"Won't someone recognize him?"

Shevu pointed to the bottle of brown liquid. "I don't think it'll even take some of this to let him get through a s.p.a.ceport unrecognized.

How many checks does a business pa.s.senger go through, landing in a private vessel? One, at the Customs and Immigration desk. And this is Vulpter, for goodness' sake-their security isn't exactly a ring of durasteel. He could even use the rooms on the other side of that control, and he never has to be seen at all. Effectively, it all happens on the landing strip side."

Ben thought it through, seeing the s.p.a.ceport in his mind's eye, adding permacrete and pa.s.sengers to the holochart image of red and blue lines. He was getting used to thinking like this, and part of him relished solving the puzzle while the other half wondered what was happening to him.

"In a way, it's better for us if he meets Gejjen in the conference rooms on the public side of Customs," Ben said. "A bigger crowd out there for us to disappear into."

"I agree. In the end, we'll grab what chance we get."

Ben held the bottle up to the light. "So what's this?"

"Hair dye. Most species tend to recall redheaded humans a bit too well. You're still a genetic minority. And Omas knows you well enough to look twice if he spots you."

"Tell me I don't have to wear makeup to cover my freckles . . ."

Ben's mind was a couple of hours ahead, thinking of the few hours' sleep he could get on the flight. He could study the layout of the s.p.a.ceport on his datapad. It was all going to go fine, he told himself. "So the second vessel's for backup in case he diverts?"

"Partly. And partly so we have something incriminating to abandon on Vulpter. Read the label, dye your hair, and report to the landing strip at twenty-two thirty. I'll see you there."

Shevu started to walk away. Ben jumped to his feet.

"Sir, what's going to be incriminating?"

The captain always seemed old to Ben, but he was younger than Jacen; twenty-eight, maybe. He looked at Ben with that mix of sadness and patience that Ben had seen on his dad's face too often.

"I think anyone would believe Corellians had neutralized Gejjen, given the right vessel abandoned at the port. You now . . . Corellian-registered, Corellian trace for forensics . . . you can do a Corellian accent, can't you? If push comes to shove and you need to speak, that is.

There have to be plenty of Corellians with a grudge against him, knowing their politics."

Ben thought of Uncle Han's accent, or what was left of it. He sounded more Coruscanti these days. "Can do. But how do we know we won't fall over real Corellians trying to stop Gejjen doing a deal with the enemy?"

"That," said Shevu, "would be unbelievably hilarious for all the wrong reasons. a.s.suming he has a deal to put on the table anyway."

I'm going to kill someone, and in twenty-four hours I'll be back here as if nothing's happened.

"Any reason why I can't take my vibroblade?" Ben fished it from his pocket and held it out to Shevu. "My mom gave it to me and . . . well, you know."

"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. n.o.body 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 . . . amus.e.m.e.nt.

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. .h.i.t 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."

"I don't understand. Did he leave them behind?"

"He doesn't keep any of his uniform at our place. Someone's taken them from your headquarters, and as juvenile a prank as it seems-" Luke almost stopped short of mentioning Lumiya, because he had no idea yet how deep her inroads into the GAG had become, or even if Jacen was consciously aware of them. But he was angry and scared for his boy, and that always colored his judgment. "It's Lumiya. She's taunting me.

Showing me she can get at Ben anytime she pleases."

Jacen was silent. Luke waited.

"I can't give you an explanation for that, I really can't," Jacen said eventually.

"Well, Lumiya's jerking my chain, as she probably was at Gilatter, too." Stupid, stupid, stupid. How could I ever have been fooled like that?

"And she has someone inside your organization, so I suggest you get that sorted out fast."

"We've had one investigation already, and found nothing. We'll have another, if it makes you happier." Jacen's voice sounded both offended and irritated, but Luke couldn't even take that at face value any longer.

"But I can a.s.sure you Ben is safe-he's even got pretty good protection right next to him. Lieutenant Lekauf."

"Nice to see the guy get promoted. He strikes me as being very loyal to you."

"As his grandfather was to Vader, Luke. You can't buy loyalty like that. Ben's in good hands. Let's talk again in the morning."

Luke shut the link dead. No, the morning wouldn't do, and there was no point talking to Jacen, who was clearly trussed and tied as far as Lumiya's influence was concerned. She was right under his nose. So much for what he'd learned about arcane Force techniques during his five-year sabbatical.

Luke jogged to the landing pad and tore off in the speeder, maybe a little faster than was safe. Lumiya had left a very clear trail, beckoning Luke to follow. Well, he wasn't falling for that. It had to be a diversion-or an ambush.

I've never been afraid of an ambush, Lumiya. I'll walk into one happily, knowing my enemies are there. Nice try. I'm coming, don't you worry.

He resisted the impulse to drop everything and charge after her trail. She was still near, or at least still on Coruscant; he could feel it. But he had to talk to Mara first, and she was at Starfighter Command.

He opened the comlink.

How could I have let this go on for so long? I don't care if I'm expected to be the elder statesman. This stops; this stops now.

"Mara, we have a problem," he said. "Lumiya."

"I'm with Jaina, sweetheart. Do you want me to-"

"She's been outside our apartment." Luke picked his words a little more carefully now. Mara would go ballistic as soon as he mentioned Ben's boots. It was a sinister, silent threat. "Stay where you are. I'll be there in a few minutes."

"When there's a trail going cold?"

"Or a diversion."

"Or a trail she wants you to think is a diversion."

Yes, Mara and Lumiya both had that layer-upon-layer way of thinking, just as Palpatine had taught them. "I know what she wants," he said, and shut the link.

Luke broke the traffic regulations a dozen times. He skipped out of the regulated skylanes-always busy on Coruscant-and got a discordant blast of horns from vessels whose noses he nearly clipped. In the way of automatic actions, his mind slipped into deep contemplation as he took the familiar route to Star fighter Command.

I know what my problem is.

He thought back forty years, when he'd been ready to rush to the aid of a total stranger on the basis of a message in an intercepted hologram. The plea for rescue hadn't even been aimed at him, but he'd responded to it anyway, without thinking, without questioning, because it had felt like something he had to do.

And now I act sensibly and soberly, because I'm leader of the Jedi Council, and I'm not nineteen anymore.

But it wasn't his nature. It wasn't what he did best. Just because he had whatever gifts the Force had given him more generously than other Jedi, it didn't mean he was cut out for . . . management. Yes, management: that was it. He thought of the nagging frustration he always felt when he sent other Jedi on missions, and how he thought that was just reluctance to admit it was the turn of the young Jedi to take on the physical derring-do while he made wise judgments in the Chamber.

Sitting on my backside.

What he did best was right wrongs, and if he couldn't put this right for his only child, then what was he?

I forgot who I am.

He was an uncomplicated man who cared enough about his friends and family to die for them, if that was what it took to save them. He was, as Mara told him at least once a day, a farmboy.

He was Luke Skywalker. And if he could take on the Empire without a second thought, he could certainly finish off one of the last pitiful remnants of its rule-Lumiya.