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“Then you might consider releasing the fleet you’re holding in orbit.”

“And play into Jedi hands?” Daala’s hand came down on the table so hard that Jag’s saucer and cup jumped. “That’s what they want. That’s why they’ve begun this ridiculous freedom campaign.”

Jag’s brow shot up. “You’re saying the Jedi are behind Freedom Flight?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Daala retorted. “By igniting fires along the galactic rim, they compel me to divert my forces.”

“And they give you an opportunity to make yourself look bad,” Jag added, “by doing crazy things like sending Mandos to put down slave revolts.”

“Exactly.” Daala nodded and poured for them. “So you see why we need the Empire’s help.”

“I see why you want it,” Jag said. “But you’re overlooking something important.”

“I doubt that.” Daala returned the carafe to the table and offered the pastry plate to him. “You’re about to tell me the Jedi would never do such a thing, aren’t you?”

Jag tried to hide his surprise by reaching for a cream puff. “The thought had crossed my mind, yes.”

“Of course it had,” Daala said. “But if that’s true, why have they been working with Sith?”

“Sith?” Jag repeated. He sank back in his chair, recalling his last conversation with Jaina, when she had begged him to lend her some Imperial ships. She had hinted that Luke had uncovered something huge on his journey, something that threatened the entire galaxy—and that certainly sounded like Sith. “Okay, maybe they’ve found another Sith. But if you think they’re working with him, you’ve lost your mind.”

Daala sat back, listening patiently, then smiled and said, “Not another Sith, Head of State Fel. A whole fleet of them. Perhaps a whole civilization of them.” She withdrew a small datapad from her tunic pocket, then continued, “And I have not lost my mind. You’ve heard about the trouble on Klatooine, of course?”

Jag nodded. “The Fountain of the Hutt Ancients,” he said. “Someone damaged it, and that’s what touched off the whole slave revolt.”

“Not someone,” Daala said. “Sith. Jaina Solo sat in judgment of them—and released half.”

She slid the datapad across the table to Jag.

“Alliance Intelligence has compiled a report on the matter.” She took a cream puff and cut it in half. “Enjoy.”

Jag activated the datapad, then watched in a growing mixture of fascination and horror as a dour-faced Duros operative detailed what his team had discovered on Klatooine. The incident began when Luke and Ben Skywalker arrived with a fleet of frigates crewed by two separate species of Force-using beings. As the fleet departed, the crew of one of the frigates violated the Fountain of Hutt Ancients. A short time later, Jaina Solo and Lando Calrissian arrived and were asked to sit in judgment of the offenders. The most damning evidence was a brief vid of Jaina and Lando standing behind a Klatooinian elder as he read their verdict—a verdict that condemned the captain and crew of one Sith frigate, the Starstalker, to be executed by Klatooinians, yet left the captain and crew of a second frigate, the Winged Dagger, free to go.

The vid had barely ended before Daala asked, “So tell me, Head of State Fel: who do you think has lost their mind now?”

Jag looked up, his thoughts already leaping ahead to what Daala intended to do with the vid. “Why are you showing me this?”

“Why do you think? The galaxy is at peace … at peace.” Daala’s face grew hard, and she leaned forward in her chair. “And you are going to help me keep it that way.”

THE SHINING CRESCENTS OF ALMANIA AND ITS THREE MOONS WERE hanging bright against the dark velvet of space, a set of jewel-colored sickles gleaming with the diamond-colored light of the system’s huge A4-class sun. Two of the crescents, the planet itself and the moon Pydyr, were mottled with patches of sapphire ocean and verdant land. Another crescent, the industrial moon of Drewwa, scintillated with the lights of a thousand factories, including those of Tendrando Arms and Amala Casketry. But it was the fourth crescent, the yellow dead moon