"I hope we've rea.s.sured you." You're up to your neck in this too, Admiral. "And I'm glad you feel you can raise this with us, because there's no point fighting a war if we can't behave as a democracy even when things get difficult."

The jumpy security guards who'd decided to follow him showed the party out. Everyone went away either happy or at least defused. Jacen felt Niathal's gaze boring a hole in him.

"Last time I saw anything that slick and oily," she said, "was when Ocean leaked a whole lube reservoir over the aft weapons flat."

"Ah, but you were absolutely right to seal that office. Neither of us should have it."

"I believe in sharing everything."

"As do I," Jacen said.

"So let's try to address the media jointly, shall we? No point looking like a publicity addict, Jacen. Citizens might misunderstand your motives."

"I'm here to serve the galaxy," Jacen replied, and meant every word. "Never underestimate the power of being pleasant."

"That's fine on Coruscant, but your charm doesn't travel well."

Niathal beckoned him to follow. "I have Senator G'Sil in my office, and the Senator for Murkhana, Nav Ekhat. We've hit a small snag in our new policy."

Ekhat didn't look like a woman who'd had a restful night. She didn't wait for Jacen to sit down before she launched into a tirade that had obviously been gathering steam long before he and Niathal walked in.

"I understand you're concentrating forces in the Corellian and Bothan sectors," she said, stabbing her finger at the holochart in the center of the meeting table. "Where does that leave us?"

"Explain your concerns," said Jacen.

"The new treaty between Roche and Mandalore."

"And you feel threatened by this."

"Given the state of our relations with Roche, yes. Are you aware that we've been having a disagreement about export markets?"

G'Sil leaned forward. "Put another way, the Verpine are accusing Murkhana of reverse-engineering some of their most lucrative weapons command systems, breaching their patents, and selling cheap knockoffs to undermine their markets."

"Put another way, Verpine don't like healthy compet.i.tion," said Ekhat. "Now they've signed a deal with Mandalore for mutual aid and technical collaboration. It's the bugs-and-thugs show."

Jacen watched Niathal shift ever so slightly in her seat and felt her annoyance. Anyone who dismissed Verpine as bugs probably also dismissed Mon Cals as fish.

"Are you expecting this alliance to threaten your security directly?" Jacen asked. "Because if the Verpine were seriously annoyed, they have plenty of military hardware to make their point without calling in Keldabe."

"Verpine might make the stuff," she said, "but they rarely use it in anger. The Mandalorians, on the other hand, treat warfare as a national sport."

"But this is about Mandalorian iron." Niathal was working up to telling Ekhat that Murkhana was on its own. She'd probably enjoy it after that bug comment, too. "The Verpine want to produce enhanced armaments and vessels under license."

"No, they want Mandalorian protection, too."

"Why?" Jacen couldn't see Murkhana attacking Roche.

"They're afraid the fighting on Kem Stor Ai will spill into their backyard, and they're rich pickings that might prove too tempting for a system at war."

"I'm missing the connection."

"Mandalorian protection tends to be of the outreach kind, Colonel.

It's a short step from turning out to repel the Kemi and malting a . . .

disciplinary visit to us."

Niathal got up and walked around the table, looking at the holochart from various angles. "And are you breaching the Verpine patents?"

"We don't think so," said the Senator. "But the products are very .

. . similar."

"You see, I'm not sure we should commit troops to trade disputes.

This war is about the responsibility of member planets to commit military resources to common defense. That's one reason why the former Chief of State is former-because he was ready to concede part of that principle."

"As a member of the GA, we expect support when attacked."

"Roche is a neutral world," Jacen pointed out. "If you were attacked, we'd have to a.s.sess the situation, but I feel this has to be referred to the interplanetary civil courts first."

"So you're saying we're on our own."

Jacen would play the nice officer today. Niathal was doing a fine job of being the nasty one. "I'm saying that you should try to resolve this dispute by other means rather than escalate straight to saber rattling. But . . ." He thought about the talk of a new Mandalorian a.s.sault fighter. It was interesting enough on its own, but if it was a collaboration with the Verpine, the GA needed to get an idea of what it could do. He decided to disagree with Niathal. "But perhaps the presence of a GA squadron and frigate might make Roche more willing to sit down and discuss the matter again."

Niathal turned her head very slowly to stare at Jacen. He knew the risk he was taking.

"If we have spare resources, then we'll consider it," she said.

"Roche warned us that it'll take direct action if we don't cease production of the disputed products." Ekhat looked at all three of them pointedly in sequence as if defying them to say the word no out loud.

Then she stood and picked up her folio case. "So sooner rather than later, please, or you'll lose another Rim world. And I don't mean resignation."

G'Sil watched Ekhat stalk out, then shrugged. "So much for the Mandalorian threat making the little planets rush to our protective arms, Cha."

"They did rush," Niathal said. "And that's the problem. If we're seen deploying a Star Destroyer every time some member state has a local disagreement, we'll open the floodgates, not that they're not starting to open already. Policy is to concentrate on breaking the big boys who won't play by GA rules, or we'll be putting out fires across the galaxy for decades to come." Jacen braced for impact. "And, Colonel Solo, you will not commit fleet resources like that without discussing the matter with me."

"I didn't commit anything. I just stated the obvious."

"And I didn't agree to it, either."

"Wouldn't it be useful to have an excuse to wander out to the Rim and take a look at those new Mandalorian fighters?"

"If they've built any yet."

"I say commit a couple of nights if we can't spare a complete squadron. If we move one of the frigates out from Bothan s.p.a.ce, that'll bring it within range of Murkhana, at a stretch."

"Are you sure you want to provoke Mandalore?" G'Sil asked. "It's got that extra personal dimension now, and the last thing we need is Fett making this a vendetta against the rest of the GA. His neutrality has been a bonus, to be honest."

"I'm well aware that Fett has neither gone away nor forgotten his daughter," Jacen said. "But he's far too smart to waste his troops to fight a personal feud."

Mandalore was always a problem: always had been, always would be.

It wasn't big enough to be a galactic threat, but wasn't small enough to dismiss-or remove.

Tough on chaos, and the causes of chaos.

It was being the third element in a universe of pairs that made Mandalorians disruptive. The universe was binary, bipolar, ruled by the balance between opposites, whether that was dark and light or action and reaction. It couldn't accommodate that extra pole and remain orderly.

Mandalorians were an inherently destabilizing influence.

"Are you still with us, Jacen?" G'Sil asked. "You look distracted."

"Just wishing the Mandalorians would go away."

"Pay them to stay at home," said Niathal, gathering up her datapads to leave. "That's the permanent solution. As long as they have the occasional therapeutic fight to work off their aggression, they'll be happy. And that's just the females." She headed for the door. "I have fleet commanders to brief. Shame we can't approach Fett to see if he's changed his mind about staying out of the fighting."

"Isn't paying them not to fight tantamount to an insult to their honor?" Jacen asked.

"I think you're getting them mixed up with some other warmongering savages. They'd see it as protection money. They're pragmatists."

"If only all wars had such simple economic solutions."

G'Sil smiled ruefully. "Well, they've mostly got economic causes."

"Not this one," Jacen said. "It's about order. About responsibility."

Niathal and G'Sil both concealed their reactions at the same time and said nothing. He could tell they thought he was becoming eccentric, or perhaps that he hadn't quite got the hang of high-level politics.

Either way, their reaction said that he wasn't playing the same game as them, and they were right.

But it was all going too smoothly. No riots, no outcry except for some of the minority media and the usual suspects in the legal and liberties community, but apart from endless media a.n.a.lysis of Omas's time in office-almost as if he'd died-the vast majority of Coruscanti had treated it like a fall from grace instead of a military coup.

Having a Jedi on board did seem to make the regime change appear much more wholesome in public opinion.

"I'd expected to be storming barricades this week," Jacen said.

"What did we do right?"

"We didn't suspend any normality," said G'Sil, making interesting use of we. "Every other politician remained in place. Just the people who administer it at the top level changed."

Order. It's all about order. This is the microcosm of the entire galaxy; the dry run for how my rule will be in due course. Quiet normality for the majority.

But Jacen was worried that it might prove to be the lull before the storm. He thought of Tenel Ka and Allana, and the impulse to visit them while he still could was overwhelming. Lumiya said he had to listen to those voices, and not think sensible things like mundane beings did.

"I need forty-eight hours out of the office," he said. "To catch up on things. Can I trust you two not to oust me while I'm away?"

Niathal didn't seem amused. "You'll return to find Boba Fett sitting in your office, but if you have to go . . . you must."

"I trust you implicitly," he said. He trusted her not to be stupid, at least. Lumiya could keep a watchful eye on the situation while he made the trip to Hapes.

Boba Fett. That was an ax still waiting to fall, and if it didn't keep him awake at night, he was certainly conscious that Fett's continued lack of b.l.o.o.d.y revenge was unsettling. Jacen put the Mandalorians on the list of things for which he'd find a solution when he was established as a Sith Lord. Vader had had the measure of them in his day: Jacen would, as well.

That, too, was in his destiny.

LUMINOUS GARDENS SPA, DRALL, CORELLIAN SYSTEM.

So . . . still no new Prime Minister?" Mara asked. "You're taking a big risk coming here," said Leia. "No, there's a triumvirate of the three main party leaders running Corellia until they find a new target-sorry, I mean candidate. Two dead inside a few months tends to dampen the applicants' enthusiasm."

"Well, we score for efficiency. At least we can run the GA on two."

"How very Sith."

Mara nearly choked. It wasn't funny at all. Did Leia know something?

"Mara, are you okay?"

"I think my encounter with Lumiya made me allergic to the word."

With a scarf around her hair, Mara was just another middle-aged female human enjoying the resort with a friend. The two walked around the colonnade of exclusive stores and beauty salons, and Mara still found it disconcerting that anyone could be leading a normal life when hers-and that of so many others-was caught up in the turmoil of war. Normality seemed somehow obscene. "I had to see you face-to-face. You don't want Jacen to arrest you for setting foot on Coruscant, and you know he would.

Where's Han?"

"He's gone on an errand with Lando. Where's Luke? Seeing as it's just us girls talking, I smell a delicate problem."

There was no point tiptoeing around it. Mara had as much evidence as she needed, but this was Leia's son under discussion. Leia had already lost Anakin. Mara had to be absolutely, completely certain. Ninety-nine percent sure wasn't good enough.

"Jacen," she said.

"Always is."

"I don't know how to say this to you."

"Try blurting."

"He's out of control. I mean badly out of control."

"Uh-huh. I admit it's challenging to have to keep tabs on your only son by watching the news coverage of his latest power grab."

"How's Han taking it?"

"Not well, to say the least. He veers between wanting to disown him again and talking about getting together to talk him around. You know, sometimes I think it's going to kill him."

Mara found that it wasn't certainty of Jacen's guilt she was looking for: it was any excuse to say that it was all Lumiya's doing, and that by removing her, Jacen could be brought back to his old self.

Whatever had happened to Jacen over the years-and that five-year "sabbatical" was still largely a blank sheet-there seemed nothing of that old self left to recover.

If this wasn't my nephew, and Leia's son, would I still be trying to find a reason not to do something about him?