"Fine- you want to come? Keep up."
He turned before she could reply and climbed the three short steps to the cockpit. Mara watched him suspiciously for a few seconds, then realised what he was about to do and sprinted for the next I-TIE.
Luke's fighter took off out of the docking bay like a spooked ronto, Mara only just stepping into her cockpit as the backwash from its engines blustered through her hair. Cursing, she dropped the canopy and set off after him, her helmet still in her lap. Reece, who had watched the distant argument with only mild interest, but enough to guess at what had been said, turned back to the shuttle and set off up the ramp.
"Like she has a chance." He murmured to himself as he boarded.
.
It took Luke only minutes to lose Mara. She was a good pilot and she had nerves of steel, but she was well behind and it wasn't her forte. Against an ex-Wing Commander with natural aptitude and the kind of edge honed in battle conditions, she couldn't compete. Luke pushed the tiny fighter to its limits, taking the shortest path over the Dauntless, which hung between the Peerless and Coruscant, throwing sharp loops and tight twists about radar towers and external emplacements as he skimmed the surface, proximity alarms blaring in his helmet, the fighter buffeting as it skimmed the destroyers' navigation shields.
By the time he levelled up to hit the correct shear for atmospheric entry, she was practically off his combat scope, and he had to extend its range to locate her.
She'd catch up of course - she really wasn't a bad pilot, she just wasn't a combat pilot - and Luke had every intention of making sure that they landed on the Palace roof together. He just wanted to know whether she'd admit to Palpatine that she'd lost him for a while, knowing that Luke would do no such thing.
Now he eased back, aware that they were nearing the Capital, rolling the ship in a neat quarter-turn to squint into the evening sky above him, looking for her. Frowning, he reached out, casting a wide net of perception within the Force...
And flinched before the massed consciousness of the thousands of people below him.
Thousands of people...
He straightened the craft slowly, somehow strangely fascinated by that- by ordinary people, living ordinary lives... He couldn't remember anymore what that was like. Had he ever really known?
Slowing further, he dropped the I-TIE into civilian shipping lanes, the sleek lines of the powerful, cutting-edge fighter at odds with its more sedate companions now.
All those minds... How did they live their lives so blindly?
On impulse he closed his eyes, closed down his contact with the Force... and let go of the stick. Reaching out without opening his eyes, he ran his fingers over the familiar controls and flipped the breakers for the shields.
Blind, he relaxed his shoulders and gave the moment over to fate-
He felt... absolutely calm, listening to his own slow breathing, aware of the fighter gradually banking to one side, his weight leaning heavy in the acceleration harness...
If he just stayed like this... then all of his problems would be gone, he knew. The weight pressing down on him would be lifted and he would fall into the blackness of oblivion. No more Emperor, no more plans and deceptions, wheels within wheels and lies within lies- Palpatine's and his own. It had become so hard, just to hold against the storm.
He didn't recognise himself anymore... didn't like what he saw in his place.
And it would be so easy... just stay like this - just close his eyes and let fate rush in...
A pacific calm came over him at that, at the knowledge that it could all be gone in an instant if he could just let go- stop struggling to survive, to change things, to prevail. Stop trying to take responsibility for everything- let someone else fight this fight...
The harness dug at his shoulders, the shadows playing over closed eyelids as the ship turned unheeded...
Seconds now... how could it be more...
...relax...
.
"LUKE!!"
His hand twitched involuntarily to the stick in the last possible second, wrenching the I-TIE down in a twisting corkscrew which pulled it just clear of the massive oncoming transport, close enough that he sheared off the short induction antennae from its hull, Mara still yelling in his headset, her voice wild and panicked and angry all at once.
"What the hell are you doing!? Are your stabilisers out? Do you have a malfunction? Can you hear me? Luke? Luke?!"
"I'm fine." he said simply, voice composed and neutral, as if nothing at all had happened.
"What were you doing?" Mara repeated, still almost shouting.
"I was waiting for you." He replied easily.
"You were almost upside down heading into an oncoming shipping lane!" She couldn't believe what she'd just seen - what was he thinking? What was he doing!!
"Really?" he said blandly, not at all concerned, "Then it's a good job you got here."
"I... are you..." Mara struggled to pull a coherent thought together against the burst of adrenaline-laced fear that had gripped her when she'd seen his craft freefalling.
His voice cut through her shocked stumble, still laced with that unruffled, strangely detached calm, "We should pull up into military shipping lanes- we'll be in Palace airspace any time now." He paused just slightly, mind completely back on track, wishing to be sure that his next remark sunk in, "They won't have picked us up yet- we should go in together."
He pulled up into the military flight corridor, slowing further as Mara took up wing position, waiting for the comm to request ID's as they neared the restricted airspace around the Palace.
Mara went through the motions on mental autopilot, her heart pounding against her ribs, breath short, mind racing with the buzz of adrenalin, only slowly receeding at the sound of Luke's voice... still trying to figure out what the hell she'd just seen...
Chapter 10
The Emperor's Throne Room actually consisted of a sumptuous suite of grand chambers with a huge counterweighted system of sliding, gilded partition walls running either side of its length which could open the divisions into a single immense, imposing space or divide it off into a series of private audience chambers to the sides of the main chamber, their use generally inferring some kind of endorsement or favor if one was received within, the individual required to traverse the processional through the incredibly opulent Throne Room itself, under the watchful eye of all those attending Court.
Luke had walked impassively through the main processional, unmoved by the jealous eyes on him; most of his audiences with his Master were in private and despite common opinion, they had never, in his experience, inferred anything other than the fact that the Emperor was playing his games on a larger scale, everyone involved, whether they wished it or not.
He reflected as he reached the carved stone dais, pausing to bow before his Master prior to continuing on to the private ante-chamber to the side of the impressive space, that it had always seemed strange that the Throne Room had no windows as such, only three tall, narrow slits in the feet-thick walls to either side of the dais, their limited size allowing only the tiniest of slivers of daylight without giving any view of the Empire beyond. Two small circular skylights at roof level projected perfect discs which trailed across the pale circle of marble set into the Throne Room floor beneath the throne, their cast fading from bright, dazzling white to blazing sunset red as day turned to night, but they too gave no view of the city beyond.
But then Palpatine had always looked inward, never out to his Empire. Hard-earned experience of his Master's perspective had afforded Luke the knowledge that his interest in ruling was in the power he personally wielded rather than the Empire he controlled, his fascination in dominating and manipulating the individual. If he had bothered to look out to his Empire more often, he might realize how it groaned beneath the oppressive weight of heavy governing, greedy taxes and unwarranted restrictions- might see how this could fire revolt and feed rebellion.