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Then both of their images blew apart into a million razor-edged fragments that burned through me.

“Just as well,” I heard my father say, “any child of that union would have been as disappointing as you have been.”

That simple remark detonated like a bomb inside me. I had forever hoped that I would win my father’s approval, that he would like me for who and what I was. He was never stinting with his praise, but with his death I had been left trying to guess what he would have thought about this action or that. Even my decision to become a Jedi had been made to win his approval and to model myself on him.

Yet in his voice, I heard that I had failed. The sum and total of my life, the sum and total of the lives of any children I helped create, and whatever they would create; all of it would be worthless in his eyes. One of the anchor points for my life crumbled, eroding in uncertainty, cutting me adrift without a chance of recovering myself.

I was lost.

I was hopeless.

I was the ultimate failure.

I could take no more.

“Is that the best you’ve got?” The tone of the voice had enough edge to etch transparisteel and would have flensed me alive, but I knew it wasn’t directed at me. Through tear-clouded eyes I looked up and saw Mara Jade sauntering into the temple. “Babies crying and ghosts whispering lies from beyond the grave? The Dark Lord of the Sith I knew would have been ashamed to use such tactics.”

“What?” Exar Kun’s voice roared, as if in volume and intensity it could batter her down. “Who dares?”

“Who cares, more correctly.” She pointed at me. “Horn here has been worked over by the Empire’s best and never broke. Isard would have had you digitized, analyzed and discarded without a second thought, and she wasn’t even Force-sensitive. Darth Vader would have found you amusingly quaint, and the Emperor … well …” Mara Jade’s eyes flashed mercilessly. “The Emperor succeeded in destroying the Jedi, so he’d see you as the very definition of failure!”

“Yes, but your vaunted Emperor is dead!”

I found my voice again. “Something the two of you have in common, then.” I shoved myself up and balanced awkwardly on my good leg. “And something else: he didn’t know when he’d lost, either. It’s over!”

Kun regarded me anew and I felt his consciousness stab into my brain. It withdrew quickly, as if it had been stung by the thought I had nestled there. Kun laughed aloud. “A trap? You and your companions seek to trap me?”

Kun doubled his image’s volume and smiled most cruelly at us. “You think your petty plans will work against me? You thought your coming here would defeat me? Never.” He looked away toward the Great Temple, then back down at us. “This may have been a brave attempt on your part, but your friends have made a grave error. Their defense of Skywalker is only as strong as the weakest person defending him, and they have left him vulnerable again.”

Mara looked at me, clearly alarmed. “What’s he talking about?”

“Luke’s hurt.” I winced as pain shot through my belly. “Streen is guarding him.”

Exar Kun laughed again. “Yes, Streen. My Streen.” The Dark Lord’s image began to shrink back into the obsidian of his temple. “I will finish him, then come again for you. Tremble in fear. Cower in anticipation.”

His presence faded from the Temple and I tried to straighten up. I managed a half-staggered step, then went down on one knee. I guess I fell further or faster than I expected because I next found Mara kneeling next to me. “C’mon, Horn, wake up. What’s this about Streen?”

I managed a weak smile. “Bait. Kun’s heading into a trap. A big trap.”

She weighed my words. “Any chance he can get out of it?”

“Shouldn’t be able to. It really is over for him.” I coughed once and felt pain in my chest. “Gonna have to help me out of here, because I can’t make it on my own.”

“I think I can handle that.” She reached down, helped haul me to my feet, then dipped a shoulder and lifted me in a rescue-carry. “Always glad to help a friend.”

The sun had set by the time we got back to my Headhunter