And Benhe knew Ben well enough to realize that he would never rest until his beloved mother’s killer was caught, and that she would always be that perfect icon of beauty and courage to him.
Ben’s love’s immortal now. It’ll last as long as he lives, unchanging, like his vision of Mara. Andlike the hatred and vengeance he’ll feel for me when he learns what I did. That’ll live forever, too.
Jacen got up and looked at his reflection in the mirror on the bulkhead again. He’d studied it as if looking for changing symptoms, hour by hour, to see if his Sith status were manifesting itself in his flesh. He didn’t look any different.
But he kept seeing Ben’s face as he walked up to the boy in that tunnel and found him keeping vigil over his dead mother. His eyes … they knew something was waiting to be revealed, something that would rip him apart.
Mara made Ben start wondering why she didn’t become one with the Force. Sooner or later, he’ll find out. You played your part in my destiny, Mara.
And when Ben finally found out that it was Jacen who’d killed her, he’d hate him more than he could even begin to imagine. Jacen had injected a slow poison into Ben’s love for him, as surely as he’d poisoned his mother, and seeded a terrible and wonderful hatred. A Sith needed that magnificent well of loathing to achieve greatness. Ben would eventually become greater than his Jedi father could ever be.
In the meantime, Jacen’s war continued, now on the wider political stage as well as in the GAG.
He picked up the black GAG helmet that he rarely wore, rotated it between his fingers, and felt an odd queasiness in his gut as he put it on. It was standard GAG trooper issue, flared jaw section with a dispersal-gas-proof filter, the visor a single shallow V-band of toughened duraplast, just a basic tool of the job. It wasn’t much different from the functional helmet troops had worn for decades.
But I don’t need this, do I?
He stood in front of the polished durasteel bulkhead. The black outline in front of him was smeared and hazy, a mere impressionist suggestion of what he was. He could hardly look. He was everything his enemies said he was. He was embarrassed; yes, the embarrassment overshadowed any guilt.
He had killed, and killed again, and killed Mara Jade Skywalker, who was both family and friend. Friends … now he had none left except Tenel Ka and Allana, and they would come to hate him when the truth was known.
I’ve sunk as low as I can, in the eyes of ordinary people.
But now the only direction is … up.
Jacen thought of a brief conversation with one of the GAG troops, a former police officer from the Coruscant Security Force. Most murders, the officer had said, were committed by family and close friends. The random killing of strangers was relatively rare, even in the seediest quarters of the violent, lawless lower levels.
I’m not so unusual, then.
Jacen took a breath and stepped two strides sideways. He was now looking into the mirror set into the bulkhead of his day cabin again; crystal clear, sharp, merciless. He gazed at an image of all-encompassing black. He knew what people said behind his back: that he was trying to emulate Vader.
So? I’m proud of my grandfather, but not blind to the weaknesses that brought him down.
But that was wounded pride speaking. I have to be beyond that now. He had to be beyond fear of small consciences and even beyond the hatred that would make Ben Skywalker a strong, worthy, and terrifying successor to the title of Dark Lord.
But that would be years in the future. Now was the time for a man who’d once been Jacen Solo to shoulder that responsibility for the galaxy’s sake.
Jacen took off the helmet, looked into his own eyes, and didn’t flinch.
“Caedus,” he said. “My name is Darth Caedus.”