Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [17]
Mara caught a glint of blue from Luke’s direction. She intercepted his concerned glance and choked off the dismal thought. Her disease, like a protean cancer, had undergone constant random mutations, making it uncontrollable. It should have been fatal.
For three months, she’d been in remission. The tears of an alien creature, Vergere—briefly in custody, with a Yuuzhan Vong agent—had restored her strength. She hesitated to call herself cured, though. Just as Luke hesitates to call this group a council—because it isn’t. For the moment, I feel good. That’s enough.
So she eyed him right back, admiring the signs of maturity. He’d lost that half-ripe farmboy look years ago. Around his intense blue eyes, he’d gathered a network of smile lines—and furrows of concern over the bridge of his nose. Here and there, especially near his temples, he’d sprouted a few gray hairs. Altogether distinguished, she decided.
Ever since that hour in Nirauan’s caves, when deadly danger forced them to fight so closely, reaching so deep into the Force that each saw the world through the other’s mind, she and Luke had moments when they seemed to fight, think, even to breathe as one person. Utterly different on the surface, their strengths balanced perfectly. Destiny had been kind to Mara Jade, the former Emperor’s Hand—and she didn’t need the Force to see that their union made Luke Skywalker a happy man.
So naturally, the risk of her suffering a relapse worried him desperately. They still had so many dreams to chase.
Luke flushed.
Then conduct your meeting, Skywalker, she thought at him, amused by his embarrassment. Quit worrying about me.
Though their Force link rarely let them communicate in actual words, he clearly caught the message. He turned to Kenth Hamner and said, “Daye Azur-Jamin on Nal Hutta hasn’t reported for almost a week. I asked his son Tam to head out that way—carefully—and see if he could get any leading through the siege force’s shadow.” As at Kalarba, the enemy’s massed presence near Nal Hutta seemed to damp down the Force.
“Daye’s a good man,” Cilghal said softly. “Lowbacca and Tinian got out of Hutt space, didn’t they?”
Luke nodded. “They just reported in from Kashyyyk. No sign of enemy activity there.”
“At least the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t messing with Wookiees at home,” Ulaha Kore said lightly. Ulaha was a delicate young Bith, with musical talents that admitted her to any number of intelligence-rich social occasions. Ulaha looked careworn, her posture so slumped that Mara barely could see her large eyes under her protruding, hairless head.
Her comment provoked nervous laughter around the circle, which showed Mara how desperate for levity even the Jedi were getting.
“Nothing out of Bilbringi?” Hamner asked. “Mon Calamari?”
Luke let the colonel steer the conversation to the New Republic’s remaining military strongholds. “Nothing unusual at Bilbringi,” he answered. “Tenel Ka and Jovan Drark have stationed themselves in public places, looking for dead spots in the Force that could be Yuuzhan Vong in masquers. The same from Markre Medjev, finishing up his research on Bothawui,” he said, shooting Mara a rueful glance. With Borsk Fey’lya clinging to power as chief of state, the reduced Fifth Fleet was back in Bothan space, useless to the Core. “And our supply and information lines to Mon Cal are still cut.”
They’d been cut for months. The other Jedi sat silently for almost a minute, reflecting on the reports. Luke’s eyes fell half-shut.
Mara laced her long fingers, hoping he wasn’t trying to get a spin on the future. If the future beat him over the head and demanded to be seen, that was fine. Pushing for it was another matter.
The fountain burbled, a free-form Mon Calamari construct with irregular surfaces. Its top bowl rotated, sending sheets of water down its sides. Mara appreciated its sonic cover. Luke, though, still seemed fascinated by water that