"I get the removal. It's the gap in the middle between remove and elections that fascinates me."

"We run the GA during the interim as a duumvirate. No dictatorship.

Joint control."

Niathal indicated her uniform and then reached out to jab a bony finger into the rank tab on his shoulder. "Military coup. That's what it's called. Let's not prevaricate."

"Okay, I remove him and you take over, alone."

"I don't think so. Duumvirate sounds best to me."

Jacen liked two; two was the Sith way. Knowing Niathal's ambition for the Chief's office, he'd have the same circling, edgy power struggle with her as a Sith Master with an apprentice who was expected and encouraged to plot to overthrow him.

But he would rule as Sith Lord in due course, when the GA and elections were academic, and she would administer the state. That would satisfy her.

"I'll take care of Gejjen, by the way," he said. "He's a massively destabilizing influence, and removing him will throw Corellia into disarray."

"How will you take care of Omas?"

"I'll remove him by house arrest."

"Deposed heads of state tend to become martyrs and hostages."

"We can't be seen to kill our own, and framing Gejjen for it did occur to me, but it's not necessary. We need to show ourselves as civilized people working within the law."

"With a coup."

"Under the law, as the law will stand, it won't be."

"Ahhhh. I forgot." No, she hadn't, he knew that. "Your amendment to the law."

"I'm tabling it for next week, through Aitch-Em-Three."

"And in the meantime?"

"Leave that to me. I'll have someone there when Omas meets Gejjen."

Jacen checked his datapad. "He needs only a day to do his business with Gejjen, no more, so—my people have him under surveillance, ready to move.

Then we have evidence to present to G'Sil."

"And then you arrest him."

"I was thinking I might arrest him at the same time you present the evidence to G'Sil. When we move, we have to move fast. No room to be outmaneuvered."

Niathal let out a long breath. Jacen waited.

"I'll be ready to move on your signal. Make sure you keep me up to speed with all this, won't you?"

It was done. Jacen's takeover was in place. He had the GAG at his back, and Niathal would deliver the fleet as well as the army. With the right presentation of Omas selling out to the Corellians, it would be a very orderly coup.

There was no need for unnecessary bloodshed. That was what this was all about: an end to violence, chaos, and instability.

That was worth everything he was risking.

Jacen took an air taxi back to a plaza a few minutes' walk from the GAG HQ: just another citizen, no sleek black GA transport, no privilege.

Either the driver didn't recognize the uniform, or he hesitated to say, Here, you're the chief of the secret police, aren't you? It was a silent,

contemplative journey.

It was time to make sure nothing went wrong, if manifest destiny could go wrong. He opened his comlink and called Lumiya.

"Shira," he said, aware of the pilot up front. "I need you to do a job for me."

chapter seven

Goran, in Fett's absence, I think you really ought to see this. I don't think it can wait. Sometimes the vongese do you a favor.

—Site foreman Herik Vorad, on examination of excavated rock from land north of Enceri, Mandalore

SAFE HOUSE, CORUSCANT

So you're going to do it before you achieve your full Sith powers,"

said Lumiya. She lit the candles and closed the blinds. Jacen needed to shut out the world and feel what was happening; he was running increasingly on a mundane agenda, the agenda of the lesser beings he worked with. "Why?"

"If I do it afterward, when might afterward be?" Jacen watched the flames shimmering and settled down cross-legged on a floor cushion, but his eyes kept wandering away from the focus of concentration, and Lumiya felt obliged to rap him sharply on the top of his head and point at the candle. "Omas is doing a deal with Gejjen. The deal excludes me, and Niathal, possibly in a rather terminal way."

Working in the world of those who couldn't use the Force, Jacen was falling into conniving and manipulating just like them, and while Lumiya didn't think that was a bad thing—all tools were valid to achieve the outcome—he was letting himself be bound by their rules. He was talking about timing. He had full mastery of the Force, but he seemed to enjoy using the limited tricks of ordinary people.

The admiral was irrelevant in the long term. He had to be aware of that. "Niathal is afraid of you, Jacen. Or at least wary."

"Don't you think I know that? She'd be an idiot if she trusted anyone at this level of government."

"You waste too much energy playing mundanes' games instead of using

the Force."

"I'll use it when I need to. Most of the time now, it's overkill."

Jacen always seemed to want to prove how much smarter, how much more skilled he was than his adversaries, how he could beat them on their own terms. Vanity wasn't always a bad thing in a Sith—as long as it didn't control him. It was just a matter of getting him to pause and refocus.

"Meditate," said Lumiya.

Jacen stared through her for a moment, and then stared unblinking at the candle until he eventually closed his eyes. He opened one eye slowly, looking as if he might be about to make a joke. Lumiya didn't feel in a humorous mood.

"Actually, I called you for a reason," he said.

"I know. But I'd like to approach this like Force-users, not like some tedious little committee in the Senate." It was time to remind him he still had one more step to take before he could begin to teach her anything. "Calm yourself and put the world to one side."

Jacen shut his eyes again, and—for once—seemed to relax enough to allow a little of his state of mind to filter through the barrier that he now kept in place most of the time. Lumiya sensed the solid confidence and focus that typified him. But there was still the faintest hint of the old Jacen, wounded by bereavement and pain, scared of doing necessary things. That was the last tinge of doubt and reluctance that his final step would erase. It would enable him to cross the line into his full Sith legacy.

She didn't know when afterward might be, either, or even who. She only knew it was soon.

"You don't need to play their games, Jacen," she said softly. "Even now your powers put you far beyond their reach. Omas can't touch you.

Neither can Gejjen. When you achieve your destiny, they'll be less than

irrelevant."

"Powers or not, I can't control a galaxy on my own. I need to persuade, to carry people with me. The Force can't affect the minds of millions."

Ah, you enjoy the power you can wield with simple mind games. Don't make Palpatine's mistakes. That's an indulgence. It's not worthy of you.

"Jacen," she said. "I want you to take stock and feel. Stop overanalyzing. It won't reveal any truths to you. Just facts. Facts only show you what you want to see."

Jacen opened his eyes again. "But it's so fleeting. The line between a crazy impulse and guidance from the Force is getting harder to draw."

"Because you think about it too much."

The impenetrable wall went up again. Lumiya felt it as he lapsed into silence.

"It's Ben," he said at last. "It has to be Ben."

Now she understood. "You're fond of the boy. Perhaps he's the child you don't have. This will be hard, and that's probably why it has to be him."