fighters and fifty stolen mole miners that had somehow been smuggled into the shipyards,' Han continued. 'We gave them some assistance with the fighters, figured out that the Imperials were using the mole miners to try and steal some of the capital ships that had been pressed into cargo duty, and were able to stop them. That's about it.'
'You're too modest, Captain Solo,' Fey'lya spoke up again. 'According to the reports we've received here, it was you and Calrissian who managed singlehandedly to thwart the Empire's scheme.'
Han braced himself. Here it came. He and Lando had stopped the Imperials, all right ... only they'd had to fry the nerve centers of over forty capital ships to do it. 'I'm sorry about wrecking the ships,' he said, looking Fey'lya straight in the eye. 'Would you rather the Imperials have taken them intact?'
A ripple ran through the Bothan's fur. 'Really, Captain Solo,' he said soothingly. 'I have no particular quarrel with your method of stopping the Empire's attempt at grand larceny, costly though it might have been. You had only what you could work with. Within your constraints, you and the others succeeded brilliantly.'
Han frowned, feeling suddenly a little off balance. He had expected Fey'lya to try to make him the man under the hammer on this one. For once, the Bothan seemed to have missed a bet. 'Thank you, Councilor,' he said, for lack of anything better to say.
'Which is not to say that the Empire's attempt and near-victory are not important, Fey'lya said, his fur rippling the opposite direction this time as he looked around the room. 'On the contrary. At the best, they speak of serious misjudgments on the part of our military commanders. At the worst ... they may speak of treason.'
Han felt his lip twist. So that was it. Fey'lya hadn't changed his stripes; he'd simply decided not to waste a golden opportunity like this on a nobody like Han. 'With all due respect, Councilor,' he spoke up quickly, 'what happened at Sluis Van wasn't Admiral Ackbar's fault. The whole operation-'
'Excuse me, Captain Solo,' Fey'lya cut him off. 'And with all due respect to you, let me point out that the reason those capital ships were sitting at Sluis Van in the first place, undermanned and vulnerable, was that Admiral Ackbar had ordered them there.'
'There isn't anything like treason involved,' Han insisted doggedly.
'We already know that the Empire's got a tap into our communications-'
'And who's responsible for such failures of security?' Fey'lya shot back. 'Once again, the blame falls squarely around Admiral Ackbar's shoulders.'
'Well, then, you find the leak,' Han snapped. Peripherally, he could see Leia shaking her head urgently at him, but he was too mad now to care whether he was being properly respectful or not. 'And while you're at it, I'd like to see how well you would do up against an Imperial Grand Admiral.' The low-level buzz of conversation that had begun in the room cut off abruptly. 'What was that last?' Mon Mothma asked. Silently, Han swore at himself. He hadn't meant to spring this on anyone until he'd had a chance to check it out himself at the Palace archives. But it was too late now. 'The Empire's being led by a Grand Admiral,' he muttered. 'I saw him myself.'
The silence hung thick in the air. Mon Mothma recovered first.
'That's impossible,' she said, sounding more like she wanted to believe it than that she really did. 'We've accounted for all the Grand Admirals.'
'I saw him myself,' Han repeated.
'Describe him,' Fey'lya said. 'What did he look like?'
'He wasn't human,' Han said. 'At least, not completely. He had a roughly human build, but he had light blue skin, a kind of bluish black hair, and eyes that glowed red. I don't know what species he was.'
'Yet we know that the Emperor didn't like nonhumans,' Mon Mothma reminded him.
Han looked at Leia. The skin of her face was tight, her eyes staring at and through him with a kind of numb horror. She understood what this meant, all right. 'He was wearing a white uniform,' he told Mon Mothma. 'No other Imperial officers wore anything like that. And the contact I was with specifically called him a Grand Admiral.'
'Obviously a self-granted promotion,' Fey'lya said briskly. 'Some regular admiral or perhaps a leftover Moff trying to rally the remains of the Empire around him. Anyway, that's beside the immediate point.'
'Beside the point?' Han demanded. 'Look, Councilor, if there's a Grand Admiral running around loose-'
'If there is,' Mon Mothma interrupted firmly, 'we'll soon know for certain. Until then, there seems little value in holding a debate in a vacuum. Council Research is hereby directed to look into the possibility that a Grand Admiral might still be alive. Until such an investigation has been completed, we will continue with our current inquiry into the circumstances of the Sluis Van attack.' She looked at Han, then turned and nodded at Leia. 'Councilor Organa Solo, you may begin the questioning.'
Admiral Ackbar's high-domed, salmon-colored head bent slightly to the side, his huge round eyes swiveling in their sockets in a Calamarian gesture Leia couldn't recall ever having seen before. Surprise? Or was it perhaps dread?
