Star Wars_ X-Wing 07_ Solo Command - Aaron Allston [54]
Malan, the vibroblade buried to its hilt in his chest, his face turning ashen, wrapped his arms around Tolokai’s and turned to Mon Mothma. He spoke slow words she couldn’t grasp. Tolokai yanked in slow-motion frenzy at the weapon he’d driven into his friend’s chest.
Mon Mothma turned and found herself able to move at a normal rate. Her hearing returned to normal. Malan screamed, “Run, run!” Tolokai’s words made less sense: “Stay, and accept the death you know you deserve!”
She reached the door to the nearest stairwell. She heard a thump and a gasp from behind; she hazarded a look and saw Malan sliding across the floor, Tolokai advancing menacingly toward her. She ran down the stairs as fast as she could.
Not fast enough. As she reached the first landing she felt something yank the back of her hair, and suddenly she was flying down the next flight of stairs—
Flying halfway down. She hit the stairs, pain cracking through her rib cage and chest, and rolled to a stop at the bottom of that flight.
Her wind gone, her energy gone, she could only stare up the steps to where Tolokai stood. His expression was as reasonable, as emotionless as ever—as it was with every Gotal. She tried to ask him why, but could only mouth the word; she had no breath with which to expel it.
But he understood. A Gotal would. “For my people,” he said. “To rid the universe of the scourge you call humankind. I’m sorry.” He descended the steps with meticulous care.
When he was halfway down, Malan, his tunic drenched with blood, came toppling over the rail from the first flight of steps and fell full upon Tolokai. Then the two males were falling and rolling, to the accompanying sound of cracking bones.
Mon Mothma tried to get clear, succeeded in rolling partway aside, and the two men landed across her legs, pinning her in place.
The men lay still, their eyes closed. Tolokai’s head was bent at an angle that was not survivable. Malan had frothy blood on his lips. Mon Mothma looked at them, trying to grasp what had gone so wrong in Tolokai’s mind … trying to understand how Malan had managed to surprise him with his attack. It shouldn’t have been possible.
Then Malan’s eyes opened. “Iwo,” he said. “Iwo, Iwo …” His words were mere whispers, barely audible.
Mon Mothma leaned closer to hear him.
“Iwo, I won’t be getting you that caf.” His eyes closed and his head fell back. But his chest still rose and fell, though there was a rattle in his breathing.
And once again, Mon Mothma had work to do. She brought out her personal comlink and thumbed it on. “Emergency,” she said. “Councilors’ Floors, Stairwell One. Emergency.”
Liquid rolled down her face. She wiped at it with her free hand and looked at it, expecting to see more of Malan’s blood, but her own tears glistened in her palm.
Galey was a massive man, all chest and muscle, with legs that were short enough to keep his height in the average range, though no one dared tell him he wasn’t proportioned like a holodrama idol. His hair was red and shaggy and his expression perpetually quizzical, as though he didn’t ever quite understand what was going on around him.
Which wasn’t the case. He understood his job well enough—programming menus for the cafeteria and officers’ dinners on Mon Remonda, making sure there was hot, fresh caf available at all the conferences and meetings and briefings, making special arrangements for dinners for important visitors.
This was an important job. He knew it to be at least as significant as any piloting position. A military force ran on its stomach, after all.
But the job didn’t pay well, and offered little respect, and so he was very attentive on his last leave on Coruscant when the men with intelligent eyes came to him and offered him a lot of money.
And now he was supposed to kill somebody. Somebody important. It would take precise timing and careful