DISCLAIMER: Star Wars and all publicly recognisable characters, names and references, etc are the sole property of George Lucas, Lucasfilm Ltd, Lucasarts Inc, 20th Century Fox, Timothy Zahn, Barbara Hambly, YKW and the other writers of the expanded Star Wars Universe. This fan fiction was created solely for entertainment and no money was made from it. Also, no copyright or trademark infringement was intended. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. Any other characters, the storyline and the actual story are the property of the author.
They were sneaky, whoever these guys were, Luke decided as he made his way carefully to his Coruscant apartment. Maybe if he could stay out of view long enough he'd find a place to attack---
Green lazer blasted past him and he dove for cover behind a nearby column that stuck out from the wall. He automatically grabbed his lightsaber and ignited it, sending a burst of green light against the pale walls of the hallway. Just as he was about to attack, he noticed that someone else had a lightsaber, too, and his was bright orange.
Luke turned his head to see Cal cut right into the small band of terrorists, swinging his lightsaber two and fro. Luke followed, desperate to check on Mara. She was okay, but wouldn't be for long if the attackers didn't relent.
Cal reached the door first, slicing one of the intruders in half as he passed by him. Luke shouted out a "HEY!" but Cal was already in the room. Luke heard the loud sound of blaster fire bouncing off a lightsaber blade, and Mara's startled cry. When Luke finally caught up with them, he saw that Mara and Han had tipped over a very heavy stone table and were hiding behind it with Vaiya clutched between them. Mara was peeking over the table at Cal.
"You were expecting someone else?" Cal announced loudly.
But the fight wasn't over yet. The troops had retreated out of the suite and into the hallway, but they were determined to take a body count that day of the opposing side. Cal turned back to focus his attention on deflecting blaster bolts, while Mara lept over the table to Luke's side.
"Stay with Vaiya," she ordered.
"Why? Where are you going?"
"To prove a theory!" She pulled her lightsaber off her belt and ignited it.
"Hell of a time!" he practically shrieked, but she was gone and out the door, every bit the fierce protecter she had always been.
Mara dove for the floor the second she stepped into the hallway, her lightsaber neatly twisting around her so she didn't cleave herself in two. She rolled between the bright red and green bolts of blaster fire, then landed on her knees and brought her saber up, the pale turquoise of the blade lighting up her green eyes and giving them an errie glow. Mara felt the bloodfrenzy of battle attempt to descend upon her. She'd been in places like this before, and had always defended herself from her anger, using rage to give her strength, even if she wasn't using the Force.
But anger and rage were the dark side. She had learned something in all these years with Luke. She had to fight from calm. So she stretched out with the Force, and found it waiting for her, her eager defender. She sucked in her breath and let it out again, an easy calming technique, regular and soothing in the midst of the chaos around her.
There was something else different about this, she realized as she deflected the bolts off her glowing blade. Luke had told her that the Force was never to be used on the offensive--only defensive. That was why a Jedi only carried a lightsaber. Mara was deflecting the bolts, but this wasn't going anywhere. They were going to keep firing until they ran out of ammo, or her arms fell off, whichever came first.
She didn't care what side of the Force it called upon. In the days she'd spent as the Emperor's Hand until her days with the Smuggler's Alliance, she'd learned one thing. The best defense was a good offense. And these slime sucking son-of-a-hutts were attacking her family. She would defend them until the last of them dropped dead for all she cared.
Mara slashed forward, deflecting the bolts at an angle now, using them as her own weapons as she moved closer to her attackers. She watched their expressions change from the neutral soldiers to the terrified victims as she got closer, but they were backing away, making room for themselves down the hallway. Luckily for her, there was debris.
She reached out with the Force and started to stir up the fallen objects. Pieces of rubble from where the blasters had damanged the walls started to fly in their faces. She slid a few heavy objects--a few colums that had held large vases containing giant plants, a decorative touch Mara had always disliked--behind them, and at least three of the eight would-be assassins fell, shrieking for mercy. As Mara passed one of them, she picked up his blaster before she knocked him out cold with the heel of her lightsaber.
This was more like it. Now she was in business.
"You're just going to stand there and let Mara go out there and risk her neck?!" Han Solo stared at Luke, his mouth agape. Beside him, Vaiya peeked over the top of the fallen table. "I don't believe this, Luke. You let her go chasing around the galaxy for a child of yours that isn't even hers, and now you let her go fight your battles for you while you hang back and play babysitter! I know Jedi's are supposed to be into this 'calm and tranquil' routine, but there is a time and place for everything, Luke!"
Only a second had passed since she'd disappeared. He hadn't had enough time to think it through, and already Han was jumping down his throat.
"I wasn't planning on it, but what else can I do? Someone has to stay with Vaiya."
"I'll stay with her," Han said, grasping Vaiya's hand. "I'll get her to our apartment and leave her with the Nighori. If you had accepted their offer as bodyguards before, trust me, you wouldn't have to deal with this mess right now."
Luke swallowed over a knot in his throat and nodded. Okay, he trusted Han with his own life, with the lives of those he loved. He could trust him with Vaiya. He just hoped Mara wouldn't kill him for it.
"Fine," he said tightly, "and for the record, I have no idea whose battle this is." He pulled his lightsaber off his belt and charged into the hallway.
Cal had disappeared down one hallway--he could see the spectre of the glowing orange blade reflecting dimly against the white walls of the hallway as Cal drove those attackers back. Closer to the room, Mara had pinned a good handful against an aclove, and she had one of their blasters in one hand, her flashing saber in the other. Using only one hand to grip it instead of two-- which seemed to be a growing habit with her--she slashed forward, destroying the blasters of two of the attackers and using the blaster to stun them.
What she didn't see was that one of the three she'd already felled had a backup weapon stored in the ironically exact place to the hold-out blaster Mara had once favored. It shot into his hand and he aimed---
The loud buzz of Luke's saber whizzing past something metal and neatly cleaving it in two nearly made Mara lose her concentration--for all of about a half-second. So he'd decided to leave their daughter with Han and come after her. She didn't know whether to be touched or to kill him. She managed to spare a second to see Luke behind her, lightsaber back in hand, standing over a man holding part of a hold-out blaster. He was staring up at Luke in utter terror.
*Come to help clean up, darling?* she managed.
*Actually, I was considering going and finding our new friend and seeing how many throats he was crushing.* He barely managed to get the answer out because the small band had suddenly decided to focus all their attention on Luke--sharp and fast, the blasters were turned toward him. Luke slashed toward the band and took out a few, until there was only one left. It was quickly dropped to the floor when Luke and Mara pointed their lightsabers at its possessor's throat.
Mara shook her head slightly, then brought her lightsaber closer to the man's throat. "Who sent you?" she demanded.
The man began to babble in a language she could not understand, not in all her years of traversing the galaxy. It didn't sound like any language she'd ever heard of.
It was at this moment that security decided to show up. Luke glanced at a nearby chronometer--only five minutes had passed since he and Cal had shown up to join the fight. No wonder they hadn't come sooner. They did their part, though--they arrested everyone in the hallway, even attempted to arrest Mara and Luke, but the couple's lightsabers were still glowing and the guards didn't need much persuading to give it up.
"A man went that way," Mara told the head guard, guesturing down the other hallway with her now deactivated lightsaber. "He has an orange lightsaber and he'd taken on at least this many men."
The head guard nodded and barked orders for a small team to follow Cal's path. They hadn't gotten twenty feet away when Cal suddenly appeared--clutched between two Nighori. One had his lightsaber, and the other had Cal's wrists tied together, which Cal seemed to be disliking intensely.
"MARA!" he shouted, "IS THIS HOW YOU REPAY A FAVOR!"
Mara nearly winced from the dark tremor through the Force his shout caused, but she wasn't going to show him that much throat. "Let him go, guys," she said dryly. "He's one of us...right now."
The Nighori stopped him in front of the Skywalkers and untied his hands, but gave his weapon to Luke. "Forgive us, Son of Vader," one said with a respectful bow. "We did not realize he was with you. We feared that he was one of the assailants."
Luke grasped Cal's lightsaber. It had an oddly familiar grip to it...certainly nothing he'd ever held, but its design was like to something he couldn't remember offhand. He shrugged it off as he handed it to Cal, once his wrists were free. Cal practically snatched it from him.
"What the sith are these mutants doing here?" Cal railed on, managing to maintain his dignity while having a nice fit in front of half of the Palace Security. "Don't tell me that you have them as bodyguards?"
"We serve the Son of Vader and his consort, Mara clan Skywalker, to honor the family of Vader," the other Nighori hissed, his eyes on Mara. "Han clan Solo has brought us the child of the Son of Vader and she is safe in our midst."
"Don't be so rude, Cal," Mara said, tossing her red-gold hair back over her shoulders. "If I can handle their calling me 'Mara clan Skywalker' you can deal with a little bit of manhandling."
Cal's eyes focused on Mara, and Luke got the distinct impression that he was Fed-Up with a captial F-U. "So much for my little vacation," Cal said, his voice softer. "Perhaps I'll be taking my leave now."
"Perhaps that would be for the best," Luke said quickly. "Mara and I are going to make ourselves pretty scarse for a while until we can figure out who wants us dead."
Mara gave him a small grin. "This time," she added.
Cal nodded, but his eyes didn't leave Mara's. "I hope you'll come and see me before I leave," he said, his voice softer. He didn't have to say the next word that was in Luke's head so clearly he was sure he hadn't imagined it. Alone.