Free Balance Point by Kathy Tyers

rolled her hookah toward the viewbubble while Mara superimposed abstract samples on her bared shoulder. “Not today, I guess.”
    “No body contact,” the attendant called after her. “Entirely laser done.”
    Mara was already out the door, straightening her flight suit’s neckline and hood. She located Anakin through the Force and nudged him to get moving. At the same time, she double-checked their quarry. He still wasn’t there, except to her eyes.
    Mara, who was tall enough to see over half the beings between them, followed the server. Now and then, she caught a clear glimpse. He held his head straight forward, looking right or left only when necessary.
    “Got him in sight?” She heard Anakin at her left elbow.
    “Straight ahead, easing left.”
    “Where? … There,” Anakin exclaimed. “He’s not wearing armor, just the masquer.”
    “As far as I can see. They still might not stun easily.”
    “We’ll find out,” Anakin said. “I’ll get off to one side.”
    He edged away. Mara kept pace with the pedestrian flow while Anakin drifted left. The restaurant server reached a station where repulsor trains departed the Dometown area. Mara pushed closer, watching more attentively, flowing parallel to her target until he’d chosen a loading platform. Then she pushed through the gate behind a family of armored Psadans. She slipped one of her false IDs through the reader, then settled in to wait, keeping her head down. Out of the corner of her eye, shesaw Anakin pass the gate. Not long ago, he would’ve waved a hand over the reader. She was glad when he used a false ID. The more he learned to operate without using the Force, the better attuned he could stay to its flow and others’ movements. He would learn his own capabilities, too. In this respect, Jacen’s … retreat, for lack of a better word … seemed good and honorable.
    Sometimes she imagined Jacen forty years in the future, either teaching at the academy or ensconced on his own little world, like Yoda. If he survived.
    The next repulsor train swept out of its approach tunnel, emerged on the side of the city-canyon, and braked silently. Mara pushed in with the rest of the crowd. By now, she’d counted and cataloged them by species, sex, and threat level. More intriguing than her fellow passengers was the fact that this run would take them right back where they started, toward the governmental zone.
    The train traveled smoothly, its minimal noise covered by conversations inside the thirty-passenger compartment. Her target pushed out through standing riders as they approached Embassies Row and the main SELCORE office. Mara caught Anakin’s glance and cut her eyes toward the door. He nodded, then followed the server.
    Mara let the pod reach one more station before getting off and doubling back. She caught Anakin’s sense like a shout through the Force.
    The quarry was moving more quickly now, up a lane Mara knew to be lower-income housing for embassies’ staffers. She hustled closer, listening for any warning from her finely honed danger sense.
    The server finally turned around. Mara kept walking straight, but Anakin stopped and looked aside a little too innocently.
    The target ducked down a narrow side passage. Anakin sprinted after him.
    Shaking her head in frustration, Mara broke into a run. For all of Anakin’s potential, he had the subtlety of a Hutt in a Mon Cal meditation pool.
    He’s barely sixteen
, she reminded herself.
Still plenty young enough to be trigger-poppy
. At least he’d quit trying to wring vengeance for Chewie out of every suspected Yuuzhan Vong in the galaxy.
    The cul-de-sac was a high gray corridor that wormed into one of Coruscant’s complex edifices. A few windows, none with ledges, opened overhead. Yellowish light standards hung from the third story. The stranger hunched close to a doorway, bending toward an access panel.
    Anakin sprinted forward, drew his blaster, and fired. Flickers of blue energy connected with