Sacrifice

chapter seven

Goran, in Fett's absence, I think you really ought to see this. I don't think it can wait. Sometimes the vongese do you a favor.

—Site foreman Herik Vorad, on examination of excavated rock from land north of Enceri, Mandalore

SAFE HOUSE, CORUSCANT

So you're going to do it before you achieve your full Sith powers,"

said Lumiya. She lit the candles and closed the blinds. Jacen needed to shut out the world and feel what was happening; he was running increasingly on a mundane agenda, the agenda of the lesser beings he worked with. "Why?"

"If I do it afterward, when might afterward be?" Jacen watched the flames shimmering and settled down cross-legged on a floor cushion, but his eyes kept wandering away from the focus of concentration, and Lumiya felt obliged to rap him sharply on the top of his head and point at the candle. "Omas is doing a deal with Gejjen. The deal excludes me, and Niathal, possibly in a rather terminal way."

Working in the world of those who couldn't use the Force, Jacen was falling into conniving and manipulating just like them, and while Lumiya didn't think that was a bad thing—all tools were valid to achieve the outcome—he was letting himself be bound by their rules. He was talking about timing. He had full mastery of the Force, but he seemed to enjoy using the limited tricks of ordinary people.

The admiral was irrelevant in the long term. He had to be aware of that. "Niathal is afraid of you, Jacen. Or at least wary."

"Don't you think I know that? She'd be an idiot if she trusted anyone at this level of government."

"You waste too much energy playing mundanes' games instead of using