Star Wars_ Fate of the Jedi 07_ Conviction - Aaron Allston [33]
Lecersen brushed past her. The door opened and he went through, emerging into a small private cantina, heavy with plants in the sort of long, thin boxes that were normally placed just outside viewports. The lights overhead were bright, the wood lining the walls dark. Lecersen’s escorts did not enter with him, and the door slid shut. Lecersen removed his helmet, glad to have moving air on his face again.
The others were already waiting for him.
Senator Haydnat Treen of Kuat, her years not diminishing her alert eyes or perfect posture, wore a uniform matching that of the datapad sentry outside. On the card table beside her rested the antiquated helmet of a Naboo pilot. Her gray hair, though immaculately styled, bore the unmistakable signs of having been mashed by the helmet and then teased back into a semblance of its correct shape.
General Merratt Jaxton, Chief of GA Starfighter Command, burly and surly, sat on a stool at the bar. His costume was a mismatch of components: A jumpsuit, once probably orange, that had been imperfectly dyed into something that was now the murky green of a lizard’s innards and subsequently patched. His boots, knee-high, had glaringly obvious sheaths for hold-out blasters and vibroblades clipped inside the upper cuffs. His nerf-hide flak jacket was stenciled on the back with kill markings—ridiculous ones: silhouettes of a city construction droid, a sarlacc, two communications satellites, a refueling station, and an Ewok. His helmet and face mask were of identical leather and lay on the bar to his right.
Senator Fost Bramsin, tall, ancient, and cadaverous, occupied a stuffed chair of black leather beneath the drooping fronds of a tropical fern. He was dressed as if for a day’s activities at the Senate, in a dark, expensive, and immaculate suit, but draped over the back of the chair was the red robe of an Imperial throne room guard, the matching helmet resting on the floor by his feet. Over his steaming cup of caf, he gave Lecersen a cordial little nod.
And then there was the newest member of their conspiracy. Lecersen saw what she was wearing and stopped where he was. “That, my dear, is a genuinely sick joke.”
Admiral Sallinor Parova smiled, taking the remark as a compliment—though Lecersen had not meant it as such. A dark-skinned human woman of over-average height, her short hair tightly curled, she sat opposite Treen in a costume that was at once childlike in its crudity and very sophisticated in the offense it offered.
It started with a white admiral’s uniform, decades out of date, but the uniform itself was of the sort one might buy for a child at a novelty costumer’s—it was made in a single piece, like a loose-fitting jumpsuit, of slick woven flimsiplast, the uniform details printed on its surface in color rather than being actual components such as trousers, jacket, and buttons.
On the felt tabletop before her lay the costume’s other components, a simple, inexpensive mask of a Bothan head and matching gloves.
She held up a hand. “Wait, you have to get the full effect.” Her voice was surprisingly low and rich; it seemingly belonged to a much larger woman, one who might perform opera.
Senator Treen shook her head sorrowfully and, theatrical in her movements, buried her face in her hands. Obviously she had seen this before.
In moments Parova donned the mask and the gloves. Lecersen could see that the right glove was larger than the other.
Parova turned to face Lecersen, then flung up her hands as if trying to take command of a meeting. Her right glove slipped off and went flying; Jaxton fielded it. Parova had already withdrawn her hand into her sleeve, so the effect was as if her