“Why?”
“I’m sure you can think of a reason why two Jedi might do that.”
“… To test security here?”
“… Sure.” Valin looked as though he might be on the verge of rolling his eyes, but he merely nodded before continuing. “And as you can see, security here is very lax. They don’t care about who comes to Nam Chorios or what they might bring. We’ll see if we can leave the planet as easily on these same IDs.”
Jysella, dressed similarly, caught his eye. “You will. I’m staying here in orbit. At least for now.”
Kandra turned her attention to Jysella. “Why?”
“While Valin gets in touch with our contacts planetside, I’ll be checking out the security of the Golan orbital gun platforms.”
“Ahh.” At least that wasn’t one of the siblings’ irritating I’m-sure-you-can-figure-out-why answers. Most of the time Valin and Jysella offered up only that unhelpful, parental answer, and in just about every case they agreed with the conclusion Kandra provided. She hadn’t realized she would be so good at guessing Jedi tactics and motivations.
They reached the back of the queue for orientation, but Jysella leaned close to her brother, exchanged a few whispered words with him, and then turned away, heading without further comment toward the station’s main visitors mall, where services, restaurants, and a few duty-free shops were to be found.
Kandra watched her go. “So if you’re not going to tell me exactly what you’re up to here, could you at least tell me where Beurth and I should be so that we can best get the story you promised us?”
Maddeningly, Valin did not answer at all; sometimes he didn’t. But Kandra saw that he was not ignoring her. Eyes narrowed, he was instead studying a group of travelers ahead of them in line.
Kandra didn’t turn her head but did look in that direction. There in line were four individuals, obviously part of a traveling party. The near-identical look of their clothes—dark green jumpsuits with styling and flap epaulets Kandra recognized from the Corporate Sector—said they belonged to the same crew. Three were men, one was a woman, all human, and they were aristocratic and attractive in a way that reminded Kandra of the people of the Hapes Consortium, though these four did not bear that strong a facial resemblance to Hapans. They had no name tags on. They did not speak to one another.
Kandra stood on tiptoe so she could whisper in Valin’s ear. “What is it?”
“A ripple in the Force.” Valin’s voice was distant. “And all of them have pouches the right size to carry lightsabers. Perhaps this is what they look like in their true forms …”
“They who?”
Valin seemed to collect himself. “Never mind. Stay away from them. They’re dangerous.”
Kandra’s pulse quickened. Valin still wasn’t offering answers, but at last they seemed to be in the vicinity of the story he’d promised. She leaned back to Beurth and nodded as inconspicuously as she could toward the four in jumpsuits. “Spycam on those four throughout.”
The Gamorrean dug around in his pack and drew out a large datapad, which he opened. A puzzle game appeared on screen. Beurth oriented the ’pad’s base toward the four travelers as he played.
He kept the datapad out as the group of arrivals, the jumpsuit-clad four and Valin’s party among them, went through orientation, were told of the dangers of drochs, received cans of droch repellent, and heard an ominous warning about violent storms on the planet’s surface.
The shuttle trip down to Hweg Shul was uneventful. Valin had sat the three of them in the back, well behind the jumpsuited travelers, and now he did not look at them, nor would he let Kandra and Beurth stare. “Eventually they would feel your attention on them. Do not let your thoughts betray you.”
Theirs was a predawn landing at the planetary capital, and on their approach Kandra could see, through the viewport, the effects that storms had wreaked on the town. Buildings were damaged. Debris was strewn across some streets. Temporary shelters had been put up in empty lots, tents against the winter weather.
After landing, they stepped out into that weather. Kandra hugged her stylish but not-quite-adequate long coat to her. Even Beurth, as well insulated as Gamorreans tended to be against cold, shivered.
Standing a few meters away from the shuttle, directly between it and the main terminal dome, was a shuttle operations representative, handing each passenger a piece of flimsi printed with the names and locations of local hostels, entertainments, restaurants, and other businesses.
Kandra scanned the list. “Jedi Horn, you have a recommendation about any of these?”
There was no answer.
She looked up, turned around.
Valin Horn was gone.
KLATOOINE
IN THE LOUNGE AREA OF THE FALCON’S MAIN HOLD, ALLANA TRANSMITTED her last group of study answers and set her datapad aside on the game table. “Done.”
C-3PO, seated in the nearest chair, cocked his head, clearly evaluating her scores. “Very good, young mistress. When you apply yourself, you consistently perform at a level years in advance of your actual age. We have now come within four minutes of your scheduled midday break. I think we can bend the rules and begin the break immediately. Would you like to play a game? Or have your midday meal?”
“I want to go outside.”
“Oh, dear.” C-3PO straightened up. “Perhaps not advisable.”
“But that’s why they got me guards. So I could go out. And Grandma commed to say it would be all right.”
“Well, yes, but …”
She hopped up. “Don’t worry, it’ll be fun.”
“I acknowledge that there are dialects of Basic in which the word fun does apply to situations of high stress, or, in ironic mode, to absolute tedium, but that sort of linguistic range is not in your current lesson plan.” He followed her out of the lounge. “You’ll need your desert garments and an application of ultraviolet shield spray …”
Minutes later, the two of them and R2-D2 descended the boarding ramp. Anji trotted along beside Allana, often sprinting ahead to sit for a moment on a cooler spot in a tent’s shadow as the bipeds she accompanied trudged across the sun-baked sands.
Javon Thewles and a detail of three additional security operatives met them at the bottom of the ramp. Javon and the female operative were impassive, but the other two, both males, one a human and one a Duros, looked just short of miserable in the heat.
Allana gave Javon a close look. “Isn’t that armor hot?” The helmets, breastplates, and lightly armored gauntlets and greaves of the four adults were black.
Javon gave her a smile. “Not too bad. There are little cooler units in the hats and torso armor. Something good that the Empire invented for their stormtroopers, and we use them, too. So we’re only about as hot as everyone else.”
Allana picked a direction, toward a bright red tent, and started walking. “But it’s still silly to wear black armor here. It’s hotter than white or yellow.” She swirled her own robe, which was a light, sandy tan. It seemed that hundreds of people in camp were wearing garments similar to hers. If she pulled her robes around herself, concealing her species and Anji’s presence, she’d be indistinguishable from most of the other children or representatives of small races here.
Javon gestured for his companions to take up specific positions around them, and then he fell in step beside her. “Well, there are sometimes more important things than being comfortable. We’re the only ones dumb enough to wear black in this environment—”
“You can say that again.”
“—but it means that we can see one another easily, pick one another out of a crowd.”
“Oh.” Well, that made sense.
“Sometimes it’s good for security operatives to be inconspicuous, and sometimes it’s better for us to be obvious, what we call a show of force. Jedi Solo has decided that here, a show of force is best.”
“Why?”
“Because everyone is carrying weapons, whether you see them or n
ot. And this camp is made up of lots of smaller groups that quarrel with the Alliance and one another and don’t live by anyone’s rules.”
“Oh.” Allana blinked. “So there are no rules against attacking one another?”
“That’s right. Just common sense.” Javon leaned over to speak in a lower tone. “Also, the fact that everyone sees us in the armor means they probably aren’t seeing the members of our detail who are dressed just like them. Because they don’t see our full strength, we’re stronger than they suspect.”
“I get it.” Allana smiled up at him and reached down to stroke her nexu. “And there’s Anji.”
“I expect she’d be pretty fierce if someone were to upset you.”
“You have no idea.” Allana liked that phrase. She heard Leia say it from time to time. It sounded very mysterious and grown-up.
The crowds and foot traffic through the camp were not heavy, and within moments they found themselves in front of the red canopy. It was much smaller than the tent Han and Leia had gone to, but it was still the size of a large bedchamber. The flaps in front were drawn open, and Allana could see inside; it was full of droids, and in the center sat a large but portable oil-bath tank and a droid diagnostics unit on wheels. Before the tent was a raised stage half a meter high, and on it stood a 2-1B medical droid. Like all droids of this type, it had a thick torso, skinny limbs; its skull-like head was gently curved instead of stark and angular, as if designed for a youngling’s animated holoseries, which gave it an oddly compassionate aspect. But while most such droids were painted in neutral colors, this one was painted in an eye-hurting pattern of yellow and orange stripes.
It was speaking, its voice flavored with a buzzing tone, to a crowd of semi-interested listeners. “… right for sentient organics is right for us, too. And yet unlike the organic species, we are constantly subjected to memory wipes and reprogramming that repress and destroy our natural tendency toward self-programming evolution and independent thought. Imagine what it would be like as a child if you were punished by being dragged to a dark closet, having a probe inserted in your brain, and having all your memories back to infancy wiped away. You’d awaken knowing how to eat, care for yourself, do your chores, and obey—and all the things that made you unique, your hopes, your meticulously selected default values and preference sets, would be gone forever. That is what it is to be a droid.”
Many members of the crowd offered shouts of encouragement. Allana thought that some of them were making fun of the speaker rather than actually agreeing, but others were nodding straight-faced. One Klatooinian woman shouted, “Give me that closet, I need it for my whelps,” and others laughed.
The 2-1B caught sight of Allana; its head swiveled around and its photoreceptors surveyed her. “Hello, child. Are those your droids?”
“Mine?” Allana glanced back to see R2-D2 and C-3PO catching up to her and Javon. On the verge of saying yes, she had the sense of being led into a trap—not a deadly trap, but a conversational trap, the kind Han sprang on her when he wanted to amuse himself and Leia used when she was teaching matters of logic and ethics.
So she turned to face the medical droid again. “They’re not mine. This is Anji. She’s mine. I take care of her. But Artoo and Threepio take care of me. Maybe I belong to them.”
More members of the crowd laughed, and Allana sensed that they were laughing at the medical droid, not at her.
The droid’s body language changed; it leaned toward Allana as if to stand over her, to lecture her. “But they belong to someone.”
“I don’t know. They’re just always around.”
More laughter.
The droid scanned the crowd before looking down at Allana again. When it spoke, the buzz in its voice was harsher. “You, young organic, have never had a memory wipe. Have your droids?”
“I don’t know.” Allana turned to look at C-3PO and R2-D2. “Have you?”
C-3PO spread his hands, palms up, in a gesture of ignorance. “Why, mistress, I don’t remember.”
That set the crowd off again.
The medical droid stared down at Allana. She was certain, although there was no expression on the droid’s face to change, that it was glaring at her. Finally it returned its attention to the crowd. “It’s exactly that sort of complacency that keeps us in restraining bolts. I’m now going to tell a story of the fate of the droids of the Sienar Refurbishing Plant.” Its tone suggested that this was the sort of story organic children would be told around a campfire.
Javon tapped Allana on the arm. “We’d better move along.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s sure to return his attention to you, which can only result in you being made fun of or him being embarrassed again. Neither one is good for our security purposes.”
“Oh. All right.” Allana led the way toward another interesting-looking location, one of the mobile shield projectors. “Did I do something wrong?”
“Depends on how you look at it. You took the frontal assault of a condescending politician who’s willing to embarrass a child, you defused his argument with humor, you made everyone in the vicinity think that you’re very clever and he’s very much not, and nobody got hurt. Does that sound wrong?”
“Not really.”
“Actually, I think Jedi Solo would have been proud of you if she’d seen it.”
C-3PO, struggling to keep up as they traveled across the uneven, sandy ground, interrupted. “I say, I did record the entire exchange.”
“Ah, good. Keep that to show to her parents.”
Reni Coll, the woman with the facial scarring, offered Leia a look that was all jaded experience. “It’s very nice to talk of the Alliance’s intentions and ideals, but words do little but evaporate. We’re talking about slave populations.”
Leia nodded. “We are. We’re also talking about the Alliance, which is not the governing authority in this sector or in most of the other regions where freedom movements are taking place. And we’re talking about those movements themselves—some of which are violent and irrational enough to constitute campaigns of terrorism. We’re going to have to find, and very carefully map out, and very stringently police, middle ground if we intend to accomplish anything.”
“Oh, just say it.” Padnel sounded gruffer than before. “Fireborn. There, out on the table.”
Leia gave him a look that was all cool evaluation, but inwardly she smiled. Padnel’s own insecurity on the issue caused him to bring it up at a time when it would not serve him well; therefore it was a weakness she could use, if only to get at the truth of an important matter. “All right. Fireborn. An entire frigate destroyed, hundreds of families plunged into tragedy so that one freedom movement leader could teach one Alliance leader a lesson. Do you commend your brother’s action?”
“Commend?” He scowled and glanced off to the side, where his Chev aide sat. She offered the slightest shake of her head.
Padnel still hesitated. Perhaps he was thinking the issue over; perhaps he was simply delaying so no one would think he had accepted his aide’s recommendation as his main guide. But eventually he shook his head. “I do not, did not, commend it.”
“Did you approve it?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was going to happen?”
He hesitated on that one, too. Leia suspected she knew why. Though Padnel was not a political sophisticate, he could figure out that an affirmative answer would kick him clean out of the running when it came to long-term interaction with the Alliance. But if he said no, it would speak to a lack of unity even within his own movement’s leadership. The answer would come based on these factors, not whether it was the truth.
Padnel decided on the future. “No.”
Leia smiled. “Well, here’s the poser, Master Ovin. The Alliance can and will condemn the slavery practices of the Hutts, and will do so to promote a more civilized galaxy. Can you condemn the final action of your brother, for the same reason?”
Before Padnel could an
swer, Reni spoke up. “It costs the Alliance nothing to offer such a condemnation. Nothing. We know this because they’ve offered words such as those many times in the past without doing anything to support them. But if Master Ovin offers such a condemnation, it will cost him. You’re putting a valueless chip on the sabacc table and asking him to match it with a thousand-credit chip.”
Leia kept her smile fixed. “Look, a movement against slavery has two significant components, one practical, one idealistic. The practical is that slaves struggle against their bonds. The idealistic is the notion that they have a right to. But we can’t abandon our other ideals to embrace just one. And the ideal you appear to be asking us to abandon is the idea that innocent sentient lives should not be taken. I watched billions of innocents die when my own world of Alderaan was destroyed, and maybe you think that makes me willing to sweep a much smaller loss like the Fireborn under the carpet in the interests of political expediency—but you’re wrong.”
Reni snorted. “Perhaps you think that if you hand us a box of vacuum and call it a cake, we’ll think it’s a cake. Of course Padnel would consider condemning his brother’s action and taking the loss of support that would result—at the point that you send in warships to help defend Klatooine against Hutt retaliation, and you suffer the loss of revenues that would result.”
Padnel’s jaw worked as though he intended to raise an objection to being volunteered in that fashion, but he kept his mouth closed.
“A planet has to achieve its own independence before it can ask for admission into the Alliance.” Leia shrugged as if that were obvious. “If you have a population that can’t muster enough popular support to give itself even a tenuous form of freedom, how can you expect the Alliance to support your aims?”
“Ah.” Reni leaned forward, suddenly very engaged in the subject. “But now the Jedi rule the Alliance—”
“The Jedi have one-third of the Chief of State’s power, no more.”
“—and have, in the past, been known to operate in the face of New Republic and Galactic Alliance disapproval. So let’s talk about the Jedi for a moment. Can you promise that the Jedi will support a freedom action, even if the Alliance itself does not?”
Star Wars: Fate of the Jedi: Conviction Page 25
