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She tore her attention away from the fight, where Jacen was coping with an ever-growing number of security agents, and looked to the right. The dark-skinned woman who had addressed her did not look familiar…except for her build and her green eyes. “Lumiya,” she said.

“I asked you a question.”

Alema gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “We are here to kill Mara Jade Skywalker, who is here, and Han Solo, who is coming. And you?”

“I was about to dive in and help Jacen.”

“Do not do that.” Alema shook her head vehemently. “If you rescue him, Luke and Mara will leave, and Leia and Han will not come. They must be here.”

Lumiya considered. “Then let’s jump in together. Our being here will keep the Skywalkers and Solos from leaving. Don’t you think?”

“We do.”

Lumiya reached down and tore a long gap in her gown, freeing her legs to maneuver. She unwrapped the decorative scarf she wore as a belt, revealing the lightwhip beneath it, and rewrapped the scarf around her lower face and scalp, giving her the aspect of Lumiya so familiar to Alema and others. Then she drew her lightwhip. “Ready?”

Alema brought her lightsaber up. “We are.”

She was happier than she had been in a long, long time.

Luke and Mara made their approach a merciful one. They landed in the midst of the thickest group of security officers. Luke’s lightsaber flashed in a circle, severing five or six blaster barrels, and Mara gestured with the Force to sweep aside half a dozen agents.

Luke deflected a blaster shot from an opportunistic CorSec woman. “Let’s go, Jacen. Your ride’s waiting.”

Jacen struck, cutting a Bothan shooter in two. “I don’t need your help.” Then he looked past Luke and his expression hardened still more. “Oh, no.”

Luke glanced back that way. Han and Leia were entering the main hall at a dead run. “And your other ride is here.”

Then he heard Mara’s warning hiss—more through the Force than with his ears—and when he turned back again, Lumiya stood before him.

As Han and Leia approached, the nature of the battle before them changed in an instant. Abruptly Luke was drawing and igniting his second lightsaber, the half-length shoto, and using his primary lightsaber to deflect a weapon that looked oddly like Lumiya’s lightwhip.

Han squinted. The wielder was Lumiya, though her skin was dark. He raised his blaster and fired, but Lumiya must have been aware of him; she simply twisted aside and the bolt caromed off the floor, then passed through the chest of the six-meter hologram of an admiral that dominated the center of the room.

Mara, nearly surrounded by security agents, was batting their blasterfire back at them with her own lightsaber. Leia angled away from her, toward Luke—and then let out a surprised cry as a low table slid into her path, too suddenly for her to vault or sidestep. She tripped but came up on her feet and lit her lightsaber.

She stopped abruptly and stared to the left. Han followed her gaze…to see Alema Rar emerging from wall-side shadows, an odd smile on her lips, her lit lightsaber in her hand.

“Mine,” Leia said, and leapt forward.

Han ignored her. He fired at the Twi’lek, but Alema casually caught the bolt with her lightsaber, then began spinning her blade in a defensive pattern as Leia reached her.

“I guess this settles the question of whether you’re dead or not,” Luke said. He caught another crack of the lightwhip on his long blade, darted in close, slashed at Lumiya with the shoto. But with an exertion through the Force, she lifted a severed human head into the path of the blow, and Luke’s attack sent the head spinning through the air. It landed on a table stacked with food.

“Of course,” Lumiya said. “I thought you knew. I am dead. I have been for decades.”

“Then lie down and let us throw dirt on top of you.” With a similar telekinetic exertion, Luke whipped the tablecloth from beneath all the platters and hurled it at Lumiya. It swept upon her from behind, but she cracked her whip backward, cutting the tablecloth in two, then continued the maneuver into a forward stroke. Luke deflected separate