Part 15 (2/2)
No, Mandalorians weren't what she'd expected at all.
And she would learn to be as much of a surprise to her brother as they were to her. Thanks, Fett.
IMPERIAL PALACE, CITY OF RAVELIN, BASTION: TWO DAYS LATER.
”Show the young lady in, Vitor.”
Receiving visitors in the Palace drawing room always re-minded them what they were dealing with, Pellaeon thought. It was an imposing chamber that whispered casual wealth; it hinted that the Empire didn't have to try too hard. While he never let himself think of having an em-peror's role-that way lay delusion and moral corruption, he was sure-he was in command, and he liked visitors to know that.
”And will it be caf or murrih tisane, sir?”
”Both, please.” Pellaeon could see a patch of vivid turquoise sky from the floor-to-ceiling windows, a little promise of escape in an otherwise stormy day. He missed being out with the fleet. ”And monitor the meeting, will you?”
”Of course.”
Pellaeon saw no reason not to listen to what Jacen Solo's envoy had to say. Listening committed him to nothing; it simply filled in the gaps, if his informants had actually left any. In a career spanning more than seventy years, he had built up a personal network that could give any state intel-ligence corps a run for its money. Even the apparently omnipotent Jacen couldn't do much without leaving traces. He had to work with the raw stuff of society-troops, civil servants, clerks.... even droids. The s.h.i.+p of state could leave an awfully big wake if you knew where to look.
Tahiri Veila glided into the room right on time. Her bright blond hair and general artless demeanor made her look too young to be sent on a task like this, although the Yuuzhan Vong markings still visible on her forehead evoked unpleasant memories.
Jacen, if you send a pretty girl to sweet-talk me, don't break the spell by reminding me of the Vong...
Pellaeon stood and ushered her to her chair. The spell was definitely broken before she'd even had a chance to cast it.
”Is this your first visit to Bastion?” he asked, pouring her a murrih tisane that spread an amethyst pool of light on the white marble table. ”If it is, don't leave without seeing the Imperial Gardens.”
”I'll make a note of that, Admiral.”
”So...” He settled down in his seat, making a point of being slow and old, looking like easy prey. ”We live in chal-lenging times. But here in our little backwater, we've man-aged to avoid the war, and I'm wondering what could possibly make it worth our while stepping out into that fray.”
”You have a very small empire.”
”But it's perfectly formed.”
”Here's our view in the GA.” Tahiri leaned forward slightly like an earnest student. ”The longer the war goes on, the worse the prospects for all of us, not just those di-rectly involved in the righting. We want stability. What we have is not just a split between GA and Confederation, but also systems unaligned to either and fighting their own local disputes. Hit the most powerful systems working against the GA, and things will be over faster.”
”You realize, ”Pellaeon said, ”that I've been here before, and more than once? And wasn't the short, sharp shock supposed to bring Corellia into line?”
Tahiri evidently hadn't been briefed to argue a wider case than the offer to be put on the table. She blinked a couple of times. ”It would work if you added your fleet and troops to ours.”
”Now give me a more immediate benefit for expending Imperial citizens' lives on this gamble-and it is a gamble.”
Pellaeon couldn't look too willing; every word would be reported back-recorded, he suspected-and Jacen would look for a deeper motive if he didn't raise objections. He'd raised them over targeting Corellia, after all. ”I have to make a good case to the Moffs beyond vague plans for peace and galactic harmony. Permacrete, not vapor.”
”The GA is prepared to offer you Borleias and Bilbringi.”
”What are the conditions?”
”That the.... Empire first sends vessels and troops to attack Fondor with the GA.”
”Ah, performance-related pay. Very wise. With what ob-jective?”
Tahiti's eye movements-the occasional wobble as she tried to process the words-showed she wasn't yet used to the military jargon. ”To bring it back to the GA.”
”But the detail matters, my dear. Is Jacen planning to take over the orbital yards, or destroy them? What about the planet itself? Does he simply want to force a surrender? Is he preparing to subdue it by occupation? Each objective requires very different resources.”
Tahiri recovered well. ”I think the strategy is something you need to discuss with the joint Chiefs of State. I'm only here to make the initial offer.”
”A good point, ”Pellaeon said. Jacen was nothing if not consistent.
He really was working through his shopping list of planets to batter into submission. ”I'll put it to the Moffs.”
”But it's you who really calls the shots here, isn't it?”
”However much power a man has, it's impossible to keep it for any length of time unless he has the support of most of those under him. I consult.”
Chew on that, Jacen Solo. If he was smart, Jacen might take it as advice from an old man who'd seen other auto-crats pulled down by their underlings over the decades. Either way, Jacen needed the Empire. If Pellaeon had read him right-no, if Jacen thought like Pellaeon-then he knew he didn't have the numbers now to quickly crush key targets in the Confederation, but a sudden injection of troops and hulls might well tip the balance. One battle could change the course of a war. The only problem was that you never knew which one until years after the cease-fire.
And if you do win, Jacen.... the war still won't be over for the Empire. What kind of a galactic regime do you really have in mind?
”Thank you for the tisane, ”Tahiri said. ”We'll be in touch, I hope.”
After she left, Pellaeon summoned Reige. ”Vitor, call the Moffs.
Let's see who jumps at this and how fast.”
Reige consulted his datapad and began tapping messages into the office comlink system. ”Well, most of them are on Bastion at the moment, so you'll have nearly a full house to debate this. Are you accepting the offer, sir?”
Pellaeon nodded. ”If or when Jacen gets his backside kicked, then the GA might fall apart, and we'll be there to pick up the pieces. If we sit it out, we take our chances, but if we back him, then we at least get greater control over events whether he succeeds or not in the long run.”
”You think he will fail?”
”He's now faced with occupying or subduing half the galaxy to put the GA back together again, and he can't keep that up forever, however successful he is as a com-mander. Unless he comes up with a convincing peace deal that somehow bypa.s.ses the principle of a pooled GA de-fense force, then I don't see this ending. That's why the war started, remember.”
Pellaeon waited for the Moffs to gather in the meeting room, and tried to think like Jacen. The man wasn't a fool, but could he see the galaxy through Fondorian eyes? Did he know which battle he was trying to win? He seemed to see worlds as controlled by a few stubborn leaders, whose removal would free the population to see things his way. He didn't see that the general population didn't want to do things the GA way, either.
If you wanted to build an empire.... well, the trick was to leave the population to get on with their lives. Pellaeon got up and walked across to the cabinet that housed hun-dreds of datapads, antique bound flimsi, and even ancient animal-skin scrolls, military histories from a thousand worlds spanning millennia. He knew that if he picked one at random, any history at all, he would find much the same story as the one he was living through today: seizure of power, the desire for expansion, and the inevitable inability to hold all that had been grabbed. The only variable was how long it took to fall apart. The longest-lived empires were those with the lightest hand on the reins.
”Empire can be different, ”he muttered aloud. ”Provided we shoot all the lunatics who enjoy the idea.”
Where that left him-no, he was purged of ambition at ninety-two. He simply wanted to leave the galaxy tidy and clean when he left it for the last time. That was what government was about, and the military was its instrument to achieve it.
The Moffs, predictably, were mostly split between en-thusiasm for the Jacen Solo plan, ill defined as it was, and those like Rosset who wanted to know more before sign-ing up.
”I'm with you on this, Admiral, ”said Rosset, sitting opposite him across the mirror-polished table. ”Putting or-bital yards out of action is a very different proposition from subduing the planet itself. Are we going to end up policing Fondor for Jacen Solo until Mustafar freezes over?”
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