Balance Point Read Online Free Page B

night, he’d heard Han scald Leia, using words that never should’ve been spoken and could hardly be forgiven. Jacen had never mentioned that night to his mom. She probably hoped Jacen had forgotten.
    Jacen doubted his dad remembered even saying them. He hoped his mother could somehow forget.
    Pain wasn’t always a bad thing, though. Jacen almost wished Jaina’s pain would blast back into his awareness. At least that would mean she was alive.
    They might find out in a few minutes.
    A cascading rhythm of beeps rang in the cockpit as the repeater frequency came alive. Han slapped a tile on the bulkhead. “Solo here, in the
Millennium Falcon
. Call is for Coruscant, New Republic military. I want Colonel Darklighter’s office.”
    Then they waited again.
    “Jacen,” Han said softly. “What’s scared you off from using the Force? Two years ago, you were as gung ho as Anakin. I haven’t seen you levitate anything since you got here.”
    Jacen gripped the arms of Chewbacca’s chair. “It’s complicated.” His dad wasn’t criticizing. He just didn’t understand. He’d already said he was glad for Jacen’s help, but now that Jacen had bailed out of the larger fight, he was falling farther and farther behind his Jedi siblings.
    “Try me.” Han’s eyes bored into Jacen.
    Jacen had told him what happened at Centerpoint. The powerful hyperspace repulsor and gravity lens had responded to Anakin’s touch, all right. It reactivated just as before.
    And at that moment, the Yuuzhan Vong fleet—the onethat the New Republic had hoped to lure to Corellia—appeared out of hyperspace at Fondor instead.
    Han’s cousin Thrackan Sal-Solo insisted that the mighty shield should be used as an offensive weapon. He tried to bully Anakin into firing at the Yuuzhan Vong across the vast distance between systems.
    Jacen begged Anakin not to take the shot. Firing that weapon would have been the ultimate aggression.
    Anakin yielded to Jacen. For one moment, the brothers shared a true moral victory.
    Then Thrackan seized the controls. He blasted the Yuuzhan Vong battle group and decimated the noble flotilla that Hapes had sent to the New Republic’s aid, thanks to Leia Organa Solo’s diplomatic efforts. The Yuuzhan Vong retreated, the surviving Hapans fled home, and now, Thrackan Sal-Solo was being hailed as a hero.
    “I could’ve fired Centerpoint without hitting the Hapans,” Anakin had insisted. Jacen had resisted believing him for almost a week. Then the self-doubts caught him. Maybe Anakin could’ve done it all. Destroyed the aliens, spared the Hapans, saved Fondor.
    When
did
aggressive defense become the aggression that was forbidden to Jedi?
    Keeping only his lightsaber, Jacen found passage from Coruscant to Duro. If he couldn’t fight alongside Uncle Luke and the others, maybe he could at least help his father manage refugees.
    Now, surely, he was on the right path. “I only know that you can’t fight darkness with darkness.” That didn’t explain anything. He tried again. “So maybe a Jedi shouldn’t fight violence with violence, either. Sometimes, I even think that the more you
fight
evil, the more you empower it.”
    Han Solo opened his mouth to protest.
    “It’s different for us,” Jacen insisted. “If we use theForce aggressively, that can lead to the dark side. But where does strong action become aggression? The line keeps blurring—”
    The console beeped, rescuing him. “Rogue Squadron,” a tenor voice rang in the cockpit, “Colonel Darklighter’s office. Captain Solo, is that you? We were just trying to raise you.”
    Jacen’s heart plunged through his stomach.
    “Yeah, it’s me,” his father growled. “We’re checking on Jaina.”
    “Good timing,” the voice answered. “This is Major Harthis, by the way. Jaina’s X-wing has been destroyed in a firefight. She had to go EV. A fellow pilot brought her in.”
    “Injured?”
    “Legs, chest. Bacta ought to take care of it.”
    Han grunted as