Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [36]
The robed boy reappeared. “To allay your fears, let me show you a bit of the entechment procedure. Then when the time comes, you may greet your destiny with joy.” A smaller image appeared beside him. A man sat on a chair, anchored to it with clear binders, head lolling. Luke squinted. Were those tubes stuck into his throat? A smaller holographic image-within-an-image of the robed boy lowered a glowing white metal arc around the man. The small image froze.
“It is joy,” said the larger image. “It is peace. It is freedom. It is our gift to you.” He stretched out a pale palm.
Those had been humans they’d been fighting. Luke clenched his hands. The Ssi-ruuk weren’t simple slavers, but robbers of souls.…
Senator Gaeriel Captison shuddered and pulled her warm blue shawl up on her shoulders. “Who does he think he’s fooling?” she whispered.
“They got him young,” answered the senator on her right. “Look at him. He acts just like a Flutie. He must even think like one.”
Gaeri stopped watching. She’d seen this recording ten times, starting the afternoon it abruptly overrode all tri-D screens, vid monitors, and entertainment channels on the planet. The senate had studied and dissected it for nuances of meaning … of hope. The only possible conclusion had been to drive away these aliens or face a terrible fate.
So were the Rebels here to help, as they claimed? If they’d come hoping to steal repulsorlift coils, they’d fallen into the Ssi-ruuvi trap along with Bakura. They would have to help Bakura, now, simply to escape.
Gaeri eyed the delegates. Senator Princess Leia Organa, her own age, was known throughout the Empire as one of the Rebellion’s chief perpetrators. She might be a deluded soul fighting for a lost cause, like Eppie Belden when she’d had her youth and her mind, but she had risen to leadership. Gaeri hoped to compare notes.
Princess Leia’s dark-haired escort was no idealist, though. He watched everything and everyone, especially their escape route. According to the data files Governor Nereus had hastily sent Uncle Yeorg, this one—Solo—was a smuggler with a questionable past, a criminal record, and several blood prices.
But the fair-haired one hadn’t been in any of those files. He had a deep calm about him that you could fall into. As the image of Dev Sibwarra warbled on about the joys of entechment, Escort number two leaned forward for a better view, although his upright posture did not appear to change.
Several trilling chirps drew Gaeri’s attention back to the hologram. Here it came: the glimpse of the enemy. A massive upright lizard with a black V on its face shuffled into the field and stared with a calculating black eye. “My master, Firwirrung, has always treated me with the utmost of kindness, my friends.”
The senator on Gaeri’s right muttered, “Bloody-handed Fluties.”
“Good-bye for now. I look forward to meeting each of you personally. Come to us soon.” The image blinked off.
Now that the Rebels knew what Ssi-ruuk did to prisoners, Princess Leia’s face matched her white dress. She touched the smuggler’s arm, and he bent to listen to her whisper. Abruptly Gaeri guessed he was her Rebel consort. The younger man slowly stared his way around the tables.
Time to speak up. “You see?” Gaeri called without standing. “This is a threat against which we have no experience and no defense.”
The young man nodded at her. He obviously understood their predicament.
“If I may be permitted to speak,” called the gold-plated droid across the chamber. “I found that spectacle utterly appalling. Mechanicals of all kinds will be shocked by this perverse display of—”
Catcalls from around the chamber drowned it out. As projectors sank back under floor panels, the Rebels stayed on their step below the governor’s chair. Princess Leia took another step downward. “Bakurans,” she cried, “whatever you think about droids, listen to me now. Let me tell my own story.”
Gaeri rested her chin on her hand. The Rebel princess extended one hand like a classical lecturer. “My father, Bail Organa, was viceroy