Clinging to Lumiya's knees with one arm, denying her the space to swing the whip, she brought her down like a felled tree before smashing her head into the woman's face.

And that hurt. Oh yes, Mara felt that. She'd caught not Lumiya's nose but the cybernetic jaw, and it cut deep into her forehead. Fighting on pure reflex now, part stunned, she killed the lightsaber blade for a second and held the hilt like a dagger, stabbing it down into Lumiya's chest before flicking the energy back on. Lumiya pulled to the side as the blade punched through flesh. Mara smelled it. She flicked off the blade to pull back again,

triumphant.

I've done it. Dead. Dead, you—

But Lumiya was screaming, and that wasn't right at all. The scream seared through Mara's spinning head. It was more than sound. It was—

Mara scrambled to her knees to look down at what should have been a dead woman, and stared into green eyes that were utterly devoid of any emotion, and then the world darkened like an eclipse.

Maybe I'm the one who's dead.

Something hit her square in the back, pitching her forward onto Lumiya. Mara struggled to turn over without letting go of either lightsaber or blaster, but something coiled around her neck and jerked her backward. The lightwhip was still in Lumiya's fist, she could see the thing, she could see it, so what was around her neck, choking her? She felt as if she was flying backward at high speed, and then she hit something so hard that it punched every bit of breath out of her lungs and left her gulping for air.

A second or two was all it took. Mara lay trying to suck in air in painful, straining gulps, eyes stinging, and saw Lumiya's boots run past her face at a stagger, missing her by centimeters.

What's in my eyes? What's stinging?

She raised her hand to rub them and her knuckles came away red and wet. It was blood. The last thing she saw as she looked up was the orange sphere, that impossible Sith ship, soaring vertically into the air and extending webbed vanes like living wings.

Mara managed to prop herself up on her elbows. She was suddenly aware of the two runners she'd seen earlier, all nice and neat in their crisp white sports gear, staring at her in horror. She summoned what focus she had and concentrated hard.

"You've just seen two stuntwomen performing for a holovid, shot by a

hidden cam," she said. "You didn't see a fight at all."

"We didn't see a fight at all, dear," said the woman obediently.

The man gawped, and then grinned. "Wow, it's amazing how real that blood stuff looks!"

"Isn't it . . . ," said Mara, and somehow got to her feet, retrieved her lightsaber hilt and blaster, and walked off with as much grace as she could manage.

I was sure I'd finished her off. Mow did I miss?

She almost sobbed with frustration and struggled to get into the XJ7's cockpit, still trying to work out what had jumped her from behind.

When she checked her injuries in the reflective surface of her datapad, her face was streaked with blood, her right eye was swelling and closing already, and there was something like a rope burn across her neck. She could see indentations in her skin that looked like a twisted wire cable.

Something like a droid jumped me. A machine, anyway. That's why I didn't sense it.

It was crazy to fly a fighter after a head injury, she knew, but there was no other way back to Coruscant. She fired up the drives, swearing and cursing. She'd had the cyborg witch right there, her lightsaber in her, and she still hadn't killed her.

And I didn't feel any malice from her, either, Luke. Just a busted head.

This was going to take plenty of bacta. Mara lifted the XJ7 clear and set it on automatic for the homeward leg.

Luke is going to go nuts when he sees me in this state.

Her adrenaline was ebbing, and the pain was making itself felt now.

She settled into a shallow meditative trance to speed the healing process.

Why didn't she kill me? She had the chance. I brained myself on her kriffing metal jaw.

Then Mara remembered the transponder. She fumbled for the datapad again and activated the search emitter. A yellow blip—no, two yellow blips —showed.

One was still on Vulpter: Ben. The other was edging across the grid on her screen, moving away from the Core.

Lumiya.

Gotcha, she thought, smiling for a second before she remembered her split lip. Gotcha.

Lumiya and her bizarre Sith ship were on a bearing for the Hydian Way node. Either she wanted Mara to follow, or she didn't know about the transponder.

It was okay. Mara could take her anytime now. And two could play the Come-and-get-me game.

She leaned back in her seat and concentrated on reducing her ripening black eye.

JACEN SOLO'S OFFICE—DOORS CLOSED—GAG HQ, CORUSCANT

Jacen played the recording four or five times before he was satisfied. It was a distorted ground-up shot, the sort that endoscopic strip-cams tended to capture, but the soundtrack was clear and the participants in the meeting were clearly identifiable as the GA Chief of State and the Corellian Prime Minister. There would be no argument that the two men had met, thrown out the GA's entire defense policy, agreed on private terms for a cease-fire without reference to the Supreme Commander or the Senate, and discussed the removal by assassination of Colonel Jacen Solo and Admiral Niathal.

This was all he needed to justify the next step.

He leaned across his desk and tapped the internal comm. Droids didn't mind how many times they were summoned to the office.

"Aitch," he said. "I need you right away."

"Certainly, sir," said HM-3.

The droid took ten minutes to show up. When he clunked in, his arms were laden with datapads and even bound flimsi. He'd come prepared for one of Jacen's explain-the-law-to-me sessions. Sometimes it was disturbing to meet a droid who could anticipate needs that well. Jacen settled for being impressed.

"It's time to action the amendment," Jacen said.

If a droid could have registered disappointment on an immobile face, then HM-3 did. His voice left no doubt. He enjoyed going through the finer points of administrative law with Jacen, probably because nobody else wanted to hear. The fact that he carried the statutes around with him rather than simply tapping into the GA networked archive was a sign of his genuine . . . affection for the law. It was an entity to him, not simply words.

"Let me recap, then, sir." HM-3 laid the armful of legal reference sources on the desk and pulled out his working datapad. ". . . amend the Emergency Measures Act to include in its scope the GAG's powers to detain heads of state, politicians, and any other individuals believed to be presenting a, genuine risk to the security of the Galactic Alliance, and to seize their assets via the Treasury Orders Act. "

"That's the one," Jacen said. "When might that be enacted?"

"I can circulate it right now, sir, and it becomes effective at midnight. You're very regular about these amendments."

"I've learned a lot about the importance of administrative discipline from

you, Aitch."

"Thank you, sir. So many don't."

"And my apologies for dragging you in here for so little."

Even with a droid, humility and gratitude could go a very long way.

HM-3 gathered up his source data and made for the doors.

"My pleasure, sir," he said.

Jacen waited for the doors to close and let out a breath. He steeled himself not to think of Tenel Ka and Allana, because that was a luxury he couldn't afford at this moment, but he missed them so much—especially Allana —that it hurt him to breathe sometimes when he thought of them. Lumiya was occupied elsewhere; there was little chance that she'd catch him reaching out in the Force to his family. But he was taking no risks, not now that so many things were coming within his grasp.