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On the main wall, three figures held center stage. Two had their backs to Tolann. Dominant in the image, black and unmistakable, was Darth Vader. Barely visible, for she stood before Vader and only appeared when an arm or her head moved to one side of the Dark Lord of the Sith, was the eighteen-year-old Princess Leia Organa, Senator from Alderaan, clad in gubernatorial white, her hair arrayed in coiled side buns not often seen these days. Beyond Leia, facing her and Tolann, just enough to one side that his face remained in view, was a slightly built, aging man in a gray dress uniform—Grand Moff Tarkin, architect of the Death Star. And on the oversized monitor screen behind Tarkin was a planet, blue and beautiful, surrounded by space and stars.

Senator Treen’s jaw dropped. She fumbled with her caf cup as it nearly slipped from her fingers.

Tarkin was speaking. “In a way, you have determined the choice of the planet that will be destroyed first. Since you are reluctant to provide us with the location of the Rebel base, I have chosen to test this station’s destructive power on your home planet of Alderaan.”

Senator Leia surged forward. Her body language, the little of it that could be seen, was one of entreaty, pleading. When she spoke, her voice was not quite right, not quite the voice Lecersen had been familiar with for many years. Its pitch was a touch higher, and it carried the clipped tones of the Coruscanti accent, nearly identical to Tarkin’s, that so many Senators and other politicians affected back in the days of the Empire, even when they were not from Coruscant. “No. Alderaan is peaceful. We have no weapons. You can’t possibly—”

Tarkin’s voice turned harsh, commanding. “You would prefer another target? A military target? Then name the system!”

Treen laughed. No, to Lecersen’s surprise, she giggled like a girl. Then she fixed Lecersen with a look that was half amusement, half outrage. “This is in extraordinarily bad taste.”

He nodded. “Isn’t it, though? It’s a re-creation, based on Leia’s own memoirs and standard reports filed by Vader and Grand Moff Tarkin. Admirers of the Palpatine era adore it. But it’s not listed on any official menu. You have to know about it and ask for it specifically. Anyway, when Alderaan blows up, it’s Tolann’s signal to act.”

Indeed, Tolann had withdrawn, from an inner pocket, two items. One was a small silver cylinder with circuitry and tiny stenciled letters on it. The other was a round device, the size and shape of a large credcoin, with a button in its center.

Treen spared Lecersen. She seemed to be having difficulty suppressing further laughter.

“The cylinder is a micro-thermal-detonator, the sort YVH droids carry and fire. He’ll throw that one against the wall to knock it down. The trigger in his left hand is linked to an identical detonator strapped to his body. His plan is to rush Fel, get his arms around the Head of State, and press the trigger.”

“Ah.”

On the monitor, a bright lance of green energy emerged from the lower corner of the Death Star’s viewport and struck Alderaan. Kester Tolann hurled his detonator to the base of the wall.

Alderaan exploded, and then the entire wall showing the image from more than forty years before detonated in fire and smoke.

Jaina was opening her mouth to respond to a wisecrack when the wall behind her exploded.

The blast erupted from directly behind the security agent who’d pronounced the environment adequately free of toxins. The gout of flame picked her up, hurled her forward. Her flailing body cleared Allana, sitting to Jaina’s right, and crashed down in the middle of the table. Allana shrieked, the sound mostly swallowed by the report of the explosion.

Jag, at the head of the table, to Jaina’s left, spun toward the source of the explosion. There was a blaster in his hand.

Jaina heaved herself sideways, scooping Allana up, carrying the little girl in a lunge toward the door from the chamber. In her peripheral vision she saw her parents shoving at their