Dark Force Rising | Chapter 5 | The Lost Holocron

The Lost Holocron

Chapter 5 of Star Wars: Dark Force Rising (1992) (EU: 9 ABY) by Timothy Zahn.

The Story So Far

In her veiled past, Mara Jade was the Emperor's Hand, a high-functioning operative with a mental connection directly to the Emperor. With his assassination at the hands of Luke Skywalker and the Rebellion, she holds a deep hatred for those that wrought her ruination. She has spent the interstitial five years tortured by her fragmented Force-powers. That is until she came into the employment of Smuggling Lord Talon Karrde on Myrkr, where the indigenous ysalamiri create bubbles that neutralise the Force.

Several weeks before, Karrde declined to participate in a hunt for Luke Skywalker, but on return from a mission Mara dropped the Wild Karrde out of hyperspace to find his X-Wing stranded in deep space. Under the protection of ysalamiri, Karrde detained him at his base-of-operations on Myrkr while he decided how best to proceed. New Republic representatives Han Solo and Lando Calrissian arrived on his doorstep with a proposal, however this too Karrde declined.

His values of honour and independence collide when he receives a surprise call from the astute and vindictive Imperial Warlord Grand Admiral Thrawn. In the balancing act, Skywalker escaped into the wilderness pursued by Mara. Thrawn left a contingent of Stormtroopers to assist recovery of the missing persons, forcing Karrde to ally with the New Republic to cover up his initial deception.

To escape Thrawn's retribution, Karrde and Mara uprooted the organisation from Myrkr and made to leave the system. Karrde gambles on staying behind to collect intelligence on the Imperial strike, barely averting capture owing to Mara's precognition, which exposes her secret Force-sensitivity.

Chapter 5

Karrde has retreated his organisation to Rishi. Mara bickers with him over having chosen such a populus location, and to avoid addressing her past she pushes Karrde to elaborate on a deferred conversation. He shares a memory of stumbling upon what he suspects to be the Katana Fleet, a scandalous fleet of several hundred slave-circuited warships lost sometime before the outbreak of the Clone Wars. With an Imperial bounty on warships, he believes it may be pertinent to delivering them from Imperial ire.

They are interrupted with a request for supplies, which Karrde sends Mara to collect from one of their caches. On her way, Mara tracks, then is ambushed by a bounty hunter. With her reemerging Force-powers, she manages to distract him long enough to turn the tables.

Returning to the store house, Mara tells Karrde of her run-in and they promptly order the retreat.

That night, Mara experiences a relapse of harrowing Force-induced dreams.

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