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Jacen shrugged. "Well, Anja believed you were."

"And you believed Anja." Han's face became more stern.

"Not anymore," Jacen said. "I've known you all my life, and you've never lied to me. Well, maybe exaggerated sometimes-but only for dramatic effect. Anyhow, I should have known you were telling the truth."

"A pretty girl with a pair of sad eyes can make it hard to see the truth sometimes," Han observed.

"Yeah," Jacen admitted, squirming a bit. "But hey, that's no excuse.

I'm sorry I doubted you."

Han put an arm around Jacen's shoulder and gave him a brief hug.

"Thanks, kid. You've got no idea how good it feels to hear you say that.

Really makes me feel like we're a family again."

Jacen felt as if a weight had been lifted from his mind. He grinned around like an idiot at his father and mother, then at Jaina and Anakin.

Anakin's ice-blue eyes were rolled to one side in that odd expression he wore when solving a puzzle. Around them, the buzz of conversation in the eating hall rose and fell in random patterns.

"Okay, I think I've got it," Anakin said. "Nothing simpler."

Jaina smiled and ruffled her younger brother's dark hair affectionately.

"All right, what does the master puzzle-solver of the galaxy think the solution is?"

"Solution to what?" Jacen wanted to know, reaching over to take a hot bread-puff. Two serving droids hustled in with trays of steaming foods, recipes sure to please the palates of any number of species. He thought briefly of the wild food fight they'd had just after they'd first met Lowbacca-so much had changed in all that time.

Leia spread her hands on the polished table. "We still need to find out who the Black Sun infiltrators and operatives were. I'm hoping to thaw Czethros out from that block of carbonite he's in so that I can question him."

"I'd like to be there when you do that," Han Solo said. Half of his mouth quirked in a wry smile. "I have some experience with carbonfreezing. And besides, Czethros was an old... acquaintance of mine."

Leia's dark eyes lit with amusement, and a dimple appeared in her cheek.

"Yes, you might be of some help. I seem to remember it wasn't easy to get you unfrozen from carbonite and away from Jabba the Hutt.

But even if we work together to question Czethros, we don't know if he'll cooperate and give us any names."

"Wait. I have another idea," Anakin said.

"All right, kid, shoot," Han said encouragingly.

Anakin brushed his straight dark bangs away from his piercing blue eyes.

"You haven't made any general announcement yet about capturing Czethros, have you?"

Leia shook her head. "I've asked Nien Nunb to keep it quiet. We don't want Black Sun putting out a bounty on Czethros before we have a chance to interrogate him."

"Good." Anakin looked at his sister. "Did Czethros program in any specific destinations for his message beacons?"

Jaina sighed. "Afraid not. He had the message programmed in, but it's in some sort of unbreakable code. All we managed to learn for sure was the frequency he planned to use."

Anakin clapped his hands. "That should be enough." He directed his gaze back toward his parents. "This could be tricky. Here's what I suggest.

Pick a planet and alert the people there that something important is about to happen and to watch for it."

"Go on," Jacen urged, interested in his brother's line of thinking.

"Then we send a message via direct beam only to that planet," Anakin said. "Use the message Czethros programmed, and sent it on the frequency he was planning to use." He shrugged. "Then sit back and wait to see what happens."

Han and Leia exchanged hopeful glances.

"Just might work," Han said. "We can fight the little takeovers one at a time, instead of all at once. Black Sun doesn't stand a chance that way."

"I knew I had one brother who was a genius," Jaina said with a teasing look at Jacen.

It was Anakin who blushed, though. He shrugged. "The biggest problem with my plan is that you'd probably have to do this dozens of times," he said.

Leia leaned over to give her younger son a kiss