Luke shut his eyes for a moment. He looked older than Niathal recalled, with noticeable folds in his cheeks and a dull gray tone to his skin. She dared think something unthinkable about Jacen, that he might have been behind Mara's death-no, that was an outrage too far, even for him-and waited for Luke to say something. He didn't.

"I know he's fairly cavalier about killing, "she said, "but I suspect I was right in a.s.suming this would mark some threshold for you, too."

"It does."

"Depending on how you look at it, then, it could lead to some advantage, and poor Lieutenant Tebut's life won't have been spent in vain-Jacen may lose the loyalty of his troops. Or it could simply consolidate a reign of fear."

Luke rubbed one hand across his face, brow to chin. "I think I recall how that morale-boosting technique played out in my father's generation."

"Well, I still have a duty to the Alliance and my personnel, and I'm still prepared to pa.s.s intelligence to you provided you can use it to remove him. I don't care what you do with him-restraint-jacket therapy at some quiet monastic retreat, or shove him out the nearest air lock-but I want him gone." That sounded harsh, but Niathal wasn't sure how far humans would go to bring wayward relatives into line. "And out of office.

Another coup is im-possible at the moment, so the best I can achieve is to help neutralize his impact on the GA and hope I don't lose the lives of too many good beings doing it."

She wouldn't have been the first officer faced with a terrible choice when her leader pursued a course of mutual destruction. Her loyalty was to the common good of the GA, not to Jacen Solo.

Hang on, I'm talking and thinking as if I'm his deputy, not his joint and equal colleague. What am I doing-absolving myself of responsibility? I helped put him in power.

"I have Jedi working hard to seize him, Admiral, "said Luke. "Do you think he's insane?"

"No." Niathal had no hesitation. "I've seen too many perfectly sane beings become utterly corrupted by power. Jacen's not insane. He's just had his own way once too often, and now he can't see the world any other way."

"Do you know what I mean by a Sith?"

"I've heard the term. But I know nothing about them."

"They're Force-users who prefer the dark side. Like Palpatine."

"Oh... I see. Fallen Jedi."

Luke pressed his lips into a little humorless smile and looked away for a moment. "Oddly, that's just what the Mandalorians call them. Their word means ex-Jedi, although that's not always the case."

"And does this make any difference to how we approach him? Does he have different powers from regular Jedi?"

Luke looked strangely embarra.s.sed. She wasn't sure why. "Not really. He's just very strong, and he has an ability to use a battle meditation technique that gives him a remarkable awareness of the battlefield."

Ah, I noticed that. "He has a young woman called Tahiri Veila running his errands now."

"Which brings me to Ben." Luke moved closer to Niathal and looked into her face, which required some head tilting on Luke's part because of the set of a Mon Cal's eyes. He clasped her hand again as if he were searching for a pulse. "Apologies, Admiral, we're all scared of our shadows these days. I might be putting a man's life at risk, so I have to be certain. Ben has gone off again, and I believe he's back on Coruscant.

He thinks I don't know, but he's probably trying to build a case against Jacen for killing Mara."

Niathal almost sighed with relief. So she wasn't the only one who thought Jacen could kill his own relatives. "If I see him, I'll make sure he gets every a.s.sistance to stay out of harm's way. Especially if he goes after Jacen to take revenge."

"He already tried that, after Jacen tortured him."

"Just when I thought the man couldn't get any worse..."

"Revenge isn't the Jedi way, and Ben's come to terms with that, but stubborn persistence is Ben's way, and he may come to your attention. He might be with Captain Shevu. They were close."

"You trust Shevu?"

"Yes. There's such a thing as Force certainty, and I have it in that young man."

Niathal revised her view of the GAG captain. His att.i.tude was courageous dissent, then. She'd have to persuade him out of that. "A GAG insider would be helpful to us all."

"We become exploitative for all the right reasons, don't we?"

"We do."

"Until next time, then."

Luke swung back into the StealthX c.o.c.kpit in a gymnastic move that would have taxed a much younger man, and braced his body using his knees while the seat restraints closed around him. Then the canopy closed, he gave her a thumbs-up gesture as if he were just an ordinary pilot taking a fighter for a test flight, and the safety bulkhead closed to release the vacuum in the docking skirt. He was gone.

Poor Ben, Niathal thought. She wished him luck, and decided she would make some for him if she got the chance.

No, Jacen. You won't get away with this. Not in my navy.

PHAEDA, IMPERIAL SECTOR: TREASURY REPOSITORIES, DERAPHA The slab of carbonite lay on a trestle draped in synthetic gray velvetweave, looking for all the world like a funeral bier.

Fett inhaled the musty air and held out his chip from the Registry of Testaments and Legacies, his authorization to collect the belongings of a dead sc.u.mbag called Rezodar. The lawyer's minion took it, checked it, and stood back to let Fett and Mirta cross the threshold of the storeroom.

Fett didn't know Rezodar, and didn't care. He could guess the gangster's lifestyle. This was Phaeda, after all. On a bad day it made Nar Shaddaa look cla.s.sy. He hadn't been back here since the height of the Empire, another element of his past come back to haunt him on this difficult day.

"I'll leave you to clear the store, sir, "said the minion. "Three hours maximum. Everything must go. A droid is available if you need help loading."

There was only one thing Fett wanted. The rest.... he'd jettison it, even give it to the deserving poor, or-given that this was Phaeda-the undeserving criminal cla.s.ses.

"That'll be all, "he said, and took a few steps forward. The distance to the trestle felt almost as impossibly long as the expanse of sand in the arena at Geonosis that he'd had to cross to retrieve his father's body. And then there had been Ailyn's body, and reinterring his father's remains-Fett had played pallbearer far too often in the past year. He wasn't a squeamish man, but he was coming close to the limit of his tolerance.

But Sintas is alive. And so are you, although you might as well be dead some days.

"What order do you want to do this in?" Mirta asked.

She'd been quiet since he'd dropped his bombsh.e.l.l on her about Shysa. She stood on the opposite side of the shrouded carbonite slab and took off her helmet, the new one that Grade's father had made for her to match armor plates she had now painted a deep saffron. When she tidied her short curly hair with one hand, there was a brief mo-ment when she looked a lot like her grandmother. It was the mouth. The eyes were definitely from his side of the family.

"Let's check the carbonite first, "Fett said. It wasn't what he meant, but it was easier than saying that he only cared about Sintas and everything else was ballast.

He took the top edge of the velvetweave. The drape of the fabric clung to the little mountains and valleys of a face, a once-familiar land. Then he drew back the sheet; and it felt like the moment he saw Ailyn's battered face when Mirta opened the body bag, the shock of the face of a stranger he ought to have known, but whose life he had missed almost completely.

"Oh...., "said Mirta.

It took a lot to shut the girl up, but it was the second time Fett had heard that choked-off gasp today.

Even in the monochrome contours of the carbonite sh.e.l.l, Sintas was recognizable. Worse: she was beautiful. He bent his knees slightly to check her profile against the light, but she looked much as he'd remembered-high cheekbones, long straight hair, a small pointed chin. Her arms were at her sides; her eyes were closed as if she were sleeping.

He'd seen a few carbonited beings in his time and they had been frozen in some paroxysm of pain or terror, because it wasn't a pleasant way to be put into suspended animation, but Sintas looked peaceful.

Maybe the barve froze her down dead.

It gave Fett a brief sense of respite and he hated himself instantly for it. Dead Sintas wouldn't drag up the unhappy past, or hang around demented and in torment. Dead Sintas was what he thought he already had.

Face up to it, fett. You were never scared of anything. What would Dad think of you, too frightened to hear the truth again? You never could handle this stuff. It's how you ended up in this position.

"Maybe she'll be able to tell us how she ended up here, "he said, swallowing everything he wanted to say. It was fifty years too late. "Get the repulsorlifts."

He clamped a unit on each edge of the slab and glanced around the room. There were just crates of varying sizes, sealed and dusty. He had no choice but to take them and go through them in detail later, in case they shed any light on Sintas's fate.

Mirta checked the boxes and began attaching repulsors to them. She never needed to be told to make herself useful; she learned fast and got on with the job, uncomplaining, and did it thoroughly. It was only the emotional things, the issues about family and heritage, that seemed to provoke her into surly scolding. She walked the boxes out across the landing area and steered them up Slave I's cargo ramp with a practiced hand, then jogged back and moved the next crate. Fett stayed with Sintas's slab, unable to leave her alone in this miserable place.

"You ready?" Mirta asked, peeling off her liner-gloves and whacking them hard against her thigh plate to get the dust out. She put them back on and slipped her gauntlets over the top. "I'd ask you if you were okay, but I'd never get an answer."

"I'm okay, "Fett said. "Are you?"

"No. I'm scared. I don't know how to tell her about Mama. I don't know how I'll handle it if she ends up crazy and would have been better off dead anyway. But I'll deal with it."

"I'll tell her."

"Give me some warning. How did you two part the last time you met?"

Fierfek, there's no way around this, is there?

"I shot her, "Fett said. "And it was for her own good."

"Yeah, somehow I didn't think it would be a moonlit walk along a sh.o.r.e on Naboo and a tearful promise to stay friends."

"It was to stop her opening a b.o.o.by trap." Fett flicked the controls on the repulsors and eased the carbonite slab off the trestle, aiming it at the exit doors. Mirta stepped to one side to avoid it. "Just a small blaster burn. She would have been fine in a few hours. She always healed fast."

"You didn't wait to find out?"

"She wasn't dead when I left her."

"Well, she did better than Shysa, then."

He should never have mentioned Shysa. It was a mistake; he kept making them with Mirta. He made them with all women, in fact. Sintas didn't know how lucky she was that they split before he could really foul up her life. "Shysa was a mercy killing."

Mirta turned her back on him, displaying a saffron plate decorated with gold sigils and glyphs that he'd seen on the Vevut clan's armor. She was definitely serious about Ghes Grade, then. That meant Fett would have a grandson-in-law soon, and with it a kinship to Novoc Vevut and the rest of the clan; it was all getting too much for him, too involved, too rooted. Fett craved loneliness right then-yes, loneliness. It was a much simpler emotion to handle.

"You sound as if you're straining out a confession a word at a time, Ba'buir, "she said. "So either spit it out or let's concentrate on worrying about.... Ba'buir."

"Grandmother" and "grandfather" were the same word in Mando'a. The language had no gender, not that he spoke it beyond the odd word that Mirta had forced on him. It was the first time that something had grated on him. He was Ba'buir, n.o.body else. That reaction made him realize that he'd become a little too invested in the name.

"I didn't want to do it, "he said. "I didn't even want to be Mandalore. But if I hadn't shot Shysa, he'd have died a rotten death. I owed him better than that."

"You could have done the decent thing and still handed over the kyr'bes to someone else."

Fett had learned that word early in their relationship: the crown, the mythosaur skull reserved for the office of Mand'alor. "I gave Shysa my word that I'd honor his dying wish."

Mirta paused and glanced back over her shoulder at him but didn't say anything else. He wondered if she believed him. He found he was completely unable to go on talking, and pa.s.sed off his silence in settling the carbonite slab down on a bench in the cargo hold and draping it with the velvetweave cloth.

It was one way of dealing with a painful memory-sticking a different one in its place. A change could be as good as a rest. On the journey back to Mandalore, Mirta kept getting out of the copilot's seat and disappearing into the hold. When he went aft to see what she was doing, he found her sitting next to Sintas, one hand on her shoulder, talking quietly to her.

"She can't hear you, "he said.

"Some say carbonited people do."

They said Han Solo did, but Fett saw no reason to upset Mirta more than she was already. "She'll hear you soon enough."

Mirta carried on anyway. "Maybe I'm rehearsing a difficult speech."

She was right, but she didn't know that it wouldn't be one-way traffic. Fett decided to face all that if and when it happened, and wished he'd been half the man his father had been. Jango Fett would have known what to say.

Slave I touched down at Beviin's farm in Keldabe at dusk. A small grim-faced welcoming committee met the ship, and Fett could only feel discomfort that he had an audience to observe yet again what a shabby job he'd made of being a husband and father. Dr. Beluine was there as commanded, incongruous in his soft city clothes, his white-blond hair whipped by the breeze. Beviin and his partner Medrit Vasur looked at the carbonite slab with matching frowns. It was rare to see Beviin wearing anything but a cheerful grin.

Medrit raised an eyebrow. "I'm no expert, of course, but that was a handsome woman you had there, Fett."

Fett noted the past tense and the implication of his ingrat.i.tude for the lucky hand he'd been dealt and followed the slab into Medrit's workshop. The couple's grandchildren, Shalk and Briila, tagged along to watch the spectacle, eyes wide.

Jintar, their father, moved in from nowhere and scooped both of them up in his arms. So he was back from the war, then; his right hand was heavily bandaged. The next time he went to fight, Shalk would be old enough to join him and learn the craft of warfare. He'd be eight next birthday, Beviin had said. It seemed far too young, and yet Fett had been at his father's side at that age, and had loved every moment. Dangerous missions had been a rare treat.

"Come on, ad'ike, "Jintar said to them. "Nothing to see here. It's rude to stare at the Mandalore."

"Is the lady dead?" Briila asked. "Can we have her stuff?"

"Sleeping, "said Jintar, and winked at Fett.

Medrit had cleaned up one of the side rooms in the Workshop for the carbonite removal process. It was where he recharged blaster power packs with Tibanna gas. Beluine looked horrified as the slab was lowered into the release vat.

"It's okay, "Medrit said, looming over the doctor. He was tall enough to make a Wookiee think twice. "I've thawed plenty of this stuff.

It's how we used to ship nerf carca.s.ses when I worked on Olanet."

"How very rea.s.suring." Beluine opened his bag to take out a tray of pneumatic dispensers and vials of medication. "I must write a paper on that for the Galactic Journal of Endocrinology..."

Now the onlookers had thinned out to just Fett, Mirta, Beluine, Medrit, and Beviin. Medrit stood with his hand on the controls. "Say the word, Mand'alor."

It was said that carbonite freezing was how people had traveled interstellar distances before hyperdrive. Fett's most vivid experience of the technique had been Han Solo's incarceration, and the consequence of Solo's flailing around blind after being released from the block was still something Fett saw each day in the mirror when he shaved.

"Don't worry, Bob'ika." Beviin grinned nervously, daring to joke when everyone else looked on the grim edge of mourning. "We don't have any sarlaccs here."

Only Beviin could get away with that. He was the closest Fett had to a friend.

"As soon as she's free of the carbonite, I need to get her heart rate and blood oxygen up right away to minimize tissue damage, "said Beluine. He held a hypospray as if it were a miniature blaster, and in his other hand he had an oxygen delivery device like an aquata breather.

"Stand clear."

"Ready, Doc?" Medrit asked.