Feedback: JadesHand

Disclaimers: All the major characters belong to George Lucas and Timothy Zahn. I just like to borrow them occasionally. I will not make any money from this story because it is for enjoyment purposes only.

Summary: Talon Karrde and Luke Skywalker go missing after heading out on a mission. It's up to Shada D'ukal and Mara Jade Skywalker to find them.

Time: Approximately a year after Union

Overall rating: NC-17

*Conversation taken verbatim from Vision of the Future, by Timothy Zahn.

Chapter 1

Shada D'ukal eased up on the repulsor lifts on her T-16 Skyhopper and sat it down gently on the landing pad. It was late in the night, yet Coruscant never really slept. Down below on the streets, she could hear talking and laughter from the city's many night venturers. After shutting down the Skyhopper and securing it, Shada walked to the edge of the landing pad and looked down upon the city. It was a cool night; there was even a small flurry of snow floating in the air. A few flakes landed in Shada's dark hair and she brushed absentmindedly at them, then turned and headed for the escalators that would take her down to ground level.

She yawned while riding down. She had been deeply asleep when her comlink woke her and was more than a little startled to realize the caller was Mara Jade Skywalker. Since going to work for Talon Karrde and his Intelligence Service, Shada had met Mara several times as Mara had turned over the reins as Talon's second-in-command to her upon Mara's marriage to the Jedi Master, Luke Skywalker. Other than the few times they had met to discuss the business transfers, Shada had seen very little of Mara. So receiving a call from her at two in the morning was a very unusual occurrence and for Mara to ask Shada to meet her at one of the roughest bars in all of Coruscant was even more mind-boggling.

The escalator deposited Shada onto the street and she paused a moment, looking in both directions. A few people walked on either side of the street, huddling together against the cold, but nothing looked out of the ordinary. She made her way to the other side and walked about half a kilometer before stopping in front of a door set off from the street by a long alcove. Shada's watchful gray eyes took in the situation. Sensing no immediate danger, she walked down the alcove to press the buzzer on the heavy door.

The door opened almost immediately and light flooded onto Shada along with loud music and coarse laughter. A Rodian with a small blaster stood in the entrance. He barked some rough-sounding Basic at her.

"Just looking for a good drink, pal," Shada told him, giving an excellent imitation of being bored and uninterested.

The Rodian stared at her a moment, taking in her tall, wiry figure, the thick mass of dark hair, and the high cheekbones of her strong, yet alluring face. Then he grunted and stepped aside, waving with the blaster for her to enter.

Shada stopped just inside the door, blinking a little at the heavy curtain of smoke that hung in the air. The place was crowded with an assortment of humans and aliens one wouldn't find at the nicer family establishments. Shada squinted her eyes, trying to see through the haze and crowd of people for a sight of Mara.

A tall, heavily muscled figure bumped into her and then grabbed her arm to steady himself. A breath clouded with ale drifted across her face. "Hiya, sweetheart, wanna drink?"

The human was about her age, but sported a long, ridged scar down the side of his face that pulled one of his eyes slightly off kilter.

"Sorry, I'm meeting someone," Shada said, peering into the smoky bar.

Mara was nowhere in sight and a flash of irritation wrinkled through her. If she had gotten up out of her warm bed to come down here and Mara didn't show up...

"Aww, you know I'm better than he is. Drink with me and forget him," the human argued, tugging on her arm and trying to steer her to a table near the bar.

"I said no," Shada told him, her hand closing over his on her arm. Slowly, deliberately, she pulled his fingers back, bending them at an almost impossible angle.

The human's eyes widened and he grimaced with pain, his knees buckling a little. "Alright, alright," he groaned, and Shada released him slowly. Taking his hand back, he nursed it against his chest. He stared at Shada a moment, then jerkily nodded his head, and holding his injured hand, he shuffled off.

Shada watched him go, then looked about the room again. If Mara was here, she couldn't see her. At the thought, her eyes narrowed and she began to look more closely at the people in the bar. Finally, she caught sight of a man sitting by himself at a table in the corner. He was small, his long, slightly curly red-gold hair tied back in a thick ponytail. A glass of Corellia's best sat in front of him.

Shada made her way around the room and took a seat at the corner table. "That ale any good?" she asked, pushing her dark hair back from her face.

The man grinned. "It's not bad." He waved at the Arconan bartender and the humanoid nodded. Soon, a waitress brought a glass of ale and sat it down in front of Shada. She took a long drink from it.

The man at the table inclined his head in the direction of the human who was still nursing his sore hand. "Once a Mistryl Shadow Guard, always a Mistryl Shadow Guard."

Shada shrugged. "It's hard to forget training like that. Besides, he needed a lesson in manners."

The red-haired man laughed. "I'm sure he did."

Shada leaned back in her chair. "That's quite a disguise, Mara. Don't think I've ever seen one that good."

The slender man laughed again. "Watch closely," he told her and as Shada watched, the man seemed to shimmer and fade, allowing the shapely feminine form of Mara Jade Skywalker to appear for a moment. Then just as quickly, the small, lithe man was back.

Shada snorted. "It takes me hours to work up a disguise like that, and you Jedi can turn it on and off like a water faucet."

"What can I say? We're just talented," the small man grinned. "You should see Luke disguise himself as a woman." Then the little man grew serious. "I really don't like using Force disguises, but as with any skill, you never know when you might need it, so I practice it occasionally."

Shada had choked off a laugh at the thought of Luke Skywalker as a woman, but took another long drink from her ale. "So, what did you want to see me about?"

The man stood up. "Let's take a walk. It's more crowded in here than I thought it would be at this hour."

Shada lifted her eyebrows, but complied, taking one last sip of her ale. She followed after the small figure who was leading the way in front of her.

Neither noticed the burly man near the bar who was still holding his fist against his chest. His eyes widened as he saw the couple leaving, and he nudged another man beside him. "Can you believe it? She dumped me for a puny, little red-haired squirt like that."

**********************

Outside, the light snow was still falling. The wind had picked up some. Shada lifted the white fur collar on her nerf hide jacket and noticed that Mara tightened the belt of her own coat. And it was Mara now. As soon as they were out of sight of the bar, Mara had let the disguise fade away, leaving in its place a small, slender woman whose red-gold hair gleamed like a burning fire in the brightness of the street lamps.

They walked for some distance. Shada didn't hurry the conversation, sensing that Mara would begin when she was ready. But she was very curious, the whole situation was odd, but she would let it develop at its own pace.

They turned into an outdoor tapcaf shop, closed for the night, but its tables still outside. Mara cursorily brushed some of the snow from a chair and sat in it, waving Shada to the one across from her.

"Shada," Mara started. "Have you heard from Karrde?"

Shada brushed some of the snow off her own chair before she sat down. "No, I haven't. At least, not since he left with Skywalker."

Mara frowned and hit the table top with her fist. "Sithspawn! Where the hell can they be?"

Shada blinked in surprise. "Karrde and Skywalker? Somewhere in the Outer Rim, I suspect."

"But you don't know where exactly, do you?" Mara demanded, getting to her feet and pacing about the small patio. "Doesn't it bother you that you haven't heard from Karrde?"

Shada shrugged slightly. "Not really. He didn't say he would be in contact."

Mara spitted her with a glare, her emerald eyes gleaming in the pale light from the street lamps. "Usually when a woman is involved with a man, she wants to hear from him when he goes off on what could be classified as a dangerous mission."

Shada pushed back her chair and sighed heavily. "I'm not involved with Karrde, Mara...at least, not the way you mean."

Mara returned to her chair. "Don't give me that. Everybody knows you two are lovers. You're always together when you're here on Coruscant, deep in each other's pockets. Do you believe you can act like that, and people will assume you're just friends? If you aren't lovers, why haven't either one of you denied it before now?" It was a long lecture and it surprised Mara as much as it did Shada.

Shada sighed again. "Karrde said it wasn't anyone's business but ours, and that if some people wanted to believe it, it might be better to just let them."

Mara shot her an incredulous look, remembering the numerous times she had seen Karrde and Shada together. "What is that supposed to mean? You're not having an affair but you want people to believe you are?"

"We didn't want anybody to believe anything," Shada said a bit sharply, angry that she was feeling on the defensive. After all, Karrde was right, it wasn't anybody's business but theirs. "If some people came to their own conclusions, it wasn't our fault."

Mara was like a vornskr with fresh killed prey and wouldn't let go. "Which people?"

"Some of his crew, all right," Shada snarled, getting to her feet and heading for the street again. She shouldn't have come; she should have just stayed in her nice warm bed and ignored the comlink. She didn't know Mara Skywalker very well, but she was a bit shocked that the woman seemed to be going off the deep end a little just because she hadn't heard from her husband in a week.

Mara was right behind her. She put her hand on Shada's arm. "Wait," she ordered.

Shada stopped and looked pointedly at the hand on her arm. "You think you can stop me?" she asked softly.

Mara took a small step closer, a tiny, wry smile lifting the corner of her mouth. "You may be a head taller, Shada D'ukal, but it would be one helluva fight."

Despite it all, Shada had to laugh, and she admitted to herself that she liked the audacious spirit of the little redhead.

Mara joined her in laughing, yet couldn't hide the relief that flickered across her face at the thought that Shada apparently wasn't leaving after all. She didn't know the ex-Mistryl guard that well, but knew if Karrde trusted her, then she could too.

"Come back to the table, Shada, please," Mara said quietly. "Something is wrong. I can feel it, and I may need your help."

Shada nodded and then frowned. She fell into step with Mara as they returned to the snow-covered table. "Something's wrong you say...with Karrde?" she asked.

Mara shot her a look, wondering if Shada realized how much concern had been in her voice. Well...well, Mara thought, there may be more to this story that Shada was willing to admit.

Mara narrowed her eyes. "Why do you and Karrde want some of his crew to think you're lovers?"

Shada let out an exasperated sigh. "You don't give up easily, do you?"

Mara arched an eyebrow. "Luke tells me it can be a bad habit sometimes." She waited a moment and then said, "Well?"

Shada shook her head, a slight smile playing on her lips. Obviously, she wasn't going to be able to get out of telling Mara the truth. She knew Karrde probably wouldn't mind. Mara was one of his closest friends. "I used to work for a smuggler named Mazzic," she told her.

Mara nodded. "Yeah, I remember him." Her tone indicated that she didn't think too much of him either.

Shada smiled slightly. "Well, Mazzic's crew didn't take my position as his bodyguard very seriously. I had a little trouble with them, and then one day, one of the men took it upon himself to pinch me."

Mara put her hand to her mouth suddenly. "And?" she asked, her eyes dancing.

Shada frowned ferociously at her. "It wasn't funny."

"Of course not," Mara said, trying to straighten her face. "What did you do?"

"Well, you have to understand," Shada explained. "I don't like people touching me when I don't want them to." She looked off in the distance over Mara's head, not seeing the amusement flash again across Mara's face. "I suppose in the back of my mind I was thinking that if I made an example of him, I wouldn't have any trouble with any of the rest of them."

Mara nodded again, encouraging her. "What happened?"

"I think I hurt him a little too much," Shada said regretfully. "He had to spend nearly a month in a neural reconstruction facility."

"That's too bad," Mara choked, desperately fighting not to laugh. "But what does that have to do with Karrde and you?"

Shada tucked some of her long dark hair back behind an ear. "When I went with Karrde to try and find the Caamas document, his crew didn't like me very much and a couple of his new men were a little too forward." She shrugged. "Karrde knew about what happened with Mazzic's men, and he didn't want me to have to go through something like that again. He spoke to the two men, but it didn't help my relationship with his crew at all." She paused for a moment, obviously reliving the memory.

"What changed their minds?" Mara asked, leaning her chin on her fist as she rested her elbow on the table. She clearly found the story riveting, and knew that Karrde's crew was as loyal to Shada now as they had been to Mara when she had been Karrde's second-in-command.

"We had a battle with some pirates and I was wounded pretty badly. Had to spend some time in the bacta tank. That raised their opinion of me quite a bit."

Mara nodded. "They respect courage. But why did Karrde and you let them think you were lovers?"

"Fighting the pirates might have raised their respect, but some of the men were still eyeing me," Shada told her, suddenly looking a little uncomfortable. "One night, rather late, after I had returned from a dip in the bacta tank, Karrde came to see me in my cabin."

Mara's eyebrows shot into her hair.

"It wasn't anything like that, Mara," Shada chastised her.

"I wasn't thinking anything," Mara assured her quickly.

"Yes, you were," Shada countered, and then sighed heavily. "You're just like the rest. All he was there for was to tell me about his old boss, Jorj Car'das, and what to expect if we found him." Shada looked down at her hands. "He was there for some time. I don't think either of us realized how much time had passed, but when he went to leave, the morning crew was just coming on duty. They saw him leaving my cabin."

"Ahhh..." Mara said, suddenly understanding. "And they jumped to all sorts of interesting assumptions then, eh?"

Shada nodded her head, but didn't say anything.

Mara pursed her lips, thinking swiftly. "And of course, it was the perfect solution to the other problem. If the crew believed you were involved with Karrde, then none of his men would dare approach you."

Shada nodded again. "That's right. And it worked. I had no more problems, and Karrde didn't have to ship any of his men off to any reconstruction facilities."

The two women looked at each other and laughed, then Mara commented, "But you've let the rumors go on for almost a year."

Shada felt a sudden warmth in her face. "Actually, it's solved more problems than it's caused, so we just let it slide."

"Mmmm...," Mara said thoughtfully, watching Shada closely.

Shada shifted in her chair uncomfortably, Mara's intent gaze bothering her more than she wanted to admit. "Mara, you said you thought there was some trouble," she began, clearly changing the subject. "What did you mean by that?"

Instantly, Mara's eyebrows knitted together. "Luke and Karrde have been gone for over a week and a half," she told Shada, her voice betraying her worry. "I know you may not consider it unusual for Karrde not to contact you in that time, but..." And now it was Mara's turn to try and suppress the sudden color rising in her cheeks. "When Luke and I are separated, we try to...speak with each other everyday or at least every other day." Mara looked down at her hands, the flush more evident than before.

Shada suppressed a grin at the pink in Mara's cheeks. Turnabout was fair play. But the fact was that the ex-Emperor's Hand, a woman whose fierce reputation preceded her wherever she went, was blushing like a teenager. That it was all because her husband hadn't called her in a week was almost too much not to laugh at.

"Maybe they're just busy, Mara," Shada suggested, suppressing her amusement and hoping to comfort Mara a little.

Mara shook her head violently. "No, you don't understand. He calls me...he always calls me, no matter how busy he is."

"When was the last time you spoke with him," Shada asked, a dark uneasiness beginning to seep into her. If someone like Mara Skywalker was really worried, then there was reason to be.

Mara took a deep breath. "The fifth day after he and Karrde left, he called me late in the night. Everything was fine. He was a little tired, but excited that he and Karrde were on the right track about that weird message. He told me they thought it was from a system just inside the Outer Rim. He said it would probably take them another day or so to get there, but that he would contact me the next night. He never called, and I haven't heard from him since."

Shada frowned. If Skywalker had said he would call, then nothing short of being incapacitated would keep him from doing so. Even she knew that much about him. Skywalker was legendary for being a man of his word, and was probably even more so with his beloved wife.

She hadn't liked the fact that Karrde and Skywalker had gone off alone to try and find the origination point of that cryptic message one of Karrde's crew had brought back with them. She had argued with Karrde about it before he left, but he had brushed her fears aside and reminded her that he was traveling with a Jedi Master. Nothing could happen that the two men together couldn't handle. Privately, Shada had thought it all a great big dose of male arrogance, but she had decided to let it go as Karrde seemed so confident and determined. Now, it looked as if they may have gotten into something of which even they couldn't deal.

"So what do you think we should do?" she asked Mara, her light gray eyes searching the other woman's face.

"I've decided to go after them. Something isn't right. I can feel it."

"Jedi hunch?"

"Yes," Mara said, glancing at the Shada. "I was going to ask you to come along when I thought you and Karrde were involved, but if you would rather not..."

"I'll go," Shada said quickly, ignoring Mara's slight knowing smirk. "When do you want to leave?"

Mara glanced at the chrono on her wrist. "I've already prepped the Jade Sabre and it's ready to go. I moved my stuff onto the ship earlier tonight. I'm ready as soon as you are."

Shada nodded and stood up. "What hangar bay is the Sabre in?"

Mara looked up at the tall figure beside her. "27."

"I'll meet you there in two hours."

With that, Shada turned and stalked off down the street, leaving Mara to watch her disappear into the lightly falling snow.

On to Chapter 2