Shattered Remembrance

Chapter Twenty-four

What was left of the skyhook slowly tilted to one side, and Mara's fingertips scrabbled to find something to hold onto as she slid across the maddeningly smooth floor. During the initial blast, she had been lucky enough to catch a metal support strut as it crashed down from the ceiling. But a second explosion ripped overhead, and she had quickly let go of the strut to prevent following it outside. She could sense Luke nearby, alive and not quite as panicky as she was beginning to get. She couldn't care less what had happened to Callista.

Something wet and sticky was rolling down her face, causing her vision to blur, but she didn't dare raise a hand to wipe it away. Mara could feel her feet reach the jagged edge of the newly created precipice, and she doubled her effort in the Force to slow her descent. But not even the mystical power could defy gravity forever.

The skyhook gave another groan, and the angle of incline increased. It was just as Mara was beginning to plummet through the sky that a strong hand gripped her arm.

"Hold on!"

Squinting through bloody lashes, Mara could just make out Luke, his right hand clamped to a protruding rod, the rest of his body stretched across open space to reach her.

"Grab around my waist!" he shouted, and before Mara could object, he was swinging her toward the lower part of his body. She latched her arms around him, and he immediately raised his left hand to clutch the fragile rod again. But even if Luke could use the Force to catapult the two of them back onto the decking, there was nothing she knew of to hold onto there. Mara wondered if he actually had some plan in mind, or was simply acting out of reflexive desperation.

"I'll get you," a calm voice suddenly stated.

From out of nowhere, gray eyes loomed above. How Callista was keeping from tumbling over the edge, Mara had no idea. Reaching down, the woman grasped Luke's arm and seemingly without effort, hauled him upwards until his entire body was on the deck, with Mara still clinging onto him.

"There are two outside wall girders about ten meters over that you can hold onto," Callista was saying, raising her voice to be heard over the roar of the wind. "Work your way over, hand over hand."

Mara shimmied her way up Luke until she was lying next to him. From there she could see handholds punched into the flooring, spaced about a half-meter apart, leading to a skeletal section of the outside wall that hadn't given way. Where in blazes did those holes come from? They looked too irregular to have been made with a lightsaber, even if Callista had one. Luke turned to give her a little shrug, then started following Callista toward the hoped-for sanctuary, with Mara close behind.

The girders provided a place where they could brace their feet to keep from sliding downward, and Mara breathed a sigh of relief upon reaching them safely. Leaning against Luke, she took the opportunity to study their predicament. The skyhook now hung at about a forty-five degree angle, and from what Mara could estimate, it seemed to be losing altitude.

"I calculate that half of the repulsors are non-functioning," Callista said. "Soon the rest will go out, and the skyhook will fall to the surface."

"Well, there's a cheery thought," Mara returned, pulling her tangled hair away from her eyes. "I'd prefer to be off this thing before that happens. Maybe we can make our way to the shuttle on the roof."

"Yes, I have been gauging the best route—" A clunking roar drowned out the rest of Callista's sentence. It was the shuttle, tumbling off the landing pad and banging against the skyhook on its way to its destruction kilometers below. Luke and Mara clung both to each other and to the mysterious handholds as the skyhook rocked back and forth.

"There goes that idea," Luke muttered. He peered down at Mara's tattered clothing. "Are you all right? Anything broken?"

"I don't think so," she answered, wiggling each limb experimentally. "Just superficial cuts."

"And a nasty gash on your forehead," Luke said, running a finger across her brow.

"How about you?" Mara asked, looking him over with a critical eye. His tunic was ripped down the side, and scratches covered his exposed skin.

"I'm fine," he assured her with a cheeky grin. "Most fun I've had in months."

Mara just rolled her eyes, though inwardly she smiled. She really didn't mind that he'd forgotten about Jedi not craving excitement.

"What about you, Callista?" Luke asked, looking over to where she sat quietly next to them.

"I am undamaged," Callista returned, looking way too calm for Mara's liking. The woman didn't have any blood on her, though her jumpsuit was torn and dirty. She held one arm against a large hole across her abdomen.

"Are you sure? That looks bad." Luke reached up and tried to nudge her arm aside to examine the wound.

"It is nothing," Callista said more forcefully.

"Let me judge that," Luke reiterated, pulling her arm away. Looking over his shoulder, Mara gasped at the same time Luke did. Under Callista's jumpsuit was not a ragged bloody wound, but a tangle of wires and circuits, many broken and sparking.

"You ... you're a droid!" Luke sputtered. He turned wide eyes to Mara. "I was dating a droid?"

Mentally shaking off her shock, Mara took another look at the fist-sized holes punched in the decking, then stared back at Callista's hand. Peering closely, she could see cuts on what had to be synthflesh, revealing more circuitry underneath. "No," Mara said slowly, answering Luke's question, but staring fixedly at the stranger perched next to them. "Callista was using the body of Cray Mingla. A flesh and blood body." She snickered as a thought occurred to her. "Now, Cray had been dating a droid. It didn't work out well."

"Whoa, whoa, whoa," Luke said, shaking his head. "What in the galaxy is going on?"

Ignoring Luke, Mara continued to glare at Callista. "What did you do? Decide to upgrade to a new model? If you couldn't touch the Force in Cray's body, you sure couldn't in a droid's."

"I am not Callista," the mechanical being confessed. Quite unnecessarily, in Mara's opinion. Despite her glib comments, Mara was now convinced this cyborg, or whatever she was, had no connection to Callista other than her outward appearance. "I am an HRD, a human replica droid."

Any retort Mara might have made was forgotten as the skyhook gave a shuddering groan. A loud pop could be heard beneath them, and the station tilted to an even steeper angle.

"Another repulsor has stopped functioning," 'Callista' said.

"Yeah, so we gathered. Look, we can play twenty questions on who or what you are later. Right now we need to get ourselves rescued." Mara gazed out at the city's skyline. "Why aren't there any emergency craft coming? People for kilometers around had to have seen what happened."

"I have deduced that Lord Buaran bribed the planetary personnel to stay away," the droid returned.

"You're probably right," Mara agreed reluctantly. The skyhook was definitely losing altitude now, and at a much faster pace. "And I think it's too much to ask that a passing speeder will happen by."

"Leia," Luke said suddenly, a far-off look in his eye.

"What?"

"Leia's close. I can feel her."

"Here? On Bakura?" Mara had only read the report on Buaran that Leia had sent. She hadn't asked Luke what his sister had said in their conversation. "What are you waiting for? Call her."

Startled out of his daze, Luke began fumbling at his belt. "I think I lost my comlink."

She loved him, but this amnesia was grating on Mara's nerves. "Use the Force, Luke. She's your twin. You can call to her through the Force."

Realization dawned on Luke, and he took a steadying breath. Becoming oblivious to the continuing deterioration of the skyhook, he closed his eyes and Mara could sense him reaching out with the power that he was only beginning to remaster.

***

"You think every planet we visit is pretty," See-Threepio complained to his counterpart.

As the Millennium Falcon was descending toward the main spaceport of Salis D'aar, Artoo-Detoo blew a dissenting snort.

"Yes, even you can't deny that Tatooine was dreadful. I believe I still have granules of sand buried in my joints." The golden droid gave a long-suffering sigh. "But surely you remember how the Bakurans treated us. Restraining bolts! It was humiliating, and from a seemingly civilized society."

Artoo tweedled an objection.

"Yes, I suppose Mistress Captison eventually became an exception. But unfortunately she is no longer here, and neither is Madame Belden. I cannot recall anyone else on Bakura who was even marginally kind to us mechanicals."

Leia was half-listening to the droids' exchange when she sat bolt upright in the oversized co-pilot's seat.

"Leia ... Hear me ... Leia ..."

"Something the matter?" Han asked, frowning at his wife's sudden stillness.

"Luke ..." she whispered.

"He's not in trouble already, is he?" Han quipped. His laughter quieted, though, as Leia continued to stare straight ahead. "Hon?"

"He needs help," she said, finally looking up at her husband.

"Where?" Han said, already reaching for the controls.

Leia paused, then looked starboard. "East," she said.

"Where east? How far?"

"It's not like he can send me a traffic map," Leia bit out, and Han could see she was getting frustrated. "Just keep going that direction, and hopefully I can tell when we're getting close."

"The odds of finding Master Luke by flying randomly over the city are approximately eight hundred fifty-six thousand, eight hundred twenty-two to one. However, the use of the Force by Her Highness greatly distorts this figure, as the Force is an incalculable variant—"

"Threepio, please! I'm trying to concentrate!" Leia rubbed the sides of her forehead wearily, then suddenly stopped. Looking out the forward viewscreen, she could hear the breath catch in her throat. "Oh, my stars," she murmured, her hand coming up to cover her mouth. The shattered remains of what appeared to have been a small skyhook was falling through the air.

And Luke was on it.

She could sense him, calling out to her through the Force at an even more urgent pace. "I'll open the top hatch," she cried, tearing off her crash webbing and springing out of her seat.

"No!" Han called, causing her to hesitate. "That thing could clip the Falcon on the way down. Use the belly hatch. They'll have to jump across."

Leia didn't answer. She ran as fast as she could through the ring corridor to the bottom hatch and slammed her fist against the release switch. With a skill no one could match, Han maneuvered the ship alongside the falling skyhook, then let the Falcon drop straight down. Leia could see Luke and Mara clinging to a girder, their hair and clothes whipping in the strong wind, and she motioned them to jump.

Luke sprang first, Mara a split second behind him. It didn't escape Leia's notice that they were holding hands. Just so they wouldn't get separated during the jump? She could ponder that later. As Luke landed, he quickly looked behind him. Callista was still on the skyhook, and the ground was coming up fast.

"Hurry!" he yelled, and Callista sailed through the air. For a horrifying moment, Leia thought the woman had missed. But then Luke was kneeling at the edge of the boarding ramp. Mara had one hand gripping the ramp's strut, the other clutching the back of his tunic. Han was already zooming upward, narrowly missing the top of a gleaming skyscraper. Luke leaned over, and Leia could finally spot a hand holding onto the ramp's frame. He reached down and helped pull his former girlfriend onboard.

Callista said something to him, and Leia could barely catch his reply of 'Just returning the favor.' Everyone winced as, seconds later, the skyhook crashed to the surface with a deafening boom. The bedraggled trio hurried inside, and Leia quickly closed the hatch.

"We need to go after Buaran," Mara said, her attention focused on Luke. He nodded in agreement, then turned to Callista.

"Where would he be hiding? From his comment of having a good vantage point, I'm assuming he's somewhere nearby."

"Or making his escape by now," Mara put in.

"Hold on." Leia held up one hand to stop their planning. "I don't know what's going on, but no one is going anywhere until you get those wounds tended." She swept her eyes over the group. Luke had numerous cuts and scratches. A gash on Mara's forehead was trickling blood down her face. And Callista ...

Leia did a double take. Callista had a ragged hole in the front of her jumpsuit, and she was ... sparking?

Mara following Leia's line of sight. "Long story." She narrowed her eyes at the other woman standing behind Luke. "Of which we've heard very little."

***

It was the strangest sight Han could remember seeing in ages. He had landed the Falcon at the nearest public spaceport, and was now leaning against the doorway to the ship's small medbay. Having already sealed Mara's head wound, Leia was now fussing over her brother, lying on the only recovery berth. Luke kept trying to raise up on one elbow, and Leia kept pushing him back down. Mara had moved to a small stool, where Threepio was helpfully handing her tubes of bacta gel and packets of bandages. Mara's expression left no doubt as to how much she appreciated the help.

Luke and Mara are already filled them in on the true nature of Ra'uf Buaran. Now everyone's attention centered on the tale being related by the Callista-like droid. She lay on a worktable, where Artoo was methodically reconnecting her inner circuits.

"I began working for Lord Buaran approximately six standard months ago," the droid began. "As his chief of security."

"Why does a droid need a job?" Han asked. "It's not like you need to worry about food or shelter. Can't you just stand in a closet and recharge or something at night?"

"Even a droid needs to purchase fuel for its ship," she returned.

"Guess you don't have to worry about that anymore," Mara put in. "I doubt there's anything left of it."

"The shuttle we arrived in belonged to Lord Buaran," the droid answered. "My ship is a modified Surronian Conqueror assault craft. It is in a private hanger here on Salis D'aar."

"A Surronian Conqueror! Wow." Luke raised up again, and this time Leia let him be. "I saw a picture of one of those. Aren't they pretty rare?"

"So are HRD's," Mara said dryly.

"Most sentients find it hard to accept that a mechanical can have possessions of its own," Threepio piped up.

Leia kept silent, but she was eyeing the droid with a renewed look of interest.

"How 'bout we cut to the chase here, and you tell us why in blazes you look like Luke's old flame," Han said. "I have to believe you didn't always look like this."

"No, Captain Solo," the droid affirmed. "My current appearance was Lord Buaran's idea. He informed me of his wish to reward Master Skywalker for saving Bakura, and told me how Master Skywalker was very humble, and would not journey to Bakura without the proper incentive. He described to me how Master Skywalker had been in love with a woman named Callista Ming, and that being reunited with Callista would bring joy to him. Lord Buaran concluded that Master Skywalker would agree to come to Bakura if the request came from Callista. He related that he had tried to locate Callista Ming, but was unable."

Han shook his head. "And you believed all that garbage?"

"I had no reason to doubt him," the droid replied.

"You think he really did try to recruit the real Callista?" Leia asked, finally giving up on putting bacta patches on Luke when he sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the berth.

"I do not know."

"So this is when he got the bright idea to make you look like her," Mara concluded. She was leaning back on her stool, arms crossed and looking none too happy about the whole scheme. "And you just blithely went along with it."

"I had met Master Skywalker on two previous occasions," the droid said. "He had been kind to me both times. I concluded that I could repay him by providing him with a means of being with the woman he loved."

Leia's eyes narrowed, while Luke looked even more confused.

"What do you mean, you'd met him before?" Leia said. Han was beginning to form a guess about this droid, and he suspected Leia was coming to the same conclusion.

"The first time was in the castle of my original owner, Prince Xizor. I wanted to challenge a Jedi, and even though he won the contest, Master Skywalker allowed me to escape. The second time was on Hurd's Moon. Together with you, Captain Solo, and Your Highness," the droid nodded Leia's direction, "Master Skywalker helped thwart an attempt by Prince Xizor's niece to steal me. I had been able to have my programming as an assassin erased. Master Skywalker giving me a second chance is one of the few memories I was able to retain."

"Guri!" Leia and Mara cried at the same time.

"Yes, my designation is Guri."

Artoo tootled, withdrawing his repair pincer, and Guri sat up.

"So let me get this straight ..." Mara stood, hands on hips. "Luke was nice to you, so you decided to repay him by pretending to be his old girlfriend, at the behest of your new boss, whose motives should have been suspect. Now, unless this what-had-to-be-expensive reconstructive surgery was meant to be permanent, you had to know that at some point you would leave Luke, which would cause him to relive the grief that he felt when Callista left the first time."

"But—" Luke started to say, but Mara plunged ahead.

"Granted, his amnesia was an unanticipated snag in your little web of deceit. Though in hindsight, it was probably a boon for you. If Luke had remembered Callista, he would've seen through your charade in a heartbeat. But either way, I can't believe you didn't foresee how much you would hurt him, having him think his old flame had returned, only to have him be disappointed once more."

"Lord Buaran directed that I indicate that I was visiting only to check on Master Skywalker's well-being after his accident," Guri said evenly. "My task was to provide temporary pleasure to Master Skywalker, then bring him to Bakura for a short getaway trip."

"I could kick myself for not uncovering your deception." Mara grimaced. "Though you did a fairly convincing job, I'll admit." Up until you started dishing out advice to the lovelorn, Mara thought.

"I downloaded all footage of Callista that exists, from holozines, the holonet, and security vids from various buildings. I analyzed her interaction with Master Skywalker. My programming allows me to imitate the voice and mannerisms of any humanoid being."

"I was once called upon to imitate the voice of Her Highness," Threepio added.

"Don't remind me," Han drawled. "I had nightmares for a week, hearing Leia's voice coming out of you, Goldenrod."

"I can't believe you wanted me to sleep with you, Guri," Luke said, almost to himself.

"What?!" Mara's head jerked up. "You didn't, did you?"

"No!" Luke looked aghast. "But still ..."

"I am fully functional in all forms of sexual mating," Guri informed the group. "I studied data on the psychology of romantic liaisons." She looked Luke's direction. "I did not believe my programming would be inadequate to the task. My research indicated that all males desired coupling on a regular basis. Prince Xizor did."

"Some men desire it to be with the right person," Luke murmured, his gaze falling on Mara.

Silence fell on the small group. Han glanced between Luke and Mara, then gave Leia a smug wink. "So," he said, rubbing his hands. "Everyone patched up and ready to go track down Buaran?"

"I am familiar with his factories and his home," Guri stated. "I do not anticipate difficulty in finding him."

"If he's even still on-planet," Mara grouched.

"We can check from this spaceport as to whether his private yacht has departed," Guri said. "However, he has a cadre of personal guards. I do not believe he would flee in fear. He may even have assumed that we perished in the skyhook's destruction."

"I never count on maybes," Han said. "Let's roll."