Out of the Shadows 11

Mara Jade’s apartment – Coruscant

Mara dropped the carryall containing her gym clothes on the floor and headed over to her workstation. Karrde’s latest piece of information was now definitely burning a hole in her pocket. But the visit to the gym had been worthwhile. It would be interesting to find out if Leia Organa kept to a regular schedule whilst on Coruscant.

“Computer…switch on – voice print recognition…”

“Mara Jade,” the computer answered.

“Data retrieval function,” she ordered. “File – Skywalker.” She trailed through to her tiny kitchen and prepared herself a mug of stim tea and a snack. Deep in thought, she leant against the kitchen counter.

“Surely Skywalker was Organa’s lover and then she dumped him,” Mara muttered to herself. “It’s a good reason for vanishing – well, it's one reason.” The holo clips of them together had often shown Skywalker and the princess hugging or kissing one another – never passionately though, she admitted with a puzzled frown. It had been almost fraternal. Mara wondered if, perhaps, the princess was as puritanical as she looked. Yet, Organa had shown a zealous fire for her rebel cause.

After Hoth she had moved away from the young Jedi and on to Solo as they fled in fear of their lives, the Empire breathing down their necks. Vader had them in his clutches and had foolishly let them go. Organa had shown a devotion to Solo that had made her brave Jabba the Hutt’s palace on Tatooine to rescue him with Skywalker’s help. Mara had seen them together for herself and despite the mild bickering between them at Karrde’s, she could only sense…togetherness. There had even been rumours of an engagement and the odd encounters between Solo and Organa seen on the holonet news had certainly been involved.

Mara mentally scoffed at the idea. Even the New Republic would never allow an Organa of the Alderaanian Royal House to marry a smuggler, no matter how brave or successful Solo had been for the Rebellion. It would never have been allowed during the Emperor’s reign. The division between classes and races had been absolute.

“But the Emperor is dead,” the little voice inside her head taunted. “His reign is over for good because you failed.”

Yet Skywalker must have forgiven the princess for moving on to Solo. The later holo-vids of the three together had shown a deep visible affection for one another no matter how often Mara tried to see signs of strife. The young Jedi had obviously masterminded Solo’s rescue on Tatooine and they had served on the Bakuran mission together. Would you do that for someone who had usurped your place in someone’s bed? Maybe Skywalker would. But he was evil…wasn’t he?

It was only after returning from the Bakuran mission that he had disappeared. What had happened there? All the intel on his disappearance had not suggested that anything out of the ordinary had happened. Why had he disappeared – where had he gone?

Clutching a large mug of stim tea Mara wandered over to her workstation and slotted in the new information chip Karrde had given her. He’d said that he hadn’t reviewed the information it contained but had just scanned through the files. Mara wasn’t fooled into thinking that her enigmatic boss wasn’t unknowing. As she opened the first file and read the various headings, her mouth dropped open. No, this wasn’t at all what she had expected to see. She scanned disbelievingly over the contents. “No…” Mara gave a shaky laugh, trying to calm her suddenly racing heart. She placed the mug on the desk worried that her shaky fingers might let it slip from their grasp.

The words scrolling across the screen told a different story from what Mara was expecting to read. A contact of Karrde’s, active in the Rebellion three years ago, had heard rumours that Skywalker and the Princess of Alderaan were in some way related. It had all been very hush-hush at the time. Somehow Karrde had managed to find out but hadn’t taken it any further. It suited the smuggler chief to leave things as they were.

Startled by the revelation, Mara thought at first that this was a little bit far fetched and was ready to dismiss it out of hand. She paused. But if it were true, there were major implications for the New Republic . What were they to each other if there was a family connection, Mara wondered? First cousins or even second cousins? Was Skywalker the bastard by-blow of some minor Alderaanian noble? Skywalker had been raised on Tatooine and Organa on Alderaan. What had Skywalker’s mother done to deserve such a punishment? It must have been serious to be banished there of all places.

Mara gave a dry chuckle, her normal pragmatism rearing its head. “Come on, Jade. You’ll be thinking he’s related to Vader next,” she told herself, her normal dark humour surfacing. As if the throat squeezing, heavy breathing sith lord had ever been close enough to a woman to reproduce. She gave a little shudder. That thought was a little too disturbing, even for her.

Still, if Karrde had thought this gossip worthy of note, then she should follow it up. Karrde usually got things right. Who then, was Luke Skywalker? If the relationship was distant that wouldn’t stop the aristocracy from getting together. Many a minor relative had married another to secure an inheritance or just to keep it in the family. Some of the Imperial Court had obviously interbred too closely with one another.

But if Skywalker and Organa were related…

Something nagged at her brain – something unusual. There was still something important; she knew there was… Mara nodded with satisfaction as daylight dawned. Of course! She castigated herself as a fool. The princess was probably Force sensitive. Such abilities often ran in families but there was no record of Jedi ever coming from the royal house of Alderaan. Well, well, well. That could explain the unfamiliar sensation of someone attempting to read her through the Force. Both times she had been in the presence of the princess she’d instinctively raised the shields Palpatine had taught her to erect inside her mind. The sensation had been raw…untutored…but it had been there. How could she discover for certain?

She flicked on her com. “ Ghent ?”

“Mara!”

“I need you to break into some files for me.” Her voice was deliberately casual.

“Difficult ones?” Talon Karrde’s chief slicer sounded hopeful.

“Could be.”

The young voice perked up. “Oh, finally!” he exclaimed. “Something decent to do. I’ve been kinda bored since we landed. Tell me what you want.”

“Break into the medical files belonging to Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan and,, if they are there, Jedi Luke Skywalker. I want to know blood types and tissue samples. I presume the Manarai Medical Centre will have them. It’s where most of the New Republic High Command go for their aches and pains.”

“Do they have them?”

“Do they have what?” Mara queried bemusedly.

“Aches and pains.”

“They deserve to have them,” she growled.

“Why do you want Organa and Skywalker’s med files?”

“It’s an investigative project I’m doing for Karrde.”

“Eh! That’s a new one on me. Financial institutions and political groups I can understand but medical centres?”

“Humour me.”

“Okay, but how could that help the organisation? I don’t get it.”

“If they’re sick we know what drugs to smuggle into Coruscant,” she retorted. Mara could visualise him, in the little cubby hole he called ‘quarters’ on the Wild Karrde, screwing up his face in bewilderment under his untidy hair. “You don’t need to ‘get’ anything from this, apart from the results…and Ghent …”

“Yeah!”

“Keep this to yourself for the moment. Karrde doesn’t want it going around.”

“Yeah…Okay!” he muttered.

But she could tell that he didn’t understand and she wasn’t prepared to explain. Mara clicked off her com and opened another file. Ghent was Talon Karrde’s best slicer and where he’d come from, she hadn’t cared enough to ask. She’d never seen a code he couldn’t crack or a file he couldn’t break into. He did it just for fun. But then, he didn’t have, or seemed to want, much of a life. Still, he was happy and well treated - what more did he need, she asked herself. He didn’t need to understand about this. It was none of his business.

She noted the information appearing on her monitor. It pretty much tracked where the young Jedi had been at certain times during the Rebellion. He’d appeared out of nowhere with Obi-Wan Kenobi, Solo and the Wookiee. ‘Nowhere’ had later on turned out to have been Tatooine. Mara scowled. One of her least favourite places and not particularly high in the list of important destinations for the discerning galactic tourist, unless you had a fixation about sand, more sand, a binary sun system and stifling temperatures.

An exact fix on his location had been sketchy after the destruction of the first Death Star but it was known that he’d been present, three years later, during the Hoth battle where the Empire had been victorious yet had failed to capitalise on that victory. Mara had blamed the generals and Vader. Luke Skywalker, along with the Rebel leadership had disappeared again for several more months until he had returned to rescue his friends and ultimately face Darth Vader at Bespin. The young Jedi had escaped with his life, if not his right hand.

Mara’s mouth firmed slightly. He must be good, she thought grudgingly, to have survived lightsaber combat against the dark lord of the Sith. Mara had seen Vader in action and it had been…impressive. The top of the range combat droids had all been totally annihilated; she had walked in on him once finishing one off with cold, relentless efficiency. It had to have been around that time that Vader’s obsession with Skywalker had spiralled out of control and, Mara had to admit, so had the Emperor’s. Why? Mara wondered what part of the puzzle she was missing.

Had she been jealous of the interest her master had in a boy from a tenth rate rim world? Of course not. To her distress, Palpatine had shut her out, plotting and scheming to no avail. If he had only trusted her with more information, she could have saved him. It was hard to stomach the fact that her master had withheld from her the vital information that could have kept him alive. But he had and she’d failed. Skywalker had escaped Tatooine with Organa, Calrissian, Solo, the Wookiee and those blasted droids he seemed to have following him around everywhere.

No one disappeared as thoroughly as Luke Skywalker did unless they were dead or they were a Jedi Knight in hiding… Her thoughts trickled to a stop. Skywalker was a Jedi Knight, not an ordinary human. Still, there had to be a trail left somewhere and if there was, Karrde would have picked it up – she’d bet her blaster on it. If only she’d still had the Force, she could have tracked him.

Mara moved onto the next file and miraculously, considering the black mood she was in, almost found it funny. It marked possible Jedi sightings in and around the Outer Rim – specifically Tatooine and other worlds within the nearest hyperspace routes.

Mara scowled as that wasn’t much help. Tatooine was one of the worlds at a nexus point. He could visit Tatooine and be anywhere within a few hours with just a simple hyperdrive manoeuvre. The first few sightings were ludicrous as it placed Skywalker in four different places at the same time. She’d heard of and seen the Emperor and Vader do many amazing things but even they couldn’t be everywhere at once.

Her com buzzed stridently. “Yes?”

“It’s me.” Ghent ’s excited voice said.

“ Ghent ?” she queried in disbelief. “Already?”

“Their encryption codes are so weak that it’s criminal…”

“I’ll tell them that next time I pop in for a caf.” Mara retorted as she checked her wrist chrono. She’d only called the slicer twenty minutes ago.

“I mean…any second rate code breaker could have hacked into these files if they’d a spare hour or two.”

“ Ghent , you must have taken all of ten minutes.” Her mood lightening, Mara couldn’t quite keep the anticipation from out of her voice.

“As long as that,” he muttered and Mara thought that he smiled. “Yeah, I suppose that’s not bad,” he conceded complacently. “Some of those files are highly confidential.”

“That’s why I wanted you to break into them,” Mara stated, rolling her eyes. He really needed to get out more. “If they hadn’t been confidential there would have been no need to break into them. I hope you didn’t trip any safeties?”

“I got past them – too easy to find and I’m talking about the hidden ones.”

“Did you find what I wanted?”

“Yes and no.”

“Yes and no,” Mara echoed slowly.

“I managed to gain access to Princess Leia’s medical records but Commander Skywalker’s files are not kept in that location because he has never been a patient there.”

“Commander Skywalker?”

“That’s how he’s referred to in all the files.”

“But you said there weren’t records of him at the Manarai.”

“There aren’t. I tried looking for them in other places.”

Mara was one of the few who knew that Skywalker’s right hand was a prosthetic; therefore, he had to have been a patient somewhere. Mara mentally kicked herself as she realised that of course he wouldn’t be on file in the Manarai; the New Republic hadn’t been in residence on Coruscant at the time of his disappearance. “So where are they kept? Did you manage to find that out?” Her voice was dry. Sarcasm was wasted on Ghent – he never usually noticed it, taking everything literally.

“Sure I did. They’re in the memory banks of the 2-1B droid that’s operational on board the Mon Calamarian star ship Home One.”

“Sithspit!” Mara swore under her breath, trying to work out how Ghent had managed to find out that much sensitive information in such a very short time. “Can you access these files? I would really like the information.”

“Sorry.” Ghent ’s voice drooped. “I could do it but it would take me several weeks to get near the New Republic ship’s systems. That’s if I could get into them, let alone crack into their medical files. It would take a lot of time. They have some really good encryptors on board that ship. I’m better…” he said this matter-of-factly, “but it would definitely slow me down.”

“I don’t have that sort of time.”

“I didn’t think you would have. I did do a general search for Skywalker and there are files in the old Imperial database but they were in a language I couldn’t read.”

Mara froze…What kind of language, she wondered, a cold feeling invading her stomach. The language of the Sith lords? While she wasn’t fluent in the language, it had formed part of her studies. For some reason it hadn’t been a part of her education that she’d enjoyed. There had been something cold and dark about it which had made her uneasy. The Emperor had deemed it necessary for her to learn in case she ever came across any Sith artefacts. “Can you send them to me? I may be able to decipher them.”

“Okay, patching them through.”

Mara clicked on another file provided by her boss as she waited for Ghent ’s files to arrive. “Possible sightings of Jedi,” she read. “Oh, come on, Karrde. I found it hard to believe the last one but now we’re checking the optical illusions and hallucinations of every spice riddled addict the outer Rim has in its spaceport cantinas.” Mara scowled. “Now why doesn’t that surprise me?”

When the computer gave a little whirr. Mara flicked on her com. “Got the files, Ghent , thanks.”

“Any time, Mara.”

“I owe you one,” she said, as she cut the connection.

She opened Ghent ’s file and found that it was written in a kind of gibberish she’d not seen since she’d worked for Palpatine. There was always the chance that Ghent , given time, would be able to decipher the files but as she’d said earlier, she didn’t have the luxury of time to allow him to do that. Karrde would be expecting results sooner rather than later and as Mara already knew some of the solutions to Palpatine’s files; it would be far swifter for her to do it.

Mara typed in one of the secret codes she remembered from her childhood and breathed a sigh of relief as things began to happen. “Good.” This was indeed familiar to her after all.

It wasn’t a sith language after all. She’d only applied the first layer of decrypt codes and already she could see through the shields – there would be at least another three. Five minutes later she had the information taken from the examination of Luke Skywalker’s hand – the one he’d lost in his duel with Vader on Bespin. A file marked ‘Anakin’ she ignored. Anakin who? Skywalker wasn’t a common name but there was bound to be other stragglers mixed into Ghent ’s searches. The galaxy was a big place, after all, surely there was more than one of them. The only Skywalker she was interested in was a farmboy turned would-be Jedi from the planet Tatooine.

Removing the identities of her subjects from the files - she understood the need for secrecy in this case - Mara contacted Karrde’s doc-droid and sent him the two files asking for a comparison. Now all she could do was wait. This could take long enough too.

Mara glanced at her wrist chrono and decided to return to the file containing the information on the mythical sightings of the Jedi knights across the galaxy. An hour later, she stared disgruntled at the vid-screen. This wasn’t research – it was fiction.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dagobah

Luke slid the last of the data rods into his scanner and gave a sigh of disappointment. Yoda had been right, he thought. There was nothing here to give clues on the whereabouts of possible Jedi recruits. But he had been so sure that Mace Windu would have left them some trail to follow. There had been some interesting files on various aspects of a Jedi’s lightsaber training and the styles involved but that wasn’t what he or Master Yoda had hoped for. Still, Luke saved the information for later – he wanted to continue to improve his lightsaber skills. As Obi-Wan had once told him, it was a discipline for the mind as well as the body.

His master was resting again. The old sage slept more and more, conserving his energy so as to be able to instil as much knowledge about the life of the Jedi as he possibly could into his young apprentice before he took his final sleep and became one with the Force. The young Jedi guessed that this wouldn’t be long.

Luke gazed absently as the series of picturesque holos of various worlds as they flashed across the second hand monitor he’d picked up. He’d been so sure that they would have found some sort of clue to guide them – convinced that all he had to do was to fire up his computer and the evidence would be laid before him. Instead he had a Jedi Master’s holiday guide to the pleasure worlds of the Outer Rim systems and he wasn’t even certain which worlds those holos he was staring at were from. He closed his eyes and rested his head on his hands, his mind trying to think of where to go next.

“Not ready for this knowledge are you?”

Luke lifted his head. Yoda’s voice sounded so clear that he actually turned expecting to see his old master behind him only to find that he was alone. And then it struck him. Of course look at the obvious. Things are best hidden in plain sight. He could be so dense at times. How many times had he to be told? “Use the Force, Luke,” he whispered.

“I am ready,” he whispered. “Curse my impatience. On occasions I am blind to what is staring me in the face but I’m learning to see between the shifting layers of the Force. I’m ready to persevere in my tasks.” These worlds must hold the clues and he would just have to find them.

Yoda had reached out with the Force to see if there was anything for them to find in the miscellaneous data chips and rods and had decided that there was nothing but the old Jedi was ill and wasn’t seeing things with the same clarity he once had. Suppose the box had fallen into the wrong hands? A Dark Lord of the Sith, also strong in the Force, would have been able to tell if something important to the Jedi lurked in the container. Luke’s own instincts had been the right ones. He had nearly forgotten to use his head. In this case, logic told him that Mace Windu may have been desperate to hide his treasures but he had never forgotten the need to see the larger picture - the need for secrecy and concealment. It could mean the future of the order he had given his life for.

He ran the sequence of pictures. None of them struck a chord in his memory. None of them were familiar apart from one – the Jedi Temple on Coruscant. He should have expected that. A picture of a sunset appeared, followed by a beautiful vista containing glorious views of hills and forests. Was it a single world or a star system, or was it just perhaps a Jedi’s holiday record? Somehow Luke doubted that the last one was the right answer. This world, or if it was more than one, worlds - held the next piece of their puzzle. This was strange because up until now, Luke hadn’t realised that he had a puzzle to solve.

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Coruscant

Mara sauntered casually across the gym on the pretence of checking out the many exercise machines on offer, keeping her eyes open for any sight of Leia Organa. After a while, she caught sight of a dark head of intricately braided hair through an observation viewport in one of the private studios. The princess was going through an aerobic workout with an instructor. The last princess of Alderaan was keeping to a strict regime whilst on Coruscant. Good, Mara thought with satisfaction. This was the best chance she had of befriending the princess and then asking Organa casual questions about the location of her missing…’friend’. It galled her to have to do this but she’d had to use many deceptions when she’d served the Emperor.

Mara moved into the adjoining studio and began her own warm up routine, stretching muscles used in fighting as well as dancing. It wouldn’t do to let her skills atrophy. Soon she had forgotten about her troubles, her job, Skywalker and even Leia Organa as she lost herself in the rhythm and melody of the music.

Leia, her own workout finished, paused in front of the observation viewport. “Who is that?” she asked her personal fitness coach curiously. “She looks familiar.”

“I’m not sure, Your Highness…”

“Is she a member of staff?”

“No…I don’t think so.”

“She’s very impressive,” she commented, as the woman spun into a series of graceful leaps, her red-gold hair flying behind her as if she’d been caught by the wind.

Red-gold hair.

Leia’s brow furrowed. She’d only met one other person recently on Coruscant with hair of that particular shade. It couldn’t possibly be Talon Karrde’s frosty assistant, could it? It just wasn’t likely. There were billions of beings on this world and more than one of them had to have a hair colour so unusual.

The fitness coach was tapping commands into a terminal Leia hadn’t previously noticed. “This member’s identity chip lists her name as ‘Mara Jade’,” he said.

It was Karrde’s unfriendly second-in-command but Leia would never have guessed she could move like that. In fact, the Coruscant ballet elite soloists didn’t move like that. It was breathtaking. So why was she working for a smuggler when she could be a professional dancer? Then Leia considered that Talon Karrde was the most successful smuggler chief she knew – so it could be monetary.

The faint sound of the music stopped and the redhead turned abruptly as if she sensed someone watching her. Green eyes met brown through the transparisteel barrier and Mara gave a strange smile acknowledging Leia’s presence. The princess inclined her head formally before leaving.

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Mara allowed herself a satisfied smile after Leia had moved away. That had worked out better than she had expected. The princess had recognised her. She’d felt something like a warning – the sensation almost felt like the ones she used to experience when the Emperor had guided her with the Force but far weaker. She’d felt nothing for so long. Mara let out a sigh. Hopefully Organa would be there the following day – she wanted to talk to her. She began stowing her gear back into her carryall but was interrupted by her com.

“Jade!” she said tersely.

It was the doc-droid from the Wild Karrde. “The information on the data cards sent to me have been analysed and a hypothesis given. There can be no doubt at all on this matter – no doubt at all.”

“Have you sent them to my apartment?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I’ll get back to you if I have any questions. I don’t want to discuss this over an open com channel.” Mara flicked off her com and quickly showered, changed and caught the first shuttle car back to her apartment building. As she walked into her lounge area she could see a light flashing on her communications console.

“You have data,” the computer intoned pleasantly.

“I know that,” Mara muttered. Typical artificial intelligence - always thinking they were one up on you.

She didn’t think there was any truth in the rumours that Organa and Skywalker were actually related. It was far too improbable. The Jedi had lived all his life on Tatooine until he had joined the rebellion and the princess had grown up with all the privilege of rank at the royal court on Alderaan.

Mara poured herself a glass of water and seated herself at her desk and opened the file. In reality, this was a waste of time.

Coughing and spluttering as her drink went down the wrong way, she stared in shock at the data scrolling across her screen. This really wasn’t possible. It just couldn’t be. But Karrde’s doc-droid had said there was ‘no possible doubt’. There had to be a mistake somewhere. She checked and re-checked the details – no, everything was correct.

The whole thing was laid out before her. Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa weren’t just distantly related; they were much more than that. The doc-droid’s report stated quite categorically that they were brother and sister – in fact, they were twins.

She looked at the similarities matching their blood together and the doc-droid was right. There was no possible doubt whatsoever. Mara wondered if anyone in the New Republic hierarchy had the faintest idea about this little time bomb. Karrde had not known the whole truth though his instinct had told him something important was there. But damaging to Organa, Mara wasn’t so sure. It would certainly be headline news. Another thought struck her. Did this mean that Princess Leia wasn’t the child of Bail Organa? If she was, why would the Viceroy of Alderaan deny the existence of a son and heir unless he wasn’t his son. And if Luke Skywalker wasn’t the Viceroy’s son, then Leia wasn’t his daughter. Who was the father of Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa and why had they been separated and raised in the manner they had been? Alderaan to Tatooine were opposite ends of the galaxy in more ways than one. Alderaan had been a planet of beauty, wealth and high culture whereas Tatooine… It barely existed.

Did the Jedi and his sister know of their hidden relationship? More questions to which Mara had no idea how to answer.

But she was convinced, more than ever, that if the twins were aware of their connection to one another, then Leia Organa knew the whereabouts of Luke Skywalker.

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