Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order 04_ Agents of Chaos 01_ Hero's Trial - James Luceno [20]
Leia paused, recalling something. “It didn’t occur to me until later on that I’d heard him express the same doubts once before—just after you and Jacen and Anakin had been kidnapped by Hethrir. Do you remember how protective he became?”
Jaina shook her head. “Not really.”
“Well, you were pretty young. But trust me, your dad wouldn’t let any of you kids out of his sight for months.” Leia glanced at Jaina. “He’d like to have everyone believe he’s a hardened skeptic, but the fact is, he runs on faith.”
“Then why is he keeping such a distance from everyone?”
“Because giving in to his pain would require him to break down and really grieve, instead of shutting himself off from the world. And he’s too slick for that.”
“Is that how he got that nickname?”
Leia shook her head. “That’s another story.”
Jaina tortured her lower lip with her teeth. “Mom, he will come home, won’t he? I mean, we’re all he has right now, right?”
“Of course,” Leia started to say, when C-3PO interjected, “I only hope it’s enough.”
Mif Kumas, Calibop sergeant at arms of the New Republic Senate for two terms running, spread his wings as he rose from his commodious seat on the dais of Coruscant’s Grand Convocation Chamber.
“Senators, I would caution you to refrain from disrupting these proceedings with vocal displays or outbursts, warranted or otherwise.” Kumas waited until everyone had fallen silent, then inclined his maned head toward the speaker’s rostrum that stood opposite the dais on the polished stone floor of the great hall. “Director bel-dar-Nolek of the Obroan Institute has been recognized, and he deserves to be heard out.”
Nodding curtly to Kumas in appreciation, bel-dar-Nolek resumed his tirade. “Furthermore, it is the Institute’s contention that the New Republic has failed to honor its obligation to provide defense where needed.”
A human of considerable girth, he affected custom-tailored suits and a walking cane hand-carved from greel wood. His jowls quivered as he spoke, and he frequently punctuated his remarks by stabbing the air with a chubby forefinger.
“It was clear to the members of this body that Obroa-skai was imperiled, but nothing was done to safeguard us from attack. The Yuuzhan Vong descended on us like velkers, picking our cities clean.” He paused to clear his throat. “I was tending to business on Coruscant at the time, but I have seen the holo reports.”
Hushed utterings, few of them flattering, spread through the hall, prompting Kumas to repeat his appeal for some measure of decorum. Gratified by the commotion his remarks had elicited, bel-dar-Nolek folded his stout arms and rested them on his ample abdomen.
Tiers of randomly positioned galleries, boxes, and balconies loomed on all sides, rising clear to the domed ceiling, with page, protocol, and interpreter droids moving along the ramps, bridges, and stairways that linked them. While placement was not an indication of rank, many of the senators seated in the upper levels represented worlds only recently admitted to the New Republic and were frequently regarded by the lower-tier delegates as audience members rather than participants. As an appeasement to them, there was talk of equipping some of the loftiest galleries with detachable hover platforms, such as had been used in the waning days of the Old Republic, but no one gave the rumors much credence.
From one of those galleries came the voice of Thuv Shinev, spokesperson for 175 inhabited planets in the outer reaches of the Tion Hegemony. Simultaneously, a life-size hologram of the human senator resolved from a projector well on the chamber floor between the speaker’s rostrum and the advisory council’s dais, with its tight arc of