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“You’re right about that. I should’ve been more vigilant.”

“So let’s suppose you did everything you could and still failed. Would you be grieving now, or would doing everything have satisfied you enough so that you wouldn’t miss him?”

“Of course I’d still miss him.”

“Then who are you angry at—yourself for the things you didn’t do, or fate for having snuck up on you?”

Han swallowed hard. “All I know is I won’t make that mistake again. I’ll be ready for anything fate dishes out.”

“And if you fail again?”

Han glared at him. “I won’t.”

Deep in one of the fathomless canyons formed by Coruscant’s soaring superstructures, Sullustan Admiral Sien Sovv switched off his private comlink and relayed the tragic news to the twelve officers seated in the recently readied New Republic Defense Force war room.

“Gyndine is lost.”

The uncomfortable silence that greeted the announcement came as no surprise. The planet’s fall had been a foregone conclusion from the moment it had been identified as a target. Filling the silence, machines whirred and hummed as they received and processed intelligence updates from all sectors of New Republic space. In projected light, virtual battle groups of starships moved lazily among virtual worlds.

“For allowing this to happen, we are all diminished,” Brigadier General Etahn A’baht remarked at last, voicing what many in the room were thinking. And yet the silence lingered.

“While I number myself among those who in the end voted against dispatching a force of suitable might to safeguard Gyndine,” the aubergine-skinned Dornean went on, “I wish to reiterate the remarks I made during the arguments preceding that regrettable decision. By all but surrendering worlds like Gyndine, we reinforce widespread conviction that the New Republic is interested only in protecting the Core, and in doing so we play into the enemy’s hand by weakening ourselves from within.”

A scornful muttering rose from across the oblong table, and all heads turned to Commodore Brand. “Perhaps it would have been wiser to send an entire fleet to Gyndine and thus deprive Kuat or Fondor of any defense.”

A’baht stood his ground, meeting the dour human’s gaze. “Will that be your justification for allowing the Yuuzhan Vong to occupy the entire Inner Rim? Is the Inner Rim the price we’re willing to pay to protect the Core?” He paused for effect. “A wise action, Commodore, would be to cease this exercise in selective defense and begin sending forces where needed.”

A’baht glanced around the table. “Doesn’t it disturb any of you that threatened worlds have begun to surrender without a fight? That former allies have refused to allow us to use their systems as staging areas out of fear of reprisals by the Yuuzhan Vong?”

He continued before anyone could respond. “Even a cursory look at the situation reveals that those populations who, at our urging, mounted a resistance have seen their worlds poisoned or devastated, while those like the Hutts, who have struck deals with the Yuuzhan Vong, have escaped bloodshed entirely.”

“You disgrace all of us by bringing the Hutts into this,” Brand said angrily. “Was their capitulation ever in doubt?”

A’baht made a placating gesture. “I offer them only as an example, Commodore. But the fact remains that Nal Hutta has been spared the ruination visited on Dantooine, Ithor, Obroa-skai, and countless other worlds. My point is that populations throughout the Mid Rim and the Expansion Region are fast losing faith in our ability to put an end to this war—and I use the word intentionally, since few of you seem to realize, even at this late stage, the great peril we face. Events are reaching a point where it’s every system for itself.”

A’baht gestured broadly to the holoprojectors and screens. “Even this space reflects our denial to embrace the depths of our peril. Instead of meeting openly for all of Coruscant to see, we wind up down here, as if in hiding from the truth.”

“No one is hiding,” Brand objected. “Thanks to the ineptitude of the Intelligence division, we came close to escorting two saboteurs