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It didn't take Luke and Ben long to complete a preflight check; the Jade Shadow's self-diagnostics circuitry and software were first-rate, as were the Skywalkers' technical skills. The engines had lost only a little stored power in the many months the yacht had sat unused. The various compartments within the yacht were a little dusty but otherwise clean. Mara's personal craft, her Z95 Headhunter, an old but reliable predecessor to the X-wing, rested in its tiny launch bay; though it was smaller and slower than its more famous descendant, Mara's Z95, like her yacht, it had been modified and optimized to within a centimeter of its life, and was a far more dangerous starfighter than others of its make and age.

While the preflight check was under way, a delivery speeder arrived. Its crew off-loaded two large crates full of supplies—fresh and preserved foods, water and bottled beverages, replacement battery packs and glow rods. Ben signed for the goods and set about loading them into the Shadow's storage lockers.

And then it was all done. They had no more reason, no additional excuse to wait. It was time to leave Coruscant.

Solemnly, Luke strapped into the pilot's seat, Ben into the co-pilot's. After a brief comm exchange with the spaceport's flight-control center, Luke eased the yacht out of its berth. Many meters from the hangar, out over open permacrete, he raised it on repulsors, then aimed it toward the stars and punched the thrusters.

The yacht's inertial compensators kept the acceleration from being a crushing experience, but Luke raced upward fast enough to press the two of them far back into their cushioned seats. Behind, in the rear-facing holocam view, the light glaring from Mara's hangar clicked off and its doors slowly rolled shut.

Moments later, they were up past the cloud layer and bound for the stars.

THINGS HAPPENED QUICKLY AFTER LUKE'S DEPARTURE.

Valin was released from Mon Mothma Memorial Medical Center and returned to Jedi custody. Cilghal installed him in her own medical facility again, in a more secure chamber, and let him recover from sedation; though not anxious to face the escape attempts she had every reason to believe would come, she knew that endless sedation would have a damaging effect on Valin's health.

The bounty hunters were mentioned in newscasts, not as bounty hunters, but as a special-missions force answering to the Office of the Chief of State, officially part of her security detail. Their names were not mentioned. Jaina, who had inherited Ben's task of assembling data on them, noted those details and copied that broadcast for her own reference.

The morning after Luke's departure, Master Hamner called a meeting of the Jedi Masters. He also invited several Jedi who were not Masters but who were influential in the Order, including Leia and Jaina. They met in the Masters' Chamber, sitting among the circle of chairs once used by the old Jedi Council. Additional seating had been brought in for the assembly—there were, in the face of the Unification Summit and Luke's farewell, more Masters on Coruscant than could be routinely accommodated.

Master Hamner began without preamble. “It seems clear that some of our recent trouble, the public reaction that gave the government so much of its leverage in its action against the Grand Master, arises because of the general public's state of ignorance concerning the Jedi Order.”

There was some nodding among the Masters at this statement.

“It is my intent to demystify the Jedi Order to the public as much as is reasonable—without impairing our effectiveness.

“I'd like for one Master to volunteer to be the subject of documentary coverage. That Master and his or her apprentice will be accompanied on an assignment or two by a documentary crew. The story they produce will be broadcast with, I hope, the result of making the Jedi more sympathetic in the public eye. Volunteers?”

No hand raised. Saba Sebatyne said, “Thiz one is perhapz too ferocious for