Good and Evil

By: Mara Jade

Summary: Another short piece—some more of Mara's thoughts.

                The pinpoints of light elongated into streaks of color as my ship entered hyperspace.  I had just finished a successful trading run and I'm supposed to meet with Karrde again.  But that's another five hours away.  Five hours of solitude.  Which is fine by me, don't get me wrong.  I have plenty of things to do now that I have the time.  My ship, the Fire needs a little maintenance.  I think I heard something rattling around in one of my storage holds.  It's probably a hydrospanner or something hitting the bulkhead.

                And I need to prepare my report for Karrde, so I can talk to him quickly, get my next assignment, and leave.  He'll probably want me to rest there for the night.  But I'd save time by just sleeping on the Fire.  Sure, it's not as comfortable as a real bed, but these bunks are better than many ships I've been on.  And by sleeping here, I'd be ahead of schedule by nearly ten standard hours.

                These trips through hyperspace do allow time for thinking.  I spend so much time maintaining my ship and making runs for Karrde's association, though I am technically not a part of the organization anymore.  Or I'm off on some New Republic mercy mission that ends in a bacta tank, especially for the Jedi Master.  He just can't keep out of trouble.  And I'm the one that ends up saving his sorry Force-sensitive ass.

                But in hyperspace I can just do whatever I need to, be it maintenance or rest up, or just relaxing, doing nothing.  I talk to politicians or delegates from companies, sometimes entire cities or planets many times about Karrde's or my trading businesses.  Either that or I'm delivering shipments to those same companies.  I basically live on my ship, which I love.  It's the only thing I've let myself get close to—it allows me my freedom.  It's my ship, the Jade's Fire.  It's the only thing that's truly mine, after I left the Empire.

                The Empire.  Doesn't that feel like a lifetime ago.  That was an entirely different Mara—I was the Emperor's Hand, and proud of it.  I had done the Emperor's will, be it infiltration or assassination.  And I sure as hell was good at it.  From the age of about five, maybe earlier, though my earliest memories of kneeling before the Emperor was when I was about five or six, I had been taught that the Emperor was my lord and Master, and I was his privileged one-and-only Hand.  I would have sacrificed myself if it kept him safe and alive.  Anyone who opposed my lord was evil, and I was to dispose of that evil.  As the Rebel Alliance grew from the few rebels fighting my Master's rule to a full-fledged Rebellion, I had infiltrated parts of it, and assassinated the leaders of the planet-bound rebellions.  I was never ordered to assassinate the main leaders, though I was responsible for the demolition of several of their suppliers.  Lord Vader was supposed to destroy the leaders of the Rebel Alliance with the construction of the new superweapon, appropriately named the Death Star.  He caught the Rebel Alderaani Princess Organa, and tortured her with the destruction of her homeworld Alderaan.  Still, he never got to destroy the Rebellion in it's youth because of a lucky shot from a Corellian hot-shot pilot, and his love for a son he never knew he had.  That was when I came in.

                After Vader allowed Skywalker to escape him in Cloud City, on Bespin, I was sent to murder the upstart new Jedi.  Costumed as a dancer, I was met with my first true failure.  I didn't kill Luke Skywalker.  I wonder if then was the first time I began to realized the Empire was evil.  I could have easily controlled the giant slug's miniscule mind with the Emperor's power behind me, but I didn't.  When the Hutt told me I wouldn't be allowed on the Sail Barge, I pleaded, but I didn't use the Force on him.  Skywalker killed Jabba (which I was not unpleased to hear) but also escaped, not only with just his life, but also with those of the Princess, Solo, Calrissian, and his damned droids!  I was ashamed before my Lord, and he, though angry, didn't strike out at me as I'd expected him to.  He ordered me to meet him at my next destination, but that was never to be.  He was betrayed by Vader, and the ship was destroyed by another Corellian pilot, an X-wing jock named Antilles.  I lived the next five years going form job to job.  I though Luke Skywalker was evil.

                Now I'm a part of the New Republic, and what I once thought of as evil is now good.  What was once good is now evil.

                Or is it?

                When I was an Imperial, the Empire was good.  I fought for the cause—the Emperor's New Order.  I believed in it whole-heartedly.

                And it wasn't the idea at first that was evil, it was the man behind it who went too far.  He turned the noble cause into the evil the Rebellion saw it as.  I was blind to that evil.  I didn't realize that someone could manipulate an innocent trusting young girl like the Emperor did me.  Even now I feel the effects of that manipulation.

                But I'm a free Master Trader in the New Republic now.  I run my own life, and help the "good" cause.  I help benefit the New Republic.  So does that make me good, or am I still evil?  I know many see me as evil, but they refuse to give me a second chance.  I've changed from the Emperor's Hand, or even the wanderer I was for half a decade later.  I've been offered a choice to train at Skywalker's Jedi Academy, under the oh-so-great Jedi Master himself, for Sith's sake.

                And that makes me wonder about something else—the Force.  Like many things, it has a "good" side and a "bad" side.  Dark and Light.  Like two sides to the same decicred.

                The line between the Dark and Light sides are very undefined, though Skywalker teaches that when one used the Force for service to others, they use the Light Side.  When the use of the Force is to benefit themselves, they use the Dark Side.

                That's too black and white for me.

                Especially for me.  I served the Emperor.  I didn't use the Force for myself, but for him, to benefit my Master.  According to Luke…uh, according to Skywalker, I was using the Light Side.  But I was serving a Dark Side user, and I know without a doubt he was using the Dark Side.

                So was I using the Light or Dark?
                Am I good or evil?

                Or a little of both?
                I don't know.  I think I'll ask Skywalker about it the next time I see him.  Give him something to think about.  Maybe he'll have an answer for me.  I'd like to have answers for once, and not so many questions.

                Okay, enough of this.  I have enough questions myself without trying to figure out a moral dilemma.  But one question remains in my mind as I walk back to the storage holds to find the errant  hydrospanner or whatever it is.

                Am I Good or Evil?