Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 05_ Allies - Christie Golden [63]
“Are you watching this?” Daala’s voice trembled with outrage.
“Ma’am, your connections with the Empire have been cast in a negative light before,” he said calmly. “It is distressing and inaccurate, but most beings with half a brain can see right through Tyrr.”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s everywhere, and there’s no one actually simply reporting on the issue. There’s no one just covering it without feeling compelled to hurl images of Vader and Palpatine and Caedus in along with invectives. This can’t be permitted to continue.”
Something akin to alarm fluttered inside Dorvan’s chest. He sat forward in his chair and spoke to her in his blandest, most calming voice—the one he had learned she listened to the most. “Ma’am, it’s a free press. Please trust me on this one, it’s self-regulating. You don’t want to get involved the way the Moffs did.”
“Maybe we should. Maybe we should find our own reporter, set him or her up with an inside connection.” She was coldly angry now, and looking to go on the offensive.
Dorvan could not let that happen. He’d warned her about being perceived as another Palpatine. He’d not been able to dissuade her from the siege. As far as he was concerned, the Mandalorians were bad news. He’d not wanted her to use them at all, but she had ignored his advice multiple times. It was difficult for him not to say, “Well, ma’am, if you hadn’t laid siege to the Temple, then the reporters wouldn’t be able to use that against you.” That would not help. She had done it, the siege was continuing.
But the minute Daala stooped to the same tactics as her enemies in this situation, or began gagging a free press, there would be even more, and possibly worse and more far-reaching, trouble for the Galactic Alliance. Trouble that could only be temporarily eased by going down the path even farther to try to fix the problems. It was a vicious cycle, and Daala could not be permitted to get caught up in it.
He could not permit her to get caught up in it. He sat very still for a moment, thinking.
“You still there, Dorvan?”
“Oh, yes ma’am, quite. I don’t think that escalating this into a journalistic war is a good idea. But I think I have a way to muzzle our tawny-haired newshound.”
“Really? What?”
“It’s best if you don’t know the details, ma’am. But I can assure you that it will be legal and not implicate you or the GA in any fashion.”
Her voice was warm. “I knew I could count on you, Wynn. You always come through.”
“That’s my job, ma’am.”
He clicked off the comm and leaned back in the chair, eyes on the screen. He’d misled Daala slightly. He hadn’t told her the details not because it was best that she didn’t know them, although that was most certainly true, but rather because he hadn’t figured them out himself yet. Tyrr was still nattering on about “siege of the Temple” and “trapped inside” and so on. Where was his concern for the Jedi when he aired the footage …
That was it. That was the key. But how to …
He watched the footage very carefully. Tyrr himself was in the shot now. The lighting was excellent, and Tyrr almost—almost—was convincing in his faux concern.
Oh yes. That was it.
He pressed his comm button. “Desha?”
“Yes sir?” Desha Lor’s voice was eager and alert, as, Dorvan mused, was the young Twi’lek herself.
“I need you to do a little digging for me.” He outlined what she needed to find out, but not why, because she hardly ever needed to know why and thus he hardly ever told her, and she dutifully took notes and assured him, in typical cheery Desha fashion, that he’d get it as soon as possible, if not sooner.
He fished Pocket out of her favorite napping spot and