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Which didn’t explain why the smuggler’s and Wedge’s comments had nettled him.

You’re doing things you never would have done when you were younger.

Such as firing on the Millennium Falcon.

That thought came to him in a rush, like one of Luke’s lightsaber attacks, and Jacen was unable to parry it, to deflect it, to pretend it hadn’t happened.

Several days earlier he had ordered the long-range turbolasers of the Anakin Solo to fire upon the Millennium Falcon.

I wasn’t sure it was the Falcon. Its transponder designation was Longshot.

“You knew.”

The first voice was his. The second voice was a bit like his, but a whisper…more like Vergere’s, perhaps.

I…knew it was the Falcon. I knew I was firing on my mother and my father. But I thought they had become enemies. I thought they had betrayed me, Tenel Ka, our daughter.

“So, for that, you decided to kill them?”

No…I knew the Falcon could sustain a turbolaser hit or two. I wasn’t trying to kill them.

“Yes, you were.”

Jacen sighed, defeated by the relentlessness of his own analysis. Yes, I was. I was trying to kill them. Because of what I thought they’d tried to do to Allana.

“And you were willing to kill Zekk, even Ben, even Jaina to accomplish this.”

Jacen frowned over that. Not kill, precisely, he thought. I was willing to sacrifice them, though.

“For the greater good. For the elimination of two enemies who could have cost you everything. Enemies whom you know to be resourceful, relentless.”

Yes.

“Then it was the right decision.”

But I was wrong! They turned out not to have been part of the coup attempt.

“Yes. But it was still the correct decision based on what you then knew, or thought you knew.”

Jacen nodded.

“And so you would do it again. If you knew, truly knew, that they were your enemies, that they stood between you and galactic peace. Or between you and your daughter.”

Yes.

“Good.” The tones within his mind were more and more like Vergere’s. “You are still learning.”

And you are still teaching. Even though you’re dead.

There was no answer. But Jacen was calm, satisfied.

His decision had been correct, flawed only by the incorrect data upon which it had been based. He could do it again if he needed to, and would.

He was capable of sacrificing a lesser responsibility for a greater one, a lesser good for a greater one, a lesser love for a greater one. Lumiya, his Sith teacher, would be pleased…if she was still alive.

And he could finally recognize that the boy he had been, the optimistic, joke-spinning, animal-loving, kidnap-prone Jedi boy, was dead, slain on the same mission that had claimed his brother, Anakin.

At last, understanding what had happened, Jacen did not miss his younger self.

Finally he slept.

chapter three

CORUSCANT GALACTIC ALLIANCE SENATE BUILDING, CHIEF OMAS’S OFFICE

It was a small, private meeting this time—Luke, Mara, Chief Omas, Admiral Niathal, and Kyp. Government security men and women waited outside in the reception room, and, if Luke knew their type as well as he thought, they’d be fidgety, unhappy about not being on hand to protect the government leaders in case the Jedi decided to cause trouble.

Luke grinned at that. The likelihood of Jedi causing trouble in a situation like this was approximately equal to Cal Omas and Admiral Niathal proclaiming themselves the new Emperor and Empress. Then he sobered. Historically, the last time anything like that had happened, it hadn’t gone so well for the Jedi.

“I understand the demands on your time,” Chief Omas was saying. White-haired, earnest, the deliberate embodiment of governmental sympathy and goodwill, he sat opposite Luke, his hands clasped together on the table between them. “So I’ll be brief. I—representing many voices in the GA government—wanted to give you the opportunity to do a very great favor for that government.”

Luke nodded. “By elevating Jacen Solo to the rank of Jedi Master.”

Chief Omas hesitated. His expression didn’t change, but Luke had the distinct impression that the man was taken aback.

Luke kept himself from looking at Kyp. So Kyp’s comment