-Goran Beviin, surveillance expert, reporting back from the nearby Roche asteroid field prior to launch of the Bes'uliik GAG STEALTHX, LAID UP ON ZIOST Jacen really didn't know where else to go. He stared at the c.o.c.kpit panel facing him, knowing that he should have been back on Coruscant at least twenty hours ago, and that Niathal would be cursing him roundly.

He was alone, in creased black fatigues, in agonizing pain, and- hungry.

This wasn't the ascension of the Lord of the Sith that he'd expected. He wondered what ordinary people thought happened when the course of history swung on a single pivotal act. They probably didn't envisage that their future was now in the hands of a tired, sweaty man who kept thinking he needed a shave, and almost unable to believe that he'd- Killed Mara Jade Skywalker.

Killing didn't get any easier. He was just getting better at it.

But it still didn't make sense. He rubbed his cheek, and the stubble rasped audibly under his fingers. Mara hadn't been the most precious thing in his life. In recent weeks, she'd changed from being his only friend to just someone else who didn't trust him and was getting in his way.

She was his aunt. She was family. When his role in her death became known-it had to be when, but not now, not anytime soon-the shock and hatred would tear apart what was left of the Skywalker and Solo families.

Maybe even Niathal, and all the others who understood that securing peace was a dirty business, would be disgusted.

I just killed my aunt. I grew up with her. She was there for me. We fought a war together.

I have to face her son. I have to face Ben.

What have I done ?

His stomach rumbled. How could he possibly be hungry at a time like this?

He will immortalize his love.

Stupid knotted ta.s.sels, all kinds of ancient Sith prophecies that would come to pa.s.s when the new Dark Lord was ready to take up his mantle and usher in a golden age of justice, order, and peace. The key had been turned-and this was what the prophecy was supposed to mean-by Jacen killing what he most loved.

He'd killed Mara, and Nelani, and Fett's daughter, and chaotic unjust democracy, and he loved none of those. He'd tried to kill Lumiya more than once. She seemed to think that was part of the job description for Sith acolytes.

So Jacen didn't believe it. And if Mara hadn't been trying to kill him to begin with, he would have seen it even more as a life thrown carelessly away.

The fabric of existence didn't seem to have changed enough. That shift should have been cataclysmic, and although he was too much of a pragmatist to think he could raise his fists to the sky and call down lightning to energize a mighty soul, he expected to be able to taste the spiritual and existential transformation.

He was afraid. However certain he'd been a few hours ago that Mara was to be the one destined to die, it didn't make sense in the context of the prophecy. He didn't feel different, either. Did that mean he still had to kill someone else? He'd been so certain it would all be over now.

The sense of anticlimax was almost enough to make him sob.

Then he felt a presence. He leaned his head against the side of the c.o.c.kpit canopy, and gazing up at him from the nightmarish planet surrounding his fighter was Lumiya.

Jacen popped the seal. "I'm surprised you could be bothered to come and find me, after what happened."

"You now need to be seen." Lumiya had a new serenity about her. As ever, she still seemed to take no offense at him for trying to kill her again. "Your new existence has started, Dark Lord."

"Really?" The pain in his shoulder gnawed at him like an animal tearing his flesh. "I don't feel very lordly."

"I a.s.sure you it's done. I felt it."

She might have been humoring him. He shifted in his seat to ease the a.s.sortment of bruises. "I'll be looking for further proof."

"Stop arguing with the Force and pay attention to what you have to do next. Luke Skywalker arrived at Hapes a couple of hours ago and they're looking for evidence. And Niathal is griping bitterly about your being AWOL."

"They won't find me."

"That's not what I mean. Your trip to the Royal Court, a subject I will take to my grave by the way, needs to be smoothed out in terms of credibility. Sooner or later, it'll emerge that you were in the Hapes Cl.u.s.ter, and that Mara knew that."

"How?"

"May I alarm you?"

"Can you alarm me any more? Is it possible?"

"Mara had a conversation with Hapan Fleet Ops while in Hapan s.p.a.ce about your presence on Hapes. I intercepted it, which is one reason why I was able to come to your aid."

"Wonderful."

"And she even gave them a description of the Sith sphere as a possible hostile. I think that stacks up to a scenario needing a plausible explanation."

Lumiya was right. Jacen needed a cover story, if only for Tenel Ka.

"This is going to tax even my creativity," Jacen said. "How widely known is this?"

"There are no secrets in the galaxy, Jacen, only varying sizes of distribution lists. The Bothans will have it, the Mandalorians will have it. . . and Alliance Intel will have it, and they don't love you at all these days."

"Well, if I weren't a Sith Lord fresh out of the box, I'd be borked."

"Don't joke. Never joke about this."

"I could say quite legitimately that I was visiting Tenel Ka as Chief of State because of the continuing embarra.s.sment about my parents."

"And what about your wretched physical state?"

"Ah. I'm hastening the healing trance as much as I can."

"What about Mara's body?"

"I left it where it was."

"She didn't become discorporeal? She left her remains?"

"I think so. Does that surprise you?"

Lumiya seemed to consider something, breaking her intense gaze. "I always thought she'd become one with the Force somehow."

"Well, who knows. And here I am about to say they'll never trace the poison back to me, but does it matter? One day soon, they'll all have to know. "

"And by then it'll be too late for them to do anything to you."

Lumiya turned as if to walk away, and then seemed to change her mind. "My ship has been noted, Ben didn't see you on Kavan, and I'm almost certainly the prime suspect for Mara's death. This all enables me to do the last service I can for you."

"Which is . . . ?"

Lumiya's most unnerving state was when she was being gracious. It told Jacen that she knew something he didn't.

"To buy you time to consolidate your hold on the galaxy," she said.

"By making Luke believe it was all my doing."

"Don't you think you should be hiding from him?"

"No. You might say that's my destiny."

"That smacks of a death wish."

"My work and my life are done, Jacen. I'd really welcome a rest."

Death seemed a very routine commodity lately. Jacen wasn't comfortable with that. He had a sudden urge to embrace life. Deep in him, for all the boy inside that still expected a lightning bolt to mark his pa.s.sage into Sith maturity, there was a feeling of optimism, green and fresh. It took him aback.

"By the way, Alema is still prowling," Lumiya said. "If you spot her, she'll probably be coveting the Sith ship to pursue her vendetta against your parents. I have no doubt you'll see her around."

Jacen wondered if Sith left wills; Lumiya certainly seemed to have thought hers through. She studied him with her head on one side for a while, eyes disturbingly green and not unlike Mara's, and then she walked away into the icy fog.

He meditated for an hour or so to hasten the healing process, and then set off for Coruscant-via Hapes.

FOUNTAIN PALACE, HAPES.

"Luke . . . Luke? Luke." Tenel Ka had to repeat his name three times before he could manage to lift his head to look at her. The elegant brocade sofa felt as if it were swallowing him whole, and maybe that would have been for the best.

There was an insulating gauze of numbness holding Luke together, and it took triple repet.i.tion to penetrate it-the first to stop him thinking that he hadn't even said good-bye to Mara and was asleep when she left; the second to stop him racking his brains for the last words he'd said to her, which he couldn't recall; and the third to stop him seeing in his mind's eye her scribbled note that he'd balled up and used to plug a hole in his c.o.c.kpit console, and that he had now lovingly smoothed flat and would keep with him for the rest of his life.

Gone hunting for a few days. Don't be mad at me, farmboy . . .

"Luke, Jaina's here."

"Thank you, Tenel Ka . . ."As long as he stayed numb, Luke felt he would function. He would gather his thoughts, see that the rest of the family was coping, and then he'd act-when he knew what to do. "I can't thank you enough."

"Luke, I have all my guard deployed searching the cl.u.s.ter."

Jaina walked in briskly, face grim and eyes a little swollen. She dropped down on her knees and pressed herself into Luke's lap, cuddling him in silence. He hadn't really needed to call: they'd all felt it.

"Still no sign of Ben," Luke said, stroking Jaina's hair. "And I can't even guess where he is."

Jaina knelt back on her heels. "I can't feel him, either, Uncle Luke."

"He'll be okay, sweetheart. I'd know if . . ."

Luke didn't finish the sentence. He knew now exactly how Ben's death would feel to him in the Force. Ben wasn't dead.

Luke waited for a call back from Leia and Han. He knew Leia had sensed Mara's pa.s.sing: after that moment when he'd felt the lightest of touches on his hair, and he turned his head, he'd had the sensation of meeting Leia's eyes.

She'd call. He'd keep calling anyway.

Tenel Ka's regal composure flickered for a moment. "Jacen was here earlier."

"What?" Jaina suddenly regained that edge in her voice. "What do you mean, here?"

"He paid a visit yesterday," Tenel Ka said. "I don't know where he is now, but-"

"Would Hapan Fleet Ops have logged his vessel's movements?" asked Jaina. "Any sc.r.a.p of information might help."

Jacen must have felt the death like anyone else, and there was a good chance he'd actually been here while Mara was pursuing Lumiya in this very system. But he was "busy" on GAG business. Luke seethed in silence.

Tenel Ka nodded, all gracious calm again. "I'll have the captain get all the available information for you."

Tenel Ka strode out. Jaina's expression was murderous.

"Don't say it," said Luke.

"He's a total stranger," Jaina said. "There. I had to, or else I'll have an aneurysm trying to stifle the urge to punch him out when he finally bothers to show up."

Luke hugged Jaina, feeling dwarfed by the grand stateroom, and his comlink buzzed. It was Leia.

"Hey," she said. Leia didn't just touch him in the Force, she enveloped him. "We're coming back as fast as we can. I'm so sorry. I am so, so sorry."

It sounded as if Han had wrestled the link from her. "Kid, you just hang in there. Don't do a thing. Leave it all to us. Is Ben okay?"

"Missing again."

"He'll be fine. Don't you worry. We're coming."

There wasn't much else Han could say, and he never mentioned Jacen.

Luke put his comlink back in his pocket.

The silence felt like pressure building on his eardrums. His breathing seemed to fill the room. What was the last thing I said to her?

"You know pretty well the last thing Mara and I talked about?"

Jaina said suddenly. She was doing exactly what he was-replaying final conversations. Tears welled in her eyes. "Nothing important, like how much I loved her and what she'd done for me. Just how much energy I waste in stupid games with Zekk and Jag, like a dumb sulky teenager."

"Don't do this to yourself."

"Takes . . . this to make me grow up." Jaina didn't seem able to say the words: Mara's death. "Everything's changed now."

"I know. I know."

"It's Lumiya."

"We don't know that."

"You're reasonable to the last, aren't you, Uncle Luke?"