He could feel it, but he couldn't detect it conventionally; he could have spoken to it, but he stayed shut down in the Force to avoid Lumiya's attention. He tried to work out why she was interested in Hapes, and failed, but there was nothing of Jacen that he could feel, just a trace of his own mother. The closer he ventured toward Hapan s.p.a.ce, the more powerful her presence became. Don't tell me we're both following Lumiya.

He'd have some explaining to do. But it didn't matter: he'd happily take being grounded for a year and even sent to Ossus as long as he could keep an eye on his mom right now. He set a course for the freight corridor and dropped out into reals.p.a.ce again, merging with the convoys of transports then with a group of ore haulers. Running a loop had also served another purpose: almost like listening to the source of a sound, Ben made a mental map of the silent voice of the Sith sphere and got a good sense of where it was in physical s.p.a.ce. It was close to Hapes itself.

And-he felt it now-so was his mother. She'd found Lumiya, then.

She'd beaten him to the target.

Ben savored a brief fantasy of emptying the shuttle's cannon into the sphere, felt strangely sorry to destroy the ship just to finish Lumiya, and wondered if all boys went through a stage of feeling aggressively protective toward their mothers. Maybe that went with finding it so hard to deal with fathers as you grew up. It was that alpha-male thing.

Come off it. How many guys your age-or any age-have to worry about their family being attacked by Sith and insane Dark Jedi? This isn't normal life. The rules are different.

Ben got as close to the Sith sphere as he dared. As far as he could tell, it was holding its position, but when it moved-he'd go for the kill. Then his mom would know he was there whether he made himself detectable in the Force or not, because the GAG shuttle was about as stealthy as a brick.

If he could avoid killing the Sith ship, he would. For some reason, it bothered him more than killing a real human being, which he'd done too many times now.

FOUNTAIN PALACE, HAPES.

Jacen said good-bye to Allana, finding it freshly painful not to be able to call her his little girl.

"Nice fur," she said. She refused to be parted from the stuffed tauntaun and hugged it to her with both arms. "What's his name?"

Jacen squatted down level with her. She was Force-sensitive and smart, but if she'd realized who he actually was, she was too well schooled in survival to say. He liked to think that it was a knowledge they both shared, and that she understood why he couldn't be Daddy-not yet, anyway. It was a sobering thought for such a little girl.

"What do you want to call him?"

"Jacen."

"That's lovely. Why Jacen, sweetie?"

"So when you don't come to see us I can talk to him instead."

A father's guts were made to be twisted. Jacen reached the stage of wanting to just turn and run when he took his leave of her and Tenel Ka, so he could avoid that hesitant parting a step at a time, looking back over and over again and thinking: What if this was the last time I ever saw them? He did think it. It was morbid, but a measure of how important they were to him that he tested just how devastated he'd feel without them. At least as Chief of State, he had a much better reason for more frequent contact with an allied monarch.

And he'd come through this visit without his destiny bursting in and creating a moment that told him he had to kill them. He listened for that whisper of fate, dreading it, but there was only silence.

It would only have caused him pain, nothing more. Sith ways were logical; never pointlessly cruel. Whatever sacrifice he still had to make, it would have productive meaning, however hard.

Jacen, the tauntaun, who was there for Allana when he wasn't around, would always hurt a little, though.

Tenel Ka walked with him in silence to the StealthX in the compound.

"You're not happy about Omas, are you?" he said.

She did that gracious tilt of the head, the one she must have learned to cover her real reaction when she was being bored senseless by guests at a diplomatic reception.

"It's very different, being the focus of government after you've enjoyed the relative freedoms of being a deputy," she said. "I hope it doesn't turn out to be a mistake for you."

"I can always steer the attention to Niathal."

"Make sure you both have different ambitions. It's far safer than both wanting the same thing."

"That sounds like the kind of advice I should wake up sweating about in the small hours."

"I think the phrase is lonely at the top, Jacen Solo." She indicated the blaster, lightsaber, vibroblade, and toxin darts in the belt around his waist. "I see you're getting used to the Hapan level of mistrust. . ."

"Like you say, it's lonely."

He didn't look back this time. Now that his brief respite was over, the fresh memory of Mara haranguing him-had he handled it right, did she have enough on him to destroy all he was working for?-flooded back in along with Ben's face.

I want it over with. I can deal with it. I just can't stand not knowing where and when and how.

The StealthX lifted clear, and Hapes dwindled into a sumptuous quilt of gardens and ca.n.a.ls again. He had a good idea now of what he'd face when Ben was gone: Mara, an animal robbed of her young with all the primeval wounded rage that went with it, and Luke-he had no idea how Luke would react, only that a man who could bring down the Empire, and whose blood was closer to Vader's even than his own, wouldn't be paralyzed by grief.

Jacen was now more afraid of the Skywalkers discovering Allana's parentage than of the Hapan n.o.bles. He could probably protect her from the Hapans if he had to, but it would be far harder to protect her from the vengeance of Luke or Mara. Allana was his weak point.

But n.o.body knew, and it would stay that way until he was certain he'd eliminated every threat she might face. He wasn't taking chances. He was going to create two of the most lethal enemies any being could have.

"Hapan Fleet Ops to StealthX One-One, safe return," said the voice on the comm. They had never said that before: being Chief of State had obviously upped their anxiety status to triple-red or something. But he was perfectly safe here. He was still visible in the Force, still all warmed bittersweet feelings, and for a little while he could afford not to care.

As Jacen accelerated toward the hyperjump point, he could have sworn a vessel was close to him. He felt something in the Force for a moment, but it was gone again. He checked his instruments: nothing. If the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter hadn't been such a maze of hazards, he'd have jumped the moment he pa.s.sed the planet's upper atmosphere.

It must be something in the Hapan water. You were never this jumpy.

But there was something out there, and while he hated the imprecision of the phrase something dark, that was the best he could do: something hostile that was trying hard not to be. He hoped it was Hapan, and that they were just trying in vain to track him out of their s.p.a.ce.

He should have been able to sense that clearly, though, an ordinary vessel flown by ordinary people.

This wasn't ordinary. He planned for the worst.

If he angled the StealthX right and shut down the head-up display, he could see a panoramic rear view reflected in the viewscreen. Sometimes he needed to see with his eyes to be certain. He killed the display and shifted his focus, and for a moment all he saw was velvet void.

Then the stars winked out.

"Lumiya?"

Silence.

She could hide in the Force, too. She thought he was letting his concentration wander. She probably couldn't resist finding out where he was going.

If she'd followed him here, then she knew about Tenel Ka. She'd use it.

"It's okay, Lumiya, I know it's you."

But there was still no response. That wasn't like her.

"Lumiya, I can't let you live now, you realize that?"

For a moment, even in this crisis, he found himself measuring her death against his prophecy. Was it Lumiya after all? Was she the sacrifice? What could there possibly be about her death that would kill something he loved?

"Lumiya, last chance . . ."

Then a searing white beam flooded his c.o.c.kpit and blinded him for a second; he rolled instinctively to break, suddenly aware it was a landing light so close on his tail that the vessel must have nearly collided with him. How did the proximity sensors miss it? How did he miss it?

His Force-senses were flooded instantly with someone else's ice-cold anger. The comm crackled.

"Game over, Lumiya," he said, targeting his aft cannon.

"You bet it is," said Mara.

chapter nineteen.

She logged out Five-Alpha at 0036 hours, sir, and she didn't file a flight plan.

-GA StealthX technician, Coruscant, to Luke Skywalker HAPES Cl.u.s.tER Jacen couldn't fire. It wasn't regard for Mara, because his first instinct was to lock on and press the b.u.t.ton, but she was so close that the detonation would have taken him with her. StealthXs had sacrificed shielding for sensor negators. It was only at times like this-times that should never have happened, would never have happened-that it was a problem.

He jinked left, and she matched him, and right, and left, and still she was so close on his tail that he braced for impact out of reflex, arms locked out on the yoke.

There was no advantage: same starfighter. No edge: she was as good a pilot. No refuge: they were in open s.p.a.ce. It was down to who hated more, and who was more prepared to die to take out the other.

All Jacen could think of was that now it was Mara who'd followed him here and knew about Tenel Ka. Her threats over Ben seemed irrelevant.

He had a whole new problem.

His comm crackled again. He braced for a stream of vitriol from his aunt. But it was someone else's voice.

"I have her, Jacen."

Lumiya. Savior, maybe, but she shouldn't have been here either. So Lumiya and Mara probably knew about Tenel Ka and Allana; and Lumiya certainly knew that he couldn't let either woman live with that knowledge. Now he had two a.s.sa.s.sins on his tail, and he couldn't trust either of them not to kill or betray him.

Laser cannons flared across his port side and he felt the impact in the airframe, but he was still in one piece. He smelled smoke. Brilliant white light filled the c.o.c.kpit. Lumiya-if she was targeting Mara, if she wasn't trying to kill him in some bizarre Sith test-had the same problem: Mara was flying so close that any explosion put him in her blast radius, or would send her debris punching through his shields at this range.

Jacen did what he'd done many times: he simply dropped away by looping through ninety degrees. He needed to put a second of s.p.a.ce between them, and he also needed to come back at her with an advantage.

Mara might have sent a message to Luke by now, revealing everything. She wanted maximum damage. His secret was as good a missile to be used against him as any ordnance.

As he climbed out of the loop, Jacen looked up through the canopy, desperate for any reflection or hint of movement. StealthXs had never been designed to fight one another. Their almost complete lack of sensor trace made tracking Mara impossible. That was why she was so close on his tail, too. They couldn't detect each other reliably, except through the Force, or by spotting silhouettes against the starfield.

And Mara seemed to be able to dip in and out of the Force, just like him. Just like Ben.

He should never have taught Ben to do it.

The fact that Mara hadn't said more than four words was the most disorienting thing of all. Now he needed to get her onto ground of his choosing. He could feel Lumiya somewhere off to starboard, moving at high speed, and he had no idea what the Sith sphere was capable of in her hands. All he knew was that it was obsolete-and old tech and brute force could often bypa.s.s more complex systems.

"Canopy," he yelled. Ben's report had said he'd used a magnetic accelerator in the Sith sphere. "Lumiya, crack her canopy. Weak shields."

He didn't have to explain it to her. Suddenly he could see an orange ball accelerating toward him on a collision course and he flipped ninety degrees just in time for it to pa.s.s under him. The next thing he heard was Lumiya's voice saying, "Hull breach, she's venting atmosphere."

As Jacen came around again in a loop, orienting by feeling Mara in the Force once more, he could see a thin white trail moving at high speed toward the center of the cl.u.s.ter. Mara was. .h.i.t, a slow leak either in the canopy or straight through the skin into the c.o.c.kpit, and she was trying to land before a crack spread and became an explosive decompression. Even with a flight suit, her chances of surviving that were slim.

She was heading for Kavan. That suited Jacen fine. Once he had her on the ground he could take her, because even if she called in support, who would respond to someone in a battle with Jacen Solo? Not the Hapans.

Who would believe her? People many hours away.

He felt no violence or malice at all, but then he never did in combat. He just felt an overwhelming desire to win and survive, and all other emotions were pushed into the background.

He turned his attention to Lumiya.

"It's okay, Jacen," she said. "I know what you have to keep secret.

I'll make sure it stays that way-"

"You certainly will," he said, and locked all eight proton torpedoes on the Sith sphere. "This is what you taught me to be."

Jacen fired on her, and felt no triumph or shame, only temporary relief.

But he saw no explosion, no white-hot ball or glittering cloud of slow-tumbling debris. His...o...b..ard sensors picked up nothing.

Where was she? Was it a kill or not?

He'd have to trawl for wreckage later. Right now, his priority was to silence Mara Jade Skywalker.

HAPAN s.p.a.cE.

Ben couldn't feel his mother, but he knew she wasn't dead. She was hiding, just as he'd taught her. Lumiya was here in the Sith ship, though, streaking away on his starboard side, and he wasn't going to break off the pursuit now. She was the key to this. She'd be the key dead or alive. Ben knew he was capable of doing either.

The ship was speaking inside his head, just as it had before. It might have been talking to itself or addressing both him and Lumiya, but it was deeply unhappy.

He has tried to cause irreparable damage.

"Ship, shut up," Lumiya said. Ben could hear her, too, as if the ship's thought processes were an open circuit. "He has to survive. We don't."

The rule of ages is that I must not be targeted.

The sphere had clearly decided enough was enough, and looped back in the direction from which it had come. Ben could see it in his forward screens and on sensors, but he could also see it in his head. The general impression was that it was rolling up its sleeves and going back to knock ten bells out of whoever had fired on it.

"Ship, break off."

I do what I must.

"Ship!"

Ben's drives were screaming trying to keep up with it. There was no real up or down in s.p.a.ce, but it was like plummeting in the slipstream of a raptor.