[sub][i]Side Story - The Broken Hand[/i][/sub][hr][i][color=0076a3]{Flashback}[/color][/i]

A middle-aged woman with raven black hair, tied up into a ponytail, looked down onto the hangar floor from up above on the catwalks. There were mechanics and technicians of all kinds walking back and forth, attending to ships, or some other piece of equipment. One of the people that stood out was a pilot working on his own ship. That wasn’t exactly standard practice, it wasn’t as if she didn’t approve, but It was the small things that changed first. And it troubled her to imagine the bigger changes that would follow.

But she recognized that pilot as part of the squad that saved her, she had botched her escape from Hutt space; overconfidence, and maybe incomplete training. Whatever it was, she had almost died in vain in the vacuum of space, if this ship hadn’t been within range. 

She remembered it vividly, the fear of death. If the TIEs had been even a second late, her hull would have blown up into space dust, with all her goals, her aspirations, history, turned into nothingness. The woman lamented her own failings, she was never as skilled as the Emperor’s enforcer, Darth Vader was.

[i]But even he was killed by the same man. A jedi. [/i] 

The woman furrowed her brows at the thought, and her fists closed together tightly. An oddly dressed girl walked into the hangar soon after, one of the civilians the captain picked up, she remembered.

[i]Civilians, in the hangar? Another change… [/i] 

She rested her arms on the railing and leaned in and focused her eyes. For a moment, she thought she felt something from that girl. But before she could give it more thought, a headache rolled in, like a thunderstorm, and a familiar voice spoke up. She gripped her head, bracing herself, in anticipation; it was always intense and for five years it was always the same.

[color=ed1c24][b]Kill Luke Skywalker![/b][/color]

It was an echo, the last command of the late Emperor, sent through the force as soon as he had died. She knew he had died, she felt it, a powerful echo in the force, and in the wake of such an entity disappearing her own connection to the force was severed. Snapped, it had caused her physical pain at the time. She breathed deeply, centering herself, ignoring the odd looks the nearby crewmen sent her, and began to retreat to her room.

[color=9e0b0f][b]Kill Luke Skywalker![/b]
[/color]
[center] ----- [/center]

Mara could endure it a little better now that years had passed, and with the meditative techniques taught to her by the Emperor she could even make the pain subside for a time. But it always returned, [i]will[/i] always, until she meets [i]him.[/i]

Remembering that girl from the hangar, Mara plugged her disk into a private terminal, and began searching through it. She furrowed her brows at the data, another expedition to that planet might be needed, she had only pieces.

It’s a good thing she kept her old access code, and even this face was useful if those codes weren’t.

[i] I’d like to test just how loyal the Grand Imperium still is, along with this ship. [/i] Mara mused, and then her eyes darted to the bottom of her screen.

The spy program she planted into the Blackstar’s mainframe had alerted her that they had finally made the jump to Coruscant. Except there was something else, a new fleet with two Super Star Destroyers. The officers on the bridge might be panicking, or at the least, worried; worries which were well founded considering the power of these starships, and yet, Mara felt a little relieved upon seeing a certain name.

[[color=ed1c24]S.S.D. Lazarus
[/color]]

[i]Perhaps it is time to come out of the shadows. [/i]

 Her disguise relied on the appearance of a fifty-year-old imperial intelligence agent, a branch of the Empire that nobody wanted to cross even during the peak of its rule. Mara removed her hairband, her pitch-black hair shimmered blue, before ‘dissolving’, revealing long red hair that flowed down just past her shoulders. Looking into a mirror, wrinkles had gathered around her eyes and cheeks. 

With several gentle, but accurate pokes, pieces of her ‘face’ fell off. The pieces formed a face ‘shell’ that she continued to delicately remove. Now the time came to address her uniform. Instead of the officer’s uniform she had now, she had pulled out another outfit from the footlocker at the foot of her bed. It was a combination of the old inquisitorious uniform and her old stealth suit, something she used to wear only when addressing the Emperor personally, but it would have to do.

Mara had her old look together, but one final piece left unassembled on her bed, a trusted weapon from when she could feel the force. Several cylindrical metal parts, along with a purple crystal, she would reassemble it as needed with the force. Deciding against it, she swiped everything into a bag, threw it under the bed, and turned her back to it.

She pressed a finger into the wall-mounted intercom and coded it to ping the bridge directly.

“This frequency is reserved for emergencies and authorized personal. Who in blazes is this?” The officer on the other side sounded annoyed, likely having to deal with receiving orders and her own intrusion at the same time.

“The recognition code is Hapspir, Barrini, Corbolan, Triaxis,” Mara said. “The Emperor’s Hand, I would like to speak to your Captain.”