Sacrifice

Luke had heard the real story from Han. Never had he missed the good old clear-cut days of Rebellion versus Empire, good against demonstrable evil, as much as he had right then. The trouble with taking away the certainty of evil was that its vacuum was filled by all kinds of more nebulous threats, rivalries, and feuds. It became increasingly hard to judge where the threat was coming from.

If it hadn't been so ingrained in the nature of most species, Luke would have seen it as a Sith plot. It would have been so much simpler.

"I think we should offer Jedi mediation to both the GA and Corellia, as far as the assassination goes," he said. "I know it sounds bizarre in the middle of a war, but there's war with rules, and then there's war with no holds barred, and we need to—"

The doors opened and Mara walked in. "Sorry I'm late," she said.

"Ran into a few problems."

She managed to stop the meeting dead. Luke stared in horror at her face. She had a black eye and split lip; she was holding herself as if her ribs hurt. She settled into her seat in the circle with slow care.

"Ran into an armored division, more like," said Kyp, staring. "What happened to you, and where shall we send the flowers for the other guy?"

"And this is after a healing trance." She smiled, and it was genuine, but there was definite anxiety. Luke could feel it. It was all he could do not to abandon the meeting there and then, and go to her. How had he not felt what was happening to her?

"Sorry to interrupt," she went on. "I assume we're worrying about the implications of Gejjen's death."

"And Mandalorian rearmament."

"Forget that for just a second," Luke said. "Mara, I need to know what