Mara Jade Skywalker had been a wide-eyed child when Emperor Palpatine brought her to Coruscant. She’d survived Palpatine’s training one hour and one day at a time. Now, everyone tended to think of Coruscant as ground zero again—this time, as the Yuuzhan Vong’s ultimate objective.
Meanwhile, her husband was training another apprentice—obviously assuming there would be peace and justice to defend in the future. She wondered, though, if it was hope or just habit that kept them all sticking to business.
She stared over folded hands at her younger nephew. Seated next to Luke, wearing a light-brown tunic under his Jedi robe, dark-haired Anakin Solo had a saturnine intensity, a Corellian surname, and his father’s wry lift to one eyebrow. Still, his blue eyes simmered with the eagerness to save the galaxy—alone, if necessary—and that was pure Skywalker.
Recently returned from Yavin 4, Luke had formed a habit of gathering several Jedi every few days in some secluded but public place. All Jedi had fallen under public scrutiny in recent months. Ithor was lost, despite Corran Horn’s sacrificial effort. Renegade battle squadrons led by young Jedi Knights dived in and out of three major invasion fronts, blatantly disregarding military strategy.Almost as damaging, the intelligence her former boss Talon Karrde recently helped the Jedi gather—concerning the Yuuzhan Vong’s imminent attack on Corellia—proved false.
If the Jedi couldn’t work together, they would be vaped separately, or tumble one by one to the dark side.
Seven Jedi had circled their chairs deep in central Coruscant’s governmental district this morning, a few meters from a balcony overlooking a bustling mezzanine. A fountain bubbled nearby, looking and sounding like something out of the Empire’s glory days …
The days when she’d been the Emperor’s Hand. She carried around plenty of regret from those days, things she wished she’d never seen or done. But she’d made her peace. She’d given up the one thing dearest to her, her ship, Jade’s Fire. In its place, she’d received … well …
Enough.
Again she eyed Luke and Anakin. Whenever she saw those two together, she glimpsed two outward reflections of the same inner strength. They had the same compact build, though Anakin hadn’t finished fleshing out—and those matching poke-mark clefts in their chins—but most telling of all, those terminally earnest attitudes.
Colonel Kenth Hamner, a strikingly tall human Jedi with a long, aristocratic face, served the New Republic’s military as a strategist. He shook his head and said, “With Fondor’s shipyards gone and the hyperspace routes mined, we’re pulling in from the Inner Rim, even the Colonies. Rodia is in serious danger. Thank the Force, Anakin brought Centerpoint back up—”
Anakin leaned forward, gripping his hands as he interjected, “As long as we don’t lose Corellia. Thrackan’s likely to expel all the Drall and Selonians, declare Corellia a human-only zone, and lock out the rest of us, if we let him.”
Mara knew Anakin well, so she could imagine the thoughts he didn’t speak: Because I didn’t fire Centerpoint when I could have. Now Thrackan’s a hero, no matter how many bystanders he killed … With Governor-general Marcha kicked out of office, Thrackan and the Centerpoint Party were making a strong bid for power at Corellia.
Kenth Hamner shook his head. “Don’t blame yourself, Anakin. A Jedi must keep his power under control. We have to hesitate and consider the consequences. You couldn’t hurry to fire Centerpoint, and you did well. Maybe Centerpoint will be the Core’s last defense, if we can get it repaired. From there, we could defend the shipyards at Kuat and protect Coruscant.”
“True,” Luke told Hamner. A new wave of yorik coral warships had hit the Corellian Run, near Rodia. Anakin’s sister, Jaina—Mara’s apprentice—had deployed with Rogue Squadron toward that front, and with so many Yuuzhan Vong between them, it was difficult to sense her through the Force. Yuuzhan Vong somehow damped it down.
Bothawui, though—between the embattled Hutts and threatened Rodia—clearly was endangered. The last time Mara had heard of Kyp Durron, he’d parked Kyp’s Dozen near Bothawui, spoiling for a fight and expecting it right there.
Mara had just about had it with Kyp Durron. She noted, though, the way Kenth Hamner deferred to Anakin. Anakin had saved her life on Dantooine, where Yuuzhan Vong warriors chased them for days while her mysterious disease slowly sapped her strength. Since the fall of Dubrillion, since the retreat at Dantooine—and especially since Centerpoint—strangers saluted barely-sixteen-year-old Anakin in Coruscant’s Grand Corridor. Vendors of exotic delicacies offered him samples, and supple Twi’lek women twitched their long lekku when he passed.
Luke also wore a Jedi robe today, almost the shade of Tatooine sand. So did Cilghal, the Mon Calamari healer, who sat bowing her massive head over salmon-shaded, webbed hands. She’d brought along her new apprentice, quiet little Tekli. Tekli, a Chadra-Fan with marginal Force talent, seemed perpetually wide-eyed. Her large, fan-shaped ears swiveled whenever an atmospheric craft passed their balcony.
These days were growing long for the healers. Cilghal had confided that they were seeing stress illnesses like never before. The fearful strain of watching an invasion displace and kill so many peoples was like watching a disease eat away at a helpless friend—
Mara caught a glint of blue from Luke’s direction. She intercepted his concerned glance and choked off the dismal thought. Her disease, like a protean cancer, had undergone constant random mutations, making it uncontrollable. It should have been fatal.
For three months, she’d been in remission. The tears of an alien creature, Vergere—briefly in custody, with a Yuuzhan Vong agent—had restored her strength. She hesitated to call herself cured, though. Just as Luke hesitates to call this group a council—because it isn’t. For the moment, I feel good. That’s enough.
So she eyed him right back, admiring the signs of maturity. He’d lost that half-ripe farmboy look years ago. Around his intense blue eyes, he’d gathered a network of smile lines—and furrows of concern over the bridge of his nose. Here and there, especially near his temples, he’d sprouted a few gray hairs. Altogether distinguished, she decided.
Ever since that hour in Nirauan’s caves, when deadly danger forced them to fight so closely, reaching so deep into the Force that each saw the world through the other’s mind, she and Luke had moments when they seemed to fight, think, even to breathe as one person. Utterly different on the surface, their strengths balanced perfectly. Destiny had been kind to Mara Jade, the former Emperor’s Hand—and she didn’t need the Force to see that their union made Luke Skywalker a happy man.
So naturally, the risk of her suffering a relapse worried him desperately. They still had so many dreams to chase.
Luke flushed.
Then conduct your meeting, Skywalker, she thought at him, amused by his embarrassment. Quit worrying about me.
Though their Force link rarely let them communicate in actual words, he clearly caught the message. He turned to Kenth Hamner and said, “Daye Azur-Jamin on Nal Hutta hasn’t reported for almost a week. I asked his son Tam to head out that way—carefully—and see if he could get any leading through the siege force’s shadow.” As at Kalarba, the enemy’s massed presence near Nal Hutta seemed to damp down the Force.
“Daye’s a good man,” Cilghal said softly. “Lowbacca and Tinian got out of Hutt space, didn’t they?”
Luke nodded. “They just reported in from Kashyyyk. No sign of enemy activity there.”
“At least the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t messing with Wookiees at home,” Ulaha Kore said lightly. Ulaha was a delicate young Bith, with musical talents that admitted her to any number of intelligence-rich social occasions. Ulaha looked careworn, her posture so slumped that Mara barely could see her large eyes under her protruding, hairless head.
Her comment provoked nervous laughter around the circle, which showed Mara how desperate for levity even the Jedi were getting.
“Nothing out of Bilbringi?” Hamner asked. “Mon Calamari?”
Luke let the colonel steer the conversation to the New Republic’s remaining military strongholds. “Nothing unusual at Bilbringi,” he answered. “Tenel Ka and Jovan Drark have stationed themselves in public places, looking for dead spots in the Force that could be Yuuzhan Vong in masquers. The same from Markre Medjev, finishing up his research on Bothawui,” he said, shooting Mara a rueful glance. With Borsk Fey’lya clinging to power as chief of state, the reduced Fifth Fleet was back in Bothan space, useless to the Core. “And our supply and information lines to Mon Cal are still cut.”
They’d been cut for months. The other Jedi sat silently for almost a minute, reflecting on the reports. Luke’s eyes fell half-shut.
Mara laced her long fingers, hoping he wasn’t trying to get a spin on the future. If the future beat him over the head and demanded to be seen, that was fine. Pushing for it was another matter.
The fountain burbled, a free-form Mon Calamari construct with irregular surfaces. Its top bowl rotated, sending sheets of water down its sides. Mara appreciated its sonic cover. Luke, though, still seemed fascinated by water that didn’t have to be forced down from the sky by moisture vaporators. He called these meetings randomly, at different places, but he often chose spots near running water. Maybe he was starting to notice the shapes and patterns of his life, starting the subtle transition from young adulthood toward a hopefully wiser age.
She pursed her lips, frustrated to catch herself thinking that way. She was healthy again. She liked maturity. She respected strength.
But youth had privileges, hopes she still hadn’t fulfilled, and maybe never would. She’d seized Vergere’s elixir because her instincts said it would work. She had no instinctive leading on when, if ever, she might safely conceive a child.
On the far side of the circle, little Tekli cleared her throat. Fur trembled on her large round ears.
As Luke’s eyes opened, Mara felt hers widen a trace. The Chadra-Fan apprentice had never spoken up during a meeting.
“I debated whether to even report this,” she began, her voice a musical whisper.
Anakin’s lips twisted sardonically. Mara made a mental note to speak with him about his attitude toward the marginally gifted—if Luke didn’t do it, first.
“Go on.” Cilghal gave an assuring wave with one webbed hand.
Tekli glanced at her mentor, then continued. “Two days ago, I was down near Dometown, in a new strip called JoKo’s Alley. Looking for a friend,” she added hastily, as if embarrassed to admit she’d been prowling such a riotous area of Coruscant’s understory.
“Yes?” Luke gave Tekli a sober, attentive stare. Overseeing the Jedi academy had taught him patience. They keep learning, he’d told Mara, as long as someone encourages them.
“I heard someone talking in a tapcaf, about—”
“Which one?” Anakin demanded.
Luke extended a hand, palm down. “Wait, Anakin. Go on, Tekli.”
She raised her head and stroked her long whiskers. “It was the Leafy Green, actually. Two Rodians were talking about one of the employees, and how if that was a human, he’d eat his … I couldn’t hear the next words, but we’ve all heard about ooglith masquers, and how the Yuuzhan Vong can pass as human. Maybe it’s just general jumpiness, Master Skywalker, but it would be easy for … for one of your more gifted Jedi to check out.”
“Do you want to go back?” Luke asked gently.
Tekli shook her head. “I’m no fighter, sir.”
Mara caught a side glance from Anakin. He raised one dark eyebrow at her. She pursed her lips.
Luke glanced toward her, then Anakin. “That’s all right, Tekli. I just had two capable volunteers. The Jedi will always be strongest,” he added, “when everyone uses their full talents. Whatever you’re given to do, do it with all your ability.”
Tekli’s broad nose twitched with pleasure.
“You’re sure you feel up to this?” Luke demanded.
Mara walked beside him down the open-air mezzanine. Along one grand edifice, a gardener droid clung to the trunk of a singing fig tree, pruning away last year’s erratic growth.
Luke’s cloak billowed behind him, drawing stares. The stares bothered her, after so many years as a shadow agent—and she never wore Jedi robes unless she absolutely had to.
“Of course I’m up to it. I haven’t felt so obnoxiously healthy since …” She trailed off. “Well, in a while.”
“Or I can send someone else with you.”
Mara laughed. “Anakin’s fine.”
She’d asked for a few minutes alone with her husband, so their nephew followed at a polite distance. Without even stretching out through the Force, she felt Anakin’s alert mental state. He took his sentry role as seriously as he took everything else.
“He feels terrible about Centerpoint,” she added. “That’s a load, on top of blaming himself for Chewie’s death. He’s doing better with that, but he’s carrying some serious baggage.”
Luke knew it, of course. Luke caught people’s feelings just as quickly as she got leadings from her instincts.
“He feels even worse about listening to Jacen,” Luke pointed out. “That rift between them worries me.”
“Jacen worries me,” Mara countered. He hadn’t left Coruscant in a good frame of mind, and they hadn’t heard from him in two months.
They crossed a side passage. A chill breeze, probably from some ventilation system set for Talz comfort, made her shiver. Luke almost opened his mouth to speak, then shut it firmly, raising one eyebrow—a plea for understanding. He’d almost slipped and asked again if she was all right. He was pushing his limit for the day.
Don’t hover, husband. Again, she thought words at him, but she softened the rebuke with a wink.
His lips twitched. He almost smiled. They’d had this exchange, what … a hundred times? It had become one of the myriad comforting rituals of their marriage, almost seven years that had tempered her bitterness with his unwavering devotion.
She glanced back. Anakin followed silently, step-scuffing along with his knee-high brown boots, the way he often did when trying to look relaxed and casual. Three young human women and a sinuous Falleen, probably low-ranking government employees, stopped walking—almost in step—and watched him pass.
With those dark good looks, Anakin definitely had crowd appeal. Coruscant needed a vital young hero. Anakin seemed to attract those who wanted Jedi vigilantes—Kyp Durron’s faction—as well as those who still approved of the more traditional Jedi stance of power under extreme discipline. Kyp had courted Anakin hard, between his squadron’s engagements.
Mara compressed her lips. She was almost as worried for Anakin as for his despondent brother. Anakin would surely be tempted. Precociously talented, he couldn’t claim Luke’s virtuous, hardworking upbringing. She’d seen Luke’s memories, his deepest regrets and his most secret griefs. She knew how closely the dark had pursued him.
As it would chase Anakin, who was raised by an exsmuggler who loved to bend rules, a loving but often absent mother, her talented aide, and a protocol droid—and at the Jedi academy, in the shadow of two siblings. If Anakin didn’t fall to the dark side, then having resisted temptation could leave him even stronger—maybe the most powerful Jedi of his generation.
“About that Yuuzhan Vong agent,” she murmured, “if Tekli really spotted one. I want to take him alive. We could get more out of one live prisoner than one more corpse.” The xenobiologists did have a few hard-won cadavers, preserved on various worlds. “Such as—what effect trank darts might have on their chemistry.”
“It’s not ethical to experiment on prisoners.” Luke’s eyes barely narrowed.
“How are we—”
“It would also be good to know if they can be stunned,” he interrupted her in midobjection.
“Point.”
Their living armor seemed to turn blaster bolts, but could a lower-energy stun pulse get through? Even if it only disabled the living vonduun crab, that might immobilize a warrior inside.
Running that little experiment, and certainly not on a prisoner, would mean getting closer than anyone but a Jedi would dare try to get.
And Luke hadn’t demanded to take the mission. He’d also just brought her around to his point of view without challenging her, she realized.
Mara touched his arm, and he closed his hand on hers. Their deep bond had suffered during the dark days when she thought she was dying. She’d pulled back into herself, even from Luke.
What a relief, to be able to reengage in their relationship. Their marriage ought to be challenge enough to last anyone’s lifetime—with or without small dreams to follow them.
The dinner crowd had started to slacken as Mara led Anakin off the repulsor train into JoKo’s Alley. She strolled to an overlook, planted both hands on the railing, and stared down.
Far below, layers of lights faded into the dangerous undercity. A hawk-bat swooped, picking granite slugs or some other urban wildlife off duracrete walls. A brilliant yellow turbolift cube raced an orange module up the wall across from her, returning visitors to Coruscant’s more populous upper levels.
This district lay far enough down that she couldn’t see the high-speed air travel lanes when she looked up, past the edge of military-controlled Dometown. Only local traffic zipped along at this level. A patrol unit hovered, its pod lights blinking a slow blue pulse.
“Quiet evening, so far.” Anakin eased up alongside her, turning half away.
Satisfied with her reconnaissance, Mara put the chasm behind her and stared into the crowd. Hesitantly, she opened herself—just a bit—to the Force. Bubbles of emotional noise burst here and there, mostly from people near Anakin’s age. An older Quarren couple walked past quickly, heads down, shoulder to shoulder. She saw tension in their twitching facial tentacles. The taller individual kept glancing away from his partner. They kept a broad personal space around themselves.
Carrying something a little too valuable tonight, she concluded.
In the other direction swaggered two human males, one rather loose-limbed, his face glowing with the effects of several mugs of lum. She caught a few words as they passed. “… over to the Peace Brigade. That way, if the Vong get this far …”
The voice faded, leaving Mara frowning. Coruscant, long a coal bed of intrigue, was turning into a fear-driven focus cooker. Peace Brigaders, humans who had decided to collaborate with the Yuuzhan Vong, did not wear their clasped-hand insignia openly, but she guessed that time was coming.
She slipped one hand inside her long black vest. Beneath the pocketed credcards and her comlink, she wore a loosely hooded burnt-orange flight suit, and her blaster and lightsaber—the one Luke had given her. Long habit made her carry her shoulders at just the right angle to drape her clothing over her armament. Anakin’s tunic and loose pants did the trick well enough. He had one odd bulge at the belt, probably a Sabrashi fear stick, but a casual passerby would take them for a woman escorting her son on an evening out.
Son. Again she frowned. With every month that hurried past, driven by the invasion or paced by concerns about the fate of the Jedi, the urge to hold her own child tugged harder—and looked less plausible. Every month, she and Luke resolutely turned away.
Sometimes—according to Cilghal, Oolos, and the other healers—the bizarre disease that plagued her had killed its victims by breaking down the proteins that surrounded cell nuclei. Sometimes, she’d even felt that starting in, seemingly nibbling her bones or other specific organs. An illness that attacked cellular integrity could destroy an unborn child, or alter its cell structure to produce … to produce what? she wondered. If she ever had a child, would it even be human?
No, she would content herself with a gifted niece-apprentice and two talented nephews. She and Luke also sponsored—visited, when they could—a thirteen-year-old Bakuran orphan, Malinza Thanas. Malinza’s father had died of a lingering ailment, and her mother was killed at another Centerpoint crisis years ago. Luke still felt deeply responsible for the girl, adopted by a well-placed Bakuran family. At distant Bakura, at least Malinza seemed safe from the Yuuzhan Vong.
Thinking of Bakura made Mara imagine how the defeated Ssi-ruuk might have dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong. Did these new invaders, evidently dead to the Force, have life energies that could have been drained off to power Ssi-ruuvi technology?
That would be the ultimate humiliation …
Anakin eyed a transparent kiosk. At eye level, it showed a three-dimensional, animated holo of five levels in this area.
“Looks like the Leafy Green is two corridors north,” he said. “Want to catch another train?”
“We’ll walk,” Mara answered. “Stay sharp.”
She felt him hang back, on her left, as she melted into the flow of passersby. It was a good, defensible two-person formation, with master on point.
Mara turned her head slightly. “Tonight’s lesson,” she told Anakin. “It’s a review.” Anakin would never learn skulduggery from her husband, who stuck out in a crowd like a Sunesi preacher.
“Hm.” Anakin eyed a trail of moving lights, set like a slidewalk to draw pedestrians into a new restaurant.
“Evaluate constantly,” she said. “The more information you collect before shove comes to shake, the more choices you’ll have, and the fewer ways your enemy might surprise you.”
He held his hands folded in front of him, thumbs pressed together. “I know that.” They passed a door that belched out weird odors and a gaseous red mist.
“What about last week, on the simulators?” she demanded. “And while you’re thinking about that, lose the Jedi pose.”
His arms dropped to his sides. “Flying against you? I never had a chance.”
“You attack too early. It’s your pattern. Knowing your weakness is the first step toward conquering it.” And I know what you’re thinking, Anakin Solo. You think I’m losing my edge.
Mara altered course as three slightly drunken young Twi’leks lurched their way up the promenade. Anakin maintained his position, well out of their path.
He was a fast learner. His entire generation of Jedi was having to grow up quickly.
Of course, there hadn’t been much peace in the galaxy during her adolescence either.
More moving lights arched overhead, setting eerie glimmers in clothing, hair, fur, and exposed skin. The crowd pressed tighter in the pedestrian corridor. Here and there she spotted billowy sheets of yellow fungus, developed by a Ho’Din scientist to help oxygenate dark areas of the undercity.
About half a klick farther along, the overhead lights became a tumble of arrow-shaped green leaves. She glanced through a broad doorway. The lights inside weren’t as dim as many they’d passed. Across the passage was a garish skin-art studio.
“Well,” she murmured, “Tekli’s friend has good taste.”
She pushed into the Leafy Green. Anakin kept his right elbow near her left.
The tapcaf was built around a central column. As Mara’s eyes adjusted, she saw that the column had been carved and shaded to look like a living tree trunk. Above, it parted into dozens of seeming branches. Leaves fluttered in an artificial breeze.
Quite an assassin’s loft, in her professional opinion—especially at center, where the branches looked strongest.
“Good evening, gentle friends. A table?”
Mara glanced down at a young Drall, maybe an early emigrant from Corellia. “Yes,” she said. “Something near the door.” She glanced up, considering that loft at the trunk’s center. “And close to the outside wall,” where she could keep an eye on the entire establishment.
“Follow, please.”
The Drall led them along a soft, springy surface and paused beside a booth built to human dimensions. Mara took the seat facing the entry, leaving Anakin to watch deeper inside the establishment. Her forearm sank into the tabletop, which seemed to be covered with feathery moss. The carpet looked like fallen leaves. She hoped the food was hygienic.
“Something for you, gentles, to begin?” Their server offered the traditional hospitality, meanwhile keying holographic menus to appear over the tabletop.
“Elba water,” she answered.
Anakin nodded. “Two.”
The husky young Drall’s furry back receded along the fallen leaves.
An artificial spring bubbled around the tree’s base, humidifying the air. Mara made a mental note to tell Luke about the place. Surreptitiously eyeing other patrons, she saw nothing more hazardous than a young Dug couple arguing over dessert. She and Anakin selected options in the usual way, by flicking the heads-up menu’s live spots. Then she turned sideways and leaned against the booth’s inner wall.
“See anything?” she asked.
“Not worth mentioning.” His eyes kept moving, though. Good, Anakin. “If I really hated technology, this is one place on Coruscant where I might feel half comfortable.”
“True enough.”
There wasn’t a service droid in sight. That fact alone was almost enough to make her suspect the manager-owner. Over the long run, droids were significantly cheaper and more reliable than most hired help.
As their server returned with elba water and two covered warmer-plates, a family of Whiphids left noisily, the father humphing around his tusks. Mara spotted another attendant, walking somewhat hunched, carrying a tray out of what looked like a cavernous kitchen. He set down the tray and started gathering used serviceware off a leafy table.
That had to be the one Tekli spotted. He held himself crookedly. He could’ve been badly injured, but …
“That one,” Anakin whispered.
“Check him through the Force.”
She pressed farther back in the booth, narrowing the angle between Anakin and the human-looking attendant so she could see them both without moving her head. Anakin narrowed his blue eyes, leaning forward enough that a strand of hair fell across his forehead. He frowned.
“You look like the champion of the galaxy,” she whispered a warning.
He compressed his lips, irked.
Then he straightened several centimeters.
Mara slid a hand under her vest, getting a grip on her lightsaber. “Nothing?” she murmured.
“Nothing.”
Mara stretched out and double-checked Anakin’s pronouncement. The alleged human did feel like a shadow—a dead spot, an emptiness.
Anakin was already rising from the table.
“No,” Mara said sharply. “Not in the middle of a restaurant full of bystanders.”
“What do we do?” he demanded. “He’s going to get away.”
“Hardly. He’s working a shift. We finish our dinner.” Mara leaned against the mossy tabletop. “And before we move in, we see if he’s got reinforcements in the kitchen.”