Sacrifice

It had been a long night, and the morning's news left Luke reeling.

He looked at Mara across the Chamber, noted that her injuries were largely healed, and wondered when she was going to be ready to talk to him about what was making her grind her teeth in her sleep.

Something had got to her, and the fact that she was silent and not raging about it worried him. It meant it was more than Lumiya or Alema.

"Makes you wonder what tomorrow might bring," Kyp said wearily, scratching his head with both hands as if he were shampooing his hair. "A bombshell with every bulletin."

'T haven't always seen eye-to-eye with Omas, but I don't believe he's a security risk." Luke had never handled frustration well, and age hadn't mellowed that. He could see what was happening; he knew his history, and he had no love of military government. Nobody of his generation who'd grown up under the Empire did. "So now we have two threats—an external war, and an internal coup. Where do we concentrate our efforts?"

"Well, Niathal is well within her rights to assume power under the circumstances," Corran said. "So it's not exactly a coup, and much as we might not like it as citizens with a vote, as Jedi we have no business interfering in that."

"Can I say it?" Kyp asked. "Because it's just staring us in the face and nobody's mentioning it."

"Go on . . ."

"Jacen. There, I said it. Jacen, Jacen, Jacen. What in the name of the Force is going on here? Okay, maybe we should have taken him to task when he started kicking down doors with the GAG. Now, overnight, he's busted the Chief of State and taken over. Extreme? Out of control, my friends."

"Has he actually declared himself joint Chief of State?