"Okay, I'll catch up with him when he's relieved."

Procurement frustrated Jacen from the start. When he got an answer from the comm, his status as commander of the GAG didn't seem to open as many doors as it did in the rest of the Alliance. By the time he was put through to a senior civil servant in Fleet Supply—a woman called Gellus —he wasn't impressed, and his caf was cold.

"We can't bypass the supply system, sir," said Gellus. "All requests are dealt with in sequence."

"Shouldn't they be dealt with by urgency, as in front line?"

"I don't have the power to do that under the procurement regulations, sir."

"Who do I talk to about quality of supplies?"

"Which supplies? You see, we have four item departments—"

"Cannon maintenance packs. We're getting complaints about poor-quality replacement parts."

"That would be Engineering Support. They have their own system.

You'll have to—"

Jacen had learned patience and a dozen ways to calm his mind in crisis

from as many esoteric Force-using schools. He didn't want to use any of them. He wanted to lose his temper. He wanted action.

"There's a war on," he said quietly. "All I want is for the right kit to get to the people fighting. What's the fastest way to do that?"

"You're not Fleet, are you, sir? GAG is domestic."

"Meaning?"

"This isn't your chain of command. We'd need authorization from a senior officer from Fleet to pursue this request. It's the regulations, sir."

But I'm commander of the Galactic Alliance Guard. I don't even have this much trouble getting to see Chief Omas. The apparently limited scope of his authority galled him. He could call on Star Destroyers and entire armies, but getting past a bureaucrat was impossible.

"Would the Supreme Commander's word do?"

Gellus swallowed audibly. "Yes, sir."

"Then I'll come back with that."

Jacen closed the link, furious. Rules. He wasn't used to these arbitrary limits. If he couldn't get simple supply issues ironed out, then his future as a Sith Lord looked limited.

His rational mind told him this was an annoyance that could be solved with a message to Niathal and a little delegation to a junior officer, but another sense entirely told him he had to stick with this.

Good for morale, he thought.

No, it was something else. He couldn't put his finger on it.

Rules and regulations. He scrolled through the comm codes for the Alliance defense departments and found Legal and Legislative. He tapped

the sequence, and a human voice answered.

"Can I borrow a legal-analyst droid?" he asked the assistant. Jacen preferred his legal advice from the most dispassionate and unimaginatively honest sources. A droid could grind through the small print in the statutes for him.

"Right away, sir."

That was more like it. Jacen's mood improved.

In the meantime, he still needed that simple authorization from Admiral Niathal to get the kit moving.

Good officer. Good tactician. Hidebound attitudes.

But he needed her as much as she needed him.

Lekauf returned with fresh caf. He should have been off-duty, according to the roster. "You're too busy to do routine administration, sir," he said. "Are you sure I can't take it off your hands?"

"I'm sure," said Jacen. "Procurement and I need to get a few things straight between us."

Lekauf grinned. "You show 'em, sir."

Something told Jacen that it was more important to "show 'em" than he could ever imagine.

And that voice—he listened to it.

THE SKYWALKERS' APARTMENT, CORUSCANT

Luke looked at his hands, right then left. One was prosthetic, and one was flesh, and had been touched by someone he was beginning to think of as his nemesis.

Lumiya.

In the middle of a battle, he'd had the chance to kill her, and they'd ended up touching hands in a gesture that between normal people might have been considered reconciliation.

I said I didn't want to kill her.

Luke Skywalker had never wanted to kill anyone. Sometimes it happened, though. He stood up and took the shoto out of his belt, the short lightsaber that he felt he needed to deal with Lumiya and her lightwhip.

What's happening? What does she want?

She'd never been one to play mind games like Vergere. She was a soldier: a pilot, an intelligence agent, a fighter. He'd yet to put the pieces together, but she was connected to Jacen's slide into darkness in some way.

Luke made a few idle practice passes with the shoto and tried to visualize what might happen if he ran into Lumiya again. Then he wondered what he'd have done at nineteen, and he knew he wouldn't have thought about it too much. He wanted things to be that clear again.

The doors to the apartment opened, and he heard Mara and Ben talking. Relief flooded him. He laid the shoto on the table and every rehearsed line of warning and disapproval vanished, replaced by a simple need to grab his only son and crush him in a hug.

Ben stood rooted to the spot and submitted to it. Mara gave Luke a warning with a raised eyebrow, but he wasn't planning to scold Ben.

"I'm glad you're safe," Luke said. "But if anything I did made you go off like that, we need to talk about it."

Ben looked at Mara as if seeking a cue to explain. "I was working.

I was on a mission, that's all."

Jacen, you liar. You said he resented the fact that I stopped him being your apprentice.

Only Jacen would—could—send him on a mission.

Luke considered casually asking Ben who'd sent him, but he knew anyway, and he didn't want to descend to tricking his own son into giving him information or putting him on the spot about Jacen. He didn't need any more proof that his nephew wasn't going to turn back to the light without some substantial help. It was help that Han and Leia couldn't give. It was beyond the Jedi Council, too.

This was family trouble. He'd sort it out, with or without Mara.

"Comlink silence?" he asked.

"Yes, Dad. Sorry." Ben might have been surprised by the hug, but he hadn't recoiled, either. "I can't discuss it. You understand, don't you?"

"Of course I do, son." And I bet I know who told you not to. "I really hoped you weren't going to stay in the GAG."

"I'm good at that kind of work."

"I know."

"I can't ever be a good little academy Jedi now, Dad. I have to see this through. We've had this argument before, haven't we?" Ben's tone was regretful, not a whiny teenager's protest about his parents' unfairness.

It was sobering to see him growing up so fast. Growing up? No, aging.

"There's a war going on, and once you've served, you know you can't walk away from it and sit it out while your . . . while your friends risk their lives."

"Luke . . ." Mara's tone was reproachful, with that slightly nasal edge that said she wanted Luke to stop. "Is this really the time for all that?"

He ignored her. "I understand, Ben. I do. But the GAG isn't the place you should be."

"Isn't it?"

"It's not the way the government should deal with dissent."

"Then that's why I should stay in," Ben said quietly. "If it's a bad organization, then it needs good people to stay in it and change it from the inside, and not abandon it to the bad guys. And if it's a good organization, then all you're really upset about is my safety, and I can handle that better than you think. You wanted me to be a Jedi. I'm beings Jedi."