Pellaeon rolled the brandy glass slowly between his palms and glanced back at Reige. He really did look like his dead son, Mynar, sometimes; and it would have been so simple to check, to test, to know for sure if Reige were his flesh and blood or not.
No, it wouldn’t have made any difference to Pellaeon’s regard for him. He settled for never knowing. Some things were best left unknown.
“Anything else, sir?”
“Thank you, Vitor, no.” Pellaeon gestured with his glass. “Care to join me?”
“Perhaps later, sir. I have some work to finish.”
“I look forward to it.”
Pellaeon stood at the window until he’d drained his glass, but neither the decision nor the brandy could make one thought go away: that Jacen Solo was a self-serving megalomaniac, and there was nothing to reassure Pellaeon that the man would honor any agreement unless forced to. For all the victories he’d achieved, he was erratic, and the GA was still losing allies, even Hapes.
And Kashyyyk-that was a disgrace to anyone in uniform.
It was time to take out some insurance. Whatever Jacen was planning for Fondor and the Empire-and Pellaeon was certain there was a whole side of the strategy that the Empire would not have been told-Pellaeon needed a trump card of his own.
And not one for the Moffs to see yet, either. We have our own Jacens here, too.
“Well, then, old friend, “he said aloud. He walked over to the floor-length mirror and smoothed back his white hair, checking the cut of his jacket. “Time to call in a favor.”
He felt suddenly foolish; she wouldn’t even see him. He was simply going to send a message, and one without a sin-gle word in it. But she would receive it, and she would know what it meant, and that it was critical.
And she would respond.
Pellaeon took out a few small flimsicard trinket boxes from his desk drawer and tapped his fingertips on the lid of each in turn, listening for the best approximation of a small drum.
Rap…. rap…. rap.
Rap, rap…… brr-rrr-rapp.
That was the one. Pellaeon settled down at the desk and positioned his comlink next to the box, ready to drum out his message. He had to rehearse it a few times; his fingers were a little stiff, but he refused to bow to arthritis even now, and Jacen Solo had nothing on that.
“I wouldn’t do this unless I had to, my dear, “he said, and opened the comlink.
Rap…. rap… rap…. rap, rap… brr-rrr-rapp.
It was time for the warrior-sailor Darakaer to be summoned as in the Irmenu legend; Pellaeon felt that the galaxy was slipping toward its darkest peril, and Jacen-Jacen might have looked like an ally, but Pellaeon knew he was truly a foe in every sense.
Rap…. rap…. rap… rap, rap… brr-rrr-rapp.
Darakaer, long dead, probably didn’t have the kind of fire power that Pellaeon wanted even if he rose from his grave and answered the call. But the admiral knew someone who did, and who had been very taken with the saga of the Irmenu hero.
Rap…. rap… rap…. rap, rap…. brr-rrr-rapp.
The drumbeat went out across space. It was just a repeating rhythm that would mean nothing to anyone except an Irmenu historian, if any could listen in on this secure link, and a warrior-sailor who was-he hoped-still very much alive.
Rap…. rap…. rap…. rap, rap…. brr-rrr-rapp.
Pellaeon closed the link and settled in for a long wait.
Chapter 8
The Tra’kad is primitive. We thought that you wanted state-of-the-art technology, and that is why you allied with us. What is the point of this machine?
-Sass Sikili, negotiator of the Roche hives, to Jir Yomaget, head of MandalMotors, on seeing holimages of the Tra’kad prototype multimission combat vessel
OFFICE OF THE JOINT CHIEF OF STATE, CORUSCANT
Caedus ran his fingertips over the name plate on the outer doors and wondered when he would have the engraving changed to replace COLONEL JACEN SOLO with DARTH CAE-DUS.
Would he need a plate on the door, or even an office at all? He’d still intended to leave the routine business of government to Niathal, but she was becoming an irritant, and it was time he started looking for an administrator to take over just in case he had to retire her. Caedus hoped she might see sense and return to Mon Calamari, or even ac-cept a transfer back to operational duties with the fleet, but she had tasted power, and few were willing to slide back into taking orders when they’d given them.
Flesh and blood were heir to ambition. He liked ambition in an apprentice or junior officer, but the closer it crept to his own rank, the more it got in the way of the tidy business of running a peaceful, stable galaxy. Keeping a constant eye out for usurpers was time consuming and distracting. He was beginning to prefer the service of droids; a legal droid had enabled him to exploit the law to grab power, and it expected no favors or high office in return. It simply did its job. Maybe he needed a droid administration.