Arihnda hated it.
That hadn’t always been the case. For a while, back when she was a child, she’d loved the quiet life, the wide-open spaces, and the companionship of children of so many different species and backgrounds. But during her teen years she’d begun to see the quietness as dullness, the open spaces as lack of culture or excitement, the familiar acquaintances as stifling and boring. Often, lying awake in bed, she’d gazed out the window at the stars and wished with all her heart that she could escape to a real world somewhere, a place with excitement and bright lights and sophisticated people.
But she never had. And with the passing of her teen years, and her transition to the responsibilities of adulthood, she knew she never would.
The pain and frustration had subsided somewhat over the last decade. But they had never entirely disappeared. She still hated her life here, but it was a familiar, constant hatred, like a dull ache that had never quite healed.
She slowed the landspeeder a little more, watching the interplay of city light and sunset glow. In worlds with excitement and bright lights, she suspected, many of the inhabitants never even saw the horizon, let alone a sunset.
Of course, they probably didn’t care about such things. If she were there, she doubted she would care, either.
Could Uvis have been right about the doonium deposits being her chance to finally escape?
She snorted. Of course not. That whole pitch had been a mind game, designed to distract her from his attempt to talk his way into controlling the company.
Let him try. She didn’t especially like her life here; but it was her life, and Pryce Mining was her company, and she would see Uvis in hell before she would let anyone steal it.
The last wisps of color had faded away, and she was pulling her landspeeder into her garage, when her comm chimed. She glanced at the ID—it was her father—and keyed it on. “Hello, Father,” she greeted him. “What’s up?”
“Arihnda, you need to get to the police station right away,” Talmoor Pryce said, his voice nearly unrecognizable. “Your mother’s been arrested.”
Arihnda stared. “What? What in the world for? And who ordered it?”
“The complaint came from the governor’s office,” Talmoor said, his breath coming in short spurts. “The charge is embezzlement.”
—
Talmoor Pryce had worked in the family mine all his life, and Arihnda had seen him act calmly and decisively in dozens of crisis situations. But this crisis wasn’t mine-based, and for once he clearly had no idea what to do.
The police didn’t seem to know what to do, either. Talmoor and Arihnda were on a first-name basis with several of them, but this time those personal contacts weren’t enough to smooth things out or even cut through the bureaucratic clutter. All the police could say was that Elainye was in custody, her bail request had been denied, and they’d been ordered not to allow her visitors. The person behind the order hadn’t been named, but everything had come directly from the governor’s office.
Not that Arihnda didn’t already know who was behind it.
“Arik Uvis works with Azadi’s office,” Talmoor pointed out as he and Arihnda left the station. “Maybe he can help.”
“Maybe,” Arihnda said, a twinge of guilt briefly warming the ice that had formed in her soul. In retrospect, she should have told her parents about her last conversation with Uvis. At least they wouldn’t have been so utterly blindsided by this cowardly attack. “I’ll go see him after I drop you off.”
“Thanks, but I’m okay,” Talmoor said. “We can go see him together.”
“I really think you should go home,” Arihnda persisted. A plan was slowly forming in the back of her mind, the kind that worked best without witnesses present. “Barkin was going to keep trying for bail. If he gets it, you don’t want to be all the way across Capital City when Mother’s ready for you to come get her.”
“I suppose,” Talmoor conceded. “You’ll let me know what Uvis says, won’t you?”
“Absolutely,” Arihnda promised. “But I’m not expecting anything right away. Try to get some sleep, okay?”
“I’ll try.” He eyed her, his eyes narrowing slightly. “Be careful, Arihnda.”
“Don’t worry,” Arihnda assured him grimly. “I will.”
—
It was pure good luck that Senator Domus Renking happened to be on Lothal, instead of on the distant world of Coruscant where he spent most of his time. According to the press releases, he’d come back to his homeworld for a short vacation and some meetings with Governor Azadi and other political and industrial leaders, and was slated to leave in two days.
Arihnda arrived precisely at nine in the morning, when Renking’s office opened, and gave her name and reason for her visit to the smiling woman at the reception desk. Two hours later, she was finally ushered inside.
“Ms. Pryce,” Renking greeted her, standing courteously as she came in. “Please sit down.”
“Thank you, Senator,” Arihnda said, passing between the pair of silent guards flanking the doorway and continuing on to the chair in front of Renking’s desk. “Thank you for seeing me.”
“It was probably inevitable,” Renking said with a smile, waiting until she had seated herself before resuming his own seat. “I understand your mother, Elainye, has been arrested for embezzlement.”
“Yes, she has,” Arihnda said. “And she’s innocent.”
Renking leaned back in his chair. “Tell me more.”
“Yes, Senator.” Arihnda keyed her datapad and tapped for the first file. “First of all, my mother’s finances,” she said, setting the datapad on the desk and turning it around to face him. “You’ll see that there isn’t a boost in any of her accounts. If she embezzled, the money had to go somewhere.”
“She could have set up a secret account,” Renking pointed out. “Possibly even offworld.”
“Agreed,” Arihnda said. “But if she embezzled, the funds by definition had to come from Pryce Mining. I ran everything from the company’s side, digging through all the vectors she had access to. There are no indications of missing money, credit, or resources. No virtual transactions, either.”
“That you could find.”
“I know more about Pryce Mining’s computer operations than my mother does,” Arihnda said. “There’s no way she could pull off something that I couldn’t track.”
“Mm,” Renking said. “I presume you realize how that makes you look.”
“Yes, and I didn’t embezzle, either,” Arihnda said, reaching across the desk and keying for the next file. “This is the company’s profit data for the past two years. You can see there are regular dips and surges over that time period.”
“Galactic market fluctuations,” Renking said, nodding. “Happens in every industry. Your point?”
“You can see a pattern,” Arihnda said. “Dips here, here, and here. If there was embezzlement, it would probably have been timed to hit just the right spot to—maybe—not get noticed.”
“You say if there was embezzlement,” Renking said. “I was under the impression that Governor Azadi’s office had confirmed there were funds missing.”
“So I’ve heard,” Arihnda said, bracing herself as she again tapped the datapad. Now came the tricky part. “But it may not be as simple as missing funds. Here’s a security video from a party at the company two weeks ago, right in the middle of the latest financial dip.” She pointed to a broad-faced being with fuzzy jowls and wide-set eyes dressed in a dark-brown tunic. “You see the Lutrillian here at the side?”
“Yes.”
“That’s Pomi Harchmak,” Arihnda said. “She handles the heavy-equipment inventory operations. Her account is separate from the main operating fund account. Now…there. See how she slips out of the room right at the height of the party?”