[Dark Nest] - 1(130)

Leia had a solution to the Colony problem-a solution that meant cheating the Ithorians yet again.

The Masters’ voices were growing sharp and loud, but Leia remained quiet. Her plan would please Omas more than it did her, and that in itself was almost enough to make her reject it. Once, she had held the Chief in high regard and helped place the war against the Yuuzhan Vong in his hands. But peace was often harder to manage than war. Over the last five years, Omas had made too many compromises, bowed to the demands of the moment so many times that he could no longer hold his head up high enough to see what was coming on the horizon.

And if Leia proposed her solution, she would be guilty of the same thing. She didn’t know if she could do that, if peace would be worth seeing the defeated eyes of Cal Omas in her own face when she looked into the mirror every morning.

Finally, Luke had heard enough. “Stop!”

When Kyp and Corran continued to argue, he stood and sharpened his voice without raising it.

“Stop,” he repeated.

Kyp and Corran slowly fell silent.

“Is this how Jedi resolve their disagreements?” Luke asked.

Both of the Masters’ faces went red with embarrassment, and Corran said, “I’m sorry.”

He was apologizing to Luke instead of Kyp, but that was more than Kyp did. He simply sank into his chair and, being careful to avoid Corran’s eyes, stared blankly at the table’s star-within-a-star inlay.

“Too bad,” Han muttered. “I haven’t seen a good lightsaber fight in ages.”

Leia was about to kick Han under the table when he exclaimed, “Ouch!”

“Sorry.” Mara looked past Han to Leia. “Just stretching.”

“No problem,” Leia said. Han’s joke was too true to be funny; the rift in the Jedi order had been widened today, and she was beginning to wonder if it could ever be closed. “I was feeling a little cramped myself.”

Luke allowed a tense silence to fall over the room, then sat down and turned to Omas.

“It may take some time to reach a consensus on your request, Chief Omas. As you can see, our decision is complicated by the fact that the Chiss are acting against the Killiks not because of what they have done, but because of what they might do.”

Omas nodded gravely, his irresolute gaze gliding around the table, silently taking the measure of the Jedi who had defied him, trying to judge the resolve of those who had not. Finally, he came to Luke and stopped.

“Master Skywalker, I quite simply do not care,” he said. “The Chiss’s trouble with the Colony is no concern of ours. We can’t put Galactic Alliance lives at risk just because a few Jedi feel bound by a quaint morality no one else understands.”

Kam Solusar and Tionne arrived on the heels of the exchange. It had been over a year since Leia had seen either of them, but they looked much the same, Kam still wearing his white hair cropped close to the head and Tionne allowing her silver-white tresses to cascade over her shoulders. They had barely cleared the door before they drew up short, recoiling from the animosity in the Force with the horrified expressions of someone who had just stumbled upon a pair of mating Togorians.

Leia had not realized until she saw their alarm just how noxious the atmosphere in the room had grown. The rift in the council was widening before her eyes, opening a chasm that would only grow increasingly difficult for prideful Masters like Kyp and Corran to cross. Assuming that her idea was viable, and she felt sure it was, she had it in her power to close that rift-at the price of her own conscience.

Kam and Tionne took seats next to each other, on the opposite side of Cilghal from Luke.

“We were just discussing the situation at Qoribu,” Luke said to them. “Chief Omas has informed us that Tenel Ka has dispatched a Hapan battle fleet to aid the Colony.”

Tionne’s pearlescent eyes grew wide. “That doesn’t sound good.”

“It gets worse,” Corran said, scowling at Jacen. “A Jedi

is responsible.”

“He followed his conscience,” Kyp said. “Which is more than I can say for half-“

“Actually,” Leia said, cutting off Kyp’s insult before it could be finished, “there may be a way for the Jedi to stop the war and earn the trust of the Chiss.”

Han groaned, but everyone else turned to her with a mixture of relief and expectation in their eyes.

“Han and I discovered-“

“Uh, sweetheart?” Han grabbed her forearm. “Can I talk to you a minute?”

This did not please Omas. “Captain Solo, if you have discovered something useful to the Galactic Alliance-“

“Excuse me, Chief.” Leia spun her chair around, placing her back to the table, then waited as Han did the same. “Yes, dear?”