Balance Point (7 page)

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.

That had to be the one Tekli spotted. He held himself crookedly. He could’ve been badly injured, but …

“That one,” Anakin whispered.

“Check him through the Force.”

She pressed farther back in the booth, narrowing the angle between Anakin and the human-looking attendant so she could see them both without moving her head. Anakin narrowed his blue eyes, leaning forward enough that a strand of hair fell across his forehead. He frowned.

“You look like the champion of the galaxy,” she whispered a warning.

He compressed his lips, irked.

Then he straightened several centimeters.

Mara slid a hand under her vest, getting a grip on her lightsaber. “Nothing?” she murmured.

“Nothing.”

Mara stretched out and double-checked Anakin’s pronouncement. The alleged human did feel like a shadow—a dead spot, an emptiness.

Anakin was already rising from the table.

“No,” Mara said sharply. “Not in the middle of a restaurant full of bystanders.”

“What do we do?” he demanded. “He’s going to get away.”

“Hardly. He’s working a shift. We finish our dinner.” Mara leaned against the mossy tabletop. “And before we move in, we see if he’s got reinforcements in the kitchen.”

Randa lumbered into the Solos’ sleeping shelter. Han was out at the reservoir today, tinkering with something at the pumping station. Jacen had come back for a spare comlink.

Randa barely could fit into the open space between cots, but he tried.

“Bad enough,” he fumed, twitching the end of his tail away from the pile of belongings at the foot of Jacen’s cot, “that I cannot rush to my homeworld’s aid. But now, to be told I must subsist on the same ration allotment as one of the Ryn …” He drew up as tall as he could, puffing out his midsection. “Is my body type even remotely similar to those small, furred pests? My metabolism requires—”

“Not the same allotment.” Jacen slipped the comlink into a pocket and sat down on his cot, resting his back gingerly against the wall. Some of these buildings had been collapsed by rambunctious Ryn children. “The same percent of standard nutritional ration. If your metabolism is measured at three times a Ryn’s, you’ll be issued—”

“Not enough. I will waste, shrivel, atrophy. Already I am small for my age.” In the light of the shelter’s open door, Jacen saw Randa’s sunburstlike irises enlarge, narrowing the pupils to slits.