Fett wouldn't have traded places with any of the Solos or Skywalkers. They were a tragically unhappy dynasty, and even if sympathy was something nobody paid him to have, he understood the loss of a parent, and a child.

"Any mention of Jacen Solo?" he asked.

"That name has cropped up."

"There's a surprise."

"Mentions of a Lumiya, too. Alias Shira Brie."

Now, there was a name from Fett's past. Some things never went away. "It

all ran better under Vader."

"I'm still waiting for justice for my mama," Mirta said quietly.

"Because if nobody else can be bothered to slit Jacen Solo's throat, I will."

She hadn't mentioned that in a while. Everyone—everyone—was waiting to see what retribution Fett had devised for the Solo brat. The longer he waited, the more sadistically just they expected it to be. But Fett could see something different in Mirta's eyes: if her grandfather was the most efficiently brutal bounty hunter in the galaxy, why hadn't he brought her Jacen Solo's hide?

The Jedi were right about one thing. Raw anger was a poor basis for action. He'd teach her cold patience, the best legacy he could bequeath her.

"Medrit," said Fett, "I want to send Han Solo a gift."

"Nice carbonite table?"

"Proper beskar crushgaunts, so he can throttle the life out of his vermin spawn. And maybe a couple of armor plates and a small blade."

"Gift-wrapped, signed Please kill your son before we have to?"

"Just With deepest sympathy."

It was as deep as Fett could manage, anyway. It must have been terrible to have such a disappointment for a son.

HAPES CLUSTER

Luke thought it was prudent for Corran Horn to take over the Jedi Council in his absence. He wasn't sure he could trust himself. It all felt very academic, even on a good day, and today was as far from one of those as he could imagine.

But apart from the fact that he was now minus everything good in his heart except Ben, Luke felt like his old self for the first time in years. He felt clarity. He knew what he had to do, and there were no gray areas or ambiguities about who was right and who was wrong. For all his pain, the sense of clean focus gave him something to cling to.

And old voices called to him.

He cruised the Transitory Mists in the StealthX, wondering if it had been a phantom effect of the region's ionization and sensor-scrambling phenomena that had guided him here. He magnified his presence in the Force again.

The comm alert broke his concentration for a moment.

"Luke," said Corran's voice. "This is land of hard to ignore.

Everyone's getting anxious to saddle up and lend you a hand."

"There's only one person I need to respond, my friend. And she's coming. But . . . thanks."

"What do you mean, She's coming!"

"Lumiya. I can feel her strongly now."

"It's a trap, Luke."

"For me and her, then."

"She's making it too easy."

"Corran, don't worry about me . . ."

"You know any one of us would gladly do it for you."

"I do. And that's why I have to."

Lumiya was here; Luke could feel her because she wanted him to, he knew that. He wondered how many times she'd passed by him unnoticed and undetected, and congratulated herself on her stealth. He thought of the hand offered to him after they last fought, and how he hadn't detected any ill will. That level of skilled deceit would have been impressive if he hadn't felt so sickeningly betrayed by it—betrayed by his own gullibility.

Mara used to say he bent over backward to see the good in everyone.

"I won't be trying too hard today," he whispered. "In fact, not at all."

He didn't even miss Mara right then. To miss someone, he had to accept that they were gone so he could yearn for them. Mara was still there, just frustratingly silent and unseen, and he dreaded the moment when he finally said to himself, Yes, she's gone, she's really gone, and she isn't going to walk through the doors and complain how crowded the sky-lanes are these days.

The Transitory Mists were bandit country, rife with piracy, and Luke didn't care. He maintained a steady circuit off Terephon.

Eventually, the feeling of someone darting through his peripheral vision became one of someone in the same room. He rotated the fighter 360

degrees in each plane, ignoring his sensors and his Force-senses for the moment because he wanted to see this thing coming, to look it in the eye and take in the entirety of it in the fundamental way of a grieving husband, not a Jedi Master.

"I knew you'd find time for me," he commed.

Had she heard him?

His comm crackled. Lumiya's voice had never aged. He hadn't noticed that before. "I saw no point in running, Luke. Let's finish this."

The ship was exactly as he'd imagined: rough-skinned, red-orange, so organic in appearance that it might have suited the Yuuzhan Vong. The

angular masts and webbed vanes at its cardinal points lent it an edge of predatory grace.

"I had to make sure she died," said Lumiya. "But you'll understand that, sooner or later."

She didn't open fire, and the sphere didn't move. Luke considered taking one kill shot, but he'd done that before, and a pilot called Shira Brie had survived the appalling injuries he inflicted to be become the cyborg facing him now. No, she had to die for good.

The sphere rotated to face Terephon and began to pick up speed, on a straight course for the planet. Luke set off in pursuit and the two ships accelerated, pushing their sublight limits in what Luke started to feel was a crash dive.

Oh no, Lumiya, you don't get away with a. suicide run. You're mine.

He stayed within his thoughts: he had next to nothing to say to her now. The sphere was streaking ahead of him, pulling away. He hung on it, closing the gap, calculating how long he had to intercept before it hit the upper atmosphere and plummeted to the surface, robbing him of every closure he needed.

And justice. Don't forget that. It's about paying the price for Mara's life.

The StealthX edged nearer its manual's recommended safe velocity.

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 spacious Hapan-style city

He jumped out of the cockpit 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.