Sacrifice

in her mouth, as alien as any being she'd ever encountered. She'd been in the minds of the insane before, but never a Jedi, and never one this deluded. It was almost frightening. It was the sense of us that was most disturbing. She found it hard to pick her way between the hive-mind elements and the fragmented personality of one being.

"Yes, I do," Lumiya said. "And I'll still kill you if you let this feud ruin bigger strategies. There'll be time for you to have your revenge later. Interfere with my plans and I'll kill the Solos myself, and then you'll never have your Balance." Lumiya lowered her voice to a soothing whisper. "And you know I can do that, don't you?"

Seemingly unperturbed, Alema gazed around Lumiya's quarters. They were sparsely furnished now because she'd taken most of her necessary possessions back to the safe house on Coruscant—or the latest address, anyway—except for duplicates of the equipment she kept to maintain her cybernetic prosthetics, and basic essentials for a brief stay. Alema had the look of someone sizing up an apartment and deciding whether to buy it.

"No, you can't stay here," said Lumiya. Telepathy was beyond her, but she knew a proprietorial look when she saw it. It made sense to keep an eye on Alema: she was so fixated and reckless that she might—just might—put a hydrospanner in the works, and that wasn't something Lumiya was prepared to risk. The stakes were too high, the moment too close.

If I had any sense, I'd kill her now before she becomes too much trouble. But . . .

Alema still had her uses, until her madness became too unmanageable.

"You understand revenge," said Alema. She settled on a sofa, one arm conspicuously limp, and a petulant frown creased her brow for a moment. "Luke Skywalker destroyed your life. He left you scarred, too."

"Oh, much more than scarred." Lumiya pulled her veil from her face and let Alema see the damage to her jaw. Then she placed one boot on a chair, took out a vibroblade, and rammed it into her thigh. There was a metallic