Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 06_ Balance Point - Kathy Tyers [10]
When did aggressive defense become the aggression that was forbidden to Jedi?
Keeping only his lightsaber, Jacen found passage from Coruscant to Duro. If he couldn’t fight alongside Uncle Luke and the others, maybe he could at least help his father manage refugees.
Now, surely, he was on the right path. “I only know that you can’t fight darkness with darkness.” That didn’t explain anything. He tried again. “So maybe a Jedi shouldn’t fight violence with violence, either. Sometimes, I even think that the more you fight evil, the more you empower it.”
Han Solo opened his mouth to protest.
“It’s different for us,” Jacen insisted. “If we use the Force aggressively, that can lead to the dark side. But where does strong action become aggression? The line keeps blurring—”
The console beeped, rescuing him. “Rogue Squadron,” a tenor voice rang in the cockpit, “Colonel Darklighter’s office. Captain Solo, is that you? We were just trying to raise you.”
Jacen’s heart plunged through his stomach.
“Yeah, it’s me,” his father growled. “We’re checking on Jaina.”
“Good timing,” the voice answered. “This is Major Harthis, by the way. Jaina’s X-wing has been destroyed in a firefight. She had to go EV. A fellow pilot brought her in.”
“Injured?”
“Legs, chest. Bacta ought to take care of it.”
Han grunted as Jacen exhaled in relief.
“Her pressure suit held, but she was close to an attack cruiser, one of ours, when the drive blew. She got a massive mag-field exposure.”
Jacen’s blood turned icy. “Will she recover?”
Han echoed his question into the pickup.
The voice hesitated. “Tentatively, yes. We’ll update you as soon as we know. We’re also trying to raise her mother. Is Leia with you?”
“Isn’t she back on Coruscant?”
“No, Captain. SELCORE administration seems to have lost her.”
“Lost her?” Han echoed sarcastically. “Sorry. I can’t help with that.”
Jacen flicked the console’s edge. “I could stay out here,” he offered. “I’ll try to find her.”
Han’s eyes focused on something in the distance. “Sure,” he said. The pain in his voice reminded Jacen that things were not well between his parents. “You do that.”
Leia Organa Solo glanced into a dark corner, where her young bodyguard Basbakhan stood like a darker shadow. She hadn’t taken on a planetwide project since … was it Basbakhan’s homeworld, Honoghr?
She sat at the head of a long synthwood table. Surrounded by bickering scientists, she would’ve liked to cradle her head in both hands, plug her ears, and demand that they stop acting like children.
Duro did that to people.
Conditions here were appalling. Still, with Borsk Fey’lya clinging to power on Coruscant, this was one way she could shore up the New Republic, protect the Jedis’ reputation, and wear herself out so thoroughly that every night she dropped onto her cot too exhausted to worry about her own scattered family. Over the past year, she’d been bounced from system to system, caught up in on-again, off-again administrative and diplomatic work, wherever the New Republic’s Advisory Council pretended not to send her.
Even if she was starting to feel like a nonperson, this Duro project might be the most significant job she ever took on. To remake a world in these terrible times would be an enormous victory.
Her reconstructive meteorologist clenched a fist on the tabletop. “Look,” the scientist growled, glaring at the huge, furry Talz sitting opposite her. “There were excellent reasons for setting our domes on the dry side of these ranges. The worst toxins fall with the rains. Any settlement placed on a wet side, like our partner Thirty-two, will be utterly unsuitable for spiro-grass rangeland, but ideal for water reclamation. If we try to alter our wind patterns, we’ll set up an environmental catastrophe.”
“Would anyone even notice a catastrophe?” The Talz sat with his large, lower pair of eyes shut, his small upper pair blinking slowly. “Rangeland