“Try bombshell.”
Han took a few moments to work out what he was looking at. Riot police—no, soldiers in black armor were storming buildings, and the caption said JABI TOWN: DAWN RAID ON CORELLIAN COMMUNITY. It was everything he expected from the Alliance. They were playing the Empire all over again, almost right down to the armor.
“Oh, you reckon this is going to shock me?”
Leia’s mouth was slightly open and her frown made her look as if she was close to tears. She held up her hand for quiet and he saw it was shaking slightly.
“Jacen,” she said hoarsely.
Han scanned the screen, expecting to see Jacen injured or attacked, and then saw his son, his little boy who had always had a soft heart and who could feel pain for others, directing soldiers into buildings to drag out Corellians.
In that way of terrible and unimaginable things, it didn’t look real. His mind conjured up a scenario instantly: it was a vile piece of fake propaganda. It was Thrackan’s doing. It was a lie.
But it wasn’t. Leia put her hand to her mouth.
Jacen even had his lightsaber drawn. And he had Ben with him. Ben was taking part in the raid.
Han couldn’t speak.
“Honey, what’s happening to him?” Leia’s voice was a whisper. “How can he do this?”
She turned up the volume. The voice-over faded in and all Han could take in were the words, “… emergency powers have been granted for the internment of Corellian citizens resident in Galactic City …”
Han felt guilty that he saw not fellow Corellians being herded into assault ships but himself being betrayed by his own son. You should be thinking of the bigger picture. You used to be able to do that, you self-centered bum. But as much as he tried to be altruistic, the horror and outrage that was replacing his shock was for himself and Leia.
Not even Jaina. Now I know what she meant when she asked him if he was in trouble.
All Han could think now was that they could be on the run from their own son—and that they’d be even less welcome back in Coronet if their identities were discovered.
“Threepio?” Han called. “Threepio! When the Falcon’s ready, fly her over to us any way you can. Get back to the apartment now and call Jaina. Tell her we’ll talk to her later. We have to go. Got it?”
“I have indeed got it, Captain Solo.”
Leia said nothing. She eased past Han and settled in the cockpit. When things were bad, she usually became very calm and decisive. It was a barometer of how serious a crisis they were facing.
“Ready to lift,” she said quietly, checking the status readouts as if she hadn’t just watched her son turn into a monster on HNE in front of the whole galaxy. “Let’s go.”
chapter ten
To see a Jedi take up his lightsaber against civilians is shocking. But to see the son and nephew of the leader of the Jedi council doing it is heartbreaking.
—Master Cilghal, Jedi high council
PERIMETER FENCE, ARKANIAN MICROTECHNOLOGIES: VOHAI, PARMEL SECTOR: 1600 HOURS.
The bigger companies grew, the more complacent their security became. Fett could remember when Arkanian Micro was a tough nut to crack.
He knelt on one knee in the cover of bushes and used the scope of his EE-3 blaster to observe employees passing through the security gate.
“I could be useful,” said the voice in his helmet comlink.
“Stay off this channel.”
“Women can get access to places that men often can’t.”
Mirta was persistent. Fett bristled.
“You’ll spend the journey back in the cells if you don’t shut up.”
She was still locked inside Slave I—hidden in the cover of a disused silo a kilometer away—confined to the crew section this time. She couldn’t activate the ship’s drives, but Fett had left a couple of comlink channels unguarded. If she was any good, she’d find them—and if she was double-crossing him, she’d use them and then he’d know who she was working with. So far all she had done was call him.
“Okay,” she said, apparently unperturbed. “I’ll stand by.”
The only person Fett had ever trusted was his father. Neither of them was a natural team player. He could handle command when he had to, but he liked working alone, and the current task was a case in point. He could either talk his way into Arkanian Micro, or he could do what he did best, which was to observe, identify the weak point, infiltrate by force—and take what he needed.
Talking wasn’t his strong point.
The staff moved in and out. A security guard on the gate and two sentinel droids scrutinized each individual going in and coming out, sweeping them with sensors.
Arkanian Micro had once buried its most sensitive laboratories in the polar ice of the planet, but now it seemed to prefer the softer suburbs and landscaped business parks. Fat and lazy. It was cheaper to build on the surface. Vohai hadn’t suffered at the hands of the Yuuzhan Vong and it had grown complacent.
That was just what Fett needed.
He liked companies with tough security best, though, because they provided a handy pointer to the target. You didn’t protect what you didn’t value most. Let’s look for a few clues.
Kaminoans wouldn’t stroll out through the gates with a lunch box under one arm. Kaminoans liked cold, wet gloom. Vohai was pleasantly sunny much of the year. Fett called up the aerial view of the Micro complex on his HUD and worked out where he would place an office to ensure it had no natural light. The layout as seen in the frame that Slave I’s scanners had grabbed before landing showed a sprawl of building that was essentially a square core with a lot of thin arms radiating off it, and many courtyards. Humans—most species, in fact—liked bright natural light to work in.
But you wouldn’t want one of those nice courtyard offices, would you, Taun We?
So, somewhere in the square heart of the complex, not on the periphery or in the strings of building that ran from it, was a lab or an office that a Kaminoan would feel at home in. Me, too. Not the rain so much as the plain walls and the lack of clutter. He thought of the simple toys and his austere childhood home and knew why possessions seemed a burden he didn’t really want.
She’s probably in there right now, building more clones. If she raises the alarm when she sees you, would you shoot her? Shoot someone old and weak?
He set his visor to full-range magnification by tapping the control plate on his left forearm—he preferred that to the blink-activated HUD system—and tried to get a better line of sight into the security booth at the gate. They were bound to have some repeater system. Every security station needed to be able to communicate with the rest. That meant there might be an indication of floors below ground.
From the air, only single-story buildings were visible. He needed to know if he faced a more complex layout once inside. It wasn’t a good idea to get pinned down below ground level.
Fett needed a better observation point.
He looked around, calculating the angle of elevation he needed to get a clear view through the transparisteel window. If he sent a remote in closer, it would be spotted. He’d do this the old-fashioned way. Backing out of the bushes, he walked a hundred meters to the next lot and checked out the roofline. Fine: plenty of flat-topped warehousing to choose from. He slipped between two buildings, took out his rappelling line, and then decided a simple burn with the jet pack would save his shoulders a lot of wear and tear. He was up on the roof in under three seconds, lying flat and peering down the scope of the blaster to get a better look inside the security booth.
There was a status screen on the guard’s desk all right. He eased along to the far edge of the roof on his belly and racked up the scope’s magnification. The image shimmered, unsteady at that range, but he could see a grid of white lines on a blue background, with green lights winking at points along the grid—probably intruder sensors. There was nothing that indicated multiple layers.
One level. So far, so good.
The next st
ep was to work out how the building was organized, and all that took was a little guesswork backed up by information that was usually public. Fett lowered himself from the roof on his rappel line, letting the pulley take the strain, flicked the cord clear, and settled down in the shelter of waste storage sheds to browse the local comlink directory system from his datapad.
It was fascinating to see how much information one could put together just by seeing how companies listed their departmental comlink numbers. Names and numbers scrolled across the screen of his pad.
Arkanian Microtechnologies …
DELIVERIES
PERSONNEL SERVICES
PUBLIC AFFAIRS AND INVESTOR RELATIONS
He scrolled farther. What was Taun We’s specialty?
DEVELOPMENTAL SCIENCES AND EDUCATION
Taun We was an expert in human psychology. She knew enough about humans to make sure the ones the Kaminoans bred under the most unnatural conditions imaginable were conditioned enough to prevent them from becoming basket cases.
She wouldn’t be splicing DNA. She’d have brought her little case of datachips with her as some kind of employment dowry, and Microtech would have been glad to have that data, but her day-to-day work—the work she loved doing—was making sure clones didn’t go crazy. Profiling, testing, flash-teaching, accelerated socialization: giving clones the right attitude to be useful tools.
Hi, Taun We. I hope you’re enjoying your new job.
Fett could have waited to see when she came out—almost certainly by vehicle, probably obscured from view—and followed her to wherever she called home. But it wasn’t that much harder to walk in and find her. If he could get close enough to the building, he could use the penetrating terahertz radar sensor in his helmet’s visor to look for a long body with pockets of low-density tissue, quite distinct from a human radar profile. It could see through walls. Infrared couldn’t.
And it had been a long time since he had broken into a laboratory for data retrieval. A bounty hunter had to keep his skills sharp.
GALACTIC ALLIANCE GUARD HQ, QUADRANT A-89, GALACTIC CITY: 0830 HOURS.
Jacen came out of the GAG briefing room to find Mara standing with her hands on her hips as if he’d kept her waiting a little too long. She looked more under control than relaxed: her expression was carefully neutral, but he could feel the fear in her and see the dark circles under her eyes.
She stared. “When did you start wearing a uniform?”
Jacen glanced down at his black fatigues, hands held away from his sides. “I should have changed before we carried out the raids. Jedi robes and police actions don’t mix.”
“You’re telling me. Luke’s going crazy. Emergency meeting of the high council right now, in fact.”
“I meant that all that loose fabric is … never mind.” Luke’s reaction was predictable. Jedi couldn’t be seen getting their hands dirty, and certainly not his son. “You know why we wore robes originally? To fit in with the ordinary people. So I’m fitting in now, with my people.”
Mara indicated her own battle jacket. “Sorry, Jacen. It’s just a shock to see you in that uniform.”
“I’m a colonel now.”
“I’m not arguing. I just wanted to talk to you before Luke finds you. Is Ben okay?”
“He did very well. You want to see him? He’s in the briefing room. We’re just doing a wash-up with the squad leaders to work out what we’ll do differently next time. And watching the news on the hour, of course.”
Mara managed not to raise an eyebrow. “There’s going to be a next time, then.”
“You turned the job down. What did you think?”
“That it was going to be dirty.”
“It is. But churning through war after war because we don’t ever fully deal with unrest is a lot dirtier.”
The briefing room doors slid open and a corporal from 967 Commando, Lekauf, stuck his head out. “Sir, you’re on again!” he said with a grin. “Sorry, ma’am. HNE news.”
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” said Mara. “Just passing.”
Jacen took her arm. “Come in and meet my men.” He wanted to reassure her about Ben. Unlike Luke, she didn’t seem to want her son to be her little replica. She knew how to let go.
She recoiled visibly at the sight of Ben in black fatigues. He was sitting at the table with Shevu and the sergeants, cup of caf in one hand and datapad in the other, and even his body language had suddenly become adult. He was mirroring the adult males around him without even realizing. When he stood up to greet Mara, it struck Jacen that Ben would soon be as tall as he was.
“Ma’am,” said Ben, all grave concentration. Not Mom: ma’am. “I didn’t sense you coming.”
“I just dropped by to say that I watched the holonews and—I wanted to see how you were feeling,” said Mara. “Are you all right … son?”
Yes, he isn’t your sweetheart when he’s in uniform, thirteen years old or not. Jacen watched the unspoken interaction between them and detected the concern flowing both ways like a faint breeze, but whatever anxiety Mara had brought in with her had vanished and had been replaced almost completely by relief.
“Apart from getting up at oh-two-hundred, I’m fine.”
“You’re getting so military.” Mara managed a grin. “You sure you’re okay?”
“Why shouldn’t I be? It wasn’t dangerous, like the assault on Centerpoint. Captain Shevu was watching my six.”
Jacen found it touching that Ben had formed a bond with the 967. It boded well. Shevu was doing a fine job of stifling a smile, and his emotions—tired relief at the end of an operation, and a pleasant affection for Ben—were probably obvious only to Jacen’s fine-tuned Force-senses.
“Here we go …,” said Lekauf, and turned up the audio on the briefing room’s holoscreen. The image flashed up the tagline CRACKDOWN at the bottom of the screen and HNE anchors went into a recap of the morning’s raid on Jabi Town. Four hours after the raids, the news emphasis had turned from the drama of hovering assault ships and commandos breaching doors to public reaction.
Admiral Niathal contributed a thirty-second defense of the GAG’s actions—967 Commando was, after all, now part of her special operations forces—but it didn’t appear that defense was necessary.
Jacen, braced for opprobrium, was taken aback by the reactions of Coruscanti asked for their opinion on the streets and walkways of Galactic City.
“It’s about time,” said one man in a business suit. “I think Colonel Solo did what we should have done a long time ago. We’re too scared of upsetting other governments. Well, Corellia, not anymore.”
Mara murmured, faintly sarcastic. “Ooh, you’ve got fans.”
“Didn’t plan that …”
“I know.”
“I hope Luke sees it that way, too,” said Jacen, knowing that he wouldn’t. “And Admiral Niathal.”
“I’ll try convincing him.”
Jacen beckoned her out of the way of the soldiers, who were staring fixedly at the news coverage with the air of men who knew that public perception was as much a part of the war as any weapon they carried.
“Tell me straight, Mara—are you still happy for me to be training Ben?”
She brushed a loose strand of hair from her eyes in a way that suggested she was buying a few seconds of thinking time. Even Mara’s wary of my reading her emotions.
“I think it’s hard to accept that my little boy’s turned into a soldier overnight, but that’s something I should have seen coming when we wanted him to be trained as a Jedi.”
Jacen still felt a flutter of hesitation around her. “I know you’re still troubled by all this.”
“Okay, let me ask you a question.”
“Go ahead.”
Mara’s eyes were fixed on his now. “Is there someone in your life who’s causing you some pain?”
“I don’t understand.” He really didn’t.
“A woman. Jacen, I’m not prying. I just need to know if you’re having a diffic
ult time.”
He thought of Tenel Ka and Allana. He hardly dared do that these days, in case Lumiya sensed his secret and they were put in danger—more danger than they were already in.
“Yes.” It was so true that it hurt. “There’s someone I would like to be with that I can’t.”
Mara exuded pure relief. The frown lines between her eyebrows vanished and she almost smiled. “That’s all I needed to know, Jacen. I’m sorry you’re having problems. I won’t mention it again, but if I can do anything, you let me know, okay?”
Jacen nodded. He couldn’t imagine anything that Mara could do, but it was comforting to know she was willing.
“Thanks, Mara,” he said. “You’re probably about my only friend these days.”
She shrugged and waved discreetly to Ben before disappearing through the doors. Jacen could guess what was happening in the council chamber without using his Force-senses to listen. He’d let the side down. Jedi didn’t raid people’s homes with black-clad shock troopers.
A Jedi’s job is to solve a problem without taking lives. I think I did that today. Sitting back and not getting involved while people get killed in an endless cycle of wars doesn’t count as not having blood on your hands.
Jacen was jerked out of his thoughts by a cup of caf being thrust in front of him. “I don’t think things are quite that bad, sir.”
It was Corporal Lekauf: young, sandy-haired, and solidly optimistic. Jacen accepted the caf and they both stood watching the HNE coverage of the raids again, the outraged reaction from the Corellian ambassador and Senators, and the imminent threat of severing diplomatic relations.
“I’m never sure if all this is aimed at Coruscant or the Alliance,” said Lekauf.
“Separating the two is a real political conjuring trick.”
“I’d rather see more unity than separation, sir.”
“Me, too.” Jacen found he enjoyed the company of 967. They all had the corporal’s general optimism. “How long have you been in the army?”
“Since I graduated, sir. Four years.”
“What made you sign up?”