One of the troopers—Zavirk—was ladling sweetener into a cup of caf.

He sipped it gingerly, looking slightly comical with an audio buffer lead dangling from his ear. "I joined the army to see the galaxy," he whispered, "but all I got was eight-hour watches of listening to weird politicians making appointments to—"

"Ben's fourteen,'" Girdun said.

"Well, if you want him to do monitoring, he's going to hear stuff that'll make his hair curl, sir."

Ben had never considered what tapping comlinks of suspects and people in sensitive posts actually entailed. "I won't faint," he said.

"And if I'm old enough to get shot at, I'm old enough to hear . . .

stuff."

"Can't argue with that logic." Girdun sat him down at a console and gave him an earpiece. "Okay, the screen here shows you the sound files the droid's lined up as worth listening to, as well as holocam footage.

You just work through it and make notes if anything seems worth following up. You're looking for anyone who might be contacting Senators and seems a bit odd, any conversations about Senators or government staff. . .

look, you're a Jedi. You've probably got a sixth sense about this stuff just like you have about hidden explosives."

"So do nek battle dogs," said Zavirk, "but Lieutenant Skywalker smells better, and he can do tricks."

Ben decided he might like it here for a while. It didn't feel like spy HQ at all: just a bunch of troopers he knew well, doing a routine wartime surveillance job. Ben realized he'd partitioned his feelings so that he didn't have to think about Dur Gejjen as a person. The man had a wife and child. Tenel Ka had a child, too, though, and Gejjen had been happy to hire someone to assassinate her. Ben had been weighing the morality of his mission and wasn't sure if he was only telling himself what he wanted to hear.

And there was nobody he could talk it over with.

He settled in his seat to begin checking recordings, and tried not to think about Gejjen. The conversations—mostly boring, some bizarre, a few incomprehensible—almost lulled him into meditation. It was an effort not to try hiding in the Force again, something he now practiced whenever he could.

The monitoring center smelled strongly of caf. Ben felt in need of some, too, after a few hours, and he lost himself in a conversation between two government staff about the regular route that a certain Senator took from the Senate to her apartment. But he was jerked out of his concentration by

Ben paused to listen.

"You sure?" Girdun asked.

"Run a voice profile if you don't believe me," Zavirk said. "That's the Corellian PM."

There were ten people in the room, and they'd all stopped to listen. Gejjen's soothingly persuasive voice with its faint accent was telling someone that there was no point doing this through the usual channels, because nobody else was in a negotiating mood.

". . . you and I know that this could be solved by the removal of a few hotheads. . . some of our military need slapping down, and so do some of yours. I'd call an immediate cease-fire if I could be assured of a few things."

"Such as?" said the unmistakable voice of Chief of State Omas. They were tapping the Chief of State's secure comm line. Ben wasn't sure they had authorization to do that.

""We'll agree that Corellia pools its military assets with the GA as long as we have an opt-out clause that says we have the right to withdraw it if our own needs are more urgent. Niathal has to go. Jacen Solo has to go. Once that's out of the way, we're back to normal and you've got what you want. "

"Centerpoint. "

"Well, we're having problems repairing it anyway."

"Centerpoint has to be made inoperative."

A pause: too brief even for most people to notice, but Ben did. "It already is. But if you want a multiplanetary force or observers there, fine."

"What about the Bothans, and the other planets fighting their own wars'?"

"I can bring the Commenorians into line, and the Bothans . . .

well, once we're all back in the GA then Bothawui's got to toe the line.

The little people—if the fighting gets out of hand, we'll commit troops to put a stop to that. "

"The Senate won't agree to this."

"Take Niathal and Solo out of the equation first and they'll calm down. What's left of the Senate, anyway. . ."

"Take out. . . they won't go quietly . . . they might split the Senate. G'Sil's totally in their camp, and he's got weight. "

"Well, there's take out, and take out. "

Omas swallowed but didn't respond.

Gejjen filled the silence. "You know we have a job to do before this draws in the whole galaxy."

"Okay. Okay."

"We need to meet. Can you get to Vulpter?"

Long pause. "I'll find an excuse. Send me the details. . ."

Girdun stood looking at the screen as if he could get some sense out of it if he stared long enough. Zavirk sat with his chin propped on his hand, gazing up at the captain for orders.

"Get a transcription of that to Colonel Solo right away."

Ben still wasn't clear what was happening, even though he thought Omas should have mentioned the approach to the Security Council. "Can't the

Chief of State talk to the Corellian Prime Minister?"

"Depends what he's talking about," said Girdun. "And what he has in mind for Colonel Solo and Admiral Niathal."

If Gejjen could plot the assassination of the Queen Mother of Hapes and have Thrackan Sal-Solo killed, then making Jacen and Niathal disappear was just another routine job for him. Ben knew he had his answer about the necessity of his mission.

Girdun leaned over Zavirk and tapped the console. "That conversation was four hours ago. Better check on the Chief of State's travel

arrangements, because he hasn't informed us he's going offworld and needs a close protection squad."

"You think he needs one?" asked Ben.

"With Gejjen? He needs two*

Ben didn't know if he could mention Tenel Ka. It was always hard knowing who knew what inside the GAG. "Would he really try something with Chief Omas?"

"I think he does it out of habit, just like I chew nervesticks."

Ben now had no idea if Cal Omas was bypassing the Senate illicitly to do a personal deal with the enemy, or walking into a trap like the one Gejjen had set for Tenel Ka—and Uncle Han's late, unlamented cousin Thrackan.

Jacen was right, as ever. Gejjen had to be stopped.

SUPREME COMMANDER'S OFFICE, SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT

Jacen read the transcript a third time and laid his datapad down on Niathal's desk.

She had a hologram of Mon Cal on the wall behind her, all shimmering blue ocean and sinuous buildings emerging from the waves in floating cities. He wondered if she was homesick. Right now she was fresh back from a battle that hadn't gone as planned, and impatient to see Cal Omas about it.

That meant she was receptive to ideas. He made a conscious effort not to influence her, because she wasn't the kind to fall for Jedi tricks. And it would only provoke her.

"Nothing like a united front in wartime." He leaned back in the chair, fingers meshed behind his head. "So we're not the flavor of the month. Our glorious leader didn't exactly spring to our defense."

Niathal's white uniform didn't look crumpled, even though she'd just disembarked from a warship fresh from a battle. "Smacks of ingratitude, I'd say."

She wasn't one for humor. Jacen knew enough about Mon Cal body language now to know she was angry. She kept rolling her head slightly, as if she was getting hot and her collar was pinching her neck.