“Or else that he knows full well there isn’t enough here to hang a stunted Jawa from,” Han countered. “Has he got anything on Ackbar besides the bank thing?”
Leia smiled wanly. “Just the near-fiasco at Sluis Van. And the fact that it was Ackbar who sent all those warships out there in the first place.”
“Point,” Han conceded, trying to recall the old Rebel Alliance regulations on military prisoners. If he remembered correctly, an officer under house arrest could receive visitors without those visitors first having to go through more than minor amounts of bureaucratic datawork.
Though he could easily be wrong about that. They’d made him learn all that stuff back when he’d first let them slap an officer’s rank on him after the Battle of Yavin. But regulations were never something he’d taken seriously. “How much of the Council does Fey’lya have on his side?” he asked Leia.
“If you mean solidly on his side, only a couple,” she said. “If you mean leaning in his direction : well, you’ll be able to judge for yourself in a minute.”
Han blinked. Lost in his own mulling of the mess, he hadn’t really paid attention to where Leia was taking him. Now, with a start, he suddenly realized they were walking down the Grand Corridor that linked the Council chamber with the much larger Assemblage auditorium. “Wait a minute,” he protested. “Now?”
“I’m sorry, Han,” she sighed. “Mon Mothma insisted. You’re the first person back who was actually at the Sluis Van attack, and there are a million questions they want to ask you about it.”
Han looked around the corridor: at the high, convoluted vaulting of the ceiling; the ornate carvings and cutglass windows alternating on the walls; the rows of short, greenish-purple saplings lining each side. The Emperor had supposedly designed the Grand Corridor personally, which probably explained why Han had always disliked the place. “I knew I should have sent Threepio out first,” he growled.
Leia took his arm. “Come on, soldier. Take a deep breath and let’s get it over with. Chewie, you’d better wait out here.”
The usual Council chamber arrangement was a scaled-up version of the smaller Inner Council room: an oval table in the center for the Councilors themselves, with rows of seats along the walls for their aides and assistants. Today, to Han’s surprise, the room had been reconfigured more along the lines of the huge Assemblage Commons. The seats were in neat, slightly tiered rows, with each counscilor surrounded by his or her assistants. In the front of the room, on the lowest level, Mon Mothma sat alone at a simple lectern, looking like a lecturer in a classroom. “Whose idea was this?” Han murmured as he and Leia started down the side aisle toward what was obviously a witness chair next to Mon Mothma’s desk.
“Mon Mothma set it up,” she murmured. “I’d be willing to bet it was Fey’lya’s idea, though.”
Han frowned. He’d have thought that underlining Mon Mothma’s preeminent role in the Council like this would be the last thing Fey’lya would want. “I don’t get it.”
She nodded toward the lectern. “Giving Mon Mothma the whole spotlight helps calm any fears that he plans to make a bid for her position. At the same time, putting the Councilors and their aides together in little groups tends to isolate the Councilors from each other.”
“I get it,” Han nodded back. “Slippery little fuzzball, isn’t he?”
“Yes, he is,” Leia said. “And he’s going to milk this Sluis Van thing for all it’s worth. Watch yourself.”
They reached the front and separated, Leia going to the first row and sitting down next to her aide, Winter, Han continuing on to Mon Mothma and the witness chair waiting for him. “You want me sworn in or anything?” he asked without preamble.
Mon Mothma shook her head. “That won’t be necessary, Captain Solo,” she said, her voice formal and a little strained. “Please sit down. There are some questions the Council would like to ask you about the recent events at the Sluis Van shipyards.”
Han took his seat. Fey’lya and his fellow Bothans, he saw, were in the group of front-row seats next to Leia’s group. There were no empty seats anywhere that might have signified Admiral Ackbar’s absence, at least not in the front where they should have been. The Councilors, seated according to rank, had apparently shuffled positions so as to each be closer to the front. Another reason for Fey’lya to have pushed this configuration, Han decided: at the usual oval table, Abkbar’s seat might have been left vacant.