Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [109]
“Commend?” He scowled and glanced off to the side, where his Chev aide sat. She offered the slightest shake of her head.
Padnel still hesitated. Perhaps he was thinking the issue over; perhaps he was simply delaying so no one would think he had accepted his aide’s recommendation as his main guide. But eventually he shook his head. “I do not, did not, commend it.”
“Did you approve it?”
“No.”
“Did you know it was going to happen?”
He hesitated on that one, too. Leia suspected she knew why. Though Padnel was not a political sophisticate, he could figure out that an affirmative answer would kick him clean out of the running when it came to long-term interaction with the Alliance. But if he said no, it would speak to a lack of unity even within his own movement’s leadership. The answer would come based on these factors, not whether it was the truth.
Padnel decided on the future. “No.”
Leia smiled. “Well, here’s the poser, Master Ovin. The Alliance can and will condemn the slavery practices of the Hutts, and will do so to promote a more civilized galaxy. Can you condemn the final action of your brother, for the same reason?”
Before Padnel could answer, Reni spoke up. “It costs the Alliance nothing to offer such a condemnation. Nothing. We know this because they’ve offered words such as those many times in the past without doing anything to support them. But if Master Ovin offers such a condemnation, it will cost him. You’re putting a valueless chip on the sabacc table and asking him to match it with a thousand-credit chip.”
Leia kept her smile fixed. “Look, a movement against slavery has two significant components, one practical, one idealistic. The practical is that slaves struggle against their bonds. The idealistic is the notion that they have a right to. But we can’t abandon our other ideals to embrace just one. And the ideal you appear to be asking us to abandon is the idea that innocent sentient lives should not be taken. I watched billions of innocents die when my own world of Alderaan was destroyed, and maybe you think that makes me willing to sweep a much smaller loss like the Fireborn under the carpet in the interests of political expediency—but you’re wrong.”
Reni snorted. “Perhaps you think that if you hand us a box of vacuum and call it a cake, we’ll think it’s a cake. Of course Padnel would consider condemning his brother’s action and taking the loss of support that would result—at the point that you send in warships to help defend Klatooine against Hutt retaliation, and you suffer the loss of revenues that would result.”
Padnel’s jaw worked as though he intended to raise an objection to being volunteered in that fashion, but he kept his mouth closed.
“A planet has to achieve its own independence before it can ask for admission into the Alliance.” Leia shrugged as if that were obvious. “If you have a population that can’t muster enough popular support to give itself even a tenuous form of freedom, how can you expect the Alliance to support your aims?”
“Ah.” Reni leaned forward, suddenly very engaged in the subject. “But now the Jedi rule the Alliance—”
“The Jedi have one-third of the Chief of State’s power, no more.”
“—and have, in the past, been known to operate in the face of New Republic and Galactic Alliance disapproval. So let’s talk about the Jedi for a moment. Can you promise that the Jedi will support a freedom action, even if the Alliance itself does not?”
Leia sat back, her face impassive, as if she were considering something that had not occurred to her. Inwardly, though, she was jubilant. This set of negotiations might just work out after all, and even faster than she had anticipated.
She accepted the refill of her water glass from a Klatooinian servant, then finally nodded. “Let’s be more specific. If the recognized native government of one of your worlds formally declares independence and is able to seize control of its planetary capital,