Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(33)

“Preposterous,” Ackbar announces, gruffer and louder than usual. It was only recently that the chancellor resumed even speaking to Ackbar—he and Leia both are still somewhat political pariahs for their actions on Kashyyyk. Though that effort secured the New Republic a much-needed win, it still painted them as iconoclasts—rebels, ironically. Now, though, she’s thankful to have Ackbar here. He remains a voice of stability and sanity. He goes on: “You had this information for less than a standard day. It would be impossible, not to mention unethical, to immediately tell the galaxy what has been discovered. Chaos would ensue.”

“Chaos will ensue,” Auxi says. “Thanks to the senator from Orish.”

“And none of this explains how he even knows,” Mon points out. She fears the worst: Someone close to her is the leak. But who? Auxi has been here nearly the whole time, taking only a few breaks to pick up food or check on her children or her tooka-cat. Could she be the leak? Certainly it wouldn’t be Ackbar. Though he did go against her with Kashyyyk. Could he slyly be supporting Senator Wartol’s bid for chancellor? That seems unlikely. The Mon Cala admiral is a warrior, yes, but a warrior committed to peace in their time. War is a means to an end, but the way Wartol talks, it is the persistent and never-ending means—he sees peace being maintained by a strong military and a willingness to deploy it freely, even after the Empire is gone. Mon wants a coalition of militaries, an alliance-driven pact of peace that systems could join to support one another when danger encroaches. Ackbar supports that dream.

That leaves who?

Leia? Han? No. The boy, Temmin, and the ex-Imperial?

Could be. They certainly wanted to take swift action. The boy in particular may be suffering from the impetuousness and na?veté of youth. His mother is gone. His father, the foe who almost killed her. Certainly a young man like that could be drawn in by a figure like Wartol. She reminds herself to keep a wary eye there. Perhaps that boy should not be trusted.

She tries to flex her fist again. Mon’s connection to her own fingers is soft and distant. As if they belong to someone else.

She erupts suddenly, a fit of forced optimism: “This is all normal. These are the necessary bumps and scratches of a growing democracy. We should not expect politics to be neat and tidy and we are reminded of that today. Enough looking back. Now we look forward.”

“We have to respond,” Auxi says.

“And soon, I fear,” Ackbar adds.

“It seems that even a few hours of sleep are no longer in our equation,” Mon says with a beleaguered sigh. “I shall begin working on my response immediately. Auxi, contact HoloNet News, have them ready for my statement. And Admiral—”

“I will initiate the probe droid and scout immediately,” he says with a brusque nod.

“Good. Let’s remain vigilant. We have a long day ahead of us, and I fear that traitors are afoot.”





Everything moves fast as lightspeed.

Fast until it stops, like a ship plowing into the side of an asteroid.

—

“It wasn’t the chancellor,” Leia tells them, taking a cup of tea from her protocol droid. “Thank you, Elsie.”

Sinjir cocks an eye at her. He’s angry. Irrationally so, perhaps. He likes to keep things cool—he imagines his heart is less an organ beating blood into his body and more a collection of icicles hanging from the chin of some malevolent snow-beast—but he can keep that veneer no longer. He knows full well that running off like a soggy drunk adventurer into the crushing maw of the Empire’s fleet was not a wise decision, and a little part of him is thankful they’re not right now being blasted to bits by a Super Star Destroyer in the space above Jakku. But the rest of him seethes over the fact that Norra and Jas are still down there somewhere. Hopefully alive. And nobody coming for them the way they have come for others.

Lucky perhaps that Temmin isn’t here. Sinjir sent the boy to see the pilot Wedge Antilles. Wedge might know how to get them to Jakku.

“Then it was you,” Sinjir accuses. “You blocked us.”

Leia gives him an incredulous look. “Do you truly believe me so duplicitous, Sinjir?”

“Yes.” He frowns and shakes his head. “No. I don’t know! Someone sent those guards. They didn’t send themselves.”

Han passes behind Sinjir with a cup of caf in his hand. “Mon can be a slippery one,” he says. “But this isn’t like her. Here, drink this.” He thrusts the cup into Sinjir’s hand. “You’re gonna need it.”

“I’m going to need something considerably stronger.”

“That comes later. If we win. Or if it goes the other way.”

Sinjir runs long fingers through his dark muss of hair with one hand while sipping the bitter caf with the other. It’s got a hard afterburner kick to it, like drinking a mug of vaporator sludge. “We need to get to Jakku.”

“That just became a whole lot harder,” Leia says.

“Explain to me again—what exactly happened?”

“Mon’s opponent in the upcoming election, he knew. Wartol knew about the Empire, and worse, he knew that we knew. Our window to get you to Jakku was very small already. And him making that public just closed it.”

“Why?”

“Because,” Han interjects, “this just became officially political. You go zipping off to that dirtworld, it’ll look like an act of war on behalf of the New Republic before the Senate had time to do squat about it.”