Star Wars the Truce at Bakura - Kathy Tyers [72]
“I don’t think I should.”
He overlaid his voice with a calming veneer of Force overtones. “I wish you would trust me.”
She slid her hand back into the string bag. “I suppose my reaction to Jedi is like yours to stormtroopers.”
“I’m learning to suppress mine.”
“So am I. Eppie was still sleeping when I went back.” She glanced away, then mumbled, “Thank you. Now … my aide and I intercepted a transmission from the Ssi-ruuk. Governor Nereus asked for one day to arrange things.”
“One day.” Luke nodded. “Thank you.”
Shift. “Is there anything your alien requires? What did you say he was, a Wook?”
“Wookiee. Nothing special, just twice as much food as the rest of us.”
“I understand.” She worked the generator again. “They wouldn’t come after you the way they’d grab one of us plain folks, you know. Neither will Governor Nereus. Watch your back. Watch your guards. Watch what you eat and drink and breathe.”
“What do the Ssi-ruuk want me for?”
She shrugged.
“I’ll be careful,” he said quietly. Nereus would probably try to play all angles, convincing the Ssi-ruuk he meant to cooperate.
Maybe he did.
“Have you eaten this evening?” Gaeriel asked. “I can have a light dinner sent to my suite and then diverted here.”
Touched, Luke brushed at a grease stain on his coverall, then hid it under one hand. “Would you?”
Once she’d called over the comm center for something he couldn’t remember, let alone pronounce, awkward silence fell. Luke held his peace, wondering what she would say if he waited. At last she stopped pacing around the room, looking out the long window into the greenwell, and up at the ceiling. She glanced over at him. “Are you listening to me think?” she asked boldly.
Her string bag lay on the repulsor lounge. “I can’t do that,” he said carefully. “Some of your feelings come through the Force, but that’s all.” Not really all.
“That’s still not fair. I can’t tell what you’re feeling.”
Luke slid out the gray box and found the control. “Would you like to know what I’m feeling?”
“Yes.”
He drew a deep breath. Honesty was one thing, stupidity another. He wished he had Leia’s gift for turning a phrase. “I already know you on a deeper level than anyone else does. Of course, that makes it worse, because all you know about me is what you think you believe.” Had he said that right? He plowed on. “Your feelings are strong for me. Strongly ambivalent.”
She walked toward the lounger. “It’s not that I’m afraid of you, Commander—”
“Luke,” he insisted.
“I have a religious objection to what you are. What you’ve become. You weren’t born a Jedi. And you’d better turn that back off for a few seconds, or we’ll both be in trouble.” Then he caught it: through the Force, a swirl of intense attraction that had not come from him. Five years ago, he might have seized her hand and sworn away everything—the Fleet, the Alliance, and the Force.
But those five years had molded his destiny. Perhaps he could change her mind.
He caught himself. What right did he have to chip at her beliefs? She drew on the Force like anyone else, though she couldn’t accept it.
Quickly, he switched the field off. “How long have you been a senator?” he asked. Surely that could be considered casual conversation.
“The senate elected me five years ago. I’ve been in school ever since, either here or at Imperial Center. And don’t be too impressed with the position.” She tapped her thumbs together. “It mostly involves finding creative ways to drain tax credit out of Bakurans. Now we’ve got an influx of Imperial data flow and culture to support, too. Some of it’s very good,” she added, “but some of it only appeals to a few people who think like Governor Nereus.”
In every subjugated culture, there’d be a few people who welcomed the Empire because they were already Imperials at heart. “I don’t think you’re one of them.”
She glanced at the generator. Perhaps the conversation was getting too personal for comfort. “Does it always rain this much?” he asked. “I was raised on a desert world.”
After a few more noncommittal comments on the weather, he turned the generator