The Lost Holocron

Dark Force Rising | Chapter 19 | The Lost Holocron

• The Lost Holocron • Season 2 • Episode 19

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Chapter 19 of Star Wars: Dark Force Rising (1992) (EU: 9 ABY) by Timothy Zahn. 

The Story So Far

Mara Jade has held a personal grudge against Luke Skywalker for the assassination of Emperor Palpatine. As the Emperor’s Hand, her entire life was destroyed along with the Second Death Star. Emotionally scarred and disposing of her past life, Mara struggled with her new life until joining Talon Karrde’s smuggling group, hoping to utilise the resources of his enterprise to exact her revenge.

The Empire has a tenuous alliance with Dark Jedi Joruus C’baoth; in exchange for his battle meditation, Grand Admiral Thrawn promises to capture and deliver Luke Skywalker and Leia Organa Solo. After crippling Skywalker’s X-Wing, he is incidentally captured by Karrde and imprisoned on Myrkr. Escaping his confinement during an untimely Imperial visitation, both parties reluctantly work together to evade Imperial detection, culminating in a firefight.

Weeks later as Mara reclaims one of Karrde’s impounded ships, she is captured by an Imperial Star Destroyer. Declaring herself to be the Emperor’s Hand, she is taken to talk directly with Thrawn. She offers a trade of Karrde’s knowledge of a long-lost fleet of warships — the Katana Fleet — for organisation-wide immunity within Imperial space. Thrawn insincerely accepts the offer and sends Mara on her way with a tracker to locate Karrde and extract the information himself. He declared to Captain Pellaeon that Jade is a deserter, not worthy of the Empire.

Chapter 19

An uneasy feeling grips Karrde as he watches Mara return to their safehouse. Despite having given the all-clear, the Imperials are upon him without warning. He is surprised that his thoughts contain no animosity for Mara, only a slight satisfaction to understand more about her mysterious past.

Aboard the Chimera, Mara is livid at having been deceived by Thrawn. Her anger gets the better of her, but Thrawn’s Noghri bodyguard Rukh intercepts her assault. Still smouldering, she reaches out with the Force to choke him. All her rage cannot fuel the power necessary to close his airways. He stares her down, until she exhausts herself. 

Thrawn offers her two options, join Skywalker as Mad Jedi C’baoth’s plaything, or accept an officer’s position with his Empire. Thrawn warns that an Imperial officer hoping for her own command must not have split loyalties and as such must disown Karrde. Mara adopts a subservient posture and accepts; however, after she is dismissed, she resolves to find Skywalker and to ask for his help to free Karrde. 

Using the Emperor’s backdoor to hack into a terminal, she retrieves information related to the cell block where Karrde is being held, the planned course for the Chimera for the next few days, and the  location of C’baoth. She logs off just in time and is taken back to the planet’s surface.

Mara is received by Karrde’s Chief Aide Aves. Her ostensible betrayal leaves him ambivalent, but she manages to convince him to supply her with a ship and an ysalamir with a nutrient frame.


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