Bloodline (Star Wars) Page 2

  Mostly.

  “What a marvelous celebration!” C-3PO shuffled through the broad oval of Leia’s state office. Afternoon sunlight streamed through the windows, gilding the white-on-white furnishings; the droid’s golden metal plating shone as though he were new. “Such an illustrious gathering. I daresay everyone in attendance will share the memory with their grandchildren someday.”

  “Never imagined this,” Han had murmured, sitting up in their bed late at night, Ben’s tiny head resting in the crook of his father’s arm. “Having a kid. Even wanting a kid. But now he’s here, and—”

  “And you’re a dad.” Leia had leaned closer, unable to resist the chance to tease her husband. “Just think, hotshot. Someday you might even be a granddad.”

  Han’s chuckle had warmed her. “Speak for yourself, sweetheart. Me, I ain’t ever getting that old.”

  “Princess Leia?”

  Leia snapped out of her reverie, back into the here and now. “I apologize, Greer. It’s been a long day. You were saying?”

  Greer Sonnel, Leia’s assistant, continued as smoothly as if her boss had not just spent several seconds lost in thought. “You’ve been invited to the reception for Senator Bevicard on Coruscant, which I said you would consider. Shall I refuse immediately or tomorrow?”

  “Give it until tomorrow.” It didn’t do to become too predictable.

  Greer nodded, her fingers dexterously working on her datapad. Her thick, blue-black hair had been tucked into a simple bun, and the coarsely woven shawl she wore over her bodysuit came from her rugged homeworld of Pamarthe. Greer preferred the plain and practical, always; Leia knew she was finding her transition to work in the Senate difficult, probably because there was so much formality and even more nonsense. However, Greer had always risen to a challenge, and she had sharpened her diplomatic skills in the past several months. “Shall I refuse with ordinary politeness or extra courtesy?”

  “Extra, I think. Honesty deserves courtesy. Bevicard’s a snake, but he doesn’t lie about what he is.” Leia shook her head ruefully. “That’s about as much as you can expect from a Centrist these days.”

  “But—” Korr Sella—Sondiv’s daughter and the office intern, only sixteen years old—caught herself and shrank back. “Excuse me, Princess Leia. I spoke out of turn.”

  “You’ll find I’m not a stickler for protocol, Korrie.” From the corner of her eye, Leia saw C-3PO swiveling his torso toward her, no doubt appalled to think of anyone, anywhere, ignoring protocol. “What is it you were going to say?”

  At first the girl looked so stricken that Leia feared she’d put her in an awkward position. Before she could withdraw her question, however, Korrie found her courage. “I was going to say, shouldn’t you accept the invitation? To help build friendships and consensus between Centrists and Populists?”

  “In an ideal galaxy, yes. Unfortunately, that’s not the galaxy we live in.” Leia sounded so jaded she even disgusted herself. More gently, she said, “The invitation was symbolic, not genuine. If I actually accepted, Bevicard would be mortified.”

  Korrie nodded, but her expression remained uneasy. “Are the two parties really that far apart?”

  Leia leaned back in her chair, rubbing her sore neck. If only Varish weren’t hosting a banquet tonight, so she could let down her hair. “I’m afraid they really are.”

  “Oh.” Korrie bowed her head, but not before Leia caught a glimpse of the girl’s confusion and dismay.

  I was that young, once. I believed so strongly in the power of government to accomplish anything. Leia had joined the Imperial Senate at fourteen; she hadn’t completely given up on the rule of law in the Empire until the moment she saw Alderaan die in front of her eyes. How I miss that feeling—the sense that justice would always win in the end.

  “I’ve prepared a statement on the dedication for us to send to the planetary news services. You can take a look and let me know what edits you’d like, if any.” Greer tapped her datapad, sending the document to Leia. There was no need. Leia knew exactly what it would say, just as she knew the precise, subtle shades of spin the Centrist senators would put on their own statements. “That more or less wraps up our business for this afternoon, Princess Leia. You have another hour before Senator Vicly’s banquet. What would you like to do next?”

  Leia realized the answer only moments before it came out of her mouth. “I want to quit.”

  Korrie frowned. Greer paused before she said, “I beg your pardon, ma’am? You want to quit—having this meeting, or—”

  “I want to leave the Senate. To leave government completely.” An exhilarating, unfamiliar sensation blossomed within Leia. Maybe this was what freedom felt like. “I want to quit.”

  Han said, “Now, this I gotta hear.”

  The uplink between Hosnian Prime and the Theron system was clear tonight: no static, no delays. Leia could see her husband’s face clearly, and behind him the broad window of his temporary quarters on Theron. His gray jacket lay across a nearby chair, and the amber liquid in a slender glass on the table was most likely Corellian brandy. Small, darting lights in the night sky behind Han were no doubt podracers getting some practice weaving in and out of the planet’s famous spiral stone formations.

  None of that mattered compared with the sight of Han’s smile. Despite the skeptical tone of his voice, Leia recognized the light in his eyes.

  “The Senate is turning into a political quagmire.” She folded her legs beneath her on the sofa and began unbraiding her hair, a lengthy process she had always found calming. “And it’s our own fault. After Palpatine, nobody wanted to hand over that much power again, so we don’t have an executive, only a chancellor with no real authority. Mon Mothma got things done through sheer charisma, but almost every chancellor since her has been…”

  Han finished the sentence for her: “Useless.”

  “Pretty much.” At the time, Leia had been grateful for Mon Mothma’s leadership, but now she realized that one individual’s ability had disguised the fundamental flaws in the New Republic’s system. If Mon Mothma had stepped aside earlier, might they have realized their errors? Amended the constitution in time? At this late date, it was impossible to know. “The conflict between the parties gets worse every day. Most Centrists and Populists are still polite to each other, but barely. Every debate on the Senate floor turns into an endless argument over ‘tone’ or ‘form’ and never about issues of substance—”

  Han kept nodding, but his eyes were starting to glaze over. By this point in their marriage, Leia could predict down to the nanosecond when Han’s patience for all things political would run out.

  Now, finally, she was just as sick of it as he was.

  “So why shouldn’t I quit?” Leia loosed the final strands of her long hair, allowing it to tumble free to her waist. “Nothing keeps me from resigning in the middle of my term. I could announce that I’m stepping down sometime in the next few weeks, which would give me time to tie up loose ends before an interim election has been called. Greer already agreed to draft an announcement—well, she kept calling it a ‘hypothetical’ announcement. She doesn’t think I’ll actually follow through.”

  “Neither do I,” said Han, not unkindly. “Listen, Leia, I never understood exactly what you got out of politics, but you must get something out of it, because it’s been your whole life.”

  “Since I was fourteen.” As a girl she had been so proud to represent Alderaan. So impatient for her chance to do something meaningful. Why hadn’t she taken a little more time to simply be a kid? Even princesses could have fun sometimes—her mother had tried to tell her that, from time to time, but Leia had never listened—

  Han continued, “You’ve been fed up with the Senate before. I’ve heard you gripe about factions and deadlock a thousand times. But it’s not like you to give up.”

  “This isn’t giving up. It’s just…facing facts.” Leia sighed as she took up her hairbrush and began working out the few tangles at the ends. By now a
few strands of steely gray shone in her brown hair. “I can’t do this forever, Han. Eventually my time in the Senate has to come to an end. Why not now?”

  Han’s face filled more of the screen as he leaned forward, perhaps to study her expression. Although he still looked skeptical, she could tell he had begun to play with the idea in his mind. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but—what would you do with yourself?”

  It was a fair question. Leia had given so much of her life to the Rebellion and then the New Republic that even she had sometimes wondered whether she had anything left.

  But she did, of course.

  “I’ve been thinking.” She pretended to mull the question over. “What if I decided to go flying around the galaxy with some scoundrel?”

  Han raised his eyebrows and pointed toward his own chest.

  Leia laughed. “Unless you had another scoundrel in mind.”

  “Hey, hey. I’m the only scoundrel up for the job.” He shook his head in—surprise? Disbelief? Leia wasn’t sure. What mattered most was the warmth in his smile. Even if Han wasn’t convinced she intended to do this, he liked the idea.

  Down deep, buried where she could almost ignore the fear, Leia hadn’t been sure he would.

  They’d been apart too often in their marriage. Too long. Han’s restlessness had been a large part of that, but he couldn’t take all of the blame. Leia had remained stuck here, mired in the political muck. Now she could finally do her part to change things for them.

  “You really think you’d enjoy the life of a racer?” Han asked. “Bouncing around from one system to the next, working on ships, never knowing where you’re headed next?”

  “Doesn’t sound that different from being a member of the Rebel Alliance.”

  “Maybe not,” Han conceded with a tilt of his head. “Still, it’s a pretty wild ride. You sure you’re ready?”

  This was something of an exaggeration. Han often raced for charity, and he was as likely to sponsor a match as he was to compete in one. He’d traveled to Theron to oversee the prestigious piloting championships known as the Five Sabers, which tested skills on everything from starfighter atmospheric runs to hyperspace orienteering. In other words: Han Solo was in charge of enforcing the rules. Although he ran his shipping company on the go, he was a far more vigilant, responsible owner than he liked to let on. The life he led these days took him all around the galaxy, but it was a far cry from the dangerous existence of a smuggler.

  Compared with stagnating in the Senate? Han’s world sounded like paradise.

  “Freedom and adventure.” She sighed. “Yeah. I’m ready.”

  Han studied her for a few moments, then began to grin. “You realize—after three months on the same ship, we’re gonna kill each other.”

  Leia leaned closer to the terminal so he would see the wickedness in her smile. “But won’t those three months be fun?”

  She was thinking of a sublight run they’d undertaken together early in their marriage, which had begun with a great deal of bickering. However, all that time alone, with no one to interrupt them, had eventually led to much more enjoyable pursuits. Given the timing, she was fairly sure those pursuits had directly led, some months later, to Ben’s birth.

  “Oh, we’ll have fun.” Han brushed his fingers near the holocam, as if he could touch her face. “You better believe it.”

  —

  The next day, in the Senate, Leia found herself remembering the way Han had said that, turning it over and over in her mind like a young girl daydreaming. Of course she was being ridiculous, and she was rarely so easily distracted while the Senate was in session.

  Then again, the Senate gave her very little worth concentrating on, these days.

  Clapping from the Centrist benches drew her back into the here and now. Via the console at her position in the broad, flat, and utterly maddening Senate chamber, she could see screen images and holos of Ransolm Casterfo as he bowed to the cheers of his colleagues, ignoring the stoic silence of the Populists. Leia mentally replayed the last few words he’d spoken…yes, he’d been complaining about the number of Populist speakers at the statue-dedication ceremony. In other words, he’d said the exact same thing every other Centrist senator had said so far today, albeit more eloquently. For all their applause, the Centrists were no more interested or engaged than the Populists; they responded by rote. As she scanned the vast chamber and all its representatives from its multiplicity of worlds, Leia thought they looked like a theater audience struggling to endure the last act of a dull play.

  “How many Centrist speakers have there been now?” she murmured under her breath to C-3PO, who occasionally accompanied her to record the proceedings—not that there was much worth recording.

  “Seventeen, all of whom addressed irregular protocol during the dedication ceremony,” C-3PO said with his usual cheer at being able to supply an exact answer. Then he turned his golden head toward her and added, in a lower tone, “I must say, their attention to these points of etiquette seems…excessive.”

  Leia nearly groaned. C-3PO thought they were overdoing protocol? That was a very bad sign.

  She touched the small screen in her pod that would show her the order of business for the day, then straightened. For once, the senators would be expected to stop talking and listen.

  The speaker droids intoned at once, “Acknowledged on the floor, Yendor of Ryloth, emissary to the Senate.”

  Leia sat up straighter as Yendor walked in. Tall for a Twi’lek, he made an imposing figure with his long blue lekku hanging from his head down the back of his deep-brown cloak. Although the Senate floor was more than a hundred meters in front of her, she could see him well thanks to the various screens and holos displaying his image on her console—some in different wavelengths, for those species whose eyes differed greatly from those of humans. She had known Yendor slightly during the war, when he had served as an X-wing pilot. Although Leia doubted they had spoken more than two dozen times, right now the mere sight of someone from the days of battle cheered her.

  “To the esteemed representatives of the Galactic Senate, greetings.” Yendor stood tall and straight, despite his advancing years and the long staff he used to steady himself. “The history of my planet and my people is well known. For centuries, we suffered under the oppression of the Hutts and their criminal enterprises. The Empire’s domination doubled our difficulties. Only in the past few decades, in the era of the New Republic, have we been able to assert our own independence and our own rule. Though we stand apart from you, we salute you, and appreciate the peace the New Republic has given to the galaxy.”

  Leia applauded, as did many others—both Populists and Centrists. Ryloth was an independent world, apart from the New Republic, and so one that could not be said to belong to either party. Besides, the Hutts had earned bipartisan loathing.

  Yendor bowed his head briefly, acknowledging the response, before he continued. “Now, however, our independence is again endangered. The Hutts have lost much of their old power, which means others are rushing in to fill the gap. Of these, the most dangerous are those cartels run by the Niktos.”

  “The Niktos served the Hutts for centuries,” C-3PO said to her. Leia understood this perfectly well, but she didn’t waste time interrupting him to say so. She knew the droid well enough to be sure he’d keep talking anyway. “They’ve never had a truly independent government of their own. Hardly even a world of their own, really.”

  Then Emissary Yendor’s tone took on a sharper edge. “Among the many promises the New Republic made after Palpatine’s fall was that organized crime would never again become as powerful a force as it had been during the age of the Empire. Financial regulations and comprehensive patrols of the shipping lanes were meant to protect Ryloth and every other world in the galaxy from large-scale criminal corruption. But those regulations are enforced only sporadically, and the patrols have yet to materialize, even though more than twenty years have passed. In that time, the cartels have begun to a
ssert their power again.” Leia felt ashamed for her part in this and hoped others in the Senate did as well. By bickering over the minutiae—who would enforce what, and when, and how—the Senate had once again failed to take the bigger picture into account. Now the price of their inaction had come due, and it would be smaller, poorer worlds like Ryloth that had to pay most dearly. “One cartel in particular has become a risk to the commercial shipping lanes in our sector,” Yendor continued. “Although our information is incomplete, we believe this criminal organization already rivals that of any of the most powerful Hutts at the zenith of their influence. We know only that our pilots are being raided, that our merchants have been pressured for protection money, and that the cartel is led by a Kajain’sa’Nikto known as Rinnrivin Di, operating at least in part from the planet Bastatha.”

  Low murmurs went through certain sections of the Senate chamber, from both parties. More of us should have heard of this guy, Leia realized, sitting up straighter. We should’ve been alerted to a cartel of such size long ago. But of course nobody had been paying attention to anything that really mattered. Frustration made her clench her jaw.

  Yendor held up his hand, both calling for their renewed attention and signaling the end of his address. “Today Rinnrivin’s cartel presents a danger to Ryloth’s future, and to free trade in our part of the galaxy. Tomorrow, however, it could threaten the rule of law in the New Republic itself, as the Hutts did in both the Old Republic and the Empire. Therefore, I ask for the Senate to investigate the reach and influence of Rinnrivin Di’s cartel and to take the actions necessary to restore order, on behalf of the Twi’leks of Ryloth—but for the benefit of us all.”

  The silence that followed lasted for only a few seconds…and then the Senate dissolved into an immense amount of talking, and very little listening. Senators jabbed commands into their terminals, and the sorter droids programmed to display viewpoints equally weighted from both parties flashed different ones onto the main screens.