[Legacy Of The Force] - 05(105)
Something had got to her, and the fact that she was silent and not raging about it worried him. It meant it was more than Lumiya or Alema.
“Makes you wonder what tomorrow might bring,” Kyp said wearily, scratching his head with both hands as if he were shampooing his hair. “A bombshell with every bulletin.”
‘T haven’t always seen eye-to-eye with Omas, but I don’t believe he’s a security risk.” Luke had never handled frustration well, and age hadn’t mellowed that. He could see what was happening; he knew his
history, and he had no love of military government. Nobody of his generation who’d grown up under the Empire did. “So now we have two threatsan external war, and an internal coup. Where do we concentrate our efforts?”
“Well, Niathal is well within her rights to assume power under the circumstances,” Corran said. “So it’s not exactly a coup, and much as we might not like it as citizens with a vote, as Jedi we have no business interfering in that.”
“Can I say it?” Kyp asked. “Because it’s just staring us in the face and nobody’s mentioning it.”
“Go on …”
“Jacen. There, I said it. Jacen, Jacen, Jacen. What in the name of the Force is going on here? Okay, maybe we should have taken him to task when he started kicking down doors with the GAG. Now, overnight, he’s busted the Chief of State and taken over. Extreme? Out of control, my friends.”
“Has he actually declared himself joint Chief of State? Personally?”
Cilghal looked up. “Admiral Niathal announced it. We’ve heard nothing from Jacen.”
“Then maybe it wasn’t his idea.” Luke looked at Mara to catch her eye, but she seemed in a world of her own. “Mara?”
“Sorry.” She snapped to attention, blinking. ‘T don’t see Jacen being dragged kicking and screaming to the big office, somehow. Regardless of who came up with the idea, he’s hardly rushed to decline the honor.”
“He’s gone to ground,” said Kyp. “We’ve been through a whole twenty-four hours of news bulletins without seeing him. He must be chained up somewhere to keep him away from reporters.”
“How would we know?” Corran asked. “He never talks to us, and he’s holed up in his cozy GAG bunker when he’s not out harassing Corellians.”
“Time I went to see him,” said Luke. “I mean really see him. Niathal’s sent a message saying she wants to maintain the good relationship between the Jedi Council and the Chief’s office. I’m taking her up on that as soon as she can clear her schedule.”
Mara seemed to be concentrating on the proceedings again. “If I didn’t know Corellia was in dire straits over Gejjen’s death, I’d have said it was an outside attempt to destabilize the GA. If he’d still been alive, they’d have moved in on us by now.”
It was an interesting thought that suddenly got more interesting in Luke’s mind as he rolled it around. Mara could always spot the issue. The two events might have been coincidental, or they might not, but the assassination was tied up with the removal of Omas, and not only because he’d been meeting the Corellian shortly before he died. The crazier news programs were speculating wildly that Omas had been directly involved in the assassination, but Luke felt that something more convoluted was happening, and judging by the grinding-cogs expression on her face, Mara did too. She wasn’t quite talking to herself, but her lips moved occasionally, involuntarily, as she stared into the mid-distance.
You used to talk everything through with me, Mara. What happened?
“You know what?” Kyp said. “We’re missing an important point. As Jedi, either we’re players in GA politics, or we’re another instrument of the elected leadership, like the fleet. If we’re the latter, then we might have our opinions, but we do as the legitimate leadership directs. If we’re not, then we’ve got no more right to start interfering with the status quo than the Monster Raving Anarchist Party. Jacen might be completely off the charts now, but he’s not acting as a Jedi. He’s an officer in the security forces who happens to be a Jedi.”
“When my front doors come crashing in with a GAG boot,” Corran said, “that’s going to make me feel so much better.”
Kyp twisted around in his seat to jab a finger in Corran’s direction. “I’m not saying we shouldn’t act. Just that we need to be clear where we stand. And Niathal and Jacen are within their rights.”
“There’s rights,” said Mara, “and there’s right.”