The Rule of Two [RP for emperors_hand]

[the_starkiller]

The box shook as Starkiller slowly guided it across the training room. It didn't weigh more than a few dozen kilograms, but he found himself straining with the effort of simply keeping it off the ground and moving. It was ridiculous. Months had passed since he'd awoken on the medlab table, once more saved from death by the will of a Sith Lord intent on using him and his strength for evil deeds. Months since he'd had to begin getting used to the mechanical right arm and leg that had replaced his ruined limbs.

The Force didn't reside in his hand, and yet when Starkiller tried to focus through gestures with his artificial arm, the result was a weak echo of his former ability. With his left hand, it was as though nothing had changed. His Master had punished him time and again for such weakness, and Starkiller had improved, but he was far from the warrior he had been.

Finally, the box crashed to the floor. Before Starkiller could curse himself, he was slammed to the floor, onto his knees with the Force. The double doors to the training room hissed open and his Master, the Emperor Palpatine entered. "Starkiller, you continue to disappoint me. You will need to do far better if you wish to take a true place at my side."

Starkiller bowed his head. "I am sorry, my Master."

The Emperor circled near, and Starkiller's flesh chilled. "I care nothing for your apologies, only for your usefulness. Which brings me to your first assignment as my operative."

"What is your bidding, my Master?"

"You are to pilot a cloaked Sith Interceptor to the planet Correllia. There you will rendezvous with one of the Emperor's Hands on a mission I wish completed immediately. Thus, you and the Hand both have orders to assassinate the same individual, to see who will prevail. You will fulfill my wishes or both of you will perish."

"Yes, my Master."

Palpatine was gone a moment later, and with one last hateful look at the box on the floor, Starkiller left, boarding the Sith Interceptor and heading toward Correllia.

Comments

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Mara Jade was ready to assassinate someone of no importance to her, but because her Master had ordered it, that was all the mattered. Of course, that was when she heard her new summons.

"My Hand, you have new orders."

She hated it when she couldn't finish a job because she heard his voice in her mind. Sighing, she placed the blaster back in its holster and waited.

"You must go to Corellia. There, a man named Kandar Cee needs to die. You will meet another man, one of my agents..."

"Another Hand?" She spoke aloud to no one, knowing he would hear her. It was one of her gifts that made her favored among his other Hands. They did not know the names of one another to keep things safe, so it was highly unusual...

"No. Another... operative."

Hmm. She heard the pause in his 'voice' and kept that in mind as she headed to her ship, ready to go on her new mission. "It will be taken care of, Master." She fired up the ship and set a course for Corellia. Mara knew of the man named Kandar. Supposedly, he was someone important to the budding Rebel Alliance. Once she was in hyperdrive, she showered, changed, and got into her clothing that would allow her to hopefully blend in with the locals.

She stretched out with the Force and felt another one, strong, nearby. Not a Hand? Odd. Still, orders were orders. Mara walked up to the agent and smiled her flirtatious grin. "Hey there, handsome. Your ship or mine?"

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

"Not tonight--"

After the hour he'd been waiting in one of the less reputable establishments near this particular spaceport and after the dozen women, half dozen men and two Twi'leks, the response had become a habit. Starkiller lowered his hand when he realized the buzzing sense of another Force user was actually coming from the girl.

He frowned. "You?"

The young, beautiful girl facing him didn't look like an Emperor's Hand. Starkiller had slain one three weeks before after the Hand had failed to find one of the Rebel generals on Ord Mantell. That man had been twice Starkiller's size and had nearly torn his artificial arm from its socket. She couldn't have been more than eighteen, and didn't look a bit like one of Palpatine's precious assassins.

"You can't be the one I'm supposed to be meeting, girl. You got a Master around here or something?"

This wasn't starting out well.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

"Girl?"

Mara did her best not to roll her eyes at him. This was the operative she was supposed to meet? "Look, Kid, I wouldn't be talking if I were you. Apparently we both have a mission to do so I say we go in, kill the guy, and get out," she whispered so no one else could hear them.

"And for the record, yes, I have a Master. He's the one who sent me here to meetyou." She crossed her arms and sighed. That was plenty of information for him to figure out just who her Master was. Mara was not about to start spilling anything else about the Hands than she needed to. They were secret and unknown for a reason.

"And the name's Mara, by the way." Which was also more than he needed to know.

"So, are we going to do this or do you want me to keep arguing with you? Either way, I'll win, in case you were curious. I always get what I want," she added with a wink.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He stared at her. Starkiller had to have at least five years and almost a full head's worth of height on her, and she was calling him "Kid"? Just what kind of person was this Emperor's Hand? The Force was strong with her, that much was obvious to his sensitivities, which was the reason his Master had recruited her to do the Empire's dirty work. But that attitude? That would have earned Starkiller a blast or two of the Emperor's lightning for sure.

"It's that last part that's going to be the trouble," he told her. "Getting out is always the trouble."

Shrugging at her introduction, he hesitated a moment before reciprocating. "Starkiller."

"Always?" he scoffed. "That just means you haven't run up against a decent challenge yet." And that was all he needed on a mission like this: having to babysit some headstrong and overconfident Hand trying her damndest to outdo him instead of getting the kill. This would be a lot easier if we could work together, Starkiller mused, but I guess that's not the Sith way.

"Let's get this over with. If you have the name, I can find an informant."

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Starkiller? What sort of name was that? She shrugged at him. "Getting out is easy." Really, this guy? This was the operative that worked for the Emperor? She couldn't really believe it.

Maybe he just hadn't been field-tested yet. Hopefully, she wasn't babysitting him...

"I have the name. Kandar Cee." Mara gave Starkiller the once over and shook her head at him. "But before we go anywhere, Kid, you have got to change clothes. You stand out in a crowd easily. We're supposed to keep this quiet, you realize. Blend in with the locals..." She waved a hand at him.

"I've got some clothes you can change into back at my ship if you don't have anything. I remember what my first mission was like," she added over her shoulder as she walked back to her ship without waiting for him.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He sighed. With an attitude like that, maybe he ought to do his Master a favor and dump the girl on Raxus Prime, then reanimate some of those junk titans and see if she thinks getting off-planet under hostile fire would be so easy. "Again, you've clearly been doing nothing but the easiest assignments they can find for you." Starkiller rubbed at the bridge of his nose, an odd sensation when he used the artificial hand.

"Kandar Cee, the spice merchant?" The man's name had been all over the local HoloNet channel, something about a big trade deal going on. Whatever the Emperor's underlying motives, Cee's deal must have been the reason he was marked for death.

Starkiller rolled his eyes. "Whatever, as long as it gets me close enough to the target to do my job." He stopped short. "First mission? I've been--" Starkiller cut himself off, then frowned. "Never mind, it's not like you seem inclined to listen, anyway. Just take me to your ship, then, and tell me I don't want to know why you have a set of men's clothing aboard."

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

"That's the one," Mara answered as she ran ahead and started going through some things, flinging a pair of boots at him followed by some slacks and pants that were the same colors of the locals, dirtied up nicely so that no one would suspect they were brand-new.

One hand on her hip, she pulled out her blaster, checked it, put it away, then pulled out her lightsaber and ignited it. All for show, of course, just so the kid knew who he was dealing with. "Fine, I'll listen. Talk while you get dressed. And no going anywhere. You get undressed and dressed in front of me, got it?" She didn't trust the guy and somehow, she had a feeling that this was why she was with him. Hands almost always worked alone. Her Master must have wanted her to keep a close watch on him...

"Oh, I bet you can guess why I'd have them aboard, Kid," she grinned. "So, talk and I'll listen. I swear on the life of the Emperor."

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He caught the boots an inch from his face with the Force, and let them and the clothes Mara had thrown at him in a pile at his feet. They were simple and rough and dirty, only one of which was something he wasn't used to. Vader had never been concerned with how he'd looked, only that he had what was required for the mission, and Starkiller had taken the habit to heart.

The lightsaber gave him pause for a heartbeat. In the hands of a trained warrior, it was the most deadly weapon in the galaxy. In the hands of an impetuous and arrogant Emperor's Hand, it was probably even worse. He raised his hands. "Fine, fine. Whatever."

Pulling off his belt, he made sure that it and the lightsaber clipped to it were within quick reach. Starkiller began pulling off his clothes, mostly unconcerned about having to do so. Hopefully, the grafted and grown flesh over his replaced limbs was convincing. "I wasn't always the Emperor's apprentice," he said quietly. "My first Master, Lord Vader, trained me for almost all my life. Almost two years ago, I began undertaking his missions. Not the--" he smirked-- "undercover operations you Hands seem to be used on. Big stuff. Then, things got complicated. Now, the Emperor is my Master."

He finally hesitated when stripping off his trousers, under which he wore nothing, but only for a moment. The uncomfortable moment had reminded him for some reason of Juno, and that made him more than ready to be done with the conversation.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

She disengaged the lightsaber and sat, her legs crossed, as she watched him undress and listened to his tale. The first word that caught her attention was "apprentice". She'd always assumed Vader was the only apprentice that the Emperor had. Interesting, Mara thought to herself. I'll have to look into that later..

"Vader trained you?" She nodded. "The Emperor trained me for almost all of my life." Mara snorted, "I can't even remember what my life was like before he took me from my parents. Actually, I can't even remember anything except for my life here with the Empire." She frowned at herself. That was revealing a little more about herself than she'd wanted to do.

Speaking of revealing...

"Nice," she smirked at Starkiller. Standing, she walked over to him and wondered just how loyal he was, and who his loyalties really were with. "So, you realize that we actually have some time before we have to go anywhere and meet anyone right?" She wrapped a hand around his neck, unaware of the mechanical limbs at the moment. "You don't have to get dressed so quickly, Kid..."

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He nodded. "I ended up the same way. All I ever knew since I was a boy was training, and Vader was not a kind Master. I'd always assumed I was just a foundling, but I learned a little while ago Vader took me as his apprentice after murdering my father, a Jedi." Starkiller shivered, remembering the hut on Kashyyyk, and the ghost of Kento Marek that had appeared to him there. He glanced up at Mara. She had a story that didn't sound much different than his, and that made him as much uneasy and it made him curious about her.

"I actually have a name," he muttered, "but Starkiller is the only one that matters now."

Starkiller froze as Mara crossed the room and stepped up close to him. Suddenly, her hand was on his neck, her body nearly against his and her wide eyes staring up into his. And for as rough as her native clothes made her look, she smelled surprisingly good. It reminded him too much of things he didn't want to remember.

"What are you doing?" he asked stiffly.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

She raised an eyebrow at him. "Sounds like we have more in common than I'd assumed." Which was very interesting. Why would this kid need to be watched by the Emperor?

"Oh, c'mon. I told you my name. What's yours? I'm not going to tattle to anyone. Besides, Starkiller is such a mouthful."

Mara had some ideas about how to pass the time, but then he froze in her arms and she almost laughed. "I'm getting ready to kiss you." A hand ruffled his hair lightly. "What's the matter? You don't want to get kissed? Fine, I can skip that part, you're right. We don't have a whole lot of time." She started pulling her blouse off and tossed it aside as she pulled him down to the floor of the ship.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He shrugged. The last thing Starkiller was interested in was making new friends. He could count the number of actual friends he'd ever had on a single hand, and every one of them was dead, thanks to him. Giving his life to the Emperor was just part of the price for their lives, so while the fact that Mara was a child of the Empire as he had been was interesting, Starkiller didn't really give much of a damn.

What did have his undivided attention was the attention Mara was paying him right at that moment. "Wait," Starkiller said, fumbling away from her and her hands that suddenly seemed to be everywhere, "I don't think we-- There's still... Maybe we..."

Twisting his body, Starkiller came down hard on his artificial elbow, the joint making a barely audible metallic clang on the deck plating. He moved back from Mara, trying very hard to keep his eyes on her face and not the fact that she'd shed half her clothes already.

"Galen... Galen Marek," he said quietly, remembering the price he'd paid to learn the words. "And I've... never..."

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Mara sat up a bit, leaning on her elbows as she stared hard at him. She'd thought she'd heard a noise that sounded an awful lot like metal against metal, but then she shrugged it off. He's probably got an artificial hand or something Big deal. Nothing you need to waste your time trying to figure out. She watched him try to move away from her, still naked, and sighed.

"You've never, what?" Galen Marek. She filed that name away for later. She hadn't even told him her own full name yet. The kid was sloppy, but cute, and cute was what mattered to her at the moment. As her green eyes looked down his body, she could tell it was what mattered to him too by the erection.

"Wait, hold on, are you saying you never...?" This had to be a joke. "Hmm." She sat up and cupped his face, kissing him slowly. She'd been trained to be a concubine, too, but somehow she figured that her 'arts' would be lost on the kid. "Maybe we should take care of that right now, then... Galen..."

Mara shimmied out of her skirt and pulled him back on top of her.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

"No, never," he repeated. "I said, I've only ever trained to be a Sith, the only woman I--"

Galen (it was a hell of a lot easier to be Galen at the moment, considering the fact he was naked and being almost-assaulted) stopped dead when Mara took on an expression of hunger and moved across the floor toward him. The sensuous roll of her body as she slid up his did a damn good job of making him forget what his next words were going to be. When she kissed him, Galen kissed her back, clumsily but with intent.

The kiss snapped part of his brain back. Juno, he reminded himself. Juno, dead because I couldn't let her go. Why am I doing this? All that he'd sacrificed, all the people he'd lost and who had died because of him and his betrayals... what would they think of him now, not quite the Emperor's apprentice and not quite a Hand, but without a doubt his slave?

They wouldn't think anything, said the bitter, harder voice-- the Starkiller voice-- in the back of his mind, they're all dead. Even Juno. So it doesn't matter.

He watched as Mara slid the last of her clothes off, and didn't fight at all when she pulled at him. Galen agreed, and put his lips to Mara's again. His hips moved, unconsciously responding to the want he was allowing himself, but he was nowhere near the mark.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

"Hang on," she muttered, turning them over so that she was on top of him, straddling his hips. "Better," she sighed into his lips as she worked her hips until she felt him slide into her perfectly, biting her lip as she watched his expression on his face.

Get ready for some fun, she thought to herself as Mara began rising and lowering herself onto him slowly, rolling her hips against his as she clenched her muscles once tightly.

She stopped and then lowered herself until her breasts were touching his chest, and she wondered what he was thinking. She was his first. No love, which was fine with her, but at least there was something there because he was pulling at her as much as she was pushing against him. Want, need, desire was there.

"Blast it, you feel good," she told him before Mara kissed him again.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

Confusion took over Galen's mind for a moment when Mara began to push at him, moving him onto his back. Was he doing something wrong? Did she not actually--? Any kind of questions were silenced when he watched the beautiful redhead gracefully swing one leg over his and straddle his lap. Once she had risen up and he was suddenly sheathed inside her, Galen made a noise somewhere between a groan and a sigh.

His education being what it was, Galen had no preparation other than clinical medical information and the crude things he sometimes overheard near Stormtroopers. None of it had prepared him for the sensation of being joined to a live body, of feeling that warmth and that impossible combination of tightness and wet. Galen's eyes were wide as he stared up at Mara. He wondered if it was possible to feel any better.

As it turned out, he could. She started rolling her hips, causing him to stroke in and out of her. Galen moaned again, feeling surges and waves of pleasure through his body. Instinct guided his hands to reach up and grip Mara's slim hips. Something else, something hot and hungry began to grow inside his chest and belly. It caused his own hips to move, trying to match Mara's rhythm. He tried to respond to Mara's words, but instead had only low, rumbling noises to make, so Galen returned to kissing her, hungry.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Mara's hands found his hair and she bunched her fingers into the small bits of it that she could as she kissed him back, glad that he was feeling as much fire as she was at the moment. Her Hips moved up and down, slowly at first, and then she increased her speed as she felt him get harder inside her. Her lags pressed tighter against Galen's body, squeezing him as much as she possibly could until he began to hit every single spot inside of her and she had to break the kiss just to breathe, because he felt so damn good.

Her head had tilted back, but then she found his ear and groaned into it, "I'm going to come right now, kid, so hold on..." She took his hands and moved them from her hips to her ass as she slammed down on top of him quickly three times, screaming out his name (she never did that), and shuddered around him with her eyes shut and back bowed.

Mara collapsed onto his chest, pressing light kisses on his neck and shoulder with a satisfied smile, and looked into his face. "Your turn," she panted, rolling her hips against his again, the wetness making it easier for her get him inside her as deep as possible.

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

If he'd still been Jedi, then maybe Galen could have opened himself up to the Force in a way that would let him sense the things Mara was feeling. But then it dawned on him that he didn't need that kind of sensitivity to know she was enjoying their coupling, not when he could hear the noises and feel the heat of her skin and the way she kept clamping down and around him so hard it almost hurt, and no when she kissed him like that.

Inside of his own body, Galen felt the fire continuing to grow. He held tight to Mara's ass once she announced her climax and very nearly followed right after her when Mara's body started to move on his as the climax overtook her. The sound of his name being screamed like that made the heat flare.

Galen closed his eyes and breathed when Mara fell against him. He felt his strength gathering. When she spoke, he opened his eyes and locked on hers. They had turned shades darker, and the look on his face had gone hungry. "All right," he said, voice low and rough. He held onto Mara's hips again, slid his fee t up to get better leverage, and began thrusting into her faster.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Mara sighed in relief once she felt Galen let go of everything and just give himself over to the feelings finally. If she hadn't known better by the way he was holding her ass and thrusting himself inside her, she would've guessed he was a pro at this.

Maybe it was the soldier in him, or the side of him that embraced the Force. She didn't know and she didn't care right now except for getting him to come for her, in her, right then and now. She grabbed his arms to hold herself steady as her entire body moved up and down, and she clenched around his length tightly again as she watched his face.

She nodded her head, feeling how hard he was inside her. "Come on... I want to feel you come in me..."

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

He nodded. Even with his newfound focus, it was just a little too difficult for Galen to form thoughts into coherent words. He was too lost in the sensations running through his body like lightning, starting from where their bodies met and joined again and again, straight through to every part of him. The lightning doubled when he felt Mara squeeze around him again. He groaned out a word at last, her name.

Only a few seconds of that, and suddenly the driving feeling inside of his body was accompanied by a pressure, like the approach of a great wave. "Oh, hell..." he rasped. The pressure bore down on him, coming on fast even as his thrusts sped up, too.

"Yes," he gasped. "Yes! Yes, Mara, yes!"

Galen exploded, or at least that was how it felt. His body clenched in three or four great spurts, and then took a long minute or two to quiet. Finally, he lay almost too drained to move, his hands lazily skimming Mara's back and his arms keeping her pressed to him.

[emperors-hand.insanejournal.com]

Blast it, he felt good.

Mara smirked, liking the feeling of his fingers on her back, and finally sat up, leaning on one elbow to look at Galen's face before she bent down to kiss him again. "Gotta say, Kid, that my name on your lips has to be one of the sexiest things I've ever heard." She touched his chest a bit and frowned, remembering their mission and the fact that she should keep an eye on him for her Master.

"I hate to break up this nice moment, but we should really go. Of course, I'm quite agreeable to doing this again afterward to celebrate." She was feeling quite smug and didn't care if he knew it. One last kiss and she pushed herself off him, didn't bother rinsing off, and changed back into her "costume" for the mission. Mara fluffed her hair a bit, then looked back at him.

"Ready, Starkiller?" It was a good way to keep him separate. Starkiller for missions, Galen for more private, personal stuff. "Let's go."

[emperors-blade.insanejournal.com]

A low, frustrated grumble sounded out of Galen's chest as he pushed himself up off the floor. What they'd just done had been more pleasure than he had ever experienced in his entire life, he'd have been perfectly content to stay in the ship and continue, the Emperor's mission be damned. But Mara, for all of her almost insufferable self-satisfaction at the moment, was right. And that made him even more frustrated.

Not so much, though, that he intended to refuse. "Fine," he said curtly, "but next time, I hope you've got a bed on this crate, girl."

He finished dressing in the clothes Mara had provided him, making sure that his lightsaber was properly hidden underneath his disguise. Satisfied, he shouldered his way past Mara toward the landing ramp. "I've been ready. Just don't get in the way."

The fire that had been lit in his belly was still going. It made him want to prove himself, to take his place as the Emperor's true apprentice. This would be the first step, and if he had to work with Mara to do it, then so be it.