“May it please the court, I have new evidence to introduce.”

Tahiri stiffened. Beside her, Eramuth’s ear twitched. “At this late hour?” he murmured, then rose. “Your Honor, the defense demands to know the nature and the source of this so-called new evidence.”

“Approach the bench,” Judge Zudan said, waving them both forward. The two obeyed, and three heads bent together. There were sharp, sibilant whispers for several moments.

Eramuth’s ear twitched like mad. Tahiri felt her heart sink.

He returned, sat down beside her, and whispered in her ear, “It’s a recording that was allegedly made of your, er … conversation with Gilad Pellaeon.”

“What?” She yelped, she couldn’t help it, and he placed a furred hand on her shoulder gently to quiet her.

“It’s passed all tests, it appears to be genuine. I’ll try to stop them from playing it right now but, if I cannot, I will have my own experts examine it. And trust me, I have quite expert experts.”

He smiled, trying to bolster her. It was useless. She knew what she had said, what she had done, and her attorney’s intense efforts to play on the jury’s sympathy were about to be blasted to bits, and nothing that anyone could do or say would change their minds once this was heard.

Dekkon swept forward, his robes fluttering behind him, his voice almost, but not quite, as melodious as Eramuth’s.

“Gentlebeings of the jury,” he began. “I realize that it is late in the process, but what you are about to hear is information that is absolutely vital to your decision regarding Tahiri Veila’s guilt or innocence. I am unable to reveal my sources, but I can assure you that before I decided to bring this evidence to light, I had it verified. What you are about to hear is the genuine article.”

He paused, looked about with an imperious mein. “You are about to hear a murder, gentlebeings. The murder of a ninety-two-year-old, unarmed man at the hands of this woman!”

He pointed to Tahiri, extending a long blue finger accusatorily. She kept her face neutral somehow.

“The defense would like you to think that Tahiri was a poor, muddled, misguided, lovesick girl lured to the dark side—only temporarily, mind you—by an extremely powerful Sith Lord. My esteemed colleague would have you believe that she was merely following orders, that she is as much a victim as Admiral Gilad Pellaeon himself. What you are about to hear, gentlebeings, is the truth of the matter.”

“Objection!” Eramuth was on his feet. “Your Honor, I request a twenty-four-hour delay to verify the accuracy of this so called ‘true’ recording before it is played before the jury.”

“Objection overruled.”

“But Your Honor! If it does transpire that the recording has been falsified or tampered with in any way, the jury will have already been swayed by it! It is hard to forget something once it has been heard, even if later one knows it is false.”

Dekkon glared at him. “I hardly think the jury is so shallow as to believe something that is later proven to be a fake, Counselor Bwua’tu,” Judge Zudan said. “If the evidence proves false, the jury will not consider it in their deliberation. And sit down before I hold you in contempt of court.”

Eramuth stayed standing for a moment longer, then took his seat. “I have the utmost faith in the decency of juries,” he said. “Rest assured, I will have this recording thoroughly analyzed.”

Tahiri had a feeling that it would just be a waste of time and credits. She remembered that day with painful clarity, and she suspected that, somehow, someone had caught every word of those awful moments.

The recording began in a banal manner, as fateful things so often do, with the simple sound of a hatch opening and closing again, and a slight rustling, as if someone had removed the recording device from an article of clothing.

And then again, the hatch opening.

A female voice. Tahiri’s.

“Sorry sir, but I had to speak to you.”

Several heads turned to look at her. She fought to keep her face neutral. But she recognized her own voice. This was no fake.

“There’s always knocking.”

The dead were speaking. The voice was recognizable to almost everyone in the room. It had belonged to Admiral Gilad Pallaeon.

Every part of Tahiri’s body suddenly sang with the surge of adrenaline. She was catapulted back in time to that moment, perhaps the single most pivotal of her life. All the sights and sounds and smells rushed back to her, all the certainty that she had to do what she was about to do. And juxtaposed along that vivid, almost cellular recollection, was the here and now. A courtroom. A judge who, if not exactly in Daala’s pocket, was most assuredly on her side politically. Sul Dekkon, doing his best to conceal a smirk. And Eramuth, poor, dandy Eramuth, who had pulled out all the stops for her and had come this close to winning what would likely be his final case.

“Sir, there are lives on the line. If you let the GA tear itself apart, everyone loses.” Her own voice again, cool, blunt, determined. Flat, Tahiri thought wildly. Lifeless in a way that Pallaeon’s voice most assuredly was not, although he had been ninety-two at the time of his death—

—murder—

—and would within a handful of moments never speak again. Had Jacen really sucked that much out of her? She barely recognized herself.

“I’m not letting it do anything, Lieutenant. I’m giving practical support to an ally.”

“If Colonel Solo is deposed, the GA will revert to its indecisive self and there’ll be chaos.”

Laughable, almost, to hear those words and look around at where she was now. There was nothing indecisive about the GA in the wake of Jacen Solo’s death. Whatever else Daala had done, whatever threat she was to the Jedi, Luke Skywalker, or Tahiri herself, she’d brought calmness and order back. Chaos. The only chaos roiling right now was in Tahiri’s heart and likely in the head of Eramuth Bwua’tu.

He was accomplished enough that he was able to keep a neutral expression, but his left ear twitched. Twice. Tahiri’s heart sank. What would come next would doom her, and she did not think even the galaxy’s most brilliant defense attorney would be able to save her once the jury had heard this with their own ears.

“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, my dear, but then I don’t have to.” The voice of the dead, speaking calmly and confidently. “Loyalty is a fine thing, don’t think I don’t respect that—but Jacen Solo’s the chaos, not the cure.” She hadn’t realized it at the time, but Tahiri could now hear the amusement in his voice. She wondered how she had looked to him—probably painfully young and gullible and so completely and utterly in the wrong. “Is there anything else?”

“The Moffs will break it off if you tell them to. I witnessed the influence you wield. Moff Quille was ready to defy you, but you just put him back in his place. I can feel things in beings that even you can’t see.”

Quille. He had been in Jacen’s pocket, just like she had been, and shortly after the events of the recording had assumed command of the Bloodfin. He’d never made it off that ship alive. He had been killed by the Mandos pouring onto the vessel, dying as violent a death as the man he betrayed had done.

“I’ve no reason to refuse Admiral Niathal’s request. Subject closed.”

Cha Niathal, dead, too, now. The ghosts were lively in this snippet of the past. The recorded Tahiri sighed softly, then there came another rustling sound.

“Please, Admiral, just do it.” A click. The safety catch was now off. There were enough beings in the room who were familiar with blasters that a slight gasp rippled through the room as the sound was recognized. “Call off your fleet and give Jacen Solo a chance. He needs to win at Fondor.”

“Win …”

“Destroy its capacity to threaten the GA again. It’s a practical matter but it also shows the rest of the galaxy how high the stakes are for them.”

Tahiri resisted the urge to bury her face in her hands. She’d forgotten just how it all sounded. At the time, it had made sense, but now—

The jury members were turning to look at her, not bothering to hide their stares. Some of them had disgust and contempt on their faces. Others were confused. Still others looked betrayed, as if this was a personal attack. And Tahiri supposed it was. Eramuth had led the jury on a journey to get to know Tahiri. To sympathize with her, to see how step by step she had been ruthlessly broken and then just as brutally remade. But that flat voice spouting such things—

“No. I won’t ignore a surrender, and I won’t enable the bombardment of civilian centers afterward, and I will not lend the Empire to a petty despot.”

How would it be possible for any jury to hear those words, and not feel sympathy and admiration for the one who uttered them? How would it be possible for them to then decide that the one who killed that man was not guilty of murder or treason?

“You know you’re going to die.”

Angry murmurs, now, and Tahiri closed her eyes. She did not want to see this anymore. Did not want to watch as a jury that had been growing increasingly sympathetic over the last several days lost that concern in a matter of minutes. Did not want to see Eramuth’s ear twitching. Did not want to see the growing smirk of satisfaction on the prosecuting attorney’s face.

She had not lied. Pellaeon was seconds away from his death—at her hands.

But she was going to die, too. She wondered if Pellaeon in some way understood and felt any satisfaction from beyond the grave. He and Natasi Daala, his old crony, would have the last laugh.

“I’m ninety-two years old. Of course I’m going to die, and quite soon, but it’s how I die that matters to me. Please—get out of my cabin.”

How he died. Tahiri suddenly and painfully thought of Anakin and how he had died. Making a difference. Sacrificing his bright, beautiful life for others. And she was going to die executed, for firing a blaster at a ninety-two-year-old unarmed man.

Jacen had lured her to the dark side with the temptation of love, of sweetness, of a last kiss. What bitter, brutal irony it was that that love, the love of a good and true young man, was the tool that man’s own brother had used to turn Tahiri into someone capable of this.

Suddenly Tahiri was fiercely glad that Anakin Solo was dead—dead and where he could not see this.

She hoped.

She wished with all her being that she had just “gotten out of his cabin.”

The recording continued mercilessly.

“Last chance. All you have to do is call a halt. The Moffs obey you.”

There was a long, heavy silence. Then Pellaeon’s voice.

“Pellaeon to Fleet. Fleet, this is Admiral Pellaeon. I order you to place your vessels at the complete disposal of Admiral Niathal, and take down Jacen Solo, for the honor of the Empire—”

The sound, the inevitable sound, of a blaster being fired, the slam of a body hitting the bulkhead. This time, the gasp was not a ripple throughout the courtroom. It was loud, sincere, accompanied by hands clapped to mouths and angry, wide stares. Then the sounds of shock were hushed, as all present strained to listen to the last words of a good man.

“So that’s Jacen’s new Sith Order.” The strong voice had been replaced by a whisper, ragged, each word brought with pain. “Wiping out civilians … from a safe distance, and getting … a child to … kill an old man … just make sure … you can dismount from that … bloodfin of yours.”

“I can save you, Admiral. It’s not too late. The heart’s a resilient muscle.”

Tahiri couldn’t help it. Now she did lean her face into her hands, but closing her eyes did nothing but replace the current scene of the courtroom with the image of a dying old man.

“Go … rot somewhere else … villip.”

The sound of boots, as if someone were shifting uneasily.

“Is he gone?” asked one of the Moffs.

“Not yet.” Quille, treacherous Quille, she had never liked him and he had gotten what he deserved. But then, many would argue, Tahiri Veila would soon get what she deserved as well. “I’m not going to touch him, so we’re totally clean …”

A whisper from Pellaeon. “Quille.”

And then Tahiri realized with a start that the admiral had known he was being recorded. Who was on the other end? Who had leaked this to the prosecution? She glanced up quickly and saw that, while Eramuth was leaning heavily on his cane, his face, too, was alert. If they could figure out where this came from, who might have an agenda—

But Eramuth would be hoping that at least part of the recording was falsified, and Tahiri knew sickly that the recording had not been tampered with.

There came the sound of the door closing, and then silence.

Dekkon strode over and pressed a button.

It was over.

It was all over.