"Allow this appointment lightly, the Council does not. Disturbing is this move by Chancellor Palpatine."

"You are on this Council, but we do not grant you the rank of Master."

"What? How can you do this? This is outrageous! It's unfair! I'm more powerful than any of you. How can you be on the Council and not be a Master?"

"Take a seat, young Skywalker . . ."

Jacen watched for a few moments and both pitied and understood Anakin, and knew that he wasn't following his path, not at all. Poor Grandfather: gifted, exceptional, dismissed, barely tolerated, largely untrained, abandoned. No wonder he resorted to crazed, desperate violence. Had he received the training that Jacen had, if he had been able to perfect his powers and experience all uses of the Force-even those the Jedi academy shied away from teaching-then the galaxy might have been a very different place.

I'm the second chance.

The Jedi Council dropped the ball. And they paid for it.

Jacen had accepted his Sith destiny, but now he understood not only that it had to happen, but why. Everything in his life had led to this point because Anakin Skywalker's destiny had been subverted and warped by well-meaning but blind Masters, sending him off on a tangent to do a flawed Palpatine's bidding instead of realizing his own full power.

I'm more powerful than any of you.

It was a boy's expression of anger, but it was true. And, as history repeated itself because it had no other choice, Jacen was more powerful than any of them except Luke. And he was growing closer to Luke's strength by the day.

When he achieved Sith Mastery, he would surpa.s.s him. He hadn't yet thought how Luke and he would coexist after that point had been reached. For a brief and tempting moment Jacen considered Force-walking into the future, as he had done before, but his instinct said to leave it alone for the time being.

Power. Power was a vulgar, personal word, shot through with ambition and petty vanity.

Becoming a Master was a necessary political step in achieving the ultimate order. Beyond that, it had no meaning, but Jacen would still seek it-purely as a tool.

He could maintain the time flow and invisibility no longer. He snapped out of the past and held his presence in check long enough to leave the chamber and pause farther down the corridor to catch his breath. A maintenance worker appeared from a storeroom and stared at him, surprised.

"Good night, friend," said Jacen, and mind-rubbed the memory from the man as he left.

SLAVE I, CORONET CITY s.p.a.cEPORT, CORELLIA.

"How do you breathe in this thing?" Han grumbled.

"Try shaving in it," said Fett.

Han Solo adjusted the Mandalorian helmet with both hands. The spare armor that Fett kept stowed in Slave I as a backup was just what he needed to get them right up close to Sal-Solo. The body plates weren't fitted, so they attached to Han's clothing without too much trouble, but the helmet was a custom job and he was struggling with it.

"I can't see," said Han.

Fett activated the HUD.

"Whoa . . . what is all this?" Han put his hand on the bulkhead as if he were falling over. "I can't balance-"

"Data display and three-hundred-sixty-degree vision." Fett shut down most of the feeds and the blink-operated controls so that Han saw only what he'd see with his own eyes. It would take him days to get used to the 360-degree field of view without crashing into things.

And there was no point confusing him with the rest of the display that rolled and flashed constantly inside the visor. If he blinked at the wrong time he'd either blow himself up or wipe billions off the stock exchange. He only needed to be able to see. "Never worn a helmet?"

"Yeah, but I don't recall stormtrooper helmets being quite this fancy inside."

"That's cheapskate defense procurement for you. Try walking."

Han paced up and down the narrow galley in Slave I's cargo section, turning his head left and right. Mirta watched him with cold indifference. But Fett had come to know her well enough to realize that the news of Ailyn's capture had knocked her sideways. Maybe there was a really big bounty hanging on that necklace.

"Okay, I can do this," said Han. "I can see well enough to blow his brains out. So explain this to me."

"We just walk in and ask to see your cousin. Then we get him on his own. Then we kill him."

"Then I kill him."

"I agreed to kill him and I will." Fett didn't have time for this. "You can take a shot, too, if it makes you feel better."

"And he's just going to let you stroll in?"

"Yes. He asked for some Mandalorian a.s.sistance. I said we'd think about it. I've thought."

"What a.s.sistance?"

"Defending Centerpoint."

"But you took a contract to a.s.sa.s.sinate him," Han said.

"Gejjen made me an offer and I accepted. I didn't accept Sal-Solo's. I'm a man of my word.

A contract is a contract."

"So we pose as your Mandalorian henchmen."

"He'll want to see us."

"How do we find our way around? It's a maze in those offices."

"Already done the recce and recorded the data." Fett projected the holoplans of the Presidential offices onto the cargo bay bulkhead. The penetrating radar had built up a detailed three-dimensional walk-through image. "Getting in is easy. Next two stages are getting him on his own, because I don't like collateral damage, and getting out again."

"Can't Gejjen help you do that?"

"How's he going to explain a dead President?"

Mirta looked up. "He'll blame it on the Alliance, because that's very handy for him."

"She's good," said Han.

"Either way, we get out fast. I suggest we exit via this route to his bunker, which leads to this tunnel that comes out in the park." Fett traced the illuminated transparent chart with the finger of his glove and considered how bad a firefight might get if they were trapped in that tunnel. Mirta only had a small bag with her: that meant not much kit-not enough kit. "You want a helmet, girl?"

"No."

"You'd better be fast, then."

Han stared at the chart, seeming more comfortable within the confines of the helmet.

"Thrackan's got a bunker?"

"Civil emergency center. He's got direct access from his office."

"You don't trust him either."

"He has no honor. But that's irrelevant."

"I don't think I'll ever understand you, Fett. You kill without blinking and yet you're taking an awfully big risk to find a daughter who's tried to vape you."

"He's all heart really," said Mirta.

"I must be, because you're still alive," said Fett.

Han eased off the helmet and took a deep breath. "And I never had you down for a double act, either."

"We're not," said Fett. But Mirta had her uses, and she never gave up. He liked that.

"He needs me for ballast," Mirta said sourly.

Fett checked the charge on his blaster. The adrenaline rush of carrying out a job on the spur of the moment like this had made him forget his illness for a while, and it left him with a pleasant sense of omnipotence. The pain in his stomach and joints-a persistent tenderness that sometimes peaked into a sensation almost like toothache-was always there now but it could still be pushed into the background without his reaching for painkillers.

He wondered how long he'd be able to do that.

n.o.body ever survived the Sarlacc, but I did. If you want something badly enough, push yourself hard enough, you can do anything.

Even survive against all odds.

Even restore an empire.

Even heal a rift with your only child.

Yes, he could do anything. He was Boba Fett. He was what his father had made of him, and that was a survivor.

"Oya," said Mirta.

"What's that mean?" Fett asked.

Mirta checked her blaster. "Let's go hunting."

GALACTIC ALLIANCE SHIP OCEAN, ALLIANCE THIRD FLEET, CORELLIAN.

EXCLUSION ZONE: DAY SIX OF THE BLOCKADE.

"Well, that's going to make life interesting for Omas," said the hologram of Admiral Niathal.

A line of vessels-some freighters, some individual warships, some starfighters, and some whose profiles didn't match anything Jacen had ever seen-had formed up in line astern a Corellian cruiser, Bloodstripe, at 50 kilometers from the Alliance picket blockading Centerpoint Station. The ops room crew of Ocean watched the unmoving ranks of lights on the scanner; the commander of the Third Fleet, Admiral Makin-another Mon Cal with an unflinching approach to warfare-stood beside the hologram of Niathal with his arms folded.

"I make that one Bonadan Cutla.s.s-cla.s.s . . . a couple of Fondorian fighters . . . and that's an Atzerri freighter," said the weapons officer. "They've been on station for the past hour."

Makin turned to face the image of Niathal. "May I have conformation of orders, ma'am?"

"Maintain the exclusion zone and deny access to all vessels," said Niathal. "And if an Alliance vessel is fired upon or otherwise threatened, then you may engage."

"Colonel Solo," said Makin. "Put Rogue Squadron on alert five."

"Awaiting your orders, sir."

"Let's see who blinks first this time."

Jacen made his way to the hangar deck where a row of XJ7s stood with canopies open and ground technicians running preflight checks. Jaina and Zekk were leaning against a bulkhead talking in hushed voices, and Jacen chose not to use his Force-senses to listen.

Jaina greeted him with a hostile stare and a definite sense of pushing him away in the Force. "Good of you to drop in, Colonel Solo," she said. His instant commission had really irked her. "Who's minding the shop back at Secret Police HQ?"

Zekk greeted him with a nod. "Now, Jaina. We have a guest star. Be nice."

Jacen chose not to take offense. "Mission brief, people." It doesn't matter. Pa.s.s beyond it. "Some other fleets have fronted up on behalf of Corellia, some of them civilian vessels. They're lined up, daring us to take a crack at them."

"We've been watching the scanner repeater." Zekk nodded in the direction of the bulkhead, where a large holoscreen mirrored the tactical information from the ops room. "This is going to get tricky. One wrong move-"

"-and we suck in a lot more enemies." Jaina completed Zekk's sentence, a holdover from their time as Joiners. "Do we have orders to engage?"

Jacen could feel her mistrust and sorrow. It was a real weakness in a squadron if pilots had lost faith in their commander, but it wasn't his military judgment she would question.

It was his morality.

"Only if fired upon or placed under serious threat."

"I'm glad we're clear," said Jaina. She picked up her helmet from the bench, lowered it into place, and fastened the chin strap. "Are we just going to buzz them, or try to drive them back?"

"Right now none of them are in the exclusion zone. If that changes, we turn them back."

"I love a standoff," said Zekk. "Are they letting supplies through to the shipyard orbiters yet?"

"No. Total exclusion zone means total exclusion zone."

"Even in Corellian s.p.a.ce."

"Not our problem, Zekk. The legality of that is for the Senate to argue later. Okay, time to turn and burn."

Three XJ7s didn't const.i.tute a major confrontation, but Jacen was clear how far he would allow things to proceed. This was another game that could easily escalate. The three starfighters came up well under the line of a.s.sorted vessels and looped around to take up positions between them and the Alliance picket ships ringing Centerpoint on the outer side. Moving to intercept across that huge curve of alloy and durasteel meant a fast dash, but that was what XJ7s were made for.

Jacen watched his c.o.c.kpit console display for movement. He reached out carefully in the Force to test Jaina's state of mind: She was, as ever, focused on the job at hand, but a persistent ripple of hostility-there was no other word for it-tinted the slow eddies.

He felt a strong shove back against him in his mind.

Get out of my head. He could grasp the meaning as clearly as if she could share words with him. Back off. Jacen wondered if Zekk could sense this, too. He didn't attempt to test Zekk's feelings, but he shared an emotion with both of them instead: he sent calm.

They waited, silent, watching their screens.