Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 02_ Omen - Christie Golden [15]
“Jedi!” came Javis Tyrr’s voice. Yaqeel froze her in tracks. Barv turned his massive head to regard the reporter. In his grunting, guttural language, he chided Tyrr for not covering the news impartially and for clearly harboring a bias. Such behavior, Barv said, was not becoming for a journalist, and Tyrr should know better. While the rebuke was mild, the Ramoan language always sounded as if the speaker were trying to take someone’s head off verbally, and Tyrr, clearly not understanding a word of it, recoiled ever so slightly.
“Do you have any comments on Admiral Daala’s speech? I witnessed the fight between you two and Jysella Horn. I take it you were trying to stop her? Can you tell us why? How much of a threat is she? How far-reaching is this strange mental illness?”
Cilghal, displaying more patience in her right flipper than Yaqeel had in her entire furry body, stepped forward before the Bothan could retort.
“The Jedi are obviously very concerned about the current state of events, and have been since the first incident. We are doing everything we can.”
She gave him a smile and then turned decisively back toward the Temple. Yaqeel knew she shouldn’t, but she couldn’t resist casting one more glowering glance over her shoulder at Javis Tyrr.
“This can’t be good,” she murmured.
DAALA LEANED BACK INTO THE COMFORTABLE NERF-HIDE UPHOLSTERY of her chauffered speeder and sighed, running a hand through her hair. Across from her sat her personal assistant, Wynn Dorvan. Slight, nondescript, but always looking completely pulled together with not a brown hair out of place, he had become invaluable to her over the last year and a half. So invaluable that she had relaxed regulations and permitted him to allow his pet chitlik to accompany him from time to time. It perched on his shoulder now, a small, orange-striped marsupial from Ord Cestus that had become all the rage as a pet. It was quiet, litter-trained, and had a tendency to find a dark place to sleep most of the day, so the little creature was not much of a distraction for either Dorvan or Daala.
It had been Dorvan who had been scanning the HoloNet when the coverage began, and he who had notified her of what was happening. Now he glanced up at her, calm and yet eager, his datapad in his hands as he awaited her comments and perhaps further instructions. The chitlik snuffled at his ear, then jumped down and curled up quietly beside him.
“Well done, Dorvan,” she said. “I don’t know how you managed to get the GA on this so fast. It was completely under control by the time I even got here, and we didn’t waste a moment.”
“Jedi mind tricks,” he deadpanned, his thin lips only cracking into a smile when he saw the amusement on his employer’s face.
“Careful who you joke about with that,” Daala said, sobering. “While I can’t complain about the political leverage incidents like this provide, it is … troublesome. I have always had my issues with the Jedi.” There were many things, and people, and organizations, she’d had issues with. The Jedi had almost had to get in line, but she’d had her eye on them for a while.
“Keep them in their box, away from politics, and certainly never arm them,” she’d once said to bounty hunter Boba Fett. Now that she was in a position to do precisely that, it seemed more and more like a good policy. “It is certainly convenient that there’s reason to tighten the reins on them, but it’s more than that. What’s going on with them now …” She sighed and shook her head, her unbound hair waving gently, and peered out the tinted reinforced transparisteel window. Dorvan dropped a hand to pet the sleeping animal beside him, and waited patiently as she gathered her thoughts.
“This is dangerous and unpredictable. And I don’t like