Star Wars_ The Jedi Academy Trilogy 01_ Jedi Search - Kevin J. Anderson [30]
“Princess Leia,” Furgan said, “you needed to discuss certain planning details with me? Please be brief.” He crossed his arms over his broad chest in clearly hostile body language.
Leia tried not to let her exasperation show. “As a matter of protocol I would prefer if you could address me as minister rather than princess. The planet on which I was a princess no longer exists.” Leia worked hard to keep the scowl off her face.
Furgan waved her comment aside as if it were of no consequence. “Very well then, Minister, what did you wish to discuss?”
Leia took a deep breath, quelling the hot temper rising behind her cool expression. “I wanted to inform you that Mon Mothma and the other Cabinet members of the New Republic will be hosting a formal reception in your honor when you reach Coruscant.”
Furgan bristled. “A frivolous reception? Am I supposed to give a warm and glowing speech? Make no mistake, I am coming to Coruscant on a pilgrimage to visit the home of the late Emperor Palpatine—not to be pampered by an upstart, illegitimate band of terrorists. Our loyalty remains with the Empire.”
“Ambassador Furgan, there is no centralized Empire.” It took all her effort not to rise to the bait. Her dark eyes burned with obsidian fires, but she smiled instead at the ambassador. “Nevertheless, we will extend to you every courtesy in the confidence that your planet will find a way to adapt to political reality in the galaxy.”
The Caridan’s holographic image shimmered. “Political realities change,” he said. “It remains to be seen just how long your rebellion will last.”
Furgan’s image fizzled into static as he cut the transmission. Leia sighed and rubbed her temples, trying to massage away the headache lurking behind her eyes. She left the communications chamber discouraged.
What a way to end the day.
Deep underground in the Imperial Information Center, all hours looked the same, but See-Threepio’s internal chronometer told him it was the middle of Coruscant’s night. A pair of repair droids worked at dismantling one of the great air-exchange systems that had burned out. The repair droids dropped tools and discarded pieces of metal shielding with reckless abandon, making the echoing chamber sound like a war zone. Threepio much preferred the humming loneliness of the previous day.
Buried in their own universe of data networks, the hunched slicer droids worked undisturbed. Artoo-Detoo slavishly continued his days-long search without pause.
With a loud clatter the repair droids dropped an entire three-bladed fan assembly. “I’m going to give those droids a piece of my mind!” Threepio said.
Before Threepio could march off, Artoo jacked out of the data port and began chittering and whistling. In his excitement the little astromech droid rocked back and forth, bleeping.
“Oh!” Threepio said. “You’d better let me check that, Artoo. It’s probably another one of your false alarms.”
When data scrolled up on the screen, Threepio could see nothing that would have captured Artoo’s interest—until the other droid recompiled the information to emphasize his point. A name popped up beside every entry—TYMMO.
“Oh, my! It does appear suspicious when you look at it that way. This Tymmo person seems a likely candidate indeed.” Threepio straightened, suddenly at a loss. “But Master Luke isn’t here, and he gave us no further instructions. Whom can we tell?”
Artoo bleeped, then whistled a question. Threepio turned to him with offended dignity. “I will not wake Mistress Leia in the middle of the night! I am a protocol droid, and there is a proper way to go about these things.” He nodded in affirmation of his decision. “We will inform her first thing in the morning.”
The levitating breakfast tray brought itself to Leia’s table on the park balcony