Sacrifice

was pretty remarkable under the circumstances. She didn't have much to laugh about. "Do I have to give you a password?"

"I'll trust you." Mara checked her cockpit display, watching the frequency shift on the monitor in multicolored bars of light. "You okay?"

"For a woman on the run, I'm doing great."

"I don't know where to start."

"Try, Hey, did your son really abandon you to suck vacuum? Because that'd be my first question . . ."

"I'm so sorry, Leia, I really am. But I'm going to put a stop to this. Take Lumiya out of the equation, and I think you'll see a major improvement in Jacen's attitude."

"Is that where you are now?"

"I'm trying to work out how Lumiya moves around. Forget all this lightwhip garbage. I'm going to find her ship and finish what Luke started. They're always vulnerable in transit."

Leia's end of the link went quiet for a few moments. "Want me to play bait? "

"Don't you think you've been through enough lately?"

"I can guarantee that Alema would show up if I asked nicely," Leia said. "And maybe Lumiya wouldn't be far behind."

"Tell you what, why don't I lob in Ben and make certain of it?"

"Mara . . ."

"Sorry. I don't want to expose you to any more risk. But if I can devise a safer way of exploiting the fact that neither of those crazies can keep away from us, I'll do it."