[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(44)

She had thought that about Palpatine, too. She was spending too much time looking back, and not enough getting on with the here and now. The past couldn’t be changed, just the future.

“What if he tells you,” said Leia, “and it’s a reason I won’t enjoy hearing?”

“Your call.” How much worse has it got to get before you accept he’s treating you worse than dirt? Mara tried to imagine how she’d feel if Ben issued a warrant for her arrest or left her on a space station venting atmosphere. It would devastate her—but she’d take him back in a heartbeat. No, there was no advice she could give Leia about her wayward son. “But I want to know anyway, seeing as Luke and I were there to help him, too, and wasted our time.”

“All I can say is do whatever you feel you must to get Lumiya. Then we’ll see about bringing Jacen back into the fold.”

“If I find Alema, I’ll save her for you.”

“I’d like that.”

“Thought you might.”

“You take care, Mara.”

Leia’s link went dead. Mara had to assume she and Han were on Corellia, and that meant Alema couldn’t get at her so easily.

Take care. Oh, I will. I’ve got one advantage you haven’t, Leia, and that’s darkness. I’ve been that dark. I was trained by a Sith Lord. I can think like them.

At least Leia hadn’t made any cracks about Luke not taking the opportunity to finish off Lumiya. Sometimes, when she considered her sister-in-law, Mara regretted her own temper and wished she could learn a little of that steely diplomacy.

Mara turned the XJ7 and checked Ben’s transponder again. Still on Coruscant. That didn’t guarantee his safety, but at least she could pinpoint him. She zoomed her screen in on the trace, and the coordinates resolved into a grid, and then into neighborhoods and skylanes. Ben was at GAG HQ. She could locate him accurately to within three meters.

He liked the vibroblade she’d given him. She felt bad not telling him it housed a long-range passive transponder, and that it had saved her more than once because she’d used it as a homing beacon, but that was just detail. It was a superb weapon, so it wasn’t a lie.

The tagged vibroblade ensured she knew exactly where Ben was at all times now.

He’d never spot it. The GAG thought they had all the best kit, but she had a few devices that could get past them, using older technology, frequencies, and relays they’d never spot. A surveillance system using the most sophisticated technology wasn’t looking for devices almost as basic as a code flashed with a piece of broken mirror. Tech could be blind. If they scanned Ben, they’d only find his comlink code, not the signal hiding within it, because they didn’t have the active end of the transponder link. She did.

She had one more transponder left, and she was saving that for a rainy day.

Sorry, sweetheart. Had to do it.

She turned her attention back to Lumiya. Now Lumiya was showing up at confrontations with the Confederation. Perhaps everyone was looking in the wrong direction, and Lumiya was working for Corellia.

The last time she’d seen her on the resort satellite, Ben wasn’t even around—but Jacen was. Who was Lumiya going after, Ben or Jacen? If Lumiya’s presence was making Jacen forget what being a Jedi was all about, then maybe Mara needed to keep tabs on Jacen, too.

That was easier said than done. She needed to try a more direct approach there, maybe talk to him for once. Nobody else had managed to. It was hard to get Jacen to listen, and even harder to get hold of him these days. He took the secret in secret police literally.

Then something vanished from the Force.

Ben—

It was like a shape flashing past her peripheral vision, and a familiar background noise stopping abruptly, leaving a dead, soundless ringing in the ears.

Ben’s gone—

Ben had disappeared from the Force.

Mara’s hand was on the controls to jump to hyperspace and head back to Coruscant at top speed when the sense of her son flooded back as if the sound had been turned on again. Her stomach rolled.

Maybe it’s me.

He’d done it before as a little boy, scared by the last war, the one against the Yuuzhan Vong. It was uncontrolled and instinctive. But what Mara had just experienced felt like something more deliberate. When she concentrated on him, he felt fine—no, more than fine. He felt elated.

It still bothered her. She set a course for home and before she jumped, she felt him vanish and return again.

He seemed … delighted. She could feel the profound wonder in him. So he was doing it deliberately. No son of hers was going to pull that stunt on her: she’d had enough of Jacen doing it without Ben learning to hide in the Force as well. She’d go back and check on him, but pick her time to confront him about his new skill.