Whisper Your Weakness

I'll go back later and edit in replies to the comments. Right now, I gotta get to work, but I wanted to get this posted since y'all have waited so patiently!


Viciously, Viktor shoved the herding prod into Luke’s belly, a grim smile of triumph on his face as his victim’s screams increased in intensity. Luke was again reminded of those terrible moments on the second Death Star as Palpatine’s Force-lightning had seared him with agony. Only this time, his father wasn’t here to save him…no one was here to save him.

Viktor wasn’t easing up this time, and Luke had the heart-stopping thought that the man was so enraged, so out-of-control, that he was going to kill him right here and now. Luke’s mind latched onto an image of Mara, and he knew that, for her, he had to fight until his last breath.

Somehow finding the strength despite the agonizing pain, Luke twisted his hands in the cuffs and grabbed hold of the chain that linked them. Using that as support, he lifted his legs and planted his feet in Viktor’s stomach, shoving him away with all his might.

Viktor was completely taken by surprise and made no move to stop his backwards momentum. He crashed into the opposite wall and Luke breathed a sigh of relief as the torment abated. He knew better than to think his reprieve would last, so he attempted to distract Berdin’s attention.

“I didn’t kill your father. I don’t even know who he was,” Luke growled as he tried to catch his breath. Every centimeter of his body ached and burned and he found he could barely remember what it was like not to be in pain.

Viktor struggled upright after only seconds and the sheer hatred in his gaze frightened Luke as nothing else in his life ever had. He strode quickly back across the room to stare into his prisoner’s eyes, causing Luke to involuntarily flinch away.

“I’m not surprised you don’t remember only one of a million beings, Jedi,” he snarled.

A million…? And then Luke understood finally what Berdin was talking about and just how Viktor’s father had died.

“The Death Star? Your father was on the Death Star? That’s what this is all about?” Luke gave a harsh bark of laughter in disbelief.

Viktor’s face twisted even further in rage, and Luke’s head jerked to the side with the force of Berdin’s fist smashing into his jaw. Luke spit blood before turning back to look at his tormentor with a defiant glare of his own.

“Such a cavalier attitude about the many lives you took that day, Skywalker. Not very Jedi-like, is it?” Viktor mocked.

As galling as it was to hear the taunt come from this bastard’s mouth, Viktor’s words helped Luke to focus and try to find that calm center that he’d always been able to sink into with the Force as his ally. Just because he could not access the Force right now, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still a Jedi.

“I regret every life lost in that battle, Berdin, both Alliance and Imperial. Nevertheless, I came to terms with my actions on that day a long time ago.”

“Came to terms? Came to terms?! Is that how you deal with murder, Skywalker? All the orphans you created with one little push of a button? How many other young men did you deprive of a father?” As he spoke, he grasped Luke’s chin with one hand, shaking his captive’s head cruelly as he made his point. Viktor’s eyes were growing ever darker with rage and - Luke feared - a touch of madness.

“And how did the Empire deal with all the orphans left when they blew Alderaan into a billion pieces?” Luke forced the words out in a snarl since Viktor was brutally squeezing his jaw.

“You…understand…nothing!” Viktor shouted, the strength of his anger overwhelming Luke. He released his prisoner’s jaw with a shove, but instead of being relieved, Luke felt a spike of fear shoot through him as he watched Viktor steadily become crazed with rage.

The helpless Jedi instinctively shrank away in horror as Viktor’s fury reached a boiling point and exploded. Unfortunately, Luke had nowhere to go as Berdin vented his wrath on him in a flurry of fists. The blows came furiously and continuously, taking his breath away and driving him to the point of unconsciousness. The force of Berdin’s strikes was so intense that Luke’s jerking motions pulled the hook his cuffs were linked to out of the ceiling, and he crashed hard to the floor with a cry of pain.

Viktor didn’t pause one moment in the thrashing of his hostage, and began to kick his downed victim. Luke raised his arms to protect his head, at the same time trying pull his legs up to guard his torso, but it wasn’t much use. Viktor seemed to unerringly find any open spot and home in on it. Luke’s vision became blurry and he feared he was about to pass out, and who knew what Viktor would do to him then?

Finally, with a growl, Viktor stopped hitting him and all Luke could see were his booted feet turning and walking around the cell for a moment. His entire body felt like one massive bruise and it hurt just to breathe. Suddenly, Viktor squatted down beside him and grabbed him by the hair, lifting his head off the floor. Luke cried out in protest at the pain that shot through his system.

“Damn you, Jedi! You almost made me completely lose control there. And I don’t want to kill you, not yet. I have so much more planned for you before I watch you die,” he said in a guttural tone that caused fear to penetrate Luke’s haze of agony. Luke winced when Viktor let his head drop back down to the floor.

Viktor laughed as Luke watched his boots as he left the room. “Sleep well, Master Skywalker. We’ll talk again soon.”

Luke lay in the middle of the floor where Viktor had left him, too weary to even attempt to make his way over to the tiny cot. He tried to take a deep breath, but it ended in a cough as a sharp pain lanced through his chest and he worried that Viktor’s kicks might have cracked a rib or two.

Hot tears burned behind his eyelids and despair began to creep in at the edge of his senses. He wanted to remain hopeful that his family would find him, but every hour that passed made him doubt a little more that they were even looking. They think you’re dead…they’re not looking! As much as he tried to banish that thought, it snaked its way into his head and wouldn’t leave. He was alone, and he was going to die alone.

“Mara,” he whispered miserably, “Leia, help me, please…”

Again, he tried to reach out to his lover and to his sister through the Force, and again he met the blank wall that the disruptor disks were pressing down on him. His body curled into a ball as the tears began to escape his eyes to stream down his cheeks, and he had to fight hard to avoid falling into the black pool of hopelessness that pulled at his senses.

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Mara was having a hard time pushing back the wave of hopelessness that wanted to wash over her. Ten days. They had been looking for ten days, and had not found one sign or clue of what might have happened to Luke. The longer he was missing, the more Mara dreaded that they would find only a body, or worse, never know what had happened to him at all.

The most difficult part of the ordeal was trying to maintain her composure in front of well-meaning people who kept coming up to her to give their condolences on the loss of her best friend. She had to restrain herself from screaming at these fools that he was more than her best friend, he was her lover and her life, and he was not dead! He was alive, stang it, alive! If only she could find him…

As hard as it was on her, Mara knew that it was equally as hard on Leia and Han, perhaps even harder for them. Everyone knew of their connection to Luke Skywalker, therefore they probably got three times the number of words of sympathy that Mara did.

Her eyesight began to blur as she studied - for at least the twentieth time - a datapad listing the names of beings who might’ve held a grudge against Luke. It wasn’t until one tear sneaked out of her eye that she realized her vision was blurring from crying rather than exhaustion. Frustrated and infuriated at their lack of progress, Mara threw the datapad down and stood in a burst of rage.

“This is useless! There has to be something more we can do!”

Han, Leia, Wedge, and Corran looked up at her as she began to pace around the Solo’s living room.

“We’re doing everything we can, Mara,” Leia said quietly.

“No, we’re not! If we were doing everything we can, then we’d have found him already,” Mara snarled.

“We are going to find him,” Wedge said earnestly.

Mara turned on him angrily, latching on to a convenient target for her frustration and fear. “Would that assuage your guilty conscience, Antilles?” she sneered.

Wedge’s face paled in shock at her accusation, and Leia cried, “Mara!” at the same time that Han said sharply, “That’s enough, Jade.”

“Oh, don’t get sanctimonious with me, Solo. You’re both thinking the same thing and you’re just too polite and civilized to say it. If it wasn’t for Wedge’s inability to keep an eye on his kid, then Luke would still be here!”

“I never wanted Luke to be hurt!” Wedge shouted as he stood up to face Mara.

“Yeah, well that didn’t exactly work out the way you wanted it to, did it?”

“Jade, I said that’s enough! I don’t care if you are Luke’s fiancée, this is my house, Wedge is my guest, and he’s one of Luke’s best friends. You will NOT talk to him like that again!” Han said sternly as he stood up and stepped in between the two people facing each other across the living room.

“No one tells me what to do, Solo,” Mara said in a dangerously low voice.

“Maybe not, Mara, but what do you think Luke would say if he could see you right now?” Corran asked quietly.

Mara actually took a step backwards, so startled was she by Corran’s question. For the briefest of moments, her face showed the desperate fear and anguish that was ripping her apart on the inside, but it was so quickly covered by a mask of stony indifference, that the others in the room wondered if they had imagined it. Her jaw tightened and, rather than respond to Corran, she turned and stalked out onto the Solo’s balcony.

There was an awkward silence in the room following her departure, and Wedge finally spoke up, sadness emanating from him so strongly that Leia could feel it in the Force.

“Leia, Luke saved my daughter’s life. I could never…” he broke off as he seemed uncertain what to say. “If I had known what was going to happen, I would have gone after her myself.”

“And then Syal might not have made it out alive, Wedge,” Leia replied quietly. “Luke was just doing what he did best. Putting his duty before his own safety. He would have done the same for any one of us in this room. No one blames you. Mara is just frightened and angry at the person behind this, as we all are.”

“Yeah, she just doesn’t hide the anger part as well as the rest of us,” Han drawled.

Nervous laughter echoed around the room as Leia turned her head to look at Mara Jade standing on their balcony, her hands gripping the railing and her head bowed.

“I should go talk to her,” Leia murmured.

“Are you sure that’s wise, Princess? She’s probably still pretty upset and Mara’s not exactly one to accept coddling,” Han said doubtfully.

“I’ll be fine. And I’m sure if I need rescuing, you’ll be right out there, nerfherder,” Leia said with a smile for her husband.

“You know it, your Highnessness,” Han grinned.

When Leia walked out onto the balcony, Mara was crying. There was no hysterical sobbing - Mara wasn’t normally the type of woman to sob - but a few silent tears were sliding down her cheeks. Leia walked up to stand beside her and the two of them gazed without speaking at the Manarai Mountains in the distance.

Leia broke the silence first.

“I think you might owe Wedge an apology.”

Mara snorted. “I’m not very good at apologies,” she muttered.

“What do you think Luke would say to that excuse?”

Mara’s head dropped and a noise that sounded suspiciously like a sniffle came from underneath the hair that was hanging over her face. “Don’t do that.”

“Don’t do what?” Leia asked.

“Don’t ask me to imagine Luke judging me. I already know that I’m not good enough for him. I don’t need to be reminded of it.”

Leia’s jaw dropped open in astonishment.

“Mara, that’s not what I meant at all!”

Mara raised her head to give Luke’s sister a glare, but it was rather half-hearted, her misery plain for Leia to see. “It doesn’t matter if that’s what you meant. It’s true.”

“No, it’s not-” Leia began to protest, but Mara cut her off.

“It’s the truth!” she said harshly. “That’s one of the reasons I was so hesitant to get involved with Luke. He’s a Jedi. And he’s so…so good! There’s such a purity to him that it…it almost blinds me sometimes. How can someone like that love someone like me?” Mara said, her voice dropping to a despondent whisper.

To her surprise, Leia laughed softly. “Oh, my, I certainly hope you don’t think that Luke is in any way, shape, or form, perfect. Because I assure you, he’s not.”

“He’s pretty damn close, if you ask me,” Mara said stubbornly.

Leia held up one hand and began ticking off her twin’s faults, as only a sister’s love would allow her to do. “He’s reckless; impatient; incredibly stubborn, especially when he thinks he’s right; he drives his speeder much too fast; it costs me a small fortune just to feed him; he spoils my children shamelessly, although I guess that could be good, since it does mean that he loves them; and he simply cannot remember to lower the lid after he’s done in the ’fresher.” Leia threw her hands up in mock despair and gave Mara a teasing look of exasperation.

Mara stared at Leia in shock, and then a tiny giggle snuck up on her from out of nowhere. She covered her mouth with one hand as she and Leia looked at each other with the same twinkling of mirth in their eyes. Seconds later, they were both snickering helplessly as Leia wrapped one arm around Mara’s back, and the redhead slipped one arm around the princess’ neck.

“That ‘fresher thing does drive me nuts,” she said around the laughter.

“Ugh, and I haven’t been able to get Han to do it either, and the both of them set a terrible example for Jacen and Anakin,” Leia sighed.

They stood quietly for a moment, enjoying the temporary respite from the overwhelming concern for the man they both loved. It was very brief, however, as Mara felt the crushing weight of worry for Luke begin to push at her again. Her fingers found the ring hanging on the chain around her neck and rubbed it gently.

“Stars, Leia, I just miss him so much. It’s like a piece of me is missing,” she said hoarsely.

“I know. I know,” Leia said as she gave Mara’s shoulder a squeeze. “But we’re going to find him. We will. I can feel it.”

Mara nodded, then straightened with a sniff and a deep breath. “Well, I guess I’d better get to it, then.”

“Get to what?”

“Apologizing to Antilles. I’m really not very good with apologies.”

“Well, I’ll be right there to help you out,” Leia smiled.

“Good, cause I’m probably gonna need it,” Mara muttered as she walked back into the Solo’s apartment.

Leia paused for just a second on the balcony, looking back towards the Manarai Mountains that her brother loved so much. Although she knew it was a useless gesture, she couldn’t help sending out a message through the Force.

*Hold on, Luke, just a little longer. We’re coming, I promise.*

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