But it was all going too smoothly. No riots, no outcry except for some of the minority media and the usual suspects in the legal and liberties community, but apart from endless media analysis of Omas’s time in office—almost as if he’d died—the vast majority of Coruscanti had treated it like a fall from grace instead of a military coup.
Having a Jedi on board did seem to make the regime change appear much more wholesome in public opinion.
“I’d expected to be storming barricades this week,” Jacen said. “What did we do right?”
“We didn’t suspend any normality,” said G’Sil, making interesting use of we. “Every other politician remained in place. Just the people who administer it at the top level changed.”
Order. It’s all about order. This is the microcosm of the entire galaxy; the dry run for how my rule will be in due course. Quiet normality for the majority.
But Jacen was worried that it might prove to be the lull before the storm. He thought of Tenel Ka and Allana, and the impulse to visit them while he still could was overwhelming. Lumiya said he had to listen to those voices, and not think sensible things like mundane beings did.
“I need forty-eight hours out of the office,” he said. “To catch up on things. Can I trust you two not to oust me while I’m away?”
Niathal didn’t seem amused. “You’ll return to find Boba Fett sitting in your office, but if you have to go … you must.”
“I trust you implicitly,” he said. He trusted her not to be stupid, at least. Lumiya could keep a watchful eye on the situation while he made the trip to Hapes.
Boba Fett. That was an ax still waiting to fall, and if it didn’t keep him awake at night, he was certainly conscious that Fett’s continued lack of bloody revenge was unsettling. Jacen put the Mandalorians on the list of things for which he’d find a solution when he was established as a Sith Lord. Vader had had the measure of them in his day: Jacen would, as well.
That, too, was in his destiny.
LUMINOUS GARDENS SPA, DRALL, CORELLIAN SYSTEM
“So … still no new Prime Minister?” Mara asked.
“You’re taking a big risk coming here,” said Leia. “No, there’s a triumvirate of the three main party leaders running Corellia until they find a new target—sorry, I mean candidate. Two dead inside a few months tends to dampen the applicants’ enthusiasm.”
“Well, we score for efficiency. At least we can run the GA on two.”
“How very Sith.”
Mara nearly choked. It wasn’t funny at all. Did Leia know something?
“Mara, are you okay?”
“I think my encounter with Lumiya made me allergic to the word.” With a scarf around her hair, Mara was just another middle-aged female human enjoying the resort with a friend. The two walked around the colonnade of exclusive stores and beauty salons, and Mara still found it disconcerting that anyone could be leading a normal life when hers—and that of so many others—was caught up in the turmoil of war. Normality seemed somehow obscene. “I had to see you face-to-face. You don’t want Jacen to arrest you for setting foot on Coruscant, and you know he would. Where’s Han?”
“He’s gone on an errand with Lando. Where’s Luke? Seeing as it’s just us girls talking, I smell a delicate problem.”
There was no point tiptoeing around it. Mara had as much evidence as she needed, but this was Leia’s son under discussion. Leia had already lost Anakin. Mara had to be absolutely, completely certain. Ninety-nine percent sure wasn’t good enough.
“Jacen,” she said.
“Always is.”
“I don’t know how to say this to you.”
“Try blurting.”
“He’s out of control. I mean badly out of control.”
“Uh-huh. I admit it’s challenging to have to keep tabs on your only son by watching the news coverage of his latest power grab.”
“How’s Han taking it?”
“Not well, to say the least. He veers between wanting to disown him again and talking about getting together to talk him around. You know, sometimes I think it’s going to kill him.”
Mara found that it wasn’t certainty of Jacen’s guilt she was looking for: it was any excuse to say that it was all Lumiya’s doing, and that by removing her, Jacen could be brought back to his old self.
Whatever had happened to Jacen over the years—and that five-year “sabbatical” was still largely a blank sheet—there seemed nothing of that old self left to recover.
If this wasn’t my nephew, and Leia’s son, would I still be trying to find a reason not to do something about him?
No.
“You sure you’re feeling okay, Mara?”
Leia was one of the few people Mara had ever truly admired. She was pretty well the only person other than Luke who Mara knew would never fall apart, however bad things got. But she still couldn’t bring herself to sit Leia down and give her the full catalog of Jacen’s crimes.
Yes, they were crimes. There was no other word for it.
“I’m going to ask you something, Leia, and if you never want to speak to me again afterward, I’ll understand.”
“This isn’t going to end in a punch line, is it? You’re serious.”
“You have no idea how serious.”
“Then stop dragging it out.”
“Okay, do you think Jacen is susceptible enough to be controlled by Lumiya?”
I should have put the list to her first. I should have told her about Nelani, and making Ben kill Gejjen, and his little chats with his Sith buddy, and the fact that he seems to think my son is expendable.
And apprentice—what kind of apprentice would Lumiya be talking about? Mara faced the inevitable and hated herself for refusing to see it earlier.
“No,” Leia said at last. “He’s stubborn and he’s his own man. She could make the difference between him doing something and hesitating, but she could never make him act totally against his will. I’ve had to come to terms with that, but he’s still my boy, and I still love him.”
It was the last thing Mara wanted to hear. She wanted to hear that Jacen was a kid who went along with the others, who got into bad company but was a good boy at heart. She wanted a reason to go after evil Lumiya and rescue deluded Jacen, because that was easy, black and white, palatable.
Wrong.
If it hadn’t been happening within her own family, she’d never have hesitated. For a moment, she wondered if she was set on this—this didn’t have a name yet, not a word, but she knew what this was—because it was her own son at most risk. My son or yours. It could have been selfish maternal priority, just using the rest of Jacen’s actions to justify lashing out to save her child.
She tried to imagine Ben dead, and how she’d feel then. She could have stopped Palpatine, and didn’t. History had taught her a lesson about hindsight, and it wouldn’t give her a second chance; what was happening to Ben would happen to other people’s sons, too.
“Mara, I think you should have spent a few days in bed after the fight with Lumiya,” said Leia, and slipped her arm through hers. “You’re not yourself at all. Let’s find a stupidly expensive restaurant and forget the fat content. Take it easy for a few hours. Because I can’t run on adrenaline and anxiety twenty-four hours a day like you seem to.”
Leia, I’m so sorry.
I’m going to have to stop Jacen. I have to. I’m going to have to kill your son, because that’s the only way of stopping him now.
“Okay, but my treat.”
“You’re on.”
Part of Mara was appalled that she could even think it, and part was telling her that this was what happened when she forgot that Force-users’ highs and lows weren’t just family spats, but dynastic battles that could shake the whole galaxy. They didn’t have the luxury of small stakes.
“I like the Fountain,” Leia said. “They do a dessert called the Fruit Mountain. Takes two hungry women to tackle one.”
“Sounds good.”
It was surreal
. They sat on opposite sides of the table, blue-white diya wood set with iridescent transparent tableware, and a pyramid of multicolored fruit held together by golden spun sugar and dusted with real citrus-flavored snow was placed between them. There was a point at which Mara’s eyes met Leia’s as they attacked the dessert with a spoon each, and it would be a frozen moment of horror in Mara’s mind forever: Leia smiled, the look in her eyes pure compassion, and Mara knew that she couldn’t see the truth behind hers. She felt like dirt. She hated herself.
You need to know there’s nothing else, absolutely nothing, that you can do to save Jacen.
Mara needed to confront him one last time. If anyone could stop him at the brink—the final one, anyway—then it was her, because she’d crossed from the other direction. She didn’t think it would work, but she owed it to Leia—and Han.
She was planning to take Jacen from them, and they’d already lost Anakin. There was only so much pain a family could take.
chapter sixteen
The government of Bothawui is prepared to pay twenty million credits per month for the exclusive services of a Mandalorian assault fleet with infantry. We would also be greatly interested in acquiring a squadron of Bes’uliik assault fighters and would be prepared to pay a premium to have exclusive purchase rights to this craft.
—Formal offer to the government of Mandalore
SENATE LOBBY, CORUSCANT
“There you are,” said Mara, ambushing Jacen as he stepped out of the turbolift. “Glad I caught you.”
He registered genuine surprise, and that gave her more satisfaction than he’d ever know. No, he hadn’t felt her presence when it mattered. Thank you, Ben. Nice trick.
“Hi, Aunt Mara. What can I do for you?” Jacen tried to do that act of dithering on the spot, the carefully calculated body language that said he really did want to stay and talk, but duty was dragging him away. What an actor. She could act, too, but this wasn’t the time for it. “I’d love to catch up over a drink,” he said, “but it’s late and I’ve got an appointment first thing tomorrow. Can we fix a time for when I’m free? Say in a couple of days?”
“It won’t take long, Jacen. It needs to be now.”
Now it was her turn to take over the choreography, stepping in his way so that if he wanted to pass, he’d have to make a deliberate and rejecting sidestep. And Jacen wouldn’t be that blatant, not to her. It would make her suspicious.
Too late. You’ve already done that, Jacen. But for Leia’s sake, for Han’s sake, I have to try this.
“Okay,” he said.
There was something deeply unsettling about a Force-user—about anyone, really—who gave off no Force presence. It was like standing next to someone who wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, a little too close to death for Mara’s liking. It also pressed all those paranoid and defensive buttons, like someone whispering behind his hand in someone else’s presence. It said guilty, unnatural, and secret. If the Yuuzhan Vong had been the kindest and sweetest beings in the universe, Mara knew she would have mistrusted them anyway because they didn’t show up in the Force as being alive and there.
She steered Jacen over to an alcove. Psychologically, he might have felt more vulnerable being confronted with his acts in the middle of the lobby, where everyone could hear and see them. On the other hand, the alcove could make him feel cornered if she maneuvered him to stand with his back to the wall. Either way, she was going to get a reaction out of him. She couldn’t outstrip his Force powers, but the tricks of flesh and blood put her on a more level playing field.
“You don’t fool me,” she said. “Not any longer, anyway.”
He tried his baffled-little-boy grin. “What am I supposed to have done?”
“Remember what I was?”
“You’ve lost me, Aunt Mara …”
“This is about Lumiya. It stops here and now. You’ve turned into something vile, and you’re too smart to be conned into that even by her. Beyond dark. See, I’ve been both sides, and I know.”
“Well, I don’t know what you mean. I really don’t.”
“Wrong answer. I’ll deal with Lumiya in due course, but I know what you’ve been doing, I don’t buy the excuses that your poor parents make for you every kriffing time. So I’m going to set you a test.”
“Mara, are you okay? You’re not well, are you?”
“Don’t even think about trying that one. If you acknowledge the terrible things you’ve done, and whatever’s left of Leia’s son is still functioning, then come with me right now to the Temple. We’ll get the whole Council together and we’ll deprogram you.”
Jacen put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. He still had that silly grin on his face, but it was fading a little around the eyes.
“Mara,” he said, with an exaggerated softness that made her want to punch him. “Mara, I think you’re forgetting that I’m joint Chief of State now, and I don’t have time for this emotional outpouring, because whatever Ben’s been telling you—”
He was digging himself deeper into the pit. She’d really hoped he’d step back, and she knew she was just as stupid for hoping as she’d been for turning a blind eye to his darkness in the first place.
“There’s no Ben in this, Jacen.” She stopped her finger a fraction short of jabbing him in the chest. “Leave Ben out of it. If you so much as breathe on him, I’ll skin you alive, and that’s not a euphemism. Last chance. Drop this Sith garbage now, or take what’s coming.”
There. She’d said it. Sith. Jacen’s grin had vanished completely, and he looked like a total stranger. The Emperor had had yellow eyes, she recalled; they said he’d once had a kindly face with normal blue ones, but if Jacen’s turned yellow, he couldn’t possibly have looked any more alien to her than he did right then. There was nothing supernatural about his ambition, callousness, and arrogance.
“Good night, Aunt Mara,” he said, and walked away.
She didn’t watch him go. She didn’t need to.
This is all your fault, girl. You should have listened to Luke. He was never fooled by all that sophistry, and you stopped him dealing with it because you couldn’t deal with a teenage boy like any mom has to. The least you can do is clean up this sewer yourself.
“Okay, buddy,” she said, not caring if a couple of Bith Senators were staring at her. “Okay.”
There were some things she couldn’t walk away from, even though they’d tear her family apart. It was better torn than destroyed, because in time it would heal.
Jacen was going to die.
JACEN SOLO’S APARTMENT BUILDING, CORUSCANT
Lumiya had never had any problem with biding her time, but Jacen was becoming too caught up in the administrative tedium of his new toy—the Galactic Alliance—for her comfort. And her instinct told her that the Force was restless for change.
It was late, past midnight, and he still wasn’t back.
He’s flesh. There’s something about being wholly flesh and blood that distracts you from the task, and the more flesh you sacrifice, the less heir to its limits you become. But I can’t achieve what he can. The perfect balance: strength driven by passion but not confined by sentimentality.
Lumiya waited outside Jacen’s apartment building, taking in the glittering night and feeling the imminence of upheaval like the oppressive air before a violent storm.
His accession to Sith Lord had to happen very soon. The momentum of events, and the ease with which they’d fallen into place, pointed to the gathering pace of the fulfillment of the tassel prophecies.
He will immortalize his love.
Lumiya no longer spent frustrating hours contemplating the meaning. It would happen, and it would become clear.
Jacen didn’t appear as she’d expected. He was hard to locate, a habitual hider in the Force, so she went up to the apartment, bypassed his security locks, and sat down to wait for him. It was important that he stayed focused on the spiritual side of his progression and left the material aspect to Niathal
. When he had achieved his destiny, then he could return to the military arena with skills beyond Niathal’s, and change the course of the war.
First things first.
She almost expected to see Ben Skywalker come through the doors. Some of his clothing and possessions were still in the apartment, but he’d gone. He was too soft to stay the course, just as she’d always said; if he needed time off to weep and recover every time he carried out a necessary and unpleasant task, he’d proven he was fit to be the sacrifice Jacen would make, and too dangerously weak to be his apprentice. A Sith Lord could only function with a strong apprentice. Like a good government, a Sith needed a strong opposition to keep him sharp.
Eventually the doors opened and Jacen stood in the hallway, looking as if he hadn’t wanted to find her there. He had a paper-wrapped package under one arm, and some disturbance clung to him as if he’d had a fight or an accident.
“Has anything happened?” she asked.
“Oh, a disagreement with Mara about … Ben. Spare me overprotective mothers.”
“Well, she might have a point. The time’s coming.”
“You keep saying that.” Jacen walked past her and went into his bedroom. She heard him opening doors and drawers as if he was in a hurry. “I’m anticipating events like a madman and looking for signs everywhere. And nothing’s happening, unless you count getting rid of both Gejjen and Omas. I think that’s climactic enough for one week, don’t you?”
“Mundane politics.”
“Maybe. Look, I’ve covered a lot of ground these last few weeks, and grasped every opportunity I’ve had to force things into fruition.” The banging and scraping of closets gave way to rustling fabric, and when Jacen emerged he was carrying a small holdall. “I want some solitude to think. Keep an eye on Niathal while I’m gone.”
Jacen didn’t need solitude. He was quite capable of shutting out the world anytime he wanted to. The man could meditate in the middle of a hurricane. He wasn’t running away; he was going in pursuit of something.
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