"I didn't commit anything. I just stated the obvious."

"And I didn't agree to it, either."

"Wouldn't it be useful to have an excuse to wander out to the Rim and take a look at those new Mandalorian fighters?"

"If they've built any yet."

"I say commit a couple of nights if we can't spare a complete squadron. If we move one of the frigates out from Bothan space, that'll bring it within range of Murkhana, at a stretch."

"Are you sure you want to provoke Mandalore?" G'Sil asked. "It's got that extra personal dimension now, and the last thing we need is Fett making this a vendetta against the rest of the GA. His neutrality has been a bonus, to be honest."

"I'm well aware that Fett has neither gone away nor forgotten his daughter," Jacen said. "But he's far too smart to waste his troops to fight a personal feud."

Mandalore was always a problem: always had been, always would be.

It wasn't big enough to be a galactic threat, but wasn't small enough to dismiss—or remove.

Tough on chaos, and the causes of chaos.

It was being the third element in a universe of pairs that made Mandalorians disruptive. The universe was binary, bipolar, ruled by the balance between opposites, whether that was dark and light or action and reaction. It couldn't accommodate that extra pole and remain orderly.

Mandalorians were an inherently destabilizing influence.

"Are you still with us, Jacen?" G'Sil asked. "You look distracted."

"Just wishing the Mandalorians would go away."

"Pay them to stay at home," said Niathal, gathering up her datapads to leave. "That's the permanent solution. As long as they have the occasional therapeutic fight to work off their aggression, they'll be happy. And that's just the females." She headed for the door. "I have fleet commanders to brief. Shame we can't approach Fett to see if he's changed his mind about

staying out of the fighting."

"Isn't paying them not to fight tantamount to an insult to their honor?" Jacen asked.

"I think you're getting them mixed up with some other warmongering savages. They'd see it as protection money. They're pragmatists."

"If only all wars had such simple economic solutions."

G'Sil smiled ruefully. "Well, they've mostly got economic causes."

"Not this one," Jacen said. "It's about order. About responsibility."

Niathal and G'Sil both concealed their reactions at the same time and said nothing. He could tell they thought he was becoming eccentric, or perhaps that he hadn't quite got the hang of high-level politics.

Either way, their reaction said that he wasn't playing the same game as them, and they were right.

But it was all going too smoothly. No riots, no outcry except for some of the minority media and the usual suspects in the legal and liberties community, but apart from endless media analysis of Omas's time in office—almost as if he'd died—the vast majority of Coruscanti had treated it like a fall from grace instead of a military coup.

Having a Jedi on board did seem to make the regime change appear much more wholesome in public opinion.

"I'd expected to be storming barricades this week," Jacen said.

"What did we do right?"

"We didn't suspend any normality," said G'Sil, making interesting use of we. "Every other politician remained in place. Just the people who administer it at the top level changed."

Order. It's all about order. This is the microcosm of the entire galaxy; the dry run for how my rule will be in due course. Quiet normality for the majority.

But Jacen was worried that it might prove to be the lull before the storm. He thought of Tenel Ka and Allana, and the impulse to visit them while he still could was overwhelming. Lumiya said he had to listen to those voices, and not think sensible things like mundane beings did.

"I need forty-eight hours out of the office," he said. "To catch up on things. Can I trust you two not to oust me while I'm away?"

Niathal didn't seem amused. "You'll return to find Boba Fett sitting in your office, but if you have to go . . . you must."

"I trust you implicitly," he said. He trusted her not to be stupid, at least. Lumiya could keep a watchful eye on the situation while he made the trip to Hapes.

Boba Fett. That was an ax still waiting to fall, and if it didn't keep him awake at night, he was certainly conscious that Fett's continued lack of bloody revenge was unsettling. Jacen put the Mandalorians on the list of things for which he'd find a solution when he was established as a Sith Lord. Vader had had the measure of them in his day: Jacen would, as well.

That, too, was in his destiny.

LUMINOUS GARDENS SPA, DRALL, CORELLIAN SYSTEM

So . . . still no new Prime Minister?" Mara asked. "You're taking a big risk coming here," said Leia. "No, there's a triumvirate of the three main party leaders running Corellia until they find a new target—sorry, I mean candidate. Two dead inside a few months tends to dampen the applicants' enthusiasm."

"Well, we score for efficiency. At least we can run the GA on two."

"How very Sith."

Mara nearly choked. It wasn't funny at all. Did Leia know something?

"Mara, are you okay?"

"I think my encounter with Lumiya made me allergic to the word."

With a scarf around her hair, Mara was just another middle-aged female human enjoying the resort with a friend. The two walked around the colonnade of exclusive stores and beauty salons, and Mara still found it disconcerting that anyone could be leading a normal life when hers—and that of so many others—was caught up in the turmoil of war. Normality seemed somehow obscene. "I had to see you face-to-face. You don't want Jacen to arrest you for setting foot on Coruscant, and you know he would.

Where's Han?"

"He's gone on an errand with Lando. Where's Luke? Seeing as it's just us girls talking, I smell a delicate problem."

There was no point tiptoeing around it. Mara had as much evidence as she needed, but this was Leia's son under discussion. Leia had already lost Anakin. Mara had to be absolutely, completely certain. Ninety-nine percent sure wasn't good enough.

"Jacen," she said.

"Always is."

"I don't know how to say this to you."

"Try blurting."

"He's out of control. I mean badly out of control."

"Uh-huh. I admit it's challenging to have to keep tabs on your only son by watching the news coverage of his latest power grab."

"How's Han taking it?"

"Not well, to say the least. He veers between wanting to disown him again and talking about getting together to talk him around. You know, sometimes I think it's going to kill him."

Mara found that it wasn't certainty of Jacen's guilt she was looking for: it was any excuse to say that it was all Lumiya's doing, and that by removing her, Jacen could be brought back to his old self.

Whatever had happened to Jacen over the years—and that five-year

"sabbatical" was still largely a blank sheet—there seemed nothing of that old self left to recover.

If this wasn't my nephew, and Leia's son, would I still be trying to find a reason not to do something about him?

No.

"You sure you're feeling okay, Mara?"

Leia was one of the few people Mara had ever truly admired. She was pretty well the only person other than Luke who Mara knew would never fall apart, however bad things got. But she still couldn't bring herself to sit Leia down and give her the full catalog of Jacen's crimes.