Luke brought the fighter alongside the sphere, dipping one set of wings in warning to make it clear he'd intercept her. Maybe she didn't realize that he had tractor capability: she would now. Luke dropped back behind her and applied enough traction to slow her and get her attention. He could have sworn something protested. It was the ship, complaining deep in his mind about the rough handling.

Lumiya seemed to get the idea and decelerated. Luke broke contact before they hit atmosphere, and followed her down, buzzing her to force her to land on a flat-topped mesa overlooking a typically s.p.a.cious Hapan-style city nestling among trees and vast gardens.

He jumped out of the c.o.c.kpit and waited for her to leave the safety of her vessel, standing with his lightsaber in both hands. Eventually an opening formed in the side of the sphere, and she emerged. Would the ship attack him as it had Mara? It made no move. He couldn't even feel it now.

"Come on, Luke, try to finish the job. Mara would have wanted that, yes?" Lumiya reached up to her face and tore away the veil that covered everything but her eyes. Then she reached behind her back and slowly drew out her lightwhip. "And this isn't to make you feel shame for the extent of my injuries. I just want you to see who you're fighting."

"I'm seeing." Luke drew his lightsaber and temporary comfort flooded him. "And this ends here."

He knew the lightwhip by now. He'd relied on the shoto as an extra weapon in the past to counter the whip's twin elements of matter and energy, but he was flooded with a new confidence that he could take her with just the lightsaber that had always stood between him and darkness.

Holding it two-handed over his head, he rotated it slowly, stalking around her.

Lumiya raised her arm to flick the whip and get the momentum for the forward stroke. And then she cracked it, sending forks of dark energy crackling into the ground at his feet, making him jump back before he sprang forward again and brought the lightsaber around in a right-to-left arc that she parried with the whip's handle. He leapt out of range of the whirling tails again and again, then she paused and he edged closer again.

"You hate me that much?" he asked.

"I don't hate you at all."

"You killed her. You killed my Mara."

"Nothing personal." She looked as if she was smiling, but the movement was around her eyes rather than her cybernetic mouth. "Just doing what I swore an oath to the Emperor to do. To serve the dark side.

Oaths matter, Luke. They're all you're left with in the end."

She drew back her arm and brought the lightwhip crackling through the air, missing Luke by centimeters. He lunged at her again and again, driven back each time. She'd slow sooner or later.

But so would he.

Then, as she began to raise her arm again, he ran at her, so close in that she couldn't get the whip traveling at its maximum lethal speed.

He forced her back, step by step, as she tried to maintain the distance she needed.

One-two-three-four; she blocked him, handle held this way, then that, using the whip like a short lightsaber to deflect him, but Luke didn't pause or shift direction to wrong-foot her. He drove her like a battering ram toward the edge of the mesa, pushing her within meters, then a step, of the edge.

Lumiya held the whip handle in both hands like a staff and blocked his downward sweep. For a moment they were locked in a stalemate, pushing against each other and grunting with the effort, with only the sounds of exertion because they had nothing left to say to each other.

Her rear foot began to slide backward as she struggled for purchase. The edge of the mesa was cracked and fissured. The smooth glittering stone began to crumble.

Luke reached out and caught her hand as she fell, whip tumbling and bouncing down the steep rock face into oblivion. He leaned back, all his weight on his heels, knuckles clenched white with the strain of holding her weight, and for a second he wanted to see her face dwindling as she fell to her death, mouth open in a scream, but that wasn't the way to end this.

"I'd never let you fall," Luke said, and pulled her back to safety.

As she straightened up, he looked her in the eyes-calm, eerily calm-and swung his lightsaber in a single decapitating arc.

Now he could breathe again.

KAVAN: STORM WATER TUNNELS.

Ben sat in the tunnel with his mother for a long time, and that fact in itself was the start of his investigation.

At first, he deluded himself that she was in a deep healing trance, even though the Force never lied, and the void that had opened in it would have been felt and understood by every Jedi.

He'd run straight to her side, through country he didn't know, and found her. He wanted to think she wasn't dead because she was there, still much as he'd last seen her except for the blood and sc.r.a.pes of a new fight.

So he sat with her, waiting.

He wanted to clean her face and make her beautiful again, but his GAG training said not to remove evidence, not to tamper with a crime scene.

Ben the fourteen-year-old son, lost and grief-stricken, willed his mother just to be in a deep trance. Ben the lieutenant knew better but didn't mention it to his child-self, and was careful to note everything around him, take holoimages, make notes of smells, sounds, and other ephemeral data, and begin to form a logical sequence that would tell him how his mother had met her death.

He was still sitting there, taking in every pore of her skin and every speck of brick dust on her jacket, when he heard someone picking his way over debris toward him.

He couldn't feel the person in the Force.

"h.e.l.lo, Jacen," he said, and turned to look at him.

Jacen's mouth opened slightly while he stared first at Mara-a long, baffled stare-and then at Ben. He reached out his hand to him.

"It's okay, Ben. It's okay. We'll get whoever did this. I swear we will."

Ben was still shut down, hiding his Force presence, but Jacen had found him. It was time to go to his father. He wanted to be with him now.

Maybe the killing of his mother had left a mark in the Force that Jacen had followed. Ben considered the possibility that he was too upset to notice it himself.

He made a careful note of it anyway.

chapter twenty-three.

Lawyers for former GA Chief of State Cal Omas have slammed the Justice Department for the delay in bringing charges against him. Omas, currently under house arrest, is said to be pressing for a public trial.

A GAG spokesman said today that investigations were still ongoing.

-HNE news bulletin THE OYU'BAAT, KELDABE, MANDALORE.

Venku-Kad'ika-came up to Fett and Mirta in the tapcaf and gestured over his shoulder. "He says he'll do it," said Venku. "He didn't want to tell you he could read the stone there and then, in case he couldn't. He hates disappointing people."

The old man who'd come to stare at Fett with Kad'ika the other day walked slowly across the tapcaf. He peeled off his gloves and held out a frail hand dappled with age.

"I can do it," he said. "Let me hold the stone."

Mirta looked hesitant, then took off the necklace to hand it to Fett.

"You're Kiffar by origin, then," Fett said. Mandalorians came from any number of species and planets, but adopting the culture didn't erase their genetic profiles. "Saves me a journey."

"I . . . know the planet."

"What's your price?"

"Your peace of mind, Mand'alor. n.o.body should search in vain for the resting place of loved ones."

Fett wasn't expecting that. The hand still held out in front of him was surprisingly steady. Fett held the heart-of-fire by its leather cord and lowered it into the man's palm before sitting down and trying to seem unconcerned.

The old man folded his fingers around it and stood staring at his fist, his breathing slow and heavy.

"She was very unhappy, wasn't she?"

It was a good guess. It was inevitable, in fact. The old man probably said it to all the wounded and lonely souls he came across.

Charlatans and con men relied on the reactions of others. Fett said nothing to help him take a lucky guess, and there was no expression to betray him.

"And she found it hard to ever trust another man."

Fett still sat in silence, one boot on the chair. Sintas had never trusted anyone. Bounty hunters weren't the trusting kind, so it was a safe, easy deduction dressed up as revelation.

"Her worst days were when your daughter learned to talk, and asked where Dada was."

Fett was starting to tire of this. He shifted in his seat, ignoring the voice that whispered it was probably true. How would he know, anyway?

He couldn't verify it. He and Sintas had parted by then and he saw nothing more of Ailyn.

Not until I saw her dead body.

"She thought you still cared when you recovered the hologram for her."

Now that wasn't a guess. It was specific. And it was . . . true.

Fett didn't dare look at Mirta. The inn was absolutely silent: the popping and crackling of the tapcaf 's log fire sounded like battlefield explosions.

"She said you were far too young to know what you were doing, and you said you only needed to know that she was beautiful, that she was a terrific shot, and that you could trust her as much as you could trust any woman."

Fett's scalp tightened and p.r.i.c.kled. It was exactly what he'd said, and it was too stupid and juvenile a line for anyone to make up on the spot. No, he has to have information, he has to be putting on a show, he got the information from someone . . . but how?

The man took a deep breath and hesitated before speaking again.

"You told her that you'd make Lenovar pay for what he did to her, and she tried to talk you out of it-"

It was too much for Fett. "Enough." He thrust out his hand, palm up. "So you can read the stone."

Venku lowered his chin. Even without sight of the man's face, Fett knew the expression behind the visor was fearless and protective anger.

The old Mando took a gentler approach than his bodyguard. "Just tell me what you want to know," he said. "I know these things can be painful."

Mirta didn't give Fett a chance to answer. It was just as well: he couldn't bring himself to say it. To onlookers, he was just being typically silent and surly.

"I want to know how she spent her last hours," Mirta said. "I want to find her body."

The old man put the heart-of-fire on the table while he removed his helmet. He had a fine-boned, thin face and a wispy beard that was whiter than his hair, which still showed traces of sandy blond. He was sweating: picking up the memories and traces of time embedded in the stone's molecular structure seemed to be exhausting him.

And he didn't have a Kiffar facial tattoo. But then neither did Mirta, despite the fact that Ailyn had embraced the Kiffar culture completely. In some lines of work, a permanent identifying mark had its drawbacks.

"It doesn't give me the memories in order," said the veteran. "It's all random, like flashbacks. I see images, hear sounds, smell aromas, and so on. Making sense of it isn't easy."

He laid his helmet on the table and picked up the stone again, this time pressing it between both palms. Venku put a steadying hand on his shoulder, and Fett felt inexplicably uneasy.

"Do you want me to . . . find acts of violence?"

Fett glanced at Mirta, not for agreement but because he couldn't help it. Her brow was creased in a little frown. Dry-eyed; focused. Not a pretty girl, but a good strong bone structure.

"You'll find plenty of that," she said. "She was a bounty hunter."

"You're not in here, Mirta . . . ," said the old Mando, eyes tight shut.

"She died before I was born. I want to know who killed her."

There were a few more people now in the tapcaf than there had been.

Fett indicated the door with a jerk of his thumb. "Out. I'll let you know when you can finish your drinks."

I want to know who killed her, too. It's too long ago, but I want to know.

"She wore this all the time." The old man looked almost in pain, and Venku squeezed his shoulder. "She was angry a lot of the time.

Scared, too. There are so many people pa.s.sing through here . . . but I keep coming back to a chart of Phaeda. Red skies, and someone she was following. Resada? Rezoda?"

Mirta didn't blink. She seemed transfixed. "Grandmama didn't tell anyone where she was going, or who she was hunting."

The man opened his eyes and took a rasping breath. "Phaeda.

Whatever it was, it happened on Phaeda." He jerked back and stared at the stone. "And she fought to hang on to this. She fought hard."

Fett managed not to swallow. He was sure they'd all hear it. "She lost."

"I want to know," said Mirta.

Venku stepped in. "He's had enough. Maybe later." He retrieved his helmet and tried to steer the old man away. "Come on."

"I don't know about the when," the old man said, pulling from Venku's grasp, "but I know it's Phaeda. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry."

He handed the stone back to Mirta, placing it in her cupped palms with both hands as if it were a live fledgling. Fett had never been comfortable around that mystical kind of thing. He simply observed.

"It's okay," Mirta said. "You've told me a lot, and I'm grateful.