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She blinked, startled again by the unintentional aptness of his comments. “You’re right. They’re grown now, and capable. But it isn’t easy to let them go their own way.”

“No, it isn’t.” He attempted a cocky grin and managed a decent if decidedly one-sided imitation. “Since when did any of us need things to be easy?”

Leia gratefully took his lead. Humor pushed back the numbing grief—if only for the time it took to smile.

“You’ve got a point, flyboy. If I needed proof of that, all I need to do is remember that we’re still married.”

He leaned forward, touched his forehead to hers. “Last time I checked.”

His strength flowed into her, mixed with a sweetness that she’d feared they’d misplaced long ago. Leia lifted her face until their lips were a whisper apart.

“Check again.”

SIX

A storm raged outside General Soontir Fel’s viewport, the first of the winter monsoon season. Frozen rain swirled through roiling gray clouds and rattled against the transparisteel ports. Ice coated the duracrete landing pads and hung from the eaves of the Chiss barracks in neat rows, like ready weapons lining an armory shelf. Tall, blue-skinned pilots strode confidently over the slick walkways, aided by their spike-soled boots and their native athleticism.

Despite the steady hum of the room’s heating unit, the cold seeped into Fel’s joints. A phantom ache throbbed in his missing eye, despite the dark patch he sometimes wore. For the first time in his life he felt old and tired, especially when he considered the challenges ahead.

A hard winter was on its way, the general mused, one that could last for several Corellian years. The Chiss base, the latest of many that Fel had established over the years, was set in a particularly harsh environment of an inhospitable world. Most of his advisers had perceived no reason why anyone would choose to place a base here.

Fel only hoped that the Yuuzhan Vong would follow the same logic.

He turned away from the viewport to study the officer standing at stiff attention before his desk. The young man wore the formal black uniform of the Syndic Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s household phalanx, and the insignia of a colonel. His black hair was cut short, exposing the entire length of the scar that ran up from his right eyebrow well into his hairline. A thin streak of white hair followed the path of that scar, as if to emphasize the maturity that had come too soon, and at great price.

“We have had this discussion before, Colonel,” Fel commented. “This phalanx is committed to the same goals you’ve espoused. We responded at Garqi. We fought at Ithor. The Imperial command recalled Admiral Pellaeon after that debacle, with what they considered to be good reason. Given the outcome of that engagement and the withdrawal of Imperial support, I saw little value in committing phalanx squadrons.”

“I disagree.” The young colonel bowed to emphasize that his words expressed opinion, but not disrespect. “I will concede that no one, not the New Republic nor the Imperial forces nor the Chiss, could counter the biological weapons that destroyed Ithor. The presence of this household’s phalanx had no impact on this outcome. Ithor, however, was the only world utterly destroyed. The invaders have followed more conventional tactics in their subsequent conquests.”

“And therein lies the problem. How successful were you and your Rogue Squadron allies in fending off any of these conquests through ‘conventional tactics’?”

The young man’s lips thinned. “My two squadrons were recalled shortly after Ithor, sir. We had neither the time nor the opportunity to make an appreciable difference. This is not an excuse, sir, but simple fact.”

“Two squadrons,” the general repeated. “Twenty-four clawcraft and a beacon ship. How much difference could this force have made at Ord Mantell? Or Duro? Hundreds, possibly thousands of worlds are under Yuuzhan Vong control.”

“With respect, sir, I was commissioned in this household to serve and uphold the ideals of Grand Admiral Thrawn.”

“Which did not, I might point out, include stupidity,” the general