Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(37)

Look away, you daft clod.

He’s suddenly self-conscious about it. Sinjir isn’t exactly alone out here, is he? Leia, Han, and their insufferable protocol droid are with him.

“Mum,” T-2LC is saying as he hands over a digestive biscuit to the princess. “A small bite of bland food to calm your nerves—”

“I don’t need that, Elsie, but thank you.” Leia waves it away. Then, to Han: “I can’t believe I was so foolish. A listening device? In our home?”

“Relax.” Solo shrugs it off. “We don’t even know if that’s what happened yet. Maybe this is some kind of fluke.”

“No,” Sinjir says. “This is no fluke. Someone is listening in. It’s the only explanation.” Except for Temmin having betrayed us all.

“I confirmed with Mon,” Leia says. “Those guards that turned you away from the Falcon—she didn’t send them.”

Han nods. “That means Wartol did it.”

“Does he have that kind of power?” Sinjir asks. “He’s just a senator.”

“A senator running for the chancellorship. And,” Leia adds with a sigh, “currently pulling ahead with a rather robust lead.”

Solo throws up his hands. “Politics is mean business. I’d rather fall into a nest of starving gundarks than get caught up in those gears. Wartol has power in places we can’t see. He’s close with the Senate Guard, too.”

“As a candidate, he has access to them. They protect him.”

This Orishen—Sinjir would very much like to pay him a visit. He would then like a heavy stick to pay a visit to the man’s knees.

“Be assured,” Sinjir says, “Conder will find something.”

Minutes later, the slicer emerges.

“I didn’t find anything.”

Well, thanks for that, Sinjir thinks. “How? How is that possible?”

“How? There’s nothing to find. No listening devices. No cams. Unless Wartol has someone building devices who’s more sophisticated than I am.” The slicer smirks. “And no one is more sophisticated than I am.”

That damn smirk. That big-eyed confidence. Those cherub cheeks puffing out underneath his scratchy beard. You adorable, incorrigible demon.

Still. Can’t let Conder have his day. “You failed us. Someone out there is more sophisticated, it seems, because—” Because it’s easier to insult your abilities than admit I’m wrong. “Because I’m right. Plain and simple.”

“I’m sorry, Sin, but I mean it—I didn’t find a damn—”

The small probe droid, held fast in Conder’s hand, begins to beep in fast staccato. It shudders in his grip. The slicer utters a grunt of surprise as the droid suddenly leaps out of his hand and takes flight.

It doesn’t go far, though. It whirls around in a circle and stops in front of the protocol droid’s gleaming face.

“Oh, my,” T-2LC says, alarmed.

The probe scans the protocol droid’s face—

And then it lights up like a detonator about to pop. Flashing lights! Klaxons! A vibrating buzz! Conder swipes it out of the air and powers it down, clipping it to his belt as it falls silent.

All eyes turn toward the protocol droid.

“It’s not me, mum!” the droid objects.

Han Solo scowls and reaches for the protocol droid. “Elsie, you oughta hold still. This is going to sting a little.”

—

Mon Mothma comes into her office. Tired. Feeling gutted. She has just given her speech to the Senate—her last plea, an easy one that asked for their vote to send the brunt of the New Republic’s military to Jakku in order to end the Empire’s oppression once and for all. She was uncharacteristically jingoistic, but they need this vote. The chancellor told the hundreds of senators present in the last Chandrilan session that this will be the defining battle of the war. It is likely to be the final battle of the war. She presented to them all the facts as they had them: data from probe droids and the Oculus that demonstrated plainly that the bulk of Imperial forces are present and accounted for. The numbers, she reminded them, are on their side. They are no ragtag junkyard fleet going up against a monolithic battle station, not this time. Their own military forces have more than tripled since the destruction of the second Death Star at the Sanctuary Moon. Meanwhile, the Empire’s own fleet has been whittled away—

A tree, to a branch, to a bundle of splinters.

And then dust that becomes nothing as the wind takes it away.

Or so she hopes.

We can win this, she told the Senate. She meant it.

Then her time on stage was over. Applause came up behind her like a rising wave, urging her forward out of the Senate house and pushing her all the way back to her office. Now she feels stripped down, hollowed out, weary, bleary, and done.

I can’t be done yet. Soon. But not yet. Yes, the day has nearly eaten her alive. But it did not. She has persevered.

And soon, Mon Mothma shall be triumphant. At every turn, some new snarl presented itself and she (or Auxi, or Ackbar) had to spend additional time unraveling each knot. Never mind the overwhelming number of administrative duties that threatened to draw her down like a slurry of sucking silt-sand. Everything is prepared. The moment the Senate gives their easy approval, the mechanism of war will wind up quickly, triggering events as needed. It calls to mind a match of rivers-and-roads, the old Chandrilan game of toppling over tiles—one falls into another and into the next thereafter, and they speed along. If you place them correctly, they all fall down, and they fall more swiftly than those of your opponent. If you fail…they fall too slowly, or never fall at all.