“So we understand each other.”
“I think so.”
“What can I do for you?”
“I need to carry out forensics tests on your colleague’s StealthX.” He didn’t say Jacen. This was a man used to giving others very little to use against him. “Is there any way I can get access to it, uninterrupted, for a few hours?”
“He’s gone to brief his new minion for a mission to Bastion.” Niathal ran through all the routine procedures a StealthX would undergo and why. Jacen’s was one of the few that the Jedi pilots hadn’t taken when they withdrew. “How urgent is this?”
“We should have done it three months ago,” Shevu said. He mouthed Mara at her. “Might turn up nothing, of course.”
So it wasn’t just Ben who thought Jacen had been involved in Mara’s death, then. Even though Luke had told Niathal, the idea seemed far more shocking coming from an objective outsider—a professional investigator—like Shevu.
“If you do it,” Niathal said, “won’t he sense that you’ve been in the vessel?”
“That’s why I’m getting a droid to do it.”
“A GAG unit?”
“No, a CSF one. Leave me to worry about scamming the identichips.”
“Very well, Captain, I’ll arrange for the ground crew droids and personnel to be told it needs a special examination—checking for canopy seal integrity, fuel leaks into the cockpit, whatever I can think of. In fact, let’s do all the space-capable vessels the GAG has, too, to make it look convincing. You don’t have that many.”
“Thank you, Admiral.”
“And we’d better come up with a good cover story in case anyone compliments the Guard on their extra attention to safety standards, and it reaches His Celestial Highness’s ears …”
“A few months ago,” Shevu said, “I’d have expected him to know all about it right away. He was hands-on with his troops. But he’s taken his eye off the little people now, and just focuses on the big players. We’ll use that.”
“You know how dangerous it is to go after him, don’t you?” Niathal said, slightly ashamed that she wasn’t leading this quiet revolution against Jacen.
“Not half as dangerous as it’ll be if I don’t,” said Shevu.
OYU’BAAT TAPCAF, KELDABE
“What can I possibly teach you, Jedi?” Fett asked.
At any other time, Jaina Solo’s plea would have been amusing—no, satisfying. There was no humor to be had from this. A voice inside Fett still said that he should personally make that barve Jacen pay for what he had done to Ailyn, but he’d made up his mind when he saw his daughter’s body that his revenge would need to be more substantial, more complete, the kind he should have planned when his father was killed in front of him. Jedi had robbed him of what little family he had, and now they expected him to help them clean up their own mess.
“You’ve killed and captured more Jedi than anyone,” Jaina said, looking like the words were choking her.
“Oh, I don’t know … some of my brothers racked up a pretty good score back in the day.”
She didn’t react. “Jacen and I are matched in terms of Force strengths. But he’s picked up training in Force techniques I don’t even understand, so my best chance of taking him is to use skills he doesn’t have. And I’m pretty sure you never gave him the top ten Mandalorian tips on Jedi busting.”
“Only if he paid me,” said Fett. “But what do you care about Ailyn?”
“It’s not only your daughter he’s killed.” Jaina was doing a good job of looking desperate, losing that steady gaze for just a moment. She was desperate. Fett could taste it. “He might even have been involved in Mara Skywalker’s death.”
“Ah, so that’s when you decide he needs stopping.” He was totally unsurprised by the idea, just taken aback that Jaina had come here. Families feuded; no shock there. “When it’s Jedi getting killed.”
Beviin hauled himself onto a bar stool and put his helmet to one side while he thumbed through his datapad.
“He kills his underlings, too, Mand’alor.” He held out the pad so that Fett could see the message from one of his long list of informants. Coruscant wasn’t half as far from Mandalore as it thought it was. “Look, Ma, no hands. He’s learning to break necks with the Force. Some lieutenant called Tebut, and it’s the talk of the fleet—well, the people I know in the fleet, anyway. He’s so adorable.”
“Just like old times,” Fett said. “Except I almost liked Vader.”
Jaina’s face fell slightly, as if she hadn’t known about Jacen’s latest victim. She didn’t accuse him of lying to wind her up, either, because they both knew what Jacen had become. It was funny how victims mattered more when they had names. Fett resisted the urge to remind her that beings in all the places that Jacen had attacked had names, too.
“You sent the crushgaunts,” said Jaina. “So we took that as a big hint.”
“Try ten tons of high-spec thermal detonator.”
“We want him alive.”
“Alive’s always more complicated. Only do alive if they pay extra, Jedi.”
Fett laid his blaster on the counter and removed his helmet two-handed. He was more comfortable revealing his face now. Up to a few months earlier he wouldn’t even have let his own men see him without the helmet, except Beviin, but he’d seen the look on Han Solo’s face when the man had looked into his eyes close-up for the first time. He could read Solo’s reaction—that the cold, implacable, toughened durasteel helmet didn’t conceal a heart of gold, just more durasteel, more cold, and less heart. If they wanted to see a happy and well-adjusted Mandalorian under the armor, then they could go admire Beviin.
Fett watched Jaina’s eyes take him in.
“If I don’t do it,” she said, “I don’t think anyone else can.”
Beviin was used to playing a double-act with Fett at times like this—nice Mando, nasty Mando. He slipped into the role without even needing a cue while Fett just stared into Jaina’s face, testing her nerve.
“You’ve got a lightsaber, lady, and Jacen Solo doesn’t have beskar’gam,” Beviin said. “What can we possibly teach you? Ambush? Blaster master class?” He drew his ancient beskad, the traditional Mandalorian iron saber, halfway out of its hilt. “My handy Vong-splitting technique?”
Jaina’s eyes never left Fett’s. “Beskar is your special iron, yes? The metal the crushgaunts were made from.”
“Available at all good arms dealerships now,” Beviin said cheerfully. “We’ve got a lovely new supply. Is this all you really want? Just a few tips on whacking the bathrobe brigade?”
“Fett,” Jaina said, undistracted, “you can teach me to bring down Jedi. You’ve done it often enough.”
Fett counted two beats. “And end the war just when our economy’s getting back on its feet?”
“You’d sacrifice whole worlds for your own ends?”
“You sacrificed Mandalore to the Vong for your own ends.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t give you the reconstruction aid we should have, Fett. I’m not proud of that. But can’t you see what Jacen’s going to do if he carries on? I need to stop him before he consolidates his power.”
She wouldn’t back down, he gave her that much. If Sintas hadn’t been back from the dead, with all the unfolding misery that went with it, Fett might have found training Jaina Solo as near to enjoyable, as near to sweet revenge, as he’d come in decades.
Do it. Jacen Solo needs removing, because there’ll still be plenty of business in his wake, and there’s no irony finer than the Jedi elite fighting their own. Twin-on-twin combat, just like the Vong boys always wanted. Shame most of ’em are too dead to enjoy it.
But if he really listened to the unquiet voice in his mind, and didn’t slap it into silence, he heard what it was whispering: that the more the war spread, the more likely it was that Shalk and Briila might see their father killed in action. No kid deserved to go through what Fett had.
Mando’ade fight, always have. What’s wrong with you?
r />
What was wrong was that they were Beviin’s grandchildren, and Beviin and Medrit had adopted the kids’ mother—Dinua—when her own mother was killed fighting the vongese with Fett. They’d all had enough of bereavement. Fett’s whole life was tangled in orphans and unlived lives and moral debts.
He looked Jaina up and down. She was small, and her smooth hands said that she’d never had to build an entrenchment with them. But she was a Jedi—he could treble her weight and reach based on that alone—and she was going after her brother whether Fett trained her or not. He could see it in her eyes; a little fear, maybe not of him, and shame that she’d even had to ask the favor. It clearly stuck in her throat to beg her father’s old enemy for anything, but she was going to tough it out to get a necessary job done.
Fett respected that. It was the first lesson any bounty hunter needed to learn: to forget the emotional baggage and focus solely on an objective.
If I’d been around for Ailyn, I’d have trained her to fight, to look out for herself, maybe to hunt Jedi, too. Every Mando trains their kids, even other folks’ kids. They say you’re not a man unless you do.
Shysa’s dying voice was back in his head a lot lately after being silent for so long. If you only look after your own hide, then you’re not a man. It joined the chorus that nagged him most days, all advising him on what he ought to do. All his dead were coming back to haunt him in one form or another.
“Okay, I’ll do it,” said Fett. “And it’s going to cost.”
“I wasn’t asking for charity.” Jaina raised a withering eyebrow—she was Leia’s girl, all right—but her shoulders relaxed a fraction. She took a very large-denomination credit chip from her flight suit’s breast pocket and held it between neatly manicured fingertips. “Not even vengeance gets in the way of business, does it, Fett?”
“That’s your first lesson, Jedi. I’ll bill you for it later.” Fett didn’t need the credits, but he had his self-respect to consider, and she needed to hang on to hers. It was going to get pretty battered. “But let’s avoid the tax bill. What else can you do to earn your keep?”
“I’m a fighter pilot. But I’m pretty handy with mechanical stuff, too.”
“We’re all pilots here,” Fett said. “But we can always use mechanics. Lots of exiles coming back, infrastructure creaking under the load. You’ll be useful.”
Fett put on his helmet and turned to go. Jaina called after him.
“When do we start?”
“We already have. I’ll be back tomorrow. Take a room here and get a good night’s sleep.”
She didn’t look like she had anywhere else to go, and Fett wouldn’t ask Beviin to find room for yet another stray. Baltan Carid, whose vine tattoo seemed to have sprouted a couple of extra leaves, called to the barkeep: “Better kick the strill out of the executive suite, Cham’ika. You’ve got royalty.”
Fett paused outside the Oyu’baat to take stock, then paced across the square to the sheer drop that stared down into the Kelita River. Beviin kept his counsel and waited with him, both of them leaning on the balustrade watching the current as it tossed small freshly broken branches onto the rocks. There was a lot of construction going on upstream.
“Jedi can be healers,” Beviin said. “Now, that’s something none of us can do.”
Fett braced his hands on the top rail. “I don’t want her fixing Sintas. Let’s keep the problems from interbreeding.”
“Just a thought.”
“Thanks anyway.”
“But if you need the Jedi kept in line, there’s always room at the farm.”
Beviin would make a far better Mandalore than Fett ever had. He was more in Shysa’s mold, as ready to boost morale and build alliances as he was to put his beskad through the nearest enemy, and everyone liked him. All Fett had was his record on the battlefield and his dynastic name; he was an image that Mando’ade liked to present to the world, not someone they actually needed, more a living talisman than a leader. Every Mandalore had his own style. In the end, it didn’t seem to change the essence of Mandalore one bit.
“I told Mirta I killed Shysa,” Fett said.
Beviin sighed. “Might as well have all your osik hit the fan at the same time and get it over with, Bob’ika …”
“I didn’t explain. Just told her.”
“You ever going to tell me?”
“Okay, I put Shysa out of his misery. We were surrounded, he was too badly hurt to escape, and I couldn’t leave him to the Sevvets.”
“Tough decision. But we guessed that.”
“He asked me to do it.”
“So you got the top job. Nobody ever argued about it anyway.”
“You can’t blow a man’s brains out without taking his last wish seriously. He made me give my word.” It was nonnegotiable: Jango Fett had taught his son from the cradle that his word was everything. “He made me swear I’d be his successor. He always wanted me to be Mandalore. If I didn’t know better I’d have said he arranged it.”
“No witnesses.”
“You think I wanted this job?”
“Says a lot about you.”
“I said, I never wanted to be Mandalore.”
Beviin sounded a little testy. “I meant, Bob’ika, that you could have sworn anything to Shysa and nobody would ever have known if you broke your word or not.”
Fett gripped the edge of the stone balustrade. “I’d know.”
Beviin just nodded. “You’d never abandon anything without a good reason.”
No, for once Beviin was wrong. And if Sintas got her mind back, she’d tell him so.
chapter seven
No Mandalorian soldier should have to fight an aruetii’s war for the price of a day’s food. No Mando’ad should have to fight at all, except to defend Manda’yaim, his home, or his family, or because he wants to. We have to stop being the tool of governments that don’t care if we live or die so long as we do their bidding.
—Kad’ika, also known as Venku, addressing an informal gathering of clan leaders
BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, NEAR KELDABE
Fett waited outside the door for a few moments. He could hear the droid whirring as it moved around the bedroom, and Dr. Beluine’s murmuring voice. As soon as the doctor came out, he’d go in and sit with Sintas for a while. After that, he’d start his sessions with Jaina Solo. His day was planned.
“Grandmama keeps asking where she is.” Mirta came up behind him and nudged him in the small of his back. She wasn’t quite up to taking his hand or hugging him, and he wouldn’t have known how to respond to that kind of intimacy or compassion anyway. “We keep telling her, but her short-term memory is shot to haran.”
“Early days,” Fett said, wondering who we was.
“She won’t let go of the heart-of-fire.”
“Did you call her grandmama?”
“I thought that would be asking for trouble, Ba’buir …”
Fett heard boots in the passage behind him, slow and careful, like someone was creeping in and trying not to be noticed. Even without his helmet’s 360-degree vision, he knew who it was.
“ ’Morning, Orade.”
“Su’cuy, Mand’alor.” Ghes Orade, Mirta’s new love, stopped in his tracks, clutching some wild vormur blooms. “I brought some flowers for Sintas.”
“She’s blind.”
Orade gave him a look that said heartless barve. “She can smell the scent.”
It was a nice touch, something Fett hadn’t thought about. He better treat my granddaughter like a princess, too. Fett turned slowly to give the lad the full benefit of his unspoken warning. “You marrying Mirta, then?”
“Yes, Mand’alor.”
“You’re the only Mando’ad on this planet who cowers to me. Don’t.” Orade was a typical tough Mando lad, but in-laws were a lot scarier than Yuuzhan Vong. “One minute I’m an orphan. The next I’ve got family coming out of the woodwork like squalls.”
“Okay,” said Orade, spine stiffening. “I’m marrying Mirta, a
nd if anyone has to take care of her grandmother long-term, it’ll be us.”
My grandson-in-law. Fierfek. Fett assessed him, and thought he’d do.
A Mandalorian wedding consisted of four short vows and was usually a private ceremony for the couple, not their families. Fett, still thinking in aruetii terms, wondered whether to feel offended that he hadn’t been invited, and then realized nobody else would attend, either, although there’d be communal drinking and sentimentality afterward. Not a credit would be wasted on fripperies. Mando’ade operated on plain, honest pledges and contracts, in love as well as business.
“No urge to revert to Kiffar culture, then?” he asked Mirta.
“I’ve made my choice,” she said.
The door swung open and Beluine came out, looking anxious. Fett took him to one side while Mirta and Orade slipped into the room.
“Is she going to get better?” Fett demanded.
“The fact that she’s alert and mobile is remarkable enough.” Beluine lowered his voice so that Fett had to strain to hear him, but he seemed indignant that his treatment hadn’t been appreciated. “Most cases were in some degree of coma for months. Her Kiffar brain chemistry may have offered her some protection from the worst of the carbonite trauma.”
Kiffar were different, Fett knew that. The ability to detect past events from inanimate objects was proof of that, just like Gotab had done when he’d told Fett far too much about his history with Sintas simply from holding that heart-of-fire stone. He had to be a Kiffar, too. “So she might improve.”
“She might. Carboniting affects neural connections in the brain. That’s why your wife can’t see, and why her memory is affected. Given time, neurons do regenerate. Stimulation helps—little mental exercises to stimulate her memory, objects she might remember, like the necklace, holoimages, that kind of thing.”
Ex-wife, Doctor. Ex-wife.
But the weight of responsibility felt the same. Fett had never been very good at thinking for two, unless the other was his father. “You’re saying she’s brain-damaged.”
“Technically, yes. But therapy—”