Koa Ne, like all Kaminoans, didn't care about anything except Kamino, whatever impression the polite faade created. Fett's ambivalent view of Kaminoans veered more toward dislike the older he became. They were for hire, just as he had been. He'd taken a fee for some dubious causes himself in his time. But there was still something less than admirable about a species that grew others to do their fighting for them.

"We have always had a special regard for you, Boba."

He didn't like Koa Ne using his first name. Have you still got any of my dad's tissue samples? Still planning to make some use of him? No, you couldn't keep the material intact that long, could you? "No point hunting Taun We. Even the leg she cloned for me is degenerating. Spare parts won't help."

"We have a use for that technology-"

"I don't."

"Taun We may yet be useful to you. She is most skilled."

"Maybe you should have hired me to hunt Ko Sai a few decades ago, rather than go after Taun We now."

"We have . . . reason to believe someone found Ko Sai. But we had sufficient expertise left to continue cloning without her, even if we had lost the original research on control of aging."

"If anyone found it, they never tried to sell it. Who would sit on merchandise worth that much? n.o.body I know."

It was probably Ko Sai's research that Fett needed now, but that was a trail that had gone very cold more than fifty years ago. Even he would have a tough job tracking it down.

But someone had it. Ko Sai had defected somewhere. There was always an audit trail to follow, as his accountant called it. And Taun We might be a lead to it. Maybe she had taken the same route out. Maybe she had the same paymasters; top-cla.s.s cloners were rare.

"We both have reasons to recover as much data and as many personnel as we can," said Koa Ne. If the minister had been human, Fett suspected he would have been smirking. "Will you help?"

"Making the most of me while I'm still alive?"

"Mutual benefit."

"Benefit costs." Fett turned away from the window and picked up his helmet. "I don't do help."

He wondered if Koa Ne ever thought of his father, Jango, and knew that if he did that it was purely in terms of his utility to the Kaminoan economy. He shouldn't have been offended that another professional viewed life so dispa.s.sionately: he did, after all. But this was his father, and that wasn't a subject he reduced to credits or convenience. Using clones of his own father to defend Kamino against the clone army of the Empire had always stuck in his throat. It was the ultimate exploitation. His father would have shrugged it off as an inevitable part of the deal, he knew, but he suspected it would have angered him deep down.

One of Dad's friends used to call them aiwha bait. I remember that.

"We can pay."

"Okay. Dead or alive?"

"Alive, of course. A million to bring Taun We back alive, with the data."

"Two million to recover her, and an extra million for the data. Three million."

"Excessive. I do believe your father was paid only five million for what amounted to creating and training an army."

"That's inflation for you. Take it or leave it."

The thought left a staccato trail in his mind like skipping a stone across water, joining up previously disjointed ideas.

When the Kaminoans had last given any thought to Jango Fett, there had been hundreds of thousands-no, millions of men like him, and now there were none.

Fett lowered his helmet over his head again and settled into the rea.s.surance and ident.i.ty of its confines as so many of them would have done, inhaling the deflected warmth and scent of his own breath in the brief moment before the seal closed and the environmental controls kicked in. Had the men been deployed for the good of Mandalorians, the galaxy might have been a very different place today.

But that wasn't his problem.

A year left. Time enough, if I concentrate everything on it.

He had no idea why he had started thinking so much about the long-distant war lately.

Perhaps it was because he had known what news Beluine would break to him.

I'm really going to die this time.

"You need this technology as much as we do," said Koa Ne. "One million."

"I'll find it. And it's still three million if you want me to hand it back to you when I've taken the data that I need." The most satisfying part of negotiation was knowing your walkaway point. He'd reached it now. "A professional's worth his fee, Koa Ne. Take it or leave it. I'll find someone able to pay a lot more than you can-just to cover my expenses, of course."

"But what use is your wealth to you now?"

In a human, it would have been cruel mockery of a dying man. But Kaminoans didn't have enough emotion in them for mockery.

"I've always got a use for it."

Koa Ne was right. He didn't need any more credits, or any more power and influence, either: politics really didn't interest him. He'd served too many politicians, often in their machinations against each other, and he didn't even relish being the Mand'alor, leader of the scattered Mandalorian community.

So why do I care at all?

He was the head of a ragbag of scattered Mando'ade. There were farmers and metalworkers and families sc.r.a.ping a living back on Mandalore, and there were any number of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and small communities in diaspora across the rest of the galaxy. It was hard to call them a nation. He wasn't even a head of state, not in the way Corellians or Coruscanti understood it. In the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong war, he had just a hundred commandos to call on, but they were still doing what Mandalorians had done for generations: eking out a grim existence in the Mandalore sector, defending Mandalorian enclaves, or taking on the wars of others. He had no idea how many more people who thought of themselves as Mandalorians were spread across the galaxy.

A hundred Mando warriors was still a force to be reckoned with, though. And every Mandalorian was still a warrior at heart, man and woman, boy and girl. They all still trained from childhood to fight.

I'm going to be dead within two years. I'm seventy-one. I should have another thirty in me, at least.

"Fett ."

No.

"Three million."

I'm not finished yet.

"Two million credits, to find Taun We and bring her back. That is my best offer."

I'm my father's son. Death is a risk, not a certainty. Not if you use your fear for focus.

"I'm rebuilding your economy," Fett said. Kao Ne might have been offended: it was hard to tell with Kaminoans. "Don't insult me with small change."

"You talk as if you have no emotional attachment to Taun We at all."

"This is business. Even if I'm dying."

"Take the bounty, and we will give you all our intelligence on her."

And if you had enough of that, you wouldn't need me. "Three million."

"Remember that even you cannot succeed alone."

"They always say that," said Fett. This was where he walked away for good. "When I find Taun We, I'll auction the data to cover my expenses. Start saving."

Fett expected Koa Ne to run after him onto the landing platform, like stubborn customers always did when they saw sense. But when he glanced back behind him, the platform was empty.

Maybe that's all he could afford. Too bad. This is either my last hunt, or it's the start of a new fortune.

He liked the odds. Yes, he felt he had a fighting chance. A year was a long time for a bounty hunter.

He slid into Slave I's c.o.c.kpit and lowered the canopy. He'd spent a fortune restoring her for the third time-and adding modifications his father Jango would never have dreamed of.

Sitting in her pilot's seat looking out on an endless storm-locked ocean, he was a nine-year-old child again, delighted to be allowed to fly a mission with his father.

This had once been his home. He'd been at his happiest here. He'd never been that happy since.

They said your past flashed before you when you were dying. But then people said a lot of things, and he never took any notice of them unless it paid him to do so.

Fett started up the drive and lifted Slave I into a standard escape trajectory. He needed to get on Taun We's trail. But Koa Ne was right: what use would his wealth be to him now?

Other men left empires: other men had families whose futures their wealth would protect.

He checked his highly illegal and very reliable comm scanner and set it to watch for unusual share trading in bioengineering companies. Taun We had something to sell, and she would sell it ... and the ripples would spread far enough for him to detect them sooner or later.

You've only got sooner. There won't be a later for you, not unless you find the data.

Even his father had wanted more than credits from the Kaminoans. He'd wanted a son.

I had a wife and a daughter once. I should have taken better care of them.

He'd have nothing to show for his life except a professional reputation, and a Mandalorian needed more than that. Being the Mandalore-halfhearted or otherwise-didn't give you a clan.

It was time to look up old contacts. Fett leaned back in the seat, removed his helmet, and stared at his reflection in the viewscreen as Slave I followed the course he had laid in for Taris.

He hadn't realized how much he'd missed Kamino.

Chapter Two.

Is it me?

Is it me?

Am I deluding myself, Jaina? Am I making the same mistake as Grandfather? I have days-most days-when I'm as certain of this as I've ever been certain of anything. And then I have sleepless nights when I wonder if the path of the Sith is a lasting solution for peace in the galaxy, or if that's my ego speaking for me. It terrifies me. But if I were motivated by ambition, then I wouldn't suffer this doubt, would I? Jaina, I can't tell you all this, not yet. You wouldn't see it. But when you do, remember that you're my sister, my heart, and that part of me will always love you, no matter what.

Good night, Jaina.

DELETE * DELETE * DELETE.

Jacen Solo's private journal; entry deleted AIR TRAFFIC CONTROL FREIGHT LANE, CORONET AIRs.p.a.cE, CORELLIA.

Han Solo would never get used to having to sneak into Corellian s.p.a.ce like a criminal.

It was one thing outrunning real enemies, but to crawl back to his homeworld in the Millennium Falcon under cover of a bogus transponder signal really rankled. He didn't like the Galactic Alliance any better than the next Corellian; being howled down as a traitor and an Alliance stooge actually hurt. Now he understood what it felt like to be a double agent, always doomed to be seen as the bad guy, never free to boast what a bang-up heroic secret job you were doing for the home team.

He wasn't going to use Leia's diplomatic status as a cover for his return, either. This was his home: he had a right to walk in anytime he liked. No, he wasn't sneaking in. He was making a covert entry. It was all about discretion.

Who was he kidding? Discretion. He fumed silently and banked the Falcon a little more sharply than he planned.

"You need to learn to meditate," said Leia.

"I don't like the sound of the coolant systems."

She adjusted them manually without being asked. "Time for some maintenance, then." Han's rough handling of the ship left Leia making silent but pointed safety adjustments that were as eloquent as a retort. "Before she blows a coolant line. Or you burst a major blood vessel."

"That obvious, huh?"

"And Jacen's left three messages."

Han jerked the Falcon hard to starboard, a little too hard. The stabilizing drive groaned in complaint. "I'm not rational enough to talk to him right now."

"Really? Never stopped you before."

"Okay, maybe I'll relax by asking Zekk what his intentions are towards Jaina."

"That would help matters a lot ..."

"I liked Kyp better. Whatever happened there?" Han asked. "And what about Jag?"

"I shot him down. You know perfectly well I did."

"Oh, yeah. I do recall. And I intimidate her boyfriends, do I?"

"You'd already shot down Jag long before I ever took a laser cannon to him, honey. I've got a list of intimidated ex-boyfriends somewhere. There's just Zekk left to put through the grinder and then you've got the whole set."

Han wanted to let Leia prod him into a better mood with some well-aimed sarcasm, but for once it wasn't working. Things had always been so clear before. He always knew who the enemies were, and they were good plain ones worth shooting: the Empire, the Yuuzhan Vong, and any number of aliens whose purpose and intent was obvious-to threaten him and all those he held dear.

Now he was in conflict with those very people he'd fought to protect-his oldest friend and his own son-and regarded as a Galactic Alliance crony by his own people. It wasn't so easy to be a hero now, even if he knew he was right. He'd never known what it felt like to be the bad guy before.

Hey, I'm not the one who's wrong here. It's the Alliance.