Whisper Your Weakness

Hey, it's another update!! Can you believe it? Heck, I can't either... :p

Mara Look-a-like: Welcome to the story! Glad you took the time to figure out how to review and did so. Thanks!

riam: Oh, Viktor's gonna get his, don't you worry about that. And the rescue will be next chapter, I promise!

simon22cat: Wow, thanks so much for that lovely compliment! Gah, but how could you skip chapters like that? You missed a lot of smut! And some Luke torture, I'll admit, but the SMUT!!??? LOL! I don't know how to say it in fangirl, so I guess a plain ol' Thanks will have to do! ;)

fdisk: Hmm, really not sure about that streak of sadism, although my ex-husband does severely piss me off at times...j/k! I'm still writing, I promise, I'm just reallllllly slooooooow.

Yanic: Thanks! The Luke physical torture is about over, but now the mental anguish that comes along with recovering is about to begin. Oh, the angst that I have planned for that poor boy... *evil grin*

Jules: Oh, sorry I interrupted your sleep! I work nights, I know how that is. LOL! Believe me, if I could write faster, I would. I hate leaving y'all hanging just as much as y'all hate it!

DMS: Hey, Sister!!! Thanks again for your amazing support of this story! I swear, there WILL be more Force-enhanced Boot Knocking in this thing. Not saying when, exactly... *grin* But it'll happen!


Chapter Twenty-Two


Dr. Darek Mondahl shuffled into his office after seeing his last patient of the day out the door. With a deep sigh, he fell into his chair and leaned back for a moment, letting the stresses of the day seep away. Unfortunately, it was the end of the month and time to reconcile the office expenses, so the stress wasn’t likely to stay away. Figuring he’d better get to it if he wanted to get home at a decent hour, he pushed himself forward again and switched on his computer.

He glanced up as someone walked by his doorway. “Viktor! Say, Viktor!” he called out.

After a moment, his partner stuck his head back around the corner. “Yes, Darek?”

“Just wondered if you were going to finally accept Vari’s offer to come over for dinner. She makes a mean nerf steak, you know,” he said, thinking of his lovely wife with a smile.

Viktor smiled back at him, but shook his head. “Not tonight, Darek, though I really wish I could. It sounds marvelous.”

“It is, it is! Although, I confess I was hoping you’d say yes so I could get out of doing this end-of-the-month paperwork. Ah, it’s the bane of my existence!” Darek said with a laugh.

“You should hire someone to do it for you.”

“Oh, I just like keeping my hand on things personally. I’ve been building this practice for forty years, you know. Are you sure I can’t change your mind?”

“No, I really can’t. I have an…important project that I’m working on at home,” Viktor said and smiled again.

Darek blinked. For a moment, there’d been the oddest gleam in Viktor’s eyes… But when he looked again, it was gone and he thought he must have been imagining things.

“Ah, well, one of these days I’ll get you to say yes.”

“Perhaps.”

“I’ll see you tomorrow, then,” Darek said and turned back to his computer with a wave towards Viktor. His partner waved back and then moved down the hallway. With a shake of his head, Darek thought on Viktor for a moment. The man seemed so lonely. One of these days, he and Vari would have to find a lady friend for him.

“But tonight, paperwork awaits,” he muttered to himself.

Nearly an hour and a half later, he was longing for that nerf steak. Medical school never told their students about all the dreaded paperwork they’d have to slog through. Noticing something unusual in a section he was about to delete, he highlighted it instead.

“That’s odd,” he mumbled to himself. It was a rather expensive item number that he didn’t recall requisitioning himself. Making a note of it, he turned around to the shelf behind him and pulled down a datapad to look the item up.

A feeling of sadness and regret washed over him as he saw what the item was. A prosthetic hand. Darek sighed as he remembered how devastated the entire planet, including himself, had been to hear of Luke Skywalker’s untimely death. The young man had truly been a noble soul, and Darek’s heart ached at the realization that he’d never see the Jedi again.

He frowned as he wondered why the bionic hand had been ordered. Luke had never had the chance to come in and order one himself, so why had it been purchased? And by whom, because Darek knew he himself had not.

“Well, that I can figure out easily enough.”

He turned back to the computer and looked up the order again. Viktor Berdin’s name leaped out at him. Now why had Viktor presumptively purchased a prosthetic hand? They had no other human patients with missing limbs, so it would have had to be for the Jedi Master.

Something about the situation just didn’t sit right with Darek and he pondered for a long moment on what he should do. He did have Leia Organa-Solo’s comm code, but he hated the idea of calling her and dredging up disturbing memories when he knew she was still in mourning and trying to heal.

But his gut was telling him that this was important, so he put aside his misgivings and turned to the comm unit on his desk.

****************************************************

It was a very glum group that sat around the Solo living room compared to the one of thirty-four days ago. Every lead, every trail they’d tried to follow had withered up and blown away like so much sand on Tatooine. Then, they had been filled with such enthusiasm. They were going to find Luke, swoop in and rescue him, and bring him back home. They’d expected it to take a week or so at the most. Unrealistic perhaps, but the Skywalker/Solo luck had always seemed to run that way.

Now, it only seemed to have run out. Leia glanced around the room, trying not to let her feelings of hopelessness drag her down, but it seemed to be affecting the others as well. There was only Han, Wedge, and Mara here today. It had been so long that everyone else had had to return to their normal duties. Wedge, however, had taken an indefinite leave of absence and had told Leia and Han that he would be there until Luke was found. Mara had flat out told Talon that she wasn’t leaving Coruscant until Luke was home either, not that he would have denied her the time.

Jacen, Jaina, and Anakin were back in school, unaware of the fact that their parents thought their Uncle Luke was still alive. Well, they hadn’t told them as much, but Leia suspected they knew something was up. Besides being Force-sensitive, they were extremely bright children. And she didn’t worry about them telling anyone about the possibility of Luke being alive…they could keep a secret. Sometimes too well, as their mother often lamented.

Wedge and Han were quietly discussing what the next option might be, poring over maps and charts of the surrounding systems. Mara was supposed to be looking through various holos to try and find any clues, but judging by the wistful look on her face, Leia had the feeling she was reminiscing more than anything else.

Leia gave a small sigh as she turned her own attention to the data discs in her hand. They’d been through them all at least a thousand times, hoping with each repetition that this would be the time they’d discover a clue. She gamely started on a thousand and one.

The sudden beeping of the comm unit in the bedroom caused them all to start slightly in surprise. Leia and Han looked at one another. The unit in their bedroom was a private line that not many people had the frequency to. Han made to get up, but Leia waved him back with a motion of her hand.

“I’ll get it. It’s probably Winter, since I asked her to investigate some of her contacts from when she was Targeter,” she said.

Han nodded and gave his wife an encouraging smile. Leia returned it as she walked into the bedroom. When she turned it on, she was a bit taken aback to see Dr. Darek Mondahl. Luke’s doctor, she thought as her throat tightened.

“Hello, Darek,” she said, with a pleasant smile, masking her pain.

“Hello, Princess. I am so very sorry to bother you at home like this, but I’ve...discovered something a little odd in my records, and I was wondering if you could give me some information.”

“Certainly, if I can. What do you need to know?” A strong awareness in the Force rose up in her suddenly and Leia knew, without a doubt, that this was about Luke. Her hands began to tremble and she folded them in her lap firmly, trying to keep her expression neutral, so that Darek wouldn’t think she was insane.

The doctor seemed to hesitate, and then he blurted out, “Well, it’s about your brother.”

Leia nodded serenely, fiercely keeping her emotions under control. “Go on.”

“On his last visit, we had discussed with him the possibility of replacing his prosthetic with a newer, more updated model. Unfortunately, we never got around to actually doing that before he, um, before he died.” His eyes told Leia how sorry he was to be bringing up such a sad subject, but Leia gave him a ghost of a smile, letting him know that she was okay.

“He did have that one for quite a few years, didn’t he?” she said quietly. “Was he giving you trouble about wanting to replace it?”

Darek laughed softly. “You knew your brother well, Princess. He said the one he had was fine and he didn’t need another. Viktor and I managed to convince him to think about it and he agreed to do so.”

Leia froze at the mention of that name. Viktor... The Force was screaming at her that something was wrong, very wrong, and she reached out to grasp it the way Luke had taught her, trying to discern what the trouble was.

“Viktor?” she was able to ask in a calm voice.

“My partner. I don’t believe you’ve met him yet. Nice fellow, but he’s done something that puzzles me somewhat,” Darek said with a frown.

“What would that be?” Leia asked.

“Well, as far as I know, Luke never came back in to discuss getting a replacement prosthetic, but Viktor ordered one for some reason. I was wondering if perhaps I was wrong, and Luke had contacted the office about this matter?” he asked.

Images and feelings assaulted Leia so quickly that she gasped, dropping her head and squeezing her eyes tightly shut. She could hear Luke’s voice saying I just know I didn’t like him and I got the feeling he didn’t like me very much either. A vivid image of the counterfeit version of her twin they had mourned and buried, with his own prosthetic hand, flooded into her mind. Added to that the strong feelings that Leia got through the Force with just the mention of this Viktor’s name, and Leia knew.

“Princess Leia? Are you all right?” Darek was saying worriedly when she reopened her eyes and looked back up at him.

“Yes,” Leia said hoarsely, then paused to clear her throat. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you. I, ah, I’ll have to look into whether or not Luke talked to your office about this. May I call you back in a few days?”

Her mind was racing furiously with plans to confront this Viktor person, but Leia realized she needed to tread carefully. Force only knew where the fiend might have Luke hidden away and if they played their hand too soon, they might never find him.

“Of course. And again, I apologize for calling you at home, but something just didn’t feel right about this.”

“I appreciate it, Darek, and you needn’t apologize at all.”

“It’s just...Luke was a very special person, and I...I felt honored just to know him. I know I sent you my official condolences, but I want to say it again. I am so sorry that he was taken from you so soon,” Darek said sincerely, and Leia could see a sheen of tears in his eyes.

Leia felt tears gathering in her own eyes. “Thank you. Luke admired you quite a bit as well, you know. You’re the only doctor he would go see willingly,” she said with a wry grin.

“Hey, he did have taste, didn’t he?” Darek joked and Leia smiled a bit wider.

“Yes, he absolutely did. I hate to cut you off, Darek, but I have company here and I really should get back to them.”

“Oh, certainly, Princess, certainly! Again, I’m sorry to have interrupted you.”

“No, that’s quite all right, and I have a feeling that we will owe you a huge debt of gratitude very soon,” Leia said, with a mysterious smile. She could see the small frown of confusion on his face at that statement, but she signed off before he could ask any more questions.

She sat in front of the comm unit for a moment, her heart racing as her mind took in the fact that this was what they’d been waiting for all along. Just as she was about to turn and get up to rejoin the others in the living room, an uncertain voice interrupted her thoughts.

“Leia? Are you all right? I felt the oddest surge in the Force from you,” Mara said from the doorway.

Leia turned to look at her, unable to help the brilliant smile that crossed her face. “I know who has Luke.”

A few minutes later, the formerly melancholy group had been transformed into a blur of action and excited plans. No one doubted Leia’s intuitive knowledge of the identity of Luke’s captor for a single moment. The only hesitation was precisely how they were going to discover Luke’s exact whereabouts.

They quickly used some of the connections they had to find out the doctor’s home address, but it was in one of Coruscant’s most luxurious and exclusive apartment buildings.

“There’s no way he has Luke there,” Leia said. “He’d never have been able to get him in without someone seeing him.”

“But what if he’s got others on his payroll? He might have been able to convince people to look the other way,” Wedge asked.

“Well, obviously the bastard has been going in to work every day like he’s some kind of normal person or something. Our best bet might be just to follow him when he leaves the office tomorrow and see where he goes,” Han suggested.

“And leave Luke in his clutches for another whole day?!” Mara shouted in horror.

Han sighed and looked at her sorrowfully. “Look, I don’t like it any more than you do, but like Leia said, we have to be careful. We screw this up, and that piece of Hutt slime might kill Luke before we can get to him.”

Mara lowered her head, trying to regain control of her emotions. She was a highly skilled stealth operative; she knew the danger in rushing into a mission too quickly, but now that they had an inkling where Luke was, Mara wanted him back and she wanted him back now.

“You’re right, of course,” she murmured as she raised her head back up. “But I want to be the one to do the stalking,” she said grimly.

The others looked at her, not quite sure what to make of her choice of words, but then Han nodded slowly. “All right. You’d probably be the best at it anyway. We’ve got a lot of planning to do in the meantime, so we’d better get busy.”

*****************************************************

There was a long crack in the wall just above his cot and Luke would swear that it looked just like a map of the river Natalan back on Yavin IV. He spent many hours tracing it with his finger, trying to recall where the landmarks would be. It frustrated him that he could not remember any of them.

He was finding it more and more difficult to focus his thoughts coherently for any long period of time. There were times he would ‘zone out’ and when he became aware again, he would have no idea how long he’d been that way. Once, when he’d tried to picture Mara’s face in his mind, he’d panicked when he realized he couldn’t exactly recall her features. Breathing harshly, he squeezed his eyes shut, forcing himself to remember the curve of her lips, the arch of her brow, and the emerald of her eyes. The picture that finally came to him may not have been precisely correct, but it comforted him anyway.

He held on to his defenses for as long as he could, but under constant pressure, eventually even the strongest soul cracks. Luke’s breaking point didn’t come with a bang...it stole over him quietly, his desperation making him mumble the words he had sworn never to say.

He was strapped into restraints on the wall, his arms and legs stretched outwards just beyond the limits of pain. Viktor was standing in front of him, using the eopie herding prod to administer small shocks to his torso whenever his body tried to instinctively relax for just a moment. He was dazed and in torment and the words slipped past his lips before he could stop them. But by this point, he no longer cared. He just wanted the agony to cease.

“Please...stop...no more...I c-can’t...” he moaned. “No more!”

Instantly, Viktor leered at him, his eyes gleaming with triumph. He leaned in close to his captive and said, “I’m sorry, what was that, Skywalker? I don’t think I heard you correctly.”

Luke looked back at him with glazed eyes and whispered, “Please...just let me die...let it end.”

Viktor’s low chuckle was an added shade to Luke’s pain, but still all he wanted was for it to stop. Berdin’s hand came up to cup his prisoner’s cheek, stroking Luke’s sweat-covered face. “Oh, I’m not ready for it to end just yet, Jedi. In fact, I think you’re ready for the final game. This one is the most special one of all.”

Luke tried to shake his head in protest, but Viktor’s caressing hand on his cheek became an iron grip and there was a look of cruel victory on his face.

“No more games...just let me rest...I need...to rest,” Luke pleaded wearily.

“I’m afraid there’s no rest for the guilty, Skywalker,” Viktor said with mock sympathy.

He let go of Luke’s face and bent down to unlatch his feet from the restraints. Luke breathed a slow sigh of relief at the easing of his stretched muscles. It wasn’t much of a relief, considering that everything on his body hurt, but it was a tiny comfort. His wrists followed and Luke collapsed onto Viktor, the bigger man hefting his weight around almost as one would a child.

Viktor dropped him face down onto the cot and Luke grunted as the impact sent jolts of pain through his tortured body. He closed his eyes, on the verge of unconsciousness, and he prayed silently that he would never wake up, so that he would not have to face this suffering any longer.

His eyes snapped back open with a jerk as he felt a heavy weight lower onto his back. Luke’s senses reeled with fear and disgust as Viktor’s hot breath brushed his ear. He wanted to push upwards, to throw the bastard off him, but he simply didn’t have the strength. He could barely move with Viktor’s body pressing him down onto the cot.

“This is always my favorite part, Jedi. I’ll admit, it will be different, you being a man and all, but I think we can make it work, don’t you?” Viktor whispered cruelly.

“No! No, don’t!” he said, his voice trembling with dread. Frantically, he threw his head backwards, trying to slam Viktor’s face with the only weapon he could think of right then. He managed to connect, but it didn’t have much effect as Viktor just shrugged it off, then grabbed the back of Luke’s neck in a punishing grip.

“What did I say about resisting me, Skywalker?” he hissed in Luke’s ear. “It only brings you more pain.”

The hand holding the back of his head suddenly pushed downwards, forcing Luke’s face into the thin mattress of his cot, cutting off his air. For a few moments, Luke struggled vainly to push back against that pressure, as his thoughts grew hazy from lack of oxygen.

His fingers curled around the edges of the cot’s rails as he fought to breathe, and then he heard a voice whispering in his mind. He was uncertain if it was his own subconscious or if it was some demon in his soul...

Why are you fighting? Let go...give in...no more pain...

No more pain. Wasn’t that what he’d wanted, what he’d begged Viktor for? Luke relaxed, ceased his struggles, and reached out to welcome death.

As if sensing that his prisoner was about to escape him, Viktor instantly let go of his hold, and Luke’s head came up, automatically gulping air into his burning lungs. His senses swirling in a haze of confusion, Luke wanted to cry out in frustration at being snatched back from the edge of his release from this anguish.

He was so distraught at coming so close to being free of Viktor that he barely noticed the rasp of a zipper from behind him and the waft of air on his suddenly exposed backside. Then there was a burning, tearing pain that shot up his spine, and Luke screamed helplessly.

Oh, gods, no, NO! Luke cried silently as his mind finally comprehended exactly what was happening. He could hear Viktor’s soft grunts in his ear, and the agony coursing throughout his body was unbearable.

This ultimate violation caused the small fracture in Luke’s soul to widen, broadening rapidly in width and depth until something vital within him completely shattered. His body, rigid with shock, gradually slackened as his overwhelmed senses simply began to shut down.

A dull roaring in his ears replaced all sound in the room, growing louder and louder until it was all he could hear. Luke’s limbs went numb, the lack of feeling creeping up his extremities, spreading over his entire frame to block out all other sensation. Like a tunnel collapsing in upon itself, his vision faded to black, mercifully shutting out the sight of this cell that he so despised.

**************************************************

Luke blinked, becoming aware again, and turned around to find himself alone in a fog of hazy whiteness. Viktor was nowhere in sight, and relief flowed over Luke like fresh water. He looked down and saw that he was wearing his Jedi blacks, and his body was clean and unmarred by Viktor’s torture.

Amazed, he stretched his hand out and then yanked it back sharply when he realized that he could actually touch the white. In awe, he reached out again, marveling at the softness that surrounded him. It was like the snows of Hoth, without the bitter cold. He grabbed hold of it with both hands, pulling it around him, turning in circles as he wrapped himself in it like a cocoon.

With a contented sigh, Luke burrowed into the silky comfort that he’d surrounded himself with. A smile crossed his face as he closed his eyes. It had been so long since he’d smiled, truly smiled, he was surprised that the muscles in his face remembered how to do it.

“Safe...” he murmured to himself, knowing that Viktor could not find him here.

He vowed never to leave this haven again.

*******************************************