Han nodded, his concern not settled a whit. "You know," he said at last, turning to look out at the city, "last time I was on Coruscant I was complaining because I had nowhere to stay. Now I'm in the Imperial Palace, no less. Admittedly not the best room in the house, but still..."
Luke turned sharply, understanding. "How long ago was that?"
"Four or five years." Not too long was the inference.
"Doing what?"
"Dropping off," Han said vaguely.
"Where?"
"Tyren Islands--a district actually, near the equator. There's a few spots, there." Now wasn't the time to be giving out co-ordinates. "Didn't like 'em so much. I guess they were okay for a short stop, but too hot to stay too long," Han added pointedly.
"I like the heat, you know that," Luke reassured.
"You've just been in it too long. It gets like that," Han said, understanding the double meaning and keeping his tone casual.
Clearly understanding, Luke half-glanced to Jade, doubtless wishing to disperse the conversation a little for her ears. "No--desert born and bred. I think the novelty of snow on Hoth wore off about the same time as you lowered the Falcon's landing ramp."
"You were the one who kept volunteering for perimeter checks and dragging me out with you," Han accused good-naturedly, glad to see the kid smile, if only fractionally.
"It was a rota," Luke said easily, turning back to the window.
"You were the Unit Commander--you could have left your own name out, y'know."
Luke shrugged dismissively. "I liked Yavin though--and Circarpous. Liked the greenery." His eyes turned down to the verdant roof gardens of the Main Palace below. "Like the gardens here...I'd like to visit them one day."
It took a second for Han to work this abrupt change of conversation out, then he glanced down, affecting a disinterested air. "Well, unlike me, you're in the right place. You can't get to them from the Main Palace, they're completely sealed off. I don't think you can even get through--"
"Stop it," Jade interrupted, editing the conversation again, more cautious than usual. Luke turned quizzically but she wasn't giving ground. "Stop discussing how to get from the Towers to the Palace."
"I already know how to get from the Towers to the Palace," Luke said dismissively, turning away.
.
Glancing once to Solo, who was stood a cagey few steps back from his own friend, clearly aware on some level that something was different, Mara narrowed her eyes at Luke, picking up the gauntlet he'd thrown down in his casually dismissive claim. "And you would know that how?"
Luke gestured with a sideways glance to the bedroom, voice cool and matter-of-fact. "You really should use droids occasionally, and not sentient minds. Everyone in that room came up through the Palace into the Towers this morning; it's in the head of every single person who walks through here, Red. Yourself included."
It wasn't quite a challenge, but Mara knew Solo too could hear the short fuse when Luke spoke, which was rare enough to make him shift uneasily.
"You can't read my mind," she dismissed, the barest hint of uncertainty in her voice.
"You think those shields stop me? They don't."
"Liar."
He half-turned to her, his face hidden by the bright corona of daylight behind him. "When have I ever lied to you, Red?"
Mara turned away, unwilling to be pulled into an argument with him when he was so uncharacteristically volatile. But he wouldn't let her off so easily.
"Worried?" He had a wicked grin on his face, but she wasn't about to be brow-beaten by him.
"Hardly," she lied.
"You should be," he said simply, voice amused and brittle, the uneasy truth of his next words stopping her cold: "I am."
He held her eye for a second too long before his flat gaze flicked away, all his attention focused on Solo, who took a half step back without realizing, leaving Mara to study him closely, no longer listening to what they were saying. He was slipping, increment by infinitesimal increment. Too long under her master's influence, frustrated and bound, constrained and provoked, he was losing perspective and gaining an edge, volatile and erratic, quicksilver fast.
And he knew it.
.
.
.
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Vader walked through the towering, lavishly decorated halls which led to the Throne Room, grinding his jaw in distaste as dignitaries and Moffs paused in whatever malicious whispers they were spreading among the Royal Houses to bow lightly and politely as he passed, though he never once acknowledged them.
He had been summoned to Court, something he disliked intensely, the pomp and ceremony which his Master had instigated to keep the fractious Royal Houses in line grating against his reined-in distaste. He wasn't stupid--wasn't blind to what his Master did. The intricate formalities and etiquettes of Court were designed expressly to intimidate, to instill insecurity into anyone coming into that most exclusive of circles, to dissuade anyone without prior knowledge from daring to intrude. Thus an elite was formed who had a vested interest in maintaining their own position and therefore by extension, the Emperor's, whilst Palpatine kept close to himself all those who held any power--and he made it his business to know them all.
Before one entered the Throne Room, one must travel through the Attendant's Hall, an equally large and lavish space, three stories high and awash with the constant chatter of the exclusive language of Archaic Coruscanti, adopted by Palpatine for his Court, as well as endless native languages. The vast, magnificent hall remained forever crowded out by literally hundreds of lackeys and sycophants, all petitioning for entry to Court in hope of gaining the Emperor's patronage, which was always strictly rationed--though when one was in his favor, there were no limits to his generosity. But in order to gain such a position of favor, one must do it at the expense of another, and risk either the Emperor's amusement or his wrath. 'Dead Man's Shoes,' they called it. Fools, every one of them, for trying; they deserved all that they reaped.
The vast chamber fell to an observant hush as Vader strode through it, looking neither left nor right, having no time for the petty power-plays of these contemptible parasites. They were everything he had once thought his Master would remove, as the Old Republic groaned under the weight of its own traditions. Everything he'd once hoped to have the power to remove himself. Now there seemed more of them every day, crowded into these halls and this Palace, exchanging power for money or money for power. He hated them, every one, their weakness was sickening--but no less than his own for tolerating them.
The grand, floor-to-ceiling double-doors swung open onto the Throne Room where his Master held Court, scarlet-robed Royal Guards stepping back to allow Vader entrance--he was never made to wait. He walked forward without breaking stride into the whispering shadows of the lofty, imposing, expansive hall beyond, the gathered assemblage turning to view the new entrant, lowering their heads in polite acknowledgement of his status.
The Throne Room itself was a statement of Imperial wealth and supremacy on the grandest scale, a cavernous audience chamber whose carved, fluted pillars and crenulations were picked out with thousands upon thousands of hand-laid sheets of rose and yellow gold, banded striations of vermillion and cobalt blue threaded into its subtle lustre in flowing, fluid arcs and scrolls on the grandest scale. The distant vaulted ceiling was an immense terrazzo mosaic of darkest midnight blue, a perfect representation of Coruscant's night sky beyond the Palace rendered in fine gold strapwork.
Flanking this grand space to either side, divided from the main chamber by a series of ornate, gilded sliding panels, were less formal but still equally sumptuous private Receiving Rooms, only reachable by walking through the Throne Room itself, and only ever accessible to the very favored few. By opening or closing the wall-long runs of these elaborate sliding panels, it was possible to create several stately, intimate receiving rooms or one vast, impressive hall, an ornate raised dais at its far end.