“We will.”
Lavint didn’t see the shadow fade, but the bridge seemed to brighten, and she knew Alema was gone.
Three stories below, hangar workers came forward. In a moment they’d be plugging into an exterior hull comm port and asking which of their many overpriced services she wished to avail herself of-refueling, de-rusting, painting, transmission of the latest holodramas … She waved and smiled down at them as if she didn’t mind their presence.
And she wished that the Errant Venture would be where they found the Solos, so she could leave Alema Rar and her craziness behind forever.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CORUSCANT
JEDI TEMPLE
Mara leaned forward, elbows on the table on either side of the datapad retrieved from Lumiya’s quarters, and rested her chin in her hands.
From the other side of the table, Luke looked at her.
“You cracked the encryption on the data card?”
“Finally.”
“But you don’t look happy.”
“You don’t need a Forcebond to tell that, farmboy.”
“Tell me.”
“Some of it’s an invoice. The sender seems to have been a bounty hunter working for Lumiya, and the invoice is an itemized list of expenses: hours worked, fuel pended,
Master shots taken. The main part, though, is a mission status and event report. Even decrypted, it’s hard to puzzle out-everything is referred to by code words. But assuming I’m putting the right names to some of these code words, the information is … interesting.”
“Such as?”
“Confirmed that the Lady’s daughter succumbed to injuries inflicted by Grandson Three-two-seven-oh-seven,’ ” Mara recited. ” `Please inform if Lady’s mission changed from insertion/observation to revenge.’ “
Luke frowned over that one. “Lady has to be Lumiya. She used to style herself the Dark Lady of the Sith … after Emperor Palpatine and my father were no longer around to slap her down for presumption.”
“I agree. And if that same-time context is the basis for more than one of these code names, Grandson would therefore have to be one of Darth Vader’s grandsons, right? Jacen or Ben.”
“Three-two-seven-oh-seven,” Luke said. “Just a second.” He pulled out his datapad, connected it remotely to ; the Temple’s computer, and went searching for a report Ben had filed weeks earlier. “Here it is. Bee-em-ex-three-two-seven-oh-seven. An uninhabited star system near Bimmiel. That’s where the woman Syo led Jacen and Ben, where Jacen defeated some sort of dark side Force-user within the asteroid under her habitat.”
“Where Nelani Dinn died.” Mara looked confused. “Nelani was Lumiya’s daughter?”
“No. Nelani’s parents have files in the order database, and Nelani looks-looked-a lot like her mother. Besides, Nelani died the same day Jacen and Ben arrived at the, habitat. Your file there suggests that `the Lady’s daughter’ lingered for a while.” Luke frowned. “The other woman who was there, Brisha Syo. Brisha could be an anagram for Shira B-Shira Brie.”
“Lumiya’s real name.”
Luke nodded. “I didn’t make the connection at the time, because then it had been years since we’d heard anything about Lumiya.” A thought was growing within him, and alongside it a worry, a big one. “Let’s say Lumiya has a daughter. She names her Brisha, a self-tribute, and Brisha works with her. Brisha lures Jacen and Ben to an ambush. She and the mysterious Sith she claims is living in her basement-maybe he’s just a Dark Jedi she’s hired, maybe he’s Lumiya’s Sith apprentice-are going to kill Ben, an act of revenge for everything I’ve done to Lumiya. Or maybe 1() capture him, train him to be a Sith. Which is just as much revenge, and twice the evil.”
“I did a thing or two to her, as well.”
“Right. Revenge against both of us. But Nelani is there, too, and throws the odds off. The dark sider and Nelani are killed, Brisha is badly wounded, Ben gets a knock in the head and forgets what happened, and Jacen presumably never figures out that Brisha was one of the bad guys. Jacen and Ben leave … and weeks later, Brisha `succumbs to injuries.’ “
“And her mother …” Mara winced. “Her mother would want revenge. Against Jacen. He’s racking up quite a body count against daughters of dangerous opponents of ours.”
Luke shook his head. “We don’t know that Jacen wounded Brisha. How could he have done so and then left the habitat without thinking of her as an enemy? Ben must have done it, during one of the periods of time his memory doesn’t cover. Which would make Ben the target.” His stomach began doing flip-flops. In addition to being a cocky teenager alone in a galaxy at war, Ben might now be the target of one of the galaxy’s deadliest killers-a woman who had fought Luke to a standstill mere weeks before.