[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(120)

Ton need to know there’s nothing else, absolutely nothing, that you can do to save Jacen.

Mara needed to confront him one last time. If anyone could stop him at the brink—the final one, anyway—then it was her, because she’d crossed from the other direction. She didn’t think it would work, but she owed it to Leia—and Han.

She was planning to take Jacen from them, and they’d already lost Anakin. There was only so much pain a family could take.





chapter sixteen


The government of Bothawui is prepared to pay twenty million credits per month for the exclusive services of a Mandalorian assault fleet with infantry. We would also be greatly interested in acquiring a squadron of Bes’uliik assault fighters and would be prepared to pay a premium to have exclusive purchase rights to this craft.

—Formal offer to the government of Mandalore

SENATE LOBBY, CORUSCANT

“There you are,” said Mara, ambushing Jacen as he stepped out of the turbolift. “Glad I caught you.” He registered genuine surprise, and that gave her more satisfaction than he’d ever know. No, he hadn’t felt her presence when it mattered. Thank you, Ben. Nice trick.

“Hi, Aunt Mara. What can I do for you?” Jacen tried to do that act of dithering on the spot, the carefully calculated body language that said he really did want to stay and talk, but duty was dragging him away. What an actor. She could act, too, but this wasn’t the time for it. “I’d love to catch up over a drink,” he said, “but it’s late and I’ve got an appointment first thing tomorrow. Can we fix a time for when I’m free? Say in a couple of days?”

“It won’t take long, Jacen. It needs to be now.”

Now it was her turn to take over the choreography, stepping in his way so that if he wanted to pass, he’d have to make a deliberate and rejecting sidestep. And Jacen wouldn’t be that blatant, not to her. It would make her suspicious.

Too late. You’ve already done that, Jacen. But for Leia’s sake, for Han’s sake, I have to try this.

“Okay,” he said.

There was something deeply unsettling about a Force-user—about anyone, really—who gave off no Force presence. It was like standing next to someone who wasn’t breathing and had no pulse, a little too close to death for Mara’s liking. It also pressed all those paranoid and defensive buttons, like someone whispering behind his hand in someone else’s presence. It said guilty, unnatural, and secret. If the Yuuzhan Vong had been the kindest and sweetest beings in the universe, Mara knew she would have mistrusted them anyway because they didn’t show up in the Force as being alive and there.

She steered Jacen over to an alcove. Psychologically, he might have felt more vulnerable being confronted with his acts in the middle of the lobby, where everyone could hear and see them. On the other hand, the alcove could make him feel cornered if she maneuvered him to stand with his back to the wall. Either way, she was going to get a reaction out of him. She couldn’t outstrip his Force powers, but the tricks of flesh and blood put her on a more level playing field.

“You don’t fool me,” she said. “Not any longer, anyway.”

He tried his baffled-little-boy grin. “What am I supposed to have done?”

“Remember what I was?”

“You’ve lost me, Aunt Mara …”

“This is about Lumiya. It stops here and now. You’ve turned into something vile, and you’re too smart to be conned into that even by her. Beyond dark. See, I’ve been both sides, and I know.”

“Well, I don’t know what you mean. I really don’t.”

“Wrong answer. I’ll deal with Lumiya in due course, but I know what you’ve been doing, I don’t buy the excuses that your poor parents make for you every kriffing time. So I’m going to set you a test.”

“Mara, are you okay? You’re not well, are you?”

“Don’t even think about trying that one. If you acknowledge the terrible things you’ve done, and whatever’s left of Leia’s son is still functioning, then come with me right now to the Temple. We’ll get the whole Council together and we’ll deprogram you.”

Jacen put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor. He still had that silly grin on his face, but it was fading a little around the eyes.

“Mara,” he said, with an exaggerated softness that made her want to punch him. “Mara, I think you’re forgetting that I’m joint Chief of State now, and I don’t have time for this emotional outpouring, because whatever Ben’s been telling you—”

He was digging himself deeper into the pit. She’d really hoped he’d step back, and she knew she was just as stupid for hoping as she’d been for turning a blind eye to his darkness in the first place.