Pellaeon took a spoonful of jhen honey and held it above his cup, letting a long ribbon of the viscous amber run off the spoon into the caf, then twirled it with a practiced wrist while he waited for Quille to go on. It wasn’t the first time he’d used the silent routine on a meeting of the Moffs. They never seemed able to resist it, though, and by the time his spoon emerged shining and clean from the caf, they were getting uncomfortable and looking to Quille to fill the long gap.
“Do go on,” said Lecersen.
“Our diplomatic sources say that the GA is recruiting allies from outside its usual sphere of influence,” said Quille. “When the war is over, the map of the galaxy will look very different.”
Lecersen smiled. It always made him look more disturbing than when he frowned. “Well, there’s a big gap near Corellia where Centerpoint used to be, for a start.”
There was a ripple of laughter. Quille pressed on. “Rewards may be there for the taking, gentlemen.”
“In exchange for fighting Jacen Solo’s war for him,” said Rosset. “Is there anything we want badly enough for that?”
The discussion began rambling over the possibilities in a tapestry of voices. “Niathal’s war, too …”
“Oh, let’s not forget the admiral, shall we?”
“If an admiral was running it, it would be over by now.”
“Solo could always lose the war, of course.”
“If the GA is thinking this way, then perhaps the Confederation is, too, and maybe they’ve got a better offer.”
“Is there an offer?”
The silence was sudden. It was an excellent question. Pellaeon thought it was time to remind them that he was not senile, that he was not a figurehead, and that he did not lack informants.
“Bilbringi and Borleias, if we commit troops and ships to the GA.” Pellaeon let the names sink in. He still enjoyed that silent moment of revelation he could create in a meeting. Yes, it was vulgar theater to reveal what he knew of the offer leaked to the Moffs in that way, but it was also a shot across the bows of any Moff who thought he could best the old man. “And, of course, my question would be, what’s in it for us? Both those worlds are in the GA’s gift to give, but there’s still a small population in both systems, and we still might have to fight to take them. If it’s the latter, then all the GA is doing is turning a blind eye to any expansion on our part in exchange for our blood, and that seems to me like paying twice. If we wanted to expand, Solo would be in no position to stop us anyway while he’s so thinly stretched in this war, and we would need to commit nothing to his land-grab expeditions.”
“Then the question is whether we want to expand the Empire,” Lecersen said. “Do we?”
“I would be inclined to wait and see what’s left of the galaxy before we decide what we want,” said Rosset. “It might be the difference between snapping up a bargain at a sale, and taking on a charity case that saps our resources.”
Pellaeon felt the surge of old emotions again. This was about duty. Wars left the galaxy in tatters, and the galaxy’s wounds were freshly healed after the Yuuzhan Vong War. It would take very little to tear the new tissue apart and make healing harder next time; some worlds had recovered very little in a decade. This was the situation an empire could avoid, could stabilize, could heal, but if it meant working with the likes of Jacen Solo—no, Pellaeon could never see that lasting. He might do business with Niathal, but not anyone as volatile and mystic as Solo.
We are the Empire. We bring order and justice for the common good.
The irony wasn’t lost on him; this was clearly Jacen Solo’s ideology, too.
“My problem with Solo,” Pellaeon said carefully, knowing that his exact words would reach Jacen sooner or later, and wondering if it was worth the effort to track the route, “is that he has no background in government or the military. Jedi are very good at being in opposition, being the conscience on the shoulder of leaders and keeping them on their toes, or even playing peacekeeping shock troops when needed, but they do not run things well. They’re doers, not managers … although I suspect Princess Leia has excellent leadership skills. Sadly, she’s not the one running the junta. How different life might be then.”
“Solo seems to be winning rather a lot for a man whose first uniform was a colonel’s,” Quille said.
“There’s a Mon Cal admiral in a shiny white suit to whom he owes at least some of that, I suspect.” Pellaeon realized Jacen was not a textbook Jedi and, from the rumors he was hearing, probably dabbled in the dark side, but the principle stood. The Jedi Council was part think tank, part special forces, part mystical reassurance for the ruling class; Jedi could nudge and steer, and even block, but they were used to being a small weight added to tip the scales. Jacen was from that tradition, but trying to be an emperor. He wasn’t up to the task.
“Are we taking a vote on this?” asked Rosset.
“There’s no formal offer, and so no motion on the table.” Lecersen drew the questions away from Pellaeon. “I would simply suggest that we keep a watching brief on the situation, and if an opportunity arises to clarify what Chief of State Solo has in mind, then we look to Admiral Pellaeon to explore it if he so wishes. The admiral has unique experience in seeing history repeat itself.”
He had to hand it to Lecersen; the Moff had a superbly analytical mind, and didn’t need to hear the gossip about Jacen Solo’s parallel course with his grandfather’s to predict certain outcomes. Had Jacen but known it, though, he was doing what every flawed and ideologically committed leader throughout history had done. His vision was all-consuming, and in time he would become so dazzled by it and so embedded in it that he would ignore and then simply not see the warning signs. There was always one more bold act, always one more final push, that would vindicate him and make everything work.
They all did it. The innovators and visionaries who had brilliant ideas and could get things moving had very different psyches to what was needed to reach and maintain stability. They simply looked for more glorious revolution to spark. It was hardwired. It was doomed to self-destruct. And it cost lives.
Sooner or later—sooner, probably—Jacen Solo would overstretch himself, and then the battlefield would be open to those who could pick up the pieces and bring back quiet order. It would be left to the Empire.
The Moffs filed out. Pellaeon hung back with Reige until the grand room was empty except for them and a housekeeping droid who hovered around clearing the splendid pleek table.
“I love it when you drop a full payload on them, sir,” Reige said.
“That’ll teach them to think I’m deaf. The bloodfins aren’t hauling me away yet.”
But this was just the opening salvo. Jacen Solo would not give up. Pellaeon wanted to see if anything of genuine substance was on the table before he made a more formal refusal. And he would not play by Jacen’s despotic rules. One Palpatine was enough for a lifetime.
There was still caf left in the pot, and Pellaeon was in no hurry now. He chatted with Reige about the temperaments of pedigree bloodfins, and whether they could ever be safe for children to ride, given their propensity to devour whatever fell in front of them in the heat of the moment. He turned aside the droid when it attempted to clear away those tasty little xirlia pastries. He felt clean and in control again.
Then his comlink chirped. He recognized the incoming code.
“Excuse me, my boy,” he said. “I must see what my Coruscant bureau has to tell me.”
It wasn’t spying; Pellaeon was welcome to return to the capital anytime as a respected veteran. He was simply keeping in touch with old friends. The message wasn’t voice, but text; and it was very short. Rumors—from impeccable sources—said that Jacen Solo had lost his temper after a skirmish and Force-choked a junior officer to death in full view of the bridge crew.
“Oh, it’s just like old times,” said Pellaeon, finding that making light of enormities preserved his blood pressure for those times when he really needed to be angry. “We�
��re all back in harness, reprising the glory days of our youth. Myself, Princess Leia and young Skywalker, Master Fett … and now little Lord Vader.”
The military had adored Jacen for throwing his lot in with them and looking after them. How long they might keep that up if he made a habit of killing underlings, Pellaeon wasn’t sure. Jacen still had a fund of goodwill to squander yet.
No, Pellaeon would very definitely not be playing by Jacen Solo’s rules.
ANAKIN SOLO, GANDEAL-FONDOR HYPERLANE
“Teb—”
No, she’s gone.
It was the second time that morning that Darth Caedus had turned to Lieutenant Tebut for a sitrep and remembered she was dead, which left him unsettled for reasons he had to stop and ponder. Captain Shevu gave him an odd glance when he turned to the station that Tebut had normally occupied on the bridge, but said nothing. Caedus wandered across to the viewscreen to look out at distorted time and space, a respite while he grappled with his lapses. Tahiri, playing the part of a junior officer perfectly, stayed at her station with her hands clasped behind her back.
Had he genuinely forgotten that he’d killed Tebut? Or was this all part of … grieving? He’d lost count of the times he’d marked a passage in a holozine for his brother Anakin, or seen something funny that he just had to tell him, or any one of a dozen things that crashed painfully when he remembered in the next instant that Anakin was dead. Caedus could remember how terrible that was; and yet he could flow-walk back to Anakin’s death and not suffer that again.
He didn’t understand why, and that bothered him. He was supposed to be past those petty personal concerns now. Perhaps this was the way it was for Sith of his status; perhaps he needed the ability to switch off and do what was necessary, however distressing, and yet not lose the passions and sorrows that gave Sith strength. If he could take terrible decisions and never feel their enormity, then he would be no better than a droid. Flesh and blood needed the protective rule of someone who understood their pain. So … he worked through things carefully, and he always found his answer … he was spared that for the time he needed the clarity to take hard decisions, and yet he still had to suffer the reality later, when it was safe to do so. If he forgot what pain and fear were, then he would also forget his duty to the trillions of beings who would look to him to stop their suffering.
This uneasiness about Tebut was a price, then, not a failing. A reminder from the Force of what it meant to be flesh and blood, and whom he served. It made sense. He felt reassured.
“Dropping out of hyperspace in five standard minutes, sir,” said the officer of the watch.
“Very good.” Caedus tore his gaze from the transparisteel and strode back to his bridge position. “So, Tahiri, we’ll see Fondor shortly.” She was in blue uniform, no badges of rank, and proper black fleet-issue boots, the ones with durasteel-hardened toe caps for safety. Tahiri hated shoes, but a warship was a dangerous place to go barefoot. It also looked sloppy and ill disciplined. “This is the next dissident planet we take back.”
“Not today, though,” she said. “We’re doing reconnaissance.”
A recce wasn’t needed, given the intelligence Caedus had on Fondor. Less than a standard year earlier, it had been a Galactic Alliance member state, and so its defensive capability and industrial output were a matter of record; worlds didn’t change into unknown quantities that fast. But Caedus was still baffled by Fondor’s decision to secede from the GA, an act he saw as inexplicably treacherous. The planet’s yards had thrived on the custom of Coruscant-based regimes for decades, and this very hyperspace lane was testimony to the volume of hulls that had been transported from the orbitals here to the galactic capital.
“No,” said Caedus. “We’re showing Fondor how easy it is to get at them. A speeder bus ride, practically.”
“Don’t they know that?”
“We often ignore the obvious. And this is partly education for you.”
Tahiri’s eyes flickered a little. “In which discipline?”
“Decision making.”
The task of sweet-talking Pellaeon into listening to Caedus’s offer was something any intelligent, personable woman could do. But Caedus needed Tahiri to be more than that, and he needed her to grow so that she wasn’t performing like a circus rancor simply for tidbits of time spent flow-walking back to watch Anakin. The lure of his dead brother had been a legitimate way to get her interest, even if it was a tacky and rather cruel trick; the weight of duty to the dark side meant that very few would embrace it head-on without some self-gratification to hold them in its thrall while they learned the truth. It was a superficial means to a nobler end.
Now he needed Tahiri to understand the gravity of Sith service if she was to fill the gap left by Ben Skywalker as his apprentice. And, as Ben had been blooded by the task of assassinating Dur Gejjen, so Tahiri needed to comprehend the gravity of her role, and move beyond romantic fantasies that could never happen.
Anakin was dead, and he wasn’t coming back. The kindest thing Caedus could do—would do, one day soon—would be to force Tahiri to face up to that and live for the future.
“Okay,” she said. Her lips moved uncertainly. “I mean, very good, sir.”
Tahiri obviously wanted to do well. Caedus watched the viewport, not the view fed from exterior cams to the monitors, as the slightly misshapen disk of Fondor resolved into a sharp-edged planet ringed by orbital shipyards like a swarm of tiny moons.
“Take us in as close as you can, Helm,” he said.
“Very good, sir.” There was no hesitation, query, or even the hint in the Force of any doubt about his wisdom. The Star Destroyer moved from open space into the invisible but fiercely defended borders of Fondor sovereign territory.
Caedus had neither rehearsed this nor warned the bridge crew. By now the early warning beacons had picked up the Anakin Solo’s approach, and the ship’s long-range sensors showed that Fondorian fighters were scrambling. Soon there would be a concerted attack on the ship, and he was counting on that. He wanted to test Tahiri’s nerve and commitment.
“Weapons officer,” he said, “when you acquire a target, do not fire. I repeat, do not fire. Shields and defensive systems—offline.”
Nobody said a word, except Tahiri.
“Is this some special tactic?” she asked. “A feint?”
“No, I’m leaving the ship wide open to attack.”
“But—”
“The weapons officer will give you firing solutions. You don’t have to do any calculations. You only have to decide whether or not to open fire.”
Caedus could see Shevu unclasp his hands from behind his back to fold his arms, but that was all. There wasn’t the sense of nervousness around the bridge that might have been expected. The crew, as always, had faith in Caedus to deal with any situation. But Tahiri was rattled; she couldn’t sense Caedus’s intentions—he remained shut down in the Force as a matter of course now, emanating nothing to other Force-users—and now she could see the flight of Fondorian assault fighters streaming out to intercept them. She had never had control of a warship.
“That’s easy enough,” she said, not sounding convinced. He could feel her probing, groping around in the Force for hidden meaning, concealed traps. “If someone’s working out the firing solutions.”
“Are the fighters a threat to us, Tahiri?”
She was having doubts now. He’d sown uncertainty in her mind simply by asking an apparently obvious question.
“Possibly.”
“How will you know?”
“When they power up their weapons.”
“We have weapons online. Are we a threat to them or just ready to deal with an attack? What are your rules of engagement? What if they don’t fire?”
To her credit, Tahiri seemed to be thinking logically. The fighters were closing in. Bridge crew began shifting in their seats now, a little uneasy.
“Quickly, Tahiri. You only have seconds. A second is all it takes for a missile to pe
netrate the hull, vent a whole compartment, kill hundreds of our comrades …”
Caedus knew the Fondorian pilots would detect charged, targeted, locked-on cannon and yet no defenses. They’d think it was a trap. They’d hesitate, assess the target, wonder what they’d missed—
In range.
“They’ve powered up but not acquired us, sir,” said the weapons officer.
“Tahiri …”
“Fire!” she said. “Take, take, take.”
Cannon fire stabbed into the flight of fighters, streams of it taking out all six of them in sudden silent blooms of white light. Naval and air engagements were always impersonal, Caedus thought, machine on machine, not at all like the urgency of facing an enemy in a trench or street and seeing a face. It took awhile to sink in at first.
“Reactivate defenses and lay in a course for Coruscant,” said Caedus.
The Star Destroyer came alive with the lights and sounds of preparation for the hyperspace jump back to the Core. Tahiri was still staring at the viewport.
“Now … was that the right decision?”
“You tell me,” he said.
“I neutralized the threat.”
“Or you fired on vessels that hadn’t targeted you, and made widows and orphans for no good reason. Which do you think you did?”
“It’s a war …”
“Wars have rules.”
“You told me to fire.”
“I told you that you could fire.” Caedus could see the crew trying to pretend the dissection wasn’t taking place in front of them. They were all suddenly blind and deaf. “The decision was yours.”
“Is that what this is all for? You brought the ship here just for a few minutes to see if I could give a command to fire?”
“Yes.”
“And put the ship at risk? And kill pilots?”
“It’s what we do. How do you feel about that? Do you think about the living beings in those fighters, or do you think about us in this ship, and can you ever be sure you took the only reasonable path open to you? I can’t answer that. To become my apprentice, you have to be able to answer that in your own mind and live with the answer. You killed today. It should never feel easy or distant like some holovid game. If it does, or it doesn’t trouble you later at some time, then you’re not up to the responsibility.”
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