Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [156]
Eramuth stayed standing for a moment longer, then took his seat. “I have the utmost faith in the decency of juries,” he said. “Rest assured, I will have this recording thoroughly analyzed.”
Tahiri had a feeling that it would just be a waste of time and credits. She remembered that day with painful clarity, and she suspected that, somehow, someone had caught every word of those awful moments.
The recording began in a banal manner, as fateful things so often do, with the simple sound of a hatch opening and closing again, and a slight rustling, as if someone had removed the recording device from an article of clothing.
And then again, the hatch opening.
A female voice. Tahiri’s.
“Sorry sir, but I had to speak to you.”
Several heads turned to look at her. She fought to keep her face neutral. But she recognized her own voice. This was no fake.
“There’s always knocking.”
The dead were speaking. The voice was recognizable to almost everyone in the room. It had belonged to Admiral Gilad Pallaeon.
Every part of Tahiri’s body suddenly sang with the surge of adrenaline. She was catapulted back in time to that moment, perhaps the single most pivotal of her life. All the sights and sounds and smells rushed back to her, all the certainty that she had to do what she was about to do. And juxtaposed along that vivid, almost cellular recollection, was the here and now. A courtroom. A judge who, if not exactly in Daala’s pocket, was most assuredly on her side politically. Sul Dekkon, doing his best to conceal a smirk. And Eramuth, poor, dandy Eramuth, who had pulled out all the stops for her and had come this close to winning what would likely be his final case.
“Sir, there are lives on the line. If you let the GA tear itself apart, everyone loses.” Her own voice again, cool, blunt, determined. Flat, Tahiri thought wildly. Lifeless in a way that Pallaeon’s voice most assuredly was not, although he had been ninety-two at the time of his death—
—murder—
—and would within a handful of moments never speak again. Had Jacen really sucked that much out of her? She barely recognized herself.
“I’m not letting it do anything, Lieutenant. I’m giving practical support to an ally.”
“If Colonel Solo is deposed, the GA will revert to its indecisive self and there’ll be chaos.”
Laughable, almost, to hear those words and look around at where she was now. There was nothing indecisive about the GA in the wake of Jacen Solo’s death. Whatever else Daala had done, whatever threat she was to the Jedi, Luke Skywalker, or Tahiri herself, she’d brought calmness and order back. Chaos. The only chaos roiling right now was in Tahiri’s heart and likely in the head of Eramuth Bwua’tu.
He was accomplished enough that he was able to keep a neutral expression, but his left ear twitched. Twice. Tahiri’s heart sank. What would come next would doom her, and she did not think even the galaxy’s most brilliant defense attorney would be able to save her once the jury had heard this with their own ears.
“I’m afraid I can’t agree with you, my dear, but then I don’t have to.” The voice of the dead, speaking calmly and confidently. “Loyalty is a fine thing, don’t think I don’t respect that—but Jacen Solo’s the chaos, not the cure.” She hadn’t realized it at the time, but Tahiri could now hear the amusement in his voice. She wondered how she had looked to him—probably painfully young and gullible and so completely and utterly in the wrong. “Is there anything else?”
“The Moffs will break it off if you tell them to. I witnessed the influence you wield. Moff Quille was ready to defy you, but you just put him back in his place. I can feel things in beings that even you can’t see.”
Quille. He had been in Jacen’s pocket, just like she had been, and shortly after the events of the recording