Where is she, Ship'?

The other one? Close by.

You're a thing of the Sith, aren't you?

You know darkness well. Better than the other one that I expected to see return.

Mara didn't know what to make of that, but right then she was prepared to accept that her intent was far more malevolent than Lumiya knew how to be. She wanted destruction. She wanted obliteration.

Last of your kind, Lumiya. And about time.

Mara hesitated on the brow of the ramp. She thought for a minute that she might be pulled in, and the spherical ship would then trap her inside and make a run for it. She took the precaution of reaching inside with one hand to place the last of her tiny transponders-her only remaining gadget from her previous existence-just inside the hatch. It attached to the oddly stone-like coating she could feel within. At least if that happened, someone might trace her. And if Lumiya ever returned to the ship, the transponder would report her position every time Mara's emitter pinged it.

Mara took a cautious breath and lowered her head to look inside.

The ship really was empty.

Not just devoid of crew-empty. There was nothing within the hull; no c.o.c.kpit, no instruments, no systems indicators, nothing. It was hollow, lit by a red glow as if there were a fire burning steadily behind the bulkheads. She hadn't seen that light from the outside.

And that was as far as she got. She felt something coming, and she knew what that something was. She took a few steps back down the ramp and waited, lightsaber still extended.

A slim figure in a dark gray suit and veiled triangular headdress stepped into the s.p.a.ce between the parked ships.

"h.e.l.lo, little housewife . . . ," said Lumiya.

Mara's autopilot kicked in and she was the Emperor's Hand again, silent and focused. There was nothing worth saying anyway. Amateurs gave speeches; professionals got on with the job.

She Force-leapt five meters at Lumiya, slashing down right to left, two-handed. The stroke-all power, no finesse-clipped the Sith's headdress as she sprang back, slicing off a section. Lumiya's eyes widened, pupils dilated, but she was already whirling her lightwhip about her head. The tails crackled and hissed, missing Mara only because she threw all her energy into a Force push to slow them a fraction.

Mara didn't take that weapon lightly. It was the worst of both worlds, leather strips studded with impervious Mandalorian iron fragments and tendrils of sheer, raw, murderous dark energy. Mara drew her blaster and rolled under the hull of the ship next to her. The light-whip gouged through the durasteel with a shriek of tearing metal, filling the air with the smell of hydraulic fluid, and the spurt of liquid turned into a torrent that began spreading in a thick pool. As Mara rolled clear on the other side of the ship, Lumiya landed heavily on both feet and brought the whip down so close to Mara's head that she felt the rush of air on her right cheek like a breath. The crack was deafening.

Mara wasn't even thinking when she aimed the blaster. Lumiya's whip hand was raised to throw as much weight as possible from the back stroke.

A puff of white vapor burst from Lumiya's shoulder, and she staggered a few paces.

Metal. Maybe I hit metal.

Maybe she had, because Lumiya teetered for a second but came right back. Mara sprang horizontally from a crouch and cannoned into Lumiya's legs with all the power she could muster from the Force. She hit solid durasteel. Blood filled her mouth but she couldn't feel a thing-yet.

Clinging to Lumiya's knees with one arm, denying her the s.p.a.ce 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 c.o.c.kpit, 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 partic.i.p.ants 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 a.s.sa.s.sination 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 antic.i.p.ate 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 n.o.body 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 ent.i.ty 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 a.s.sets 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 grat.i.tude 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.

I've got you now, Cal Omas. I've got you, you fool.

At midnight, he would have the legal authority to arrest Chief of State Cal Omas for actions likely to present a risk to the security of the Galactic Alliance. He would notify the Supreme Commander, who was- until 0900 tomorrow-the acting Chief of State in Omas's absence, and who would step into his place if for any reason he couldn't discharge his duties.

Like when he's arrested for selling us down the river to the Corellians, and planning to a.s.sa.s.sinate me and Niathal. She's going to love that bit.

It was too late to pull back from the brink now. This had to happen. Niathal knew it was coming, and the promise of power had secured her silence. She needed to take the evidence to Senator G'vli G'Sil, chair of the Security Council, to "clear her bows" as she liked to put it. Once that nicety was out of the way, she could partic.i.p.ate in the coup with a clear military conscience.

After that, the next stage would be to settle her in the t.i.tular role as Chief of State while consolidating his own power base quietly behind the scenes, because he wouldn't be part of that structure laughingly called democracy.

It was chaos, pure and simple. It was a glorious word to justify abdication of responsibility by those who could, if they were prepared to make the effort, create a better galaxy for the vast majority. It was a word for finding someone else to blame.

Democracy, freedom, and peace. They were all tricks, like words used to train veermoks to come to heel or attack. They were sounds with no real meaning, nothing definable, just triggers that everyone had been conditioned to think were desirable, tangible things. Peace-well, Jacen could define that. But democracy? Freedom? Whose freedom, and to do what?

Freedom was a pretty nebulous concept when all most beings wanted was an absence of disorder, a full stomach, and some hope that their offspring would have a more comfortable life than they had.

Jacen rubbed his eyes, feeling the lack of sleep of the past week but determined not to doze even for a few minutes. Shevu hadn't called in. Half the job was done, but Jacen didn't yet know what had happened to Gejjen. Whatever had happened, Ben had either shot him or missed by now.

Jacen switched on HNE, expecting a newsflash about the a.s.sa.s.sination, but it was still showing some nonsense about a holovid star with an embarra.s.sing personal life. There was nothing to do but fill the waiting time with productive work. He opened the comm to Niathal.

"I'm sending you something on your secure datalink," he said. "At one minute past midnight, I'll be acting on it. Time your visit to G'Sil carefully."

"I think I can manage that, Jacen . . ,"

"Wait until you see what I'm sending you," he said. "It's rather different watching them carve up our future."

"Let me know five minutes before you . . . pay your visit."

Jacen leaned back in his seat and waited for the call from Shevu.

And he could still feel that Ben was alive, if not well.

CHARBI s.p.a.cEPORT, VULPTER.

It was a lockdown. Ben, like everyone else in the crowd, stood still as the Corellian Security officer-ministerial protection branch, he guessed-trained his blaster on the crowd.

"n.o.body's going anywhere," he said. "This port is being sealed by the Vulpter authorities and you're all going to be scanned for ballistic residue." - "Why?" a male voice called from the crowd.

"There's been a projectile shooting," the officer said. "A murder.

I want you all to wait, nice and calm, and then we'll check you all out, and you'll be free to go."

"That's going to take hours," someone said.

"Then it'll take hours," said the officer, and flicked the charge test on his blaster so they could hear the whir and see the flash of an indicator bar that said he was ready to shoot. "I'd really like your cooperation, folks."

The hum of murmurs, gasps, clicks, and other varied expressions of horror and impatience swept across the gathering crowd. Ben's gut was knotted tight. He didn't dare look behind him to see where Shevu and Lekauf were. He could feel their presence and had a good idea of their positions, but that wasn't enough. He needed to see them.

Carefully, he turned around and caught Lekauf's eye. He ambled over to him, slowing down as he pa.s.sed so it wasn't obvious they were together. He'd need to steer clear of Shevu, too. There was no point getting them all arrested.

Ben activated his earpiece and spoke barely moving his lips to contain the whisper.

"I'm going to find a weak point and get out," he said. He felt everyone could see the rifle folded under his jacket, even though they all seemed far more interested in what was happening beyond the transparisteel doors to the landing area. Red and blue lights were reflecting off the walls as security vehicles streamed onto the field. "I can jump anywhere, open any door, remember. I'll make my own way back home."

"You do that," said Lekauf's voice in his ear, "and they'll know it was a Jedi."

"No Force nonsense," said Shevu. "Relax. We'll get around this.

Contingency plans, gentlemen."

"I'm covered in trace, sir."