“See, that’s the thing.” Han pointed his fork at Luke’s chest as if intending to jam it in and probe around the heart and lungs. “We can maintain our own military, and not the tiny peacekeeping and police force the new laws are calling for. When the time comes for military action, the Corellians have always brought our forces up, under our own colors, even when we weren’t members of whatever government was swinging the biggest stick at the time. We did it for the Old Republic and the New Republic. We did it in the Vong war.”
Jaina grimaced. “Not a good example, Dad. How many lives, how many whole systems were lost in the Yuuzhan Yong war because governments couldn’t work together, didn’t have standardized weapons, communications, tactics?”
Han turned his scowl on his daughter. “How many lives, how many whole systems were lost,” he asked, his tone mocking hers, “because the New Republic government was so bloated, impersonal, and stupid that it couldn’t see when it was getting its rear end kicked and didn’t care when millions of its people got killed? How many members of Borsk’s old Advisory Council ran off to their homeworlds with personal yachts packed with treasure and left people behind them to burn?”
“Which is exactly what Corellia is doing,” Luke said, his voice soft but his expression unrelenting. “They’re trying to pack up their treasures and avoid the economic toll that rebuilding civilization is taking on the rest of the Galactic Alliance, while they’re throwing up a shield of planetary pride to convince people that their decision is based on something other than selfishness and irresponsibility. And other systems are starting to look to Corellia in a leadership role. It’s foolish to cast the Galactic Alliance as the Empire and Corellia as the Rebel Alliance. Because that’s what it might come to, a rebellion-a stupid and unnecessary one.”
“Luke,” Mara said. Her voice was a whispered note of caution.
“Is that the position of the Jedi order?” Han asked, voice rising. “What the galaxy needs is one language, one system of measurement, one uniform, one flag? Should we just cut the word no out of the language and substitute Yes, sir, right away, sir instead?”
“Han,” Leia said. “Not nice to argue in front of a guest.”
“Zekk’s not a guest. He’s the man chasing my daughter all over the galaxy.”
“Dad.”
“I think-” Han paused and looked around the table, finally aware of all the eyes on him. He plunged his fork into the last piece of spiceloaf on his plate and hurriedly swallowed the piece of meat. “I think I’m done. I think I’m going to wash some dishes.”
“Please,” Leia said.
Han rose and took his plate and utensils with him.
When the kitchen door slid shut behind him, Mara asked, “Is he all right?”
Leia shrugged and took a sip of wine. “It’s been getting worse as things have been heating up between Corellia and the GA. On the one side, the fact that his own cousin is Chief of State of Corellia and is playing this slippery, deceptive political game bothers him a lot. On the other hand, Han doesn’t really trust any interplanetary government anymore, not since the Yuuzhan Vong war. Not that he ever did, but it’s worse now. And since Anakin died-” She stopped, shot Luke a regretful look.
Luke sat back. Years ago, during the worst days of the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, Han and Leia’s youngest son, Anakin Solo, named for his grandfather, had led a unit of fellow Jedi on a mission to a Yuuzhan Vong world. There, they’d exterminated the queen voxyn, preventing the creation of any more of the Force-sensing, Jedi-killing beasts. There, Anakin had died.
Luke, however reluctantly, however regretfully, had signed off on that mission. “Ever since Anakin died,” Luke said, “Han has never really trusted the Jedi order, either. Has he?”
Leia shook her head. “It’s strange. He trusts you, his old friend Luke. But Master Skywalker, head of the Jedi order? Not so much.” Then her smile returned. “Not that he can talk too much about Jedi, not with every member of his immediate family being a Jedi.”
Jacen smiled, too, and raised his wineglass in the direction of the kitchen door. “Here’s to irony, Dad.”
Chapter Four
JACEN, LEIA, AND MARA RELAXED ON THE LIVING CHAMBER FURNITURE. In the kitchen, Han, maintaining his self-imposed exile, was riding roughshod over C-3P0 in the act of cleaning the dinnerware. Luke was alone in the sealed-off communications room, borrowing the Solos’ comm gear for some sort of official Jedi business call. Ben and R2-D2 were out on the balcony, matched in a musically noisy but bloodless hologame. Jaina and Zekk, too, were out there, but the occasional glimpses caught of them suggested that they were at the railing side of the balcony, watching the endless streams of multicolored traffic flow by in the nighttime sky.