Sacrifice

—away from the genteel, constitutional way of doing things on Coruscant.

Jacen had said he had an appointment, too, and while it might have been another of his lies, the chances were that he'd want to tell Lumiya that Mara was on to them.

I'll save you the trouble.

She made a conscious effort not to see Leia's face in her mind's eye, and somehow she'd erased poor Han from this altogether. It wasn't that fathers' feelings didn't matter, but she had a better idea of the pain Leia would go through; however old kids got, the memory of them as newborns never faded.

It might be true for dads, as well. But Mara only knew what a mother felt, and that was bad enough.

She checked her datapad for the transponder trace. Ben's showed he was still at Shevu's, and so he was one factor she didn't have to worry about. Lumiya's transponder indicated she was heading for the Perlemian node just off Coruscant. If Jacen wasn't with her, Mara thought, she might well get a lead to one of her bolt-holes; in the assassination business, every scrap of data on a target's habits and movements was valuable. It would be worth the journey, and the technician at the base was used to Jedi booking out flight time in StealthXs. She didn't have to fill out any forms that said her mission was to kill the joint Chief of State.

Mara closed the inner doors to keep the light in the hallway from waking Luke, and paused at the apartment's front entrance. Okay, I'll risk it. If he wakes up, though . . . it'll be another argument.

She put down her pack and tiptoed back into the bedroom, leaned over Luke—still snoring like a turbosaw—and kissed his forehead as lightly as she could. He grunted.

"Sorry I never spotted it," she mouthed at him. "But better late than never."