"You said you weren't working?" Jacen asked.

"No. I was working for the Jedi until my unit began to achieve results, and then we were co-opted by the government. And then, after we reached a certain stage, we were-well, we weren't disbanded, but some of my team was taken away. I'm taking some training in communications and infiltration, so that I can help set up Resistance cells, and then I'll get back in the war."

Jacen rolled on his side to look at her. "But you've done such crucial work!" he said. "You discovered how to jam the yammosk signal.

That's the single critical discovery that's enabled our ships to survive battle with the Yuuzhan Vong. Why would they disband your group now?"

She turned her green eyes to his. "Astrophysicists aren't important for war work," she said. "I made the initial discovery about how yammosks communicate, yes. But now that the discovery's been made, it isn't a theoretical problem anymore, it's an engineering one. Now it's up to the engineers to build jammers and spoofers and try to work out more and more ingenious ways to foul up enemy communications. All the theoretical work has been quietly shunted aside." She sighed. "I was working so hard and for so long-nothing has ever been so thoroughly studied in such a short time as the Yuuzhan Vong. What Cilghal and I did alone could have won us half a dozen major scientific prizes. But our work is secret, so the prize committees will never find out, and as tar as anyone knows, I'm just a twenty-three-year-old stargazer without a job and with no hope of finding one." She stretched languidly and looked at the brilliant sky.

A strange look came onto her face, and she sat up, crossing her legs and leaning toward Jacen. "Not all the theoretical work has been pushed aside. Did I mention that? There's some still going on, and it's kind of strange."

Jacen blinked up at her. "Tell me."

"We had some people in our group who were working on the details of Yuuzhan Vong bioscience. They made a discovery, and right away were pulled away into a new unit in the Intelligence division. They're working directly under a group of Chiss, who report directly to Dif Scaur."

"Scaur's working with Chiss?" Jacen was surprised.

"They're all offplanet now. None of my messages to my friends get through, I just get messages saying they're temporarily oft" the HoloNet."

"All at the proverbial secret laboratory off in deep s.p.a.ce," Jacen muttered.

"And why the Chiss?"

"And you say they're working on Yuuzhan Vong bioscience." Jacen pondered for a moment, then shook his head. "The problem is, we don't know enough about the Chiss to know why they'd be valuable. We don't even know where their home planet is. Maybe their bioscience is ahead of ours.

Maybe they know something about the Yuuzhan Vong that we don't. Maybe their own weird metabolism gives them an insight into what the Yuuzhan Vong can do."

"Weird metabolism?"

"They're blue. That's a clue right there."

Danni laughed.

Jacen looked at her. "Do you know the nature of the discovery the bioscientists made?"

She nodded. "It had to do with Yuuzhan Vong genetics-which are generally like ours, by the way."

Jacen blinked. "That's pretty odd, considering they're from another galaxy."

"There's one bit of their genetics that isn't like us," Danni said.

"There's a sequence that seems completely unique, and it's common to all Yuuzhan Vong life. Yorik coral, yammosks, plant life, the Yuuzhan Vong themselves. All of it."

"Is that what makes us unable to see diem in the Force?"

Danni shrugged. "Maybe. The geneticists didn't know-or anyway they didn't when I last saw them."

Silence fell. Jacen gave a reluctant grin. "We probably shouldn't even be talking like this," he said. "Whatever Scaur's doing with the Chiss, it's probably so deeply secret and oft" the map that our speculations are going to both be wrong and get us in trouble."

"Even speculating here?"

"It wouldn't surprise me if I'm under some kind of casual observation," Jacen said. "I just came back from weeks of imprisonment at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Intelligence can't be sure I haven't switched sides." He looked up at the sky and gave a wave. "Say hi to the satellites!"

Danni laughed and waved at any invisible observers, then turned back to Jacen. "That's enough danger for today," she said. "I think I feel safer underwater."

"Me, too."

Danni and Jacen flew in their craft a few kilometers farther down the reef and put on their equipment again. As soon as they descended to the reef Jacen drew again on his Force-awareness and let the life of the reef fill his spirit. He reached out again to Danni, and the two shared the swarming, intricate existence of the reef until it was time to return to Heurkea.

The next day Jacen went to the reef again with Danni, this time with her friend Thespar Trode, a female Ishi Tib, whose dive gear had been adapted to her giant head and eyes that thrust out on stalks. The two astrophysicists' conversation tended to be technical, but Jacen didn't mind: he enjoyed the display of agile intelligence even though he didn't understand it, and while he listened he let his Force-sense descend to the reef and fill his mind with living glory.

After the dive he invited Thespar and Danni to the apartment for snacks, but when he opened the door he saw Jaina standing in the front room, still in her pilot's coveralls, her military duffel partly opened on the floor. He and Jaina stared at each other for a long moment of exquisitely painful joy, and then their twin bond flared with a thousand shared emotions and memories, the rich harvest of lives shared since their first day in their mother's womb, and they rushed into an embrace.

They pounded each other on the back and laughed until the tears came.

Family was another tiling that Jacen had surrendered to the Yuuzhan Vong. The sensation of finding his twin again took his breath away.

When he found it he looked at the insignia on Jaina's coveralls.

"You're a major now?"

"I'm better than that, I'm a holovid star. Not to mention a G.o.ddess." Her eyes shifted to the two visitors standing near the door.

She knew Danni Quee, of course, but had to be introduced to Danni's friend Thespar.

"I have to change now, and run," Jaina said. "I've got dispatches to deliver to headquarters." She gave Jacen a look. "And I've got a personal message from Admiral Kre'fey to Uncle Luke. He wants Jedi."

Jacen was pleasantly surprised. "At least someone wants us."

She took a more formal uniform out of her duffel, disappeared into a bedroom to change, and then returned only to head for the door.

"We'll talk later, right?" she said as she paused on the threshold.

"I want to hear everything." And then she was gone.

Jacen gazed at the closing door in surprise as his mind tingled with the sensation of the fading twin bond. He had expected more from his first meeting with his sister, much more.

She wasn't avoiding him, Jacen thought. Not exactly. But she definitely needed some time to get her thoughts together before she could face him.

He thought he knew why.

Jacen shared with his guests some jewel-fruit he found in the refrigeration unit, and then the two astrophysicists said their good-byes.

Luke and Mara returned before Jaina did. When Jaina finally arrived, she was taut and high-strung, her neck and shoulder muscles rigid with tension. First she delivered Kre'fey's request for more Jedi pilots to Luke, who was pleased to hear that someone in the military was willing to take Jedi. He asked about Jaina's action at Obroa-skai, and from there gently drew her into a discussion of her activities since the fall of Coruscant. Particularly the battles at Hapes, and the way she'd used the Yuuzhan Vong's own dovin basals against them, to sow confusion and destroy the invaders.

And her state of mind at the time. The obsession. The fury. The darkness.

Jaina looked at Jacen with bleak eyes and said, "I thought you were dead. You and Anakin both. It didn't matter to me how many others were sent to join you. I was ready to go myself."

It was easier, Jacen thought, for Jaina to speak to Luke and Mara than it would have been to speak to him alone. Luke had known that.

"More than through anger or l.u.s.t for power," Luke said, "the dark enters through despair. Through the belief that, in the end, there is nothing but pain and sorrow and death, and that nothing we do truly matters." He gave Jaina a look. "I'm here to tell you that we do matter.

And that despair is an illusion that the dark casts before our eyes."

Jaina lowered her eyes. "Thank you, Uncle Luke," she said.

Jaina and her duffel moved in to share Jacen's room. He wanted to talk to her before sleep, but she said she was exhausted from her long journey from Kashyyyk; she'd talk to him in the morning.

Jacen fell asleep at once and dreamed of the coral reef. He was awakened two hours before dawn, with the arrival of his parents. Half awake, he stood in the door while his father howled his happiness like a Wookiee, picked Jacen off the floor, and whirled him around as if he were a two-year-old.

Leia's emotion was less demonstrative but no less powerful, and Jacen felt it through the Force even as his father twirled him through the air. When Jacen found his feet again he embraced his mother, and he sensed the force of Leia's profound thankfulness.

It was she whose faith had never faltered, he knew. Her husband had deserted her and returned a changed man; the New Republic she had created had betrayed itself; one of her three children had been killed, another torn away into captivity, and she had watched the third slide toward the dark side.

Leia alone held firm. Leia alone insisted that Jacen was alive. And now Jacen stood within the circle of his mother's arms, and let her know that her faith had not been in vain.

The hours that followed were exuberant and very emotional. Han was almost bouncing off the walls in his joy, at least when he wasn't trying to conceal a tear in his eye.

C-3PO moved Han and Leia's belongings into their bedroom, and Jaina and Jacen's gear out. The twins sacked out on the floor of the front room. C-3PO, with nowhere to go, propped himself against a wall and shut himself down. No sooner had Jacen closed his eyes than he heard a respectful tap at the door-Leia's Noghri bodyguards, who hadn't been taken to Bastion, were now reporting for duty.

They were placed outside in the corridor, and an hour later knocked again, this time because Vergere had been released from detention and had nowhere else to go.

Jacen was delighted to see her, but clearly the apartment was too crowded, even after Jaina volunteered to shift to bachelor officers'

quarters. But fortunately Jacen had a mother who was a Princess and had connections.

The Solo family, with C-3PO, moved to another apartment along with the Noghri. Jacen hoped Vergere might come along, but Luke rather firmly stated that she would remain as his guest.

It was probably a good idea, Jacen reflected later. When his parents found out what Vergere had actually done to him when he was a prisoner, they wouldn't have looked at the little alien kindly. Jacen would hate to have to get between Vergere and Han's blaster.

The move took much of the day, and as soon as it was over Jaina had to report to Fleet Command to see if any decision had been made about Kre'fey's request for Jedi. She wasn't back until very late.

The next morning, Jacen rose, seated himself at the foot of his bed, and began to do his Jedi meditations and exercises. Calling the Force, using it to help modify his bodily state, slowing or speeding his heartbeat; shifting blood flow to his muscles, as if for combat; to his internal organs, as if wounded or short on air; or to his skin, to help radiate excess heat and cool the body.

He sensed Jaina waking as the Force radiated from him, and likewise sensed her resentment. With a sigh, she climbed out of the bed, joined him on the floor, and merged her meditations with his.

They synchronized breathing and heartbeat, lifted small objects, and then engaged in a mental lightsaber fight, sharing a mutual mental image of themselves in battle with one another, visualizing every move, every parry, the shuffle of their feet on the ground, the thrumm of the lightsabers, the impact as the blades grated against each other. Jaina's fight was methodical and cool, utilizing minimal energy, content to back away until she saw an opening for an absolutely ruthless riposte. Jacen permitted himself more freedom, making wild attacks and lunges, spinning in and out of range, striving to do the unexpected. As a result he got nailed more often than not, and in the moment of his "death," he sensed his sister's steely resolve.

Afterward, as a calming exercise, Jacen sent his Force-sense radiating outward, sensing his sleeping parents in their bed, the two Noghri (one on guard, the other asleep), the sparks of life in the adjacent apartments. Seeking the wondrous, dynamic complexity he'd found on the reef, Jacen sent his Force-sense floating even farther, down into the deeps surrounding Heurkea Floating City, sensing the ma.s.ses of microscopic life, the swarms offish that had adopted the city as their home, the deepwater pelagic fish that darted into the city's shadow to prey on the smaller fish . . .

Jaina pulled away. Jacen opened his eyes in surprise and saw her getting to her feet.

"Sorry," she said. "I can't go there right now."

He blinked at her. "Why not?"

She reached into the closet and took out her uniform. "I've got to stay focused on my job. I can't let my mind go floating around in the ocean, I've got to stick with what I can use."

"It's life, Jaina," Jacen said. "The Force is life."

Jaina looked down at him. Anger smoldered in her eyes. "Life isn't what I do anymore," she said. "What I do is death. I kill, and I try not to get killed myself. Anything else-" She waved her hand, "--is a luxury."

"Jaina-" Jacen began.

"Every second I spend floating around the ocean," Jaina said, "I'm getting weaker and the Vong are getting stronger. So what I'm going to do-" She opened the door. "-is take a shower, get into my uniform, and go to headquarters to see if Admiral Sow has a message for me. And if he doesn't, I'm going to find some pilots and talk tactics, so that maybe I can learn a trick or two that will keep my squadron alive through another fight. I'll see you later, maybe."

"It's all about balance, Jaina," Jacen said, but she was gone, and the refresher door shut behind her.

Jacen rose and sadly began to change into his clothes. Later, after breakfast, he told his mother what Jaina had said. Leia sighed.

"Jaina and I already had this argument at Hapes," she said. "I begged her to get some leave, get away, get some perspective. But she wouldn't, and I know how far I'd get if I repeated my arguments now."

"Uncle Luke said that despair was access for the dark," Jacen said.

Leia shook her head. "Jaina's learned about the dark now," she said. "She's been there, and I can't believe she'd go again. What I fear now is that she'll set herself" one impossible task after another until she breaks."

Jacen looked at his mother. "No one in the family's like that, I'm sure."

She laughed. "Of all the things Jaina could have inherited from me, she had to pick my work ethic." She reached out and took Jacen's hand.

"Jaina's tough, you know. She'll get through this-and it will help that she has one less brother to mourn."

Jacen tried to smile. "At least I've given her that," he said.

Four days into his term of office, Cal Omas summoned Admiral Ackbar and Winter to the former resort hotel that now housed the executive branch of government. The meeting was small; the only other guests were Luke, Ayddar Nylykerka of Fleet Intelligence, New Republic Intelligence chief Dif Scaur, and Supreme Commander Sien Sow.

YVH droids patrolled the corridor outside. Scaur's people had thoroughly swept the room for listening devices, and so had Nylykerka's, who sneaked in later without Scaur's knowledge. The room was small, with no viewports; a small white marble table, scalloped like a seash.e.l.l, held indentations for each of the guests. On one wall, a little fountain tinkled and chimed, emitting a mild scent of brine.

Ackbar wore his old uniform. His skin was gray and his hands trembled, and Winter had to help him to his feet as Cal entered the room.

But his voice was firm as he congratulated Cal on his appointment, with none of the slurring that Luke had heard before.

"I would like to thank you all for agreeing to meet with me,"

Ackbar said. "I know that you're all very busy trying to put the new government together."

"We're never too busy to meet with one of the greatest heroes of the Rebellion," Cal Omas said. "You were my commander for many years, so please don't think I'm going to start pulling rank on you now."

"It was Borsk Fey'lya who insisted on your retirement," Sien Sow said. "Please understand that no one in the Defense Force wished you to go-and least of all myself."

"That's very kind," Ackbar said. His trembling hands keyed a datapad on the table before him. "Though the retirement was welcome in one sense. I now possess a great deal of time to think. And I have been thinking a great deal about the Yuuzhan Vong, the greatest menace to the security of the galaxy since Palpatine." He splayed his huge hands on the marble table. "My speculations aren't completely uninformed because I have . . . friends . . . within the government who have provided data."

He looked up at the others. "Nothing secret has come my way, but some a.n.a.lyses have found their way to me."

Luke glanced into the polished tabletop and viewed the reflections of Nylykerka and Dif Scaur, both of whom were being careful to maintain innocent expressions. Admiral Sow's jowled face was likewise bland.

"And of course I've been in the service a great many years, all at the highest level," Ackbar continued. "And I understand how the service works. Even the service under Borsk Fey'lya." He nodded his huge head.