Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(110)

Sinjir huffs a lamentable sigh. “Apparently I do. Job’s a job and—oh, gods, I just started a new job. What is wrong with me?”

The two of them stand before Senator Tolwar Wartol’s Ganoidian cruiser. Thankfully, it’s here on Chandrila again and didn’t require them to take a quick hop to Blah Blah Boring Farmworld, Nakadia—or, worse, to the asteroid archipelago above Orish that Wartol and his like call home. Sinjir cares little why he’s back on Chandrila; the convenience of it suits him, and he is nothing if not a man who appreciates ease.

Conder makes that face—a little pouty, a lot dubious. One eyebrow up, a twist to his lips, a cockiness to his hips. “I don’t mean this specifically. I mean the whole package. The job, Chandrila, me.”

“You? I don’t follow.”

“You don’t have to be with me. Fate put us together again and—it’s just, we don’t have to do this.”

“Oh, but we do.” Sinjir cups the man’s beardy cheek first with a gentle caress and then with a sharp tap-tap-slap. “Dearest foolheart, all my time away was spent thinking about how much I hated you, and I hated you because I liked you so much. Too much, really. It’s gross the way I feel about you. It’s like—” Sinjir makes a face as if he just sucked on a dirty thumb. “It’s really not natural to me. But I learned that I don’t know what the precious hell I’m talking about. My mind is an idiot. My heart knows all. I want what I want. What I want is a beach view, a cold glass of something very drunk-making, and you. You, you, you, you noble, fuzzy-faced fool. So, if that means becoming just a hair respectable and entering into the service of our most estimable chancellor, then that is what will be done.”

“You aren’t the ‘settling down’ type.”

Sinjir rolls his eyes so hard he fears they might tumble out of his head. “Bah. Who says I’m ‘settling’? Settling is such a passive affair. Settling is how a Hutt-slug sits down. I’ve been settling since Endor. Settling for whatever comes my way. Usually a barstool, if we’re being honest. You, this job, this life—it’s all a mountain. And I intend quite fully to climb it.”

Conder smirks. Sinjir destroys that smirk with a hard kiss—hands behind the head, drawing the man’s face to his.

“Well, then,” Conder says.

“Well, then.” Sinjir turns back toward the cruiser. “I suppose I should do this.” At his feet sits the basket of pta fruit; looking at it again reminds him how much he admires the chancellor. Not for all her leadership and governance, which is fine, whatever, but for the potent venom she quite plainly conceals inside that boring, white-robed fa?ade. She’s a vicious twig, a veritable whipping branch of a human being, and he thinks they could have a long and fascinating professional relationship.

“I still think Tolwar is dirty.”

“I cannot speak to his cleanliness.”

“No, I mean—I think he’s corrupt.”

Sinjir shrugs. “Of course he’s corrupt. He’s a politician.”

“The bug. The one in Leia’s droid? He planted it. I couldn’t manage to track it back to him, but he was the one who gained from the information. It had to be him, Sinjir. I know it.”

“One suspects that’s true. He was using it to gain a political advantage, not a criminal one. The Orishen are almost overly noble, driven mad by an aggressive sense of honor. Something-something sacrifice, something-something stern father telling his son how hard it is out there.” He sneers. “I do despise how they name themselves, though. Tolwar Wartol. Vendar Darven. TimTam TamTim. You’d think they could be more original.”

“It’s cultural.”

“Well, that’s no excuse.”

“Go,” Conder says. “Deliver your fruit. Be as polite as you can manage. Do not start an intergalactic incident.”

“Those I leave to Jom.”

“Have fun at work, honey.”

“Thank you, doll. And if you call me ‘honey’ again, I’ll rip that beard off your face swatch by swatch with miserable pinching tugs.” He mimes the gesture with his hand, just in case Conder doesn’t get it.

“You’re such a romantic.”

“My heart is a dry nest of dead birds.” He stoops down to kiss the man’s scrubby cheek. “Bye, Con.”

“Bye, Sin.”

—

Wartol sits. Still as the steeple of an old temple. In front of him is a cup of something bitter smelling: probably some kind of old root juice the Orishen people consume. Steam rises off it.

Around, the Ganoidian cruiser is decked out in the Orishen way: severe, spare, blocky, unpleasant. Sinjir likes it. It’s quiet, too. No security to be found. No pilot. No anyone except for the senator himself.

He sets the basket on the floor. “A gift from the chancellor.”

“You’re the ex-Imperial.” Wartol’s voice is a deep, thrumming timbre.

“And you’re the chancellor candidate who has been outplayed at every turn, including by a ginger woman with a single, sour fruit. Oops.”

The senator’s slitted nostrils pucker with irritation even as his jaw gently eases apart before stitching back together again. “You work for her, now? You’re a symptom. You see that, don’t you? A symptom of a larger, nastier disease.”