“Refusing to be intimidated, after all, didn’t mean deliberately asking for trouble.”
“Concentration, focus, long-term thinking—those are the qualities that separate a warrior from a mere flailing fighter.”
“I have no vision of any future, maitrakh. Not yours; not even mine. I was just thinking about children. Trying to imagine what it’s like to try to raise them. Wondering how much of their character a family can mold, and how much is innate in the children themselves." She hesitated. "Wondering if the evil in a family’s history can be erased, or whether it always passes itself on to each new generation.”
“One of the first rules the Emperor had drummed into her [Mara Jade] so long ago was to blend in as best she could with her surroundings”
“But she wasn't a serving girl in a Phorliss cantina this time, or a come-up flector for a swoop gang on Caprioril, or even a hyperdrive mechanic stuck in the backwater of the Ison Corridor. She was second in command to the most powerful smuggler in the galaxy, with the kind of resources and mobility she hadn't had since the death of the Emperor. [p] The kind of resources that would let her find Luke Skywalker again. And kill him”
“Creo que nadie se mete en una guerra sin tener la incómoda sensación de que las cosas habrían podido solucionarse de otra manera, a pesar de que esa otra manera se haya probado y fallado.”
“And in that single crackle of tortured electronics she had lost everything. Her comm, her lights, her limited maneuvering jets, her life support regulator, her emergency beacons.
Everything.
For a second her thoughts flickered to Skywalker. He'd been lost in deep space, too, awhile back. But she'd had a reason to find him. No one had a similar reason to find her.”
“For a long minute he gazed at her, his eyes searching the features of that face he'd grown to love so deeply over the years, his memory bringing up images of the past as he did so. The young determination in her face as, in the middle of a blazing firefight, she'd grabbed Luke's blaster rifle away from him and shot them an escape route into the Death Star's detention-level garbage chute. The sound of her voice in the middle of deadly danger at Jabba's, helping him through the blindness and tremor and disorientation of hibernation sickness. The wiser, more mature determination visible through the pain in her eyes as, lying wounded outside the Endor bunker, she had nevertheless summoned the skill and control to coolly shoot two stormtroopers off Han's back.
And he remembered, too, the wrenching realization he'd had at that same time: that no matter how much he tried, he would never be able to totally protect her from the dangers and risks of the universe. Because no matter how much he might love her--no matter how much he might give of himself to her--she could never be content with that alone. Her vision extended beyond him, just as it extended beyond herself, to all the beings of the galaxy.
And to take that away from her, whether by force or even by persuasion, would be to diminish her soul. And to take away part of what he'd fallen in love with in the first place.”
“The maitrakh met her gaze steadily, her alien face unreadable.
'Are you offering me your help?' Leia asked.
'There is honor in you, Lady Vader,' the maitrakh said, her voice quiet. 'For the life and honor of my thirdson, I will go with you. Perhaps we will die together.'
Leia nodded, her heart aching. 'Perhaps we will.”
“The Lady Vader has come. We would hear her words.'
'Then you will hear them in prison.' The dynast gestured, and two more of the official guard left their line, heading purposefully toward the steps.
It was, Leia judged, the right moment. Glancing down at her belt, she reached out through the Force with all the power and control she could manage--
And her lightsaber leaped from her belt, breaking free from its quick-release and jumping up in front of her. Her eyes and mind found the switch, and with a snap-hiss the brilliant green-white blade flashed into existence, carving out a vertical line between her and the line of dynasts.
There was a sound like a hissing gasp from the crowd. The two Noghri who had been moving toward the maitrakh froze in mid stride...and as the gasp vanished into utter silence, Leia knew that she'd finally gotten their complete attention. 'I am not merely the daughter of the Lord Vader,' she said, putting an edge of controlled anger into her voice. 'I am the Mal'ary'ush: heir to his authority and his power. I have come through many dangers to reveal the treachery that has been done to the Noghri people.'
She withdrew as much of her concentration as she could risk from the floating lightsaber to look slowly down the line of dynasts. 'Will you hear me? Or will you instead choose death?”
“I rule the Empire now. Not some long-dead Emperor; certainly not you. the only treason is defiance of my orders.”
“Yes, they’d lost. But it was just a battle, not the war.”
“And here is the thing about them men they was Australians they knew full well the terror of the unyielding law the historic memory of UNFAIRNESS were in their blood and a man might be a bank clerk or an overseer he might never have been lagged for nothing but still he knew in his heart what it were to be forced to wear the white hood in prison he knew what it were to be lashed for looking a warder in the eye and even a posh fellow like the Moth had breathed that air so the knowledge of unfairness were deep in his bone and marrow.”
“There is a connection to all living things, a vibration of Life. Animals were not given a power of choice. A lion does not try to eat legumes nor an elephant meat. We believe the best way to communicate with nature, God, is through a liaison: the animals.”
“I don't think Blanca was worth it, Horatio told him. She wasn't even that good.”
“I can’t imagine a without her. Even while we’re apart, she’s still so present in my life.”
“I had learned from my reading that you can do really awful things when you are bored, things that are bound to make you miserable. In fact, you do them in order to become miserable, so you won't have to be bored anymore.”
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