Sacrifice

  No, it’s not about the galaxy. Enough of the galaxy. The galaxy can look after its own problems for a while. This is about my child, my only child, and some Sith scum trying to kill him while his own cousin, my own nephew who should be looking after him, helps her do it.

  It all became very clear and simple from that moment onward.

  “Ben, will you accept a suggestion from me?”

  “Anything, Mom. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry—”

  “Hey, I’m the one who should be sorry.” I trusted a monster. I shouted down my husband. I ignored every single sign that Jacen was trouble. “But you’re in real danger, and it’s going to be more than you can handle, so I want you to be very cautious. I want you to behave like a coward for a change. Take no risks. In fact, I’d like you to report in sick, and get as far away from Jacen as you can until I get this fixed.”

  Ben nodded, grim, very old eyes in a terribly young face. He really was just a kid even if he behaved like a man now. Mara was instantly so proud of him and so fiercely protective at the same time that the only cogent emotion she could identify was the instinct to seek out and kill whatever threatened him.

  She could do that. It was her calling.

  “I’ll do it carefully,” he said. “So Jacen doesn’t realize I’ve found out that Lumiya is making him do all this.”

  Oh, sure she is. “That’s right, sweetheart.”

  “I promise I won’t hide in the Force from you, but … I might have to do it to hide from her. Or even Jacen, if she’s got him so far under her control that he’s … taken over the government.”

  Sometimes you had to hear someone else say it to believe it.

  “Tell you what,” said Mara, smiling, “why don’t you show me how you do it? Then maybe I’ll get a better sense of when you’re just hiding, and when to worry.”

  Ben nodded, eyes downcast.

  There would be no holds barred now. Mara would use every means and weapon at her disposal, and there would be an end to this.

  They spent the rest of the day doing something that they hadn’t done in a very long time: just wandering around the Skydome Botanical Gardens, talking and having fun—or as much fun as could be had with a galactic civil war in progress and a military junta running the GA. The only evidence of the huge upheaval was that the CSF officer on patrol in the plaza had a Galactic Alliance Defense Force sergeant walking the beat with him.

  Apart from that, nobody seemed troubled. Mara wondered if all cataclysmic events in history were noticed only by a handful. Like Ben had said—prophetically—over lunch only days before, perhaps it had been that way during the Empire, too, and most people’s lives were the same under Palpatine as they had been under the Republic. She didn’t want to think it was true. Luke certainly didn’t.

  “Come on, Mom,” Ben said. “Let’s go find a nice spot on the lawns and I’ll teach you how to vanish.”

  They said it was a sure sign of imminent old age when your kids could teach you things. It was a simple thing, hiding in the Force, but then so was dieting, and not many people could knuckle down to that and make it work, either. Ben was a remarkably patient teacher. After a couple of hours, she could manage a minute or two without needing to grab something solid.

  “I’m sorry about Lekauf,” she said, putting her arm around him as they walked. “I’m sorry I wasn’t very kind to him. Sounds like he was one of the best.”

  “He did it to make sure I got away. How do I live with that kind of sacrifice, Mom?”

  “By making your life count, I think, so that his wasn’t wasted.”

  It was the closest she’d ever felt to Ben, and probably the first time they’d really related as adults. It left her feeling profoundly happy. The irony wasn’t lost on her that it was in the midst of some of the worst events and greatest threats they’d ever faced. Times like this made you painfully aware of what truly mattered.

  “Ben, you’re probably going to see a side of me soon that isn’t good old Mom.” He smelled wonderfully of that indeterminable Ben-ness that she had enjoyed when he was tiny, and that was still there under the scent of military-issue soap and weapon lubricant. “But I want you to know that whatever I do, however much of a stranger you think I become, I love you, and you’re my heart, every fiber of it. Nothing matters to me more than you.”

  She stopped to hug him, and he hugged her back rather than just submitting to the indignity as he usually did. It went on for a while.

  “You know why I believe you, Mom? Because you didn’t tell me to trust you. Everyone else tells me to trust them, and that’s usually the cue that I shouldn’t.”

  Mara got another glimpse of the man her son would be, and the mother she’d been so far. It hadn’t worked out so badly after all.

  She knew only too well what the stakes were now, and what she had to do.

  JACEN SOLO’S APARTMENT, CORUSCANT

  “Ben?”

  Jacen looked around the apartment, but there was no sign of his young cousin. He’d probably gone back to see his parents. He still needed reassurance about the dark necessity in life, passing through that stage between being oblivious of consequences with the careless cruelty of a child, and the more sensitive but responsible acceptance that life dealt harsh and unavoidable hands to many. At the moment, Ben both felt too much and had too little life experience to handle the pain.

  Jacen looked through the contents of the conservator and decided to order a delivery from a restaurant instead. There was a pattern now, he realized, and it was becoming less of his making; he’d put the pieces in place, the Force had responded, and now it was his turn to make choices when it offered them. It was a dialogue.

  Lekauf was part of the pattern, too. But Jacen was still working out why it hadn’t been Ben who’d died. He’d almost been sure that was the way it would end.

  So I thought my destiny would let me off the hook with him. It won’t.

  Jacen comlinked an order for a three-course Toydarian low-fat banquet, and ran a tub of hot foaming water in the refresher. The steam condensed on the mirrored wall, and he found himself writing in the haze with his fingertip.

  HE WILL IMMORTALIZE HIS LOVE.

  It still didn’t make sense. If it meant killing the person he loved most, as Lumiya said, then there was no question: he would have given his life for Allana. But at every turn in the last few months, he’d ended up protecting her. You’ll know when it happens. Lumiya was certain of that, and Jacen believed it, too.

  Immortalize. Make immortal. Write into history. Make permanent. Why not just kill? Maybe I translated the tassel wrong.

  People read holozines in the tub to relax, but Jacen found himself behaving like a bachelor slob and eating his take-out banquet. He was exhausted. He had the feeling he was coming to the peak of a wave, struggling up the gradient, and that when he hit the crest—that final hurdle to his Sith destiny—things would ease and make sense.

  Jacen laid his fork on the edge of the tub and overwrote the prophecy again in the condensation.

  HE WILL IMMORTALIZE HIS LOVE.

  Killing what you loved was the ultimate act of obedience and submission to higher duty. He’d seen a feature on the holochannels about a tribe—couldn’t recall which, where, when—who trained their elite troops by giving them a nusito pup when they entered the cadet program. They were encouraged to bond with the pup, to race it against other cadets’ nusitos, and to generally learn to love it. Then, before the cadet could graduate, he was ordered to strangle his pup. If he couldn’t, or wouldn’t, he was kicked out. He had to be able to put duty before emotion.

  That’s me. That’s what I have to do.

  Full of too much Toydarian sourfry, tired, and lulled by hot water, Jacen let his mind wander, and reached out in the Force to touch Allana and Tenel Ka. He risked this with decreasing frequency now. The latest attempt on their lives had been a stark warning of how precarious his family’s position was. He’d never heard Allana call him Daddy. He probably never w
ould.

  My family. Yes, that’s who my family is. Not Jaina, not Mom, not Dad; my little girl and her mother. Trust me to fall for a woman whose customs prevent her ever naming the father of her child.

  He could have sworn Allana reached back at him. He was so thrilled that he opened his eyes, and then realized that it was one more chance for someone to find her and harm her. Lumiya wasn’t above that. It was the Sith way. Making someone suffer and hate only strengthened their Sith powers.

  He’d visit Tenel Ka as soon as he was certain that he and Niathal had consolidated the takeover and that the war would be fought more logically and with less regard for keeping insignificant worlds happy.

  Got to deal with the Bothans next. Lumiya can earn her keep again.

  But he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He wasn’t dozing, but Force-visions wouldn’t leave him alone. It was as if the Force was shaking him by the shoulders and telling him to pay attention and get on with it, because time was running out. Each time he closed his eyes, he saw the trust that Ben placed in him, and the lies he’d told the boy, and the danger he’d put him in. And Ben still kept coming back for more. He was desperate to do the right thing. Now Jacen saw him clearly, head in his hands, sobbing: “It’s too high a price.”

  What was? Lekauf? No. There’d be many, many Lekaufs. Wars were full of them. It was one reason why Jacen had to put an end to fighting, any way he could.

  Maybe … it wasn’t Ben, but about him.

  Why have I thought this over so many times? Why is it obsessing me? Because I’m denying it. Because I can’t accept it’s him. Because it has to be him.

  It would be easy to kill Ben, because Ben trusted him. Jacen knew how bad that would make him feel. It was strangling a nusito pup.

  You don’t want to see the inevitable. Do you?

  Jacen dried himself and spent the rest of the evening assembling his personal armory. He examined his lightsaber and blaster, and knew that those still wouldn’t be enough when Luke and Mara came after him to exact vengeance for Ben. He took out the box of assorted poisons and pathogens that could be delivered by dart or projectile, yet another range of weapons that might make it past the defenses of his most persistent enemies. He had all the bases covered: chemical, biological, mechanical.

  He just wanted it all over with.

  And when Ben was gone, who would be his apprentice then? Just before he fell asleep, it crossed his mind that Admiral Cha Niathal had demonstrated an excellent grasp of the rule of two.

  It was just as well she wasn’t a Force-user.

  chapter fifteen

  This has to be about more than getting tough on chaos and disorder. I need to be tough on the causes of chaos and disorder—greed, corruption, and ambition.

  —Jacen Solo, joint GA Chief of State, speaking at a lunch for the heads of Coruscanti industry

  BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, MANDALORE

  Mirta put her finger to her lips, and the four of them stacked around the door as if getting ready to storm Fett’s stronghold.

  “I’ll check,” she said to Orade. Beviin winked at her. Medrit just kept glancing at his chrono as if he didn’t have time for all this. “You can hide behind me if you like.”

  Orade licked his lips nervously. “Cyar’ika, when Fett says he’ll break my legs, he’s just looking for an excuse.”

  “He’s a sick man, Ghes, and if you tell anyone, I’ll be the one doing the breaking.”

  Ghes Orade would have faced a cannoned-up Chiss fleet armed only with a sharp stick, and laughed about his chances of survival, but he was scared stiff of her grandfather. Mirta wondered if she was doomed to have all her romances doused liberally with freezing water because everyone now knew she was a Fett. She leaned on the barn door—the building had been a drying shed—and two indignant faces turned to her.

  “What are you doing to him?” she demanded. “Has he had a relapse or something?”

  Fett was breathing hard as if he was in a lot of pain, hands clenched against his chest, face white and waxy. A woman she’d never seen before stood over him, holding a large-bore needle-tipped syringe up to the light and checking the reservoir. Another man in a ragbag of assorted armor was standing with his back to the door. He didn’t turn around.

  “Jaing kept his promise,” Fett said, breathless. “Or he’s having the last laugh and poisoning me. We’ll see.”

  “There’s a slower and less painful way of getting this where it needs to go,” said the woman, flicking the syringe with her finger to clear air bubbles. “But there’s no point messing around given the state you’re in, Mand’alor. Direct into your bone marrow. Two shots to go.”

  “Just do it.” He took his hands off his chest and parted his shirt. Mirta was surprised how bony he was: he looked such a fit, strong man in full armor. She never wanted anyone else to see him like this. “Is this the best Mandalore can offer me? A veterinarian who spends her working day with her arm up a—”

  “Believe me, I prefer treating nerfs. Keep still. Or I’ll miss and puncture a lung. Or worse.”

  “How long is this going to take?”

  “Mand’alor, do you know what the alternative site to the sternum is for this treatment?”

  “Amaze me.”

  “The pelvic bones.”

  Fett’s expression was predictably blank, and he didn’t say another word. He looked away, and anyone else would have thought it was casual annoyance at having his schedule interrupted, but Mirta knew him well enough by now to see he was in excruciating pain. She took the risk of stepping forward and folding her hand around his. He took it, too. She thought he’d break every bone in her fingers when the vet lined up the needle—so big that Mirta could see the hole in the tip—and pressed it hard into his breastbone, as if she were preparing a nuna for roasting.

  There was an awful squelch. Orade swallowed loudly.

  “If you’re going to faint or throw up, son, go do it outside,” the vet said irritably. “Failing that, find some analgesics. Where do you keep them?”

  “Forget it,” Fett said. “I need to know if you’re doing me any damage.”

  “It’s okay, Ba’buir,” Mirta whispered. “You’ll be okay.”

  “If the Sarlacc didn’t finish me off, she won’t, either.”

  The vet, all smiling menace, inserted the syringe in a glass vial to refill. “Last one. Shut your eyes and think of Mandalore.”

  Mirta glanced over her shoulder at the man in the multicolored armor. He slipped off his helmet.

  “Just making sure he doesn’t die before he does something useful for Manda’yaim,” said the man. “If it works, and it should, then he’ll start to show signs of recovery in a few days.”

  He looked a lot like Fett—and Jaing—and the resemblance was unsettling. The Kiffar part of her, the one that cared about bloodlines, told her this was her kin. Clones got around a bit during the war. She probably had a lot more genetic relatives than she’d first thought.

  Fett crushed Mirta’s fingers again and didn’t make a sound.

  The vet straightened up and opened a bottle of pungent-smelling liquid to clean her hands. “Normally, I swat my patients across the rump and let them get on with grazing. But seeing as it’s you, I’ll skip that and suggest you take it easy for a day or so. Expect a big bruise.”

  Fett gave her a silent nod of acknowledgment as she left, and fastened his undershirt. Then he looked up at Mirta. “Say hello to your uncle Venku.” He indicated the man in the motley armor, who still hadn’t acknowledged her. “Alias Kad’ika.”

  It was all making sense now. Kad’ika had to be the son of a clone trooper. There must have been a lot of them out there, and she wondered how many of them had any social graces or senses of humor, or if they all took after Ba’buir.

  “Just doing my bit for Mandalorian unity,” Venku said, slipping his helmet back on as if her close inspection was making him uncomfortable. “Wouldn’t do for the Mand’alor to snuff it just when we’re on the rise again.
”

  He leaned over Fett and put two fingers against the pulse in his neck. Mirta expected her grandfather to flatten him for daring to lay hands on him, but he simply looked at the assorted plates of beskar’gam with idle curiosity and tolerated the examination.

  “Your heart rate’s up,” Venku said. “Get some rest.”

  “Field medic.”

  “Yeah, they say I have a healing touch.” Mirta found that hard to believe. Venku straightened up. “Any problems—tell the folks at Cikartan’s tapcaf in town. They’ll know how to contact me.”

  Venku made for the door. As he brushed past her, he stopped and tapped his finger against the heart-of-fire dangling from her neck. He obviously never worried about getting a punch in the face.

  “Interesting,” he said.

  He was a chancer, a man who could obtain things—and obviously information as well. It was worth a try.

  “It’s a heart-of-fire,” she said. “It belonged to my grandmother. I need a full-blooded Kiffar to help me read the memories imprinted in it.”

  He paused for a few moments. “Mando’ade come from all kinds of places. If I find anyone who can read the stone, I’ll let you know.” Then he was gone.

  Orade nudged Beviin.

  “Go on,” Orade said. “Tell him. It’ll make him happy—okay, happier. Happy people heal faster.”

  Fett put his armor plates back on. “What’s going to make me happy?”

  Beviin had the beatific smile of a man who’d finished laying up stores for the winter and just enjoyed a big meal. “Yomaget’s got something to show you.”

  Fett grunted. He was the least expressive man Mirta knew, but he seemed vaguely disappointed. “He’s got the Bes’uliik spaceworthy, has he?”

  “Bang goes the surprise.”

  “It’s the thought that counts.” He stood up and was instantly transformed from her sick Ba’buir into Boba Fett, ruthless and relentless. But he didn’t stride out the door right away. She took a guess that he was feeling the effects of the treatment and wasn’t going to admit it, not even in front of people who knew exactly what was wrong. “Where is it?”