Sacrifice

Plenty of little darknesses. The two with my flame.

Lumiya repeated it to herself. Flame. "Ahh . . . red hair? Mara Jade Skywalker. She was the Emperor's Hand, an agent for the dark side, just like me. The boy is her son."

You darknesses should never fight. So few of you. I stopped her fighting.

"You certainly did." It was fascinating that the ship could still sense the dark side in Mara, even though she'd abandoned her roots. But to taste it in Ben, too ... it might have been in his genes, or perhaps the ship was reacting to his new career as a state assassin. Like mother, like son; Lumiya almost thought she'd written off Ben too soon. "Do you sense dark ones near?"

The broken one is looking for the Lord-to-be.

"If she looks as if she's going to interfere, remove her—dark or not." Lumiya had told Alema to track Jacen, but now wasn't the best time for Alema to interfere. "Jacen Solo is our priority."

The ship went quiet. It was impossible to get an accurate sense of speed in a vessel with no instruments in hyperspace, but she could measure the duration of the journey on her chrono, and the ship could tell her where its equivalent location was in realspace.

Past Arkania. Past Chazwa.

Where was Jacen going? Not Ziost, unless he was taking an extraordinary route. He'd be brushing the Roche sector, if he dropped out of hyperspace, and for a moment she wondered if he was simply panicking about the possibility of the Roche-Mandalorian arms deal turning the war in the Confederation's favor, and going to the Verpine to undermine the pact: but that was routine work for minions, for his admirals and agents, and she'd be annoyed if he was wasting his energies on that.

He leaves hyperspace, the ship said at last.