But it was obvious from the one-way conversations that she was in charge. Which meant that it would be her thought processes which governed both his incarceration and any attempt to retrieve him if he escaped.
Despite Palpatine's scheming, Luke didn't intend staying here forever. The moment the agreement was up, he would take action...and when he did, the first person he would have to get past would be Jade.
After three weeks of pacing his prison, the huge rooms were beginning to feel decidedly smaller. He was allowed beyond his bedroom these days, and into the cavernous 'withdrawing room' which linked the bedroom suite with what he now knew was the 'private dining room' where he met the Emperor every night across that perfectly-set dinner table, sometimes for an hour, sometimes three or four. Every night food was laid out and every night neither ate. Luke wondered wryly whether the kitchens bothered to actually make a main course anymore.
But at least he was now fed during the day. Having conceded that battle he was now brought breakfast and lunch, and had simply learned to live without an evening meal. And he'd gained something even from this failure; to pick his fights with more care, to think before he opened his mouth. He was learning that Palpatine allowed no weakness or mistakes, that he had to give over his full attention to every meeting, to every single word spoken.
And he did, Luke's whole day now shaped by the knowledge that Palpatine would arrive at dusk and he'd damn-well better be ready, because there were no off-days, no allowances made. Occasionally, just occasionally, he'd get a verbal strike in himself and when he did he'd learned not to dwell on it or allow himself even a single moment's grace; Palpatine always came back with a vengeance.
But between these times, long days stretched into mind-numbing stillness with nothing to do in his opulent cage but stew over those brief interludes of intense pressure, so that despite his knife-edge situation boredom had set in, grinding each day out ever-longer and leaving him desperate for something--anything--to occupy his mind.
Eventually he'd turned to the huge glass bookcase in the drawing room. He'd asked for an auto-reader days before, but Jade had point-blank refused. How she thought he would foil the massed forces of the Royal Guard, the Palace Guard and the stormtrooper battalions, and go on to make good his escape with a five-bit auto-reader he didn't know. Still, with nothing else to do, he'd resorted to the hard-copy books...and felt his heart sink--
'Staged Study of Fleet Hierarchy and Command Structures'
'Cultural Analogies in Disparate Societies'
'Etiquette and Protocol in Contemporary Court'
The list went on... He'd twisted his lip, turning to Red. "Any chance of some real books?"
"Those are real books," she'd said evenly, not looking up from her own silver-plated auto-reader.
"I meant books I'd actually want to read," Luke tried, turning back to the bookcase.
"Those are useful books. Relevant."
" 'The Psychology of Mass Perception'?" Luke had asked, incredulous. "Have you read it?"
"The Emperor chose them," Jade countered, ignoring his question. "When you've read them all, I'm instructed to allow you more."
"All! There's about forty books here." A momentary flare of stubbornness had cut in, making Luke step back from the massed books, but the fact that it was Jade and not Palpatine saying this softened the blow somehow, and in truth, what else did he have to do here?
He'd pulled out a book at random. It turned out to be, 'Qualitative Tactical Data for Planetary and Inter-System Offensives.'
He'd put it back.
"Then you should probably get started," Mara had said vaguely, looking back down to her 'reader.
"What, are you gonna test me?" he'd teased, digging for some response more from boredom than anything else.
"No, I'm going to watch you," she'd replied without looking up.
"Fantastic," he'd nodded, dryly amused. "The only thing worse than being bored to tears reading these things has to be watching someone else being bored to tears reading these things. You have my sympathy."
She'd glanced up at him without lifting her head, the slightest hint of shared amusement visible in her eyes.
"Okay...what shall we start with? Your choice, Red."
So now, a week and five books later, he was staring at his jailor, mind numb from reading three straight hours of the excruciatingly dry tome, 'Political, Social and Economic Structure in the Core Systems,' wondering how to get inside her head.
"How about a deck of cards?" Luke slammed the book shut. "Am I allowed a deck of cards, or are they deadly weapons in the right hands?"
.
.
Looking up from her own reader, Mara arched her eyebrows, wondering what had prompted this new angle. "I guess that depends how good you are with them."
"I'm terrible with them. Can I have a pack now?"
"Who you gonna play, flyboy?" She asked easily.
He grinned disarmingly. "You're telling me you never play?"
"Play what?" She had a hunch...
"Sabacc."
"I knew you were a sabacc player." If ever you needed to find a pilot, walk into any cantina within spitting distance of a spaceport and look around. The five guys sitting round the sabacc table would be pilots. Pilots always played sabacc. It was in their blood, like flying.
Luke shrugged. "Hurry up and wait," he said cryptically.
"What?"
"Hurry up and wait; a fighter pilot's life. You're either out on a sortie and someone's trying real hard to kill you, or you're in the docking bay waiting to go out on a sortie thinking about the fact that soon someone's gonna try real hard to kill you. Not a fantastic thing to be sitting thinking about, so you get a deck of cards out."
"Or you could actually go off and do some other work," Mara said.
Skywalker shook his head. "Not allowed to leave the flight deck when you're on active call. We help out the techs and the mechs sometimes, but they have this system going. I think we really just get in their way. They look nervous if we go near their ships."
"Fascinating," Mara said derisively, turning away. "You can't have a sabacc table in here."
"Why?"
"Too much technology. Wouldn't want you to start dismantling it, would we?"
"Why, what can I make if I dismantle a sabacc table?"
"I guess you'll never know," she replied, still without looking up.
"Deck rules then."
Mara sighed; deck rules were a method of playing sabacc without the electronic pulse which changed the chip-cards, called this because fighter pilots often played it on flight-decks whilst waiting to fly, where considering the concentration of technological ordnance, much of it live, pulse-generating technology was sensibly banned.
"I don't play deck rules," she dismissed.
"Yes, you do," he said, very sure.
She glanced up at him, wondering if he'd read her mind. It occurred to her that playing may well give her a few insights into his mind...and consequently to wonder if that was why he was trying to get her to play.
Luke folded his arms. "What, afraid I'd beat you?"
She narrowed her eyes. "Are you any good?"
"I'm a pilot," he said simply, as if the two were synonymous.
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.
.
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.
"Finally, someone to play sabacc with!" Luke declared with a grin as Han walked forward.
He'd arrived just moments earlier on his regular, once-weekly visit, taking the time as usual to pace out distances, note bottlenecks and security, and memorize guard numbers and surveillance.
Slowly, very slowly, they were working out a code system, since they were banned from anything but the most inane small talk, usually by the bad-tempered redhead who always seemed to loiter, Han had noticed. Luke had mentioned that he was never left alone anymore--again in the most vague, broad terms--but they were learning to get around even that. They'd developed a customary bear-hug as Han entered the room, slapping each other heartily on the back, knowing that in those few seconds they were close enough to whisper, the sound of their slaps drowned out their whispered words from surveillance mic's in the ceiling.