She was his aunt. She was family. When his role in her death became knownit had to be when, but not now, not anytime soonthe shock and hatred would tear apart what was left of the Skywalker and Solo families. Maybe even Niathal, and all the others who understood that securing peace was a dirty business, would be disgusted.
I just killed my aunt. I grew up with her. She was there for me. We fought a war together.
I have to face her son. I have to face Ben.
What have I done ?
His stomach rumbled. How could he possibly be hungry at a time like this?
He will immortalize his love.
Stupid knotted tassels, all kinds of ancient Sith prophecies that would come to pass when the new Dark Lord was ready to take up his mantle and usher in a golden age of justice, order, and peace. The key had been turnedand this was what the prophecy was supposed to meanby Jacen killing what he most loved.
He’d killed Mara, and Nelani, and Fett’s daughter, and chaotic unjust democracy, and he loved none of those. He’d tried to kill Lumiya more than once. She seemed to think that was part of the job description for Sith acolytes.
So Jacen didn’t believe it. And if Mara hadn’t been trying to kill him to begin with, he would have seen it even more as a life thrown carelessly away.
The fabric of existence didn’t seem to have changed enough. That shift should have been cataclysmic, and although he was too much of a pragmatist to think he could raise his fists to the sky and call down lightning to energize a mighty soul, he expected to be able to taste the spiritual and existential transformation.
He was afraid. However certain he’d been a few hours ago that Mara was to be the one destined to die, it didn’t make sense in the context of the prophecy. He didn’t feel different, either. Did that mean he still had to kill someone else? He’d been so certain it would all be over now. The sense of anticlimax was almost enough to make him sob.
Then he felt a presence. He leaned his head against the side of the cockpit canopy, and gazing up at him from the nightmarish planet surrounding his fighter was Lumiya.
Jacen popped the seal. “I’m surprised you could be bothered to come and find me, after what happened.”
“You now need to be seen.” Lumiya had a new serenity about her. As ever, she still seemed to take no offense at him for trying to kill her again. “Your new existence has started, Dark Lord.”
“Really?” The pain in his shoulder gnawed at him like an animal tearing his flesh. “I don’t feel very lordly.”
“I assure you it’s done. I felt it.”
She might have been humoring him. He shifted in his seat to ease the assortment of bruises. “I’ll be looking for further proof.”
“Stop arguing with the Force and pay attention to what you have to do next. Luke Skywalker arrived at Hapes a couple of hours ago and they’re looking for evidence. And Niathal is griping bitterly about your being AWOL.”
“They won’t find me.”
“That’s not what I mean. Your trip to the Royal Court, a subject I will take to my grave by the way, needs to be smoothed out in terms of credibility. Sooner or later, it’ll emerge that you were in the Hapes Cluster, and that Mara knew that.”
“How?”
“May I alarm you?”
“Can you alarm me any more? Is it possible?”
“Mara had a conversation with Hapan Fleet Ops while in Hapan space about your presence on Hapes. I intercepted it, which is one reason why I was able to come to your aid.”
“Wonderful.”
“And she even gave them a description of the Sith sphere as a possible hostile. I think that stacks up to a scenario needing a plausible explanation.”
Lumiya was right. Jacen needed a cover story, if only for Tenel Ka.
“This is going to tax even my creativity,” Jacen said. “How widely known is this?”
“There are no secrets in the galaxy, Jacen, only varying sizes of distribution lists. The Bothans will have it, the Mandalorians will have it… and Alliance Intel will have it, and they don’t love you at all these days.”
“Well, if I weren’t a Sith Lord fresh out of the box, I’d be borked.”
“Don’t joke. Never joke about this.”
“I could say quite legitimately that I was visiting Tenel Ka as Chief of State because of the continuing embarrassment about my parents.”
“And what about your wretched physical state?”
“Ah. I’m hastening the healing trance as much as I can.”
“What about Mara’s body?”
“I left it where it was.”
“She didn’t become discorporeal? She left her remains?”
“I think so. Does that surprise you?”