"n.o.body, really," said Beviin. "But there's this guy called Kad'ika that we're all hearing about. Thinks it's time we looked after ourselves-really looked after ourselves. Not just gather in the clans and unite when we're threatened, but build Mandalore itself into something new."

I never heard that. And I never miss intelligence. "So he wants to be Mandalore?"

"No, they say he wants you to be Mandalore."

"Then he can come and tell me himself. Whoever he is."

The name Kad'ika told Fett something. The Mando'a suffix -ika made it a child's name, a diminutive of the name Kad. Fett suspected that a Mandalorian who still had a childhood nickname and seemed confident to wear it almost as a badge would be anything but little.

In the past he'd hunted several big, dangerous targets with trivial names that belied their muscle and firepower. They'd seemed to bask in the irony.

He'd killed them anyway, but they'd been a challenge.

A professional took no chances and never underestimated the task at hand. Fett added Kad'ika to the list of potential quarry that was big and dangerous until proven otherwise.

"It means 'little saber,' " Beviin said helpfully.

"Cute," said Fett. One more complication, one more mystery. Stick to your priorities, Fett. "I'm heading for Corellia now."

"You'll have to beat the blockade, then."

"I will. You still flying Gladiators?"

"We are."

"Form up and follow Slave One, then. Let's see if the Alliance remembers that we fought against the Vong for them."

Fett decided to stay busy. He needed to find his cure, he needed to see Ailyn, and he needed not to dwell on the unhappy past.

Corellia's ills would do the job for now.

CORELLIAN BLOCKADE, INNER EXCLUSION ZONE.

Rogue Squadron maintained formation behind Jacen's XJ7 as the fighters patrolled the exclusion zone around Corellia. It took five standard hours to circle the planet at maximum speed.

The squadron was flying a cube pattern around a cl.u.s.ter of orbital units that made up a shipyard, probably a less glamorous target than Centerpoint but a significant one nonetheless.

And somewhere aft of his port wing, mistrustful and angry, was Jaina. Maybe it was his instant elevation to colonel. She'd worked for her rank. He could feel her, a bright fire of resentment and anger. Zekk was on his starboardside. For a few moments the squadron touched minds in a battle-meld, but it didn't feel as united as it once had.

I've lost you, Jaina. In the end, I might lose everyone's love, maybe even Tenel Ka, but it has to be done.

Jacen shook himself out of regret and the squadron broke into six paired patrols, fanning out into the orbits of the industrial s.p.a.ce stations and shipyards-and Centerpoint Station.

How close could his squadron get before the Corellians opened fire? Would they fire at all?

If the orbital stations didn't have fighter craft embarked-and that was always a possibility-then all they had was their close-in defense systems, the ones they never expected to have to use. Jacen switched to the main ops comlink to hear the voice traffic between other squadrons' pilots and Forward Air Control.

"Unarmed maintenance transport inbound for Centerpoint. Moving to intercept."

"Copy that."

"Visual on the transport. Confirmed unarmed."

"Intercepting now. Range five kilometers."

"He's holding course. Let's see who blinks first."

"He's slowing."

"And now you've got company. Corellian fighter range ten kilometers moving to transport's position . . . fast . . ."

"Got him on scanner . . . now visual, too."

It was the first test of wills.

"Back off, pal-"

"Whoa, that was close."

"He's locked on to me."

"Cleared to engage."

"He's breaking off-transport is altering course."

Zekk cut into Jacen's comlink circuit. It seemed Jacen wasn't the only one listening to the chatter. "Shouldn't we be there?"

"Centerpoint isn't the only game in town. Patience, Zekk."

Centerpoint might have been the political focus, but Jacen knew the leverage would be in the factories and power stations...o...b..ting Corellia. There was a total of a million workers in those orbiters, people with families down on the surface who cared about them.

"Contact, bearing twenty-five by forty from datum." Zekk's XJ7 blipped on Jacen's...o...b..ard scanner as it peeled off to investigate. He watched as Zekk pinged the vessel with his sensors; the shared display outlined a big, ungainly ship that appeared to be one large tank. "Okay, profile looks like a replenishment ship-water bowser and food. Panic over."

"Turn it back, then."

"What?"

"Orders are to turn back all vessels."

Zekk's comlink made a slight pop as if he'd switched it off for a moment. "But it's just water and catering. It's not industrial or military."

Zekk didn't get it sometimes. Jacen wondered why he saw angles that other Jedi didn't.

"Those orbiters can only recycle and condense so much water a day. The shortfall has to be topped up."

"You think that's worth doing "Rule of three."

"What?"

"Three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. That's how long a humanoid can last, and they're mostly Corellians on those orbiters. The first thing every commander should learn about a siege. There are ten thousand workers in that orbital yard alone, and they're not going home just yet, and they're not going to be resupplied.

That makes people sweat."

Zekk's comlink popped again. Maybe he was silencing the audio to swear for a moment.

"Who's this shapeshifter and what has he done with Jacen?" he said sourly.

"Just turn back the bowser, Zekk. I'm not running a popularity contest."

"Very good, sir." Zekk's tone said otherwise, but Jacen watched him roll his XJ7 into a dive and head straight for the water tanker.

Jaina's voice was almost a whisper in Jacen's comlink. "Is this policy?"

"Turn back all vessels means turn back all vessels. Do you have a problem with that?"

"Just a humanitarian one."

"It'll bring Corellia to the negotiation table a lot faster without shots being fired."

"Well, you're in command," said Jaina, all acid. "Colonel Solo."

Jacen wondered if any other squadron was quite as casual in its att.i.tude to orders as Rogue. He doubted it.

It was a long sortie. For the next three hours the squadron harried supply vessels and transports, turning some of them back simply by flying uncomfortably close. Others were more persistent; it took a concussion round detonated close to their bows to make them alter their course and head back down to the surface. For once, the XJ7s' business was about being visible, conspicuous, and intimidating.

"We only have to keep this up for a few months," Zekk said wearily. "Piece of cake."

"Try this for size," said Jaina. "Check your scanner. Three a.s.sault fighters on our six. I think Cousin Thrackan is fed up with us already."

Jacen looped his XJ7 into a climb, tracing a complete arc almost without thinking about the maneuver, and found himself looking up through his canopy at the approaching Corellian fighters as they crossed beneath him. Even with g forces normalized and no sense of orientation, Jacen still had a clear sense that he was above them, upside down, just like flying combat missions in a planet's atmosphere. He could see and feel Jaina-and see Zekk-flying wide of him, far below, canopies facing him; they had looped in the same plane to come up on the Corellians from the rear, rather than climbing above them. Did we discuss this move? Or did I just think it? No, it was silent habit reinforced by that twin bond. Jacen feared it was the last thing he would ever truly share with his sister, but it was one more pain he had to face. She couldn't follow him on the path he was taking any more than his parents could.

He savored the final remnant of true understanding between them and accelerated into the loop to drop down behind the three fighters, right himself, and skim at top speed just meters clear of their canopies. The three fighters broke formation and scattered. Without any verbal commands, the three Jedi pilots latched on to their individual targets, Jaina and Zekk close enough on the tails of theirs to show little eddies of ionized gas on the nose shields of their X-wings. Jacen's target seemed to be under the impression that he was chasing Jacen.

Corellians were excellent pilots, but they weren't Jedi. The marginal difference in reaction speed and orientation made for much bigger gulfs in performance at high speeds.

Jacen seized that advantage. He let the fighter sit close on his tail for a couple of kilometers and then plummeted away from it, perfectly aware of his own position in s.p.a.ce relative both to it and to Jaina and Zekk, who were also locked in their respective games of tag.

It was just sparring. This was a game of brinkmanship; a game of maneuver and countermaneuver to test each other's nerve. A game to show that if it came to a shooting match, the Alliance would win.

Jacen thought this right up to the time he saw the display on his screen blip red with the warning that the Corellian had a missile lock on him. He sensed anything but a bluff.

You're really going to shoot, aren't you?

The Corellian fired.

Jacen didn't feel in danger; he had deflectors, the XJ7's robust airframe, and his own skills. He also had chaff to deploy. Instinctively, he fired the small decoy in his wake and it fragmented into pieces that looked, to a missile, very much like a target.

But if you want a fight, you've found one.

The missile exploded on his tail, and the rain of fragments peppered his hull. The Corellian fighter was still hard behind him and now he meant business. Jacen also knew that his opponent would aim the next missile manually, overriding its smart guidance to thwart more chaff.

That's what I'd do, anyway.

Jacen could have sent the Corellian spiraling harmlessly away by using the Force to tip his wings. He could have stopped his drives dead and left him drifting. But this pilot was one more a.s.set that was ready to take their lives. He and his starfighter had to be removed permanently.

You started it, my friend.

Jacen flipped the XJ7 ninety degrees and shot up vertically as the Corellian disappeared beneath him and overshot. Jacen was back on his tail, staring into white engine halos and closing the gap until he was close enough to fire the laser cannon. The starfighter exploded in a ball of white light.

Jaina? Zekk?

He felt them weaving between the two remaining Corellian fighters and then saw the enemy vessels break and shoot off toward the planet. He didn't think they were retreating. He suspected that they were regrouping to a.s.sess the rapid escalation of the conflict.

A few hours into the blockade, the shooting had already started.

"Congratulations." Jaina's voice over the comlink was flat and unemotional, although she didn't feel that way in the Force at all. Jacen sensed her as resigned. "You've made the history books. You fired the opening shot of the real war."

SLAVE I, ENTERING CORELLIAN EXCLUSION ZONE, OUTER CORDON.

"Warship Ocean calling unidentified vessel," said the Alliance. Fett listened in silence, Slave I's scanner profile presenting the almost undetectable thermal and magnetic signatures of a speeder bike. He was, for all intents and purposes, invisible-unless someone was lucky enough to get a visual on him. "Identify yourself."

"This is Mandalorian vessel Beroya." Beviin's voice oozed cheery comradeship. "Need a hand?"

"Why would we need that, Beroya? We've got two fleets deployed here."

"You weren't that choosy when you needed us to fight the Yuuzhan Vong."

Fett prepared for a maneuver that would either get him through the blockade in one piece or solve all his worries about terminal illness-because if he miscalculated, he'd be vaporized along with Slave I.

And so would Mirta Gev, of course.

"Do it," Mirta whispered.

"Wait.. ," said Fett, fingers resting on the recessed pad that would punch Slave I into hypers.p.a.ce. "Just making sure the trajectory is clear."

There was a moment's pause from Ocean. He heard the comm officer swallow. "Since when has Mandalore been part of the Alliance? You planning to bill us for this?"

"Just being comradely," said Beviin. "But strictly speaking, we couldn't be part of any alliance even if we wanted to, because .. ."

Nice diversion, thought Fett. If Beviin started on his theory of Mandalorian statehood, Ocean's comm officer could be pinned down for days. It was now or never.

"Now,"

He hit the hypers.p.a.ce jump control once and hit it again almost a heartbeat later.

In a second Slave I accelerated from a few thousand kilometers per hour to half the speed of light, and then decelerated again. Fett's stomach felt as if it had detached from his body.

It was the equivalent of slamming the ship into a rock face, but it punched Slave I past the blockade fast enough to show up on a scanner as nothing more than a brief burst of energy. The huge forces made Slave I shudder and groan, and Fett found the surface of Corellia looming in his view-screen. He'd cut it too fine. He couldn't correct the angle of approach before the ship hit atmosphere. He struggled to correct the flight path, slamming on the burners and giving Slave I's hull one more set of impossible stresses.