Chapter One
How long are we going to have to bounce from one crisis to the next? We’re facing our third galactic war in under forty years-a real civil war. It’s just skirmishing now, but if Omas doesn’t crack down much harder on dissent this will spiral out of control. We need a period of stability and I fear we’re going to have to knock heads together much harder to get it.
-Admiral Cha Niathal, in private conversation with Mon Calamari Senate delegates
CHIEF OF STATE’S RECEPTION SUITE. SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT, SIXTEEN DAYS AFTER THE RAID ON CENTERPOINT STATION.
The worst thing about being thirteen years old was that one moment you were expected to be an adult, and the next everyone treated you like a child again.
Ben Skywalker-thirteen and confused about what was expected of him-sat trying to be patient in the reception area of Chief Cal Omas’s offices in the Senate Building, taking his lead from his cousin Jacen Solo. It was the kind of office designed to make you feel like you didn’t matter: a whole apartment could have slipped into the space between the outer doors and the wall of Omas’s personal office. Ben almost expected to see tangled balls of misura vine rolling across the spotless pale blue carpet, driven by a distant wind. He couldn’t see the point of all that empty space.
But the Senate Building had been occupied and changed out of all recognition by the Yuuzhan Vong, Jacen said. Architects, designers, and an army of construction droids had taken years to wipe away all traces of the alien invasion and restore the building to the way it had been. Ben tried to listen in the Force for the echoes of the aliens and their weird living technology, and thought he heard unrecognizable sounds. He shuddered and tried to occupy himself with the holozines stacked on the low greelwood table.
The ‘zines were all very dull and slightly outdated current affairs weeklies and political analyses, but one of them displayed an image of Jacen. Ben picked it up and activated it, smiling at the next image of a rotating Centerpoint Station, which didn’t look quite so good in real life since he had helped sabotage it.
It’s good to feel part of something important.
The holoreport featured clips of Corellian news reports of the raid on Centerpoint, but it didn’t mention Ben, and he wasn’t sure if that upset him or not. Some recognition would have been nice; but the Corellian sources that were quoted were pretty rude about Jacen, calling him a traitor and a terrorist. The reporter’s voice seemed to fill the room even though the volume was set to minimum and the carpet and tapestries on the walls muffled the sound.
The report wasn’t very kind about Uncle Han, either. A middle-aged man Ben didn’t recognize was telling the reporter what he thought. “So he calls himself a Corellian. But forget that Bloodstripe on his uniform pants-it might as well be a big yellow streak down his back, because Han Solo is just a Galactic Alliance puppet. He’s betrayed Corellia by sitting on his backside doing whatever his Alliance buddies tell him to. And his son’s just the same.”
Jacen seemed embarrassed. Maybe he was more upset for his dad. Ben would have been.
“You should use an earpiece to listen to those privately,” said Jacen.
“But you’re famous.” Ben offered him the holozine. “Want to see?”
Jacen raised one eyebrow and seemed more worried about his meeting with Chief Omas. “Fine, but I could do without Thrackan Sal-Solo using me to humiliate my father in front of Corellia. You realize he gave all this information to the media, don’t you?”
“Yeah, of course I do. But if we’re not ashamed of it, why does it matter? We did the right thing for the Galactic Alliance. Centerpoint Station was a threat to everyone.”
Jacen turned his head very slowly with that half smile that Ben had learned meant he was impressed. “But a lot of worlds are taking Corellia’s side now. So do you think those stories do any harm or not?”
Ben could always spot a test now. He knew he had to say what he believed: there was no point trying to be too clever. He wanted to learn from Jacen so badly that it burned him up. “Some worlds will always go against the Alliance anyway. So we might as well let the people on our side know we’re taking action. Makes them feel safer.”
Jacen nodded approvingly and Ben felt a little Force-touch somewhere in his mind, as if Jacen were patting him on the head. “That’s very perceptive. I think you’re right.”
“Everyone will know you’re doing your best to stop a war, anyway.” Ben put the holozine back on the table and glanced at the rest of the titles. “There seem to be more pictures of you than anyone.”