Jedi Dawn - Chapter 12
By Sienn (2001) 

 

Rating (for chapter):  NC-17
Protagonists: Luke/Mara
Category: Drama/Action/Angst

 

Spoilers:
See Chapter 1

 

Disclaimer:
See Chapter 1

 

Coruscant, Imperial Palace, Personal Landing Bay Of The President, 1 Day Later

 

The first tentative rays of Coruscant's sun crept into the hangar, not really hot, but nonetheless fiercely trying to create a warm atmosphere and to give the cold metal walls a cosy gleam.

 

Han Solo blinked, then looked worriedly towards the lift tubes. His brother-in-law was late - and not just a few minutes, but almost half an hour. The rest of the delegation was impatiently waiting in front of their transport, their reactions quite different. While Kre'fey and Pellaeon showed the clearest signs of annoyance, the faces of Teneniel and Wedge were wrinkled in a frown as uncomfortable as Han's was.

 

It was not like Luke to arrive late if something was important. And it didn't need a Force sensitive to tell that the peace negotiations with the Yuuzhan Vong WERE important. Even more so now that both parties wanted to formulate a plan for the investigation on Corellia.

 

A short meeting aboard the Criarto was planned, then, in three hours, a group of New Republic ships would leave for the Corellian system, accompanied by five of the Hapan ships and the Criarto - plus its coralskippers.

 

It was an impressing strike force and Han had been wondering for quite a time now how the authorities on his homeplanet would react to a full-grown Yuuzhan Vong warship jumping into their system. But this thought had long vanished from his mind and had been replaced by a sinking feeling in his stomach.

 

Luke was too long overdue - Han shot his wife a glance. "Well?" he huffed.

 

Leia's eyes were wide with anxiety when she slowly shook her head: "I don't know, Han. Either he is blocking me, as he has done all the time over the last few days when he wanted to be for himself or..." She left the sentence unfinished, not sure what other answer there was.

 

"Ok, fine," Han mumbled, unconsciously fumbling his blaster, then gesturing over to Wedge. His fellow Corellian was at his side some seconds later, his eyes transfixed on Han's right hand that was still at his weapon.

 

"Problems?" he asked, in a voice clearly showing that he long knew that there were indeed some.

 

"Perhaps," Han answered curtly, glancing at the lift tube for a final time. When the doors didn't open, he squared his shoulders.
"Ok, Leia. I take Wedge and we go check on Luke. You and Teneniel try to calm our two military men down."

 

Leia nodded, that frown still wrinkling her beautiful face. She brushed her lips over Han's cheek and proceeded towards the rest of the delegation while her husband and Wedge went over to the lift tube.

 

"Where do you think he is?" Wedge asked quietly, pushing the button for Luke's floor and leaning against the tube's back-wall.

 

"I hope he is in his bed and sleeps," Han replied darkly.

 

*~~

 

On the way down to Luke's apartment, all possible scenarios had gone through Han's head. He wondered whether he would find Luke simply asleep in his bed, his body finally catching up with all the rest it hadn't gotten in the last weeks, or whether he would find him apathetic, drunk, crying. In essence, he was prepared to find his friend in every emotional and physical state he could think of.

 

What he wasn't prepared for was to not find him at all - instead, they encountered dozens of data disks sprawled over the living room floor, a good bunch of meters away from the only, small table.

 

Han stood there, his previous ideas blown to pieces, and stared at the data disks. One of them, just one, had slid as far as under the table. That was not good - Luke was not the type of man who left his apartment a mess in any way and Han doubted that he had suddenly gotten the idea to drop the data disks while on his way into his bedroom.

 

"He is not in his bed," Wedge reported, leaning at the railing of the stairs, still frowning. "Han?"

 

The former Rogue Squadron leader frowned even more when he got no answer from his friend and went over to him, following his stare. There, on the floor, was a dark speck - a dark red speck. It took both men only a few seconds to confirm that it was blood.

 

*~~

 

"Do you think he has hurt himself?" Leia asked ten minutes later, her voice rough while she couldn't take her eyes off the blotch on the carpet.

 

Han's head spun around and he pressed Leia shortly at his chest: "No. Honey, don't think that. Luke would not do something like this."

 

"But you know how he was all these weeks, Han. He is depressed, he..."

 

Her husband lay his hand over her mouth to silence her and gazed intently into her big, shimmering eyes: "Leia, think a bit, will you? Even if he had tried it, he wouldn't have done it here. And he certainly wouldn't have had a bunch of data disks in his hands." Han stroke her back, then added: "And that's not enough blood for something like that - right?" he turned towards the medical droid which had been sent for along with the Palace Guard.

 

"Absolutely, sir."

 

"Your guess?" Leia asked, her voice slowly coming back to normal while she tried to push the image of her brother killing himself out of her head.

 

"The only conclusions to be drawn are that the wound was not lethal and that it has been sealed almost immediately. There is not a single trace of blood elsewhere in the apartment. It happened approximately seven hours ago."

 

Leia blanched: "Seven hours? No doubt?" she repeated quietly. That was too long - whoever had done whatever to Luke, they would most probably be gone by now

 

"No doubt, Your Excellency."

 

The Alderaanian princess swallowed hard, then turned to her guards: "Close the spaceports immediately. Every ship on the planet and still in the system is to be searched. Now," she barked.

 

The guards bowed and hurried away. "What about the Criarto?" Wedge asked, his gaze intent.

 

Leia's eyes went from being worried to being hard: "I'm sure Tsavong Lah will be delighted to show us around." With this, she strode out of the apartment, Wedge and Han on her heels.

 

Vong Ship Criarto, 1 Hour Later

 

"Princess Leia, why are you this late?" Tsavong Lah demanded to know when they stepped in front of him in their usual hangar bay.

 

Leia rewarded him with an icy stare: "Are you sure you can't answer this yourself?"

 

The Warmaster narrowed his glinting eyes, taking in the barely constrained nervousness in her delegation and Teneniel's fingers gripping and releasing the handle of her lightsaber again and again.

 

"I don't understand your hints, Your Excellency. Do you care to enlighten me?"

 

"Warmaster, I swear to you, you'll regret it should you try to play me for a fool." She hissed, crossing her arms over her chest and stepping closer to him.

 

The Warmaster's honour guards began to growl quietly. Some even shook their amphistaffs awake and seemed eager to throw themselves onto Leia. Only Lah's outstretched arm prevented them from it.

 

"I'm not trying anything like this, Princess Leia. If you continue insulting me without explaining why you do, you won't like the consequences," he hissed back.

 

For some minutes, Leia just stared at him, contemplating which possibilities she had. Her reason, her brain, told her that it could be no one else but Lah that had kidnapped Luke. That somewhere on this ship, her brother was being held and was probably wounded.
Unfortunately, her heart and her feelings told her, as absurd as it seemed to her brain, that she could trust Tsavong Lah in some close-cut borders. The Yuuzhan Vong leader hadn't shown any sign of betrayal yet and was surprisingly co-operative. And, most of all, he respected Luke. He wouldn't sneak into his apartment at night and hijack him. He would challenge him openly and demand an honouree fight.

 

Finally, Leia's feelings got the upper hand and she relaxed a little bit - just so much that it was clearly visible for Lah and his guards. "My brother, Luke Skywalker, has been kidnapped," she stated, the words feeling terrible on her tongue.

 

This surprised the Yuuzhan Vong obviously. It took him a full minute to reply in a dangerous voice: "And now you dare assume that "I" gave the order for his abduction?"

 

Leia perched an eyebrow: "If you were me, you'd come to the same conclusion, Warmaster."

 

"Probably," Lah murmured, then leaned back to listen to one of his guards whispering something into his ear. When he once again looked at Leia, his eyes gleamed even more wildly. "Your ships have a target lock on our dovin-basals."

 

"Again, think about what you'd do if you were me," Leia replied.

 

For what seemed like an eternity, the Warmaster stared intently at her, his eyes spitting fire. Then, he grinned ferociously and said, with respect obvious in his voice: "Perhaps I've underestimated your race, Leia Organa Solo. You don't take blows against your domain lightly. What now?"

 

The pain in Leia's tensed shoulders eased a little bit. "I would appreciate it if you showed us around everywhere."

 

Lah grinned more broadly: "Of course."

 

Dathomir, Elan's And Idao's Meeting Place

 

Mara smirked at her counterpart, waiting almost eagerly for him to make the first move. It had been too long since she had had a good, clean fight. True, she had sparred with Luke, but since she had fallen ill, he hadn't fought her with all his abilities.

 

And, finally, with a growl of pure rage, the Vong warrior charged with a high blow to her head that she blocked easily. She let her blade slide down his amphistaff, feigning an attack at the most vulnerable spot of his armour.

 

As she had guessed, he immediately pushed her saber away, leaving his side wide open. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite as dumb as the other Yuuzhan Vong she had fought against up until now.

 

When Mara brought her right knee up to kick him into his stomach, he caught her leg. With an evil grin that showed his sharp teeth, the alien twisted it viciously, causing Mara to cry out in pain and loose her balance.

 

In the next second she found herself face-down on the ground, barely avoiding her own blade, her leg hurting incredibly, and felt the Vong's amphistaff at her throat, accompanied by a low cackle and some words in a strange tongue laced with contempt.

 

Mara didn't have the slightest idea what he was talking about. Not that she actually cared. With a pain-filled yelp, she rolled to the side, pressing her body flat to the rocky ground. The amphistaff slid only centimetres past her throat, but did no damage.

 

His eyes wide with surprise, the Yuuzhan Vong changed the course of his weapon in a mere second, obviously intending to finish her off, but Mara was as fast as he was. Bringing her blade back up, she blocked the blow and kicked him with all the power she could summon into her injured limb between his legs. She had no idea whether Yuuzhan Vong males were built basically like human males, but when her counterpart howled enraged and doubled over, she smirked. Obviously they were.

 

Ignoring the pain every movement caused, she jumped back to her feet and was about to sever the Vong's head when a movement some meters behind her caught her attention.

 

The female, that had watched gleefully until her specimen had been subdued, was heading at full throttle towards the coralskipper parked next to the building. Mara swore - she couldn't let her get away. This Vong woman was the only one able to tell her what they wanted from Luke.

 

Mara's eyes darted around and focused on a large rock some five meters beside the coralskipper - with delighting easiness, Mara lifted the stone with the Force and let it crush onto the strange ship's nose, then on his cockpit.

 

She caught a faint, dull howl of pain, affirming once again that this craft lived, and was relieved when the female cried something mean sounding over to her and changed directions.

 

Well, should she. Mara would intercept her quite easily before she could reach the other ship behind the hill. Or at least Mara thought so until a faint hiss warned her just in time to dodge another blow from the warrior, a blow that would have split her neatly in half otherwise.

 

Obviously, Yuuzhan Vong were able to recover much faster than human men, if it came to blows against these parts of their physique. A human guy would have thrown up and been out of the game for at least ten minutes.

 

Everything that the kick had earned her with the Vong was that he was even angrier.

 

But anger, as Luke had taught her and as she had come to see was quite true over the years, led to mistakes - in this case, to deadly mistakes.

 

Shouting the now familiar battle cry of his race, he stormed forward, bringing his weapon up to crush down onto her already injured leg. He didn't get the slightest chance to actually do it, though.

 

Drawing on the Force, Mara jumped into the air and, in one fluent movement, somersaulted over him, spun around and buried her lightsaber deep in his neck.

 

He still managed to push her bodily away from him and she stumbled ungracefully some meters back, but when she had regained her stability and looked back, the Yuuzhan Vong was already lying dead at the ground.

 

Slightly panting and limping, Mara went over to him, made sure he really was dead, then deactivated her saber.

 

"Now.." she said satisfied, "that was fun."

 

The strangely familiar sound of a starting coralskipper pushed her out of her contentment and let her run as fast as she could towards the top of the hill. She was too late.

 

The ship was already in the air and sped away at full speed, taking the female with it.

 

"By all the spice of Kessel…." She swore under her breath. Now the Vong would get an awfully big lead over her.

 

Clipping her lightsaber back at her belt, Mara began to make her way back to the Holy River Clan Fortress, mercilessly using her injured leg, trying hard not to think at what she had heard about the female's plans.

 

*~~

 

Elan sighed, relieved when she finally persuaded Idao's coralskipper to jump into the light speed-equivalent. Unlike her private ship, this one was equipped and bred for military purposes and she was completely unfamiliar with it.

 

She would have loved to blast this annoying human woman into oblivion but she had no idea how to command this vehicle to shoot.
Not that it was important - this infidel had come by foot and that meant she would need at least a day to get to any sort of transport. Until then, Elan would be far, far away and the human would have no chance to find her.

 

Thus, it really didn't matter much that she had overheard Elan's plans to kidnap Skywalker. And, besides, she should actually thank the woman - she had killed Idao and saved Elan a lot of scheming and dirty work.

 

Content, the priestess activated the villip of the ship, so far the only thing that was similar to her own vessel, and some moments later, the smiling face of her trusted sister appeared.

 

"Judging by your expression, I assume everything went well?" Elan asked.

 

"Absolutely, Mistress. We are done."

 

"Done?" Elan panted, leaning forward, barely able to conceal her eagerness.

 

"Yes. The Jeedai is in the aft compartment of my ship."

 

"Still unconscious?"

 

Lonan vanished for some seconds, then her face nodded affirmatively: "Still out cold."

 

"And the Shaper?"

 

"She is ready and waiting at our meeting point. She told me to inform you that everything is prepared and she can begin as soon as you arrive."

 

Elan grinned: "Perfect. How long will it take you to get there?"

 

Her sister glanced somewhere below her: "Three days."

 

"I can be there in five. Take care that Kwaad doesn't get her hands on him until I'm there."

 

Lonan's eyebrows went higher: "You don't trust Mezhan Kwaad, Mistress?"

 

Elan snorted: "She is a SHAPER, Lonan. If they get curious, you can never trust them. See to it that the Jeedai is safe. I don't want anything to happen to him."

 

"As you wish."

 

The villip collapsed and Elan leaned back in her chair, satisfied. Now she had even time to grant herself a little holiday before she would take care of the Jeedai. It would surely be fun to make herself a new familiar and a new tool.

 

Deep Space, Five Days Later

 

By the time Elan boarded the ship of her crèche-sister, she had begun to get utterly bored in her little, own coralskipper. Aside from this, she just was too eager to begin her scheme. Her sister bowed before her, but Elan gestured for her to relax and even embraced her shortly.

 

Then her eyes darted around in the cockpit of the ship. "Where is he?" Lonan pointed to the compartment in the back that was currently sealed by a part of the ship itself.

 

"I have of course held him in darkness. To enhance the effects of the rapo's poison."

 

Elan smiled: "Very good. I had no doubt that you'd do everything as I've told you."

 

The young female beamed, then patted a place at the "wall" of the ship and the storage compartment slid open.

 

Elan released the breath she had held. Amused, she became aware that she, up until now, had still thought it possible that someone had made a mistake and that they had caught the wrong person.

 

But everything had worked out quite wonderfully. The slender human was Skywalker, no doubt.

 

"Contact Kwaad's ship. We're coming aboard immediately." Elan commanded, kneeling down beside the man. At his left thigh, the rapo had formed a shining, black ball that Elan patted softly. "You did your job well," she whispered, sliding her fingers under the form and carefully releasing its spikes from the Jeedai's flesh.

 

In the past days, the rapo had fed on the Jeedai's blood and had in return injected steadily more of his poison, keeping the human effectively under for the whole voyage.

 

Now, that she had severed the animal, Skywalker would come to in an hour or so, but that would be just fine.

 

*~~

 

The first thing Luke became aware of when he regained consciousness was the cold. He was icy cold and he trembled.

 

Not conscious of his surroundings or anything but the freezing temperature that bit at his skin, he tried to swing his arms around himself, but met resistance.

 

Doing his best to suppress the shivers, he slowly blinked his eyes open, trying to recognise anything, but his world was blurred. And so cold.

 

The cold prevented him from thinking clearly and from remembering what had happened. The pain in his left leg didn't make anything better. It pulsed and the icy air cut into it like a vibro-blade. Besides, he was tired. He felt like falling asleep immediately. His clouded mind clearly favoured this possibility over finding out where he was and he was already drifting off again when someone grabbed his chin and lifted his head.

 

Luke forced himself to blink again, but whoever it was, for his eyes he or she was nothing more than a dark spot before a light background. He jerked his head back out of reflex, but the hand only gripped him harder and he felt a cup being held at his lips.

 

Pressing his mouth firmly shut, Luke tried again to get his head free, but the hand proved surprisingly strong. The next moment, someone pried his mouth open brutally and he had no choice but to swallow whatever was in this cup.

 

It tasted like water, all right, but that didn't mean anything, as Luke had come to know over the years.

 

To his utter wonderment, though, it seemed to have been nothing more than water and it helped almost immediately. His vision cleared and the throbbing pain in his leg subsided a little bit.

 

Blinking again, he finally recognised the person standing before him and felt his jaw drop.

 

"You!" he shouted, or at least tried to. What finally came out of his mouth was nothing but a hoarse croak.

 

"Surprised?" Elan asked, grinning at him.

 

The first thought that struck Luke was that this meant there would never be a cure for Mara. Elan had lied to him in order to manipulate him. There was no cure for Mara.

 

Choking back the lump in his throat, Luke looked back up into the exotically beautiful face of the Yuuzhan Vong female, then took in his surroundings. It looked like a Vong ship. Just like the Criarto, though he didn't think he was on that particular ship.

 

His arms were held firmly at the wall by a thin line of a fairly hard material and the more he tried to get free, the harder it pressed his wrists against the wall. So no sense in trying this.

 

He also became aware that he didn't wear his own clothes anymore, but trousers and a shirt of a strange feeling fabric that seemed to move!

 

Thus secured and still feeling numb because of the cold, he crouched before the Priestess and tried to get any feeling on the Force, but to no avail.

 

"That quiet, Jeedai?" Elan cackled amused.

 

"Perhaps I'm just frozen before your eyes," he murmured, shifting slightly to ease the pain in his leg.

 

The Priestess frowned: "You will be warmer soon. The cold is only to make the first lesson a little bit more effective."

 

"Lesson? What lesson? What do you want from me?" Luke asked, still trying to push his Force senses out of the dull bubble that was the alien ship.

 

Elan tipped her finger onto her chin while she stepped back, a mystifying smile on her face. A shimmering membrane built up between her and him, but he could still hear her answering giggle.

 

"Oh, she wants lots of things from you, human." Startled by the strange voice beside him, Luke turned his head around to stare gaping at another Vong female. But this one was not like Elan.

 

She was taller, thinner, and she was tattooed and had scars all over her face, her throat and her arms, which were bare. The strangest, though, was what she wore on her head. It looked like a plant or something, with many small, thick tendrils that moved steadily.

 

"And you are?" he asked, wondering why he felt so afraid all of a sudden. He had a downright terrible feeling if he looked at this being.

 

"Mezhan Kwaad - I am a Shaper. Your Shaper." She grinned a predatory grin and knelt down before him, but not near enough to kick her, as Luke noted.

 

"My Shaper?" he repeated, eyeing her suspiciously.

 

She nodded, smiling, then cupped his cheek. Luke's eyes widened in horror when he saw that several vicious looking tools seemed to GROW out of her digits. Shapers were bioengineers, he remembered. That was what Elan had told him.

 

"Priestess Elan has hired me. She asked me to shape you."

 

Luke froze, barely able, for the first time in over a decade, to hide the terror and fear that built up within him. "You mean.." he stammered, still glancing at the shimmering tool-fingers of the Vong named Mezhan Kwaad.

 

"Exactly. She wants me to shape you into her familiar." Elan, behind the membrane, nodded eagerly, her eyes never leaving him, as he had noted.

 

Luke swallowed, slightly irritated about the actually quite nice voice of the Shaper and her obvious attitude to explain what she did.

 

"What's a familiar?" he asked, trying to avoid the Vong female, but he had no possibilities to flee. Yet.

 

"You will learn soon enough. However, the shaping involves several phases, you know. You could call it lessons," Kwaad chattered, still cupping his cheek and intently eyeing his forehead.

 

She turned toward the Priestess: "You want it here?" Elan nodded: "Yes. And exactly the one I sent you."

 

"Yes, yes." Kwaad waved her comment away, then smiled at Luke. "These minor things are really unnerving, you know. But you are quite a challenge for me. I've never worked on a human yet. And never on a Jeedai. A human Jeedai is a special bonus, one could say." She giggled softly.

 

Before Luke could ask another question, Elan furiously hissed: "Now begin, Mezhan. I didn't hire you to chat with him."

 

"All right, all right". The Yuuzhan Vong sighed quietly, then showed Luke one of her fingers that had a sharp pincer on it. It gleamed and he supposed it would make for a good knife, too.

 

"Look carefully at it, human. It's the first part of the first lesson you will undergo." She tapped at his nose with it, then grinned again.
"You know what the first lesson is?" she asked.

 

Luke shook his head, not knowing what to reply and feeling totally paralysed.

 

"How should you, anyway." Mezhan Kwaad shrugged her shoulders, then laid her left hand into his neck and brought his face nearer
to hers.

 

She took the pincer-finger away from his nose: "The first lesson, human, is obedience." She hissed and before Luke could say anything, she rammed, to his utter surprise and no lesser horror, the finger with the pincer into his forehead and his world exploded into the most intense pain he had ever felt.

 

*~~
Leia Organa Solo, who sat with her husband, Wedge and Teneniel in her living room, going over dozens of lists of ships that had left the day Luke had vanished, cried out and slumped to the floor.

 

*~~

 

Mara Jade Skywalker, who had just sent her ship, the Jade Sabre, into hyperspace, collapsed onto the floor of her sleeping cabin, clutching her head frantically.

 

*~~

 

Elan watched in absolute delight and was barely aware that she actually grinned. Mezhan Kwaad crouched into the space the membrane had sealed off. She had long released the Jeedai and was still working on his forehead, now and then glancing at a small villip that displayed the wishes of her "client".

 

The Priestess couldn't see Skywalker's face because it was hidden in Kwaad's lap, next to which an ever growing line of blood was trickling down in her own direction.

 

The only thing she could see of her future familiar was his twitching and convulsing arms and legs.

 

| To Be Continued | - Next chapter NC-17

 

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