• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

Tahiri hit the button to open her apartment door. It slid aside, revealing a tall, very old man standing outside. His hair was white and thin, his eyes a surprisingly clear blue. He wore a loose white tunic belted at the waist, along with black trousers and boots. Oddly, although his left arm was prosthetic, no attempt had been made to disguise the fact; it was an ancient replacement, three-quarters of a century old at least, distinctly mechanical despite its graceful, human lines. It was the color of brushed durasteel from the fingertips to where the white sleeve covered it.

He gave Tahiri a brief, cordial smile. “Tahiri Veila?”

“Yes.”

“I'm Commander Trinnolt Makken, Imperial Navy, retired. I'm your government-appointed observer.”

She laughed. Then she thumbed the door closed.

The bell chimed again, and she could hear the commander's muffled voice. “This is not a joke. I have legal identification.”

She opened the door again. “I heard from friends, I mean contacts, about this observer thing. Commander, I'm not a Jedi.”

“It applies to Sith, too, when they can be identified.”

“I'm not a Sith, either.”

He held up a datacard with his flesh-and-blood hand. “Regardless, your name is on the document.”

She glanced at the card. It rose up a couple of centimeters into the air. It strained as if struggling, then snapped in two. The pieces dropped into his palm.

She fixed him with a look that was no longer friendly. “Not Jedi,” she explained, as if to someone who spoke only a few words of Basic. “Not Sith. Do you fly? Thrusters from metal arm, thrusters from nostrils?”

Grim, he shook his head.

“Then don't come back until you do, because you may find yourself dropping two hundred stories out a viewport.” She slid the door shut.

This time, the commander did not activate the chime.

JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT

Jaina and Master Hamner encountered each other outside the Masters' Chamber. They both frowned.

“Have you seen my new observer?” Jaina asked.

“Can you tell me where your mother is?”

“Come down to the old youngling lecture hall, which he seems to think is a schoolroom for old younglings.”

Master Hamner fell into step beside her. “Is that where your mother is?”

“No, that's where he is,” Jaina said. “And you know, he's not to blame.”

“Perhaps you know where your father is, and could tell me, and he would know where your mother is.”

“He's not to blame for looking like my brother Anakin.”

“Your father? Of course he's to blame for looking like your brother. I would have thought it would relieve him. It does, most fathers.”

“Master Hamner, please concentrate. Having an observer who looks like my brother can't be a coincidence. It's a cruel joke or an insult, and if my mother and father see him, it's going to make them feel very bad.”

“Ah. Excellent. Where might your mother and father be, that they might see him?”

They came to a stop at the doorway of the former youngling lecture hall. The doorway was double-wide and open. Inside, the chamber was mostly unoccupied; round tables had replaced some of the old side-by-side lecture seating. At some of the tables were men and women, many of them older and ex-military by the look of them, the others a mix of ages, all of them apparently very fit.

She pointed to her new observer, who sat with two others, eating a salad and talking. “That one. Tarc.”

Master Hamner looked and tilted his head. “He does look like Anakin Solo.”

“So you think it's a coincidence?”

“You'd have to ask your father about that, too.”

“No, no, that he was assigned to me.”

“Oh.” He shrugged. “Really, I couldn't tell. The assignments are handled out of the Chief of State's office.”

“Well, I want him swapped out for someone else.”

“Then you shall have to contact the Chief of State's office. I am certain she will be receptive to the suggestion. The Jedi are among her favorite people.”

Jaina bristled. “Do you have any dead relatives you'd like to be followed around by?”

He took her arm and led her away from the door at a sedate pace. “You know, you have your mother's mouth. By