Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(127)

“Mom.”

“Oh, relax, Tem. I’m your mother. I’m allowed to embarrass you from time to time. It is my parental right, sacred and omniversal.”

“Ugh.”

Jas leans back with a scoundrel’s ease and clucks her tongue. “I think we’re supposed to call him Snap now, isn’t that right?”

Again he’s embarrassed. Blushing as he does. “That’s what the other pilots in Phantom Squadron call me. It’s because I can turn like this—” He snaps his fingers, pow. Everyone knows it’s because of his nervous habit—one shared by his father, once. But no one corrects him on it today.

“Phantom Squadron. More like Fancy Squadron,” Sinjir says. “Even fancier is this faint dusting of, what is that on your lip and cheek there? Dirt? Choko powder?” He leans forward with a finger to poke at it.

“Ow, hey,” Tem says. “I’m growing a beard is all.”

“Like Jom,” Jas says.

“Like Jom,” the rest of them echo. Again they raise their glasses. And again they clink and they drink.

Conder leans forward and says to Temmin: “A mouse droid tells me that the New Republic is setting up a new flight academy on Hosnian Prime. And I hear you’ll be a pupil there, is that right?”

“Yeah. It’s no big.”

“Perhaps you’ll actually learn how to fly a ship,” Sinjir says with a wink. “You know they’re not toys you smash in the ground.”

Conder tsks him and says: “Don’t let him sass you.”

Sinjir makes a face. “I am a sassy bastard. It is my nature.”

“Seriously, you should be proud, Temmin,” Conder says. “I bet you’ll miss your mom, though, huh?”

“About that…” Temmin says.

“I’m going with him,” Norra says. Eyebrows arch in curiosity, and she answers their unspoken questions with, “Oh, relax. It’s not like that, I’m not the dutiful mother unable to let go of her star-pupil son. Wedge will be the head instructor there, at least to get the school set up. And he’s invited me to teach, too.” She doesn’t say anything about how she and Wedge have been spending considerable time together. It’s not romantic. That’s what she keeps telling herself, anyway. The memory of Brentin is still fresh like a burn. It’s too soon to let that fade. She wants to hold on to that pain as long as she can. “Apparently they think I’m not too terrible a pilot.”

More congratulations go around.

They talk for a while about what they’ll all be doing. The rise of Black Sun and the Red Key leaves Jas looking to pay her way out of her debts—something her new ragtag crew of bounty hunters can help her accomplish. Sinjir will continue advising the chancellor—and now the race is on to find a third adviser to help balance out the constantly bickering pair of Sinjir and Sondiv Sella. Though Han and Leia aren’t here, the two of them will apparently remain—even though Sinjir notes the princess is quite keen to get back to helping those worlds still in thrall to Imperial remnants.

The night goes on and the moon brightens the Silver Sea. The conversation winds down, and as it happens, they peel away one by one. Jas says she’s off with the new crew. Sinjir makes a vomit-face as he notes that he’ll be subject to yet another early-morning meeting, which according to him “is an act of torture so vile I should’ve been using it as a weapon in my arsenal all along.”

—

Outside the bar, Sinjir sends Conder on as he and Jas hang back. A cool wind comes off the sea. Below them, waves roar against the cliffs. Jas watches Sinjir—there’s something just a little different about him, now. His shoulders aren’t so tight. His angles have softened—if only a little. It looks as if something has left him: a pressure, a burden, some presence she cannot fully know. It has given him an ease of posture, as if he’s found some kind of peace, however strange and temporary it may be.

“Looks like you found your star,” Jas says.

“Conder?”

“Not him. Well, maybe him—I just mean, you found a life. A purpose. You’ve been drifting since Endor. You are takask wallask ti dan no more, Sinjir.”

He leans in and puts an arm around her. “Oh, now, I don’t know about that. Without you, I think I’ll feel quite lost, indeed.”

“You’ll be fine. You’ve gone respectable, remember?”

“Respectable? Bah. I took several steps down on the moral hierarchy going from Imperial torturer to political adviser.”

“I’m just happy you have purpose.”

“Seems we all found our purpose.”

She smirks, cocking her head in such a way that her singular ridge of hair flips over, revealing the side of her scalp where the horn spurs were broken off. “I never lost mine.”

“But it changed a little, didn’t it?”

“Hm. It did. I learned to play well with others, for one.” She sighs. “And I learned that perhaps my aunt didn’t have it all wrong. Maybe I should take more, um, ethical jobs from now on. Nothing wrong with helping people from time to time—as long as there’s a bag of credits to go along with it. One must get paid, after all.”

“You going to be okay?”

Jas frowns. “What? Because of my debts? I’ll be fine. They’ve chased me for this long and now I have this crew watching my back.” She stiffens. “Admittedly, a crew who will probably sell me out as soon as they receive a viable offer to do so, but I will burn that bridge when I get to it.”