Chapter Text
Lio announced simply, “It’s her.”
There was no ambiguity as to who “her” might be. Not after the media storm of the past three weeks. Every newspaper, morning show, news report, legal podcast, and political panel had been taken over by the story. If the Outer Rim had voted to secede from the Republic, violence had flared up again on Ghorman and a banking panic had wiped trillions off the stock market, all three might have earned a ten-second mention before the ad break.
Orson Callan Krennic had spent much of the last three weeks thoroughly enjoying the circus and wondering if – or rather, when - Chancellor Mothma would call him.
After all, she had spent her entire career arguing that “justice ceased to be justice the moment it offered opt-outs for the powerful”; that it was time for a nation built for everyone, not just out of touch privileged elite. The line had played beautifully in campaign ads, donor dinners, and stump speeches. So beautifully, in fact, that the bleeding-heart idealist Senator - who herself happened to come from the same out-of-touch elite – had gone on to win the Chancellorship. True to her word, she had pushed through a package of judicial reforms, dispensing, among other things, with executive immunity.
And now, having spent decades insisting that no public servant should be above the law, Chancellor Mothma had suddenly discovered that the law was perfectly willing to take her at her word. Orson found the whole thing almost hysterical.
He was, at age not quite fifty, the top trial attorney in the Republic. He had been the first lawyer to charge four hundred thousand credits per hour, which for too long had been the unbreakable sound barrier of legal billing. There were, as Lio would remind him, half a dozen second-best trial attorneys, each of whom naturally considered themselves the top trial attorney in the land.
None of them, however, had made the cover of every weekly newsmagazine in the nation - a small token of gratitude from the Trade Federation after Orson got them off on charges of tariff evasion and labor-rights violations on Carmine, much to the displeasure of then-Senator Mothma. None had been subpoenaed by the Senate oversight Committee fifty times – then-Senator was nothing if not determined to make her displeasure known. None owned a professional smashball team – a solid investment venture, Orson insisted every time he caught Lio’s knowing look. And, to be fair, none had been a permanent fixture in the gossip columns, accompanied by a never-ending string of high-profile lovers. That he had still managed to avoid the shackles of marriage after three decades of incessant nocturnal carousing was perhaps the finest testament to his ability to make a persuasive oral argument.
Orson had successfully defended traitors, lobbyists, politicians, mobsters, blackmailers, toxic-waste dumpers, disgraced HoloNet tycoons, and even fellow lawyers. Justice Yoda, an imminent legal scholar and an eccentric living fossil with a signature green bow tie, once commented on a morning show that if Krennic had defended count Dooku after he had been brought to the capital and tried for treason, Dooku would have been not only acquitted, but awarded damages. It was not said admiringly.
To think that once – briefly, embarrassingly, and before he knew better – Orson had contemplated a lesser path: architecture. Building things. Permanent things. Useful things. Fortunately, he had come to his senses in time - thanks to the first lesson that “the nation built for everyone, not just out of touch privileged elite” was something one preached but failed to practice.
And now, three decades after his career began, the call came.
Orson reached for the button, then paused. He thought of asking Lio to tell her to call back, and ignoring an unimpressed look his friend would no doubt give him. He sometimes made new clients wait ten or fifteen-minutes before picking up. Softened them up. Made them imagine the alternative until they were sufficiently humbled and all the more eager.
Should he?
No.
He had waited thirty years. He was too impatient to begin this beguine.
He felt a drumbeat in his chest. Was his pulse actually quickening? He, who never broke a sweat, even while arguing before the Supreme Court, not even when Justice Windu methodically tried to verbally eviscerate him with a never-ending barrage of questions?
He picked up.
“Chancellor! What a pleasure.” Orson drawled with affronted nonchalance. “What’ve you been up to?”
“I need to see you, Orson.”
Composed even now, making a call that must have humiliated her, not a trace of begging or desperation in her voice. He’d have preferred a little more raw emotion, frankly, even a stifled gasp or a swallowed sob - though that had never really been her style. Well… Once, perhaps. Long ago. And, looking back at it now, Orson had to concur: she was right to have abandoned it. Tears did not change the choices – merely gave people an excuse to soothe their conscience and pretend they agonized over them.
Still. What Justice Windu failed to do over the course of the weeks-long Carmine trial, she managed in five seconds: showed him a stone in her hand and he missed a knife at his throat.
“Orson!” in mock outrage, stifling peals of laughter.
“Orson.” in the restrained tone that had never restrained either of them for long.
“Orson…” in a breathless whisper against his ear.
His pulse, traitorous thing, chose that very moment to shatter yet another supposedly unbreakable sound barrier.
He stiffened. That would not do. It would not do at all.
“I could see you tomorrow at fourteen hundred,” he said. “For half an hour.”
It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to the Chancellor like that.
And, because payback was the only moral principle Orson Callan Krennic stayed true to:
“In. My. Office.”
The two of them began the mental countdown to see who would blink first.
… nine … ten … eleven …
“Fine,” she said.
“The Bureau can take the Expressway,” he offered.
As a Chancellor - well, de facto former Chancellor - under indictment she still retained the Bureau protection, another of the exquisite ironies in which she and the nation found themselves: heading the government, prosecuted by the government, protected by the government. Even if she had been temporarily replaced by Acting Chancellor Palpatine, who, out of his infinite love for democracy, had entrusted Acting Attorney General Tarkin with prosecuting the case.
Morning show guests were already betting on the possibility of a shoot-out between the Bureau and the execution squad if Mon Mothma were found guilty, and debating whether, fifty years from now, her reforms would be remembered as a triumph of democratic accountability or a spectacularly inventive suicide.
So many delicious questions were being posed these days.
“Fourteen hundred, then,” she said calmly, as if penciling down a hair appointment… and had the gall to hung up first.
Orson leaned back in his white leather chair and imagined the upcoming spectacle in all its many-pixeled splendor: hundreds of holo-cameras and reporters camping outside his office, clamoring, shouting questions over one another, thrusting microphones toward him like fetish sticks to an ancient god. And there he would be: gorgeously, impeccably tailored, greeting her. His face would be on every screen in the world tomorrow. Moisture farmers in Tatooine, celestial power researchers on Eadu, nerf herders in the Alderaanian highlands – all of them would know his name.
It was, after all, the most high-profile case the nation had ever seen.
No sitting Chancellor in the history of the Republic had ever been indicted for murdering a spouse. Mon Mothma, ever the overachiever, had managed to break both the highest glass ceiling in the land and her husband’s skull within a few short years - the latter, allegedly, with an antique Hanna star plate she had once given him for their anniversary.
Till death do us part, indeed.
Fleetingly, Orson wondered whether that was her usual way of passing the time after state dinners for party donors turned newly appointed ambassadors. Davo Sculdun, on this occasion.
The HoloPress had already dubbed it the Death Star trial, and tomorrow there he would be, at the red hot center of it. He would issue a brief, noncommittal statement that this was merely a preliminary meeting. He would smile, thank the media for its interest – letting Heert channel their enthusiasm off the record - and usher her inside.
How satisfying it would be, after all these years.
And maybe, just maybe, to make his revenge perfect, he would deliberately lose this one. But so subtly that even Justice Yoda with his bow-tie brigade would shake his head and say that no one, really, could have won this case.
Not even Orson Callan Krennic.
***
It was well past ten when Lio decided to stage an intervention and drag Orson out of his office. Given the publicity they were bound to attract tomorrow – a circus, even by their standards – this evening would be the last time they could enjoy a decent whiskey in public. After that, they would have to assume they were being bugged everywhere they went: by the press, by amateur conspiracy theorists, and, inevitably, by Lio’s former colleagues from the Bureau.
The bar, tucked into the top floor of a Federal District hotel, offered sweeping views of the capital, cabinets lined with dark Alderaanian wood, Naboo marble, and, most importantly, discretion. Usually kept off, a holo-screen above the bar was now running a panel of pundits talking over one another: naturally, about Chancellor Mothma’s marriage and her husband’s well-documented if discreet “friendships” with fellow trophy spouses of rich and powerful. In other words, Lio thought ruefully, motive.
“The Death Star trial,” he mused, glancing at the screen over the rim of his glass. “What a percipient turn of phrase.”
Orson’s piercing blue eyes fixed on the screen, taking in the commotion: this time, a segment on Perrin Fertha’s frequent “sightseeing trips” to Canto Bight.
“Oh,” he chuckled. “It’s beautiful.”
“So, you’re taking the case.”
Orson swirled the amber at the bottom of his glass. “Well, I wouldn’t go that far.”
Lio rolled his eyes, unimpressed.
“You sent her a bill for thirty minutes.”
“For a preliminary legal consultation,” his friend countered stubbornly, studying the golden flecks of light dancing in the whiskey. “I’m not giving advice pro bono. That’s what Galen is for.”
“You cleared your calendar for six weeks.”
“For all that you know I may be planning a holiday at Niamos.”
“You told Heert and Dedra to camp out at the office and called Galen back from his farm.”
“That,” Orson took a sip of his whiskey, “is because the man deserves a break from Lyra.”
“You’re taking the case.” Lio repeated the self-evident truth – so evident, in fact, that he had started discreetly pulling intel from his friends in the Bureau the day the news broke.
The screen above the bar had moved on to a panel about whether a conviction would be good for the Republic, great for democracy and public faith in institutions, or bad for the future of women in power. All of the above, Lio reckoned, but most importantly - it’d be excellent for ratings.
“So, what’s the end game?”
“Acquittal.”
Lio raised an eyebrow at that. Not that Orson had ever lacked audacity in a courtroom, but even by his standards it was a stretch. Lio himself would have argued temporary insanity to secure a more lenient sentence, or else pushed for self-defense — the usual go-tos of marital spats.
“On the grounds of?”
“Reasonable doubt.”
Unfortunately, Lio Partagaz had twenty years of firsthand experience with the man in front of him, along with a finely attuned gut instinct for trouble, to know that the catch, as ever, was the adjective. Where Chancellor Mothma was concerned, reason did not so much fail Orson as permanently recuse itself.
The body had been found in the marital bed next to her, with a well-pronounced and thoroughly documented imprint of the Hanna star above Perrin’s right eyebrow. The coroner had ruled blunt-force trauma as the cause of death. A heated argument had been overheard by guests at the Executive Residence, as well as Bureau agents. Attorney General Tarkin wouldn’t even have to try very hard. Chancellor Mothma had finally managed to bring the nation together: by now, left, right, center, and the famously apolitical but fiercely loyal viewers of The Real Housewives of Coruscant all believed she had done it.
Lio found himself wondering whether, for the first time in his career, Orson was about to take a case only to lose it on purpose.
***
14:00 – Chancellor Mothma.
Orson, calibrate your enthusiasm and don’t be an asshole.
— Lio.
Why Lio felt compelled to spell out the obvious in his agenda, Orson would never know.
Outside, the world morphed into an even bigger zoo than he’d expected: microphones bobbed above the crowd, holo-cams perched on collapsible rigs and shoulder mounts, their red lights blinking the live feed to the nation. More than three hundred reporters and camera people, at least twice that many onlookers, phones raised, craning for a glimpse of the client – attorney meeting of the century. The Bureau had been forced to block off two westbound lanes and part of the Expressway just to keep the crowd from spilling into traffic.
Even Orson was impressed.
“Chancellor Mothma!” He said as soon as the door of her black Bureau-issued limo swung open.
“Counselor Krennic.” She mirrored his perfectly polite tone, as though they weren’t recorded by hundreds of cameras and broadcast live on HoloNet. “How pleasant to see you free of the witness stand.”
***
“That was truly humiliating,” Mon said as she entered his office, head held high and posture perfect. “Thank you.”
And just like that, Orson realized there was no point pretending it had not been he who leaked the news of their meeting. He only found himself hoping she had’t worked out to whom. Calliope Drouth, his current lover and host of the Law Channel’s late night talk show, whom he had met - accidentally, though definitely not regrettably - at the Republic Day gala the Chancellor insisted on hosting every year. He was usually adept at finding reasons to skip those, but that evening even he had run out of excuses… and into a rather charming silver lining to that particular cloud. There was nothing inherently wrong with mixing business and pleasure.
“You gave it to that woman, didn’t you? Calliope, the Law Channel?”
“That’s right. I wanted a big crowd down there today. I wanted to send a message to the Republic—”
“You did. It read, ‘Orson Krennic is a flaming egomaniac.’ ”
Mon crossed the room and settled into the visitor’s chair as if she owned the place and he were merely a guest pleading for mercy. She unfastened the high collar of her jacket, drew in a long breath, and closed her eyes for a moment – the only crack in an otherwise impenetrable façade, the one piece of the evidence that the impossible woman in front of him was not nearly as unfazed by the media circus and the murder charge as she wished to appear.
He knew he should offer an equally acerbic retort, but his eyes stayed fixed on the elegant line of her throat, and whatever suitably vicious point he might have made scattered just out of reach.
“Tarine tea, no milk, one sugar.” She, it seemed, had no difficulty whatsoever doing what she always did best: recovering faster than he did. “So, how are you, Orson?”
It dawned on Orson Callan Krennic - the top trial attorney in the nation, who had earned the title by vaporizing prosecution arguments in under twenty minutes and sidestepping the truth as religiously as he avoided marital vows - that in less than thirty seconds he had been demoted to the status of a waiter. In his own lair, no less, amid walls so thickly hung with testimonials to his greatness that every vertical surface seemed to cry out under the strain. It usually made Galen and Lio roll their eyes whenever another honorific was added to the ever-growing altar of his ego.
Orson buzzed for the tea and, sitting down opposite her, said, “Not so bad. Haven’t been indicted for murder.”
Mon gave him the hint of a smile.
“Why,” he said, “didn’t you call me sooner?”
“I was waiting to see how bad it was going to get. I didn’t want to make it look worse by hiring a lawyer.”
Krennic shook his head in silent exasperation. How often he had heard that.
“Anyway,” she said, “here I am. On bended knees.”
He took that as an excuse to look at her knees for a few inappropriately long seconds. And then at the rest of her. From the immaculately styled molten-gold hair catching the light from the floor-to-ceiling windows of his office - as though the room and the sun themselves had conspired against him - to the hazel-blue eyes, marked by carefully concealed evidence of sleepless nights thanks to the recent media circus; to the lines of tension at the corners of her mouth, arranged now into that dry, slightly mocking smile of hers that had always driven him mad after their arguments, and that he could once have spent hours kissing away—
“The reason they’re bent,” her dry voice interrupted both his inspection and his rather undignified trip down memory lane, “is because I just spent an hour in the back of a Bureau-issued limo with three agents and the entire press corps breathing down our necks. But I could say they’re bent for your sake, if flattery still gets you going.”
“You must be in a world of hurt,” Orson drawled, “to come to me.”
“I’ve been indicted for murder. That’s one definition of a world of hurt, I suppose.”
“Words do still have meanings,” he concurred. “Though in your case, Chancellor, the operative one is murder.”
And that, at last, had the desired effect. Her posture shifted, almost imperceptibly. But Orson had always been an avid student of human tells – a necessity, given his line of work – and as for Mon… he knew hers, intimately. Or so he had once liked to think.
“On that note,” her voice carried an uncharacteristic hesitation - a sure sign she was about to venture where neither of them wanted her to go. “Before we continue, I’d rather know your state of mind. I don’t want to learn during closing arguments that your heart was never in it.”
“What makes you think I’ll take the case in the first place?”
“Orson.” Mon shook her head, that small amused tugged at the corners of her mouth. “Whatever our baggage, I can’t believe you’d let this pass. The publicity. The chance to write your name into the history books… And I’ve yet to see you miss an opportunity to get one over on Tarkin.”
She was smiling. By stars, the woman was smiling and all he could do was pretend that he was the absolute lord and master of the corner into which she had just backed him.
“I think we established long ago that my heart is the least useful of my possessions. My mind and powers of persuasion are the things you should concern yourself with. And those are still sold to the highest bidder.”
Yes, he still held a grudge over her grilling him for the Camine trial in her little Committee.
Orson gave her his best glare, the one usually reserved for hostile witnesses and particularly stupid prosecutors. And she merely stared back at him until all he could do was try not to laugh at his own helplessness.
“Fine. I’ll take the case.”
“Thank you.”
“But I want it understood, understood beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I’m in charge.”
“Of course.”
She said in that tone of hers he knew all too well after years of testifying in her Committee – usually it meant she didn’t believe a single word of his.
“Oh no. Raise your right hand and say, ‘I do solemnly swear that Orson Callan Krennic shall be completely, wholly, totally, and one hundred percent in charge of my defense. So help me any god, gods, higher powers, ancestral spirits, or other forces and cosmic energy fields not herein specified. Do you swear?”
“I do.”
Speaking of the higher powers and their twisted sense of humor. Once, long ago, he had wanted to hear those words from her in altogether different circumstances, preferably with rather more enthusiasm and considerably more clothing on the floor. Now, thirty years later, fate had finally obliged. Over her husband’s dead body. How fitting.
“Don’t you want to know if I did it?” Mon asked, thankfully interrupting another pathetic trip down the memory lane.
Right. The dead body in question.
“The last thing I want to know from my clients is if they did it.” He waved a dismissive hand. “And even if I did, what good would it do me? Criminals love to lie. After all, who wants to die for lawless ineptitude?”
