"Every time I see you, that thing's had a few more gizmos added," said Han.

"You make it sound like I pursue you."

"You do."

"Your glory days are long over, Solo." Fett encouraged him to get up with a jab from his boot, blaster still aimed, and picked up Han's where it had fallen. "n.o.body's put a decent price on your head for years. I'm after someone who matters."

"Funny, I thought you'd taken Thrackan's contract."

"Shut up and give your ego a rest."

"What are you here for, then?"

"Sightseeing. You want an audience?" Fett shoved him into the chaos of bricks and durasteel that lay where it had been left and toward a site office, one of those temporary cabins that could get up and walk to a new position on their own repulsors. Fett bypa.s.sed the lock with something on his gauntlet and waved Han inside with his blaster.

"So what can I do for you?" Han asked, settling on a chair covered in permacrete dust.

"Need another carbonite caf table for your Hutt buddies?"

"If I'd wanted you dead, I could have looked the other way when you had that spot of trouble with the Vong." He still hadn't holstered his blaster. "I need you as bait."

"Terrific."

"No risk to you."

"It's the word bait I tend to notice."

"My daughter accepted Sal-Solo's contract on your family. I shouldn't get in a fellow bounty hunter's way, but I need to find her and you're the best way to do it."

"Can't you call her like a regular father?"

"She's sworn to kill me."

"She's a chip off the old block for sure."

"So I'm going to sit on you until she shows up. You can do it the easy way or the hard way."

"I remember your easy way."

"You can do it dead if that's easier."

"You must want to see her real bad."

Fett perched in the edge of a desk between Han and the door, one boot on the seat of a chair. He glanced toward the door as if waiting for someone to show up. Han calculated whether he'd be able to charge whoever came in and make a run for it before Fett fired, and he realized he couldn't. Then he heard rapid footsteps-too light for a man-and wondered if Leia was going to rescue him again. Her timing was usually great.

But it wasn't Leia.

A very young girl with short brown hair, cold dark eyes, and an earnest, humorless face ducked into the cabin and closed the doors. She was wearing armor; not a full set like Fett, but armor all the same, and that meant another bounty hunter.

"She's still not answering," said the girl. She stared at a comlink in her hand as if willing it to melt. "If she doesn't know Solo's here, she won't come."

"You don't usually work in a team." Han was getting worried now. Fett doing things that were out of character scared him more than the alternative. "You need hired help these days?"

"This isn't a team," said Fett. "This is an arrangement."

"Okay, if I help you out, what's in it for me?"

"What do you want?"

It was worth a try. Fett was the master at this kind of thing. "Help me a.s.sa.s.sinate Thrackan Sal-Solo."

Han could have sworn Fett actually sighed. "Too late. One of his political rivals already booked me to do the job."

"Well, that's just great. Who? No, let me guess. Nice young man with dark hair? Dur Gejjen?"

"Might be."

"He gave me a few tips on how to whack Thrackan, too. Looks like he isn't sure I can do the job."

The girl stared at Han as if she'd have to clean him off her boots sooner or later. "Can you?"

"It's not as easy as it looks, is it?"

"It is," said Fett. "Now, about my daughter."

Han thought of Jacen's comlink message, which he had read several times but not answered.

Bounty hunting was a small world. He took a chance. "Is your daughter called Mirta Gev by any chance?"

The girl's hand went to her blaster as she fixed Han with an unblinking stare. "I'm Mirta Gev, Granddad."

So this was it. It was Fett's double cross after all. He was working for Thrackan. Han decided to go for it. "Just my kriffing luck-"

He exploded out of the chair, head down, and charged the girl. She was a lot heavier than she looked and that armor plate on her chest really hurt, but nowhere near as much as the stock of Fett's blaster against the back of his head. He fell on all fours and the girl brought her knee up in his face just as he pitched forward. That hurt a lot, too.

"Solo, you forgot a few things since we last met." Fett hauled him to his feet and shoved him back in the chair. "Don't take on two bounty hunters at once. Now, how come you know Mirta's name?"

"Why should I tell you?"

"Because I'm going to kill your sleazebag cousin. Show some grat.i.tude."

Fett meant it. Han couldn't work out what was going on, except he wasn't dead yet, and Fett wasn't the man to indulge in long gloating speeches before he claimed his bounty.

"My son says they picked up a hitwoman in Galactic City called Ailyn Habuur and that-"

"Osik!" the girl hissed. Her face was instantly white and shocked.

"-and if you're Mirta Gev, then you two might both be after me and my family."

"I'm not hunting you, old man." Mirta was upset: that was clear. "I was looking for Habuur." She took a breath. "I recovered some items for her."

"She must owe you plenty, judging by the look on your face," said Han. He looked at Fett, but a man with a helmet betrayed nothing. He was just very still.

"Ailyn's my daughter," he said quietly, in a voice that sounded as if it belonged to a totally different man. "Real name's Ailyn Vel. So your son's got her, has he? I think I know the kind of job he does."

"She was cannoned up and ready to kill me, pal."

"I need to see her."

"Well, let me go and sort Thrackan and I'll put in a good word for you with my boy. Maybe he can arrange visiting rights."

"And maybe I'll tell your boy that he can pick his dad up in a body bag if he lays a finger on my daughter. Maybe I'll finish the job for her, because you're no use to me as bait now."

Mirta was staring at Fett as if she wasn't sure what was happening. He'd certainly said something she wasn't expecting.

"Looks like we're all stuck," said Han.

"No Sal-Solo, no contract on you."

"Well, that's a win-win situation if ever I heard one."

"Get your Jedi son to release my daughter."

"If you let me have a crack at Thrackan," Han said.

"I'm not splitting the bounty."

"Just let me split his skull."

"Deal."

"Okay. Deal."

Fett held out his hand to Mirta for her communicator. "Call your wife and tell her you've run into an old friend and that you're going to be late getting home."

"She'll sense there's something wrong. She's got this Jedi danger sense."

Mirta Gev raised her blaster and held it to Han's head. "Can she bring people back from the dead, too?"

"Okay, point taken. I'll make it convincing."

"Move it," said Fett. "Don't want to miss the President's news conference. It's going to be his last."

Chapter Seventeen.

Jedi are seldom public figures and rarely risk controversy. But Jacen Solo's extraordinary record in recent weeks-leading the war on terrorism, even flying combat missions in the Corellian blockade-marks him out as a man less concerned with the esoteric spiritual preoccupations of the Jedi order than with doing his bit for the Galactic Alliance. He's the perfect counter to those critics who demand to know what taxpayers get for their credits from the Jedi order. But, ironically, he still has almost no status within the order itself. He doesn't even hold the rank of Master.

-HNE's Week in Focus, political commentary THE JEDI TEMPLE, CORUSCANT: 2215 HOURS.

Even the Jedi council had its business hours. Jacen always found that amusingly unspiritual. He could enter the Temple at any time, but he needed to be in the council chamber itself, and that required a little deception.

It also needed a ma.s.sive Force effort from him, because he had to make himself invisible at the same time as shutting down his Force presence and flow-walking back in time. He doubted he could hold all three elements together for long. He had to enter the chamber, listen and look into the past, and leave no trace of his visit.

Jacen, back in his traditional robes again, wandered around the Temple archives room browsing the datafiles until there were only a few Jedi left reading at the terminals.

They would hardly notice that he had disappeared among the shelves and not walked past them again. Concentrating on his body as if it were a sh.e.l.l, he used the Fallana.s.si skills he had learned to project an illusion of being nothing, of having transparency, and drew his Force presence so far inside himself that he vanished to all Jedi senses. A woman lost in thought while she stared unblinking at a screen took no notice of him when he sat down next to her. Now he could walk into the council chamber itself, unseen-he hoped.

The Temple, whose rebuilding had struck Jacen as a needlessly expensive statement of power, was now working in his favor. He had marshaled the courage to look into his grandfather's past again, and this was the place he needed to be to do that, on the site of the very chamber where Anakin Skywalker's fate had been decided. He slipped through the doors and stood within the circle.

The inlaid marble floor was said to be identical to the one on which Anakin would have walked. Jacen stared at it, wondering if he might see the floor through Anakin's eyes. He had felt his emotions. And he had seen through his own mother's eyes; it might be possible to do both at once.

Listen.

He felt the soles of his boots become part of the marble as if he were growing into the polished slabs like a tree. His head buzzed. s.n.a.t.c.hes of conversation washed over him until-like picking out the sound of his own name in the crowded, noisy room-he heard Anakin.

He felt as if he were braking on a long slide down a hillside. He felt the jolt in his mind, and the sounds in his head became clear. He didn't recognize the voices, but he could easily work out who some of them were.

"So is he the Chosen One?"

"Qui-Gon believes so."

"But what do we believe?"

"Skywalker is exceptional, but he's past the age of being trained."

"But is he the Chosen One?"

"If he is, then training him becomes irrelevant. He will either find his path or not."

"A logical argument you make, but direction is needed."

"Then who will train him? Who can train him? Perhaps n.o.body can take on the challenge."

"But if we do not train him, regret it we may."

"And none of us can take on a Padawan, and we have more pressing problems to deal with."

The last speaker was Mace Windu. Jacen recognized him from recordings, and his heart sank at how easily they had abdicated responsibility for Anakin considering that he was the Chosen One. Jacen sought parallels, more clues to where Anakin had gone astray on his path to show him the pitfalls to avoid.

This time he needed to see what had happened. He shut out the time-echoes of the voices again and slipped into a corner where he could hide if his Force-invisibility failed as he flow-walked into the past. The effort of sustaining all the techniques at once was making him sweat.

His head pounded and the image of the chamber blurred for a moment, but then it cleared and Jacen felt as if he had woken with a start. The Council sat in their ceremonial seats or appeared as holograms, and one of those present in the flesh was Anakin Skywalker, now a young man, and a very angry one. He was standing in the center of the chamber in a black cloak, arguing with Mace Windu and Yoda.