Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Vector Prime by R. A. Salvatore Page A

bring the
Jade Sabre
down.”
    Leia thought it over for a moment. Yes, Jaina could land the shuttle with no problems, and Leia was an experienced pilot and could watch over her all the way, and Mara could certainly use all the rest she could find. She almost agreed.
    Almost—and again came those nagging doubts about the way she mothered Jaina.
    “It’s Mara’s ship,” she said. “To land it without her explicit permission would be a slight against her.”
    Glad for the etiquette dodge, Leia smiled and patted Jaina’s shoulder. “I know you’d put it down so softly that Mara wouldn’t even shift in her bed,” she said, and she winked at Jaina when the young woman looked up at her.
    That brought a smile to Jaina’s face, and Leia patted her shoulder again and left the bridge, heading for Mara’s room.
    She paused outside the door and lifted her hand to knock, but then hesitated, hearing quiet sounds coming from within. Leia put her ear to the door and listened carefully.
    She heard only an occasional sniffle, and Leia understood that Mara was crying.
    “Mara?” she called softly, and knocked on the door.
    No reply, and Leia pushed the button and let the door slide away. Mara sat on her bed, her back to Leia, her shoulders hunched slightly, as if she had just gotten control of her emotions.
    “Are you all right?” Leia asked. Mara nodded.
    Leia moved over and sat on the bed beside her, draping her arm across Mara’s shoulders as soon as she recognized the moistness rimming the woman’s eyes.
    “What is it?” she asked softly.
    Mara sat up straighter and took a deep breath, ending in a forced smile. “Nothing at all,” she answered.
    Leia stared at her skeptically.
    “A dream,” Mara clarified. “And when I woke up, I was just being foolish.”
    “Do you want to talk about it?”
    Mara shrugged.
    Leia waited a moment longer, but the other woman apparently would not offer anything more. “We’re nearing Coruscant,” Leia explained. “Would you like me to help Jaina bring her in?”
    “I can do it,” Mara assured her. She rose and started for the door, a step full of stiffness that brought a wince to her face.
    Leia was up in an instant, hooking Mara under the arm for support.
    “I just slept in a twisted position,” Mara tried to explain, but Leia, not buying that for a moment, didn’t let go. She came around Mara’s side and gently forced her to sit back on the edge of the bed.
    “It’s not the way you slept,” she said. “It’s the disease, isn’t it?”
    Mara looked up at her, successfully fighting back any trace of tears. “It came on again a little while ago,” she admitted.
    Leia sighed and shook her head, wishing there was something, anything, she could do to help her sister-in-law, her dear friend.
    “That’s fairly common, you said,” she prompted. “Is there something different about the attack this time?”
    Mara looked away.
    “You have to tell me,” Leia said, more sternly than she had intended, and the look Mara returned to her, not of anger or violation, but more of incredulity, set Leia back. Why did Mara have to tell her, after all? It wasn’t as if she could do anything to help the woman. All of the others who had come down with this disease had told their doctors and had subsequently been referred to the best physicians in the New Republic. All of them had detailed every twinge, every ache, and had begged for any help at all. They were all dead, or soon would be.
    “I’m sorry,” Leia said, that disturbing thought hanging thick in her mind. “You don’t have to tell me anything.” She leaned forward and kissed Mara on the cheek, then rose to leave, offering the woman her hand.
    Mara took that hand, but instead of getting up, she pulled Leia back down to the bed beside her. Then she stared long and hard into Leia’s eyes. “My womb, this time,” she said.
    Leia crinkled her face, not understanding.
    “This illness,” Mara explained. “It came to me