“We almost decided on Corellia,” Han said. “A planet where you can move more than three meters without hitting a wall. But we have too many family and friends here.” The door chime rang again. “Speaking of which …”
This time it was Jaina and Zekk. Jaina, too, was in standard Jedi robes, hers made of hard-wearing cloth suited to travel and styled to be less conspicuously those of a Jedi Knight. She was of about the same height as her mother, and more slender of build, with dark eyes and delicate features. Zekk, her partner, was in his late twenties, slightly younger than Jaina, but was otherwise her opposite in almost every way-tall enough for his scalp to scrape the top of the doorway as he entered, his long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, he would stand out in any crowd regardless of the cut and color of his traveler’s robes, and so made little effort to conceal his cheerful, energetic appearance. But he was, in contrast with his good nature, quiet almost to the point of shyness during the tour he and Jaina received of the quarters. His one comment was to Leia: “I take it that the Vongforming has pretty much been beaten back from this area?”
At the height of the Yuuzhan Vong war, when Coruscant had fallen, the Yuuzhan Vong had used their arts to alter the very nature of the world, installing a World Brain to coordinate the reshaping of the planet. Under the brain’s guidance, they introduced overwhelming quantities of fauna and flora to erode the construction that nearly covered Coruscant’s surface and replaced indigenous species with Yuuzhan Vong species, attempting to eradicate every sign that any species but the Yuuzhan Vong had lived here. The process, called Vongforming, would have been complete within a few standard decades, save that Jacen Solo, who had befriended the World Brain during his captivity, convinced it to turn on its makers and help the newly formed Galactic Alliance recapture the world. Now, the Vongforming was slowly being reversed by the aggressive use of technology and toxins, but everywhere on Coruscant there remained signs of the World Brain’s influence-alien molds that lived in cracks and gaps and culverts, insect species that had become a part of Coruscant’s ecosystem, odd and dangerous life-forms who now dwelled in the darkness of the sewers and other subterranean infrastructure.
Leia shrugged. “A few kilometers from here, you get weirdly overgrown ruins and some areas I can only think of as alien parks. It’s much more normal around here,” she said. “The nearby areas that were, before the change, dangerous after dark or too deep for sunlight to reach are just slightly more so now. It’s like Coruscant used to be … except the shadows have a little more in them, you know what I mean?”
Zekk nodded, smiling slightly. “I know all about that.”
The argument began over spiceloaf.
Spiceloaf was not the cause of it. The traditional Corellian dish, a dense ground meat spiced to the heat tolerance of the diners, was, as Lela had prepared it, both mild and savory, and was not likely to cause disagreement all by itself. It was merely the course that was on everyone’s plate at the point Han decided to become argumentative.
He set his fork down and looked suspiciously at his nephew Ben. “You were doing what?”
“Making sure they did what the government said.” The boy returned his uncle’s stare, unintimidated. “Stopped making weapons except for the government.”
“Well, that’s an oversimplification,” Jacen said. “This Adumari company was producing explosive ordnance beyond what was permitted for delivery to the Galactic Alliance armed forces or otherwise legal as per Order GAO-eleven-thirty-three-B-that is, beyond the amounts necessary for their own planetary defense. In other words, they were assembling proton torpedoes and other missiles for sale to other planets, not for delivery to the GA.”
“So?” Han asked. “That’s not business for the Jedi. That’s a problem for politicians with nothing better to do. Next thing you know, we’ll have Jedi walking the government halls on Corellia and telling us what to do.”
Leia smiled. Han hadn’t lived on Corellia for decades, but in his heart, he was all Corellian, embodying the swagger, the cockiness, the carefree attitude that the citizens of that system considered essential elements of their culture. His exploits during the Rebellion and up through the present day had made him dear to the hearts of the people of that system. The second best-known Corellian hero of the same era, Wedge Antilles, did live in the Corellian system, but he was more reserved, less brash, and simply hadn’t captured the public’s affection as Han had.
But Luke wasn’t as amused. “Han, the Corellians are playing a dangerous game. They’re demanding all the advantages of Galactic Alliance membership-trade benefits, use of the GA communications and travel infrastructure, citizenship rights, all of it-hut not contributing their fair share of Alliance overhead. They’re dragging their heels on supplying ships and personnel to the military, on providing tax revenues-“