by Timothy Zahn
Han nodded. “I’ll bet Fey’lya’s got some ideas where it came from.”
“The ideas aren’t unique to him,” Leia sighed. “He was just the first one to voice them, that’s all.”
“And to make himself a few points at Ackbar’s expense,” Han growled. “Where’ve they put Ackbar, anyway? The old prison section?”
Leia shook her head. “He’s under a sort of loose house arrest in his quarters while the investigation is under way. More evidence that Fey’lya’s trying not to ruffle any more feathers than he has to.”
“Or else that he knows full well there isn’t enough here to hang a stunted Jawa from,” Han countered. “Has he got anything on Ackbar besides the bank thing?”
Leia smiled wanly. “Just the near-fiasco at Sluis Van. And the fact that it was Ackbar who sent all those warships out there in the first place.”
“Point,” Han conceded, trying to recall the old Rebel Alliance regulations on military prisoners. If he remembered correctly, an officer under house arrest could receive visitors without those visitors first having to go through more than minor amounts of bureaucratic datawork.
Though he could easily be wrong about that. They’d made him learn all that stuff back when he’d first let them slap an officer’s rank on him after the Battle of Yavin. But regulations were never something he’d taken seriously. “How much of the Council does Fey’lya have on his side?” he asked Leia.
“If you mean solidly on his side, only a couple,” she said. “If you mean leaning in his direction … well, you’ll be able to judge for yourself in a minute.”
Han blinked. Lost in his own mulling of the mess, he hadn’t really paid attention to where Leia was taking him. Now, with a start, he suddenly realized they were walking down the Grand Corridor that linked the Council chamber with the much larger Assemblage auditorium. “Wait a minute,” he protested. “Now?”
“I’m sorry, Han,” she sighed. “Mon Mothma insisted. You’re the first person back who was actually at the Sluis Van attack, and there are a million questions they want to ask you about it.”
Han looked around the corridor: at the high, convoluted vaulting of the ceiling; the ornate carvings and cut-glass windows alternating on the walls; the rows of short, greenish-purple saplings lining each side. The Emperor had supposedly designed the Grand Corridor personally, which probably explained why Han had always disliked the place. “I knew I should have sent Threepio out first,” he growled.
Leia took his arm. “Come on, soldier. Take a deep breath and let’s get it over with. Chewie, you’d better wait out here.”
The usual Council chamber arrangement was a scaled-up version of the smaller Inner Council room: an oval table in the center for the Councilors themselves, with rows of seats along the walls for their aides and assistants. Today, to Han’s surprise, the room had been reconfigured more along the lines of the huge Assemblage Commons. The seats were in neat, slightly tiered rows, with each Councilor surrounded by his or her assistants. In the front of the room, on the lowest level, Mon Mothma sat alone at a simple lectern, looking like a lecturer in a classroom. “Whose idea was this?” Han murmured as he and Leia started down the side aisle toward what was obviously a witness chair next to Mon Mothma’s desk.
“Mon Mothma set it up,” she murmured. “I’d be willing to bet it was Fey’lya’s idea, though.”
Han frowned. He’d have thought that underlining Mon Mothma’s preeminent role in the Council like this would be the last thing Fey’lya would want. “I don’t get it.”
She nodded toward the lectern. “Giving Mon Mothma the whole spotlight helps calm any fears that he plans to make a bid for her position. At the same time, putting the Councilors and their aides together in little groups tends to isolate the Councilors from each other.”
“I get it” Han nodded back. “Slippery little fuzzball, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” Leia said. “And he’s going to milk this Sluis Van thing for all it’s worth. Watch yourself.”
They reached the front and separated, Leia going to the first row and sitting down next to her aide, Winter, Han continuing on to Mon Mothma and the witness chair waiting for him. “You want me sworn in or anything?” he asked without preamble.
Mon Mothma shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, Captain Solo,” she said, her voice formal and a little strained. “Please sit down. There are some questions the Council would like to ask you about the recent events at the Sluis Van shipyards.”
Han took his seat. Fey’lya and his fellow Bothans, he saw, were in the group of front-row seats next to Leia’s group. There were no empty seats anywhere that might have signified Admiral Ackbar’s absence, at least not in the front where they should have been. The Councilors, seated according to rank, had apparently shuffled positions so as to each be closer to the front. Another reason for Fey’lya to have pushed this configuration, Han decided: at the usual oval table, Ackbar’s seat might have been left vacant.
“First of all, Captain Solo,” Mon Mothma began, “we would like you to describe your role in the Sluis Van attack. When you arrived, what happened subsequently—that sort of thing.”
“We got there pretty much as the battle was starting,” Han said. “Came in just ahead of the Star Destroyers. We picked up a call from Wedge—that’s Wing Commander Wedge Antilles of Rogue Squadron—saying that there were TIE fighters loose in the shipyards—”
“Excuse me?” Fey’lya interrupted smoothly. “Just who is the ‘we’ here?”
Han focused on the Bothan. On those violet eyes, that soft, cream-colored fur, that totally bland expression. “My crew consisted of Luke Skywalker and Lando Calrissian.” As Fey’lya no doubt knew perfectly well already. Just a cheap trick to throw Han off stride. “Oh, and two droids. You want their serial numbers?”
A slight rustle of not-quite humor ran through the room, and Han had the minor satisfaction of seeing that cream-colored fur flatten a little. “Thank you, no,” Fey’lya said.
“Rogue Squadron was engaged with a group of approximately forty TIE fighters and fifty stolen mole miners that had somehow been smuggled into the shipyards,” Han continued. “We gave them some assistance with the fighters, figured out that the Imperials were using the mole miners to try and steal some of the capital ships that had been pressed into cargo duty, and were able to stop them. That’s about it.”
“You’re too modest, Captain Solo,” Fey’lya spoke up again. “According to the reports we’ve received here, it was you and Calrissian who managed single-handedly to thwart the Empire’s scheme.”
Han braced himself. Here it came. He and Lando had stopped the Imperials, all right … only they’d had to fry the nerve centers of over forty capital ships to do it. “I’m sorry about wrecking the ships,” he said, looking Fey’lya straight in the eye. “Would you rather the Imperials have taken them intact?”
A ripple ran through the Bothan’s fur. “Really, Captain Solo,” he said soothingly. “I have no particular quarrel with your method of stopping the Empire’s attempt at grand larceny, costly though it might have been. You had only what you could work with. Within your constraints, you and the others succeeded brilliantly.”
Han frowned, feeling suddenly a little off balance. He had expected Fey’lya to try to make him the man under the hammer on this one. For once, the Bothan seemed to have missed a bet. “Thank you, Councilor,” he said, for lack of anything better to say.
“Which is not to say that the Empire’s attempt and near-victory are not important,” Fey’lya said, his fur rippling the opposite direction this time as he looked around the room. “On the contrary. At the best, they speak of serious misjudgments on the part of our military commanders. At the worst … they may speak of treason.”
Han felt his lip twist. So that was it. Fey’lya hadn’t changed his stripes; he’d simply decided not to waste a golden opportunity like this on a nobody like Han. “With all due respect, Councilor,” he spoke up quickly, “
what happened at Sluis Van wasn’t Admiral Ackbar’s fault. The whole operation—”
“Excuse me, Captain Solo,” Fey’lya cut him off. “And with all due respect to you, let me point out that the reason those capital ships were sitting at Sluis Van in the first place, undermanned and vulnerable, was that Admiral Ackbar had ordered them there.”
“There isn’t anything like treason involved,” Han insisted doggedly. “We already know that the Empire’s got a tap into our communications—”
“And who’s responsible for such failures of security?” Fey’lya shot back. “Once again, the blame falls squarely around Admiral Ackbar’s shoulders.”
“Well, then, you find the leak,” Han snapped. Peripherally, he could see Leia shaking her head urgently at him, but he was too mad now to care whether he was being properly respectful or not. “And while you’re at it, I’d like to see how well you would do up against an Imperial Grand Admiral.”
The low-level buzz of conversation that had begun in the room cut off abruptly. “What was that last?” Mon Mothma asked.
Silently, Han swore at himself. He hadn’t meant to spring this on anyone until he’d had a chance to check it out himself at the Palace archives. But it was too late now. “The Empire’s being led by a Grand Admiral,” he muttered. “I saw him myself.”
The silence hung thick in the air. Mon Mothma recovered first. “That’s impossible,” she said, sounding more like she wanted to believe it than that she really did. “We’ve accounted for all the Grand Admirals.”
“I saw him myself,” Han repeated.
“Describe him,” Fey’lya said. “What did he look like?”
“He wasn’t human,” Han said. “At least, not completely. He had a roughly human build, but he had light blue skin, a kind of bluish black hair, and eyes that glowed red. I don’t know what species he was.”
“Yet we know that the Emperor didn’t like non-humans,” Mon Mothma reminded him.
Han looked at Leia. The skin of her face was tight, her eyes staring at and through him with a land of numb horror. She understood what this meant, all right. “He was wearing a white uniform,” he told Mon Mothma. “No other Imperial officers wore anything like that. And the contact I was with specifically called him a Grand Admiral.”
“Obviously a self-granted promotion,” Fey’lya said briskly. “Some regular admiral or perhaps a leftover Moff trying to rally the remains of the Empire around him. Anyway, that’s beside the immediate point.”
“Beside the point?” Han demanded. “Look, Councilor, if there’s a Grand Admiral running around loose—”
“If there is,” Mon Mothma interrupted firmly, “we’ll soon know for certain. Until then, there seems little value in holding a debate in a vacuum. Council Research is hereby directed to look into the possibility that a Grand Admiral might still be alive. Until such an investigation has been completed, we will continue with our current inquiry into the circumstances of the Sluis Van attack.” She looked at Han, then turned and nodded at Leia. “Councilor Organa Solo, you may begin the questioning.”
Admiral Ackbar’s high-domed, salmon-colored head bent slightly to the side, his huge round eyes swiveling in their sockets in a Calamarian gesture Leia couldn’t recall ever having seen before. Surprise? Or was it perhaps dread?
“A Grand Admiral,” Ackbar said at last, his voice sounding even more gravelly than usual. “An Imperial Grand Admiral. Yes. That would indeed explain a great many things.”
“We don’t actually know that it’s a real Grand Admiral yet,” Leia cautioned him, throwing a glance at the stony look on her husband’s face. Han, clearly, had no doubts of his own. Neither did she, for that matter. “Mon Mothma’s having Research look into it.”
“They won’t find anything,” Ackbar said, shaking his head. A more human gesture, that, of the sort he usually tried to use when dealing with humans. Good; that meant he was getting back on balance. “I had a thorough search made of the Imperial records when we first took Coruscant back from the Empire. There’s nothing in there but a list of the Grand Admirals’ names and a little about their assignments.”
“Erased before they pulled out,” Han growled.
“Or perhaps never there to begin with,” Leia suggested. “Remember that these weren’t just the best and brightest military leaders the Emperor could find. They were also part of his plan to bring the Imperial military more personally under his control.”
“As was the Death Star project itself,” Ackbar said. “I agree, Councilor. Until the Grand Admirals were fully integrated both militarily and politically, there was no reason to publish details of their identities. And every reason to conceal them.”
“So,” Han said. “Dead end.”
“It appears that way,” Ackbar agreed. “Any information we’re going to get will have to come from current sources.”
Leia looked at Han. “You mentioned you were with a contact when you saw this Grand Admiral, but you didn’t give us the contact’s name.”
“That’s right,” Han nodded. “I didn’t. And I’m not going to. Not now, anyway.”
Leia frowned at that unreadable sabacc face, stretching out with all her rudimentary Jedi skills to try to sense his purpose and feelings. It didn’t get her very far. If only I had more time to practice, she thought ruefully. But if the Council had needed all her time before, it was going to need even more than that now. “Mon Mothma’s going to want to know, eventually,” she warned him.
“And I’m going to tell her, eventually,” he came back. “Until then, it’s going to be our little secret.”
“As in ‘leverage’?”
“You never can tell.” A shadow of something crossed Han’s face. “The name’s not going to do the Council any good right now, anyway. The whole group’s probably buried themselves away somewhere. If the Empire hasn’t caught up with them.”
“You don’t know how to find them?” Leia asked.
Han shrugged. “There’s a ship I promised to get out of impoundment for them. I can try that.”
“Do what you can,” Ackbar said. “You said Councilor Organa Solo’s brother was with you at Sluis Van?”
“Yes, sir,” Han said. “His hyperdrive needed some repairs, but he should’ve only been a couple of hours behind me.” He looked at Leia. “Oh, and we’re going to have to get Lando’s ship back to him at Sluis Van.”
Ackbar made a noise that sounded something like a choked whistle: the Calamarian equivalent of a grunt. “We’ll need to hear testimony from both of them,” he said. “And from Wing Commander Antilles, as well. It’s vital that we learn how the Empire was able to smuggle such a large force past so many sensors.”
Leia threw Han a look. “According to Wedge’s preliminary report, they apparently were inside a freighter whose hold registered empty.”
Ackbar’s eyes swiveled in their sockets. “Empty? Not merely unreadable, as if from a sensor misfire or static-damping?”
“Wedge said it was empty,” Han told him. “He ought to know the difference between that and static-damping.”
“Empty.” Ackbar seemed to slump a little in his seat. “Which can only mean the Empire has finally developed a workable cloaking shield.”
“It’s starring to look that way,” Leia agreed soberly. “I suppose the only good news is that they must still have some bugs left in the system. Otherwise, they could have simply cloaked the whole Sluis Van task force and torn the place to ribbons.”
“No,” Ackbar said, shaking his massive head. “That’s something we won’t have to worry about, at least. By its very nature a cloaking shield would be more danger to the user than it was worth. A cloaked warship’s own sensor beams would be as useless as those of its enemies, leaving it to flail about totally blind. Worse, if it were under power, the enemy could locate it by simply tracking its drive emissions.”
“Ah,” Leia said. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
“There have been rumors for years that the Empe
ror was developing a cloaking shield,” Ackbar said. “I’ve put a good deal of thought into the contingency.” He harrumphed. “But the weaknesses are of small comfort. A cloaking shield in the hands of a Grand Admiral would still be a dangerous weapon indeed. He would find ways to use it against us.”
“He already has,” Han muttered.
“Apparently so.” Ackbar’s swiveling eyes locked onto Leia’s face. “You must get me cleared of this ridiculous charge, Councilor. As soon as possible. For all his ambition and self-confidence, Councilor Fey’lya hasn’t the tactical skills we need against a threat of this magnitude.”
“We’ll get you released, Admiral,” Leia promised, wishing she felt that confident. “We’re working on it right now.”
There was a diffident knock, and behind Leia the door opened. “Excuse me,” the squat G-2RD droid said in a mechanically resonant voice. “Your time has expired.”
“Thank you,” Leia said, suppressing her frustration as she stood up. She wanted desperately to have more time with Ackbar, to explore with him both this new Imperial threat and also discuss the legal strategies they might use in his defense. But arguing with the droid would gain her nothing, and might get her visiting privileges revoked entirely. Guard droids were allowed that land of discretion, and the 2RD series in particular was reputed to be a touchy lot. “I’ll be back soon, Admiral,” she told Ackbar. “Either this afternoon or tomorrow.”
“Good-bye, Councilor.” There was just a brief hesitation—“And to you, Captain Solo. Thank you for coming.”
“Good-bye, Admiral,” Han said.
They stepped from the room and started down the wide corridor, the G-2RD taking up position at the door behind them. “That must have hurt,” Han commented.
“What must have?” Leia asked.
“Thanking me for coming.”
