TWENTY

A familiar voice echoing down a long tunnel…a hammer pounding inside her head, a centrifuge spinning her through the darkness…aching cold below the knees, aching cold from the shoulders up.

Nothing between. Just numb.

Then the voice again, calling Mara back, commanding her attention.

Luke giving orders…too fast. Not quite near enough to follow.

Slow down, Skywalker!

Luke continued. “Nothinghaschanged. We’re burruburrub,” he was saying, “uruburruplan. Cilghalwillbe in urburbubu collection teams, thenserveas Kyle’s scientific adviser urburub dispersal operations inside the Colony proper.”

Mara opened her eyes and found herself staring up at a blinding white blur. Everything smelled of stericlean, and there were machines hissing and whirring all around. She tried to sit up and found herself held tight by a strap across her chest.

“Just how volatile is this nanotech?” a deep Duros voice asked from somewhere to her right. “Is it going to turn our StealthXs into dirt right under us?”

“Only if you let it escape the stasis jars,” Cilghal replied. Her voice and the Duros’ sounded somewhat muffled. “Even then, you would have plenty of time to go EV before the damage grew critical.”

The brightness overhead came into focus, and Mara recognized it as the softly lit whiteness of an infirmary ship ceiling. It took her a moment to understand why she was here, then she turned her head and saw the tangle of IV lines hooked into her arm and she remembered: the shatter gun pellet that ripped through her vac suit and abdomen. It had destroyed one of her kidneys, and no healing trance could repair that.

The huge head of her Bith physician, Ogo Buugi, appeared above her. “Good, you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

“Hararrg oooo aiiig meeeffffing?” Mara croaked. It was supposed to have been How do you think I’m feeling? but her throat was as dry as a Tatooine swamp and her tongue was too heavy to lift. “Ooggaf.”

Buugi nodded approvingly, his smile half hidden by the epidermal folds hanging from his cheeks. “Good. That’s what I was hoping.”

Mara considered using the Force to slam him against the ceiling.

“The operation went very well—no complications at all,” Buugi continued. “We already have a new kidney growing in the cloning tank. We’ll insert it in a couple of weeks, and in a month you’ll be ready to start your rehabilitation.”

“A month?” Mara cried. “Are you a doctor or a—”

“Better let me take over, Doctor Buugi.” Jacen appeared at Mara’s bedside, seated in a hoverchair with a drainage bag hanging from his side. “Aunt Mara can be a little testy right after she wakes up.”

Buugi smiled more noticeably and nodded. “So I see.” He placed a delicate, long-fingered hand on Mara’s forearm, then said, “You need to be patient with this. Even a Jedi can’t grow a new kidney overnight.”

“Thanks for the advice, Doctor,” Mara answered, softening her tone. “And thanks for patching me up.” Mara waited for Buugi to leave, then turned to Jacen. “Shouldn’t you be in a bacta tank?”

“With the Killiks still holding Thyferra, the fleet is running short on bacta,” Jacen explained, moving his chair closer to her bedside. “I’m out of action for a couple of weeks anyway, so I thought I’d save it for someone who doesn’t have a healing trance.”

Mara nodded her approval. “Good idea—very thoughtful.” She pointed at the drainage bag hanging from his side. “How is it?”

“Inconvenient,” Jacen said. “I’ve got holes in three different organs, and I can’t move well enough to fight until I fix them.”

“I know the feeling,” Mara said. She reached for his arm and winced at the dull ache that the effort sent shooting through her lower back. “Thanks, Jacen. She would have gotten me.”

“She nearly did,” Jacen said. “If you hadn’t been so fast with that blaster, neither one of us would be here.”

“All the same.” Mara squeezed his arm, then asked, “Do we know what happened to her?”

Jacen’s expression turned sober. “Pellaeon’s intelligence staff has been reviewing the battle vids. A skiff left Gorog just before we blew it. Nobody challenged it—nobody even seemed to see it, including the combat controllers.”

Mara had a sinking feeling. “Lomi Plo.”

“That’s what Uncle Luke thinks.”

Mara used the Force to operate the bed controls and raise her upper body. The shift of position sent another dull ache through her lower back, but she pushed the pain aside and looked out the door into the infirmary lobby, where Luke was meeting with Cilghal and the other Masters.

“And he’s sticking to his plan?”

Jacen nodded.

“Who’s taking our places?”

“No one,” Jacen said, a slight frown betraying his disapproval. “Cilghal offered to lead a team herself so that Kyp, er, Master Durron could back Luke up, but Uncle Luke wouldn’t hear of it. According to the intelligence maps that Juun and Tarfang left, the collection teams only need to harvest nanotech from fifteen different environments inside the nebula, but they’re going to have to seed more than a thousand worlds in the Colony. Tresina Lobi is out of action with some crash burns, and Uncle Luke didn’t want to take another Master off the dispersal teams. He thinks it’s the nanotech environmental systems that will keep the Killiks in check—in the long run, anyway.”

Mara’s heart sank. “So he’s going after Raynar alone?”

“Admiral Pellaeon is taking the fleet to Tenupe,” Jacen said. “Wraith and Rogue squadrons will be assigned specifically to support him, and he’ll have a company of Lando’s bugcruncher droids—but we both know they won’t be able to do much once the Force duel starts.”

“And Lomi Plo isn’t going to give up, either,” Mara said.

“Not likely,” Jacen said. “Unless that blaster shot you got off kills her first.”

Mara gave him a sour look. “What do you think the chance of that is?”

“About the same as you do,” Jacen confessed. “He’ll have to take both of them out. Lomi Plo and Raynar.”

Mara’s stomach began to ache with fear. “Jacen, we can’t let him do that alone.”

“I don’t think we have a choice in the matter,” Jacen said. “Have you tried to stand up yet?”

Out in the lobby, Luke dismissed the Masters and turned to enter Mara’s room, the faithful R2-D2 trailing close behind.

They had barely crossed the threshold before Mara demanded, “Are you crazy?”

Luke stopped and cast a sheepish look back toward the departing Masters before he returned her gaze. “You heard.”

“You’d better not have been thinking you’d keep that from me, farmboy.”

“Of course not.” Luke came to her bedside and took her hand, then gave Jacen a stern look. “But I had hoped to tell you myself.”

“Luke, the Colony isn’t going to win this war overnight,” Mara said. “Wait until Jacen and I can back you up. Raynar is inexperienced, but he’s powerful.”

Jacen nodded his agreement. “And Lomi Plo will be—”

“I can’t,” Luke said, cutting them off. He clasped a hand on Jacen’s shoulder. “I’ve been feeling something urgent from Leia. This war is coming to a head now.”

“Do you know how?” Jacen asked.

Luke shook his head. “All I can tell is that things didn’t go well at Tenupe. The Falcon never connected with Jaina. I think maybe the Chiss were already there attacking.”

Mara’s heart skipped a beat, but the corners of Jacen’s mouth rose in a near smile.

“Then we shouldn’t interfere,” Jacen said. “If Mom and Dad can recover Jaina and Zekk, staying out of the Chiss’s way might be the best thing for the galaxy.”

Luke frowned. “Jacen, you’re as bad as your father,” he said. “You think the answer to every insect problem is to start stomping.”

“Not every insect problem,” Jacen said. “Just this one. I thought I’d made that clear.”

“You have,” Luke said. “You also made it clear that you’d follow the order’s leadership in this matter.”

“It was only a suggestion,” Jacen retorted. “Can’t a Jedi Knight express himself around here anymore?”

Luke’s expression softened. “Of course,” he said. “But half a dozen times should be sufficient. I’m very aware of your opinion about the Killiks, and believe it or not, I have given it consideration.”

“Okay. Sorry to bring it up again.” Jacen looked more disappointed than apologetic—which suggested to Mara that he was sincere about following the order’s leadership, even if he disagreed with it. “But I still think you should wait until Aunt Mara and I can back you up. You won’t solve anything if Raynar kills you.”

“Or if Lomi Plo does,” Mara added. She had been growing more impressed with Jacen every day since Luke took sole leadership of the order, and she was even beginning to wonder if he might make a suitable second in command someday soon. “I don’t think you can take them both, Luke.”

“Then I’ll have to take them one at a time,” Luke said. “Because if I wait for you two to recover, Lomi Plo will have time to recover, too—and so will Gorog. Lomi is never going to be weaker than she is right now.”

Luke’s tone was as firm as Mara had ever heard it, and she could feel through their Force-bond that he would not be moved from his plan.

But Jacen, bless him, was determined to try. “And you’re still not ready to face her.”

Luke’s eyes flashed with resentment—or it might have been self-doubt. “I will be the judge of that, Jacen.”

“Of course.” Jacen spread his hands in a gesture of surrender, and Mara thought she saw something bright, like moonlight dancing on a river, flicker in the depths of his brown eyes. “You are the Grand Master.”

“Thank you, Jacen,” Luke said. He turned to Mara, and she felt the faintest tingle of Force energy washing over her body. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’d like a…”

Luke’s jaw dropped, then he frowned in confusion. “Padmé?”

“Padmé?” Mara repeated. “Luke, what are you talking—”

“Mara?” Luke sounded disappointed. He shook his head as though to clear it. “I don’t understand.”

“Neither do I,” Mara said.

“Mara?” Now Luke’s voice was frightened. “What’s wrong?”

“Good question,” Mara said.

She turned to Jacen, but he only held a finger to his lips and moved his hoverchair closer to Luke. R2-D2 emitted a confused whistle and raised a hydraulic extension with a medical sensor at the end.

“Mara!” Luke turned and hit the emergency summons button next to Mara’s bed, but Jacen made a motion with his hands and the button did not depress. Luke did not seem to realize this. He turned back to Mara and placed his fingers to her throat, checking her pulse. “I can’t feel a pulse. Artoo, call an EmDee droid. Tell her to hurry!”

R2-D2 spun toward the data jack to obey, but Jacen used the Force to disable the power to the droid’s treads.

Mara caught Jacen’s gaze. “All right, Jacen. This has gone far enough.”

Not yet. The message reverberated without words inside Mara’s head. He must learn.

Mara felt another wave of Force energy pass over her, and Luke cried out in horror and looked toward R2-D2.

“Artoo, what’s taking you so long?”

R2-D2 issued a frustrated whistle and spun an accusing photoreceptor toward Jacen. Luke could take it no longer. He raised a hand and began to fill it with life-giving Force energy.

“Jacen, we can’t wait. We have to revive her ourselves.” He pointed at the emergency respirator hanging on the wall. “Get the respirator.”

Luke leaned over Mara and started to place his hand on her chest—until Jacen raised an arm and pushed him away.

“Jacen!” Luke screamed. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing,” Jacen said calmly. “And there’s nothing wrong with Aunt Mara.”

Luke’s gaze swung back to Mara, and she could not decide whether he looked more stunned or relieved. “You’re…you’re alive again!”

“I was never dead,” Mara said. “I think Jacen is trying to make a point.”

Luke turned back to Jacen, still too confused to be angry. “I don’t understand, Jacen. What’s she—”

“You’re not ready to face Lomi Plo again,” Jacen interrupted. “And you just proved it.”

Luke’s confusion started to fade, and his anger quickly began to build. “You did that to me?”

Jacen shook his head. “You did it to yourself,” he said. “Your fear betrays you.”

Mara suddenly understood what Jacen had done—or rather, what he had not done. “Luke, I think you’d better listen to him.” She reached out to her husband through their Force-bond, adding a private plea that she knew he would not refuse. “For me.”

Luke snorted, but turned to Jacen. “Okay, I’m listening,” he said. “And it had better be good. Saving Mara’s life does not give you the right to manipulate me.”

“I didn’t do that,” Jacen said. “All I did was bring your fear to the surface. You created the illusion yourself.”

“Remember what happened in the nest ship?” Mara asked. “After I got hit, you couldn’t move. Luke, you froze.”

“And then I couldn’t see Lomi Plo anymore,” Luke said, growing calmer. He turned to Jacen. “You did the same thing to me?”

“I doubt it.” Jacen grew uncomfortable, and his gaze slid away. “That was just a mirror illusion I learned from the Fallanassi.”

“But it does prove you’re still vulnerable to Lomi Plo,” Mara said.

“You don’t fear for yourself,” Jacen said. “You fear for others—and now Lomi Plo knows that. She’ll use it against you.”

Luke nodded, and a glimmer of recognition came to his eyes. “Fears aren’t so different from doubts. I have to face mine—”

“No,” Jacen said. “You have to eliminate them.”

“Eliminate them?” Mara asked. “That’s a lot to ask—especially before we reach Tenupe.”

“But I can do it,” Luke said. “I have to.”

“How?” Mara demanded. “You can’t give up caring about your family.”

“He doesn’t have to,” Jacen replied. “He just has to surrender.”

“Surrender?” Mara asked.

“Vergere taught me to embrace my pain by surrendering to it.” Jacen turned to Luke. “I made that pain a part of me—something I would never fight or deny. You have to do the same thing with your fear, Uncle Luke. Then it will have no power over you.”

“That may be easier said than done,” Luke said.

“Not at all—I know just where to start.” Jacen used the Force to lift R2-D2 over to them. “The first thing your fear showed you was your mother’s face. And before the battle, you refused to see what happened after your father Force-hurled her.”

“So I need to see that now?”

“Only if you want to kill Lomi Plo,” Jacen said.

Mara wanted to discourage Luke, to spare him the pain of seeing his mother die by his father’s hand. But he was determined to kill Lomi Plo and end this war on Jedi terms, and she knew that Jacen was right, that Luke could not succeed until he embraced his fears as Jacen had learned to embrace his pain.

“Jacen’s right. If you’re going after Lomi Plo, you need to do this.” Mara reached for his hand. “You can’t change what is in that holo. You can only accept it.”

“That’s a lot different from accepting you being hurt—or dying,” Luke pointed out. “I couldn’t do anything to stop what happened to my mother, but when you were hurt, I was there.”

“And you still couldn’t stop what happened to me,” Mara countered. “You were pretty busy with Lomi Plo, as I recall.”

“I was barely holding my own,” Luke acknowledged.

“Some things you can’t control,” Jacen said. “If you fear them, then those things control you.”

Luke shook his head. “I’m not sure we have time for this,” he said. “And what if you’re wrong? What if Lomi Plo’s wounds are enough to distract her?”

“I’m not wrong,” Jacen countered. “Look, you may think you push your fears aside when you go to battle—that you bury them. But you’ll never bury them deep enough to hide them from Lomi Plo, no matter what her condition is. So you’ll have to deal with this problem now. Because as you’ve pointed out, Lomi Plo is healing as we speak.”

Luke let out a long breath. “Okay.” He turned to R2-D2. “Show me the holo where my mother dies.”

R2-D2 issued a questioning trill.

“We’re going into battle either way,” Luke said. “If you don’t want to end up navigating slave ships for Lomi Plo, you’d better start where we left off last time.”

R2-D2 gave a plunging whistle, then rocked forward and activated his holoprojector. The image of Padmé, Anakin, and Obi-Wan Kenobi appeared on the floor, Padmé choking, Anakin extending an arm toward her, and Obi-Wan approaching Anakin.

“Let…her…go!” Obi-Wan was ordering.

Anakin whipped his arm to one side. Padmé flew out of the holo, and Anakin started forward to meet Obi-Wan.

“You turned her against me!” Anakin accused.

Obi-Wan shook his head. “You did that yourself.”

The pair left the holo as R2-D2 retreated and turned away from them. For a moment, their voices could be heard arguing in the background, slowly fading as Obi-Wan accused Anakin of falling prey to his anger and his lust for power. Then their voices faded entirely as Padmé’s crumpled form returned to the holo, lying on a metal deck.

A lump of sorrow formed in Mara’s stomach, and she felt Luke shaking with grief. R2-D2 extended a grasping appendage and started trying to drag Padmé’s unconscious form to safety.

From somewhere out of the holo, C-3PO’s voice called, “What are you doing? You’re going to hurt her. Wait!”

The distant sounds of a lightsaber fight arose somewhere outside the holo, then C-3PO appeared and carefully took Padmé in his arms. He started toward the slick-looking skiff they had seen in the last holo, with R2-D2 following close behind, beeping.

“I am being careful!” C-3PO said. “I have a good hold on her, but I’m worried about my back. I hope it’s able to hold up under this weight.”

C-3PO entered the skiff and laid Padmé on a bed in a stateroom. The holo blurred as R2-D2 advanced it quickly through several minutes of watching her lie there; then Obi-Wan arrived to check on her and brush her hair back.

The holo flickered off for an instant, then restarted in the observation room of an operating theater. Obi-Wan was there with C-3PO, Yoda, and a tall, swarthy human. Mara recognized the man as Bail Organa—someone she would later spy upon when she became the Emperor’s Hand. A medical droid entered the observation room and began to speak to Obi-Wan and the others.

“Medically, she is completely healthy.” The droid’s voice was tinny, but surprisingly sympathetic for a machine. “For reasons we can’t explain, we are losing her.”

“She’s dying?” Obi-Wan sounded as though he did not believe the droid.

“We don’t know why,” the droid replied. “She has lost the will to live. We need to operate quickly if we are to save the babies.”

“Babies?” This from Bail Organa.

“She’s carrying twins,” the droid said.

“Save them, we must,” Yoda added. “They are our last hope.”

The medical droid returned to the operating room, and one of R2-D2’s beeps sounded in the holo.

“It’s some kind of reproductive process, I think,” C-3PO said softly.

After a few minutes, Padmé whispered something to the medical droid, and Obi-Wan was summoned into the operating theater. He went to her side, and his voice came out of R2-D2’s holospeaker sounding even more tinny and distant than usual.

“Don’t give up, Padmé,” he said.

She looked up at him, seeming very weak. “Is it a girl?”

“We don’t know yet.” Obi-Wan looked toward the droid operating on her midsection. “In a minute…in a minute.”

Padmé winced with pain, then the medical droid lifted a tiny bundle into view.

“It’s a boy,” he announced.

Padmé’s voice was so weak that it was barely audible. “Luke…” She smiled faintly, struggling to extend a hand to touch the baby on the forehead, then repeated, “…Luke.”

The medical droid produced another bundle. “And a girl,” he announced.

“Leia,” Padmé said.

Obi-Wan leaned closer to her. “You have twins, Padmé. They need you…hang on!”

Padmé shook her head. “I…can’t.”

She winced again and took Obi-Wan’s hand. There seemed to be a necklace dangling from her fingers as she did this, but the holo was not clear enough to see what kind.

“Save your energy,” Obi-Wan urged.

Padmé’s gaze grew distant. “Obi-Wan…there…is good in him. I know there is…still.”

She let out a sudden gasp, then her hand dropped out of Obi-Wan’s, leaving the necklace dangling from his fingers. He gathered it into his palm, then turned his hand and began to study the jewelry with a shocked expression.

The holo ended, and R2-D2 tweedled a question.

When Luke did not answer, Jacen said, “Thank you, Artoo. That’s all we needed to see.”

R2-D2 tipped himself upright again, then swiveled his photoreceptor toward Luke and issued an apologetic whistle.

“There’s nothing to apologize for, Artoo,” Mara said. Although Luke looked outwardly composed, she could feel how hard he was struggling to contain his grief, to keep his anguish from erupting in an explosion of fury and pain. “It had to be done.”

Jacen took Luke’s elbow, then squeezed until Luke’s blank gaze finally turned toward him. “Master, can you change what you saw in the holo?”

Luke shook his head. “Of course not.”

“That’s right. You can only accept it,” Jacen said. “Some misfortunes you can prevent, and you will. But others…sometimes all you can do is embrace the pain.”

Luke laid a hand across his nephew’s. “I understand. Thank you.”

“Good,” Jacen said. “Now use what you are feeling. Your anger and your grief can make you more powerful. Use them when you meet Raynar and Lomi Plo, and you will defeat them.”

A sudden wave of disgust rolled through the Force-bond between Mara and Luke, and Luke frowned and pulled his arm away from Jacen.

“No, Jacen,” he said. “That’s Vergere’s way of using the Force. It won’t work for me.”

Jacen’s face grew worried. “But you’re one against two, and they’ll have the Force potential of the entire Colony to draw on. You’ll need all the power you can get!”

“No,” Luke said. “I’ll need strength—and that comes from my way of using the Force.”

Jacen cast a worried glance toward Mara, and she began to grow fearful as well.

“Luke, I understand your hesitation,” Mara said. “But I’d feel better if you took another Master or two—”

“I’ve made my decision.” Luke smiled and squeezed her arm gently. “Don’t fear. Accept.”