• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Taratan, of the Kubaz, nested at Morning Bell—”

“I am Brakka Barakas, dothmir of New Brigia—”

“Bek nar walae Ithak e Gotoma—”

“Fogg Alait, assigned to Polneye—”

“I am called Noloth by my brothers of the L’at H’kig—”

“My home was Kojash. I am known as Jara ba Nylra—”

“My stars,” said Han, turning slowly, hands raised as though to fend them off. “Are there survivors here from all the colony worlds?”

“All our homes were attacked by the silver spheres,” said the woman who had spoken first. “Are we the only survivors?”

“How much longer will we be here?” asked Noloth.

“Do you think we can go home soon?” asked a slender alien who had not spoken before.

Han swept his gaze across their faces. “I don’t know,” he said uncomfortably. “I’m just like you are—I don’t know what’s going on out there.”

The days immediately following the presentation to the Senate of a petition of recall against President Leia Organa Solo were full of the kind of moments that made Hiram Drayson despair of leaving the government in the hands of civilians.

Moving quickly in the wake of the Ruling Council’s vote, both Fleet Intelligence and New Republic Intelligence had intervened to prevent the news of Han’s capture by the Yevetha from being released with the petition. Stripped of its supporting argument by the blue and silver SECURE seals, the petition ought—by all rights—to have foundered on arrival.

But a Ruling Council had never passed such a judgment against a Senate President before, and novelty alone gave the petition an undeserved gravity. And the threat of prosecution for security violations could do nothing to rein in the rumors and leaks that blossomed to fill the information vacuum.

Within twelve hours, Drayson’s information filters had picked up an uncensored copy of Beruss’s original complaint, an anonymous interview with one of Tampion’s escort pilots, and even a holo that purported to show Jedi “commandos” in training for an imminent rescue mission. When Coruscant Prime led its morning packet with a feature titled “Where Is Han Solo?” and the New Republic Newsgrid answered with “Princess Leia’s Personal War,” Drayson knew that the battle had been lost.

“You may as well release everything you have concerning Han,” Drayson told Ackbar. “At this point, the official silence, the denials, look like admissions that there is something to hide. Leia should be getting a flood of sympathy over Han’s situation—but with Borsk Fey’lya leaking everything he can get his hands on, and Doman Beruss appointing himself the champion of the public’s right to ‘full disclosure,’ her stock is dropping almost by the hour.”

“I have urged her to that course,” said Ackbar. “But she is protecting the children—they still do not know what has happened to their father.”

“That can’t last much longer.”

“She is determined not to burden them with the truth,” said Ackbar, shaking his head. “Leia has told them that Han is on a secret mission for her, that they are not to believe anything they hear anywhere else. And Winter is keeping them away from anyone and anything that might contradict Leia’s version.”

“Children aren’t stupid,” said Drayson. “Particularly not those children. I expect that they already know quite a bit more than she realizes.”

“It would not surprise me,” said Ackbar. “But until events force her hand, Leia is determined to protect the children from the knowledge that their father is a prisoner of war. And I have personally promised to support that fiction.”

Disgruntled, Drayson retired to his private office with the ever-growing catalog of message packets, grid dispatches, comlink captures, and electronic graffiti assembled for him by the Maxwell filters that were riding the planet’s busy communication channels. Later that afternoon, reports began to come in from his contacts in the palace complex and Fleet headquarters.

By that time, Drayson had already made a decision about what was needed to change the tone and tenor of the public and political consciousness. His hastily jotted notes to himself