Joshua and Peenk halted when Leia and Han stopped to stare at one of the X-Wings that was on display for the diplomatic inspection. The tall Corellian turned and grinned. "She's something, huh?" "Oh, that she is!" Kirk said, laughing. Peenk eyed the others for a moment. "Is this the X-Wing you stole?" "I did not steal it!" Joshua exclaimed. "It was an emergency aquisition." "What's the difference?" She asked. "When your life is in danger, it is not stealing." Han Solo told her. "Force knows we've had to do the same quite a few times, Right Leia?"The vice president nodded "Ah, but his life was not in danger." Peenk added. "No. But my freedom was. And I'll go to great lengths to protect that. And that included borrowing this fighter." "Which upset our friend Wedge Antilles to no end." Leia cut in. "He was there to test fly this thing when you took off with it. But he was happy to discover that you destroyed the Durga after they pulled you from hyperspace." "As are billions of Wookiees and Furenne." Han said, jerking his head in the direction of Chewbacca, who was talking to Zell and Baby. "The Durga had been killing them for too many years. No one knew where their base was, or who was supplying them." "Thanks to you, we were able to recover the Durga's computers and found all that out." Leia's assisstant Tel'mar said, slapping Kirk on the back. "That's our Joshua for you." Tel'meht, her sister said. "Always the hero." Kirk rolled his eyes and opened his mouth to deny being a hero when a loud commotion sounded from further up the line. They all turned to see a dozen heavily armed agents from republic intelligence putting binders on three officers, two of whom were very loud in voicing their displeasure at their treatment. Xin waved at the men as they were marched past the Vice President and her party. "That puts an end to this little problem Madame Vice President." Admiral Ackbar told them as he stepped next to Leia. "I just recieved word that the two officers in Intelligence have been detained, as have the two Senators. The lab personel are already locked up, so all that's left is to talk to our deadly Marines." "I'll take you to the base, sir." Xin said as she presented herself. "My friends have all been wanting to meet you." "Well that's good, let's go meet them." Leia smiled at Kirk. "The President will thank you tommorrow for your aid in shutting this clandestine operation down. You didn't have to." "Yes I did. For the same reason that I helped shut down the Empire's. When my people turn ten, we swear an oath that we will never allow this to be done again. So I was just fulfilling my oath." "Don't you want there to be more of your kind?" Has asked Joshua. The Ambassador stood in thought for a moment before replying. "Do you see that building there? Let's place about fifteen hundred people at it's base an set off an explosion. No one's killed of course." Kirk added with a grin. "The natural reaction of those people will be to run away. All except a few." "Now put my people in their place and set off the bomb. Their reaction would be for all to run to the explosion to render aid. We are ruled by our programming. We must protect others. We are not free to do otherwise." "You make it sound like your people are slaves." Leia said warily. "Basically we are. We are slaves to our programming. And that is why we will not allow this kind of thing to happen again." "Excuse me." Han cut in. "But why is that very tall blonde tormenting one of our pilots?"