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This example of the YV-666 line had dents, blast scars, and rust patches all over its hull, making it especially unlovely.

At the forward portion of the top deck, Captain Uran Lavint carefully maneuvered the awkward craft up into the hangar, then followed the glowing spherical droid above a trail of blinking lights on the hangar floor to her assigned berth. “Soon as we land,” she said, “you’ll want to get into the smuggling compartment. They’ll do a basic scan from outside.”

“We understand.” Alema’s voice came from a patch of shadow, impenetrable by ordinary sight, at the back of the bridge. “Why do they care if there are undeclared passengers?”

“It’s all money.” Lavint set the craft down with only the faintest of thumps, though that noise was joined by the squeal and creak of durasteel components settling. She grimaced at the noise. “If they don’t know about you, they can’t charge you for, well, anything. Soon as I get my cabin assignment, I’ll comm you where it is.”

“Good. Why this ship, Captain? What is so special about a gigantic casino and shopping complex?”

“It’ll take too long to explain now. But remind me sometime to give you my speech about Corellian smugglers.”

“We will.”

Lavint didn’t see the shadow fade, but the bridge seemed to brighten, and she knew Alema was gone.

Three stories below, hangar workers came forward. In a moment they’d be plugging into an exterior hull comm port and asking which of their many overpriced services she wished to avail herself of—refueling, de-rusting, painting, transmission of the latest holodramas…She waved and smiled down at them as if she didn’t mind their presence.

And she wished that the Errant Venture would be where they found the Solos, so she could leave Alema Rar and her craziness behind forever.

chapter thirteen

CORUSCANT JEDI TEMPLE

Mara leaned forward, elbows on the table on either side of the datapad retrieved from Lumiya’s quarters, and rested her chin in her hands.

From the other side of the table, Luke looked at her. “You cracked the encryption on the data card?”

“Finally.”

“But you don’t look happy.”

“You don’t need a Force-bond to tell that, farmboy.”

“Tell me.”

“Some of it’s an invoice. The sender seems to have been a bounty hunter working for Lumiya, and the invoice is an itemized list of expenses: hours worked, fuel expended, blaster shots taken. The main part, though, is a mission status and event report. Even decrypted, it’s hard to puzzle out—everything is referred to by code words. But assuming I’m putting the right names to some of these code words, the information is…interesting.”

“Such as?”

“‘Confirmed that the Lady’s daughter succumbed to injuries inflicted by Grandson Three-two-seven-oh-seven,’” Mara recited. “‘Please inform if Lady’s mission changed from insertion/observation to revenge.’”

Luke frowned over that one. “Lady has to be Lumiya. She used to style herself the Dark Lady of the Sith…after Emperor Palpatine and my father were no longer around to slap her down for presumption.”

“I agree. And if that same-time context is the basis for more than one of these code names, Grandson would therefore have to be one of Darth Vader’s grandsons, right? Jacen or Ben.”

“Three-two-seven-oh-seven,” Luke said. “Just a second.” He pulled out his datapad, connected it remotely to the Temple’s computer, and went searching for a report Ben had filed weeks earlier. “Here it is. Bee-em-ex-three-two-seven-oh-seven. An uninhabited star system near Bimmiel. That’s where the woman Syo led Jacen and Ben, where Jacen defeated some sort of dark side Force-user within the asteroid under her habitat.”

“Where Nelani Dinn died.” Mara looked confused. “Nelani was Lumiya’s daughter?”

“No. Nelani’s parents have files in the order database, and Nelani looks—looked—a lot like her mother. Besides, Nelani died the same day Jacen and Ben arrived at the habitat. Your file there suggests that ‘the Lady’s daughter’ lingered for a while.” Luke frowned. “The other woman who was there, Brisha Syo. Brisha could be an anagram for Shira B—Shira Brie.