Fate of the Jedi: Backlash (30 page)

Han peered at his wife. “Did he say
scoundrel?”

“He did.”

“It’s gotta be
wildly popular scoundrel
or it’s no deal.”

“So recorded, so noted.” Daala looked between them. “So do we
have
a deal?”

“I don’t see how, in good conscience, we can refuse.” Leia leaned forward to extend a hand. “It’s a deal.”

Daala shook it, then shook Han’s. “General, you’ll need an aide.”

“I have one. See-Threepio.” It pained Han to say those words, but he’d rather keep any government-appointed military attaché out of his business.

“Ah, your protocol droid. Of course.” Daala glanced toward her assistant. “Dorvan has prepared a small briefing sheet that outlines what I’m willing to offer.”

Dorvan withdrew a single sheet of handwritten flimsi from his tunic pocket. “There are no identifying marks, of course. Should it fall into the media’s hands—”

“It
won’t,”
Leia said, plucking the sheet from his grip. “We’ve handled delicate negotiations before.”

“Good,” Daala said. “Let Dorvan know if you need any resources to aid your efforts. And please send me a daily update on your progress.”

The words sounded like a dismissal, so Han rose, as did Leia. Uncomfortably aware of his renewed responsibilities, Han threw Daala a sloppy salute, one suited to a wildly popular scoundrel, and turned for the door.

He and Leia did not speak until they reached the main exit and emerged into sunlight. “So … what the blazes?”

Leia shook her head. “She’s in trouble. She needs to make it look like she’s looking for a solution.”

“
Is
she?” Han asked.

“I guess we’ll know after we read this,” Leia said, flicking the flimsi Dorvan had given her. “Either way, though, we stay out of jail and she makes herself look a little less unreasonable.”

They angled toward the
Falcon
. It was shut up tight, but still had security troopers posted around it. “Is this something we can actually pull off?”

“Maybe. All I can say is, it’s better to be out here trying than in prison not trying.”

A
N HOUR LATER
, D
ORVAN REENTERED
D
AALA’S OFFICE
. A
T HER GESTURE
, he sat.

She took a moment to look up from her monitor and the formwork she was handling. “What?”

“The story about the Solos has hit the press and the news sources already have polls in the field to gauge the public reaction.”

“I’m … I’m shocked, Wynn.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “In preparation for this meeting, and for other events that would involve the press, I recently set up some checks and monitors of news sources and public feedback sources. One of those checks and balances involves minute examinations of daily and hourly planetary net archives.”

Daala fully turned away from her monitor to look at him. “That’s a nontrivial expense for your office. And I know I didn’t authorize it.”

“I didn’t go through my office. Or yours. I called in some favors.”

“And in an hour you’ve found out something?”

“Nothing substantial. But I have determined that press releases about you, when the news sources auto-disassemble and restructure them before having newswriters work on them for stories, are being filtered and massaged in a pretty consistent fashion. Consistent regardless of news service … or even the news service’s political orientations and alliances.”

“I actually have next to no understanding of what you just said.”

He sighed. “All right. We issue a press release. It goes out over the planetary net and is part of low-priority packets fired offworld on the HoloNet. Every news service gets it. A computer program breaks it down, does an interpretation of its official language, runs a check against keywords for relevant recent and historical events, and splits the results up so that a live copywriter can rewrite and reformat it into the story a newsreader will deliver during the regular broadcast news.”

“I love it when a man can translate gibberish into Basic. Well done.”

“In the case of the press release about the Solos volunteering to resolve issues between the Galactic Alliance government and the Jedi Order, the following changes and adaptations are being made to the story in every news source we’ve sampled.” He began counting on his fingers. “One. The Solos didn’t offer this service. Chief of State Daala asked for their help. Two, news sources hostile to you tend to use the word
hapless
to describe you at this point, while those ostensibly friendly to you use the word
embattled
.”

Daala frowned. “Consistently.”

“Consistently. Three, the phrase
former Chief of State
is removed from the description of Leia Solo, replaced by
Jedi Knight
. Four, Han Solo—”

“Did you actually use the phrase
wildly popular scoundrel
for him?”

“Of course. Part of the agreement. But it appears as a quote from the subminister for trade with Corellia. ‘Most people know Han Solo as a wildly popular scoundrel, but he’s actually a savvy, tough negotiator.’ As I was about to say, though, that paragraph gets dropped from the story, replaced by a summary of Solo’s exploits in combating evil political leaders such as Palpatine. Five, while we didn’t make any reference
to the Solos’ relationship with Jacen Solo, we knew we didn’t have to, that the press would add that detail. But they haven’t.”

“So. Solos anti-government, Solos Jedi, Solos good. Daala hapless, Daala evil, Daala bad.”

Dorvan nodded. “That’s it. You translate gibberish to Basic very well.”

“Then let me be sure my translation is correct. You’re saying that the forces that shape public opinion are biased against me.”

“Biased in a way they’re not biased against anyone else, at least as far as I’ve detected. Luke Skywalker gets praised or excoriated depending on the political outlook of the news source doing the reporting. So do specific planetary leaders, trade union leaders, major military figures. Not you. Daala bad. Oh, by the way, a former Imperial Navy lieutenant you had court-martialed is about to release a memoir.
Into the Maw: Black Holes, Egos, and Other Forces That Devour Lives
. Guess who it’s about.”

“What would it take to engineer this?”

“Well, it could be a natural reaction. All of these prejudicial changes are within limits experienced by other political and military leaders. Meaning that if it’s a conspiracy, they’re being careful not to exceed effects that other leaders have experienced. But it would take software modification at the three or four sources of news-parsing programs starting years ago. It would take analysis of public opinion and the forces driving it going back at least as long.”

“I’ve only been Chief of State for two years!”

“So, if this
is
a conspiracy, it was set up a long time ago for an eventual goal, not for the specific goal of hindering or ruining you in particular.”

“Wonderful. I just happen to be the person in the sights when the Death Star’s main weapon is first brought online.”

“Correct.” Dorvan lowered the hand he’d been counting on and raised the other one. “Want to hear my analysis of polls that have just been put out for the public to respond to?”

“No, I want you to fix this.”

He smiled. “Ah, good. I’ll need eight years and at least half a billion credits.”

Daala shook her head. She was beginning to feel numb. “If I had that kind of money—never mind. What can we do?”

“The more people you enlist to help, the more likely it is that your enemies, if there are actually conspirators arrayed against you, will learn that you’re on to them. I’d find one investigator who has all the skills you need, pay in large capital ships or small planets, and see if he or she can root out your enemies. In the meantime, make it harder and harder for them to cut your legs out from under you. Become a nicer and nicer figure in the public eye. Make the public like you.”

She thought about it, then shook her head. Her voice sounded miserable, even to herself. “I can’t do that. I can’t be Wynssa Starflare.”

“Who?”

“Before your time, child. A holodrama actress. Beautiful, perky, blond, shiny. I have to stick by my laser batteries and keep firing.”

“All right.”

“You want out?”

His smile showed teeth for a moment. “You may think I’m soft, but I stick to my laser batteries, too.”

“I don’t think you’re soft. Just irredeemably civilian.” She brushed her hair back from her face. “All right. Call in more favors, do what you can. I’ll see what kind of revenue stream I can come up with for a top-notch investigator. And in the meantime, if the public is determined to think of me as a monster, I might have to give them a monster to remember.”

Dorvan rose. “Eat your vegetables, children, or Admiral Daala will come for you.”

“Just get out.”

The turbolift door rose. Emperor Palpatine and his bodyguard, a headless Gamorrean, stepped off the lift. The guard on this floor, Darth Vader but only a meter tall, waved an electronic reader at the chest of each, noted that its diode continued to glow blue, and courteously
waved them toward a set of golden doors inset in the black stone walls of this circular turbolift lobby. Palpatine and the headless thing approached the doors, which opened before them.

The suite beyond was the stuff of conspicuous wealth. The carpeting was transmutive, now graduating from a pleasing shell gray into a sky blue; the change began at the far side of the chamber, beside the wall-length transparisteel viewport, and graduated toward the doors through which they had entered. The walls were Kuati marble, white and veined with blue, but also inset with gilt flecks. The sofas and chairs were white and glowed faintly, both as an expression of their costliness and to warn anyone wandering through a pitch-dark suite of their presence. The central table, circular, with depressions all along its rim for drinks and game pieces, was of an artificial black marble veined in silver.

Across the end of one sofa lay what appeared to be a Wookiee, but it was flat, deflated, as if the creature’s bones and organs had been removed, leaving only skin behind. At the round table sat a slightly oversized silver protocol droid with a human head, a thruster-pack-wearing clone trooper of six decades before, his helmet on the floor beside him, and a berobed female with the gray hands of a Neimoidian but the face of an elderly human female. A Neimoidian face, noseless and gray, as deflated as the body of the Wookiee, lay on the table beside her. A circular card-dealer droid scuttled around crab-like on the tabletop, and young, fit men and women dressed in dark garments were positioned along the walls. All looked up as the Emperor and his undead companion entered.

The Emperor gestured as if preparing to launch Force lightning. “Upon pain of death … deal me in.”

The human/Neimodian clapped her hands together and beamed. “What a marvelous impersonation. Why have you never done this before, at social events?”

The Emperor shrugged. When he spoke again, it was in his own rich, mellow tones, not the Emperor’s curdled voice. “One must be in the correct crowd to amuse with that impersonation, my dear Senator Treen.” He glanced sideways at the headless Gamorrean, who bowed, then walked—cheekily, still in character, with a bounce to his stride accentuated by the foam suit he wore—to the wall, taking up a proper bodyguard’s station there.

The Emperor took an empty seat, then reached up to peel his face off. He set the Emperor mask beside Treen’s Neimoidian face. “That’s a relief.”

The protocol droid, Senator Bramsin, gave him a sympathetic look. “I know what you mean. I couldn’t wait to get that monstrous mask off.” He glanced at the clone trooper. “It must be hard for you.”

The trooper shook his head. “Built-in cooling system. But it’s hard to sit and even harder to stand up.”

Bramsin nodded. “I now understand why I’ve never seen a protocol droid sitting down.”

Senator Treen looked between the Emperor and the clone trooper. “Moff Lecersen, allow me to present you General Jaxton, Galactic Alliance Starfighter Command.”

“We haven’t met, but I recognized the general from the news, of course.”

Jaxton gave Lecersen a little sand-panther-ish grin. “And from intelligence briefings, I would imagine.”

Lecersen resumed Palpatine’s oily tones for just a moment. “Such things are not spoken of.”

The card droid flipped three cards,
thoop-thoop-thoop
, facedown to land neatly before Lecersen. The cards bore the emblem of the Empire on their backs. He smiled; how fitting. He picked them up and looked at their faces, surprised to discover that they were playing Chambers instead of sabacc. He held the Red Courtesan, Blue Destroyer Droid, and Red Imperial Guardsman.

Treen glanced at her cards with affected disinterest. “Fifty.”

In silver letters, the words
FIFTY THOUSAND CREDITS
appeared on the tabletop before her, indicating her bet.