[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(91)

Pausing the playback of the recording, Leia turned toward Ackbar. “Did you really think you might not be welcome here?”

“We have not had a chance to talk since you returned, and we only spoke once while you were away—a short and businesslike conversation, as I recall,” Ackbar said. “Before that—well, I am not sure that I would have been included in the meeting the night of the pirate broadcast if it had been convenient to exclude me. I have been afraid to try my key again.”

“Then you haven’t seen Han, either? I told him to tell you it was fixed. And here I thought it was me you were avoiding,” Leia said, coming to where he stood and hugging him. “I can’t stay angry at you for long. And besides— you’re one of the few people I’ve told myself I have to keep listening to, even when I am angry at you.”

Patting Leia on the back with one large hand, Ackbar sighed. “That is good to know.”

“I’ve missed you,” she said, easing out of the embrace.

“Anakin misses you. No one on the staff’s caught sight of you for days. What have you been up to?”

“I have been preoccupied,” Ackbar said, and gestured toward the viewer.

“Why are you bothering with this? It can’t be pleasant to hear yourself be talked about that way, and I cannot see the use of it.”

Leia glanced back over her shoulder at Tuomi’s face.

“I suppose I have a morbid curiosity about whether anything is considered out of bounds.”

“‘Greed has no limits, envy no boundaries, in the heart of a petty man.” A favorite quote from Toklar, a much-quoted Mon Calamari philosopher,” Ackbar added.

“Was he also the one who said, ‘Don’t look back—something may be gaining on you’?” Leia asked lightly.

“I do not believe so,” Ackbar said. “But Toklar did write, ‘One sting is remembered longer than a thousand caresses.” For every voice that supported Tuomi’s challenge, there were a hundred saying it was foolish, unjust, and cruel. Listen to them instead.”

“I’m not offended for myself,” Leia said, pointing her controller at the holoviewer and ending the projection.

“But it’s hurtful to those of us who are left to hear Alderaan spoken of that way. And it seems as though suddenly everyone’s finding reasons to object to my being here.”

“People find what they look for,” said Ackbar.

“Look to their motives, not their words.”

“Tuomi says that his motive is justice,” Leia said with a shrug.

“Alderaan is a nation of refugees, sixty thousand people with no territory except for our embassies here and on Bonadan. Tuomi represents five inhabited planets and nearly a billion citizens. Why should Alderaan rule Bosch, he asks.”

“But you do not lead us for Alderaan. You lead us for the New Republic.”

“In which Alderaan is a member only due to misguided pity, according to Tuomi.”

“Tuomi is an ignorant fingerling,” Ackbar said with sharp contempt.

“Alderaan’s membership is neither a courtesy nor a violation of the Charter. The New Republic is an alliance of peoples, not planets.”

Leia nodded an acknowledgment. “Something often forgotten, even here.”

“Then I will presume to remind you that the structure of the New Republic was crafted to avoid dominance by the most populous worlds—to prevent what Kerrithrarr called a tyranny of fecundity,” Ackbar said.

Leia laughed tersely, tossing her hair. “I remember that argument.”

“Perhaps you remember another quote I am fond of,” Ackbar said.

“‘Today, we become a galactic family—a family of the great and the small, the young and the old, with honor to all and favor to none.”” Leia recognized the words from her own Restoration Day address.

“That’s cheating.”

“I trust you still believe what you said then.”

“Of course I do.”

“Then it does not matter if Alderaan now means sixty thousand, or six hundred, or six.”

“No,” agreed Leia. “The exact number matters only to the assessors and accountants. Our claim to membership is valid, and just, and moral— regardless.”

“I am glad to hear you say that,” Ackbar said, and dug into a large flap pocket in his belt. “I have brought something here for your endorsement.” He unfolded a single sheet of pale blue document vellum and handed it to her. “That is an emergency petition for membership for Polneye, offered by its representative on Coruscant.”

Leia eyed Ackbar questioningly as she circled the table toward the window. “I think I’ve been manipulated.”