X Jedi 2  Chapter 7 -- Hornets' Nest

Disclaimer in Chapter 1

by JackeeC, Gheorghe2 and ginef (all @aol.com)


Faquier County, VA
Route 29
SevenEleven Parking Lot
5:00 PM


      Having nearly lost and killed the aliens in her
charge,
Scully was determined not to starve them.  The burger
flipping stands that dotted Route 29 were however certain to
disappoint.  While discussing the meager options in a
Seven Eleven parking lot, the cell phone rang, startling all
three women.  Fumbling, she brought the phone to her ear,
"Scully."

     "Dana, it's Han."

     Scully's heart missed a beat or ten.  "What's wrong?"

     "Mulder's had some difficult news.  He's not ...
responding to Luke or me.  I think you better get over
here."

     "Where are you?"

     "His apartment."

     "On our way," she replied, turning the car around and
pulling into traffic.



Alexandria, VA

     Han hung up the phone and sat back with a deceptive air
of ease on the chair near the kitchen, his blaster trained
on Adams.  Adams, for his part, was settled on a living room
chair, facing Han.  To Han's trained eye, Adams' attempts to
conceal his anxiety were comical.

     Adams leaned over and picked up one of three small
framed photographs resting on the end table, a boy and a
girl
at the beach, the boy's arm flung around the little girl.
The same children from his father's vision, he realized,
perhaps a couple of years older. Samantha and Fox.  He
replaced the picture and picked up another.  The same
children, this time joined by mom and dad.  It was one of
the type taken by a professional photographer.  Everyone
looked nervous.  Edgy.  Posed.  He looked closely into the
eyes of Bill Mulder and wondered if he had known than that
the son whose shoulder he so proudly rested his hand on
wasn't his own.  He replaced that photo and picked up the
last and only one taken in recent years.  Not surprisingly
it was his brother's partner, Scully.  She was wearing a
blue FBI wind breaker, back to the camera, her head turned
around as if her name had just been called.  Her hair was
wind blown and she was laughing.  Somehow he just knew that
Mulder had been the photographer.

     He replaced the picture and returned his gaze to Solo.
The smuggler was immobile, hand resting casually on the
heavy blaster resting in his lap, impassive, eyes
flickering, watching every move.  In this state of alert
control, Adams doubted any of his Force tricks would work on
the wary smuggler.  Maybe old Bail Organa would have been
proud of his adopted daughter's scandalous choice in a
spouse; her real father, Darth Vader certainly would have
been.

     Adams looked out the window.  Skywalker and Mulder were
outside talking. If anyone would understand what Mulder was
going through it would be Skywalker.  The choking bitter
laugh did not escape his throat, and Solo already had his
blaster up, finger at the ready.  "Go ahead and give into it
Solo, jus try 'n take me out," he taunted in colloquial
Corellian slang.

     A smirk broke across the big man's face.  "Nothin
personal, Adams," Solo responded in kind, not at all ashamed
of his native dialect.  "I jus got a real special grudge
'gainst your kind.  Hunted like an animal, tortured, my
wife's torture, the murder of a coupla billion people on
Alderaan, cloning innocent people so they can kill even more
innocent people, tryin to kidnap my kids.  I figure the
universe is a lot safer place without your kind in it."

     Adams now did laugh.  "That's not a very nice way to
describe your wife, your children, or your brother in law."

     Never taking his eyes from Adams, his right hand still
firmly on the heavy blaster, Han pulled Mulder's gun out of
his pocket with his left and expertly released the safety.
He aimed now a second barrel at the staring Adams.  Still
speaking in unrepentant Corellian, he slurred, "They'd all
be better off dead than dark.  An' so's everyone else.  Only
thing stoppin me from blastin you into the next quadrant now
is that Mulder should have the honors."

     Solo, he realized, was a man with a cause, a clean
conscience, and no fear.  Adams said archly, with furtive
and misplaced arrogance, "If you honestly think Mulder would
kill me, now that he knows the truth, you're a bigger fool
than I've heard."

     The grin broadened, as if the Force empty clod had read
his mind. "That may be true Adams," Han said, now in
flawless, aristocratic Basic. "I, however, would not
hesitate to kill you, nor am I afraid to die trying."  He
switched effortlessly into the crudest Corellian.  "I only
wanna make certain that you're dead before I go."

     Whipped, the games over, Adams muttered pathetically,
"Aren't you forgetting that my father traded me for the
Emperor's whore?"

     Solo's head twitched in a movement of disagreement.
"No, I'm not forgetting," implying that such details never
escaped him.  "And a common concubine is not worth, and
would not cause, all this trouble."  The expressive face
across the room became more serious, attentive, but no less
alert.  "All that does is tell me the lengths he'll go to
get her.  Which leads me to two other conclusions."

     Ben bit.  "What are those?"

     "That the only things more important than killing you
are making sure he's dead, and that Jade never gets the
chance to be near him again while he's still alive."


     *    *    *

     The warm October day had turned bleak and cool,
threatening gray rain.  A brisk wind picked up colorful
leaves from the pavement outside the building, playfully
tossing them.  They crunched underfoot as Mulder paced out
the distance in front of his apartment.

     Luke silently observed from his seat on the steps.  He
did not dare leave Mulder alone, he could not penetrate the
wall of destructive self loathing, and had to dissuade
Mulder from following Adams on a damn foolish junket to
certain suicide.  "Mulder, I think I might understand how
you're feeling right now" he started.

     Mulder whirled on him, his voice low and threatening.
"You have no fucking idea how I'm feeling."

     Luke persisted, at his most annoyingly sincere, "I
think I do.  You've heard what my father did to all of us,
what kind of a monster he was.  But in the end, I was able
to accept him, and find the good that was in him."

     Mulder scowled at the naivete, but ceased his prowling.
He sunk down next to Luke on the steps. "That black lunged
bastard is my *father*. You're sure of it?"

     "Ben isn't lying," Luke assured him. "And I can...
sense a connection between the two of you.  It was the same
with Leia and me."

     "Why didn't you know before?"

     "We had a saying where I come from that goes something
like 'sometimes the truth is blind.' It can be staring you
right in the face and we don't see it."

     Mulder covered his face with his hands. "God. He took
my sister, killed my...," the word "father" caught, lost and
irretrievable.  "He killed Mellissa, he took," again the
voice broke in whispered misery, "Scully."


     *    *    *

     Scully screeched to a stop at Mulder's building,
wondering fleetingly what Mulder's neighbors must make of
her.  They must think them both total nut cases.  She
climbed out of the car, striding toward the entrance without
waiting for Mara and Leia.  Mulder and Luke were sitting on
the front steps; Mulder huddled into a ball, head down, arms
clutched tightly around his knees, slowly rocking back and
forth.  Scully picked up her pace.  "Mulder, what's wrong?"
she asked, quelling the rising fear.  She sunk down next to
him and looked to Luke for an explanation.

     Luke stood up to greet Mara and Leia, coming behind
slowly, "I think we should leave Mulder and Dana alone for a
few minutes."  Glancing at Mulder, Mara and Leia followed
Luke up the stairs, leaving the devastated pair huddled on
the front stoop.

     With the entry door shutting behind them, Leia asked
with wondering dread. "What happened?"

     It was to Mara that Luke actually responded, as they
entered the lift and rose to Mulder's apartment. "Mulder
found out that the one they call Cancer Man is his father."

     Stunned, abhorrent shock surged from both women.  Leia
gasped. "So that means Palpatine was ..."  Luke nodded and
his sister thumped heavily against the wall with an
exclamation of deep empathy. "It explains so much, doesn't
it?"

     If Leia's reaction was sympathy, Mara's was of rising
anger. "How'd he find out?"

     Luke gently placed a hand to her shoulder, bracing for
the storm, "Adams told him."

     She jerked away as the lift door opened, and spun from
Luke, "That malicious ..."  The curse died as she reached
out in the Force and felt...  Luke now grabbed her roughly,
"Mara, don't..."

     With a combined Force and physical shove, Mara pummeled
Luke back into the elevator, pushing him into Leia. Dropping
her blaster into her hand, she took off down the hall
towards the apartment.


     *    *    *

     Scully reached over and placed a hand on her partner's
back. "What is it, Mulder? You're scaring me."

     "He's my father," he finally managed, his voice ragged.
     "Who?" Scully asked, completely confused.

     "The Cancer Man."

     Mulder flinched at her sharp intake of air, burying his
head  deeper into his arms.  She brutally smothered the wave
of revulsion, wanting to know how he had found out, how he
could be sure it was true.  The Cancer Man Mulder's father!?
The man who'd killed her sister and stolen three months of
her life was father to her partner and best friend?!  How in
the world could this be true?  Could it be true?  Some small
part of her intellect still in place recognized the same
coincidences he had, and that yes, grotesque as it was, this
was one explanation.  Scully put a hand at his shoulder,
wanting him to look up, but Mulder resisted, staring now at
an ant marching across the concrete, carrying an enormous
insect remnant in its tiny jaws.

     As the ant disappeared into a crack in the pavement, he
finally responded to the unasked questions, groaning
miserably, "Adams is upstairs.  He told me.  Skywalker
confirmed it."

     He's blaming this on himself, she realized, like there
was some way he could have possibly influenced his own
paternity.  He expects me to reject him now.  To blame him
too.  How utterly Mulder, she mused as she reached out
again, and gently pulled him into her arms.  He hesitated a
moment and then collapsed into her embrace.


     *    *    *

     Skidding to a stop at the apartment, without a moment's
hesitation, blind with killing rage, Mara threw open the
door.

     Ben and Han both leaped up, Han thinking clearly enough
to keep his blaster trained on Adams.  In a gesture of self
preservation, as if tossing a pebble, Adams instinctively
flicked his fingers; the blow threw Mara against the wall.
Seizing the distraction, Han smashed the butt of his blaster
on Adams before Mara hit the floor.  Luke and Leia burst
through the doorway in time to see Adams collapse.

     The three standing stared at the two hapless and
groaning on the floor.  Luke went to Mara, indicating to
Leia that she should help Han with Adams.  For one who was
supposed to still be reeling from a Force assault, Mara made
a sudden and quick recovery.  As Luke first relieved her of
her blaster and helped her to her feet, she launched at
Adams again from across the room, prepared to rend him limb
from limb.  "Out of my way, Skywalker, or you're the next to
go," she swore, as Luke now physically held her back,
wrapping his arms around her clawing, furious storm.

     "No.  Mara!!"  Now he was shouting as well, trying to
penetrate her fury. "Not like this.  You can't, not like
this."

     "Watch me."  Luke dragged her into a chair, and with a
Force and hand restraint, pinned her there.  Adams, now
standing between the muzzles of Leia and Han's blasters,
said quietly, "Jade, I'm the one with cause to kill you, not
the other way around."

     She squirmed, spitting.  "The only person I'll take
greater pleasure in killing is that fiend father of your's."
     "Mara," Luke began.  She struggled, infuriated, and he
repeated, "Mara!!"

     "What!" the hellion spat.

     "He's right.  His father, **Mulder's** father, traded
him to the Urmari for you."

     Mara's murderous ire now focused on Luke.  He was
nearly sitting on top of her, face centimeters from her own.
She finally heard him, but did not believe.  "What?"  She
repeated, her voice wavering and rough.

     Adams whispered. "Because you all killed the vornskrs,
the Urmari demanded another Force sensitive.  They wanted
you, and so did my father.  He was going to give me to them,
so he could have you."

     Han now spoke firmly, wishing with all his soul that he
could end this blight on both galaxies with a squeeze of the
trigger, "Jade, I want to kill him as badly as you do.  And
if he's not dead at your hand by the end of this, you can
bet that I'll be the one to do it, or die trying."  Han
spared a glance at his wife, but he noticed only that she
moved her blaster closer to Adams, as firmly resolute.  "But
first, we've got to get their bastard of a father, and those
hell spawn the Urmari.  And this," he pushed his blaster
contemptuously against Adams again for emphasis, "Sorry son
of a Sith is the only way to get to the father."   He nodded
to Luke, in a gesture of dismissal.  "Get Jade out of here."

     "I'm not going anywhere, Solo."  With a fierce
struggle, she broke free of her teacher's restraint, lunging
again at Adams.  She made it barely halfway, stopping cold,
frozen and stricken, as Adams, with a casual finger snap,
sunk Force fangs into her.  Mara shrieked, writhing and
immobilized in crushing, tearing teeth.

     Both Luke and Leia mentally staggered under the weight
of his devastating assault on Mara.  Surrendering to a
billowing fury he had denied the night before, Luke struck
with the Force, slamming into Adams with a wincing mental
blow.  Caught in her brother's outrage, and an overflowing
measure of her own, Leia shoved the cold metal of her
blaster tip under Adams' ear, driving his head up.  She
ground through clenched teeth, "If you don't let her go,
I'll finish what she started."

     Adams' Force throttling abruptly dropped and Mara
sagged against Luke.  Han took control, not needing the
Force to know what had just occurred, "Luke, I think you,
Mara and Leia need a few minutes away from here.  I'm not
going to let you all risk the Dark Side by killing this
piece of filth in a fit of anger."  With an abrupt, rude
jerk of his head at Adams, he added, "Unfortunately for you
Adams, I don't have those kind of restrictions that keep me
from slaughtering you in cold blood."  Han took a step back,
pulling Adams with him, and pushing Leia forward.  She
helped Luke wrestle a less resisting, but vociferously
cursing Mara out the door.

     With a rough hand, Han shoved Adams back into a chair.
"Sit on your hands, facing forward.  Otherwise, make
yourself comfortable."

     In the lift, Mara yanked free of her captors.  "Damn
it, just let me go."

     "Not if you're going to bolt back up there and blow his
head off," Luke swore back.

     "I'm not stupid," Mara snapped.  "Why the hell did he
show up?"

     Luke explained quickly, the stress and high emotion
taking its toll on him as well. "He just found out about
Mulder... and the trade.  He thinks he can help Mulder get
the Force back."

     For a second time, Leia and Mara were dumbstruck, Leia
finally stammering, "How does he propose to do that?"

     With events spiraling out of control, Luke shrugged
irritably.  "Adams says killing an Urmari releases the
Force, and that Mulder can regain it that way."
     Mara burst, "By killing an Urmari?!?" as Leia injected
incredulous, "that's absurd.  And insane."

     "Adams isn't lying.  He really thinks it will work."
Luke was clearly skeptical that such a thing was possible,
and even more frustrated with his own ignorance as to why.

     The door opened, revealing Dana and Mulder standing
huddled in the hallway.  With an arm firmly around Mulder,
Dana began, "Where...?" as Luke finished, "Tempers got a
little hot upstairs."  Another jerk and curse from Mara
confirmed his statement.  "We're taking Mara just down the
street, we'll be back in a few minutes."

     Mara pried Luke's vise like grip from her elbow, and
decisive, stepped forward to a crushed Mulder.  Putting her
fingers to his chin, she forced his face up, and then was in
the disconcerting position of looking way up at him, "It
doesn't matter a damn who your father is Mulder.  Don't
believe a word Adams says."

     Startled, Mulder stuttered, "But Mara, I... he's my
brother, he can help me get the Force back, maybe then I
could ..."

     She repeated firmly, "I told you, don't believe him. He
might believe it himself, but you have no idea what poison
his father has fed him.  The grandfather was no better.  You
don't need it Mulder.  You don't need the Force.  I wish to
the skies I never had this curse.  You do just fine without
it."

     Luke now jostled her elbow, and with pain and
resignation, Mara allowed herself to be led, between Luke
and Leia, out the front of the building.



     *    *    *

     Scully was pacing Mulder's small apartment like a caged
animal. "We'll have to run full genetic testing. DNA
analysis... I can arrange that right now," she said pulling
her cell phone from her pocket and started to dial.

     "It's not necessary, Scully," Mulder said softy, from
where he leaned against the wall near Han.

     "The hell it isn't," she hissed, turning on him. "You
expect us to believe him?"  She pointed a finger in the
general direction of Ben, but refused to look him.  "He's
probably lying..."

     "I'm not lying," Ben said. "Besides, with Mulder's half
alien physiology you don't really expect the results to be
conclusive, do you Dr. Scully?" slight mocking in his voice.

     Scully disconnected her phone and fought a rising wave
of nausea.  Mulder an alien.  This was entirely too much
like a bad episode of the Outer Limits.

     "And besides," Adams continued, slowly getting to his
feet. "Don't you trust your Jedi friend?"

     She whirled on Adams, shoved him back down into the
chair by his shoulders and pinned him there. "The *only*
person I trust is Mulder.  And you've done such a number on
him that he doesn't know if he's coming or going." She
released him and started pacing again. "I'm not buying any
of this until we find a way to get the scientific evidence
we need to back it up."

     "But Scully, if I get the Force back, then I'll know
for certain."  Mulder said.  He raked a hand through his
hair before continuing. "I've got to try it."

     "You don't need the Force, Mulder," Scully stressed,
voice rising in fear and exasperation.  She willed some self
control, "Han, please talk to him."

     "She's right, Mulder.  Haven't you seen enough yet, to
understand what the Force does to people?  You're doing fine
without it.  I don't think it's worth the risk..."

     "But I do.  I think it is worth it," Mulder said,
resolved, now striding to the couch and sitting next to his
brother's chair.  He leaned forward, eager and determined,
"Explain to me how this works again?"

     Adams shrugged, "You take a light saber, ram it into
the base of the skull of an Urmari, the Force is released,
and it flows to you."

     "That's ridiculous," Han scoffed as Scully blinked in
stunned amazement.

     In a warning, condescending voice, Adams lectured.
"Even Skywalker, the all knowing, didn't dismiss it
outright, Solo.  What makes you such an expert?"

     "Only everything I've seen from being with Jedi for
over ten years, Adams."

     Seeing the familiar warning signs, Scully urged,
"Mulder, we have to talk about this, you can't just run off.
We need to find out what Luke and Leia think, maybe there's
some other way."

     The response from Adams was so adamant and familiar, it
was as if it was Mulder speaking, "There is no other way."

     She glared at him, and entreated Mulder, "You can't
just take off with him to try this, Mulder.  We have to go
with you."

     "You can't do that," Adams put in quickly.

     The sound of a blaster being brought to bear again
sounded in the room.  "And why's that?" Han asked casually.

     "The Urmari hunt by searching the Force.  Using the
Force around them, even a Force strong aura or mental shield
can drive them into a killing rage.  Your Jedi try any
tricks at the Vespiary and you are all dead."

     "Vespiary?" Mulder, Solo and Scully all repeated.
     "It's both where the Urmari live and feed and how they
describe their shared consciousness."

     "You mean like a collective intelligence?"  Mulder
asked, wide eyed.

     Ben scoffed, "You've been watching *way* too much Star
Trek." The words, the tone, the demeanor, were so much like
Mulder that Scully felt as if she had been kicked in the
stomach.  She sat down heavily in the chair next to Han.

     Ben took a deep breath. "Think of them as dozens of
mouths, joined together through the Force into a single
stomach."

     "Charming," Han commented.

     "Don't underestimate them, Solo."  Ben glared at Han,
"you have no idea what you are dealing with.  An Urmari claw
has been in this from the very beginning.  The Urmari from
your galaxy knew the ones here were hungry and felt cheated
by Palpatine's bargain..."

     Han swiftly challenged, "What bargain?"

     Ben was talking fast, frantically, "Palpatine made a
deal with the Urmari.  He didn't just slaughter the Jedi,
you know.  He went after entire races of Force strong
people.  And he enlisted the Urmari to do it.  When a race
from your," he stumbled, "our galaxy came here..."

     Mulder pounced, "You mean the colonists, the Smiths,
the Gregors... and the others?"

     He nodded and continued, "They came here when Palpatine
went after the Jedi.  He promised the Urmari every colonist
they could consume and sent ou..," Adams swiftly corrected,
"my father to oversee the operation."

     Both men leaned back in their seats at the same time,
sighing.  Scully felt the blood drain from her body.

     Despite his cautious vigilance, Han was absorbing every
word, the suspicions and pieces of the puzzle confirmed.
"What makes you think the Urmari were involved in getting us
here?"

     Hesitating with a wary glance, Adams explained.  "It
was another part of the bargain, but Palpatine got sloppy.
He promised the Urmari every Jedi, but then didn't let them
drink Vader or Jade.  And of course the Skywalkers
survived."  A thin, cynical smile pulled across his face.
"The Urmari don't just give away galactic drive unless it
otherwise suits their ends.  The Urmari in both galaxies see
taking you all now as  fulfillment of the bargain Palpatine
breached."

     Mulder leaned closer to Adams, enthralled.  He had that
look on his face, like when he was totally consumed by a
case.  An expression that was mirrored on Ben.  Scully
closed her eyes under the weight of the realization that
this nightmare might actually be true.  Mulder asked, "How
can they communicate across the galaxies?"

     "The Urmari focus on two things, hunger and the
bargain. All of their Force energy is directed to those two
goals.  It's strong enough to bind them to the Vespiary in
another galaxy."

     Mulder's eyes were wide with wonder, "You mean like a
hive mentality?"

     Adams gave Mulder an incredulous look, then laughed.
"This isn't a bad Kevin Anderson sci fi novel." Scully's
heart sank when Mulder returned Adams' grin.  Two sides of a
coin.  Her fingers went to her small cross and began to
twirl the necklace ruthlessly.

     "So, bottom line. If I kill one of these bounty hunters
I can get the Force back?"

     "That's what our fath," Ben stopped short when he felt
his brother's chest tighten, "he said."

     "Mulder, stop," Scully said. "Think about what you're
talking about here."

     "Scully, this is something I have to do," he brushed
her words off like an annoying fly buzzing around his face.

     "No. No, it's not," Scully said, getting to her feet.

     "She's right, Mulder," Han said, also standing. "Think
a minute" Suddenly Scully collapsed into him.  Grasping the
floundering woman, Han was distracted, his wavering
attention the opening Adams had waited for.  With a
struggling, strangled curse, Han dropped to the floor,
Scully gently following, falling next to him.

     Mulder turned on his brother, accusingly.  "What the
hell did you do!"

     "They're unharmed," Adams assured him. "But they
weren't going to let you go."

     Mulder knelt down by Scully.  Her pulse was strong, her
breathing even.  He gently brushed her hair off her face and
silently apologized for leaving her behind.  Again.  Then he
stood and headed for the door.  "Let's go."

        *   *    *

     The brothers hurried down the stairs, not bothering
with the elevator, and rushed out into the parking lot.

     "No, we can't take your car," Ben said dismissively
when Mulder moved to get his keys.

     "Why not?" Mulder called after the retreating back.
     "Let's just say its movements are very well known."

     "Why am I not surprised?" Mulder had to jog, and caught
up with his brother at a black Nissan Pathfinder half a
block away.

     Adams climbed in and had released the automatic lock by
the time Mulder reached him. "Seeds?" he extended a half
eaten bag toward his brother after he was settled.

     Mulder froze.  "No thanks," he finally managed, softly.
That small, unconscious gesture had spoken volumes. How many
times had he himself asked that same question of others?

     Ben, noticing the change, tossed the bag of seeds
aside, starting the car and pulling out with an anxious look
around.  "What is it, Fox?"

     The comment had the desired effect; it brought a small
smile to the FBI agent's stricken expression.  "My brother
you may be, but don't think it means you can get away with
calling me..."

     Ben laughed, "I know. You hate it."

     Mulder nodded, again sobering.  They rode for a time in
silence, whipping past the flat, brightly lit suburban
sprawl that lined Route 66.  He asked, "You seem to know a
lot about me, while I know next to nothing about you."

     Ben shrugged, focusing his eyes on the road ahead. "Ask
away."

     Mulder thought for a second before he asked the burning
question. "Why now?"

     "Why now, what?" Ben stalled, shifting uncomfortably in
his seat.

     Mulder continued patiently. "Why now after all he's
done?"

     "You know why," Ben insisted. "I explained all that
already."

     "No. I know what you told us, that he was going to
trade you for Mara and so you decided to ...defect. Aren't
you afraid that he's going to kill you for betraying him?"

     "No," Ben shook his head. "He won't kill me."

     "How do you know?" Mulder persisted with irritating
patience.

     "I'm blood. You don't kill blood."

     "But you can betray it? Maim it?"  Mulder softly
reasoned, adding with a cynical humph, "dysfunctional with a
twist."

     "No, Mulder. You just don't understand him.  Use us as
pawns, yes, but he wouldn't kill his own sons."  Mulder
wondered which of them he was trying to convince.

     "Oh? And he just conveniently forgot that in New Mexico
when he ordered that train burned with me inside?"  Mulder's
question was dry and his tone derisive.

     When Ben did not reply, Mulder continued the
interrogation. "So, why did you stay so long?"

     Long seconds passed. "Having a father like ou, like he
is, well there is a strong incentive for obedience. I did
what I was told."

     "And now you're doing penance? Save your dear brother
and preserve your own hide?"  Mulder spoke with more
vehemence than he had intended and muffled the remaining
thoughts before they flowed out unbidden.

     Anger was met and raised.  "Look, he didn't tell me
everything!! I didn't even know what he'd done until last
night. And then when I found out you were my brother... I
was in shock, I couldn't believe it, II didn't know what to
do. I just" Ben broke off with a sigh, forcing himself to
calm down. "Mulder, we're blood."

     "Yeah? Well, so's he and I think he's capable of
killing his own mother if it meant more power."

     A heavy silence weighed in the car.  When Ben did not
respond, Mulder asked, "What?  What did I say?"

     Now an even heavier sigh punctuated the stillness.
"It's just that that's what he did."

     Mulder was confused. "What do you mean?"

     "He traded me for power."

     The wrenchingly bitter, flat sentence was baffling.  "I
thought he was trading you for Mara."

     Ben's bark of ironic laughter was harsh, "Why do you
think he wanted her Mulder?  Wanted her so badly he'd trade
his son's soul for her?"

     "I don't know," Mulder stammered slightly.  "I guess I
thought ..."

     Picking up the tenor of Mulder's speculation Ben again
snorted with disgust.  "Your limited world view is showing.
Solo had said a common concubine wouldn't be worth all of
this and he was right.  Not that she wouldn't be ..."

     At Mulder's objection to the crude expression, Adams
laughed again.  "This isn't about sex.  When you get the
Force back, you'll see what I mean."  Even now, his breath
and voice quickened with the memory of it. "Jade is a lens
for our power in the Force, she augments it, increases it."
He wandered, recalling the thrill with a shudder, then
concluding matter of factly to Mulder's disgust.  "When we
touch her in the Force, she acts as a catalyst, it's almost
like a drug."

     "What do you mean 'we'?"  Mulder was aghast.

     "Our grandfather did it, Mulder.  Hasn't that
registered yet?  You think our father is bad?  You should
have met Palpatine."  Ben shook his head wonderingly,
bemused at Mulder's palpably horrified reaction.  "He
planted in her mind places for him, for us, so that when we
connect with Jade, she amplifies our Force awareness. I
think she would have the same effect on any Force sensitive,
if he knew how to tap into her."

     Mulder was reeling with the generational tragedies and
legacies.  At every turn, more truths, ugly, stark truths
rose from the deep that he now knew he could have happily
lived his life never seeing.  Ben continued, musing,
perceptive, and ruthless, "In fact, I bet that's part of
Skywalker's attraction to her, although he's too obtuse to
realize it."

     "Come on," Mulder objected, heatedly denying the
disturbing observation.  "He'd never do anything to hurt
Mara."  He finished with a sneer, "Like you and dear old dad
did last night."

     Ben scoffed at the irony Mulder had missed, "I wouldn't
think that you would the one to so casually dismiss the
allure of power and knowledge, brother."

     Stung, Mulder turned his head away to stare moodily out
the window at the dark rolling Virginia countryside.  The
Matthew Sweet tape ending with a whirl, Adams reached down,
and casually flipped the cassette, partly with his fingers,
partly Forceaided.  The movement interrupted Mulder's
brooding.  He watched the effortlessness of the maneuver
with a pang of longing.

     Comprehending this as well, Adams said softly, "You'll
learn to do it too, Mulder."

     "Do you think you could teach me some of things you and
the others can do?" Mulder could not banish the wistfulness
entirely.

     Adams' cheery "Sure," faded into a frown.

     Now Mulder retreated.  "Sorry, I just thought..."

     His brother interrupted.  "No, that's not it.  Of
course I would.  I just don't know if I'll be able to."

     A hint of warning and concern. "Why?"

     Another quiet, tense moment spread out before them, as
Ben weighed his words.  "I just don't know if I'll be around
once this all is over."

     Once again, Ben had completely lost Mulder.  "What are
you talking about?"

     Slowly, Ben made the admission.  "Your new friends came
all the way here just because of who I **might** be.  I
can't see them leaving me behind."

     "How can you say such a thing, Adams?  Leia, Han, Luke,
they're...they wouldn't hurt you. Not now."

     Ben's sardonic laughter filled the car.  "If Solo
doesn't kill me outright, his wife will take me back in
restraints, in a ysalamiri lined cell, to stand trial for
war crimes.  There is no way they are going to let a
grandson of Palpatine wander free in any galaxy."

     "They wouldn't do that."

     Another interrupting laugh.  "Mulder, I know you think
they are nice, fun, albeit heavily armed people.  But do you
really understand who they are?  What they've done?  Do you
know how many millions they have killed, how many billions
they have watched die?  What they have been through makes
Hitler look like an amateur."

     Mulder tried reasoning.  "Sure, Solo's got a lawless
streak, but what about Leia?  She would be reasonable..."

     Adams shattered that illusion as well.  "On our
grandfather's orders, she watched her father and another man
obliterate her entire planet the planet she grew up on, mind
you. And she still wouldn't tell them where their Rebellion
was based.  She's as nuts as the rest of them Mulder.  And
if she isn't, she should be."

     "Well, Skywalker's a Jedi," Mulder protested,
understanding that was important without knowing why.  "He
wouldn't..."

     "Skywalker is a disaster waiting to happen."

     The utter certainty and lack of rancor surprised
Mulder.  He asked.  "What do you mean?"

     "If Skywalker ever figures out what Jade could do for
him, he'd be unstoppable."  With Mulder's complaint at the
characterization, Ben only smiled, secure and discerning.
"I know what I am talking about here.  As it is, a
halftrained Jedi is far more dangerous than a weak one.
Skywalker's had to do most of it on his own, and it shows.
He's idealistic, angry, very powerful, and under this marked
delusion that lives and universes depend on him."  Ben
paused for a breath, eyes wandering along the now very empty
and dark road as they traversed the Shenandoah Valley of
rural Virginia.

     Mulder respected the silence, watching and listening
too, wondering what it would be like to really see and hear
again.  Ben began philosophically, reflectively.  "The Force
doesn't just run in families Mulder.  There are traits in
the Force that are passed along as well. In the Skywalkers
you see a lot of arrogance, righteousness and idealism.
With us ..."

     He trailed off, allowing Mulder to conclude the
thought.  "It's not a very attractive picture, is it?"

     "No," Ben said shaking his head.  "Our family is very
gifted with the Force, but tend to the aggressive side,
obsessive, domineering, and," here he shot a meaningful
glance at his brother. "There is a strong self destructive
tendency."

     The knowing comment shook Mulder more than all he had
yet heard.  Miles passed before he spoke again.  "Mara said
the Force wasn't worth it."

     Looking ahead to things that Mulder did not yet see,
one brother reflected to the other.  "She may be right."

     They continued on.


     *    *    *

     She knew when Fox and Ben left and surmised what had
happened.  He's done it again she mused, ascending in the
elevator to Fox's apartment, and wondering for the millionth
time why she stuck it out with him.  She hesitated only a
moment before letting herself in; Dana was lying on the
floor next to the infamous man she knew only by reputation.
She knelt beside the FBI agent, hazarding a guess as to just
how furious Dana would be on awakening. "Agent Scully, wake
up."

     A groan from the smuggler made rousing Agent Scully all
the more urgent.  She did not want to try to explain her
presence to a no doubt very skeptical Solo unless Scully was
conscious, and besides, her Basic was so rusty as to likely
be unintelligible.  "Agent Scully, you must wake up... NOW!"

     Scully's blue eyes flew open and a colorful curse flew
out as she comprehended what had happened. "He's done it
again, hasn't he?"

     She nodded, now helping Scully up, then turned slowly
at the sound behind her.  The muzzle of a Blas Tech DL heavy
blaster stared back at her.

     Keeping her hands out at her sides, fingers splayed,
sincerely wishing to avoid any unpleasantness with the
heavily armed alien, she pivoted back to Scully. "Fox is
going somewhere that he should not be."

     "The Vespiary?" Both Scully and Solo asked.

     "Yes."  Still looking at Scully, knowing that a large
blaster was pointed at her back, she said, "I am going to
put my right hand into my pocket and get a piece of paper
with an address on it.  I hope your friend, who by the way,
it is an honor to meet, does not blast me and the paper."

     Scully smirked, enjoying being on the other end of the
blaster so to speak with her ally of convenience. "I guess
that depends on what's on the paper."

     She slowly reached into her pocket to retrieve the slip
containing directions to a retreat in the Shenandoah of
Virginia. "You understand that certain of your new friends
should not go with you, although I doubt that will stop
them."

     Solo answered for Scully, in halting English.  "You are
right about that."  She noted that with a casual thumb, Solo
engaged the safety on his blaster.

     "It's a trap, isn't it?"  Scully's voice was weighted
with suspicion and resignation.

     "Of course.  The Cancer Man knows you will follow Fox
and if your friends go with you, all you will do is save the
bounty hunters the effort of tracking down their bargained
for meal."

     Scully asked, "Is Adams in on it?"

     She spoke now with genuine and fearful uncertainty.  "I
believe Fox will be the first to find out."

     Han now put in, the hesitancy only in the language
skill, not the resolve, "How many Urmari at Vespiary?"

     "Maybe fifty, maybe more, maybe less." She reached into
her coat pocket and placed several small items in Scully's
hand. "Place these over your nostrils before you go in."

     "Why? What are they?" Scully questioned as she fiddled
with one.

     Han injected, "bio-filters."

     Yes, the man matched the reputation she thought.  Aloud
she said only, "indeed.  Your friends will show you how to
use them."

     "Why are you telling us all this?" Scully demanded.

     "Everything dies Dana.  But somethings should not die
yet."  She minced toward the door, urging.  "Don't waste
anymore time."   She swiftly left the apartment.


     *    *    *

     Within the hour, Scully was driving the alien commando
team into the night, to the Blue Ridge mountains of the
Shenandoah. She remembered the last time she'd been in the
area, on one of Mulder's wild UFO chases. He'd been giddy,
almost manic with the prospect of a promising lead and had
sung John Denver songs to her... "country roads take me
home... to the place I belong..." as he consumed sunflower
seed after sunflower seed, the shells carelessly discarded
on the floor. By the time he'd worked his way up to "Thank
God I'm a Country Boy," she'd wanted to kill him.  She
wanted to kill him even more now.

     During the hushed, taut drive, Scully mused how much
this was a replay of the last four years.  Mulder had left
her behind, again.  He had jumped headlong into a trap,
again.  She was charging after him, again.  She was vowing
that if he did not get himself killed, she was going to the
honors, again.

     The past hour had confirmed that the others were
similarly following a different, but equally well rehearsed
script.  Each member of the team lapsed into his or her
assigned roles with comfortable ease.  Skywalker was the
Jedi, Organa Solo, the negotiator, and Mara Jade the
assassin, all, as Scully had already seen, competently
deadly in their own right.  But for all their proficiency,
the three now yielded with subtle deference to the command
of "General Solo."

     Even with the urgency, Han made them run through a
checklist clearly long since committed to memory and honed
to a practiced edge.  They all checked their equipment and
inspected the thermal detonators; given the respect afforded
these devices, Scully concluded they were quite lethal.  Han
even made Scully examine and reload her gun, and after
asking inordinate questions about the number of rounds per
magazine, time to reload under fire, range and accuracy,
watched as she stashed extra rounds in her coat pockets.
Then, one by one, Han made them rehearse where each person
had stashed his or her ice pick, and with Mara's willing
assistance, demonstrated where and how to drive the pick
into an Urmari and still pierce the base of the skull.

     Han also briefed them; there was no other better
description, on what they had learned from Adams and from
Mr. X.  He was succinct: "unknown target, they're expecting
us, and use of the Force is prohibited.  Once we do our
reconnaissance, the objectives are simple, get Mulder out,
blow up as many Urmari as we can, take down the Cancer Man,
and hit orbit running." He then placed a brief transmission
to Chewbacca to be certain the Wookiee was ready for pickup.

     If his team smirked, it was not at their leader, or his
terse briefing, but at the familiar tradition of it all.
Leia put in, "Seems like old times, General," as Luke
quipped, "Should we call up Artoo to get the odds?"

     Han responded with a wry grin, allowing himself to be
set up, "You **know** what I say to that one, kid."

     The team chorused, like a ritual mantra before battle,
"Never tell General Solo the odds!!"



     *    *    *

     "So, ever killed one of these things before?" Mulder
asked, trying not to let his anxiety show, knowing Ben would
sense it regardless.  Truth be told he was feeling pretty
guilty for leaving Scully behind. Past experience had proved
this to be bad strategy. Then again, it wasn't fair to drag
her into this mess. His mess and that of his brother and...
father. He reached for his brother's bag of seeds and
started in.

     Ben shook his head, glad of at least the change in
subject. "No, but I've had a very active fantasy life in
that regard. They're as creepy as hell."

     "You have a plan?" Mulder assumed this was true and was
simply awaiting details.

     Ben nodded not all together reassuringly. "I know where
to find them."

     "Which means you have a plan," Mulder insisted.

     "Yeah, sure," Ben shrugged.

     "Do you at least know how to kill one?!" Mulder was
incredulous. After all this time they'd been driving...

     "He didn't tell me everything!!" Ben repeated. "But
I've overheard things. I ... I know things from the Master
who taught me.. I can do it."

     Mulder pinched the bridge of his nose. "All right," he
began with a heavy sigh. "And what about their toxic blood,
the retro virus? Is there any thing we can do about that?"

     Ben reached under the seat and produced a small black
cassette case. He removed the one labeled: Red Hot Chili
Peppers and opened it one handed.  He shoved the tape in
Mulder's direction.  "Here, take these and put them on."
Inside were a number of figure eight shaped transparent
plastic pieces.

     "Um...how?"

     Ben reached over, picked up a pair and demonstrated.
"See?" he said after placing the device directly over his
nostrils. The thing immediately vanished against the surface
of his skin. "It melds with your skin and allows you to
breathe through an invisible biofilter."

     Mulder was impressed. He pocketed a couple extras.

     "All right, we're here," Ben said, slamming the tapes
back into the case and shoving all beneath the seat.

     They had traveled at least two hours, the last 10 miles
on a narrow, and utterly deserted one and a half lane rural
route.  The journey had brought them to a metal gate, an
empty guardhouse and discrete lighting illuminating a hand
carved sign that read: 'Blue Hills New Age Retreat.'  As the
car rolled forward, a brilliant light suddenly shone from
above, calculated to temporarily blind any drivers who
approached the automated sentry.

     Ben was obviously prepared for this. While Mulder
shielded his eyes, against the unexpected glare, Ben simply
scanned his card through the slot and waited for the gate to
swing up out of the way.

     "We're in," he let out a calming breath before heading
slowly beyond the guardhouse into the compound proper. They
continued on past several sheds and what looked like storage
tanks. If Mulder had expected Force sucking fiends to
surround them upon breaching the sanctuary, he was
disappointed.  It was deserted, modestly, lit, quite
peaceful and thoroughly, and deceptively innocuous.  One
large concrete block building, four stories high, sat ugly
and undefended in the middle of the compound.  The building
only became peculiar on closer inspection.  Mulder saw but
one door, all the windows were shuttered and blinded.  No
light, no life, no movement could be discerned within.  Ben
pulled the vehicle to a stop behind the storage shed
furthest from the building.

     Mulder felt a change in his brother almost as soon as
they passed the shack.  He put it down to tension.  It
wasn't everyday one got to betray a family member,
regardless of how evil.  As Mulder moved to open the car
door. Ben stopped him. "Wait. There's something you need to
know."  Mulder turned back.

     "I know you know about the picks. But that won't help
in releasing the Force.  They have to be cut down in the
presence of another Jedi.  When that happens, the Urmari's
captive Force is released.  But..."  here he hesitated,
until Mulder urged, "Yeah?"

     With another deep breath, Ben continued.  "For this to
work, we have to link, mentally.  I have to channel the
Force back to you and that means you are going to have to
open your mind to me."  He paused.  "Do you trust me enough
to do that?"

     Mulder looked away, the familiar words, Trust No One,
dancing through his brain. No one but Scully. Those words
had become a way of life. A protection. Could he let go of
them so easily? But he wanted the Force back, needed it.  A
thought struck, and he turned again to his brother.  "Who do
you trust?" he asked.

     Ben was taken aback at the blunt challenge.  "I used to
trust my father, but now... no one." He seemed equally
surprised at the answer.

     Mulder grinned at him. "I trust you."

     Ben returned the smile with an odd look. "One other
thing," he added. "Once you get the Force back, you may feel
some pretty strange things.  The Urmari shed a very
aggressive aura in the Force.  You may feel like you are in
the middle of a dumpster of rotting garbage.  I'll help you,
but you'll need to follow my lead.  Okay?"

     "All right, already," Mulder nodded his agreement, with
no understanding of what Ben was talking about.  He was
suddenly impatient to be underway.

     "That building is the Vespiary. That's where they are."
Ben pointed to a concrete block building two hundred yards
away. "At this time of evening most are there preparing to
link to the collective. It's a way of joining with the
others here, kinda like discussing your day over dinner. It
strengthens them. After that they like to feed. I'd like to
hit them before they feed, that's when they're the most
vulnerable."

     "Exactly how many of *them* are we talking?" Mulder
asked. He'd seen what one bounty hunter could do. He wasn't
all together sure he cared to know what a whole group could
do, even vulnerable.

     "Maybe fifty or so," Ben shrugged, checking a blaster
before handing it to Mulder. "Back up," he said. "In case
you loose one or something."

     "I get your point," Mulder assured him as they crept
along the last stretch of clearing toward the main building.
"Which way?" They'd reached the side of the building.

     Ben gestured a silent reply to the left. Both men,
virtually identical in the dark, slunk down alongside the
wall and crept toward the door. Ben pulled a card from a
zippered compartment in his boot and ran it through the door
scanner. A light pinged green to allow them entry.


     *    *    *

     Following the instructions, Scully turned into a
graveled road, lights of the Vespiary shining less than a
half mile away.  The area was heavily wooded, the moon and
stars barely visible through the thick, strong scented pine.
Han, riding shotgun, ordered, "Pull over to the side, turn
around so the car's facing out, toward the road.  We go the
rest of the way on foot."  Scully almost responded, "Yessir,
General, sir," but merely complied.

     The only sounds were the soft ones of the night and the
crunch of booted feet on gravel.  Solo veered off the path,
leading them, under cover of the trees, by a circuitous
route towards the Vespiary.  He and Scully taking the point,
they climbed a low rise, and by unspoken accord, crept along
the needlesharp ground, edging up and forward.  The compound
was softly lit and but for an unmanned guard house, and gate
to the main road, unfenced and not patrolled.  One large
concrete block building squatted in the center, shuttered,
closed.  Encircling the main building, like scattered beads,
were small sheds; vehicles, equipment, and storage tanks
peeped out from their darkened interiors.

     Scully had moved next to an attentively scanning Han.
He muttered to her sardonically, "Doesn't **that** look
inviting."

     She agreed, "A little too easy, I think."

     Han studied the scene, then asked, pointing, "Those
tanks, over by the sheds, what are those do you think?"  He
handed her an oddly shaped pair of binoculars, and she was
startled to realize they were another galaxy's version of
night vision goggles.

     Peering through them, Scully finally concluded, "A
place this remote is probably not serviced by typical
utilities.  I think one tank may be part of a septic system,
another is probably for water.  The ones nearest and
furthest," she pointed, "are propane, heating or fuel oil of
some type."

     "Flammable?" Han asked.

     "Very."

     Looking over his shoulder, he asked, "What's wrong with
the others?"  Leia, Mara and Luke were huddled at the base
of rise, under sheltering trees.  Han and Scully snuck back
down and found the others blanched and badly shaken.

     Scully asked, "What's wrong," even as Han concluded
curtly, "Jedi thing right?"

     Luke nodded, ashen.  "The whole place reeks in the
Force..."

     In a shuddering whisper, Leia said, "It stinks of death
and cold, and..."

     "Hunger, ravenous hunger," Mara finished.

     "As we got closer, we all had the same reaction," Luke
explained.  "It's almost instinctive, you want to put up a
mental barrier in the Force to block it out."

     "Adams said the Urmari can detect that," Scully said,
heart sinking, eyes darting from one shivering Force
sensitive to another.

     "Bet they use it to make their prey give itself away,"
Han concluded.

     Three nods, Leia adding, "It's very effective."

     Han ran an anxious hand over his face, making some
swift decisions and changes in the plan that had been
forming since Adams first described the Vespiary.  "There's
one main building; nothing else looks like it's used for
anything except equipment. The building is very solid, too
big to blow with a single charge.  Even with the three we
have, it'll be a tight shave.  Luke, Dana and I go inside,
we'll look for Mulder and plant one, as deep in as we can."

     Both Leia and Mara began muted protests, but Han put up
a warning hand.  "If it's that difficult to keep from
springing a mental barrier, I don't want any of you inside.
But Luke's got better control than either of you do, right?"
With their grudging nods of assent, Han reached into a bag
slung over his shoulder.  He removed two detonators and
handed them to Leia and Mara.  "Dana spotted flammable
fuels.  You both will need to figure a way to get those
tanks or the fuel as close to the building as possible,
plant the detonators on a time delay, and then meet us back
here."

     Agreeing on the timing, the five then crept back up the
hill.  With a squeeze to his wife, Han's delivered the final
instruction, "Remember, from the time we enter the building,
thirty minutes.  Then it blows."

     Scully gave in to the fear, "What if we can't find
Mulder in that time?"

     "We will Dana," Han promised, with genuine assurance,
"we will."  With a jerk of his head, he indicated Luke and
Scully should follow him; slipping slightly on the slick
carpet of needles, the three stole slowly down the hill.
Mara and Leia both marked on their wrist chrons when, with
fleeting glances up to them, Han, Luke and Dana disappeared
into the building.


     *    *    *


     The building was very quiet, very dim and very cold;
none was unusual for the Urmari. Ben, though accustomed to
the aggressive stench multiple Urmari leaked in the Force,
had to stop and clear his head upon entering the building.
He didn't dare use the Force just yet.

     "What is it?" Mulder asked concerned as his brother
leaned heavily against the wall.

     "Nothing. It's just that it can be difficult to not
block them when one is a trained Jedi." He pushed off from
the wall and moved forward. "It's all right," he assured a
still worried Mulder.

     "Shouldn't we be seeing one or something," Mulder
whispered as they slunk through the bare concrete corridor.
There were occasionally doors with colored key pads glowing
red and locked.  Corridors wound into darkness, but there
were no windows, no life, no light, no sound.

     "No.  These are the work rooms.  They live and eat
upstairs.  That's where most of them are now, meditating.
There is an atrium further down this hall, they have a
communications setup there, some video games..."

     "You're kidding?"

     Ben turned, flashing a grin.  "No.  Get this, they
really like the old Pac Man games."  Mulder stifled a laugh
as Ben continued, edging again down the hall. "After the
meditation, they will trickle down one or two at a time to
the atrium.  They congregate there for their link to the
Vespiary.  They are very hungry, so it makes their joining
to the collective easier.  But physically, they are at their
weakest, so that's when we'll get one."

     The hall widened, emptying into a doorway.  A pool of
glowing light beyond the door, and the promise of opening
space,  beckoned.  Adams slowed, moving even more
cautiously.  He muttered. "It's always really tempting to
use the Force to try to sense if there is anyone in there,
but that's just what they want you to do."  Flat against the
barely sheltering dark corridor, Adams now gestured Mulder
closer.  They peeked around the doorway.

     Mulder saw a small, utterly ordinary, auditorium like
space open up.  Fed by the hallway at their end, on the far
side, at the room's corners, twin sets of steps marched
upwards, and faded into darkened stairwells.  In between,
clusters of folding chairs, and as Ben had said, the shiny
black tables that housed old fashioned video games. It was
deserted.

     With a jerk of his head and another cautious look
around, Ben stepped into the atrium, and moved towards one
of the stairs, his plan now immediately clear:  lie in wait
for an Urmari to emerge, strike it down and get the hell out
of there.

     They did not have the anxiety of dawdling in the cold,
utilitarian room.  They both heard the sounds of light steps
descending.  Ben produced his light saber and quickly
demonstrated for Mulder what was necessary. At Mulder's nod
of understanding, Ben passed the weapon to his brother.

     Mulder took the saber, it glowing blue and alive in his
hands, heart thudding against his ribs, his shirt sticking
to him despite the cool.  Was he really about to do this?
The hum filled the room in the stillness.  The steps on the
stairs quickened.  Mulder shifted his feet, and raised the
saber up, preparing to strike down the slight form that
suddenly emerged on the stair.


     *    *    *

     Leia and Mara waited a full five minutes after the
building swallowed the others.  The oppressive weight of the
black Urmari voracity pressed them into the dirt and pine
needles.  It was a palpable, rank manifestation of the
Force; the compulsion to simply block it out was
overwhelming, almost paralyzing.  With a shake of her head,
Leia tried to dislodge the heavy, fetid presence that filled
her mind and nostrils, clung to her skin, coated her mouth
and eyes.

     Leia glanced at Mara.  The other woman had buried her
head in her hands and the ground; she was breathing hard, in
short, despairing gasps.  She squeezed Mara's slim shoulder,
"You okay?"

     Mara nodded into the dirt, "It's worse than anything I
ever felt with Palpatine.  It's..."

     With another shake, Leia cut her off, handing Mara the
macrobinoculars, "Take a look.  Let's see if anyone's
about."

     With a steadying hand, Mara peered through binocs,
adjusting the controls to compensate for the light of the
building.  "I see the tanks Solo and Dana mentioned."

     She handed them to Leia who now searched the area as
well, "Nothing's moving.  Let's get down there, set up the
far tank first."  Mara was already on her feet, skittering
down the slope, Leia right behind her.

     They circled wide, avoiding the building, staying out
of sight of the shuttered windows, hugging the rear of the
storage sheds, and sweating with each edgy and labored step
to not do what every instinct for selfpreservation demanded
that they do; hide from the voracious Urmari hunger.
Clutching the trunk of a tree like a raft in a storm, Leia
muttered, "I never thought I was this dependent on the
Force."

     Mara finished, "Until now."

     They reached the first tank with no interruption.  It
was nestled halfway into a shed, jutting out like a white
tongue from a dark mouth.  Studying the tank more closely,
they were gratified to spy red flames decorating its surface
and the words Leia translated as "CAUTION  HIGHLY
FLAMMABLE."  Mara reminded her, "red means danger or stop in
nearly every language."  More daunting was that the tank was
nearly three meters high, twice as long and a full twenty
meters from the rear of the Vespiary.

     The women slowly circled it, Mara abruptly pulling up
at one point.  "What is it?" Leia hissed, alarmed.

     Dressed in black, framed in black, Mara stood still,
turning slowly, listening, blaster and pick drawn.

     Leia ached to reach out with the Force, something in
her mind prompting her to tap ever so slightly into the
sixth sense that would allow her to detect if she and Mara
were truly alone with Shenandoah night.  She ruthlessly beat
back the impulse.

     Hearing only the sounds of their pounding hearts, they
returned to their reconnaissance of the tank.  Mara spotted
it first and heaved with relief.  "Leia!!"  In the still
night, even her whisper seemed too loud.  "It's on wheels."

     Leia joined her at the rear of the tank, "Sometimes old
fashioned ways work best.  Do we dare just push it?"

     Mara was already putting her scant weight into it, "I
don't have any better ideas."  She grunted, with the effort,
and Leia joined her.  "Besides we don't have that much
time."

     A creak so loud it split the quiet compound
reverberated through the air as the tank began to roll
across the spongy turf.  It picked up speed, and for a
panicked moment, they thought it would crash right into the
wall of the Vespiary.  Scrambling, digging their heels in,
Mara and Leia grasped frantically at the tank's rungs.  With
a bump and feminine curses, the tank slowed to a stop, but a
meter from the building.

     They both leaned heavily against the tank, panting
heavily.  Leia was sucking on her hand.  "You okay?"  Mara
asked with surprising solicitude.

     Leia nodded.  "Just broke a nail."

     "Commando occupational hazard," Mara quipped. "We
should  all get hazard pay for this assignment." Leia's
retort died in the making, as they both heard the snapping
twig at the same instant.  The women whirled around,
blasters already drawn, picks in hand, pulse and hearts
hammering.

     "There!!" Mara rasped.  Leia squinted and saw it too.
They waited, watching a dark shadow lurking lightly across
dried, dead leaves.  As Leia and Mara slowly mastered their
pounding fear, the hulking blackness devolved.  What had
been a monster, became with calm returning, a small furry
mammal, hopping out on to the grass.  Mara pointed her
blaster at it, but Leia stopped her, reaching a hand on top
of the cool metal, pushing the weapon back down.

     "No," she whispered.  They watched as the animal stood
on its hind legs, nose in the air, sniffing cautiously, then
with a furtive glance in their direction, hopped back
towards the woods.  Leia felt a creeping, wistful smile,
"It's Peter Rabbit."  She watched the rabbit until it
disappeared under a rickety fence, and into a thicket and
the dark, fragrant night.  She tugged Mara sleeve, "Plant
the detonator, set the timer, let's go."


     *    *    *

     Luke and Scully took the point, Han as rear guard.  The
keypadded front door had been but a minor annoyance to the
smuggler.  It had been easy, far too easy.  They snuck
slowly, quietly down the long corridor, every other avenue
locked, unlit, and forbidding.  None liked this feeling of
being herded forward, like animals to the slaughter.

     Scully shivered. It was freezing in here, like a
morgue. And she'd know, she mused. The place had a similar
feel. Sterile. Silent. Oppressive.  She glanced at her
watch, they had less than seventeen minutes to find Mulder,
plant the bomb, and get the hell outta there.

     "I'd say it's just a little too quiet around here," Han
commented quietly. Scully nodded her agreement.

     "Yeah, I can't sense anything," Luke replied, peering
around.

     "Luke," Han scolded. "Don't use the Force!"

     Luke grimaced. "I used the Force," he confessed.

     As if on cue, the light on a securely locked door
clicked green and slid open.  Two black shapes, gross
caricatures of humans, flowed through the maw, teeth
gnashing, voices like whispers of the dead, flinging
themselves like rabid dogs at Luke.  He stumbled falling
back, and fortunately clear.  Scully whirled and so close
she could smell the stink of rotting flesh, buried her gun
in the neck of one.  Han's swift and deadly accurate blaster
bolt ripped through the skull and face of the other.

     Luke looked almost casually down at the smoking,
stinking carnage.  "Oops."

     Scully slugged him in the arm. Hard. "What part of
don't use the Force didn't you understand, Skywalker?"


     *    *    *

     Mulder froze, disbelieving before the person that had
descended the steps.

     "Mulder! Now!" Ben hissed at his stupefied brother.

     "Samantha?" Mulder croaked, ignoring the pesky fly
calling his name so far away. He only had eyes for the dark
haired little girl who had emerged from the stairwell to
stand before him.

     She smiled, tears in her eyes, joyous. "Fox? What are
you doing here?"

     Ben took control.  Heedless, with a snatch of the
Force, he tried yanking the saber out of Mulder's white
knuckled grip.  But Mulder, and the glowing light saber in
his hand were firmly rooted.

     In the instant Ben accessed the Force, the black evil
of the creature spilled out of the form of a beautiful
child.  It spun like a sucking whirlpool towards Ben,
grasping now at the Jedi with desperate hunger. "Nice of you
to come for dinner," its black tongue licked dripping lips.

     The sight thawed the ice that had frozen Mulder in
place.  He lunged at the creature knocking it off balance
and falling atop it. The cold, dark flesh writhed beneath
his stunned senses and flowed away to reform into a fist
that punched him squarely across the jaw. He fell back
against the hard floor and hit his head. Hard.  The saber
rolled away.

     Through stars he saw the Urmari envelop Ben, its arms
everywhere.  Mulder heard his brother's muted screams and
other sounds but no words, urgent, pleading, like a hungry
wind seeping through cracks.  He blinked, as the image
devolved, something so tall its head brushed the ceiling,
and more horrible, a large mouth, plunging down toward Ben.

      Mulder dived for the saber and charged at the pair
locked in a starving embrace.  The Urmari, intent on
feeding, brushed the FBI agent away like a bug, then
returned to cajoling its prey to use the Force and halt the
stinking ravenous assault.  Mulder slammed into the wall,
and threw himself forward again, igniting the saber.  With a
ferocious, blind attack, Mulder swung at the Urmari's
ravening jaw, bent over his brother.  It reared up and back
screeching in agony, and crashed to the floor.

     "Kill it!" Ben gasped, struggling up.  "That wasn't
enough..."

     Mulder straddled the large, twitching body.  Holding
the lightsaber pointed down, in both hands, he began the
driving, killing stroke, when the body transformed again,
his little sister. "Help me, Fox! Help!" she screamed, her
hands clutched over her head in pleading helplessness.

     Mulder closed his eyes and plunged the saber downward.


     *    *    *

     Seven minutes. Seven minutes to find Mulder and save
him from himself... again. Scully ran through a repertoire
of curses in her mind that would have made the men on her
father's ship blush as she continued her age old debate
about whether to rescue her partner or shoot him herself.
Oh, and she kept herself alert for the next onslaught of
Forcesucking vampires. She glared back at Luke. There was
another one she wouldn't mind putting out of her misery. And
if he used the Force again, she just might give into the
impulse.

     Han, who was currently taking the point, stopped and
motioned to them to follow suit. He seemed to consider the
open hallway gaping in front of him. They'd already run into
a number of such passages. The building seemed to have been
designed by an architect fond of wide halls, high ceiling
and many passageways. Scully added him or her to her shit
list. She watched as Han tensed and then flung himself out
across an open corridor, firing wildly. No one fired back,
so he casually rolled to his feet and motioned them to join
him.

     "Even after all these years you haven't managed to
master the sneak attack," Luke commented wryly as he joined
Han on the other side.

     Han ignored him, all business. He surveyed the three
hallways laid out in front of him and furrowed his brow. He
didn't like the odds, but time and options were conspiring
against them. Again.

     Luke straightened and flinched as voices and the death
knell of an Urmari echoed down the corridor.  He pivoted to
his right and brought his saber to bear, just in time to
behead an Urmari emerging from one of those sliding doors.

     And then all hell broke loose. Doors flew open and
Urmari emerged from the walls like cockroaches scattering in
the light. Firing wildly, Han called to Scully, "Luke and I
will clear the exit. You get Mulder."

     Scully was halfway down the hall at a dead run before
Han even finished.


     *    *    *

     Mulder drove the blade through the little girl's neck,
felt the hot laser slice through flesh and bone.  A dark,
noxious cloud issued from the body, its fetid stench flowing
over him.  He dropped the saber and it clattered away,
rolling across the floor.  And then nothing.

     Ben gaped in disbelief. He had felt the Force leaving
the Urmari's fast decaying body, tainted, rancid and wholly
repulsive. Inhuman. He felt Mulder turn bewildered eyes on
him and then he felt something else.

     A tall form now stepped into the room from the other
staircase, enshrouded in smoke and an all too familiar
cackle.  They heard the soft sounds of clapping.  "Really,
boys, well done.  Very well done.  Such brotherly
camaraderie.  But you didn't really think that would work,
did you?"

     "Father," Ben gasped. He climbed slowly to his feet,
bowed under the weight of his father's treachery. "You
lied."

      The older man turned toward him, using his finger to
fling his son back to the floor like a gnat. "And you
betrayed me."

     Mulder suddenly came to life and launched himself at
his father, catching him around the middle and driving him
to the floor where he pinned him with a knee to the throat.
"Don't think that I'll hesitate to end your pathetic life
this time."

     "Don't try and threaten me, Fox, I've watched Emperor's
die."

     "And I'm looking forward to watching you die, dad,"
Mulder sneered, adding his hands to the assault on his
father's throat. "I'm going to laugh as I slowly choke the
last breath right out of you."

     "I'm proud of you, son," he rasped.

     Mulder increased the pressure on the man's windpipe.
"What'd you use to get her in your bed? A Jedi mind trick?
Did you force yourself on her?" His voice dropped to a
whisper.

     Cancer Man laughed through his collapsing airway. "She
came to me... she begged."

     "Liar!" Mulder, screamed, eyes glazed with blind rage.
Hands shaking at his father's throat, rage, disappointment
and utter hopelessness warred for attention in his tortured
psyche.  His father's face purpling beneath his hands, the
hated man whispered, "You're finally in the game, son."  And
then with a sudden, brutal Force blow, the father reasserted
his dominance, backhanding his son across the room to land
next to his brother.

     He smiled, thin lips pulling across yellow caked teeth
and surveyed his boys, sprawled on the cold concrete.  As
Mulder struggled to his feet, he felt another physical push,
shoving him back to the ground.  Their father lit another
cigarette.  "It is too bad, Fox, that you can never get the
Force back.  You are quite dark.  You would have been a
worthy successor to Vader."  He cocked his head to one side
as if listening, then smiled.  "They followed you, Mulder.
You knew they would.  **I** knew they would."

     Mulder erupted in another protest, Ben right behind,
both men fell gasping with a Force hand now firmly clutched
about their throats.  "I told you before Ben.  An enemies'
strengths are useful when dependable to the point of
predictability."  Another puff, and a lustful grimace, "Jade
should be unconscious by now.  Organa Solo and her brother
will be absorbed and that irritating smuggler quite dead.
And..."  Here he paused, and as they all listened, heard the
sounds of pounding feet in the corridor.

     The father looked up over his hapless sons, to the
hallway behind them.  "And I do believe that is the lovely
Agent Scully now.  So attractive to both my sons."  He
reached out with his arm, pointing towards the gaping
hallway, blue light flickering at his finger tips.  "Hmmmm,
boys what do you think?  Should I just kill her outright as
she leaps through that door to fearlessly rescue you?  Or,
you know she does have some small Force sensitivity.  Maybe
she should join you at the Urmari meal Ben?"  He laughed
again, maniacally, the blazing electricity dancing on his
hand.  "Then my two Forceless sons can fight to the death
for the honor of the Forceless Dana Scully."


     *    *    *


     Going round again, now towards the front of the
Vespiary, the identical tank presented a more difficult
challenge.  "No wheels," Mara muttered with a curse.  "How
much time?"

     Leia checked her chron, it seemed as if ages and but
seconds had past.  "Ten minutes."  She gave the tank an
experimental push; it wasn't going to budge.

     Circling round to the front, Mara whispered urgently,
"Leia!!"  Mara was crouched down at the front of the tank,
manipulating a spigot when Leia joined her.  Liquid began
gushing out of the tank, and Mara hurriedly sealed it off
again.  "Pretty straight forward I'd say."  Glancing up at
Leia, she knit her brows, nose wrinkling with the fumes that
had billowed out with fuel.  "Let's just empty the tank."

     Shaking her head, Leia pointed out the topography,
"Fuel may just run down the hill."  Glancing at the darkened
side of the building another twenty five or thirty meters
away, she added, "We need to get the fuel closer to the
building, even if we can't get the tank there."

     She squatted down next to Mara, and the women studied
the configuration.  Mara finally offered, "Hose.  A hose
would work."

     "Like this one?"  Leia spied a black coil, hanging on
her side of the tank; it appeared to be several meters long
and wide enough to fit over the spigot.  "We've gotta move
fast Mara, it'll take time for enough of this tank to empty
to do much good.  Check out your side, see if you can find
some more hose."

     With a curt nod, Mara rose, and edged along the side of
the mammoth tank.  Hearing Mara move and search, Leia
concentrated on the hose.  She yanked the length from its
hook, and quickly tightened the mouth over the spigot, then
standing, stretched the hose out, towards the building.  As
she was measuring out the distance, working a kink out in
the tubing, she felt it.

     Her skin prickled, senses alert, a foul, cold, stinking
odor wafting by.  Leia looked quickly up, but saw only Mara,
emerging out of the dim gloom, now waking towards her, one
hand trailing along the side of the tank, a coiled hose in
the other.  "I found some more," she hissed.

     Leia stared at the approaching woman, unable to shake
the sense of fundamental **wrongness.**  She whispered
urgently to Mara, "Do you sense it?  Something's close by."

     Mara paused, poised, testing the air.  She shook her
head in negation, "I don't feel anything," and continued her
stealthy advance.  She was less than three meters away, when
an awful wave broke over Leia.  Something was wrong, very
wrong; she was enveloped in a rising blackness, an intense,
insatiable thirst.  Leia wavered, her Force sense demanding
to protect her from the filthy ravishing.  The warning call
died in her throat, mouth dry as dust, and feet rooted to
the ground.  Leia knew she was being mesmerized, a rodent
unable to tear itself away from a serpent's unblinking gaze.

     A pleading entreaty spoke to her, cajoling sweetly,
"Use it.  Use the Force, Leia."  She realized with horror it
was Mara, eyes black and murky, face distorted, who was
whispering to her shattering resolve, approaching slowly,
impossibly long arms, like tentacles reaching into her,
reaching into her mind.

     Mara's smile twisted, revealing a row of fanged teeth
and a black, darting tongue.  Now within arm's reach, she
raised her arms, hands encircling Leia's head.  "Leia," the
fiend whispered, "you have such beautiful hair."  Leia
shuddered with the icy touch, felt the tendrils now working
through her.  Mara's black stare filled her vision.  Leia
clenched her fist, warding off the assault.  Searching for
the will to resist; her hand found the handle of the pick
she had never abandoned.

     "Now," Mara whispered, a cold wind on Leia's face, "use
it now."  With all the might of training, courage, and
blind, raw fear, Leia swung her right arm up, driving her
pick up, ramming it hard through Mara's throat.  She felt it
connect through tissue and flesh and finally hit deep, on
unyielding bone.  With a curse and a cry, she pushed, and
Mara tipped back, falling to the ground writhing, the pick
lodged in her white, frail neck.  With her foot, Leia
flipped Mara over, ignited her light saber and drove the tip
down, through the woman's lush red hair, into the back of
her head.  Mara squealed in death, thrashed, and then lay
still.

     Leia turned away, quailing at what the Urmari would
dissolve into.  Shaking, she stumbled and crawled the length
of the tank, finding Mara on the other side, unconscious.
She fell next to her, "Mara, Mara, wake up."  Leia shoved
harder, now slapping her, urgent.

     Groaning, Mara opened her eyes, then with comprehension
returning, frantically cast about in the Force, and ...
found her sense still remained.

     Leia shook her, warning, incoherent, "It knocked you
out.  Went after me.  We're running out of time.  Have to
get the tank."

     Mara rolled to her feet, now helping Leia stand.
Together, clutching one another against the reeking Urmari
molestation, they staggered back along the tank, retrieving
the hose the Urmari had dropped.  With a glance at the
black, smoking carcass polluting the ground, Mara pulled a
shattered Leia back to the task at hand.  "Come on.  Connect
the hose."  Leia was staring stupidly at it.  "Leia!!"  Mara
ordered, more stridently, penetrating the shock.  "Hold it
together."

     With another shake, Leia nodded and swiftly connected
the two hoses.  Mara dashed towards the Vespiary, running
the hose from the tank to the building.  Checking her chron,
Mara affixed the detonator to the wall; impossibly, they
still had another five minutes.  Hearing a gurgling sound,
Mara whipped around and realized that Leia had already
turned the spigot and fuel was gushing out on to the ground.
Mara, noted with chagrin, that the liquid was soaking her
boots and pant legs.

     The task done, Mara sprinted back to Leia and the two
women now ran back up the hill, away from the Vespiary.  At
the crest of the rise a sudden, powerful release of energy
in the Force threw them both to the ground.  "What was
that?!?" Leia gasped.


     Recovering first, Mara dragged Leia to her feet.  "I
don't know.  But they'd better get out of there quick."

*  *  *

     An Urmari head rolled to a stop at Han's feet as he
rammed a pick into another that was stalking Luke.  "Are we
having fun yet?" Han yelled.

     "Next time, let's just go to a resort, okay?"  Luke
shoved the last Urmari with a Force blow.

     It landed hard on the concrete, and Han shot it in the
head.  "You don't think  that crazy idea of Ben's will work,
do you kid?"

     "Huh?"

     "For getting the Force back?" Han persisted.

     "How the hell should I know?"  Luke replied as he wiped
the dripping sweat with a sleeve, and checked his chron.

     Han was already plastering the detonator behind a
doorway, and caught up with Luke as they jogged in the
direction Dana had gone, where Mulder and Adams were, and
now Luke sensed, their father as well.  "We've got three
minutes."



     *    *    *

     Scully eased into atrium, gun drawn, taking in the
scene.  Adams and Mulder were stricken, lying on the floor,
at her feet, their hated father standing less than ten feet
away, his left hand casually holding a cigarette, the right
outstretched towards **her**.  Behind him, matching
staircases spiraled upwards.  She spared a glance at the
darkened stairwell, seeing movement there.  She barked,
"Mulder, Adams I want you to get up and move towards the
door. We're getting outta here."

     Their father was acting far too casually for someone
who had a gun pointed at him, and was exposed behind.
"Really Agent Scully," he cackled.  "You don't expect it to
be that easy, do you?"

     She stilled the shudder prompted by the maniacal
laughter, and at the black shapes that were oozing out of
the back stairs.   Her mind told her that she did not see
blue electricity dancing from Cancer Man's right hand; her
emotions told her differently.  "The only thing easy about
it will be pulling the trigger and blowing you away," Scully
hissed, then chanced a glance at Mulder and Ben, who were
still unmoving on the floor. She pushed Mulder with her
foot, urging, "Come on, let's go."

     Cancer Man's upraised hand tightened, the blue light
flashing more brilliantly.  Scully gasped, against all
reason, feeling her throat tighten.  This was one Force
application, she realized she had not encountered before.
She aimed her gun, and .... an invisible hand yanked it from
her grip. She was still trying to work out the physics of
all this as she sank to her knees, struggling for air.  Hand
clutching at her throat, head up defiantly Scully pried her
eyes open.  Just beyond her blackening vision she saw ten or
more Urmari now moving stealthily toward Cancer Man.  Keep
fighting, she swore silently, make him use the Force.  The
grip on her throat tightened, a roaring in her ears, she
labored to rise.

     Mulder also saw the stalking Urmari, comprehended what
Scully was trying to do.  Tearing free of his father's
paralyzing grip, he staggered to his feet.  Grabbing Ben's
light saber he ignited it, and threw himself forward.  So
splitting his attention was simply no effort to Cancer Man,
to one as strong in the Force as he.  With his son's
pathetic efforts to defend his dying partner, Cancer Man
grinned, and extended his hand, releasing blinding bolts of
blue lightning into Mulder.

     With the impact, Mulder felt fire burn through his
veins.  Dimly, through smoke and shock, he saw the Urmari
tense, then advance again on his father.  Oblivious, he
turned again to Scully.  Leering, crazed, he laughed again,
"I think my boys, I prefer knowing that for the rest of your
lives, you will know that your selfish pursuits were
responsible for Dana Scully's death."  He turned both hands
on the kneeling Scully; she grappled wildly in his chortling
grasp.  Cancer Man let loose a stunning blast of blue fire
at Scully.

     It never reached the target.

     Ben had exploited his father's divided attention, and
in a monumental effort, freeing from the choke hold, hurled
himself in the path of the killing shock waves.  The
father's bolts smashed into Ben, igniting his son, singing
his skin, setting his clothing afire.  The impact sent Ben
flying, over Scully, back into the corridor.

     The powerful burst of Force energy was the final
provocation.  Driven mad, frothing, the Urmari swept across
the room, enveloping Cancer Man, sharks driven to a killing
rage with the smell of hot blood.  With flailing tentacles
and dark whispers, the fiends exacted their bargain.

     Mulder staggered up, scooping the light saber, he
stumbled headlong to Scully.  She was already on her feet,
grabbing her gun in one hand and Mulder's sleeve in the
other.  She shouted over Cancer Man's desperate screams and
howls of the Urmari, "This place is blowing in two minutes.
We've gotta go, gotta get Ben."

     Mulder hesitated, glancing into the atrium; he saw the
black feeding frenzy, heard the cries. His brother's
groaning roused him.  He nodded at his partner, and they
rushed forward to Ben, helping Mulder's charred brother up.
Luke and Han appeared a moment later. "Minute thirty" was
all Han said, and they began to run, the sounds of the
savage gnashing of demon teeth fading behind them.



     *    *    *

     Looking back, Leia would always be glad that Han set
his chron one minute faster than the rest of them.
Anxiously, fighting rising panic, she knew she stifled a
cheer when she saw the flash of Luke's green light saber cut
through the door.  In the depths of the building, there was
a muted roar, and a rending shriek in the Force.  The
Vespiary rocked to its very foundation.  Dana emerged, right
behind Luke, and then Han, carrying someone over his
shoulder.  Before they could absorb, comprehend or mourn,
Mulder came running out behind Han, with ... Leia did not
register the image at first, a blue light saber.  The five
of them now arrowed up the hill.  The concussion of the
second, and then third detonator throwing them all to the
ground.

     Fed by the oil, flames ripped up the building, the
first tank exploded, shooting a fiery whirlwind into the
dark sky.  A tongue of flame wound from the building to the
second tank, following the hose they had strung.  Leia could
see the flame daintily lap at the tank for moments, before
it too exploded, adding a fourth explosion to the
conflagration.  Fire swept through the compound, heat and
soot now raining down on them.  The cry in the Force pierced
sound and consciousness, slicing through their ears and
minds.  They heard the keen of the Urmari death knell.

     She and Mara raced down the hill, meeting the others
halfway.  Bent under his burden, Han trudged up, then eased
the blackened Ben Adams to the ground.  Mulder fell to his
knees, and swearing threw the light saber away. Deactivating
as it left his hand, it rolled down the hill, coming to a
gentle stop at the base of sapling pine.  The others stood
in a circled silent vigil as Mulder grasped his brother's
hand, the burned skin sloughing off in his fingers.

     Adams rasped, "The Urmari got him, didn't they?"

     Mulder nodded, "Don't try to talk, we'll get you out of
here."  He raised desperate eyes to Luke, "Can't you do
something?"

     It was Scully who answered, kneeling next to her
partner, "Some things even the Force can't heal Mulder."

     In answer and acceptance, Adams struggled a nod, "She's
right, brother.  Better this way."  A dry laugh escaped
bleeding, scorched lips, "I warned that bastard he'd made a
bargain with the devil.  Looks like I did, too."

     "No," Mulder pleaded, now softly, urgently.  He
clutched at Ben's shirt but it shredded in his hands, "Not
you."

     Adams choked, gurgled, a thin red stream trickling down
his nose and ear.  "All things die Mulder.  When the time
comes, you'll understand. No one's that strong."  Weakening,
he coughed, spittle and blood.  A gentle rain of ash began
to fall.  Scully brushed the flakes away as Ben's eyes
followed the floating, playful soot.  "I finally opened my
eyes, Mulder.  I'm sorry it came too late."

     Ben now reached for Mulder's hand, croaking "But when I
go, you can take something of me with you, brother.
Something to remember."  The bloodied, burned hand gripped
the dirtied one.  "Open yourself to me, Mulder.  Try to feel
the Force again."

     Mulder was stricken.  Aghast, he stammered, "I can't.
It's gone."

     Ben whispered, faint words escaping on the heels of a
death rattle, "Trust me.  Believe."  The hand went limp and
Mulder clutched it tighter, bending his head, murmuring
forgotten prayers to ward off approaching death.

     A faint blue light shimmered, seemingly illuminating
Ben from within.  It rippled, like a still pond stirred by a
gentle hand.  It began in Ben, and washed slowly over
Mulder, enshrouding the two brothers, the bond of siblings
in the Force.  Scully rocked back on her heels, feeling a
subtle, profound power.  As the light began beating
stronger, the others also stepped back, involuntarily shying
from the sweet, potent energy that enveloped Mulder, bowed
over his brother's body. The light emanated clearly from
Ben, with each throb, pulsating from the hand of the dying
to the hand of the living.  With every weakening beat in
Adams, it pushed stronger into Mulder, flowing from one
brother into the other.  It finally faded altogether, and
Ben, now one with the Force that had bound him to this
corporeal existence, melted away, his hand dissolving in
Mulder's own.

     Mulder stared at his hand, stared at the ground, at the
place his brother's body had been.  Looking up, he found
Luke's sorrowing face and felt Scully's shaking arm about
his shoulders.  He stammered, "Where did he go?"

      Luke stepped forward, comprehending what had happened.
Speaking softly, wanting to ease the piercing pain, he said,
"Ben turned away from the Dark Side, Mulder."

     Mulder blinked, staring first at the solemn Jedi, then
into Scully's tender, worried eyes, then to the ground and
the pile of burnt clothing.  He saw Scully's trembling hand
find the gold cross at her throat, and then perceived some
profound current pass between her and Luke.

     It was Mara, the first to realize it was gone, who was
now the first to grasp what had happened.  It was fittingly,
an observation punctuated by a curse, "Sith, Mulder!!  You
have the Force back."

     Mourning quiet was now replaced by Scully's gasp and
then stunned silence.  Breaking the frozen tableau, Luke
strode to Mulder, offering a hand to pull him up from the
ground.  The shock of the contact in the Force reverberated
through Leia and Mara as well.

     Scully scrambled to her feet, resting a guiding hand on
his arm, "Mulder?  Is it back?" she asked throwing
scientific reasoning to the side with a shovel. No, make
that a backhoe. "Can you feel the Force?"

     "I, I don't know," he stammered, uncertain and fearful.

END Chapter 7


XJedi2  A Cross Over

Chapter 8--  "Perdition's Wheel"

JackeeC, Gheorghe2 and ginef all at aol.com

The Grounds of the Vespiary
12:47 AM


     The squealing of tires and slamming car doors roused
them.  Mara's eyes darted through the trees.  "Better hurry
up and decide, Mulder, because we need to get out of here."

     Mulder, trudging with the weight of all the universes
on him, retrieved Ben's light saber.  The sounds of the
release of a blaster safety halted them.  As one, they all
swung to Han in amazement.  "Mara's right," he said quickly,
shifting weight and weapon slightly towards her, sparing a
glance into the thick trees.  "But, we're not going anywhere
until you all scan this place in the Force."

     Protests now erupted, Luke's the loudest of all. "Han,"
the Jedi reasoned.  "We all felt the Urmari die."

     He shook his head, implacable.  "Not good enough."
Turning, blaster and all, bluntly now to Mara, he said,
"Mara's got to search for the Cancer Man."

     "The hell I am Solo," Mara blazed.

     Unmoved, Han now focused on Mulder, as if Mara had not
interrupted.  "And Mulder has to help."  They heard shouts,
lights from down the hill flickering closer.  "We're not
leaving unfinished business this time.  And we're not
leaving Palpatine's Dark Jedi son here alive."

     "Han's right," Scully put in, as Leia added her
agreement, cajoling Mulder and Mara, "We can't leave unless
we're sure.  You won't do it by yourselves, but it must be
done."

     Leia stepped up and with a glance at her brother, Luke
now moved to Mara.  They all saw something quiet and
unknowable pass between the Jedi and his hostile student, a
gentle touch brushing blown hair, an encouraging thought, a
vow, and then some slight acquiescence.  Luke led Mara
forward, and Leia stretched out a hand to Mulder, "We'll
show you."  With a prod from Scully, Mulder stumbled toward
the Jedi, placing his right hand in Leia's.

     Leia sensed in all of them a variation on a theme;
differing in intensity, each person emanated fear and
loathing.  Pushing aside her own apprehension, she led by
example, searching the area in the Force.  She felt the
residual stain of the Urmari, and sought deeper, now
reaching to her brother.  Immediately his familiar sense
strengthened and buoyed her, and he now gently encouraged
Mara.  Leia concentrated then on Mulder, his sweaty, gritty
hand clasped tightly in her own.  She touched him in the
Force, and the shock of the connection with his black, rank
despair nearly drove her out again.  She heard a mournful
voice, "Leia?  Is that you?"

     "Yes, Mulder.  It's all right," she assured.  "I'll
help you."  Steeling herself, she twined more firmly with
him, speaking silently, "I know this is difficult.  When I
found the truth, it nearly destroyed me.  I will never
accept that I am a Skywalker's daughter.  You will fight to
not be your father for the rest of your life, Mulder.  But
we must do this."

     He eased toward her, step by step, accepting her
tutelage.  Guiding now, she led Mulder by the hand and with
her support, felt him tentatively reach out into the larger
world of the Force.  Together they cast about, sweeping the
area, Mulder first unsure, then with more confidence.  As
they brushed closer to Luke and Mara's Force bond, Leia was
startled to feel Mulder suddenly tug, away from her, towards
Mara with a hungry yearning.  "No, Mulder," she said firmly,
drawing him back.

     She felt a surge of rage as he furiously rebelled
against her prohibition.  In her mind, Leia sensed Mulder
rearing back to strike her.  She severed their connection,
still grasping his right hand, wondering if he would
physically do to her what he had been prepared to do in the
Force.  Opening her eyes, Leia stared into a wild, tortured
face that she had once known as Mulder.  He had indeed
raised his left hand high; in it he clutched the light saber
handle.

     But Han had been nearly as swift.  Moving in quickly,
he grabbed Mulder's upraised arm.  "All clear?" Han asked
pleasantly, only the rigid grip on Mulder's wrist and a
glint of understanding in his eyes communicating what he had
seen and likely prevented.  Leia nodded.

     With Mulder's deep breath, the mood passed with a
breeze.  Only then did Han and Leia release him from the
physical and mental restraint.  In a hoarse, tomb-like voice
he whispered, "I couldn't find him."

     With an outreached hand, Leia gestured to Scully to
take her place next to Mulder.  "I think you should stay
close, Dana," Leia said softly.

     Luke spoke up, pulling from his rapport with Mara and,
apparently, unaware of what had occurred,  "We didn't sense
him."

     "Satisfied Solo?"  Mara asked acidly.

     Han was already moving down the hill towards Dana's
waiting car.  "Yeah.  I think we've overstayed our welcome.
Let's go home."  They all hurried after him, Scully now
pulling a reluctant Mulder from that ash laden hill.



Alexandria, VA
3:22 AM

     The others left Scully and Mulder on the steps.  As
they entered the building, a subtle hand gesture passed
between Leia and Han.  She moved back into the shadows of
the apartment's foyer, standing as a sentry, just inside the
door, keeping watch over Mulder.

     Luke, Mara and Han said nothing until they reached the
apartment and using Dana's key, let themselves in.  It all
seemed so ordinary.  Han put in bluntly, "You have to wipe
Mulder's memory, Luke."

     He had seen the request forming, and was as adamant in
refusing as Han had been in making it, "I can't.  Not again.
It almost killed them before."

     Mara joined Han, an unlikely ally.  "He doesn't need to
know what he learned today."

     The Skywalker stubbornness began to assert itself, as
Luke stuck a chin out defiantly.  "I won't do it.  It's not
fair.  Leia and I both managed this kind of news.  Mulder
can too."

     Han strode across the room to his brother in law,
laying a heavy hand on his shoulder, challenging.  "How?  A
grandson of Palpatine will be loose here, with some
knowledge of the Force, a whole lot of anger, a light saber
and no one to train him.  We can't do that."

     "Maybe we can take Mulder with us. He's very powerful.
I can train him--" Luke reasoned.

     "And what about Dana?" Han interrupted. "You'd take him
away from her?  Leave her here to face their enemies alone?"

     "Your vision of a dead Mulder and Coruscant in ruins is
why you sent them back the last time," Mara reminded
quietly.

     Luke hung his head, eyes meeting the floor, "What does
Leia say?"  He then looked about, "Why did she stay
downstairs?"

     Han dropped his hand away, moving restlessly about, the
room too small for some spirits.  "She wants to keep close
to Mulder."

     Both Luke and Mara echoed, "Why?"

     Snaking a kitchen chair, Han took his familiar post and
sat, staring at his hands.  "It happened when you all were
searching for the Cancer Man.  Leia says she felt a very
strong Dark Side presence in Mulder."  He hesitated, then
with a measuring glance to Mara, said, "and he tried to
connect with Mara.  When Leia stopped him, he almost lost
it."

     Mara swore, blanching and sunk to a chair.

     "You have to do it Luke," Han repeated.


     *    *    *


       Mulder sat shivering on the front steps of his
apartment building.  A ship lost at sea. The moon poured
over him, casting him in an eerie light. Somewhere between
the Vespiary and DC he had stopped functioning.  Stopped
responding.  Now he was staring out at the street without
seeing anything.  He gently fingered his brother's
lightsaber, turning it over in his hands.  Occasionally his
lips would move, but no words escaped them.

     Scully had seen him like this before, but had it been
so extreme.  Mulder had always managed to toe the line and
stay just this side of sane.  But Ben's death and the
discovery of his parentage had pushed him somewhere deep and
dark, into a chasm that Scully could not reach.  She went to
him, kneeling down and resting her hands on his knees.
"Mulder," she said softly.

     He did not even acknowledge her.  She took a deep
breath, weighing what to do, when he finally spoke, his
voice disembodied. "'In truth we know nothing, for truth
lies in the depth.'"

     He's quoting ancient Greek philosophers.  At least the
photographic memory is back, she reflected.  But at what
cost?  Scully rested her head on his knee and closed her
eyes, fighting the tears demanding to be turned loose. Well,
Ahab, you finally caught your white whale.  The truth was
out there and we reeled it in, kicking and screaming. But it
was bigger than we thought. More insidious.  We didn't
anticipate the damage.  She fought the urge to giggle,
hysteria rising.  As Starbuck, I'm ready to go down with the
ship, she half laughed, half sobbed.  She felt his hand rest
on the top of her head, a life preserver.  A reprieve. "I'm
sorry, Scully," he whispered.

     "Mulder, none of this is your fault," she started, now
looking up to him.  Mulder didn't hear her, didn't see her.
He rocked back and forth slowly, his arms wrapped
protectively around his ribcage.  He was gone again.  Out to
sea.  Sucked back into the abyss.  She raked a hand through
her hair.  There has to be a way we can both be Ishmael.

     Scully stood, and saw Leia standing inside the doorway.
"I won't be long, Mulder.  I'll be right back."  He did not
respond  when she got up and slipped in the doorway.  She
and Leia stood, staring at one another, until Leia said with
firm understanding, "He shouldn't be left alone."

     "No."  After a pause, Scully asked, "How did you and
Luke manage once you found out who your father was?"

     Leia's back stiffened, eyes glimmering in the dark.
"Dana, I found out at the end of the War.  Palpatine was
dead, the Rebellion had won, my worst enemy was my father
and dead, and my home and family destroyed.  At that time, I
truly thought there were no more battles to be fought.
Without Han and Luke, I might have..."  She halted the
confession abruptly, her warning delivered and clear.

     With the frank acknowledgment, and the weight of the
responsibility, Scully reeled, seeking the solidity of the
wall.  "Leia, I don't have a Force link.  And ..."

     She was spared the ordeal of that admission with Leia's
intervention, "No, I understand.  You see don't you, Dana? I
was there for Luke, and Han and Luke were there for me.  But
it could have easily been otherwise.  When the time comes,
you may not be there for Mulder ..."

     Scully glanced outside, through the smoky glass at her
huddled partner.  Oh God, she thought, why?  Why these
choices, why were the only alternatives only the very
hardest?  "I'll watch him," Leia said.  "You need to go
inside and convince Luke to do something about it."


     *    *    *

     Once inside Mulder's apartment, Scully immediately
headed to Luke  "You have to erase our memories again," she
demanded.

     Luke shrunk back from her words. "No.  I can't do that
to you again. I won't."

     "You have to," Scully entreated, grabbing the front of
his tunic. "He's..." she choked, then resolutely continued.
"He's not going to make it otherwise."

     Hearing Han mutter "Better dead than dark,"  Scully
took Luke's hands in her own, bowing her head over their
clasp.  The plea, even though driven by desperate need and
fear, was, he thought, beneath her.  Luke looked to Mara for
support; she pointedly turned away.

     Dana delicately rubbed his right hand with her fingers,
a light, grazing touch, a surgeon's caress.  "What else does
he have to lose Luke?" she murmured.

     They all waited, until Luke finally acknowledged what
had to be done.  "You're willing to do this," he asked
slowly.  "To have memories and time taken from you?"

     Head and eyes downcast, Scully nodded.  "If the
alternative is losing him... then, yes."

     Luke pulled her into his arms, holding her tightly.
"Okay," he whispered.


*  *  *

     Han went to help Leia with Mulder as the others
prepared.  They would, it was decided, blame it all on the
Czechs.

     When Han and Leia reappeared, they brought only a
shadow of Mulder.  It was the final persuasion Luke needed.
Setting down the pizza boxes, Scully hurried forward,
guiding her stricken partner to the couch.  She sat next to
him, and tried gently to loosen his grasp on Ben's light
saber handle.  Mulder's head shot up, with a snarl, he
jerked away from Scully.  But her hands followed his, "It's
all right Mulder.  I'll keep it safe."

     "Promise?" Mulder asked, forlorn and lost.  She nodded
and he grudgingly surrendered the last memory of his
brother.  "Scully, it's dark here."

     "I know."  Comprehension faded and Mulder sank, again,
unseeing and unresisting into the void.

     Luke now joined them, sitting next to Mulder on the
other side, thinking that at least he would not be worrying
about the Gate collapsing.

     As if in answer to his musing Mara said,  "Hey,
Skywalker, get it right this time."

     "Mara," Leia admonished.

     "What? I was kidding." She turned and returned to what
she was doing with glee-- making it look like Mulder had had
the mother of all parties with his new buddies from the
Czech Republic. Never let it be said that Mara Jade couldn't
make a mess as well as she could clean one up.

     Scully rose, leaving Luke and Mulder together.  Taking
Mulder's hand, Luke slowly eased into his mind, touching and
prodding gently.  He realized with stunning clarity that Han
and the others had been right.  Rage, revenge, and guilt
played freely.  He perceived a wide swath of destruction,
directed at self, at others, at the world.  There were wild
feelings, fury and pulsating power barely contained.  Even
the places not wholly given over to dark were tinged with
despair.  It was all Luke could do not to recoil from
Mulder's mind and head for the stars. Urgently seeing the
need to halt this disastrous fall, he redoubled his efforts.

     Suddenly, Mulder began to fight the cleansing.  His
aggressive Force blow nearly threw Luke to the floor.
Instantly, Mara and Leia were at his side, lending their
support.  There was another brief struggle, and then with a
sigh, Mulder relented, slumping finally into
unconsciousness. Han picked up Mulder's crumpled form and
flung him over his shoulder, taking him to the bedroom.

     Scully was leaning against the wall by the door, arms
crossed in front of her, tears pulling at the corner of her
eyes. Luke approached her slowly. "You know, Dana, we don't
have to erase your memory too," he said softly, his voice a
gentle breeze, reassuring and pure.

     She shook her head resolutely, voice firm.  "I could
never lie to him."

     "Then let's do it."

     "I just have a few things I want to give you, as a
thank you." She went quickly to the kitchen, then to a
drawer by the television.  She scanned the contents and
removed a tape.  Finally she went to the bookshelf, running
her finger down the line of books and removed one.

     Han returned from the bedroom and threw Leia a
questioning look.  Scully approached the smuggler first and
handed him a large bottle of tequila. "Think of us fondly
when you drink this," she said. "And don't curse us during
the hangover."

     Han smiled and ruffled her hair. "Not a chance, Dana."

     "Thanks... for everything.  I wish I'd be able to
remember what you've taught me."  Solo took her hand and
gave it a quick squeeze. Scully looked away and moved toward
Leia.

     "I think you'll get a kick out of this," she said
handing her friend a videotape.

     Leia looked down at the case and then at Dana with a
quizzical expression.

     Scully smiled. "Trust me."

     Leia returned the smile.  "Always."

     Mara was rummaging through the drawer containing the
tapes. "Are most of these what I think they are?" she
muttered in disgust.

     Scully turned toward her. "Yeah. Let's just say that
Mulder doesn't have the greatest taste in cinema."  Scully
pulled her S&W out of the holster at her back and pushed it
into the hands of the woman who reminded her so much of
Missy. "Take care of yourself," Scully whispered, and then
barely audibly, "and him."

     Mara, never one for sentimental good-byes, was at a
loss for words, but finally nodded her assent. Then she
reached into the drawer, removing one of Mulder's sultrier
movies and began to pull the tape out of the cassette, a
mischievous grin adorning her face. "What? It's supposed to
be a party. And it isn't a party till something gets broke."

     Scully laughed and made her way to the couch. She sat
slowly next to Luke, like someone reporting to a firing
squad.

     Luke reached out to brush her cheek with his
fingertips. "You're sure?"

     Scully nodded and carefully set a threadbare and frayed
book in his hand.  It opened to one of the last pages and
she read, "And so the bird of heaven, with archangelic
shrieks, and his imperial beak thrust upwards, and his whole
captive form folded in the flag of Ahab, went down with his
ship, which, like Satan, would not sink to hell till she had
dragged a living part of heaven along with her, and helmeted
herself with it."  She closed his hands around the book,
blinking hard to stop the tears spilling down her cheeks.
"Read this and maybe you'll understand why."

     Luke looked down at the text he held and struggled for
the strength to do what he knew he had to.  Scully took his
hand, gently placing it on the side of her head. "It's
time."  Luke softly kissed her forehead before he began.


     *    *    *

     Shutting the door firmly behind them, they trudged down
the steps of Mulder's apartment.  "Where's Chewie picking us
up?" Luke asked through a yawn.

     Han pointed down the dark street, "There's a park at
the end of the block.  He'll land there, cloaked but we'll
still probably scare a few people half to death."

     Han swung back around, noticing then that Mara had not
joined them.  She was standing at the top step of the
building, casting about, looking anxiously first up, then
down the street.  Han was immediately alert, "Mara, what's
wrong?"

     She held out a warning hand, as Luke and Leia now
stopped as well, both feeling what Han saw, that Mara was
searching in the Force.

     Luke returned up the steps, asking quietly, "What is
it?"

     She hesitated, poised, then shook him off.  "Nothing."

     "Positive?"  Luke insisted.

     "Yes," was the curt response.

     They descended the stairs together under Han's
skeptical eye.  "What did you sense Mara?"  There was the
merest hint of accusation in his voice.

     "Nothing!!" Mara responded hotly.

     Han, however, would not be intimidated.  "You
**sure**?"

     She exploded, "What do I have to do, Solo?  Rescue your
kids again before you trust me?"

     With Luke and Leia joining Mara's indignant
denouncements, and the muted hum of the approaching ship,
the stand off ended.  The four jogged to the end of the
block, to watch the trees bend and sway under the strain of
the landing flying saucer.  As night began to give way to
morning, they boarded.

     After hurried, warm greetings, Chewie shot back up into
the sky.  Mara and Leia however, immediately relieved him of
his piloting duties.  "Everyone out of the cockpit," Mara
commanded.  "The women are breaking orbit."

     Leia added her own imperious order,  "Into the back
flyboys."

     Mara and Leia settled in, Leia announcing, "You fly
Mara, since I know how to read a Washington street map."

     "Oh, now there's a useful skill.  You sure you know
where we are going?"

     Leia nodded, spreading out a map of Montgomery County,
Maryland on the console.  She pointed, "Head that way."

     They arrived in moments,  Mara hovering the ship.

     "You sure there is no one there Mara?"

     "Positive, look at the scanners yourself."

     Leia did so, as the comm pinged, with both Luke and
Han's voices, breaking into a worried, crackling din.
"What's going on up there?"

     "Up to no good," Leia intoned.

     "No good at all," Mara repeated.

     "Okay," Leia said with a satisfied sigh.  "It's empty.
Uncloak."  Mara did so, and Leia poised her hand over the
laser battery.  "Do you do the honors or should I?"

     Mara put her hand over Leia's squeezing it lightly.  "I
say we both do it."

     Moments later, the Urmari ship bolted up into the
Earth's atmosphere, then out, on a course home.



Location Unknown


     Far away, in a darkened room, the Cancer Man exhaled,
stroking the fur of the ysalamiri next to him.  So he did
not know when the Emperor's Hand broke orbit.  The phone
call from a loyal watcher told him when the ship shot into
the morning light.  And then he smiled.




The Bedroom of Agent Mulder
Alexandria, VA
6:33 AM


     Scully slowly but firmly pulled herself out of what
felt like a drug induced sleep. She had the mother of all
hangovers, all the signs were there.  Was that tequila she
detected?  Well that would certainly explain why her head
was doing the mambo and  her stomach the tango.  But what
about the weight that seemed to be bearing down on top of
her. What was I doing last night, she wondered.  She tried
to move only to discover that there was indeed a weight
bearing down on her.  She heard a snore.  A snore?

     Upon opening her eyes, even bracing for the worst, she
was unprepared to see her partner, sprawled half across her
like some sort of bizarre human blanket.  Fighting a rising
sense of panic, she tried to survey the scene calmly, with
the detached professionalism of the scientist she was.  On
the positive side of the equation, she did know his name.

     There had to be a rational explanation although she was
hard pressed to come up with one at this time.  She was flat
on her back, Mulder face down.  She sighed with relief as a
glance confirmed that they were both fully clothed.  Mulder
was still sleeping, his head resting in the curve of her
neck, an arm flailed off to the right, one hand gripping the
pillow, his other hand, OH MY GOD, cupped firmly on her
breast.

     It was at this very inopportune moment that Mulder
chose to return to the land of the living. "Scully," he
rasped, as if he hadn't used his voice in a very long time,
"what happened?"

     "I don't know, Mulder. Perhaps you could start by
explaining why you're in my bed."

     "Uh, sure, Scully, I could do that except that you're
in mine."

     Scully looked around, indeed confirming that fact. "Oh.
Well, Agent Mulder, perhaps we can move on to why your hand
is on my breast."

     Mulder slowly looked down to confirm this fact. "That
is a very good question, Agent Scully."

     "Perhaps you could move it."

     "Perhaps I could," he commented as he did so.

     "Now perhaps you could get off me."

     "Right again," he said, rolling away on to his back.
They both took an unusual interest in his ceiling for a
moment.

     Finally Scully spoke. "What do you remember?"

     He lifted his head and surveyed the disaster that was
his room.  Scully's eyes joined in the examination of empty
beer bottles, pizza boxes, and unspooled video and audio
tapes littering the floor, covering every surface, and
trailing out of the bedroom and into the living room. "Must
have been quite a party.  Hope our friend's from the Czech
Republic enjoyed it."

     Scully laughed, sort of. "Right. Our Eastern European
buddies," she paused. "I'm really starting to become alarmed
by the fact that we seem to be having the same bizarre
dreams."

     "What do you mean?"

     "First the flying primate. Now our imaginary friends
from Czechoslovakia."

     "The Czech Republic," Mulder corrected.

     "Whatever."

     He pointed out what the state of the room made obvious.
"Imaginary friends don't drink beer and eat Leona's.
Perhaps," he concluded, "they're not imaginary."

     "Then what do you propose they are?"

     "Close encounters of the third kind?" he asked
hopefully.

     "Mulder, you're--" her evaluation of his current mental
state was interrupted by the shrill and insistent ringing of
his phone. He rolled across Scully uttering "steamroller" to
answer it as she attempted to slap him away.

     "Mulder." He listened silently a moment and then sat
up, suddenly alert. Scully wondered if they really had been
in outer space because gravity had certainly abandoned
Mulder's hair. "Where?  When?  I'll get Agent Scully and
we'll be right over." He hung up, grinning like a kid on
Christmas. "Someone blew up the Hooters in Rockville."

     "And you're smiling about this? I would have expected
tears," Scully replied, getting slowly to her feet.

     "Multiple eye witnesses report seeing a circular flying
object hovering above it just before the explosion," Mulder
exclaimed, pacing the floor.

     "I'm starting to like these aliens more all the time."

     "Someone may even have gotten pictures," he added
giddily.

     Scully sighed. "Just let me brush my teeth." She headed
towards his bathroom, fearful as always of what she might
find there.

     "Okay, but hurry up."

     "And I expect bagels after this, Mulder, and coffee,"
she called from the bathroom as she examined her reflection
in the mirror. Well, Dana, you certainly look every moment
of your 33 years, she thought.  She grabbed a washcloth
intent on giving her face a good scrubbing.

     "Scully," Mulder called from the other room.

     "What?"

     "Any idea why there are canvas bags from the Washington
DC Parking Authority in my living room and change all over
the floor?"

     "Maybe we played drinking games with the Czechs?" she
yelled back.

     "Could be, especially because..."  Mulder's voice
trailed off, and she heard sounds of rummaging in the next
room.

     "What?"

     "Would we have played quarter shots with two bottles of
tequila?"

     Now her eyes fell on an incongruity sitting on the
countertop.  "Mulder?"

     "Yeah?"

     "Why is there a plastic bag full of tribbles in your
bathroom?"

     "Tribbles?"

     "Uh huh."

     "Maybe the tribbles are in the bathroom for the same
reason there is a floral strapless bra in my kitchen,
size.... 32C."

     He joined her in the bathroom, brandishing the
aforesaid item.  "I'd like to meet the woman who has such
good taste in lingerie," he commented.

     Scully eyed the bra that had somehow teleported from
her lingerie drawer to Mulder's apartment and did what came
naturally.  She denied everything..  "I think you did
Mulder.  And she's now on her way back to the Czech
Republic."

     Mulder slipped out of the bathroom only to return a
moment later. "Scully?"

     "Yes?"

     "Any idea why the Czechs would leave a barbell?"

     "A barbell?"

     "Well, I don't know what this thing is, do you?"

     Scully examined it after rinsing the soap from her
eyes, "It looks like a handle of some kind.  What happens
when you push the switch?"

     "Nothing."  Mulder manipulated the metal handle,
holding it in his right hand, swinging it back and forth.
"Seems a little light to be a barbell."

     "Paperweight?"

     "I wonder what it was doing under the seat cushions of
the couch.  And I still haven't found the TV remote," he
said.

     "Oh no! Not the remote," Scully gasped in horror.

     A man with a mission, she smirked as Mulder wandered
out of the bathroom again. She reached into the holder and
pulled out her toothbrush, not examining too closely the
fact that she kept a toothbrush and even an extra pair of
sweats at his place and that he did the same at hers.
Instead she turned her mind to their new case.  A UFO
blowing up Hooters, she mused, putting a healthy dollop of
toothpaste on her brush. I'd like to meet those
extraterrestrials. "Hey, Mulder," she called again, "What's
that saying about intelligent life avoiding this planet?"

     "'Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent
life exists in the universe is that none of it has tried to
contact us' Bill Watterson," Mulder replied, coming into the
bathroom and leaning against the door frame. "Why?"

     "No reason," Scully said through a mouthful of
toothpaste. "I hope you're planning on brushing your teeth
because believe me they need it."

     "Gee, thanks, Scully, I can always count on you not to
mince words. To tell it like it is," he fired back, reaching
for his own toothbrush.

     Scully shrugged.  "That's what partners are for."

     Mulder used his shoulder to muscle Scully out of the
way as he grabbed his own toothbrush from the holder.  "No
one else would probably understand this would they?"

     She stopped brushing for a moment to consider the
question. "I'm not sure I do."

     "What's so hard to understand?  We're friends, we have
an understanding,"  Mulder replied as he shoved the brush in
his mouth.

     Scully started to brush again but couldn't let it go.
"Mulder?"

     "What?"

     Scully stopped brushing again and considered her
partner in the mirror.  "Do you suppose this is what old
married people are like?"

     "No.  I imagine they normally use each other's first
names."

     Scully started in on her teeth and then stopped yet
again. "Mulder, how'd you know that Watterson quote word for
word?"

     "Same as I always do," he replied, spitting into the
sink.

     "What was the phone number of the Chinese restaurant in
Milwaukee?"

     "514-98--" he stopped mid-number. Their eyes meeting
and locking in the mirror.  "I'm back to normal," he gasped.

     "Are you sure?" Scully asked, spitting out her
toothpaste.

     "Yeah... I feel..." he struggled for the word,
"connected again." They shared a brief smile, then Mulder
added,  "Come on, let's go find some UFOs."



Imperial Palace
Coruscant


     Touching down at Coruscant Security platform, each
thought that this galaxy never looked so good.  As they made
their way down the ramp of the flying saucer, with a glance
at Leia, Mara pushed passed, moving across the bay with
resigned grace to speak to the Deck Officer in charge of the
prep crews for the ships hangared there.  As Han and Luke
saw her go, Han queried, "I thought we'd get cleaned up, get
some real food, where's Mara going?"

     Leia circled her fingers around her husband's elbow,
propelling him towards the Palace quarters, "Come on."

     Leia shrugged off both the restraining hand Luke placed
on her shoulder and the light mental probe.  "What's going
on?"

     She said curtly, "You'll have to ask Mara," and with
that half pulled half pushed her reluctant and protesting
spouse into the Palace, Chewie and the droids following,
leaving Luke to stand foolishly and irritably in the
darkened hangar.  He heard a sharp, "stop eavesdropping,"
and rebuked, withdrew from Mara's technical conversation
with the Deck Officer, overhearing enough to know that she
was ordering the flight crew to prep her Z 95.

     The task completed, Mara slowly walked towards him,
eyes down, feet dragging across the tarmac.  Attempting
another probe, her protective shield flew up in the mental
equivalent of a slap across the face.  She snapped, "I
didn't invite you into my head," and snatching her bag spun
around towards the Palace.  He had to hustle, and did not
catch up to her until they were into the lit and crowded
corridor.

     "Why the hell are you getting your ship prepped, we
just got back."  His tone and feelings were angry and
frustrated; somewhere deep, buried where both could barely
see it, maybe there was hurt as well.  With the idle
curiosity of the onlookers they passed, Luke lowered his
tone, even if Mara's stubborn silence made him want to grab
her, shout, and shake an explanation out of her.  He
realized she was striding towards her apartment quarters and
with mounting dread, demanded again, "Where do you think
you're going?"

     "Don't ask questions you already know the answers to
Skywalker."

     Damn the inquisitive spectators and scandal sheets, he
grasped her arm, yanking her around. "You know what I meant,
why are you leaving?"

     She glared at him, at the hand clutched at her elbow.
"Not here" she hissed, and with a hard jerk that sent him
careening into an observing Sullustian, freed herself, and
stormed down the corridor.  Muttering apologies, Luke
pursued, overtaking her in a crowded lift.

     Mara ignored his Force-directed inquiries and stayed
sullenly mute until they reached her quarters.  He did
wonder if she would even admit him, and Mara seemed to be
weighing the advisability of slipping into her room and
slamming the door on him.  Luke solved that dilemma by
keying the room open himself, walking in, leaving Mara
standing in the doorway, studying the patterns in the
carpeted entryway.  "Did you forget that I knew the lock
combo to your room?"  He sat down heavily in one of the
familiar chairs, vowing to not go anywhere until she spilled
whatever was going on.  "Running off isn't like you.  You
owe me an explanation."

     Mara looked up from contemplation of the floor and
strode into the room, "I'm not running.  I've got a
commitment to keep."  She made her way to the cupboard, and
with an angry pull, spilled the drawer's contents on to the
floor.  She threw her bag on to the bed, jerked a larger one
out from the wardrobe and began tossing things into both.

     The only sounds for some time were her slamming and
shoving furniture, wadding up clothing and personal effects
and stuffing them into her bags.  Luke watched from his
vantage point, anger giving way to some slight betrayal,
eventually interrupting the brooding silence with a sulky,
"I guess I was wrong thinking we would just be picking up
where we left off."

     Mara slumped, sinking to the edge of the bed.  She
unclipped her lightsaber from her belt, and with heavy,
deliberate movements, began carefully wrapping it in a
towel.  She finally sighed.  "It was part of the deal.  I
have to go."

     His voice was a chill through the stillness. "What
deal?"

     Pulling the flight bag to her, she gently rested the
enshrouded saber there.  "Where I'm going, I won't be
carrying this."

     Calmer, he was able to focus on her own pain, and
rising, crossed to join her on the edge of the bed.  "What
deal?"  He repeated.

     Mara reached and taking his hands in her own wanted to
convey the regret she thought she felt but knew she could
not say.  "Part of the deal with Karrde.  If the ship got us
to Earth and back, I agreed to return to the Alliance."

     He bolted up, furious. "You and Leia agreed to this?"

     "We had to get Earth remember?  Karrde held out for the
highest price.  He wasn't going to give us the ship
otherwise."

     With a pang of guilt, Luke knew that it had been his
unreflective and careless act in sending Adams back that had
perpetrated this escapade in the first place.  More quietly,
pacing the room, he half entreated, "Maybe Leia could shake
some more credits loose ..."

     Luke did not finish, he knew even as Mara said it,
"Karrde's got credits.  It's me he wants."

     "You aren't some kind of chattel."

     Mara bit out her retort, "It was my decision.  I made a
commitment, I intend to honor it."

     "What about your commitments here, to" he stammered,
"your training?"  Only then did she meet his gaze.  With her
stare she laid bare the unspoken between them and Luke
retreated, looking away.

     As Mara returned to her packing, he wandered to the
window, staring out into the dark, feeling a blackening void
creeping within himself as well.  Her strong, restless sense
washing by stirred him from the moody reflection.  The
gentle, unschooled mental touch mirrored the physical one of
her hands on his shoulders, "I'm sorry.  There just didn't
seem to be any other way."

     Some things they had not yet come to say, think, or do.
He moved into her arms and emboldened, tested that limit.
But her response to the tentative foray was in the negative,
"I don't think so.  Not a good time, I think."  He knew she
was right, but had thought it at least worth a try.

     He would have given much to hold on to this instance of
rare peace in their endless circling, feints, attacks and
parries.  "You may have had better luck with redheads in
another galaxy," she whispered.  Luke clasped tightly the
redhead from his galaxy, wondering for the first and
probably not the last time if this was where they both
belonged and that he was not to find that out now.

     Sensing his rising resigned fatalism, Mara mumbled into
his shoulder, "I'm not the only Force sensitive around you
know.  There are others."

     Stroking the head bent to him, he answered with ebbing
confidence, "Maybe."

     "You might get a school going or something, then I
could meet you there."

     Feeling her hands roam down his back, he murmured,
"You'd finish what you've started then?"

     Mara pulled away, leaving him standing at the window
now submerged in a darkened pool of advancing shadow.  She
had not wanted a scene, and this was the wrong way to avoid
it.  "It may take a while, but I'm not going that far."

     Always in motion the future, he thought and in a
glimpse ahead knew that they would not recapture this
fleeting intimate moment of understanding for a very long
time, if ever.  Her commitment to remain in some distant
orbit of his was the most she could offer in a universe of
uncertainty and the most that he could expect.  Even if she
could meet him halfway, he realized he might not have been
able to go that distance.  He trudged toward the door, "You
have a lot to settle so I'll leave you to it.  How long to
prep the ship?"

     He heard her brusque efficiency return and the shared
empathy burst like a tiny, ephemeral bubble, "Coupla hours."

     Standing at the door, poised to leave, he stared down
at the floor, "Give me a call when you're ready to boost, I
can see you off if you want."

     "Thanks but..."

     She faded away and Luke only nodded "Right.  Well, good
bye then."

     After he left, Mara spent some time simply staring at
the towel wrapped saber nestled in her bag, before closing
it with finality, "Good bye."


     *    *    *

     Standing on the Palace roof, Luke felt Mara's light dim
as she climbed to stars and space.  He steeled himself, and
with a rippling shudder, hyperspace took her away, leaving
him pained and breathless, alone in the dark.




J. Edgar Hoover Building
FBI Headquarters
Monday
9:29 AM


     Mulder methodically brought a sunflower seed to his
mouth and cracked it open, removing the jewel and tossing
the shell on the floor.  He sat in the dim gloom of the
basement office, transfixed, staring at his collection of
UFO pictures.  He returned, again and again to the one
depicted in his "I Want To Believe" poster and the grainy,
blurry picture taken only yesterday.  There was a truth
there, somehow connected to that ship. He didn't know how to
explain it, he could just feel it, sense it