Chapter 16 · Light Reading

For forty-three minutes, no one shouted.

That was not the same as peace, Mon Mothma thought, but by the standards of the last week it was close enough to be treated with respect.

The Chancellor’s private office had been designed to appear calm without ever quite allowing comfort to become indulgent. Pale walls, low shelves, a narrow terrace beyond the reinforced transparisteel, two chairs arranged for conversation rather than confrontation, and a desk that had somehow become the resting place of every unsolved crisis in the New Republic despite Mon’s repeated efforts to persuade the galaxy that other flat surfaces existed. Outside, the Coruscant afternoon stretched mild and blue over the government district, as if the planet itself were politely pretending that the last week had not included a vanished Imperial Grand Admiral walking into parliament, a legal siege by the most expensive attorneys in the Core, a civil oversight inspection, a medical transfer, and an armed criminal extraction attempt in a high-security annex.

Leia sat on the small sofa near the side table, shoes still on, shoulders tight, one hand wrapped around a cup of ginger tea she had not yet drunk. She had arrived five minutes earlier carrying three datapads, two security updates, and the expression of someone who had forgotten what rooms were for if no one inside them was demanding an answer.

Mon had taken the datapads from her hands and placed them, face down, on the desk. Leia had looked at her. Mon had looked back. Neither of them had said anything.

Now a light lunch sat between them: sliced fruit, warm flatbread, soft cheese, a small bowl of lentil soup, and two portions of something the kitchen had described as herb-poached riverfish with citrus, which sounded gentle enough to survive both politics and nausea. Leia had taken one piece of flatbread and half a slice of fruit. Mon had pretended not to notice the arithmetic of it.

For a while, they ate in silence. Or rather, Mon ate, and Leia negotiated with the concept of food.

“You know,” Leia said at last, looking down at the soup, “there was a time when lunch meant sitting down, eating, and then leaving.”

Mon lifted her cup. “I remember hearing of such customs.”

“Did they really exist?”

“Historians disagree.”

Leia’s mouth curved faintly. It was not much. These days, Mon accepted not much with gratitude.

On the low table, one of the datapads chimed. Both women looked at it. Neither moved. After a second, the chime stopped.

Leia exhaled. “That felt rebellious.”

“Neglecting a notification?”

“Letting it suffer.”

Mon allowed herself the smallest smile and cut another piece of fruit. The pause held for perhaps seven breaths before Leia reached for the datapad anyway.

Mon did not stop her. She knew better. Leia glanced at the screen, then set it down again. “Madine’s preliminary report on the annex attack.”

“Anything new?”

“Room One was definitely the target. They still won’t put the patient’s name in anything that crosses my desk, which is starting to annoy me.”

“That is probably the point.”

“I know.” Leia rubbed at the bridge of her nose. “Criminal syndicate, high-level planning, good schematics, bad timing. They didn’t know Thrawn had been moved into Room Two until after they breached the inner corridor.”

“Or they knew and chose not to adjust.”

“No.” Leia shook her head. “Kallus thinks the way they moved says they were surprised. They had the wrong tools for his door. One of them said so aloud.”

Mon looked down at her tea. “And Thrawn did not leave.”

“No.”

That word sat between them, irritatingly solid.

Leia hated it. Mon could tell. Not because it was surprising — not exactly — but because it removed one more easy explanation. If Thrawn had tried to escape, they would know where to place him in the structure of things. Dangerous prisoner. Opportunist. Enemy waiting for error. That would have been clean. Alarming, but clean.

Instead, he had stayed. Worse, he had acted. The medical emergency lockdown had sealed the extraction route before the attackers could remove Room One’s occupant. Brant’s report was painfully precise on that point. Thrawn had not fought his way out, had not taken a guard hostage, had not disappeared into smoke with the first open door he had been given. He had used a medical monitor to trigger a procedural cascade that the attackers had not planned for.

Mon had read the report twice. She disliked how much of it made sense.

Leia picked at the edge of the flatbread. “He said escape would have weakened his position.”

Mon nodded slowly. “That sounds like him.”

“You have known him less than a week.”

“And yet.”

Leia gave her a look. Mon accepted it.

Outside, the city moved quietly under the afternoon light. Airspeeders traced regulated lines between government towers. Somewhere below, aides crossed the gardens with urgent faces and armfuls of documents. The whole district appeared orderly from above, which Mon had always considered one of architecture’s more cynical talents.

“It is becoming difficult,” Mon said, “to maintain the argument that he is primarily attempting to flee custody.”

“He never was.” Leia said it too quickly. Then she looked away.

Mon watched her. “That was not your position five days ago.”

“Five days ago his door hadn’t opened.”

“No.”

“And five days ago he hadn’t passed up the best chance he’s had to vanish into a corridor full of smoke and dead cameras.”

“Not dead. Jammed.”

“Fine. Wounded cameras.”

Mon took a sip of tea. “Leia.”

“I know what you’re going to say.”

“Do you?”

“You’re going to say that one decision not to escape does not make him trustworthy.”

“No,” Mon said. “I was going to say that it makes him more dangerous.”

Leia stopped moving.

Mon continued, quietly, “A man trying to escape is a man with a finite objective. A man who refuses escape because remaining is more useful has chosen a larger field.”

Leia’s expression shifted. Not agreement. Recognition. “Yes,” she said. “That’s what scares me.”

Another datapad chimed. This time Leia picked it up before Mon could decide whether to stop her. She read, blinked once, then made a sound that was not quite a laugh.

“What now?” Mon asked.

Leia turned the display toward her. Mon read the header.

REQUEST FOR APPROVED READING MATERIAL — DETAINEE MITTH’RAW’NURODO

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Of course.”

“That seems to be the official motto of the Thrawn situation.”

Mon skimmed the request. It had come through Veyr, Antilles and Sorn, naturally, because apparently even a book could now enter the government only accompanied by counsel. The request was written with the firm’s usual predatory reasonableness. Counsel acknowledged that the detainee’s personal reading device remained under evidence quarantine and that the government might have legitimate security concerns regarding return of the original item. Therefore, in lieu of returning the device, counsel requested that the New Republic provide an approved, non-networked reading unit containing government-sourced copies of the same titles inventoried at intake, or functionally equivalent editions where exact digital files could not be verified.

No external communication capacity. No transferable storage. No annotation export. No hidden metadata. No physical pages that could be folded into tools, because Brant, Mon suspected, had added that objection somewhere and the lawyers had preemptively answered it.

Leia leaned back.

“He is asking for books.”

“He is asking through counsel for a controlled device containing approved copies of books,” Mon said.

“That is worse.”

“It is more precise.”

“It is more Thrawn.”

Mon set the datapad down. The titles appeared in the attached inventory: historical analysis, linguistic theory, two works on pre-Republic trade law, a study of Coruscanti civic architecture, three novels, and what appeared to be a translated Lothalite epic poem, which Mon noticed only because Leia noticed it and went very still for half a second.

“Leia?”

“I saw.”

Mon did not ask whether Hera knew. She assumed Hera would, eventually, and that when she did, the fact that Thrawn had arrived with a Lothal-made scarf and a Lothalite poem on his reading device would become one more thing no one could make simple.

Leia looked tired enough to break something and too disciplined to choose what. “They know we’ll deny the original datapad,” she said.

“Yes.”

“So they ask for something we can’t easily refuse without looking petty.”

“Yes.”

“And if we do refuse, the civil liberties groups will add intellectual deprivation to the list.”

“Probably.”

“If we agree, he gets reading material, a small comfort, and one more example of the Republic behaving lawfully because his lawyers made us.”

Mon folded her hands around her cup. “Or because it is lawful.”

Leia looked at her sharply. Mon held the gaze. The correction was gentle. It was also necessary.

Leia looked away first. “I know.”

“I know you know.”

“I just hate that every decent thing we do for him feels like terrain.”

“It is terrain,” Mon said. “That does not mean we surrender it by standing on it.”

Leia absorbed that, eyes on the untouched soup.

Then, softer, “You sound like you’ve been saying that to yourself.”

“I have.”

“Does it help?”

“Not as much as I would like.”

Leia laughed once, very quietly. Mon smiled. The moment was small, and because it was small, it hurt.

For several minutes, they managed the pretense of lunch again. Mon ate half the fish. Leia took two spoonfuls of soup and then, after a visible negotiation with her stomach, a third. That felt like victory enough that Mon decided not to call attention to it. Eventually she said, “How are you?”

Leia’s eyes flicked up. “I’m tired.”

“That is not what I asked.”

“It’s usually what people mean.”

“Not me.”

Leia held the spoon above the bowl for a moment, then set it down. “I’m all right.” Mon waited. Leia sighed, because she knew that waiting too. “I am. Mostly. The nausea is worse in the mornings, but it comes and goes. The doctor said that can happen. The fatigue is…” She gave a small, helpless motion with one hand. “Hard to separate from the Republic trying to collapse into procedural fire every six hours.”

“That is not a standard prenatal condition, as far as I know.”

“No. Though someone should warn the medical journals.”

Mon’s expression softened. “You have an appointment?”

“In two days.” Leia touched the cup of ginger tea with both hands. “First proper one.”

Mon’s expression softened. “With the midwife?”

“Midwife first, then the physician if needed. Apparently that is the civilized order of things when the galaxy is not actively trying to reorganize itself around an Imperial Grand Admiral.”

“A bold assumption from the medical profession.”

Leia smiled faintly. “I know.”

“Good.”

The word carried more feeling than Mon had intended. Leia heard it.

For a moment, the office changed around them. The reports, the legal requests, the strategic consequences, the fragile government and its endless appetite — all of it remained, but at a distance. There was only Leia, younger than she had any right to be and older than anyone should have been, sitting in afternoon light with one hand near her abdomen as if the gesture had happened before thought.

“You still haven’t told Luke,” Mon said.

Leia looked at the tea. “No.”

“Because he is difficult to reach?”

“That’s the practical excuse.”

“And the real one?”

Leia’s mouth tightened. “Because once I tell him, it becomes more real.”

Mon said nothing.

“And because he’ll be happy,” Leia added, quieter. “And worried. And probably strange about it in that Luke way where he tries not to say mystical things and somehow makes the silence mystical instead.”

“That sounds like him.”

Leia smiled faintly. “I want to tell him in person if I can.”

“That may be difficult.”

“I know.”

“Han?”

“Han knows, obviously.”

“I assumed.”

“He is being very calm.”

Mon lifted an eyebrow. “Han Solo?”

Leia’s smile warmed despite herself. “His version of calm. Which means he keeps pretending not to hover while hovering with snacks.”

“A useful skill.”

“He bought me Alderaanian beer.”

Mon’s face softened again, but this time the sadness was older. “Did it taste like home?”

Leia looked down. “No.” Then, after a moment, “Yes.”

Mon understood.

Some things did not need precision.

“You have not made it public,” she said.

“No. Not yet.”

“Because of the current crisis?”

“Because of everything.” Leia’s hand moved once over the side of the cup. “Because the second it becomes public, it stops being ours first. It becomes a symbol, a headline, a vulnerability, a debate about succession even though we are not a monarchy, a question of security, another thing for people to have opinions about.”

Mon did not answer immediately.

Few people understood better than she did the violence with which public life claimed private joy. “You are allowed to keep it yours for a while,” she said.

Leia looked at her. “Am I?”

“Yes.” The answer came more firmly than Mon expected from herself. Then she added, because honesty was kinder than reassurance when the subject was power, “Not forever.”

Leia gave a small breath of laughter. “There she is.”

“I am still Chancellor.”

“I had noticed.”

“But for a while,” Mon said, “yes. Keep it yours.”

Leia looked out toward the terrace, where sunlight reflected off the glass in pale gold. “If it’s a girl,” she said slowly, “we’re thinking of Padmé.”

Mon’s hand stilled on her cup. Leia did not look at her.

“Han suggested it first, actually. Or he pretended it was my idea and then acted innocent when I noticed. He’s getting better at diplomacy. Terrible sign.”

Mon felt something move through her chest, grief and affection so braided she could not separate them quickly enough to speak at once. “Padmé,” she said.

Leia nodded. “Too much?”

“No.”

“It might be.”

“It is not.”

Leia’s eyes were bright, but steady. “I don’t know what I owe the dead sometimes,” she said. “Or what I owe the living. Or how to name a child without making her carry a history she didn’t ask for.”

Mon reached across the small table and placed her hand over Leia’s. “You give her the name as love,” she said. “Not as a debt.”

Leia swallowed, nodding. “And if it’s a boy, I’d like him to be Ben.”

For a while, neither of them spoke.

The datapad chimed again. This time both of them laughed. Not because it was funny. Because if they did not laugh, the galaxy would win.

Mon picked it up first. “Vorr,” she said. “He wants guidance on the reading request.”

Leia leaned back and covered her face with one hand. “The fate of the Republic turns on whether Grand Admiral Thrawn is allowed pre-Republic trade law.”

“Former Grand Admiral.”

“I hate that you corrected me.”

“It may be legally relevant.”

“I hate that more.”

Mon read Vorr’s attached note. “He recommends approval, with restrictions. Brant recommends a non-networked device in a sealed casing, no annotation retention, no external ports, daily inspection. Kallus recommends reviewing each text for embedded signaling value, then admits in the next line that if we start classifying public books as intelligence threats, the lawyers will devour us.”

Leia lowered her hand. “Madine?”

“Madine wrote: ‘Give him the books. Watch what he reads first.’”

Leia stared at her. Then she smiled despite herself. “Practical.”

“Yes.”

“And probably right.”

“Yes.”

Mon looked at the list again. “Do you object?”

“To him reading?”

“To approving the request.”

Leia was quiet for several seconds. “No,” she said at last. “I object to how much sense it makes to approve it.”

“That may be our governing philosophy for the week.”

Leia picked up her tea and finally drank. “Send it through.”

Mon nodded and entered the authorization.

Approved reading device. Government sourced files. No network access. No personal datapad returned. Daily inspection. Medical discretion to restrict use during rest periods. Counsel notified. Security copied. Vorr spared, temporarily.

The decision disappeared into the system with a soft confirmation tone. Somewhere in the annex, Thrawn would receive books. The Republic would survive the concession.

Probably.

Leia set her cup down. “You know he’ll read the Coruscanti architecture study first.”

Mon looked at her. “Why?”

“Because he’ll want to understand the buildings we keep using to trap ourselves.”

Mon considered that. Then she sighed. “Yes. He probably will.”

Outside, the afternoon went on pretending to be peaceful.

Inside, the two women sat with cooling tea, half-finished lunch, a secret child, a government under pressure, and the knowledge that somewhere in a secure medical room a former Imperial Grand Admiral had just won, through law and boredom and the unbearable reasonableness of books, another small piece of humanity the New Republic could not deny him without becoming smaller itself.