[Legacy Of The Force] - 04(45)

Leia resisted the urge to take offense. Somehow, when Booster used the word Princess, he made it a comment about a spoiled little girl rather than an acknowledgment of her former title. But she refused to rise to the bait. She simply nodded. “I’m glad you have no objection. So now all I have to do is get your application approved.”

Booster gave her a dubious look. “Because you and Captain Bloodstripes there are so well loved by the government now.”

Leia matched him stare for stare. “No. Because Jacen Solo swings a big lightsaber with the blockade forces. And if Luke Skywalker tells him that letting the Errant Venture set up there is a terrible, terrible idea, Jacen will probably accelerate its approval so fast you’d think he slapped a hyperspace engine on it.” It hurt to speak dismissively of her own son’s powers of critical thought, but it had for some time been obvious that Jacen was not entirely logical when it came to his relationship with Luke. Jacen resented his uncle and balked at Luke’s advice. Painful as it was, Leia now found it useful to exploit the fact.

“Huh.” Booster thought about it for a second, and then was distracted by more of Myri’s prestidigitation. “All right, girl, you can stop it. You’re hired.”

Myri froze in midshuffle and looked at him, wide-eyed. “Huh?”

“You were applying for a job. Right?”

She shook her head, bewildered. “I was practicing. Mom says it’s an area where I’m weak.”

Booster turned his glare on Iella. “Meaning you’re better at it than your daughter?”

Both women nodded.

“All right, then,” Booster said. “Iella, you’re hired, too.”

Iella smiled. “Only if we get the approval for Corellia. But if we do, Myri and I will work for free.”

“Hey,” Myri protested.

“Well, for tips.”

“Done,” Booster said. He turned back to Leia. “And done. Drop the word to your brother. And while we’re waiting for the approval you’re so confident about, slap some paint or fake fur on those too-famous faces of yours “You’re sure,” Mara said.

The Neimoidian male gave her a half bow, appropriate to an acknowledgment on Coruscant but insultingly deficient on worlds where the precise angles of such gestures spoke volumes about one’s intent and attitude. “I am absolutely sure,” he said, his speech flavored with the musicality of his native tongue. “As ever, I cooperate fully with the Jedi order, with the Galactic Alliance Guard, with…”

“With anyone who pays,” Luke said. “And you have been well paid.”

“I have been well promised,” the Neimoidian answered. “Not so much paid yet.”

“Then show us,” Mara said.

The Neimoidian pressed a sequence of buttons on the control panel of the turbolift. Its status display switched from HOLD to 1; then the numbers began climbing as the turbolift did. Mara felt the car accelerate, but turbolifts in habitation buildings as lavish as this one had small inertial compensators to make rapid ascents and descents comfortable.

“When you contacted me,” the Neimoidian said, “you asked for comm records from the quarters of your suspect, and for other anomalies in the security recordings.”

Mara nodded. Weeks earlier, meticulous police work tracking from the site of the murder of Jedi Master Tresina Lobi had led to this building and the realization that the Sith lady Lumiya was one of the murderers. Even more unwelcome was the fact, gained from examination of the quarters, that Lumiya had strong ties to the Galactic Alliance Guard. That revelation had thrown more suspicion on Jacen, the Guard’s operational commander.

“The investigators and the GAG took everything from her quarters,” the Neimoidian said. The turbolift came to a halt at the 288th floor. Its doors opened onto a broad hallway lined with walls that gleamed like crushed gemstone. The Neimoidian stepped out, and the Jedi followed. “They also took records from the security office-records, privately owned datapads, legally registered blasters and restraining devices, a servitor droid, half-eaten food…”

“Yes, yes.” Luke didn’t sound impatient, but he wouldn’t have interrupted if he weren’t. “But you found something anyway.”

“Of course. We had backups on all the security recordings. And I found that the suspect’s most frequent communication through the building’s comm system was to herself, from one installed unit to a second installed unit.”

Mara shrugged. “A common practice in intelligence circles. She would have sensors attached to her comm, measuring noise, resistance, and so forth, to determine whether the unit or the comm lines were tapped.”