Ben switched his attention. He began to visualize the exterior of the terminal buildings. A walkway ran along the roof, a little-used observation deck where anyone could sit and watch vessels taking off and landing. It wasn't a popular spot, but it was perfect for a sniper. As soon as the meeting sounded as if it was coming to an end, Ben had a minute or two to get up on that roof and wait for Gejjen to exit.

There were three sets of doors Gejjen could leave through to walk back onto the landing field and rejoin his ship. To cover that span-a couple of hundred meters-Ben would have to be ready to sprint along that platform in either direction from a central point.

I'm ready.

He pressed his arm against his side and felt the Karpaki. It would be almost completely silent. He'd also be standing on top of a stark permacrete platform with no cover.

I'll just have to be fast, then . . .

The conversation between Omas and Gejjen slowed, and there were longer pauses and more restless grunts and sighs. Business was drawing to a close. At a nudge from Lekauf, Ben began walking to the roof turbolift without even looking back. He stood in the turbolift cab with a family of Trianii looking for a tapcaf, wondering if they could smell his intentions.

One of the GAG troopers liked free-falling. He'd told Ben that to jump off a five-thousand-meter building, there was a point where a free-faller had to simply stop working up to it and step off into the void. Ben was at that point now as he walked along the rooftop terrace and took up position. He stepped back into the shadow of a single lonely air-conditioning outflow and unfolded the Karpaki. If he held it against the leg of his baggy, creased pants, it didn't present such an obvious profile.

There was n.o.body around anyway. The observation platform was cracked, and weeds were thriving in the crevices. He settled down to wait for Shevu and Lekauf to do the spotting for him.

Jacen's going to go crazy when he hears what Omas has in mind for him.

"Ben, heads up." It was Shevu. "Gejjen's on the move. He's exiting via the south doors. Go right."

Ben checked around him and jogged to the far end of the platform, keeping close to the rear wall. He hoped he'd recognize Gejjen. He'd studied the man's face and walk intently before the mission, but now he might be looking at the back of his head, depending on the exact path he took back to the ship. It was a silly, petty doubt. He hadn't thought it through enough before he embarked.

But when he looked down on the permacrete, and the chaos of ships, freight droids, and species of all kinds wandering around as if it were a theme park, that neat military haircut-jet black, glossy, not a strand out of place-drew his eye like a beacon.

He lay p.r.o.ne and sighted up. The optics brought him instantly a hundred meters closer to Dur Gejjen, and then there was no doubt that he had the right man in his cross wires. As Gejjen walked, two security guards in discreet casual clothes weaved in and out of Ben's shot.

As soon as Gejjen dropped, at least one of them would be looking for where the shot had originated. Ben would have to stay low and melt back into the crowds in the airside terminal, then rendezvous with Lekauf at Shevu's transport.

I can do it. I got in and out of Centerpoint, didn't I?

Ben held his breath, let the Karpaki's smart optics adjust for wind and angle, and felt his finger tighten on the trigger. One second Gejjen's neat dark head was filling the scope, and the next Ben was staring at empty permacrete as the rifle kicked back against his shoulder. The m.u.f.fled report seemed to come from a long way away. Nothing seemed to have gone down in the order he expected-shot, recoil, drop. He lay flat.

What happened?

Did I kill him?

He could hear shouts carried on the air from three stories below.

His body made the decisions for him and he found himself scrambling backward to the rear wall while Shevu's voice in his ear kept saying, "Get out of there, Ben."

He ran at a crouch to the turbolift, found that it was on a lower floor, and took the fire-escape stairway. It was going to plan. He could merge into the crowd.

Back on the ground floor, he slipped through the fire doors and made a conscious effort not to look panicked. Maybe professional a.s.sa.s.sins could take this in their stride, but he couldn't. He'd put aside the fact that he'd just killed a man and found he was totally caught up in the simple act of getting away.

When Shevu put his hand on his shoulder from behind, Ben thought he was going to have a heart attack.

"Keep walking," Shevu whispered. Curious crowds were gathering at the transparisteel doors to gawp at the unfolding drama on the landing strip, and security staff were struggling to get through the crowd. "Just keep on walking."

If they sealed the doors . . .

It was chaos. n.o.body seemed to know what had happened yet. That bought Ben, Shevu, and Lekauf a few more minutes. Charbi seemed the kind of place where pa.s.sengers and freighter captains would walk right past a dead body if it meant their flight left on time.

They were counting on it.

"I'm right behind you," said Lekauf's voice in his earpiece. "If we walk down to the south doors, we can just go around the perimeter to Shevu's shuttle."

Ben was scared. He was happy to admit it. He hadn't been afraid at all on Centerpoint, but now he knew better. He kept a little distance between him and Shevu, remembering to pause every so often and look at the commotion as if he were genuinely curious about what was happening, but he carried on walking.

Above him, the holoscreen that usually showed arrivals and departures was turned over to the traffic-control tower's view of the landing strip.

Yes, he'd killed Gejjen, a textbook head shot.

I can't feel my face. My lips feel numb.

Now Ben was seconds away from those doors, walking with the steady but thinning stream of droids, repulsorlifts, and pa.s.sengers heading out to the vessels.

Nearly there.

He was a few meters away from the transparisteel doors when he saw a man in familiar casual clothes running at full tilt toward them. The doors parted, and Ben was staring down the muzzle of a blaster.

"Armed officer, CSA!" the man barked. "Everybody-stay where you are-"

Ben balanced on a blade's edge between surrender and making a run for it.

chapter ten.

Verpine negotiator Sa.s.s Sikili, speaking today at the opening of BastEx, has warned Murkhana that the Roche government will respond with "appropriate measures" if it continues to breach trade agreements on technology exports. Murkhana is keen to move into the growing market for secure small-unit comlink networking, a field dominated by Verpine products.

-HNE business news, noted with interest by Boba Fett, Mandalore SPEEDER PARK, ROTUNDA ZONE, CORUSCANT Lumiya had left a magnified wake in the force like a water speeder on a lake. While it was generous of her, Mara wasn't amused.

"I didn't get stupid overnight," she muttered. "Don't insult me, tin-can."

"And what were you saying about Luke being too close to all this?"

Jaina asked. "Deep breaths, Aunt Mara. Deep breaths."

"I'm psyching up. I find it helps. You use the Force your way, and I'll use it mine."

"Wow, am I calming you down now? That's a headline to save for the grandchildren."

Mara paced a ten-meter square of the area, feeling dark energies pulsing like shock waves. Jaina stood back and watched.

"She's taken off from here," Mara stated.

"Has she led us here to divert us from somewhere else on Coruscant?"

"She's got a narrow range of targets, Jaina. Ben or Jacen-or even Han and Leia, if she's teamed up with Alema. Your parents aren't on Coruscant, and if she's after Jacen, she must have had her chance to take him when she got into GAG HQ to grab Ben's boots." Mara squatted down to touch the permacrete. She expected to get a jolt of some kind, a taste of Lumiya mocking her, but there was something disconcertingly benign about the impression the Sith had left behind. Yes, like she managed to convince Luke she meant him no harm. Lumiya seemed to have discovered a rare talent for Force-acting. "If she's after Luke, she's pa.s.sed up two chances now."

"So it's Ben."

"Ben's . . . away. He's not on Coruscant."

Jaina looked at Mara with an expression that said she couldn't work out why Mara was stalling her. But Mara wouldn't budge. The less the family knew about Ben's situation, the better. Sooner or later, it'd slip out that she'd put a trace on him, and however old he was when that finally happened she'd lose his trust forever. It would hurt him.

"GAG business," Mara said, answering the unasked question. She cast around in the Force, groping for anything that said Lumiya was heading for Vulpter, but she had no sense of that at all. What she picked up was Ben, nervous for a moment, then disappearing as Jacen must have taught him. She'd have to tackle that when the current emergency was under control. "Okay, if she wants me to follow her, I'll follow."

"Let's call in Zekk and Jag, because I'm betting Alema's in town again, and-"

"No offense, Jaina, but I think it's me she wants. You go find Bug Girl."

Jaina's pursed lips looked like she'd decided to swallow an argument. "Okay," she said at last.

"It's just an old dark side feud. " Mara didn't want Jaina to feel that she was snubbing her. Relations were edgy enough at the moment.

"Let's not allow her to divert both of us."

So Lumiya was taunting her. / com get at your husband. I can get at your son. If she was so set on killing Ben for the death of her daughter, she still seemed to be missing chances. So what did Lumiya want from her?

Mara returned to base to find one of the ground crew waiting patiently by her allocated XJ7. She climbed into the c.o.c.kpit and started her instrument check.

"Is Lumiya really a Shh?" the technician asked.

"The very last of her kind," said Mara, not asking what he'd heard and how he knew the name anyway. She felt a pang of guilt at her sloppiness for arguing loudly and forgetting there were other personnel around. She sealed the XJ7's hatches. "I'll make sure of that."

Mara ignored military air traffic regulations and circled over the area where she'd last picked up Lumiya's powerful wake. If she concentrated, it was relatively easy to follow, and she found herself leaving Coruscant orbit on a bearing for one of the moons, Hesperidium.

"Oh, yes, Palpatine loved that place," she said aloud. "You heading there for old times' sake?"

Lumiya was definitely playing a game. But she wasn't stupid enough to think she could offer Mara her hand and find it still intact like she had with Luke.

The wake led to Hesperidium's main resort, which wasn't quite as splendid as Mara recalled. She wondered if it was feeling the pinch of postwar recovery, and if there still weren't enough tastelessly wealthy folk to go around. Port traffic control was surprised-to say the least-to find a military vessel on its scanners.

"I need to put down for a while," Mara said, knowing they had no choice about the matter. They could hardly stop her landing. "Getting weird readings on my instruments. I have to check it out."

"Let us know if you need help," the ATC controller said. "We pride ourselves on doing anything and everything for all our visitors."

"Cla.s.sified," Mara said, and ended the conversation in the way that only she could.

When she landed and saw the selection of vessels standing on the private strips of the hotels, she realized that a XJ7 probably looked like an eccentric billionaire's toy, and a small one at that. Some of the craft here were staggering in their size and opulence; she wondered how they even managed to land. There was clearly a thriving cla.s.s of the ultrawealthy that had come through the last decade pretty well unscathed, and life was going on uninterrupted for them now, regardless of another war. Credits seemed to operate like deflector shields: if you had enough of either, nothing could touch you.

She checked around her-in the Force, and visually-before sliding out of the c.o.c.kpit and jumping to the ground. At least she'd managed to dress like eccentric wealth, and few would look at her.

Yes, there were definitely some bizarre-looking flying palaces here . . .

And then she felt darkness touch her shoulder in the brilliant morning sunshine.

It was so tangible, so dense, that she spun around with her hand on her lightsaber hilt expecting to find Lumiya ready to swing at her. But there was n.o.body.

You want to play games?

It was early. A couple of hotel guests in sports clothes jogged by and glanced at her, but ran on. She prowled between the vessels on the strip, feeling the darkness pressing on her sternum like a coronary.

Something dark was here-and that meant Lumiya. The crushing sensation in her chest was getting so powerful that she ignited her lightsaber's blade, ready to fight when she rounded the next hull.

This is it, Lumiya. No more games.

She sprang into the gap, lightsaber humming.

Staring back at her wasn't a veiled figure with a lightwhip but a single, disembodied, flame-red eye ten meters wide. Her instinct said it was alive, an alien being, but it was clearly a ship of some kind, and that meant only one thing: Lumiya was inside.

It was a trap, Mara was sure of that.

Fine. But sometimes traps swallow prey that's way too big for them . . .

She looked over the hull for a hatch, but the roughly textured surface-was it stone?-was unbroken.

Come inside.

Mara wondered why she was thinking that and then realized that the thought was actually a voice inside her head, in the fabric of the Force itself. It was inanimate, yet sentient; and it wasn't a droid.

It was the ship.

Mara concentrated hard on sensing Lumiya, but she could detect n.o.body inside the vessel. Suddenly an aperture appeared in the hull and a ramp extruded. It was too tempting, and she was too old a hand at this kind of game to walk straight in, but she had to know what was going on.

The wake ended here. Lumiya had used this ship. But- I can take her. This is all mini games. I'm not falling for it.

If Lumiya was waiting within, hiding somehow, then Mara would kill her. If she wasn't, then Mara would sit in wait for her, and kill her then. It was all the same to Mara. She didn't have anything more urgent to do right then.

She placed her boot on the ramp and took a few cautious steps, lightsaber held two-handed. If the hotel had security cams and could see what was going on, it was just too bad.

Mara felt bewilderment that wasn't hers.

You're not who I expected.

It was the ship again.

"What d'you mean, I'm not who you expected?" No, she didn't need to speak: she realized she could think back at this thing.

You are . . . very similar.

"Thanks. Thanks a bunch." Maybe the ship had a high regard for Lumiya. Mara decided that it was as good a source as any of information.

She thought her next question, not even in words, but in concepts and att.i.tudes she thought she'd left behind a long time ago. The mental conversation left a taste in her like being a Hand again.