Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [53]
“Understood, sir.” Melvar saluted. “Do you want your office restored, or will you be wanting to redecorate?”
Zsinj looked at him, puzzled, then glanced around at the damage he’d wrought. He managed a bark of laughter. “I’ll redecorate. Thank you, General. Dismissed.”
On faraway Coruscant, in one of the tallest of the planet’s towers at the heart of the old Imperial governmental district—a district as large, geographically, as mighty nations on other planets—Mon Mothma rose from the chair before her makeup table.
Not that the Chief Councilor of the New Republic’s Inner Council was overly fond of makeup. She made no effort to hide the gray creeping inexorably through her brown hair. She went to no particular lengths to hide her age—she’d earned every one of those years and would not insult others of her generation by suggesting that there was some shame in the accumulation of time.
Still, she needed a little matte to make sure that her face was not too shiny when the holocams caught her under bright lights, and these days she was a little too pallid to suit herself—a bit of color, even artificial color, suggested that she possessed more vigor and health than she actually felt.
She gave herself one last look in the mirror, adjusted the hem of her white gown, and marched with simulated energy to the door of her quarters.
They opened to admit her into the hall, and there waiting, as she knew they would be, were two members of her retinue.
The smaller was Malan Tugrina, a man of Alderaan—a man who’d lost his world long before Alderaan was destroyed, as he’d attached himself to Mon Mothma’s retinue in the earliest days of her work with the Rebellion. He was of average height, with features that would have been vaguely homely if not covered by a natty black beard and mustache, and the only thing striking about him were his eyes, which suggested intelligence and deep-buried loss. There was little striking about his abilities, too, except for his unwavering loyalty to Mon Mothma and the New Republic, and his skill at memory retention—everything said to him, everything that passed before his eyes, was burned into his memory as though he had a computer between his ears. He handled many of her secretarial duties with both the efficiency and the pedantic manner of a 3PO unit. “Good morning,” he said. “In half an hour, you have—”
“Wait,” she said. “I haven’t had any caf this morning. Can you expect me to face the horrors of my schedule when I’m not fully awake?” She swept toward the nearest turbolift. “Good morning, Tolokai.”
The other individual said, “Good morning, Councilor,” in his usual monotone. He was a Gotal, a humanoid whose roundish face was adorned with a heavy beard, a broad, flattened nose, and, most dramatically, two conelike horns rising from his head. The horns, Mon Mothma well knew, were sensory apparatus that made Gotals some of the most capable hunters and reconnaissance experts in the galaxy—not to mention bodyguards. With Tolokai beside her, she knew she’d always have warning of an impending attack, no matter how well prepared. It gave her an edge she needed in these dangerous times.
Mon Mothma summoned the turbolift as her companions stepped into place behind her.
Tolokai said, “If I may, Councilor, there was something I wished to show you.”
“It’s nothing I have to remember for too long, is it?”
“No, not too long. I do this in the name of all Gotals everywhere.” From beneath his tunic, he brought out a long, curved vibroblade and drew it back.
The world seemed to shift into a sort of slow motion, like a holocomedy slowed so everyone could see each twitch, each gesture. The vibroblade darted forward. There was a roar of noise, a voice, from beside Tolokai. Then Malan, arm outstretched,