Sacrifice

So Lumiya was taunting her. / com get at your husband. I can get at your son. If she was so set on killing Ben for the death of her daughter, she still seemed to be missing chances. So what did Lumiya want from her?

Mara returned to base to find one of the ground crew waiting patiently by her allocated XJ7. She climbed into the cockpit and started her instrument check.

"Is Lumiya really a Shh?" the technician asked.

"The very last of her kind," said Mara, not asking what he'd heard and how he knew the name anyway. She felt a pang of guilt at her sloppiness for arguing loudly and forgetting there were other personnel around. She sealed the XJ7's hatches. "I'll make sure of that."

Mara ignored military air traffic regulations and circled over the area where she'd last picked up Lumiya's powerful wake. If she concentrated, it was relatively easy to follow, and she found herself leaving Coruscant orbit on a bearing for one of the moons, Hesperidium.

"Oh, yes, Palpatine loved that place," she said aloud. "You heading there for old times' sake?"

Lumiya was definitely playing a game. But she wasn't stupid enough to think she could offer Mara her hand and find it still intact like she had with Luke.

The wake led to Hesperidium's main resort, which wasn't quite as splendid as Mara recalled. She wondered if it was feeling the pinch of postwar recovery, and if there still weren't enough tastelessly wealthy folk to go around. Port traffic control was surprised—to say the least—to find a military vessel on its scanners.

"I need to put down for a while," Mara said, knowing they had no choice about the matter. They could hardly stop her landing. "Getting weird readings on my instruments. I have to check it out."

"Let us know if you need help," the ATC controller said. "We pride