CHAPTER THREE

Something about returning to the suite of rooms where he’d spent much of his time on Coruscant felt very odd to Jacen Solo. He would have said he’d grown up there, but he knew that wasn’t close to the truth. He’d traveled all over the New Republic with his parents, then spent a lot of time at the Jedi academy.

The place didn’t look that much different than he remembered it. His room was down the hallway; his parents’ suite was upstairs. C-3PO still puttered about, dashing from one seeming crisis to another, stopping only to say how good it was to see Jacen again. The golden protocol droid’s antics, while annoying, made up one of the elements Jacen still found familiar about the place, and for some reason even that made him uneasy.

The unsettling nature of the suite bothered him. Anakin, his younger brother, stood over by the transparisteel viewport, studying the lines of speeders tracing their paths through the sky. Jacen got almost no sense of Anakin through the Force, as if his brother were a continent away. What little he did get was somber and tinged a bit with apprehension.

Jaina, his twin, on the other hand, brimmed over with bright emotion. Seeing her, dark hair gathered into a thick braid, dark eyes bright, brought a smile to his own face. Her joy at having joined Rogue Squadron infected him, broadening that smile. As twins, they had always been close and shared much; still, the way Jaina had blossomed in this new role had taken him by surprise.

But a pleasant surprise.

Jacen enfolded her in a hug after he stepped down into the large living room area. “I’ve missed you. The squadron has been keeping you busy, has it?”

Jaina returned the hug fiercely, then gave her brother a kiss on the cheek. “Yes. We’re recruiting new pilots and I’m helping to screen them. I monitor their reactions when we show them what the Yuuzhan Vong do in combat. We work on weeding them out based on performance and such things.”

Jacen smiled. “Jedi senses are good for that sort of thing.”

“I know, but what’s amazing is this: We compile our reports after simulations and interviews, and everyone on the board does it independently. Wedge Antilles and Tycho Celchu are helping, and it’s weird, but without using the Force, they seem to flag the same people I do as being unsuitable. Years of experience is serving them the way the Force does me.”

Anakin laughed lightly. “I don’t think years of experience will lift big rocks.”

Jaina gave him a big-sister frown. “You know what I mean.”

Jacen moved past his sister and seated himself on the tan couch. “Experience is one thing that can help anyone, including Jedi. Learn from things, don’t repeat mistakes.”

Anakin nodded, then resumed staring out the viewport. “Good thing some mistakes can’t be repeated.”

His sister sighed and started toward him. “Anakin, it wasn’t your fault—”

Anakin held up a hand, stopping her. He didn’t resort to the Force to do it, but Jacen sensed he would have, had Jaina not stopped and lowered her arms. “Everyone keeps telling me that, and I know it, deep down in my heart. Being cleared of blame, though, doesn’t mean I don’t still feel some responsibility. Maybe I didn’t kill him, but was there something I could have done that would have saved him?”

Jaina shook her head. “There is no way of knowing that.”

Anakin turned, and somehow banished a haunted expression. “If you are right, Jaina, then I’m doomed. I have to believe there is, so when there’s a next time—”

Jacen sat forward. “You’ve been through your ‘next time,’ Anakin. You saved Mara.”

“Sure, right up to the point where you and Luke saved me and her. Don’t think I’m not grateful, I am.” One corner of Anakin’s mouth cocked itself into a grin. “You got me halfway to an answer. I just have to get myself the rest of the way.”

Jacen nodded. It had not escaped him that Anakin had not actually spoken the name “Chewbacca.” The Wookiee’s death had hurt them all, terribly and deeply. He had always been a part of their lives, and when he was taken away, they saw how vastly and to what depth he had been involved with them. His death opened up a gaping wound that, for Jacen, had not yet begun to heal.

All three of them fell silent, turning inward. Anakin looked out the viewport again, but his eyes were focused too distantly to be watching any one thing. Jaina folded her arms across her chest and flounced down on the couch next to Jacen. Her brows furrowed, and Jacen could almost read the memories of Chewbacca radiating off her. For himself, he remembered the softness of the Wookiee’s fur and the gentle strength in his arms, his sense of humor and his infinite patience with human children possessed of Force powers.

“Hey, it’s so quiet down there . . .”

Jacen looked up at the stairs and saw a man standing there, but it took him a heartbeat to realize it was his father. The voice had helped, but the hitch at the end, and the raw nature of it, surprised him. His father’s clothes hung looser, and his flesh was tinged with a gray pallor instead of the rich bronze from being kissed by so many suns. Han Solo had swept his hair back out of his eyes, but wore it longer than Jacen could ever remember. The length hid some of the gray, but not all of it, especially at the temples.

The greatest discontinuity with his father, though, was the way his initial comment tailed off. Jacen had to have heard him utter the same line a hundred times, usually when things were grim, when the family needed tension broken. His father would smile, open his arms, and say, “It’s so quiet, did somebody die?” That you can’t say that, Father, tells me just how bad it really is.

Jacen heaved himself up from the couch. “Good to see you, Dad. I came as quickly as I could after I got Threepio’s message.”

“I know you did.” Han gave him a confident nod, then started down the stairs. “Goldenrod, you haven’t gotten them anything to drink.”

“Well, Master Solo, the usual custom is—”

“Usual custom? These are my children.” Han smiled. “What will you have?”

Jaina shook her head. “Nothing, I’m good to go.”

“Jacen, you must want something.” Han turned to the protocol droid. “I think I’ll have—”

“It’s okay, Dad, I don’t want anything.”

Han frowned. “Well, I don’t want to be the only one drinking.”

Anakin raised his left hand, waving away any drink request, without turning from the viewport.

The elder Solo shrugged, uneasily, awkwardly, as if his joints needed lubrication. “Well, I guess I can wait until later.”

Jaina looked up at her father. “The message sounded pretty urgent. What’s going on?”

Han took a deep breath, then let it out in a long sigh. He seated himself in a chair, then motioned to Jacen that he should be seated, too. Han then glanced at Anakin and made to wave him over to the couch, but Anakin couldn’t see the gesture.

Han waited a moment for Anakin to move, then, when he did not, just sat forward and rested his elbows on his knees. “Look, I don’t know how to tell you this. It’s not easy . . .” He stared down at his clasped hands, rubbing one over the other. “Losing Chewie . . .” His voice failed for a moment, then he swallowed hard.

“It’s okay, Dad, we know.” Jaina gave her father a brave smile. “We all loved Chewie, too.”

Han ran his hand down his face. “Losing him, you know, made me think what else I had that I could lose. That scared me the way I’ve never been scared before. I mean, me, Han Solo, scared.”

Anakin’s chin rose. “Not an easy thing to admit for anyone.”

Their father nodded once, curtly. The gesture was accompanied by a flash of anger and grief that drilled into Jacen.

Jacen moved to stand at his father’s right hand, awkwardly patting him on the shoulder. “We understand, Dad, we really do.”

But his father had already shut him out. “Yeah, well, there’s nothing to understand.”

Jacen sighed. We may beat the Yuuzhan Vong, but will my family survive the battle?