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Jag’s expression grew skeptical. “You could be mistaken.”

“You mean, the Force might be throwing me a curve?” She shook her head. “It doesn’t work that way.”

“How does it work?” he asked stiffly. “Is it so different from intuition? Is there a stronger link between you and your parents than between me and my parents, simply because of the Force?”

Jaina shut her eyes. “Jag, please. This isn’t a good time to be arguing.”

He started to say something, then stopped and began again. “Perhaps we can talk heart to heart when the war ends.”

“Jag, I’m sorry. I’m just preoccupied.”

“No, really. Besides, I’m slated to report to General Bel Iblis. I’ll look for you later.”

As he started away, she almost went after him, but thought better of it.

What was happening? Was Jag drifting away from her, as well? Was she drifting away from him?

Or was her relationship with him going to turn out to be another of the war’s odd pairings; another reversal born of desperation? In either case, it certainly had been an unexpected development. Since events in the Hapes Consortium they had been growing more … familiar, with each brief encounter. They had seemed to be falling in love.

Danni Quee had told her that one shouldn’t be too analytical about love—that rational thinking was the quickest way to rout affection. But Danni—a scientist who did little else but analyze—was no one to talk. And how could someone not wonder about wartime romance? Because they so often emerged out of a desire to live to the fullest, wartime affairs were notorious for being as short-lived as explosions in deep space. People tended to skip all the usual stuff and fly straight to the heat. But how could you trust your emotions at a time when any day might be the last—for yourself, your family and friends, your comrades? What might have happened had she and Jag gotten to know each other in peaceful times? What would have accounted for their shared experiences: holopresentations, picnics, getaways on tourist worlds?

She shook her head. Maybe she was being too hard on them.

Take her parents, for instance. They had met, fallen in love, and married during the worst of times, and everything had worked out great for them. So it could work. But was she trying to emulate them in some way—

“Hey, soldier.”

Kyp Durron passed her on the outside and put his arm around her shoulders. Fit, sharp-featured, and dark-haired, he had surrendered the scowl that for years had been his signature expression.

Reflexively, Jaina curled her arm around his waist and leaned against his chest—the chest of a man she had once slapped across the face, but who had later become a kind of mentor to her, especially in helping her navigate the emotional storm that had attended Jacen’s unexpected return from Yuuzhan Vong-held Coruscant a year earlier.

Kyp brought them to an abrupt halt and turned slightly to gaze at her. “If it’s any consolation, kid, I’m worried, too.”

Jaina smiled and laughed shortly. “I don’t have to say a thing, do I?”

Kyp shook his head and brushed his hair away from his eyes. “Everything tells me that Jacen is okay. But your parents are in trouble. They’ve been getting into too many tight situations lately, and now they’re really in the thick of it.”

Jaina felt stronger for Kyp’s having articulated her fears. For a short time she had thought she could fall in love with Kyp, but those feelings had passed, and ever since then they had settled into a close and comforting friendship.

“I was just talking with a courier who arrived from a station in the Tion Hegemony,” she said in a rush. “I don’t know why, but I think they’re there.”

Kyp considered it. “If they are, then I guess I’m wrong about them squaring off against the Yuuzhan Vong.”

Jaina shook her head. “That’s just it, Kyp. Caluula Orbital is under heavy siege. From what the courier said, I think the station might already have been overrun. If I knew for sure, I’d leave right now.”

Kyp took her hand. “Let me know if you need a wing-mate.”

Han’s blasterbolt caught