Star by Star (22 page)

“Thank you for coming,” Fey’lya said, joining her. “And welcome to your Jedi companion, as well.”

“Jacen is here as my bodyguard,” Leia said, both explaining her son’s presence and sidestepping any question of why the Jedi
had not sent a higher-ranking member. “This has nothing to do with the Jedi. It’s entirely a SELCORE matter.”

“Of course,” Fey’lya said agreeably. “We have studied your report. This is certainly worthy of NRMOC’s attention.”

Wary of the Bothan’s unexpected support, Leia asked, “And?”

“And, unfortunately, this
does
concern the Jedi,” a honeyed female voice said. “Are they not the reason the Yuuzhan Vong are holding Talfaglion hostages at all?”

Leia turned to see a slender woman with long jet-black hair rising from her seat. A sultry young senator from the shipbuilding world of Kuat, Viqi Shesh had parlayed her world’s importance to the war effort into a position on the Advisory Council and several coveted bottom-tier seats on the senate’s most powerful oversight committees. She had also proven an adept deal maker who traded loyalties with a facility that awed Bothans, and who did not hesitate to use her position for personal gain. Less than a year ago, as the administrating senator of the Senate Select Committee for Refugees—SELCORE—Shesh had not hesitated to strike a deal for her personal gain by diverting vital supplies from the refugee camps on Duro. Leia had been unable to marshal sufficient proof to have the woman removed from the senate, but she had created enough of a stink to have her rotated off the committee. How the unscrupulous senator had managed to win an influential—and highly secret—posting on NRMOC was a mystery, but the Kuati’s opening salvo made clear that Leia had made a powerful enemy for both herself and the Jedi.

Drawing on the Force for strength—and patience—Leia met the senator’s gaze evenly. “The Yuuzhan Vong have threatened to destroy the convoy unless the Jedi surrender, yes. Were the Jedi to do so, I have no doubt the Yuuzhan Vong’s next demand would be the surrender of Kuat Drive Yards.”

“It has never been the New Republic’s policy to yield to coercion,” Fey’lya said, deftly cutting off the argument before it started. “The question is, what can we do
without
surrendering?”

“I submit there is nothing we can do.” Shesh looked to Fey’lya. “If we can see the Corellian sector?”

The Bothan used a remote to send the command, and the holo rotated to display the appropriate sector. The Corellian system
was surrounded by a shell of New Republic frigates, the ones on the Duro side glowing slightly brighter to show they were lightly engaged against a wall of enemy probe ships facing them. Talfaglio was encircled by a swarm of Yuuzhan Vong corvette-analog patrol craft, with a single cruiser centrally positioned to provide support. But it was the Jumus system that was most alarming. Just a short hyperspace jump from either Corellia or Talfaglio, it was now home to much of the fleet that had captured Duro.

“As you can see, the Yuuzhan Vong are hoping we’ll try to break their blockade.” Shesh pointed to the all-too-small cluster of capital ships orbiting Corellia. “The moment we move, they’ll sweep in and grab the prize.”

“Not if we come the back way,” Jacen said. He pointed above their heads, tracing a route along the edge of the Deep Core into the back of the sector. “If we sneak three Star Destroyers along here, we can wipe out their blockade and be gone with the convoy before they can react.”

“Now
that
would teach them to take hostages,” Kvarm Jia, a gray-bearded senator from Tapani sector, said. “Where can we find the Star Destroyers?”

“Yes, where
do
we find three expendable Star Destroyers?” Shesh echoed, quick to turn Jia’s support on its head. “Or do you suggest sacrificing yet another world to Jedi ineptitude?”

A pair of senators began to speak at the same time, realized they were on opposite sides of the issues, and immediately tried to talk over each other. Fey’lya called for order, only to be shouted down by senators from the anti-Jedi coalition, who were in turn shouted down by Jia’s supporters. Soon, all the senators on the balcony were bellowing at once.

Jacen looked over at Leia and shook his head in dismay. More accustomed to the rancorous nature of republican politics, Leia occupied herself with counting heads and quickly realized the committee was split almost down the center. She borrowed Jacen’s lightsaber—she had left her own behind, hoping to emphasize that she was appearing on SELCORE’s behalf and not as a Jedi—then turned to Fey’lya.

“If I may?” She nearly had to shout to make herself heard.

The Bothan nodded—and stepped back. “By all means.”

Leia ignited the blade, its brilliance and distinctive
snap-hiss
bringing the tumult to an instant silence. Suppressing a smile at this reminder of the continuing power of the Jedi, she thumbed the blade off.

“Please forgive the theatrics.” Leia returned the weapon to her son. “In appearing before you, it was not my intention to cause such discord in NRMOC. That’s the last thing the Republic needs. Perhaps the committee should simply vote on Jacen’s suggestion and be done with it.”

“Vote
now
?” Shesh’s eyes narrowed. “So you and your son can use your Jedi mind tricks?”

Leia forced a tolerant smile. “Those tricks work only on the weak of will—which I can assure you no one on this committee is.”

The joke drew a tension-draining laugh from both camps, and Jia mocked, “Unless you’re afraid of losing, Senator Shesh?”

“It would not be I who lose, Senator Jia, it would be the New Republic,” Shesh said. “But let us vote, by all means.”

Fey’lya went to his dais and authorized the vote, and the balcony’s droid brain announced the results almost before the last senator had keyed his voting pad. As Leia had expected, the resolution passed with a bare two-vote majority—not enough to authorize the action without the full senate’s approval, but enough for Fey’lya to use his authority under the military secrets act to bypass the security risk of a full senate vote and “declare” the necessary majority. Given the deference he had shown Leia earlier, she expected him to do just that.

Uneasy at finding herself in debt to a Bothan, she turned to Fey’lya. “Will you declare the majority, Chief Fey’lya? This is your chance to save a million lives.”

Fey’lya’s fur rippled again, betraying just how weak his position as chief of state had become. “A chance to save a million—or lose billions.”

“What?” Leia was astonished at the ire in her own voice. Perhaps it was because of her fatigue, or perhaps because of her surprise at having miscalculated so badly, but she found herself struggling to hold back a string of invectives on the tip of her tongue. “Chief Fey’lya, the plan is a sound one—”

Fey’lya raised a placating hand. “And I haven’t said no. But
you must know what the loss of three Star Destroyers would mean to us. We could lose another dozen planets.” He stroked the creamy tufts on his cheek, then spoke in a deliberately thoughtful voice. “I will ask the military for a study.”

“A study?” Jacen burst out. “The convoy will be drifting slag by the time they finish!”

“I’m sure General Bel Iblis will expedite matters,” Fey’lya said evenly. “In the meantime, we’ll stall.”

“Stall?” In her weakened state, Leia did not trust herself to keep a civil tone. She knew Garm Bel Iblis, who like Wedge Antilles had been reactivated at the outbreak of the war, would move as quickly as possible. But even he could push the plodding command bureaucracy along only so fast, and there was no guarantee that he would reach the conclusion she hoped for. “How can you stall the Yuuzhan Vong?”

Fey’lya flashed a snarl she was sure he meant as reassuring. “We’ll ask Tsavong Lah for an envoy to discuss the matter.”

“An envoy?” Jia shouted the question. “It will look like we’re asking for terms!”

Fey’lya’s ears pricked mischievously forward. “Precisely, Senator—and it will buy time.” The Bothan was quick to look back to Leia. “But rest assured, Princess. Whatever General Bel Iblis’s conclusion, we shall tell the envoy only this: that Yuuzhan Vong threats merely strengthen the ties between the New Republic and her Jedi.”

Jia actually grinned. “A point that will be underscored when we rescue the hostages.”

“Or even if we must let them die,” Shesh added. She nodded her approval. “I believe we have a consensus, Chief Fey’lya.”

The consensus only angered Leia more, for she had worked with Borsk Fey’lya long enough to know that his plans served only himself; whatever he intended to say to the Yuuzhan Vong, she felt sure that he would not allow the Jedi to stand in the way of making an accommodation that would save his own position.

“What you have, Senators,” she said icily, “is a consensus of fools.”

“Mother?”

Leia felt Jacen reach out to her through the Force, laving her with soothing emotions, and she realized how
young
he really
was. The New Republic Senate was far from the unblemished body he imagined, and the good-faith compromises described in C-3PO’s civics lessons were all too rare. The senate was a power-grubbing club of people who too often saw their duty in terms of their own interests, who measured their success by how long they held office, and it made Leia ashamed to think she had played such a prominent role in its founding. She spun on her heel and would have stepped into the lift’s gate—perhaps even flipped over it—if not for a gentle telekinetic tug from her son.

To cover for herself, she reached for the gate and said, “I have wasted all the time I care to with NRMOC.”

Borsk Fey’lya stepped in front of her. “You really have no reason to be upset, Princess. General Bel Iblis’s integrity is beyond question.”

“It is not Garm’s integrity I question, Chief.”

Leia used the Force to open the gate behind Fey’lya, then brushed him aside and stepped onto the lift. Jacen came to her side, one hand ready to catch her at the first sign of weakness.

When they reached the mezzanine and started for the exit, he asked, “Was that wise? We have enough enemies in the senate.”

“Jacen, I’m done with the senate. Again.”

As Leia spoke, an unexpected calmness came to her. She began to feel stronger and less weary, more at harmony with herself, and she knew her words had been more than the usual frustration with politicians. She had lost control with Fey’lya not because she was weak and tired—though she was—but because she no longer belonged in the halls of power, no longer believed in the process that placed selfish bureaucrats in positions of power over those they were sworn to serve. The Force was guiding her, telling her the New Republic had changed, the galaxy had changed, most of all
she
had changed. She had stepped onto a new path, and it was time that she realized it and stopped trying to follow the old one.

Leia took Jacen’s arm and, in a more peaceful voice, said, “I’ll never appear before them or their committees again.”

Jacen remained silent, but his distress and concern were as thick in the Force as the air over a Dagobah swamp. Leia wrapped an arm around his waist and, surprised as always at how
far her nineteen-year-old son now towered above her, pulled him close.

“Jacen, sometimes it can be dangerous to assume the best about people,” she said quietly. “Borsk is our worst enemy in the senate, and he just proved it.”

“He did?”

They left the committee room and started down the familiar corridor. “Think,” Leia said. “The reason behind the reason. Why would Borsk want to talk to a Yuuzhan Vong envoy? What can he bargain with?”

Jacen walked a few silent steps, then stopped when the answer finally struck him. “Us.”

Blood still streaming from a network of hastily inflicted slashes, Nom Anor presented himself to the sentry outside Tsavong Lah’s private warren aboard the
Sunulok
.

“I have been summoned.” Nom Anor struggled to mask his excitement, for the warmaster rarely called subordinates to his private refuge—and never during the sleep cycle. “I was told not to concern myself with appearance.”

The sentry nodded curtly and pressed a palm to the receptor pores in the door valve. The portal took a moment to recognize the warrior’s scent, then puckered open to reveal a small contemplation chamber lit softly by bioluminescent wall lichen. Tsavong Lah sat on the far side of the room, absorbed in conversation with a master villip. Nom Anor stomped a foot politely, then waited for permission to enter.

Vergere came out from behind a table and waved him over. “He wants you to see this.”

Irritated to find his rival there, Nom Anor rounded the table to look over the warmaster’s shoulder. The villip had assumed the visage of a human female with high cheeks and sharp features. Nom Anor’s annoyance immediately vanished, for he knew the woman well. He had been the one who turned her to the Yuuzhan Vong cause.

“… see you have put the vornskrs I sent to good use,” Viqi Shesh was saying. “Four Jedi have died already. Your voxyn are proving most effective.”

“Voxyn? How do you know their names?”

Shesh’s eyes widened slightly, though subtly enough that the warmaster might not have noticed her surprise. “That’s what the
Jedi call them. I don’t know how they came by the name—they’re becoming very tight-lipped about the matter.”

“Are they?” Tsavong Lah turned thoughtful. “Interesting.”

Vergere astonished Nom Anor by touching the warmaster’s arm. “Your agent is here.”

Tsavong Lah did not strike her or chastise her in any manner. He merely told Shesh to wait and turned to “his agent,” as Vergere had so dismissively called Nom Anor, and studied the bloodstains seeping through his websilk tunic.

“My summons interrupted your devotions.” His tone was apologetic and sincere. “Perhaps something can be done about that.”

Tsavong Lah surprised Nom Anor yet again by rising and fetching—himself—a thorn seat from the far corner. He put it in front of Shesh’s villip and motioned his guest to sit. The lack of a blood crust suggested the chair’s last feeding had been less than sating, but it would have been an insult to hesitate. Nom Anor sat down and, as the hungry thorns sank into his back and buttocks, consoled himself with the thought that the warmaster believed he enjoyed such indulgences.