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It was true. Jedi on ordinary missions were booed. Ordinary people they dealt with were suddenly unhelpful, stalling investigations, and not just on Coruscant—the news, spreading throughout Alliance space, caused anti-Jedi sentiment to swell like a pond ripple that never seemed to weaken. Jaina, assigned at her own request to be the Imperial Remnant-Jedi liaison, suffered catcalls and was even thrown filth while in Jag's company. Public speaking engagements for which Jedi had been solicited months earlier were canceled. A years-old academic thesis proposing that interacting with the Force contributed to a tendency toward madness was uncovered and redistributed, and its author, now an obscure philosophy professor on Corellia, was suddenly the darling of interview shows.

Valin slept through it all, fruitlessly studied by doctors and chronicled by the press.

The Unification Summit moved on, relegated to second-tier news coverage. Perhaps the sudden absence of spotlights was a boon; political analysts reported promising responses from the Imperial Remnant and the Confederation.

A week after Valin's rampage, Luke went to bed, lay sleepless for three hours, then rose and dressed again. He walked the Temple halls for the next several hours. The Jedi he passed sensed his deep immersion in his thoughts and did not trouble him. Ben watched him during the hour he paced the Great Hall; then, distressed but unable to help, he went to his quarters to spend his own sleepless night.

Two hours before dawn, Luke used the comlink in his quarters to make a series of quick calls.

Not long thereafter, on foot, he approached the Senate Building. In a few hours, participants in the Unification Summit would collect again, but for now it was a still office building.

He was greeted with courtesy at the main entrance and escorted to the floor where the Chief of State's offices were located. Outside those offices, another set of guards offered equal courtesy but required him to hand over his lightsaber and submit to a brief full-body scan, which he did.

Then, finally, he was conducted into a large inner office, one darkened and unoccupied in this predawn hour. An aide activated the overhead lighting and offered him caf. He declined, and the aide left.

The office showed that this Chief of State had different aesthetic sensibilities than Jacen Solo or Cha Niathal, who had preceded Daala in the position. Jacen had preferred natural woods and landscape tones, though his taste had graduated toward even darker décor in his last months. Niathal, a Mon Calamari, had preferred militaristic themes in blues and greens.

Daala, it seemed, chose to surround herself with the trappings of the old Empire. Her personal office gleamed white, with desks, chairs, and computer equipment that could all have been recently transferred from the bridge of a Star Destroyer.

The door behind him hissed open, and Luke turned to see Daala enter. The Chief of State was once again in admiral's whites. Guards waited in the hall outside, their forbidding expressions, directed at Luke, vanishing as the door closed.

Daala extended her hand. “Master Skywalker.”

Luke rose and shook it. “Chief Daala.”

She moved around him to sit at the main desk. “Please, sit.”

He did. It was a little odd—he had expected to feel something from her, anger or resentment or a desire for vengeance, but he could detect no strong emotions, no aggression.

“Something to drink?”

He shook his head.

The Chief of State propped her elbows on her desk and rested her chin atop interlaced fingers. “When my staff tells me that the Jedi Grand Master wishes to see me, I take it as a serious matter, even if we are locked in legal battle. And I assume, when the message does not indicate a purpose for the meeting, that it is one best expressed face-to-face. So here we are, face-to-face. What can I do for you—or you for us?”

“I'm actually not one hundred percent sure. Earlier this evening, I had a feeling that we should meet. A presentiment in the Force.