Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [49]
Harmonies slowed overhead and muted brasses took up a melody. Maybe Bakura had a better chance of repelling the invasion with Rebel reinforcements. Idly, in this unguarded moment, she recalled the way she’d been drawn to the Jedi Skywalker before she learned what he was. If she’d been ten years younger, she reflected as she rolled over in the repulsor field, she’d have probably wished he were something else, and that he might stay for a while … or that she could go back in time and unlearn what she knew.
But the Cosmic Wheel rolled only forward, building tension and then balancing, building and balancing.
A bell rang. Gaeriel sat up as her door slowly slid aside. Aunt Tiree stepped through, looking elegant in a blue executive tunic and gold torc necklace. “Feeling better, Gaeriel? Headache gone?”
She felt obligated to tell the truth. “Yes, thanks.”
“Good. We have invited guests for a late dinner tonight. This is very important. Please dress nicely.”
“Who’s coming?” Gaeriel turned down the sound system. This wasn’t like Aunt Tiree. Generally, she used the intercom or sent a servant.
Tiree stood as still as a mannequin. Like Uncle Yeorg, she’d served Bakura for thirty standard years. Her poise had become a trademark. “The Rebel Alliance delegation and Governor Nereus need a chance to speak on neutral ground. It’s our duty to provide the opportunity.”
“Oh.” Blast. Rebels and Nereus? For the second time in two minutes, Gaeri wished she were ten years younger. She could’ve begged off.
“We’re counting on you to help us keep them from arguing, dear.”
So she’d delivered the news herself to make sure Gaeri understood its importance. Bakura needed Rebel help to repel the Ssi-ruuk, but snubbing Governor Nereus might bring on fresh purges. “I understand.” She swung her bare feet over the bedside. How long since she’d walked barefoot in Statuary Park? “I’ll be there. Dressed.”
To her surprise, Aunt Tiree sat down on the repulsor field beside her. “We are concerned about Nereus’s attention to you, too,” she said in a quiet, confidential tone. “He hasn’t done much yet—not that you’ve told us, anyway—but this is the time to choke it off.”
“I agree,” Gaeri said, relieved to hear Aunt Tiree talk this way.
“I’m seating you with Princess Leia Organa, unless something disrupts my seating plan.”
In other words, unless Uncle Yeorg had other ideas. “Maybe you could invite Senator Belden.” One more friendly face, and one more comfortable voice, would make her job much easier.
“Good idea, dear. I’ll see if he’s free. You start dressing.” Tiree patted her shoulder and hurried out.
Gaeri yawned and lay back down on the bed, but only for a moment. Bakura needed her. She was society’s child, bound down with duties to the Empire and Bakura and the Captison family.
But not in that order, and she wouldn’t want to live any other way. It was time to go back to work.
“They’re here, Luke.”
“I’m hurrying!” Luke stuck his head under the water flow and scrubbed hard. Helping adjust engine brackets, he’d caught the edge of a lubricant shower. Would this day never end?
He told himself to stop whining like Threepio—but he had counted on a long, slow soak in an old-fashioned planetside tub. After growing up on desert Tatooine, he would never take rain for granted—or enough bath water to submerge in. Unfortunately Leia had met him at the door with news of their dinner engagement.
“I’ll stall them,” Leia clipped over the comlink.
Luke hustled to dress in his whites, then joined Han and Leia in the central room—Leia resplendent in a long red gown that left one shoulder bare, and Han dressed in an elegant, satiny black uniform with military-style silver trim. Luke wondered where, and on what pre-Alliance adventure, he’d found that outfit.
Then Leia brought her right hand out from behind her back. A massive bracelet made of long curling tendrils hung from her wrist, grooved and swirled