THREE

The unknown object lay directly ahead of Jade Shadow, a crooked oval of darkness the size of a human thumb. Sensor readings suggested a body about as dense as ice, which would have been a rare—though not impossible—thing to find floating around loose in the interstellar void. But infrared measurements placed the core temperature at somewhere between warm and sweltering, and the spectrograph showed a halo of escaped atmosphere that suggested living inhabitants.

Mara had already sensed as much through the Force. She could feel a strange presence within the object, diffuse and ancient and utterly huge. There were also other, more familiar life-forms—smaller, distinct, and somehow enclosed within the haze of the larger being. But there was no hint of Jaina or the other strike team members, nor of the urgent summons they had reported from these coordinates.

Mara glanced at an activation reticle in the front of the cockpit. A small section of the Shadow’s plexalloy canopy opaqued into a mirror, and she turned her attention to Luke and Saba Sebatyne, who were seated high behind her in the copilot’s and navigator’s chairs.

“Time to reconnoiter?” she asked.

“What’s reckon…recoin…wreckoy…?” The question came from behind Luke’s chair, where a freckle-faced boy with red hair and fiery blue eyes stood peering around the edge of the flight deck hatchway. “What’s that?”

“Reconnoiter, Ben. It means take a look.” A smile came to Mara’s heart at the sight of her son, but she forced a stern tone. “Aren’t you supposed to be playing with Nanna?”

“Nanna’s game module is for little kids,” he complained. “She was trying to make me play Teeks and Ewoks.”

“And why aren’t you?” Luke asked.

“I turned her off.”

“How?” Mara asked. “Her power switch is hidden under her neck armor.”

Ben looked away as casually as a young boy could. “I tricked her into bending down and showing it to me.”

“Turning Nanna off wasn’t very nice,” Mara said. “Her circuits are pulse-shielded. How do you think she’s going to feel after an emergency shutdown?”

“Stupid.” Ben’s answer was almost gleeful. “I’ve only done it to her three times before.”

A loud siss of amusement escaped the pebbled lips of Saba Sebatyne, causing Ben to shrink back through the hatchway—and almost muffling Luke’s exclamation of alarm. “You have?”

Ben nodded, but his wide eyes remained fixed on Saba’s lumpy face. Luke reached around the corner and pulled him onto the flight deck itself.

“Promise me you won’t do that again,” Luke said. Mara could feel how worried he was by Ben’s mischievousness. They had long ago decided against having someone else raise their son while they crisscrossed the galaxy attending to their duties as Jedi Masters, but they both knew their choice would require an extraordinary amount of discipline from their young son. “Nanna can’t protect you if you shut her down.”

“If she’s that stupid, how can she protect me anyway?” Ben countered. “A Defender Droid’s not supposed to be dumber than her kid.”

Rather than explaining the complexities of utter-devotion programming, Mara said, “Ben, answer your father. Or would you rather stay at the academy next time he and I go on a trip?”

Ben pondered his decision for a moment, then blew out a long breath. “Fine.” He turned to Luke. “I promise.”

“Good,” Luke said. “Maybe you should go reactivate her.”

“But we’re there!” Ben pointed out the forward viewport, where the unknown object remained hidden in its darkness. “I want to see Jaina!”

“Jaina isn’t here anymore,” Mara said.

“How do you know?”

“The Force,” Mara explained. “If she were here, your father and I would feel it.”

“Maybe not. You don’t feel everything.”

“We would feel Jaina,” Luke said. “She’s not here.”

“Now do as your father says.” Mara hooked her thumb toward the main cabin. “Go power up Nanna and stay with her until we figure out where Jaina is.”

Ben didn’t argue, but neither did he turn to go.

“If Ben doesn’t wish to go, this one will watch him.” Saba spun her chair around and winked a slit-pupiled eye at him. “He can sit on her lap.”

Eyes widening, Ben spun on his heel and disappeared down the access corridor. Saba sissed in amusement, but softly and slow, and Mara thought maybe the Barabel’s feelings were hurt. Maybe.

“Don’t let it bother you, Saba,” Mara said. “Even we don’t understand what’s happening with him these days.”

Saba blinked at Mara’s reflection—twice. “He is hiding from the Force,” she said. “This one is surprised you and Master Skywalker have not noticed.”

“We have,” Luke said. “What we don’t understand is why. He started to close himself off after the war.”

“Ben says he wants to be like his uncle Han and do things the hard way,” Mara added. “But I think there’s more to it than that. This has lasted too long to be a phase.”

Mara did not add and he’s gotten too good at it, perhaps because of how much that thought frightened her. She had to concentrate hard and long to find the Force in her son, and sometimes Luke had trouble sensing Ben’s presence at all.

“Interesting.” Saba licked the air with her long tongue, then turned to look down the access corridor. “Perhapz he did not like how the war felt.”

“Perhaps not,” Luke said. “We tried to shield him from it, but it just wasn’t possible.”

“There was too much happening in the galaxy,” Mara said, surprised to find herself feeling almost defensive. “The Force was too filled with anguish.”

“And so were we,” Luke said. “That’s what really worries us, Saba…maybe he’s hiding from us.”

“Then you have nothing to worry about,” Saba said. “Ben will not hide from you forever. Even this one can see how attached he is to his parentz.”

Luke thanked her for the reassurance, then asked R2-D2 to bring up an infrared image of the unknown object. What looked like a collection of palpitating blood cells appeared on Mara’s display screen. Each cell had an irregular white heart surrounded by a pink halo, and they were all connected by a tangled web of flowing red dashes.

“It looks like a network of housing modules,” Mara observed.

“And it feelz like a rangi mountain,” Saba added.

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Luke said. “By the way, what are rangies?”

“Very tasty—and the feeling is mutual!” Sissing hysterically, Saba rose and turned to leave the flight deck. “This one will take the StealthX and reconnoiter.”

“Better hold tight,” Mara said. On the infrared display, a string of tiny white circles was flaring to life near the center of the unknown object. “At least until we know what those are.”

The circles began to swirl and grow larger. Mara didn’t even try to count the number, but there had to be over a hundred of them. More tiny circles blazed into existence and shot after the others. She initiated a series of automated systems checks to warm the Shadow’s battle circuits.

“Lower—”

The Shadow’s retractable laser cannons dropped into firing position as Luke anticipated Mara’s order. She armed the proton torpedoes and opened the firing-tube doors.

“Artoo, tell Nanna to put Ben in his crash couch,” Luke ordered.

R2-D2 tweetled a protest.

“Nobody said they were shooting,” Luke said. “We just want to be ready.”

R2-D2 added another warning.

“Really?” Luke responded. “That many?”

Mara glanced at the corner of her display and saw a counter quickly adding numbers.

“Five hundred?” she gasped. “Who sends five hundred craft to investigate one intruder?”

R2-D2 chirped testily, then Mara’s screen displayed a message telling her to have some patience. He was still trying to assemble vessel profiles. Identifying who had sent them would have to wait.

“Sorry,” Mara said, wondering when she had started to be intimidated by astromech droids. “Take your time.”

R2-D2 acknowledged, then added a note about the propulsion systems the vessels were using.

“Rockets?” Luke asked in disbelief. “As in old nuclear rockets?”

R2-D2 tweeted irritably. The note on Mara’s display read,

Chemical rockets. Methane/oxygen, specific impulse 380.

Luke whistled at the low number. “At least we can run, if we have to.”

“Jedi?” Saba began to siss again. “Run?”

The image on Mara’s display melded into a single infrared blob. She looked up and saw a small cloud of twinkling stars between the Shadow and the unknown object. As she watched, the swirling cloud grew steadily larger and brighter. Soon the stars resolved into two parts, yellow slivers of rocket exhaust and brilliant green bursts that looked a lot like strobe beacons.

Mara engaged the ion drive actuator. “Does this make sense to anyone?” She began to turn, giving the Shadow some running room. “With all that evasive maneuvering, that has to be a combat—”

R2-D2 began to whistle and trill urgently.

Mara checked her display, then asked, “What old blink code?”

R2-D2 buzzed in impatience.

“Imperial?” Mara looked out the side of the canopy. The swarm had drawn close enough now to reveal the sleek, dart-shaped hulls of a small fighter craft stretched between the green nose strobes and the yellow rocket tails. In the closest vessel, she could barely make out a pair of curved antennae pressed against the interior of a low cockpit canopy, and there were two bulbous black eyes peering out at her. “As in Palpatine’s Empire?”

R2-D2 squawked a peevish affirmative.

“Then tell us what they’re saying,” Luke ordered. “And stop talking to Mara that way.”

R2-D2 warbled a halfhearted apology, then the message appeared on Mara’s display.

Lizil welcomes you…Please all arrivals may please enter through the central portal please.