We're at overstretch. We couldn't maintain the Corellian blockade, and now we have the Bothans ramping up. Pick your battles, Chief of State. I can't fight them all."

Omas did his displacement act and poured himself a cup of caf from the jug on his desk. There was just one cup, and he didn't offer more.

"If we fail to show support to Alliance member worlds, then we lose them," he said. "This is basic numbers. We've been through all this. If more secede, then we've lost. The issue of how we maintain a joint defense force for the Alliance—which is what started this, in case we forget—then becomes academic."

"If we don't concentrate our forces on the worlds that present the most immediate and serious threat, then we'll be ground down a ship at a time, and we might not even be able to defend Coruscant if it comes to the worst."

"You think it might come to that?" Omas didn't appear convinced. He glanced at Jacen, but Jacen kept his counsel. "Is this about Coruscant in the end?"

"Of course it is," Niathal said. "It always is. The Alliance and Coruscant are indivisible, and that's half the problem for all the other worlds."

Omas turned to Jacen. "Your turn, Colonel."

"I share the admiral's fears about overstretch." Now Jacen slipped in his challenge, subtle and multilayered, to give Omas a chance to come clean. He found himself hoping Omas didn't take it. "Corellia is still the heart of this. I say we devote all our resources in the immediate term to an all-out assault on Corellia—invasion, in fact. Destroy their industrial base, and remove Gejjen and his cronies. The man's already had his predecessor killed and made an attempt on the Hapan Queen Mother."

Jacen paused a beat, because timing was everything. "I've no doubt you'll be next."

Jacen felt Niathal's reaction although her expression was set in neutral: amusement, plus a little anxious excitement like preparing for battle. Omas felt suddenly more wary—but Jacen couldn't tell if that was aimed at him, or at the idea that Gejjen might be setting Omas up.

"You have intelligence to suggest that?" Omas asked.

Jacen shook his head. "No, and I don't need it or help from the Force to work it out. It's how Gejjen does business."

"If we launch that kind of assault on Corellia, it's something I should take to the Security Council. And even if they agree to it—"

"We're at war. You have all the legal powers to determine the conduct of the war with Admiral Niathal, as you see fit."

"Until it costs more credits," said Omas. "And once we're conspicuously focused on Corellia, what are Bothawui and Commenor going to do? Answers on a small piece of flimsi, please . . ."

Omas had the perfect excuse now to admit to the meeting with Gejjen. He could have said that he was going to give peace talks one last try. He could have said anything to indicate that he was going to talk terms with a state that showed no signs of understanding the words common good, and

whose quietly lethal leader could have scared a Hutt gang lord.

And, Jacen thought, any smart politician might have suspected that his Intelligence Service spied on him, just as they spied on all the other Senators. A little game of words: Omas could have made the suggestion and watched Jacen's reaction, brazening it out to test if his clandestine call had been picked up.

But he didn't. And his future—-and his fate—were sealed.

"So where are we going with this?" Niathal asked. "Same strategy?

Keep dividing up the fleet until we have one ship per theater?"

"I think a full assault on Corellia is madness," said Omas. "We might well have to consider it—but much later. In the meantime, my priority is to stop secessions from the Alliance from reaching the tipping point."

Jacen sat feigning suppressed anger and disappointment. It had to be subtle, because Omas knew Jacen's capacity for smiling self-control.

But Omas needed to pick up the faintest whiff of dissent and savor it for a few moments; his suspicions would be aroused if Jacen caved in too readily.

Jacen placed his hands squarely on the arms of the apocia wood chair and eased himself to his feet.

"For the record, I think this is a big mistake, sir," he said. "And I would be happier if GAG could support our intelligence community in their efforts beyond Coruscant."

"I note your views, Colonel Solo, and I'm grateful for your strategic input so far." Omas meshed his fingers and leaned on the desk, a gesture that said defensive more than it said resolute. "The GAG's remit is domestic, though. I appreciate your concern for the quality of our intelligence."

Jacen didn't catch Niathal's eye. He walked out, followed closely by her,

and said nothing until they were back in her office.

"Well?"

"Not good," she said. She wandered up to the window to watch the traffic streaming in orderly lines in the skylanes around the Senate District. "Not exactly open with us, is he?"

"I never told him we have GAG personnel operating on Corellia, so we're even."

"We can't sustain the current strategy. Perhaps I should talk to Senator G'Sil and get it referred to the Security Council."

"And then we divert our energies into an internal power struggle with Omas while we have a war to fight. I'm sure I don't have to tell you that if you take a shot at someone, you keep firing until they can no longer return fire. Wound them, and you have an angry enemy who knows your position."

"I know where you're heading with this, Jacen."

"You know I'm right."

"That doesn't make it any easier."

"If he does a deal with Gejjen, we're not just back to square one: the Alliance is in a worse position than when it started."

"And we'll be out of the game."

"That's academic." Jacen almost asked Niathal if she had children, and then realized he had almost done the most stupid thing imaginable: reveal his constant fears for the future of his own daughter, a child whose paternity had to stay hidden. He recovered fast, astonished at his weakness. "Because the game will be recurring wars."

"Or Omas might end up with a vibroblade in his throat."

"He's insane to meet Gejjen face-to-face without close protection anyway. He hasn't asked for it from us. He hasn't asked CSF, either—"

"GA Intel?"

"No. We tap their comms, too."

"You're a source of constant revelation, Jacen Solo . . ."

"Are you in?"

"Say it."

Jacen looked around the room, trying to look as if he was simply thinking, but suspicious that someone else might be doing to him what he did to them—eavesdrop electronically. Was Niathal setting him up? No, he was sure he could sense bugs in a room. There were none. "You know what I'm proposing."

"I don't, actually. Not in detail. Say it."

"Regime change." Too late. But he couldn't sense any risk. His logical brain was the paranoid, whispering voice, not his Force-senses.

He realized he'd become less instinct-driven and more rational, and that was the problem. Thinking too much, feeling too little, just like Lumiya says. "We remove him from office long enough to get this war won, and then hand it back to Senator G'Sil when the situation is stable so that new elections can take place."

His words emerged like uninvited strangers, and he didn't even believe himself. Niathal made a little splutter that could have been laughter.