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

again while I slept, this time attacking my womb.”
    Leia’s eyes widened with fear. “Did you defeat it?”
    Mara nodded, and managed a slight smile. “It won’t kill me yet,” she replied with a less-than-comforting chuckle.
    Leia nodded, full of admiration for this strong and stoic woman. Every time the disease had cropped up, Mara had focused her strength, had focused the Force inward, and beat it back. “But it was more difficult this time,” Leia remarked, thinking she had the answer to Mara’s uncharacteristic tearful reaction.
    The woman shook her head. “Not so bad an attack,” she replied.
    “Then what?” Leia asked.
    Mara took another deep breath. “My womb,” she said solemnly.
    Then it hit Leia fully. “You’re afraid you might not be able to have any children,” she said.
    “I’m not so young anymore,” Mara answered with a self-deprecating chuckle.
    It was true enough—Mara, like Leia and Luke, was past forty, but except for the disease, she was very healthy and, as far as Leia knew, still able to have kids. Leia surely understood the woman’s concerns, though, given the disease’s attack on her very core of womanhood.
    “When I married your brother, we talked about having kids,” Mara explained. “He had watched your three grow so strong and wonderful, and more than anything in the world, we both wanted our own.”
    “You can still have them,” Leia assured her.
    “Perhaps,” Mara answered. “But who knows, Leia? I’m growing tired of fighting, and this disease shows no signs of letting up.”
    “Nor is it gaining any ground,” Leia reminded. “I haven’t given up,” Mara assured her. “But I can’t have kids now—I don’t even know if I’d pass this along to them, or if they’d be killed by it inside of me. And who knows when itwill be over, or if it will have caused too much damage for me to ever have them?”
    Leia wanted to say something reassuring, but how could she possibly dismiss Mara’s obviously well-grounded logic? She put her arm on the woman’s shoulder. “You have to keep hoping,” she said.
    Mara managed a smile. “I will,” she promised. “Besides, I’ve got Jaina under my wing now, and that’s almost as good.”
    A quick flash across Leia’s face betrayed her.
    “What?” Mara asked with concern.
    Leia blushed and laughed out loud.
    “What?”
    “There have been times when I’ve been so jealous of you and Jaina,” Leia admitted, smiling with every word. “I see the bond between you, and I feel both wonderful that Jaina has found so inspiring a friend and mentor, and awful. When I see the two of you working together, I want to rush over and hug you and choke you all at once!”
    Mara’s expression revealed true concern, until Leia fell over her, wrapping her in a tight hug. “Oh, you’ll beat this,” Leia said. “You will. And you’ll have babies, and may be soon after you, Jaina will have her own.” She pushed Mara back to arm’s length. “And won’t that be fun?” she asked. “The three of us sitting around, trading stories, while Luke gets to babysit them all.”
    It was the perfect thing to say at that moment, and the edges of Mara’s lips turned up, just a bit, into a smile, and a flash of hope crossed her vivid green eyes.
    Leia knew, though, as she and Mara headed back to the bridge, that it might well be a fleeting hope, and an image of herself and Jaina sitting and talking to Jaina’s babies about their brave, deceased great-aunt Mara nearly broke her down at that moment.
    Nearly, but she held back the tears. She had to, they all had to, for Mara’s sake.
* * *
     
    Jacen heard the telltale hiss and electric snapping as he approached the main chamber of the
Millennium Falcon
. Anakin was in there, he realized, and practicing with his lightsaber again.
    Always practicing.
    Normally, Jacen would leave his little brother alone, knowing that the two of them simply couldn’t come to any philosophical agreements in