Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(31)
They join up and walk side by side toward Hangar 34.
Sinjir yawns again. “It’s disgustingly early.”
“Did you sleep?”
“Of course.”
“Really?”
“If by sleep you mean sat up in bed, reading a book and sipping tea? Then yes, I slept.”
Temmin gives him a look. “And by tea you mean rum.”
“Pssh. No. I’m out of rum. This was proper Chandrilan raava.”
“You always find something new to drink, don’t you?”
“Variety is a vital component of a happy life.”
“Are you drunk right now?”
“I am a professional. I do not get ‘drunk.’ I get ‘pickled.’?”
Temmin gives him another look—this one so fierce he likes to imagine blaster bolts coming from his eyes and knocking that smug look off Sinjir’s face.
The onetime loyalty officer rolls his eyes. “Come now, I stopped partaking around midnight. Then I gathered supplies and…” His words drift.
“And what?”
“And we have company.”
Ahead, the hangar bay awaits. In it, a ship hides under a massive blue tarp, a ship shaped a good bit like the Millennium Falcon. Crossing in front of that ship are two Senate Guards. Red helmets. White plumage.
Batons at their side, hands waiting—as if ready to draw them.
More footsteps reach Temmin’s ears. He looks left and right—
More guards. Two coming up on each side.
“What is going on?” Temmin asks in a low voice.
“Just keep walking,” Sinjir says.
“Leia send these guys?”
“I hope not. Or we miscalculated in trusting her. Hand on your hip.”
He means: hand on your blaster. Temmin has a small pistol hanging there under the hem of his shirt. His fingers feel along the holster, drifting to the grip. These are Senate Guards and he hopes this is all aboveboard, but everything seemed okay on Liberation Day, too. Until it wasn’t.
“Stop there, sir,” one of the guards ahead says, one hand out peacefully—but the other idly fingering that baton at his hip.
It’s a threat. Subtle. But a threat just the same.
“Do you know who we are?” Sinjir asks, chin up, nose down. He has engaged full-bore haughty-prig mode. “Well. Do you?”
“You are Sinjir Rath Velus and that is Temmin Wexley.”
“Oh.” The ex-Imperial looks like someone popped his bubble. “Yes, that’s us, then. What is this all about?”
The lead guard stares out over a smashed-flat nose with steely eyes. “You’re to turn around and return to your quarters.”
“We have business with our ship,” Temmin says. “So move.”
The guard’s hand tightens around the baton. “The ship in that hangar belongs to General Solo.”
“He’s not a general anymore. And he’s letting us borrow it. Her.”
“Be that as it may, we have strict orders, and those orders are to ask you to turn around and go on your way.”
“You asked,” Sinjir says. “And we decline. Like the boy said: Move.”
“Sir, I don’t want this to get ugly.”
“Have you seen your face, guardsman? Too late to wish for pretty.”
Temmin feels the other guards—all four of them—encroach tighter behind them even as those in front grab their batons.
“Sir, we have orders—”
“Whose orders?” Temmin asks. “Who’s keeping us here?”
“The chancellor herself.”
Sinjir and Temmin look to each other. Both of their faces war with the question, Is this real? They’re both suspicious.
Temmin steps up, shirt pulled up, blaster revealed. “Guard, you better move now or me and my friend here—”
“Will leave peacefully,” Sinjir says, pulling Temmin back sharply. He protests, but Sinjir shushes him and continues: “We didn’t mean to step out of line, and please assure the chancellor we are returning to our quarters.”
Temmin tries to pull out of Sinjir’s grip, but the man’s eyes meet his. There’s an intensity there—and a message. That message is, Let it go.
The boy grits his teeth. He wants to charge past them…
But he doesn’t. He lets it go.
As they hurry away, Temmin hisses: “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” Sinjir says. “But we’re going to find out.”
“Where are we going?”
“Where else? We have no other friends here. We have to see Leia.”
—
“Leia.”
Her name, spoken in the dark.
Luke. She reaches for him but doesn’t find him.
The dark, now lit with stars. One by one, like eyes opening. Comforting at first, then sinister as she worries, Who is out there, who is watching us? Hands reach for her, hands of shadow, lifting her up, reaching for her throat, her wrists, her stomach— Inside, the child kicks. She feels her baby turning inside, right-side up and upside down, struggling to find his bearings, trying so hard to find his way free of her. It’s not time, she thinks. Just a little longer.
“Leia.”