"Actually, I called you for a reason," he said.

"I know. But I'd like to approach this like Force-users, not like some tedious little committee in the Senate." It was time to remind him he still had one more step to take before he could begin to teach her anything. "Calm yourself and put the world to one side."

Jacen shut his eyes again, and-for once-seemed to relax enough to allow a little of his state of mind to filter through the barrier that he now kept in place most of the time. Lumiya sensed the solid confidence and focus that typified him. But there was still the faintest hint of the old Jacen, wounded by bereavement and pain, scared of doing necessary things. That was the last tinge of doubt and reluctance that his final step would erase. It would enable him to cross the line into his full Sith legacy.

She didn't know when afterward might be, either, or even who. She only knew it was soon.

"You don't need to play their games, Jacen," she said softly. "Even now your powers put you far beyond their reach. Omas can't touch you.

Neither can Gejjen. When you achieve your destiny, they'll be less than irrelevant."

"Powers or not, I can't control a galaxy on my own. I need to persuade, to carry people with me. The Force can't affect the minds of millions."

Ah, you enjoy the power you can wield with simple mind games. Don't make Palpatine's mistakes. That's an indulgence. It's not worthy of you.

"Jacen," she said. "I want you to take stock and feel. Stop overa.n.a.lyzing. It won't reveal any truths to you. Just facts. Facts only show you what you want to see."

Jacen opened his eyes again. "But it's so fleeting. The line between a crazy impulse and guidance from the Force is getting harder to draw."

"Because you think about it too much."

The impenetrable wall went up again. Lumiya felt it as he lapsed into silence.

"It's Ben," he said at last. "It has to be Ben."

Now she understood. "You're fond of the boy. Perhaps he's the child you don't have. This will be hard, and that's probably why it has to be him."

For a moment, Jacen's gaze flickered-too brief, too insignificant for any ordinary observer to spot-and she knew she'd hit a nerve. That was it: conscious of his own mortality, he wanted a son, and there was a little subconscious desire to possess what was Luke's as part of the overthrow of the Jedi dynasty. Now that he had it, and Ben looked to him as a heroic father figure, he had to throw away that prize.

It was an odd sort of love, but if it was powerful enough, it would do fine.

"That's probably it," Jacen said, and looked down at his clasped hands. "And it's hard to kill someone who doesn't deserve it."

"But you don't know how it'll happen."

"Exactly."

"You can't see yourself taking a lightsaber to a fourteen-year-old boy."

"Maybe it won't be so literal. I'm sending him to a.s.sa.s.sinate Dur Gejjen when he meets Omas to do his deal. It's a job that needs doing, it tests Ben's skills and commitment, it's far easier for a teenage boy to get past Gejjen's security, and . . . perhaps it will put him in real mortal danger." Jacen reached out to the low table nearby, leaning on one hand to stretch and pick up one of the candles in its transparent blue holder. "Now, is that a consequence of the task, or is that why I'm sending him? Am I sending him to his death?"

"Let it play out," Lumiya said. "Stop rationalizing and let it happen."

She stood up to take the candle from him. She could see he wanted to play that brinkmanship game again of how long he could hold his hand in the flame. Some men would do it out of bravado after too many drinks, but Jacen was testing himself, a private struggle rooted in his experience of pain at Vergere's hands and his lingering doubts that he could stay the course and make himself do something he wanted to run from.

"I need your help," he said. "I need you to distract Mara for a while."

"Whatever you wish."

"She's taken the Brisha story to heart. Nothing like killing someone's child to guarantee a blood feud, is there?"

"I thought that story might tie her up and explain my presence. In an ideal world, I would have avoided all contact with the Skywalkers."

"So . . . why did you offer your hand to Luke instead of taking his head off?"

Lumiya was still considering that. She might not have meant Luke any harm, but she didn't have to hate someone to kill him in the line of duty. Did it matter that he still thought all her actions were dictated by an old romance, and by a trauma that had been her destiny anyway? Why did she feel the need to show him they weren't?

"It certainly had its shock value in the fight," she said. "And killing him would have changed the course of events for all of us."

"And you wanted to put him in his place. Show him he had no leverage . . . that you were over him?"

Jacen sometimes seemed to understand and then he'd say something ba.n.a.l like that, which made her think he had missed the point of pa.s.sing through powerful emotions to become stronger.

"The Skywalkers are too mired in their domesticity to be effective Jedi, Jacen," she said. "It's a warning to us all. Luke can't see what's in front of him because he thinks my motive is lost love and revenge, because that's the level he thinks at-family and friends. It would never occur to him that I want to see a Sith-controlled galaxy and that the personal issues we had are trivial by comparison."

"You taught me that anger and pa.s.sion are what make Sith strong."

"There's anger, and then there's being controlled by it-not seeing the forest for the trees." Lumiya had a moment of self-doubt and decided to meditate on it later. "So what about Mara?"

"She's hanging on to that GAG connection she found to track you.

Keep her occupied elsewhere."

"I'll let her find me. That should do the trick. Can you give me a possession of Ben's, something that would prove to Mara that I could get at him easily, without being traceable to you?"

"I'll get you a pair of his boots. He keeps several pairs in his locker, and Mara already suspects a GAG connection." He gave her a little frown of concern, but she felt nothing emanating from him. "What if she actually catches you?"

"I might win, and anyway-it'll buy you time." Lumiya was still testing herself to see if she resented Jacen for leaving her to die, too.

"I'm expendable, as you've proven. My life's purpose is to enable you to become a Sith Lord, because that secures the stability of the galaxy. The ambition of most beings is just to stay alive, overeat, spend too much, and avoid hard work. I'm happy that I can achieve much more than that. .

. and we all die sooner or later. A death in service of a great ideal is a fine thing."

Jacen gave her a long, blank stare, and she wondered if the idea of an eternal principle being more important than the short confines of his own mortal life was alien to him. He had to pa.s.s beyond that. He would.

"When you think of Ben's fate," she said, "think of the legacy you'll leave in years to come, and ask who'll be able to name the Skywalkers, or even the Solos. This is about the fate of trillions upon trillions for millennia to come-not one small family over a few decades."

Jacen got to his feet, but Lumiya could tell he was looking at her without seeing her now.

"I'll keep telling myself that," he said. "The boots will get Mara's attention, for sure."

"I think I'll play up the maternal grief and do something emotional, too. What are you going to do when Mara and Luke come after you-when they find out about Ben in due course?"

"I'll deal with that when I have to."

"It might be sooner than you think. I suggest you make sure you're properly armed."

"I have quite an armory," said Jacen. "And I'll be ready when the time comes."

"Think laterally," Lumiya said gently. "Luke can still take you in a lightsaber fight."

"I'm already a few steps ahead of him. Trust me."

She had to. The future of the galaxy depended on Jacen. He was the end of chaos and the beginning of order, and-like all forces of change-he would not be hailed by everyone as a savior. Some wouldn't see how necessary he was. Some would try to stop him.

She would do whatever it took to clear his path-even if the price was her own life.

SURVEILLANCE CENTER, GAG HQ, CORUSCANT.

Captain Girdun loomed in the doorway, backlit by the light from the corridor. "Showtime," he said. "Niathal's just been designated as acting Chief of State as of midnight."

The troopers on duty in the listening post looked up. Ben detached the bead amplifier in his ear and tried to make sense of that news.

"What's happened to Omas?"

"He's going to be out of the office for a day."

"Oh, I thought-"

"He has to give a little notice to hand over the reins of state to Niathal when he's out of contact-you know, command codes, that kind of stuff. So we have a window for his trip to Vulpter. Tomorrow."

It was all moving too fast. Ben could recall feeling excited by the turmoil of events, but now that he was part of them, they were too fast for his comfort. They brought him closer to his mission. He wasn't relishing the prospect; he knew how he'd felt after killing a suspect he thought was armed, so he could work out that he wouldn't be any happier after dispatching Gejjen.

I'm an a.s.sa.s.sin. And everyone else my age who isn't a Jedi is in school.

"What cover story has he given?" Ben asked.

"Private medical matter."

"Yeah, saving his backside," said Zavirk.

"I think this is the opportunity you've been waiting for, Ben."

Girdun beckoned to him. "Come on. Briefing room." He turned to Zavirk. "I want to know his itinerary to Vulpter. He won't be taking us along, but he'll still need transport, a minder, and a pilot, so let's keep an eye on the logistics."

"Bet he takes an Intel zombie or two with him for company."

"Well, we're keeping an eye on them, too, so that'll help us triangulate, won't it? Get to it, Trooper."

The captain strode off down the corridor whistling, which was unlike him. Ben hadn't realized Girdun disliked Omas so much. Maybe he just enjoyed a really major hunt. It couldn't get much bigger than tailing the Chief of State to an illicit meeting with the enemy. There was no hate in Girdun, just a wonderful sense of focus and excitement.

Ben wondered if darkness was as easy to spot as Jedi seemed to think.

But what's darkness? Killing Gejjen?

The worst thing about growing up was that there were fewer right-or-wrong answers every day. It wasn't a math test.

When they reached the briefing room, Shevu and Lekauf were already there, poring over a wall full of illuminated holodisplays. Lekauf, looking far from comfortable in his brand-new lieutenant's rank insignia, gave Ben a nervous grin.

"Our source in Coronet confirms that Gejjen's rescheduled all his engagements for tomorrow," said Shevu. "It's on for sure."

"Timetable?"

"No outbound timings, but he expects to be back in time for a meeting by oh-eight-hundred the next day."

The displays on the walls showed two sets of charts and data: one was Coruscant, the other Corellia. Ben checked off the list of surveillance points-Omas's private residence, the security cams from the Senate offices, the handful of private landing pads nearest to both, and a tally of flight plans filed for Vulpter. The Corellian status board also showed recent flight plans logged with that planet as a destination.

"What if Omas breaks his journey somewhere, and doesn't fly straight to Vulpter?" Ben asked.

"That's where marrying it up with arrivals and flight plans for Vulpter helps." Lekauf pointed to a datapad on the table. "Check that out. Even if the flight doesn't originate from Coruscant, we can run checks to see what's arriving with Coruscant as its point of departure within that time window."

"The boring number-crunching stuff," said Girdun. "Don't worry, a computer's narrowing down the choices. Once we spot Omas moving-or even Gejjen-then we put a tail on them. Easier to tail Omas, but we might get a break from Gejjen."

"How?"

"We have an informant in the Corellian government building. This is the thing about information, Ben. It's not a case of finding a big X on a chart labeled the secret meeting is here. It's actually about a.s.sembling a lot of apparently routine stuff that's not secret at all and looking for the patterns."

Ben watched the flight plans from Coronet appearing on the screen. Any neutral pilot entering Corellian airs.p.a.ce could get access to this.

Anybody could get information from ATC on Vulpter. And Coruscant ATC was an open book, available from any dataport. There was a daunting amount of data, but a computer or a droid could sift through it just as they sifted through the thousands of comlink calls to flag those that were worth the scrutiny of flesh and blood. It was just a matter of setting the parameters right.

Ben wasn't sure why he was here other than to learn the tedious and painstaking side of the job. Shevu and Lekauf seemed to be planning an interception.

"They're just working out how we get you close enough to Gejjen."

Girdun seemed to a.s.sume Ben knew what he was talking about. "And that has to be after he's finished his meeting with Omas, because the boss wants the evidence of the meeting for the Security Council."

Revelation dawned. Ben had hoped he'd have more preparation time, but this was it. "We're doing the hit at the same time as the meeting?

Not when he's on the way back, or-"

"We might not get another chance to take a crack at Gejjen away from his home turf."

Lekauf beckoned to Ben and made him look inside a fabric holdall leaning against the wall. "Like it?"

Ben couldn't work out what it was at first, but when he took it from the bag, it turned out to be a rifle with a folding stock. He unfolded it and snapped the stock into place, staring at it in numb realization.

"It's a modified Karpaki Fifty," Lekauf said, totally misreading Ben's reaction to the weapon. "Can't leave lightsaber marks all over Gejjen, can we? Bit of a giveaway. You're now going to make a very fast acquaint of a ballistic sniper rifle. Y'know-projectiles."

"If you're trying to get me close to Gejjen, why do I need a sniper weapon?"

"In case we can't. Come on, let's get in a few hours on the indoor range."

Ben wondered if it was his last chance to refuse, but he knew he couldn't. If Shevu was taking part in this-and Shevu was dead straight, a man the other officers described as an old-fashioned land of cop-then it had to be the right thing to do.

Girdun responded to his chirping comlink. It was Zavirk, judging by the side of the conversation that Ben could hear. Girdun slid the comlink back in his pocket, a big grin on his face.

"Intelligence is sending a couple of handlers with Omas," he said.