Tyrant's Test

by Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell

  “Not even fifty years,” said Wialu. “Just in the time since we arrived, we have seen it grow almost beyond belief. It is a constant wonder.”

  A quartet of H’kig dragging a heavily laden sledge passed between Wialu and Luke. “They’re doing this work by hand?” he asked. “No fusion cutters, no droids?”

  “That is the meaning of it—the purpose in it. The building of it is a way of giving honor. That work cannot be given to a machine,” Wialu said. “The temple embodies their vision of the universe, of the mystical essences—the immanent, the transcendent, the eternal, the conscious.”

  “How long until they finish?”

  “They may never finish,” she said. “It is the life’s work of a community united by the purpose that defines them.”

  “Is this why you’re here?”

  “Yes,” she said. “And it is why you must leave.”

  “You’re protecting them. Protecting this.”

  She nodded. “It became necessary.”

  “How long are you prepared to keep doing it?”

  “Until it is no longer necessary.” Wialu stepped closer. “Please—your ship is resting in what will be the Inner Court of the Transcendent. It is distracting the H’kig, and disrupting the work. It is time for you to go.”

  “Wait,” Luke said. “The day of the attack. The bombardment, the planetary blasters—those weren’t illusions.”

  “No.”

  “Then what happened here?”

  “As I have already said. We protected ourselves, and these people, and the others where we could. I will not say more.”

  “Protected them with illusions,” Luke said. “Wialu, you know that this isn’t the only construction project under way on this planet. There’s a Yevethan colony ship in sync orbit on the other side of this planet and a colony city being built on the surface. Akanah knew that, so I’m sure you do, too. The Yevetha think this is their world now.”

  “They are mistaken,” said Wialu.

  “Not necessarily,” Luke said. “They claim all the stars in their sky, and all the worlds of those stars. What you were able to prevent from happening here happened on a dozen other planets where there was no Fallanassi Circle to provide a shield and deceive the Yevetha. The bodies on those worlds were real.”

  “We know what happened there,” said Wialu.

  “Then let me ask you what you know about what’s about to happen,” said Luke, a harder edge coming into his voice. “What the Yevetha did here has been challenged by my sister. Their claim to this planet and all the others will be contested—with force. Two opposing fleets are gathering up there—hundreds of ships, tens of thousands of soldiers. If this war comes, it will be long, brutal, and bloody. And it will come here.”

  He saw that his words had reached her fears. “I have seen it coming.”

  “Will you help me try to stop it?”

  “We cannot allow ourselves to be used that way. Our loyalty is to the Light, and our way is of the Current. Nothing has changed.”

  “If nothing has changed, then you’re divided among yourselves, as you were on Lucazec,” Luke said, looking past Wialu, searching for other Fallanassi faces among the H’kig. “There must be at least some of you who believe that you must do what you can do, just as you protected these people.”

  “It is not our war. It is yours, and theirs.”

  “Neither was this your war,” he said. “But you intervened, and saved these lives, and this treasure.” Then he pointed at Akanah. “She challenged me to put down my weapon and try to find other ways to serve my conscience. What she asked isn’t easy for me, but I’ve seen the worth in trying. Now I challenge you to give up your isolation, and be the water that quenches the flame.”

  At that moment another woman, slender and large-eyed, appeared beside Wialu, surrendering her concealment to take part in the colloquy. “Can this be done?” she asked.

  “Of course it can,” said a voice from another direction. Luke turned to find two more Fallanassi standing by the temple wall. “The Yevetha are vulnerable to us,” said the shorter of them. “If we wished for the invaders to crash their ship into the city they are building, any one of us could accomplish it, at any time.”

  A young Duu’ranh female appeared nearly at Luke’s elbow, startling him for a moment. “But can it be done without such violence?” she asked. “The goal is to prevent a war, not to join it, or decide the victor. We cannot choose sides.”

  “You must,” Luke said. “It’s not enough to simply prevent the fighting—there has to be a resolution to the conflict behind it. You must choose to frustrate the will of one side or the other—the Yevetha, or the New Republic.”

  “The difference between them is immaterial,” said a new voice, behind Luke. He turned to see a round-bodied Ukanis woman holding a child. “To build a war fleet is to accept the morality of violence and coercion. They are equally guilty.”

  “When war comes, the price is paid by the guilty and the innocent alike,” Luke said.

  “And we are paying the price instead of the H’kig,” said Akanah. “We will never be free to leave here so long as the Yevetha remain.”

  “Not unless you’re prepared to see these people and this place destroyed,” Luke said. “And the Yevetha will never leave of their own accord. They believe that they are the rightful inheritors of all the worlds they conquered—including J’t’p’tan.”

  Turning in a slow circle, Luke found that more than twenty Fallanassi had revealed themselves. “You have to decide whether to affirm their belief or reject it,” he said. “You must choose.”

  “And what would we be choosing if we chose to involve ourselves?” asked Wialu. “If they are as resolute as you say, how can the will of the Yevetha be frustrated without force?”

  Luke turned quickly toward her. “I don’t know for certain that it can,” he said. “What I’m asking is, are you willing to try? Are you willing to use your gifts in an effort to prevent the war—a war that will surely come if you do nothing? There’s very little time left. Once both fleets are committed to the fight, any chance there was will be gone. There’ll be too much fire, and too little water.”

  “A chance to try what?” asked Norika. “What can we do?”

  “You can deceive them, as you have here—but on a grander scale.” He advanced a step toward Wialu, holding his open hands out before him. “I don’t know the limits of your power to project illusions. But if the Fallanassi are capable of creating an illusion of a vast New Republic fleet, a projection with the same depth of reality as what I saw when we first arrived here—”

  Wialu raised an eyebrow questioningly. “You believe that if the Yevetha face overwhelming odds, they may yield.”

  “I have to think that their lives mean something to them—more, I hope, than their claim to J’t’p’tan does,” said Luke. “Whether they surrender or just withdraw, many lives on both sides would be saved.”

  “Would the New Republic accept their surrender or simply use it as an opportunity to exterminate the Yevetha?” asked Norika.

  “Leia would never allow such a thing,” Luke said. “I stake my honor on it.”

  “Perhaps we should first see if we can drive one Yevethan ship away with this trickery,” said another woman.

  Luke spun on his heel, searching for the face that belonged to the voice. “No—no, that would be a mistake. Not without at least one real warship available to back up the bluff,” said Luke. “We have to give them every reason to believe—and only one chance to decide, with everything at stake.”

  “Then it will be necessary for the fleet commander to be part of this plan,” said Wialu.

  Turning back, Luke nodded hopefully. “Yes.”

  “Do you know where he is, or how to find him?”

  “I can find the fleet,” Luke said. “I can take you to General A’baht.”

  “Then I will go with you,” said Wialu. “And we will see how great a fire is burning.” She turned and di
rected a hard look at Akanah. “You will come, too.”

  There were no walls or guards at the perimeter of Mon Mothma’s estate in Surtsey. Though she was still under the protection of Ministry Security, their presence on her property was limited to a sensor grid monitored by two fast-response teams based just off the grounds. A special traffic patrol kept the airspace near the estate swept clear of possible threats.

  Even though Leia had been neither invited nor asked to visit, none of those precautions was any hindrance to her arrival. She landed her orbital jumper neatly on the smaller of the two landing pads in the northeast corner of the estate, then began the long walk through the outer gardens and the tree moat to the house itself.

  The outer gardens had vivid patches of purple, cobalt blue, and pale orange—intybus, commelina, and anagallis were in bloom, and centaurea pods were everywhere, promising an eruption of pink in the next day or two. The air in the tree moat was cool, shadowed, and rich with complex scents. Leia felt the deep peacefulness of an old forest envelop her.

  Inside the circle of the tree moat were the house and inner gardens, and both were more modest than what surrounded them might lead a visitor to expect. The low, squarish house had but three rooms, all with transparent walls and ceilings, and the inner gardens were little more than accents for patches of soft ground cover and walking paths.

  Mon Mothma was inside, sitting in what she called her salon with her feet up and a datapad on her lap. She looked up as Leia neared the entry door, and motioned her inside.

  “Leia,” she said with a smile. “It’s been months. Come in.”

  Leia was taken aback by Mon Mothma’s appearance. Her short hair was now startlingly silver, and the fine lines around her eyes were visible from across the room. “Mon Mothma,” she managed to say. “I hope you’ll forgive my intruding—”

  “It’s hardly that,” she said. “But you’re staring,” she added gently.

  “I—”

  “This is not the mark of Furgan’s treachery you see lingering on me.” The allusion was to the Caridan ambassador’s nearly successful attempt to poison her—an attempt that had precipitated Mon Mothma’s retirement. “I’ve earned every line and white hair, Leia. Just as you are starting to earn some of your own. Now, it’s true—I refuse to paint my face and pretend to youth and inexperience. Do you think that vain of me?”

  “I think you’re still full of surprises, Mon Mothma—and still teaching little lessons at every opportunity.”

  A little laugh lit the older woman’s eyes. “Get yourself a drink and come sit with me. The afternoon sun will have the thrann tree dripping sap before long, and then the barbary birds will come out to feed. They’re so tiny and so swift—I can watch them for an hour and never be bored.”

  Mon Mothma’s pantry contained a legendary array of potent and aromatic drinks collected from all over the galaxy, but Leia contented herself with a tall flask of cold fallix water.

  “So tell me what’s driven you away from Imperial City,” Mon Mothma said when Leia had settled in the chair beside her. “I don’t keep up with capital affairs these days, but I know it wasn’t my gardens that drew you here.”

  “Do you know what’s happened to Han?”

  “That particular bit of bad news has been inescapable, I’m afraid,” Mon Mothma said, resting her hand gently on Leia’s. “How are the children coping?”

  “Jaina is angry. Jacen is afraid,” Leia said. “Anakin is mostly confused—he can’t understand why anyone would want to hurt his daddy. We’ve managed to keep them from seeing the recording, but I had to tell them—too many other people know, and I didn’t want them to hear talk.”

  “And you,” Mon Mothma said, giving Leia’s hand a squeeze. “How are you doing?”

  “I’m having trouble seeing my way.”

  Nodding silently, Mon Mothma set her datapad on the floor beside her and sat back in her chair, waiting.

  “Tomorrow afternoon, I have to go before the Senate to face a recall petition,” Leia went on. “The Ruling Council thinks that with Han being held by the Yevetha, I can’t be trusted with the power of the Presidency.”

  “How foolish of them.”

  Leia shook her head. “To tell the truth, after seeing that last transmission from N’zoth, I’m not sure they aren’t right. My first impulse was to give Nil Spaar what he wants, to recall the fleet if only he’ll send Han back to me alive. My next was to go ask Special Operations for the most horrible weapon they have, something I could send to N’zoth to kill every last one of them—preferably in lingering agony.”

  Mon Mothma’s smile was full of affection and sympathy. “You would not be human if you were not feeling both of those things right now.”

  “But I can’t let either of those feelings guide what I do,” Leia said. “And I don’t know that I can keep them from doing so. I only watched it once, but I can’t stop seeing it.”

  “Leia, dear, surely you haven’t told yourself that being President means that you can’t listen to what you feel, that all your decisions must be guided solely by what you think. Leadership is more than calculation, or we would hand the whole messy business over to droids,” Mon Mothma said. “Kings and presidents, emperors and potentates—the best of them are guided by honest passions as much as by a noble ethic or cool, incisive reason.”

  “Passion and power have always seemed to me to be a dangerous combination,” said Leia.

  “Without reason or ethics, they almost always are. But reason needs a passion for truth, and ethics a passion for justice. Without that, neither is really alive,” said Mon Mothma. “What is it you’re struggling with, Leia?”

  “What to do,” she said simply. “What to do tomorrow—to fight or to concede. What to do about Koornacht while I’m still here.”

  “What do you want?”

  “Han, home safe,” she said unhesitatingly. “The Yevetha held to account. And I want to keep this job, because there’s still work to do.”

  “And if you cannot have them all, which of those would you surrender last?”

  The barbary birds had put in their appearance as predicted, and Leia’s eyes tracked the darting flight of a black and yellow male. “That’s exactly where I have trouble seeing the way,” she said. “Do I answer for principle? For myself and the children? For the good of the New Republic?”

  “But you’ve been at this very crossroads before,” Mon Mothma said. “When the enemy was Emperor Palpatine, you were ready to risk all, and you sacrificed much, for principle and posterity. What mattered most to you was what you believed was right. So it was for all of us—both those who died for the Rebellion, and those of us who sent them to die.”

  “I have more to lose now,” Leia realized. “And I am less willing to risk it than I was then.”

  “More proof that you are human, and still no reason for shame. The young think they are immortal,” Mon Mothma said with an understanding smile. “Those who do not survive that mistake teach a harsh lesson to the rest of us. And twenty years of war provided enough harsh lessons for all. We cling more tightly to what we have—to life, and to love—knowing its impermanence.”

  Leia stood and walked to the transparency separating her from the darting barbary birds. “It is the same crossroads, isn’t it? What will you risk for what you believe—and what is your belief worth if you will not risk anything in its defense?” She shook her head. “I have part of the answer to your question, at least.”

  “And what part is that?”

  “I know which of those three things I want that I’m willing to give up first,” she said. “The moment we begin to think about staying in power before we think of anything else, we betray the Rebellion. That’s the heart of what we were rebelling against.”

  “It was, at the end, the only idea Palpatine stood for,” Mon Mothma agreed.

  Leia turned and looked back at her mentor. “But I still don’t know how to choose between the other two.”

  “I think y
ou do,” said Mon Mothma. “What you don’t know is how to live with the choice. And there I can be of no help to you. That secret escaped you when the clarity left you.”

  “When did that happen?” Leia asked, returning to sit on the edge of the stool at Mon Mothma’s feet. “I didn’t see it go—did you? Never before in my life have I struggled with decisions, or with accepting their consequences. It’s been so strange, watching myself from the inside, wondering why this woman was speaking for me.”

  “Your clarity came from your certainty that our cause was just and our purpose worthy,” Mon Mothma said. “But there is little certainty of that kind to be had in a place like the Senate, in a city like Imperial City. Certainty is eaten away by the thousand and one compromises that are the currency of democracy. Causes fall victim to the building of consensus. Accountability becomes so diffused that it vanishes, and agreement becomes so rare that it startles.”

  “I would have said that I understood that—that none of that was a surprise.”

  “Understanding it and dealing with it every day are separate problems,” Mon Mothma said. “You have always drawn your map with straight lines, Leia, and in that respect, you were ill prepared for the arcane cartography of the Senate.” She smiled gently, fondly. “You are welcome to blame me for that—privately or publicly.”

  Leia shook her head. “There’s no need for such talk. You have nothing to apologize for.” She stood and glanced over her shoulder toward the door. “I have to be going. I don’t want to leave the children alone for too long.”

  Mon Mothma rose to her feet as well. “There is something your father told me a long time ago, when I was new to Coruscant and its ways were a mystery. It was valuable to me—perhaps you will find something in it as well. He said, do not expect to be applauded when you do the right thing, and do not expect to be forgiven when you err. But even your enemies will respect commitment—and a conscience at peace is worth more than a thousand tainted victories.”

  By the time the recitation was over, Leia’s eyes had misted. “That sounds like Bail, all right.”

  Mon Mothma gathered the younger woman into a fond, comforting embrace that lasted fully half a minute. “Draw a straight line, Leia,” she whispered as they separated. “You will see where it leads.”