The Force was no longer at peace. The being cackled unseen, the noise joining the revelry that would see his triumphant return.

It had been too easy. A long wait, but that had not been the difficult part.

What had been hard was experiencing himself shut out, closed off. And the Force had grown still. Small; hardly the power it once was.

He had used that peace, assailed it with the fury of a siege army until his imperceptible touch eroded it as surely as if it were made of grains of sand. Little by little.

A crack in the facade. That's what he had used. And the crack was very wide now. Victory was assured, except...

Others felt the disturbance in the Force.

The three Solo children were lined up on the sofa in front of their pacing father. He wasn't mad at them, Jaina could tell, but he sure was upset.

Anakin was sitting on his mother's lap, little hand reaching into his candy sack and piling it on the empty cushion beside him. Jacen and Jaina had theirs between their feet on the floor. A security guard was standing on the other side of the room, following the movements of General Solo. Lando Calrissian sat in a chair and pulled at his deep green velvet cape so that it covered the top of his biceps. Chancellor Mothma was here too, but Jaina got the feeling she was only there on behalf of her mother, found herself stuck, and was too curious to leave.

"Now then," Han Solo said, "where'd you pick him up?"

"He picked us up," Jacen spoke up. "He was just a Mischief maker, Dad, like all of us."

"Did he just tag along, or did he say anything?"

"He mentioned he wanted to go to the Senator's house, and of course we were going too, so I invited him."

"That's what he said? Senator?"

"Yeah, Dad, but everyone knew-"

"Did he have an adult with him?" Leia asked.

Jacen and Jaina looked at each other. "Don't think so," they said together. "What's the big deal?" Jacen added. "We didn't tell him who we were."

"Good." Han gave a satisfied nod.

"Han," Leia said reasonably, "maybe you're reading too much into this. I'm sure this little boy-"

"He was no little boy," Lando declared.

Leia glared at him. "- this well-disguised being was not the only one to get in unaccompanied."

"He was scary," Anakin said.

"He sure was," Lando put in. "He was also very interested in Darth Vader, wasn't he, Han?"

"I found him pushing beings out of his way at Luke's booth," Han told them.

"What was his costume?" Mon Mothma asked innocently, charmed by little Anakin. He was still young enough where the line of fantasy and reality blurred.

Han and Lando looked at each other. "It wasn't a costume," Han said.

"It was Palpatine," Lando said at the same time.

Luke helplessly listened to the screams of his infant son. It was nothing like he had ever heard before. Well, once before, and from his own mouth, years ago.

That, too, had been the scream of a son to his father. Emperor Palpatine was hitting Luke with blast after blast of Force lightning, and the pain seemed to electrify the marrow of his bones, it went that deep. But also, Luke remembered his father wrestling with indecision, his expressionless face mask moving from Emperor Palpatine to Luke, back and forth, watching him suffer. The fact that Anakin Skywalker had to think about it, whether or not to save his son, had hurt him more than the lightning.

But surely this was not the same thing.

"Luke, I don't like this at all." Mara's usually guarded face was very worried. "Do you feel it?"

Even though he was walking through a crowded yard, Luke closed his eyes while he moved. The reassurance he sought from the Force, usually as reliable as the sky above, was not there.

"We definitely need to talk to the others."

"Of course it was a costume," Leia said to the group at large. "It's Mischief Night!" She was fighting a sense of alarm and dread. Something felt terribly, terribly wrong; almost how she had felt during the civil war, when she was full of wild anger and grief. The only things that saved her then were Han, Luke and Chewie. She wanted to grab her children and just hold them close, protect them from everything. But they had the effect of calming her, and she marveled at them. Jaina and Jacen, listening intently, unafraid and stout-hearted; Anakin, honest and innocent, who so trusted his parents that he felt safe.

Mon Mothma said, "I'm not aware Imperial Emperor masks are in production. While not banned, there has been a mutual agreement it's in very poor taste."

"Definitely a custom job," Han said. "That's why I squeezed his face."

"You what?" Leia exclaimed. "Han, I really don't see that this is some sort of terrorist effort. That a mere boy would be able to-"

A security team member entered the room and sent his eyes around, wondering to whom he should deliver his report. He settled on the highest ranking.

"Chancellor Mothma," his eyes flicked to the children and he softened his report. "A holophotographer was found collapsed on the grounds. I'm afraid he's dead."

"What about the guests?" Leia said. "Do they know?"

"I'm afraid so, Senator-"

"He's afraid again," Han muttered to Lando.

"So am I," came the answer.

"- it's difficult to hide the fact of an emergency ambulance."

"Of course," Leia said. She spoke to Mon Mothma. "We'll have to put a stop to the festivities. She stood, placing Anakin on the couch next to Jaina. "I'll make an announcement, tell everyone we're sorry but in the light of events and out of respect for the photographer, they'll have to go home."

"I'm afraid no one will be allowed to leave, Senator- " the security agent said.

"He have to use that word every time he speaks?" Han said.

"- he was murdered."

Luke burst into the room, followed by Mara and his crying son. "Oh, I'm glad you're all together." His niece and nephews were strong in the Force like his sister. The fact that the kids were on the sofa, and security agents were present, confirmed he had not imagined the stirrings in the Force, and nor had baby Ben.

"Ben," Leia floated over to Mara. "What's wrong, honey? Such tears."

"I can't get him to stop crying." Mara was near tears herself. "I've tried everything."

"Something's happened," Luke said.

"We know already," Lando said.

"Is he sick, Uncle Luke?" Jaina asked.

"I don't think so. The something happened in the Force. Ben feels it more than us, because he's a baby."

"The something happened when a photographer got killed," Han said.

"Someone's dead?" Mara exclaimed.

"Uncle Luke, I'm sorry," Jacen burst out. "I told the kid he could come. I had a bad feeling but you've taught us to let generosity override our personal feelings."

Luke frowned at his nephew. "Kid?"

"Someone disguised as a mischief maker followed the kids in," Han told Luke. "And now there's a dead photographer."

"And you think a kid killed him? No," Luke said, "something much bigger is at work. Jacen, what you said is true. But I also should have taught you the difference between personal feelings and an instinctive warning. It's not your fault, Jacen."

Luke took Ben from Mara. He strode over to the couch. "Anakin, will you hold Ben? You're the next youngest, and the more attuned to the true nature of the Force."

"Can I give him a candy?" Anakin asked.

"No," Luke smiled affectionately. "He's too young. But you can calm him down."

"I was scared, too," Anakin said.

"Scared of what?" Luke said. He settled Ben on his nephew's lap and kneeled to make sure the little boy knew how to hold a baby.

"The creep kid." Anakin was looking at his cousin, whose cries now diminished to a whimper.

Mara gave a cry of relief and sat next to Anakin. "You're doing it, Nak."

"The one that latched on to us," Jacen said.

"Palpatine," Lando said.

Luke gaped at Lando. "What?" His voice sounded loud now that Ben had stopped crying. A long time ago Luke would have said it was impossible, but he knew better now.

"The kid. Or something. Whatever, it's loose on the grounds," Han explained. "I thought he was a spoiled rich kid. But he sprang straight up in the air into the trees while he was talking to me. Like he had jet springs in his shoes. Whoosh!" Han demonstrated by sliding a palm upward against the other.

"It was other-worldly," Lando contributed.

"What did he look like?" Luke asked cautiously.

"Palpatine," Lando repeated.

"Kid-sized, kind of a deep voice though," Han described. "Over-sized brown robes with a huge hood. He's got awful teeth-"

"Bags under his eyes," Jaina said. She looked at her twin. "Would you say maybe five layers?"

Jacen shrugged. "He cackled. I've never heard anyone cackle except a witch in stories, but that was a real cackle."

"Yellow fingernails. Kidney troubles, I'd say," Lando said. "If he's human."

"It fits Palpatine's description the last time I saw him," Luke said.

"Which is when he died," Leia pointed out. "You saw that, too."

"And what about the dead photographer?" Mon Mothma reminded the group. "Whatever this being is, there's been a homicide. It could be a maniac, and we're all in danger."

"Sounds exactly like Palpatine," Lando said.

"It can't be," Leia laughed with a bitter hysteria, and Han went over and put his arm around her. "I don't think I can do this again," she said.

"Hey, you did it better than he did last time," he encouraged softly. "He died and you won."

"It's rare for me to say this," Mara said, "but Solo's right."

Han usually replied with his own put-down of Mara, but this time he knew she was trying to lighten the moment and even reassure herself. He answered instead with a half smile.

"I need somewhere quiet to think," Luke said. "I'll have a plan soon as I know better what's going on."

Han forgot to tell Luke he had locked the bedroom door, but that was no obstacle. Luke lay on the bed, his hands clasped over his middle and his eyes closed. He focused on freeing his mind from its human limitations.

He started with the facts and moved ever outward. A murder, his screaming son. History.

Memory, and his screams of agony. Lightning streamed toward him, and there was an evil laughter. Yes, precisely a cackle, Luke thought.

The lightning came from two human hands, held forth kind of limply, yellowed and aged. Luke's memory looked into the face from where the cackle originated. Hideous. Wrinkled in deep folds of flesh; gray, bloodless lips; rotted teeth; eyes yellow and puffy. Three layers of bags, he counted.

Palpatine. Dropped into the generator shaft of the Death Star to his death.

Supposedly. No, definitely. Luke had seen it.

Talk about your Force Ghosts, Luke thought, and he wiped his face with his hand. Why couldn't Palpatine be one of those?

Seven pairs of eyes watched Luke take a seat heavily in a vacant chair.

"Get Chewie," he said. "He needs to hear this."

Han jerked his head at the security guard who nodded back and left to fetch Chewie.

"Luke?" Leia said expectantly.

But he waited for the wookiee before answering. No one spoke until Chewie entered the room. He stopped in his tracks, taking in their somber expressions, and yowled a question.

"Have a seat, pal," Han said. "Luke's about to tell us a ghost story, I think."

"Maybe I am," Luke tried to enjoy Han's typical sarcasm. He looked at Leia frankly. "There's been a huge disturbance in the Force. I know those of you that can feel the Force can feel it too." His eyes took in the Solo children and his own son, and finally settled on his wife.

"I don't feel it, but I saw it," Lando said. "Jumped like a rocket into the trees."

"I don't really know how he did it. How it's possible, but we've known this about Palpatine from the start, haven't we?" Luke said. "He's obsessed with unlimited power, and to him, unlimited can't happen unless he's immortal."

"You're saying those wrinkles I squeezed were real?" Han demanded. He wiped his hand on his pants.

"So that's what we're dealing with," Luke continued. "An obsessed, powerful, evil being who has returned from the dead, and who will probably stop at nothing until he's achieved what he meant to fifteen years ago."

Leia was shaking her head. "That time he cloned himself- we already had cloning technology. But this, Luke. This-" she shook her head some more. "He fell down an energy shaft. And then the whole thing blew up! There should have been no pieces of him left to put together, even if he could!"

"I know," Luke shrugged. "And yet, I know it's Palpatine. You know it, too."

"We are not going to allow him to return to power," Mara said firmly.

"No, we are not," Luke agreed.

"So what are we going to do?" Jacen asked.

"We," Luke answered, "are going to stop him. I think it best if we search in groups where there's at least one Force-sensitive person with the others."

"There's more of us than the Nons," Jacen said.

"Don't underestimate un Nons," Han warned and Chewie yowled in agreement.

"Okay," Jaina stood, "let's go. I'll get my lightsaber."

"You three and Ben will stay here," Luke said. "With the Chancellor."

"Uncle Luke-" the fourteen year old twins protested.

"If he's after power it's possible he'll want to take down the whole New Republic, and Chancellor Mothma needs protection." Luke was firm. "The rest of us will split up. Make sure you have a comm, and don't hide your Force presence. He already knows we're here. We just have to find him."

"Should be easy," Lando said. "Just follow the trail of dead bodies."

"Mom," Anakin ran to his mother and hugged her knees.

Leia glared at Lando and then pulled her son away so she could squat and look into his eyes.

"It's all of us, and just him, Nak. Uncle Luke can spring into trees if he wants to."

"And kill, too," Jacen said. His eyes widened, and he hastily added, "if he wanted to. You know what I mean. Uncle Luke's as powerful, Nak. Only he wouldn't kill."

"It's Aunt Mara you gotta watch out for," Han said.

The former Imperial assassin threw a sinister grin towards Han. "I've got myself under control, Solo. Otherwise you'd have been dead long ago."

"Nice," he retorted. "I tolerate you, too."

Leia squeezed her son's shoulders. "I tell you what, Nak. Restoring the Force is going to make me hungry. I think I'm going to want a choco coco crispy bar when I get back."

The little boy nodded. "I mischiefed four."

"Save one for me."