Sacrifice

No more wars flaring up in each generation.

No more career politicians wringing what they can out of the system.

No more talk of freedom that just means a handful can do as they please while the rest struggle for survival.

No wonder the old guard feared the Sith, if that was what they threatened —the end of chaos that served only the few.

Jacen returned the thumbs-up to Lekauf. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

HM-3 plucked out a datapad. "I'll keep you apprised of the progress of the amendment, Colonel Solo. Is that all for today?"

"I may consult you again. You make all this easier to understand."

"That's my job."

Jacen just wanted to check. He had the germ of an idea. "Funny thing, laws and regulations, aren't they? That amendment gives me—and others, of course—the ability to change the amended law itself, doesn't it? It's quite circular."

HM-3 didn't care about right and wrong: just legal and illegal. If Jacen had designs on manipulating the amendment for uses beyond speeding up the dispatch of medical supplies, then the droid didn't regard it as part of his remit.

"Yes," HM-3 said. "It is."

Jacen tackled the pile of intelligence reports that had stacked up on his desk with renewed enthusiasm. The air was alive with imminence, of things about to happen. The endless thoughts of whom he would have to kill to achieve his sacrifice had gone away for a while, but they'd be back. In the meantime, he had a new tool with which to effect change.

I can change the law that lets me change laws.