Sacrifice

"Where is he?"

Hapes Cluster.

"Follow him."

Perhaps he was going to enlist the Queen Mother's help. The Verpine seemed to be troubling him; that meant Lumiya hadn't heard the full story about the arms deal.

"This is beneath you, Jacen." She sighed. "Priorities. You really can't delegate, can you? That's one thing that your grandfather could do."

Jacen was heading for Hapes itself. Lumiya encouraged the Sith sphere to leave more distance between them by imagining a cord stretching to a hair's thickness. Eventually Jacen reached the edge of the Hapans'

security area, and slipped through.

He lands. He has an entry code.

Lumiya debated whether to use the code to follow him more closely, then decided against it. She didn't know if that would attract attention.

"Maintain position until he leaves."

She decided to sit it out, and hoped she wasn't misjudging the situation and that Niathal and G'Sil weren't now declaring the Glorious Third Republic or some such nonsense. The trouble with the small people was that they often left little in the Force for her to feel at this distance, and Coruscant's citizens were so passive and compliant that there would be no great disturbance for her to detect even if Niatfial declared martial law in Jacen's absence. It was nothing that couldn't be put right on her return, but she'd have to explain why she'd been goofing off as Ben might call it, and Jacen would become petulant and uncooperative.

Jacen's like a moody teenager at the moment. When he makes the