Sacrifice

Mara, the better.

Luke tried to appear casual as he climbed into his cockpit. Jaina stood looking up at him.

"I know I'm officially out of the service," she said, "but if someone authorizes it, I'm happy to join in. Please."

Luke gestured to the ground crew. "Thanks."

"It's Lumiya we should be worrying about." Jaina was trying to reassure him. "I can see Aunt Mara going in for braided scalps like Fett.

Red ones. Does Lumiya dye her hair, do you think? Will the stuff have icky gray roots?"

Luke knew she was trying to make him laugh, and he tried to oblige.

But just hearing the name Fett reminded him that pretty well every member of his family, Solos or Skywalkers, was at the top of someone's must-kill- today list.

Luke didn't want or expect to be loved by everyone. He just wanted to wake up one morning and find his loved ones left alone to get on with their lives.

When Mara came home—scalps or no scalps, war or no war—he was going to book a vacation for the two of them, somewhere soothingly uneventful.

He balled the flimsi note she'd left for him and wedged it into a gap in the cockpit fascia. The StealthX's drives whined into life.

It wouldn't be Hesperidium, though.

KAVAN

Jacen had expected to have to deal with an angry Mara after he killed Ben, not before.