Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [144]
Bandy Geffer, earnest and young, had no such credentials. He was still an apprentice, would be for some time, but Kyp was confident from his performance during the Mandalorian assault on the Jedi Temple and from his role in the seizing of the Senate Building that he’d keep his cool in this volatile political environment.
The fourth Jedi, Raharra Lapti, dropped to the sand immediately behind Sothais. She’d been in the rear seat of his two-being trainer X-wing. She barely came up to Sothais’s pectorals, she was so young, and she wore Jedi robes rather than a pilot’s jumpsuit. Only the other three Jedi here knew that the lightsaber hanging from her belt was a training weapon, designed to shock rather than cut.
She was a young teenager, and she was Klatooinian, her skin more brown than green. Kyp knew she had been yanked from her fundamental training at the Jedi academy at Ossus and was years from being ready to be active in the field. But the political benefits of trotting a Klatooinian Jedi before a Klatooinian population had been too important to ignore.
She looked up at Sothais as if to make sure that it had been all right for her to jump down without waiting for permission. Sothais gave her a reassuring smile.
“Kyp! Master Durron.” That was Leia, hurrying toward the landing zone, an apologetic smile on her face. Han trotted along just behind her. “I’m sorry we weren’t here when you landed. I was delayed by, um, significant developments.”
As she reached him, Kyp stooped to kiss her hand, then smirked at Han. “What sort of significant developments?”
She retrieved her hand and fetched a datapad from her pouch. “It’s already been broadcast. I recorded.” She brought up a holocam recording with a Klatooinian male—Padnel Ovin, whom Kyp recognized from his last briefing—at the center of the image.
Leia advanced the recording past what had to be introductory remarks, then let it play at normal speed. Padnel’s voice was somber, half mellow and half growl. “… can admire and respect our predecessors without adhering to the notion that they are perfect. All sapient beings are imperfect; we can only strive for improvement, for ourselves and our fellows. In that spirit, and while bearing all love and respect for my brother Grunel, longtime leader of the Sapience Defense Front, I must still condemn his destruction of the frigate Fireborn—as a waste of more innocent lives than guilty, as a step backward in our search for legitimacy. The freedom into which I wish to lead my people means more than the right to govern our borders and guide the lives of our young; it means freedom from the terror that can be visited upon us, or that we can visit upon others, in times of anger and despair. Let us not—”
Leia muted the speech.
Kyp snorted, amused. “Long-winded for a warrior.”
“True.” Leia snapped the datapad shut and replaced it in her pouch. “The price we pay for living up to a civilized standard. But what it means is that instead of trotting the four of you in front of the negotiators as an additional lure, saying Here’s what you get if you fall in line, we can show you off as the Jedi assigned to Klatooine. I can announce your posting here, and the transmission of the planetary membership application, all tonight.”
Kyp noted the position of the sun, not far above the horizon. “Which isn’t too far off. Does it get cooler?”
“It does. Come on back to the Falcon in the meantime and we’ll cool you off even sooner. And you can introduce us to your young Jedi here.”
Elsewhere in camp, Allana led her retinue, the droids once again with her, in another round of exploration.
This wasn’t like the other times, though. For one thing, the camp was very noisy, arguments and discussions going on everywhere, the people of the encampment showing the kind of energy they normally demonstrated only after the sun went down and the breezes became cooler. Allana knew it