Presently, he is assigned to watch Ashmin Ek, of Anthan Prime. They wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Jom. Here, the only ones allowed onsite are senators, their staff members, their security, and those who petitioned for the exception list. Those on that list of exceptions might include journos, celebrities, certain business barons who want to press the flesh and try to encourage industry-friendly policies…
Thing is, that list is curated months in advance. The slots are limited and have been full since it opened. Yes, Mon Mothma or Leia probably could’ve pulled the strings to get their names on the list—but doing so would have been an obvious gesture, and one that connects what she’s doing on Wartol’s cruiser to their efforts down here on Nakadia. The chancellor wisely did not want any threads connecting her to them, lest this all blow up in their faces.
That’s where Jom came in.
Jom, now working as security, was willing to, erm, adjust the list—he knocked off a handful of questionable journalists and added their names to it, instead. Solo and Sinjir were easy: Both count roughly as “celebrities” among the most narcissistic of politicians. Solo as a bona fide hero of the Rebellion, and Sinjir as a freakish curiosity (“Oh, look at the funny Imperial. Gasp, did he know Darth Vader?”). Conder has worked for senators before, so he, too, was a value-add for the list. Temmin was tougher to get on, but they used his nickname (“Snap”) and put him down as a “military veteran,” and nobody looked askance.
So now they wait. And they watch.
It is predictably dull work.
Across from the Quarrow Senate house sits a restaurant—Izzik’s. It’s mostly outdoors, and underlit tables populate a trio of staggered, hovering patios. Senators crowd around them, elbow-to-elbow, shoulder-to-shoulder, tentacle-to-eyestalk, gassily congratulating one another on their debatable achievements. Laughing and lightly applauding, and now the tentacled senator from Torphlus is gurgling something that may be a song or may be a cry for help and there’s more laughter and more applause.
Ek, for his part, is a mover and a shaker. Some sit in one place, dropping an anchor at a table and hanging tight in little cliques, but the Anthan Prime senator is a veritable social pollinator, flitting from political flower to political flower and sprinkling a bit of himself on everyone. He’s like a droid on a program: He says the same things, makes the same sounds, offers the same congratulations, bellows the same laughs at the same times.
None of it is untoward. It’s all entirely aboveboard.
That worries Sinjir. Because right now, they’re looking for something that may not be there. The simplest answer is almost always the truest, and here the simplest answer is that the five senators who voted against Mon Mothma’s resolution did so because they are politicians. They have agendas and those agendas needn’t line up with the safety of the galaxy. Oh, sure, it’s lovely to believe everyone has the best interests of the greater good at heart, but to seek power—to want a hand helping steer the galaxy’s fate!—is an act of ultimate ego. It is an act of self no matter how selfless one portrays it. Which means there is likely no conspiracy here except the all-too-common conspiracy of aggressive self-interest.
As Sinjir slowly orbits Senator Ek, winding his way surreptitiously through the crowd of (shudder) politicians, he spies a familiar face across the uppermost patio: Conder.
Conder smirks. Coy, boyish, playful. That monster.
Sinjir ignores him. Or tries to.
He leans back against the bar and gently speaks into the comlink at his wrist: “No good news to report.”
“I got good news,” Solo says through Sinjir’s earpiece. Han isn’t here—he’s at the northernmost spaceport just outside Quarrow, where Senator Dor Wieedo from Rodia remains in his ship. Solo’s enough of a known quantity in the New Republic that putting him somewhere too public like Izzik’s is a good way to gum up the works. Everyone would be stopping the “hero of the Rebellion,” fawning over him, asking him about Luke, about Leia, about that damn Kessel Run he likes to go on about. “Mon’s plan worked. I just heard it from one of the stevedores on break: Wartol’s ship is being held out of queue in quarantine while they wait for an inspection crew to come aboard. It’ll be a while, but I don’t know that it buys us much time. Twelve hours at best, and I never like to expect the best.”
“We’re not going to find anything,” Sinjir says.
Jom’s turn to talk: “We need to kriffing find something.” He’s watching Rethalow of Frong at one of the poma-clubs. “I still don’t understand why we can’t just go up, knock these traitors on the head, and ask them what they’re up to. Sinjir, you can do that. Tell them to vote how we like or they’ll have to listen to you drone on about whatever it is you like to drone on about. That’d be real torture.”
A laugh over the comlink. Conder.