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“Pride is pretty sneaky,” Jacen warned. “It disguises itself pretty well. I hope you’ll have a long talk with Uncle Luke at some point. Unless you don’t think even he has anything to teach you.”

“Don’t put words in my mouth, Jacen,” Anakin said.

“And don’t you forget who pulled your butt out of the fire there at the end,” Jaina replied.

Anakin let a grin creep across his face. “But that’s what I meant, don’t you see? When I said that no one but me could have survived what I did. Because no one else in the galaxy has you two for his brother and sister.”

He picked up his tray, trying not to laugh at their gaping mouths.

“Now, if you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I have someone I need to go see.”

Anakin found Tahiri’s stateroom door open a crack. Through it he saw her lying on her bed, bare feet propped up on the wall. Her gaze was fastened on the transparisteel window and the distant spray of the core beyond.

Anakin rapped the door frame. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi. Come in if you want.”

“Okay.” He took a seat on the edge of the bed.

“You didn’t show up for dinner,” he said. “I thought I would bring you some.” He placed a food container on the bed. “Corran made it. Seems he’s been doing a lot of cooking these days.”

“Thanks,” Tahiri said. She turned her head and for the first time met his gaze.

“What happened to it?” she asked. “The shaper base?”

“You sure you want to hear about it? Every time someone brings up the subject—”

“I wasn’t ready to talk about it then. Now I am.”

“Okay. Well, Booster pretty much slagged it. Karrde and his people evacuated the slaves. We’re going to drop them off someplace soon. Of course, the Yuuzhan Vong can come back, I guess, since we left the system pretty much without defenses, but there’s nothing we can do about that.”

“No,” Tahiri said. “There isn’t. I guess that’s the end of the academy.

“Of course it isn’t. The academy was never a place. It’s a thing, an idea. We’re just taking it on jets. Booster’s going to let the academy kids stay on the Errant Venture. He’ll make random jumps around the galaxy until it’s safe to settle the kids down someplace.”

“Safe?” Tahiri hissed. “How can it ever be safe? How can anything ever be—” Her words seemed to clot up in her throat, and she turned back to the view of space.

“Tahiri, I know how you feel,” Anakin said.

She closed her eyes, and two small tears squeezed from the corners. “If anyone does, I guess you do,” she said after a moment.

“What they did to you was horrible, I know, and—”

“What they did to me? Anakin, I cut Mezhan Kwaad’s head off.”

“You had to.”

“I wanted to. I liked it. I loved it.”

“She tortured you. She tried to destroy everything you are. You can’t be blamed for a moment of anger.”

“I think she did destroy everything I am,” Tahiri said. “When I killed her, it was the end of me.”

“No,” Anakin said, “that’s not true. And I should know, shouldn’t I? The best of you is still there, Tahiri.” He reached his hand out. It hung there in space for a long time before she reached back, taking it without looking.

“It was all my fault,” she said. “Master Ikrit died because of me. Karrde’s people died because of me.”

“Now this I’m pretty good at,” Anakin said. “Blaming myself for things. I can really teach you to do that right. In fact, if we think really hard about it, I bet we can find some way to blame you for the Yuuzhan Vong finding this galaxy in the first place.” He cocked his head. “No—I think I want the blame for that. We can blame Palpatine on you, though. How’s that?”

Tahiri frowned at him. “When did you start talking so much?” she asked.

“I don’t know. When did you start coughing up one word at a time as if three or four were going to break your mouth?”

The corners of her lips twitched up, not quite forming a smile. “Just shut up, will you? I liked you better the other way.”

“Me, too.”

They watched the stars in silence for a while.

“Where will you go now?” Tahiri asked, when the silence was too thin. “Back out to fight the Yuuzhan Vong?”

“Eventually.”

“I want to