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My father’s saying—“If you cannot recognize the man in the mirror, it is time to step back and see when you stopped being yourself.”—should have been my guide all the way along. In joining Luke I wasn’t being myself, I was trying to become my grandfather. And the dream made it abundantly clear that to do that was a disaster. Corran Horn was not a Jedi.

What Corran Horn was was an investigator, trained by CorSec, to deal with all manner of problems just like the Invids. If they’d been a pirate band working the Corellian sector, I’d have infiltrated them, ferreted out their secrets, and busted them up. I’d done that very thing dozens of times in my career. Granted, no organization I faced had been that big, powerful or elusive, but size works against efficiency with criminal organizations, and power allows for greed to be played off against greed, creating discord.

I’d spent ten weeks wasting my time when I could have been out there going after Mirax’s kidnappers the best way I knew how. That sort of investigation certainly would take time—months at the very least, but at least I’d be doing something that would get me closer to Mirax. The Jedi stuff I had learned was fine for saving the galaxy, but I only wanted to save one person, and save her I could.

I turned back toward the mirror and nodded to the man I saw there. “Good to see you again, Corran Horn. It’s time this Invid business is ended once and for all.”

THIRTY-ONE

The flight attendant on the shuttle smiled at me and leaned down so her lowered voice would not carry very far. It really didn’t matter, since my seatmate and I were the only people who had boarded and were in the Premier cabin on the shuttle. “Forgive me for being so forward, sir, but your pass has an ultraviolet flag on it, and on Tinta Lines, we like to afford such honored customers some privileges. The captain isn’t yet on board, but he was wondering if you would care to join him in the cockpit for the release and transit over to the Tinta Rainbow?”

I smiled, and would have refused, but Jenos Idanian, who I had become for my trip away from Corellia, never would have. “I would be delighted to join him.”

A tone sounded from the back. The flight attendant, rather resplendent in her blue and gold Tinta Lines uniform, glanced back into the main passenger cabin. There a Kuati woman was doing her best to stuff a huge carryall into a starboard, over-seat storage compartment and close the door. The flight attendant sighed. “You, of course, know your way around a Luxury-class shuttle, so you can head forward whenever you want.”

“Thanks.”

My seatmate, a young man whose more prominent features were a big larynx and bigger nose, beamed at me. “Do you really know your way around on one of these ships? I’ve studied them at tech-school and know they have the Astronav P127 Course Plotter, but of course, we’re not going to use it since we’re just going on an in-system jump, but it’s a beauty and can come up with courses very fast, even multiple jumps, and when I’ve used the one at school I could plot a tough course in seconds.”

I held a hand up. “Slow down, breathe.”

“Sorry.” He smiled sheepishly at me. “It’s just that forever and ever and ever I’ve wanted to fly. Ever since I’ve been a little kid, I mean, really little, I’ve heard stories about the Rebellion—well, the New Republic now—and Rogue Squadron and all them and I’ve wanted to fly just like them. And when Grand Admiral Thrawn showed up I volunteered for service to fight him, but I didn’t test out very good, so I went to tech-school to learn how to fix ships and then they found I could do good navigation, so they trained me for that, but then Thrawn was gone and forces got demobilized and so I was looking for a civilian job with the Tinta line.…”

“Really, look, just breathe.” I offered him my hand because Jenos would do that sort of thing. “Jenos Idanian.”

“Keevy Spart.” He wiped sweat from his forehead with a long-fingered hand. Freckles