The Son of Skywalker

Admiral Catr smiled to himself as he studied the sensor readouts of the second planet of the Dagobah system. True to the hint that the Caridan leaders had received, there were two droids, and only two droids, on the entire planet, and millions of lifeforms. There was also a small personal transport ship. There was a very good chance that Skywalker was indeed on the planet as their source had indicated.
Catr checked the progress of the TIE squadron assigned to do the first attack runs. They were completely ready. As soon as the second probe scan was finished, the mission could begin in earnest. At last, the Rebel hero and Imperial traitor would pay the price for his deception.


Luke Skywalker finished his quiet lunch with Kathri and told her that he was going for a short walk to think. "Don't be too long," she told him lovingly.
"I won't," he reassured her, kissing her gently and leaving. The mist was rising off of the swamps of Dagobah, as it had every day since they had first come to the planet. The huge, plant growth covered trees still loomed as impressively as they had the first time he had seen them, and R2-D2 still followed him as reluctantly and with as much difficulty. The little droid had never been the same since his counterpart C-3PO was destroyed on a diplomatic mission several years before. "Stay with Kathri, Artoo," he ordered the little droid. "I'd like to be alone for a while." Artoo gave a relieved sounding beep and returned to the small cottage.
Luke left it behind, running through shallow puddles and across muddy ground, thinking how lucky he was. He and Kathri had been married for two years, and every day their bond grew deeper. He had wished from time to time that she was Force sensitive, but even without that tie they were soon inseparable. Her comforting presence was there in the back of his mind whenever instability threatened, and the constancy of her thoughts kept many worrisome bouts with the Dark at bay.
And then, eight Standard months before, she had conceived a child. They had planned for the eventuality and not tried to prevent it, but it was a pleasant surprise nevertheless. The child was a boy, and already Luke could feel the potential in him.The boy would be a great Jedi in time.
Even in the height of familial jubilation, they had not allowed anyone but their close family to know about it. The Skywalker clan was still in the public eye a great deal, because of their past in the Rebellion, Anakin's reputation and Leia's post as the Senate representative of Alderaanean expatriates. No matter what they did to try and diffuse the attention, Coruscant and the rest of the galaxy watched avidly. Kathri's family with its Senatorial post was not much better. They had come to Dagobah, still just a point on the starcharts, for peace and respite. Kathri and Luke had been working together on a history of the Rebellion, and they left it behind in favor of a vacation. The Alliance was willing to support its heroes, even though Luke did not have a spotless record.
In their retreat from the galaxy, they had brought along only what they needed to survive. Their shelter was a set of memory panels, ready to be taken down at will. They had an ample store of food, as well as a hydroponics greenhouse on the small transport ship they had received as a wedding present. A medical droid was ensconced in the house, ready for any occasion, and the ship's small facilities included a quarter body bacta tank, large enough for minor injuries and to prevent further damage to patients with worse trauma.
The escape had been wonderful for Luke. Spending uninterrupted time with Kathri was not a burden to him, although at times one or the other of them felt the need to take very long walks. He was always nervous when Kathri did that, so he availed himself of his greater knowledge of the planet and left before she felt she had to. All in all, he knew that it was the last silent sleepiness before their child was born and society pulled them back into its hungry maw. Even then, though, they would have each other, and n problem would be truly insurmountable.
An all too familiar inhuman scream alerted him to danger. A TIE fighter, here, he thought in worried amazement. I have to get back to Kathri!
The swamp blurred by as he ran in earnest, pushing himself with the Force and hardly pausing to look where he was going. More TIE fighters screamed through the atmosphere, but he was more concerned with Kathri's answering screams. She was in pain and terrified. Their home was burning under the assault of green laser fire, but she was not in it. In desperation he searched for her through the Force, and found her a short way from the burning shelter, clinging to a tall tree. Her back was burned and bleeding horrendously, and she had obviously been grazed by a laser bolt. "Kathri!" he shouted, and ran to her, not heeding the TIE's continuing strafing runs. She was crying out again in pain, and turned an agony ridden face to him when he called her name. "We have to get you to the ship, Kathri," he told her, panicked.
"Can't move," she answered between sobs of anguish. "I love you," Kathri said, and then gave in to the pain demanding that she stop fighting.
"Kathri, no!" Luke knew that it was too late even as he said it, and cursed the circumstances that had denied him Healer training.
Every barricade against anger burst as his sense of Kathri faded. Great winds rose and huge gouts of lightning electrocuted the TIE fighters, causing them to crash on the planet's surface or to careen uncontrolled into space. Ionic discharges, uncontrolled, lanced out from Dagobah's atmosphere, reaching to the Star Destroyer. Unconsciously, Luke demolished all the computer systems of a huge starship with unbound Force, causing the death of its crew in moments Bursts of energy grounded themselves everywhere as Luke lost the last control that he had and fell beside the woman who had been his stability but now lay beside him without breath or heartbeat.

On Coruscant, Leia paused in her address to the Senate, her eyes fixed on a faraway point. As Luke fell to his knees in the muddy swamp, she cried out wordlessly to him and crumpled to the floor even as he fell to the ground lightyears away. The Senate watched in confusion as she seemed to undergo a seizure. Moments later, Valena and Anakin ran into the room. No one moved to stop the Jedi. They bent over Leia, trying to rouse her. Mon Mothma asked, "What is wrong with her, Lady Valena?"
"Kathri Manette was just killed by the Imperial remnants," Valena answered tersely, her own voice hoarse with the aftereffects of the shout she, too, had felt.
"Kathri's dead?" Kathri's father asked incredulously. "How do you know?" The dread in his voice was almost tangible, and carried even over Leia's sobs. Han ran in, called by one of the Senators, and held Leia's hands, trying to wake her.
Valena stood, gesturing angrily to Leia. "Luke has gone mad with his grief and is creating havoc in the Force. Witness his sister's reaction; I hope we won't lose her as well."
"I knew I should never have let her marry a Skywalker!" the man muttered to himself as he sat down, the first tears of mourning shining in his eyes.
"May we take Leia out of here?" Valena asked Mon Mothma.
"Of course, go on." Han and Anakin lifted Leia to her feet, and she walked with blind eyes and sagging body between them.

Luke tore all the unnecessary equipment out of his small ship, his eyes still clouded by tears and his mind blurred by rage and grief. His only thoughts were to find the person who had caused the tragedy as soon as possible. The spy would suffer greatly at his hands. The medical equipment, all of Kathri's belongings that she had stored in the ship, and the entertainment paraphernalia ended up in a huge heap outside the hatch, and then he left the planet for the last Imperial stronghold he knew of, Carida.

Han and Anakin carried Leia to the Millennium Falcon, which, contrary to Han's wishes, had been completely remodeled inside and out a month before. They lay her on the bunk in the captain's cabin. Valena pulled them both into the lounge to talk to them.
"We don't know what Luke's going to do. We should find him as soon as we can, and we should start on Dagobah," she told them.
"Will Leia be all right?" Han asked, worried. Chewbacca came into the lounge behind him, mirroring his emotions.
"We can't know until we know what's happening to Luke," Anakin answered. Han nodded understandingly.
"I don't want to leave Leia alone too long," he said after a moment. "Chewie, would you pilot? I want to keep an eye on her." Chewbacca consented and went into the cockpit. "I'll call you if anything happens that you don't notice, all right?" Without waiting for an answer, he went into his cabin and sat on the end of the bunk. Leia was sobbing softly, still. Han used the corner of a blanket to wipe her eyes. "Can you hear me, Leia? What's he doing to you?" he asked in sympathetic misery. He brushed the hair back from her cheek gently."I hate seeing you like this. Wake up! Tell me what's going through your mind!" Her only response was to turn onto her side and gasp for breath. The soft chime that warned of imminent hyperspace echoed through the ship. "Please, come back to me," he sighed, and embraced her, soothing her shaking shoulders with his hands. As if she had heard him, her sobs lengthened into sleep. Han kissed her cheek softly. "Sleep well, my princess," he whispered. "I'll be right back."
He left the cabin and went into the lounge where Valena and Anakin sat, apparently communicating through the Force. "She's sleeping now," he told them. "Is that a good sign or a bad sign?"
"I suggest we take it as a good sign," Valena answered. "After Luke's initial reaction, he's calmed down so that I can barely hear him." She glanced at Anakin for confirmation, and he nodded. "Go back to her. When we get to Dagobah, I'll tell you."

Luke's mind was flooded with shattered memories as well as the power of his despair. Before he had put it all aside, the Emperor has taught him much about the Dark Side. As barrier after barrier broke in the tide of mad grief, all he had known and pushed away returned. Carida would be open to him, and he knew that one of its computers held the answer to his biggest question. Kathri's murderer would be punished, soon, and that was all that mattered to him at the moment.
And after that, he had no idea what he would do. Instinctively, he knew that once she was avenged he would not be able to be Dark in the way that he was at the moment. Luke was not Dark, and could not maintain the level of evil he defined as Dark on his own. It had taken the Emperor for him to do it before, and at the moment Kathri's loss fueled his descent into blackness. Even so, he knew that once he carried out his plans for the murderer that he would never be able to consider himself Light again. The small part of him that was not grieving wondered if there was such a definition as Grey Jedi, and if so what exactly constituted the class. He considered the possibilities of employment. He could not, ever, return to Coruscant, because of the memories of Kathri there. It hurt to even think her name. Everyone in the Alliance and in the Empire knew his name, face and history, and were not likely to want to hire him in any capacity, especially if anyone ever heard of his revenge on the murderer. Then, his only hope of peace would be some long forgotten colony world. Carida's computers would be of no help, but perhaps the Force, which had taken so much from him, could restore something to him in the form of a home.

Leia did not wake during the day long trip to Dagobah. Anxiety hung thick in the air on the Falcon, and silence reigned. When they reached the swamp planet, Han decided to stay with Leia while Valena, Anakin and Chewbacca searched Luke's home.
To pass the time without going mad from worry, Han studied sensor readouts of Dagobah. The planet had many bizarre lifeforms, and he was halfway absorbed in it when he heard the explorers returning to the ship. Chewbacca was nervous, and there was a familiar trilling sound accompanying Valena's soothing voice trying to calm him. "Han, where's the medkit?" Anakin asked loudly. Han grabbed the small module from the pilot's cabin and went into the lounge. Valena took it from him, and then sat in a chair by the main table. There was a quarter size bacta tank on the table, and a baby floated in it. R2-D2 was beside one of the chairs. "Get the navicomputer working on the shortest path to Coruscant, and then we'll explain," Anakin told Han. He headed to the cockpit, only realizing after he had programmed the navicomputer that he had been controlled by the Force. He was angry upon realizing that, until he figured out that there was absolutely nothing he could do.
"What's going on back there?" he asked when they had dropped into hyperspace again.
"Come and see," Valena answered. Han left the controls to Chewbacca and walked into the lounge. The anonymous infant, still suspended in its bacta tank, was the subject of much study by both Valena and Anakin.
Han looked closer at the tank in curiosity. There was a small amount of blood in the bacta solution, but the child seemed to have no injuries at all. "Where did you find the kid?" he asked, sitting down in one of the chairs.
"The little droid saved his life. It must have sensed that he still lived when Kathri died, and performed crude but effective surgery to save him," Anakin answered. "Luke apparently threw out everything nonessential in their ship, which, fortunately for this child, included a bacta tank. We will take care of him, of course."
"Him, who?" a voice asked. They all turned. Leia was standing in the doorway, looking very pale. "And what am I doing on the Falcon?"
"Your nephew," Anakin told her, "and you're on the Falcon because we were looking for Luke."
Han embraced Leia, feeling that she would collapse at any moment, but she pulled away from him. "Luke! And my nephew? But Kathri is- is gone. I remember that much." She bit her lip, wanting to block the memories from her mind.
"Yes, she is," Valena agreed, "but here is her son, alive. He needs a name. Do you want to name him?" Leia took another step backwards.
"Name him?" she repeated incredulously. "I don't think I could. I barely even know my own name, now, with everything. . ." she held one hand to her head and swayed again. Han caught her and supported her. "Don't ask me to, no."
"If that's how you feel, may I?" Valena asked the others in the room. They did not object. She stood and put one hand on the bacta tank. "I name you Parlian Manette Skywalker, in honor of a Jedi Master I knew as a child. May the Force be with you, always, Parlian." She looked around the room again. "Is that an appropriate name?" she asked all of them.
"It's lovely," Leia answered, then turned away and began sobbing.
Han embraced her again, asking, "What's the matter?"
"I feel like I'm in danger," she cried. "Luke is angry with the universe, and we're so close to him, it would be so easy for him to reach out to us, and he'd probably hurt us." She covered her face with her hands. "I won't feel safe, as if any of us are safe, until we know what he's doing, and where it is. I wish I could just go home and hide, but home...home is gone!"
"Leia, Leia! Don't be like this, please!" Han begged, half frantic with worry. "Luke wouldn't hurt us, he never has, even when he wasn't himself. Please, stop crying!"
"But he's not himself now, not at all, and he's the one who changed himself, really." She took a gasping breath and threw her arms around him, wiping her eyes on his shoulder, trying to get control of herself. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I feel like part of my mind is broken, missing somehow. Luke and I have always been linked so closely, and now he's nearly insane. The part of me listening to him is screaming, because he is screaming. And Dagobah is disrupted, all of it, and part of me is responsible, and I can't deal with it." She swiped one hand across her eyes ineffectually. "Even if I learn somehow to block him out, I don't think I can be as I was before this. Oh, skies, I'm so sorry. The Alliance will have to do without me."
Han's mouth dropped open in shock, but Anakin and Valena seem unsurprised. "I thought that that would be the upshot of all this," Valena said placidly.
Han protested, "Where will we go? What will we do? Just run off and abandon the galaxy we've worked so hard for?"
"Let's work on that. It's a very good question," Anakin answered.
"The first possibility in my mind is Agra," Valena mused. "Luke has spent much time there, but he would not look for you there, Leia. And remember, if we do run off, we must bring this poor child." She laid a hand on the bacta tank. "There is no way we are leaving a poor, Force sensitive infant to the mercies of an orphanage."
"Of course not!" Leia said immediately, shocked out of her own depression by the suggestion.
Valena smiled. "Good. You yourself have not been changed overmuch, I see."
"But this is madness!" Han said, disturbed. "Leia, you're strong. You can deal with this, like you've dealt with everything else."
Leia sighed and embraced him, pulling him into his cabin to talk privately. "I know that someday, I will be able to control this fear, and that someday will be soon. But I wanted to leave Coruscant before this happened. We don't get enough time together, Han. The upper echelons of its society are no place for normal human relationships. I know. I was a Senator's daughter, and I remember just how much time he spent with me. I don't want my own child to suffer that fate."
"Your own child?" Han asked, wide-eyed.
She nodded. "There was no good time to tell you, but now you should know."
Han kissed her, ecstatic. "Oh, Leia!" After a few minutes of shared joy, he said, "Let's go to Agra, then."
"We can't let anyone know where we've gone- just look at what happened to Luke and Kathri," Leia said warily. "That is a bad sign for us all."
"Then we won't let them know, of course," Han reassured her, still beaming. "But the kid could use a little medical attention, and we'll need to sign off from the Alliance or they'll wonder what happened to us."

"You cannot deny me access to these records," Luke told the Caridan communications officer.
"I cannot deny you access to these records," the officer repeated, beginning the stream of data to Luke's shuttle. Luke sifted through the records of high level espionage transmissions, using his Force guided instincts to search for one single tipoff.
One recurring designation caught at his attention. The intelligence agent known as Bespin-54 had made quite a few reports over the last decade, most notably one specially flagged dated one Standard month before. He asked the database for entries associated with Bespin. Stormtrooper designations flashed up, along with names which meant nothing to him, and one which meant revenge. Lando Calrissian, former baron administrator of the Cloud City tibanna gas mine. Noted was his handing into custody of one Han Solo and subsequent defection from the Empire. Also in his file were several reports he had made to the Empire in the past, regarding smugglers of his acquaintance.
Han and Lando had not spoken in years, but Calrissian was still under commission by the Alliance's fleet. He had access to quite a few levels of communications as a General- or whatever rank he was by this time, Luke knew. If espionage was a sideline for him, he would have been able to overhear conversations Luke had conducted about the transfer to Dagobah. Those conversations had cost Kathri's life.

Lando answered the door of his chamber quickly when the chime sounded. "Luke! I haven't heard from you in years! Come in, come in! How are ya doing?"
The effusive greeting did not ruffle Luke in the slightest. "Horrendously, thank you. Come with me." He grabbed Lando's wrist.
"What do you mean?" Lando asked, incredulous, trying to pull his hand away. "What's wrong with you? Let me go!" Luke pulled him into the corridor against his struggles.
"Give me my wife back," Luke demanded implacably.
The reply perplexed his captive. "I haven't got your wife. Why, should I have her?"
"No, I ought to have her and I don't. Unless I get her back, I'm going to kill you." The calm condemnation panicked Lando, and he tried to pull away again frantically. "Do you have any idea where my wife is?"
"Of course not! I didn't know where in the universe you were until you showed up on my doorstep! I don't understand you; why do you want to kill me?"
"You are responsible for the death of my wife," Luke told him solemnly. "Therefore, you must die."
"Me? You've got bad information. I haven't done anything real in years that could hurt anyone at all, least of all your wife." Lando tugged his arm again, but Luke did not release him.
"Please don't expect me to believe that," Luke said condescendingly as he locked Lando into a pair of binders on his small shuttle. "I'm not as gullible as I once was."
"But I'm telling the truth! You gotta believe me!"
"I don't, and I don't intend to. Go to sleep." Against his own will, Calrissian sagged to the floor.
He woke again to find himself blasted by hot winds and peppered by flying sand. He tried moving his hands experimentally, but the binders were still there. The world was a tan blur. "Awake so soon, Lando?" At the sound of Luke's voice, the recent memories came crashing back.
"I didn't do anything to your wife!" Lando protested, but his words fell on deaf ears.
"You're wasting your breath, and you don't have very many of them left. Use them wisely." Luke stepped into his captive's line of sight and pointed a lazy finger at him.
There was a sudden searing pain in one of Lando's bound hands. He cried out, grimacing. After several seconds, this searing was replace by a slightly duller pain. Lando opened his eyes, examining the hand morbidly. One of his fingernails was missing and replaced by a well of crimson blood. He caught his breath in shock. "Get used to is, murderer," Luke told him coldly. A bandage of simple cloth engulfed the tip of Lando's finger, and an almost imperceptible pressure was released. The blood that had been stanched flowed again. With a negligent gesture, Luke pushed his captive across the sand, up a dune. Lando stumbled at first, then regained his footing and had to nearly run to keep pace with the impetus.
At the apex of the dune, Lando had a moment to look down at a valley and notice an open door at the bottom. Another sudden shove pushed him down, and he rolled into the valley, sand flying by. The doorway was a sudden cliff, and he fell to the bottom of the chamber with a hard landing. Luke arrived more ceremoniously, lit a handlamp and closed the door. "Look, my friend, around my old playhouse. It's your jail now, so I hope you like it." He unlocked Lando's binders, whirling them aimlessly around one finger. "Enjoy your stay. I'll bring you water later, and I shan't be leaving you a light. Goodbye, and hope I don't lose the key to the door. Pray nothing happens to me, so that I can come back and kill you. Besides, you don't want that finger to get infected." The door slammed shut.
After an infinite time bound in darkness, impossibly bright light streamed in the open door. Luke jumped down into the musty dungeon, humming cheerfully. "No binders today, I've decided you don't need them." A finger pointed, and Lando slammed against a wall hard enough to crack a few ribs. "Did you have a good day, or was it three? I don't remember." With the pain coursing through his body, Lando could only groan. "Good. That won't last."
When the light was gone again, the agony was worse.

Parlian gurgled quietly at his aunt as she held him in her arms, rocking him to sleep and worrying about the future. Valena walked into the Falcon's lounge, and Leia held one finger to her lips to forestall speech, laying the baby in his cradle and pulling Valena into a cabin. "We've got all of the nutrients Parlian will need until he's old enough for solid food now, and Anakin's got everything he knows he'll need. Han's coming back here in a few minutes with what he thinks we'll need to settle down. All that remains now is my formal resignation from the Senate."
"It can wait until you feel ready, Leia," Valena said gently.
"I have to be ready now, because everyone else is. If I can't do it today, I never will." She sighed. "The Senate with survive without me."
"Do you want me to come with you as moral support?"
"No, thank you. I have to do this on my own or not at all."
"I understand that you feel you must go, Madame Organa," Mon Mothma said when Leia explained her situation. "I am certain this Alliance will need you in the future, but it is and has always been in your power to leave us."
"Thank you," Leia responded, and meant it. "May I go?"
"You are dismissed until you are ready to come back, Leia Organa Solo. If you ever decide to return to the public services, remember that there will always be a place for you here."
"I shall. Good luck to all of you. May the Force be with the Alliance."
Leia left her old ally's office before the first tears came.


Golden sunlight illuminated the plasteel floor of the old playhouse. It shone on one unconscious man wearing binders that were so tight they cut into his flesh, and on another man who sat looking at him dispassionately until, between one heartbeat and the next, the mutilated man woke. "Good morning, Lando, We're leaving today," was Luke's greeting. Lando groaned, his words long gone for his throat was ragged from screaming in agony. "I have found a quiet place to live where no one will disturb me, but I couldn't bear to leave my old friend behind. It is a good place to die, I think, especially for one such as you. It is more than you deserve." Luke smiled without a hint of mirth, the kind of smile that Darth Vader must have worn behind his mask. He beckoned to the frail and tormented man, and Lando had no choice but to lurch to his feet and hang there like a discarded shirt suddenly suspended on a hanger.
"Let me die now," he begged.
"Oh, I'm not through with you yet. My new planet will be so lovely, it will be a shame that you will have to see it before you die, but this is no place for you. Someone might find you here, or at least your remains, and know what I have done. That would not do, because somehow they might be able to find me, especially if my sister is one of the searchers." Luke was aware that his abused victim could not process the words anymore, but that they were tortuous for that very reason. Because of this, he told Lando almost everything. It could not to do the man any good, and only caused him harm because he had lost his means for understanding language in any great amount.
With this in mind, Luke found a holonews broadcast the moment they left Tatooine's atmosphere and let Lando hear it. He also gave the man a mirror of unbreakable plasteel without sharp edges. Reflected in the mirror was the visage of Lando's worst dreams. All of his dapper charms were erased, leaving only the memories of the time before the pain to haunt him. Lando was a grotesque caricature of himself, hiss face patchworked with scars and marred in shape an color by electricity burns.
Vilan was a peaceful, agricultural planet, and Luke chose a site far from the other inhabitants to set down his shuttle and shove Lando out. He had found it in Coruscant's oldest records during part of his Jedi research. It was marked as one of the Old Republic's least successful colony worlds, because the colonists were of a religion that did not allow large settlements or high technology, and the measure of the newly settled worlds was exactly those two things. It was beautiful, with all manner of growing things in an unspoiled and warm setting.
Prodding Lando along before him, Luke looked for a likely site for a shelter. Since he had decided to live in the tropics, a real house of Coruscanti proportions would be wasteful, but a small roof to keep the rain off was something he could not do without. When he decided on a good place near the shore of an ocean, he left Lando at the place to mark it. The man collapsed without outside support. Luke returned to his shuttle to retrieve the few tools he had thought to bring from Tatooine.
Only when he reached it again did he realize how far he had been from it. Another ship, this one a sleek fighter, was perched beside it, and he had not heard it land. A tall woman stood outside, pacing until she saw him studying her ship. She pointed a blaster directly at him, and he could feel the hate emanating from her. "Skywalker, how good to see you again. Come closer, please, and don't try to run. My aim is just as good far away as it is at point blank range."
Luke complied, walking closer to this threatening woman. He knew who she was, with her flaming red hair and green eyes flashing destruction at him. The memories bequeathed to him by the late Emperor supplied her name, history and capabilities. "At last, Mara Jade. I was wondering how long it would take you to find me. How did you do it? I didn't even feel your Force sense on Tatooine."
"You know my name?" She was caught off guard for a moment, and suddenly he could feel her presence in the Force fully and completely. It was a sensation he did not remember having experienced himself, and the Emperor had known only a part of it. She clutched at her head with one hand, keeping the blaster steadily trained on him with the other. "What are you doing to me, Skywalker? Tell me or I'll kill you right now!"
He was rather overwhelmed, too, but chose not to show it. From somewhere in his own mind, the memory of Leia's holo flickered, calling out, "You're my only hope". To meet Mara's eyes was like that, but totally different at the same time. "I'm not doing anything to you, Jade, and I don't intend to. You're the one who is supposed to kill me."
"Stop playing with my mind, Jedi! You can't know that, unless..." Her face softened, but retained a different sort of intensity than the murderous intent it had displayed at first. "Is it true, then, that the spirit of the Emperor was with you for a time after he died?" The question was wistful, as if the concept was both repulsive to her and her dearest wish.
"It is true," Luke confirmed, "and it was from him that I learned of you and your mission. But he did not tell me what an effect you would have on me, nor my effect on you." He unclipped the lightsaber from his belt and handed it to her as a sign of surrender. "And rest assured, I would not 'play' in the mind of one such as you."
She stared at the lightsaber, confused. "You were supposed to fight me," she said softly, "but you swear that this thing that is in my mind now is not your doing. Are you lying, or are my senses tricking me? You are Skywalker. I must kill you, even though you were bonded with my Master, but somehow I can't. Stop it!"
He spread his hands. "I am not doing it, Mara! It is the Force. I don't know what is going on here, only that somehow we're connected."
"I don't want to be connected to you! I want to kill you!" Her composure gone, she spun on her heel and looked out at the green plants behind her ship. When she spoke again, her voice broke. "I hate you, but I can't. Your mind is open to me, and I know we could talk forever, but I have to kill you! How can I not kill you?"
Impulsively, knowing that she might still use her blaster where it would do the most good, Luke moved closer to her and laid a hand on her shoulder. With the physical contact came an even closer mental one, and their minds reached out again, finding something essential to survival. "If you must kill me, Mara, I know I must die. I know what you feel, and I feel the same way."
Mara spun around again, realizing only as he embraced her that she had put herself into his arms. "This is ridiculous! We just met," she protested, but did not try to break free. Her gentle mental explorations contrasted sharply with her tone and the tense lines of her body. "I've hunted you for years. I can't believe I won't kill you now."
A revelation hit Luke like a bolt of lightning. A dark cloud fell over his mind as the reality of his situation hit him. His mind reeled and her offer seemed sensible. What did real future did he have? Hopelessness filled him. He released her and fell to his knees. "Do it, then. I have nothing to live for. I lost the Light forever, I cannot follow the Dark, and my love is dead. Kill me, Mara Jade. It is the only way."
She backed up slowly, away from him, staring at him in even greater shock. In disgust, she began yelling at him. "You're so childish, and you think you're strong. Devastated by the loss of love, the loss of light? Go kill yourself, Skywalker. You don't deserve my help."
Beneath her strong words, Mara was very confused, trying to figure out exactly what was going on. Luke could feel the turmoil in her heart, but his own decisions bewildered him to the point that her problems did not really register in his mind. "You act as if my problems were nothing, and you don't want to fulfill your last order?"
"I never realized Jedi could be so petty. I lost what you lost years ago, and I am neither whining nor dead."
His answer was petulant. "You had the Emperor to force you through the transition, though, and I can't deal with it by myself."
Her eyes challenged him. "I could help you with it, but I refuse to deal with you if you're complaining. Is that a deal, Jedi?" She extended a hand to help him up.
Luke took her hand and stood. "I understand." While she was little distracted, he embraced her. She stared at him, shocked by his impudence. "Thank you, my Lady. You're my only hope."
Objections rose in her mind, clear to her captor through their bond. She was about to voice them, but thought better of it and kissed him on the cheek. "I hate you, Skywalker."