Sacrifice

to think this through, because we might leave matters worse than before we started."

"Well, trying to talk him around is off the menu," said Mara. "So I'm sticking with going after the irritant in this. Lumiya. But let's not forget that Omas didn't exactly behave sensibly, and Niathal isn't in Lumiya's thrall. She's got her own agenda, and I don't get any sense of the dark side influencing that."

Luke knew she was right. The dynamics were complex. The best thing Jedi could do was to tackle the things that non-Force-users couldn't.

Once again, he missed the clarity of thoroughly evil adversaries, or at least those he thought were evil.

It was hard to turn against your allies. It was as hard as turning against your own family. Now they were one and the same.

GAG HEADQUARTERS, CORUSCANT

The worst thing about waking up that morning was the few seconds of blank comfort before remembering what had happened, and then the world collapsed again. Ben couldn't stop seeing Jori Lekauf everywhere he looked. He couldn't face staying at home: he needed the company of his friends, the people who missed Lekauf, too. As he walked through the GAG

security gates, and the system accepted his identicard to open the blastproof doors, every face in the corridor was Lekauf's. When Ben went into the locker room, he could hear his voice. It was a running nightmare conjured up by a combination of his Force-senses and the simple human reaction to fresh bereavement. He wanted it to stop, but he felt he was being disloyal to a dead friend for wanting not to see him everywhere.

Zavirk was still in the monitoring room. He looked up at Ben and tapped the mute button on his earpiece. "You okay?"

"Fine."