Into the Storm

Chapter 21

.

.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

.

.

.

Mara Jade returned late into the night, landing on the expansive, polished black landing platform of the Palace roof, close to the SouthTower. It immediately reminded her of him--of the night he'd broken out. A small smile touched her lips at the memory of how easily he'd run riot through all the carefully-laid Palace defenses.

Her smile faded at the memory of what it had cost him. How she had simply walked away...don't think about that.

But that was all she seemed to be doing recently; thinking about him. It was easy to dismiss though, her just-completed mission having been so intrinsically linked to Skywalker, the second time she had performed the same exercise this year. That, of course, was why she was thinking of him now--that and no other reason.

Filling her mind with a hundred pointless thoughts rather than acknowledging the single one that was in her mind, Mara entered the Tower, still buzzing with life even at this hour. The Imperial Palace never slept--like the Empire, it existed around the clock, a strange, heightened reality completely isolated from the one which existed outside these impregnable walls. One could live one's whole life here, never once venturing beyond the sprawling, monolithic bulk of the Main Palace, if one so desired. Many lesser civil servants and Palace staff did just that, required by mandate to remain within the Palace grounds as long as they served the Emperor, whole communities and infrastructures building up, level on level, within the Main Palace below.

The Towers themselves provided exclusivity strictly for the elite of the Emperor's staff, granting select accommodation for the privileged few. Workspace, ceremonial halls and assembly chambers, both official and informal, were carefully allotted on a preferential basis to military and planetary leaders, leading diplomats, system representatives and of course, the Royal Houses.

Despite the late hour, Mara knew absolutely that Court would still be in session, and that her master would expect her immediate attendance.

She made her way smoothly through the Tower, pausing at all the usual checkpoints, caught unawares by a few new ones. But then she'd been away nearly four months--almost as long as Lord Vader--so it was no real surprise that security changes were in effect, as her master was never less than vigilant in such things.

It was their type and placing that was of interest to Mara; not the usual, obvious sites--entrances and purpose-built guardrooms--but natural bottlenecks and blind curves, easily defendable points. And plain-clothes guards--Mara's trained eye could spot them easily, milling about with Palace staff, watching rather than checking ID's, and always a second bottleneck around the next corner after a checkpoint, a crossfire between which any intruder would be caught with no cover and could be fired on without danger from either checkpoint. Less military-training and more like guerrilla warfare, Mara reflected.

Definitely a new security officer in the Palace. She narrowed her eyes at that, mentally running through the most recent collection of the Imperial officers clambering for promotion. She could name at least a dozen off-pat, though none would have created this kind of security profile.

.

Lost in thought, considering who her new rival would be--her master always liked to keep his high-ranking staff in opposition one way or another--Mara continued up to the tenth level, where Court would be in effect.

She passed through three new security stops before entering the Attendant's Hall, full of noise and color, her own plain black one-piece drab by comparison. But not without a reference as to her own standing, which ensured her a few curious glances as she made her way through the gathered throngs.

People spent years of their lives whispering promises and secrets in this Hall, making pacts and alliances, without once gaining entry to the coveted Throne Room beyond. Mara too had spent years of her life in countless disguises wandering this room, listening for her master. Automated personal jamming and counter-surveillance devices were rife in this hall of whispers, so that the only reliable way to actually gain information was to walk among those who were all too eager to barter it for the slightest chance of recognition in Court.

She walked quickly through them now, recognizing many, recognized by only a few, and they too shrewd to pass such information on.

At the tall double doors which hung floor to ceiling she paused, nodding at the Royal Guards who kept a constant vigil here, whether the Emperor was 'En Court' or not. She didn't bother to do anything more; her presence would have been noted as she came down the high-security corridors, permission sought as she entered the Attendant's Hall. If her master required her, she would be admitted. If not, then she would wait.

.

The tall doors swung open, many heads turning back to view the new entry to Court, squinting at the light which streamed into the oppressive, darkened room, its rich gold walls glowing, incandescent beneath this burst of light.

Mara set smoothly forward into the gloom, walking towards the raised dais at the head of the cavernous hall on which was placed her master's throne, set upon an inlaid half-circle of pale terassotti marble, its mirror-half set into the floor before the dais to form a completed circle. A remnant of the destroyed Jedi Temple, it had always reminded Mara of a pale moon, a circle of deep cadmium red in its centre. Here her master would be holding Court from his precious Sunburst Throne, another centuries-old artifact appropriated from the decimated Jedi Temple.

The throne--his prized possession and the Jedi's much revered Seat of Prophesy--was a substantial, imposing piece, its backrest beaten and etched from a single piece of gold into the form of a massive beaten sun, whose edges flared out in faceted sunbursts from the ground behind him to well above Palpatine's head. Even here, the richly-worked opulence of the precious metal caught the faintest light to glow sublimely, rendered in exquisite detail at the Emperor's back.

Beneath his feet was the heavy iconic footrest he always used here; his feet never touched the floor but rested instead on a substantial form carved with a complex representation of the galaxy he ruled, the inference hardly subtle.

Mara walked forwards without a sideways glance, her eyes and her attention only for her master. She was five steps from the dais when her stride faltered...

Standing tall and straight just behind and to the side of the throne, expression passive, hooded eyes intent on her, was Skywalker.

He wore a dark, plain suit fastened to the side in military style but with neither rank nor insignia, the fabric and cut flawless, perfectly fitted, lending an air of indifferent affluence, of casual, confident association.

Palace Livery was rich, phthalo blue for the Guard, scarlet for the Royal Guard. Members of the Emperor's personal entourage--and only they--were allowed to wear dark vermillion red, black as Mara often wore, or darkest cobalt blue...and it was this which Skywalker wore now, the relentless block of midnight blue broken only by the narrowest of white lines at his high, straight collar, even his hands covered with fine leather gloves.

He watched her for several seconds longer as she recovered her pace and continued forward, then his pale blue eyes flicked away to stare blankly into the assembled crowd.

When she reached the dais Mara dipped gracefully down onto one knee on the pale cream semi-circle before her master, taking long seconds as she stared down at the ivory marble to regain her composure before looking up, well aware of how amused he was at her uneasy confusion.

She acknowledged that her mission had been a success--all that she knew her master would want aired in public--and took her place, standing to one side of the hall, close to and facing the dais. No one sat in Court save the Emperor. No one approached the dais except by personal invitation and no one ever stood upon it or behind the Emperor save Lord Vader, a few favored, hand-picked guards...and now Skywalker, apparently.

.

She stood for the next two hours staring at Skywalker and wondering...what? Everything, she supposed. Why was he here, what had her master told those around him? How long had he been free from the Detention Center? His scars were faded now, but still easily visible--to her at least.

Did this mean Palpatine had broken his Jedi at last? Of course it must; he would never be allowed in Court otherwise. How much was lost, Mara wondered. For her master to trust him so close... How much of Luke Skywalker actually remained?

An image rushed to her mind of the last time she saw him, months ago, hunched against broken bones, blood dried onto bruised skin... She remembered his battered face as he'd turned to her, lost and alone, already having endured so much and so very aware of what was to come, sky blue eyes so expressive, so completely open, even then...

Tonight he never once acknowledged her fascinated stare, though he must have been aware of it.

Or maybe it was lost in the crowd--Skywalker would have appeared in Court from nowhere, instantly in a position of obvious power and favor, clearly placed on show by the Emperor for all to see. Everyone must be whispering, desperate to know who this new stranger was, what he was, why he was here. Everything--every single aspect of his arrival--would have been closely controlled by her master, she knew. From the choice of day and the Courtiers in attendance to his clothes, his comportment, his position on the dais.

There must have been a feeding frenzy of gossip and guesses traveling through the Palace--nobody appeared from nowhere to gain this kind of instant prominence and favor. She regretted now walking so quickly through the Attendant's Hall; many a tale was whispered there, more often than not instigated by the Emperor, wishing to reinvent the truth to better serve his purpose.

all she could do now was watch and listen as the night wore on, Skywalker stood to straight attention, though he looked gaunt and tired. This close, she could see the fading sutures and scars, so others surely must. What reason had her master given for them, if any? Sometimes ten whispered theories were far more powerful than one lie--or one truth.

Court rolled on; petitions for aid, for relief from exorbitant taxes, for right of proxy over neighboring planets, empty or inhabited, for military contracts, for commercial restrictions lifted or levied, all carefully logged for consideration, permissions and warrants handed out only if the incentives were sufficient and it ultimately served Palpatine's interests.

Skywalker remained statue-still, eyes on the middle-distance, face impassive. If he had the slightest interest in what was happening then he hid it very well. But then he'd always done that, she reflected, and it never once meant anything--that she was learning.

.

Eventually Court retired, the Emperor rising to walk with insincere graciousness through the bowing Courtiers, pausing once to acknowledge someone specific, as he often did.

Skywalker walked closely behind him, hands to his back, eyes straight ahead. As was her right, Mara fell in with the entourage behind Cordo, the Emperor's Majordomo, and Amedda, his Chancellor. The assembly passed through the high doors opening onto the vast Attendant's Hall, its numbers bowing low in hushed reverence as the regal procession passed, Royal Guards falling in behind.

Finally free and in the wide, grand corridor beyond, Mara hoped to catch Skywalker's eye, but the Emperor turned to her immediately as she set forward.

"You've done well, Mara. Go to my offices with Cordo and make out a full report. I will read it tonight."

And that was it. She'd been none-too-subtly dismissed, Palpatine turning away to continue down the corridor to the long staircase which led to the restricted habitation levels, Skywalker not once looking back.

.

.

.

.

.

.

It was well after midnight when she made her way as casually as possible through the privileged habitation levels of the South Tower and to the sprawling Perlemian Apartments which were once Skywalker's prison, now listed as his official quarters.

When she reached them there were four Red Guard--the Emperor's personal regiment--at the main doors. All senior apartments were guarded of course--for the occupants' safety, it was assured, though why exactly it was necessary in the elite enclave of a fortified Palace, no one chose to ask. And if, in keeping others out, the guards also incidentally kept the apartments' inhabitants in, well then that was pure coincidence.

The Red Guard were conspicuous in their presence rather than the more familiar blue-liveried Palace Guards leaving Mara to wonder, as she suspected everyone else did, whether it was a compliment or a containment that kept the Emperor's own regiment at Skywalker's door. The tall double doors themselves were open though, as was customary here, low light pooling in the wide main corridor beyond.

Taking the completely irrelevant card copy of her report from her pocket and tapping her nails across it whilst trying to look officious and annoyed, Mara walked directly up to the door, nodding at the guards there and relying on her position and her familiarity to them, to get her through unchallenged.

No one stopped her as she moved quickly into the entrance hall, hesitating as a regular Palace servant walked casually from a door at the far end of the corridor.

A voice from the staff offices to her immediate left just inside the entrance turned her head.

"May I help you, Commander?" It was a tall, wide-set and dark-haired senior aide Mara recognized as Wez Reece.

Glancing towards him she saw a second aide she didn't know leaning back in his chair to peer out at her. To the far end of the corridor the servant peered back from his walk between rooms, squinting curiously.

Everything seemed oddly settled, as if creating the pretence that it had been in existence here for a long time, though there was a fragility to it, a nervousness.

There were no lights in any of the rooms off the main corridor, but she knew he was in here somewhere; that he was still awake, brooding...

Reece had managed to insert himself between Mara and the apartment beyond by this time, his arm politely out to guide her to the waiting room opposite without ever being so impolitic as to touch her. Senior as he was, he had nowhere near her status within the Emperor's retinue.

"No," Mara replied simply as she took a step to the side, feeling no necessity to explain herself further considering their difference in rank.

Still, it was interesting that he was here at all. He was, she knew, ex-military; Special Ops-turned-bodyguard-turned-Aide, his senior rank in the Emperor's household reflecting his unique mix of skills. And now he was here, clearly assigned to Skywalker. Not your average Personal Aide for not your average Personal Aide position, Mara reflected wryly. She thought momentarily of Mauwel, Lord Vader's Majordomo and also an ex-military man. But the difference was that Mauwel's loyalties lay strictly with Vader, who had found and recruited him, just as Reece's loyalties lay very much with the man who had recruited him--and that wasn't Skywalker.

"Are you here on official business? I have no appointment logged," he said doggedly, subtly matching her sideways move to remain between Mara and the apartment's main corridor.

She frowned, her annoyance beginning to sound in her voice. "No."

She took another step forward and to the side and again Reece matched her, their polite dance having slowly proceeded into the apartment's wide main corridor.

"My apologies, Commander Jade, but the Commander is receiving no informal visitors at this time. I shall, of course, inform him that you--"

This time Mara simply walked into him, and to give him his due, Reece still held firm, undaunted. But Mara had subtly tangled her foot between his ankles, so that her forward pressure sent him stumbling backwards as she feigned a stagger, reaching out for him as if to steady herself and overbalancing him in the process. He made a credible grab at her arm, intending to take her with him, but this was no longer his full-time profession and Mara had been intensively trained and in active service all her adult life.

It was a subtle ballet of hidden combat and good as he was, Mara was past him in seconds, her ingenuous apology quickly muttered as she walked backward down the main corridor and deeper into the apartment, Reece shouting out to her as the second aide set belatedly forward.

She was already halfway down the hallway, intending to turn into the private dining room which had always been the entrance to Skywalker's three-room prison, when something made her turn to her left, to the slightly-open study door whose room beyond was dark, though she knew Skywalker was in there. She paused, suddenly uncertain--should she knock? He surely knew she was outside, even without the commotion...

Finally, seeing Reece gathering himself to his feet, she stepped into the dark room, whispering his name.

"Skywalker? Luke?"

Strangely, considering the disturbance, he stood with his back to the door gazing out onto the distant lights of the endless city, not moving as she took another hesitant step forward into the gloom. The dark, fitted jacket was gone, his spotless, high-collared white shirt seeming to glow in the low light. As he half-turned, a slight metallic glint at his hip caught Mara's eye. She glanced down, the thought occurring and being almost instantly dismissed, but no...at his hip was a lightsaber!

It was dark and matt--brushed perennium, she guessed from the gunmetal color--its smooth, etched surface inset with polished, finely inlaid yellow and white gold banding, the finish already marked from use, though Mara was sure that it would have been new when given to him. Like everything else Palpatine gifted his Jedi, there would be subtle messages even here; a new beginning, a new life.

She wondered how much was lost, for her master to trust him with such a weapon...

And finally, realization slammed into her--of what he was, that he had it. Because there could only be one justification.

Her eyes were still fixed on it when Skywalker finally spoke.

"Yes?" His clipped tone was even, his shadowed expression betraying neither pleasure nor annoyance at her intrusion.

Mara glanced up, suddenly having no idea, none whatsoever, what to say. She wasn't even sure why she was here--only that she had to come.

She took another halting step forward, looking for some kind of recognition, some acknowledgement. In all the time she'd known him, he had always made it easy for her, always open, always amicable, even under the harshest circumstances. Now she looked for something--anything--which was still recognizably him...but he gave nothing away.

Her eyes met his, uncertain. "I...wanted to...make sure you were okay."

He knew the truth... He must.

But he remained still and withdrawn, his face completely without emotion, blue eyes dark in the low light, voice detached and even. "I'm fine, thank you, Commander Jade."

Commander Jade. Only once, in the entire time that she had known him, in all of the long hours and slow days they had spent in enforced company, in all the terrible, relentless trials she had watched him endure when he had been dragged to that cell, had he ever called her by title.

When she didn't move, remaining rooted to the spot, searching for some way forward, some way in, he turned away, eyes flicking to the distant city once more, and Mara was left staring at his back, completely lost. "You...seem..."

He didn't turn, didn't acknowledge her stilted words. She wanted him to shout, to accuse--even that would be better than this, devoid of involvement, of any interest at all in her unexpected arrival. If he would denounce her then she could at least defend herself, explain, hold out some hope of forgiveness--of acceptance. She reached out mentally across the silent void, searching for that undeniable, intuitive link. For something--some hidden shadow, some hint of emotion, of empathy--something recognizably Luke.

Impenetrable shields barred her way, wrapped tightly about him like armor.

"I'm fine, thank you," he reiterated evenly without turning, voice and sense blunt with tempered restraint.

"...I...thought..." What? Realistically--what?

Now, here, standing before him, aware of what he had become, she was reduced to stammering numbly, no idea any more of what she hoped or felt or intended. Before she could even begin to pull any kind of coherent sentence together Reece practically burst into the room, two guards behind him.

"Sir..." he said, breathless.

"Ah, Reece," Skywalker said evenly without turning, as if this were the normal way to enter a room, "Commander Jade was just leaving. Perhaps you could manage to show her out?"

Bewildered, Mara turned back to Luke and opened her mouth to speak--

"Good night, Commander Jade," he said with impeccable timing, still staring out into the darkness, the finality of his words stinging.

Frustrated, any opportunity to speak further effectively removed by Reece's presence, Mara turned to leave, wondering whether the Aide would dutifully report to the Emperor even this small indiscretion.

Wondering if this conversation defined the extent of her relationship with Skywalker now.

.

.

.

.

.

.

He was, as it turned out, a very difficult man to see--impossible to see alone, Palpatine guarding his new prodigy with jealous attention, making sure no one spoke to him and he spoke to no one.

She saw him occasionally in the Emperor's private apartments when she was summoned there, or in Court of course, when he entered with the Emperor's entourage, looking neither left nor right as he walked behind his Master to the dais, waiting at its base to be invited to stand beside the throne, as he always was.

Never wearing his lightsaber there, she'd noticed--though she often saw him wearing it in the Emperor's presence in more private circumstances, and knew that Palpatine supervised his constant and unrelenting training with it in the cavernous Practice Hall, so it wasn't from lack of trust. It was, very clearly, a conscious decision on the part of the Emperor, for which she was sure he'd have his reasons, even if she couldn't fathom them.

Certainly everyone in Court was whispering, everyone trying to place him. Nobody could, of course. Palpatine had seen to that. No one even had a name.

Nor would they--Mara herself had been given the task of removing every reference to him from every census; had spent the last few months touring outlying regions and dustball planets to ensure that every record, no matter how small or how fragmentary, had been destroyed beyond repair, pixel or physical. Finally she'd joined the several already-activated teams to infiltrate Bothawui's closely guarded private Intel system, the only reliable source of genuinely independent information in the Empire, to check that the details fed to them by Black Sun months earlier were in place and that any remaining independent intelligence, aside from a few non-matching references inserted under the name of Luke Skywalker, were gone. There should have been none anyway--she'd been tasked with slicing into or traveling to every independent information source months earlier at her master's command, long before Skywalker's arrival at the Palace. Most information regarding his identity had been removed then, leaving only small threads which never quite added up if traced back.

Now even that was hearsay. And Palpatine's carefully-created gossip was so easy to spread, when whispered into the right ears--so easy to turn into paranoia.

Only the fanatically loyal Royal Guard who had secured him in the cell beneath the Palace, and a few high-ranking individuals, knew the truth--and her master would have been very careful to underline his desire for silence, of that she was sure.

He had become a cipher, an enigma--a shadow.

Just like her.

.

.

.

To be continued...

.