“I’m suspended from duty.”
There was no point telling her that the gossip had already ripped through the fleet: she’d refused to obey an order to attack. It was the kind of thing that got a high-profile Jedi pilot a lot of attention.
“What happened?”
“I didn’t think it was … appropriate to continue attacking a civilian vessel when it was retreating.”
Luke knew the answer but he asked anyway. “Who ordered you to do that?”
“Jacen.”
“Had the ship fired on Alliance vessels?”
“No, but it breached the exclusion zone and it had targeted Jacen. I took out its aft laser cannons, but it was still capable of firing. Then it withdrew from the exclusion zone and Jacen ordered me to open fire on it.” Up to that point, Jaina had been detached and professional, couching everything in military terms. Then her frown deepened. “It was just wrong, Uncle Luke. He wanted destruction. He wanted to teach them a lesson. I felt it.”
Luke chewed over the complexities of rules of engagement. Technically, the freighter was a proven threat. It could still attack Alliance ships even if it had moved outside the exclusion zone. Technically, Jacen was right.
Had it not been Jacen, Luke would have chalked it up to the split-second decisions people had to make in battle and accepted it sadly. But it had been Jacen’s order-one more incident that showed Luke how far toward the dark side his nephew had moved. The Jacen he had known was gone. And Lumiya was around. She was back, and that boded ill.
She was here. He’d have to find her.
“Mom and Dad are going to be so ashamed of me,” said Jaina. “Please don’t tell them. I’ll do it myself when I’m ready.”
“They know the kind of person you are.” Luke reached out and took her hands. “But why haven’t you defended yourself?”
“Because if I told everyone what happened, they’d think I was whining. You know: everyone else has to do as they’re told, but Jaina Solo thinks she’s above orders.”
“I know you’re right, Jaina.”
“You wouldn’t have fired, would you?”
“I meant that I know Jacen is turning to the dark side, and that it’s beyond anything that you or I did when we ventured there.”
“I don’t want to be right.”
“Neither do I.”
“You’re arguing with Mara about it, aren’t you?” Jaina said.
“Sometimes.”
“She can’t see what he’s like these days?”
“She sees, but she has another explanation. And we live in difficult times.”
“We always do. That’s no excuse.”
“So what are you going to do now you’re that grounded?” Luke asked.
“Until I face a court-martial-no idea. Can I be of use to you? I’d go find Mom and Dad, but I don’t think that would help them right now.”
“I’ll think of something. How’s Zekk taking this?”
“Trying to be understanding. I don’t want to he understood. I just want this insanity to stop.”
“Me, too,” said Luke. “Come on. Come and have lunch with me and Mara. We don’t see enough of you these days.”
“Do you stay in touch with Mom and Dad?”
“If you mean do we talk … not much. But I’m always in contact with Leia. I’m afraid it’s your dad I’ve lost touch with.” Luke could remember the time when the three of them had been inseparable; it had been impossible to imagine then that there would ever be rifts or that they’d be fighting on opposite sides. “I miss him.”
“I’d bet he misses you, too.”
Luke thought of straightforward battles against evil and how he had never given the gray areas a second thought. He missed that, too.
On the way back to the apartment, the traffic lanes seemed slower than normal. The stream of airspeeders was backing up. Luke switched to the holonews traffic channel to find out where the delay was and heard a new fact of daily life in Galactic City: a number of skylanes had been closed and the traffic rerouted while CSF officers cleared up after a riot.
“We’d better get used to this,” Jaina said. “The Alliance just upset a whole new bunch of people, as well as Corellia.”
Somewhere, Luke felt Ben in sudden, brief pain: not in trouble, not in danger, but in emotional pain. It was faint, almost like an incomplete memory, and then it was gone again as if it had been snatched back under cover. He wondered why he hadn’t picked up anything before. Alarmed, he opened the comlink and called Mara.
“Honey, is Ben with you?”
“No.” Her voice tightened. He heard the pitch rise. “What’s wrong?”