Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Rebel Dreams_ Enemy Lines I - Aaron Allston [53]
Kell dropped to the ferrocrete floor again. “All done.”
“Here, too, just about.” Then Luke felt a new presence and glanced over at the docking bay entrance.
Iella Wessiri stood there. “Thirty standard minutes,” she said. “Insiders meeting.”
“The bantha crows at dawn,” Kell said.
Iella blinked at him. “What?”
“You know. ‘The bantha crows at dawn.’ What’s the countersign?” Kell aimed his hydrospanner at her as though it were a blaster. “Or perhaps you’re not Section Head Iella Wessiri at all? Pull that ooglith masquer off, or I open fire.”
She gave him a thin smile. “My husband never really told me how annoying you were.” She turned to Luke. “Thirty minutes. There’s news.” She turned and left.
Kell adopted an expression of disdain. “No countersign, indeed. What sort of holodrama is this, anyway?”
“You’re going to do what? ” Mara asked. Her voice had not risen to carry through the doors and into the conference room, but it had become sharper. It was loud enough to startle Ben, but the baby merely looked up from her arms, gurgled, looked at Luke, and reached out for his father. Luke gave him the pinkie of his natural hand to grasp.
Luke steeled himself. “I’m going to Coruscant.”
“Your visions?”
“They’re getting worse and more frequent. Whatever is happening there, it’s building. Getting stronger. Or going to build, going to get stronger—I don’t know if I’m seeing the present or the future.”
“Or the past. You could be seeing something about Palpatine’s rise to power.”
He shook his head. “There wouldn’t be a sense of urgency to the visions.”
“Well, send someone else. This is an Intelligence-style mission. Sneaking around in the dark. Not exactly suited to a fighter pilot with a glowing sword.”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe I should invite some Intelligence types along. But since it’s a matter of the Force, there has to be a Jedi there.” He gave her a reassuring grin. “Everything’s better with a Jedi around.”
“Where did you learn that smile? Have you been practicing in front of a holo of Han Solo? Listen, I’m not objecting to a Jedi going on this mission. But it can’t be you. You can’t go.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t go. I have to stay with Ben.”
“It has to be me, Mara. With the galaxy falling apart and the Jedi needing leadership, and with so many of them looking at anyone but me because they believe I’m some sort of passive, prematurely ancient wise man on a mountaintop, I think it would be a good thing for them to hear that I’ve led a mission into Coruscant. They’ll have to rethink my outlook and my opinions.” It occurred to Luke that Leia would probably be pleased with the political slant of his reasoning … and then he realized that he was once again playing in Leia’s battlefield, the universe of politics, where she was a master and he was usually a floundering novice.
“Don’t do this, Skywalker.”
“I have to. Come with me.”
“I’m needed here.”
“That’s what your feelings are telling you. What does the Force tell you?”
Her eyes flashed. “It doesn’t tell me anything.”
“Then you’re not open to it. You’re afraid of where it will lead you. You’re afraid it will tell you that you need to step away from Ben, however temporarily.”
Mara’s face closed down, allowing no emotion to escape beyond the event horizon of her features. “I’ll tell you what I’m afraid of. I’m afraid that my husband is becoming some sort of dried-up desert mystic, cut off from human emotions.”
Luke sighed and abandoned the argument. “The offer’s open until I leave.” He cocked his head toward the conference room door. “We need to join the rest.”
Luke took his