"So Taun We's still going strong, too, the old aiwha bait. Well, well." Jaing looked Fett up and down. "You had trouble with your leg, I heard. Had to have a transplant. Yes?"

"You're very well informed."

"I'm still a Tipoca boy at heart. I stay in touch with events in the old country."

"What have I got to pay you to quit gloating and give me what I need?"

"No offense, but you can shove your credits where your armor don't reach, Mand'alor.'"

"You don't know what I need yet."

"I can guess."

"Ko Sai's research." Fett gave Jaing's gloves a pointed glance.

"Because I know you found it. You certainly found her."

"You get more with honey than with sour-sap, Boba. Didn't getting your head shoved down the 'freshers teach you anything?"

Fett had no idea how to ask for help. Mirta wasn't sure if it was some male bravado thing or just that he'd never learned, but he wasn't getting far with Jaing, who seemed equally hard and obstinate.

"Can you help him?" she said. "Gedet'ye? Mandalore needs him alive, and so do I."

The clone was still staring into Fett's face. "Remember leading an Imperial force against clone troops on Kamino?"

Fett nodded, utterly impa.s.sive. "Yes."

"You didn't feel that we were family then."

"Didn't see any of you defending your brothers, either."

"And you deposed Shysa, you hut'uun. The man who put us back on our feet as a people. Where were you when the Empire was bleeding us dry?"

Hut'uun was the worst insult any Mando could throw at another, but Fett didn't seem to notice or care. Mirta found out more about her grandfather's murky past every day. So there was no reason to feel her mother and grandmother had been singled out for his total disregard, then: he didn't give a stuff about anyone, except his father, who seemed to have been elevated to an icon of perfection since his death. So Ba'buir fought against Ms own brothers. Maybe he hadn't seen the irony.

If he had, she suspected he'd made a point of looking the other way.

"I'm not proud of anything I've done," Fett said, no hint of emotion in his voice. "But I'm not ashamed of anything, either. I just do what I have to. You don't know what went on between me and Shysa, and maybe you never will."

"He was there when we needed him," said Jaing. "And you weren't.

That's all I need to know."

Fett didn't so much as blink. "I take it you won't be handing over Ko Sai's data, then."

Jaing glanced at Mirta as if he felt sorry for her. She wondered how different her life might have been if Jaing had met Sintas Vel instead of Boba Fett.

"There isn't any data," he said at last. He was still looking at her, not Fett. "Sorry, kid."

Fett didn't even blink. "You must have taken all your vitamins, then, because you should be dead by now."

"I didn't say the research didn't exist. I'm saying that we destroyed it after we took what we needed."

Fett absorbed that slowly. Mirta's heart sank in that conflicting way it had now, part of her desperate to find a reason to love her ba'buir, and half of her wishing Leia Solo hadn't blocked her shot when she'd tried to kill him.

Do something to make me forgive you. Please. Anything.

"You could have made a fortune from it," Fett said.

"We didn't want it used again. Ever."

"You can't stop cloning. You never will."

"No, but we put a dent in the Kaminoans. That's better than nothing. I don't like Kaminoans."

"I can tell." Fett glanced at Jaing's fine gray gloves. "But I've worked for worse."

"They paid you. They bred us like animals." Jaing looked as if he'd remembered something satisfying. "So Taun We's still alive. I always wondered."

"Leave her alone, Jaing. She's old now."

"So am I, no thanks to her. So how long have you got to live?"

"A year. Maybe two, if my luck holds."

"How long before you have to hand over command?"

"I don't know."

"The last thing Mandalore needs at the moment is a power vacuum."

Mirta saw a glimmer of hope. "So help him, Jaing."

"Best I can do is a blood sample," he said. "But I think you'll hand it over to the Kaminoans, Boba, or your doctors will, and we really wouldn't be very happy about that. Not at all."

"We?" Mirta felt she was getting on better with Jaing. She'd use her advantage as the harmless, tragic granddaughter. If Jaing wouldn't cooperate, she might find one of his brothers who would. "How many of you are there left?"

"You don't need to know that. Look, I've got grandchildren, too, Boba, and great-grandchildren. I've got family on Mandalore. So I care what happens when you're gone." As soon as he said it, it took on a terrible reality for her, and she wondered if it had the same impact on her grandfather. The great Boba Fett's on the way out. "Much as it pains me, your bu'ad here is right-Mandalore needs you for the foreseeable future."

Fett made a very good job of looking bored. Maybe he was. Mirta doubted it. He was negotiating for his life, and if Fett was anything, he was a survivor. He didn't know how to die gracefully like everyone else.

"So I get the blood if I keep the Kaminoans out of it."

"Not that simple," said Jaing.

"It never is."

"You give me blood and tissue samples, and I'll get something made up for you. If I can."

"And I'm supposed to trust you."

"As much as I'm supposed to trust you. And don't even think about taking a sample from me the hard way."

"Okay." Fett's jaw twitched again. "Thank you."

He made it sound like a foreign language, awkward and unfamiliar in his mouth. Mirta resisted the urge to react. Well done, Ba'buir. Was that so hard?

Jaing wasn't done, though. "There's a condition, of course."

"There always is." Fett crossed his arms. "What?"

"Get your shebs back to Mandalore, listen to Kad'ika's advice, and build a strong, united, stable state. Prove you're even half the man that Jaster Mereel and Fenn Shysa were. All you want to do is emulate your old man, Boba. But you're too scared to exceed him, aren't you? You can't be better than Jango. That would never do."

Mirta flinched. Mentioning his father without due reverence seemed to be the one thing that really got Fett riled. His voice didn't change, but he unfolded his arms with slow care.

"My father," said Fett, "finally destroyed the Death Watch. That's his legacy to Mandalore."

"Sectarian feud. Irrelevant to most Mando'ade's lives. Now, are you going to give me a sample?"

"What kind of scientists have you got access to that I haven't?"

"Some things," Jaing said softly, "can't be bought. I have my resources, believe me. Got a medpac with a sharp in it?"

"Yes."

"Draw some blood, then."

"I'll do it," said Mirta.

With Fett, it wasn't a case of simply rolling up sleeves. He had so much equipment on his forearms that Jaing ended up holding the flamethrower attachment, whip a.s.sembly, and a.s.sorted projectiles. Fett was an armory on legs. Mirta didn't expect him to flinch when she finally found a vein, and he didn't. The few moments while she applied pressure to the blood vessel with her thumb to stop the bleeding afterward were the longest of her life, because he wouldn't meet her eyes, and it reminded her that she could touch him and still not reach him.

Jaing held the vial of red-black blood up to the light and admired it. "That'll do nicely. Give him some candy for being a brave boy, Mirta."

"What now?" Fett asked, unmoved.

"You drop me off, and I'll let you know what we get."

"How?"

"I'll deliver it personally to Keldabe."

"Better make it snappy, then. Or you might be in time for my funeral."

"Oh, I'll be back, and so will plenty of other Mando'ade. You asked us, remember? You asked us to come home." He turned to Mirta. "When the old chakaar dies and they divvy up his armor, make sure you get the flamethrower. Because his plates are duse. Not even proper beskar."

So Jaing wasn't out of touch with events on Mandalore, and he thought Fett's durasteel armor was garbage. The strill padded closer to Jaing and yawned extravagantly with an expression that said it was totally underwhelmed by the discussion. Mirta could smell its breath, which-oddly-wasn't unpleasant at all.

"How does that thing hunt if it's got such a strong scent?" Fett asked.

Jaing bent and ruffled Mird's neck folds. "Only humanoids can smell it. And don't be too hard on Mirta for getting ambushed, Bob'ika. Few people can deal with a full-grown strill swooping down on them. These things fly, you know."

"I don't keep pets." Fett seemed on the edge of a concession. "If you want something to eat, the galley's through that hatch."

Jaing opened a pouch on his belt and took out something dried and dark that looked like leather straps. He threw a strip to Mird and chewed on one himself. "We're fine, thanks."

It took a few seconds for Mirta to work out what was going on. He doesn't want to leave any DNA. He's even more cunning than you, Ba'buir.

Fett turned and swung back through the hatch. Mirta had hoped the two men would find something else to talk about, but the fact they shared a genome clearly meant nothing. Still . . . this was a relative. This was her relative, a great-uncle, even if Mandos didn't care about bloodline half as much as most species. The Kiffar half of her cared about it a lot.

"I feel bad for you, kid," Jaing said. "I feel bad for him, too, I suppose. But apart from some admiration for his skills, I think he's the worst excuse for a Mando'ad this side of the Core. On the other hand, he wins, and we need winners. And my dad would have expected me to help him, no questions asked."

Jaing spoke as if he came from a totally different family, not a vat that contained the duplicated chromosomes of Jango Fett. He slipped a three-sided knife from his forearm plate and trimmed the dried meat into smaller chunks, utterly at ease.

"Jango's not who you mean by 'dad,' is he?" Mirta said.

"No." Jaing smiled wistfully to himself for a moment. "Genes don't count. You ought to know that by now. The man who adopted me was my training sergeant. Finest man who ever lived."

Jaing sounded like he'd come from a far happier family, a strange thing for a clone soldier. "I seem to be bucking the trend of devoted kids," Mirta said. "I tried to kill my grandfather."

"So did your mother, I hear. Boba's obviously got this magic touch with the ladies."

"You seem to know everything about me, but I don't know much about you."

Jaing just grinned. "That's my job, sweetheart."

"So why did you get involved with Cherit's gang over the Twi'leks?"

"Another promise I made a long time ago." He chewed, looking slightly past her in recollection. "I tend to keep them."

He went on chewing, occasionally throwing chunks to Mird. And that was it. Silence descended. She thought he might talk about his family on Mandalore, all the undiscovered relatives she now found she had, but he didn't.

Mirta realized she wasn't going to get anything more out of him, and she didn't want to look needy. She returned to the c.o.c.kpit, settled into the copilot's seat, and clutched the heart-of-fire against her chest plate. Even if it told her nothing, it was still a connection to her mother and grandmother.

"You fed up with him already?" Fett asked.

She wanted to think Jaing had given Fett some hope and raised his spirits, but it was hard to tell. "Is your armor really rubbish? Why don't you use proper Mandalorian iron, like Beviin says-"

"Don't push your luck. I let you stick a needle in me. That's your fun for the day."

It had cheered him up. Mirta could tell. She hoped that not only would Jaing's unspecified "resources" come through, but that Boba Fett would redeem himself so that her only kin wasn't someone that she wished were someone else.

GAG HQ, CORUSCANT.

Jacen didn't want to look too interested in the Policy and Resources Council proceedings. If he showed up for the meeting and sat in the gallery reserved for those hardy citizens who actually cared about the minutiae of government, he might cause questions to be asked.

On the other hand, he might just have been seen as a micromanaging, interfering colonel who put his troops' welfare above schools, health, and transport.

That was fine by him. He did.