And then there were animals, Wedge’s “cubs in trees.” Once upon a time he’d been able to charm a sand panther into purring, had been able to coax the cub of any species into his hand. How long had it been since he’d done that? Since he’d wanted to do that?
Animals, evil animals, with their razory teeth and their hatred for Jedi …
He snapped out of the half doze into which he’d fallen, but didn’t sit up. There was an answer for him. At the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war, he, Jaina, Anakin, and an elite unit of young Jedi Knights had mounted a mission to an enemy world, there to destroy the voxyn-creatures bred by the Yuuzhan Vong, creatures that could sense the force, creatures that had hunted and claimed the lives of numerous Jedi before this mission destroyed them.
But Anakin had been fatally wounded on this mission. I-lad died.
The children of Han Solo and Leia Organa Solo had suddenly gone from three to two. Had suddenly stopped being invincible, invulnerable, immortal. Suddenly there was no room in his life, no room in his universe for humor. And from that time on animals had all seemed to wear the faces of voxyn. They were no longer his friends.
Jacen had been captured, ending up in the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong. Ending up under the tutelage of Vergere, who was sometimes Jedi, sometimes Sith, sometimes neither. She had taught him much, including how to separate himself from pain or embrace it, how to survive when drowning within the Force or cut off from it, how to be human or Yuuzhan Vong or neither.
She had taught him to distance himself from everything, should he need to.
And now, more than a decade after those events, after her death, he could see another reason why. Only separation offers perspective. All learning benefits from perspective. Therefore all learning benefits from separation.
Which didn’t explain why the smuggler’s and Wedge’s comments had nettled him.
You’re doing things you never would have done when you were younger.
Such as firing on the Millennium Falcon.
That thought came to him in a rush, like one of Luke’s lightsaber attacks, and Jacen was unable to parry it, to deflect it, to pretend it hadn’t happened.
Several days earlier he had ordered the long-range turbolasers of the Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon.
I wasn’t sure it was the Falcon. Its transponder designation was Longshot.
“You knew.”
The first voice was his. The second voice was a bit like his, but a whisper … more like Vergere’s, perhaps.
I… knew it was the Falcon. I knew I was firing on my mother and my father But I thought they had become enemies. I thought they had betrayed me, Tenel Ka, our daughter.
“So, for that, you decided to kill them?”
No … I knew the Falcon could sustain a turbolaser hit or two. I wasn’t trying to kill them.
“Yes, you were.”
Jacen sighed, defeated by the relentlessness of his own analysis. Yes, I was. I was trying to kill them. Because of what I thought they’d tried to do to Allana.
“And you were willing to kill Zekk, even Ben, even Jaina to accomplish this. “
Jacen frowned over that. Not kill, precisely, he thought. I was willing to sacrifice them, though.
“For the greater good. For the elimination o f two enemies who could have cost you everything. Enemies whom you know to be resourceful, relentless.”
Yes.
“Then it was the right decision.”
But I was wrong! They turned out not to have been part of the coup attempt.
“Yes. But it was still the correct decision based on what you then knew, or thought you knew.”
Jacen nodded.
“And so you would do it again. I f you knew, truly knew, that they were your enemies, that they stood between you and galactic peace. Or between you and your daughter.”
Yes.
“Good.” The tones within his mind were more and more like Vergere’s. “You are still learning.” And you are still teaching. Even though you’re dead.
There was no answer. But Jacen was calm, satisfied.
His decision had been correct, flawed only by the incorrect data upon which it had been based. He could do it again if he needed to, and would.
He was capable of sacrificing a lesser responsibility for a greater one, a lesser good for a greater one, a lesser love for a greater one. Lumiya, his Sith teacher, would be pleased … if she was still alive.
And he could finally recognize that the boy he had been, the optimistic, joke-spinning, animal-loving, kidnap-prone Jedi boy, was dead, slain on the same mission that had claimed his brother, Anakin.
At last, understanding what had happened, Jacen did not miss his younger self.
Finally he slept.
CHAPTER THREE
CORUSCANT
GALACTIC ALLIANCE SENATE BUILDING, CHIEF OMAS’S OFFICE