Kill Him -- PG fic
Title: Kill Him
Author: helgaleena helgaleenas@yahoo.com
Fandom: Star Wars NJO
Genre: POV, missing scene
Pairing: Mara Jade/ Luke Skywalker
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1417
Summary: missing scene from Zahn’s Heir to Empire, set at Talon Karrde’s base on the planet Myrkyr. It’s going to take three books and a clone named Luuke to get her out of this mental rut.
Extremely excellent beta by Jade Solo.
She had not stopped on her way to the holding area to tell Karrde that she was going to take over watching Skywalker. He would have said no.
Talon Karrde was already suspicious enough about her, without adding to his paranoia. He was watching her all the time now, he said, to evaluate her leadership potential, so he probably already knew more about her than he was letting anyone else know. There was also the matter of her obvious behavior change whenever the ‘last Jedi of the New Republic’ was mentioned. He knew that she lost her mask of indifference if Skywalker was brought up in conversation in her hearing. No need to add to his list of suspicions. Not that she would ever offer proof.
The boss probably would have ordered her to stay away, to safeguard the payout of the Imperial reward for their famous captive. Consequently, she simply hadn’t told him. She pulled rank on the punk that was supposed to be sitting in this chair, next to the bed where the Jedi lay drugged, and studied him.
Sleeping, he seemed incredibly young-- too young to have tipped over an Empire, and the mentor who had been a father to her, into fiery oblivion.
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.
That was Palpatine’s final assignment for her, his very own Hand: “Skywalker wishes to kill me,” he had said in mild elderly tones, redolent of his aristocratic heritage. “Me! The possibility exists that he might succeed. You must kill him first, my dear.”
His waxen pale face, etched from suffering, turned toward her and seemed to fill the entire room. She knew he was using the Force to impress the command deep into her mind, never to be forgotten, and she never had.
“KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.”
But she hadn’t. She’d been light-years away when this mere boy-barely her own age-had done it. Blown up the second Death Star, just like the first, and ended her world.
Her hate, bottled up until the trigger of memory stirred it, surged up into her throat and made her grit her teeth. She’d failed. She needed revenge. She needed to rid the galaxy of this perversely innocent-looking---
Damn these ysalamiri! They were giving her a headache. And she couldn’t sense anything special about this so-called hero at all, with them around. But to object to Karrde using them to keep a Jedi captive would require letting out information about herself that she didn’t want him to have, for he was grooming her to be his second-in-command. Seconds were not supposed to have powers their bosses did not.
She calmed herself with a few deep breaths and shifted the unholstered blaster lying in her lap, smoothing back her flame orange hair and crossing her legs. Had he stirred? Had he sensed her surge of hatred? No; he couldn’t have. The ysalamiri creatures were making him blind and deaf on those levels, just as they were doing to her. No, he’d stay drugged like any mundane human, with no special access to Force healing, and wake up at the ordinary time when it wore off, and pull that catheter out. Keep your dirty mind out of those coveralls, Mara.
He’s just another pilot hanging with the Rebels, a sprig ready to be desiccated or incinerated in the cockpit for some ideal, a waste of sentience and excellent reflexes, in her opinion. Wavy fair hair fell in a fringe over thick lashes, but he was barely able to grow a beard. Still wrapped in the filthy flight suit he’d been in at their ‘rescue’, only now with the tubes snaking out of it and over to the monitors.
The main thing that bothered Mara about him now was that when he was sold to Thrawn, he very likely wasn’t going to be killed. Tortured, mainly, but the longer they kept him alive to pick his brains, the more chances that left for errors to be made that resulted in escape. Then she’d need to chase him down all over again. He needed to die.
Shards! Of course it wasn’t rational to want to kill him still, when the one who gave the order, as well as the reason, was dead. No, it was also personal. So personal that she could feel the urge to throttle him pulsing in her fingers, even with all these ysalamiri around.
She’d been someone in the Empire, someone she was proud of being, someone who had done good. Now she was just a drifter with a past she had to hide, skills and talents she had to forget she had. And they were so much a part of her, like breathing-damn ysalamiri. Being in their Force-dead bubble was like living inside a heavy quilt all the time; it did stifle. But Skywalker had to be controlled.
She had swiped his light-saber, though. Such a piddling recompense for all he’d stolen from her! The other smugglers would think it a silly whim; it didn’t mean she knew how to use one.
Karrde had wondered at their sudden drop out of hyperspace, practically on top of Skywalker’s disabled ship. It had been one of those flukes, those sporadic resurgences of her oneness with the Force that needed to be lost, along with her past, but still haunted her-usually right before her life crumbled around her again and messed up everything.
Because she hadn’t done it yet?
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER-
That voice from the past, that prime directive she could no longer distinguish from her own furnace of sustaining hate, would one way or another find a way to corrode whatever shell of normalcy she’d tried to construct, forcing her to try again, in some other place, with some other cover-
She itched to kill him and be free.
But if she did it now, she’d lose Karrde and her place among his people-
Skywalker tossed restlessly in his enforced stupor, his lips parting slightly, those heavy lashes fluttering on his tanned cheeks. Even when he was unconscious, even when half of her was numbed by those damned furry lizards all around, he seemed more alive than most beings. Some bright spark in him, and she hadn’t even spoken to him yet…
Would he remember her from Jabba’s palace? She’d been in the background, unable to make sure of him on the pleasure barge, and he’d been quite distracted by fighting for his life. Oh, who cared if he did or not? He was not going to have time to remember.
But she’d long wanted to pick his murderous brains, just to know how it felt to bring down an empire, blowing up a planet’s worth of people in the name of galactic chaos. And as a side effect, catapulting her into madness-
It had hurt like having her eyes gouged out when Palpatine died. She had wandered for weeks, not eating, not sleeping, not knowing who or where she was. Some people might have tried to hurt her; she wasn’t sure. By reflex she’d ended their momentary threats, much as she’d squash a biting insect. She’d had a number of menial service-sector occupations, once she’d remembered her name. Then some flashback to her vanished life would loom out of her mind like a hidden shoal and shipwreck her again.
It was all his fault.
Look at him sleeping there, Myrkyr’s tropical breeze through the curtains stirring his bangs, oblivious to her ruin, and her resentful study of him.
KILL HIM.
Oh, I’m going to kill him, all right.
KILL HIM-
Steady, Mara, she told herelf optimistically.
She owed Karrde too much, enjoyed her place in his organization too much to throw it away on a voice from her past, however much more splendid or horrid it may have been than her present. She was still in charge of her own head.
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.
Clamping down on her emotions, she distracted herself by watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, by appreciating the curl of his lips against the pillow.
KILL HIM.
I’ll kill him when I’m ready to, and not before.
~ ~
hlglne
Author: helgaleena helgaleenas@yahoo.com
Fandom: Star Wars NJO
Genre: POV, missing scene
Pairing: Mara Jade/ Luke Skywalker
Rating: PG-13
Wordcount: 1417
Summary: missing scene from Zahn’s Heir to Empire, set at Talon Karrde’s base on the planet Myrkyr. It’s going to take three books and a clone named Luuke to get her out of this mental rut.
Extremely excellent beta by Jade Solo.
She had not stopped on her way to the holding area to tell Karrde that she was going to take over watching Skywalker. He would have said no.
Talon Karrde was already suspicious enough about her, without adding to his paranoia. He was watching her all the time now, he said, to evaluate her leadership potential, so he probably already knew more about her than he was letting anyone else know. There was also the matter of her obvious behavior change whenever the ‘last Jedi of the New Republic’ was mentioned. He knew that she lost her mask of indifference if Skywalker was brought up in conversation in her hearing. No need to add to his list of suspicions. Not that she would ever offer proof.
The boss probably would have ordered her to stay away, to safeguard the payout of the Imperial reward for their famous captive. Consequently, she simply hadn’t told him. She pulled rank on the punk that was supposed to be sitting in this chair, next to the bed where the Jedi lay drugged, and studied him.
Sleeping, he seemed incredibly young-- too young to have tipped over an Empire, and the mentor who had been a father to her, into fiery oblivion.
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.
That was Palpatine’s final assignment for her, his very own Hand: “Skywalker wishes to kill me,” he had said in mild elderly tones, redolent of his aristocratic heritage. “Me! The possibility exists that he might succeed. You must kill him first, my dear.”
His waxen pale face, etched from suffering, turned toward her and seemed to fill the entire room. She knew he was using the Force to impress the command deep into her mind, never to be forgotten, and she never had.
“KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.”
But she hadn’t. She’d been light-years away when this mere boy-barely her own age-had done it. Blown up the second Death Star, just like the first, and ended her world.
Her hate, bottled up until the trigger of memory stirred it, surged up into her throat and made her grit her teeth. She’d failed. She needed revenge. She needed to rid the galaxy of this perversely innocent-looking---
Damn these ysalamiri! They were giving her a headache. And she couldn’t sense anything special about this so-called hero at all, with them around. But to object to Karrde using them to keep a Jedi captive would require letting out information about herself that she didn’t want him to have, for he was grooming her to be his second-in-command. Seconds were not supposed to have powers their bosses did not.
She calmed herself with a few deep breaths and shifted the unholstered blaster lying in her lap, smoothing back her flame orange hair and crossing her legs. Had he stirred? Had he sensed her surge of hatred? No; he couldn’t have. The ysalamiri creatures were making him blind and deaf on those levels, just as they were doing to her. No, he’d stay drugged like any mundane human, with no special access to Force healing, and wake up at the ordinary time when it wore off, and pull that catheter out. Keep your dirty mind out of those coveralls, Mara.
He’s just another pilot hanging with the Rebels, a sprig ready to be desiccated or incinerated in the cockpit for some ideal, a waste of sentience and excellent reflexes, in her opinion. Wavy fair hair fell in a fringe over thick lashes, but he was barely able to grow a beard. Still wrapped in the filthy flight suit he’d been in at their ‘rescue’, only now with the tubes snaking out of it and over to the monitors.
The main thing that bothered Mara about him now was that when he was sold to Thrawn, he very likely wasn’t going to be killed. Tortured, mainly, but the longer they kept him alive to pick his brains, the more chances that left for errors to be made that resulted in escape. Then she’d need to chase him down all over again. He needed to die.
Shards! Of course it wasn’t rational to want to kill him still, when the one who gave the order, as well as the reason, was dead. No, it was also personal. So personal that she could feel the urge to throttle him pulsing in her fingers, even with all these ysalamiri around.
She’d been someone in the Empire, someone she was proud of being, someone who had done good. Now she was just a drifter with a past she had to hide, skills and talents she had to forget she had. And they were so much a part of her, like breathing-damn ysalamiri. Being in their Force-dead bubble was like living inside a heavy quilt all the time; it did stifle. But Skywalker had to be controlled.
She had swiped his light-saber, though. Such a piddling recompense for all he’d stolen from her! The other smugglers would think it a silly whim; it didn’t mean she knew how to use one.
Karrde had wondered at their sudden drop out of hyperspace, practically on top of Skywalker’s disabled ship. It had been one of those flukes, those sporadic resurgences of her oneness with the Force that needed to be lost, along with her past, but still haunted her-usually right before her life crumbled around her again and messed up everything.
Because she hadn’t done it yet?
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER-
That voice from the past, that prime directive she could no longer distinguish from her own furnace of sustaining hate, would one way or another find a way to corrode whatever shell of normalcy she’d tried to construct, forcing her to try again, in some other place, with some other cover-
She itched to kill him and be free.
But if she did it now, she’d lose Karrde and her place among his people-
Skywalker tossed restlessly in his enforced stupor, his lips parting slightly, those heavy lashes fluttering on his tanned cheeks. Even when he was unconscious, even when half of her was numbed by those damned furry lizards all around, he seemed more alive than most beings. Some bright spark in him, and she hadn’t even spoken to him yet…
Would he remember her from Jabba’s palace? She’d been in the background, unable to make sure of him on the pleasure barge, and he’d been quite distracted by fighting for his life. Oh, who cared if he did or not? He was not going to have time to remember.
But she’d long wanted to pick his murderous brains, just to know how it felt to bring down an empire, blowing up a planet’s worth of people in the name of galactic chaos. And as a side effect, catapulting her into madness-
It had hurt like having her eyes gouged out when Palpatine died. She had wandered for weeks, not eating, not sleeping, not knowing who or where she was. Some people might have tried to hurt her; she wasn’t sure. By reflex she’d ended their momentary threats, much as she’d squash a biting insect. She’d had a number of menial service-sector occupations, once she’d remembered her name. Then some flashback to her vanished life would loom out of her mind like a hidden shoal and shipwreck her again.
It was all his fault.
Look at him sleeping there, Myrkyr’s tropical breeze through the curtains stirring his bangs, oblivious to her ruin, and her resentful study of him.
KILL HIM.
Oh, I’m going to kill him, all right.
KILL HIM-
Steady, Mara, she told herelf optimistically.
She owed Karrde too much, enjoyed her place in his organization too much to throw it away on a voice from her past, however much more splendid or horrid it may have been than her present. She was still in charge of her own head.
KILL LUKE SKYWALKER.
Clamping down on her emotions, she distracted herself by watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he breathed, by appreciating the curl of his lips against the pillow.
KILL HIM.
I’ll kill him when I’m ready to, and not before.
~ ~
hlglne