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She offered Ben a knowing smile. “No written invitation sent to an important leader has accidents like that in it. Of course, the Alliance diplomatic corps claims that no insult was intended. They claim ‘Regrettable misinterpretation of figures of speech,’ which subtly puts the blame on the Hapans for being touchy.”

“I still don't understand why the Alliance wouldn't want them here for this,” Ben pressed.

Luke shrugged. “Actually, I don't have any idea.”

Leia nodded toward the dais, gesturing at the table to the right, to the Bothan's left. “They don't want to dilute the Imperial presence or to interfere with Imperial cooperation.”

Startled, Luke gave the table another look.

Galactic Alliance Chief of State Natasi Daala sat at the end of the table. A woman of late middle years, she had copper-colored hair and lovely features made less appealing by her rigid, military bearing. She wore a white admiral's uniform with broad swaths of service medals across the tunic. A onetime protégée of the Empire's Grand Moff Wil-huff Tarkin—and uncharitably assumed by many to have achieved her military rank because she was also his lover—she had been leader of the Galactic Alliance for two years and had done a fine, measured job of restoring the union's economies and networks of political alliances, which had been shattered by the recent war.

To her right sat Jagged Fel, the young Head of State of the Imperial Remnant. Raised among the Chiss, proven in battle as a combat pilot in the Yuuzhan Vong War, he was a reluctant leader who had shown himself to be adept at keeping the Imperial Moffs in line and in managing difficult Imperial–Hapan relations.

To Jag's right, immediately beside the still-droning Bothan, was Turr Phennir, Supreme Military Commander of the Confederation. He was the closest that loose alliance of planets had to an overall leader. Pale, aristocratic, with a scar reaching from the middle of his left cheek to the left corner of his mouth, he, like Fel, was a former combat pilot. The reputation he'd earned early in his career for classic Imperial backstabbing politics and combat savagery had changed over the years to one of pragmatism and honorable service.

And until now, Luke had given no conscious thought to the fact that these three, the most eminent politicians on Coruscant at this moment, were all Imperials. That realization struck him like a bucket of icy water. He had fought the Imperials for decades, had played a role in the defeat of every one of their major operations during that time, and here they were, in charge of … everything.

Leia glanced at Luke, amused. “I felt that.”

“I didn't put it together before now. I've been thinking of the three of them as themselves, not as Imperials. The fate of the galaxy is, all of a sudden, in the hands of Imperials.”

“Yes.”

“When did it strike you?”

“Two years ago, when Daala and Fel took their posts within a short time of each other.”

“You didn't mention it to me.”

She shrugged. “There was nothing I could do about it. Or should do about it. The symbolism of them all being Imperials in one way or another is nothing compared with the question of who they are inside. I mean, the Rebellion was largely made up of former Imperials. Crix Madine. Mon Mothma. Jan Dodonna. I'm a former Imperial Senator.”

“True. And all three leaders up at that table are honorable people.”

“Yes. But that doesn't mean they want what we want. Or that they can see the consequences of their decisions the way we can.” Leia's smile became distinctly ironic. “I bet Palpatine's ghost is laughing at us right now.”

Luke forced himself to relax. He had, over the years, become convinced that in the absence of Palpatine and his immediate successors such as Ysane Isard and Sate Pestage, what it meant to be an Imperial had changed. The Moffs, sector governors, tended to be as scheming and self-serving as they were forty years earlier, but the military, an even more potent force in the Remnant, was largely populated by men and women who