Sacrifice

But he kept seeing Ben's face as he walked up to the boy in that tunnel and found him keeping vigil over his dead mother. His eyes . . .

they knew something was waiting to be revealed, something that would rip him apart.

Mara made Ben start wondering why she didn't become one with the Force. Sooner or later, he'll find out. You played your part in my destiny, Mara.

And when Ben finally found out that it was Jacen who'd killed her, he'd hate him more than he could even begin to imagine. Jacen had injected a slow poison into Ben's love for him, as surely as he'd poisoned his mother, and seeded a terrible and wonderful hatred. A Sith needed that magnificent well of loathing to achieve greatness. Ben would eventually become greater than his Jedi father could ever be.

In the meantime, Jacen's war continued, now on the wider political stage as well as in the GAG.

He picked up the black GAG helmet that he rarely wore, rotated it between his fingers, and felt an odd queasiness in his gut as he put it on. It was standard GAG trooper issue, flared jaw section with a dispersal-gas-proof filter, the visor a single shallow V-band of toughened duraplast, just a basic tool of the job. It wasn't much different from the functional helmet troops had worn for decades.

But I don't need this, do I?

He stood in front of the polished durasteel bulkhead. The black outline in front of him was smeared and hazy, a mere impressionist suggestion of what he was. He could hardly look. He was everything his enemies said he was. He was embarrassed; yes, the embarrassment overshadowed any guilt.

He had killed, and killed again, and killed Mara Jade Skywalker, who was both family and friend. Friends . . . now he had none left except Tenel Ka