on medical papers. I do know that without the code to deactivate it before extraction I would need to know the make and the type, so I could know what its specific anti-tamper properties were, and even then it would have to be removed under specialist conditions. At the very least, they're generally removed in a dark, airless atmosphere by surgical droids."

Han straightened, "And even if he could cut it out there and then, you're assuming we can get to Luke before Madine just triggers it remotely."

"So we go after the transmitter," Jade said, refusing to be discouraged. "What does it look like, is it portable?"

"Not big," Han hefted both his hands a short distance apart, as if he were carrying it. "Could be wired into the ship's power supply, could be portable. Smallish box, plain, a couple of status lights and usually a numeric keypad on top."

"We need to split up and do this quietly," Leia said decisively. "Two of us go after the transmitter, three go to get Luke out."

"Someone should wait on the Falcon," Han said. "Keep our escape route clear."

"Two and two then. Quietly, until we know we have the transmitter box."

Hallin frowned, "But…having the box and deactivating the chip are two different things."

"But if we have control of the box, no-one's able to come in and trigger it manually. All that leaves is for the second team to get Luke."

"But not take him off the ship." Han reminded pointedly.

Everyone fell to silence, considering…

Sat well away from the table and staring mutely at the plans, Han's eye was caught by the repetitive movement of Jade's hand, rubbing in circles over her stomach. She glanced to him and in that second he saw the absolute dread in her eyes, the desperate fear…then she looked down, expression hardening as she pulled her thoughts to the task at hand, the consummate soldier.

..

Luke woke to the sound of the doors cycling open, a fresh gust of cool air replacing the stale atmosphere of the cell. Half-awake, he was yanked up and back off the bunk with enough force to push the air from him in a gasp, aching shoulders taking the strain, wrenched muscles pulling, legs cramping, unable to take his weight in that moment. Dragged to the table again, he was hauled roughly down though he never resisted, his hands forced forward to the restraints…

Then they backed off and Luke was left alone, sat at the table, uncomfortably balanced, arms at too much of a stretch for his shoulders to maintain the position without a tremor setting in. He waited…

Too long without respite, his failing body sagged almost immediately, head beginning to loll, shoulders slumping… Someone grabbed at the collar of his flightsuit from behind, shaking him roughly, pulling him straight and forcing him upright. He sat up. He waited…

Again.

Again.

That insular silence overtook him again as his body numbed, senses failing, a single tone blotting out hearing, head beginning to drop. He tried to lift his hands to rub tired eyes, but they jerked to a halt almost immediately, an unwelcome reminder.

He waited…

A shadow moved over him in a flurry of noise, and Luke forced gritty eyes open to see Madine dragging a chair in to sit at the table. "Outside," he said to the soldiers.

They turned without looking back and the door closed with a hiss of vacuum as the corridor beyond depressurized.

Madine dropped a vo-corder onto the table before Luke, its clatter loud in the silence. He sat, a stony expression hardening his eyes as he stared for a long time at Luke, and Luke waited, jaw clamped, trembling twitches in tense muscles betraying his exhaustion.

On the table between them Madine placed two syringes of pale milky-white fluid, giving Luke long seconds to see them and consider the implications before he reached out and pulled the vo-corder closer to key playback;

Luke heard his own voice, words he didn't even remember speaking, dragged and drowsy,

"Seventy…sixty four…"

There was a sudden upheaval in the recording, a clamor of noise, the obvious clatter of a chair over hard floor, momentary interference as the vo-corder must have been knocked, then Madine's voice, raw with frustration, "I pull this trigger and that's it, no more Sith, understand? The line ends with you, right now."

Luke's own voice again, a smile audible in the slurred word, "No."

"No?"

"No. Too late."

"What the hell does that mean?"

Madine reached out to pause the vo-corder, keying for a new entry, his eyes coming back to study Luke, who sat absolutely still, face expressionless.

His own voice again; this time he remembered speaking the words, only days ago…

"…You bring down the whole fleet and it removes any law. You'll never control it, you'd throw the whole galaxy into chaos, it'll spread like wildfire. It would be years of fighting—decades even. This needs to stop, not escalate—our children deserve the chance to grow up in a galaxy that isn't at war. I can give you peace by-"

Madine stopped the vo-corder, and in the silence Luke listened to the whistling buzz of his blood in his ears as Madine re-keyed it;

"I pull this trigger and that's it, no more Sith, understand? The line ends with you, right now."

"No."

"No?"

"No. Too late."

Then;

"..our children deserve the chance to grow up in a galaxy that isn't at war."

Madine settled his weight, leaning forward, elbows on the desk, one fist clamped inside the other. Luke kept his eyes down as something seemed to collapse within him, aware of Madine's calculating gaze, held on him for long minutes as the silence crushed in.

"I think there's something you're not telling me," Madine said at last, lifting the first syringe. "Let's see if we can remedy that."

..

The call came in late, but no-one was sleeping anyway, everyone waiting…what else could they do?

Mara slid into the acceleration couch beside Nathan, Organa and Solo to his left, the Wookie muscling in beside Solo.

"He's been on a rather circuitous route, your General." Talon Karrde said in that dry, level tone as he glanced to the side, obviously consulting another screen. "He seemed to be heading out toward the Unknown regions then thought better of it and turned Core-wards. The first series of messages originate from Sinsang in the Raioballo Sector as you said."

"Yeah I know I said that, I was there at the time," Solo was eager to usher Karrde along, and Mara couldn't blame him.

"Then we extrapolated ten comms from the Borosk asteroid belt." Karrde glanced up to the holo lens. "Very independent man, you General. Doesn't like to call in a lot of outside help. Eight of those calls were to ship-to-ship, to an un-known vessel in the Bajic Sector. We've tried to extrapolate, but it's a clever code system—Ghent's still working on those."

"That was us," Solo said, giving up the fact without hesitation. "He was speaking to the Alliance."

"Ten messages?" Leia Organa frowned, turning to the Corellian. "We only have three logged."

"Not surprising," Karrde said dryly. "He used a total of four different call frequencies and three different codes, all to that one location."

"You decoded them?" Organa asked, amazed.

Mara made a silent note to make sure she stayed in contact with Karrde, understanding now why Luke used him.

"Only enough to tag Madine's voice." Karrde moved quickly on, glancing to the side, reading from his screen again. "His next jump was to Telti in the Inner Rim —there's a moon in-system of the same name which has an extensive droid manufacturing facility. A mid-bulk freighter would have seemed very much at home there. Dates put him there when he released the first viral. He'd changed the freighter's name and its call frequency, but we got a positive ID on four separate messages coming from there, two going to the Quence Sector and two to Tholatin in the Mid Rim, or one of its moons."

"The holo was sent out from Telti?" Mara asked.

"No—well, we don't think so, the viral was too well hidden code-wise. My slicer Ghent thinks it may have been within one of those four outgoing transmissions, but was actually distributed across the HoloNet from another site entirely."

"The Quence sector stuff was to the Alliance fleet," Solo confirmed again. "That's where we were at the time."

"From there we lose him I'm afraid," Karrde admitted. "He stopped using the Vandaxa Relay Station, but that was only two days ago. Ghent's left a tag in the system, so if Madine uses that relay again we'll know instantly."

"Well then that leaves us just one place to go," Solo said, leaning back as the Wookie keened a confirmation.

Karrde nodded, "Essau's Ridge."

Organa frowned, "Essau's...?"

"Essau's Ridge," Solo repeated. "It's the one built-up area on Tholatin. If there's a shady deal going on anywhere, you can link it back to the shadows down in Essau's Ridge eventually."

"I know a few people there, I'll see if I can dig anything up." Karrde's tone had a finality to it, but as Solo reached out to pull the switch Nathan leaned forward beside Mara, hand out.

"Wait! Did you say you had a slicer onboard?"

Mara could have kissed him, realizing where he was heading.

Karrde paused, uncertain. "Yes."

Nathan glanced around nervously, then back to the holo, "Because they've put a slave chip in the Emperor."

Karrde's face hardened to cover his unease, "You're sure?"

Mara leaned forward, "Pull up the HoloNet images—look at the back of his collar when he's laid face down before they turn him over."

"Wait," Karrde turned slightly to the side, working a keyboard to bring up the image as he glanced up, "Aves, go and get Ghent."

The silence stretched as Karrde looked to one side, clearly studying the same images they'd all stared at repeatedly today. "Looks like it. Slave chips are problematic."

"No kidding," Solo said dryly, looking over to Mara. "I hope you're not gonna let him charge you for that little nugget."

"Can you decode it?" Nathan asked.

"Yes, but it takes around nine hours, even at a push, and I'm assuming we may be on a tighter schedule than that. Do you know how many people have the trip code?"

Solo shook his head, "Knowing Madine, not many."

Karrde glanced to him, "Thank you for that useful little nugget."

"Let's say we can pretty much guarantee it'll be more than one," Mara said grimly. "And since we don't know who they are, taking out the people who have the trip code instead of the box itself isn't an option. We also think it has a range of just ninety meters."

Karrde's lips narrowed, "Wait there."

The line cut, and everyone waited in tense silence, before Nathan, playing nonchalantly with the controls of the holo-table, muttered beneath his breath with that particular tone of self-righteous offense that only he could ever muster, "So not everything comes down to whether you can shoot straight, then…"

Solo made an exaggerated turn, leaning back to give the full glare, "Listen, ya little Kowakian…"

Nathan was saved from the rest of Solo's diatribe when the HoloNet fired up and Karrde reappeared, seeming no less relaxed.

"Ghent thinks he can make a ghost box."

Organa leaned in, "A ghost box?"

"It's a box of tricks that, if you can get it close to the original, will sample the signal, create a loop and transmit it again as if it's the real source. It enables you to emulate the code so that you can go outside of the range of the original. Keep it close to the Emperor and the chip won't trigger."

"But?" Mara prompted, knowing from his tone that there was more.

"But…if the original is a more expensive set-up with a tiered code, I'm told it may generate a flux to a set schedule—if the ghost box doesn't sample the original when it's incorporating that flux, it won't have it as part of the fake signal, and when the slave chip doesn't receive it at the correct interval, or if the interval timing is wrong…"

"How widely-spaced are the fluxes generally?"

"Ghent's checking now. He's done this before once and he seems to remember the pulses being around six hours apart, so that's a good window of opportunity."

"That doesn't sound too bad." Solo said hopefully.

"Unless it's due to make the pulse a minute after you switch signals," Nathan said, sitting back. "That's the gamble, isn't it?"

Karrde nodded sombrely, "That's the gamble."

"Wait a minute," Han added. "Your guy's done this once?!"

"You're landing in Essau's Ridge," Karrde said smoothly. "If it bothers you, you'll probably be able to source several slicers who'll sell one to you the first night. I can guarantee you that none of them are even a patch on Ghent's abilities." There was a brief pause as Karrde looked down to the desk before him, tone long-suffering, "Stop grinning, Ghent."

Organa turned, "Nathan, how long to take it out surgically—we can hold back until the Rand arrives—it's less than a day behind us and it has a full medi-bay. It can be set up, ready to go."

"Less than an hour, I'd imagine. But every minute we run the slave-chip on the fake signal we're tempting fate."

Mara turned back to the holo, "Are there any other options?"

Karrde shook his head, "No, slave-chips are really only designed to do one thing, so they tend to do it very well. Are you assuming that Madine's freighter will be alone?"

Solo nodded, "Yeah, he doesn't play well with others."

"How many onboard?"

"We're not sure—he took out four units, all Special Ops and all presumably loyal to him, which is forty-eight soldiers, but the Bothans have reported seeing at least four of his men on Commenor, just outside the Core Systems. They were on the Tishi, which was one of the three Alliance-owned shuttles onboard the Wasp, so we know they came from there."

Mara frowned, turning from the holo, "When did you hear that?"

Solo didn't blink. "About an hour ago, when we dropped out of lightspeed for the course change."

"And when were you intending to tell us?"

Solo straightened, "Just as soon as your damn Empress stops pointing her finger and her fleet at us!"

Nathan leaned forward, subtly blocking Mara and Han's views of each-other, "Perhaps we could concentrate on the matter at hand and leave the whole galactic peace thing until we've got those who can actually do something about it sat at the same table, can we?"

Mara leaned back, aware that Solo had a point. "She's not my Empress…" she muttered at last.

It was Karrde who broke the deadlock, "Could we get the type and call-signs of the other shuttles?"

Leia Organa nodded, "We'll get that to you." She turned pointedly to Mara, "And to you."

"Thank you," Karrde said smoothly. "Forty Special Ops soldiers—I hope you have a lot of artillery for back-up."

Karrde didn't need nearly the length of silence which followed to work it out.

"We have plenty of back-up," Solo said at last. "Trouble is, it's almost a day behind us."

"I see… We're heading towards Essau's Ridge ourselves, as it happens," Karrde said casually at last. "Perhaps we can meet you there?"

Mara's eyes came back to the holo, wondering how, of all the smuggling groups in the galaxy, Luke had found Karrde. Most would have nodded and said, 'Good luck'. She doubted very much that it was coincidence that Luke had decided to use Karrde's group—or maintained that connection when he'd become Emperor. He seemed always so capable of bringing out the best in people, simply by having that stubborn, steadfast faith in them—sometimes in the most unlikely circumstances. She leaned back, seriously considering for the first time… what if he could have brought about peace, with that same dogged commitment? If anyone could have achieved that, it would have been Luke… and why had she just thought about him in the past tense?

Her heart pounded at that, throat constricting; so many times she'd mercilessly upbraided others for it, yet the more they closed in, the more she felt that she was bracing for the worst.

I won't let him go… You want to see stubborn, Skywalker? I'll show you what stubborn really is.

"How far away are you?" Solo's question pulled Mara from her reverie and back to the moment.

Karrde glanced off-screen, and Mara could make out a man's voice just beyond mic range. "Aves tells me we're less than a day away if we push our engines—maybe early evening tomorrow. You?"

Solo glanced to the hold console, making mental calculations, "We're already heading towards the Crush…mid-afternoon, probably. That gives us a day and a half to actually find him."

Karrde nodded sombrely. "Take any berth. We use the Ridge a lot, I'll find you."

Solo nodded, "We'll see you there. Oh, how many are you bringing to the party?"

"Six, onboard the Wilde Karrde. Actually five; I wouldn't give Ghent a blaster if my life depended on it." Karrde shrugged into Han's silence, voice laced with his usual dry wit. "Try not to think of it as five people, Solo—look upon it as doubling your numbers."

..

It was the early hours of the morning when Mara walked into the main hold, automemo in hand. Still awake, she and Nathan had noticed minutes ago that they'd dropped out of hyperspace, probably for a course change, but it was the ideal opportunity to get the information about the shuttles to Admiral Joss, so Mara had headed over to the main hold.

Now she glanced to the dejarik table where Solo sat back, slouching into the acceleration couch, the HoloNet winding down to static as he deactivated it. Leia Organa sat up close, her weight resting against him, his arm casually thrown across the back of the couch and her shoulders. The casual intimacy fired a gaping, desolate loneliness in Mara which took her completely by surprise.

"Sorry." She glanced quickly away, wishing she hadn't told Nathan she'd do this now. "I was just going to ask about the call signs for the shuttles."

"Your friend the Scarlet Empress is out and about again," Solo said dryly, nodding to the deactivated holo-emitter. "She's all over the HoloNet newschannels doing walkabouts again today. Apparently our Scarlet Empress…'takes strength from her people'."

"I told you, she's not my Empress." Mara reiterated. Still, she knew this was Solo's way of an apology for their earlier flare-up. She was starting to figure Solo out, mostly because he was a lot like herself—and for people like them, the fact that they were still talking at all was as close as they came to an apology.

"Scarlet Empress," Mara scorned at last, leaning back onto the console. "I bet she started that herself."

There'd been countless images of D'Arca in the last week, always wearing white, walking amongst her people, the multitudes who had taken up a vigil outside the Palace gates, Victory Square lit by thousands of candles every night. And Kiria D'Arca, walking among them every day soon after dawn, looking so fragile and so very sincere.

"She's sure startin' something," Han said within a sigh.

Leia Organa was still staring at the spot the HoloNet had projected into, lost in thought. "Did you hear her speech in response to the Alliance's disavowal of Madine? Oh it was good—she's very good. She never once directly said that we were still to blame—she's smarter than that. She was going for the 'Alliance is turning on its own now,' line. Says we're breaking apart under the pressure that her military's putting on us."

Mara raised an eyebrow, "Her military?"

Han shrugged, "Last time I checked, she was Empress."

"In name only—only ever in name."

"Seems to have it pretty much sewn up to me," Han observed.

Leia shook her head. "The D'Arca's… Don't get me talking about the D'Arca's."

Mara felt a surge of interest, "No, please do?"

"New power in an ambitious old Mid Rim family who made their wealth and climbed the ranks by backing Palpatine. I can't work out what Luke was doing marrying her in the first place, other than…" Leia paused, eyes flicking to Mara in question.

Mara allowed a slight tilt of her head, and Leia straightened.

"A political marriage!"

Solo frowned, "A sham?"

"A contract," Mara corrected. "To bring the Royal Houses into line."

"Well, she did that alright," Leia said wryly. "But still…no, I don't think Luke would place her in the line of succession just to gain control of the Royal Houses. He knows it would be putting the old regime back on the throne and that's not what he wants."

"He didn't; I did."

"You? How could…"

Mara watched those astute brown eyes start to piece it all together…

"You were Regent?"

Mara remained still, holding Leia's eye.

"You were Regent," Leia repeated, "and you handed over power…to Kiria D'Arca?!"

"What else was I supposed to do?"

"What Luke had presumably asked you to—because I don't think for one minute that it was this!"

"I am doing what Luke asked me to! I'm trying my damndest to make sure that everything he intended comes about—and the only way I know how to do that, is to get him back, because he is the only one who can pull this off. To get him back I had to be away from Coruscant. To be away from Coruscant, I had to put someone in charge who the populous would accept and who I know damn well will defer when Luke comes back. I had to put someone in charge who seemed the logical choice. I had to underline his commitment to the Royal Houses."

"But…D'Arca?! Did it not occur to you that if Luke had wanted to risk turning power over to her, he would have placed her in the line of succession?" Leia asked.

"She's loyal to Luke, and she at least knows how to rule." Mara hesitated, wondering how much of her own insecurities she'd just let slip with that last comment. "She tried to help Luke with the ring. She pulled the Royal Houses behind him with that, and she has the populous eating out of her perfectly manicured hand with this wronged wife routine she does so well. Scarlet Empress," Mara repeated contemptuously.

"So, wait," Solo drawled, "If you don't like her, why d'you give her power?"

"Because she was the right person to give it to, strategically!" Mara defended. "She thinks in political terms and we need that right now—Luke does. Look at what she's doing! She knows how to rally people to the cause."

"Hell yeah," Han said derisively. "She's made Luke into a martyr and he's not even dead yet."

"I'm not going to let all Luke's plans fall apart. He told me not to, and I won't. He married D'Arca because he needs the Royal Houses behind him when changes begin to happen, and if that means I have to give Kiria D'Arca a little extra rope right now then so be it." Mara paused, thoughtful. "Who knows, we might get lucky and she hangs herself with it."

"So that's why she put out a warrant for your arrest." Leia nodded as if it was all becoming clear, her eyes lifting to Mara. "Now you can't go back."

"It's not that," Mara said. "D'Arca and I have…pre-existing issues."

Solo nodded, grinning, "Yeah, I'll bet…Ow!"

The last he issued when Organa elbowed him in the ribs.

"Still," Leia said, "with you out of the way, it clears her path." Her eyes narrowed astutely, "How far do you trust her—really?"

Mara shook her head, "She won't take power from Luke, I know that."

Leia nodded, "I think you're right; she wouldn't dare overthrow Luke…but what happens if Luke doesn't come back, what happens if that control is gone? Everyone already looks to her as the public face of the Empire now the Emperor's gone."

"He's not gone!"

Organa was sitting forward, wide awake despite the late hour. "When you passed over power, did you sign a document?"

"Yes."

"Who drew it up?"

Mara blinked; "I don't know. I asked for it to be drawn up and I read it, all of it—Kiria has limited powers. I handed executive power over to her, but it was only in the absence of the Emperor. "

"In the absence of the Emperor? Did it make reference to an Interregnum, a break in the chain of monarchy?"

"No."

"So if the document didn't refer specifically to rule during an interregnum, a break in the line of monarchy, then failing any other document coming to light it effectively becomes the line of succession." Leia's shrewd gaze came to Mara, "Did the transfer of power contract you drew up limit her access to any existing documents?"

Mara shook her head, "She's loyal to Luke… I know she is."

"I'm sure she is," Leia agreed. "I know the D'Arca's, they have absolute loyalty to their sovereign, that's what got them where they are…but they're an ambitious family. This isn't about whether they'd overthrow the legitimate Emperor—they never would—it's about whether they'd have the nerve and the authority to step up into the power vacuum if he was gone."

Mara shook her head, "If he didn't trust them, Luke wouldn't have given them that kind of…"

Realization, when it came, was a surge of panic which threatened to engulf her. Here she was, looking for rationalizations, for reasons he'd give them this much power if there was any chance they'd do this; maybe because he needed the Royal Houses and he knew the D'Arca's had enough sway to be able to bring the other Houses behind him, or maybe because he needed one that he'd have no qualms about manipulating, all these reasons…. and she'd completely missed the one reason that counted.

He hadn't given them this much power…she had. He'd never intended to give them this opportunity and he knew damn well that they wouldn't have a chance without it, but now… Now, Mara had done the one thing that Luke had deliberately avoided—had drawn up a lengthy contract before the marriage to ensure against—she'd given them the standing, the legal claim. Leia was right; he'd kept them from the line of accession by choice; this was the one thing that Luke had never allowed for because he would never have allowed to happen in the first place!

Mara was standing again, hand before her mouth, remembering Kiria's claim at Mara's suggestion that she take temporary power—remembering the brightness of her eyes, the quickening of her voice; "Understand this; if you give me power, I shall use it…"

"Luke…"

.

"It will be fine." The solid, reassuring tone of the voice brought Mara's head about. Nathan had been stood in the loop corridor, for how long Mara didn't know.

He'd warned her…he'd tried to warn her.

But he shook his head now as he walked forward, voice soft and strong and very sure. "It will be fine because Luke's coming back, and that renders all of this a moot point." He came to a halt before her, hands on Mara's shoulders. "He is coming back."

Mara let out a long, shaky breath. "Well now we have to get him back."

"As opposed to before, when we were just coming here on the off-chance because we had nothing better to do," Nathan said dryly, a twist of shared amusement lighting those big brown eyes—and Mara couldn't help but smile.

Still, she felt a fresh pang of anxiety as she looked at the hold's occupants, a rag-tag mix of wary enemies held together by nothing more substantial than their concern; their need to find one man. And the truth was that already they were beginning to discuss what would happen when they didn't… She felt her head shake as the weight of what they were trying to do came crashing down upon her, the words coming out unbidden, "We're not going to make it, are we?"

"Yes we are." There was comfort in his absolute tone…but not enough. "Mara, we know where we're going now—we'll be there in twelve hours."

"We'll be in the Tholatin System," Mara corrected, feeling her eyes mist. "After that… we have no idea—none at all. We have less than forty to find him, in a system with seven planets and nine moons. Really, how likely is it that?"

He squeezed her shoulders, "About as likely as an Emperor and an assassin? Or how about that Emperor having once been a Rebel pilot?" He smiled gamely, "Besides, you know Luke; unlikely is his specialty."

Solo let out a brief laugh, "I thought gettin' in trouble was his specialty."

Nathan gave Mara's shoulders one last squeeze then turned, "I think that's more his raison d'être."

"Don't get me started." Solo said easily.

"I actually came for the callsigns of the shuttles, to pass on," Nathan said, taking the automemo from Mara's hand. "Madine's men were clearly heading Core-wards, which makes it likely that Imperial enforcement could pick them up. I'd very much like to know what they're doing."

"Yeah, you and me both, pal," Han said, straightening.

"I can get them—" Mara stated.

But having taken it from her, Nathan was unwilling to concede the automemo now. "If you want to do something useful, you should eat, since you're up anyway. You think I didn't spot that you skipped dinner?"

"How is that useful?" Solo asked.

His back to the Corellian as he'd turned to Mara, Nathan's eyes widened, "Because…Mara's…hypoglycemic."

Mara straightened, "No I'm not!"

"Yes you are…you don't realize it because you're judgment's impaired."

Mara knew exactly what he was doing of course, but she had no intention of taking on an imaginary medical condition just because Nathan had talked himself into a corner again. "No it's not."

"See, now you're getting aggressive."

"Seriously," Solo deadpanned, "aren't you a medic? Or are you a medic in the same way that you're useful in a gunfight?"

It was Leia Organa who salvaged the situation by rising and heading for the short corridor that led to the Falcon's cockpit. "Let's get you those shuttle ID's, shall we Nathan. You might just have time to pass them on before we go to lightspeed."

.

Throwing a withering glance at Solo as he passed him, Nathan followed the dainty ex-Senator down the corridor, marveling that she could be elegant even here, dressed in fatigues. Fortunately, her smalltalk was also a tad more refined than the Corellian's, taking Nathan's thoughts off his gaffe with Mara.

"You have quite a turn of inspirational speech there, Nathan," she said conversationally as she sat in the pilot's chair, pulling up details from the side-console. "Have you ever considered becoming a politician?"

He smiled sadly, "You know, someone else said that to me recently too."

She turned, huge chocolate brown eyes so expressive, "Luke?"

He glanced down, "Yes."

"Do you… believe what you said back there?"

"I believe I should believe—for myself, and for Mara." Leia was silent for long seconds, and beneath her questioning gaze Nathan felt the urge to move the conversation on quickly, before she pressed him. "I wonder, can I send the message direct from here?"

Accepting of his avoidance, she turned, leaning over the console, "If you want to put in your contact code, I can send it from here." She frowned, glancing at the small screen, "You have an incoming message too."

It was from Joss of course, confirming that he could detach three reliable Destroyers from the search fleet without alerting Coruscant as to why, and have them at the Crush in just under two days, another six already being deployed along that same axis, to be available less than a day later.

There was one more piece of interesting information in the message, sent on from Commander Arco, still on Coruscant; two days ago the Imperial shuttle Nathan and Mara had used to get off Coruscant had shown up on a routine check of the shipping lanes in the Corellian Run. In line with her command, the fact had immediately been brought to the Empress's attention…and she'd given the order to let it pass unmolested. Interesting…

When he looked up, Leia Organa's searching eyes were still held on him, disconcertingly sharp. "May I ask—Mara Jade, she said Luke had placed her as Regent?"

Nathan glanced quickly down, "Yes, that's right."

"I'm…confused as to why she wouldn't follow through on Luke's order. I don't think it's out of lack of loyalty," Leia hesitated slightly, her next words rising just slightly in pitch, the sense of a discrete question behind them, "Quite the opposite…"

"I might ask the same of you, the Commander in Chief of the Rebellion."

Leia frowned, glancing away just a fraction too quickly. "I'm here because of the meetings. Because I…I think Luke was sincere in his intent. Because he said it was essential that the Alliance don't become involved with this."

Nathan loosed a brief smile, "And being here achieves that how?"

She lifted her chin just slightly, "By getting him out. Then we continue the talks and we sort this out—everything, once and for all."

"Everything?"

Organa frowned, those soft, smoky eyes calculating, "Everything. We'll open formal negotiations, put his schedule in place; for as long as he's instituting changes towards democratic reform, the Alliance will honor a ceasefire."

"Ah," Nathan nodded slowly, putting this together with all that he already knew, finally seeing the larger picture, what Luke was really up to, what he intended…all of it.

Organa frowned, "You didn't know."

Nathan shrugged, wondering why he didn't feel more shocked; the answer, of course, was obvious. "I…expected as much—more so, as time went on." He managed a cavalier shrug, "Though you never really know with Luke."

Leia, smiled, glancing down, her head tipped slightly to the side—and it reminded Nathan of someone so completely…but he couldn't quite grasp who…

"You know him well?" she asked.

"Well enough to know how little anyone really knows him."

"I thought I did, once," she said distantly.

"And what's so different than you thought?" Nathan asked.

Leia shook her head, "I just…Why Mothma? Why did he go after her?"

Nathan sighed, "You want the truth? I think Luke offered the same deal to Mothma that he offered to you…and I think she declined. The assassination attempt…it clarified for Luke that the old leadership would never solve this, on either side of the divide."

Leia shook her head, "Mon was a great stateswoman…"

"Who signed an order sanctioning Luke's assassination. Everything changed for Luke after that—that's when he began taking matters into his own hands, because he knew it needed new leadership on both sides without the prejudices of having seen the Clone Wars and the rise of the Empire. He wanted a new start, and he couldn't guarantee that unless the old leadership was gone." Nathan paused, studying her face, pinched in consideration, "What do you think it was?"

She didn't look up, "Revenge."

"No, I think you know him better than that."

"That's just it; I want to believe I do, but…" She trailed off, uncertain.

"He'd been in contact with you for so long already, but he'd never moved, never made face-to-face contact at a time when for him, it would have been so much easier to do. I think he knew he couldn't move with Mon in power because he knew she'd reject him, and he had no idea of what to do to break the status-quo. I can tell you for a fact it never once occurred to him to take the offensive and remove Mothma without reason, not once. He moved only when Mothma had moved against him—when she'd tried to kill him. That truly did change everything—more than you could possibly know. Luke believed he had to remove Mothma to put you in power. New leadership; someone who he trusted; someone whom he thought he could make this deal with."

"He could have tried harder with Mon. He didn't have to do what he did."

"I told you; everything changed for Luke."

Leia watched him for long seconds, uncertain… "No…no, he was already serving Palpatine—he'd just been named Heir."

"I spoke to him about that when he was still in the medi-center after the assassination attempt…you know he was in a coma for twenty-three days; that we almost lost him on that first day. He had four seizures on the operating table due to hypoxia; his heart stopped three times. Twice we rushed him back into surgery when he was bleeding out—internal hemorrhaging. He had a total of eight operations in that first week. The initial trauma surgery was sixteen hours. It was just short of three months before he left my medi-center, almost two more before he could walk."

Organa had the good grace to look down, frowning.

"But I asked him about being named Heir… He thought Palpatine did it to force a reaction from the Rebellion, that he wanted to drive that final wedge between yourself and Luke because…" Nathan trailed off, the facts becoming obvious.

Organa shook her head, "No, the man I knew wouldn't have turned on Mon, even if he believed it was for the greater good. He would have found another path."

"Perhaps," Nathan allowed. "Perhaps he's not quite the same—how could he be, given all that's happened? But I'll tell you this; I know for a fact that when he fought for your Rebellion, he believed absolutely in what he was doing, would have given his life for those beliefs. You—forgive me—you abandoned him, turned on him, tried very hard to kill him—almost succeeded. And yet he still believed that given the chance you'd make the right choice—wanted to try, to give you every opportunity, even at his own risk. Despite everything, he still wanted to trust you…he still does. Now tell me again that he isn't the man you knew."

..

The first thing Luke felt was the sharp, dragging sting of a needle being pulled free of his vein. Slowly his dull eyes pulled grey walls into focus. It took long seconds for the blur hovering over him to coalesce into the form of Madine stepping up and back.

Luke tried to turn the Force inwards, searching for focus, but nothing came; no swell of power answered his call and he closed his eyes, the world swirling sickeningly around him so that for a few seconds he was sure he was falling.

He caught himself with a jolt which ran the length of his body, head still swimming, heart pounding in his chest.

Madine spoke but Luke couldn't work out the words, attention still held by his futile search for connection, any sense at all, no matter how faint. He wanted so much to hear it, to sense it about him, the beat of the universe; craved it even if it gave him no aid, just to be complete again. Without it, he felt so much as he had in his youth; as if some vital part of himself were missing, some deeper connection unanswered.

Some deeper connection…

The burst of adrenaline which accompanied this gave Luke the energy to try to rise, and he rolled to his side, the room spinning in blurred waves. Gritting his teeth against rising nausea Luke pushed up, unable to resist the urge to bring his hand up to hold his head still against the spinning, eyes closed, all too familiar with this thick haze, this particular queasy, aching, heavy-limbed dullness…

He opened his eyes, trying hard to focus on his hands before him…why were they free? He looked past them to the far side of the brightly-lit cell, the walls crawling, distorting beyond his ability to process in his failing vision—and suddenly he was falling again, everything whipping away. He clutched for the table to stop himself…then realized it wasn't there; he was sat on the angled iron at the edge of his bunk—

And no-one was there…he was alone in the bright cell—had someone been there at all?

His mind sharpened again too quickly, and Luke knew the drugs hadn't been real; it was a flash-back, a momentary aberration…

He tried to stand, the chain about his ankle barking skin and open wounds as it fell in a coil to the floor and he staggered helplessly to the side, the room spinning. Not real…it's not real.

His shoulder scraped into the curved wall, head hitting hard enough to create a flash of bright white in his vision, and Luke felt his legs give way as he dropped to the floor, reality reeling. Unable to fight the overwhelming urge, he lay down before he passed out, curling up, the gritty, uneven floor cool against his face. He closed his eyes for just one second…

Old dream...this was old dream; he was still laid on his side as he had been in the cell, but now the ground was cold and rough and damp. Tall, twisted trees rustled in the night's cloying breeze, which gave no relief to heated skin. And as the leaves trembled he heard whispers within them, tumbling through the tall trees in brief, broken fragments, carried on the wind. Words, moments, memories whipping up like like zephyrs, lucid for one intense instant then gone the next, falling away and losing clarity as they collapsed to the power of the rising storm.

Then a light, soft and warm, like the reflection of the sun into the deep darkness of a cave, a gentle reassurance of the warmth of the day, just steps away. But this light came from a form which crouched beside him in the wild darkness, a figure in white, a soft cowl covering rich, mahogany-brown hair… Leia—Leia as he remembered her when he'd first set eyes on her, in her senatorial robes of pure white—pure light… And she reached down to touch his face with such compassion in her eyes. But as she reached out, she became as insubstantial as a ghost, so that by the time her hand touch him it had so little substance that it passed through him, a cool tremor across heated skin.

And the dark forest and the cool earth settled to nothing, insubstantial as ever. Only the storm remained, contained within his ragged breath and pounding heart and desperate fear that something…something….

.

Luke opened his eyes and he was laid on the floor several paces away from his bunk, curled up on his side, numb from the cold…and he had no idea, none at all, of how he'd got there.

He pushed himself to sitting but had to remain still for long minutes before he even tried to rise enough to stumble back to the canvas bunk, the thin blanket pitifully inadequate. He dropped down, rolling onto his side to curl up…hard shards hidden beneath the blanket dug into his hip and leg and for long moments Luke struggled to remember what they were……

Fragments of the vo-corder, gathered from the floor when Luke had thrown it there many days ago, shattering its casing. Hard-won items, bundled into his faded flightsuit as he'd been knocked down among them; he remembered now, remembered his intention; the door. They would hold the door seal open if he timed it right—just enough to break that seal. He brought a trembling hand up to massage his forehead, drained, remembering that he had to move the bunk again tonight, a fraction closer to the door. If they kept him like this, it would make no difference in the end. The desire to close his eyes and sleep was monumental...just for a moment...just one moment.

Do this; do this because you swore you'd not give Madine this win.

When he closed his eyes the room spun dizzily and he gritted his teeth. He didn't care. He didn't care any more.

Do it for Mara.

The barest smile came to his split lips at the thought of forest green eyes, vibrant as a new leaf in sunlight, and a flash of brilliant russet-red, every shade from warm blond to darkest auburn… Do it to see if your son will have that hair.

Your son…

Madine's face came abruptly to mind, smug and knowing; "I think there's something you're not telling me."

The two syringes on the table…

Too much; this was a reaction to too much of the drug. Madine had overdosed him to try to get the truth…and the terrifying thing was, Luke had no idea if he'd told him.

All he had was one fact, and he clung to it now; Mara was half a galaxy away, safe on Coruscant.

..

Mara sat wide awake on the battered acceleration couch in the Falcon's main hold, unable to sleep through the dreams any more, thoughts racing. They had forty hours to find Luke—forty. She was now beginning to count the time in terms of hours and not days, and it was the tightly battened-down sense of suppressed panic at that realization which was tearing through her thoughts when Leia Organa came stumbling sleepily into the main bay in the early hours of the morning, both women looking at the other in surprise.

Pulling her coat tighter worn over sleepwear, Organa flicked her thick mane of loose dark hair back to glance through tired eyes at Mara, "Can't sleep?"

Mara looked down to the cup of caff before her, "Weird dream."

Organa nodded, "Me too. Any more of that?"

Mara tipped her head towards the Falcon's basic galley, "Help yourself."

As an afterthought when Organa returned to sit to the far side of the scratched and battered holo-table, Mara added, "Probably best not to tell Nathan I'm drinking caff or he'll gather your whole ship's supply and vac it out of the airlock."

Organa frowned, "That's one strict medic."

Mara realized instantly what she'd done in her tired state, but kept her face straight. "Well, you know, he's very into…his..health-kicks."

Organa raised one eyebrow at that, but said nothing, and Mara rushed to move the conversation on, "So what was your dream?"

"Wolves," Leia said, staring at her mug. "Or rather, my wolf."

Mara's whole body twitched as she worked to keep her voice neutral. Her own visions of the wolf had come again tonight, breaking through her sleep. "You dream about wolves?"

Organa's eyes stayed on her drink as he twisted her hair into a loose coil over her shoulder, "I dream about my black wolf—not in a bad way, not any more. It's always there though, standing in my shadow. But tonight it…"

"Tonight it disappeared," Mara finished knowingly, bringing Organa's eyes to her own.

Why would Leia Organa dream of the wolf…how?

Leia nodded, "Tonight it… I couldn't touch it, couldn't feel it; it was like a hole in the galaxy exactly that shape. It's always been there, for so long now. So completely, utterly real; sometimes it was the most undeniable, abiding thing in existence, but tonight… Tonight…it was like the ghost of a memory…it faded away beneath my hand."

"It's Luke, isn't it?" Mara said evenly. "The wolf…its Luke."

Organa looked quickly away, her long, dark hair falling in a rich tumble of loose, mahogany-brown curls to veil her delicate face—and Mara blinked; blinked again…

It took long seconds for her to track down the jolt in her memory as Leia Organa's hair had fallen in a drape of dark curls. Long seconds to track down the memory of another woman with the same elegant round face and big, serious brown eyes framed by that same incredible mass of dark auburn hair…

The holo on Luke's desk; the delicate old tarnished silver holo-projector, the woman's image;

"I'm fat."

"You're glowing."

She stared, just stared at Leia for the longest time, running the facts over and over in her head…and something else, some deeper knowledge, some flare of comprehension that buzzed within the Force itself…

They were related—Organa and the woman in the old holo—mother and daughter, Mara was almost sure of it. She frowned; but why would Luke have a holo of Leia Organa's mother on his desk? He had so very little that he kept as his own, why bother to…

Something more; something bigger… That moment; the feeling that Luke had tried so often to describe, but nothing had done it justice; that sense of the galaxy itself holding its breath in anticipation.

Mara's own thoughts, just seconds earlier, played through her mind; Why would Leia Organa dream of the wolf…how?

How?

"Don't—Anni don't, I look terrible."

"You look beautiful." The man's voice from the holo-projector, clear and deep, still very young, a loose, easy Rim world accent.

…"Anni don't"…

…'Anni'…

And Luke's words, quickly spoken in the Wasp's hangar bay; that loose Rim-world accent, a flash of that easy smile; "Mara—Anakin; his name should be Anakin"

Anakin; Anni…

"Carry you in my pocket everywhere." The holo on Luke's desk was of his mother, taken by his father.

"Really? Then take this; I love you, Anni. I always will."

Luke's father, before he'd become Vader. Luke's mother…with those same eyes, those same delicate features set in that same rounded face as Leia!

No. The odds against it were…but then, maybe it explained so much. Luke's choice of Leia, his backing of her, his absolute trust of her. How many people did he actually trust tot hat degree—how many could he have forgiven for what Organa had done?

And Leia Organa; her decision to leave her precious Rebellion even for a short time to come in search of the man who should be her mortal enemy…what were the chances of that? How much persuasion had the woman really needed?

Organa was looking at Mara now, a frown creasing the point just above the start of each eyebrow, so much like the woman in the holo…

Mara remembered again the Force-vision that Luke had so carefully led her through; flet again even as a memory the power of it, infinitely vast, like the turning of the universe, dragging all things in its wake;

Twin suns, a blood red moon, everything changing, old loyalties tested...

Binary suns eclipsing, fading into twin circles carved into gold, interlocked, interbalanced, interdependent.
.

The throne, Luke had said—the Seat of Prophesy, its huge backrest comprised of two suns, back-to-back…and the inscription beneath the base of the throne, engraved in the shape of interlocked rings. Two rings, two suns, two rhymes, two, two, two…

A vast sweep of possibilities tangled about and among them, all futures tracing back to this…
.

By the time Mara spoke she was absolutely, unquestionably sure.

"You're Luke's sister."

Those dark eyes opened just a little wider and Mara sensed the buzz of shock from the woman sat opposite her.

Organa remained silent for long seconds, a thousand denials and refutes clearly crossing her mind, and in the end, Mara decided to save her the trouble. "I've seen the holo of your mother that Luke keeps on his desk—you look a lot alike…and anyway, I can read you in the Force. Luke taught me."

"You're Force-sensitive!"

"And so are you. But you knew that already, didn't you?" Mara shook her head, remembering all her little moments of dismissed insight. "I should have known…"

Leia shook her head, "No. I didn't."

Mara glanced quickly to her, and Leia leaned forward to rest her head in her hand, looking to Mara through her spread fingers, amused and chagrined, as if still playing the idea around herself. "I found out through a blood test…Luke didn't even know. I have no idea why they kept us from one another, kept us apart."

"Wait, he didn't know? When did you tell him?"

"When…when I went to speak with him onboard the Wasp. I went to ask questions and he knew less than I did."

"So…why did he help you—before that, why did he trust you?"

"Why did I trust him?" Leia shook her head, "I didn't want to—I really didn't want to trust him. It went against every logical reason. I risked everything…I still am."

"So did Luke." Mara glanced down, heart contracting—because he could yet lose. And then what would she do?

She remembered long ago, laying hidden with him in the silent anonymity of the night, skin to skin. Remembered his words, quiet and leaden, laced with tightly-bound fear.

"Someone once told me that I could only destroy that which I loved."It was the nearest he'd ever come; admission if only to deny.

She'd lifted her face to his, "You know I…"

"Don't say it. Don't ever say it."

"Why?"

"…..What if I've cursed us both already?"

They'd never once uttered it, both holding always to that pact as if it afforded some secret protection…but it hadn't. And now…

Now she was terrified that it would be one of the greatest regrets of her life.

..

Luke woke to the sound of the doors cycling open, a fresh gust of cool air replacing the stale atmosphere of the cell. He braced as they came forward and manhandled him to the table again, hauling him roughly down though he never resisted.

Hands dragged forward, forced into the restraints.

Wait…stomach cramping, shoulders aching, hands trembling…

Too much tension, this position. Muscles burning, he tried to lift his hands to rub tired eyes, but they jerked to a halt almost immediately, an unwelcome reminder of his own vulnerability.

A shadow moved over him, and Luke opened gritty eyes to see Madine dragging a chair in to sit at the table.

"Outside." The soldiers turned without looking back and the door closed with a hiss of vacuum as the corridor beyond depressurized.

Luke turned his gaze back to Madine, who stared with shrewd amusement, "Tired? Nothing to say today, huh? Let's see if we can't get you talking."

On the table between them he placed two syringes of pale milky-white fluid again. He gave Luke a few seconds to really see them and consider the implications, before he spoke out.

"So what do we start on today, Skywalker, your heir or the codes?"

Relief seeped through Luke as he let out a long, low sigh, head dropping as his shoulders sagged, the tension which had been winding ever tighter since their last session loosing slowly…

Because he hadn't told Madine about Mara—couldn't have, otherwise Madine would have mentioned her by name just now—would have been taking this opportunity to rub it in Luke's face. Desperately tired, completely drained, Luke grabbed at the reprieve, a brief, slow laugh coming to the surface, then another, as he lifted his eyes to Madine.

"Care to share the joke?" Madine rumbled.

Luke shook his head, "No…no, I think I'll keep this one to myself, thanks."

"You're pretty big on keeping secrets, aren't you?"

"Maybe you're just really bad at getting them out of people," Luke said, eyes back to the syringes. Goading Madine right now was absolutely the wrong thing to do, but Luke needed to guide the questions away from Mara while he still could. "Or maybe the codes you're trying to get just don't exist."

"Seven groups of numbers—you said that already."

Eyes narrowing, Luke leaned back as far as his tethered hands would allow him, which wasn't far. "This isn't about the codes, is it? Not really. This is about you and me...it all comes back down to that one fact—that the galaxy's not big enough for you, me, and your ego."

Madine reached out to the first syringe. "Are you gonna tell me what I want to know, or are we gonna keep on using you as a pin-cushion?"

Luke said nothing, just stared, and Madine shrugged, lifting the syringe to his mouth to pull the cap from the needle as he reached out to hold Luke's arm steady.

Luke tensed, trying futilely to pull his bound arm back, unable to stop himself from letting out a yell half-frustration and half agitation.

It took only seconds for the drug to rush through him, the familiar cold, numbing trail seeping in its wake to leave every limb impossibly heavy as Luke slowly stilled, eyes fluttering, head spinning as gravity distorted, tumbling into freefall.

"There you go…gliding already, huh?"

A distant voice, small and hollow to Luke's hearing.

"You know this is co-fralodiost—frost, they call it on the streets. Takes years to get off it I'm told, and we've been using it as the base for all the special little cocktails we've been mixing up for you in the last few weeks—that and the stuff Wez Reece so kindly provided. I'm thinking maybe we'll try you without anything for half a day now, huh? See how strung-out you get."

Luke blinked slowly, forcing concentration. "Straight line…"

"What?"

"Straight line—gotta keep a straight line in… mind. Keep your mind in a straight line, from A to Z."

Madine frowned, "Don't start that stuff on me today."

"A to Z… Y… X…"

Madine's head tipped, lips narrowing in annoyance. "Alphabet today huh? Makes a change from times tables."

"V… U… T… S…"

So, Kalter told me the trick was to break your train of thought. Cut in; make you listen to me, not yourself.

"R… Q… P…"

Madine pulled a small object from his pocket to hold it up before Luke's blurred eyes; a compact metal handle, half the length of his finger, fine slats cut diagonally across it. Luke glanced just once, not bothering to even try focusing on it. The hand holding the object moved slightly and a short, wide, wickedly-sharp blade sprung from the handle with a metallic snick, its fine, tapered point catching the light.

"How's this for breaking a line of thought," Madine growled. "Next letter you say, I'm gonna carve it into the back of your hand.

Luke slowed to silence, eyes on the blade. It was short, the blade itself no more than half a finger in length, its chamfered cutting edge almost the width of the blade. It looked old and well-used but even to his ill-defined vision, it looked razor-sharp. He sighed slowly.

The blade came closer to his face, blurring to a hazy flash of metal as Madine spoke. "Think carefully now, 'cos you got a hell of a lot of alphabet left to go."

In the tense silence, Luke blinked slowly, bringing his eyes to Madine's, and the older man nodded once, lowering the knife slightly. "Okay then, let's call that a win shall we. Now; codes…"

Still slowed by the pull of the drugs, Luke turned unsteadily away to look at the curve of the roughly-plastered wall; "…N…"

Madine didn't hesitate. Taking Luke's wrist he pushed his hand flat, holding it tight whilst he carved the letter with three fast strokes, deep enough that Luke felt the blade alternately skip then drag as the tip grated against the bones in the back of his hand.

Luke's back arched as he reflexively wrenched back against the restraints, pulling in a sharp breath, the tight cords straining against his desperate pull without giving a fraction of an inch.

Piercing heat bloomed damply over the back of Luke's hand as he clamped his other over the injury which throbbed in time to his heart, the gaps between his fingers saturating, the table beneath them already wet to the touch.

Madine watched, waiting for long seconds until Luke's fast, short breaths slowed just slightly.

"That is a very messy wound," he said at last, shaking his head as he lifted his eyes to Luke's, completely unmoved. "Want to go for the next letter—or do you want to talk codes?"

Luke's eyes narrowed, pain and adrenaline giving him a burst of clarity, "Go to hell."

Madine shook his head, "Wrong answer. Should've picked something shorter at the very least."

Luke yelled, trying in vain to pull free, the cord holding him immobile as Madine grabbed for his arm and brought that razor-sharp blade down.

..

It was late afternoon local time when the Falcon landed on Essau's Ridge, the Wilde Karrde just a few hours behind it.

Now Leia was gathered with everyone else round the holo-table onboard the Falcon, staring at the innocuous black aluflex housing which held their only hope of keeping her brother alive.

"So that's it?" Han asked, typically unimpressed.

She could blame him on this one; the plain plassteel box was about twice the size square of the numerical input keypad on its top, with a handle to one side and three small lights, all red.

Karrde had brought his worryingly young slicer, Ghent, with him, and Leia had watched the young man stare, completely besotted by the striking, curvaceous Jade, sidling nervously up beside Mara when they'd gathered round, torn between adolescent adoration and timid fear.

Now, he felt the need to defend himself as Mara tuned expectant eyes on him, raising his chin indignantly. "Hey, you're looking at cutting edge stuff here."

"Yeah, I don't like cutting edge," Han said tetchily. "Too many times that's another word for unreliable."

"It'll work," Ghent maintained, trying a brief grin at Mara, who had lifted the box for closer study, oblivious to her admirer.

Glancing up, Mara threw it to Leia, who caught it, Ghent reaching out nervously, "Hey, careful with that thing!"

Mara turned to him, and the slicer tried another thin grin, "Not you."

"So, how do we know when it's mimicking the code?" Leia asked. Her knowledge of the Wasp's layout and the specific whereabouts of the control room she'd glimpsed on her visit had meant that she'd volunteered to go after the emitter box. Hopefully, she and Nathan Hallin would also have a unit of troops from onboard one of the Rebel ships with her, when they reached Essau's Ridge tomorrow. Han and Mara would be taking the rest and heading up the Wasp's starboard loop-corridor to come to the cell by another route.

Ghent leaned forward, "Press and hold this button, then…see this pinlight? It'll flash as it's trying to sample, like it is now. Keep it pressed until the light turns a steady green—that's when it's got the sample. Do not turn the real transmitter off or take it out of range until this light goes to a solid green."

Han leaned in, "So when we get the green light, we could theoretically destroy the original?"

"Oh, big no," the slicer said.

"Because?" Mara prompted.

"I need the original intact—I need to slice the program and find the deactivation code for the still-active slave-chip. This mimic box is just receiving and sampling the outgoing transmission, not the code itself. Also they sometimes have an anti-tamper on the original transmission box. If its destroyed and puts a trigger-signal out at the same time as the ghost box is transmitting, I wouldn't like to put credit on whether the slave-chip will respond to the original signal or the fake. I also don't know what'll happen if the slave-chip is triggered by inputting the code into the original whilst the fake is still transmitting—it may trigger the chip, it may not."

"Great, could you be a little vaguer?" Han drawled.

"Hey, this is cutting edge stuff," the slicer repeated, indignant, though his defense was aimed at Mara rather than Han. "Nobody can slice a slave-chip, they're notoriously hard to fake. And this is nothing—if you get him out, we've still got to break the original program to get the deactivation code."

Mara crossed her arms, "So what it the actual advantage of having this again?"

Ghent shrunk back a little, "Well once you get the ghost box working, I guarantee you can go out of range of the original transmitter and it won't blow the slave-chip. Keep out of range of the original, and it doesn't really matter if someone triggers it or not."

Karrde straightened, "We'll make our way towards you from the front of the Wasp. We can take the original transmitter straight onto the Wilde Karrde and out of range. Ghent can start working on it immediately."

Because he was known locally, it had been decided that Karrde's part in the still-loose plan was to make an open approach to the Wasp on some excuse, to draw attention. It made perfect sense for his group to take the box, but Jade was less willing, though she was cutting Karrde a lot more slack now, her tone professionally assertive rather than antagonistic.

"No offense, but I'm not letting that original box out of my sight."

Hallin straightened, "Wait a minute, what do you mean out of your sight? You'll be on the Falcon."

"Nathan you were there when we drew straws; Chewbacca's staying on the Falcon."

Sat opposite Leia, Chewie straighten slightly, obviously hoping this was his chance to get back into the action.

Nathan seemed to think the same. "Yes but…surely it would make more sense for you to…"

"I'm going."

"But…" Mara straightened quickly and turned what Han had already labeled her 'redhead glare' on him, though despite standing just eye to eye with her, the medic held his ground admirably, Leia thought. Hallin frowned, glancing at Leia and Han before looking back to Mara, "I just thought you should probably, you know…stay here."

"Really? And why is that exactly?"

"Well, you know…."

"I'll tell you what Nathan," Mara said dryly, taking her blaster from its holster and laying it on the scratched dejarik table beside the aluflex box, equidistant between them. "Here's my gun. If you can take it from me, without me at the very least giving you concussion and probably broken bone, I'll stay here."

Leia glanced at Han, fascinated, and both turned back to watch.

The medic lifted one hand and for a brief, unbelievable second Leia thought he was actually going to try, then he wiggled his fingers, backing up a step. "I'll just…right."

..

Day ticked round to night and Mara had taken to pacing the Falcon's crowded hold so that Nathan couldn't try yet another attempt at dissuading her from going onto the Wasp.

Running out of time, they were running out of time. They had ten hours now and no-where to go; so close, and no-where to go.

The navigation charts to the Tholatin System were pulled up on the holo-table to project the three-D image above it, everyone gathered round to stare as if something would just pop out of the holo at them. It was a mid-sized system and though only Tholatin itself was inhabited and that only at Essau's Ridge, it was still packed with five planets and nine moons, eight being mined for minerals, ships and com signals constantly travelling in and out of them.

They were still waiting for word from Karrde, who was chasing up contacts in the Ridge, and Solo and the Wookie had been out and back twice already, looking for leads.

But the Wasp wasn't in the Ridge; Mara knew that absolutely now, knew it in every fiber of her being—it wasn't on Tholatin.

She couldn't read Luke's familiar presence anywhere here. And yes, he'd be hidden by ysalamiri, but still that one thought kept gnawing at her; maybe he was dead already…maybe that was why she couldn't sense him.

So she paced the hold as everyone else sat around the holo, knowing they could make it to one moon, maybe two if they chose those closer, trying to narrow the options down by logic.

Mara glanced again at the holo, hardly hearing the voices of the others as they argued possibilities, desperate for something, anything to give them a direction…and slowly she paused, staring at the system anew, its nine moons and five planets rotating real-time in the complex three-D representation, the noise and the arguments and the debates falling away as a single tone sounded from somewhere within her, raising the hairs at the back of her neck.

Leia turned, an involuntary shudder trembling up her own spine in that same moment.

Gradually, in one's and two's those around the holo fell to slow attention as Mara walked forward as if pulled by a tether.

There—it was right there!

Her voice was a hoarse whisper, all her attention centered on a dead, rust-colored moon in the holo, its atmosphere long gone, the dust of its pockmarked surface blush red. "That moon—what's its name?"

Han frowned, "That's Lua Vermilla; nine hours flight."

Lua Vermilla; Bocce… it meant 'Red Moon'.

Red moon. Her vision of the wolf so long ago, the very first time she'd seen Luke call the Force to him, before he'd even served Palpatine—

Twin suns, a blood red moon, everything changing, old loyalties tested…

A blood red moon…

Red moon. Was the answer there even then, events already set in motion like the cogs of a clock? Had the Force long since given her answers to questions she hadn't yet known to ask?

Red moon. Realization tingled up her spine, resonated in every single fiber of her being; absolute, undeniable knowledge.

"That's where they are," she said, knowing it utterly. "Right there."

..

Luke was already tethered to the table when he came to, back and shoulders aching, the pain knifing across them when he tried to lift his head. The table was still crusted with the dried remnants of the blood from his still-scabbing arm and hand, the fabric of the scuffed and filthy flightsuit marked by seeping scarlet stains where it had stuck to the wounds.

Madine was sat opposite him, fresh and awake, leaning back in the chair slightly, wearing a combat jacket and a crisp, clean shirt, so Luke guessed it was already another day.

Slowly, stiffly, he straightened to sitting, wondering if he'd been left tethered overnight…

Madine leaned back, the chair creaking slightly. "Good morning."

Morning…

"Thirteen."

"What?"

"Thirteen; day thirteen."

Madine smiled, "Unlucky for some."

Luke let out a small, breathless laugh. He felt numb and disjointed, disconnected from reality, but lucid; no drugs yet—or not too many to deal with; it was difficult to distinguish any more.

"I thought we'd talk about your heir today."

Luke looked quickly down too quickly, the room lurching. "I don't have one."

"You've already told me you do."

The chipped and stained surface of the table began to crawl and distort in Luke's vision. He shook his head just slightly, "No I haven't."

Madine grinned, voice mocking, "You think not?

"I didn't tell you anything." Luke was aware of sagging slowly forward, already exhausted, tensing every so often against stomach cramps. Too long without the drugs—or too long with them, it was hard to tell.

"I didn't need specifics. It was enough to know it was true, and that was written all over your face. After that it wasn't hard to work out; I just looked to Coruscant and the woman you put in power. You wouldn't put anyone else before the mother of your child—you know she'll hold the Empire for it until it comes of age." Madine loosed a snide smile, leaning back again in the chair. "Vested interest."

Luke remained silent, the first tingle of panic beginning to kick in.

"I hope you said goodbye to her before you left. If not, I have a team heading over to Coruscant right now… I'll ask them to pass on your…regrets."

Luke was on his feet before he realized it, launching forward. The tether stopped him dead as he yanked against it, ignoring the pain that sliced up his arms, "Call them back! Withdraw them!"

Madine laughed into Luke's struggle, "Look at that; first time I've seen some kind of real human emotion in you, you know that?"

He glanced up, and two sets of strong arms came in from behind Luke, pushing him back down against his struggle. Still fired with anger, Luke half-turned, lashing out with the heel of his bare foot now they were close enough, catching the nearest man a hard, sideways blow across his kneecap and having the satisfaction of hearing the crunch as his leg gave way awkwardly...but in the end it was the same; Luke was weak and exhausted and tethered, and with heavy blows and brute power, they forced him back down.

Madine waited, watching, until Luke was subdued, then smiled again, eyes narrowing, "All this time we shouldn't have been talking about one or the other—we should have been talking about both… I'll make you a deal, Skywalker; you give me the codes and I'll call them off."

Still gasping, Luke looked up, torn. Memories of Mara's face, of her smile, of her voice, a thousand moments tumbled in his thoughts, made intense by the drugs that tore through his system on the back of this rush of adrenaline. Her words, her strength, her absolute faith; "I trust you."

"I can't—I can't give you the codes."

"To bad." Madine made to stand.

"Wait!"

Madine paused, looking to him, "The codes."

"I can't!"

"Then she dies—and the baby with her."

He couldn't lose Mara; he couldn't…but he couldn't give up the fleet and seal the fate of hundreds of thousands of beings on both sides of the divide. Couldn't consign the galaxy to another war on the scale of the Clone Wars, couldn't give Madine that kind of power.

"Don't—don't ask me this."

"I just did. All I want now is your answer."

Luke dropped forward, helpless, the weight pressing down on him so great that he could barely breathe, let alone speak. His head fell forward to the table, lost.

"You son of a Sith...you're not gonna tell me, are you?" Madine's voice was half-amused, half-disgusted.

"I can't tell you." Luke shook his head without lifting it, face hidden, knowing any appeal was futile but unable to do otherwise. "Don't—please don't do this. Anything—I'll do anything you ask...just don't do this."

.

Stood halfway between Skywalker and the open door of the cell, Madine stared for long seconds, watching a man broken and desperate but unable to comply. He felt a slow grin come over him, knowing that Skywalker had no abilities here; no way to know a lie if it was told…and the temptation was just too much;

Walking to the side of the table he leaned close to Skywalker, voice no more than a whisper, "We already did it. She's already dead. You should thank me—I have to say she seemed a little too eager to take your title and sit on your throne the moment you were gone."

Head still buried against his arm, Skywalker stilled to silence, not even a breath escaping him, and Madine smiled, "She really shouldn't have kept walking among the crowds like that—but you know, she wanted to do it so much…rally people to the cause. We got her whilst she was walking about among her new subjects…she was wearing your ring, you'll be happy to know. The one I pulled from your hand."

Still no reaction, Skywalker ominously still.

"Dressed all in white. Quite fittingly symbolic really—another innocent to the slaughter because of you...two, in truth...you can't get much more innocent than an unborn child, can you?"

Skywalker launched up and tried to strike out, letting out a yell of desolate, uncontained fury, the chair falling away behind him, his rage such that he actually dragged the heavy table forward by the binders at his wrists.

Madine coolly stood and took a step back beyond his reach, watching with the barest of self-satisfied grins as the two soldiers behind Skywalker stepped in to restrain him, forced to kick at the back of his knees to drive him to the ground, Skywalker pushing up again immediately, raw aggression giving him the power to again drag the heavy, cumbersome table forward again until the soldiers took him down, one of them landing a kidney-punch this time that truly dropped him, leaving him doubled over, gasping and breathless.

"One more." Madine said, emotionless.

Tinel sent a heavy blow to Skywalker's head from above and to the side with all the power of his arm and shoulder behind it and Madine watched his body sag further, head rolling, shoulders slackening.

When he was sure Skywalker couldn't rise, he walked calmly around the side of the table to crouch beside the gasping, semi-conscious man.

"For Mon, " he whispered. "Now we're even,"

He remained close enough for long seconds for Skywalker to lunge at him, hoping he would. But all fight was gone—and not because of the beating, Madine knew.

He stood, using his booted foot to push Skywalker off-balance and watching as he collapsed sideways at the full stretch of his tether, then turned and left the cell, satisfied.

..

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

.

.

Less than an hour; they were less than an hour from Lua Vermilla and Mara was pacing through the Falcon's main hold, her saber in her hand, heart contracting painfully when she looked to it, the memory still fresh of Luke giving it to her in that gracious, understated way of his. "I thought you deserved something with a little more elegance."

She paused, turning about;

Solo sat at the holo-table, a blaster disassembled on its surface, the components scattered about as he tinkered with the main relay.

"Please tell me that isn't your blaster?"

"It might be…" Han said, wary.

"Solo, we're less than an hour from reversion. Why did you pick now to start messing around with that thing?"

"I have to tinker when I'm nervous."

She paced back towards him, sitting down on the curved acceleration couch and beginning to sort through the parts on the holo-table. "There's still the same broken sub-particle scrambler under the seat you're sitting on right now that was there when the Falcon was first brought to Coruscant. You couldn't have pulled that out?"

"Hey," Han said, bruised, "I can reassemble this blaster in about six minutes—in the dark."

"Fine, do it now. I'll time you." She handed the disassembled stock to him meaningfully.

Han took the stock, nodding toward the saber she still held in her other hand. "Something wrong?"

Mara glanced down, "Oh, the latch on my belt's a little loose. I was…"

She broke off, realizing what he was saying.

"I guess we both tinker when we're nervous, huh?" Solo smiled.

"You'll notice my lightsaber is in one piece. Unlike my nerves, with you around."

Jade looked meaningfully down at the table again and with a sigh, Han leaned forward and took the blaster's main power pack, attaching the feeds. "What've you got that thing for anyway?"

Did she tell him? Luke trusted him, and in truth, Mara was starting to feel the same, but still… "It's for Luke—when we find him."

Han looked down, frowning as he loaded the recoil bolt. "Y'know, he may not…I don't think he'll be in any shape to…"

"I know that." Mara heard her own foot tap staccato against the deck plates. She put the saber down quickly, as if it were hot.

"Worried?" Solo's voice was deceptively casual.

"Hardly," she dismissed unconvincingly.

"I'm worried. Worried that we're gonna come out of lightspeed into some dark speck at the far side of no-where and have wasted nine hours getting here."

Out of habit, Han licked his thumb and touched it over the points connecting the live feed of the power pack to check it, jerking back at the small shock he received.

Mara frowned at this, but picked up the dismantled barrel from the dejarik table and slid the compensator back in place, twisting it to lock it home. "You think there'll be nothing there?"

The thought had occurred to her too, numerous times—that she was resting everything on some vague memory of a distant vision…

Han shrugged, latching the body to the blaster butt with a reassuring clack, "I'm just saying we should be prepared for it, that's all."

"I'm prepared for his not being there. I just don't know if I'm prepared for…"

She broke off and Solo sighed deeply, "We shouldn't get dragged into trying to second-guess what they have or haven't done to him."

Mara shrugged this away, not wishing to be made to think about it again—she'd spent enough sleepless nights and fraught days combining her imagination and what knowledge Imperial Intel had of Madine and his legendary temper.

Worried that Luke must have realized the truth about the drug they were using by now…

She fell to silence, relinquishing the barrel of the blaster as Solo took hold of it to slide it into place, latching the heavy side-sight into position and attaching the power line.

He held up the blaster, squinting down the now-active sight, "There, see? It took what…minutes."

Mara dragged her thoughts back to the present, arching her eyebrows at him, "Did you actually do anything to it?"

"Sure I did. The contacts get a bit of build-up on 'em after a while. I gave 'em all a clean."

Mara glanced to the empty table, "With what?"

"Best cleaner known to man—spit and the edge of my shirt."

..

 "What have you got?" Leia Organa asked from her position in the gunnery chair of the Falcon's cockpit as Mara stood to get a better view of the dusty red moon.

"Three Destroyers and an Interdictor, twenty-three hours away." Nathan replied from the cockpit com, glancing once to Mara. "Another six Destroyers nineteen hours later—though if we have the Emperor, obviously every ship in the fleet will come."

It wasn't bad, she knew. She'd already told Nathan privately that whatever happened, he wasn't to leave Luke's side if—once—they got him.

Nathan had a tracker, the frequency already passed on to Admiral Joss. Knowing they had an Interdictor close by would be…reassuring. She trusted Solo and Leia Organa to see this through—Karrde even. But there were about to be a lot of Rebel and Imperial ships—and therefore a lot of jumpy military-types with ideas of their own—in close proximity very soon. And since Luke needed immediate surgery and the Rebel ship would already be here, Mara felt better for a little extra insurance.

Solo glanced back to her as they made high orbit around Lua Vermilla, heading for the only known settlement, a selenium mining colony whose location had been provided by Karrde, now flying off their bow in loose formation. "Interdictor would be pretty useful."

"We can't risk waiting a full day—that would put us well into the fourteenth day. We'll go in with Rebel troops." Mara said firmly. The Sol and the Zephyr were only an hour behind now. At this point, with only two hours to midnight and the start of the fourteenth day—Madine's promised execution of the Emperor—if Rebel troops were the only troops Mara had, then they were what she'd go in with.

Madine wasn't about to drag Luke up on the stroke of midnight, she knew that, but still, Mara was fighting against the increasing urge to act.

Tne three units of Rebel soldiers onboard the Sol and Zephyr would put them on roughly equal footing with Madine's men, and their arrival in one hour would put the planned strike close to midnight, a good time for this kind of hit-and-extract, when people who weren't running on adrenaline from the knowledge of a strike were at low ebb. It might buy you maybe ten minutes with a professional Special Ops team…but she'd take that advantage if she could get it.

Right now, they needed to lock down the exact location of the Wasp, and Karrde's contacts had said there were, not surprisingly, bulk haulage transports on the mining colony's pads. They needed to do a slow pass and work out the logistics of the terrain and the strike, to be ready to move the moment back-up arrived.

.

Mara was already braced for the fact that there may be no Class Six freighter among the transports when they reached the mining colony minutes later…what she wasn't prepared for was four of them, among another five battered freighters, all on pads around the main building.

The Falcon cruised overhead at high altitude, Solo cursing roundly in Corellian. "Well what the hell do we do now?"

"Did you get readings?" Nathan asked, standing to get a better view as they passed. "Any have a high power signature?"

The Wookie keened a reply which Solo translated, eyes still on the receding pads as the Falcon tipped to keep them in view as long as possible. "All active, all running similar power."

Mara leaned forward to the Falcon's com, "Karrde, you recognize any of those freighters as regulars?"

"No, none."

Solo turned to her, "Don't you recognize it?"

"Hey, it was a gray Class Six bulk freighter with a few mismatched panels—after ten years of use, they all look the same."

"Lifesign readings on them all?" Leia prompted without turning from the viewscreen.

The Wookie growled another positive.

"Wait, the Wasp's sublight engines!" Nathan prompted. "Weren't they partially dismantled when you saw it at Kwenn Station?"

Solo turned back, he and the Wookie leaning forward, "They've all got sublights…next idea?"

He didn't say the one thing they were all thinking, Mara knew; that maybe it was none of them.

The Wookie let out another low keen and Solo sat, trying to remain optimistic, "I guess if you had an assembled set onboard ready, you could float 'em out in open space and install them in three or four days, if you had a coupla' dozen men to spare."

Mara frowned, eyes on the freighters… a dozen men to spare—which he did. Plus the space to store them in one of the bulk freighter's holds.

A dozen men…

"Wait a minute…" She rose to stare as Solo banked the Falcon in another wide arc, keeping the freighters in view. "The last freighter, the furthest out…how many lifesigns?"

Han translated Chewie's grumbling growl, "Maybe forty, spread out."

Mara shook her head…because she didn't get one. Not one—in fact she wasn't getting any reading in the Force at all from the last freighter. It was a complete blank, like a flaw in her senses, a bubble in her perceptions… a bubble… "There—that's it! That's the Wasp!"

Solo frowned, "How the hell do you work that out?"

Leia turned, hopeful, "You sure?"

Mara nodded, "That's it."

Leia turned to Han, who stared at her, disbelieving. "Seriously?"

Her answer was to lean in to the com, "Karrde? We've got it pinned as the last Class Six on the pad—the furthest out."

"It would be, wouldn't it?" Karrde replied dryly. "We'll do a low pass on her port side. See if we can give you the lie of the land."

"Don't get too close—and don't get caught scanning it. We don't want to start this party 'till the back-up arrives." Solo kept the recognizable Falcon back , staying high, the cockpit sensors receiving reams of information passed on from the Wilde Karrde; shields, visible gun emplacements, power and heat-spots within the Wasp.

Mara's eyes moved from the reams of valuable data to the Wasp, far below...something... She stared...

Leia leaned past her, studying the distant landing pad. "Can we set down on the far side of the mining complex? We have troops an hour away, we could take the complex first."

Mara barely heard the words, eyes locked on the freighter. Something... She remembered sitting cross-legged, Luke spending the fifth night in a row teaching her to listen, to be willing to be led sometimes, a hard thing for her to do. Remembered his words as he tried to lead her on, "Sometimes it's so subtle...like seeing a star by not looking directly at it."

"Too many chances for Madine to be alerted," Solo's voice, a distant distraction. "We're better setting down just over the bluff and walking it with rebreathers. We've got reasonable gravity, just no atmosphere. Remember, this is a quiet extraction; we're in and out before they know it. Leave the mop-up to the troops—our job is to get Luke out."

Something—on the tip of her tongue, like a thought that wouldn't come. "...like seeing a star by not looking directly at it." She closed her eyes, closed out the physical, the tangible, the props she'd always turned to and depended on... Something...

The feeling rippled up her spine, setting the hairs of her arms and neck on end in a cold tremor as she turned, seized by a fear so intense it constricted her throat and reduced her voice to a broken whisper, "Something's wrong."

Leia turned, "What?"

Mara was already backing out of the cockpit at speed, "Something's very wrong. We need to go now—right now!"

"Now?" Leia said, amazed. "We can have a full task-force here in one hour. Specialist troops with specialist equipment."

"We can't wait—we go in now." Mara was shaking her head, driven by some force stronger than the logic in Organa's words, knowing absolutely. "Tell me you don't know that… actually stop and just listen… I know that you can feel it at the pit of your stomach, that it's whispering right now at the edge of your thoughts. I know you can sense it… that you can touch the Force; listen to what it's telling you."

Leia hesitated, "How can you trust it so much?"

Mara understood her completely; even aware of its presence as a background noise, all though her life she'd associated the Force completely with her old master, Palpatine. Now, with Palpatine gone, Luke was the benchmark she looked to and associated with the Force…and so the answer was obvious.

"How can you not?" she said simply.

Leia frowned, eyes skipping to the void of open space beyond the Falcon's cockpit as she tried for the very fist time to actually listen to that voice, given permission in some strange way by Mara's own unwavering faith...

So close to her, Mara sensed the movement of her thoughts as she tried to grasp at this common bond, as she experienced that moment of vertigo, of narrowing options and widening risks… Lua Vermilla… red moon… blood red moon…. blood red… blood…

A surge of nausea, a moment in freefall, her throat constricting.

Leia gasped, grabbing for the console, looking instantly to Han, eyes wide, "We have to go in!"

"Wait a minute, what happened to planning a.."

Leia grabbed his shoulder, her own voice rising in fear, "Han, just do it!"

..

Luke lay on his side in the cell, tired and breathless, shivering constantly, stomach cramping, but this was it; he had nothing to lose. He'd held off so long because he knew the odds were against him, but now…now odds didn't matter. He knew damn well that his odds of getting off the ship were practically zero, and even that small margin of chance would be nullified if Madine triggered the chip he was pretty sure was nestling against his skull.

But now it was different. Now he didn't care if he got off the ship. All he wanted was a chance at getting to Madine and he wouldn't get that from the inside of a cell. For that he was willing to risk everything—in fact right now, for that, he'd willingly throw it all away.

He didn't care what it cost, didn't care what else happened; because of Madine, he had nothing to lose…nothing.

He waited as long as he could after they fed him. That always seemed to be late evening, and he wanted it to be well into the night before he moved, so the guards would be at their most tired, though in truth really he had no idea; his thoughts had been hazy too long and his sense of time had been one of the first things to go. That and his sense of balance—which could turn out very bad. But it all came down to this; he had nothing to lose, and he'd rather be shot on the spur of the moment whilst trying to escape than feed Madine's carefully timeframed plans. Trade it all for just that one chance...that one chance at the man who'd taken everything from him in a few whispered words,

"We already did it. She's already dead. Another innocent to the slaughter because of you...two, in truth."

He spent the time with his back to the lens, using one of the plasteel shards to start a rip close to the edge of the rough blanket he had, slowly gathering it to him to pull the strip of cloth free from top to bottom, giving him a long, narrow piece. Then he did it again, exactly as before.

Still laid as if in sleep, he took the splintered shards he'd managed to salvage when he'd shattered the vocorder's housing and knotted them at regular intervals into the strips, struggling against shaking hands. Wider than the cloth, the solid pieces stuck this way and that from their binding. He bundled them up, plagued by doubts…not about this; he knew this would work. If he could throw the cloth strip close to the closing door as the vacuum kicked up, the vacuum itself would do the work for him; it would drag the loose end of the cloth with unerring accuracy through the gap, no matter how narrow it was—until one of the shards got stuck in the closing door, breaking the seal just slightly.

Vacuum was a searching thing; it needed only the tiniest ingress to fail…leaving his cell open to the power of that vacuum from the double-wall beyond. And the longer it held that seal open even slightly, the more it would decompress his cell, reducing it to near-vacuum. And the more that vacuum equalized, the less the pressure on the door and the easier it would be to pull the shard free, leaving his cell in vacuum even if the short corridor beyond was repressurized.

Rapid decompression. He'd seen it a few times, when airlocks failed on old ships, had gone through the training for rapid decompression when still flying with the Rogues…actually gone through it for real once when damage had blown the canopy of his X-Wing in space…wearing a full pressure suit and with his oxygen mask strapped hastily in place.

He wouldn't have that this time. This time would be very different.

Which was why his heart was hammering against his ribs when he reached out to run his trembling hand along the underside of the heavy bunk frame. He pulled the scrambler free from its hiding place and sighed, dragging his thoughts into line and listening to the click in his breathing caused by the strength of his own irregular, pounding heart in the silence.

Groggy, dizzy, unable to hold on to a thought or more than a few minutes, he knew it had to be now; now or never.

Fumbling the scrambler into his mouth, he bit down and activated it.

On cue, the two night-guards arrived to hit the surveillance lens, thinking they were correcting the same fault, as usual. As usual, Luke sat up on the edge of the bunk to stare at them in silence. As usual, he bit down and deactivated the scrambler, watching them as they walked from the room…

As the door closed Luke bit down again on the scrambler in his mouth, reactivating it instantly, holding it in his mouth as he worked.

With surveillance out again and the door on its automated closing cycle, Luke fumbled the plasteel-studded strip free and threw it, keeping hold of one end. It unfurled like a living thing, the soft tip reaching to the nearly-closed door…in an instant the vacuum took it, dragging it into the closing gap.

The plasteel fragment caught with a tortured crunch, the strip stopping dead, the door open the smallest of detectable increments. Triumphant, Luke launched himself forward toward the door, his continuing incremental movement of the heavy-framed bunk enabling him to reach it with the chain about his ankle at full stretch.

Its compromised seal was already marked by the sharp hiss of air as the vacuum designed to vacate only the gap between the inner and outer walls of the cell began to exert its influence through the failed door seal and into the cell itself.

Crouching at the door, already beginning to feel the change in barometric pressure as the vacuum worked to purge the air from the small cell, Luke prayed breathlessly that he was right about the it being insufficient to crush the door completely closed before it had purged the cell of air. Worried at the rate at which it was clearing the cell, he began breathing in short, fast breaths; this was deep-space-piloting one-oh-one; you could survive longer than you thought in a vacuum, but you needed to close down the body's natural breathing cycle by lowering its carbon dioxide levels; you needed to hyperventilate.

Already dizzy, Luke dropped down, face close to the barely-open door, hearing the final locking cycle of the outer door as the gearing system for the cell door tried without success to seal. Close to the failed seal, he breathed the remaining oxygen that whistled through at an alarming rate; if he was wrong and the vacuum was sufficient, this could be a very short and embarrassing escape effort. He was gambling that the decompression rate wouldn't be lethal for the simple reason that the cell had originally been designed to decompress rapidly to knock him out. The original designer had wanted him alive.

Dragging in his last few breaths and feeling the increasing pull against his lungs, it occurred to Luke to wonder belatedly whether this escape attempt was a legitimate, reasonable theory based on vacuum mechanics and two weeks of close observation, or a patently ridiculous notion based on the strung-out delusions of endless drug cocktails and two weeks of sleep deprivation. It also occurred that it was a little too late to be thinking that.

He grinned at the thought, cracking the fresh scabs on his face, ridiculously amused; delirious—he was getting giddy. Lightheaded, he took his last few breaths, those final whispers of air trailing away and with them the noise of the door's still-straining auto-close mechanism, ordering himself to concentrate. Flight Instructors said you had roughly fifteen seconds of useful consciousness in vacuum, maybe the same of semi-aware disorientation. He had to exhale slowly as the vacuum expanded the oxygen in his lungs, but he couldn't empty his lungs completely. Deep-space piloting; he had to remember that, to the point of passing out; don't exhale completely and don't inhale, no matter what. Forget that and you die.

Bracing his feet against the wall, Luke kept tension on the strip of cloth, waiting to feel it loosen as vacuum equalized the pressure on the door, still exhaling slowly to relieve the pressure on his lungs as the oxygen in them expanded, the fresh scabs on his arm seeping blood again; near vacuum now.

Breathe out slowly; don't take a breath.

They must be panicking now; they'd surely realized something was going on with the vacuum…did they actually have a way to monitor it? Should've thought of that sooner…

Feeling the pull on the strip of blanket ease, Luke wrapped the cloth strip about his body to gain enough force to pull it clear and yanked with all his remaining strength, pushing off from the wall with his legs. The door's auto-mechanism clanged shut as he pulled the obstruction free and fell onto his back, the world already hazing to a muzzy blur.

Breathe out slowly…

Time dragged, the inability to breathe leaving Luke feeling like he was drowning on dry land, though he knew if he did take a breath now it would probably kill him on recompression…

His hands and feet numbed as his body went into barotrauma, cutting off oxygen to unnecessary extremities.

Breathe out…

Noise, muted and thin, weak vibrations in the near-vacuum as the corridor beyond the closed door of Luke's cell now recompressed, the cell itself contained in its decompressed state by the sealed inner door, no air within. Numb, inky shadows seeped in from the corners of Luke's vision, panic rising as the pull on his lungs grew ever greater, more difficult to hold against.

This is okay, you knew this would happen. Don't breathe in…

Thin sounds, muffled by the closed inner door and the near-airless vacuum of the cell; the corridor beyond must be recompressed.

Shouting, the shuffle of feet in the corridor as the guards reached the inner door, still closed to them, waiting for the powered inner lock to release without knowing that the cell was now a vacuum.

Don't breathe in…

Hands blueing already, numb. Awareness fading; were they still there? Work it out—force the door…

Don't breathe…one second longer,

A memory triggered, a dream of falling, of drowning in deep water. His lungs were burning now, the pull against them incredible, consciousness failing—

One second longer—

Open the damn door!

Just one second longer….

His lungs were depleted, the barest breath held to protect them from recompression, his chest locked against the incredible need to breathe, the pressure phenomenal, blurred vision fading to nothing…

The barest noise, the indistinct light turning from red to green to the side of the door as the lock was freed—

The second the lock released, the door was wrenched inwards by the force of the vacuum in the cell, the upper hinge breaking free as it rebounded violently against the wall, both guards dragged from their feet and thrown bodily across the cell with the intense inrush of air into the vacuum, Luke's last vestiges of consciousness ripped away by the force of the rapid recompression.

.....

Pounding heart…mottled light, dim and dizzy… Luke dragged in a huge gulp of air, voicing wordless sounds, gasping, struggling—

Up; get up!

He rolled as he rose, trying clumsily to get his feet under him, ears ringing a single tone as he pushed with tear-blurred eyes towards the crumpled huddle that was his guards, heaped against the wall nearby, very still.

Get up!

He crawled a pace, trying to get his feet under him, the world skewing drunkenly about him and dropping him to his hands and knees again with a yell of frustration.

"Up!" he yelled it aloud, forcing himself forwards, staggering upright and to the side as if the floor were tilting.

His first grab at the blaster on the floor near the unconscious guards missed completely and he dropped again to one knee, muscles trembling, dark scarlet drops splashing to the floor from his nosebleed. This time he got it, numb, unsteady hand struggling to hold it so that he had to take its weight in both hands and rest the muzzle against the chain that still held him pinned to the heavy bunk, which had also been dragged the length of the cell in the rapid recompression, a scarlet line cut deep around his ankle where the binder must have cut in as it yanked him back, unconscious. He fired two shots into the chain, shattering it, free for the first time in two weeks.

Lurching up he staggered to the door, shaking his head to clear it, hand out to the doorframe as he almost fell forward, struggling to stay upright.

Then he was through; out of that damn cell! Still giddy, he let out a wild laugh; he'd done it! He'd said he'd walk out of there and he had!

He glanced about, vision clearing; he was in the main bay, maybe four times the size of the outer wall of the cell. Exits; needed an exit before this place started filling up. The implosion would have been silent, but there were surely alarms sounding somewhere. Clutching the blaster, he set off forward at a loping run, keeping to the edge of the bay, course erratic as he leaned on the wall for support every other step.

He glanced to either side of the corridor, no idea which way to go, knowing only that he had to be away from here; seconds, he probably had seconds now before they came…

Then he was out into a corridor, adrenaline pumping, needing the support of the wall only every five or six staggered steps, the blaster loose in his hand. He couldn't hear an alarm, but then he could hear little beyond a single tone, the recompression probably bursting his eardrums. He brought his hand to one, then looked; no blood. He didn't bother to check his nose, the taste of the blood was still strong down the back of his throat, making him swallow every few seconds.

End of the corridor; he needed to head aft; which way was that? Glancing down the new corridor he saw a security lens at roof-level and shot it out, needing six shots to hit it even with his weight resting against the wall behind him.

It occurred to him to wonder where his scrambler was; he must have dropped it in the blast. That meant he needed to use the blaster to take out surveillance, as well as any ysalamiri he saw, intentions seeping slowly back into his consciousness.

He needed a loop corridor, so that if he took out any ysalamiri and lenses he came across as he went then eventually he'd come back to the same point he'd started, with Madine and his soldiers still in tow…but without any ysalamiri.

He stumbled on, unsteady on his feet, knowing he was running on adrenalin and knowing it wouldn't last. But that was all he wanted; that one chance at Madine…that one chance.

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