Dark Nest_ The Swarm War Part 27

Luke's jaw dropped, then he frowned in confusion. "Padme?"

"Padme?" Mara repeated. "Luke, what are you talking-"

"Mara?" Luke sounded disappointed. He shook his head as though to clear it. "I don't understand."

"Neither do I," Mara said.

"Mara?" Now Luke's voice was frightened. "What's wrong?"

"Good question," Mara said.

She turned to Jacen, but he only held a finger to his lips and moved his hoverchair closer to Luke. R2-D2 emitted a confused whistle and raised a hydraulic extension with a medical sensor at the end.

"Mara!" Luke turned and hit the emergency summons b.u.t.ton next to Mara's bed, but Jacen made a motion with his hands and the b.u.t.ton did not depress. Luke did not seem to realize this. He turned back to Mara and placed his fingers to her throat, checking her pulse. "I can't feel a pulse. Artoo, call an EmDee droid. Tell her to hurry!"

R2-D2 spun toward the data jack to obey, but Jacen used the Force to disable the power to the droid's treads.

Mara caught Jacen's gaze. "All right, Jacen. This has gone far enough."

Not yet. The message reverberated without words inside Mara's head. He must learn.

Mara felt another wave of Force energy pa.s.s over her, and Luke cried out in horror and looked toward R2-D2. "Artoo, what's taking you so long?"

R2-D2 issued a frustrated whistle and spun an accusing photoreceptor toward Jacen. Luke could take it no longer. He raised a hand and began to fill it with life-giving Force energy.

"Jacen, we can't wait. We have to revive her ourselves." He pointed at the emergency respirator hanging on the wall. "Get the respirator."

Luke leaned over Mara and started to place his hand on her chest-until Jacen raised an arm and pushed him away.

"Jacen!" Luke screamed. "What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing," Jacen said calmly. "And there's nothing wrong with Aunt Mara."

Luke's gaze swung back to Mara, and she could not decide whether he looked more stunned or relieved. "You're . . . you're alive again!"

"I was never dead," Mara said. "I think Jacen is trying to make a point."

Luke turned back to Jacen, still too confused to be angry. "I don't understand, Jacen. What's she-"

"You're not ready to face Lomi Plo again," Jacen interrupted. "And you just proved it."

Luke's confusion started to fade, and his anger quickly began to build. "You did that to me?"

Jacen shook his head. "You did it to yourself," he said. "Your fear betrays you."

Mara suddenly understood what Jacen had done-or rather, what he had not done. "Luke, I think you'd better listen to him." She reached out to her husband through their Force-bond, adding a private plea that she knew he would not refuse. "For me."

Luke snorted, but turned to Jacen. "Okay, I'm listening," he said. "And it had better be good. Saving Mara's life does not give you the right to manipulate me."

"I didn't do that," Jacen said. "All I did was bring your fear to the surface. You created the illusion yourself."

"Remember what happened in the nest s.h.i.+p?" Mara asked. "After I got hit, you couldn't move. Luke, you froze."

"And then I couldn't see Lomi Plo anymore," Luke said, growing calmer. He turned to Jacen. "You did the same thing to me?"

"I doubt it." Jacen grew uncomfortable, and his gaze slid away. "That was just a mirror illusion I learned from the Fallana.s.si."

"But it does prove you're still vulnerable to Lomi Plo," Mara said.

"You don't fear for yourself," Jacen said. "You fear for others-and now Lomi Plo knows that. She'll use it against you."

Luke nodded, and a glimmer of recognition came to his eyes. "Fears aren't so different from doubts. I have to face mine-"

"No," Jacen said. "You have to eliminate them."

"Eliminate them?" Mara asked. "That's a lot to ask-especially before we reach Tenupe."

"But I can do it," Luke said. "I have to."

"How?" Mara demanded. "You can't give up caring about your family."

"He doesn't have to," Jacen replied. "He just has to surrender."

"Surrender?" Mara asked.

"Vergere taught me to embrace my pain by surrendering to it." Jacen turned to Luke. "I made that pain a part of me-something I would never fight or deny. You have to do the same thing with your fear, Uncle Luke. Then it will have no power over you."

"That may be easier said than done," Luke said.

"Not at all-I know just where to start." Jacen used the Force to lift R2-D2 over to them. "The first thing your fear showed you was your mother's face. And before the battle, you refused to see what happened after your father Force-hurled her."

"So I need to see that now?"

"Only if you want to kill Lomi Plo," Jacen said.

Mara wanted to discourage Luke, to spare him the pain of seeing his mother die by his father's hand. But he was determined to kill Lomi Plo and end this war on Jedi terms, and she knew that Jacen was right, that Luke could not succeed until he embraced his fears as Jacen had learned to embrace his pain.

"Jacen's right. If you're going after Lomi Plo, you need to do this." Mara reached for his hand. "You can't change what is in that holo. You can only accept it."

"That's a lot different from accepting you being hurt-or dying," Luke pointed out. "I couldn't do anything to stop what happened to my mother, but when you were hurt, I was there."

"And you still couldn't stop what happened to me," Mara countered. "You were pretty busy with Lomi Plo, as I recall."

"I was barely holding my own," Luke acknowledged.

"Some things you can't control," Jacen said. "If you fear them, then those things control you."

Luke shook his head. "I'm not sure we have time for this," he said. "And what if you're wrong? What if Lomi Plo's wounds are enough to distract her?"

"I'm not wrong," Jacen countered. "Look, you may think you push your fears aside when you go to battle-that you bury them. But you'll never bury them deep enough to hide them from Lomi Plo, no matter what her condition is. So you'll have to deal with this problem now. Because as you've pointed out, Lomi Plo is healing as we speak."

Luke let out a long breath. "Okay." He turned to R2-D2. "Show me the holo where my mother dies."

R2-D2 issued a questioning trill.

"We're going into battle either way," Luke said. "If you don't want to end up navigating slave s.h.i.+ps for Lomi Plo, you'd better start where we left off last time."

R2-D2 gave a plunging whistle, then rocked forward and activated his holoprojector. The image of Padme, Anakin, and Obi-Wan Ken.o.bi appeared on the floor, Padme choking, Anakin extending an arm toward her, and Obi-Wan approaching Anakin.

"Let . . . her . . . go!" Obi-Wan was ordering.

Anakin whipped his arm to one side. Padme flew out of the holo, and Anakin started forward to meet Obi-Wan.

"You turned her against me!" Anakin accused.

Obi-Wan shook his head. "You did that yourself."

The pair left the holo as R2-D2 retreated and turned away from them. For a moment, their voices could be heard arguing in the background, slowly fading as Obi-Wan accused Anakin of falling prey to his anger and his l.u.s.t for power. Then their voices faded entirely as Padme's crumpled form returned to the holo, lying on a metal deck.

A lump of sorrow formed in Mara's stomach, and she felt Luke shaking with grief. R2-D2 extended a grasping appendage and started trying to drag Padme's unconscious form to safety.

From somewhere out of the holo, C-3PO's voice called, "What are you doing? You're going to hurt her. Wait!"

The distant sounds of a lightsaber fight arose somewhere outside the holo, then C-3P0 appeared and carefully took Padme in his arms. He started toward the slick-looking skiff they had seen in the last holo, with R2-D2 following close behind, beeping.

"I am being careful!" C-3P0 said. "I have a good hold on her, but I'm worried about my back. I hope it's able to hold up under this weight."

C-3P0 entered the skiff and laid Padme on a bed in a stateroom. The holo blurred as R2-D2 advanced it quickly through several minutes of watching her lie there; then Obi-Wan arrived to check on her and brush her hair back.

The hobo flickered off for an instant, then restarted in the observation room of an operating theater. Obi-Wan was there with C-3P0, Yoda, and a tall, swarthy human. Mara recognized the man as Bail Organa-someone she would later spy upon when she became the Emperor's Hand. A medical droid entered the observation room and began to speak to Obi-Wan and the others.

"Medically, she is completely healthy." The droid's voice was tinny, but surprisingly sympathetic for a machine. "For reasons we can't explain, we are losing her"

"She's dying?" Obi-Wan sounded as though he did not believe the droid.

"We don't know why," the droid replied. "She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies."

"Babies?" This from Bail Organa.

"She's carrying twins," the droid said.

"Save them, we must," Yoda added. "They are our last hope."

The medical droid returned to the operating room, and one of R2-D2's beeps sounded in the holo.

"It's some kind of reproductive process, I think," C-3P0 said softly.

After a few minutes, Padme whispered something to the medical droid, and Obi-Wan was summoned into the operating theater. He went to her side, and his voice came out of R2-D2's holospeaker sounding even more tinny and distant than usual.

"Don't give up, Padme," he said.

She looked up at him, seeming very weak. "Is it a girl?"

"We don't know yet." Obi-Wan looked toward the droid operating on her midsection. "In a minute . . . in a minute."

Padme winced with pain, then the medical droid lifted a tiny bundle into view.

"It's a boy," he announced.

Padme's voice was so weak that it was barely audible. "Luke . . ." She smiled faintly, struggling to extend a hand to touch the baby on the forehead, then repeated, ". . . Luke."

The medical droid produced another bundle. "And a girl," he announced.

"Leia," Padme said.

Obi-Wan leaned closer to her. "You have twins, Padme. They need you . .

. hang on!"

Padme shook her head. "I . . . can't."

She winced again and took Obi-Wan's hand. There seemed to be a necklace dangling from her fingers as she did this, but the holo was not clear enough to see what kind.

"Save your energy," Obi-Wan urged.

Padme's gaze grew distant. "Obi-Wan . . . there . . . is good in him. I know there is . . . still."

She let out a sudden gasp, then her hand dropped out of Obi-Wan's, leaving the necklace dangling from his fingers. He gathered it into his palm, then turned his hand and began to study the jewelry with a shocked expression.

The holo ended, and R2-D2 tweedled a question.

When Luke did not answer, Jacen said, "Thank you, Artoo. That's all we needed to see."

R2-D2 tipped himself upright again, then swiveled his photoreceptor toward Luke and issued an apologetic whistle.

"There's nothing to apologize for, Artoo," Mara said. Although Luke looked outwardly composed, she could feel how hard he was struggling to contain his grief, to keep his anguish from erupting in an explosion of fury and pain. "It had to be done."

Jacen took Luke's elbow, then squeezed until Luke's blank gaze finally turned toward him. "Master, can you change what you saw in the bolo?"

Luke shook his head. "Of course not."

"That's right. You can only accept it," Jacen said. "Some misfortunes you can prevent, and you will. But others .. . sometimes all you can do is embrace the pain."

Luke laid a hand across his nephew's. "I understand. Thank you."

"Good," Jacen said. "Now use what you are feeling. Your anger and your grief can make you more powerful. Use them when you meet Raynar and Lomi Plo, and you will defeat them."

A sudden wave of disgust rolled through the Force-bond between Mara and Luke, and Luke frowned and pulled his arm away from Jacen.