Star Wars_ The Black Fleet Crisis 03_ Tyrant's Test - Michael P. Kube-McDowell [71]
Then Nil Spaar moved in to block the view. “You have seen enough now to understand. If the New Republic does not withdraw from our borders—if the President, whoever that might be, does not swiftly acknowledge our just claim to these stars—the combined strength of the League and the Union stands ready. Your actions will determine the course of the future.”
The display dissolved to a scarlet curtain, with the Duskhan League emblem appearing again before the screen went black.
“Is that the end of it?” Leia asked.
“That’s it.”
She pressed a button on the controller and threw it down on the table. “Does anyone here think this is real?”
“I have Asset Tracking working on the recording,” said Graf. “Nylykerka should be able to tell us if we’ve seen those ships before, during the flash recon.”
“Will he be able to tell us when they got there and who controls them?” asked Rieekan. “Perhaps this pact is real, and was concluded months ago, in secret.”
“Why reveal it now?”
“Why not? Since we already know about the Imperial ships, he has nothing to lose by telling everyone else. And it’s obvious what he hopes to gain.”
“What do you mean, ‘telling everyone else’?” Leia demanded of Rieekan. “Did this go out to the entire system?”
Rieekan raised an eyebrow and looked down the table.
“Yes,” admitted the director of the communications agency. “It appeared in the system in a standard diplomatic packet, with the expected coding. There was no reason for the filters to trap it.”
“Interesting times are ahead,” Ackbar said to himself, shaking his head.
Leia looked disgusted. “Can we at least find out this time where it got into the system?”
“We’re working on it,” the other woman said defensively. “There are more than three hundred thousand authorized entry ports for a low-security channel like Eighty-one.”
“Black box on an enabled hypercomm,” said Rieekan. “That’s all it would take. It doesn’t even have to be on Coruscant.”
“Excuse me,” said Nanaod Engh. Only a few heads turned his way, and he cleared his throat and repeated himself. “Excuse me. This is unimportant. Mere details—trivialities. There is more to this than what happens in this room.”
Leia spun her chair sharply toward him. “Go on.”
“We are not the intended audience for the viceroy’s message,” he said, and gestured expansively with his hands. “They are. That bolt was aimed at the hearts of our citizens.”
“But it is a fraud,” Ackbar insisted. “There is no pact. There is no Moff Brathis, no Grand Union, no Imperial fleet. I am certain of it.”
“And you may well be right,” said Engh. “But that is irrelevant. It doesn’t matter if what we saw is the truth or a lie. It doesn’t matter what we here believe. General Rieekan, what kind of proof could you offer to refute that image—a black-shirt commander standing with Nil Spaar on an Imperial Star Destroyer?”
“Why, there are many ways to attack it. We have experts in—”
“No, General. You cannot refute that image with words.” He looked to Leia. “It does not matter what species they are; people trust what they see. Words alone will not make them believe they were fooled. Out there, they are turning to each other and saying, ‘Well, what do you think we ought to do about this?’ Not ‘Do you think it’s true?’ I don’t know what they will decide they feel. I only know that it is true, for them—the Yevetha have allied with the Empire.”
Engh rocked back in his chair. “I think the President’s image analysts should see this as soon as possible. And I hope you will finally make time to meet with them yourself, Leia. The days ahead will not be shaped by questions and answers, the lore of experts, the reasoned judgment of earnest beings gathered around tables. Cherished belief, powerful emotion, and the image that plays in the mind in the moment before sleep comes—they will write the story of the days ahead.”
Tholatin was uninhabited save for the smugglers’ hideaway known as Esau