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“Yes,” said Akanah. “I understand that. But, Luke, there’s something I must ask of you—that you never again kill to save me. I am glad that you cared about me, but it makes my heart sick, my spirit heavy, to have the screams and the blood of those men in my memory, in the ruins of a place that I loved.”

“I don’t know if I can make you that promise,” Luke said. “I have my own conscience to satisfy. And sometimes it demands that I fight for my friends.”

“That you kill for your friends.”

“When it’s necessary.”

“Is that how you see the Jedi? Are they ready to kill to protect their friends on Coruscant?”

Luke’s gaze narrowed. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to understand,” Akanah said. “I want to know what your Jedi mean to the New Republic, and what the New Republic means to you. Are you training the Jedi Knights to be Coruscant’s warrior elite? What are you willing to do when the commander-in-chief calls on you?”

“That isn’t the way it works,” Luke said. “Leia doesn’t give orders to the Jedi. She can ask us for help-one of us or all of us—but we can refuse. And sometimes do.”

“But the Republic supports your academy. You had a military spacecraft in your hangar. Can you afford to offend them?”

“The Jedi aren’t mercenaries,” Luke said, an edge in his voice. “When we fight, it’s an individual choice—and it’s in defense of the principles of our creed. Coruscant supports the academy because the memory of the Jedi is a powerful force for stability. Our presence is what they want most.”

“That’s the part of the tradition that concerns me,” said Akanah. “The guardians of peace and justice in the Old Republic for a thousand generations, or so the legend has it. But if you cannot have both peace and justice, which will you choose?”

“Which would you have me choose?”

“I would choose for you to keep your great gifts beyond the reach of politicians and generals,” she said. “For you to owe them no debts, and take on no causes—”

“I’ve been careful to protect our independence,” said Luke. “Despite appearances.”

“You aren’t sworn to uphold the government on Coruscant? You’ve taken no oaths of allegiance?”

“No. Only those few who’ve chosen to serve in the Fleet, or the ministries. It’s not forbidden. But it’s not common. The Jedi aren’t the Republican Guard. And never will be.”

“That’s something,” she said. “But how much better it would be if the most powerful symbol of your order—the very emblem of that long tradition—was something other than a deadly weapon.”

“We didn’t ask for that,” Luke said. “It just happened. Old weapons have a cachet.”

“All weapons have a cachet,” said Akanah with sorrow. “Too many men want to either conquer the world or change the world. The second is nearly as dangerous to living things as the first. Can you tell me why is it not enough to find a safe and comfortable place in the world, or—at worst—to find shelter from the world?”

Luke frowned. “No. I can’t.” He nodded toward the work bay. “But I can tell you how to disable the FCZ lockout on a Verpine Adventurer. Which I couldn’t have told you this morning. Maybe tomorrow I’ll figure out something else.”

She smiled ruefully at him. “I guess that will have to do for now.”

In the end, three days of watching the nav scanner like a nervous mouse watching for the predator in the dark yielded only a handful of wholly innocent contacts. No warships appeared, and the few private and commercial craft that left Lucazec after them or passed the Mud Sloth inbound took no apparent interest in the little skiff.

“Whoever Commander Paffen was reporting to must have been far enough away that his controller simply wrote him off,” Luke said, leaning forward over the controls.

“But they’ll be looking for us everywhere now,” said Akanah from behind. “For you in particular.”

“Looking and finding are two different things. I’ve had to make a habit of disguising myself in public just to be left alone, to go where I please without being gawked at,” Luke said.

“How do you do that?”

“Oh—I make myself look older where youth is honored,