Balance Point Read online

  “Daye’s a good man,” Cilghal said softly. “Lowbacca and Tinian got out of Hutt space, didn’t they?”

  Luke nodded. “They just reported in from Kashyyyk. No sign of enemy activity there.”

  “At least the Yuuzhan Vong aren’t messing with Wookiees at home,” Ulaha Kore said lightly. Ulaha was a delicate young Bith, with musical talents that admitted her to any number of intelligence-rich social occasions. Ulaha looked careworn, her posture so slumped that Mara barely could see her large eyes under her protruding, hairless head.

  Her comment provoked nervous laughter around the circle, which showed Mara how desperate for levity even the Jedi were getting.

  “Nothing out of Bilbringi?” Hamner asked. “Mon Calamari?”

  Luke let the colonel steer the conversation to the New Republic’s remaining military strongholds. “Nothing unusual at Bilbringi,” he answered. “Tenel Ka and Jovan Drark have stationed themselves in public places, looking for dead spots in the Force that could be Yuuzhan Vong in masquers. The same from Markre Medjev, finishing up his research on Bothawui,” he said, shooting Mara a rueful glance. With Borsk Fey’lya clinging to power as chief of state, the reduced Fifth Fleet was back in Bothan space, useless to the Core. “And our supply and information lines to Mon Cal are still cut.”

  They’d been cut for months. The other Jedi sat silently for almost a minute, reflecting on the reports. Luke’s eyes fell half-shut.

  Mara laced her long fingers, hoping he wasn’t trying to get a spin on the future. If the future beat him over the head and demanded to be seen, that was fine. Pushing for it was another matter.

  The fountain burbled, a free-form Mon Calamari construct with irregular surfaces. Its top bowl rotated, sending sheets of water down its sides. Mara appreciated its sonic cover. Luke, though, still seemed fascinated by water that didn’t have to be forced down from the sky by moisture vaporators. He called these meetings randomly, at different places, but he often chose spots near running water. Maybe he was starting to notice the shapes and patterns of his life, starting the subtle transition from young adulthood toward a hopefully wiser age.

  She pursed her lips, frustrated to catch herself thinking that way. She was healthy again. She liked maturity. She respected strength.

  But youth had privileges, hopes she still hadn’t fulfilled, and maybe never would. She’d seized Vergere’s elixir because her instincts said it would work. She had no instinctive leading on when, if ever, she might safely conceive a child.

  On the far side of the circle, little Tekli cleared her throat. Fur trembled on her large round ears.

  As Luke’s eyes opened, Mara felt hers widen a trace. The Chadra-Fan apprentice had never spoken up during a meeting.

  “I debated whether to even report this,” she began, her voice a musical whisper.

  Anakin’s lips twisted sardonically. Mara made a mental note to speak with him about his attitude toward the marginally gifted—if Luke didn’t do it, first.

  “Go on.” Cilghal gave an assuring wave with one webbed hand.

  Tekli glanced at her mentor, then continued. “Two days ago, I was down near Dometown, in a new strip called JoKo’s Alley. Looking for a friend,” she added hastily, as if embarrassed to admit she’d been prowling such a riotous area of Coruscant’s understory.

  “Yes?” Luke gave Tekli a sober, attentive stare. Overseeing the Jedi academy had taught him patience. They keep learning, he’d told Mara, as long as someone encourages them.

  “I heard someone talking in a tapcaf, about—”

  “Which one?” Anakin demanded.

  Luke extended a hand, palm down. “Wait, Anakin. Go on, Tekli.”

  She raised her head and stroked her long whiskers. “It was the Leafy Green, actually. Two Rodians were talking about one of the employees, and how if that was a human, he’d eat his … I couldn’t hear the next words, but we’ve all heard about ooglith masquers, and how the Yuuzhan Vong can pass as human. Maybe it’s just general jumpiness, Master Skywalker, but it would be easy for … for one of your more gifted Jedi to check out.”

  “Do you want to go back?” Luke asked gently.

  Tekli shook her head. “I’m no fighter, sir.”

  Mara caught a side glance from Anakin. He raised one dark eyebrow at her. She pursed her lips.

  Luke glanced toward her, then Anakin. “That’s all right, Tekli. I just had two capable volunteers. The Jedi will always be strongest,” he added, “when everyone uses their full talents. Whatever you’re given to do, do it with all your ability.”

  Tekli’s broad nose twitched with pleasure.

  “You’re sure you feel up to this?” Luke demanded.

  Mara walked beside him down the open-air mezzanine. Along one grand edifice, a gardener droid clung to the trunk of a singing fig tree, pruning away last year’s erratic growth.

  Luke’s cloak billowed behind him, drawing stares. The stares bothered her, after so many years as a shadow agent—and she never wore Jedi robes unless she absolutely had to.

  “Of course I’m up to it. I haven’t felt so obnoxiously healthy since …” She trailed off. “Well, in a while.”

  “Or I can send someone else with you.”

  Mara laughed. “Anakin’s fine.”

  She’d asked for a few minutes alone with her husband, so their nephew followed at a polite distance. Without even stretching out through the Force, she felt Anakin’s alert mental state. He took his sentry role as seriously as he took everything else.

  “He feels terrible about Centerpoint,” she added. “That’s a load, on top of blaming himself for Chewie’s death. He’s doing better with that, but he’s carrying some serious baggage.”

  Luke knew it, of course. Luke caught people’s feelings just as quickly as she got leadings from her instincts.

  “He feels even worse about listening to Jacen,” Luke pointed out. “That rift between them worries me.”

  “Jacen worries me,” Mara countered. He hadn’t left Coruscant in a good frame of mind, and they hadn’t heard from him in two months.

  They crossed a side passage. A chill breeze, probably from some ventilation system set for Talz comfort, made her shiver. Luke almost opened his mouth to speak, then shut it firmly, raising one eyebrow—a plea for understanding. He’d almost slipped and asked again if she was all right. He was pushing his limit for the day.

  Don’t hover, husband. Again, she thought words at him, but she softened the rebuke with a wink.

  His lips twitched. He almost smiled. They’d had this exchange, what … a hundred times? It had become one of the myriad comforting rituals of their marriage, almost seven years that had tempered her bitterness with his unwavering devotion.

  She glanced back. Anakin followed silently, step-scuffing along with his knee-high brown boots, the way he often did when trying to look relaxed and casual. Three young human women and a sinuous Falleen, probably low-ranking government employees, stopped walking—almost in step—and watched him pass.

  With those dark good looks, Anakin definitely had crowd appeal. Coruscant needed a vital young hero. Anakin seemed to attract those who wanted Jedi vigilantes—Kyp Durron’s faction—as well as those who still approved of the more traditional Jedi stance of power under extreme discipline. Kyp had courted Anakin hard, between his squadron’s engagements.

  Mara compressed her lips. She was almost as worried for Anakin as for his despondent brother. Anakin would surely be tempted. Precociously talented, he couldn’t claim Luke’s virtuous, hardworking upbringing. She’d seen Luke’s memories, his deepest regrets and his most secret griefs. She knew how closely the dark had pursued him.

  As it would chase Anakin, who was raised by an exsmuggler who loved to bend rules, a loving but often absent mother, her talented aide, and a protocol droid—and at the Jedi academy, in the shadow of two siblings. If Anakin didn’t fall to the dark side, then having resisted temptation could leave him even stronger—maybe the most powerful Jedi of
his generation.

  “About that Yuuzhan Vong agent,” she murmured, “if Tekli really spotted one. I want to take him alive. We could get more out of one live prisoner than one more corpse.” The xenobiologists did have a few hard-won cadavers, preserved on various worlds. “Such as—what effect trank darts might have on their chemistry.”

  “It’s not ethical to experiment on prisoners.” Luke’s eyes barely narrowed.

  “How are we—”

  “It would also be good to know if they can be stunned,” he interrupted her in midobjection.

  “Point.”

  Their living armor seemed to turn blaster bolts, but could a lower-energy stun pulse get through? Even if it only disabled the living vonduun crab, that might immobilize a warrior inside.

  Running that little experiment, and certainly not on a prisoner, would mean getting closer than anyone but a Jedi would dare try to get.

  And Luke hadn’t demanded to take the mission. He’d also just brought her around to his point of view without challenging her, she realized.

  Mara touched his arm, and he closed his hand on hers. Their deep bond had suffered during the dark days when she thought she was dying. She’d pulled back into herself, even from Luke.

  What a relief, to be able to reengage in their relationship. Their marriage ought to be challenge enough to last anyone’s lifetime—with or without small dreams to follow them.

  The dinner crowd had started to slacken as Mara led Anakin off the repulsor train into JoKo’s Alley. She strolled to an overlook, planted both hands on the railing, and stared down.

  Far below, layers of lights faded into the dangerous undercity. A hawk-bat swooped, picking granite slugs or some other urban wildlife off duracrete walls. A brilliant yellow turbolift cube raced an orange module up the wall across from her, returning visitors to Coruscant’s more populous upper levels.

  This district lay far enough down that she couldn’t see the high-speed air travel lanes when she looked up, past the edge of military-controlled Dometown. Only local traffic zipped along at this level. A patrol unit hovered, its pod lights blinking a slow blue pulse.

  “Quiet evening, so far.” Anakin eased up alongside her, turning half away.

  Satisfied with her reconnaissance, Mara put the chasm behind her and stared into the crowd. Hesitantly, she opened herself—just a bit—to the Force. Bubbles of emotional noise burst here and there, mostly from people near Anakin’s age. An older Quarren couple walked past quickly, heads down, shoulder to shoulder. She saw tension in their twitching facial tentacles. The taller individual kept glancing away from his partner. They kept a broad personal space around themselves.

  Carrying something a little too valuable tonight, she concluded.

  In the other direction swaggered two human males, one rather loose-limbed, his face glowing with the effects of several mugs of lum. She caught a few words as they passed. “… over to the Peace Brigade. That way, if the Vong get this far …”

  The voice faded, leaving Mara frowning. Coruscant, long a coal bed of intrigue, was turning into a fear-driven focus cooker. Peace Brigaders, humans who had decided to collaborate with the Yuuzhan Vong, did not wear their clasped-hand insignia openly, but she guessed that time was coming.

  She slipped one hand inside her long black vest. Beneath the pocketed credcards and her comlink, she wore a loosely hooded burnt-orange flight suit, and her blaster and lightsaber—the one Luke had given her. Long habit made her carry her shoulders at just the right angle to drape her clothing over her armament. Anakin’s tunic and loose pants did the trick well enough. He had one odd bulge at the belt, probably a Sabrashi fear stick, but a casual passerby would take them for a woman escorting her son on an evening out.

  Son. Again she frowned. With every month that hurried past, driven by the invasion or paced by concerns about the fate of the Jedi, the urge to hold her own child tugged harder—and looked less plausible. Every month, she and Luke resolutely turned away.

  Sometimes—according to Cilghal, Oolos, and the other healers—the bizarre disease that plagued her had killed its victims by breaking down the proteins that surrounded cell nuclei. Sometimes, she’d even felt that starting in, seemingly nibbling her bones or other specific organs. An illness that attacked cellular integrity could destroy an unborn child, or alter its cell structure to produce … to produce what? she wondered. If she ever had a child, would it even be human?

  No, she would content herself with a gifted niece-apprentice and two talented nephews. She and Luke also sponsored—visited, when they could—a thirteen-year-old Bakuran orphan, Malinza Thanas. Malinza’s father had died of a lingering ailment, and her mother was killed at another Centerpoint crisis years ago. Luke still felt deeply responsible for the girl, adopted by a well-placed Bakuran family. At distant Bakura, at least Malinza seemed safe from the Yuuzhan Vong.

  Thinking of Bakura made Mara imagine how the defeated Ssi-ruuk might have dealt with the Yuuzhan Vong. Did these new invaders, evidently dead to the Force, have life energies that could have been drained off to power Ssi-ruuvi technology?

  That would be the ultimate humiliation …

  Anakin eyed a transparent kiosk. At eye level, it showed a three-dimensional, animated holo of five levels in this area.

  “Looks like the Leafy Green is two corridors north,” he said. “Want to catch another train?”

  “We’ll walk,” Mara answered. “Stay sharp.”

  She felt him hang back, on her left, as she melted into the flow of passersby. It was a good, defensible two-person formation, with master on point.

  Mara turned her head slightly. “Tonight’s lesson,” she told Anakin. “It’s a review.” Anakin would never learn skulduggery from her husband, who stuck out in a crowd like a Sunesi preacher.

  “Hm.” Anakin eyed a trail of moving lights, set like a slidewalk to draw pedestrians into a new restaurant.

  “Evaluate constantly,” she said. “The more information you collect before shove comes to shake, the more choices you’ll have, and the fewer ways your enemy might surprise you.”

  He held his hands folded in front of him, thumbs pressed together. “I know that.” They passed a door that belched out weird odors and a gaseous red mist.

  “What about last week, on the simulators?” she demanded. “And while you’re thinking about that, lose the Jedi pose.”

  His arms dropped to his sides. “Flying against you? I never had a chance.”

  “You attack too early. It’s your pattern. Knowing your weakness is the first step toward conquering it.” And I know what you’re thinking, Anakin Solo. You think I’m losing my edge.

  Mara altered course as three slightly drunken young Twi’leks lurched their way up the promenade. Anakin maintained his position, well out of their path.

  He was a fast learner. His entire generation of Jedi was having to grow up quickly.

  Of course, there hadn’t been much peace in the galaxy during her adolescence either.

  More moving lights arched overhead, setting eerie glimmers in clothing, hair, fur, and exposed skin. The crowd pressed tighter in the pedestrian corridor. Here and there she spotted billowy sheets of yellow fungus, developed by a Ho’Din scientist to help oxygenate dark areas of the undercity.

  About half a klick farther along, the overhead lights became a tumble of arrow-shaped green leaves. She glanced through a broad doorway. The lights inside weren’t as dim as many they’d passed. Across the passage was a garish skin-art studio.

  “Well,” she murmured, “Tekli’s friend has good taste.”

  She pushed into the Leafy Green. Anakin kept his right elbow near her left.

  The tapcaf was built around a central column. As Mara’s eyes adjusted, she saw that the column had been carved and shaded to look like a living tree trunk. Above, it parted into dozens of seeming branches. Leaves fluttered in an artificial breeze.

  Quite an assassin’s loft, in her professional opinion—especially at center,
where the branches looked strongest.

  “Good evening, gentle friends. A table?”

  Mara glanced down at a young Drall, maybe an early emigrant from Corellia. “Yes,” she said. “Something near the door.” She glanced up, considering that loft at the trunk’s center. “And close to the outside wall,” where she could keep an eye on the entire establishment.

  “Follow, please.”

  The Drall led them along a soft, springy surface and paused beside a booth built to human dimensions. Mara took the seat facing the entry, leaving Anakin to watch deeper inside the establishment. Her forearm sank into the tabletop, which seemed to be covered with feathery moss. The carpet looked like fallen leaves. She hoped the food was hygienic.

  “Something for you, gentles, to begin?” Their server offered the traditional hospitality, meanwhile keying holographic menus to appear over the tabletop.

  “Elba water,” she answered.

  Anakin nodded. “Two.”

  The husky young Drall’s furry back receded along the fallen leaves.

  An artificial spring bubbled around the tree’s base, humidifying the air. Mara made a mental note to tell Luke about the place. Surreptitiously eyeing other patrons, she saw nothing more hazardous than a young Dug couple arguing over dessert. She and Anakin selected options in the usual way, by flicking the heads-up menu’s live spots. Then she turned sideways and leaned against the booth’s inner wall.

  “See anything?” she asked.

  “Not worth mentioning.” His eyes kept moving, though. Good, Anakin. “If I really hated technology, this is one place on Coruscant where I might feel half comfortable.”

  “True enough.”

  There wasn’t a service droid in sight. That fact alone was almost enough to make her suspect the manager-owner. Over the long run, droids were significantly cheaper and more reliable than most hired help.

  As their server returned with elba water and two covered warmer-plates, a family of Whiphids left noisily, the father humphing around his tusks. Mara spotted another attendant, walking somewhat hunched, carrying a tray out of what looked like a cavernous kitchen. He set down the tray and started gathering used serviceware off a leafy table.