And Never Return Chapter 1, a star wars fanfic

AND NEVER RETURN

TygerEye Antilles

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. It's that simple.

Author's Note: This piece of fanfiction takes place after The Jedi Academy Trilogy, approximately twelve years after A New Hope. For the purpose of this story, I am ignoring all books that occur after this time.

Summary: When Luke Skywalker embarks on a search for a missing friend, he finds more trouble than he had anticipated, including a planet that wants to remain hidden…

AND NEVER RETURN

CHAPTER ONE

Mara Jade cursed as she twisted two wires together and applied a small amount of fusing agent. At least she'd remembered to restock her repair kit during her last delivery, on Bothawui; otherwise this would have taken much longer to fix. For a day that had dawned promising no more than a long hyperspace trip, things had considerably worsened.

The Trader had been checking on her fragile cargo when she a sudden warning jolted her mind. Sprinting to the cockpit, she had barely raised the shields when the Jade's Fire was yanked from hyperspace. The Odd Origin, her partner for this venture, was also back in realspace, not far from her. Mara tested the comm system and just as quickly shut it back off, the loud burst of static echoing in the close metal confines.

The pirate group was sizeable, but poorly-coordinated. After the initial surprise, they bungled trying to cripple the freighters and a power struggle started, so they were attacking each other more than the Fire and Origin. Mara kept the rest of their attention on her as the Origin fled for safety. Once the other ship escaped the cone-shaped interdiction field, Mara programmed a short hyperspace hop before resetting the original destination: Ryloth.

She was almost a standard hour from the hostile encounter when a post-battle system check informed her of a glitch in the navcomputer—probably from a lucky ion shot that she had thought glanced off the shields. However, she was forced to pull her ship back from lightspeed again until she could make repairs.

She would be behind schedule by probably half a day with all this trouble. Hopefully the Odd Origin was already near Ryloth, unharmed. It would be difficult enough for a green pilot to navigate the stormy atmosphere of the Twi'lek homeplanet without having to deal with onboard system failures.

Mara eased out of the uncovered compartment, careful not to touch anything else. The Fire could be finicky sometimes, but she couldn't resist throwing the fusing tube into her repair kit with more force than necessary. Her schedule was completely off. She would be late delivering the soul gems, which would delay her meeting on Alzoc III. She might even miss the entire convention on Mon Calamari, which she'd planned to at least attend the end of…

Her thoughts were interrupted and she burst into a run when she felt the initial blastes. Mara had been attacked enough to immediately recognize the sound and feel of lasers hitting her ship. She slid into the pilot's chair and began checking the controls, increasing her shields, and powering up the weapons. Sensors captured an image of four snubfighters, unknown models. Lasers splashed against the transparisteel viewport as the flight came around in unison for another run. These guys were practiced, unlike the thugs from earlier. A small smile crossed Mara's face.

She pulled the Fire directly in front of them and they abandoned their diamond formation, breaking into pairs. She tracked one of the pairs and focused on the leader. She fired, hitting the wingmate and sending him reeling.

On the next pass, she took out the other two—they'd flown too closely together and when she hit one, the other collided with wreckage inside the debris cloud that had formerly been his partner.

Her shield control started whining—they were slowly failing. One of the starfighter pilots had been lucky. No more shots had gotten through to cause any real damage to her precious ship, but it was only a matter of time. Mara swore. Two ships left—surely she could take them out before her own shields gave out. She had only one other choice, and that was to risk an uncalculated hyperspace jump. Since she wasn't even entirely sure where she was now, that would be her last option.

The leader brought his ship around in a tight arc, and his singed wingmate joined him. Mara dove, waiting for him to follow her, then jerked the ship up, yanking the controls around so that she could fire at the remaining ships. Targeting one, she waited a moment for the confirming tone from the weapons…

And another alarm blared, drowning out the lock tone as the sensors found eight other starfighters, to complete the squadron, and a ninth ship, much larger—close to the equivalent of a Corellian Corvette.

The barrage on the Jade's Fire finally managed to ruin the shields and severely damaged her engines. After the freighter was left powerless, the attack stopped. Mara had been able to decrease their numbers by two more starfighters before her ship couldn't respond anymore. The Fire was crippled, her engines mostly slag, her shields gone. Two of the holds, one of which contained soul gems, were open to the vacuum of space. There had been a fire, but one of the few systems still operating automatically extinguished the flames.

The Corellian Corvette analog caught the Jade's Fire in a tractor beam and began to pull the ship towards it.

The gas planet Yavin was a glowing orb in the distance as the cloaked Jedi Master made his way to the top of the Great Temple at sunset. It had become a habit of his to watch the sunrise and sunset from this high perch. He inhaled the humid air and sat cross-legged on the cool stones. The sun cast its lasting radiance on the treetops and turned the large leaves blood red and brilliant purple. The Jedi Academy was in its summer season (though Yavin 4's winter weather was considered summery on many worlds) and the temperatures would not drop enough to make the Temple pleasant to the majority of the people there, including the all-powerful Jedi Master himself. It was not the hot temperatures that bothered the Tatooine farmboy. Humidity was the unbearable factor.

Luke deeply inhaled the musky scent of leaves and wildlife. Just as Yoda had retreated to Dagobah, a world teeming with life, so Luke retreated to Yavin 4, choosing to remain away from the political world of Coruscant. It was easy to slip into meditation when so surrounded with the Force and life. This daily ritual allowed him to release tension and negative feelings that may have built up during the day and clear his mind for the next day, where he would teach the new generation of Jedi.

The lightshow ended in a myriad of vivid colors bleeding away and Luke felt his consciousness slip into another kind of colored vortex. Instead of taking the negative feeling from him, the Force began to construct an image.

He couldn't see her face, but he immediately recognized her aura. Strong, intelligent. Dangerous. Although Mara Jade was usually impatient, she was in fact the opposite when she was tinkering with her ship. It was as if working on a machine served as a form of therapy for the Trader.

The vision blurred and suddenly the ship began to shudder under the onslaught of laser cannons. Alarms all over the ship began to scream. Mara bolted for the cockpit, turned the shields up to full and flipped the weapons panel on. Another series of images flickered past his consciousness, none that made sense and then he was suddenly aware of his location, on top of the Jedi Academy. He was staring over the edge, dangerously balanced as though he'd been thrown from the vision to stare hundreds of meters below.

The sun had vanished beneath the horizon and early dusk surrounded him, bringing a sense of stillness. He could feel his heart pounding, the adrenaline rushing through his veins. A cold knot of fear underlined all this.

"Master Skywalker?"

Luke pushed himself away from the ledge. He closed his eyes momentarily, to slow his breathing and regain his composure. "Yes, Tionne?"

"Talon Karrde, a Trader, left a message for you on the—"

Luke jumped up and began to run for the staircase back down the main levels of the Academy.

"On the communication system downstairs. He requests that you contact him as soon as possible," the silver-haired bard finished lamely. She shook her head and followed the Jedi Master at a much slower pace. He was still getting over the illness he'd caught earlier in the month—he really shouldn't be running around yet.

A few minutes later, Luke stepped onto the projection field of the comm unit. Talon Karrde appeared the moment the connection finished. Apparently the Trader had been waiting for the Jedi to contact him.

"Master Skywalker, I'm glad you could return my call so quickly."

"Where's Mara?" were the first words from the Jedi Master's mouth.

Talon blinked, surprised. "Uh, I'm not sure. We're looking into it—"

"'We'?"

"I have a couple of people looking around. Two days ago, the Fire and another ship were stopped by a group of pirates a system or two away from Ryloth. Our information from the Odd Origin is sketchy. The pilot's still new, this was his first solo flight. I sent him with Mara so she could look after him when he tried Ryloth's atmosphere. Pirates attacked, armed with an Interdictor Cruiser, and the new kid managed to get away. He isn't sure whether Mara had already jumped or not, but he assumed she would be all right. I've sent a few teams out to look around for her. She might have sustained considerable damage, looking at how long it'll take to get the Origin back up to specs."

Karrde paused and studied the younger man's face. "It was one of your Jedi things," he said with certainty. "You knew something had happened to Mara. Tell me, is she alright?"

Luke ran a hand through his short hair. "I don't know, Talon. I mean, I know she's not…you know, she's still alive, but there's too much distance right now. She's just too damned far away."

"At least we know she's still out there." Talon took a deep breath. "Ryloth's in the Outer Rim. That will explain the distance."

Luke nodded in agreement. "I'm going to need a ship."

Talon raised an eyebrow. "Luke, I have several ships already looking for her. Besides, you should stay with the Academy. Last I heard, you weren't exactly drowning under capable instructors."

"Kam Solusar and the others can handle my classes for a little while. I only taught a few students, anyway, the most experienced. They can help Kam and Tionne. And Kyp's here, he can take on some students." He paused. "If I can get closer to her, I'll be able to find her."

Karrde sighed to himself. He wasn't sure why he felt on the verge of panic. Mara was a big girl; she could take care of herself. She had proven herself capable of the impossible numerous times. So pirates had attacked her—it had happened before. And she always managed to win, or at least escape so that she could finish her journey. Why was this one different? Talon touched the screen of a computer console next to the comm system. "I'm going to have a Rodian pilot by the name of Asre stop at Yavin 4. Will there be any problem with him staying there for a few days before I can send another ship out to pick him up?"

"No problem at all," the Jedi Master responded quickly.

"Good. He should be there in two days, at most. Probably less. He'll have supplies on board, so don't worry about rations and such."

"Isn't this Asre going to be mad that I'm taking his ship?"

"It's not his."

"Oh. Okay, I'll be waiting."

Talon nodded shortly. "Good. Karrde out."