Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [130]
Mara clenched a fist. They were playing. Showing off. Not just overwhelming their victims, but taunting them.
She bit her lip, wanting to slam a fist against her control panel. She opened her hand with an effort and thrust anger away. Anger was poison. She’d had poison enough in her system, thanks to Nom Anor—and there was one small life she still could save. If she guarded that, then her own life counted more than she could have believed possible. Hang on, she said silently. You picked a wild time to come into the galaxy.
She crisscrossed Luke’s path, presenting a confusing target. Now she understood why women willingly died for their children. One utterly helpless person depended on her for sustenance and safety. Silently, she promised that little one the fiercest defender he ever could need.
“She,” a soft voice said in her ear.
Startled, Mara touched the earphone. No one else answered or asked Luke to clarify, so he was using the private channel. She touched a control, then muttered back, “Get out of my brain, Skywalker,” but at the Luke-place at the edge of her mind, she let him feel how glad she was to know he’d survived this catastrophe, too.
Then, startled, she caught a new sensation—and she knew. “Nope,” she exclaimed. “It’s he.”
The boxy hauler winked out of sight.
Jacen squeezed the upper quad gun’s firing control once more, and another coralskipper exploded into multicolored shards. The Falcon rocked back and forth, giving him a clear view of another coral shower, Jaina’s work, from the cockpit. He could hear his dad’s and sister’s voices, pilot and copilot. The Falcon had never flown so wildly and well.
Urrdorf couldn’t make hyperspace, the way Droma’s hauler had done, but it accelerated steadily away from Duro’s orbital plane, and the Yuuzhan Vong were no longer pursuing. Maybe it could lose itself in the darkness between systems.
“That’s it,” Han said. “We’re breaking off. Good luck, Urrdorf.”
“Thank you, Falcon,” a distant voice said in Jacen’s headset.
Then Han, again. “Jacen, Jaina, secure the guns. Get ready to jump. We’re taking her home.”
Jacen complied, then belted down in the engineering section near C-3PO. From the cockpit, he heard Jaina announce, “Anakin got another one.”
“What’s he up to? Eleven, twelve?” Han called.
“Don’t know,” Jaina said. “I’d better talk to Colonel Darklighter about that kid.”
“Hey.” Han’s voice rose. “Luke, Mara, Anakin. You’re the last force insystem. Get out while you can.”
“Right.” That was Uncle Luke. “Break it off, Anakin. Good job.”
Count on Anakin to be the last human to get out of Duro space alive, Jacen reflected, but without jealousy. He’d found the balance between the Force’s inner power and outward might. By giving himself—obedient, with no reservation—he became a walking, breathing, living sacrifice.
Maybe I caught that lightsaber after all, Uncle Luke.
He sensed Jaina, sitting beside the familiar glimmer that had always been their dad. Stretching out, he faintly touched his brother’s incandescent brilliance. Then Uncle Luke in his X-wing, alongside Aunt Mara in the Jade Shadow.
He paused there. Something was odd—different—about Aunt Mara. Not stale or fetid, the way she’d felt when her disease seemed terminal. At this new depth, he felt her shine like a binary star.
Then the Falcon hit hyperspace, extinguishing all those presences.
Jacen unbuckled and hurried down to check on his mother’s wounds.
EPILOGUE
Tsavong Lah’s left ankle throbbed, but Vaecta would no more have deadened that pain than cut off his unwounded foot without appropriate rituals. Tsavong had sacrificed body parts before, imitating his gods’ work in creating the universe. Until higher priests arrived, he would stand on a simple artificial foot.
But he would petition the priest for a crafted