[Black Fleet Crisis] - 02(98)

Chapter 13


As the last holo-image of the Yevethan attack on Morning Bell faded and the lights came back up in the Defense Council’s hearing chamber, Leia studied the senators seated at the V-shaped table.

There was one new face among the eight, reflecting a small shift in the balance: the human Tig Peramis of Walalla was gone, and Nara Deega of Clak’dor VII, a Bith, had been seated in his place. After the confrontation at the activation briefing for the Fifth Fleet, it was a relief not to have to face the fiery Peramis, who had removed himself to a legal limbo by presenting articles of withdrawal for his homeworld.

But the intimidatingly intelligent Deega was, like the majority of his species, deeply committed to pacifism. A ruinous civil war had left Clak’dor VII an ecological nightmare, inhabitable only in domed cities.

Because of those memories, Leia did not expect to find Deega any more tractable than Peramis had been.

Leia walked into the middle of the space defined by the, and all eyes turned to her. On the recommendation of Engh’s image specialists, she had forgone the flowing robes of Alderaan’s royal house in favor of what Han had called street-fighting clothes—a simple garment suggestive of a flight jumpsuit. But she wore just one of the medals and honors she was entitled to: the small blue-fire crystal talisman of House Organa.

“The question I bring before you is a simple one,” Leia said the first words she had spoken in that room that day. “What shall we do about what you’ve just seen?

“These images document both the murderous brutality and the expansionist mentality of the current Yevethan government,” she went on. “They’ve committed unspeakable acts of xenophobic genocide and been rewarded for it with new worlds to settle and new resources to exploit. Their success can only whet their appetite for more—but even if they are content now, they’re profiting from crimes against peace and morality.

“Excluding the Koornacht Cluster, Farlax Sector contains more than two thousand inhabited systems, some three hundred of which are members of the New Republic. Not one of them is strong enough to resist the Yevetha on its own.

“We’ve already accepted our responsibility to protect the peaceable inhabitants of Farlax by sending the Fifth Fleet to stand between them and the Yevetha.

But that’s no more than a stopgap solution. We cannot undertake a permanent deployment at battle-group strength. Eventually we will face an unappealing choice between abandoning those systems, reinforcing them, and taking on the Yevetha for them.

“I think we must face that choice now, while the initiative remains with us—before the Yevetha find a way to force our hand. We must find some way to alter the Yevethan calculus, or what you saw just now will only be the beginning. We should try first to change their willingness to wage war, but we should be prepared to deny them the means to wage war.

“That’s why I’m here today—to ask for your counsel in devising a plan to deal with the Yevetha, and your support in carrying it forward.”

Leia’s presentation was the only part of the meeting she could control, and it proved to be her best moment of the morning. As soon as she returned to her seat, Behn-kihl-nahm spoke briefly but supportively before laying out the ground rules for the discussion to follow.

But as soon as that discussion began, the division in the Council became evident, and Leia’s opponents began chipping away at the foundation she stood on.

“What is the source of these images you have presented to us?” asked Senator Deega.

Leia stood at her seat. “Senator, they were recorded by the Yevetha and intercepted by a ferret patrolling the perimeter of Koornacht Cluster.”

“Then they are completely undocumented?”

“What do you mean, Senator? I can, if there’s a legitimate reason to do so, bring someone in here who can testify to the time, manner, and location in which those images were recorded.”

“You have misunderstood, President Solo,” Senator Deega said patiently.

“If you did not make the recordings, you do not know what was being recorded. You have said that these images document the eradication of certain settlements within Koornacht Cluster. But, objectively viewed, they document nothing. What planets were those? Who was aboard those ships? When did those events take place? Who assembled those images in that sequence?”

“If the Council feels it hasn’t seen enough and chooses to commit the time, I can present the entire unedited intercept—all eleven hours of it.”

“You still misunderstand, President Solo,” said Deega. “For all you can prove, those images were recorded during the Rebellion, light-years away from Koornacht Cluster. If they were recorded at all—the quality of the images does not exceed the capabilities of the best image editors.”