Into the Storm

Chapter 11

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CHAPTER ELEVEN

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Another day, stretching into stillness as Luke stood in the long, shadowed dining hall with nothing to do but brood over Palpatine's carefully planted seeds of doubt. Was that his intent--was that why Luke was left alone for long, dreary hours? After three years of ceaseless adrenaline-fed front-line action, always battling a greater foe, every inch of ingenuity and ability, mental and physical, committed to the struggle, just to surviving day to day; hour to hour sometimes, this enforced, inexorable quietude was a listless, numbing torment.

Ignoring the guard's eyes on him, Luke gazed blankly at the brooding bulk of the main Palace beyond the windows, remembering seeing the ceremony which had marked its official completion in a holo-image as a young child. Remembering thinking it so distant as to be unreal, like some created image in a holo-flick.

By the time he was sixteen, he had been so determined to see those spires for himself one day. To reach Coruscant, the capital of the Empire, and stand in front of the Imperial Palace--to see those Towers for real.

Not much more than a year later he'd met Ben Kenobi.

Ben, who had lied to him so easily. Looked him in the eye and lied without a trace of conscience. Of all people, why did he lie? He could have told the truth; trusted Luke to have made the right decision anyway... did he think so little of the youth he was prepared to use, that he felt Luke incapable of that? Undeserving of it?

I trusted you...I would have died to serve your cause, and all you did was lie and use. You didn't care...nobody does... They all just use.

He blinked slowly, staring blankly out until the sky darkened to a blind spot in his vision. Or had Ben lied at all? Surely it was Vader and Palpatine who lied.

Why did he even think that? He knew the truth; Palpatine twisted it for his own ends, but it was still the truth--he just didn't want to believe it.

Because if he did...

That meant the same weakness which had dragged Vader down was coursing through his veins. Inexorable, inevitable failure. The slow, inescapable fall to Darkness...no matter what he did.

Running from it changed nothing; denial wasn't a defense, he just seemed to run in smaller and smaller circles...until there was nowhere left to run at all. And still that reality waited in the shadows--in his shadow.

Here, so close to Darkness, it howled like a wolf in the night, and he heard its call--felt it.

He remembered childhood dreams; a nightmare, always the same, of standing in the pitch black of the desert at night, in the dip of a canyon. Of hearing the scrape of loose shale as it scattered down the incline behind him. Of turning, heart in his mouth, terrified...and seeing the barest outline as it slipped from sight, black against black.

A wolf in the shadows, hunting him... He remembered turning to run, hearing it on the ridge behind him, claws to stone, closing, always closing, its panting breath harsh and rasping, its snarl as it neared, so close that it ran in his shadow...

He blinked away the memory, still vivid enough to tighten his chest.

Was Palpatine right--did Darkness recognize its own?

Too much; too much to assimilate all at once. Too much to find a path through, alone. He could feel it grinding him down every day now, feel his resolve faltering, his denials weakening. What was the point in arguing? Who listened? Not even himself, any more.

He glanced down, mind swimming in frustration, the afterimage of the window dancing in his vision.

The window.

Palpatine's words echoed through his mind: "A prison made to hold a Jedi"

He glanced back to the window, struggling to blink away his blindness as he stared at the transparisteel, seeing the monofilaments which were embedded within the thick pane, rendering it unshatterable. He'd been struggling for weeks to get past the one single, biggest obstacle in his plan: to get out of these rooms. He looked again at the thick, heavy, unbreakable pane.

Still, why was he taking the Emperor's word for that? Why was he taking the Emperor's word for anything?

Because it was probably the truth.

It doesn't matter. Why are you just sitting here and doing exactly what he wants? Why aren't you fighting him, why aren't you trying to get to Han--why aren't you trying to get out of here?

Where would I go?

It doesn't matter where you ARE--it just matters where you AREN'T. It doesn't even matter if he's telling the truth or not. That doesn't mean you have to do what he wants.

Stood alone with his thoughts, for the first time the notion occurred to Luke that the truth wasn't enough. That simply telling the truth didn't make Palpatine right.

He scowled, indignant--

It doesn't give him any power over you. Stop doing as he wants. Start fighting back.

How?

Just DO something.

I gave my word.

You gave your word to stay. To listen. Not to try to escape... He's sticking to the letter of your deal--do the same. If you don't actually try to leave, just...test the theory... He's playing mind games--don't let him.

Luke looked at the transparisteel window with new purpose; it was absolutely free of any refraction or distortion, making it difficult to judge its thickness, but at its edges he could see it disappearing into a heavy alloy frame within the dressed stone, the two sides of the frame giving a good indication of pane's thickness--greater than a large starship viewscreen. Looking closely, squinting against the light, he could see the two layers of fine, clear monofilaments threaded through the body of the pane, interwoven and set into the heavy alloy casing which framed it.

All transparisteel viewports on starships had this monofilament as a defense against explosive impact, but it was usually so fine as to be invisible to the naked eye, and generally only one layer was embedded. Luke couldn't recall ever seeing two layers--in fact, he could only recall actually seeing filament at all from very close up in the largest of panes on military ships. For it to be visible, particularly at this range, the sheet must be, to all intents and purposes, unbreakable.

What he needed was something capable of cutting through the filaments; without them, he was pretty sure he could now break it with a solid blow from the Force, as thick as it was.

Pressure against the woven structure supposedly pushed the filaments together, enhancing their strength. Could the Force be applied over a wider area--a more even distribution of power, sufficient to snap the monofilaments without clumping them? Perhaps...

But he needed to be sure...

He looked away, aware that he had been staring at the window for a suspiciously long time now, hoping that the guard in the corner and whoever was watching the security images thought that he was simply looking through it rather than at it. He didn't glance at the guard--do that now, and he may as well give them a written warning of his intention.

He shouldn't do it--he had given his word...

Don't break it, then--just...test it.

And on the day, if it broke, what was he going to do? Jump out of it and off the edge of the balcony? Twenty stories up, to land on the main roof of the palace? He'd already pretty conclusively proved to himself that he couldn't take that kind of fall whilst at Cloud City.

And there it was again; doubt. Self-doubt. He could take that fall--he had done it.

And if by some miracle he did--then what? Set off on foot, against what would definitely be a very sophisticated surveillance system, only the vaguest idea where Han was or which way to go to reach him.

He knew that Han was in the huge bulk of the main Palace below... and that every other being there had earned that place because they were fanatically loyal to the Emperor.

He's have no weapon, when he knew how many guards habitually walked the Palace. He'd stopped bothering trying to count after a couple of hundred; it became pretty much academic.

There was absolutely no logical reason to try to break the window.

Except that he was sick of being led around by Palpatine.

He was sick of sitting here and doing nothing.

He was sick of being watched and...

Being watched--by security lenses and guards alike.

So many that it became academic... Too many guards; too many to count...

He didn't need to jump; he could walk out of here...just walk calmly out.

Luke nodded just slightly to himself, looking back to the transparisteel pane.

He definitely needed to test his theory...but he needed to hide that fact behind something else... behind a bigger statement.

His eyes scanned the huge, dark, somber dining hall and came to rest on that damn table...and he smiled.

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Mara walked down the dark, opulent hallways, on her way from the main Ops room two stories above Skywalker to the Information Suite many stories below, where she had been summoned by the Emperor. It was a trek from Skywalker's apartments to anywhere, the floors immediately above and below him kept empty, partly for security, partly to allow for the outrageous fortifications her master had instigated to hold his precious Jedi. None of which seemed very necessary. It occurred that aside from the strange, distant contact she occasionally picked up on from Skywalker, like a mental whisper, she hadn't once seen anything to confirm her master's belief that Skywalker was even a Jedi, let alone one worthy of this kind of security.

Still, learning his heritage had made her determined to remain wary, both of his abilities and of him. And yet...

Even as she thought that, Mara was aware that despite her best efforts, her tenseness around him was beginning to slip in reaction to his open, familiar manner. Why was he being so...amicable? He was a professional soldier and so was she. He knew that it wouldn't make her hesitate if it came to the crunch, so what was he trying to do?

His unaffected air was...disquieting. She didn't like it--didn't like that he made her look him in the eye.

Didn't like that she was thinking about him right now.

She had seen his expression, his whole demeanor change when the Emperor was there--even when other guards were there. Seen those defensive walls drop into place. This was something he shared only with her, and it felt...disturbingly genuine. A sincere attempt at communication--at making some connection, just for the sake of it.

Which did nothing to tell her why, and since he somehow managed to be both sociable and guarded, she doubted very much that she would ever find out. Guarded--she wondered again at his past, something he never mentioned; wondered where he had been trained. He was about her own age, so would have barely been born when the Jedi were wiped out. But he must have found a way, found a Master, because he was trained.

There were few who could withstand the overbearing mental presence of her master, yet he'd held out this far. It took a well-trained mind to hold focus through all that carefully-created confusion, that much she knew.

His studied calm was deeply disquieting to her; his openness, his reluctance to judge. She was an Imperial and she was his jailor, which made him more entitled than most to harbor a low opinion of her. Yet through the nebulous contacts she had sensed from him, she hadn't once felt that he'd judged her for this.

This conscious lack of preconceptions was unsettling. Always with her master, his every thought was tinged with frustration at her, a sense of his disappointment at her constant failure to live up to his expectations. With Skywalker there was just...acceptance.

She knew of course that she was only seeing the surface--only seeing what he allowed her to see--but...it had that same honesty to it that permeated all her dealings with him. It was like looking at the surface of deep water. It drew her in...

She shivered in the cold, glancing at the cloud-shrouded sun, low over the jagged horizon of distant buildings. The Emperor had summoned her, presumably to make preparations for his daily visit to his Jedi.

She didn't envy Luke, to be trapped here with her master, only one possible outcome. How could he hold out against that certain knowledge? What was the point?

She cursed silently, realizing that she had broken one of her own basic rules; she had called him by name.

Mara waited outside the Information Suite as the guards opened the doors. Her master didn't bother to look up, but she bowed anyway before entering.

The Emperor was staring at a bank of several two- and three-D images projected into space before him, most containing written information which, viewing from back-to-front, she was unable to read.

Finally he looked up to her through the holo's. "Why are you here when Skywalker is awake?"

There was no preamble; he seldom bothered with pleasantries.

Mara frowned. "I was told you wanted to see me immediately, master."

"I told you never to leave him alone and awake. Always remain close to his quarters."

"The guards are on duty, and there's one in the room," Mara said, careful not to let too quarrelsome a tone enter her voice.

"He's a Jedi. Guards are useful to slow him down; they certainly won't stop him from doing anything he intends."

Palpatine paused; became very still, and she knew he was calling the Force to him. He smiled broadly, teeth yellow in the shadows of the room. "Ah; I believe my Jedi is about to do something rather rash..."

The last word was drowned out by the general alert claxon, which made Mara jump in shock. The comlink on her belt sounded its own insistent tone seconds later.

Chagrined, she glanced back to her master, who seemed more amused than anything else.

--This is your mistake, child. Go and correct it.--

He spoke through the Force, since the claxon effectively drowned out any chance to hear him audibly. Cursing inwardly, Mara turned on her heel and set off for Skywalker's quarters at full-tilt.

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By the time she reached the rooms, there were perhaps forty or so armed guards out in the corridor, their guns focused on the heavy double doors to the private dining hall, which were open. Mara pushed through them into the room, her own gun drawn.

And walked into a scene of controlled chaos.

About two dozen guards were in the room, a mixture of Palace guards with weapons drawn and Red Guards carrying force-pikes or the small, powerful handguns concealed beneath their ceremonial cloaks, all with their backs to her, pointed to the far side of the massive room, close to the fireplace. Pushing through, Mara glanced to her right and slowed to a stop before the window, the room's priceless antique table reduced to splintered firewood beneath it.

The plasteel window was hugely distended outward, its surface crazed into pieces so fine that it was completely opaque, the shattered remnants barely held in place by the monofilament wires, the heavy inset frame buckled in places, its metal fracturing as it withstood the brunt of the force--but it had held against whatever had struck it. Just.

Whatever had struck it--because it certainly wasn't just the table; heavy as it was, it wouldn't even have scratched the surface. No, the table had pretty much been between whatever had landed the blow and the window-pane itself, because the transparisteel pane was designed to withstand a three-click explosive charge detonated against it.

Mara had thought it outrageously over-specified when the Emperor had begun building this prison. Even the large transparisteel screens of front-line military starship like Star Destroyers were designed only to withstand two clicks.

Her master always said that the Jedi Order's control of the Force was weak, fading as the Darkness gained ever more power, leaving them unable to redress the balance--but this display of raw power rivaled any she had seen by the Emperor.

A thought occurred for the first time, disturbing in its consequences;

Were Skywalker's powers equal to Palpatine's?

Was he a genuine threat?

Turning away, she pushed her way quickly to the front of the assembled guards to find Skywalker standing quietly facing the wall by the hearth, his hands behind his head.

"Hey, Mara." His voice was unruffled, almost light, as if amused at the outrageous over-reaction he'd instigated.

Mara snorted; apparently they were on first-name terms now. How had he found that out?

"You want to tell your trained nerfs to back off?" he continued.

She could almost hear the murmur of anger travel round the room.

Could almost see him smiling at it.

"Okay, calm down," Mara said, speaking equally to the guards and to Skywalker.

His head turned slightly to the left, his tone suddenly very different. "Don't even try it...I'm serious."

Mara turned to see a blue-clad Palace guard aiming a specialized dart gun, little more than a gas-powered tube with a button-trigger, at Skywalker's back. The guard hesitated momentarily, then re-aimed.

With a 'crack,' the dart shot from the gun, flying through the air faster than the eye could follow--

To pause, spinning on the spot mid-air a short distance from the Jedi's shoulder. Before Mara had a chance to react, the dart yanked about and shot like a bullet back to its firer, embedding in his unprotected neck and eliciting a yelp as he was thrown back.

The tranquillizer had been tailor-made by the Emperor's geneticists to work in seconds on Skywalker, but the guard was human of course, so he'd barely pulled it from his flesh before it dropped him to the ground, unconscious.

Everyone leaned forward slightly as the already tense atmosphere raised another notch.

"I think everyone needs to calm down," Mara said firmly, aware that one way or another she had to regain control, though the first inklings of nerves were beginning to worry at the edges of her own thoughts.

Suddenly, she was no longer dealing with another prisoner--now she was dealing with a Jedi. Somehow, somewhere along the way, she'd allowed herself to dismiss and ignore that, carefully encouraged by Skywalker's casual calm, his reluctance to visibly use the Force. It was the oldest trick in the deck, to remain amenable and so lull one's enemies into a false sense of security. She was both angry and embarrassed to admit it had worked.

"I'm calm." There was a seldom-heard edge to Skywalker's voice now which made Mara's adrenaline surge. "I told him not to do it."

Holstering her gun, Mara fumbled for the small medikit box at her belt and took out an ampoule, loading the I.V. syringe. Handing it to the guard next to her, she indicated with a nod of her head that he was to inject the Jedi as she took her own gun back out and re-aimed it.

"No," Skywalker said, turning slightly to her. "You do it."

Mara frowned, wary. "Why?"

"Because I trust you." It was the most bizarre thing to say given their circumstances, but it had an inexplicable ring of truth to it which made Mara distinctly uneasy.

Lifting her chin in defiance as if he had offered a challenge, she handed her gun to a guard, took the syringe and stepped forward, aware of the fact that if he wanted to kill her, no one would be fast enough to stop him. But then, judging from the window, if he had wanted to kill her, he could have done so a long time ago.

It wasn't until she was moving forward, committed, that she realized that this may well be a very different challenge.

Setting her jaw, she stepped in close, taking his left arm and pulling it unresisting behind his back as she leaned her weight against him to hold him to the wall, her foot pressed against the inside of his so that she could trip him if he tried to turn about. She twisted his wrist outward without any resistance, pulling up the fine black linen of his sleeve and holding the needle to his artery, aware that the adrenaline of the moment was making her hands tremble, the tip of the needle shaking. "Dammit!"

"It's okay, Mara." He turned his head slightly, his voice very quiet, for her alone.

"Shut up!" she whispered vehemently, unsure why this was affecting her so much. It wasn't fear, it was...she blinked away the frustration of conflicting emotions, trying not to think about it.

The needle slid into his vein, a mist of scarlet feeding back into it before she injected it quickly, feeling his muscles begin to relax seconds later. His other arm went to the wall in front of him to steady himself as he began to lose consciousness, tense body slackening as his breath began to slow.

Not sure why, Mara took his arm as she pulled the needle free, supporting his weight so that they slid gently to their knees together, the light in his eyes dimming as he lost focus.

"Why do you trust me?" She whispered it urgently, in that moment needing desperately to know.

He smiled gently, but he was already beginning to fade as she took his loose head, holding his gaze on hers. "Why?!"

"I see...past...your ..."

But his eyes were already closed, so she lowered him to the floor, leaning back to crouch on her haunches at arm's distance.

Remembering where she was, she glanced up at the watching guards. "Out. Return to your posts. I'll make a report to the Emperor."

The guards filed from the room, muttering amongst themselves as they glanced at the shattered plasteel, unsettled. The mysterious prisoner suddenly had an ability which previously very few had known. Even of those who knew, Mara knew from sudden experience that to be told what someone was and to have it proven before their eyes were two very different things. The presence of a Jedi among them made everyone distinctly uneasy.

Watching him breathe, unaware of the guards' departure or the passage of time, she rocked on her heels.

How had he done this? How had he slipped past her every defense?

Uneasy emotions long-forgotten slowly smoldered at the edges of her thoughts, lit by the distant whisperings of his presence in the Force. What did she feel? When she closed her eyes and sensed this scattered, indistinct resonance, what was tugging at her thoughts? Was this...empathy? Guilt? Why had he done it? Why was she letting him?

Alone now, an inarticulate sound hitched in her throat, half-sob, half-fury. Striking out, she caught him hard in his ribs with her fist, though she knew he couldn't feel it, laid awkwardly in unconsciousness.

"Fool!" she accused. "You're a fool to trust me, Luke Skywalker. This is what you get!" She lunged to her feet, staggering backwards, putting some distance, mental and physical, between them.

"I'll slip a knife between your ribs as soon as look at you. Remember that!"

She took two short steps forward, intending to land a vicious kick into his side, but stopped dead, unable to deliver the blow.

Aware that she was shouting at someone who couldn't hear her, she sternly gathered her wits about her and strode over his body without looking down, decisively shutting down that tiny, vulnerable part of herself which had so willingly attuned to this hypnotic, mesmerizing mind

She had no choice but to sense the Jedi's presence...but she could choose whether or not to listen.

She paused beside the shattered remains of the military-grade transparisteel sheet and ran her finger over its crazed surface, noting at this close range that many of the monofilaments had actually sheared through, fracturing completely under the force of that invisible blow. Realizing that a second blow would probably have broken the pane open completely.

She narrowed her eyes, lost in thought, for the first time afraid for her master.

"You worry too much, child."

Mara whirled in shock, her already shredded nerves cut to the quick. The Emperor walked calmly across the room to the window, reaching out his hand to the distended pane.

"What power he has." He smiled appreciatively, totally enthralled.

There had been other Jedi, of course, when Mara had been younger. But none like this.

The few who had escaped the scourging and found safety in the small Rebel groups who were littered around without any real organized resistance in the early years of the Empire. Fewer and fewer by the time she had gained her position as the Emperor's Hand.

But she remembered them, generally brought by Lord Vader to the Imperial Palace--to his Master. Like a predator bringing home the kill. They lasted a day, a few occasionally, before the Emperor destroyed them. Sometimes Mara had been summoned to witness their end, to understand the powers they held, what they were capable of, what could be done to counter them--what it was to be in the presence of a Jedi. Sometimes he gave them a weapon, sometimes he didn't. Often he gave them a lightsaber and turned Vader on them, an exclusive show for her master's personal amusement.

Some were more powerful than others; a few were little more than padawans, who fought with desperate passion. Others were Masters, who dueled and died with calm dignity, though Palpatine maintained that this was immaterial; in the end, they all died.

But none had held this power, or they would surely have thrown it against him in those last desperate moments. And none had ever held this power over her master, a driving obsession which blinded him to any danger.

She almost said it--almost spoke her fears out loud. Almost asked if Skywalker was a threat.

But she held her tongue, knowing her master would see that as a questioning of his own abilities, and that would have been intolerable.

Palpatine pulled his hand sharply from the shattered pane, a tiny drop of scarlet forming on the tip of his bone-white finger.

Mara stared at the drop, ruby red against pale white, deeply disquieted by the sight; it occurred that she had never once before seen her master bleed.

That dark droplet of blood against his pallid skin pulled her consciousness toward an enveloping, transcendental stillness, as if time itself slowed then fell away...

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Something...something closed in, like a storm raging against the night, dark clouds obliterating the moonlight.

Duplicity, betrayal...loyalties challenged, allegiance resolved. Everything in flux, erratic.

Everything changing, even herself. Nothing could remain untouched, destiny itself yielding...

Blood red sun, cold as death. It split momentarily and went binary in her blurred vision, the silence whispering riddles...

'Son of Suns...'

The sky turned dark and the sun faded to a pallid moon and she heard-- felt--something wild and primal at bay in the pitch of night, like a wolf prowling in the shadows...

The ashen moon seared blood red again, a single scarlet drop falling from the heavens to land at her master's feet, soaking into the hem of his long, sable cloak...

...The moment, that single instant stretched taut...

A vast sweep of possibilities tangled about and among each other, all futures circling that one moment.

One decision, one inflexible will.

The weakness which is a strength...

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The howl of a wolf in the darkness threw her back as she jolted, reality snapping back in about the surreal vision.

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"What did you see?" Her master's voice was instant, demanding.

Mara shook her head slowly--whatever it was, it had evaporated into the ether, like waking from a dream. "I saw..." She struggled to bring any memory of the vision back, but only one thing remained, burned into her memory like the after-image of staring at the sun too long. "...A wolf... A wolf in the shadows...hunting."

"Hunting what?"

She almost said it: you.

But as she opened her mouth to speak, realization slipped away like the black wolf itself, and all she could do was to stare blankly into her master's yellow-flecked eyes.

Finally she looked away, her eyes skipping about the room unfocused as she tried to recall the brief instant of clarity. She had experience only a few visions in her life and when they came, they were like this--broken, fragmented, intensely real in the moment, but lost to her the instant they dissipated.

She shook her head then found her voice, remembering to whom she spoke. "I don't know, master. I'm sorry..."

She knew it both displeased and frustrated him that her abilities were not equal to this, so tried to move the conversation quickly on to something more readily achievable. "I'll have the pane replaced immediately."

"Do so." His tone was impatient, irritable.

Mara bowed and glanced to the unconscious man. Turning to call the guards in she paused, twisting back without looking up, tone penitent. "Master, I apologize; I shouldn't have left him. He's too great a danger--I understand that now."

"Only now?"

She heard the familiar sting of disappointment in his voice, but when she looked to him, his eyes and his attention were totally centered on the slumped form of his Jedi, and she was already forgotten.

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To be continued...

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