"You can take whatever works for you, as long as you don't leave or carry evidence that links the hit to us." Shevu examined the blade.

"Yeah, I understand." He pulled down the neck of his shirt a little to reveal a gold chain. "No ID, of course, but my girlfriend gave it to me, and I never go on patrol without it."

It helped to know everyone got edgy before a mission and needed a little reminder of their loved ones. Shevu got halfway to the doors before he turned around and seemed to be working up to saying something.

"I realize your father might find it hard to accept what you do, Ben, but I'm proud of you," he said. "Still, if I had a son, I wouldn't be letting him do this kind of thing until he was an adult. It's not as if we haven't got enough trained men to do it. But . . . well, Colonel Solo has his reasons, I'm sure."

Ben sat thinking over that statement for a while, and realized that Shevu had said father—not parents. Maybe he thought that his mother would understand a job like this. Ben felt he was hanging on to the relationship with his family by his fingertips, but there had been no more fights, and he didn't feel quite so angry about having to compromise. Maybe that was really what growing up was about—an increasing distance from parents, knowing that there would always be tomorrow and that he didn't have to get what he wanted right now, and starting to understand the things they'd been through when they were younger.

I wouldn't be letting him do this kind of thing until he was an adult.

But his father had done this kind of thing, more or less. He'd just been a little older, that was all. This was no different from blowing up the Death Star, and plenty of ordinary people just doing their jobs had died when Luke Skywalker had done that. Ben was removing a single man—no bystanders.

He'd remind Dad of that if it ever came out and he had to defend his decision. Dad would probably say Jacen made him do it.

Ben stood in the refresher with the dye worked into lather on his head, and

caught sight of himself in a mirror. He felt ridiculous. The foam looked mauve, and he wondered if something had gone horribly wrong.

When he rinsed it off, though, his hair was brown, just brown, and he was looking at a stranger.

Good.

He needed to be someone else for all kinds of reasons.

When his hair had dried, he took out the civilian clothes Lekauf had left for him—all Corellian style, all Corellian labels. This is in case I get caught. The thought chilled Ben, but it was standard procedure. Nobody had spoken to him about what would happen if he did get caught, and what interrogation might be like, but he could guess. They probably didn't know what advice to give a Jedi about resisting interrogation anyway.

Maybe they thought he could just nudge a mind here and a thought there, and walk out of the cell.

Maybe he could.

Ben checked himself in the mirror a few times, trying to see himself as a stranger might, and was satisfied that he looked unlike Ben Skywalker, and disturbingly like a Corellian boy a little older than he was, but blond—Barit Saiy.

He hadn't seen Saiy since they'd rounded him up with the other Corellians. After that, Ben had stopped asking what happened, but he still wondered silently.

He squatted down and placed his boots in the locker. Then he counted the various pieces of kit. Daily pair, battered raid pair for good luck—but no parade-best pair.

He couldn't imagine where they'd gone. No, actually, he could: Lekauf. Ben would find them full of something unmentionable just before kit inspection. Or painted bright pink.

"Jori, I'm going to think up something special for you," he said aloud, and grinned, wanting the diversion.

It was nice to be one of the boys. Ben slipped his datapad into his pocket, wondered where he was going to leave it for safekeeping, and went to pick up the Karpaki and some ammo packs from the armory.

It was just a job, and he had to do it.

THE SKYWALKERS' APARTMENT, CORUSCANT

Luke woke in a heart-pounding panic and reached out toward a hooded shape at the foot of the bed, knowing he was dreaming but unable to stop himself from reacting to the specter that dissolved as he became fully awake.

He hadn't had the dream of the menacing figure in the hooded cloak for a while. Now it was back. It was four in the morning, and Mara still hadn't come home.

Usually, the Force dream vanished and just left him with that sick jolt in his gut as if he'd seen a speeder crash. But this was different; as he swung his legs over the side of the bed, he had a sense of someone still being in the room, and he was sure he wasn't asleep. He checked the chrono to make certain he wasn't still mired in the nightmare.

0410 hours.

He wasn't.

Luke reached for his lightsaber, which he'd been keeping on the nightstand lately, and made a cautious inspection of all the rooms. He couldn't sense flesh and blood anywhere, but he could detect something.

The presence was so close now that he could almost feel breath on the back on his neck.

And then he sensed . . . amusement.

The presence—now at the door to the apartment, he was sure—was like a cloud of billowing smoke in his mind. He could almost see it. As he felt it becoming more solid, more real, more here, it suddenly lit up as if a silent explosion had lifted it in a ball of soaring flame.

Lumiya.

Lumiya.

Luke rushed to the front doors, at the same time concentrating hard on using the Force to jam the two sets of doors in the corridor outside that stood between the apartment and the lifts. He'd trap her. She'd lied. Mara was right. All that nonsense on the resort satellite, all that I-mean-you-no- harm was just a feint, mocking his indecision—

The doors parted with a gasp of air and Luke sprang into the corridor with his lightsaber raised. One set of doors was wedged open with something, trying repeatedly to close and making little mechanical groans each time the inner edges hit the obstruction and bounced back a few centimeters. There was no sign of Lumiya.

But she'd been here seconds before. Luke could almost taste her on the air. It was as if she'd sprayed perfume too liberally and was leaving a cloud wafting behind her, except it was a scent of darkness, not rare oils. Frustrated and furious, he strode down the corridor to see what had jammed the doors apart.

It was a pair of black boots, army boots with segmented durasteel plates around the ankle, the kind that Ben wore. He parted the doors with a Force push and squatted to recover the boots.

They were Ben's. Not only did Luke recognize them, but he also felt Ben in them when he picked them up. Luke rarely jumped to conclusions.

But he was certain who'd left them there, and what the message was: If I can take personal items from your son, I can take him, too.

The thought hit Luke like a hard slap in the face. Maybe she's abducted Ben. He felt for his son in the Force, and sensed no crisis; in fact, Ben seemed to be leaving a trace in the Force of someone soundly and safely asleep. How long he'd stay that way, though, Luke wasn't ready to bet.

He went back into the apartment to grab his jacket, opening his comlink to Jacen as he went. He didn't care what time it was. Jacen answered immediately. It seemed he didn't sleep much, either.

"Where's Ben?" Luke demanded.

"Asleep, Luke." Jacen had that calm, mock-soothing tone that did anything but soothe him. Patronizing little jerk. "Is there a problem?"

"Have you had any intruders in GAG HQ tonight?"

Jacen gave a quiet little laugh. "We're the ones who do the forced entry, Luke."

"Someone's left Ben's boots here as a calling card."