Bloodlines

  Jaina could become her mother in an instant. She had that same look of sad patience. “Dad, I’m thirty-one, I make my own decisions, and you forget what I am sometimes.”

  “I never forget you’re a Jedi. But that doesn’t mean you should get dragged into the Alliance’s wars against Corellia—”

  “Dad,” said Jaina softly. “I meant that I’m a fighter pilot. That’s what you forget. I volunteered for active duty because this is my job.”

  R2-D2 trundled across to the Falcon and disappeared under her belly. Han heard a series of disapproving whistles and the occasional clank of metal as the droid examined her. Jaina stood her ground in front of her father, still sad-eyed, still looking as if she was searching his face for comprehension.

  “You can’t seriously believe that the Alliance is right, sweetheart,” said Han.

  “Dad, maybe I do and maybe I don’t, but that’s not the issue. I’m in uniform and that means I front up and earn it regardless of my personal views. That’s what service is about.”

  Han took it as a rebuke. It wasn’t, of course; but he knew deep down that he tended to emotion in wartime rather than cool professionalism. Yes, Jaina was a fighter pilot. He owed her the respect due to a professional warrior.

  But it still broke his heart that his little girl—and she would always be that, even when she was gray-haired herself—would be risking her life for a regime that seemed to want to re-create the bad old days of galactic totalitarianism. What had his own life been for if not to create a better world for his kids?

  Don’t do it, Jaina.

  “I’d better get back to base,” she said. Leia stood up and Jaina gave her a hurried kiss on the cheek. Han didn’t give Jaina the chance to duck his, but Jacen hovered on the edge of the group, seeming to want to make peace with her and getting no reaction. “Wouldn’t do for me to be advertising that the Solos are back. Watch your six, okay?”

  “Take care of yourself, Jaina,” said Jacen.

  “And you.” Well, she managed that much, thought Han. Jaina turned and took a couple of strides before glancing back at Jacen. “You don’t feel right to me lately, Jacen. Are you in trouble?”

  Jacen smiled as if he was getting her to thaw a little and was relieved. “Just busy, that’s all.”

  Han watched Jaina go and tried not to meet Leia’s eyes. What was all that about? R2 rolled back out from under the Falcon, and his readout began scrolling a long list of mechanical problems that had to be fixed and that would take a long, long time. Han stopped him in midbeep with an upheld hand.

  “I know. Don’t go on about it.”

  R2 whistled.

  “I bet you can. You can fix anything. But don’t rush, because it’s time we got something less attention grabbing.”

  “At least come back with me while you sort out alternative transport,” said Jacen.

  “Good idea,” said Leia. “And we can say hi to Ben, too. We’ve missed him.”

  That wasn’t Leia playing the dutiful aunt. That was Leia checking up. Jacen said nothing, but Leia gave him a quick glance that Han spotted and didn’t understand.

  R2 beeped a cheery good-bye and trundled up the Falcon’s ramp. Han followed Leia, wiping coolant-stained hands on his pants, and couldn’t get Jaina’s comment out of his mind.

  Are you in trouble?

  Yeah, what was all that about?

  JACEN SOLO’S APARTMENT, ROTUNDA ZONE, CORUSCANT.

  Luke knew Ben would come back here sooner or later. He paced around the lobby of the apartment building, pausing occasionally to stare through the transparisteel doors. Something had happened to Ben, although all of Luke’s Force-senses told him his son was alive and unharmed. But he wouldn’t answer his link.

  And Jacen had disappeared from the Force. Luke picked up echoes of him sporadically and then lost him again. He looked at Mara, wondering if she was able to detect their nephew any better than he could.

  “Nothing,” she said, and shook her head, apparently knowing exactly what was on his mind. It wasn’t that difficult: he’d agonized about little else today. “Look, it’s chaos out there. Ben’s smart enough to avoid trouble. Let’s take it easy.”

  Take it easy. What had he come to when Mara was the one urging him to calm down? He wondered how much of his own anxiety was caused by having nothing concrete to do yet in the coming war.

  War. He’d thought it again. Somewhere along the line in the last few days it had changed from a threat to a certainty. Luke tried to separate it in his mind from the Force dreams of the man in the hooded cloak that still plagued him. He turned back to the turbolift and watched the cascade of lights on the floor indicator panel for a while until he heard Mara say, “Now, let’s not be hasty, honey, okay—ah! Oh, no …”

  Luke spun around to see Ben. The boy’s eyes were swollen and streaming, and he wiped his nose as if he’d been sobbing his heart out. Mara stood frozen for a second and then went to wrap him in her arms. While he didn’t push her away, he certainly didn’t yield.

  “What happened, sweetheart? Tell me what’s wrong.”

  Ben coughed hard. “I got a whiff of riot gas.”

  “Oh, no.” Mara put her fingertips under his chin and turned his face to one side to examine him. “You look like you’ve been burned. Can you breathe okay?”

  “It’s wearing off, Mom.” He submitted to a hug. “I was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

  “Let’s get you to the medcenter for a checkup,” said Luke quietly.

  “I said I’m fine, Dad. It wears off.” Ben sounded annoyed. “Aren’t you doing something about the water situation?”

  Mara intervened. “The city authorities are looking after that.”

  “Is it the Corellians? Is it terrorism? They said so on HNE and everyone believes that.”

  “Why don’t we go up to the apartment and get you cleaned up?” Mara steered Ben toward the turbolift. “Where’s Jacen?”

  Ben stopped at the lift doors. “I don’t know. I was coming back from Fleet ComCen. Look, this is Jacen’s apartment. I ought to ask him if it’s okay to just go in.”

  “It’s your home, too,” said Luke carefully. So Jacen really did control Ben now. This was a boy who didn’t even obey his mother when his life was at risk. It scared Luke, and then he found himself tearing his heart apart to be sure that he was genuinely afraid of Jacen’s influence, tinged with darkness, or if he was just hurt that his nephew had more of a paternal relationship with his kid than he did. “Come on.”

  Ben usually sighed and showed dissent. But now he just nodded, resigned, as if he’d suddenly grown a lot older in a matter of days.

  They rode the turbolift in an uncomfortable silence punctuated only by Ben’s sniffs and coughs. His robe was dirty, as if he’d been rolling on the ground. When they got to the apartment, his first reaction was to head for the refresher. He stopped a few paces back from the doors and turned on his heel.

  “Bottled water in the conservator,” he said.

  The water supply to most of the center of the city was still cut off. Luke turned on the taps in the kitchen to drain off any water still standing in the pipes and header tanks. There was no point taking any chances.

  “I can feel that you’re angry, Dad,” said Ben hoarsely. He slopped a bottle of water into a bowl and soaked a washcloth to wipe his face. He flinched when the cloth touched his skin, but he didn’t make a sound. “But it’s not Jacen’s fault. It’s mine. I decided not to go with him when he had his meeting.” He seemed about to expand on that but checked himself visibly. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

  “It’s okay.” Mara caught Luke’s eye as Ben covered his face with the washcloth for a moment. Her expression said it all: Is this the rebellious son we know? “Let me get you something to drink. You sound awful.”

  They ended up in the living room, the three of them sitting as far apart from one another as the room would allow. Ben sipped a glass of juice and occasionally broke into a hacking, uncont
rollable cough that left him wheezing with tears streaming down his face. His sobriety stunned Luke.

  Maybe Mara was right. Perhaps Luke was too mired in his own anxieties about where he had lost Ben along the way that he was mistaking Jacen’s motives. Apart from his terrible dreams and the darkness that trailed Jacen, he had nothing concrete to lay against his nephew, only evidence that Ben was settling down far better in his care than he ever had at home.

  But they could sit in silence for a while. They didn’t have to talk. Almost out of habit, Luke let himself drift to pick up impressions from the apartment and felt nothing beyond a sense of unease, as if Jacen was having problems.

  A man having a difficult love affair. Maybe that’s all it is.

  But something told him that wasn’t true. What he did begin to feel, though, was his sister, somewhere near—and Jacen.

  The doors opened and Jacen walked in with Han and Leia. It should have been a family reunion of sorts, and a relieved one at that, but the expression on Han’s face said otherwise. Luke decided to take the lead.

  “It’s okay, Jacen,” he said. “We made Ben let us in. He got caught up in the rioting. Dispersal gas.”

  “I’m fine,” Ben sighed. “It’s wearing off.”

  “Well, we’ve all had a little drama in our day, then.” Jacen ushered Leia and Han into the room. He radiated only concern and sympathy, nothing dark at all. “Mom and Dad nearly crash-landed, and Dad was nearly assassinated.”

  Mara got up to plump cushions around Leia. “Sounds like a regular day in this family …”

  “We’ll be heading back home as soon as we can find a replacement ship.” Han barely made eye contact with Luke. “The Falcon’s not so hot right now. Artoo’s carrying out repairs.”

  “Why didn’t you let me know?”

  Han shrugged. “We were kind of busy, trying not to plummet in flames. If Jacen hadn’t projected the Force through Leia, you’d have needed a shovel to pick us up at the spaceport.”

  Luke tasted a chance to broker some peace, at least within his own family. It didn’t bode well for the galaxy if he couldn’t persuade even his own family to stick together. “Corellia doesn’t have to be home, Han. Come back. You’re safer here anyway.”

  “Yeah, but there’s the small matter of my being Corellian, which isn’t fashionable right now, and your buddies attacking my homeworld because it won’t roll over and be the Alliance’s stooge while it plays at being the Empire again.”

  We should both know better. “Han, how long have we known each other?”

  “Long enough for you to know that the way the Alliance is behaving should give you that proverbial bad feeling. The kind I get.”

  “Han …,” Leia said. It was a quiet warning. “Knock it off.”

  “No, let him have his say.” Luke was suddenly conscious of Ben watching him, and this wasn’t the way he wanted his son to see him—starting a verbal brawl with his best friend when all everyone needed right then was to be glad they were still alive. “I happen to think you’re playing Thrackan Sal-Solo’s game with this Corellian knee-jerk response to any suggestion of being team players.”

  “Whoa there, kid—whose team? Yours?”

  “You can take this independence thing too far.”

  “Yeah, and you were quick enough to use my sense of rugged individuality when it suited you in the past, pal. But I can’t pick it up and put it down that easy. It’s who I am.”

  “Let’s not argue over this,” said Luke.

  “We just did.” Han shook his head. He stood staring at Luke for a few moments, looking more bewildered than angry. “They use you every time. Show me a government that hasn’t used Jedi to legitimize its actions. You’re like some galactic rubber stamp. Why are you backing Omas? You of all people. Does the name Palpatine ring a bell?”

  “That was different. He was Sith.”

  “And Omas is a jerk, or at least a puppet for a whole mess of other jerks. Well, count me out. You’ve got my kids working for you, and that’ll have to be enough.”

  “Oh, boy,” said Mara. But Luke could sense her embarrassment and fear. “I love to see the grown-ups in action. Jacen? Let’s make some caf for Leia while these two spray testosterone around the room. Come on, Ben. You, too.”

  “Yeah, I’ve had enough of this, as well,” said Leia. She got up and stood between the two men, all weary annoyance. “Cut it out, Han. And you, Luke. We’ve got enough problems without having a civil war inside this family.”

  Luke felt an uneasy dragging sensation in his gut that he hadn’t experienced for many, many years. It was self-doubt. Maybe Han had a point. Jedi had fallen into expedience before, and it had brought them down. The Force had ways of ringing that alarm bell. And Han was right: this was who he was—stubbornly independent, the one heading the opposite way when the crowds were streaming past him in the other direction, not because it paid him best—however polished his veneer of smart-mouthed, callous fortune hunter—but because he thought it was right.

  And he would die rather than concede that independence. Han was Corellian. No, he was Corellia. Luke avoided generalizations, but Corellians were all like that, including those living here. It didn’t fill him with confidence.

  He sighed and held out his hand, genuinely wishing he hadn’t said a word.

  Han didn’t take it. “I’m going to go see a man about a ship,” he said, and stalked out.

  Jacen walked up behind Luke and patted his shoulder. “I’m sorry, Uncle Luke. If I’d known you were here, I’d have called ahead to say they were coming. Dad’s pretty strung out right now, and it’s not just the politics. It’s Jaina and Thrackan and now the Falcon.”

  It crossed Luke’s mind that Jacen should have been able to detect his and Mara’s presence in the Force, but it was an unkind thought. Perhaps part of shutting down his own presence was becoming insensitive to others. Luke realized Jacen’s Force skills seemed to be getting stronger and more subtle every day, and he felt uneasy.

  “What did Han mean about projecting the Force?”

  Jacen shrugged, once again the thoughtful man who felt compassion for every living thing. “Mom was trying to hold the Falcon’s hull together so—I suppose I added my Force-strength to it through her. Almost like we did against the Killiks to deflect their weapons.”

  “Almost,” said Luke. No, they hadn’t quite done that: channeling the Force was a new one to him. “You’ve developed some impressive skills lately.”

  Jacen was the only other Jedi Luke knew who could defeat Lomi Plo’s illusion of invisibility. The trick was to have no doubts that could be turned against you as a diversion.

  I have a lot of doubts. I think I have more doubts than certainties right now.

  But as Jacen turned away from him, Luke caught a very faint touch of something familiar in his mind, almost like a trace of a familiar perfume. It was an echo; it felt ancient. Luke almost opened his mouth to inhale it.

  Then he realized what it was. He knew who it was.

  For a moment he thought it was emanating from Jacen, and then he realized it was purely coincidence. The revelation hit him like a body blow. He understood his Force dream perfectly now.

  I know who the hooded man is. I know now, and it’s not a man at all.

  Luke sensed the barely perceptible trace in the Force of a woman who had once loved him, the Dark Jedi called Shira Brie who had degenerated into Lumiya, a Sith who was more cyborg than human. A woman who hated him, too, but whom he thought had vanished forever.

  She was back.

  She’s here. I know she’s here.

  Lumiya … is here.

  Luke tasted the presence of a dangerous, bitter enemy, and knew he had to find her before she harmed him and his family. It was just like her to take advantage of the unrest in the galaxy to cover her movements.

  Jacen stared into Luke’s face. “What’s wrong, Uncle?”

  Shall I warn Jacen that Lumiya has come back? Will he listen to me?
/>
  “It’s nothing,” said Luke. “Just unhappy memories.”

  chapter eight

  Corellian militants have claimed responsibility for contaminating water supplies to parts of Galactic City with Fex-M3. The attack, which left four hunded fifty-six dead and more than five thousand with nerve damage, sparked yesterday’s riots outside the Corellian embassy. CSF has doubled its police presence in Galactic City in a bid to prevent escalation of unrest. Galactic City authorities have declared a full terror alert and are asking the public to remain vigilant, but Admiral Cha Niathal has called for tough action to crack down on potential terrorists.

  —HNE morning bulletin

  OFFICES OF CHIEF OF STATE OMAS, SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT.

  The HNE holocam hovered patiently as Chief Omas gave an earnest interview about the safety of Galactic City’s water supply. Jacen stood back and watched from the sofa in the corner of the vast office.

  Omas had a Naboo crystal jug on his desk and made a point—with subtle ease—of pouring a glass and sipping it occasionally while talking. There was nothing like a politician’s personal display of confidence in the potability of Coruscant water. He even offered a glass to the reporter, whose expression told Jacen that he knew he was being subjected to a little spin. The man drank anyway. He and Omas looked as if they were playing a child’s game of dare.

  “Extra security measures are now in place at all water company stations,” said Omas, cradling his glass. Jacen had learned—fast—that meshing your hands on the desk gave the most reassuring image, so the trick with the glass of water would be far from invisible to HNE viewers. “I’m confident there won’t be a repeat of the sabotage earlier this week.”

  “Do you believe we’re facing a genuine terrorist threat, or is this a random act?” said the reporter.

  “It’s a genuine threat, and it appears to be escalating.” Omas didn’t hesitate. “Even if we’re not dealing with an identifiable formal terrorist organization.”

  “If you’ve identified that level of threat, then, do you feel you’re doing enough to protect Coruscant citizens?”