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.

He was sleeping, but the Force had decided to grant him a vision in his dreams. At first, Luke was pleased. They hadn't gotten much rest since before Leia had called him to tell him that Vaiya had come to Coruscant. Now that they were in the Jaded Sky, and back in the bed they had shared for many years, they were both more relaxed. Knowing that Vaiya was safe and in good hands was a great soother for the distressed Jedi parents. So they slept during the trip to Coruscant.

And now he was having a vision. Maybe it would tell him something he needed to know.

He was standing at the base of a low clif. At his feet swirled a great mass of water, big and blue and sparkling under a yellow sun. The low cliff was covered with thick green moss embedded with multicolored gems. The different hues glittered in the sun and Luke thought he had never seen anything so beautiful.

Then he looked up, to the top of the cliff. Mara stood there, like the crowning jewel in this magnificent tiara by the ocean. Luke felt a surge of love, looking up at her. He remembered these last twenty years as if they had all danced by his eyes at once. She was his other half. He could not live without her. And this time, he even berated himself for not giving himself to her and claiming her for himself sooner than he had. They'd lost ten years. Those ten years sifted past him, too, with the face of Callista rising before him to fade away like a puff of smoke.

Mara turned her head a bit--she had been staring out across the ocean--to look down at him. She smiled, her face losing years as the smile radiated its glory on him. She looked so young, younger than he had ever known her. But there was something wrong with her, standing on top of all the beauty and finery, even though she outshone it all.

Luke realized it was her clothes. A black tank top and black pants from a Jedi uniform she had only worn once before she decided she hated the neck. Her boots were the same as they had been when he first met her, with the black metal cups over her knees. She had been so fond of those boots, but like all things, they'd worn away. In this vision, she had them.

The oddest part was her arms. They were wrapped in some kind of black cord, ending in gloves on her hands, black on the palm but with white fingers. In her hand was her lightsaber, and when she ignited it, it was bright pink.

Luke opened his mouth to speak, but Mara's face suddenly turned dark, twisting into a beautifully horrific rage. She lifted the lightsaber and swung it at Luke full-Force. It whirled and righted itself to come down upon him tip first, right into his heart----

Luke's eyes snapped open, and he realized that the sudden pounding in his ears was his own heart.

Beside him, Mara rolled over, wide awake. "You okay?" she asked, a worried tone in her voice.

Luke looked at her, expecting to be startled by her closeness in light of his vision, but instead feeling a terrible ache to hold her. He sat up and reached for her, and she let him hold her as long as he wanted.

"I'm going to take that as a no," she finally murmured into his ear.

He sighed. "I will be. I just had a bad vision."

He felt her roll her eyes. "Oh, great. Another Skywalker having visions...you know, Vaiya and I were just waiting for you to catch up. Tell me, did I kill you in this one?"

Luke pulled back from her. "As a matter of fact---"

"Then don't tell me!" Mara said, and Luke pulled away, startled by the sudden flare in her emotions. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and rested her elbows upon the, glaring out the small viewport window in their room. Luke scooted up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders.

"Hey, you asked. And I'm the one who had the vision, remember?"

It was her turn to sigh. "Sorry, it's just that...lately I feel like someone's trying to turn me into the bad guy. You know what I mean?" She turned her head to look at Luke. "I don't want to be the bad guy, Luke."

"And you're not," he soothed, pulling her back against his chest. "You know that deep down...you're just mush inside."

"Yeah...tell anybody and I'll fillet you with your lightsaber," she growled teasingly.

"That's more like it."

An silence that was suddenly uneasy descended upon them. Luke held Mara, and she rested there, nearly falling back asleep. But her mind had started to turn again, and her thoughts had gone back to Cal, who they had tried to arrest on Yavin IV, but had failed miserably because there was no evidence of any kind that he'd committed a crime. They tried to hold him, but Cal was apparently too powerful for that. With a smug smile, he'd blown them a kiss goodbye as he'd boarded a ship that had been sent for him not two days after Vaiya had taken off.

Luke, who knew her thoughts, had worries of his own. Mara had not even laid eyes on Cal the entire time. She was struggling against her rage, against the dark side. Twice she had nearly gone to the detention center to talk to him, and twice had walked away, a very tired expression on her face. Like she'd just fought a great battle and had barely won.

Of course, when Mara had landed with Cal on top of her when Vaiya had blasted off, Luke was sure she was going to start pounding into him. So he'd quickly jumped over to her and restrained her before she could even get the first punch in.

He himself had a million questions. How had Cal returned his body to its youth? And why? What interest did he have in Vaiya? There were many more that were left unasked. Because they had stupidly let Cal just walk away. Luke had suggested to Mara that they bug his new ship, but she solemnly assured him that Cal would know. It would do no good. Besides, she said, she knew where he usually hung, anyway. And it was plenty far enough away to keep him out of their hair while they looked for Vaiya.

Mara caught Luke's last thought. "Luke," she said finally, "do you think we're doing the right thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean chasing after Vaiya. She's on Coruscant. She's with Han and Leia and the twins. Surely she'll be okay with them."

"But...." And he had a hard time coming up with one. Finally, he said, "She needs us."

"Come on, Skywalker." Mara pulled away from him to turn and face him. "I was fourteen when I went on my first mission for the Emperor. You were 19 when you left Tatooine with Kenobi. Did either of us need parents? No. We needed space, and time, and we needed to learn from life. Maybe that's what Vaiya needs, too."

Luke shook his head. "We can't be sure of that. What if---?"

"What if Coruscant's sun supernovas? What if Thrawn has another clone? What if the Hutts declare war on the New Republic? I mean, come on. You can't cover every what if."

"But this is our daughter, Mara," Luke said, only half-believing that he had to argue the point. "She needs us."

"Yes, she needs us...to trust her."

The words sank in, but Luke refused them. "I trust her. But I don't trust her as angry, wounded and in a starship that can take her into whatever trouble she likes."

"Give her more credit than that, will you? And even if she does, maybe she's supposed to."

"Supposed to?" Luke looked at her in gaping astonishment.

Finally, Mara shook her head. "I'm just afraid we'll make it worse if we chase her down. I know she's young, but we have to let her go and find her own path."

The silence descended again, and Luke and Mara stared at each other. Luke knew what she was talking about. So many times he had wind up fulfilling destiny during his attempt to avoid it. Not that all of that destiny was a bad thing. It had finally made him realize his love for Mara. Finally, he spoke. "I can't just walk away. I have to see my daughter."

Mara sighed. "Okay, Luke. You know I'd never try and stop you from doing what you think is right. But just remember what I've said, okay?"

"Okay." He kissed her. "Now let's go back to sleep."

But as he slid under the covers, his vision came back upon him like the misty tentacles of some ghostal monster, and the words of Master Yoda rang in his ears. Help them, you could...but you would destroy all that they have fought for.

He shut his eyes tight and forced his mind to clear. This was his daughter.

It was different.

Vaiya wasn't sure if she wanted to strangle her Aunt Leia or not.

With a frustrated sigh, she tossed off the covers of her bed and stretched out. Why was everything so darn hot in this palace, anyway? Yavin IV was all humid jungle, and it wasn't anything like the sweatbath her guest suite was turning into.

Or maybe the churning in her stomach was keeping her awake. Knowing that her parents were on the way wasn't the best bedtime story her aunt and uncle could have concocted, but in the days journey to Coruscant Vaiya had had enough time to cool down and think and sort through her charred emotions to realize that she should at least let her mother and father know she was okay. Not that she wanted to SEE them, but as soon as she had landed Aunt Leia was there to greet her, confused as to why she was there alone, and then proceeded to send a message to her parents to let them in on it. Vaiya had wanted to take off again right away, still blistering from the rage she'd felt before, even though Aunt Leia was using every Jedi trick she knew to keep the girl calm. Finally, it was Uncle Han who had gotten her attention.

He had a point in his argument. She didn't know half the things her parents had known at her age. For her, it had all been the Force and Jedi Knights everywhere, lightsabers and lollipops. She didn't have to work hard, she didn't have to serve anyone, she didn't have to fight unless it was lightsaber practice. Did she really want to go out there and take her chances? Probably not. Still, in the end, it was only pure exhaustion that made her decide to stay. After all, she had at least two more days before Luke and Mara showed up. If she played it right, she could be gone before they got here.

If she could shake the guards watching her. She'd tried complaining, but Leia, as the Chief Of State, claimed that any relation to her had to have bodyguards REGARDLESS of how they felt about them. Those Nighori, with their impressive voices, complicated language and perfect predatory ways, were ideal for keeping a blooming Jedi Knight hedged in tight.

She got out of bed, and pulled her legs up into a meditative position. She hadn't been able to meditate for some time. Not since Jaid--Cal--had shown up. Not clearly, anyway. Now, it was like a blanket had been lifted, and she was clear inside again. The first time had taken care of most of her anger at her parents, and the second had almost made a dent in her rage at Cal. So the man was sick enough to seduce the daughter to hurt the mother? She would show him sick, one of these days, and very soon.

This was not the time for those thoughts, though. She took deep breaths and cleared her mind of everything except the Force. She could hear its low hum in her chest, running through her body, her heart, her brain, every part of her charged with it like a battery. She concentrated on the feeling, letting it lull her into a state of calm. When she let it happen this way, she could feel the flow of the Force as if it were a stream of water, or the movement of her blood. Father had told her that this was rare, and that he had never encountered it before. Yet another reason for her parents to be so protective of her.

Somehow, she had to prove to them that she wasn't a little kid. Okay, sure, she had run away like a little girl a few days ago. Who would blame her? Certainly not Uncle Han, who'd been slightly less vexed at Leia for calling Mommy and Daddy. She needed time away from them, away from their overprotectiveness. She needed time to find out who she was as a person. That had to come first.

The faces of Derrin and Cal floated before her. She certainly needed to be away from them. Maybe if she was lucky Cal was already dead at the hands of her mother. Derrin would be completing his training with a year, and would be off Yavn IV, when it would be safe for her to return. As it was, she didn't think she could face him. Especially feeling about herself as she was now.

She pushed deeper. The things her parents had told her floated past her, memories too clear and detailed to be hers finally making sense. They were her mother's memories, like a ball of yarn tied up tight, waiting to be opened. She could see bits and pieces, but not the whole picture. She wasn't sure she wanted to. That seemed so...wrong, for her sake and her mother's. Still, there was so much there. The time she'd first met Luke was there, vivid and powerful in emotion. His calm gallantry made him shine, even in the face of a blaster barrel pointed at his head. The moment when they'd fallen in love, as they held each other in the forest of Wayland, about to face a mad Jedi and scared out of their minds. I don't want to face him, Skywalker, she had said, a humility that stunned her. Neither do I, Luke replied, compassionate and open. Funny---they had never known it.

Other memories came, closer to Vaiya's time. Accute but buried pain, passion beyond all reason, and nobility that stunned her flowed around her through the Force. It was like hearing an emotional echo.

Then it stopped.

Vaiya reached out. It seemed that the mosaic faded into a clear white, like a painting that hadn't been finished. There was something beyond that. That something was even beyond the Force. With all her might, she pushed.

Nothing.

Something had to be holding her back, but Aunt Leia wasn't strong enough and her parents were too far away. There was something beyond that clear white, she decided, reaching out again. This time, she chose humility, and as she humbly touched the clear white through the Force, not pressing but instead asking entrance, it yielded to her--

And became eternity.

Mother had seen this when she thought she was going to die, memories told her. A brilliant light, beautiful and warm beyond all lights. But for her, this light was so much more. It was living, and though intangible it stretched out a tendril toward her and touched her heart.

Come find me, Vaiya, came a voice. I will show you how.

Her eyes snapped open in astonishment. The Voice had been so--other worldly. Father had often spoken of Obi-Wan appearing to him, but Obi-Wan had been human. This Voice... hadn't been.

It scared her. She pulled her knees up to her chin and sat there for a long time, trying to ease her fear. It was a useless effort, because this was not an ordinary fear. It was a fear like that she felt over her parents coming for her. A fear of hurting, not being hurt. A fear of displeasing, not of being displeased. It was staggering, and yet gentle in the face of her humility. Overlying the fear was a great sense of joy and accomplishment, as if she had just fulfilled her destiny and were being called home. And it all mingled together so tightly that she could no longer just sit with it and think.

She got out of bed. Surely there were places to go to this late at night, in Coruscant. She would just have to find one and make sure to get into as much trouble as possible. No point in making Mommy and Daddy come out all this way for nothing.

She padded down the corridor, remembering the tour she'd been given when she was little. "This is where Mommy killed the bad Imperials and kept them from kidnapping your cousins." "This is where Mommy and Daddy lived when you were about to be born." It seemed different now that she was older. Smaller, less amazing. But a stroll down memory lane wasn't what she was after this late at night.

She stopped at a particular door marked, "Museum Exhibits--DO NOT ENTER." The door was locked, but a tiny nudge from the Force fixed that. About five months ago, Mother and Father had made a few donations to the New Republic Museum. Vaiya had joked that if they wanted relics, just take her parents. Mother had proceeded to remind her just how "with it" she was. Father had had the good grace to keep his mouth shut.

Inside were several stands in the process of being constructed. It took a little searching, but in the far back corner she found it. It was dusty, but had been nicely pressed. Luke's old Jedi Knight uniform, the one he'd worn when he'd conquered Darth Vader and the Emperor (although that was the official story, Luke made sure his daughter knew the truth). It was famous, and every uniform her father had worn since had borne a strong resemblence to it.

This one, however, was special.

She touched it. How old had Father been? Older than she, and more restless. Uncle Han was right about her. She couldn't go running into danger headfirst like her parents. That wasn't her way, that wasn't what she was called to. She wasn't a war hero or a Jedi Knight. She had to find her own niche and fill it. That was the only way out of this trap.

Then, as she stood there, a feeling hit her. A feeling of utter loniless and near despair. She felt as if she'd had a twin attached to her side and then watched him die. She felt like half a person, waiting for something that would be a long time in coming.

She shut her eyes, her hand on her father's uniform, and concentrated. It wasn't her Derrin memories. They were not like this. No, it was something more. She could see Callista, not as Mother and Father had described her, but as she had once been, before the Eye of Palpatine and Cray Maligna. She could see a pair of eyes as grey as smoke, wise and wide as they gazed at her. Then the eyes morphed into a different shape, but still maintained their perfect, clear grey. The owner of the eyes spoke, and the voice was masculine, not feminine, as she had expected. It spoke one simple word.

"Durran."

Then it disappeared. Vaiya's eyes popped open to see her father's uniform again. This time, it did not look so shabby. Without another thought, she pulled it off the rack and rolled it up, tucking it under her shirt. As she patted down the bulky cloth, her eyes landed on a nearby lightsaber. Mother's old lightsaber. She picked it up and felt its cool grip.

They'd get it all back when she was done.

Okay, so Han was mad at her. She could live with that. Han had been mad at her countless times, and countless times none of it had ever meant anything. It was always kiss and make up, no matter what.

Leia let out an uncomfortable sigh as she watched Luke and Mara scurry about Vaiya's now-vacant room. Maybe they were looking for a clue. All they found were Vaiya's clothes. Why Vaiya would have left her clothes was beyond her, but a Jedi hunch told her that Vaiya was far from naked and helpless.

Han just glared at them all. It was starting to tick her off. She could read his mind without the Force. His face said it all. A complete and utter condemnation of all three of them, a complete blaming of them for this mess. Because now Vaiya was really gone. No trace, no clues, nothing. She'd left nothing behind her for her parents to ponder over. Or perhaps, Leia thought suddenly, it wasn't about what she'd left behind, but what she'd taken.

She turned and headed down the hallway, feeling a slight twinge of triumph that her sudden movement had broken Han's concentrated glare. But she didn't pay attention to much else except that gentle tug of her intuition, until she had reached a private room containing treasures from their war against the Empire.

Leia's first lightsaber was there--the one Mara had used against C'Boath during their battle against Thrawn. Mara had graciously donated her old hold-out blaster, and after some heavy debating with Luke, the lightsaber he had given her--Anakin Skywalker's saber. Luke hadn't wanted her to give it away, and to be quite honest neither had she, but in the end it was a piece of history that needed to be preserved. And after all, it was only on loan. The final gift had been Luke's old Jedi uniform, the clothing of a hero that many had come to recognize as the Jedi Master's symbol.

The uniform was gone, as well as the lightsaber.

"Thought so," Leia muttered. She turned and headed back up to Vaiya's room and arrived just in time to catch Han and Mara tearing into each other.

"How could you expect this to have happened any differently?"

"What do you know about any of it, Solo? What big secrets have you had to keep?"

"None! I trust my kids!"

"I trust Vaiya when she's being rational. Not when she's upset and wandering around the open galaxy!"

"You know, Han, she's got a point---"

"Listen, Farmboy, you claim to be this big Jedi Master, and yet you can't even keep your own life in order, let alone the galaxy."

"That's enough, Han," Leia said, her voice colder than she meant.

Han whirled on her. "You're the reason this happened!" he accused.

"Me?" The Princess was back, with her wide innocent brown eyes.

"Yes, you! You had to call Mommy and Daddy to come pick up the little runaway. She was safe here, comfortable! She could have had some time to herself, but no! You had to go call them, knowing they'd come running up her to fetch her like she was their pet. She would have been fine here, Leia. Why did you have to go and open your mouth?"

Then he turned on Luke and Mara, but his eyes locked with Mara's green ones as he matched his spunk against hers. "And as for the two of you, you're really pathetic, you know that? She was fine here. You didn't have to come chasing after her. Now do you see what you've done? The harder you push, the more she'll run."

Mara was more than ready for the challenge. But she was also struggling to keep her calm. Like black fingers, her rage threatened to enclose her in its fist. "And what would you have done, Solo?" she bit out. "If Jania had run away from home and come to stay with us? And we didn't call to tell you that she was alive?"

Han shook his head. "That's different."

"Different only because she's a grown woman now who wouldn't need any explanation for you if she decided to do such a thing. Well, Vaiya is not an adult. We all seem to be forgetting that here."

Han sighed. It was a gruff, angry sigh, but he backed off. "I understand," he began slowly, "that you want to make sure she's safe. But you don't have to lick her wounds for her, Mara. She's old enough to do that on her own. If you had figured that out earlier, she might be here right now. As it is...where is she? Here she was safe, but now....?"

He didn't have to finish. They knew. Too often the most simple of situations could go horribly awry. On Coruscant, Vaiya had been safe. Now she was out there alone in the big galaxy.

And so was Cal.

Karrde had given Ghent specific orders to report to him anything he heard about Cal Saphringer's activities. So far, the man hadn't dared to raise his head. Karrde considered that Cal was using the remote space of Durran territory to hide in, but if he was, he was pretty far out there. On the very rim of the galaxy, ready to go into the oblivion beyond. When Karrde was first a smuggler, he'd been told stories of those who'd dared to go into that wide empty space between galaxies. He'd heard about the Jedi Masters Thrawn had destroyed from Mara, and since then it had only piqued his imagination. What would it be like to travel out there? That would be the ultimate adventure.

He sighed. He was getting too old for that. He was a father now, to a beautiful boy with his mother's skin and his father's eyes. Corel Karrde was certainly going to be a heartbreaker. If the kid could ever figure out how to put his food in his own mouth.

Karrde chuckled. Nothing like parenthood to domesticate an old rogue. He'd retired, come out again, gone back again, gone into business, hooked up with unions, and then after all was said and done he'd opted to be a father and a husband. Everything else came second.

That didn't mean, however, that fun was no longer an option.

He strolled down the wide, white corridor, heading out from his apartments into the night. It was a beautiful sight, really. He wished Shada had come with him, but she was exhausted from the long day of family outings. Where the bright white of the corridor tapered off was a smooth black stone pathway, which led into a small body of water with a giant fountain made of the great Jedi Masters before Luke's time.

How undignified it was for the small, pointy-eared teacher Luke had admired so much--Yoda, if he remembered right--to have water squirting out from under his hand, a symbol of his power in the Force. Across the lake, a small X-wing hovered over the waves, a spray underneath it to frame it appealingly. Obi-Wan's saber did a similiar trick, although a bit more directed.

Karrde gazed up into the night sky. Corscant was very bright against the black. He felt as if he could raise his hand and wave and they would see him. The face of the planet seemed to be, for a moment, just that. It was more like the face of an angry woman--Mara, to be specific--but a face nonetheless.

Poor Mara. This motherhood bit was harder than she'd thought. Who would have guessed that the great Mara Jade would have been brought this low by the love of her own daughter? He guessed she was only human after all. Too bad.

Abruptly, Karrde turned. Maybe he'd drag Shada down here, at least to just show her the view. But his eyes caught on something.

There was a slender figure dressed in black. Not just black, but a familiar black. Jedi Knight black. The uniform Luke had worn when Karrde and Mara had first met him. But this was not Skywalker. This was a girl with his slender physique, his wide eyes, and Mara's will radiating through every part of her body.

The girl, her hair pulled back into a tight ponytail at the base of her neck, with it swinging out behind her like a living thing, turned and saw him. She frowned for a moment, and then approached with a rather confident stride.

"Talon Karrde." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes." He blinked at her, wondering if she even knew who he was. Sure, he'd visited Mara once or twice over the last few years, but mostly their communication had been over the holonet. He hadn't seen their daughter since she was knee-high to an ewok. He could hardly believe that this was her.

"You know my mother, who once went by Mara Jade?"

Perhaps someone needed to explain to the fresh young moppet that a pretty smile on that face would have been much for effective in making him open up than the heavy frown that creased her features was having. But if this was indeed Mara's child, a remark along those lines would only earn him a punch in the mouth. Instead he said, "Of course."

Finally, her face softened. "Good." Then, more tenatively, "Do you know who I am?"

"The lightsaber kind of gives you away," Karrde said, starting a slow grin. "Vaiya, right? What are you doing here alone? I thought your parents had better security than that. Then, of course, if you are a Jedi, what difference does security mean? It never meant anything to Mara, and she wasn't even a Jedi yet."

The girl relaxed a little. A smile began to creep up her face. "Mr. Karrde, I was wondering if you would be willing to do me a favor, for the sake of my mother."

Karrde's own smile widened. "For her sake?" he echoed. "She's been scouring the universe looking for you. The only favor I could do for her sake is to return you to them, safe and sound."

Vaiya shook her head. "You can't do that."

She made a smart choice to simply lay the words out, and not try to Force him into believing them.

"And why not?"

"Because," she began without hesitation, "I'll leave this base and go where they won't be able to find me if you try and contact them to tell them where I am."

"Ah hah," he said, pointing a finger at her, "but if you leave here, you'll never be able to ask me the favor you were requesting earlier."

She blushed--slow at first, and then furiously. "Maybe I'd better not take the chance then. Goodbye, Mr. Karrde. If you see my parents, tell them that I'm okay." She turned around to leave.

Karrde had to shake his head in grudging respect. The girl learned fast...very fast. But she had not perfected the art of the bluff. Half way to the exit, she paused and glanced back at him. He just watched her, arms crossed patiently.

"Aren't you going to stop me?" she asked, a little bewildered. "Mother would kill you if she knew you'd let me go."

"Just as she'd kill me if she knew I knew where you were going and didn't tell her." He waved his hand dismissively. "Either way."

She stopped completely and turned to stare at him. For a few seconds, her face was more blank that Luke's during one of his meditative trances. Then it crumpled up into a short bit of laughter. "I guess you know my mother pretty well."

"Better than most," Karrde said with a half-grin.

"Then maybe you can understand why I need time to myself."

Now it was Karrde's turn to frown. "Actually, no. If anyone I know respects personal freedom, it's Mara. Maybe your father, Luke, is who you really mean to escape."

Vaiya gave a little half-shrug and a shake of her head. "No, not really. Father has been...I don't know." She shut her eyes, one hand going to her head to rub an aching temple. "Maybe you're right. Maybe I am running away from my father. But...there's something about Mother that..." A disgruntled sigh followed as she suddenly realized she was discussing this private matter in a very public place with a near stranger. She just frowned and shook her head. "I guess I should just get my request out while I can," she said. "I was wondering if you could tell me where Mother wasn't able to check for my father and Callista's child. Or maybe where she last investigated."

"Any particular reason?" Okay, this was suspicious. Why would Vaiya run away from home like a spoiled teenager and then devote that time to aiding her parents on the most difficult quest of their lives?

The sneer was all Mara. "What do you think?" she said, one hand on her hip.

Karrde blinked slowly. "I mean, what concern is all of that to you? That's your parents' crusade, not yours."

"I'm making it mine," she said evenly. Now she sounded like Luke--all calm Jedi Knight.

Karrde sighed. "You know if Mara asks me, I'm going to have to tell her where you went."

After a pause, Viaya nodded her head graciously. "Very well. But just wait until they ask. And give me a few weeks start."

Hyperspace was not a new experience for her. Too many times she had had to help her mother or father in the cockpit. This ship may have had a different location for everything, but the directions were the same.

"Planet Durran, here I come," she said to the empty air of the cockpit. It was lonely, being in this warp alone. No one to talk to, not even Artoo. The annoying Threepio would have been pleasureable company compared to this silence.

Karrde had told her that Mara had visited Durran when Vaiya was very young. Vaiya, for her part, remembered it in her faded childhood memories as the last time she ever lived on a planet. Of course, there were other reasons---like the dream, and the ripple in the Force she felt when she thought of going there. Somehow, this obscure rim world planet was going to hold the answer to every question she'd ever had in all of her existence.

The fact that she couldn't sleep didn't help, either, because she was extremely tired and knew she would need her strength. Sleep, however, only came with the price of strange Force visions she didn't understand. There was so much rage buried under the surface that it was too much to bear. So many distractions, so many things happening at once. Memories of Cal that she had never experienced, blended into her own encounters with him as Jaid. She would have to wake herself and force herself to be calm, to let the rage disappate before she could get any rest. And then came the dreams about her father and Callista. Disturbing, twisted nightmares of guilt and anguish, brief flashes of when Callista was reborn into Cray Maligna's body, and how much Luke had loved her.

Vaiya shut her eyes. If she didn't get some sleep soon, she would be having the visions regardless. The anger may be gone, but from somewhere there had appeared a guilt factor that Vaiya couldn't figure out. Why would Mother feel guilty? That didn't make any sense. Luke had known and cared deeply for Mara since they had first met. Both admitted (frequently, in fact) that they had always know, but had sought to deny their bond because of outside opposing forces.

It had recently been revealed to her that they suspected the force to be Palpatine, who had good reasons for making sure Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade never bore a child. Which meant she was important. And worthy of protecting at every moment of the day.

Vaiya groaned. Okay, she was going to have to sleep. Her thoughts were getting away from her, trailing into the distance to become barely visible shreds hanging off the end of reality and into the dreamworld. She hoped the sleep was deep enough to silence her brain for a while. At this rate, she would never figure anything out because her mind refused to stop turning.

She felt the overwhelming urge to zap herself with Force lightning. That would teach her brain a lesson or two. She wondered where her ability to dwell too much on things had come from. Perhaps her father. He'd always had a bad habit of blaming himself for everything and everyone.

Before she drifted off into sweet nothingness, a brief thought occured to her. Maybe Karrde was right. She was running from her father, and her mother. But as she thought more about it, it wasn't like she was running from them. She was more like...running for them.

For what, she had only an idea.

"Durran," Mara said, struggling to keep her face calm. No rage-induced dark jedis welcome here, she reminded herself as she breathed through clenched teeth.

Karrde had a good grace to look sheepish. "She threatened to run off again, Mara! What else could I have done?"

"Notified me sooner," Mara suggested, but her voice had lost that spark of fire. Either she was getting better at staying calm, or she'd forgotten all those swearing dialects because of Skywalker's Farmboy influence. "How long ago?"

"A few days. I promised her I'd wait a week---"

"A week!"

"She asked for a week, so I said a week. Durran is a week away, I figured the distance was big enough to still let her have her head start."

"Karrde," Mara said, her tone still slightly scathing, "you should have told me immediately."

Karrde just blinked at her. "Really? And that would have accomplished what? You know she isn't going to just come back home and let you and Skywalker put her under lock and key again. If it makes you feel any better," he added, "she was in fine shape when she left me. You'd be proud of her. She reminds me of her father."

"Thank you," Luke murmured from behind Mara. "Now let's go to Durran."

Mara turned her head to cast a reply to Luke over her shoulder, but felt a sudden twinge in the Force. It wasn't a dark side disturbance or a discomfiting ripple, but just a twinge. Like there was something important taking place that had to do with her. She stayed with it a second, trying to pry into it. Luke watched her carefully, aware of what was happening but not daring to intrude, and Karrde just looked at her as if she'd just kissed an ewok.

"Talon," Mara said, turning back to him, "thanks for the help. Really. I mean it."

"Uhhh...okay," Karrde said, frowning out at her. "And you're not mad?"

She shook her head. "There is no anger for a Light Jedi. I understand what you did and why you did it. Now be sure to notify me if you hear anything more. And that includes unexpected visits paid on your ship."

Karrde had to resist the urge to snort. No anger for a Light Jedi? For Mara? Who did she think she was kidding? But instead, chosing the wiser and safer path, he nodded his head. "Yes, Jedi Skywalker, whatever you say."

Luke jumped a bit as Mara punched the control switch, deactivating the holo. Almost against his will, he started to grin. "So much for no anger for a Light Jedi."

"Right now I'm Jedi Light," she said with a small growl, and then Luke felt her calm. "No, Karrde did the right thing. I'll have to apologize to him when this is over."

Now it was Luke's turn to be slightly upset. "He did the right thing? Letting Vaiya run of like she did? Not telling us until she had gotten a massive head start on us? Not to mention that she's going to Durran, where a certain Dark Jedi scum-lord originally had his hideout?" Luke stood up, but he was making a good effort to control his temper. Mara looked at him over her shoulder, nonplussed. That helped cool the rest of his anger, when he realized it would do him no good with her. She had a reason. All he wanted now was to hear it.

"She's gone to find Callista's son," Mara said calmly.

"That won't be all she'll find," Luke reminded her.

"No, it won't. But maybe she needs to find it. Maybe it's her destiny to go there. For whatever reason."

Luke regarded her carefully. She had tried this on him before, and both times Luke had had to supress a mild shock at her uncharacteristic calm about this. After all, Vaiya was her only child! The Mara he knew and loved would kill to protect her own. She was never the one to sit back and let someone else do the work. If Luke was going somewhere that might be remotely dangerous, she wanted to join. Luke would gently remind her that he could handle whatever happened. "Sure, Jedi," she would say, "you'll protect everyone and save the galaxy--again. But who's going to protect and save you?"

But the look in Mara's eyes was different. She'd been a Jedi for over twenty years now, even though the lines of maturity had failed to get their grasp into her. Funny how it had never seemed to have taken such a deep hold in her until now.

"What is it, Mara?" he asked, his mind caressing hers. She was hiding something now, something she was---embarrassed? he realized with a shock--to tell him.

"We give her two more days, and then we follow," Mara said, her voice shaking just a touch.

"Mara," Luke pressed. "Come on, don't play this game with me."

She blinked, and the hesitation was gone. "Vaiya has been having disturbing visions," she said. "She's been having them for some time, but until a week or so ago they were only things from my past that she was remembering. Then she had the vision about you and me killing each other--or trying to. I was worried she was going to snap, but when I heard from Leia that she was okay and hadn't lost control of herself, I knew that she wasn't running away from us because she was angry. She was running for something, like it was calling to her. The visions weren't given to her to upset her. They were given to warn her."

"Warn her of what?"

Mara shrugged. "That's what I don't know." She shuddered again and took a deep breath. "The thing of it is, I think I have her more than memories when I thought I was going to die. I was feeling so terrible and guilty over Callista, and at the same time....I was almost glad that she was dying."

The last words came out of her over a hoarse throat. Luke felt her pull away from him mentally, as if shielding herself for a mental rebuke. Instinctively, he reached for her hand, but she pulled away--just slightly, but definitely.

"Mara," he chastized as gently as he could, "You knew that Callista and I were long since over."

"No," she said, a denile of his intrusion in the conversation more than the substance of his words. "Let me finish this. I knew how you felt about Callista. I keep dreaming over and over again of how you two looked when I picked you up in my old Headhunter, how empty and devistated you were when we found you, and then how complete you felt when she turned out to be alive in Cray's body. I remember that, Luke. It's burned into me and I don't know why. You loved her, you really did. But she left you, and then....we realized that we were meant to be together. And all of that was so wonderful, but I was terrified she was going to come back. And that you...would leave me."

"I know all that," Luke said with a touch of impatience, remembering that day on the Jaded Sky, when Mara had cried for joy in his arms, finally freed from that fear. "We went through it, it's over!"

"It's not over," she said, a little more vehemently than she intended. "What if she hadn't died? What if she were still alive and searching for her son? She would have been a part of our lives forever, and I didn't want to wind up sharing you. I didn't want Vaiya to have to share you, either. And I didn't want some little boy asking you one day if you loved his mother, and you having to explain to him that you used to love her but not like that anymore because of me? What would that have done to the boy? Haven't you ever heard the saying that the best thing a man can do for his children is to love their mother? What kind of trouble would that have caused for him, for Vaiya, for us...for me?"

Luke shook his head. "I can't believe that you're that insecure, Mara," he said calmly.

"I'm not being insecure," Mara said. "I'm being realisitic. The bottom line was, it was a pretty fine mess waiting to happen."

"You sure took care of it quickly if you were so worried about it."

She gave him a slight smirk. "Well, that's me. I have a bad habit of facing my fears head on. Must be something I picked up from you." She shut her eyes. "But that's not the worst."

Luke moved closer to her. She tried to back up from him, but he wouldn't let her get around him, and behind her was only the control board. "You wanted her to die."

It was a long moment before Mara could speak. She wouldn't even look at him, her eyes tightly screwed shut and ever muscle in her shying away from him. "Not deliberately...but yes. I did."

Luke wrapped his arms around her, and felt her mild shock at such a loving reaction to a horrible confession. "How long have you been holding this in?" he asked.

"Since that day Karrde gave me the lead on Jabba's Fist, and I started to prepare for a trip to Durran."

"That long." He marveled at her inner discipline. "It explains why you've been so anxiety ridden whenever we discussed Callista's...my son." He took a deep breath, and Mara felt it coming. Another Jedi lecture. She didn't really want to hear it. Her emotional skin was too raw for such a beating, however mild. But instead, he said, "You're not to blame for her death."

"That doesn't matter!" Mara practically squeaked. "I was the only one---"

"Mara," he put his hand over her mouth. "You didn't kill her. She sacrificed her life to save you. She sacrificed her chance to find her son so that our child could live. And I loved Callista for those reasons. But we both knew that her taking Cray's body, even as a free gift, was wrong. The Force knew it was wrong, the world knew it was wrong."

"That doesn't change how I feel," she whispered.

So this was the reason for all the guilt he'd felt from her, her insistance of finding the child, her determination that excelled even his own when the child wasn't even of her own blood. It was some sort of recompense to Callista, an act of repentance to the long-dead Jedi, a pledge to make up her sins by find and caring for Callista's child.

And the fear of finding him and having to face all that she dreaded anyway.

He took her face between his temples. After all the years of being an unrepentant assassin, Mara Jade was worried about her deep, subconscious demons and their unnoble desires. Through the Force, Luke sent a healing blanket of calm over their needle-toothed mouths. "How many times am I going to have to do this?" His tone was almost light and joking, but his frustration underneath was clear. She had to see that she had to let this go. Not just for her sake, but for his.

"Luke, I---"

"No," he said to silence her. "I know you, Mara Jade Skywalker. I've always known you, and I've always loved you. And I don't love you because you're a good mother or a great lover or a powerful Jedi. I love you because I know you, and I know in your heart you and I want the same thing, more than anything."

"And what's that?" she asked.

"To do the right thing." He paused. "So far, I have never seen a time since your conversion to the light side when you refused to do the right thing because it wasn't what you wanted. You spared my life all those years ago because you knew it was the right thing to do, even with the Emperor's command tormenting you. You came to Yavin to help me recover from my battle with that Dark Jedi, even though I had forgotten that you existed, because you knew it was the right thing to do. And you gave your most prize posession up to prevent the Hand of Thrawn from falling into Disra's hands. Because it was the right thing to do," he said again. "So just because you've got some impure desires floating around in your subconscious and they happen to be fulfilled by destiny doesn't mean that you're a bad person." He grinned. "It just means you're human."

She squirmed in his grip. "I wish that made me feel better. Even if it did, it doesn't change the fact that Vaiya is now running full-speed ahead, spurned on by my guilt, toward Duran, set out to do what I have failed to do time and again." A funny look crossed her face. "Somehow, I know she'll succeed. She was meant to."

Luke nodded. "It seems our families have a knack for greatness. If she's anything like either of us, all of this was just waiting to happen."

"So we wait two days," she whispered, and Luke got the feeling that it was barely a question.

He knew she felt him flinch. "Why two days, Mara? Those two days may mean the difference between the dark and light side of the Force! We should find her now. She can't deal well with her anger with the state she's in. And she needs more training before she can face Cal Saphringer."

Mara looked up at him, her eyes open to him. She understood his urgency, knew it was making every fiber of his being twitch. But her eyes asked him anyway. Asked him to trust her, asked him to put the life of the only daughter he had into her hands. In spite of the fact that she was the mother of that child, it was still a hard request to fulfill.

Then, finally, he felt himself calm. "All right, Mara. I trust you." Through the Force he added, You know I trust you.

Mara only nodded, a small smile lighting up her mouth. Luke kissed her. So the wound had been purged, he thought. It would heal, but it would take some time.

He just hoped they had it.

Durran wasn't what she expected. She had pictured some rather desolate-looking rim world planet, considering it was even farther away from the bright center of the galaxy than Tatooine. This was a world alive with green and blue and brown. It swirled with life, practically glittered where the veins of civilization could be seen running across its surface. These people were hardly a backwards lot. Apparently, they had done quite well for themselves in spite of their self-imposed exile from the New Republic.

She had heard that Durran did not take offworlders, period. In fact, their ships weren't even allowed in Durran space. Hoping that she had enough time before she found herself under attack, Vaiya calculated where would be the best and most obscure spot for her to land an escape pod in, a place that would give her plenty of time to find a good hideout.

Maybe in a desert somewhere...

It was at that moment that she felt her ship jarred nastily by a lazercannon behind her.

She swirled around in her pilot's seat, grabbing at the weapons console. She was surprised to find that she had no intention of returning fire. She merely needed proof that her suspicion was correct. As the viewer focused on the large ship behind her, Vaiya felt a twinge of rage nip at her soul.

"Hello, Cal," she said dryly, surprised again at her own calm. "Is this how you treat all your ex-girlfriends?"

There was a static-y silence before the man replied. "Only those who throw me into my enemies' hands and then steal my ship."

"Ah, but you got away with your skin, didn't you?" She stood up, leaving the commlink on as she moved across the small ship. "Is this how you thank me, especially for returning your precious ship? I'm even willing to pay you for the mileage."

Her answer was another shot across her behind. Vaiya practically fell into the escape pod.

"Funny, little Skywalker," Cal sneered.

"No, this is what's funny." She pulled the security straps over her, focusing through the Force, hiding her thoughts from him behind the barriers Mara had taught her to create. Her ability to move objects had always awed her parents. She just hoped that awe wouldn't be disproven now. "What's really funny is that I never did a damn thing to you that you didn't bring on yourself, and yet you're ticked at me! It wasn't ME who figured out who you were! I wasn't the one who wanted you dead! In fact, it was YOU who screwed ME over! Pretending to be my friend....what were you planning, anyway? Getting me pregant so that my mother would be jealous?"

"It had occured to me, yes," came the snake-like reply, followed by another shot.

"So you're ticked at me because I didn't LET you use me? Sounds like you didn't learn anything from my dad's lectures on selfishness."

"Indeed, I learned a lot from him. I learned that Light Jedi are, at heart, wimps."

Vaiya had shut her eyes and her mind to him at that point, focusing on the energy around the escape pod. She had to move fast enough to get clear of the wreckage her ship would soon be so that Cal wouldn't see her escape.

That was when she saw it.

All around her, it glowed like it was alive. Pure energy, pure Force. It bent and twisted, obeying her will like a nearly mindless thing. She felt like she was holding the entire pod in her hand, and for a second the mere thought made her grip slip. The mental distortion was disturbing, but as her ship rocked with another, and this time more fatal blow, she regained her control and pulled the pod loose.

Just as the ship above her exploded.

She rode the wave down, falling with the large debris. Using the same energy to cloak herself from Cal's sensors, Vaiya used the small navcomputer to set a course for the desert she'd found. Everything else around her burned and disappated in the atmosphere of the planet. She could feel the heat of her own ship as its shields struggled against the sudden change. Reaching out again, Vaiya moved all the energy away from her ship, pushing it ahead of her. It occured to her that all heat was was energy. Take away the energy, and the heat couldn't survive. She refocused it into a cushion to land into as her pod hid the desert floor with a less than dignified thud.

She opened her eyes. The chronometer said she'd been falling for over an hour. Funny...it felt like minutes.

She sat up and blinked, feeling strange. What had just happened to her? It was like she'd become another person temporarily. She'd never been in a real combat situation--hell, she was only 16! But just a little while ago, it was like someone else had taken her over. Someone else, and yet herself. Someone who knew exactly what to do, and someone who knew things about the Force that even her father had never taught her.

Letting out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, Vaiya checked the pod. It was in one piece, but useless. And ice cold. The hatch nearly frostbit her hands as she turned the small wheel, but the blazing heat outside was more than enough to counter it.

Vaiya gazed out at the wasteland before her. Wonderful, she thought. Out of the cooker and into the plasma conduit. Taking a careful step out into the nearly white sand outside, she looked around. Nothing. Not even an outpost. And it was hotter than Tatooine out here. In her black uniform, she would roast.

Looking around the pod, Vaiya rummaged through some emergency supplies. Maybe there was something there that she could use as a cloak. Something that would keep her cool. Maybe something...."Ah hah!" she said to no one as she yanked out a cloak made of some burlap-like material. Good ventilation, and a light enough color to keep out the sun. She swung it around her shoulders and pulled the hood over her head. Perfect, she thought, but it's a good thing that I didn't land in a cold spot. This burlap would be no good.

It was then that she found a metal strip embossed into the inside lining of the opening of the cloak. Pulling it closer to her face, she found a small electronic pad. There was a fat yellow button that had been pressed in, and a blue one of the same size except higher. She pressed the blue botton experimentally---

And was suddenly suffocated by the heat that the cloak sealed inside her. With an effort, she pressed the yellow button, and watched as the deceivingly airy strands of burlap deflated and returned to their job of ventilating air.

"Sith," Vaiya said out loud. What a neat little invention. It had to be Cal's. No one else she'd ever known had heard of something like this. Well, she'd take good care of it anyway. No use in letting Cal keep a secret like this to himself. Maybe when this was all over, the New Republic would be interested in a little deal.

"But Master Skywalker," Derrin Nighttreader pleaded over the holonet. "I can't just sit here and wait for you to come back!"

Luke patiently sighed. "Yes you can, Derrin, and you will. You have to learn how to be calm, no matter what."

Derrin's face folded into a heavy scowl, and he looked like he was almost in pain. "But Master," he tried again, this time calmly, "there are so many stories going around. Many of the students say it was partly my fault that Vaiya ran off---although I have no idea why." Here he looked baffled, and Luke was tempted to rebuke him for his ignorance of his actions. Then he realized that the man truly had no idea what it was that he had done.

"Maybe we should let him come," Mara said from behind. Luke glanced at her over his shoulder. She was still damp from her shower, her hair clinging to her head in thick wet strands.

"Jedi Skywalker?" Derrin said, his face changing just slightly. "Tell Master Skywalker that I'm ready to become a Jedi!"

Mara clucked her tongue as she came into view. "You don't ever 'get ready' to be a Jedi, Derrin. You either become one or you don't."

"I don't believe this!" The anger that came from him was a little too sharp for Luke's taste. "I've been at this academy for longer than just about any student in Jedi history, and you're refusing to complete my training?"

Luke opened his mouth to reply, but Mara stopped him. "No, we're not. Only you can complete your training, Derrin. Are you willing to pay the price?" Luke saw a flash of old remembered pain in her emerald eyes, but it faded as quickly as a meteor over Coruscant.

"I am," he said, without a bit of recklessness in his voice.

"We'll be there to pick you up in one day. And have Drianna with you. If you're not there, standing right on the landing platform, we're leaving without you. Got it?"

Derrin practically beamed. "Thank you, Jedi Skywalker." He disappeared and the holo faded back into the console.

Luke frowned at her. "Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, Derrin is bad enough, but Drianna too?"

Mara smiled down at him. "Haven't you figured that one out yet, Skywalker?" she said lightheartedly. "The boy is completely selfish, but it isn't a conscious selfishness. He has a complete inability to think of anyone but himself. It's not even entirely his fault, and I don't think it makes him dangerous, but he'll never be a Jedi unless he realizes it and conquers it."

"Well...." Luke pondered. "He doesn't seem to be that selfish."

"I don't mean the kind of selfishness that makes a person take the most prime cut of dewback at dinner, or the kind that hoards money. I mean the selfishness that I had before I became a Jedi. I was selfish with myself and my emotions. I did what was good for me. If I did something good for someone else, it was because I chose to, not because I was asked. In the end, it was all about me. In the end, all of Derrin's life is all about him. It's time he gets a real taste of reality."

"Well, yeah, but what about Vaiya? I hardly think she'll be thrilled to see him, let alone see him with Drianna!"

Mara cocked her head slightly. "Maybe not. I have a feeling we'll be surprised. Besides, I like Drianna," she added with a toss to her hair. "She's got a good head on her shoulders. She deserves better than Derrin, if he doesn't become a Jedi. Maybe we can cure her of the spell Derrin puts on women, too."

Luke cocked an eyebrow at her. "All women?" he asked.

She gave him a cock-eyed grin. "Well, you have to admit, he's pretty damn charming."

"When he wants something," Luke growled.

"Careful, Jedi Master," Mara chastized as she went back to the bedroom. "Anger is of the dark side!"

Luke stood up to follow her, his mind searching for a retort. As he passed by the old display hooks on the wall where Anakin Skywalker's old lightsaber used to hang, he paused.

Vaiya had stolen his old uniform and the lightsaber from the museum donations before she'd left. But why take her father's things? What was she trying to prove?

His mind rewound his earlier conversation with Mara. She had said she'd pushed her guilt along with her memories into Vaiya's infantile mind. If what Mara said was true, and Vaiya was acting on those buried feelings, then maybe she'd taken the items as a conscious effort to remind herself that she was not all her mother's daughter. She was a Skywalker, her father's daughter, as well.

Or maybe she was trying to prove something.

Luke turned away when he heard a clink coming from the bedroom. He entered, forgetting his retort as his jaw slacked and he stared at Mara in errie silence.

"What?" she said, standing up straight.

"Your...boots." Luke gazed down at them for a long moment. He felt like he'd just been caught up in the middle of a nightmare, and that he was trying to wake himself up.

"What about them?" Mara asked, puzzled. She turned them around, inspecting them. "Don't they fit? They're just like those old boots I used to wear, when we first met." She grinned. "I always loved them."

He shook his head. "Where did you get them?" he asked.

Now she was getting worried. She had a very bad feeling that he was going to tell her something she didn't want to know again. "What is it, Luke?"

"I--" He raised his eyes to her face. "Remember that vision I had some nights ago, about you killing me?"

She squirmed. "Yes."

"You were wearing those boots."

Mara stared down at them, and then proceed to unbuckle the knee clamps. "Then out the airlock they go," she stated.

"No," Luke stopped her. Too many times he'd tried to prevent visions and had them come to life as a direct result of his efforts. And the times he'd just laid back and waited, it had all worked out for the better. "No, don't take them off. Just...tell me if you start hearing old voices again."

Mara let out a snort and yanked the overshirt she'd been wearing off and threw it onto the bed. "Don't worry. With all the soul-bearing we've been doing on this trip I'm starting to get in the mood for some good old-fashioned bad guys verses good guys fighting."

Underneath the shirt, Luke noticed, she was wearing a black tank top and a pair of old Jedi uniform pants.

He didn't say another word and Mara began running her brush through her hair. He simply slipped out of the room and found a nice quiet place to think...about nothing.

The sand was a beautiful, if blinding, white. Vaiya had seen deserts before but not like this. She picked up a handful and realized that it was not sand, it was some finely ground crystal.

Wonderful. All the better to slice and dice her with should the wind decide to pick up. Pulling her cloak more closely around her just in case, she tried to remember some sense-enhancing techniques. Anything more far off and she'd never make it to shelter. She hoped this desert didn't have too many predators.

Pausing, she stretched out. She remembered how to enhance her sight...and still saw nothing. Just more dunes of sand, like waves frozen before they could crash back into the sea from whence they came. No sign of life, no sense of it. The only thing that kept her from worrying about predators crawling underneath her feet was the fact that she could sense NO LIFE here...not even insects.

It was almost as if someone was blocking her out.

Ysalamari? Possibly, but they were by nature jungle creatures. Maybe a Durranian equivalent? Out here where there was no life for the Force to come from? Father had taught her that the Force came from living things...but she felt it with her out here. It flowed through her, over her, like a homing beacon. It spurned her onward, even though she could feel the exhaustion settling in her muscles. Was all of that...just her?

She shut her eyes. Maybe she would just sit down for a minute. She had a little bit of water with her. The escape pod had come rather well equipped, but the water supply hadn't lasted long. She made a mental note to not drink so much the next time she took a trek through a desert.

Then she felt something. As if that veil that had been draped over the wasteland around her had been lifted just a touch. She saw a brief image against the red-tinted interiors of her eyelids. A man in a robe. He was close. Then it vanished.

She opened her eyes and they landed on a particular dune that was raised a little higher than the others. It wasn't too far away. Putting one foot in front of the other, she managed to make it before she slumped down into the sand. She threw her hand out against the slope of the dune, expecting no real break from her fall from the soft ground. But to her utter amazement, her fingers slid through the white grains to rest against something hard. Something metal. Something almost cold. She pulled her hand back and saw that it was a door. A

locked door, with no way to open it. Almost by instinct, she stretched out with the Force, willing it to open.

With a sharply echoed clank, it slid just wide enough for her to crawl through. Which she did, into the cool darkness beyond.

After she had rested--for how long she was not sure--Vaiya got the urge to begin exploring. She had dropped a good twenty feet into the chamber below the dune and had landed in a heap. She decided to stay there for a few minutes, too exhausted to even try to move. Now, she felt a new strength in her--from her healing trance, she wanted to believe, but somehow knew differently. There was a presence here, strong and warm.

As she sat on the cool floor of the dark chamber, she ran through a series of mental exercises. She had to remind herself of how old she was, and how little of the world she actually knew. Between her father and his precious Jedi Code and her mother and her belief that you always had to be careful who you trusted, Vaiya had learned some very distinct views of the world in her young years. She was only just 16. She was a child by most standards. As she straightened her cloak, she felt older. As she stood and straightened her father's old uniform, she felt wiser. And as she gripped the hilt of the lightsaber reflexively, she felt stronger.

Then she snorted. She should know better than to give herself too much credit. Maybe it was just the sun in her head. But she felt old at that moment. Older than she was, at the least.

The chamber was domed, and there was very little light. Some shafts of sun made their way in through the white sand outside, sand that was obviously meant to cover those little cracks. Unfortunately, whatever this place was it was not immune to nature. Some sprinkles of the ground crystal floated around her, settling on the floor with a cloud of dust. She pulled her hood over her head again to offer some sort of protection. She could hardly see as it was. Maybe she needed to try another Force technique.

In a few minutes, she was at the chamber walls, her eyes entranced by what she saw there. The colors were brighter now, and made shapes. More than shapes. They were beyond just shapes, even beyond symbols. As her eyes traveled, she saw it was a mosiac of some type, conveying meaning and substance to all who could read it, but held tantilizingly out of the reach of those who could not.

Vaiya wasn't sure where she was. She could see the shape of a man dressed in white, standing amist others who were obviously scorning him. He was offering himself to them in some sort of sacrifice....or was it his sacrifice? It looked to Vaiya like he was going to be executed as a criminal, the way some of the men around him were wearing outfits that made them look like guards.

The next panel was red with enameled blood, with the first man's serene face still imprinted firmly in it. They were torturing him, and yet he would not resist, not even cry out and ask for mercy.

Vaiya reached up and touched the panel. There were others. They filled this room. There were a hundred, a thousand stories here. As her fingers alighted on the carving of the man, she felt a sudden wave of something flood through her. For a brief moment, she understood everything, and then----

She pulled away, terrified. There was someone in here with her. For a moment, every part of her body froze, and she turned her head a bit, staring into a patch of pitch blackness, straining her Force-enhanced sensed to their breaking limit.

Nothing. The noise did not repeat itself. She took a shuddering breath and turned back to the carvings, sure that she must have imagined it in this dark and rather errie place. With a small shrug that was not half as dismissive as she would have liked, she went back to her investigation.

He watched her, his eyes unblinking. What was this hooded figure doing here? No one came here, no one who wasn't an Exile, no one who didn't have some sort of deathwish. If whoever it was was here for the Master, there was an easier way, but coming through the Cathedral? It simply wasn't done.

Keeping himself cloaked with his mind, he observed as the figure slid its hand along the carvings. They were covered with thick dust...the Master would be angry that he'd been neglecting his duty, but some days the dust came in faster than he could handle. It seemed that the desert outside was determined to consume this sacred, holy place. But if it was truly sacred and holy, it would survive.

The figure had lighted its hand on a particular carving. This was one of the most beautiful, one that he himself had admired (in spite of his imperfect faith as of yet) many times in the last few days. He strained his sense-enhancing ability to see if the sex of the figure would be given away. It was very slight, with the flash of black cloth underneath the greyish brown of its cloak. He strained so hard that for a minute he lost his grip on his own mental cloak and found himself exposed--

The figure whirled. The hand remained in the air, raised. Female, he thought. The hands were too slender and delicate to be male. And a lock of hair stuck out from the hood, where one eye, covered in shadows, gazed into the dark pit where he stood, trying to search him out. He returned the cloak to him, and she seemed to reconsider what she had felt.

Obviously this one was strong in the Psyenergy as well. He wondered if she knew it. The more he gazed at her, the more convinced he was that she was in fact an offworlder. A rare and endangered species where he came from. In fact, there were only a few left alive on all of Duran. But what good was coming to the Cathedral and sneaking around the Exiled Land going to do her? Gently, ever so gently, he lowered his mental cloak just a touch and saw if he could possibly touch her mind without her knowing. If she was strong in the Psyenergy this wasn't going to accomplish anything but give him away, but maybe it was time to stop wondering and start questioning. That was what the Master had always said.

Just before she sensed him, she had pulled back the hood of her cloak to get a better look at one of the carvings. Some of the light from the growing hole in the top dome sprinkled down on her hair, making it glitter like gold, with a streak of red fire. He wished he could see her face, and was granted his wish sooner than he would really have liked. The second his mind touched hers, she whirled around, grabbing something from her belt and ignighting it. A blade made of blue light extended before her, and for a moment he could only stare, flabbergasted.

She carried a lightsaber.

He couldn't understand her words, but he could tell by her tone that she was angry. She spoke in some base language, but as he stared at her in wonderment, she decided to try something else because the next words out of her mouth were more fluid, like a running stream over her tongue.

He still shook his head. Maybe if he tried to touch her mind again.....

She jumped, but only slightly. Then she lowered the lightsaber and gave him a hesitant smile. Within a few seconds, he could hear her in his head, saying, So what language do you speak, anyway?

He let her see. At first, he thought it a futile guesture. His ability for languages was so rare that no one ever understood what he was trying to do. No one ever understood that all language was was a physical manifestation of thought. If you had the thought, you had the language.

In her mind, he saw much he had never believed, but had always hoped for. He saw other planets, her parents, her heart. But as quickly as he reached her, she pushed him away. In her own tongue, he heard her say, "Boy, you do go fast, don't you?"

He smiled at her. "Hello," he said, pleased he could still manage the word. It had been so long since he'd had any use for this Basic tongue he'd picked up in times he'd prefer not to remember.

"Hello." She smiled back. "Do you have a leader? Someone I could talk to?"

He glanced over his shoulder and then turned back to her with a frown. In his own tongue he said, The Master does not wish to see anyone. He is no longer a teacher of the Psyenergy.

She frowned at him. Psyenergy? she echoed, but didn't question it farther. "Why not?"

Somehow, he got the feeling that she wasn't here for the Master. In fact, he was pretty sure by the way she was standing that she wasn't here by choice at all. She had crashed here, which meant she had a ship, which meant she'd left tracks from where she'd started at her ship through the white sand and found her way to the Cathedral.

"No trouble," he said, but it came out rather sheepish.

"Ah, I guess all Jedi have to follow that same code." She sighed. "You called him Master. Is he a Jedi Master?"

Jedi....that word he knew. It was old and antique, like the old animal bound carriages his people had once ridden in before hovercraft. But she threw this revered word around like it was a part of her everyday life. He frowned at her, confused.

"You seek Jedi Master?" he tried.

"I don't know. Is there one here?"

"Yes, the Master." He took in her lightsaber. "You Jedi?"

She gripped it with a rueful smile. "I'm trying. Actually, I'm just looking for a place to hide. They shot down my ship and---" she paused, turning to look him full in the face. "Wait a minute. You've never seen an offworlder before, have you?" She sighed, and he could feel her berating herself. "Nice going," she grumbled.

While those were words he didn't quite understand, he saw the emotion. He stepped forward, closer to her, and guestured for her to follow by lightly touching her shoulder. Offworlders I have known, but none so pretty as you, he said in his own tongue.

The girl's sensed tingled. She knew it was a compliment, but she hadn't gotten the language down yet to know how much of a compliment it was.

"Vaiya," she said. For a moment, he just stared at her, wondering what the word meant. Her eyes--such brilliant gemstones of aquamarine--gazed at him in expectation. Finally, she patted her chest. "Vaiya," she said again. "That's my name."

"Ahh...." He touched his own chest lightly. "Larin."

"Larin," she echoed, playing the name over her full lips. She seemed to turn it over in her head, and Larin looked away, an almost embarrassed smile on her face.

"Follow me," was all he said before the two slipped into the dark hidden tunnel.

Vaiya had no idea what to make of this, but on the whole thought she'd gotten rather lucky. But after all, it seemed to run in the Skywalker luck that they could find friendly natives.

Her guide, Larin, was guiding her down a long tunnel which seemed to slope even farther into the earth. Only the light from her lightsaber showed her the way. He for his part had no other guide. Not even a flashlight. But if he was Force sensitive, and she knew he was by the way he touched her mind, then it might be his special gift to manuver in the dark. Some Masters, or so she'd heard, were blind but saw perfectly with the Force.

She wondered if her parents were still chasing after her.

Now she found herself wishing she could contact them in some way. At least to let them know she was okay. They were going to find her ship, and by now the tracks surely had to be covered by the desert winds. Plus the fact that the Durans hated offworlders was going to make them nervous. She would be extremely lucky if her safety held out here in this dark tunnelwork--perhaps it was best to let them continue their "rescue" plans. Maybe she would wind up needing them when they came along.

After what seemed like forever, they stopped. Larin was messing with some levers, and a door slid up at neatly as if it had been on a spaceship.

"Come," he said, casting her a nearly bashful smile, and he ducked inside. There was light coming from the room, so Vaiya shut down her lightsaber and let herself adjust.

A fire burned in the middle of the room, contained by a thick screen of black mesh with wide holes in the bottom for objects to fit through. Around the fire--a good twenty feet in diameter, as a matter of fact--was a big ring of seats. Comfortable seats. It looked like once upon a time this place had been a meeting room with a table where the fire now burned. The seats were in good shape, but made of the same smooth rock as the rest of the room and firmly planted in place.

One seat was occupied. A man in a gray cloak like her father always wore sat in it. She could tell by the flickering of the light against his form that he had no hair, and his hands were folded in front of him like in prayer.

Her guide gently pointed her to a seat in view of the man, but as far away as she could get. "Wait, please," he said, his use of her language starting to sound more natural now. "I will have to disturb the Master. He is praying."

Praying? Vaiya turned the word over and over again in her head. Praying was something that religious people did. Jedi meditated, but they did not pray in the same sense. They communicated to the Force as a tool, but those who prayed usually were imploring gods. Yet he had used the word pray. Perhaps it was a cultural thing, or the words meant the same here.

Somehow, she doubted it.

Slowly, Larin approached the other man, and waited patiently for a few moments. After they ticked past, the man lifted his head slightly to look at Larin.

Yes? Now it was easy for Vaiya to follow them.

Master, someone has come.

I know. The other stretched, and while Vaiya could not make out his features, she could practically feel him smirking. Offworlders seem to be your weakness, don't they, Larin?

That one took Larin back, and he stepped away. The man looked up at him, his eyes affectionate.

My lessons on humor seem to be sliding off you, Larin. You will never be healed until you are able to laugh at the tricks fate tries to play on you.

There is no fate, Master, Larin said quickly, as if this were some kind of word game, there is freedom.

Yes, freedom to or freedom from, your choice. The man stood up and stretched. He moved a little slow, as if he were rather old, but seemed to have a lively temperment. He moved closer to Vaiya, who felt the sudden urge to stand.

Larin was not far behind. This is Vaiya, he said, but did not move around the man to get to her. Vaiya glanced at him in faint panic, but she got no hostile sense from this old man. In fact, she seemed to amuse him.

"Vaiya," he said suddenly, in Basic. "What kind of a name is that?"

"The one my parents gave me," she replied.

"Not true," he countered, holding up a finger. The fire caught against his face and she saw features that looked like rock worn smooth by centuries of erosion. "Not your parents, but another."

Vaiya felt herself blushing. "A friend of theirs, they told me. It means 'stonelifter.'"

"And do you lift stones?"

She frowned. "Are you a Jedi Master?"

He shrugged. "You tell me. What is a Master of anything? Larin here calls me Master because he couldn't bear to address me in the familiar style of my first name. Quite frankly, it annoys me because my first name is all I have."

"Well, Master is better than Mister," she said. "And I can lift stones."

"Then lift the one you're sitting on."

"But its attached to the ground!" she objected.

"Is it?" he questioned, real mirth on his face. "Why don't you take another look."

Not sure what else to do, Vaiya leaned forward and looked down. Sure enough, there was no line of separation between her stone chair and the stone ground.

"No, no, no!" the man said, waving his arm. "Shut your eyes and see it. Feel the chair. Feel all around it. See where it is separated from the ground. Like this." He shut his eyes, and Vaiya could see a picture in her mind as she followed suit. She saw the chair around her and it seemed to be coated with something. It was like she could see the Force flowing around it. It was clearer than anything she'd ever seen with her father. It was almost like this man was putting the image in her mind.

Reaching out tenatively, she lifted. She could see where the chair was not a part of the ground, but it had been sitting in that one place for so long it had lost its sense of self and had appeared fused to the rock. Remembering her father's words of "no try," she used her Force ability to bring the chair a good three feet off the ground.

"Ahhh," the man said, pleased but hiding it. "A showoff. I love showoffs. They're always so fun to teach the really hard lessons."

"Is this good enough?" she said, sweating slightly from the exertion. She was not only lifting a chair that weighed a good 2 hundred pounds or more, but also the weight of herself in the chair.

He reached out with the Force, and she could see the energy glowing not just around the chair, but around her, too. Try it now, he sent at her.

She touched the Force energy around herself, and instantly half the strain went away. She was so surprised that she almost dropped the whole thing right to his feet, but remembered that she was holding herself up and didn't want to risk crushing herself with this HUGE chair.

"That is enough," he said, his tone slightly milder. "You have what offworlders call the Force, but you are not a Jedi. Do you wish to be?"

She set the chair down and caught her breath. "Why not?" she said.

He laughed. "Vaiya," he repeated, a bit like a song. "When you trust us more, you will have to tell us your story. As for now, I will give you my name. It is Valeris." He paused, his tone darkening a bit. "May I ask one thing?"

Stunned by his sudden show of courtesy, Vaiya nodded.

"You are an offworlder. Do you still have your last name?"

Not understanding the question, she nodded again. "Why?"

He looked away from her. "No one with a last name ever comes to the Exiled Land. If you would be so kind, until the time comes, please do not tell us what it is."

"Fine," she said slowly, wondering what the big problem was. "But I am afraid I am the one asking for favors here. I know that this planet is not friendly to offworlders. Will I come to any harm by staying here with you?"

Valeris laughed, but it was more like a snort. "Trust me, Vaiya, they will not search for you. They will take your craft and destroy it, but you they will abandon to the sands. I would only fear for those who might come for you. They might come to harm."

Vaiya sighed. "I don't suppose there is any way to contact them, is there?"

He shook his head. "Only through the Force. But you are not strong enough for that yet. Come, you need to eat. We will begin your teaching tonight."

She stood up. "Funny," she said, putting her hands on her hips. "I was under the impression that you didn't teach anymore. And that as a general rule Jedi Masters didn't teach anyone who didn't really want to be taught."

He smiled at her, amused. "What a young galaxy you have come from, Vaiya. I have often found that those who are not sure what they want to know often learn the most. Now come. You can't do anything if you're exhausted and starving. Common sense guides us as much as any 'proddings from the Force.'"

Luke had never had any reason to doubt Mara's instincts...until now.

Derrin and Drianna were rather amusing company at first, but the fact that they were chasing after Vaiya was putting a strain in the atmosphere of the small cabin. The fact that they had to sleep in Vaiya's room was no treat for either one of them. Luke could sense a good shadow of guilt coming from Drianna, and that was fine. That wasn't what bothered him.

It was Derrin's complete lack of thought that really ticked him off. And a ticked-off Jedi Master was the last thing the little crew could tolerate. He knew he was giving into his emotions as an overprotective father. But in close quarters, Derrin was even more self-absorbed than they had given him credit for.

They were only a day into hyperspace when Luke wondered if he was going to crack and wind up using his old darkside powers. Maybe a good old fashioned dose of Force lightning would wake this kid up. And if it was used for good, the he really wouldn't be following the dark side, would he? Or maybe he'd just stop the ship and eject the kid toward Coruscant, which wasn't too far away from the course they'd set. Maybe a few days with Han and Leia would be enough to rattle him.

As he sat at the pilot's seat, honestly pondering the idea, the alarm sounded.

Luke jerked up. No, that couldn't be. It had to be a short. They were in hyperspace, and that alarm was for incoming fighters. No fighters he knew of could attack in hyperspace!

"Luke!" came Mara's cry from behind him, "Incoming!"

"How?" he shouted back, pouring over the scanners. "We're in hyperspace!"

The first hit got them right on the flank. While the ship had a design similiar to a Correllian freighter, it was sleeker and better balanced, so it didn't rock too much. Mara, however, was struggling to get to the controls and somehow activate their defense systems, and she wound up taking a tumble right into the co-pilot's seat.

"You have a fine sense of the obvious, Master Skywalker," she said with a touch of fire in her voice, "but right now I'd rather deal with not exploding into a million bits and forever flying through this warped dimension." She slammed her fist against their radar. It was set on the Navcomputer so she couldn't get any readings for behind them, only the front where their course was laid out. "We're going to have to drop out!" she said.

There was another spray of shots. Mara and Luke both flew forward, nearly choking themselves and getting a face full of dashboard. In the back, there was a considerable yelp from Derrin and a crash to follow that made Luke grin in spite of himself.

"Damage control," Mara said, her ice-cold battleready persona settling over her like a force-field. She punched some numbers really fast, and within seconds, they had dropped out of hyperspace.

The sudden fading of the starlines threw Luke off for a second, and he reached out with the Force to get it bearings. There were two of them, just like the ones that had attacked him over 13 years ago, when Mara had gone to Duran. Mara had said Cal had sent them. Apparently, he liked to keep good ties with his friends on this side of the galaxy.

But how in the Force did they have the ability to open fire on them in the middle of hyperspace?

"Stop wondering and start doing, Farmboy!" Mara said, her eyes holding just a flash of affection as she stood up. "We fight what we know. This way, we're on equal footing." With that, she ran back to the cannon.

Luke took the controls of the ship, pushing the wondering thoughts from his mind as he concentrated on outmanuvering his attackers. Within seconds he felt Mara secured in her chair with her thumbs itching to go. He was vaguely aware that Drianna was beside him in the co-pilot's seat now, and that Derrin was heading for the other, lower cannon.

Okay, they wanted a fight. Well, they would get one.

Mara settled herself into her seat, then heard Derrin crawling down the ladder into the other cannon bay. At least he's not piloting the ship, she sent to Luke before giving him a mental nod to assume a more aggresive position. As she stared through the transparisteel windows of the gun bay, she confirmed her hunch. Those were Cal's ships. But Cal wasn't there, coward that he was. How in the world did he get ships that would attack in hyperspace? If she gave it more thought, she realized it was not really surprising that he'd gotten that kind of technology. Cal had always been an entrapreneur. He'd probably just plain stolen it.

She calmly targeted one ship and fired. To her utter astonishment, the shot faded harmlessly against the ship's shield, as if her laser cannon were a handful of Tatooine dust. Okay, so he had strong shielding technology, too. Everything had a weakness.

Derrin was taking his cue from her, apparently, because he began firing. All his shots slid right over the other fighter, who was now taunting him by staying in his scopes. Mara narrowed her eyes. What did they really want, anyway? With all their superiority, if they had wanted to shoot down the Jaded Sky, they would have done it already. No, Cal wouldn't have her killed, and she knew it. He had too much to gain from humiliating her and letting her see Luke suffer. Well, over the Sarlacc's dead body! Cal was going to learn the painful lesson that most of the galaxy knew about taunting Mara Jade Skywalker.

Mara zeroed in on a piece of the shielding and let loose a dozen shots, one right on top of the other, right on the same spot in the shield. All she needed was to crack it in one spot and all the following shots would be able to do some damage. The trick was getting the ship to stay still.

She realized dimly that Luke was with her, through the Force. He guided the ship to match her shots, careful to keep her in line even as the ship dove. She focused through the Force, and with the combination of her and Luke's discipline, kept the line flowing evenly. Every shot landed in the exact same spot on that little jawa's superfine fighter.

Within a few minutes, she had cracked the shield. The ship turned tail and ran. Mara let out a small laugh. "Looks like they're only brave when their technology holds out," she said into the headset.

"I think Derrin has bit off more than he can chew," came Drianna's voice, a touch of scorn added to it. Mara smiled and whirled around to do the same thing to the other ship. With both her and Derrin, they might be able to capture this one and question the pilot. She reached out through the Force toward Derrin and showed him what they had to do. Derrin sent back a mental nodd, and suddenly----

Mara's danger sense tingled. Not just tingled. Full on ached. She felt like something was squeezing her heart. Her stomach muscles clenched and she felt like she couldn't breathe. Something was terribly, horribly wrong.

The ship had dropped away from them, and for a split second she had thought it was going to follow its partner. But it didn't. Instead, it made a curve at a nearly impossible speed and slingshot around to come screaming at them. It tipped to the side, it's belly exposed to them, it's cannons swinging about to open fire not twenty meters away from Mara's cannon bay.

The last thing Mara saw was the blue-white balls filling her vision, the light so bright it was blinding. Then, darkness and the heavy smell of burning metal accompanied the sound of her own scream.

Vaiya awoke with a start. Something was wrong. Her heart was pounding like she'd had a nightmare. She hadn't felt like this since she was six and kept having those terrible dreams about being buried under rock.

She sat up, her muscles complaining loudly. Although she had some bedding under her, her bed was not the softest thing she'd ever slept in. Not that there was anything better around here to use, although she had a nice idea of going up and collecting some sand to put in her matress, so it would contour itself to her body. As it was, only about 4 inches of padding were between her and solid rock.

"It'll be good for you, Vaiya," Valeris had assured her. "It will test your endurance, toughen you up a bit."

She reached for her water. She hated water in the morning, but she was so dehydrated, and it wasn't like there was any fresh juice waiting for her in the cooler. She was rather getting used to the water, because here it had a rather sweet taste. That must come from the plants that Larin tended in the small patch he called his garden. It was really just a dip in the thick floor of the sand where a big patch of sunlight was able to come through. The plants grew well there, exposed to the heat to produce their water. Although they were usually a part of the meal, for Larin would slice up the thick stalks of the waterplants into wedges that were surprisingly sweet for them to eat, he would set aside a small amount and mix it into the drinking water that they got from an underground spring. It had a metallic taste to it without the added flavoring.

Of all the things she thought she'd miss, she missed ice the most. The bottle did it's job of keeping the water cool, but it was a flat coolness. She wanted to hear the chilling tinkle of ice. She wanted her water so cold it would sweat out of the jar and drip onto her face. The water of the spring was usually on the warm side. She needed something cold to walk her up in the morning.

Standing, she crawled over to the makeshift dresser on the other side of her "cell." That was what Valeris had called her room, a "cell." She wasn't a prisoner, but she was an imposition. As the last three days had passed, Vaiya had come to accept that she was stuck on this planet until someone came for her. In the meantime, all she could do was wait.

And listen to Valeris talk.

As much as she hated to admit it, Valeris fascinated her. He seemed so old, and he talked like he'd seen well over a century's full of events. Yet there was a sharpness and strength to him that carried him past his age, and a touch of humor that made him likeable. Her father had told her many stories about Yoda. Perhaps the most important tool of a Jedi Knight was her sense of humor.

She did have so much to learn.

She resisted the first day. When Valeris began his lecturing about the Force, she'd waved her hand at him and said that her parents were both Jedi Knights and that she didn't need another lecture. Valeris had cocked his scruffy eyebrow at her.

"Both parents?" he said.

"Yes. One of them is a Master," she replied, and started to feel the sudden urge to drop the subject.

He just stared at her. She could feel that he was rolling over his declaration of "no last names," whatever purpose that served. He was curious, but Vaiya had the feeling that he was long used to overcoming his curiosity. He sighed patiently.

"I understand your need for quiet," he said, his voice almost cajoling. "I assure you that you are among friends here."

Vaiya shook her head. "No last names," she voiced, reminding him of his own thoughts. Beside him, Larin lowered his head a bit, but his eyes darted up to meet with hers. It was almost a guesture of appreciation.

"True, I said that," Valeris said quietly.

"Do you mind telling me why?"

"I don't mind. Larin does," Valeris said, sending the young man a half-smile. "He still hasn't overcome his pride. I didn't want him to be tested before I thought he was ready. But upon second and third thought, when is one ever ready?"

"Pride?" Vaiya echoed. She was starting to get a feeling for these two strangers through the Force that they were not what they appeared to be. "Pride of what? A last name?"

"No, the loss of pride in not having a last name."

Vaiya's interest perked up. She'd heard of customs on planets when people were stripped of something vital and important in order to make their disgrace public. Sometimes it was just an office, like in the New Republic. Others it was a physical guesture, like the cutting of hair, or the loss of a body part. "Were your last names taken from you?" she asked, her voice very soft.

Valeris was almost smiling at her, but as his eyes darted over to Larin, who was not even looking up, Vaiya could sense his pity. "I have lived here in this desert for much longer than either one of you have been alive. Here, I don't need a last name. Here I belong completely and utterly to Yejion, Who Is That Is." He paused, waiting for Larin to say something. The subtle pressure was almost ignored, but in the long minutes of silence, Larin finally broke and looked up at them. He gave Vaiya an almost bashful smile.

"My spirit is willing, but my flesh fails me every day," he said, almost as if in apology.

Vaiya cocked her head. She hadn't heard too many words from Larin since she came here. He only communicated what was necessary, and always softly, as if trying to stress a patience and gentleness in his every waking moment. It gave him an odd mystery.

Vaiya was a little tired of mysteries, so she had just dismissed it. But now, looking at him full in the face, she was intrigued.

"Fails?" she asked.

"Enough with the word games," Valeris said, only a touch of impatience on his face. "Perhaps the whole story would suffice."

"Perhaps," Vaiya said, a feeling of old rage rumbling through her guts. The faces of her parents as the told her their secrets floated before her. The memory of the vision she'd had as a result of their secret-keeping was like a knife embedded in her gut, almost forgotten but quickly remembered as it was turned so slightly. She thought she had dismissed her anger and was on this quest for herself, but she had misjudged herself.

Valeris was watching her with that same patience. But it was rather amused, like stone flint worn down by years of laughing at life. Come to think of it, he had very bright green eyes--like her mother, Vaiya thought. Their emerald hue seemed to hide so much, but they looked like they could take in the entire universe in a glance. His expression, as amused as it usually was, also held the sharp lines of wisdom. They started to show as he began to speak.

"I am an exile here, in this desert. I was sent here a little over 50 years ago, after we had declared that no outsiders would be welcomed on our world. I did not know whether to support the position or defy it. I had many friends who were offworlders, but their raging battles for greed and power were corrupting us. We had not advanced so much when the Old Republic contacted us. We did not have hyperspace technology. They gave it to us. It was corrupting us as a people, and when Palpatine made his play to make us a slave planet like other Imperially controlled worlds, we fought. We fought hard enough to make our meager little ball of a planet seem worthless with everything else in oblivion. Palpatine withdrew, but there were smugglers and spies that followed him. He watched and waited for us to begin to crumble, watched for our power to switch in favor of the Empire. It never happened. Soon, Palpatine grew tired of wating, and decided to try us one more time.

"I was already an old man, but I lived with my granddaughter and her husband. They had a beautiful little girl....she was only 14 when Palpatine took her. She had such strength in the Force, but there was a flaw in her strength. I noticed that she was strongest around me, but away from me she could accomplish very little. I feared for her when Palpatine discovered this, because he knew that she could be his right arm if she were fully-trained. I don't know if I was more afraid for her or for the universe.

"A few years after she was taken, my people managed to get the remaining offworlders off our planet and set up a defense mechanism that would keep them away. By then, I did not care if the offworlders came and went, or if our planet was exiled from the galaxy. I only cared about finding my great-granddaughter. I tried to hijack an old ship to go and find her, but I was discovered. They tried me as a traitor, destroyed all the ships and exiled me into the desert. If I didn't want to be a Duranian, then I would not have a Duranian home--or even a last name. It has been so long I believe there are days when I forget what it was. But sometimes, in the evenings, when I meditate, it comes to me like a sad, whispering reminder of the past."

Vaiya felt her stomach begin to clench. Something in this story sounded....so familiar. Words that had been told her to, accompanied by pictures. Suddenly Valeris' face was familiar, like something out of a dream, or a Force-vision.

"Do you remember it now?" she whispered.

Larin's head turned a bit, his face like a white mask, hiding his thoughts. In his dark eyes, Vaiya could feel his curiosity as well.

"I remember it was green, like the grass that used to grow around my old home. Green like the evening shade of the desert, or the sky before a terrible storm."

Green....Jade...."And your granddaughter's name?" she continued, her voice barely audible now. "What was her name?"

He smiled. "I named her after my own mother, who I pray to as a saint. Her name was Mara."

More days passed. Valeris' old game of taking some fun in Vaiya's youthful restlessness seemed to soften. She could feel the touch of his emotions in these closed quarters; he knew something was bugging her, but also that she didn't want to share it. For her part, she began to get rather attached to him. Valeris seemed to trust her in a way her parents had never showed.

And after all, this was her great, great grandfather.

Stars, he had to be at least 200 years old! Well, maybe not that old, but well over a hundred. Father had always said the Force slowed age...this was living proof.

In the evenings, they would gather for the meal, and afterwards Valeris would want to talk. It didn't even have to have a topic, just idle chatter. Vaiya could understand. He'd probably been alone for so long that their company was pure heaven to him. He wanted to know everything, about her ship, about her family (although she didn't say much), the planet she had come from, what she'd seen during her travels. Larin always listened to her attentively, his wide eyes unmoving from her face as she spoke, even if her talk was evasive and dismissive, as it often was.

But Larin was the one who liked to surprise people. One evening, he looked calmly across the table at her and said, "What about the Force?"

"What about it?" Vaiya asked, confused.

"What do you know about it?" Larin prodded. "I mean, what is it?"

"It is the same everywhere. I know that you call it the Psyenergy, but it is a way of life for the Jedi."

Valeris snorted. "Jedi," he muttered. "What do the modern Jedi know of the Force? They think it is some sort of religion, some all encompasing power of the universe, what binds us all together."

Vaiya paused. "Yes, that is true," she said, trying to keep the sheepishness from her voice. "Are you saying that's wrong?"

Valeris leaned forward. "When I was a young man, our planet was full of Jedi from every world. They used to pilgrimage here from everywhere to worship in that temple that you found near the surface."

"Worship? Worship what? I didn't know that the Force required worship."

"The Force does not require anything because it is just energy," Valeris explained, his voice holding a strained amount of patience. "That is why we stopped calling it the Force. It is the Psyenergy, a tool to be used for good or evil."

"But if it is just a neutral thing," Vaiya contradicted, "then why do they always warn us not to fall to the dark side?"

"Your father is a Jedi Master. Surely he has explained the dark and light sides to you."

"Yes. He says that the path to the light side is to give up yourself, to be unselfish and to serve others. A Jedi gains his power by giving himself away, not by taking in. In his weakness, he is strong. The dark side," she continued as if rehearsing, "is pure selfishness and greed. It drives a soul into a desolate lonliness that has no comfort, which in turn makes the user hunger for more power to fill the gap. The dark side always leads to its own destruction. Therefore, no dark lord will ever endure."

"Those who have will be given more, and those who have not will lose what they have," Larin whispered.

"Pardon?" Vaiya said.

"An old saying, almost ancient," Valeris explained. "You see, Vaiya, the Jedi are not wrong in what they believe. Selfishness is the path of evil, selflessness is the path of good. It is for this reason alone that they even still exist. I heard stories of the purging of Jedi, how Palpatine tried to wipe them out." Valeris stole a glance at Larin. "I also heard about a youth named Skywalker who triumphed over him. One man, who was in many ways still a boy, as I understand it, defeated him, because the dark side defeated itself. It turned servant against Master and they destroyed each other with their own black magic---"

"NO!" Vaiya said, jerking in her seat. Both men started at her for a second, and she got the distinct feeling that Valeris was more than a little annoyed at her urgent contradiction.

"Oh?" he said calmly. "No, what?"

"No, that isn't how it happened," Vaiya said, her eyes stinging with tears she couldn't explain. "The Jedi Skywalker went to face Palpatine in order to save his father, Darth Vader, and turn him back to the light. In the end, Vader did return, but it cost him his life. He gave it to save his son. He took upon himself Palpatine's wrath, and while he managed to destroy him, Palpatine had wounded him mortally. He died within minutes. Skywalker became a Jedi at that moment, for not only had Vader given up his very life for another, but Skywalker had to give up a father he had always wanted in order to....to...."

There was a pause. Then, the distinct feeling of relief.

"You know this man, Vaiya?" Larin asked.

"Yes," she said, her voice shaking slightly. "He is my father, Jedi Master Luke Skywalker."

The next day, Valeris started to teach Vaiya some new Force-tricks. Her father had always warned her against using the Force as sheer power. It was meant more for guidence than strength. But Valeris had a very neutral approach to it.

Like when he had showed her how to lift the stone chair in the main room, Valeris guided Vaiya through brief visions with more skill than even her father had shown. The fact that she was a Jedi Master's daughter was one thing--the fact that she was the daughter of a piece of universal history was another. Valeris' attention was more focused on her now, as if he were trying to reach her, even though she was right there, open and willing to his instruction.

How open and willing she was was surprising, even to her. Mother had had a bit of a religious streak in her. She seemed to find it fascinating, and had made every effort to visit whatever kind of temple or church or whatever-have-you that was nearest to their location when they had traveled from one planet to another. The Force embraced all religions, which she told Valeris repeatedly. He would merely smile at her and continue the lesson.

"Can you see it, Vaiya? That energy around the chair?" Valeris said, his voice in a low monotone.

"Yes, it's like an aura," she said, her eyes closed, "but it's very faint."

"The harder you focus on it, the clearer it will become. Try it," he prodded.

She did as told, and the glow began to brighten. It was an odd glow, without a color or a thickness. It was like the chair had been bound to the air by some spinning thread of an insect, yet it was free to move as a mover should choose.

"That is the Psyenergy, or the Force, as you call it. It exists around every material thing, sentient, non-sentient, inanimate. It doesn't matter. That is the energy of the universe, what binds us together."

"So Obi-Wan was partly right," Vaiya teased.

Valeris paused. "We never did finish that discussion the night before," he said, "after you told us about your father."

Vaiya opened her eyes. "You noticed that too, huh?" she said a bit cockily.

Valeris sighed. "What have I done to offend, Vaiya dear? I have fed you, clothed you--" he guestured to the dull grey jumpsuit she wore regularly, her father's uniform safely folded with her cape and lightsaber in her room--"and taught you. What have I said wrong?"

Vaiya squirmed. "I don't understand what you mean about the Force," she said. "One minute you agree with me, the next you laugh at it like a joke. What did you mean when you said the Jedi used to flock here and worship in that....what do you call it? Cathedral?"

Valeris smiled. "I meant what I said. Vaiya, do you honestly believe in the saying that there is no death, only the Force?"

"It was what I was raised to believe," she said softly.

"But in your heart, do you think it was true?"

She considered that. The memory of the light her mother had seen had faded with time, but it was still present, like a diamond embedded in coal, just a corner of its radiant beauty showing. She had head of so many different religions in her life and had been taught to accept them all in neutrality.

She wanted to be a good Jedi and believe in the Force, but something kept getting in her way. Was she lying to herself?

"What if I didn't?" she asked. "What would you say?"

With that ever-steady patience, Valeris picked up a handful of sand from the ground. It's white crystals glittered and slid through the wrinkles of his skin. "I knew an old Jedi named Yoda once. He was part of the Council long before I was even born. When I was a boy, I heard him say that we were luminous beings, not just crude matter. But we are also crude matter. We have a beginning and an end."

"But the Force is eternal," Vaiya offered.

"The Force is energy. It could not be eternal because it is generated by the existence of a physical universe. This universe did not always exist, therefore it must have been created at some point by some kind of being."

"You're talking about gods now," Vaiya said, nodding her head. "So pick one...there are plenty."

Valeris chuckled. "Plenty of names for one God," he whispered.

"You think there is only one God?" Vaiya asked. "How can you possibly justify that? There are more planets out there than there are grains of sand in the whole desert! Each one is its own species, its own genotype. The very definition of god is a supreme archetype, an archetype of archetypes. It is the ultimate perfection. How can there be only one God when there are so many different types? Surely each must have its own God."

He smiled at her. "Your words prove my point, Vaiya. God is the archetype of archetypes. He is the creator. He is not narrowed to one type or another. By definition, he is limitless, with no beginning or end. It is impossible to think that such a Being could be narrowed into one species? Or even to one space? Would he not, by definition, be infinite? Would it not be more reasonable to think that this one God, this one Supreme Being, being infinite, would want to spread his talents out more, and create many different races and many different ways to worship him?"

"So he's greedy, you're saying?" Vaiya said smartly.

Valeris only smiled. "No. If there is any divinity in the universe, it would have to be one and only one God. There cannot be more than one surpreme archetype of archetypes. There is not enough room in infinity for two infinities." He paused. "It was this belief that the Jedi held for a thousand years. But when my daughter was born, things began to change. The Jedi began to believe in the power of the Force simply as itself, with no respect for its Source. Many of them turned into dark Jedi. The Sith started to rise again. The Jedi who challenged them were often adventure-seeking, or so frightened of the dark side that they either drove out new ideas from fear, or embraced them for fear of offending." He shook his head. "I was the last one to believe. The only reason they have managed to survive is that they did not forget the core of their beliefs. Self could only be gained by giving it away. To think only of self was the quick path to the dark side. They had it all right, but they forgot the most important thing."

"The Creator," Vaiya said, not sure why she said it but feeling a slight rush from the thought. "The one you called Yejion, Who Is That Is. The Creator of the Force, its sustainer."

"Now you understand," Valeris said, sighing. He suddenly looked very old. "Perhaps you need some time to yourself." With that, he got up and left the large, round room, leaving Vaiya alone with her thoughts.

And such thoughts they were.....

Derrin entered the hangar bay, feeling genuine trepidation. If Drianna wasn't going on this trip with him, then he didn't know what he was going to do.

Sitting in its scorched glory on the other side of the bay sat the Jaded Sky. The mechanics were working on it, but it wouldn't be any good for this trip. They needed fast. General Solo had offered the Millenium Falcon, had even offered to make the trip himself, but Chief-of-State Organa Solo had told him he needed to be there for Master Skywalker. Especially now.

Drianna suddenly appeared beside him. She had a week's supply of food at her feet and she was loading it, methodically, with the kind of trained Jedi temperment that Master Skywalker had tried to teach him over the last several years. The Solo children all seemed to have it, too. Everyone but him. Of all the people who had a grip, he was not one of them.

But he was thinking of himself again. He was trying not to. He offered to do this, with Drianna's prodding. They were willing to go seek out Vaiya and bring her back. It was a big challenge, Drianna said, but a worthy one. Derrin had scathingly replied that the fact that they might get shot down before they could land on Durran was really nothing compared to a week long hyperspace trip's worth of silence. Vaiya would know something was wrong. She might know it now. How to make her understand that it was not his or Drianna's place to tell her?

"Ready?" Drianna asked softly.

Derrin looked at her with forced enthusiasm. "Let's warp," he said.

Another approached them. Drianna turned her head a bit and Derrin looked to see General Solo approaching them.

"She's had a recent overhaul," the older man said. "Some real cleaning up, so she shouldn't give you any trouble. But she is an old ship," he said, a touch of saddess in his voice. "I don't know if she's still got it anymore."

"She's a ship, General Solo," Derrin heard himself say in a grateful voice. "That's all we need right now."

"Okay. Take care of her, though." Solo shook his hand and something inside his balled fist rattled. "I kept these, though. Just in case." He opened his hand to show the famous set of dice. "Mara always told me that I'd been had."

Derrin sighed, then had no idea what to do after that. He turned his mind toward Drianna, trying to follow her lead. All of this was so out of place for him. All these emotions that weren't his, all the grief and the pain. Skywalker had to shut himself away, his control right now was so delicate. And poor control would only make things worse.

"Take care of Master Skywalker," Drianna said. "And don't worry. We'll bring Vaiya back."

Solo looked at her and gave her a small smile--the same smile he'd given his wife, Organa Solo, so many years ago when he had told her loved her. "I know you will, Drianna," he said. "You're the kind that always does what she says."

"High compliment coming from you," Drianna replied, but squirmed uneasily as she shot a quick glance at Derrin. "I just hope Vaiya doesn't...well, you know....."

Derrin chose that moment to head up into the ship. He did not want to listen again to them tip-toe around saying that he was partly to blame for this whole mess.

Vaiya took to the habit of walking around the desert at night, but being careful not to go too far. While Valeris said it was relatively harmless, Vaiya knew he wasn't going to stop her even if there were Sandpeople on this world. It would have only wanted to make her go more.

The sand sparkled in the bright light of the three moons. The pure white crystals were cooling with the lack of sun, and Vaiya found a nice spot to sit and meditate. She'd had a very bad feeling lately. Ever since she'd had that "attack," about a week ago. There was something wrong with her parents. Maybe one of them was dead, she didn't know. All she could do was wait.

And pray.

She had developed it as a habit, and it surprised her. She found it very easy to believe what Valeris told her. And the wonderous part about it was that the Force itself seemed to confirm his words. Her father had always taught her to be open to the proddings of the Force, and it had not failed her yet. Now, it seemed to be growing.

She could do so much more now, since she'd been here. The Force came to her more naturally. She could see it around things, she could feel it pumping through her veins. She wondered why she had never felt it before, but she had never realized what it truly was.

Energy. Just energy. What every thing needed, what every thing produced, whether it was potential or kinetic. It was what bound the universe together. The fact that she was attuned to it, that the Force was "strong" with her, was simply by chance of inheritance.

Someone was behind her. She lifted her head only slightly, and almost as soon as the presence was felt, it was revealed to her.

Larin.

This was rather odd, she thought briefly as she turned back to her thoughts. Larin was so quiet and reserved. He was almost shy around her, as if shirking from another who had the same gifts as himself. Valeris said he was in a lot of pain, and refused to share Larin's story. "Only Larin has the right to tell that," he had said, sadly enough to make Vaiya think it was really something serious.

She'd tried talking to him. It was always easy enough, talking to him. Getting him to talk back, however, was a different story. She'd told him about the places she'd visited, and on occasion she'd expressed to him her worries, her vexations over Valeris's "preaching," to which Larin always said, "Just don't close the door on him yet."

She had no intention to. In fact, the harder she tried to push it away, the harder it got to push it.

Larin's feet softly padded through the sand, the low crunching sound seemingly flat against the wide openness around them. Vaiya gazed out over the dunes, trying to shake the feelings that were coming over her. It took her a few seconds to realize that they were not in fact, her emotions, but his emotions. He stopped, and then folded up his legs under him, planting himself beside her with an uncharacteristic suddenness.

"What's on your mind, Vaiya?" he said, his directness making her jump even though she was far from surprised by his voice. She looked at him, frowning.

"What do you mean?" But even as the words came out, she saw the difference. There was something off about Larin this time. His hood was back, his hair was dirty and matted against his head, like he'd been sweating really hard and had run sand-coated fingers through it. His face was unusally sharp, filled with more emotion than she'd ever seen. His eyes--she had never seen the color of his eyes--were dark and lost in the distant horizon, but seemed to glare at what he saw there. It was almost like he was...posessed.

His head turned sharply to gaze at her. He'd heard it, she hadn't watched her thoughts carefully enough. His mouth seemed to turn up into nearly a sneer, and for a moment she felt a shudder pass through her, generated through the Force by his sudden, fierce emotions. Then, he let out his breath and his shoulders slumped. His head hung forward, slightly limp, as he dragged himself to his feet.

"Nevermind," he muttered, his old, peaceful tone back. "I'm sorry I bothered you."

Vaiya scrambled to her feet as he started to walk away. "If you're really sorry you'll tell me why," she called, but her voice still sounded so flat. There was no way to carry it out here.

He looked at her over his shoulder. That dark, wild look was back. She should have stopped right then, but stubborness pushed her on. "I mean it, Vaiya. Just let me walk away."

"Sorry," she said, a touch of her cockiness in her voice. "I'm a glutton for punishment. Come on, I listen to Valeris, don't I?"

He laughed, and her stomach froze. It was a high-pitched, yelping laugh. A sound she would never have expected from him. He whirled on her, a sudden desert breeze sending a cold chill over them both, tossing thick tendrils of his hair and the heavy folds of his cloak.

"You don't believe a word he says," Larin said, a bit loudly.

"Do you?"

"Some days." He was still walking...backwards. As if he were trying to ward her off. As if he were afraid if he turned away from her again, she would pounce on him---

"Stop that!" he snapped, abruptly stopping dead in his tracks. She lost her footing and stumbled into him, and felt him grab her, powerfully, around the wrist, and yank her around until she was chest to chest with him, staring up at him, into those dark eyes that were not blue or brown or green or grey, but all rolled together into one. Eyes like black holes as they took away entire atmospheres and the colors smeared across space and time.

They panted in each other's faces for a second, and the second Vaiya found her bearings she forced herself to drop her fear. Valeris had faith in Larin. She had to remember that. Whatever had come over him, it had to be fixable.

It had to be.

"Why did you come out here?" she whispered.

"To see you," he said, his face unchanging from its wildness but his voice back to the reserved calm.

"Why?"

"I don't know."

"You're hurting my wrist."

Immediately, his grip lessed and turned into more of a carress. A look of complete and utter shame crossed his face and for a moment Vaiya was sure he was going to cry. "Oh, God," he moaned, "I am so sorry." He put his hands on her shoulders and eased her away, hiding the intensity of his emotions quickly behind his mental barriers. "Did I hurt you?"

"Not really," she whispered. She let the distance between them get wider, her confusion nearly dizzying.

He put his hand over his face. Oh please don't let him start crying, she prayed silently. Instead, he slumped onto the ground again, his legs folded under him, his head in his hands. Slowly, she knelt before him, leaning back on her feet. Tenatively, she reached out and touched his hair. Ever so slightly, he flinched, but he did not shake her off. She had never really gotten a look at his hair, either. Some shade of brown, somedays as light as blond. But in the dark of the underground city, there was no way to tell. Even now, as she tried to smooth out the ragged locks, she couldn't tell.

After several minutes, he took a deep breath and sat up. As she pulled her hand away, he reached for it. "Vaiya," he said in complete earnesty, "I am so sorry."

"I know," she said reassuringly. "But maybe you could make it up to me by telling me what in creation is wrong?"

He shut his eyes. "I want to tell you so much, Vaiya," he whispered. "But I'm afraid that if you know, you'll be afraid of me."

Immediately, Vaiya's mind started to whirl. She saw the faces of Derrin and Jaid, or the man she had known as Jaid. They had all seemed so innocent, so trustworthy, so worthy of her faith in them. She had never been afraid, never shown any caution. In the end, it had all come back to her.

She glanced down at Larin, who was not looking at her, but down at the sand in his hands as he ran his fingers through it nervously. Perhaps she could be more cautious in her way with people. But Larin could do no worse to her than had already been done. "Why don't you try me?" she asked.

He took a few minutes before beginning. Vaiya could practically hear him thinking. He lifted his head but didn't look at her as he began speaking, his concentration fluxuating as his emotions interfered with his reason. "I was exiled here," he said, "about two years ago. My mother and father were killed in a surprise attack by a band of offworlders. We don't know what they were after. If they were smugglers, or what. I wanted revenge, and I wound up getting hooked up with some guy named Saphringer."

Vaiya's insides tightened, and Larin glanced at her face, slightly alarmed.

"No," she said to his unspoken question. "Please, go on."

"Saphringer is the only smuggler that hasn't ever been caught by Durran authorities. I thought I was safe, contacting him. For a while, I was. I even made it off planet to watch the execution of those who had killed my family." He shut his eyes, shuddering. "No, that's not the truth. The truth is, I executed them myself, with Saphringer's help. I abused my gifts and I broke the law, and they stripped me of my last name and exiled me out here."

Astonishment floated around her like a cloud of smoke. So this was Larin's big secret. He was a murderer and a criminal. He had no last name, had no family, no nothing. Only this desert, Valeris...and now, her.

She let out her breath. "Wow," she whispered.

"But that isn't it," he said, his eyes now locking onto hers with a pleading expression. "That isn't what I came out here for. Ever since you came here, I've just had this feeling about you. I can feel the traces of something familiar in your mind, like you and I are...connected somehow."

She cocked an eyebrow. What would Mother have said to a line like that? "Jedi's will use that 'connection' thing all the time. What better way to get you into bed if you believe it's destiny?" She opened her mouth to give him a light reply, but the second she did, she realized that he was telling her the truth.

He shook his head, pure frustration clotting his mind. "It isn't just you, Vaiya. When I was only 10 years old, my parents....they found something. An old crashed ship, with cargo still inside. And there was a baby there. I don't remember how they got him out of that blue stuff that he was sealed in, but when they did, he was alive and healthy. They took him in and raised him as my brother. I always watched out for him. Ever since they exiled me, I can feel him reaching for me, all the time, just wanting to know that I'm alive." He looked nearly paniced. "I miss him so much. We were the only family we had for so long. I feel like I've failed him, and worse than that, I'm afraid he's coming here."

"How...." she cleared her voice, "how old is he?" she whispered.

"Ten, now. But he's so much older than that inside. I wish you could see him. I'm afraid you will see him, soon. I know he's looking for me. Or rather, he's already found me and is now coming here. I can't stop him, no matter what I do." His face was pure desperation. "I can't let that happen, Vaiya, I can't!"

"Maybe it needs to happen. I mean, whether you believe in the Force or in destiny or in Valeris' God, there is still a purpose to the universe that has to be accomplished. Maybe this is the way it's being carried out."

"No, Vaiya, that isn't why at all!" His voice took on a hard edge, but he quickly sawed it away. "When I was tried, I was diagnosed with some sort of disorder. I barely remember murdering my parents' murderers. They said I needed to be sent to a sanitarium, not exiled. But the people declared that I was to be cast out, so that what I had would not carry on and plague their society." His voice was so heavily scornful Vaiya flinced. Then he turned pleading again. "Do you understand me? I'm not in control of myself. Sometimes, the dark side uses me and I have no control! I'm dangerous, no matter where I am. That's why I act...the way I do. I'm afraid that I'm going to wind up hurting you, and my brother. Because what I feel coming from you is the same thing I feel toward him."

Vaiya didn't know what else to do. She just stared at him for a moment as she took it all in, and then, without knowing why, she reached out to him and pulled him to her, cradling him in her arms like a baby.

"Larin told you," Valeris said calmly as Vaiya entered the room. She hadn't even spoken yet.

"More or less," she said, her voice soft. She was starting to sound like Larin.

"It makes him a severe threat, but I let him stay here because he needs to be taken care of," Valeris said, almost dismissively.

"He has a strong talent. He could learn self-control."

"He has, in many ways. You should have known him before. He could not control his violence. If you had known him, you certainly would never have allowed yourself to be alone with him in the desert."

Vaiya let out her breath between her teeth. "That bad, huh?"

"Grace has been with him, since he has given himself up to the Divine Will."

Vaiya shut her eyes. "Please, not now. I really don't want to hear any of that."

She could almost detect a hint of amusement from him, and she turned, feeling anger rise within her. Instead, it flattened itself against the control techniques she had been practicing over the last week.

Since Valeris had become her trainer, everything had started to make sense to her. She wanted to explain why, and say that all her previous problems were a result of the smothering ways of her parents. While that was true, she knew in her heart that it wasn't the reason. And the fact that he knew of her father, but not her mother, who was his blood, was really bugging her.

Maybe it was time to clear the decks.

"Master Valeris," she said softly. "I fear that there is a secret I have been keeping from you."

"Only one?" he asked, nonplussed.

It caught her off guard and she almost let out a laugh, but it was smothered by the Tatooine dragontails that were buzzing in her stomach. He might not be laughing when she was done. She knelt down onto the ground and leaned back against her feet, her hands braced against her thighs, then straightened her shoulders. "I told you that my father is Luke Skywalker, the Jedi Master who overthrew the Empire. But I did not tell you who my mother is."

Valeris only nodded. "If you feel it's important for me to know."

"My mother served for the Emperor for much of her life. She was kidnapped from her home planet, her parents murdered before her eyes. She was brainwashed and programmed to be an assassin and an instument of revenge for the Emperor, even after his death. The death of my father was the last command the Emperor ever gave her, and as a result, she and my father were estranged for nearly ten years."

"But they were in love?"

Vaiya felt herself wanting to grin. "In their way, they always were. But so much debris had been put between them that they didn't see it. But twenty years ago, all of that ended, and soon after, I came along." She cleared her throat. "My mother's name was Jade. Mara Jade."

She had half expected that strangely ageless face of his to suddenly shrivel up, or at least freeze in some sort of horror. Instead, his eyes remained in that eternally amused expression that she was starting to find comforting. Valeris, for all his age and theological wisdom, did not take himself so seriously that he had forgotten how to laugh.

"I know."

Her words caught in her throat and she started to cough. "You know?" she croaked.

"Well...maybe not in quite the way you put it. But when you first came here, I recognized you. Or rather, I recognized your mind. You were family to me, in some way. I felt it through the Force, and left it to Yejion to fill in the blanks, when the time was right."

"Why didn't you ask me?"

"It wasn't for me to ask. That knowledge is yours to do with as you please. I am not here for you because you are family, although that is a reason you were brought here. I am here to train you, Vaiya, because you need me. It would not matter to me who you were." Then, he added, "I don't think it could make me any more fond of you, anyway." He laughed. "I meant that as a compliment."

She smiled back, touched. Now that that was out of the way, she could get to business. "Larin told me something outside. He said he had a little brother, about 10 years old, that was coming for him."

"Yes," Valeris said, suddenly grave. "I have felt him."

"Out here in this desert?"

"I met the boy once, when he was eight. I am not surprised in the least."

"Well....Larin told me his parents found the boy in some sort of blue block, in hybernation. They wound up reviving him and raising him as their son."

"Yes?"

"Some years before my mother and father married, my father was involved with a woman named Callista. She left him for reasons that aren't really important now, but soon after she did she discovered she was pregnant. The baby was taken by slavers and put into some sort of stasis to sell him later. The ship he was on crashed somewhere around this planet. This child, Larin's adopted brother...he could be that boy."

Valeris nodded his head, absorbing her words. "So what do you want to do?"

"I don't know. I was kind of hoping you would tell me."

After a few moments of silence, Valeris stood up. He put his hand on Vaiya's shoulder and squeezed. "Give me some time to pray. I will see what can be done. For now...just rest your mind. You are so burdened with worry. Worry is just fear, and fear, as you know, is the dark side."

"I thought that the Force was neutral," Vaiya said, her voice tired.

"The Force is, but the dark side is not. Fear comes from pride, and pride comes from selfishness, which is the ultimate evil. The good side, the Light, is the opposite. Complete selflessness is the only key to true power and wisdom, for only when we are completely empty can we be filled."

"Filled with what?"

"I think you know," and with that, he smiled and left the chamber, leaving Vaiya alone among the stone chairs that reflected the firelight, now much more brightly.

Durran was not what they had expected. Their image of an isolated core world was something akin to Hoth, only without the ice. Even though without ice there was no Hoth. This was not a desolate planet, backwards and primitive. This was a growing, thriving civilization, independant and strong.

Derrin let out his breath through his teeth. They had to stay a good distance back in order to keep from being detected until they could figure out a way to hide themselves. The Falcon, with the new turns in technology, had recently gotten a cloaking device (note: cloaking devices were mentioned in "Empire," this is not a rip-off from Star Trek) but it wasn't working too well.

In the engine bay, Drianna was trying not to swear as the Falcon charmed her with its "bucket of bolts" ways. After a few minutes, he heard some noises that sounded like some big piece of machinery being primed. "Try it now!" she hollered.

Derrin pulled back the levers. With a rattle, a hum and a shake, the ship's scanners acknowledged that they were in fact cloaked. He was just about to turn around and tell Drianna that she had done it when two hard lazer cannon bolts hit them right on the bow, sending Derrin toppling backwards and out of the cockpit.

"Hey!" Drianna screamed, her anger calling the dark side to her for just a moment; she shook it off like a shadow. "What was that?"

Derrin pulled himself up to the thick transparisteel of the Falcon. Above them, a strangely familiar ship slid past, like a bird of prey. Lights on the control panel began to flash, and Derrin thumbed on the commlink.

"Millenium Falcon," came a voice that was just as strangely familiar, "you are requested to leave Derrin space territiory at once."

"Jaid," Drianna whispered from behind him. Derrin turned his head in time to see her slide into the co-pilot's seat and take the controls.

"Cal," Derrin nodded. "But he told us to leave the territory. There is no way that Cal Saphringer would care about whether or not we were in the territory."

"Sure he would, if he's territorial." They watched as the large ship swung back around, but its first shot had been lucky, having been directed at the place where the Falcon was last seen. Drianna moved the ship off to an angle, and the next set of shots flew harmlessly through the dark oblivion of space.

"This is a violation of Durran codes. No outsiders are allowed. You must leave at once or face punishment."

"Should we talk to him?" Derrin mumbled.

"If we do, he'll know who we are. I don't think he does yet."

"Yes I do," came the same voice, this time purring. "You think I can't feel you children through the Force? I knew you were here before you dropped out of hyperspace."

"So what's the deal?" Drianna said, her voice hard. "Why don't you just blow us away instead of trying to sound all official? We know that it's not like you care all that much for Durran, anyway. It's just another smuggling run to you. The way you talk, you'd think they were paying you to do this job."

The bigger ship bore around and fired two more shots again, one of them getting the starboard hull. The smell of ozone and burning metal filled their nostrils. "I am being paid," Cal said, his voice bitter. "The Durrans have hired me to keep their space clean. They pay very well, but getting rid of the two of you will be just plain pleasure."

They jerked the Falcon forward in enough time to avoid the successive line of lazer bolts. Drianna siezed the flight monitor controls and went into a heavy dive toward the planet. Vaguely, Derrin heard all sorts of alarms going off, but nothing was fast enough to stop them. The longer Drianna held fast to their pattern, the bigger Durran became, until they could see a big, wide patch of white in the middle of a continent.

Through the Force, Derrin dared to touch Drianna's mind. He trusted her to keep them alive, but he was not sure why she had picked this spot. His only answer was---it's important.

Within minutes, the white spot had become a desert of white sand, and they were screaming along it, creating dunes 20 feet high, skidding until they tore up bare rock, and then landing with a thud as they reached something...soft.

Soft? In the desert?

As the shock wore off, Drianna and Derrin made their way out of the ship. They were surrounded by white sand, with a set of mountains not too far away. Drianna pointed up at the sky. "See, there!" she said.

Derrin looked up. The sun reflected against something that could only be a spaceship.

"He must have been telling the truth," Derrin said. "They would have shot him down at that close a range."

"Maybe," Drianna countered. "Whatever it is, it's not important right now. We've got to find Vaiya."

Derrin cleared his throat. "Dria," he said, reaching out and touching her hand. "Don't get me wrong when I say this, but why in the world did you pick this place? I mean, we're in the middle of the desert. Surely Vaiya isn't out here."

"Are you saying you didn't like the landing?" she asked, charming him with a fake mocking smile.

"I like any landing I can walk away from," he said, "but what is the deal?"

"Vaiya is here, Derrin." She smiled again, this time genuine. "I know it. Trust me."

He sighed. "It seems I don't have a choice, do I?" he said softly.

"Nope. But don't worry. I'll go look for Vaiya. You can stay here with the ship."

"No!" Derrin objected. "I'm not going to let you go tramping over this unknown desert---"

"I've got my lightsaber, and Vaiya's!" Drianna reminded him.

"I don't care if you had Palpatine's Force lightning! No! I'm going to go and find her." He even took the necesary steps forward to get himself ahead of her on the dim desert path when she reached out and caught him by the front of his shirt, in a powerful, I-mean-business grip.

"I don't think that would be a good idea, Derrin," she said.

"You know, I am so tired to being reminded of that." He stepped away from her, feeling his anger but refusing to push it away. "I never did anything to her. Sure, I was friendly, and she got a crush on me. But I am not a sith lord for not returning her feelings!"

"You flirted with her. You used her position as Master Skywalker's daughter to advance yourself. You pretended many times when you really weren't interested. When you discouraged her, instead of being direct you were cruel and shut her out. She fell in with Jaid because of how hurt and confused she was. You damaged her sense of self. Some of the blame for all of this rests on you, because you couldn't control that mouth of yours." Then, Drianna took a breath. "That being said, I am still here, and for some crazy reason I still love you. So I'm going to give you the time you need to think it over. I will bring Vaiya back. I have a feeling that I am one of the only people she'd listen to about this, even if I'm not sure that she would trust me. But quite frankly, I'm it."

Long minutes passed, Derrin's will against Drianna's. Even the sun seemed to sink into the sky and the shadows grow longer as the two Jedi-to-be contemplated the other. Finally, Drianna won. Derrin sighed.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he said, sitting down on a nearby rock. "We can't take the chance that she won't listen. And since she doesn't think she can trust me, you have to do it. Fine, go ahead. I'll be here."

"Use it well," Drianna said before kissing him gently on the cheek and heading out into the crystal desert with only a lightweight cloak to protect her from the wind wrapped around her head.

Vaiya awoke, but not with a start. Someone was here. Someone had come for her. It was not a disconcerting feeling. Nothing from the Force felt disconcerting anymore, except for maybe Larin. Even that, she had been growing used to--surprisingly quickly, she thought. He come back from the desert much later than she, and had not said more than a few words to her, although she sensed that he wanted to.

She was sensing a lot of things this morning.

From the cracks in the main room, Vaiya could tell that it was not even dawn yet. Maybe a few hours before. Valeris was awake--did the man never sleep?--and sitting in his usual stone chair, facing the fire.

"You're leaving," he said, his voice tinted with saddness.

"Yes," she said, surprised. The unconscious thought suddenly rushed to the surface. Whoever was coming to her was going to bring her back.

"Will you return?"

"Yes," she replied, "although I think you know that already."

He chuckled. "Very astute." Then he sighed. "Please try and remember what I have taught you. Not just about the Force, while that will be very important in your near future. I mean about everything."

"I will." The feeling came again. Vaiya narrowed her eyes in a subconscious guesture, trying to focus her mind on the person she sensed. She saw a thick black braid and a familiar practice saber...."Drianna," she whispered.

Valeris grunted. "A friend?"

"Not really."

"A shame. You and she seem to have a lot in common."

Vaiya blushed as her sudden scornful thought got away from her and Valeris turned to give her a look.

"I don't think you're as petty as you think you are." Then, his eyes narrowed. "Back to your parents....things will distract you. There is danger there, worse than any physical harm." He turned the chair with the Force, a casual guesture she was still not used to. "Perhaps...."

There was a rustling in the hallway, and both turned to see Larin appear in the heavily shadowed doorway. His eyes were wide as they took Vaiya in.

"You're leaving," he said, his voice hoarse.

Vaiya nodded. "Soon."

There was a long pause as Larin's jaw tried to work out his next words. "Let me come with you."

Vaiya swore she heard Valeris almost laugh. "Just what I was thinking," he muttered.

Slowly, the thought rolled over Vaiya's stomach. A sudden feeling of distrust welled up in her. Larin had told her himself that he sometimes did not have control, that the dark side could use him without his consent. Whatever she was going back to, she needed all of her focus. She couldn't be weighed down by the job of babysitter.

But as she gazed at him, she realized that she did trust him. He had never been anything to her but gentle and kind, had never been anything but quiet and reflective. He had shown her a tremendous amount of trust by telling her what he had. She must return it. The feeling was nearly overwhelming. But.....

"What about your brother?" she whispered.

Larin's eyes half-closed, as if in pain. Valeris answered for him. "Let me handle the boy. Larin isn't ready yet."

"Larin isn't ready," Vaiya said, her voice surprisingly dull compared to the whirlwind inside her when her thoughts turned to Callista's son. "What about me? What about my parents? Do you know how long they've been looking? I can't return empty-handed."

"You won't be. But there is a time for everything." Through the Force, Valeris sent her a gentle warning. Larin did not yet know about his adopted brother's heritage. He stared at her with furrowed brows.

"What do your parents have to do with my brother?" he whispered.

She sighed. "It's a long story."

"Tell him on the way," Valeris suggested.

"Fine. I'm leaving in a few minutes. Grab what you need and meet me in the Cathedral."

In the distance, the dawn was starting to rise. The sands were still cool, although the winds were picking up, and Drianna was grateful for the cloak her mother had given her many years ago. It was made of some sort of synthetic, and it would never wear out. Not even a stray threat disturbed its smooth, grey surface.

Just as nothing disturbed the smooth, greyish surface of the sand before her. She had never seen white sand before. At her first rest, she'd been sifting it through her fingers, and had even considered taking a handful of it with her. That thought had been quickly forgotten as the white creature with the high, curved stinger-tail appeared. She'd carefully lifted it off her leg with the Force. She was rather proud of how well she'd handled it without flipping out, considering her heartrate afterwards. But now it was calm, and she was trudging on again, crunch crunch crunch through the desert, toward a smooth line of a horizon.

Or maybe not so smooth.

In the distance, two dots appeared. For a second, Drianna's step faltered, and she reached out with the Force. Vaiya, she sent in greeting, and was responded to with an equally tentative touch.

Who is with you? Drianna sent. As far as she knew, Vaiya was alone.

Soon, was the only reply. Rest.

Drianna stopped in her tracks. Vaiya's mind had gotten...stronger. It was rather surprising, considering the distressed circumstances in which she'd left. Drianna had expected to have to do some cajoling, but here they were, headed for her.

She tossed her cloak down onto the ground and spread it out under her. The Force did move in mysterious ways.

Derrin noticed something a little odd about the position of the Falcon. It seemed to be getting into a stepper tilt, as if the ground underneath him was sinking. He'd noticed it only vaguely at first, but as the hours of the night passed, he began to feel the tilt quite distinctly, even if it was slow moving.

The ship was sinking.

He hesitated at first to jump out and see if there was anything he could do. He'd attempted to get the land legs down, because the ship had pretty much landed on its belly, but the more he tried to move, the stepper the tilt got. When he did finally decide to jump out, using the Force to land himself a good twenty away where the ground was solid, he turned to realize that the sand around the ship was very thick with water.

This was impossible. Of all the things to happen...here he was, desperately trying to think of how and Drianna could get the ship fixed up before General Solo saw what they had done to it, and now it was sinking into some invisible hole!

He was very near panicking when he felt Drianna's call. As he turned to return her greeting with a frantic cry for help, he heard a noise that sounded like the loudest, most inhuman burp noise. It was so obscene it would have made a Hutt blush. With its curved backside going first, the Falcon was no longer tilting---it was sliding right into whatever pit had suddenly appeared from under it.

He wanted to scream, and he reached out with the Force in a vain effort to catch it. But his emotions got in the way and he couldn't get a grip. He felt Drianna throw in behind him, now running at full speed toward the disaster, but she, too, was too distracted by her emotions.

A full minute passed. It seemed that the sand bubbled as it sucked the Falcon into its maw. Drianna pulled Derrin back until they were standing on what felt like rock. Vaiya and (someone with her?) kept a safe distance. After the minute passed, there was only the deafening silence, and the Falcon's protruding cockpit that still remained a foot or two above the surface.

"Watercano," said the stranger with Vaiya. Derrin glanced at him. Young, about their age, maybe somewhere between. He turned his attention away. He had no time for meeting new people and making friends now. As soon as Solo found out, not all of the Jedi of the Academy would be able to protect him.

"Watercano?" Vaiya questioned.

"It happens sometimes. When large craft or large animals stay in one place for too long, the desert sand is pushed down into the springs that run in the rock below us. It wells up, almost like a volcano. But it's water, and it turns the sand into quicksand. Whatever's sitting on the surface gets sucked down."

Vaiya grunted. She was being surprisingly calm. "Do you think we can get it out?" she asked softly.

Derrin snorted and sat down in a heap. Drianna planeted her hand on his shoulder in comfort, but he felt a subtle pressure, an unspoken warning to hold back. He looked at Vaiya and her companion again, and realized with a shock that she looked so....different.

She looked like her father. Wearing the black uniform she'd stolen from the museum, carrying the lightsaber, and sporting a brown cloak much like the ones that Skywalker favored, she looked so much like him that it reflected in her face. That unerring calm Master Skywalker had always shown radiated about her as if she had stolen that, too. Just as surprising, it was around her companion.

"If we think we can, we can," the man replied. The two exchanged glances, and with a single guesture, reached out for the ship.

A few seconds passed. A vague bubbling noise was audiable. It rumbled in the ground below them, sending a vibration through their feet. More seconds passed, and the Falcon started to rise. The sand tried to hold, a great sucking noise roaring over the empty wideness of the desert as it tried to use the vaccum of its grip, but it had no solid substance so it slid away with little effort. The Falcon rose higher and higher, blocking out the just-risen sun, then turning until it was parallel with the ground.

The land legs came down, and it floated a good distance from the soaked ground. Gently, as if being piloted from the inside rather than controled from the outside, it landed with barely a thud.

Derrin just stared. It was all he could do.

The entire first day in hyperspace was spent in near-dead silence. Vaiya took her to her sleeping room and pretty much stayed there. The stranger--Larin--had not experienced hyperspace many times in his life, so he was quite content to sit in the cockpit, away from the controls, and watch the starlines.

Drianna and Derrin restricted themselves to the main room. They knew that the current arragements wouldn't last. Drianna had to constantly check on the navcontrols and Derrin was dying to ask Vaiya how she had done what she had done. Eventually, words would be exchanged.

What those words would be, however, was anybody's guess.

At about midmorning on the second day, Vaiya emerged from her quarters. She looked like she'd been sleeping hard, and while her eyes were still a little foggy, she moved like she was finally rested. "It's nice to have a bed again," she said offhandedly to Drianna before getting herself a nice dose of caffine.

"What did you sleep on before?" Drianna asked, desperate to make conversation.

"A mat. Not bad, but it made that pathetic sleeping cot in there look like a featherbed." She chuckled. There was a dry humor about her that was rather...uncharacteristic. Or maybe not.

"Where's Larin?" she finally asked after gulping down half a cup.

"In the cockpit," Derrin replied. His eyes were locked on Vaiya and hadn't moved since she'd appeared. This was a moment he had been subconsciously dreading, caused by their current physical closeness as well as the continual, if subtle, reprimands he'd been receiving for the past few weeks. She, for her part, hadn't spared him more than a nod hello.

"Thanks." She slipped out through the doorway, her bare feet padding against the metal floor, fading in the distance.

After a few seconds, Derrin sighed. "Well, I guess that's that."

Vaiya found him in the cockpit, as Derrin said. His back was to her, but he knew she was there, if not by her openness toward his mind, then by the subtle shift in the Force as she contemplated that it was, of all people, Derrin and Drianna who had come for her.

On Durran, she hadn't questioned them. She'd simply come as the Force had prodded her to. Or rather, what directed the Force, using it to direct her. It was hard to remember some of the things that Valeris had taught her, considering she'd been born and raised into a family of Jedi Knights who believed there was no death. There was only the Force.

"It's not really so different," Larin said, not turning to her. "Not as different as you think."

"What isn't?" she asked, her voice distracted as she tried to keep her thoughts alined and to herself.

"What you've learned. It's still what you believe about the Force...you've just gone a step higher. The Force is no longer supreme."

"You sound like Valeris," she muttered as she settled into the seat opposite his.

Larin actually smiled. A corner of his mouth turned up and it made him look, for just a second, like he didn't care a care in the world. Vaiya was captured by it, and as she stared, she realized that this eyes were laughing, too. All of him was laughing.

"Happy to be away?" she asked, cocking an eyebrow at him.

"A little," he admitted, then chuckled. "Okay, a lot."

"Well...running away only gets you so far, and then you have to go back." She snorted. "Trust me, I know."

Larin nodded, and stole a glance down the hallway, toward the main room where their two hosts were still eating breakfast. "Care to tell me about it?" He paused. "You know, so that I can know what I have to look forward to."

The tone of his voice made her let out a breathy laugh in spite of herself. "When did you get so charming?" she asked.

"Must have been the air. Or that stuffy tomb under the ground." He shrugged. "Everyone's gotta lighten up sometime. Even a brooder like me."

She took a deep breath....and began. Everything from the very day Cal Saphringer had come into her life until she had run from Courscant, to the feeling she had just the other day that something was wrong with her parents, that something had happened to them. She told him about Callista, and the fact that Mara was Valeris' descendant, and even danced around telling him that his adopted brother might be the child whom Mara had spent the last twenty years looking for. She only managed to tell him that the boy had been imprisoned in a blue statis block which affected the Force so that he could not be sensed, and that the ship had "crashed" near Durran.

Larin caught it easily. There was a long pause as the wheels turned rapidly in his head. "My brother was found in a blue statis block," he said.

"You told me," she replied, her eyes holding his.

"You think it could be.....?"

"Logic says it would be."

"Do you plan on telling your parents?" he asked quickly.

"No. Whatever is happening to them now, they can't deal with it yet. When this is over, I'm going to go back to Durran."

"And?" Larin pressed gently.

"I don't know." She shrugged. "I mean, how old is the boy? Nine, ten? I don't have any right to take him from whoever has raised him."

"Our parents are dead, Vaiya," Larin whispered.

"That doesn't mean that I can just take him from....from you," she stammered.

"I don't have anything to do with this," he said with a shake of his head.

Don't you? she shot at him, a little harder than she'd intended. He's your family, blood or not!

Larin's cheerful disposition quickly melted as the acid look of self-loathing covered his handsome features. I've failed as a brother, Vaiya. I acted out of hatred and sought vengence and I lost him. Why do you think I wanted to run? So that I could save him from this mistake he insists on making.

"You could explain it to him, at least," she said.

"He's a child...how could I expect him to understand? I mean, I don't even know where he's getting all of this drive as it is. But I know that I'm not going to take the chance of... corrupting him."

"Maybe the fact that he has the drive should say something to you. I could tell you that he's different. He's my half-brother! We share the same father, Luke Skywalker! His mother, Callista, was a Jedi Knight who gave her life to first save the galaxy, and then the lives of my mother and myself. Maybe these things are just vague history to you, but they are a part of my life and the lives of the New Republic people. Any child to come from this kind of union would be...powerful." Vaiya stalled as a shudder overcame her. Something very dark had touched her, and she didn't know where it had come from. Larin felt it, too, but instead of recoiling, he seemed to be leaning into it. For a moment, she was terrified of this man that she had just beared her soul to.

Do you see? he sent to her through the Force. You can't argue with me on this. I am dangerous. I will not bring about your ruin or the ruin of what family I have left.

With a growing horror, Vaiya stared at him. "You're not going to stay on Coruscant with me, are you? You're leaving, skipping off planet, the second we dock."

He actually blushed. "Dammit," he muttered.

She sighed. Well, it was just as well. "Just like everyone else," she whispered, and began to rise.

Larin shut his eyes. "Please don't," he said, his voice painfully strained. Then he looked at her, pleading with his eyes. "You've told me your story. Let me tell you mine."

"You already have," she pointed out dully.

"Not all of it," he said. "Not nearly all."

He'd come from a city. A big city with giant building reaching up to scrape the sky. His parents were wealthy, he went to the best schools, and had the best education. He had no blood brothers or sisters. He was only 12 when his father, off on a work expedition, found the stasis block that held his little-brother-to-be, Valery. His father's family had owned what was commonly called the gem pits--rare stones of every kind were burried deep in the black Durran dirt, some for decoration, some for energy, and some for weaponry. Some parts of their land were mined, but the land only yielded so much, so they had to find a way to keep up their "stock." His grandfather had experiemented with a way to "grow" the stones. He'd only been partly successful in his life and managed some rare, soft stones. His father had finally taken the helm of the business on his 30th birthday and he was willing to risk experimental technology. The first crop had been a success, but there was a flaw in the material because the land in which they'd "grown" the stones had already been mined and much of the natural materials had already been stripped. Larin's father realized that he needed to expand to unmined areas, whether they were rich in the stones or not. He knew what he was looking for, and he found it--as well as a child who seemed to be in suspended animation.

Larin adored his little brother. He protected him, cared for him, taught him all that he knew. His mother doted on the little boy as well, for all the affection the woman was capable of showing. She wasn't exactly a "soft" woman. She had come from a wealthy family, had married into a wealthier one, and had told her husband she would give him ONE child, upon which he could bestow his wealth. She had seen to it and Larin was born and bred with the prestiege that office required.

Life for Larin had been a cold, uncaring thing until Valery had come along. Friends were shallow, and there were so many of them just standing in line to say hello and lick his boots. He got into trouble. He spent extensive time in a "detox" center when he was only 10--he'd started hanging out with older children who dealt what Vaiya understood to be a relative of Spice, or Sugar. When Valery came along, it made him rethink himself, and his dual life--one half the clean-cut, charming, even humble son of a powerful family, and the other a wild, immoral terror from beyond to boy and girl alike. He had taken advantage of both sides, taken the best of both worlds. One protected him from another. Once, when he was accused of going "too far" with a girl his age--for puberty had come early to him and he had never had any reason to control his impulses--and her family had threatened them with public disgrace, his mother had taken care of it all with a mere wave of her hand--and a healthy supply of the red firestar gems that they had just grown. It was more important to her how her son "looked" than how he truly was inside.

If she had, maybe it wouldn't have gone as far as it did.

In the detox center, he had been told that he suffered from some kind of chemical imbalance. It was partly responsible for his behavior, his mood swings. Larin had objected to the idea of his insides being so "complicated," but they broke it down to him in simple terms. Bottom line was, he had no sense of control. His way of life coupled with this unfortunate mental defect was going to be the death of him if he didn't start disciplining himself soon.

They treated him outside of detox for two years. When Valery came along, Larin thought he had found a way to keep himself focused, but Valery, just a child, could not be with him at all times. Pressures came upon him from "friends" who wanted what they were "owed," who wanted their best asset back. He tried to fight, but in the end he was weak and he gave in. On his 16th birthday, he was invited to a "party." That party turned out to be the raid of well known nightclub in town, where there were lots of pretty girls and even prettier wads of cash. They cleaned the place out. Some of the members of their little gang even took out a few of the customers. Larin had walked around for the next week with his head hanging. He hadn't even gone anywhere near his baby brother. He was ashamed, not because what he had done was wrong, but because he enjoyed it. He went back to detox again, and they gave him some pills to take. Another two years passed, his family protecting him and his brother looking upon him as some sort of saint....or worse, a god.

When he turned 19, there was a raid on his father's company. His own friends, those who had been with him through so many years--and had been responsible for many of the corrupting situations he'd found himself in--turned on him. It happened on the site of the newest mines, the source of a very rare stone called opalite that was used in religious ceremonies for its pure white beauty. It wasn't a big crop. His father knew the price he would pay for making something rare suddenly abundant. He was even planning on giving half the crop to the religious leaders as a simple donation.

They'd shot him from the back of a hovercraft. In the back, one clean hole. They'd disguised themselves as crew, knowing how from the many times Larin had taken them and shown them everything in his shows of arrogance. His father was dead before he hit the ground, the stink of burning flesh the only sign that anything had happened. The guards came and the authorities searched and searched, but only when the killers came to Larin, who, at the age of 19, had been suddenly thrown into the position as head of the family (for mother was pretty much useless when it came to business) and told him what they had done did they make themselves known. They wanted money. A lot of money. It had all been a blackmail sceme, from the very beginning. Larin's life had never been anything but a lie.

It was too much. Out of defiance, he refused, and they threatened to tell the world that he'd set it all up, that he was to blame, that he wanted the money and the power and had paid them to do it. Larin told them to take their best shot, and they did. With Larin's history with the killers, there was little he could do to defend himself. The company was taken from him, and he was imprisoned. His mother, who he did not see from that day on, died within a few months. She had a nervous breakdown and then killed herself. Valery was sent to live with his mother's family.

Then someone had come. He was an offworlder, for he didn't speak the language like those Larin knew. He'd taught him Basic...through his mind. He talked to him, understood him, befriended him. He told him that he, too, was imprisoned for the wrong reasons...simply for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was captured for being in Durran space, and the only crime in that was not being a Durranian. He offered to help Larin, if Larin would help him. If Larin could get them out of the prison, then he could get Larin offplanet.

"Where," Cal Saphringer had said, "your friends escaped after they framed you for murder."

It was too much of a deal. Larin, with the stange psyenergy skills he had never honed with training, was more than a match for the prison guards. They escaped within hours of the offer, and Larin spent the better part of two years hunting down those who had killed his family. When it was done, he did not know what else to do. He returned home to accept his punishment. It had been exile, out into the desert, to starve, burn, and die. But Valeris had found him and taken him in. He had shown him what the strange powers he possessed were. He showed them how to control them, how to use them. He'd been a mental wreck when he was exiled. Within a few months, he had learned the sweet pleasure of discipline.

Vaiya took this in with steady eyes. She understood about lofty families, but realized that Larin had never known the kind of love she had. Her parents had always sought to protect her, not just from outside forces, but from herself. His parents hadn't even cared if he broke the law, as long as it didn't show. It made her feel very ashamed of herself, but suddenly Larin did not look the same to her.

As she gazed, she could finally see, with clarity, the deep wounds that he was still struggling to heal. He was not ready to face his little brother. Valery could not see him like this. He'd lived an entire life of corruption and duality and it had ripped him down the middle. He was trying desperately to bring those two sides together and find himself. This new threat, even though it was by the only member of his family who loved him, was too much. The tear was threatening again. He needed more time, he needed to get away.

Funny....most people she knew would have accused him of running. Valeris had just let him go. Oh, well....Valeris knew best.

When he was done, his voice slightly raw from its use, he turned away from the transparisteel window and gazed at her. The whole time, he'd been telling the story while looking away, as if watching it play out again amongst the starlines. "I was wrong," he said after a long pause, "when I told you that the dark side could use me even if I didn't want it to. It can use me because there are times when I want it to. I know now that all those years I spent blaming my sins on circumstance were wasted, because in the end the desire to change had to come from me, and I did not desire it."

"But you did," Vaiya pointed out. "You acknowledge that you were wrong. You say you want to change...you want to care, even though you don't right now, because it's too painful to face up to what you have done. I understand..." she paused, and said, "Yejion understands, if He is the God that Valeris claims."

A smile touched Larin's lips. "Sometimes I think Valeris is less a man of faith than a man who is faith. Without him, we'd be lost."

"Do you truly believe him, in your heart?" Vaiya asked, half-absentmindedly. "I mean, that there is a Yejion? That the Force is merely energy, and that He or She creates and sustains is?"

Larin gazed out the viewport again. "I've seen a few things in this world, in this galaxy, that I wish I could forget. I've seen so much corruption and hatred and watched so many people be hurt by those who exploited them. For a long time, I couldn't believe that any sort of God would allow such things to happen to his people. But when I met Valeris, and saw that I had embraced my dark path in freedom, not because I was a victim, and had wound up no better off than those upon whom suffering was inflicted, I saw that there was more happiness in suffering than there was being the cause of it. I had lived my life thinking of myself first. Valeris had only thought of others, and we were in the same place. He was completely free from the sins I had committed, and had never deserved punishment, but he had a peace and joy in his lot I did not." Larin grinned again. "I thought to myself, if he can be guiltless and happy with his punishment, who am I not to be pleased when I knew I'd brought it upon myself? At the beginning of my 'conversion,' I thought that anything was better than feeling like I did--so what if Valeris was delusional or nuts, he was happy inside. At least I could find a little happiness in my current situation. That was all the invitation Grace needed. So yes, Vaiya, I believe him. I believe in what he believes, because I have seen it as the truth. He isn't mad. He's the sanest man we will ever know."

Han Solo watched as his beloved ship made a careful landing in the bay. It looked just slightly different than it had when it left--like it had been dunked in something. He could smell the faint aroma of sand, a scent he'd come to know well from all his visits to Tatooine with Luke. A few grains of it floated around the main hatch as the ramp came down for its occupants.

Vaiya was the first one. Han distinctly noted the fact that she looked so much like her father it wasn't funny. In his uniform, carrying the lightsaber Luke had ultimately given to Mara, with a greyish cloak about her shoulders, even with a strong sense of Peace that Luke---well, used to project, she was truly her father's daughter.

She approached him quickly, a short smile crossing her face as she embraced him warmly. "Uncle Han," she whispered. "Thank you for lending us your ship."

The way she said it...as if she'd known they were coming for her. Well, they were Jedi. Vaiya was sure to know that something was wrong with Mara. Leia had been able to feel Luke for years. But Jedi always knew when the Force changed with someone, either in death, or..... Han stopped his thoughts. There was no telling what Vaiya could read from him. As she pulled away and gazed up at him, he saw her mother's face--the green of her eyes, the red of her hair. Her mother's face, set in that youthful, suspicious way that Mara had always...did always....

"Tell me," Vaiya whispered.

"I can't." He looked up and saw her small crew. Derrin seemed to want to hide behind Drianna, and Han caught the fleeting impression of more sand sliding out of the nooks and crannies of the Falcon's hull. There was a stranger with them, a man of a rather off appearance. He seemed like he'd been shaken out of a heavy sleep, completely disheveled, and had hastily prepared himself for an Event of State. His eyes were dark and covered with shadow, his hair was thick but heavily patted down, neither blond nor brown. He was very well built, slim and muscular, but his clothes seemed to give the feeling of a certain heaviness.

"You have to see her," Han continued, turning his attention back to his niece.

"Where is my father?" she asked, her voice hoarse.

"In his suite," Han answered. "Come on. I'll take you to see her."

Upon first entering the medical lounge of Courscant's Imperial Palace, Vaiya got the heavy, dark feeling of death. It was no surprise...how many people had died in this room? Ambassadors from assassins, loved ones from organ failures of all sorts. Imperials from the blade of a Jedi, even innocents from Force lightning. Vaiya gasped as it all hit her at once. She shut her eyes and breathed in heavily, realizing that her sensitivity had been increased beyond what she'd imagined. Perhaps it was all the space of the Durranian desert that had kept her from noticing before.

Uncle Han stopped in his tracks. "You felt it?" he asked softly.

She opened her eyes and gazed at him dully. It was too much.. She had to block it out. Pushing it from her mind, she tried to focus herself on the one person she was there for. She tried to reach out, but suddenly----

"No...." the word came out as part whisper, part strangled sob. Not her mother. Why hadn't she known? The Force was supposed to tell her these things. What had happened? And her father, as she instinctively reached for him, too...his dark grief echoing hers more completely than she could even grasp. It felt like someone had thrown her into a black hole and she was being sucked down into its core, into the despair and nothingness that existed there.

This was worse than death. This was pure unfiltered hatred, given life.

Larin suddenly had her shoulder. "Easy," he whispered comfortingly to Vaiya. "Don't let it drag you down."

If she had been fully conscious, she would have snarled at him for so asanine a comment, but at that second it was a thin line for her to grasp onto. With her uncle on one side and Larin on the other, she straightened and calmed herself. It took several minutes, but they waited patiently. And finally, she took a deep breath and stepped forward.

They were about to stop her. They didn't think she could handle this alone. She felt it come from Larin, and heard her beloved uncle take a tenative step forward. "No," she said with a simple raising of her hand. "She's my mother. I have to do this."

She approached the smooth metal doors not ten feet away from where Han and Larin stood and touched the small control. It slid open to reveal a more stark-white sort of hospital room, but was furnished much more comfortably. Vaiya had to lean in in order to see the entire room. She didn't know what they had done with Mara, but she used ever trick in the Force she could think of to prepare herself for the big blow.

She let out her breath. It was worse than she expected.

On the bed, Mara sat with one leg tucked up beside her. Her hair was damp from the bacta tank, but her legs were still red with healing plasma burns. She was in the hospital greys, shoeless and saberless, but still, by a feat only Mara would be capable of, she had her hold out blaster pointed right at Vaiya's face.

"Knock before you come in," Mara said, her voice an uncharacteristically fierce growl.

"I'm sorry," Vaiya whispered.

Mara's eyebrows furrowed as she slowly lowered the weapon, her green eyes glittering with suspicion. "Well, I can see you're not a doctor or a nurse. So why don't you humor me and tell me who the hell you are? It's not like you'd have to tell the truth or anything. It's not like anyone around here does."

Vaiya felt like she'd been stabbed through the heart. Somehow she found her voice. "My name is...Vaiya." She nodded her head. "And you?"

Mara snorted. "My name is Mara Jade. It doesn't matter that you know it, really. They seemed to know it, although it doesn't make any sense. There must have been a traitor...close to the Emperor. I hope the rebels are happy, because this is as close as they're going to get. They won't get anything out of me." She snorted in puzzled disgust and said, "No one's supposed to know about me."

"Why?" Vaiya asked softly.

"Are you pretending to be this stupid, or have they not told you?" Mara stood up, giving Vaiya a supremely haughtly and completely suspicious glare. "I'm sure that it's all over the holonet by now, the fact that they've captured me. Their final victory over the Emperor, and they can choke on it." The rage lit up Mara's eyes and twisted the pale skin of her face. "I won't be held here for long. If you know only a fraction about me that you claim to, you know perfectly well that no prison can hold me."

Vaiya shook her head. "You're not being imprisoned," she said calmly. Now she was starting to get her bearings. Okay, so this was the situation. She'd dealt with her mother's mood swings before. Although this was a different level, the actions were still the same. "They want to keep you safe."

Mara gave a short, high pitched and humorless laugh. "Whatever," she muttered, and to Vaiya's utter surprise, turned her back on her.

"Please," Vaiya said, struggling against the hard silence. "If it isn't too much to ask, humor me. What connection do you have to the Emperor?"

Mara glared at her over her shoulder. The stare was quite intense, and Vaiya realized that Mara was touching her mind to hers. It was less than a millisecond, but it revealed the truth. "You have already been told that I am the Emperor's Hand. But you aren't more than a girl. What good did they think you would do, coming in here and interrogating me? Did they think I'd soften up to a sweet and innocent act?" She took in Vaiya's clothes. "You look like Skywalker. Did he set you up to do this? Maybe you're a Jedi, just like him, trying to trick me. Trust me, child, I worked for the best. You can't do anything to me that I won't know about."

Vaiya said, "No," and just as she was about to retort further the doors opened again. Vaiya felt his presence and turned to him in a guesture of near-despair.

Her father stood in the room, dressed in his traditional black Jedi garb, but he truly was a disheveled mess. Sure, his clothes were on straight and his hair wasn't sticking up, but the mental image he carried around him was so intense that for all Vaiya knew he could have been covered with a thousand lashes from a vibrowhip and his clothes torn to bloody sith. The pain was so accute that Vaiya forgot her voice entirely.

"Tell her who you are, Vaiya," Luke said, his voice hoarse. "Tell her. Maybe she'll believe you."

Vaiya felt her mother jump and retreat a good five feet away from them. "I told them to keep you out," Mara snarled with pure hatred. "So much for a peaceful imprisonment."

Vaiya turned in time to see her father's face. He looked like a man who had lost nearly everything, and that the last thing in the world that he did have had just been ripped from his arms. The Force was dark around him, dark with despair. It was too much---Vaiya had to throw up a barrier.

Turning to her mother, Vaiya steeled herself. So this was it...the moment of truth. She had to make Mara believe her. She had to be completely open and honest if there was a chance she would be believed. "Mara," she said, the use of her mother's given name unfamiliar to her, "do you know who I am?"

"Now that Skywalker is here I can see the resemblence," Mara bit out, her scorn lashing over Vaiya as well as her father. "Come to play some Jedi mindgames with me?"

"No games, M....Mara." Vaiya stepped forward, the sudden honesty of the guesture catching Mara by surprising and forcing her to meet Vaiya's gaze. "Luke Skywalker is my father," she acknowledged, and then took a deep breath..."and you are my mother."

The silence in the room was so heavy it made Vaiya feel like her knees were going to buckle. Mara's face froze as her indignant, mocking glare started to turn into something even more montrous.

Search your feelings, Vaiya sent out, opening herself up to the Force, desperately trying to call upon all the things Valeris had taught her, invoking the name of Yejion to be her strength. She felt the purity of the truth, her truth, felt it reach out a delicate tentril of thought to Mara's mind, and saw that Mara was indeed searching her feelings with an accuracy that Mara herself was not used to. The vague thoughts of how good she was with her Force skills and the endless confusion as to why that was so, since her Force powers had been slowly atrophying since Palpatine died. And then Vaiya saw her own face in her mother's mind, and everything that told her that Vaiya was indeed part Jade, part Mara Jade, was made visible as if lit from behind.

It only took a second. Vaguely, she felt hope blossom behind her, but dared not spare a look for her father. Mara's eyes widened and flickered, recognition there for just a brief second. Then her face crumpled up, ready to weep. Perhaps in repentence....perhaps in despair. Vaiya sent out another soft tendril, this one filled with love and acceptance, desire to help and discover.

It was slapped back at her as Mara's crumpled face glowed with rage and she began to scream. "GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT GET OUT!!!!"

The fury of her outburst had called in four orderly droids, who were rather quick to restrain her. Mara struggled...in fact, she put up a grand fight, kicking and screaming and crying, trying to hurl everything away with the Force but was too unfocused to be successful The Force feedback, however, made Vaiya nearly tumble back into her father, who caught her. She would have been aware of his despair deepening if her own had not suddenly shown itself so plainly.

"Stars of Alderaan," she half-sobbed, realizing that they were back in the lounge area, with Uncle Han, Drianna and Derrin, and Larin, all watching in bewilderment and awe. She felt her father's arms around her and became aware of the fact that she was crying.

"I'm sorry, Vaiya," Luke said, his voice barely steady. He was doing it simply for her sake. Even though the barrier Vaiya could feel his heart breaking as if hands were reaching into his chest and ripping apart the flesh. "I'm so sorry."

"It isn't your fault," she sobbed back. "It isn't your fault." But any words were useless. Luke stood with his daughter in his arms, just letting her weep. She got the vague impression that he knew it was the only thing to do...that he in fact had done it himself.

"Maybe it is," Luke conceded softly. "It's me that she hated. Maybe I deserve this, believing that my love for her could ever have been..........."

"NO!" Vaiya jerked her head up, the tears slipping out under the rush of anger inside her chest. "You have been her husband for more than twenty years! You saved her from the path of the dark side, you accepted her and embraced her when she would not accept or embrace herself! You are not the villan here, Father! Not even she believes so, not in her heart!"

"But she has forgotten who she is," Luke countered. "She still thinks that she's Mara Jade."

"So!" Vaiya could hear the desperation in her own voice and feel the vague, worried looks from the onlookers around her, but she didn't care. "Mara Jade loved you once. She can do it again. She just needs time."

Luke just stared down at her. The words escaped the Jedi Master. He did not know how to explain it to her. Instinctively, Vaiya looked to Han.

"It's not just that, kid," her uncle told her. "She just doesn't think she's still Mara Jade. She thinks that she's the Mara Jade from the year after the Rebellion won the war. She thinks that the Emperor has just been executed at the hands of your father, and that she's been tossed to the rim of the galaxy to survive among the dogs."

"In other words," Luke said, finally finding his thoughts, "she Mara Jade when she hated me the most. She knows that you were telling the truth. She knows that you're our daughter. What she can't accept is that she ever grew to love me. What we saw was not her denial...but the realization of the truth." He paused, his eyes boring into hers. "And she would rather die than embrace it."

Larin entered the dim room. Well, maybe to others it would be dim. The long months he'd spent under the desert floor had made his eyes quite adjustable to changes in light. And the stars outside were so bright.

A figure sat, motionless, near the transparisteel windows that arched up and went half-way into the ceiling. Outside, the entire city could be seen, glittering like some exoticly jeweled necklace, the veins stretching out and disappearing into the horizon.

He considered clearing his throat, but Vaiya already knew he was there. She turned her head to him, but her face was lost in shadow. "Hello, Larin."

"Vaiya," he returned. He approached her, trying to discern where he should sit, what distance would be comfortable for her, for him. What he really wanted to do....probably wouldn't go too well with her now.

"I suppose if anyone can understand what I'm going through," she said, her voice gravelly, "it would be you."

To this, Larin only nodded.

"But you have to leave."

He shook his head. "Not if you need me. I will stay if you want me to."

She smiled at him. It was a tired smile, defeated and forlorn, but a smile nonetheless. "No, Larin. I don't want to keep you here. This is a battle I have to fight with my family. You have to deal with enough of your own troubles."

"But Vaiya," he said, reaching out and touching her hand. He felt her surprise at the open guesture. She was not used to him being the "feeling" type. Perhaps she preferred him more distant. He couldn't blame her...."I don't want to leave you like this."

She shrugged. "Then you might never leave," she said, and then shook her head as if to shake out the thoughts in her mind. "Sorry, I've got the whole maiden in despair routine going. The truth is, even if the worst comes out of this, I still have to move on. I can't have a crutch my whole life."

"But she's your mother," Larin whispered.

"In blood maybe," Vaiya replied. "But motherhood, like any kind of love, is in the heart. Maybe one day she'll come to realize that she does love me, but until then....." Her voice broke off and she struggled against tears.

At the sound, Larin didn't know what came over him. As if acting on some base instinct he didn't understand, he reached out for her, taking her into his arms. He let her melt into him, felt himself melting into her.

Long moments passed. "It would be different if she simply didn't remember anything," Vaiya wept. "But she remembers such...hatred. It's all she remembers."

"How did it happen, do you know?" Larin asked softly.

"Father showed me what happened," she said, her voice growing steely. "She was in the gun bay when those two ships attacked her. They were on their way to find me in hyperspace, but the ships seemed to be able to attack in spite of that." She took a shaky breath. "Father said he pulled Mother out of the gun bay within a second's breath of it being destroyed, but the shrapnel burner her up pretty good, and one piece nearly split open her skull. They managed to save her, but when she gained consciousness.....it was ugly." Vaiya shuddered. She could do more than imagine her father's reaction when Mara had first made her old hatred new again. She had seen it through his eyes, just a few hours ago. Mara had gazed up at him from the hospital bed, her head fuzzy and her thoughts confused, and Luke had reached to comfort her. What he got sent him from the room in a mess worse than the one she'd witnessed. He'd gotten stronger since then....Force help them all. Aunt Leia, who had arrived a short while ago and was nursing her brother with her full Jedi attention, told Vaiya that she hadn't seen him so bad since Vader had sliced off his hand...and told him the awful truth.

"I can imagine," Larin said, his grip on her tightening. It felt so good to hold her. It felt like she was made to fit him. The fact that she needed him so badly was barely more than a detail compared to how he felt about her. He tried to tell himself that it was simply the feeling of being close to someone after long years alone, but that was not it. He tried again to tell himself that she was just very vulnerable and it put him in a very good place in her heart, and made him feel compassion for her, and he was being affected by the way she was reaching out to him, but that failed too.

With annoyance, Larin noted that love had to have more nerve than any force in the galaxy. It always showed up just when it was the worst thing that could happen. Because he realized that he was in love with her. Not because she was vulnerable, or that she needed him. Not because she had shared her story with him, brought him to her home and helped him leave Durran and given him time to prepare for what he had to inevitably face. Not for any of those reasons, not for any reasons, period.

He was in love with her because...he just was.

It had happened on the third day in hyperspace, the day it had come into his mind as a sentence, as a coherent thought that was more than just raw, circling emotions. They had been sparring, trying to kill the time. He'd already been fighting it for days, even before they had left Durran. He was putting that fight into the practice, and their sabers had crossed and their eyes met, and he suddenly knew.

He just knew.

So he stood there and let her hold fast to him for as long as she wanted. When she finally pulled away, she was a little embarrassed.

"I'm sorry. I'm sure you have things to do." She genuinely sounded apologetic. Larin felt a real stab of guilt, and realized how different it was from the neurotic guilt he'd carried all his life. This almost felt good, it was so clean and clear.

"I told you, I'll stay. You shouldn't be left alone right now, Vaiya," Larin admonished.

Vaiya gave a little laugh. "I'm not alone, Larin. My aunt and uncle are here, my friends, my father." She gazed up at him and Larin saw she had gained some real strength in the last several minutes. Her eyes were calm and set. She was attempting to find her peace, and she was succeeding. Her face even glowed slightly, as if she had just finished an intense prayer.

"I'll...." but he didn't know what to say. Nothing didn't make him look bad. If he left, she might think he didn't care. If he stayed, she might think he just felt guilty. There was no way out.

She laughed again. It was a clear, tinkling sound. "You're so silly, Larin. I don't know if anyone has ever called you that, but you are. You think I'll feel deserted if you leave? I won't. Trust me. I can handle this. I have to handle this..." and then she added, as if she didn't even understand her own words, "...alone."

He wanted to tell her that she wasn't alone, that she had just listed her legion of supporters. But as she looked up at him, he knew what she meant.

He knew, as he loved her, so she loved him. He swore to never forget the color of her eyes at that moment, and sealed it into his memory. But alas, she also knew that the timing was wrong. She needed him to go, as much as he needed to go. She needed to finish the journey she'd begun, as did he. They would only get in each others' ways.

Maybe someday.... he felt her send to him, so deep that it wasn't so much a thought as it was an emotion.

"Someday," he said aloud, wanting to make the moment more concrete. "And someday will come."

"I know." She lightly kissed him on the cheek. "I have to go check on my father. Goodbye, Larin."

"Goodbye, Vaiya," he said, letting her go. As nimbly as a shadow, she stepped away from him and disappeared through the sliding doors. When Larin followed a few moments later, he caught only a flash of the hem of her grey robe as it floated after her around a corner. Larin smiled and promptly set out on the opposite direction.

"What I want to know is," Drianna said, raising her voice, "why in the world does she have a blaster?"

"Because she doesn't have a lightsaber," Derrin responded dryly, casting a quick look at General Solo. They were standing in the landing bay; General Solo was doing a casual once-over of the ship they had arrived in. According to Vaiya, it was his ship. It was also a piece of history.

Larin approached the group with caution. He'd already arranged for off-planet transport. Master Skywalker, as Larin knew he should address him, had been kind enough to "show him the ropes," since he barely knew of such things. No one had put up much of a fuss when he said he was going to leave. He was sure that none of them had any idea of what to think of him. Except Master Skywalker, who saw him as he saw his own daughter--a Jedi on the quest for knighthood. Grateful that Larin had aided in getting Vaiya home, he even offered the man money, which Larin had taken only because he had absolutely nothing. He still didn't like it, but he wasn't stupid.

Solo turned from his ship and approached Derrin and Drianna. Larin was practically hiding behind them, but Solo's sharp eyes didn't miss him. "Mara has a blaster," Solo said, "because she does. Don't ask me. Maybe she slipped it out of someone's holster. Maybe Luke gave it to her---" he stopped, his voice inches away from cracking. Larin could sense the incredible disturbance that was going on inside the older man. He really wasn't surprised, from what Vaiya had told him.

"Does Vaiya know the whole story?" Larin asked.

"Heck, I don't even know the whole story," Solo said. "I got here a few days after it happened. But apparently they were attacked while in hyperdrive---"

"Which is nearly impossible," Drianna said.

"---and Mara was in the gun bay when they were hit. She had a head wound from some shrapnel. Apparently there was severe damage to her brain."

"I would say so," Derrin said with a shuddering sigh.

"But I don't get why they didn't just put her under while it repaired itself," Drianna murmured.

Larin looked at her, his eyes intensely curious. "I'm sorry?" he said.

"Well, Jedi Mara used to tell me this story about how, when she and Master Skywalker first met during the Thrawn War, he saved her life when she was nearly killed in some small fighter ship. She had severe neurological damage then because of her ejection controls malfunctioning or something, and she was in bed like for months before she came out of it. She had to refresh her memory, sure, but she didn't forget who she was."

"I thought the same thing," Derrin said. "I blamed the medics at first, but Master Luke explained it to me. He said that the damage done to her by the shrapnel was directly on her frontal lobe. The part that affects memory. It wasn't a life-threatening wound as much as it was a self-threatening one."

"When she woke up," Drianna said, turning to Larin, "it was an ugly thing. She didn't know who we were, she didn't know where she was, and I could tell that she paniced. Jedi Mara doesn't panic lightly. But when Master Luke walked into the room....all sith broke loose."

Luke gazed at the holoshot. It was rather large, but he held it tirelessly. It was the only comfort he had, the only thing that could make him smile before the tears threatened him again.

"She's beautiful, Luke," Leia said huskily. "I remember how she joked about having to wear white. She said, 'You realize if any unknown enemies decide to crash our party, I'm going to ruin this dress, right?'"

He gave a small chuckle. "I told her that would happen on our wedding night, anyway."

"My brother, the Jedi sex-maniac."

"Only when it came to Mara. And it was never about sex." His face fell a little. He ached to touch the hologram. She was so real in it, so happy. She was actually smiling, laughing even, at the way everyone was fussing over her. Even though they'd kept the wedding small and private, everyone who was there insisted on doing something for her. At one time, Mara was so touched to realize she had so many people who cared about her in her life she'd nearly started to cry, but that quickly ended when she had to take Luke's hand so they could pronounce their vows. She'd only been getting used to being more emotionally open--she was still so unskilled in the more tender ways of self-expression.

The dress was made just for her, a gift from Leia and Han, as well as all the holoshots. If Leia couldn't throw her brother a huge wedding, by the Force she was going to make it the best small wedding it could be. Karrde had given Mara away, and Luke would never forget the look the two of them had exchanged as they approached the Magistrate Temple's "altar," where all non-religious weddings took place on Coruscant. It was a temple of the law, and any vows made by the altar were considered legally binding until death. Mara, however, had expressed her liking of the ceremony because of its "likeness" to a religious ceremony. Mara had never experienced much religion in her life, but Luke had come to discover that she had a tremendous amount of respect for what she knew. He had small Force-hunches that her life before the Emperor, the first 14 years or so, had probably been colored with more religion than she remembered. But that was not the day for those memories. This was the day where she would become Luke's wife.

The dress was slim, but billowed out at her knees so that it fell into a smooth bell shape at her feet. The sleeves were short, the bodice beaded exquisitely, showing off her lovely skin which was starting to get back its color--after all, they'd been underground for a little while, hiding from the Hand of Thrawn and all. The most amusing part of the dress was the veil. She was asked to drape it over her face, but she refused by saying, "Better for Skywalker to see what he's gonna be stuck with," and shoved it back over the small gem-studded tiara that had wound through her hair.

The look on her face--Mara's perfect blend of amusement, sarcasm, and utter peace. Only she knew how to make that look, unless by some chance Vaiya had inherited it.

Luke looked up. Leia was watching him carefully, trying not to stare but knowing that Luke's emotions were getting to be too much for him. He took in another breath and felt his heart threaten to break for the 50th time just that day. Or maybe it was only 35th. He didn't know, he'd lost count after 20.

He didn't think he could take much more. Yet some Jedi part of him was convinced that it would get easier from here. It was better than the first time she'd looked at him after she'd woken up. She'd screamed--not in fear, but in pure rage, and lunged at him. If she hadn't been partly attached to the hosptial bed, she might have hurt him. But worse than that, Luke felt throught he Force her old hatred come bubbling up out of her like lava, its sulfur-y fire burning him in the deepest parts of his soul. But it was much worse that it had been thirty odd years ago. She'd still been young, but she had learned the difference between right and wrong. She'd known what loyalty was, but beyond that she knew which side deserved it. This was a much younger Mara here, a Mara who had just felt the scathing touch of the Emperor's Last Command, and that, added to the physical shock she'd just been through, had really hurt her self-control.

After that, it had passed. She did not fly into a rage again. She remembered her discipline ways, but those were even worse. Luke couldn't go into the room without a guard at first. There was no way he was going to say to her the things he intended to say in the presence of others, but he knew he had to make her realize that he was not there to hurt her, first, before he could do anything else.

Her cold silences, her avasive comments, and her general non-chalance were worse than any rage. This way, he had no idea what she was thinking. She'd returned to her old barriers--although he could still sense her thoughts on a very slight level, and that fact bugged her to no end--so there was no connection between them. He felt like he'd lost almost all of one of his senses, like touch or taste or sight. She was so much a part of him that he was nothing without her, as she didn't seem to be much without him.

This Mara was quite miserable, sitting on her bed all day, staring at the walls of her room--or her "cell," as she called it. Luke could sometimes tell that she was looking for a way to escape. That was how she was. She would get out and run as far from all this as she could.

They had to get her help soon.

When Vaiya had returned, she exploded again. That was rather odd. Luke had partly expected it, but not as bad as it had turned out. Sure, he'd expected Mara to "reject" Vaiya. But he also knew that the two women were bonded together. Surely Vaiya's presence would wake something up inside of her.

Wake something up.... Luke looked up at Leia, who frowned at him. He sheepishly remembered that his internal monolague had not been overheard. "I told you how Mara shared her memories with Vaiya, didn't I?"

"Briefly and vaguely," Leia replied. "But yes."

He stood up. "Maybe there's a way to return those memories to her." And he practically ran to the nearest comlink he could find.

Vaiya wanted to enter her mother's room slowly, but that may have been more dangerous than catching her by surprise. While Mother's reflexes were top-notch, the idea of giving her time to plan a counterattack made Vaiya shudder.

She was no longer in her father's old uniform. She'd hidden it away the second she'd had a chance. No one knew where it was, and she planned to keep it that way. She wasn't sure why she wanted it so badly anymore. Maybe just a hunch...or an openess to grace.

She smiled as she entered, radiating as much goodness and honesty as she could. In return, she saw her mother, looking very old and tired, sitting on her bed with one knee pulled up to her chest. She was in a black tank top and her old pair of trousers that had probably come from an old Jedi uniform. She had on these strange black gloves with white fingers. Vaiya had never seen them before. And it had only been what....a little over a month?

She let out her breath unconsciously. It felt like much longer. So much for time passing quickly.

"So you're back," Mara said, her voice flat--with anyone else it may have convinced them that the fight was out of her, but Vaiya knew different.

"I am. Did you expect me to walk away?" Vaiya replied, using soft tones. Then, she looked at her mother straight in the eyes. "You were--are--Force sensitive. The Emperor trained you."

The distrust on Mara's face was enough to break her heart, but she kept herself steady. "I don't know how you know so much about me," she muttered, her voice tinged with genuine bewilderment.

"Because we know you. Haven't they told you that you have amnesia?"

Mara barred her teeth and sneered. "Yes, they've told me that. Not that I believe them much. Rebel doctors would say something like that in hopes to weaken the Emperor by...." she trailed off, as if just catching herself.

"By taking his Hand away, we know," Vaiya finished, matching her mother's earlier non-chalance. "But I'm sure a detailed history has been given to you about the demise of the Emperor. But you already knew that the Emperor was dead, didn't you?"

Mara's icey green eyes cracked just a little, as if she had forgotten that fact. "Yes...I knew. He told me to kill Luke Skywal......" She stopped and her chest shuddered involuntarily. Her eyes widened, and Vaiya could see, could feel through the Force, the real Mara return for a second. Then, the shudder passed, and Mara's lips curled back over her teeth again. "You can take your little Jedi tricks somewhere else, little girl."

"No tricks," she said.

"How can I trust you? You're Skywalker's daughter."

"And yours." The words were a simple, level toned statement. "Come on, Mother! Haven't you searched your feel----hey!" She had to duck fast as Mara yanked her blaster to her hand and pointed it right at Vaiya.

"Don't tell me to search anything!" Mara cried, her voice uncharacteristically shrill, her control slipping away under the onslaught of emotion. "I told you I don't believe your lies! I would never marry Luke Skywalker! I would never have his child! I serve the Emperor! To love Luke Skywalker would make me a traitor! I AM NO TRAITOR!"

And at that moment, the Force impact of her emotions shattered the mirror on the other side of the room. Vaiya briefly saw a few doctors scatter away from behind it--of course they had Mara on constant observation. She was rather dangerous, with the state she was in.

Mara watched the mirror crumble, and saw how the shards deflected past her--an instinct that had only come after years of training. Vaiya did the same, but had to take her focus off her mother. When she looked back, Mara looked like a five-year-old with her eyes wide and terrified.

"What is going on?" she whispered.

"Your Force sensitivity has increased," Vaiya explained calmly. "That came with training. Training you don't remember. Training Luke Skywalker gave to you."

Mara took in a ragged breath of air. "Please stop," she practically moaned.

"Why?" Vaiya said. "Is it all starting to come back? I mean, you and my father have had a happy life together. You've spent twenty years growing and sharing and fighting and raising me... looking for a way to keep old promises and a way to give the Jedi Knights a future. It is a great and glorious thing that you do not wish to remember! Is this misery of your current state so worth clinging to?"

There was a deep silence as Mara looked at Vaiya---finally looked at her, as if seeing the truth in Vaiya's blue-green eyes. "You don't understand, do you? For all your training, all your wisdom, you don't get it." She took a step forward, her face stone calm, and spoke, "I realize that you're right. All the things you say...make sense. They explain why I could sense those doctors behind that mirror. Why I see so much of myself in you, although I've only spoken to you two times. Why Skywalker looks at me like a lost puppy, not like a man with his life in danger." Then, "But I don't want to remember."

"Why?"

"Because it's too far away from what I am now. And what I am now...is all I have. If I try to go back to what you knew, it would destroy me." She paused, and gave a grin that was almost bittersweet. "Mara Skywalker is dead. Long live Mara Jade."

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