Empire's End: Aftermath (Star Wars) Page 19

  “Hnh. You should be so lucky.”

  The ship jolts as it comes out of hyperspace. Outside the viewport, the blue lines shorten to pinpricks and once more they’re in the deep well of space—but from here she can see the crescent edge of the world upon which the new Senate is housed: Nakadia.

  “Beautiful world, Nakadia,” she says.

  Tolwar Wartol grunts in reply.

  “Interesting fact about Nakadia,” she continues. “We liberated them from the Empire and now they provide a great deal of the food for our troops. Something about the soil composition—it’s just right to grow a variety of vital crops. It’s a pristine environment with a huge food yield for us. The vote to make it a Class A protected planet—well, that was an easy vote. You voted yes. We all did. We came together on that one.”

  “History lessons are most effective when they are interesting,” he says. “And this does not pass that test, Chancellor.”

  “I’m sorry to bore you. I thought it interesting.”

  The door to the sitting room opens. A narrow-shouldered Orishen stands there—not a guard, but a pilot in gold and red with his helmet on, his visor up. “Senator, we have a problem.”

  Wartol looks to the pilot, then to the chancellor, then back to the pilot. He is suspicious now. Good. He should be. “What is it?”

  “Nakadia isn’t allowing us to land, Senator.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “They’re saying that preliminary scans indicate we are host to a restricted agricultural product. Potentially invasive.”

  Wartol turns to her. He already suspects that she did something. And of course, he’s right. “Chancellor. What did you do.”

  A statement, not a question.

  She fakes embarrassment as she pulls out a small, palm-sized fruit from within her robes. “Oh, my, my, my. Look at that. A little pta fruit. Already half squished.” She pulls her thumb away from the inside of her index finger—the sap leaking from the punctured skin of the dark orange fruit is brown and sticky and nearly glues her thumb to her finger. Seeds glom onto the glop. What’s important, however, is not the seeds or the glop, but rather, the off-gassing fragrance: one that the ship’s own environmental sensors would have picked up. And Nakadian off-world scanners do a passive reading of every ship’s own sensors as they pass through. Which means those sensors would have picked up…”

  “The pta is restricted on Nakadia, isn’t it? They’ll have to do a full sweep of the ship and scan for other contaminants. Oh, my. I fear this will cause us quite a delay. Don’t you, Senator?”

  The magic number is five.

  Five spies for five senators.

  The secret hope is this: The five senators voting against intercession against the Empire are corrupt. There exists a tiny glimmer of evidence toward that end: Conder sliced—not quite legally—into the electronic ledgers of those senators’ accounts, and in two of them he found unusual credit deposits of unidentifiable origin. (Those two senators: Ashmin Ek of Anthan Prime, and Dor Wieedo of Rodia.) That in and of itself is not much—in this time of a waning Empire and a rising New Republic, certain investments are paying off well. The markets are volatile as old industries collapse and new corporations come online, and where there is volatility there are people getting surprisingly and suddenly rich.

  That, though, coupled with the fact of a listening device found inside Leia’s protocol droid…

  They discuss it onboard the Falcon, in orbit above Nakadia. “Where there’s smoke, there’s usually fire,” Solo says before adding quietly, “Usually an electrical fire near the hyperspace drive, which Chewie always warns me about…” He stops talking, looking lost in his own head. Conder jumps in and says:

  “Solo’s right. There might be something here.”

  “We follow the smoke,” Sinjir says. “We find the fire.”

  Only then will they find something to help them get the votes to send the New Republic to Jakku, he explains.

  But they’re running out of time.

  —

  Nakadia.

  It’s an agricultural world—broad fields, orchards, pastures. The sky has a violet tinge to it even at the peak of day, and at night the two moons brighten the dark. The air is often warm like bathwater, with just a faint breeze. It’s pastoral. Some would even say backward. The cities are small. The towns are villages. There’s tech, but it all goes to the function of farming—for aerating soil, for injecting micronutrients, for harvesting.

  The capital city is Quarrow, and it’s where the Senate will be housed for the next year-cycle, and maybe more if the Senate votes to extend its stay. Quarrow is a city of only a few thousand. No building is taller than three stories. The fibercrete streets are for biologicals only: no speeders, no machines, no droids. (In fact, the planet has something of a bias against droids. It uses them where necessary, but generally it is the Nakadians themselves who work the soil and tend to the crops. Nakadia has a long memory, and it remembers the waves of droids that occupied it during the Clone Wars. It accepts these machines but Nakadians do not treat them as equal, or even as sentient.)

  Quarrow is a city with little nightlife. Frankly, it is a city with little day life, as well—it has restaurants and taverns, yes. It has one poma-club, where you can go and sit in a deprivation chamber as throbbing pulse-music massages your every molecule—those chambers are filled with bubbling poma, a fluid derived from the seeds of the inedible poma-drupe fruit. It relaxes the muscles. It releases the mind. Some hallucinate a little. The next day they return to the fields—freshly invigorated and freed of what they call psychological baggage.

  There’s little crime.

  There’s little drama.

  There’s little anything, really.

  Life on Nakadia is not easy, but it has an easy lean to it.

  Simplicity is king.

  And so the challenge for the five spies is this: How exactly will they capture any of the five senators in wrongdoing when everything is so simple, so untainted by corruption, so boldly out in the open?

  —

  Night on Nakadia. Tomorrow morning, the Senate is primed for its first session here on the planet, but right now Quarrow is alive with the kind of life it has not seen…probably ever. It’s not just that there are now 327 senators encroaching on the quiet city, it’s that those senators also come with their own entourages: droids, advisers, attachés, siblings, children, mates, and lovers. Ships clog the docks. Hanna City, on Chandrila, was ready for what was to come. Quarrow on Nakadia is not. It is a logistical logjam. And one by one, senators disgorge from their vessels, tainting this very nice world with the smug and indulgent cloud of politics and government.

  That, at least, is how Sinjir feels about all of it.

  Presently, he is assigned to watch Ashmin Ek, of Anthan Prime. They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Jom. Here, the only ones allowed onsite are senators, their staff members, their security, and those who petitioned for the exception list. Those on that list of exceptions might include journos, celebrities, certain business barons who want to press the flesh and try to encourage industry-friendly policies…

  Thing is, that list is curated months in advance. The slots are limited and have been full since it opened. Yes, Mon Mothma or Leia probably could’ve pulled the strings to get their names on the list—but doing so would have been an obvious gesture, and one that connects what she’s doing on Wartol’s cruiser to their efforts down here on Nakadia. The chancellor wisely did not want any threads connecting her to them, lest this all blow up in their faces.

  That’s where Jom came in.

  Jom, now working as security, was willing to, erm, adjust the list—he knocked off a handful of questionable journalists and added their names to it, instead. Solo and Sinjir were easy: Both count roughly as “celebrities” among the most narcissistic of politicians. Solo as a bona fide hero of the Rebellion, and Sinjir as a freakish curiosity (“Oh, look at the funny Imperial. Gasp, did he know Darth Va
der?”). Conder has worked for senators before, so he, too, was a value-add for the list. Temmin was tougher to get on, but they used his nickname (“Snap”) and put him down as a “military veteran,” and nobody looked askance.

  So now they wait. And they watch.

  It is predictably dull work.

  Across from the Quarrow Senate house sits a restaurant—Izzik’s. It’s mostly outdoors, and underlit tables populate a trio of staggered, hovering patios. Senators crowd around them, elbow-to-elbow, shoulder-to-shoulder, tentacle-to-eyestalk, gassily congratulating one another on their debatable achievements. Laughing and lightly applauding, and now the tentacled senator from Torphlus is gurgling something that may be a song or may be a cry for help and there’s more laughter and more applause.

  Ek, for his part, is a mover and a shaker. Some sit in one place, dropping an anchor at a table and hanging tight in little cliques, but the Anthan Prime senator is a veritable social pollinator, flitting from political flower to political flower and sprinkling a bit of himself on everyone. He’s like a droid on a program: He says the same things, makes the same sounds, offers the same congratulations, bellows the same laughs at the same times.

  None of it is untoward. It’s all entirely aboveboard.

  That worries Sinjir. Because right now, they’re looking for something that may not be there. The simplest answer is almost always the truest, and here the simplest answer is that the five senators who voted against Mon Mothma’s resolution did so because they are politicians. They have agendas and those agendas needn’t line up with the safety of the galaxy. Oh, sure, it’s lovely to believe everyone has the best interests of the greater good at heart, but to seek power—to want a hand helping steer the galaxy’s fate!—is an act of ultimate ego. It is an act of self no matter how selfless one portrays it. Which means there is likely no conspiracy here except the all-too-common conspiracy of aggressive self-interest.

  As Sinjir slowly orbits Senator Ek, winding his way surreptitiously through the crowd of (shudder) politicians, he spies a familiar face across the uppermost patio: Conder.

  Conder smirks. Coy, boyish, playful. That monster.

  Sinjir ignores him. Or tries to.

  He leans back against the bar and gently speaks into the comlink at his wrist: “No good news to report.”

  “I got good news,” Solo says through Sinjir’s earpiece. Han isn’t here—he’s at the northernmost spaceport just outside Quarrow, where Senator Dor Wieedo from Rodia remains in his ship. Solo’s enough of a known quantity in the New Republic that putting him somewhere too public like Izzik’s is a good way to gum up the works. Everyone would be stopping the “hero of the Rebellion,” fawning over him, asking him about Luke, about Leia, about that damn Kessel Run he likes to go on about. “Mon’s plan worked. I just heard it from one of the stevedores on break: Wartol’s ship is being held out of queue in quarantine while they wait for an inspection crew to come aboard. It’ll be a while, but I don’t know that it buys us much time. Twelve hours at best, and I never like to expect the best.”

  “We’re not going to find anything,” Sinjir says.

  Jom’s turn to talk: “We need to kriffing find something.” He’s watching Rethalow of Frong at one of the poma-clubs. “I still don’t understand why we can’t just go up, knock these traitors on the head, and ask them what they’re up to. Sinjir, you can do that. Tell them to vote how we like or they’ll have to listen to you drone on about whatever it is you like to drone on about. That’d be real torture.”

  A laugh over the comlink. Conder.

  Conder’s here at Izzik’s watching Nim Tar, the bobble-headed Quermian. That long-necked senator sits off in the far corner, nervously nursing some kind of fruit drink and looking like he doesn’t want to be here at all. “Patience,” Conder says. “Night’s still young.”

  “I’m still young, too,” Temmin says. He’s the last of them, and he’s across from the Senate house on a balcony, keeping an eye on Grelka Sorka, the senator from Askaj. She’s already busy working, running some committee about—well, Sinjir forgets what. Probably a committee designated to give themselves pay raises. Or a committee designed to design other committees. Temmin groans. “I’m young now but I feel myself getting older by the minute. This sucks vapor. I hate it.”

  Sinjir wants to chide the boy—It is necessary, Temmin—but that’s a line he’s not sure even he buys. He wants to do what they all want to do: grab the Falcon, fly to Jakku, blow up the Empire single-handedly, and save Norra and Jas as an epic, heroic gesture. Except they can’t. They’ll get killed. Or start a galactic incident and end up getting Wartol elected anyway. So here they wait. Watching senators in the hope that at least one of them is visibly corrupt in a way to provide them with enough leverage to win the vote.

  —

  Hours pass.

  Nothing happens. At least, nothing interesting. At Izzik’s, the Torphlusian tentacle-pile is still “singing.” Two Verpine advisers got into a loud argument at a table, chittering and rubbing their saw-blade arms together (the resultant sound made Sinjir want to puncture both of his eardrums with a toothpick), and now those same two Verpine are leaning over a different table, lustily rubbing their mouthparts together. Otherwise, it’s the same glad-handing, back-scratching crowd of politicos.

  Ashmin Ek is tireless. Other senators have gone, their numbers replenished as the night goes on, but not Ek—the senator from Anthan Prime remains, the same plastic smile on his face, the same half-full drink in his hand, the same time spent whirling about.

  The others aren’t having any luck, either. Dor Wieedo remains in his ship. Rethalow remains inside its poma-club dep tank. Temmin reports that Grelka Sorka is no longer in committee and is now outside the Senate house, just milling about. Nim Tar has loosened up a little bit and has left the safety of her corner table, moving one table over to talk to the young Ryloth emissary, Yendor. (Sinjir spies Conder hovering about in that direction. Every time he catches that glimpse, his heart rate picks up, his mouth goes wet, his throat gets tight. He tells himself it’s because he’s bored, or anxious, or not properly drunk enough. Which is to say, not drunk at all—a heinous mistake if ever there was one.)

  Night drifts toward the cliff’s edge of morning.

  And then Solo says:

  “I got something here.”

  A flurry of questions: What? Who? Where?

  “Couple of Nikto. Plus a Klatooinian. They’re headed toward Wieedo’s ship. They’re not armed, but they sure don’t look like they’re from Nakadia, and neither could be senators. I know scum when I see it.”

  “Be careful,” Jom says over the comm.

  “Relax, I got this,” Han says.

  Now Sinjir’s blood is up. It’s probably nothing, but his skin prickles with the twin sensations of excitement and fear. He roots himself near the bar and keeps an eye out. There’s Ek, over by a table of Arconans—and approaching now is someone in the gold, red, and white of Alderaan. Did they finally elect a senator, even though the planet is destroyed? A nail of guilt sticks in Sinjir’s heart. He had literally nothing to do with the destruction of that planet, but even still, when he heard that the Empire had destroyed it, he had weeks of nightmares about it. Millions of people dying…

  A hand grabs his elbow.

  He tenses up like an animal about to strike, spinning heel-to-toe—

  Only to see a young woman standing there. A young man hurries up behind her. She has golden hair and bronze skin. He’s a bit shorter, with a body thin as an antenna but a head round as a moon.

  “You’re him,” she says.

  “And you’re her,” Sinjir answers, irritated. “Glad we got that out of the way, now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “You’re the Imperial,” the young man says, beaming.

  “Ex-Imperial,” she corrects with a very temporary scowl before her big smile returns. To Sinjir she says in a low voice: “You’ll have to excuse Dann, he is a bit thick. My name is Merra.”
<
br />   “Yes. Good. Fine. Nice to meet you.”

  In his ear comes Temmin’s voice: “Hold on. Senator Sorka is slipping away—she’s ducking around the corner. I’m gonna follow her.”

  “Be careful,” Jom chides. “Han, you got anything?”

  But there’s no answer.

  Sinjir tries to push past the two wide-eyed wonder children standing there, but the girl reasserts herself in front of him, blocking his path.

  “We’re Akivans,” Merra says excitedly. “Our mother, Pima Drolley, is the newly appointed senator here.”

  “Lovely,” Sinjir says. He lifts his eyes above them, expecting to see Ashmin Ek with the Arcona contingent—but they’re there alone with the Alderaanian woman. Ek isn’t there. Blast it all to hell. He scans the crowd looking for that meringue peak of silver hair—there, is that him? No!

  “Akiva,” Dann says, laughing nervously. “You know, the planet you…helped liberate?”

  “Uh-huh, wonderful planet. Hotter than a bantha’s belly, but just wonderful.” Still no Ek anywhere. He’s taller than most here, so he lifts himself up on his toes and glances over toward Nim Tar—

  The Quermian is gone.

  And so is Conder.

  “I have to go,” he says suddenly.

  The young woman interrupts again: “If you have a moment, our mother would like to meet you and thank you in person—”

  “No time.”

  “You’re not a very good senator,” Dann says, suddenly bitter.

  Sinjir bares his teeth. “That’s because I’m not a senator, you bloat-headed buffoon.” He pushes between the two of them and heads deeper into the crowd. He’s not thinking straight enough to be surreptitious, so he speaks right into the comm: “Hello?” he says. “Conder? Where is he?”

  “How should I know?” Jom asks. “Han, Tem, you got anything?”

  Neither of them answers.

  “Jom, what’s at your location?”

  The commando answers: “Nothing. Everything’s fine here. Rethalow’s still in the dep chamber.”

  “No suspicious characters? No shenanigans of note?”