TWO

The interior of the hangar smelled of hamogoni wood and containment fluid, and the air was filled with the clatter and drone of Killik workers—mostly cargo handlers and maintenance crews—scurrying from one task to another. The Falcon sat a hundred meters down the way, looking deceptively clean in the opaline light, but berthed directly beneath one of the gray blemishes that were beginning to mar the hangar’s milky interior.

Luke took the lead and used the Force to gently nudge a path through the frenetic activity. The companions were hardly fleeing, but they did want to launch the Falcon before Raynar had time to reconsider the agreement Leia had negotiated after his veiled threat against Mara—and before the blemishes on the ceiling turned into the same gray froth spreading over the exterior of the hangar.

“Looks like we’re not the only ones eager to clear this bug hive,” Han said, moving up beside Luke. “That Fizz must be even faster than it looks.”

“This one does not think so,” Saba said. In her hands, she was holding a sealed stasis jar containing a thumb-sized sample of gray froth. “If it workz so fast, why would they stay to load their shipz?”

“I see you haven’t spent much time around smugglers,” Luke said. “They never leave without their cargo.”

The boarding ramp descended, and Leia’s longtime Noghri bodyguards, Meewalh and Cakhmaim, appeared at the top armed with T-21 repeating blasters.

“What a relief!” C-3PO clinked ahead and started up the ramp. “I can’t wait to step into the sterilizer booth. My circuits itch just holding a record of that Fizz.”

“Sorry, Threepio. Han and I need you and Artoo with us, to translate and look for patterns in the froth attacks.” Luke stopped at the foot of the ramp and turned to Han and Leia. “If that’s all right with you.”

“No problem,” Han said. He stepped closer and spoke in a whisper so low that Luke barely heard it. “We’ll just wait until the boarding ramp starts to go up, then jump on. Leia can cold-start the repulsor drives, and we’ll—”

“Han, we gave Raynar our word.”

“Yeah, I remember.” Han continued to whisper. “But we can do this. We’ll be out of here before—”

“We’re staying.” Luke spoke loudly enough so that the eavesdroppers he sensed watching them would have no trouble overhearing. “A Jedi Master’s promise should mean something.”

Han glanced at the Saras cargo handlers loading moirestone into the next ship over, and a glimmer of understanding came to his eyes. Each nest of Killiks shared a collective mind, so as long as there was a single Saras within sight of them, all of the Saras Killiks would know exactly what they were doing. And since the Unu included a delegate from the Saras nest, that meant Raynar would always know exactly what they were doing.

“I see your point,” Han said. “We wouldn’t want to double-cross UnuThul.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “Han, you don’t see.”

The ease with which Alema Rar had fallen under the sway of the Dark Nest during the Qoribu crisis had prompted Luke to do a lot of soul searching, and he had come to the conclusion that the Jedi had been injured by the war with the Yuuzhan Vong in ways even more serious than the deaths they had suffered. They had embraced a ruthless, anything-goes philosophy that left young Jedi Knights with no clear concept of who they were and what they stood for, that blurred the difference between right and wrong and made them far too susceptible to sinister influences. And so Luke had decided to rebuild a sense of principle in the Jedi order, to demonstrate to his followers that a Jedi Knight was a force for good in the galaxy.

“If we leave now, it will make solving other problems with the Colony more difficult,” Luke continued. He hated having to drag Han into his quest to revitalize the Jedi, but Raynar had agreed to allow Mara, Leia, and the others to leave peacefully only if Luke and Han remained on Woteba until the Jedi found a remedy for the Fizz. “We have to build some trust, or we’ll only have more pirates and black membrosia coming out of these nests.”

Han scowled. “Luke, you just don’t understand bugs,” he said. “Trust isn’t that big in their way of seeing things.”

“Captain Solo is quite correct.” C-3PO remained halfway up the ramp. “I haven’t been able to identify a word for ‘trust’ or ‘honor’ in any of their native languages. It really would be wiser to flee.”

“Nice try, Threepio,” Mara said, stepping to Luke’s side. “But you may as well come back down here. We’re staying.”

As the droid clanked reluctantly down the ramp, Luke turned to Mara. He knew she could sense his unspoken plan as clearly as he sensed her anxiety, but this was one time he would truly be better off without her at his side.

“Mara, I think—”

“I’m not leaving here without you, Luke.”

Leia touched Mara’s elbow. “Mara, the Dark Nest wants you dead. Staying on Woteba will only make Luke and Han targets along with you.”

Mara’s eyes grew narrow and angry, but she dropped her chin and sighed. “I hate this,” she said. “It makes me feel like a coward.”

“Coward? Mara Jade Skywalker?” Saba snorted. “That is just rockheaded. Leaving is the best thing you can do for Master Skywalker and Han.”

“Yeah, but before you go, I want to know who this Daxar Ies was,” Han said. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“You wouldn’t have. He was one of Palpatine’s private accountants,” Mara answered. “He embezzled two billion credits from the Emperor’s personal funds and stashed it in accounts all over the galaxy.”

Han whistled. “Brave guy.”

“Foolish guy,” Saba corrected. “He believed he could deceive the Emperor?”

Mara shrugged. “You’d be surprised how many people believed that,” she said. “And Daxar Ies was a strange man. All that money, and I found him living in a shabby twilight-level apartment on Coruscant. He never left the planet.”

“Maybe he lost the list of accounts, or couldn’t get to it,” Leia suggested. “That would explain why you couldn’t find it.”

“Maybe,” Mara said. “But the Emperor didn’t think so. Ies knew where one of the accounts was. He made a withdrawal, and that’s how I tracked him down.”

Though Mara showed no outward sign of her feelings, Luke could sense how much she disliked talking about that part of her life, how angry she grew when she thought of how the Emperor had manipulated her trust—and how sad it made her to recall her victims. He took her in his arms, silently reminding her that that part of her life was long over, and kissed her.

“Go back to the academy,” Luke said. “Cilghal will need you on Ossus, to tell her everything you can remember about the Fizz. Han and I will be fine.”

Mara pulled herself back and forced a smile. “You’d better be telling the truth, Skywalker.”

“This one will make sure of it.” Saba passed the stasis jar to Mara. “She is also staying.”

“No way,” Han said. “You’ll make the bugs think we’re up to something. Raynar picked me to stay with Luke because he figured one Jedi Master would be more than enough to watch.”

“And because he knowz you are disturbed by insectz,” Saba said. “This one does not like the way this feelz, Han. Raynar is showing a cruel streak.”

“So it seems,” Luke said. He reached out with the Force, urging the Barabel to board the Falcon with the others. “But Han’s right—we don’t want to make the Killiks suspicious of us.”

“If you wish, Master Skywalker,” Saba said. “You are the longfang here.”

Saba took the stasis jar back from Mara, then turned and ascended the ramp with no further comment. In any other species, the abruptness might have indicated anger or hurt feelings. In a Barabel, it just meant she was ready to go.

Luke kissed Mara again and watched her start up the ramp.

Han hugged and kissed Leia, then stepped back with an overly casual air. “Be careful with my ship,” he said to Leia. “I’ve finally got that hyperdrive adjusted just right.”

Leia rolled her eyes. “Sure you do.” She gave him a wistful smile, then said good-bye to Luke and started up the ramp. “I’ll send Cakhmaim out with your bags.”

“And please don’t forget my cleaning kit,” C-3PO called after her. “This planet is unsanitary. I feel contaminated already.”

“Who doesn’t?” Han asked.

Being careful to do nothing that would make the Killiks think they intended to flee, Luke and Han waited at the foot of the ramp until Cakhmaim returned with their bags and C-3PO’s cleaning kit. Though Luke had not yet had a chance to outline his plan, he was fairly certain that Han had guessed it. He was going to search out the Dark Nest, determine how big a threat it posed to Mara and the Galactic Alliance, and find a way to destroy it for good.

Once Cakhmaim had passed them their bags, Leia raised the ramp and sounded the departure alarm. Luke, Han, and the droids backed away to a safe distance, then watched in silence as the Falcon lifted off without them and glided over the bustling floor. When it reached the hangar mouth, it paused briefly and flashed its landing lights in a complicated sequence of flashes and blinks.

R2-D2 let out an astonished whistle.

“I don’t know why that should surprise you,” C-3PO said. “Of course they’re concerned about us.”

“What did they say?” Luke asked.

“Be careful,” C-3PO translated. “And don’t let anything drip on the droids.”

“Drip on the . . . ?” Han looked up. “Uh, maybe we’d better get out of here.”

Luke followed Han’s gaze and found the gray blemish on the ceiling beginning to blister. There was no froth yet, but a long shadow down the center suggested the surface would soon start bubbling.

Luke was about to turn toward the exit when his danger sense made the hairs on his neck stand upright. He did not sense anything unusual from the eavesdroppers who had been watching them—no hardening of resolve, no cresting wave of anger or gathering lump of fear. He remained where he was, pretending to study the blemish on the ceiling as he opened himself more fully to the Force.

But instead of expanding his awareness as he would normally do when searching for an unseen threat, Luke waited quietly, patiently, without motion. He was trying to feel not the threat itself, but the ripples it created in the Force around it. The technique was one he had developed—with his nephew, Jacen—to search for beings who could hide their presences in the Force.

“Uh, Luke?” Han had already taken a dozen steps toward the exit and was standing in the middle of a long column of Saras porters. The insects were swinging their line around him, rushing a load of five-meter hamogoni logs into the hold of a boxy Damorian SpaceBantha freighter. “You coming?”

“Not yet,” Luke said. “Why don’t you go on ahead and ask about a place to stay? I’ll join you in a few minutes.”

Han frowned, then shrugged. “Whatever you say.”

“Perhaps Artoo and I should go with Captain Solo.” C-3PO was two steps ahead of Han. “He’s sure to need a translator.”

But R2-D2 remained behind. Luke had been forced to remove a motivation module to preserve a secret memory cache that had surfaced last year, and now the little droid refused to leave his side.

As Han departed, Luke worked to quiet his mind, to shut out the booming and banging and whirring of the busy hangar, the swirling mad efficiency of the Killiks and filmy hot weight of the dank air, to sense nothing but the Force itself, holding him in its liquid grasp, lapping at him from all sides, and soon he felt one set of ripples that seemed to come out of nowhere, from an emptiness where he sensed only a vague uneasiness in the Force, where he felt nothing except a cold, empty hole.

Luke turned toward the emptiness and found himself looking under an old Gallofree Star Barge that was listing toward a collapsed strut. The shadows beneath its belly were so thick and gray that it took a moment to find the source of the ripples he’d felt, but finally he noticed a pair of almond-shaped eyes watching him from near the stern. They had green irises surrounded by yellow sclera, and they were set in a slender blue face with high cheeks and a thin straight nose. The thick tendrils of a pair of lekku curled back from the top of the forehead, arching over the shoulders and vanishing behind a lithe female body.

“Alema Rar.” Luke let his hand drop to the hilt of his lightsaber. “I’m glad to see you survived the trouble at Kr.”

“ ‘Trouble,’ Master Skywalker?” The Twi’lek scuttled forward into the light. “That’s a pretty word for it.”

Alema was dressed in a Killik-silk bodysuit, the color of midnight and as close fitting as a coat of paint. The cloth was semitransparent, save for an opaque triangle that covered the sagging, misshaped shoulder above a dangling arm. Luke’s danger sense had formed an icy ball between his shoulder blades, but both of the Twi’lek’s hands were visible and empty, and the only weapon she carried was the new lightsaber hanging from the belt angled across her hips.

Luke began to quiet his mind again, searching for another set of unexplained Force ripples.

“Worried, Master Skywalker?” Alema stopped a dozen paces away and stared at him, her eyes as steady and unblinking as those of an insect. “There’s no need. We’re not interested in hurting you.”

“You’ll understand if I don’t believe you.”

Though Luke had noticed no other suspicious Force ripples, he pivoted in both directions, scanning the shadows beneath nearby ships, the churning Killik swarms, the hexagonal storage cells along the walls, and anywhere else an attacker might be lurking. He found nothing and turned back to Alema.

“I don’t suppose you’re here to ask the Jedi to take you back?”

“What an interesting idea.” The smile Alema flashed would have been coy once, but now seemed merely hard and base. “But no.”

Fairly confident now that Alema was not going to attack—at least physically—Luke moved his hand away from his lightsaber and advanced to within a few steps of the Twi’lek.

“Well, what are you doing here?” Knowing it would upset her and throw her off balance, Luke purposely allowed his gaze to linger on Alema’s disfigured shoulder. “Just stopping by to let us know you and Lomi Plo are still alive?”

Alema gave a low throat-click, then said, “Lomi Plo died in the Crash.”

“With Welk, I suppose.”

“Exactly,” Alema said.

Luke sighed in frustration. “So we’re back to that, are we?” He had slain Welk during the fight at Qoribu, only a few minutes after he had cut Alema’s shoulder half off, and he had good reason to believe that the apparition that had nearly killed him—and Mara—was what remained of Lomi Plo. “Alema, you were at Kr. You saw Welk before I killed him, and it had to be Lomi Plo who pulled you out of the nest at the end.”

“You killed BedaGorog,” Alema said. “She was the Night Herald before us.”

“The person I killed was male.” Luke suspected he was arguing a lost cause. The Dark Nest remained determined to hide the survival of Lomi Plo behind a veil of lies and false memories, and—as a sort of collective Unconscious for the entire Colony—it was adept at manipulating the beliefs of Joiners and Killiks alike. “He had a lightsaber, and he knew how to use it.”

“BedaGorog was Force-sensitive.” A lewd smile came to Alema’s lips. “And as we recall, you did not take the time to check inside her pants before you killed her.”

Luke let his chin drop. “Alema, you disappoint me.”

“The feeling is mutual, Master Skywalker,” Alema said. “We have not forgotten the slaughter at Kr.”

“There wouldn’t have been a slaughter if you had done your duty as a Jedi.” Luke sensed a familiar presence creeping toward him, skulking its way under the stern of the old Star Barge, and realized that Han had returned to the hangar without C-3PO. “But you let your anger make you weak, and the Dark Nest took advantage.”

Alema’s unblinking eyes turned the color of chlorine. “Don’t blame us for what—”

“I’ll lay the blame where it belongs. As a Master of the Jedi council, that is my duty—and my privilege!” Hoping to keep Alema’s attention too riveted on him to notice Han sneaking up behind her, Luke moved to within lightsaber range of the Twi’lek. “Now I ask you one last time to return to Ossus. I know it will be hard to face those you betrayed, but—”

“We are not interested in ‘redemption’ . . . or anything else you have to offer, Master Skywalker. We are here with—”

Alema stopped in midsentence and cocked her head, then reached for her lightsaber.

Luke had already extended his arm and was summoning the weapon to himself, literally ripping Alema’s belt off her waist and leaving the Twi’lek with an empty hand as Han hit her in the flank with a stun bolt.

Alema dropped to her knees, but did not fall, so Han fired again. This time, the Twi’lek collapsed onto her face and lay on the hangar floor twitching and drooling. Han leveled the weapon to fire again.

“That’s enough,” Luke said. “Are you trying to kill her?”

“As a matter of fact, yeah.” Han scowled at the setting switch on the barrel of his blaster, then thumbed it to the opposite position. “I could have sworn I had it set on full power.”

Luke shook his head in dismay, then used the Force to turn the weapon’s barrel away from Alema. “Sometimes I wonder if I still know you, Han. She’s defenseless.”

“She’s a Jedi,” Han said. “She’s never defenseless.”

Still, he flicked the selector switch back to stun, then stood behind the Twi’lek and pointed the barrel at her head. Luke removed her lightsaber from her belt, then squatted on the floor in front of her and waited until she started to come around—which was incredibly quickly, even for a Jedi.

“Sorry about that,” Luke said. “Han’s still a little sore about what you did to the Falcon.”

Alema opened one eye. “He always did carry a grudge.” She struggled to bring Luke into focus, then said, “But perhaps you should make something clear to him. We are not at your mercy.”

A tremendous clamor rumbled through the hangar as nearby insects began to drop their loads and scurry toward the Star Barge.

“You are at ours.”

Luke began to slap Alema’s lightsaber against his palm, allowing his frustration to pass, trying to remind himself that the Twi’lek was not in control of herself, that it was impossible for her to separate her own thoughts from those of the Dark Nest. But Jaina and Zekk had found themselves in a similar situation, and they had not turned their backs on the Jedi. The difference was, they had tried to resist.

Finally, Luke tucked Alema’s lightsaber into his belt and stood. “You could have fought this,” he said. “Maybe you still can. Jaina and Zekk became Joiners, and yet they remained true to their duty.”

“You place too much faith in others, Master Skywalker.” Alema braced her good arm on the floor and pushed off, then brought her feet up beneath her. “That has always been your weakness—and soon it will be your downfall.”

A cold shiver of danger sense raced up Luke’s spine, and he resisted the temptation to ask Alema’s meaning. This was the reason she had come to the hangar, he felt certain. She was trying to trap him, to draw him into some dark and twisted maze where he would become as lost as she was.

Unfortunately, Han did not have Jedi danger sense. “Too much faith? What’s that supposed to mean? If something’s going on with Jaina—”

Alema glanced over her shoulder at Han, pouting at the blaster still pointed at her back, then said, “We didn’t mean to alarm you, Han. Jaina and Zekk are fine, as far as we know.” She looked back to Luke. “We were talking about Mara. She has been dishonest with Master Skywalker.”

“I doubt that very much.” Luke saw what the Dark Nest was attempting, and he could not believe they would be foolish enough to try such a thing. Nobody was going to drive a wedge between him and Mara. “And even if I didn’t, I would hardly take the Dark Nest’s word over that of a Jedi Master.”

“We have proof,” Alema said.

“And I doubt that.” Han glanced at her skintight bodysuit. “You don’t have a place to put it.”

“We’re glad you’re not too old to notice,” Alema said. “Thank you.”

“It wasn’t a compliment.”

The smile Alema flashed Han was both knowing and genuine. “Sure it was.” She turned back to Luke, then glanced at R2-D2. “But we should have said you have proof.”

Luke shook his head. “I really don’t think so. If that’s all you have to say—”

“Daxar Ies wasn’t the Emperor’s accountant,” she interrupted. “He was an Imperial droid-brain designer.” She glanced again at R2-D2. “He designed the Intellex Four, as a matter of fact.”

Luke’s mind raced back to the year before, to his discovery of the sequestered sector in R2-D2’s deep-reserve memory, trying to remember just how much Alema might have learned about those events before fleeing the academy.

“Nice try.” Han had clearly noticed her glance toward the droid as well. “But we’re not buying it. Just because you heard someone say that Luke was looking for information on the Intellex Four designer—”

“Han, she couldn’t have overheard that,” Luke said. “She was already gone. We were in flight control when Ghent told us about his disappearance, remember?”

“That doesn’t mean she didn’t leave bugs all over the place,” Han pointed out.

“We didn’t—as we are sure your eavesdropping sweeps have already revealed.” Alema continued to stare at Luke. “Do you want to find out more about your mother, or not?”

Luke and Leia had long ago guessed the woman in the records R2-D2 had sequestered—Padmé—might be their mother, but hearing someone else say it sent a jolt of elation through him . . . even if he did feel certain that the Dark Nest was counting on exactly that reaction.

Han was more cynical. “So Anakin Skywalker was making holorecordings of his girlfriend—I know a lot of guys who used to do the same thing. It doesn’t mean she’s Luke’s mother.”

“But it means she could be—and we can help Master Skywalker learn the truth.” Alema shot Luke a sardonic smile. “Unless you prefer ignorance to knowing that Mara has been deceiving you. Daxar Ies was no accountant. He was the one being who could have helped you unlock the secret of your mother’s past.”

“Nice story,” Han said. “Hangs together real well—until you get to the part where Daxar Ies is the Intellex Four designer. Why would the Emperor have his best droid-brain designer killed?”

Alema’s face grew enigmatic and empty. “Who knows? Revenge, perhaps, or merely to keep him from defecting to the Rebels, too. That is not as important as the reason Mara lied to you about who he is.”

“I’m listening.” Even saying the words made Luke feel hollow and sick inside, as though he were betraying Mara by hearing the Twi’lek out. “For now.”

Alema wagged her finger. “First, what we want.”

“That does it,” Han said. He thumbed the selector switch on his blaster to full power. “I’m tired of being played. I’m just going to blast her now.”

Alema’s gaze went automatically to Luke.

Luke shrugged and stepped out of the line of fire. “Okay, if you have to.”

“Please . . . ,” Alema said sarcastically. She flicked a finger, and the selector switch on Han’s blaster flipped itself back to stun. “If you were really going to blast me, you wouldn’t stand here discussing it.”

“You’re right.” Han flicked the selector switch back to full power. “We’re done dis—”

“Perhaps you will be more inclined to hear us out after we have proved that we can access the records,” Alema said to Luke. She gestured at R2-D2. “May we?”

Luke motioned Han to wait. “May you what?”

“Display one of the holos, of course,” Alema said. When Luke did not automatically grant permission, she glanced up and added, “If we wished to harm him, Master Skywalker, we would already have sprinkled him with froth.”

Luke looked up at growing blister on the ceiling, then let out a breath. Alema was telling the truth about that much, at least—it would have been a simple matter to use the Force to pull some of the gray froth down on them. He nodded and stepped aside.

As the Twi’lek approached, R2-D2 let out a fearful squeal and began to retreat as fast as his wheels would carry him. Alema simply reached out with the Force and floated him back over to her.

“Artoo, please show . . .” She paused and turned to Luke. “What would you like to see?”

Luke’s heart began to pound. He was half afraid that Alema’s claims would prove hollow—and half afraid they would not. While he was extremely eager to find some way to retrieve the data that did not involve reprogramming R2-D2’s personality, Luke was also keenly aware that the Dark Nest was trying to manipulate him to ends he did not yet understand.

“You choose.”

Alema let out a series of throat-clicks. “Hmmm . . . what would we want to know if we had been raised without our mother?” She turned back to the beeping, blinking droid she was holding in the air before her. “We have an idea. Let’s look for something that confirms the identity of Master Skywalker’s parents, Artoo.”

R2-D2 whistled a refusal so familiar that Luke did not even need a translation to know he was claiming to have no such data.

“You mustn’t be that way, Artoo,” Alema said. “We have your file security override code: Ray-Ray-zero-zero-seven-zero-five-five-five-Trill-Jenth-seven.”

“Hey,” Han said, “that sounds like an—”

“Account number, yes,” Alema said. “Eremay was rather special—she barely knew her own name, but she never forgot a list of numbers or letters.”

Artoo let out a defeated trill; then his holoprojector activated. The image of a beautiful brown-haired, brown-eyed woman—Padmé—appeared before the droid, walking through the air in front of what looked like an apartment wall. After a moment, a young man’s back came into the image. He seemed to be sitting on a couch, hunched over some kind of work that was not visible in the hologram.

Without looking up, the young man said, “I sense someone familiar.” The voice was that of Luke’s father, Anakin Skywalker. “Obi-Wan’s been here, hasn’t he?”

Padmé stopped and spoke to Anakin’s back. “He came by this morning.”

“What did he want?”

Anakin set his work aside and turned around. He appeared tense, perhaps even angry.

Padmé studied him for a moment, then said, “He’s worried about you.”

“You told him about us, didn’t you?”

Anakin stood, and Padmé started walking again. “He’s your best friend, Anakin.” She passed through a doorway, and the corner of a bed appeared in front of her. “He says you’re under a lot of stress.”

“And he’s not?”

“You have been moody lately,” Padmé said.

“I’m not moody.”

Padmé turned around and faced him. “Anakin . . . don’t do this again.”

Her beseeching tone seemed to melt Anakin. He turned away, shaking his head, and vanished. “I don’t know,” he said from outside the image. “I feel . . . lost.”

“Lost?” Padmé started after him. “You’re always so sure of yourself. I don’t understand.”

When Anakin returned to the image, he was looking away, his whole body rigid with tension.

“Obi-Wan and the Council don’t trust me,” he said.

“They trust you with their lives!” Padmé took his arm and pressed it to her side. “Obi-Wan loves you as a son.”

Anakin shook his head. “Something’s happening.” He still would not look at her. “I’m not the Jedi I should be. I’m one of the most powerful Jedi, but I’m not satisfied. I want more, but I know I shouldn’t.”

“You’re only human, Anakin,” Padmé said. “No one expects any more.”

Anakin was silent for a moment, then his mood seemed to lighten as quickly as it had darkened a moment before, and he turned and placed a hand on her belly.

“I have found a way to save you.”

Padmé frowned in confusion. “Save me?”

“From my nightmares,” Anakin said.

“Is that what’s bothering you?” Padmé’s voice was relieved.

Anakin nodded. “I won’t lose you, Padmé.”

“I’m not going to die in childbirth, Anakin.” She smiled, and her voice turned light. “I promise you.”

Anakin remained grave. “No, I promise you,” he said. “I’m becoming so powerful with my new knowledge of the Force that I’ll be able to keep you from dying.”

Padmé’s voice turned as grave as Anakin’s, and she locked eyes with him. “You don’t need more power, Anakin. I believe you can protect me from anything . . . just as you are.”

This won a smile from Anakin—but it was a small, hard smile filled with secrets and fear, and when they kissed, it seemed to Luke that his father’s arms were not embracing so much as claiming.

The hologram ended. R2-D2 deactivated his holoprojector and let out a long, descending whistle.

“No need to apologize, Artoo.” Alema’s eyes remained fixed on Luke. “The file you chose was excellent—wasn’t it, Master Skywalker?”

“It served to illustrate your point,” Luke allowed.

“Come now,” Alema said. “It confirmed the identity of your mother—just as we promised it would. We’re sure you would like to learn what became of her.”

“Now that you mention it, yeah,” Han said. “One file doesn’t prove a thing.”

“Nice try.” Alema shot Han an irritated scowl. “But one sample is all you get. And we advise you not to try opening any files yourself. The access code changes with each use, and the file will be destroyed. When three files have been lost, the entire chip will self-destruct.”

“That would be unfortunate, but not disastrous,” Luke said. Though he had little doubt now that the woman in the holos was indeed his mother, his father’s brooding nature had left him feeling uneasy inside—and a bit frightened for the woman. “Leia and I have learned a great deal from Old Republic records already. We’re fairly certain that the woman in the holos is Padmé Amidala, a former Queen and later Senator of Naboo.”

“Will those old records tell you what she looked like when she smiled? How she sounded when she laughed? Why she abandoned you and your sister?” Alema pushed her lip into a pout. “Come, Master Skywalker. We are only asking that you leave Gorog alone. Do that, and each week we will feed you one of the access codes you need to truly know your mother.”

Luke paused, insulted that Alema could believe such a ploy would work on him, wondering if there had ever been a time when he could have seemed so unprincipled and self-serving to her.

“You surprise me, Alema,” Luke said. “I would never place personal interests above those of the Jedi and the Force. You must know that—even if Gorog doesn’t.”

“Yeah, but that doesn’t mean we’re looking for trouble, either,” Han added hastily. “We’re just here to help with the Fizz. As long as the Dark Nest isn’t bothering us, we won’t bother it.”

“Good.” Alema trailed her fingertips across Han’s shoulders, smirking as though she had won her concession. “That’s all we can ask.”

Han shuddered free of her. “Do you mind? I don’t want to catch anything.”

Alema cocked her brow, more surprised than hurt, then held her hand out to Luke. “If you’ll return our lightsaber, we’ll let you be on your way.” She glanced at the ceiling, which was already starting to froth, then added, “We wouldn’t want anything to happen to Artoo.”

Luke took the weapon from his belt, but instead of returning it to Alema, he opened the hilt and removed the Adegan focusing crystal from inside.

“It pains me to say this, Alema.” He began to squeeze, calling on the Force to bolster his strength, and felt the crystal shatter. “But you are no longer fit to carry a lightsaber.”

Alema’s eyes flashed with rage. “That means nothing!” Her lekku began to writhe and twitch, but she managed to retain control of herself and turned toward the door. “We’ll just build another.”

“I know.” Luke turned his hand sideways and let the crystal dust fall to the floor. “And I’ll take that one away, too.”