Sacrifice

Yeah, I'm going to kill my sister-in-law's son. On the dark scale of ten, that's a twelve.

Now that her anger had ebbed, she was beginning to wonder what she was doing here. The Hapans would wonder that, too, if they managed to spot a StealthX hanging around their system unannounced. Lumiya's transponder showed that her ship was sitting in a cluster of asteroids, but she wasn't showing up on scans.

What was she waiting for?

Mara ran a discreet check on her instruments. If she went active on sensors, she'd give away her position, so it had to be a case of passive detection only.

She was watching, or waiting, and how the Hapans hadn't taken an unhealthy interest in the sphere was anyone's guess, but Lumiya had a talent for evasion.

Follow the credits. But in this case, follow the Sith.

Mara shut down as many systems as she could afford to do without and waited. The temptation to launch a spread of proton torpedoes took some resisting, but until Mara worked out what Lumiya was waiting for, the Sith had a stay of execution.

It had to be Jacen that Lumiya had followed, although how she'd managed that Mara wasn't yet sure. Maybe Tenel Ka had summoned him, to intercede and get him to drop that stupid warrant on his parents. That didn't explain Lumiya riding escort, though, or why she'd tailed him for eighteen solid hours.

It was staring Mara in the face, whatever it was. She knew that.

She was missing a piece again. But all she needed was to locate Jacen, not work out his pension plan.