Mara had slipped into unconsciousness by the time the island’s MD-10 medical droid had been activated. Luke gripped her hand as she lay on the grass near their table. Around them the cool air was fragrant with night perfumes and the gentle music of insects. Kenth Hamner stood by, restless but silent.
Luke summoned Master Yoda’s voice. A Jedi knows not fear.
It helped, a little, but the fear didn’t lurk far under the skin. He couldn’t lose Mara, not now. Not ever.
He tried to push that away, as well. There was danger in thoughts like that. And yet the harder he tried, the more difficult it was, and all of his Jedi training seemed suddenly pale before the force of unfamiliar emotions.
Hang in there, Mara. I love you.
He felt her stir. She was in pain, but the Force told him she was still strong. And yet beneath that vitality was the undeniable feeling of wrongness. Not like when she had been so terribly ill with her Yuuzhan Vong–created disease, exactly. Could the organism have mutated again? Had her long, hopeful remission ended?
He watched, taut, as the medical droid dispassionately checked her vitals, using sensors to probe into his wife’s body.
In the midst of it, her eyes fluttered open again, and he saw his own helpless fear reflected there.
“It’s okay,” he said. “It’ll be okay. What happened?”
“It’s the baby,” she said. “It’s our baby. Luke, I can’t—”
“And you won’t,” he promised firmly. “It’s going to be fine.”
The MD droid reached a diagnosis a moment later.
“Toxic shock reaction in the placenta,” it burred. “Indicates four cc’s of cardinex.”
“Do it,” Luke commanded.
He watched as the hypo delivered the dosage. Within seconds, Mara’s breathing calmed and her color began to return.
“What caused it?” Luke demanded of the droid.
“Unknown chemical agent.”
“Poison?”
“Negative. Placental reaction unusual. The substance is not otherwise toxic. Substance is complex saline compound, partial analysis …” It listed a sequence of chemicals.
“Vergere’s tears,” Mara said softly. She tried to sit up.
“Just hang on. Stay down for a minute.”
“I’m feeling better. Let me up, Skywalker.”
“Tears?” Kenth Hamner said, confused.
“The Yuuzhan Vong infected me with some sort of biotic weapon,” Mara explained. “It tried pretty hard to kill me. It would have, too, except that that creature with the Yuuzhan Vong assassin—”
“The one who pretended to defect?”
“Elan. Yes. She had a sort of pet or familiar who gave Han a vial of her tears—or at least that’s what she said they were. She told him I should take them, and it felt right to me, so I did. My disease went into remission.”
Hamner’s long face looked thoughtful. “And you think the tears caused what just happened to you?”
“Let’s not jump to conclusions,” Luke protested.
“I ran out of the tears a few months ago,” Mara said. “I’ve been taking a synthesized version. Luke, it’s killing our son.”
“You can’t know that,” Luke said. “The MD droid isn’t equipped to do the kind of analysis that would prove that.”
“I know,” Mara said shakily.
Her certainty felt like ferrocrete. Luke sat down, pushing his fingers back through his hair, trying to think. He nearly jumped at the sound of a distant sonic boom—probably just some hotshot pilot practicing atmospheric maneuvers over the sea.
“I can have you at a medical facility in ten minutes,” Hamner told Mara.
“No!” Mara nearly shouted. “Then we’d lose our chance to escape Fey’lya.”
“Mara, we don’t have a choice,” Luke said.
She sat up again. This time Luke didn’t try to stop her. “We do,” she insisted. “I won’t have my child born under house arrest. If I don’t take the tears, I should be fine. Isn’t that right, Emdee?”
The droid whirred and nodded. “Present danger has passed. Avoidance of the substance will prevent recurrence.”
“What if it wasn’t the tears at all?” Luke said, exasperation escaping with his words.
“It is,” Mara replied. “I know it is.”
“Then there was something wrong with the synthetic drug. If we’re to synthesize a new one, we need to be here, on Coruscant.”
“If we stay, they’ll button us in so tight we’ll never be able to escape. We’ll be at their mercy, and what then? Suppose Fey’lya changes his mind and decides to give us to the Yuuzhan Vong? We’ll be trapped, and how am I supposed to fight in this condition? Or worse, with an infant? Luke, it’s time. You know it; I know it. So we have do this.”
Luke closed his eyes and searched the back of his lids for options. He found none.
“Okay,” he said finally. “Kenth, if you could be so kind as to take us to our apartments.”
“Absolutely,” Hamner said. “I am at your command.”
In moments they were airborne. So far as Luke could tell, Mara was fine now. He himself was shaken to the core.
He activated the comm unit and placed two calls—one to Cilghal, the Mon Calamari Jedi healer, the other to Ism Oolos, a Ho’Din physician of great renown. Both agreed to meet him at their apartments. A third call—to the Ithorian Tomla El—revealed the healer was offplanet, working to aid refugees from his destroyed homeworld.
Hamner deposited them on the landing area of their roof. Cilghal was already there, and the reptilian Ism Oolos arrived shortly thereafter.
Luke and Mara thanked Hamner. The liaison wished them luck and departed.
“You pack, Skywalker,” Mara said, once they were inside. “We have to be gone in two hours.”
“A thorough examination will take much longer than that,” Oolos complained. “Some analyses I must do in my laboratory, to be certain of my results.”
“You have to think of your child now,” Cilghal agreed softly.
“No one needs to remind me of that,” Mara said gruffly. “Get on with it.”
Meanwhile, Luke reluctantly began preparation for their flight, but each step he took in that direction felt heavier. Coruscant had the best medical facilities in the galaxy. How could he deny his wife and child that?
He could feel Cilghal, concentrating, reading Mara in the Force, trying to glean information from its generation and interaction in her cells. He caught glimpses of Oolos taking skin and blood samples and sonic readings and feeding the data into his medical datapad.
Mara gave them an hour, then cut them off. Luke stopped what he was doing and came back into the room.
“Conclusions?” Mara asked.
Oolos sighed. “The MD droid was correct. The synthesized tears are having an unforeseen effect on the placenta. The actual attack was triggered by stress, but continuing to take them might well lead to the death of the child.”
Cilghal nodded her bulbous head in agreement. “I concur,” the Mon Calamarian said.
“Can you resynthesize them?” Luke asked. “Reconfigure the substance so it won’t have that effect?”
Oolos clasped his scaled hands together. “We still do not know why the original tears worked,” he said, a note of apology in his voice. “We were able to duplicate them without ever really comprehending them.”
“Something must be different, though,” Luke said, “or this wouldn’t be happening.”
“Unfortunately,” Oolos replied, “I do not believe that to be true. The nature of cell reproduction in a fetus is quite unlike the normal cellular processes in an adult human. The ‘tears’ caused Mara’s cells to mimic that process in some ways, hence her regeneration. The Yuuzhan Vong disease is still in her cells, you understand; her cells have merely been given the power to keep it in check and control whatever damage it causes.”
“I still don’t understand the problem.”
“The problem is, the substance somehow does not recognize true fetal development as a part of the normal functioning of a human body. It thus tries to make adjustments to the developmental process, treating the child almost as it would an illness. In turn, Mara’s natural immune system resists and rejects such modifications. Over time, the residue of this conflict has built up enough to cause toxic shock. According to her cellular history, this buildup began with the pregnancy, and only now reached dangerous levels.”
“I was taking the real tears in the first months,” Mara said.
“Precisely,” the healer concurred. “The very qualities that allow the tears to remit your illness are a danger to your fetus.”
“But my child is well?”
“I cannot feel that the child has yet suffered any damage from the process,” Cilghal answered.
“I believe Jedi Cilghal to be correct,” Oolos said.
“But Mara’s in her final month,” Luke said. “If it took eight months for the toxins to build up—”
“She has reached tolerance saturation,” Oolos said. “Her body will flush those chemicals over the course of years, but in the next month she will remain at the danger level. It is unlikely that mere stress will provoke another attack, but a single taste of the tears could bring on a much more violent reaction than that she experienced today.”
“Is there any way to flush these poisons artificially?” Mara asked.
“Yes.”
“Without risk to my child?”
The Ho’Din scientist lowered the spines on his head. “No. The risk would be measurable.”
“Well, let’s add this to the ‘what I already knew’ category,” Mara said. “I’ll stop taking the tears until our son is born. Then I’ll start taking them again.”
“We could induce delivery now,” Cilghal said.
Mara frowned. “That feels wrong. Cilghal, do you really recommend that?”
“I do,” Oolos said.
Cilghal seemed reluctant. “I don’t recommend it,” she said at last. “Logically, it is the thing to do, and yet when I look down that path, I see deep shadows.”
“And if I carry to term, without taking the tears?”
“Shadows there, too, and pain—but also hope.”
Mara sat up and turned her gaze to Luke. “We ready to go?” she asked.
“I—Mara—”
“Don’t even start. Our baby is healthy, and he’ll stay healthy, I promise you that. We’ll get through this, no matter where we are. We have to go. Let’s go.”
“May I accompany you?” Cilghal asked.
“Of course,” Mara replied.
“Sadly, I cannot make the same offer,” Oolos told them. “My responsibilities to my patients and the New Republic are too great to set aside. I wish I could convince you to remain near, but I surmise I cannot. I wish you only the best, the four of you. I will do what I can to improve the substance, based upon what I know. It would be prudent for you to check with me from time to time.”
“Thank you,” Luke told the healer. “Thanks for everything.”
Jaina rolled her X-wing into the night-shadow of Coruscant, reveling in the feel of the stick in her hand, the shifting crush of acceleration. She felt like shouting out loud, and did. It was good to fly again! This was the best she had felt in a long time.
For months she had been forced out of the cockpit by damaged eyes, and even after they were healed, Rogue Squadron had shown a marked reluctance to recall her. It had unfolded to her gradually, sickeningly, that given her Jedi status and her involvement in the rescue at Yavin 4, they really didn’t want her back. She had gone from being their golden child to their ugly little liability. Only today Colonel Darklighter—the very man who had asked her to join the squadron—had suggested she extend her leave of absence indefinitely.
She didn’t care right now. Coruscant was rushing below, a universe of stars turned inside out. She was one with the X-wing. Tomorrow she would hurt. Not today.
She aimed her ship’s nose away from the planet and its multitude of satellites, out toward the stars, and wondered where her family was. Anakin was skipping around the galaxy with Booster Terrik, watching over his friend Tahiri. Her twin Jacen was with her mother and father, trying to set up Uncle Luke’s “great river”—a series of routes and safe houses designed to help Jedi escape the Yuuzhan Vong and their collaborationist shills. She had stayed behind, assuming Rogue Squadron would recall her any day.
Well, another day, another mistake. She briefly considered chucking it all and heading out, perhaps to find the Millennium Falcon and the greater part of her family.
But she had to stick it out. Rogue Squadron was worth fighting for, and eventually they would recall her. How could they afford anyone sitting out now?
Of course, the Yuuzhan Vong had been relatively quiet since Yavin 4—since Duro, as far as the idiot government was concerned. But that couldn’t last. Any thought that it could—that the enemy could be appeased by any number of sacrifices and concessions—was wishful thinking of a nearly criminal sort.
Her joy of flying was leaking out of her, swallowed by the sort of mental entropy that seemed to come with growing older. She considered going back, but if she had to sulk out here or down there, she might as well do it out here.
She was still fighting the downward emotional spiral when the comm demanded attention.
It was Aunt Mara, and she sounded more troubled than Jaina felt.
“Jaina, where are you?” Mara asked.
“Just out. What’s the matter?”
“We’re taking the Jade Shadow up. Meet me, will you? It’s important.” She ticked off a list of coordinates.
“Sure,” Jaina replied. “Laying that course now.”
“And Jaina—keep your eyes open. Trust no one.”
“Mara, what—?”
“We’ll discuss it when we rendezvous.”
Great, Jaina thought. What else could be going wrong? But it could be almost anything, including some possibilities too terrible even to contemplate.
Luke and Mara decided not to risk being seen boarding the Jade Shadow. They made their way with an occasional pass of the hand and a suggestion backed by the Force. Some wouldn’t remember them at all; others would not be able to recall their faces, though both were well known.
Taking off was a little trickier, but Mara hadn’t lost her knack, managing to secure a launch authority using a fake transponder ID and then filing a flight plan to orbit. As Luke watched Coruscant dwindle, he felt, oddly, a strange elation, a kind of freedom he hadn’t known he missed. He glanced over at Mara.
“How are you feeling?”
“Fine, now. I contacted Jaina. She’ll meet us in orbit.” She eased the angle of their climb and glanced at Luke. “This is the right thing to do, you know.”
“I’m still not sure.”
“It’s done, now. Where are we going, by the way?”
“We’ll find Booster first,” he decided. “I’ve arranged a way for us to contact him. He’ll have some of the medical facilities you need, at least. After that—the Jedi need a haven, a base to operate from. I’ve already done preliminary searching. That will have to wait, though. Your health is our first priority right now.”
She nodded. “I am going off the drug.”
“And risk your illness coming back, full-blown?”
She pursed her lips. “That’s a risk, but right now it looks like the lesser of two.” She made a face at her instruments. “By the way,” she said, “looks like your first priority has been bumped back. I’ve got planetary security hailing us and at least four ships on an intercept course.”
Luke opened to the hail and activated the visual communications array.
“Jade Shadow, this is planetary security.” The screen showed a pale gold Bothan male. “You must return to ground immediately. Slave yourselves to us for escort.”
Luke smiled tightly. “This is Luke Skywalker of the Jade Shadow. We’re outward bound and not prepared to turn back.”
The Bothan looked extremely uncomfortable. “I have my orders, Master Skywalker. Please help me carry them out with minimum fuss.”
“I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Captain, but we aren’t returning to ground.”
“I’m authorized to use force, Master Skywalker.”
“This ship will defend itself,” Luke replied reluctantly. “Let us go, Captain.”
“I’m sorry. I can’t.”
Luke shrugged. “Then we really have nothing else to discuss.” He switched off the comm.
“Can we outrun them?” he asked Mara.
“It’ll be tight.” She eyed her instruments again. “Probably not. They must have been on to us almost from the beginning. Two of the ships are coming in from a high orbit.”
“Right. Waiting for us. I was more than half expecting that.”
“So much for Fey’lya wanting us to escape.”
“They have to make an effort,” Luke replied. “As efforts go, this isn’t a big one.”
“No, but maybe sufficient,” Mara replied. “We’ll at least have to fight them, which won’t make us look any better.”
Within moments the approaching ships were in sight.
“Military-grade shields,” Mara remarked. “Hang on, Skywalker.”
A moment later she began to fire.
If we weren’t outlaws before, we are now, Luke thought. How could it have come to this?
Jaina couldn’t believe what she was seeing. The Jade Shadow was under fire from four security interceptors. What was going on?
Not that it mattered. She powered up her weapons and dived in, ignoring the hails from the security ships but sending her own signal to the Shadow. It was Uncle Luke who answered.
“You two look like you could use a hand,” she said. “What did you do to irk the sky cops?”
“Stay out of this, Jaina,” Luke told her.
“Yeah, right. That’ll happen.” She was close enough to fire now, and fire she did, rolling between the trailing interceptor and spearing it with her lasers as she went past. The heavy shield took the shots easily, but she achieved the desired effect; the interceptor had noticed her now. It tried to lock on to her tail, but she was having none of that. Leaning on the stick, she circled tight and planetward. A few lucky shots grazed her shields, but they had a long way to go before they could bring her down. She nosed back up and had her pursuer in her sights again. She held the beak-to-beak collision course long enough to put a few more into its shields, then yawed starboard, missing the oncoming craft by a few meters. She eyed her proton torpedoes speculatively. She could take them out with those, but she still wasn’t sure what was going on here, and it was probably a bad idea to kill someone in Coruscant’s security force. For all she knew, it might even be a friend of hers. That meant she needed to cripple, not kill.
Both ships turned tight, trying once again to pick up the other’s tail. Jaina had the more maneuverable ship and soon found herself flying up the interceptor’s exhaust. She stuttered laser fire, following her opponents’ attempts to shake her, until finally their shields failed. She cut the drive off as neatly as a gardener pruning a tree, then came around to disable their weapons.
By this time, the Jade Shadow only had two pursuers left, and one of them was in bad shape. She wished she could have seen what tricks Mara had pulled out of her sleeve to achieve that. The Shadow’s shields were starting to get a little shaky, but between the two of them, Jaina was certain the remaining interceptors didn’t have a chance.
A moment later, a cloud of blips appeared on her longrange sensors. Twelve starfighters, maybe more. And the Jade Shadow was flying right into them.