He read off a list of seven offices from his datapad. It wasn’t coincidence, Arihnda suspected, that he saved Bash Four for the very end.
“Thank you all for coming,” he concluded. “My apologies to those of you whom I’m no longer able to employ, but I’m certain you’ll find other positions soon. Enjoy the rest of your Ascension Week festivities. Ms. Pryce, if you’d stay a moment?”
Arihnda remained standing beside the wall as the others filed out. Renking busied himself with his datapad, or at least pretended to do so, until the two of them were alone.
And then, for the first time since entering the office, he looked at her.
Arihnda had expected to see anger in his eyes. She saw only ice. She expected him to shout or curse. His voice, when he finally spoke, was soft and infinitely more frightening. “I hope you’re proud of yourself.”
“I didn’t have any choice,” Arihnda said, silently cursing the shaking that had suddenly afflicted her voice. She’d promised herself that she would match him tone for tone, but an Imperial senator in full-blown anger was more intimidating than she’d expected. “He said he would have me arrested.”
“And you believed him?” Renking demanded. “You honestly believed you were important enough to waste even the time of a single police call on?” He shook his head. “You really are a fool, aren’t you?”
“What about you?” Arihnda countered. How was this her fault? “Whatever you were trying to do, you must not have disguised it very well. If I’d known what was going on, I would at least have been ready for him.”
“Oh, right,” he bit back. “A wet-eared Lothal yokel would have been ready for a moff. Yes, I’d have paid good money to watch that match.” He held out his hand. “Your airspeeder key.”
Arihnda handed it over, clamping her mouth shut against the retort that wanted to come out. “I assume you’ll be taking back my apartment, too,” she said instead. “I’ll go over and start clearing it out.”
“It’s already being emptied,” Renking said. “Your things will be waiting in the outer office tomorrow.” His lip twisted. “We could have done great things together, Arihnda. I’m sorry I couldn’t rely on you.”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t trust you, either,” Arihnda said.
“Trust?” Renking snorted. “Don’t be a fool. There’s no trust in politics. Never has been. Never will be. Now get out. I’m sure you’ll be very happy back on Lothal.”
—
To Arihnda’s surprise, Juahir and Driller were waiting outside the office. “Are you all right?” Juahir asked anxiously. “I got a call from the landlady that a group of Ugnaughts were in your apartment packing everything up and figured you were here.”
“I just got fired,” Arihnda told her. The trembling was starting to creep back into her voice. Ruthlessly, she forced it down. “The apartment disappeared when the job did.”
“Ouch.” Juahir peered closely at her. “Does this have anything to do with why you bailed on us last night?”
“Yes, and I don’t want to talk about it.” Arihnda looked around at the cityscape rising all around them, at the majestic buildings and the never-ending flow of airspeeder traffic. When she’d first arrived she’d found the view exotic and exciting. Later, it had become familiar and commonplace.
Now it was ominous. Billions of humans and aliens were crammed together out there, all jockeying for the same jobs and the same living space.
And Arihnda was now one of them.
“Okay,” Juahir said briskly. “Well, you can stay with me for the moment. A little cramped, but we’ll make do. Work-wise…well, you know what Topple’s clientele is like, so you might not want to even consider it. But the server droids are always breaking down, so Walt’s always hiring.”
“Yes,” Arihnda murmured. Renking’s words, I’m sorry I couldn’t rely on you, echoed accusingly through her mind.
Maybe that was the trick to surviving on Coruscant: never relying on anyone.
If that was what it took, Arihnda could do it.
“Or you could stay with me for the next two months if you’d rather,” Driller offered. “Closer to the center of things and the fancier jobs. Though it’s probably hard to get one of those.”
“Probably,” Arihnda said. She took a deep breath. She could do this. “Thanks for your offers. What I need, Driller, if you’re willing, is to stay with you and Juahir for the rest of Ascension Week. After that, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Juahir and Driller exchanged glances. “Okay,” Juahir said carefully. “You sure you don’t want to come back with me?”
“No,” Arihnda said. “Thank you.”
“Isn’t there anything else we can do for you?” Driller pressed. “Nothing else you need?”
“Just one more thing,” Arihnda said, pulling out her datapad. The datapad, at least, was hers, not Renking’s. “I need the address of the nearest citizen assistance office.”
—
“…and it is therefore the decision of this panel that Lieutenant Thrawn be cleared of all charges.”
Eli took a deep breath. So that was that. The court-martial panel had taken the full details of the Dromedar incident into account, specifically made note of Captain Rossi’s pettiness, and rendered the correct decision.
It was a solid vindication. Still, Eli found himself having mixed feelings as he and Thrawn walked together from the room. He himself had been under the edge of the cloud on this one, but as a subordinate officer his career hadn’t been at risk nearly as much as Thrawn’s. If Thrawn had been convicted and discharged from the navy, would Eli have been returned to his old supply officer career path?
And if he had, would he have been pleased or disappointed?
He scowled at the flat gray walls around them. He hadn’t asked for the role that had been thrust upon him, and he definitely hadn’t wanted it. As he’d long suspected, his position as Thrawn’s aide was having a dampening effect on his own advancement, and there were many times over the past couple of years when he would have given anything to be free and clear of the Chiss.
But then there were the other times. The times when Thrawn made some connection or noticed some small fact that nailed a smuggler or racketeer red-handed. The times when the Chiss suggested a tactical maneuver that pulled an unexpected victory out of defeat. The times, as with Cygni and his pirates, when Thrawn was two steps ahead of the enemy at every turn.
Or at least, most of the turns. The lost tibanna still rankled him. It rankled Thrawn even more, he could tell.
So what did Eli really want? A calm, safe pathway that utilized his talents and skills to their maximum potential and took him to the top of his chosen field? Or a path where he nearly always felt like a fish flopping on the shore, but where he got to see true genius in action?
He’d been mulling that question ever since Royal Imperial. He still didn’t have an answer.
“Your family still engages in private shipping, does it not?” Thrawn asked into his thoughts.
“Yes, sir,” Eli confirmed, wincing a little. He still wasn’t sure how he felt about being Thrawn’s aide, but his parents had made their thoughts about his stagnating career very clear. It had gotten so bad that he no longer looked forward to their letters and calls.
“I assume that such work also includes a knowledge of supply and demand?”
“Shipping by itself doesn’t,” Eli said, “but they also do a lot of purchasing, and that definitely does. Why, is there something you need?”
Thrawn was silent another few steps. “Doonium,” he said. “Cygni identified my buzz droid as a Mark One model, and clearly recognized its value. That can only be due to its doonium content.”
Eli shrugged. “No surprise there. The price of doonium has gone through the roof since the navy started its latest shipbuilding surge.”
“That is the tale,” Thrawn agreed. “But I wonder. Do you know how many ships are being constructed, and how much doonium they require?”
“Not offhand, but I could probably find out,” Eli said, frowning. “Are you thinking the navy might be stockpiling the stuff?”
“That is one possibility,” Thrawn said. “The other possibility is more…intriguing.”