“Nanna, you short-circuit!” Ben’s voice said. “We’re fine. Dad said so!”
Trying not to be distracted by his son-or by the steadily growing shudder of the barrage of dartship attacks-Luke brought to mind another image of the Shadow, this time with a black, star-speckled veneer that resembled the emptiness of deep space. Instead of absorbing the ship’s sensor signature, however, he blanketed it with a layer of cold emptiness.
Once the illusory skins were in place, he carefully adjusted them, drawing the masking image tight against the hull here, pushing the counterfeit out a little there. The effort of maintaining both illusions began to deplete the energy running through him, so Luke opened himself up completely, using his fear for Ben’s life, his anger at the insects that were threatening it, to draw more Force into himself. Every centimeter of his body began to nettle with its sting, and a faint aura arose from his skin.
A third bang sounded from the engineering bay.
“How about that decoy, Skywalker?” Mara asked. “Our shields can’t take-“
Luke released the outer skin. “Go!”
Mara shoved the throttles to overload, then, half a second later, shut down the drives. The Shadow slid out of her double andstill masked by the dark veneer Luke had constructed - glided quietly away from the Force illusion.
The shuddering stopped. Luke continued to maintain both illusions, the Force pouring through him like fire, burning more fiercely every moment. He was drawing more energy than his body was conditioned to endure, literally burning himself up from the inside. It was not really a dark side act-to a modern Jedi, the dark side was more a matter of intent than deed-but it felt that way to him. According to Mara, this was what happened to Palpatine, and Luke believed her. He could feel himself aging-his cells weakening, the membranes growing thin and the cytoplasm simmering, the nuclei coming apart.
The air around him began to crackle with static.
R2-D2 extended a fire extinguisher and started toward Luke, squealing in alarm.
“It’s okay, Artoo!” Mara said. “He knows how far to push it. He’s not going to ignite.”
I hope, she added silently.
On Luke’s tactical display, the illusionary Shadow-the real one was not visible even to her own sensors-was slowly drifting toward the bottom of the screen, still surrounded by a cloud of attacking dartships. A small inset was counting down the seconds remaining until the Force-cloaked Shadow would be far enough from the dartships to restart the drives and flee. The way Luke was hurting, thirty seconds seemed like an eternity.
“We’re bringing Juun and Saba aboard now,” Leia commed. Her voice was filled with the concern that Luke felt in the Force. “Do you need help?”
They could not answer for fear that the dartships would notice the comm waves and discover the Shadow’s true position. Instead, Mara reached out to Leia through the Force, trying to assure her that everything was fine. Though the message would have been clearer coming from Luke, his body was starting to tremble and spark, and he needed all his concentration just to fight his exhaustion.
The XR808g began to drift away from the Falcon on the tactical display, and the Solos started a sweeping turn back toward the “battle.” Luke felt Mara protesting through the Force, but the Falcon only began to pick up speed. Leia was angry with them for trying to be heroes; the situation wasn’t that bad.
“Stang!” Mara cursed. “That-“
“Moommmm!” Ben called, peeking around the corner. He was in his vac suit, with the helmet visor open. “Dad says we’re not supposed to say stang.”
“Your father’s right,” Mara said. “Aren’t you supposed to be at your evacuation station with Nanna?”
“We were, but then the shuddering stopped and…” Ben’s gaze drifted over to Luke’s glowing, anguished form, and his eyes bulged with horror. “What’s wrong with Dad?”
“Nothing. I’ll explain later.” Mara activated the intercom. “Nanna-“
The droid appeared behind Ben. “Master Ben!” She swept him up and retreated aft. “The drill is never over until we hear the all-clear.”
Luke’s skin felt as dry as a Tatooine lake, and tiny haloes of golden light were starting to appear around his fingertips. The Falcon was on a straight heading and accelerating toward the dartships. The inset on the tactical display showed three seconds, two…
Mara brought the sublight drives back online. Luke let the illusions drop and slumped into his chair, his skin prickling and his hair standing on end as the last of the Force energy left his body.