Star Wars_ Legacy of the Force 01_ Betrayal - Aaron Allston [40]
Luke didn’t feel the need to do so. His pilots were all Jedi, all calm in the face of the storm to come, in the face of possible death.
One X-wing over, Mara, similarly garbed, made some final ratcheting motions with her hydrospanner, finishing adjustments to her laser cannon positioning, and slapped closed an access panel on her craft’s S-foil underside. She dropped the hydrospanner in a toolbox and moved over to join her husband. “Any word about Ben?”
Luke shook his head.
“You’re very quiet.” Mara leaned over to stroke his forehead. “Is everything all right?”
“I meditated earlier,” he said. “And I had a vision of Ben talking to the man who doesn’t exist.”
“Not a dream,” Mara said. “A vision.”
He nodded.
“Could you tell when?”
“The future. Ben was a little older, a little taller.”
“At least,” she said, “that argues well for what he’s up to today.”
Finally, he smiled. “Thanks for not killing me.”
“When we met?”
“When I told you that I left it to Jacen to decide whether Ben would go on this mission.”
“Oh.” She didn’t return his smile. “I might have been tempted…if I had any sense of what the right answer was. I’ve fouled up in the past, clinging too tightly to him, trying to protect him. What’s the right amount?”
Luke shrugged. “You’re asking a Jedi Master. Not a Parenting Master.”
“Is there one, somewhere?” Finally, she did smile. “I’ve spent more than thirteen years worrying about him. Which has given me great wisdom about why the Jedi of old didn’t allow marriages within the order, discouraged attachments, that sort of thing. If they hadn’t, it wouldn’t have been Sith or alien empires or natural disasters that killed the Jedi. It would have been worrying about their kids.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Master Skywalker?” The voice, female, emerged from the vicinity of Luke’s chest.
He reached under his robe and pulled out a comlink. “Skywalker here.”
“Bridge here. Team Purella reports onstation.”
“Thank you.” He put the comlink away. “Jaina’s ready. And that’s one more check on the checklist to start this operation.”
Mara looked over to the hangar’s far wall, where chrono displays showed the time at local hours for CORUSCANT GOVERNMENT CENTER, CORELLIAN CITY OF CORONET, CENTERPOINT STATION DAYCYCLE, and elsewhere. “We should be getting a bunch more notices like that, if everything goes to plan.”
The others in the hangar knew it, too. Activity was increasing. Mechanics withdrew from the starfighters. Several pilots were already clambering into their cockpits.
Luke glanced around the pilots of his squadron. Some were talking with one another. Three were stretched out in the shadows of their X-wings, sleeping, wrapped up in Jedi robes they’d be stowing before takeoff. Two sat cross-legged, meditating. He nodded in approval at this calmness in the eye of the storm.
“Master Skywalker? Team Mynock reports in position.”
Luke almost sagged with relief. The lack of any sort of “complications” notification meant that Ben, Jacen, and Dr. Seyah were aboard Centerpoint Station and standing by.
He reached for his comlink to offer thanks to his bridge contact, but she spoke up again. “Team Tauntaun reports in position. Team Slashrat reports no new activity in target zone. Team—wait a moment—”
Then over the hangar’s speakers came a different voice, male, that of Dodonna’s flight control officer. “All pilots to their craft. Group enters hyperspace in five minutes. All pilots to their craft.”
All around Luke and Mara, Jedi pilots rose to their feet.
Mara leaned in for a final kiss before