"You should try the flavored one next time," Wedge said as they walked away from the coffee shop in the senate apartments lobby, and headed back to the elevator.

"Those aren't coffee, they're dessert," Luke said.

"Yeah, but they taste good."

"Do you know how much sugar is in those?"

"Did your therapist tell you not to eat sugar?"

"No, I'm just pointing out that sugar is ba-"

"Excuse me, Master Skywalker?"

Luke froze. No one had called him that in months. He'd almost forgotten what it sounded like. He turned around to see a petite Sullustan standing behind him. He was pretty sure he'd never met her before. "Yes?"

"Hello," she said. "I'm Biet Nir, the Deputy Assistant Director for Personnel Resources at the Directorate of Intelligence." She gave Luke a small bow. "I don't believe I've had the pleasure."

"Ah, likewise," Luke said as he returned her bow. "Is there something I can do for you?"

"Oh, no no," she said. "I understand you are retired, and you of all people have certainly earned that, so I wouldn't want to trouble you."

"No, it's - it's no trouble," Luke said. He thought no one else knew he'd retired. Or whatever they were calling it.

"I just wanted to come say hello and thank you for all you've done for the Republic."

"Oh," Luke said, "I - well, thank you, I -"

"I had an occasion to see your daughter yesterday. She's quite a fascinating young woman."

"Ah, yes," Luke said, nodding. "She is…quite remarkable." What was she up to now?

Biet smiled. "Well, I don't want to take up too much of your time." She nodded toward Wedge. "General Antilles." Wedge nodded back. "Good day." Biet turned around and walked back into the crowded lobby.

Luke watched her disappear, and finally turned to Wedge. "What was that all about?"

"What are you asking me for?" Wedge said. "You know Iella doesn't tell me about work stuff."

"No, I suppose that's true."

"And Brianna certainly doesn't tell me anything," Wedge added.

"No," Luke admitted. He felt a small smile creep onto his lips as he took a sip of his coffee. "Except when she's stowing away on my shuttle and giving away apartment keys." He glanced up.

Wedge rolled his eyes and turned back toward the elevator. "Come on."

Luke grinned and walked to catch up.

"What do you want?" Jacen asked as Brianna stood over him at his console, slurping on a lollipop. "And don't tell me 'drink beer and hang out' because I know the difference between that and wanting something real."

"'Drink beer and hang out' isn't real?" Brianna said.

"You know what I mean."

"What if I wanted 'drink beer and hang out' and something real?"

"Tell me what you want or I'm gonna kick you out," Jacen said.

Brianna sucked once more on her lollipop. "You remember that time you went with my dad to go talk to some councilors about a Jedi Council?"

Jacen wrinkled his nose. "Unfortunately."

"What did you think about that?"

Jacen shifted his eyes in her direction. "Waste of time," he said. "Half those idiots would have said yes to anything your dad said just because he was the one saying it and the other half would have said no just because he was the one saying it. Even at the time I couldn't figure out why we had to bother asking anyone for permission to do anything."

"Hmm."

Jacen turned to look at her. "Why?"

Brianna shrugged. "Oh, I just had to put some other idiots off the idea the other day."

Jacen snorted. "Why would anyone ask you about that?"

Brianna shrugged again. "I dunno. Might have been because another group of morons with red lightsabers got caught on holocam fighting it out behind a diner on Praxis."

Damn it. Jacen turned back to his console. "Huh."

"You haven't been on Praxis lately, have you?"

"What, do I owe you my schedule now?" Jacen flipped some switches and tried to go back to the project he was working on.

"I'm just saying," Brianna dragged out her words as she turned and leaned backward against the console, "that if that had been you, clearly you won that fight. Which, you bloody well better win a fight like that, the way I make you practice."

Jacen turned to point at her. "See, that's exactly why I wasn't going to tell you about it."

"Ha! I knew it was you!" Brianna Force-pulled another chair up and slid in right next to Jacen. "Soooo, what happened?"

Jacen scowled at her and scooted away. "Nothing happened."

"Oh, come on," Brianna said. "They found a dead Elomin in four pieces. Something happened."

"There, see, you already know what happened."

"Well, who was he?"

"I don't know, I didn't stop to ask him his life story."

"He must have said something."

"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention," Jacen said, exasperated. "I was trying to fight, and not die, because I couldn't sense anything."

Brianna popped the lollipop out of her mouth again. "Like, things were a bit fuzzy?"

"No."

"Like, your threat perception was off?"

"No. Just, like, he wasn't there. Except obviously he was."

"Hmm."

Jacen glanced back over at her. She was frowning, like she was searching him. "Who even asked you about this anyway?"

"Iella Wessiri, Directorate of Intelligence."

"Who?"

"Wedge's wife. She's the Assistant Director for Special Projects, something like that."

Jacen cocked an eyebrow. "And she wanted you to start a Jedi Council?"

"No," Brianna said. "She wanted me to tell her boss why that was a bad idea."

Jacen turned fully around in his chair to look at her. "Why?"

"Well, obviously she thought it was a bad idea," Brianna said.

"And let me guess," Jacen said. "She had some other idea she wanted to do instead."

Brianna shrugged.

Jacen sighed. "And you said yes to this."

"She made a compelling argument," Brianna said.

Jacen shook his head and turned back to his console. "You're gonna turn out just like your dad."

"No, I'm not."

"Yes, you are." Jacen turned around again. "You say yes to this, and then it's yes to the next thing, and the next thing, and the next. Soon, you're saying yes to every damn thing they want, and then you know what's going to happen?" He paused while she looked at him, then turned away from her. "I'm not going to get any more cookies."

Brianna smiled and spun her chair around with her back to the console so she could lean over into his face. "I promise," she said, "whatever happens, you will continue to get cookies, beer, and your favorite whiskey."

Jacen threw her a skeptical look, then turned away again.

"Besides," Brianna said, "it's literally in my job description to tell people no, so I can whenever I want to."

"Yeah, sure," Jacen said. "And as soon as you do, they're going to go running to your dad. And that will make you say yes. Every. Single. Time."

"No, look, Iella doesn't even want my dad involved. Because as soon as he's involved, Wedge is involved. Right?"

"Fine," Jacen said. "Maybe she has an intrinsic reason not to get anyone else involved. Which still means you're doing everything. But she's got co-workers, right? And a boss? And there's the senate? You think any of them have any qualms about getting anyone else involved just because you said no?"

Brianna sighed up at the ceiling, then looked back at Jacen. For once, she didn't have a quippy comeback. "That's what I thought," he said. "Listen to me," he said. "These people are politicians -"

"Technically, they're spies," Brianna said.

"That's only marginally better," Jacen said. "And they all report to politicians. They don't care about you, or this, or us. All they care about is increasing their microscopically small bubble of power using anything they can get their hands on. Including you. You can't trust any of them."

"That's fine, I don't trust anyone anyway," Brianna said.

Jacen sighed. "You're making a mistake."

"Okay, but you know who they would ask, if not me?" Brianna said. "Corran Horn. He actually would try to create a Jedi Council. Can you imagine him trying to run something like that?"

"I think I'd rather poke my eye out with a spoon."

"Exactly," Brianna said. "At least I know how to tell these people they're screwed up."

"Or," Jacen suggested, "you could let him try to run it, watch it collapse in on itself, as it inevitably would, and then maybe finally we can dump the Jedi Order into the trash bin of history, where it belongs."

Brianna smiled. "And then what? I do what we decided that one time and go be a bartender?"

"You'd be happier as a bartender," Jacen pointed out.

Brianna sighed as her smile fell away a bit. "Yeah, maybe."

Jacen watched her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't understand her attachment to all of this. When they were kids, she was the one who hated the rules and structures of Jedi training the most. Every other Skywalker, Solo, and Horn kid found their way out of it. Even Jaina got out, and she arguably had the happiest training experience. And yet, here was Brianna, still trying to make this work.

"You don't think I can do it," Brianna finally said.

"I think you're giving people more effort than they deserve," Jacen said. "And no one will care. You're wasted on this."

Brianna sighed and tapped the console while she looked at him and finished her lollipop. Jacen knew he wasn't going to talk her out of it. She was going to do whatever she wanted to do, regardless of what anyone else said. And water was wet. "You need to stay out of trouble," he said.

"I'm good at that part."

Jacen laughed. "Yeah. You're about as good at it as anyone else in this screwed up family." Brianna grinned. "Speaking of staying out of trouble," Jacen continued, "Elena was here looking for you the other day."

"Was she?" Brianna said. "Excellent. Ooh, that gives me an idea."

Jacen turned back to his project on his console. Brianna just sat there looking at him. "Now what?"

"Now can we drink beer and hang out?" Brianna asked.

"I'm actually kind of busy."

"Oh." Brianna looked around the darkened control room. It was empty, except for the lounge chairs and tables in the back and some empty space they often used for sparring practice. "Where's Anakin?"

"Out."

"Oh." Brianna let out a long, dramatic sigh. "Oh, well. I guess I'll head out then." She stood up and slung her backpack over her shoulder. She took one step away, then turned. "Oh, before I forget."

"Now what?"

Brianna reached into her backpack and pulled out a small tin. "Cookies," she said, handing it to Jacen, "and," she pulled out a bottle, "your favorite whiskey," she said, her voice turning sing-songy.

Jacen set the bottle to the side. He opened the tin. Chocolate with butterscotch chips. They smelled good. He looked up at her. "You're still making a mistake," he said.

"Duly noted." Brianna smiled, put her backpack on, and headed for the door. "Don't do anything I wouldn't do!" she called.

"I should not do things you would do," Jacen said.

"Don't do those either!" Brianna waved over her shoulder. "Later!"

Jacen watched her leave, then sighed and shook his head, and tried to get back to work.

"Are we going to do anything, or just have meetings all the time?"

Iella took a bite of the creamy pasta dish she ordered for lunch. "The Director gave me the go ahead to transfer a few people from other divisions for this, at least temporarily. Before I do that though, I thought we might talk about what we do and don't know, so I can get the right people."

Brianna poked at her salad. "We don't know anything," she said. "Isn't that the point? We have to go figure out what any of this is. We don't even know if all that reporting you were tracking has anything to do with that Elomin."

"Well, right," Iella said. "But I thought we could brainstorm some things, just for a baseline."

Brianna shrugged. "Okay."

"For example," Iella continued, "do you think any of this could be related to that group that was altering your threat perception? The datapads Camie brought back for me said they were called Vir-Shat. Camie said it looked like some of them got away before the building exploded."

"Yeah, that sounds like what I remember." Brianna did not look up from her salad.

"Or, maybe it's related to those people you dealt with on Formuth?"

"Certainly possible."

Iella took another bite of her pasta. She couldn't tell if something was actually off today or if she was just being tested. She decided to take a risk and do her own bit of testing. "Is that something you can ask Jacen about?"

"Nope."

Iella pressed a little bit more. "You asked him about Formuth," she pointed out.

Brianna finally looked up. "I asked him because I knew it was something he knew about, it was an immediate emergency, and he was doing me a personal favor."

"If he's willing to do you favors on occasion -"

"No." Brianna glared across the table. "I agreed to do this. He didn't. He got out for reasons I understand and I respect and I'm not going to turn him into some kind of back door government informant just because you got curious."

"I know you take this seriously," Iella started, trying to be conciliatory.

"What I take seriously," Brianna said, cutting her off, "is making sure my family doesn't get taken advantage of. And if I were to ask him anything," she continued, "he'd probably tell me I was making a mistake agreeing to do this in the first place." She leaned back in her chair. "Am I making a mistake?"

Iella remembered Leia telling her this was a mistake. And while Brianna often seemed motivated by proving Leia wrong, Iella was pretty sure that wouldn't work this time.

"You brought me in here because I'm good at telling people no," Brianna said. "Now I'm telling you no. If that's a problem for you, I know how to walk out." She flicked her long term visitor's pass hanging around her neck. "And I know where to drop this off on my way out."

Test complete, I guess, Iella thought. "Fine. No more questions for - or about - Jacen." Brianna just gave her a hard stare back. "The original question still stands though. What are we likely to face so we know what team members we need?"

Brianna took a stab at her salad. "I don't know. You know the reporting and your analysts better than I do."

"I was thinking, just to get us started, a crime analyst and a media analyst. Also a counter espionage agent, and two all source analysts, one to serve as team leader."

"Sounds like you got it all figured out," Brianna said.

Iella suppressed a sigh. Trying to do any more today would clearly be fruitless. "Okay. I can get them transferred over and we can do a meet and greet at the end of the week with Sir'ren, and Visalia was the other one who caught my eye."

"Yeah, she's good," Brianna said after taking another bite. "Quieter. Studious. Gotta watch out for the quiet ones."

"Would you like to invite them, or would you prefer I do it?" Iella asked. "Or, we can do it jointly." Iella mentally crossed her fingers that Brianna would do it on her own.

Brianna looked up. "I'll do it," she said after a moment.

Iella nodded. "Good. I'll reserve one of the training spaces. Is ten hundred a good time?"

"Sounds dandy."

"All right."

Brianna closed up her salad container, her salad half finished. "Anything else?"

"No, I think that will do for today," Iella said.

"Fabulous." Brianna got up and walked out without another word.

Iella finally let out her sigh. "So much for trust-building."