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 canals 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 nobles. 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 nobody 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 Cluster hadn't been such a maze of hazards, he'd have jumped the moment he passed 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 space.

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 cockpit 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 CLUSTER

Jacen couldn't fire. It wasn't regard for Mara, because his first instinct was to lock on and press the button, 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.