Sacrifice

  Fett peered over the side. Fraig was twisting helplessly like a devee hooked on a fishing line, making gasping sounds. The line was tight around his waist and chest. He was dangling fifteen meters below the rail.

  “Don’t struggle, and think calm thoughts,” Fett called. “It helps you remember. And it’ll stop you from slipping out of the loop.”

  “You’re crazy—I’ll have your throat cut for this—”

  “You’re on the end of a line. I’m on solid ground. Think about it.”

  “You’re a dead man.”

  “Perceptive to the last. Give me names, vermin.”

  “I tell you I didn’t pay the Mando. I’m glad he whacked Cherit, but I never paid him to do it—”

  “Try again.”

  Fraig’s voice was almost drowned out by the roar of the waterfall behind him. “The Twi’leks were from some family called Himar.”

  “Good start.” Fett paid out another meter of line with a jolt. Fraig shrieked as he slipped farther toward the permacrete, stone, and raging water a hundred meters below. “Is that helping? Memory often needs a trigger.”

  Himar. Any Mando who pitched in hard to play the hero for a couple of dancers would be known in the Twi’lek community. It didn’t happen that often; nobody else cared what happened to Twi’lek girls. Fett had his lead. He’d have a contact somewhere—and if he didn’t, Beviin would. Beviin wouldn’t press him to find out why.

  “Anything else you want to get off your chest?”

  “I don’t know the guy, Fett. But I know you’re going to regret this.”

  Fett could hear the dull rhythmic thuds of Fraig’s bodyguards trying to smash the doors apart. “If I find you’ve given me a load of garbage, I’ll be back to finish the job.”

  He braced his boot on the bottom rail and began winching in the gangster. Mirta stood next to him with her blaster trained on the doors.

  “You’re going soft. Why are you reeling him back in?”

  “I want the fibercord back. It’s my favorite Ultra-fine.”

  “When you get him on the balcony, I’ll tranquilize him …”

  “Then back to Slave I. Scenic route.”

  “You’re lucky we’ve got jets.”

  “I wouldn’t have come up here if I hadn’t.” Fett felt the sweat breaking out and running down his spine. This would have been an easier task a few years ago. “And I wouldn’t have gone much above thirty floors anyway.”

  “Why?”

  “Hundred-meter line. In case I had to rappel down.”

  Fraig’s face was two meters away now. He’d stopped yelling and settled for labored breathing.

  “I haven’t got a hundred-meter line,” Mirta said.

  “Lucky you’ve got jets, then.” He heaved Fraig over the rail in a tangled heap, and Mirta delivered a roundhouse punch that laid the man out. If that was her tranquilizer treatment, she was a born medic. “Time to go.”

  Mirta shot off at an awkward angle and crashed through the sheet of water ahead of him; there was no force field up here to part the falls. When Fett looked down, he could see speeders crisscrossing the plaza on either side of the boulevard. He needed to land and find the speeder bike: jets were great for fast exits, but the flame made both of them conspicuous targets in the night sky.

  The speeder was still where he’d left it, primed with a detonator and hidden in bushes on the edge of a park. Both the painkiller and the adrenaline were wearing off at the same time, and Fett had never been more conscious of the reason for his search. He set off for the landing strip at top speed down freight lanes that had the lightest traffic, noting that Mirta was happily fixing a grenade launcher attachment to her blaster with both hands and gripping the saddle of the speeder with her knees. She looked like she was used to fast getaways.

  “You’re doing okay for a dead man, Ba’buir.”

  “Your dad trained you well, too.”

  “Most of that I learned from Mama.”

  “Well … she did a good job of it.”

  Fett took one hand off the bars and activated Slave I’s remote controls. Her drives would be primed: he could drop the speeder into the cargo hold and get off this planet inside a minute. In his HUD display, he was already scanning databases for that Twi’lek family name.

  This was the one time he felt truly, thrillingly alive: when he was winning, being the best, surviving. Is that it? Is that all I can do? He almost envied the Beviins and Carids of this world, who delighted in simple things like good food and family. But there was a clean, uncomplicated satisfaction in danger. It erased worries and fears and memories. There was only the moment, and surviving it.

  Fett concentrated on feeling good and ignoring the pain right up to the time his rearview caught speeder headlights closing fast and Mirta turned to level her blaster.

  “They must be calling in our course,” she said. “You think it’s Fraig’s grunts, or security?”

  “We won’t get the police’s attention until you fire that blaster.” His motion sensors showed two speeders in pursuit, and two coming at them from the right on the crossroads ahead. Another single speeder was approaching from the left. They might have been ordinary citizens unlucky enough to be on the same route, or they might have been rushing to intercept him. If he timed it right, he could slip between them and give Mirta a clean shot at the speeders behind. He gunned the drive.

  Fett counted down the seconds. He was almost at the crossroads, but he wasn’t going to make it. From the right, one shot in front of him, and he raised his arm to give it a burst of flamethrower, but the rider suddenly fell sideways and crashed to the ground without a shot being fired. Two speeders heading the other way soared to avoid it. Fett watched the speeder approaching from the left cut across him without even slowing down.

  He heard a loud crash, but no ba-dapp of a discharging blaster: Had they collided? Had they hit someone who happened to be on the wrong road at the wrong time?

  Mirta fired a grenade. “Gotcha!” A ball of flame lit up the night. “One down, one to go. Reloading.”

  “Can’t see the third speeder.”

  “Maybe they crashed.”

  “We’ve got a couple of minutes before the police join in,” Fett said.

  “Hey, where did he—”

  There was a massive whoomp of a white-hot explosion behind them. Fett saw the debris falling hot and red in the rearview of his HUD. “Good shot.”

  “Not me. Didn’t fire.”

  “What is this, a crash epidemic?”

  “I think we have help.”

  “I hate help I didn’t ask for.”

  But help it was, so he took the breathing space with grudgingly grateful caution. Maybe their invisible benefactor was saving them for himself. Slave I was standing between two battered freighters, looking nothing special to anyone who didn’t know the ship, just an old Firespray idling her drives.

  Fett grounded the speeder bike and ran for the ship. Who would pick off Fraig’s morons for him? Generosity like that came with a price. Fett left Mirta to dock the speeder in the hold and climbed up into the cockpit.

  “Come on, girl, what’s keeping you?” He tapped the console switches and Slave I whined up to full power, a faint tremor passing through her airframe. It said safe. It said home. It was the most reassuring sound he knew. “You’ve got twenty seconds before I close the cargo hatch.”

  There was no answer, and just as that fact registered, Slave I’s entry warning light flashed. There was someone else on board. The systems didn’t recognize them.

  “Mirta? Mirta!”

  The internal security cams showed nothing but the speeder. Fett grabbed his blaster and went aft to check. Even through the helmet filter, he could smell a strong, oily stench that he hadn’t smelled in years.

  He couldn’t quite place it, but he knew it.

  The speeder was stowed. The hatch was open. He raised the blaster and wondered whether to just seal the hatch and launch Slave I, and hate himself fo
r the rest of his life, what was left of it.

  Dad wouldn’t have left you stranded. He’d have risked anything for you.

  Fett had abandoned quite a few people over the years. He’d even left Sintas wounded the last time he’d seen her—the very last time. It had seemed the right decision then.

  And you wonder why your daughter and granddaughter tried to kill you.

  Fett stood to one side of the hatch. His sensors showed him two shapes on the ramp, one humanoid and one animal whose form wasn’t clearly defined. He counted to three and came out, blaster and flamethrower aimed.

  Mirta, minus helmet, was in the tight headlock of a Mandalorian in gray armor, and a large gold-furred animal had its huge jaws locked around her leg, trailing a curtain of drool. It wasn’t attacking: it was frozen, pinning her down—and stinking.

  And she didn’t look scared. Just embarrassed.

  Fett stared down the barrel of a custom Verpine rifle aimed one-handed, and understood why he’d heard no blasterfire when the speeder bikes dropped from the air. Verpines were silent.

  “Well, well …,” said the Mandalorian in gray armor. He really did have a very fine pair of gray leather gloves. “It’s little Bob’ika. Last time we met, my brother was shoving your head down the ’freshers to teach you some manners. What do you want me for, ner vod?”

  GALACTIC ALLIANCE GUARD BRIEFING ROOM, GAG HQ, CORUSCANT

  Ben was glad to be back among people he trusted.

  The sea of black uniforms might have been a sinister sight to some people, but to him they felt like a brotherhood—like family. He was in that rare position of being young enough to be treated like one of the troopers despite his officer status, and he liked that. The sense of camaraderie and the knowledge that everyone watched everyone else’s back was both comforting and thrilling.

  He settled into a seat on the end of a row in the briefing room. A trooper called Almak nudged him.

  “Nice vacation? Glad you could fit us into your busy schedule, sir.”

  “Couldn’t wait to get back.”

  “You didn’t miss much,” Almak said. “Been a bit quieter. I think we’ve broken the back of the Corellian networks.”

  “I always miss the good stuff.”

  A couple of the other troopers in the row in front turned in their seats and joined in. “We’ll find some excitement for you.”

  “Or some filing …”

  “ ’Freshers need a good clean. Here’s a toothbrush.”

  Ben grinned and lobbed a pellet of flimsi at them. It was good to be part of a team. It was good to have friends. They didn’t see him as Son of Skywalker, Jedi to be feared. He was just Ben, and they looked out for him as they always seemed to for young officers they liked.

  And they never asked him where he’d been. Everything was on a need-to-know basis.

  But the spate of bombings seemed to be over for the time being. It was just a case of working out who to keep an eye on and round up next. Corellians, Bothans … and now Fondorians.

  Captain Lon Shevu strode onto the dais at the front of the room, looking as committed as ever, but Ben felt the reluctance and misgivings in him. He could sense it in a few of the other troopers, too, generally the ones who’d been in the CSF. Jacen followed Shevu and got instant undivided attention. Jacen could do that: Ben wasn’t sure if he envied him or not. It was interesting that he seemed to enjoy being the focus for ordinary beings but chose to hide himself from Force-sensitives. It was as if he wanted to be seen by only the mundane world.

  I have to learn how to do that. Mom says I did it as a little kid, but that was by instinct, like babies swimming. I want to learn how to do it like Jacen does.

  “Brief for the next forty-eight hours, ladies and gentlemen,” said Jacen. “We’re moving into a different phase. The priority now is to look for professionals—Confederation intelligence agents. Now, normally we’d leave that to our colleagues in Alliance Intel, but seeing as we’ve got all their best operatives—” Applause and laughter interrupted him. He paused with a big grin and picked up again. “—seeing as we got the pick of the litter, we’ll be helping them out. We’ll also be providing close protection for Chief Omas and key ministers, to relieve CSF, and monitoring for them. Results of interrogation suggest we might be looking at more targeted and professional assassination attempts—as in government agents, not just disgruntled amateurs and bounty hunters.”

  A hand was raised at the front. Ben couldn’t see who it was. “What’s monitoring in this context, sir?”

  Jacen flashed a holoimage onto the screen behind him. It showed a diagram of the various routes by which GA ministers could be reached, physically or virtually: offices, home addresses, private clubs, routes to the Senate, comlinks. “Like this,” he said.

  “Are we allowed to tap Senators’ comlinks, sir?” asked Shevu.

  “Under the Emergency Measures Act, we’re authorized to carry out any surveillance to prevent acts of violence against ministers of state and visiting allies.”

  Shevu’s face was unreadable, but Ben felt the sharp unhappiness in him. Now, there was a guy who knew how to conceal what he was thinking. Ben wondered if that was a more useful skill than hiding in the Force.

  Tapping Senators’ comlinks didn’t seem to bother anyone else at the briefing. Ben couldn’t see the problem, either. It made sense, for their own protection. Jacen tasked squads to their roles, and there was discussion about supplies.

  “Draw up a wish list,” Jacen said, beaming. “I think we’ve eased the supply situation. Or we will have, by the end of this week.”

  There was a ripple of laughter. “Did you persuade them to see things your way, sir?”

  “Oh, I just made sure the flimsi was in order …”

  There was more laughter and a ripple of applause. For a moment, Ben felt a conspiratorial closeness between Jacen and the troopers. It was genuine: Jacen wasn’t doing his charisma act to persuade people to do what he wanted, although he was very good at that. He enjoyed the company of his troops, and they enjoyed his. There was a sense of shared danger and that the rest of the world wasn’t part of all this. Ben took mental notes about the art of effortless leadership.

  The briefing broke up. Ben hung back to talk to Jacen, getting a few joking comments about his recent absence as the troopers filed out, and giving as good as he got. He felt a sudden pressure at the back of his head, and when he looked around, Jacen was watching him from the side of the dais, smiling slightly.

  “They like you,” he said. “That’s good for an officer, as long as you’re liked for the right reasons.”

  “Isn’t it important to be respected instead?”

  “What’s respect, Ben?”

  Ben pondered the question, hearing a subtle test in it. “Thinking that a person does something right, and that they do it better than you, and so you feel positive toward them.”

  “Excellent.”

  “That’s not the same as being liked, though, is it?”

  “Not at all. We can respect those we dislike,” Jacen said. “The way to be liked by your men is this—that they believe that you would never spend their lives cheaply, that their welfare comes first, and that you wouldn’t ask them to do anything that you wouldn’t do yourself. To share their trials and triumphs without being one of them, and they know that’s how it has to be—because they know an officer has to make decisions that cost lives, and that’s something you can do only if you remain sufficiently separate.”

  Ben hadn’t lost a trooper from 967 Commando yet. In fact, they’d had no fatalities or even serious injuries. They led charmed lives as far as the rest of the military were concerned. He had no idea how he’d feel if he had to put them in a position where deaths were inevitable.

  Jacen seemed to read his mind again. “Until you can make those decisions, you’re not safe to lead.”

  “But it’s easier if you’re prepared to die yourself, right?” Ben suddenly felt much better about Lumiya’s att
empt on his life. He knew it was her now, piecing together what had happened on Ziost and what Mom had told him. But it was okay. He could look all the 967 in the eye now. “Because if you’re willing to make the same sacrifice, that’s the one thing that matters.”

  Jacen leaned close to him. “It inspires. It’s the ultimate act of honesty with your troops.”

  Ben knew that was how Jacen led, and why everyone was so loyal to him. He led from the front, and he loved being in the thick of the fighting. The fact that as a Jedi he had survival advantages they didn’t have rarely seemed to cross their minds.

  “I don’t know which way I’ll jump when the time comes,” Ben said. “Nobody does. But I’ll try to do what’s right for the majority.”

  Jacen’s smile was utterly luminous for a moment, but then it faded as if he’d recalled something awful. His Force presence vanished for a few seconds and then returned. That was weird, Ben thought: Jacen was standing right next to him, so what was he hiding from?

  “Can you teach me to do that?” Ben asked. “Hide in the Force?”

  Jacen seemed shaken. “Why?”

  “Because Lumiya is trying to kill me. I thought it might come in handy.” And for avoiding Mom and Dad sometimes. Yes, it would be handy. “Mom says she’s got evidence that I killed—that Lumiya thinks I killed her daughter. I don’t remember a thing about what happened on that asteroid, Jacen, but maybe it doesn’t matter, because Lumiya believes it, and I bet she was behind what happened on Ziost.”

  Jacen’s face was carefully blank. Ben couldn’t tell what he was thinking now, not even from the Force.

  “Yes, why not?” Jacen said. His voice was softer, almost hesitant. “Don’t you worry about Lumiya. She’s not up to killing you.”

  “When can we start?”

  “It’s very simple.”

  “Yeah,” Ben said dubiously.

  “No, it is. The principle is simple—it’s the practice that’s hard. It might take you years to master it.” Jacen motioned him to sit down on the floor. “Come on. Meditation position.”

  Ben sat down cross-legged and closed his eyes automatically, taking deeper and slower breaths until he reached the stage where the world beyond him seemed distant and he was hyperaware of his own body, even the movement of blood in his veins.