Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(111)

“Do tell.”

“An Imperial, working for the chancellor? So cozy with her? Oh, my, how cosmopolitan. Your presence has infected the process. Whispering in her ear, surely. Ah, but I give you too much credit. You won’t lead her. She’ll lead you. She’ll lead us all. Mon doesn’t need you to thin her moral code, because it’s already thinner than a slurry made of spit. Mon Mothma is weak. She will destroy this Republic if we let her. People like you at her side will only hasten its demise. We’ll blink and one day, the Republic will have fallen and the Empire will step out of her shadow and gently take its place.”

Sinjir thinks at first to hold his tongue, but really, what’s the point? The chancellor knew what she was getting when she sent him along. You ask a hound to find a bone, you can expect some holes dug in the yard. And it’s not like the pta fruits are a subtle message, are they? No, she wants him to scrap a little. Sinjir will do it so she doesn’t have to.

He says, “It’s ironic, you know? You go on about fearing another Empire, and yet you’re the one who reminds me of every Imperial autocrat, every bully-fed officer who thinks that the best way to lead is through acts of severity, through a parade of cruelty just to remind the men Mmm, life is hard and so you must be harder. They go on about sacrifice but never really sacrifice squat themselves, oh no, because they’re the ones above the heavy boot on the back of the neck, not the ones beneath it. You want war. You want defense. You’re a raptor who sees all his people as defenseless little flit-wrens—and you’ll save them, if only they give up the fanciful notion that they can lead themselves, that they can protect themselves.”

“You understand nothing.”

“Meanwhile,” Sinjir says, really leaning into it now, “your opponent is a woman who wants to give democracy to the entirety of the galaxy. Freedom for all. Oppression for none.”

“It’s na?ve.”

“It may be. But at this point, I’m going to side with her precious na?veté over your authoritarian bluster. Enjoy your fruit, Senator. We’ll send you a lifetime supply as a consolation when you lose the election.”

Sinjir sets the basket down on the table.

And when he does, he notices three things.

First, Wartol never stood up. That’s odd. It’s standard to get up and greet guests no matter how much you despise them, especially among the Orishen, who have a rather firm grip on protocol.

Second, Wartol’s left hand holds the cup of steaming dark juice—but his right hand has never gone above the table. It rests beneath it.

Third, on the surface of the table, across from where the Orishen sits, waits a faint ring of moisture. As if from a cup resting there, a cup sweating its condensation or steam onto the tabletop.

Sinjir’s gaze turns to it, then to Wartol. The senator is watching him. Wartol saw him look. It is necessary, perhaps, to acknowledge it.

“Had a guest, did we?” Sinjir says.

“Not your business, Imperial.”

“No. It’s not. You’re right.” He’s acting cagey, the senator. Sinjir knows body language, and a lot of that transcends species, sex, age. It’s not just that Wartol is hiding something, it’s that what he’s hiding is up under his skin plates—it’s nesting there like worm hatchlings. He’s bothered by it. He doesn’t want it discovered. So Sinjir decides he’s going to pick this scab, see what bleeds. “Still, though. Why don’t you tell me anyway? We’re friends, aren’t we? I won’t tell anyone.”

Wartol says nothing. He barely even twitches. Sinjir remains where he is, half leaning over the basket of fruit. The silence is a wall between them.

Then the wall shatters. Wartol kicks back, his hand up and out—a blaster is in his clawlike fingers. Sinjir stares down the mouth of that pistol, a fat-barreled snub-chambered Kanji-made blaster—

Like the kind criminals use.

—and the weapon goes off, but Sinjir turns to the side, flattening his profile as the blast pocks the far wall of the cruiser’s sitting room. He has no blaster of his own in kind (Curse you, Sinjir; you should always bring a weapon when tangling with a politician), so he grabs what’s close at hand.

The basket.

He gets his long fingers under the basket’s seat and flips it hard toward the Orishen. Wartol bats it away. Fruit goes everywhere. Through a spray of pta juice, Sinjir rushes the man—the air lights up again and something catches Sinjir hard, and his head snaps back and he smells singed blood and burning hair. Everything goes sideways as the world wheels out from under him. His eyes cross. I’ve been shot. An absurd thought, because he’s fairly certain he has been shot in the head, which is not a good way to live and is in fact a very good way to die.

Wartol lurches over him, a blurry shape as Sinjir’s vision struggles to find clarity. The blaster is up again—

Sinjir’s spidery fingers scrabble over the ground, finding something there, something wet, slimy, seedy—

“It’s too late,” Wartol says. Cryptic. What’s too late?

The blaster goes off. Sinjir rolls aside as a flash of hot energy digs a furrow into the floor right by his head. His ear goes shrill as it rings, and the side of his cheek feels hot, and the other side of his head feels slick—

He whips his hand up, flinging whatever was in it.