Free Heir To The Empire by Timothy Zahn Page A

sending a valuable man like Captain Solo out on these contact missions if each is predoomed to failure.”
    “They’re not predoomed to failure,” Han cut in. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Leia give him a warning look. He ignored it. “The kind of smugglers we’re looking for are conservative businesspeople-they don’t just jump into something new without thinking it through first. They’ll come around.”
    Fey’lya shrugged, his fur again rippling. “And meanwhile, we expend a great deal of time and effort with nothing to show for it.”
    “Look, you can’t build up any-”
    A gentle, almost diffident tap of a hammer from the head of the table cut off the argument. “What the smugglers are waiting for,” Mon Mothma said quietly, her stern gaze touching each of the others at the table in turn, “is the same thing the rest of the galaxy is waiting for: the formal reestablishment of the principals and law of the Old Republic. That is our first and primary task, Councilors. To become the New Republic in fact as well as in name.”
    Han caught Leia’s eye, and this time he was the one who sent out the warning look. She grimaced, but nodded slightly and kept quiet.
    Mon Mothma let the silence linger a moment longer, again sending her gaze around the table. Han found himself studying her, noting the deepening lines in her face, the streaks of gray in her dark hair, the thinness rather than slenderness of her neck. She’d aged a lot since he’d first met her, back when the Alliance was trying to find a way out from under the shadow of the Empire’s second Death Star. Ever since then, Mon Mothma had been right in the middle of this horrendous task of setting up a viable government, and the strain had clearly told on her.
    But despite what the years were doing to her face, her eyes still held the same quiet fire they’d possessed then-the same fire, or so the stories went, that had been there since her historic break with the Emperor’s New Order and her founding of the Rebel Alliance. She was tough, and smart, and fully in control. And everyone present knew it.
    Her eyes finished their sweep and came to rest on Han. “Captain Solo, we thank you for your report; and, too, for your efforts. And with the Captain’s report, this meeting is adjourned.”
    She tapped the hammer again and stood up. Han closed his report case and worked his way through the general confusion around to the other side of the table. “So,” he said quietly, coming up behind Leia as she collected her own things. “Are we out of here?”
    “The sooner the better,” she muttered back. “I just have to give these things to Winter.”
    Han glanced around and lowered his voice a notch. “I take it things were going a little rough before they called me in?”
    “No more than usual,” she told him. “Fey’lya and Ackbar had one of their polite little dogfights, this one over the fiasco at Obroa-skai-that lost Elomin force-with some more of Fey’lya’s veiled suggestions that the job of Commander in Chief is too much for Ackbar to handle. And then, of course, Mon Mothma-”
    “A word with you, Leia?” Mon Mothma’s voice came from over Han’s shoulder.
    Han turned to face her, sensing Leia tense a little beside him as she did likewise. “Yes?”
    “I forgot to ask you earlier if you’d talked to Luke about going with you to Bimmisaari,” Mon Mothma said. “Did he agree?”
    “Yes,” Leia nodded, throwing an apologetic look at Han. “I’m sorry, Han; I didn’t get a chance to tell you. The Bimms sent a message yesterday asking that Luke be there with me for the talks.”
    “They did, huh?” A year ago, Han reflected, he would probably have been furious at having a painstakingly crafted schedule flipped at the last minute like this. Leia’s diplomatic patience must be starting to rub off on him.
    Either that, or he was just getting soft. “They give any reasons?”
    “The Bimms are rather hero-oriented,” Mon