"Right," Mara conceded. "But living in fear isn't living at all."

"It's better than dead."

"You think the Empire was okay, Ben?" Luke asked.

"I don't know. It just seems that a handful of people can think they have the duty-the right-to change things for everybody else. It's a big decision, rebellion, isn't it? But most decisions that affect trillions of beings get made by a few people."

Luke and Mara looked at each other discreetly and then at Ben. He'd acquired political curiosity somewhere along the line. Whatever mission Jacen had sent him on-and he had, Luke was certain-it had made the boy think.

Or maybe Luke was just losing touch with the fact that his kid was a young man now, and changing fast. When he left, though, Mara still helped him on with his jacket. Luke almost expected her to ask him if he was brushing his teeth every day. But, being Mara, she did her maternal fretting in more pragmatic ways and pressed a matte-gray object into Ben's hand.

"Humor me," she said, and kissed his forehead. "Carry this. You never know."

Ben stared into his palm. "Wow."

"That," she said, "was the best vibroblade the Empire could buy. It saved me more than once. A lightsaber is great, but a lightsaber and a vibroblade is even better."

"Plus a blaster," Ben said. He grinned. "That's better still. The triple whammy."

"That's my boy."

After Ben had left, Mara cleared the plates. "When did we produce a communally minded political a.n.a.lyst?"

"Too many Gorog buddies, maybe."

"Does that look like an out-of-control, screwed-up boy to you?"

"No," Luke said, "but it's not Jacen's influence that's making a man of him, even if he's the only one who seems to be able to handle Ben."

"Luke, we still have to do something."

"Oh, now we have to do something? What happened to 'Leave him with Jacen, he's good for the boy . . .'?" Luke almost had to bite his lip to avoid saying that he'd told her so, which he'd always thought was the mark of someone who wasn't looking for a solution to the problem, just points to score. "Besides, he doesn't seem to be getting corrupted by what's happening. Maybe he is that good man on the inside. Maybe you were right to make me let our kid join the secret police-"

"I meant about Lumiya." Mara had a way of bracing her shoulders that said she knew she'd made a big mistake but he didn't have to rub her nose in it. "Okay, I've changed my mind. Jacen's gone bad. My fault we've wasted a few months placating Ben. Satisfied? Now what about the root cause of this?"

"We haven't picked up her trail again."

"And then what happens when we do?" Mara smacked the plates down on the counter so hard they rattled. "What are you going to do, hold her hand again?" He should never have told her that Lumiya had offered him her hand when they were fighting. It was eating away at her. "Because the poor old girl doesn't mean any harm? Lumiya? Queen of the stanging Sith?"

"There really was no ill intent in her."

Mara rolled her eyes. "Of course there wasn't. She doesn't want to kill you. She wants to kill our son." She grabbed Luke's face in both hands and made him look into her eyes. "Luke, you could have killed her.

Cut her in two. Finished the job. But you didn't."

Luke felt inexplicably ashamed. "I couldn't."

"I know. We come from different schools of justice, don't we?"

"Sweetheart-"

"She's not your father, Luke. There's nothing good left in her to redeem. She's a threat that needs to be taken out, and that's what I'm trained to do, and you're not. Forget this take her alive if possible garbage. The only way anyone's taking her is dead."

Luke had had a feeling Mara might say that. He knew when she was building up to something. She might have thought she could keep things from him, but he knew her well enough by now to see the cogs grinding and the plan forming.

He'd missed his chance with Lumiya. He wouldn't get another.

"You're telling me you're going after her."

"You might tag along if you could be trusted not to go soft on her." Mara let him go and looked embarra.s.sed. Her cheeks were flushed.

"You can have Alema. She needs a serious att.i.tude readjustment with a lightsaber, too. It's not as if we haven't got enough kill-crazy stalkers to go around."

No matter what happened, Luke knew he didn't have that a.s.sa.s.sin's ability to kill someone who wasn't trying to kill him right there and then. If he had . . .

So Ben wasn't the only one navigating a moral maze. Luke had been doing it for decades, but the maze was only acquiring more twists and turns each year.

"Let's see how much Jacen perks up with Lumiya gone," he said.

Wait, did I just bless an a.s.sa.s.sination? "And with Alema out of the way, then Leia and Han can come back into the fold, and we can face this war as a family again."

Mara patted his cheek with a regretful smile and set a droid on cleaning the dishes. She spent the rest of the afternoon a.s.sembling and checking an array of weapons that definitely didn't come from a civilized age.

"I never knew you had one of those," he said, pointing to a blaster that had the widemouthed muzzle of a grenade launcher. "How are you planning to use it?"

"With a flechette cartridge. Let's see her try a lightwhip on that."

"Do you want to take my shoto?"

"You offering?"

"Good-luck token, maybe."

"Under-the-rib-cage token, more like. Unless that's all durasteel, too."

This was his wife. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of the woman she once had been, and she was a stranger for a second or two.

"How are you going to track her? She hides very-well.'"

"I can hunt very well." Mara took the shoto hilt and spun it like a blade. "A little bait, a little investigation, and a little Force help."

She ignited the energy beam. "Plus, if Alema is trailing after her, as seems to be the case, then one of them is going to slip up and show herself."

"Lumiya doesn't slip up."

"Well, she's not running the galaxy right now, so I guess she does sometimes . . ." Mara spun the shoto into the air and caught it by the hilt as it fell. "And she keeps showing up lately, so I'll be ready."

"Just keep me informed where you are, okay?"

"You'll know." Mara gave him her best I-know-what-I'm-doing grin.

"And who better to go after a former Emperor's Hand than another one?"

"You did that before . . ."

"And that was before I had a son to worry about." The grin faded.

"I'm much more dangerous now I have a cub to protect."

Luke had no doubt about that. But it was the first time in his life that he regretted not killing someone when he'd had the chance.

chapter four.

To: Chief of Defense Logistics From: Supreme Commander, Galactic Alliance Defense Force CC: Chief of State; OC GAG; Head of Defense Procurement Re: Fleet supply and procurement concerns The shortfall in supplies in theater and the failure of equipment to meet standards are intolerable. You are to give Colonel Solo, OC GAG, every cooperation in resolving this situation as rapidly as possible.

This is to be your top priority, and Colonel Solo is authorized to use any means necessary to achieve it.

Admiral Cha Niathal, SC GADF DEFENSE PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY AGENCY, CORUSCANT.

"Are you sure?" Jacen had no reason to disbelieve a legal-a.n.a.lyst droid. Metal lawyers were even more meticulous than flesh-and-blood ones.

HM-3 clunked along beside him as they ambled up the apparently interminable corridor to the offices of the head of procurement, explaining the hurriedly a.s.sembled data as they went. Jacen believed in understanding the enemy, and that meant grinding through the tedium of small print. He was set on taking a lightsaber to a planet-sized ball of red tape.

"Yes, sir, this is routine." HM-3 reminded him a little of C-3PO- humanoid in shape, with a necessarily pedantic personality-but he was a sober dark gray and had a rea.s.suring air of solid professional authority.

"A piece of legislation that's overdue for reform. Would you like the full explanation, or a simplified lay-being's version?"

"Consider me as lay as they come."

"As the legislation stands, it takes the agreement of the Defense Council to change the regulations on procurement. It's designed to stop civil servants from bending the rules to line their pockets. Or to stop anyone from commissioning an entire army and its accompanying fleet and weapons without the Senate's knowledge, which I do believe happened not so long ago . . . you might want to look back at the final years of the Republic, sir."

Jacen mulled that over and tried to strip it down to basics. "So Senators have to vote on what flimsi to purchase and what flavor dry rations to serve to the troops. Monumental waste of time and expense, if you ask me."

"I admit it involves top-level decision makers in very low-level decisions, sir. But it's the law. Every time you want to change something about supplies, or any other minor administrative issue, you need Chief Omas or Admiral Niathal or someone else equally senior to rubber-stamp it. It's the same for other departments-health, education, all of them."

HM-3 seemed apologetic. Jacen had little patience with people who found comfort in impenetrable rules and ritual: He wanted things done.

"I don't want to take every complaint about hydrospanners and fuel inductors through committees." How did I ever become the procurement go-to guy? Is Niathal sidelining me? Never mind. I'll learn a lot. "Is there a way around this?"

"Actually, there is."

"Go on."

"It's a simple matter of giving appropriate officers of the GA-in the most general sense-the power to change regulations. To remove the requirement for every cough and spit to be dealt with by Senators."

"How do we do that?"

"By removing the requirement for approval by Defense Council members. Shall I draft an amendment, sir?"

"How does that work?"

"I draft a request for a change in the existing law to relieve regulatory burdens, so that order-making powers can be devolved to appropriate persons such as senior military officers and ministers of state without the need to refer the issue to committees, councils, or even the full Senate." HM-3 shuddered. It was a very human touch. "Give them something to debate, and the more trivial it is, the more hours they'll spend on it, because they can grasp the small concepts better, you see."

"Yes, but what happens to the amendment? And how long is that going to take?"

"If I table it today, then it goes before the weekly Policy and Resources Council in two days' time, and, as an appropriate person who already has the Chief of State's sanction, you can start changing what you need the next day."

Jacen clasped his hands behind his back and thought about it. This was making a new law to allow him to change laws.

Bizarre.

"I wonder how much the Defense Department spends on carpeting," HM-3 said peevishly, scanning the floor. Droids preferred smooth surfaces.

"Here's one area where they could economize."

As he walked, Jacen was calculating how many simple decisions were mired in approvals, but he had the sensation of someone trying to get his attention. It was wholly in his head: he wondered if it was the voice again, and then realized it was his common sense screaming to be heard.

You're changing laws about changing laws. Think about that.

Jacen only had a vague idea about what use he might make of that beyond getting supplies moving, but it struck him as a promising area to address.

"What would I be limited to?" he asked.

"Well, there has to be a fail-safe in the wording or you'll never get P and R to agree to it, but if I were to cap the scope of this, say that the existing budget can't be exceeded, then that would satisfy them."

Legislation was terminally boring. No, it should have been. But something in it was forming a hard ball of an idea in Jacen's mind.

"Would it be possible to word it so that if I come across any more stupid red tape in the process, I can change that, too? Even if I don't know where I'm likely to find it? I don't want some jobsworth holding up vital supplies because I didn't specify the right subsection of some obscure regulation."

"That would make it somewhat . . . open-ended."

"But it's just administration. It's not the const.i.tution or a common charter."

HM-3 ground his gears quietly. "I'll word it genetically so that you can change any administrative procedure you need to. The other fail-safe is that only authorized individuals can make use of this, and that can be limited to whomever the Chief of State decides. So there'll be no spending sprees on secret armies, and only a few very visible, accountable people can make use of it. That will rea.s.sure the P and R members." HM-3 went silent for a moment, consulting his agenda link. "I do believe the day after tomorrow is a very, very busy day for P and R, sir. I think the amendment will get through rather more quickly than usual."

It was a good day to bury the Legislative and Regulations Statute Amendment. Jacen smiled.

"You'll have to tell me more about how this fits in with the emergency measures legislation that Chief Omas already enacted."

"Full explanation, or-"

"-the lay-being's executive summary, please."