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When it was clear, he could look upon the intruder—she was small enough that the chair had concealed all but the tip of her glowing weapon.

On the other side of the desk stood his mother, Leia Organa Solo. But she did not carry her own lightsaber. Jacen recognized it by its hilt, its color. It was the lightsaber Mara Jade Skywalker had carried for so many years. Luke Skywalker’s first lightsaber. Anakin Skywalker’s last lightsaber.

Leia wore brown Jedi robes, and her hair was down, loose. She held her lightsaber in a two-handed grip, point up and hilt back, ready to strike.

“Hello, Mother.” This seemed like an appropriate time for the more formal term, rather than Mom. “Have you come to kill me?”

She nodded. “I have.”

“Before you attack—how did you get aboard? And how did you get into this office?”

She shook her head, her expression sorrowful. “Do you think ordinary defenses can mean anything at a time like this?”

“Perhaps not.” He shrugged. “I know you’re an experienced Jedi, Mother, but you’re not a match for any Jedi Knight who’s been fighting and training constantly throughout his career…because you haven’t.”

“And yet I’m going to kill you.”

“I don’t think so. I’m prepared for any tactic, any ploy you’re likely to use.”

Now she did smile. It was the smile he’d seen her turn on political enemies when they’d made the final mistakes of their careers, the feral smile of a war-dog toying with its prey. “Likely to use. Don’t you know that the whole book of tactics changes when the attacker has chosen not to survive the fight?”

Her face twisted into a mask of anger and betrayal. She released her grip on the lightsaber hilt with her left hand and reached out, pushing. Jacen felt the sudden buildup of Force energy within her.

He twisted to one side. Her exertion in the Force would miss him—

And then he realized, too late, that it was supposed to.

The Force energy hurtled past him and hit the viewport dead center, buckling it, smashing it out into the void of space.

Jacen leapt away. If he could catch the rim of the doorway into the office, hold on there for the second or two it took for the blast shutters to close, he would not be drawn out through the viewport—

But Leia’s own leap intercepted his. She slammed into him, her arms wrapping around him, her lightsaber falling away. Together they flew through the viewport.

Jacen felt coldness cut through his skin and deaden it. He felt air rush out from his lungs, a death rattle no one could hear. He felt pain in his head, behind his brow ridge, from his eyes, as they swelled and prepared to burst.

And all the while Leia’s mouth was working as though she were still speaking. For one improbable moment he wondered if she would talk forever, rebuking her son as they twirled, dead, throughout eternity.

Then, as in those last seconds he knew he must, he awoke, once again seated in his comfortable chair, once again staring at the stars.

A dream. Or a sending? He spoke aloud: “Was that you?” And he waited, half expecting Lumiya to answer, but no response came.

He turned his chair around and found his office to be reassuringly empty. With a desktop control, he closed the blast shutters over his viewport.

Finally, he consulted his chrono.

Fifteen standard minutes had passed since the last time he’d checked it. He’d had at most ten minutes of sleep.

He put his booted feet up on the desktop, leaned back, and tried to slow his racing heart.

And to sleep.

CORUSCANT GALACTIC ALLIANCE TRANSPORTATION DEPOT, NEAR THE JEDI TEMPLE

The Beetle Nebula settled down to a landing on an elevated docking platform adjacent to the blue, mushroom-shaped transportation depot. The maneuver was smooth and gentle for a craft so large—at two hundred meters, the Freebooter-class transport was an awkward-looking vessel anywhere but in space. From above, she looked like a crescent moon bisected by a knife blade, the blade point oriented in the same direction as the crescent tips,