Aug 16, 2007 00:28
Why Did It Have To Be Her?
Part 2 of 2
PG
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the settings or character of Mara Jade, which belong to George Lucas and Timothy Zahn respectively.
Summary: Remembering Mara Jade in the past and present.
Part II: Contemplation of a Death
Location: Pyria System
Time: 34 years after the Battle of Endor
The glass containing the remaining amounts of the weak Fogblaster toppled over onto the tapcaf’s dirty counter. The ‘tender droid hurried over and started cleaning it up. It asked him if he wanted another drink but received no answer. Oloth Zimnaht was too stunned from his reaction to the news on the HoloNet. He stared at the picture of Mara Jade Skywalker taken from her wedding about twenty years ago. Frozen in time. He stared in disbelief. He kept repeating the crawl of words at the bottom of the screen over and over to convince himself they were real.
Mara Jade Skywalker - murdered by an unknown assailant.
His mind repeated it in a different phrase. Someone had managed to kill the Emperor’s Hand.
That was a feat that he thought impossible. Today and back then. The back then was roughly thirty-five years ago. He would be just beginning his thirties. He was an old man now. No ties to speak of. Alone. He was handsome in his day. The women swooned to him. Not anymore. He was now a recluse on Pyria, the epitome of nowhere. A year after the Battle of Endor, the Imperial Remnant shut down the Halowan facilities. Halowan’s data banks were emptied and redirected to Bastion. Then the Yuuzhan Vong destroyed that years later.
Oloth remembered the day Mara Jade arrived at Halowan like it was the previous day. He had replayed the whole encounter inside his mind countless times. He remembered her skill against an unknown Force user. What was his name?
Adeki! Sometimes it scared him how his memory was still intact.
Her moves with the lightsaber were almost dance-like. He remembered her cool demeanor. He remembered that not once did she show any strong emotion. He also remembered his attempts at flirting with her. He winced at that memory. She did find someone all right. It was only the galaxy’s most famous hero.
The irony of Adeki’s vision was not lost on Oloth. A handsome man who she would have “strong feelings” for had to be Luke Skywalker. He always thought of Force users as strange. Adeki’s vision coming true two decades later was downright eerie.
He remembered the tapcaf on Halowan where they each had a Fogblaster after her elimination of Adeki. She kept to herself as she drank in silence. He could not take his eyes off of her while he downed his drink. To this day, he always wondered how awkward that must have been for her. She had finished her drink and headed back to her shuttle. He retrieved the original vids of the security cams in the detention level and handed them to her. She had to “fix” some of the officer’s minds to make them believe the prisoner was in custody already on her shuttle. Oloth knew this incident would be classified and never mentioned again.
He turned to thank her for the experience. She nonchalantly dismissed it as a flirting ploy.
“The feeling’s mutual,” was the last thing she said to him. He never saw her again.
He paid close attention of her whereabouts over the years. Or at least as much of her career as he could follow. After Endor, Mara Jade simply disappeared. He found out many years later that she had headed the Smuggler’s Alliance. Then there was the incident with the fake Admiral Thrawn. Then came the wedding.
He had not been bitter over the metaphoric joining of the Empire and the Rebellion. Truth be told, he had no real love for the Empire. He was a womanizer and they stuck him in a desk job. The Imperial Remnant even kriffed him on his pension. This was why he had to retreat to Pyria. It was a level above Tatooine. At least Pyria had lakes.
Mara Jade - dead!
They said she died of a foreign poison. What a cheap way for the Emperor’s Hand to go. Whomever killed her could not fight her in battle so they shot her with a poison dart? He hoped they didn’t kill her murderer once they were caught. A lifelong torturing experience would do just fine. Death would be too good.
It wasn’t as if Oloth didn’t think of Death. It happened all around the galaxy. He had soldiers he befriended at Carida Academy who had perished in both Death Star destructions. His own parents died when he was barely walking as a child. Yet, he showed no emotion over their deaths. Why was Mara’s death affecting him this way? Everyone died eventually. Still, there seemed to be a mythic immortality in Mara Jade. She had led three wholly different lives.
Yes, death happened. Why did it have to happen to her?
He called to the ‘tender droid for another Fogblaster. He asked for a double to make it more like the kind he got on Halowan. He had to get his mind off Mara Jade. When he paid more attention to the others around the tapcaf, he realized that wasn’t possible.
He overheard a Devaronian across the bar from him mention the name Mara Jade. He was telling a story to a group of patrons, as Devaronians will do, without regard to it being truth. Oloth focused on his tale.
“So, my partner and I took her to the General. And you remember how Duro was run in those days. The General had put her in prison in no time. Was she kriffin’ pissed. They took all her weapons, including her favorite Blas-Tech 550. State of the art. And me and my partner talked about it. I says to him, ‘Mannei, this is Mara Jade they just put in the clanger.’ So we made a plan to break her out. We killed the guards and we already knew the codes for her cell. We got her blaster back and we had to fight our way out of there. Stang, was she great in a firefight. We all escaped and we took her back to her ship. She was so grateful. I don’t know how many times she thanked us.” The Devaronian downed his drink and announced, “So, that’s how I can say I saved Mara Jade. She was a piece to deal with, lemme tell ya. Shame she’s gone.”
After hearing this, Oloth Zimnaht chuckled loudly and shook his head.
The Devaronian noticed. “Did I say something funny, old man?”
Olothe replied, “Where do I start?”
“You think I made this up?”
“No, I think that if any of that tall tale is true than I’m a Podrace winner on Malastare.”
“And what do you know of Mara Jade?”
“Enough to know that you never met her. Or at least, if you did, you sure do embellish.”
“How do you figure?”
Olothe gulped down his drink and ordered another. He was going to have fun debunking his story. “Let’s start with location. Duro. If you’re speaking of General T’saivas, that man had almost no intelligence to begin with. But, he at least had the smarts to know that you don’t imprison Mara Jade without consequences. Second; the weapon. Mara Jade had no favorite weapon. She used whatever weapon that was called for in any particular mission. And even if she did have one weapon that she favored, she would choose her lightsaber over something as erratic as a ‘state of the art’ blaster. Which brings me to another missing piece of Mara Jade you forgot to mention. Jade had the Force. She could have gotten out of that prison with no help from anyone. And she could have done it without firing a single shot or swinging a blade.” Oloth took a moment to down a gulp of his drink. He was ignoring the look of contempt he was getting from the Devaronian . He swore he could see the creature’s horns twitch. At the same time, the others in the tapcaf were nodding in approval on his assessment of Mara Jade.
Oloth wanted to finish before he got too tanked. “And the last thing that tells me you never met Jade is the fact that you said she was grateful. The Emperor’s Hand never would have said thanks. She did her job and finished her missions efficiently. It didn’t matter what side she was on. So, no, I don't believe you dealt with Mara Jade. Nobody dealt with the Emperor’s Hand. She dealt with you. Take it from someone who has met her and watched her in action.” Oloth paused as it strained him to say his next words. “May she rest in peace.”
At that moment, a Twi'lek sitting nearby the Devaronian raised his drink and announced to the crowd, “To Mara Jade.” Another Twi'lek next to the first did the same. Then another patron repeated it. Then another. And another. Soon, the whole tapcaf prepared for the toast. Even the Devaronian raised his glass and repeated it, despite his look of defeat.
Finally, Oloth Zimnaht raised his own drink. “To Mara Jade Skywalker. Emperor’s Hand. Jedi. Mother. And one hell of a damn woman.”
THE END
era:lotf,
author:madman007,
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