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FOUR

Borleias Occupation, Days 4–5

For the first time in years, Luke found himself facing an opponent whose very nature made him waver in courage and resolve: bureaucracy.

Meetings were among the most ferocious weapons of his opponent. He would spend one hour, two, three discussing anti–Yuuzhan Vong starfighter tactics with Colonel Celchu and a board of military advisers, then rush to a similarly lengthy, tedious, and tiring gathering with scientists pondering yet again the reason the Yuuzhan Vong and their creatures were invisible to the Force. Luke learned to alleviate his frustration by taking charge of the meetings and conducting them along with other activities—exercise, inventories of supplies, training sessions for the Jedi students aboard Errant Venture.

And yet plans progressed as the Inner Circle formulated the structure of a Resistance that could settle deep into hiding as the Yuuzhan Vong came and could then spring up to gut the invaders when the time arrived.

Similar in structure to the Jedi underground that Leia and Han had been organizing, the Resistance would be broader in nature and greater in numbers. The Inner Circle would land one or more trusted members on every world it could. Those members would set up Resistance cells of personnel. Each cell would set up more cells. No member of a cell would know the identities of more than two Resistance members outside his or her own cell, the better to contain damage if a cell were to be compromised. Each cell would try to establish a base that the Yuuzhan Vong could not find, a place to store vehicles, weapons, tools, droids, anything that the Resistance would need when the time came to return the fight to the Yuuzhan Vong.

The existence of the Inner Circle was known throughout Wedge’s fleet group and nicknamed the Insiders, but it was commonly believed that it was a board of military advisers. Its true purpose remained a secret.

Luke offered what knowledge and tactics he could, and it turned out to be more than he’d expected.

In the years since he’d become a Jedi Master—and for years he’d been the only Jedi Master known to the galaxy—he’d searched tirelessly for knowledge about the Jedi as they had been before the rise of Emperor Palpatine to power. Palpatine and his right-hand servant, Darth Vader, Luke’s own father, had systematically destroyed the Jedi and tried to eradicate all knowledge of their existence. Luke had sought to recover that knowledge. He’d searched out the remaining traces of the Jedi, finding scraps here and rumors there, and had learned to run those trails to ground. Most had led nowhere—as the Jedi he’d sought had either successfully vanished or had disappeared temporarily, only to be found, at last, by Palpatine’s minions and expunged.

In learning how Jedi who had survived the initial sweeps of the Emperor’s Purges had done so—how they’d gone to ground, erased their official identities, concealed their Force powers, smuggled their lightsabers, and eluded their hunters—Luke had, without knowing it, accumulated a tremendous, if only theoretical, knowledge of those techniques. Now, in meetings and recording sessions, that information poured from him and was added to the Intelligence training of Mara and others, becoming part of the handbook of establishing Resistance cells, as it had when he and his allies had begun setting up the Jedi underground across the galaxy.

Eventually, realizing what good they might do for the Resistance’s cause, Luke became resigned to, even comfortable with, the meetings. And they kept his mind away from the worry and ache he could feel growing within him.

More than twenty-five years ago, when Luke’s Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru had died on faraway, insignificant Tatooine, Luke had found himself alone—surrounded by new friends, but possessing no family. Then, over time, he’d gathered a family about him. His father had not been among those gathered; Anakin Skywalker had died months after the revelation of his true identity. But in Leia, Luke had found his true sister; then his