Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(91)

“Are you okay? Mom?”

“I am. I promise. I’ve got Bones with me. You did good with him. He already saved my life out here once.”

“Land the shuttle, Mom. We can figure this out.”

“It’s a war zone, Tem. I can’t land here. Neither can you.” Ahead, she sees that the defensive line of the Empire’s forces awaits. “You need to turn around. They have turrets. Turbolasers. Mortars. Walkers, TIEs, everything. Who-knows-what else. You don’t wanna get close to the base defenses. They see you, they might figure out who I am, too. Then we’re both dead.” She blinks back tears and pleads with him. “Please. Turn around.”

“Mom, wait—”

“Temmin, please. Go!”

“Promise I’ll see you again.”

“You’ll see me again.” It’s a promise she doesn’t know how she’ll keep. She’s not even sure she believes it herself. “We’ll be a family again soon. Okay? I love you, kiddo. Stay safe.”

“Bones! You take good care of her!”

“ROGER-ROGER, MASTER TEMMIN.”

“I love you, Mom. Get Sloane. See you on the other side.”

And with that, the blip disappears from her screen as her son pulls away from his pursuit of her shuttle.





“No.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Sinjir asks.

“I said no, Sinjir,” the chancellor says.

“Ah. I see. We must be having a communication problem. I’m not Chandrilan and though I believe we share the same crispness of wit, there must be some crucial language barrier I’m coming up against. I have to assume that because of my very good deeds rendered in service to the New Republic that surely, surely when I ask if I can go to Jakku to help my friends your only answer would be an unqualified Yes, Sinjir, absolutely, Sinjir, please take this medal and also this bag of money, Sinjir.”

Mon Mothma sits across from him. Her hands are steepled, though clearly the one is not functioning as well. It looks palsied the way it droops next to the other. She smiles over the bridge of her fingers, though, as if unfazed by it. Also as if unfazed by him.

“Mister Rath Velus,” she says, “I appreciate your consternation—”

“Do you? Truly?”

“—but I cannot approve your journey to Jakku. You are not a soldier. Or a pilot. Or an officer. You want your friends back, that I recognize. It is a noble desire. But one I cannot help you fulfill, I’m afraid.”

Politics, he thinks. The only thing worse than politics is politicians.

He leans over, knowing full well he’s not only crossing a boundary here but frankly leaping over it like a punted gizka. “You listen here, Chancellor. I risked my neck and every other part of me for you. It took me a day just to get this meeting and—”

“If you want to go to Jakku, just go to Jakku.”

“What?”

“I can’t stop you. Find a ship. Get on it. Fly it to that miserable war-torn desert world. You will drop right into madness and probably be swatted like a pesty fly, but that’s your trouble, not mine.”

“Fine. Yes. Good. I will do exactly this.”

She nods her head gently. “May the stars speed your journey.” He starts to get up, and she holds a finger in the air. “One more thing, though.”

“Hm?”

“If you perish above Jakku—or on it, or anywhere near it—then you won’t be able to take the job I’m offering you.”

What heinous caper is this? He narrows his gaze to suspicious, reptilian slits. “Job? I don’t know anything about that.”

“Yes, because you haven’t heard me offer it, yet.”

“I’m sorry? Am I short-circuiting like a wet droid? What are we talking about here, exactly?”

With her weaker hand, she gently gestures toward the chair. The message is clear: Sit and hear the offer, or go and do not.

“Bloody hell, fine.” He sits down in the chair like an insolent schoolboy, slumping back, feigning disdain. “What’s this job, then?”

“I need an adviser.”

“And you want me to find you one?”

“I want you to be one.”

He brays with laughter. “What? Seriously?” But he sees on her face she is serious. Deadly so. He sits up straight, oddly embarrassed. “Oh. You actually mean it. For the galaxy’s sake, why?”

“Because you’re very good at getting people to do what you want.”

“Frequently by bending their fingers back so far they break. That’s not a good look for a pacifist of your stature.”

Her gaze matches his own. It’s only now he realizes how properly intense she can be. He doesn’t really know what the Force is or how it even works, except that she must possess it given the way her gaze feels like a pair of tweezers picking him apart, atom by atom.

She flexes her palsied hand as if to exercise it. “Yes, your reputation in that regard precedes you, Sinjir. But another reputation is beginning to form and grow: You are even more incisive with your tongue than you are with your violence. You can be alarmingly convincing, as evidenced by what you said to Senator Rethalow. And further how you manipulated those senators into giving me their vote. I need someone like that. Auxi is a most excellent adviser in matters political, but I need a cynic. Someone who distrusts the system—who maybe even despises it. And I also need someone who can play the game and get me what I want. That someone is you.”