"Is that where you are now?"

"I'm trying to work out how Lumiya moves around. Forget all this lightwhip garbage. I'm going to find her ship and finish what Luke started. They're always vulnerable in transit."

Leia's end of the link went quiet for a few moments. "Want me to play bait?"

"Don't you think you've been through enough lately?"

"I can guarantee that Alema would show up if I asked nicely," Leia said. "And maybe Lumiya wouldn't be far behind."

"Tell you what, why don't I lob in Ben and make certain of it?"

"Mara . . ."

"Sorry. I don't want to expose you to any more risk. But if I can devise a safer way of exploiting the fact that neither of those crazies can keep away from us, I'll do it."

"We're going to need to break this link soon," Leia said.

"Okay. Look, I have to see Jacen sooner or later. Do you want me to put it to him straight? Ask him why he ran when you'd come to save him?"

Mara couldn't think of a single thing Jacen might say that would sound plausible, but she didn't want to make Leia feel any worse than she did. My fault anyway. I defended him when Luke was telling me he was going dark. If I'd seen what was in front of me and acted then, things might be different now.

She had thought that about Palpatine, too. She was spending too much time looking back, and not enough getting on with the here and now.

The past couldn't be changed, just the future.

"What if he tells you," said Leia, "and it's a reason I won't enjoy hearing?"

"Your call." How much worse has it got to get before you accept he's treating you worse than dirt? Mara tried to imagine how she'd feel if Ben issued a warrant for her arrest or left her on a s.p.a.ce station venting atmosphere. It would devastate her-but she'd take him back in a heartbeat. No, there was no advice she could give Leia about her wayward son. "But I want to know anyway, seeing as Luke and I were there to help him, too, and wasted our time."

"All I can say is do whatever you feel you must to get Lumiya. Then we'll see about bringing Jacen back into the fold."

"If I find Alema, I'll save her for you."

"I'd like that."

"Thought you might."

"You take care, Mara."

Leia's link went dead. Mara had to a.s.sume she and Han were on Corellia, and that meant Alema couldn't get at her so easily.

Take care. Oh, I will. I've got one advantage you haven't, Leia, and that's darkness. I've been that dark. I was trained by a Sith Lord. I can think like them.

At least Leia hadn't made any cracks about Luke not taking the opportunity to finish off Lumiya. Sometimes, when she considered her sister-in-law, Mara regretted her own temper and wished she could learn a little of that steely diplomacy.

Mara turned the XJ7 and checked Ben's transponder again. Still on Coruscant. That didn't guarantee his safety, but at least she could pinpoint him. She zoomed her screen in on the trace, and the coordinates resolved into a grid, and then into neighborhoods and skylanes. Ben was at GAG HQ. She could locate him accurately to within three meters.

He liked the vibroblade she'd given him. She felt bad not telling him it housed a long-range pa.s.sive transponder, and that it had saved her more than once because she'd used it as a homing beacon, but that was just detail. It was a superb weapon, so it wasn't a lie.

The tagged vibroblade ensured she knew exactly where Ben was at all times now.

He'd never spot it. The GAG thought they had all the best kit, but she had a few devices that could get past them, using older technology, frequencies, and relays they'd never spot. A surveillance system using the most sophisticated technology wasn't looking for devices almost as basic as a code flashed with a piece of broken mirror. Tech could be blind. If they scanned Ben, they'd only find his comlink code, not the signal hiding within it, because they didn't have the active end of the transponder link. She did.

She had one more transponder left, and she was saving that for a rainy day.

Sorry, sweetheart. Had to do it.

She turned her attention back to Lumiya. Now Lumiya was showing up at confrontations with the Confederation. Perhaps everyone was looking in the wrong direction, and Lumiya was working for Corellia.

The last time she'd seen her on the resort satellite, Ben wasn't even around-but Jacen was. Who was Lumiya going after, Ben or Jacen? If Lumiya's presence was making Jacen forget what being a Jedi was all about, then maybe Mara needed to keep tabs on Jacen, too.

That was easier said than done. She needed to try a more direct approach there, maybe talk to him for once. n.o.body else had managed to.

It was hard to get Jacen to listen, and even harder to get hold of him these days. He took the secret in secret police literally.

Then something vanished from the Force.

Ben- It was like a shape flashing past her peripheral vision, and a familiar background noise stopping abruptly, leaving a dead, soundless ringing in the ears.

Ben's gone- Ben had disappeared from the Force.

Mara's hand was on the controls to jump to hypers.p.a.ce and head back to Coruscant at top speed when the sense of her son flooded back as if the sound had been turned on again. Her stomach rolled.

Maybe it's me.

He'd done it before as a little boy, scared by the last war, the one against the Yuuzhan Vong. It was uncontrolled and instinctive. But what Mara had just experienced felt like something more deliberate. When she concentrated on him, he felt fine-no, more than fine. He felt elated.

It still bothered her. She set a course for home and before she jumped, she felt him vanish and return again.

He seemed . . . delighted. She could feel the profound wonder in him. So he was doing it deliberately. No son of hers was going to pull that stunt on her: she'd had enough of Jacen doing it without Ben learning to hide in the Force as well. She'd go back and check on him, but pick her time to confront him about his new skill.

Maybe he won't get any farther than short bursts.

But he was Ben, and Ben had proved capable of astounding feats.

He'd master it, all right. She just knew it.

Suddenly she didn't feel quite so guilty about giving him a tagged vibroblade. A mother had to keep ahead of the game somehow.

SOUTH SIDE LANDING STRIP, KUAT CITY.

So," said the clone. He hauled Mirta to her feet and dusted her down, and she tolerated it. His animal watched her with red-rimmed yellow eyes, and she grabbed her helmet from where he'd dropped it, expecting the creature to spring at her. "What part of stay out of my way didn't you understand?"

Mirta opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind but Fett cut in. "Nice of you to drop in, but can we continue this discussion elsewhere?"

"Ah, the almighty Mand'alor. Hanging a gang boss over a balcony in the center of town. Yeah, that's subtle." The clone motioned the animal into the cargo bay, where it lay rumbling ominously like a distant storm.

It was the ugliest thing Mirta had ever seen: loose gold fur that made it look like its skin was several sizes too big for it, six legs, and a truly ghastly mouthful of fangs. "Thanks for getting everyone's attention."

"I was looking for you," Fett said. He closed the hatch. "We have to go. Shut up and secure yourself for takeoff."

"You abducting me?"

"Would you rather have a chat and a cup of caf while we wait for the Kuat police and all of Fraig's sc.u.mbags to show up?"

"Okay, I borrowed the speeder anyway. Sort of. Tell you what, drop us off on Coruscant and we'll be on our way." The clone grabbed his helmet with both hands and lifted it off. He didn't look any less intimidating, but after a couple of seconds he broke into an unexpected grin that completely transformed, him. He looked more like Fett's brother than his twin, not identical at all. "They say there's some family resemblance, but I don't see it myself. . ."

Fett paused for a telling moment and then stalked off to the c.o.c.kpit. Mirta wasn't certain whether to land a punch on the clone or thank him for showing up.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Jaing Skirata. You?"

"Mirta Gev." Then she realized it didn't have the required impact.

"Fett's granddaughter."

Jaing raised his eyebrows and burst out laughing. The animal lifted its head and whined. Mirta went forward to the c.o.c.kpit to strap herself in for takeoff, unhappy at the laughter still ringing behind her.

"You let him ambush you," said Fett.

Mirta seethed. "I didn't pick him up on my sensors and I didn't even see him coming at me. He flattened me before I could kalik him."

"Stab?"

"You're learning."

"And you're not." Fett punched the controls, and Kuat dwindled to a disk beneath them. "You didn't check visually. Don't rely on the helmet tech all the time."

"Hey, you didn't spot him, either. That's got to be stealth armor."

"He's a Null." There was some history there, she could see that.

"They were black ops clones. The Kaminoans' attempt to improve on my dad's genome for cloning. You can see it didn't work."

"He says his name's Jaing. And did they really shove your head down-"

Fett just turned his head. He still had his helmet on, and even though few things scared Mirta these days, he had a way of being glacially slow and silent that was unsettling. She was just trying to get him to talk, looking for the long-buried man within. It was a forlorn hope. She gripped the console in front of her as Fett tapped in the coordinates for Coruscant, 000-and Slave I jumped to hypers.p.a.ce.

"Jaing's not as bad as I thought," Mirta said.

"They were all psychiatric cases." Considering he probably hadn't seen them since he was a kid, Fett's recollection seemed painfully vivid.

"They say Jaing tracked Grievous in the war. Master a.s.sa.s.sin, sniper, general pain in the backside. Don't underestimate him."

"The war before last, you mean."

"It's all one long war to me."

It was time to shut up, she decided. Fett was braced against the pilot's seat, looking uncomfortable; it could be folded down so the pilot could stand at the controls, or raised to form a ledge. He usually opted for the latter. She had a feeling that he was in too much pain to sit down.

"Course laid in," he said. "Let's go talk to him."

Mirta pulled out another painkiller, grabbed his hand, and slapped the capsule into his palm. "And when we drop him off on Coruscant, you see Doctor Beluine. Okay?"

Fett grunted. That was as near as she'd get to agreement. She could see his dread of mortal weakness.

"I'm not relying completely on drugs yet," he said. "All the time I hurt, I know how far it's progressed."

Jaing was sitting cross-legged on the deck of the cargo bay, face-to-face with the animal, which was gazing into his eyes and making little whining, grumbling sounds as if trying to get him to understand something. He seemed oblivious to its smell. They both looked around when Fett and Mirta came through the hatch.

"What is he?" Mirta asked.

"You asking me or Lord Mirdalan?" Jaing held his gloved fingers up in front of the animal's face, some land of signal that produced instant attention and made it lie flat on the deck. Jaing got to his feet. "He's an it. Strills are hermaphrodites. I promised Mird's last owner I'd look after it when he pa.s.sed to the manda. Strills live a lot longer than we do."

"Heard of them, but never seen one."

"They're nearly extinct on Mandalore. Mird-well, you might say it's a black ops strill. Saw a lot of commando action in a few wars."

Fett shoved his thumbs into his belt in that Pm-fed-up-with-waiting pose. "When you two finish the nature lesson . . ."

Jaing had more lines, fewer gray hairs, and a heavier build than Fett. Mirta could see the cords of muscle in his neck. And he had no scars. He looked like a man who'd spent a lot of time in the sun without a helmet, and who'd laughed a lot. Genetically, this was Fett, but they couldn't have been more different.

"Ain't I gorgeous?" He grinned, and she realized she was staring at him.

"A vision," Fett said sourly, and removed his helmet.

"I think I aged better, Bob'ika.'"

"It's the fact that you reached this age at all that interests me."

"So why do you want me? Need a loan? You've been looking for me for weeks, 'cos I've been hearing all kinds of people putting out the word for me-"

"I'm dying," Fett said.

Jaing chewed over the news, head slightly to one side. "Sorry to hear that. You're not the only clone who met a premature end."

Fett usually cut to the chase. Now he stood silent for a while, jaw muscles twitching. Mirta wondered if he was hurt by the rebuff. She guessed that he was working up to the hardest thing he ever had to say.

He was. "I want your help, Jaing."

Jaing just stared at him. The staring went on for a long time.

Mirta wondered who would give in first. Then it went on a little too long.

"Oh, for fierfek's sake," she sighed. "It's the cloning. His tissues are breaking down and he's got tumors. He needs to know what stopped you aging at double the rate, because his doctor can't help him and neither can the Kaminoans, not even Taun We."

Fett pursed his lips slightly. "What she said."