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  His door chimed. He called, “Enter,” and moved into the small living chamber.

  The main door slid open, revealing Cilghal. The Mon Cal Master nodded her respects. She entered, allowing the door to shut behind her. “When not studying Valin’s test results, I have spent time in the last few days looking for references to odd behavior matching Valin’s or Seff’s. And I have found something.” She tilted her head as if recollecting, and her next words were in a different tone of voice; Luke suspected she was quoting. “Though I have lived among humans for many years, some of the differences between our ways choose not to fade into irrelevance. The electroencephaloscan, for example, would be considered a grave and very personal intrusion by my kind. Fortunately, my order knows of a means to keep even it at bay. Unfortunately, when utilizing it, we cannot demonstrate that we have functioning brains.”

  Luke snorted, amused. “Who were you quoting?”

  “Jedi Master Plo Koon.”

  Luke considered. Plo Koon had been a Jedi in the last years of the Old Republic—had died, in fact, about the time Luke was being born, one of the many victims of Emperor Palpatine’s Order 66. He was a Kel Dor, a member of a species that was not often seen out in the galaxy at large; they were not oxygen breathers and had to wear special breathing masks when visiting most other inhabited worlds. “Why was that quotation so difficult to find?” With anyone else, he’d be worried that his question sounded like a criticism, but Cilghal had no human neuroses that made her prone to interpret offhand remarks as complaint.

  “It was not transcribed as searchable data in our archives. It was a recording of an interview between Plo Koon and a Jedi Knight who was assembling a documentary project on the species represented within the Order. He, too, was a victim of the purge, his project unfinished. I have been using automated vocal translation software against holorecorded materials, searching for a list of keywords related to Valin’s situation, and this morning’s pass flagged the word electroencephaloscan in this entry.”

  “Good work. Was there anything else useful in that interview?”

  Cilghal twisted her body from side to side, a Mon Cal simulation of a human shaking of the head. “That appears to have been, for Plo Koon, a humorous aside, and the subject was not further explored.”

  “He said, ‘My order knows of a means.’ Who was he referring to? It couldn’t have been the Jedi Order, since we’ve found no other reference to the technique, and since he was talking to another Jedi …”

  “He would have said our Order.” Cilghal tilted her head. Familiar with her ways, Luke took it as a gesture of self-appreciation. Some human nuances of speech were still difficult for her, even after all her years among them.

  “Yes.” Luke pulled his datapad from his belt pouch and flipped it open. As he used it to access the Temple computer archives, he realized, with a pang, that this might be the last time he would do so—for many years, or perhaps ever.

  He scanned Plo Koon’s service file. He knew many of its details already. His own studies had made him very familiar with the career of his own first Master, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and Obi-Wan’s teachers and confidants; Obi-Wan’s Master, Qui-Gon Jinn, had been a close friend of Plo Koon. But Plo Koon’s record offered few leads. It mentioned no other order to which the long-dead Master might have belonged, though Luke knew there was one prospect more likely than any other.

  Luke snapped the datapad shut. “I’m guessing he was referring to the Baran Do Sages. He might have studied with them before joining the Order, which means that’s a trail eighty or a hundred years cold. I might as well make the sages the first stop on my grand tour.” He frowned. “There’s no record of Jacen visiting them, but his travels are badly documented. I’m going to hope for the best. I just wish I had time to trace all of Valin’s movements to see if he’s had any contact with the sages.”

  “I have time. And I have access to the full Order archives.”

  “I couldn’t ask you to do that. And as an exile, I’m not supposed to have access to Order resources.”

  “You did not ask. I decide for whom I am a resource. And your sentence said you cannot advise, not that you cannot be advised.”

  Thrown off for a moment by Cilghal’s resolute tone, her unhesitating rejection of Galactic Alliance government wishes, Luke stepped forward and took one of Cilghal’s broad hands between his own. “I sometimes forget, with our very orderly system of ranks and duties, that I have friends.”

  “You established this Order with logic, and you made your friends with your heart. The Order acts according to your commands. Your friends act according to your needs.”

  The door slid open, revealing Ben, dressed in his customary black, a cylindrical bag in dark green on a strap over his shoulder. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  Luke shook his head. “You didn’t. We were just finishing up some business. Is the speeder ready?”

  “It’s ready.”

  “Then let’s head down.”

  “Up.”

  Luke raised an eyebrow at his son. “I thought I said to get us a speeder and have it ready in the lower hangar.”

  “You did, but I got new orders in the meantime.”

  “From whom?”

  “Master Hamner.”

  Luke sighed. Kenth could have waited until Luke was out of the building before beginning to countermand his orders. “Let’s go, then.”

  The turbolift took them up, and to Luke’s surprise—for, engaged again in conversation with Cilghal, he had not paid attention to what Ben said into the turbolift’s controller—opened at the Great Hall level.

  The three of them stepped out into a crowded hall, and conversation, which had been expectant in tone, died.

  It looked as though every Jedi on Coruscant, and perhaps some currently stationed in nearby star systems, was present, as well as many non-Jedi. Some faces were sad, a few even tear-streaked, and even among those maintaining a proper Jedi calm there was an atmosphere of sadness, of resignation.

  Ben’s next comment came as a dry whisper: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many brown robes together in one place. It’s like a showroom for the world’s dullest textile factory.”

  Luke repressed a snort. “Quiet.”

  Master Hamner approached, so Luke stepped forward, extending his hand. “Kenth, was this your idea?”

  “Leia’s, mine, every member of the Council’s, and many others’ besides. Many had messages, messages they’ll deliver personally as you make your way to the front of the hall, but all of them had a message in common.” Kenth put one arm across Luke’s shoulders and turned him toward the distant main entrance, then gestured with his free hand across the expanse of Jedi Masters, Jedi Knights, apprentices, and friends. “Forty years ago, there was one practicing Jedi in all the galaxy, and the Order and the Temple were just ill-formed notions taken from suppressed rumors. Today, what you see before you—this is your doing, Master Skywalker.”

  Despite himself, Luke felt his throat trying to close. “Not alone.” His words were just a touch hoarse.

  Kenth nodded. “Not alone. But remove any other contributor from the processes and the end result looks only a little different. Remove you, and it all goes away, like a holodrama switched off in mid-scene.” Gently, he took Luke’s bag from his hand. Then he gave Luke a little push forward. “I’ll have this put in your speeder.”

  That was the signal for the others in the hall, who pressed forward singly or in small groups, shaking Luke’s hand, offering him embraces or kisses of farewell, some of them with tears glistening on their cheeks. Ben, also relieved of his bag, received these attentions as well, always present in the periphery of Luke’s awareness.

  There were Kyp and Octa, Kam and Tionne, Saba Sebatyne in all her reptilian majesty, Kyle Katarn, the doubly sad Horn family, visitors such as Jag Fel and Talon Karrde. There was a who’s who of the Red Squadron and Rogue Squadron veterans Luke had flown with so many years before and since—Wedge Antil
les foremost among them. There were Jedi Knights and apprentices he barely knew, such a change from years before when he had personally trained every member of the Jedi Order, a change both satisfying and a little disquieting.

  Leia, Han, and Jaina were among the last to intercept him, and held him the longest. “You’ll be home soon,” Leia told him, forcing a cheerful tone to conceal the misery she was clearly feeling.

  Luke smiled at her. “Define soon.”

  She shook her head. “Informative answers are not the Jedi way.”

  “Hey.” Ben, wrapped up in the embrace of his cousin Jaina, sounded miffed. “You stole that line from me.”

  “I first said it twenty years before you were born. Before I was even a Jedi.”

  Han took Luke’s hand and pulled him into a wampa-like hug. “You know, anywhere you are in the galaxy, give me a shout on the holocomm, or give Leia a squawk through the Force, and the Falcon will be right there.”

  “I know. You’ll take care of Artoo-Detoo for me while I’m gone?”

  Han grinned. “Are you kidding? Having Artoo with us means See-Threepio only talks to us half as much. I should be paying you.”

  Jaina tucked herself under Luke’s arm for the last few steps out of the Great Hall. “Daala’s going to be sorry she did this.”

  Luke frowned at her. “That sounds suspiciously like a thought of revenge.”

  “It’s not. I just know how things work. Inevitably some mess will arise that she can’t solve, that no other Jedi can solve, and she’ll know what a mistake she made.”

  “Be charitable.” On the steps outside the hall, in the afternoon sunlight descending in brilliant, steeply slanting shafts through the uneven cloud cover overhead, Luke paused to give Jaina one last hug. “She’s trying to do the best she can for the Alliance, the only way she knows how.”

  “Well, she’s not very bright.”

  “That’s not ‘charitable.’ ”

  “Oh. I thought you meant ‘honest.’ ”

  The airspeeder that had been acquired for Luke and Ben’s departure was not the Grand Master’s usual one or Ben’s red speedster. It was a big white air barge, a model with a built-in droid brain that would return the vehicle to its home when its current users were done with it. Luke let Ben take the controls for the trip out to the spaceport while he took in what might be his final view of Coruscant. In this late-afternoon hour, shadows in the canyons between mountain-high buildings were already dark as night, the thousands upon thousands of streams of airspeeder traffic were already putting on their nighttime cruising lights, and the sun, its lower edge peeking out below the layer of clouds in the west, seemed larger and more orange than at any other time of day. He burned it all into his memory, knowing he would miss it.

  They spent their trip to the spaceport in near silence until they moved out of the high-rise districts and into one of the traffic lanes heading into the hangar portion of the spaceport. “Think they’ll turn us back?” asked Ben.

  Luke gave him a curious look. “Why would they?”

  “Because we nearly wrecked the place a few days ago.”

  “You exaggerate. The fight didn’t even spill over into the secure zones.”

  “True.”

  Soon enough, they set down outside the hangar where Jade Shadow was berthed.

  Luke entered the lengthy access code in the security console beside the main doors, then peered into its optic sensor to give it a retinal reading. Finally the great doors slid aside, admitting a wash of stale air, allowing Luke to look upon his dead wife’s ship.

  It had started its career as a Horizon-class star yacht from premier shipmakers SoroSuub, but had, over the years, been modified by Mara, family, and friends to become a combat vehicle that was fast and powerful for its size. Low and broad in the beam, with sleek, curving lines, it had a top-mounted airfoil that swept down toward both sides and ended in external ion engine pods. Forward of those, outrigger-style plates stretched from the fuselage and curved down to hold external weapons emplacements. The ship’s organic lines gave it the appearance of some nautical shelled beast, and its nonreflective gray surface made its name an apt one.

  It did not suggest Mara’s appearance so much as her manner when she was on the hunt. It was practical and implacable. It scarcely seemed the sort of ship to become home to a middle-aged widower and his teenage son, but it was what he had.

  Luke remotely activated its loading ramp and life-support systems, letting it open and expel stale atmosphere while he and Ben removed their possessions from the airspeeder. Luke gave the speeder’s droid brain an all-clear order and it lifted off, accelerating away into the darkening sky, its shiny white coating making it visible for a considerable distance.

  It didn’t take Luke and Ben long to complete a preflight check; the Jade Shadow’s self-diagnostics circuitry and software were first-rate, as were the Skywalkers’ technical skills. The engines had lost only a little stored power in the many months the yacht had sat unused. The various compartments within the yacht were a little dusty but otherwise clean. Mara’s personal craft, her Z95 Headhunter, an old but reliable predecessor to the X-wing, rested in its tiny launch bay; though it was smaller and slower than its more famous descendant, Mara’s Z95, like her yacht, it had been modified and optimized to within a centimeter of its life, and was a far more dangerous starfighter than others of its make and age.

  While the preflight check was under way, a delivery speeder arrived. Its crew off-loaded two large crates full of supplies—fresh and preserved foods, water and bottled beverages, replacement battery packs and glow rods. Ben signed for the goods and set about loading them into the Shadow’s storage lockers.

  And then it was all done. They had no more reason, no additional excuse to wait. It was time to leave Coruscant.

  Solemnly, Luke strapped into the pilot’s seat, Ben into the co-pilot’s. After a brief comm exchange with the spaceport’s flight-control center, Luke eased the yacht out of its berth. Many meters from the hangar, out over open permacrete, he raised it on repulsors, then aimed it toward the stars and punched the thrusters.

  The yacht’s inertial compensators kept the acceleration from being a crushing experience, but Luke raced upward fast enough to press the two of them far back into their cushioned seats. Behind, in the rear-facing holocam view, the light glaring from Mara’s hangar clicked off and its doors slowly rolled shut.

  Moments later, they were up past the cloud layer and bound for the stars.

  Things happened quickly after Luke’s departure.

  Valin was released from Mon Mothma Memorial Medical Center and returned to Jedi custody. Cilghal installed him in her own medical facility again, in a more secure chamber, and let him recover from sedation; though not anxious to face the escape attempts she had every reason to believe would come, she knew that endless sedation would have a damaging effect on Valin’s health.

  The bounty hunters were mentioned in newscasts, not as bounty hunters, but as a special-missions force answering to the Office of the Chief of State, officially part of her security detail. Their names were not mentioned. Jaina, who had inherited Ben’s task of assembling data on them, noted those details and copied that broadcast for her own reference.

  The morning after Luke’s departure, Master Hamner called a meeting of the Jedi Masters. He also invited several Jedi who were not Masters but who were influential in the Order, including Leia and Jaina. They met in the Masters’ Chamber, sitting among the circle of chairs once used by the old Jedi Council. Additional seating had been brought in for the assembly—there were, in the face of the Unification Summit and Luke’s farewell, more Masters on Coruscant than could be routinely accommodated.

  Master Hamner began without preamble. “It seems clear that some of our recent trouble, the public reaction that gave the government so much of its leverage in its action against the Grand Master, arises because of the general public’s state of ignorance concerning the Jedi Order.”

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p; There was some nodding among the Masters at this statement.

  “It is my intent to demystify the Jedi Order to the public as much as is reasonable—without impairing our effectiveness.

  “I’d like for one Master to volunteer to be the subject of documentary coverage. That Master and his or her apprentice will be accompanied on an assignment or two by a documentary crew. The story they produce will be broadcast with, I hope, the result of making the Jedi more sympathetic in the public eye. Volunteers?”

  No hand raised. Saba Sebatyne said, “Thiz one is perhapz too ferocious for a documentary children will watch.”

  “I think perhaps you are correct, Master Sebatyne. No one? Ah, Master Ramis. Thank you.” Master Hamner consulted his datapad. “An independent producer has contacted us about his plan to create a holodrama about the Jedi. It sounds like mindless, swashbuckling adventure, which ordinarily would stir me to some midpoint between apathy and contempt, but in our current situation I think it will work in our favor. I have denied his rather naïve requests to consult our Archives and record certain sequences in the Temple—” There were sighs of relief from among the Masters. “—but I have promised to put forth the request that a Jedi Master serve as technical consultant, and will give my permission to one who does. Here, too, do we have a volunteer? I will not insist … Ah, Master Durron. You just won me fifty credits. Thank you.”

  Sitting in one of the chamber’s permanent chairs, Kam Solusar, obviously the loser of the bet, scowled.

  Now Master Hamner’s manner became more grave. “Finally, we have some bad news to face. We have been informed by the Office of the Chief of State that, effective immediately, Jedi will be accompanied by government observers.”