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Jacen’s worry for Jaina struggled with his administrative concerns as his dad’s assistant—for about three seconds. “Yes,” he said, glancing guiltily at Piani, who belonged to Mezza’s clan and wasn’t much older than the offenders. “It’s important.”

“Right.” Han pointed at Randa. “You stay here. Let me know what you hear out of Nal Hutta.”

“Depend on me, Captain.” Randa plucked a bedjie off Piani’s hot plate and dropped it whole into his mouth.

Twelve minutes later, Jacen perched on the Millennium Falcon’s high-backed copilot’s seat. Han whacked a bulkhead, not in the joking way Jacen had seen him do it so many times, but angrily.

“Hey,” Han growled, “fossil. Gimme generator, and I don’t mean tomorrow.”

And in its inimitable way, the Falcon produced a glimmering array of lights.

Han dropped into his own seat and flicked three switches. “Give her a minute to come up.”

“Right,” Jacen assured him. I know was what he wanted to say, but he understood. Han had recovered enough from Chewie’s death to have the Falcon modified—including better air scrubbers for ferrying refugees, and a nonreflective black exterior that Chewie would’ve howled over—but he’d never installed a standard copilot’s chair. Just being on board the beloved hunk of junk made Jacen slightly nervous.

Jacen eyed a wire bundle that hung from a half-opened bulkhead. Han and Droma came out here now and again. Tinkering, Han called it. Therapy, Droma whispered.

They waited in silence. The weeks when Han’s grief had overwhelmed them all drifted up into Jacen’s memory. He’d happened into a cantina when Han had gone looking for oblivion. And on a worse night, he’d heard Han scald Leia, using words that never should’ve been spoken and could hardly be forgiven. Jacen had never mentioned that night to his mom. She probably hoped Jacen had forgotten.

Jacen doubted his dad remembered even saying them. He hoped his mother could somehow forget.

Pain wasn’t always a bad thing, though. Jacen almost wished Jaina’s pain would blast back into his awareness. At least that would mean she was alive.

They might find out in a few minutes.

A cascading rhythm of beeps rang in the cockpit as the repeater frequency came alive. Han slapped a tile on the bulkhead. “Solo here, in the Millennium Falcon. Call is for Coruscant, New Republic military. I want Colonel Darklighter’s office.”

Then they waited again.

“Jacen,” Han said softly. “What’s scared you off from using the Force? Two years ago, you were as gung ho as Anakin. I haven’t seen you levitate anything since you got here.”

Jacen gripped the arms of Chewbacca’s chair. “It’s complicated.” His dad wasn’t criticizing. He just didn’t understand. He’d already said he was glad for Jacen’s help, but now that Jacen had bailed out of the larger fight, he was falling farther and farther behind his Jedi siblings.

“Try me.” Han’s eyes bored into Jacen.

Jacen had told him what happened at Centerpoint. The powerful hyperspace repulsor and gravity lens had responded to Anakin’s touch, all right. It reactivated just as before.

And at that moment, the Yuuzhan Vong fleet—the one that the New Republic had hoped to lure to Corellia—appeared out of hyperspace at Fondor instead.

Han’s cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo insisted that the mighty shield should be used as an offensive weapon. He tried to bully Anakin into firing at the Yuuzhan Vong across the vast distance between systems.

Jacen begged Anakin not to take the shot. Firing that weapon would have been the ultimate aggression.

Anakin yielded to Jacen. For one moment, the brothers shared a true moral victory.

Then Thrackan seized the controls. He blasted the Yuuzhan Vong battle group and decimated the noble flotilla that Hapes had sent to the New Republic’s aid, thanks to Leia Organa Solo’s diplomatic efforts. The Yuuzhan Vong retreated, the surviving Hapans fled home, and now, Thrackan Sal-Solo was being hailed as a hero.

“I could’ve fired Centerpoint without hitting the Hapans,” Anakin had insisted.