chapter one

OUTSIDE CORELLIAN SPACE
STAR DESTROYER ANAKIN SOLO

It wasn’t exactly guilt that kept Jacen awake night after night. Rather, it was an awareness that he should feel guilty, but didn’t, quite.

Jacen leaned back in a chair comfortable enough to sleep in, its leather as soft as blue butter, and stared at the stars.

The blast shields were withdrawn from the oversized viewport of his private office, and the chamber itself was dark, giving him an unencumbered view of space.

His office was on the port side, the bow was oriented toward the sun Corell, and the stern was pointed back toward Coruscant, so he’d be looking toward Commenor, Kuat, the Hapes Cluster, the length of the Perlemian Trade Route … But he did not try to pick out these stars individually. Astronomy was a lifelong occupation for people who spent their entire existences on only one planet; how much harder must such a study be for someone like Jacen, who traveled from star to star throughout his life?

He let his eyelids sag, but his mind continued to race, as it had every day since he and his task force had rescued Queen Mother Tenel Ka of the Hapes Consortium from an insurrection, instigated by treacherous Hapan nobles aided by a Corellian fleet.

In the midst of all those events, believing that Han and Leia Solo had been part of the plot, Jacen had ordered the Anakin Solo’s long-range turbolasers brought to bear against the Millennium Falcon. Later, he had heard compelling evidence that his parents had played no part in that plot.

So where was the guilt? Where was the horror he should have felt at an attempted act of patricide and matricide? What sort of father could he be to Allana if he could do this without remorse?

He didn’t know. And he was certain that until he did know, sleep would continue to elude him.

Behind his chair, a lightsaber came to life with its characteristic snap-hiss, and the office was suddenly bathed in blue light. Jacen was on his feet before the intruder’s blade had been fully extended, his own lightsaber in hand, thumbing its blade to life, gesturing with his free hand to direct the Force to sweep his chair out of the way.

When it was clear, he could look upon the intruder—she was small enough that the chair had concealed all but the tip of her glowing weapon.

On the other side of the desk stood his mother, Leia Organa Solo. But she did not carry her own lightsaber. Jacen recognized it by its hilt, its color. It was the lightsaber Mara Jade Skywalker had carried for so many years. Luke Skywalker’s first lightsaber. Anakin Skywalker’s last lightsaber.

Leia wore brown Jedi robes, and her hair was down, loose. She held her lightsaber in a two-handed grip, point up and hilt back, ready to strike.

“Hello, Mother.” This seemed like an appropriate time for the more formal term, rather than Mom. “Have you come to kill me?”

She nodded. “I have.”

“Before you attack—how did you get aboard? And how did you get into this office?”

She shook her head, her expression sorrowful. “Do you think ordinary defenses can mean anything at a time like this?”

“Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “I know you’re an experienced Jedi, Mother, but you’re not a match for any Jedi Knight who’s been fighting and training constantly throughout his career … because you haven’t.”

“And yet I’m going to kill you.”

“I don’t think so. I’m prepared for any tactic, any ploy you’re likely to use.”

Now she did smile. It was the smile he’d seen her turn on political enemies when they’d made the final mistakes of their careers, the feral smile of a war-dog toying with its prey. “Likely to use. Don’t you know that the whole book of tactics changes when the attacker has chosen not to survive the fight?”

Her face twisted into a mask of anger and betrayal. She released her grip on the lightsaber hilt with her left hand and reached out, pushing. Jacen felt the sudden buildup of Force energy within her.

He twisted to one side. Her exertion in the Force would miss him—

And then he realized, too late, that it was supposed to.

The Force energy hurtled past him and hit the viewport dead center, buckling it, smashing it out into the void of space.

Jacen leapt away. If he could catch the rim of the doorway into the office, hold on there for the second or two it took for the blast shutters to close, he would not be drawn out through the viewport—

But Leia’s own leap intercepted his. She slammed into him, her arms wrapping around him, her lightsaber falling away. Together they flew through the viewport.

Jacen felt coldness cut through his skin and deaden it. He felt air rush out from his lungs, a death rattle no one could hear. He felt pain in his head, behind his brow ridge, from his eyes, as they swelled and prepared to burst.

And all the while Leia’s mouth was working as though she were still speaking. For one improbable moment he wondered if she would talk forever, rebuking her son as they twirled, dead, throughout eternity.

Then, as in those last seconds he knew he must, he awoke, once again seated in his comfortable chair, once again staring at the stars.

A dream. Or a sending? He spoke aloud: “Was that you?” And he waited, half expecting Lumiya to answer, but no response came.

He turned his chair around and found his office to be reassuringly empty. With a desktop control, he closed the blast shutters over his viewport.

Finally, he consulted his chrono.

Fifteen standard minutes had passed since the last time he’d checked it. He’d had at most ten minutes of sleep.

He put his booted feet up on the desktop, leaned back, and tried to slow his racing heart.

And to sleep.

CORUSCANT
GALACTIC ALLIANCE TRANSPORTATION DEPOT.
NEAR THE JEDI TEMPLE

The Beetle Nebula settled down to a landing on an elevated docking platform adjacent to the blue, mushroom-shaped transportation depot. The maneuver was smooth and gentle for a craft so large—at two hundred meters, the Freebooter-class transport was an awkward-looking vessel anywhere but in space. From above, she looked like a crescent moon bisected by a knife blade, the blade point oriented in the same direction as the crescent tips, and her wide, curved stern put observers in mind more of fat-bottomed banthas than of sleek, stylish vessels of war.

But that wide stern could carry large volumes of personnel and matériel, and in the moments after the ship settled onto her landing pylons, a dozen loading ramps came down and began disgorging streams of uniformed soldiers—many on leave, others, riding repulsorlift-based medical gurneys, being guided to hospitals.

From a much smaller platform fifty meters from the Beetle Nebula’s starboard bow, Jedi Master Kyp Durron watched the event unfold. At this distance, he could barely see facial features of the new arrivals, but could distinguish enough to see faces light up with happiness as they recognized loved ones in the crowd below.

And through the Force he could feel the emotion of the day. It swelled from the Beetle Nebula and her surroundings. Pain radiated from shattered bones and seared stumps that had once been connected to organic limbs. Pain flowed from remembrances of how those injuries were sustained and of how friends had been lost forever to battle.

But more than that, there were sentiments of relief and happiness. People were returning home from battle, here to rest and recover. They were veterans of the extraordinary space battle that had so recently been waged in the Hapan system. Some of the veterans knew pride in their role in that battle, some knew shame or regret, but all were glad it was over. All were glad to be here.

And for a few quiet moments, Kyp relaxed, letting the emotions from the other platform wash over him like a cool, refreshing stream in summertime. The muted nature of the sounds of welcome from that platform, of Coruscant air traffic not too far away, of transport and commerce from the adjacent depot, allowed him to stay comfortable, detached.

Then he felt new presences in the Force, specific presences for whom he had been waiting. He glanced away from the depot and up, toward the origin of that sensation, and saw the Jade Shadow on an approach angle straight toward him.

The craft approached the depot at a speed slightly faster than safe, then rapidly decelerated and dropped to a smooth repulsorlift landing atop the platform, mere meters from Kyp. He grinned. Whoever was piloting—probably Mara—had either playfully or maliciously made the approach as intimidating as possible, the better to spook him into sudden retreat. Of course, he hadn’t budged. He waved a hand at the shapes within the cockpit, indistinct behind its viewscreens, and waited.

Soon enough the boarding ramp descended and down trotted Luke Skywalker and Mara Jade Skywalker. They were dressed simply, Luke in black, Mara, for once, in the standard two-shades-of-brown Jedi robes.

Kyp offered a smile and extended a hand to Luke. “Grand Master Skywalker.”

Luke took it. “Master Durron.”

“And Master Skywalker.”

Mara gave him a nod of greeting, but Kyp detected a trace of irritation or impatience. “Master Durron.”

“That’s a new hand, I take it.” Kyp released his grip. “I heard about your injuries. How does it compare with the old one?”

Luke held up his right hand and looked at his palm. “The neural matrix is more sophisticated, so it feels even more like flesh and blood. But—you know how a droid whose memory is never wiped tends to become more individual, more idiosyncratic.”

Kyp nodded. “You’re not suggesting that a prosthetic hand does the same thing. It doesn’t have enough memory.”

Luke shrugged. “I don’t know what I’m suggesting. Maybe through the Force my brain developed a familiarity with the old hand that exceeded what’s normal. Regardless, this one doesn’t feel right yet.”

“Meaning,” Mara said, “that he’s dropped from being the most accomplished lightsaber artist in the galaxy to, well, still being the most accomplished, just a little less so for the time being.”

“Aunt Mara? Oops. Hello, Kyp. Master Durron.” The voice was Jaina Solo’s, and Kyp looked up to see the diminutive Jedi at the top of the boarding ramp.

“Jaina.” Kyp gave her a friendly nod. He steered his thoughts away from the time, years ago, when he had fixated on her, when she was still a teenager, when he was a younger, more self-centered man who hadn’t recognized that his interest in her was more about loneliness and self-appreciation than it was about anything else.

Here today, he pretended that she had never meant anything more to him than the daughter of his oldest surviving friend should. She, perhaps, didn’t have to pretend. Giving Kyp a brief smile, she returned her attention to Mara. “So can I take Zekk and Ben to the Temple now?”

Mara nodded. “I think so. Kyp, any reason to delay?”

“No.” He glanced to the left, where the nearby Jedi Temple was clearly visible just past the Jade Shadow’s stern. “Unless you’d like to save your engines—I can just pick you up and set you down over there.” He reached out with his hand, palm up, an overly dramatic gesture, and the Jade Shadow vibrated for a moment, moving under the pressure he exerted with the Force.

Jaina gave him a reproving look. She turned around, and the boarding ramp lifted into place, concealing her.

“How is Zekk?” Kyp asked.

Mara looked unconcerned. “He’ll make a full recovery. The surgeons on Hapes were very proficient. But he’ll be out of action for a while.” Her expression became concerned. “How many people know how it happened?”

“Just me, for the moment.” Kyp gestured to the far side of the platform, adjacent to the depot. “My speeder’s over here.” Once they were all moving toward his vehicle, he continued, “I was assigned the investigation on this one.” All lightsaber accidents that caused any harm to a living being had to be looked into, and any Master on duty at the Temple might be randomly assigned the duty of investigation.

Mara’s face set. “Everybody who witnessed it said it was an accident.”

Kyp nodded. “Of course, and Luke’s report makes it pretty clear what happened. So I should dispense with our customs, not investigate at all, take the day off?” They reached the platform edge and Kyp’s airspeeder, a long, narrow yellow vehicle with comfortable seats in front and a backseat that looked as though it were scaled for children. Kyp hopped into the pilot’s seat and extended a gallant hand for Mara.

She gave him an admonishing look and leapt past him into the front passenger’s seat. “No, of course not.” She sat. “I’m just a little touchy about it, I suppose. My son has a lightsaber accident. Suddenly I feel the eyes of all the Jedi in the galaxy on me.”

Luke stepped into the backseat and settled behind Kyp. “So what is this all about?”

Kyp sank into the pilot’s seat, activated the speeder, and pulled straight back in a speedy reverse that put them within meters of the nearest cross-traffic stream. “You don’t want to sit right behind me. Trust me.” He swerved so he was pointed in the direction of the traffic stream’s travel and accelerated, as though he were playing a Millennium Falcon simulator, to merge with the stream.

“Why not—oh.”

Caught by the wind, Kyp’s hair was pulled from where it lay within the hood of his Jedi cloak. Stretched to full length, its tips whipped mere centimeters in front of Luke’s eyes and occasionally tickled his nose.

Luke slid sideways to the center of the seat. “You’ve grown it out.”

Kyp reached up to give his hair an indulgent stroke, then grinned at his simulated display of vanity. “I’ve been seeing a lady who likes it long. And doesn’t mind all the gray in it.”

“Congratulations. So again, what is this all about?”

“Chief Omas and Admiral Niathal wanted to see you on your return from Hapes. They asked me to bring you. You can opt out if the timing isn’t good.”

Mara gave him a puzzled frown. “Is this about what happened on Hapes?”

“Sort of.” Kyp gave her a broad, trouble-loving smile. “This time, they want Luke to make Jacen a Jedi Master.”

OUTSIDE THE CORELLIAN SYSTEM CARGO VESSEL

BREATHE MY JETS

Captain Uran Lavint was an heir to the tradition of Han Solo.

That’s how she saw herself, at any rate, and she was indeed a smuggler. Nor was she a small-scale smuggler. Her cargo ship, Breathe My Jets, had hold space large enough to carry several Millennium Falcons. Nor did she always make solitary smuggling trips—some missions, like this one, were small fleet operations.

Still, she was not rich, not even financially comfortable. Creditors—more successful smugglers, members of organized crime—now demanded their due whenever they could contact her, whenever they could catch up to her during Breathe My Jets’s brief stays in port. She’d been threatened, she’d taken a beating at a landfall on Tatooine, and rumor had it that one creditor had given up and hired a bounty hunter to eliminate her—to demonstrate the folly of not paying on time.

She needed this mission to go well. If it did, she could pay everyone off, start over. If it didn’t, she might find herself in a position to describe explosive decompression in a firsthand account.

Now she looked at the distant star Corell through the bridge’s forward viewport as she sat slumped in her captain’s chair. She sagged not out of defeat, but from habit and a deliberate attitude of indifference that gave her a reputation for being cool under fire. Though born to well-fed, well-tended middle-manager parents on Bespin, she now had skin like Tatooine leather and a craggy face that might have benefited from a drooping mustache.

Grudgingly, she sat upright. Glancing at the undersized, youthful Hutt in the specially designed copilot’s couch beside her, she nodded. “All right, Blatta. Put me on.”

Blatta flipped a switch on the control panel before him. A display there lit up and showed Captain Lavint’s face, a live holocam feed. He spoke in typically deep, gooey Hutt tones. “Broadcast in five, four, three …” He held up two fingers, silently signaling the continuation of the countdown, then one, then closed his fist to indicate they were broadcasting.

Lavint stared into the holocam recorder. “Captain to fleet. In a minute I will broadcast the nav data for our final jump. That jump will bring us as close as the planet Corellia’s gravity well will allow, and then one of two things will happen—we’ll be jumped by Galactic Alliance forces, or we won’t.

“If we’re not, congratulations—the armaments and bacta we’re carrying will earn us tidy profits. If we are, our instructions are clear: break and run, straight down into Corellia’s atmosphere. It’s every ship for herself. You see your best friend being assaulted, you wish him well and get down to ground. Don’t hang back and fight to free him.

“Good luck.” She gave her viewers a brisk nod, and Blatta cut the transmission.

“Nav data?” he asked.

“Send it.”

He did. The instant he did so, a one-minute chron timer appeared on both cockpit displays, counting down. It was just enough time for the fleet’s captains and navigators to load the data and test it, not enough time for them to waste and increase their jitters.

More or less as a single body, the thirty-odd ships and vehicles of the fleet accelerated, pointing straight for the distant, unseen planet. Those who had defensive shields activated them. And at exactly the same moment, each cockpit crew saw the stars before them lengthen and begin the axial swirling that was the visual characteristic of hyperspace entry.

This jump would take only a few seconds—

It took less than that. They’d been in hyperspace half the time they should have been when the stars stopped spinning and snapped back into distant points of light. Corell was larger, closer, but not as close as the sun should be, and there was no comforting sight of the planet Corellia directly ahead of them. Instead, there was empty space decorated with the occasional fast-moving colored twinkle of light.

Lavint swore, but her invective was drowned out by Blatta’s shout: “Enemy ships! Chevron formation. We’re toward the point, and the two flanks are falling in on our formation.”

“Which one’s the Interdictor?” One of the enemy ships had to be some sort of Interdictor, a capital ship carrying gravity-well generators—devices that would project a gravity field of sufficient strength to yank ships right out of hyperspace.

Blatta highlighted a point of light on his display, and it began blinking on Lavint’s display as well. It was just at the point of the chevron, directly ahead of Lavint’s ship.

Lavint keyed her comm. “Captain Lavint to fleet. Maintain formation, match speed with me. Our only chance—”

On the sensor display, the crisp line of her fleet was blurring as each member craft vectored in a different direction.

“No, no, maintain formation!” She couldn’t keep the desperation out of her voice. The original orders to scatter only made sense if every craft was a short distance from the safe haven of Corellia—didn’t the idiots see that? “We’ve got to run this gauntlet at high speed—”

“Belay that,” came a voice over the comm. It was female and a bit rough, a close match to Lavint’s own. “This is the real Captain Lavint. Follow your orders. Scatter.” This voice was calm, self-assured.

Blatta nodded as if impressed. “Sounds just like you.”

“Shut up.” Lavint put her cargo ship on a new course, vectoring downward relative to her current orientation.

Blatta offered up a sigh. It sounded like a bantha passing gas. “At least they can’t know which vessel is carrying which cargo. Since we’re not the biggest ship in the fleet, they might not pay us special attention—”

Breathe My Jets shuddered so hard that Lavint’s teeth clacked together and Blatta shook like a plate full of Corellian spice-jelly. The cockpit lights dimmed for a second.

Frantically, Lavint wrenched the controls around in a new direction, but Breathe My Jets was not a small, nimble craft. In the agonizing seconds it took the cargo vessel to take a new bearing, she heard Blatta calmly describing their situation: “The ISD at the port tip of the chevron formation is firing on us. The first hit was against our engines. If it hits again—”

Breathe My Jets shuddered a second time, hard enough that Lavint would have been thrown from her seat if the restraining straps hadn’t been buckled in place. The cockpit lights dimmed again, and the displays all showed static for a second.

The lights did not come up this time, and the cargo ship stopped responding to Lavint’s handling. The displays cleared of static. Running on emergency power, they began scrolling a list of damage sustained by the ship.

Blatta watched the data roll by. “Engines out.”

“Thank you for that holonews update.”

Blatta shrugged. “It’s been good working with you, Captain. I only wish—”

“Wish what?”

“That you weren’t half a year behind in what you owe me.” He switched his main display over to follow the progress of the battle now raging all around them.

OUTSIDE THE CORELLIAN SYSTEM
ANAKIN SOLO

In the Command Salon of the Star Destroyer Anakin Solo, Jacen Solo stood staring through the forward viewports. He could see the last few twinkles and flashes of laserfire as this abortive space combat drew to a close.

He chose not to follow the events more closely on the readily available computer displays. Instead he reached out through the Force, sampling the ships and vehicles he could see, looking for oddness, discrepancy, tragedy.

He found none. The smugglers, outmaneuvered and outgunned, gave up almost to a ship. A few nimble craft got away, making the jump to lightspeed before the warships of Jacen’s task force could cripple them, but most did not; the majority of the smugglers floated, helpless, their engines destroyed by laserfire or their electronics systems rendered inert by ion cannons. Shuttles were now moving from ship to ship, picking up smuggling crews, dropping off the personnel who would bring the captured craft back to GA facilities, directing tractor beams. In another hour or two this section of space would be empty of everything but a few debris clouds that had once been engine housings.

“Our agent would like to speak with you,” said Ebbak. A dark-haired human woman with skin the color of desert sand, she was short and unremarkable of appearance but had been of considerable help to him since he had been assigned the Anakin Solo. A civilian employee aboard ship, assigned to data analysis, she had demonstrated a knack for knowing what sort of information Jacen would need and when, and for supplying it at useful times. He was considering whether she would be interested in trading her civilian’s post for a commission with Galactic Alliance Guard; he could benefit from someone with her skills if she proved as loyal as she was dutiful.

She had not quite materialized beside him—he had felt her walk up—but her approach had been silent. Perhaps she would also prove adept at stealth work.

The question annoyed Jacen; his mind was occupied by details of the capture of the smuggler fleet, and he needed to begin thinking about his upcoming meeting with the Corellian representative. “Why would I want to speak with her? And please don’t call her our agent. She betrayed her comrades for money. She is our temporary hireling. She is their traitor. She is nobody’s agent but her own.”

Ebbak paused, then evidently decided not to address those last few comments. “She didn’t say what she wanted. But since she’s already proven that she had one piece of information useful to us—”

“Yes, yes.” Jacen nodded. “Where is she?”

“Your office.”

Jacen followed her back through the bulkhead doors aft of the Command Salon. Once in the main corridor beyond, they moved through a port-side door into the office that served as Jacen’s retreat aboard the Anakin Solo.

Waiting there were two people—a large man, dressed in the uniform of ship’s security, standing, and a woman, seated … though she rose as Jacen and Ebbak entered.

Jacen looked into the weathered face of Captain Uran Lavint. “Yes?”

Lavint paused, apparently put off by his distant, brusque manner. “I simply wanted to find out if you had any requests or, more to the point, assignments for me before I left.”

Jacen repressed a sigh. “First, I’d never prolong a business relationship with someone who sells out her fellows. Second, you’re lying.”

Lavint flushed, but her expression did not change. “All right. I mostly just wanted to meet you.”

“Ah.” Jacen paused, and carefully considered his next words. “Lavint, you now have all the time in the galaxy available to you. In betraying thirty-odd fellow smugglers, you have earned enough credits to pay off all your debts and start over, whether as a smuggler or something legitimate. You can cruise, you can frolic, you can relax. I, on the other hand, don’t have time to spare. And you have now wasted some of it. I don’t appreciate that.” He turned to the security officer. “Take her down to Delta Hangar, put her on her ship, and get her off my ship.”

Lavint cleared her throat. “Breathe My Jets is on Gamma Hangar. And the engines won’t be repaired for a couple of standard days at least.”

“That’s right. I’m claiming Breathe My Jets for the current military crisis.” Jacen pulled his datapad from a pocket and consulted it. “Your ship is now the Duracrud.”

“Duracrud?” Lavint practically spat the name. “That’s a stock why-vee six-six-six older than I am. It’s a brick with wings and a hull that leaks gases like a flatulent Hutt. It’s a fraction the size of Breathe My Jets.”

“And exactly the sort of vessel needed by a smuggler starting a new career.”

“Our agreement—”

“Our agreement was that you would receive a sum of credits—Ebbak, you showed her the transfer proof and gave her the data to claim it from the Bespin account? Yes—and that you would be allowed to depart on your ship, minus her cargo. The agreement did not specify which was to be your ship.” He fixed Lavint with an impassive stare. “Now would you care to waste any more of my time?”

The glare she turned on him was murderous. He understood why. He’d just taken her ship, her beloved business and home, and given her a hovel in its place. His father, Han Solo, would have felt the same way.

But Uran Lavint was no Han Solo, and Jacen didn’t worry that she might someday return to cause him grief. Her record made it clear that she had no goals, no drives other than the acquisition of credits. She was nothing.

Lavint turned away, her body language stiff, and marched to the door, her security man behind her. Then, as the doors slid open, she paused. Not turning back, her voice quiet, she asked, “What’s it like to have once been a hero?” Then she left, and the door hissed closed behind her.

Jacen felt himself redden. He forced the anger away. It wouldn’t do to let an insect like Lavint bother him. But clearly, additional punishment was in order.

He turned to Ebbak. “My father used to have endless trouble with the Millennium Falcon. The hyperdrive would fail all the time, and he’d tell the universe that it wasn’t his fault, and then he’d fix it and be about his business.” He nodded toward the closed door. “Delay her in transit to the hangar bays. Have Duracrud’s hyperdrive adjusted so that it will fail catastrophically after one jump.”

“Yes, sir.” Ebbak considered. “Since she’s a smuggler, she’s not going to go anywhere with a single jump. Her first jump will always be to some point far away from planetary systems or traffic lanes. She’ll be stranded.”

“That’s right. And she’ll become intimately acquainted with her hyperdrive.”

“She might die.”

“And if she doesn’t, she’ll be a better person for the experience. More polite, probably.”

“Yes, sir.” Ebbak moved to the door. It slid open for her. “Sir, your meeting with Admiral Antilles is in one hour.”

Jacen consulted his chrono. “So it is. Thank you.”

“And, Colonel, if I can make a personal remark—”

“Go ahead.”

“You’re not looking well.”

He gave her a humorless grin. “Crisis will do that to a man. I’ll be fine.”

The door slid shut behind her.