Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [105]
Now Eramuth did wince. “My dear.”
“I am so sorry. So sorry to have been your only loss in this courtroom.” She gave Eramuth an apologetic shrug, then turned and offered her hands to the bailiff, an implicit surrender.
At least in her cell she’d be away from the voices and the recorders and the hostile eyes of those who thought her name was “murderer.”
KOVAL STATION, ABOVE NAM CHORIOS
“Kandra Nilitz, Coruscant. Beurth Ogh, Gamorr. Hal Cyon, Corellia. Jes Cyon, Corellia.” The processing agent looked as disinterested as if a collection of three humans and a Gamorrean walked into his queue every day. Perhaps they did. He shoved their identicards back across his desktop toward them. “Welcome to Nam Chorios. The next queue is orientation. You can skip it if you’re on record as having been here in the last ten years, otherwise go through it and pay attention, because we hate it when someone tries to leave Nam Chorios the wrong way and says ‘I didn’t know.’ Takes five minutes at most. Move along.”
Kandra snatched up the cards and did as she was told. Once they were past the processing agent’s booth, she handed the others’ cards back. “I can’t believe you two got past with fake IDs that unconvincing. Can’t the Jedi Order issue you better identities?”
Valin slipped his card into his belt pouch. He had shed the traveler’s robe and cloak. Now more casually dressed, he looked like the sort of short-distance vacationer who stepped by the millions off shuttles every day all over the galaxy. He shrugged. “These aren’t Jedi-issue. Jysella and I got them on the pedways of Coruscant for some credcoins.”
“Why?”
“I’m sure you can think of a reason why two Jedi might do that.”
“… To test security here?”
“… Sure.” Valin looked as though he might be on the verge of rolling his eyes, but he merely nodded before continuing. “And as you can see, security here is very lax. They don’t care about who comes to Nam Chorios or what they might bring. We’ll see if we can leave the planet as easily on these same IDs.”
Jysella, dressed similarly, caught his eye. “You will. I’m staying here in orbit. At least for now.”
Kandra turned her attention to Jysella. “Why?”
“While Valin gets in touch with our contacts planetside, I’ll be checking out the security of the Golan orbital gun platforms.”
“Ahh.” At least that wasn’t one of the siblings’ irritating I’m-sure-you-can-figure-out-why answers. Most of the time Valin and Jysella offered up only that unhelpful, parental answer, and in just about every case they agreed with the conclusion Kandra provided. She hadn’t realized she would be so good at guessing Jedi tactics and motivations.
They reached the back of the queue for orientation, but Jysella leaned close to her brother, exchanged a few whispered words with him, and then turned away, heading without further comment toward the station’s main visitors mall, where services, restaurants, and a few duty-free shops were to be found.
Kandra watched her go. “So if you’re not going to tell me exactly what you’re up to here, could you at least tell me where Beurth and I should be so that we can best get the story you promised us?”
Maddeningly, Valin did not answer at all; sometimes he didn’t. But Kandra saw that he was not ignoring her. Eyes narrowed, he was instead studying a group of travelers ahead of them in line.
Kandra didn’t turn her head but did look in that direction. There in line were four individuals, obviously part of a traveling party. The near-identical look of their clothes—dark green jumpsuits with styling and flap epaulets Kandra recognized from the Corporate Sector—said they belonged to the same crew. Three were men, one was a woman, all human, and they were aristocratic and attractive in a way that reminded Kandra of the people of the Hapes Consortium, though these four did not bear that strong a facial resemblance to Hapans.