Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 04_ Backlash - Aaron Allston [31]
“Admiral, at your meeting tomorrow, my emissary will serve you with documents. A subpeona and summons to return immediately to Coruscant.”
“To face trial, I should imagine.”
Daala nodded. “The principal charges come down to gross dereliction of duty—”
“In that I failed to recognize Colonel Jacen Solo’s gradual descent into a pattern of behavior that eventually included genocide and crimes against all sapient species.”
“Yes.” Daala felt a wash of sympathy for the disgraced officer. She allowed some of that sympathy to show on her face. “I’ve called, one officer to another, one Chief of State to another, as a show of respect, and because if any of this were to catch you by surprise, it would be … inappropriate. I suspect that you’ll be able to beat, or at least reduce, the charges. The public can be convinced not to demand blood. What they will demand is acknowledgment of mistake.”
Niathal sighed. “There we have a problem. Well, I have a problem. Because the actions they find most egregious, my supporting Solo in his efforts as Chief of State, cannot in any way be considered a mistake.”
Daala found herself to be startled. “Even now? At the distance of several years?”
“What is a mistake, Admiral?” There was a touch of rich, self-aware humor in Niathal’s gravelly voice. “It is a decision in which one or more of the factors is known to be dangerous, or poisonous, or compromising, but which we calculate will not keep us from achieving our goals. But when there is no foreknowledge of such factor in evidence, can it be called a mistake? If you walk out on an empty field and the ground suddenly gives way beneath you, and there was no way to predict it, was any part of your decision making a mistake? No.” Niathal turned her body side-to-side, a Mon Cal effort to mimic a human head shake. “There was no way to predict that Jacen Solo would become what he became. Therefore, no mistake. And if I do not fight back with a vicious but smooth-tongued lawyer on the one hand, and hang my head and admit to a nonexistent mistake on the other, the public will not forgive. It will have its blood. This trial will be a fiasco, an embarrassment to the navy, a battle that every participant can lose.”
“I’m sorry.” Daala actually was, but she kept her tone professional, unyielding. “I have no choice.”
“But I do.”
Daala narrowed her eyes, looking intently at her predecessor. “And what choice do you make?”
“To do exactly as you ask. If you wish me to come to Coruscant, I will.”
Daala nodded. “Thank you, Admiral.”
“Thank you, Admiral. For the advance warning.”
Daala glanced at her communications officer. The image of Niathal faded from view, just as the hologram of Daala in all her uniformed brilliance would have faded from the water before Niathal.
Saddened, Daala turned away from the broadcast area and headed back toward her offices, oblivious to her usual retinue of bodyguards and functionaries. Niathal’s words had rattled her just a bit, because they were true; in politics, as in military planning, it was possible to do everything right, to make no mistake that could be predicted, and still fail. Still be crushed. And Niathal, if she chose not to play the game of the repentant offender …
… chose not to lie …
Would be destroyed.
FOOTHILLS APPROACHING REDGILL PASS,
DATHOMIR
TEN MINUTES AFTER THE FIGHT WAS DONE, THINGS WERE MUCH MORE settled.
Nine Witches of Dathomir sat or lay on the stony ground, their hands tied behind their backs—all but the rider of the second rancor, she of the tan skins and streaked hair, who had sustained a break to her right forearm when her mount fell on her. Her injured arm had been splinted by Yliri; she had refused medical treatment from Dyon. She had not been tied but had been disarmed. The expressions worn by the Witches ranged from furious to professionally neutral.
The three rancors were huddled farther down the pass, licking their wounds. The biggest of them was also the