SABE'S DAUGHTER 
by Lelaina Nuruodo
sandrilene@hotmail.com

The Jedi Master took a deep breath and calmed herself as she ran through a series of 
relaxation techniques. All her life, she had never felt the need to delve into her hidden 
past. For years, her tough training and rough adolesence had taught her to hold her own on 
her own. She fought her own battles. For years she had her Master, then she had the Force. 
She had no need for anyone.

But that was in the past - before she became a mother. Motherhood was sweet and terrifying. 
One false step, she thought, and her son could be a second Vader. Never had she felt such a 
pressing need to know the woman who had given her life. To glean wisdom from the woman whom 
her instincts told her must have planted the seeds of goodness in her which allowed her to 
traverse the light and dark paths on her own and still emerge unscathed.


Sitting cross-legged in her quarters, she calmed herself as best as she could and cleared 
her mind. A myriad of scenes that was her life began to flash across her mind, assailing her 
senses all at once. Where should she start? Unbidden, a voice spoke to her mind:


"Fate is a tangle. Follow one thread." 

She obeyed. Grasping one of the fleeting images, she realised that it was the birth of her 
son. She experienced again the exquisite pain and joy of that moment which had almost cost 
her life, then began to retrace the significant emotional steps of her life.


She was with child...her husband's face when she told him the news...her wedding...the 
moment he had first told her that he loved her...

Then for a moment, as she unravelled the thread, there was a cold, dark blank. She 
recognised it for what it was: those were the years she had spent - no, wasted - in closing 
herself off emotionally from everyone. Years she had spent in training and then in service 
of her Master. She followed the thread doggedly and then the coldness was gone.


The pain of separation came unbidden. As wrenching as it was when it first happened.


She felt anew the tears she had shed and heard her anguished cries again.

"Mama! Mama! Mama!" 

She thought she heard a low voice singing a lullaby. And a faint voice was calling her name. 
What was her name...

Of course, she though. She had always known that.

"Meira."

A woman stood before her. Beautiful, dark-haired, with dark eyes that mirrored the sadness 
of one who had lost much. Yet those same eyes also blazed with the fire and warmth of one 
who had loved much too. For some reason, the woman reminded her of Leia Organa Solo.

"Meira," said the woman, with a warm smile. "You have finally found your way back."

"Mama?" 

She felt the love of her mother wrapping itself around her like a warm cloak.

"Your insight serves you well," her mother continued. "It has often been said that I bear a 
strong resemblance to Leia's mother."

What was her mother's name? Meira delved deeper into her memories.

Sabe.

"Yes," her mother nodded approvingly. "That is my name. I am Sabe Uzza, chief handmaiden and 
decoy to Queen Amidala. I was there when she birthed the twins. Luke and Leia never really 
knew their mother."

"I never knew my father," said Meira. "Who was he?"

Sabe's eyes took on a faraway _expression. "He was a great Jedi - like you. He would be 
proud of you I know," she said finally, looking at her daughter.


"I wish to know him."

Sabe appeared to consider Meira's request, then finally nodded. Learn for yourself then, 
Meira heard her mother say through the Force and then felt Sabe open her mind to her. 


Meira entered into her mother's memories. 

She saw her mother undergoing her training as the Queen's handmaiden and then she felt 
Sabe's anxiety as she fled from their home planet with Amidala and other handmaidens. But 
Sabe was dressed not as a handmaiden but as the Queen. The planet looked familiar and she 
suddenly recognised it as Naboo from holovids that she had seen.


The Trade Federation attack on Naboo, Meira thought in wonder. 

She saw Sabe, still dressed as the Queen on board the getaway ship and then Sabe alone, 
working out on the ship to relieve the stress of the situation. Suddenly Meira was aware of 
another presence. She saw Sabe thrust her practice staff into the direction of the presence 
and she felt Sabe's confused rush of emotions as she looked into the blue-green eyes of her 
father for the first time. 


She saw her father teaching her mother Jedi techniques and then showing her his lightsaber. 
She felt her mother tingling with the excitement and euphoria of their close proximity. 
There was a strange familiarity to her father that she could not place.


The scene melted away and she saw her parents exchange their first kiss as their bond 
deepened. She saw them again after they had first made love and watched her father lovingly 
reapplying the Queen's make-up on Sabe's face. Meira found she could hear their 
conversation.

"Will you do something for me?" Sabe asked.

"If I am able to," he replied. 

"When this is all over, just before you leave Naboo, tell me goodbye. You've played an 
important part in my life. I'll need the closure." 

"Is goodbye what you want?"

"Of course not, Obi-Wan. In a perfect galaxy, we'd all survive this conflict. You and I 
could continue a relationship or at least stay in touch, and everyone would live happily 
ever after. I have to be a realist and understand that this may not come to pass. Trust me 
and know that the feelings I have for you are true. See for yourself." 


"There may be a way to avoid goodbye. We'll see what we can find out after the battle, all 
right?" 

Meira froze when she heard the name. Obi-Wan, she thought in shock. Her father was Obi-Wan 
Kenobi.

The scene melted again and suddenly, she was watching a battle scene. Through her mother's 
emotions, she suddenly felt a wrenching pain that was her father's as his Master, Qui-Gon 
Jinn, was cut down in battle. She felt her mother's pain as her father closed himself off 
emotionally from everyone after the tragedy. And she saw Sabe watch him leave without a word 
of goodbye. 


Another scene appeared and she felt Sabe's conflict over giving her up to the Jedi Temple 
before finally deciding against it.


And then she watched Sabe meet Obi-Wan again after a long while, in the dunes of the 
Tatooine desert.

"We have a daughter..." Obi-Wan said in shock. 

"She has been kidnapped by Imperial forces, I know it. Obi-Wan, you must get her back," said 
a tearful Sabe. 

"I can't," he finally said after a long while, his voice breaking with pain.

"You mean you won't! You are only concerned with hiding Padme's twins!"

"Sabe, Meira is my daughter too - and I love her as much as you do. But she is safer where 
she is..."

"Safer? Obi-Wan, she's in the hands of Palpatine!"

"And he does not know her identity! The Imperials only know she is Force-sensitive and she 
will be of use to them. They will train her. If they find out she is the daughter of the 
Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi and Sabe Uzza, loyal handmaiden to Senator Amidala, they will kill our 
daughter, Sabe!" 

Meira watched as her mother sink into her father's arms in defeat, knowing that he was 
right. She watched Obi-Wan embrace Sabe for the first time after their long separation and 
she heard him tell Sabe in a voice aching with pain: "The Force is strong within our 
daughter, dearest Sabe. It will guide her."


But Sabe would not be comforted and after leaving him, determined to look for her daughter 
on her own. She did not get her chance and was killed by the bounty hunter Boba Fett who had 
mistaken her for Queen Amidala. 

Then it was over and Meira was facing her mother again. But there was another presence also 
and she found herself gazing at her father too, who was now standing in front of her with 
his arm about Sabe. Yet it was not the face of the elderly Obi-Wan whom she recognised from 
the old holovids. Instead, it was the Obi-Wan whom she saw in her mother's memory - young, 
handsome and very much in love with Sabe.


"Father...mother...!" she gasped, as the tears flowed. She felt her parents embrace her, and 
the warmth of their love wrapped around her. 

"My daughter, now you know all," said Obi-Wan, his eyes shining with pride and love. 


She nodded, her heart full. All the pieces of her life have now come together and she was 
finally whole. She could not wait to tell her husband.

"No, you are not to tell him, Meira," cautioned Obi-Wan, shaking his head slightly. "These 
events are only for your knowledge."

"But Luke never knew his mother," she protested. 

Sabe smiled. "His mother was fond of an old Naboo saying: Fate is a tangle, follow one 
thread," she said, reaching out to stroke her daughter's hair. "Luke will find his thread 
one day and unravel the mystery of his past too. Now that you have unravelled yours, we must 
go. Take good care of yourself as well as Luke and Ben. We are both so proud of you, my 
daughter."

"And remember that we will always be with you even though you can't see us," Obi-Wan added. 
"May the Force be with you, Meira, or should I say Mara..."

Jedi Master Mara Jade Skywalker found herself alone in her own quarters again. Her parents 
were gone, but they would be with her, she knew. 

All the pieces fit now. She knew where she inherited her combat abilities from, her skill 
with blaster and her ability to blend inconspicuously into whatever mission she was thrust 
into. She knew where her Jedi abilities came from. She knew where she inherited her 
unflinching loyalty to any person or cause she had pledged herself to. She also finally 
understood why she had never turned to the Dark Side even when she worked for Emperor 
Palpatine.


For she was Meira, daughter of Obi-Wan Kenobi and Sabe Uzza. It was a lineage to be proud 
of. Meira, she thought and smiled. She remembered now that it was indeed her name. When the 
Imperials got her, she was so frightened she had not even been able to say her name properly 
when they asked her. And she became Mara Jade, the last name given to her by an 
unimaginative Imperial because of her green eyes.

She was now Mara Jade Skywalker. But she also knew she would always be Meira Kenobi.


A presence touched her mind and she sensed Luke's arrival before he entered.

"Mara?" he asked. "Are you feeling all right? I sensed you going through a huge emotional 
upheaval of some kind."

"Really, farmboy, it is hard to keep any thoughts to oneself with you around," she teased, 
deflecting the question with a teasing grin.

He laughed. Respecting her privacy, he probed no further. Indeed, he had no cause to probe, 
not when he could see and feel that Mara looked more at peace than she had been at any time 
in her life. 

"I used to find it the same way when Ben was around," he said. 

Mara smiled when she thought how apt that their son should have been named after her father 
when she had not even known that Obi-Wan "Ben" Kenobi was her father. Truly the ways of the 
Force were mysterious. Or perhaps in the tangle of fate, they had somehow followed the right 
thread.