Not shockingly, listening to Masters debate Jedi strategy frustrated Jaina as much as it did when her brothers did it. That was why she was shutting up and letting them talk, often biting her tongue.

"Kyp, I understand how you feel."

Kyp Durron didn't seem to like Luke's answer very much. "Master Skywalker, I submit that you do not know how I feel. If you did, I would sense it in the Force. We all could. Instead, you hide your feelings from us."

"I never said I felt as you do," Luke countered, "only that I understand."

"Ah. You mean you understand intellectually, but not with your heart! The Jedi you trained and inspired are hunted and killed throughout the galaxy, and you 'understand' it the way you might an equation? Your blood doesn't burn to do something about it?"

"Of course I want to do something about it," said Luke. "That's why I've called this meeting. But anger is not the answer. Attack is not the answer, and retribution most certainly is not. We are Jedi. We defend, we support."

"Defend who? Support what? Defend those beings you rescued from the atrocities of Palpatine? Support the New Republic and its good people? Shield the ones we have all shed blood for, time and again in the cause of peace and the greater good? These same cowardly beings who now defame us, deride us, and sacrifice us to their new Yuuzhan Vong masters? No one wants our help," Kyp argued. "They want us dead and forgotten. I say it's time we defend ourselves. Jedi for the Jedi."

That speech actually got some applause from the other Jedi watching this, which really did bother Jaina even if she did sort of see where Kyp was coming from. Of course, she wasn't here, where the Jedi were dealing with the exact things Kyp had said. She didn't face the same discrimination they did. Still, the frustration made sense.

It was still hard to believe sometimes, though, that Luke could listen to the things Kyp was saying and be so calm. "What would you have us do, then, Kyp?"

"I told you. Defend ourselves. Fight evil in whatever guise it takes. And we don't let the fight come to us, to catch us in our homes, asleep, with our children," Kyp went on. He was single and childless, but quite a few of the others here weren't. He knew how to reach them. "We go out and fight the enemy. Offense against evil is defense."

"In other words, you would have us all emulate what you and your dozen have been doing."

"I would have us emulate you, Master Skywalker- when you were battling the Empire."

Jaina managed not to scoff aloud, barely. Maybe Kyp had been spending too much time listening to politicians or something, because everyone here knew that he had no plans or intentions of emulating Luke, yet he still managed to turn it into a good argument. Especially since really, he did have a point there.

"I was young then," said Luke. "There was much I did not understand. Aggression is the way of the dark side."

Kyp rubbed his jaw, and his smile wasn't the nicest. "And who should know better, Master Skywalker, than one who did turn to the dark side."

"Exactly. I fell, though I knew better. Like you, Kyp," said Luke. "We both, in our own way, thought we were wise enough and nimble enough to walk on the laser beam and not get burned. We were both wrong."

"And yet we returned."

"Barely. With much help and love."

"Granted. But there were others. Kam Solusar, for instance, not to forget your own father-"

"What are you saying, Kyp? That it is easy to return from the dark side, and that justifies the risk?"

Jaina could just imagine what her grandfather would say in this whole conversation. She wasn't one to take much stock in this sort of debate, but if she viewed it as a briefing, or a strategy meeting, it was much easier to deal with, and it meant she actually thought about what she was hearing. And she did have that little voice in her head warning her against what Kyp was saying, but at the same time that other voice in her head that was solely her was coming back with "But that's not what he's saying..."

Kyp shrugged. "I'm saying the line between dark and light isn't as sharp as you're trying to make it, or exactly where you want to put it."

She continued listening, but as Kyp went on, accusing Luke of backing down from the fight, attributing the events in the war that had happened to Daeshara'cor and Corran Horn and Wurth Skidder and so many others as being Luke's fault, essentially, she found herself getting angrier and angrier at his words. Jaina decided she didn't particularly care whether Kyp was right or wrong in his philosophy anymore. She just wasn't going to take him calling her uncle out like that for something he wasn't responsible for. Call her petty.

"This is ridiculous," she said, not even entirely sure Kyp was done proselytizing yet. "Maybe you don't hear all the news, running around playing hero with your squadron, Kyp. Maybe you've started feeling so self-important that you think your way is the only way. While you've been out there blazing your guns, Master Skywalker has been working quietly and hard to make sure things don't fall apart." And she waited for anyone to call her on her own absence.

"Yes, and see how well that's gone," Kyp countered. "Duro, for instance. How many Jedi were involved there? Five? Six? And yet not one of you- Master Skywalker included- smelled the rank treachery of the situation until it was way too late. Why didn't the Force guide you? Because you were acting like nursemaids, not Jedi warriors! I've heard one of you even refused to use the Force." His gaze landed on Jacen, sitting across the room, still silent.

Jaina had her own issues with her brother's actions, but the fact of the matter was that he came through when it mattered, and the only people who had any right to take issue with it were herself and Leia. Also, she wanted Kyp to shut up. "You leave Jacen out of this," she snapped.

"At least your brother was honest in his refusal to use his power. Wrong, but honest, and in the end when he had to use it, he did. The rest of this group has no excuse for its ambivalence. If saving our galaxy from the Yuuzhan Vong is not a good enough cause to flex our true might, let self-preservation be!"

The rest of the meeting didn't go much better, Kyp arguing against Luke and finally Jacen, and Cilghal trying to mediate before Kyp finally turned and walked off to make a nice dramatic exit. Jaina was beginning to despise dramatic exits. And with the reading she was getting from the rest of the room, she shook her head, leaning in to her brother Anakin, hissing, "If Kyp leaves, he'll take too many with him."

"So?" said Anakin. "Are you so sure he's wrong?"

"Of course I-" The automatic response died on her lips as she realized that she wasn't alone on her wavering. Still, the thought of a whole group following Kyp's new dogma worried her, and either way, this was not the setting for this conversation. "It won't help any of us if the Jedi split. We have to try to help Uncle Luke. Come on."

As the debate started again without Kyp, Jaina took off after him into the hall, Anakin following behind. She hadn't been sure he would come along at all. Knowing they were there, Kyp turned, probably having expected this. "Anakin, Jaina. What do you want?"

"To talk some sense into you," Jaina replied.

"I have plenty of sense. You two ought to know better. When did either of you flinch from battle? It's not like you two to sit while others fight."

She was amazed that he didn't mention her time away, and had to wonder why he didn't. "I haven't been," Jaina snapped. "Neither has Anakin, or Uncle Luke, or-"

"Spare me. Jaina, I have the greatest respect for Master Skywalker," Kyp said, though she doubted that. "But he is wrong. I can't see the Yuuzhan Vong in the Force any more than he can, but I don't need that to know they're evil. To know they have to be stopped."

"Couldn't you just hear Uncle Luke out?"

"I did. He didn't say anything I was interested in, and he wasn't going to. Your uncle has changed. Something happens to Jedi Masters as they grow older in the Force. Something that isn't going to happen to me," Kyp said, and Jaina managed not to laugh derisively, which she gave herself credit for. "They become so concerned with light and dark they can't act, but can only be acted upon. Like Obi-wan Kenobi- rather than act himself, he allowed himself to be struck down, become one with the Force, do Luke could then take all of the moral risks."

"That's not how Uncle Luke tells it," Jaina countered. First time she'd heard that interpretation of the story.

"Your uncle is too close to it. And now he's become Kenobi."

"What are you saying, exactly?" Jaina asked. "That Uncle Luke is a coward?"

Kyp shrugged, smiling a little. "When it comes to his life, no. But when it comes to the Force... Ask your brother Jacen- seems to be he's going gray early in that regard. The whole galaxy is falling apart around him, and he's dithering over theoretical philosophy."

"He did use the Force, though, as you pointed out."

"To save his mother's life, from what I heard, and almost not then. How long was she in a bacta tank?"

"But he did save her, and me, too."

"Of course. But would he have called on the Force to save some Duros he didn't know? Given the fact that he had ample opportunity to do so before that, the answer is self-evidently no. So it wasn't some universal respect for preserving life or anything of that sort that led him to break his self-imposed ban, was it?"

"No," Anakin said.

Jaina's head snapped toward him, shocked at the answer. "Anakin!"

"It's true," Anakin insisted. "I'm glad he did it, and I'm glad he hurt the warmaster, even if he did call for the heads of all the Jedi, but Kyp's right. If you and Mom hadn't been there..."

"Jacen was going through a hard time," she said.

"Like the rest of us aren't." And okay, of all the people to be able to argue that, it was Anakin. He'd armed Centerpoint Station and been held responsible for Chewbacca's death and he was still out there fighting, never letting his personal crises stop him from what he was doing. Unlike Jacen. Still, Jaina wasn't going to turn on her brother like that, especially not in front of Kyp.

"I've got to go," Kyp said, probably satisfied with breaking up the united Solo front. "Any time either of you want to fly with me, find me. Other than that, I sincerely hope Master Skywalker comes around. I just can't wait for it. May the Force be with you."

And of course, now that he was walking away, Jaina could let her argument drop just the tiniest bit. "I wish I didn't more than half think he was right," she whispered, not wanting Kyp to overhear her at all. "I feel like I'm somehow betraying Uncle Luke."

While Anakin nodded, he didn't back down from his own standpoint. "I know what you mean. But Kyp is right, about one thing anyway. Whatever else we do, we're going to have to look out for our own."

*****

There was a part of her deep down that had sort of missed this kind of thing. After the futile argument with Kyp and a near-squabble between Jacen and Anakin, Jaina had gotten them both to stop and to start talking like adults. Maybe normal siblings talked about what they did last weekend or how unfair things were, but they hadn't exactly had a normal upbringing. Instead they'd talked war and opposing strategy, and the problem of a certain Vong-sympathizer organization called the Peace Brigade. And so this meant that they were returning to Luke and Mara's quarters some time after the meeting, being the nosy meddling kids they'd always been. That part she'd missed.

Upon hearing Luke calling for them to come in, the trio entered the room, where Luke and Mara were already expecting them. "Sorry we left the meeting," Jaina began.

"I knew what you were doing, and I thank you for trying. Kyp- Kyp must walk his own path for a while," Luke replied. "But that's not why you came, is it?"

"No," said Jacen. "We're worried about the Jedi academy."

"Right," Anakin continued. "It occurred to me that if I were Peace Brigade, and wanted to catch a bunch of Jedi all at once-"

"You'd go to Yavin 4," Luke inferred, nodding. "Good thinking."

Anakin looked disheartened. He'd been adamant about doing something, which wasn't a surprise. He tended to be even more rash than his sister most of the time, and he had friends still at the academy. He'd been the one to realize that their enemies would be more than capable at striking at the most vulnerable Jedi while the Masters and Knights were here listening to arguments. Hand them over to the Vong that were placing bounties on them, and they'd assume the problem was over. "You already thought of it."

"Don't feel bad," Luke assured him. "It was only a few days ago that we had enough reports to spot the trend and realize just how seriously the warmaster's promise has been taken. Trying to deal with all the local fires, trying to find government support to put a stop to this, or at least slow it down, I didn't realize that there are no longer enough mature Jedi in the system to maintain the illusion we were projecting."

"So what do we do?" Jacen asked.

"I requested the New Republic send a ship to evacuate them, but they're dragging their heels. They might continue to for weeks."

"We can't wait that long," Jaina said immediately. She would probably be gone by then, not even able to help if something happened. That bothered her a lot.

"No. I've been trying to find Booster Terrik," Luke told them. "I think the best thing for the moment would be to not only evacuate the academy, but keep the kids on the move, in the Errant Venture. If we just move them to another planet, we don't really solve the problem."

"So they're with Booster?" asked Anakin.

"I can't locate him, unfortunately. I'm still working on it."

"Talon Karrde," Mara offered. It wasn't a surprise, either. Mara had been working as Karrde's potential second-in-command in his smuggling organization when she'd met Luke. She'd continued to work for him until she left to get married and properly join the Order.

"Perfect," said Luke. "You know where to find him?"

Mara smirked. "What do you think?"

Jaina had to smile at that. It didn't really hit her how much she missed at home until she remembered that the last time she'd seen her aunt, she had been keeping her pregnancy a well-kept secret. Now that wasn't even close to being an option. And yet Mara was still Mara, still insisting this changed nothing about what she was capable of.

"But what if the Peace Brigade is already at Yavin 4, or on the way?" Anakin asked.

"It's the best we can do for the moment. Besides, the danger is still hypothetical," said Luke. "The Peace Brigade might not even know about Yavin 4. And even if they did, Kam and Tionne and Master Ikrit are there. They aren't exactly defenseless."

"It's not the best-kept secret in the galaxy," Jacen pointed out. "And with the illusion gone, what could Kam do against a warship? Let us go."

Ha, Kyp.

"Out of the question," Luke said immediately. "I need you all here, and with the bounty on our heads- especially your head, Jacen- it's too dangerous for you to go off alone. Your parents would never forgive me if I sent you into that with them away."

"Ask them, then," Jaina challenged.

"I can't. They're out of contact now, and could be for some time."

"Shouldn't we at least go check on the praxeum?" she pressed. "We could just hide at the edge of the system till Karrde shows up, keep an eye on things, run back here to report if things go wrong."

Luke was smarter than that. He had to know they'd report back and go charging into battle like they could take care of all of it themselves. "I know you're all restless- especially you, Jaina- but I don't think sending any or all of you to Yavin 4 is the most productive course. There's important work to do here. Weren't you just telling Kyp that, Jaina, Jacen?"

"Yes, Uncle Luke," Jacen said, cutting off any further argument from his twin. "We were."

"Anakin? You haven't said much."

"There isn't much to say, is there?" Anakin shrugged.

Luke gave him an odd look, but said, "I'm glad the three of you are thinking about the situation. We agree that the academy is one of our most vulnerable spots. Help me find the rest. Don't think for a second I've thought of everything, because obviously I haven't. And don't forget, we'll reconvene the meeting tomorrow morning."

Maybe she could blame Kyp's earlier words, but Jaina really felt that Luke was just trying to placate them. And it didn't surprise her at all that Anakin seemed to be bubbling a little under the surface as they left.

Jacen sensed it, too, asking, "What are you thinking?"

"I'm just thinking," Anakin said simply.

Jacen stopped walking, shaking his head. "Uncle Luke gave us our orders. We're not to go. With all the dissent going around, now's not the time to question that."

"I didn't say I was questioning it," Anakin protested, and kept walking.

Jaina hung back, watching her little brother continue ahead of them. If it was up to her, she'd say he was challenging it, more than questioning.

"Don't tell me you agree with him," Jacen said, glancing over at her.

"I'm pleading the fifth," Jaina shrugged.

"...The what?"

When it was discovered the next morning that Anakin deigned not to show up for the meeting because he was busy going offplanet against orders, it probably shouldn't have been a shock.


[Like 95% of the dialogue taken from Edge of Victory I: Conquest by Greg Keyes. I swear I didn't write anything this long on my own and I'm very sorry. NFI, NFB, OOC okay.]