[Legacy Of The Force] - 01(162)

“Oh … Sith spawn.” Ben slumped. “What about … about … Bisha? Birsha?” The boy looked confused.

“Brisha,” Jacen supplied. He well knew why Ben looked confused, why he faltered over Brisha’s name. Jacen had interfered with Ben’s memories while the boy slept, brushing away Ben’s recollections of the woman he knew as Brisha almost as artfully as a painter might restore a classic portrait. Doubtless Ben was confused by his sudden inability to remember her features. Jacen would attribute it to the many knocks and blows Ben had sustained. “She died, too. Succumbed to her injuries.” He heaved a false sigh. “I’ve ordered a tremendous quantity of explosives to blow the asteroid up.” It was true that anyone following the coordinates now in the shuttle’s memory to the listed location of her habitat would find only boulder-size chunks of stone. Jacen had falsified details in the shuttle’s memory, charting a route from Lorrd to a different uninhabited star system, another asteroid field. Lumiya was safe from discovery, for now.

“Good.” Ben sat, not speaking, for a few minutes, drumming his fingers restlessly on the arm of the copilot’s chair. “It’s not fair. That they died.”

“No, it’s not. But that happens. It’s life. We just have to find a way … to make ourselves stronger because of it.”

Ben nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

CORUSCANT

“He exists.” Luke looked up from his terminal. On its screen scrolled updated reports of the engagement at Tralus, but Mara could feel that the worry on his face was caused by something else. “He finally exists, for real.”

“Your phantom enemy.”

“Yes.” Luke rose. “That must have been why we were attacked tonight-the false Jacen, the false Ben. They occupied our emotions so thoroughly that we missed the creation of-whatever he is, wherever he is. Maybe it happened close by, or there would have been no reason to divert us.” He looked in all directions, as though the smooth stone walls of the enclave interior chamber would become transparent and reveal the enemy, but they remained stubbornly opaque.

“We’ll find him,” Mara said. “And we’ll beat him.” Her attention returned to her own terminal and a smile crossed her features. “Message from Jacen and Ben. They’re coming home.”