Jacen shrugged as if the detail was of no importance. “Probably it just went flying into a cranny somewhere and I couldn’t find it. It was a very low-gravity environment. You could throw a lightsaber hilt a kilometer if you tried.”
“And Ben?” Luke asked.
“I found him in an upper cavern,” Jacen said. “Unconscious. Brisha Syo was nearby. She’d lost an arm and had sustained a head injury and sucking chest wound, all of them lightsaber-inflicted. I stabilized her. She seemed pretty sure her habitat’s medical droids would be able to fix her up. She said she found a wicked-looking redhead-her description matched Ben’s `evil Mara’-preparing to behead Ben, and that she interfered. She was badly wounded but drove the false Mara into retreat.”
Luke and Mara exchanged a glance. “So,” Luke said, “if she was telling the truth, the timing can only work out one way. The Dark Jedi, or whatever he was, impersonated Mara and attacked Ben. He won that fight, Brisha stopped him from killing Ben, and he ran off. Then he took my face and attacked Jacen, and Jacen killed him.”
Mara shook her head. “That doesn’t work, though, if we assume there was some link between the two Jacen-Luke lights and the two Ben-Mara fights. Because my fight with the false Ben and your fight with the false Jacen were simultaneous.”
“Suggesting that my fight with the false Luke and Ben’s with the false Mara were, too.” Jacen pretended to puzzle that one over. “The only logical conclusion is that there were two enemies in those caverns, not just one.”
“That’s right.” Luke returned his attention to Jacen. He hesitated a moment before continuing. “Jacen, we have evidence that Brisha Syo was Lumiya’s daughter.”
Jacen sat back and allowed a look of startlement to cross his features. “I don’t believe it. I’m not that easy to deceive.”
“She’d be very good at deception,” Mara said. “If she were trained by her mother.”
“So …” Jacen pretended to think it through. “So Brisha probably killed Nelani. And Brisha dueled Ben.”
“And Ben cut her to ribbons.” A little pride crept into Mara’s voice with that remark. “But she defeated him with some ploy. And she probably did something to him, altering his memories, maybe making him vulnerable to other techniques, just before you came across them.”
And now, Jacen told himself, the test o f courage. Do you propose to me that my memories were meddled with, too? That my thinking has been altered?
Luke did seem to be on the verge of saying something else when he looked up and around. A moment later Jacen and Mara felt it, too-a massive surge of surprise, consternation. Other emotions, from another direction, joined the mix: fear, exultation, anger.
Those emotions had to be projected by hundreds, even thousands of people simultaneously to manifest like this through the Force.
Jacen grabbed his comlink and spoke into it. “Colonel Solo to the Anakin Solo. Status check.”
“Sir.” Jacen recognized the voice; it belonged to one of the Anakin Solo’s communications officers. “It’s, ah … ” There was silence for a few moments. “Fleet action, sir. There’s a fleet, incoming, they’re everywhere, they’re already hitting the task force around Corellia proper…”
Jacen stood and ran toward the door leading from the Maw Casino. He grazed the returning Bothan server, spinning her, sending three full drinks to the carpet.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Across the darkened casino chamber, in a shadow caused by the room arrangement but deepened by her own abilities, Alema Rar hesitated as Jacen Solo bolted for the exit.
She had noticed Jacen enter and had followed his movements with mild disinterest. After hours of prowling secure hangar bays with no sign of the Millennium Falcon to show for it, she had sought out Captain Lavint in order to help the woman’s gambling success. She had seen Jacen talk to Lavint, then move toward the door to approach two people silhouetted there.
A minute later a little twitch in the Force convinced her to move closer and get a good look at Jacen’s conversation partners-which was when she had recognized Luke and Mara.
That recognition sent such a jolt of adrenaline through her that she had to spend several moments calming herself. She brought out her blowgun as she savored the opportunity fate had presented her.
Luke Skywalker was here. And if he was here, the odds improved that Han and Leia Solo were here, too, or would be soon. It was possible that Alema could finish her mission - could strike down Han and Mara before the disbelieving eyes of their loved ones, causing Luke and Leia the anguish that would return Balance to the universe, to her soul.