"Jori," said Shevu. He never normally used Lekauf's first name.

"Jori, I'm going to-"

"I don't think that's a good use of manpower, sir." Lekauf was moving toward Ben. He looked grim. "And you're too far from Ben to do anything about it."

Lekauf was right next to Ben now. In the crush of pa.s.sengers and pilots milling around, getting in one another's way, he could press right up against him unnoticed. The lieutenant reached under Ben's coat and grasped the rifle. Ben clamped his arm tight against his side to stop him from taking it.

"What are you doing?"

"Contingency plan. Let go, Ben."

"You're going to dump it?"

"Yeah. Yeah, I'm going to get rid of it."

"What about the ballistic contamination? You can't dump that."

"Announce it to everyone, why don't you . . ." Lekauf was suddenly Master Efficient again, like he'd been on the practice range, his slightly goofy good humor gone. He stood chest-to-chest with Ben, and after a two-second, almost immobile tussle that n.o.body else could see, he loosened Ben's clamped elbow and slid the folded Karpaki under his own jacket. "Now stick with the boss. Promise me you will."

"You're nuts, Jori."

"Yeah, like Granddad."

Ben felt utterly useless. Lekauf had to bail him out of this mess.

He should have been able to do it by himself. Some Jedi. Some supersoldier. He wondered how he'd live this down, and also why he was more worried about that at this moment than about taking a life, even a rotten one like Gejjen's.

Lekauf moved back along the terminal hall to the central doors that led onto the landing area. Ben went to follow him, but Shevu stepped into his path casually, as if being rude and careless to a stranger.

"Whatever happens," he said, almost inaudible, lips barely moving, "you're to stick with me, and follow me, unless I get grabbed-and in that case, get back to base any way you can."

They'd war-gamed a few scenarios in briefings, including getting split up or captured, but this all felt very different now.

Lekauf was at the main doors, looking as if he were trying to check where the tourer was. Then without warning, he grabbed a woman tight around her neck, drew his blaster, and held it to her temple.

"Open the doors!" he yelled. "Open them now, or I blow her head off!"

Pandemonium broke out. People scattered, leaving a clear area around Lekauf; security officers and the Corellian cop struggled against the tide of bodies trying to get clear, blasters held high. Lekauf was suddenly doing an amazing job of looking red-faced and dangerous.

How's he going to pull this off? We're surrounded. Locked in.

This hadn't been in the briefings. Lekauf was improvising. He had to be. Ben broke away from Shevu and pushed through the crowd.

"I said open the kriffing doors, or you'll be sc.r.a.ping her off the ceiling." Lekauf clicked the blaster and the woman hostage started shrieking, a thin little wail at first that rose into a full-blown panting sequence of screams and yelps. "You're going to let me board my ship and leave here, and she gets to live. Don't mess with me. Don't kriffing mess with me."

"Just let the lady go," said the officer. He pushed through and stood at the edge of the cleared floor area. "Just put the blaster down.

Let her go."

"So you can spray my brains all over the terminal? Yeah. As if."

"Kid, this isn't going to do you any good. We can talk-"

"Yeah, like you'll have a nice chat with me about Gejjen. I killed the sc.u.mbag and I'm proud of it. He was caving in to the GA. Lining his own pockets. I'm a patriot. You hear? I love Corellia. They ought to give me a medal."

The officer gestured to the security guard at the exit, and the doors parted. Ben watched in horror, unable to move. Lekauf backed out of the doors, half dragging and half carrying the terrified hostage, and made his way laboriously to the tourer. It seemed to take forever. It was a long, long way to struggle with a woman in a headlock, edging backward, followed by a slowly moving knot of police and guards waiting for the first slip that would give them a clear shot at him. Ben wanted to run after him and help, but had no idea what to do; even if he created a diversion, they were all still trapped one way or another.

Lekauf activated the tourer's ramp and backed up it. The woman had stopped screaming and started sobbing.

"Okay, out, now." Shevu was right behind Ben, mouth right next to his ear, and he grabbed his collar in a slow, twisting grip to show he meant business. "Slow and calm. Don't waste this. He's bought us time."

Ben wanted to yell, But what about him ? He didn't, though. He'd already abandoned too much of his training, and this wasn't the way soldiers did it. His legs were shaking under him. Lekauf reached the top of the ramp and shoved the woman down it; the hatch slammed behind him, leaving the hostage crying and screaming on the permacrete. Police rushed forward to grab her. Marksmen moved in to take up positions around the vessel.

Now everyone else in the terminal was forgotten, and the Corellian officer ran onto the field, met up with his buddy, and ran for the cordon.

"Ben, that's it, come on-" Shevu jerked on his collar, pulling him bodily toward the doors at the south end of the terminal. A little bit of Ben was calculating where they would be placing troops and what their tactics would be for stopping Lekauf from taking off. If Lekauf got a move on, he could be out of orbit and jumping to lightspeed before whatever excuse Vulpter had for a fleet could get airborne.

But the tourer sat on the permacrete, silent, no haze of heat exhaust venting from its jets. He could see it through the transparisteel walls as he moved toward escape, and couldn't feel relief.

It dawned on Ben that Lekauf wasn't going anywhere.

Maybe the thing had failed to start.

Oh no, no, no . . .

The drive hadn't stalled on him. Ben could feel Lekauf now- terrified, oddly triumphant, and with a strange sense of peace despite the dread. It was the strangest combination Ben had ever sensed in the Force.

"What's he doing, sir? How's he getting out?"

Shevu kept swallowing. Ben saw the lump in his throat bob up and down. "Has to be done."

"What has to be done?"

"A good cover story."

"I don't-"

"Ben, move it. Now!" Shevu grabbed his arm so hard that it hurt, and hauled him across the permacrete to the shuttle. The tourer was now surrounded by police and armed guards; lines of security droids were clearing an outer cordon and moving back vessels that were parked too close. "Don't blow this mission. The job's done."

"But Jori's going to be arrested. He can't sit there forever. We can't leave him, and what happens when they interrogate him, 'cos they're going to find-"

"Ben, shut up. And that's an order. There's nothing we can do."

Ben couldn't believe it of Shevu. He could have struggled free and gone to help Lekauf, and . . . and what? He couldn't use his Force powers in public. He couldn't take on a small army of police. He couldn't risk arrest and discovery.

He still wanted to go to Lekauf's aid. No comrade left behind, that was the rule, same for troopers as it was for Jedi, same for every tight-knit group who faced danger together.

"We can't leave him," Ben sobbed, and was about to change his mind, and let the GA and the Jedi Council sort out their own troubles if he was arrested and found to be Luke Skywalker's son, carrying out political a.s.sa.s.sinations. "We just can't abandon him."

As he stared brokenhearted at the battered tourer, a ma.s.sive explosion sent it flying into a thousand fragments, shooting a column of flame and roiling smoke high into the air, almost knocking Ben off his feet. Police scattered, those who could ran. Some were blown meters. It all seemed to take place in slow motion and silence, and then the sound rushed back in and time resumed normally.

The captain still had a grip on Ben's arm like a vise. Ben's lips moved but he couldn't hear himself.

"Yes," Shevu said softly, and dragged Ben as he craned his neck to stare back at the wreckage and flames, numb, shocked, and lost. "Now we can."

chapter eleven.

Breaking news . . . we're just getting reports that Corellian Prime Minister Dur Gejjen has been shot dead at a s.p.a.ceport on Vulpter, Deep Core, by a Corellian terrorist. Early reports indicate that an armed siege followed the shooting, but that appears to have ended when the a.s.sa.s.sin blew himself up in his ship on the landing strip. We'll have more on this story later.

-HNE newsflash SLAVE I. LAID UP OUTSIDE KELDABE, MANDALORE.

It was a very interesting news day. Fett had his c.o.c.kpit monitor tuned to the news channel, watching the wheels come off the rest of the galaxy. He'd seen that happen often enough to spot the signs of greater chaos to come.

Usually, it meant a time of good fees and rich pickings for bounty hunters. Now his priorities had to be a little different, and he waited for a call from the office of Sa.s.s Sikili, the Verpine whose job was to communicate with outsiders on behalf of Roche. The Verpine were getting anxious. How any species that churned out that many high-quality ornaments could get anxious Fett didn't understand, but that was the Verpine for you. Insectoids could get jumpy, and when one got jumpy-the hive-mind made them all jittery.

Fett pondered the a.s.sa.s.sination while he waited. He couldn't say he was sorry to see the pa.s.sing of Dur Gejjen, but at least the barve paid promptly. Fett had been betting on him staying in office for more than a few short months before getting the inevitable shot in the head, though.

It was indecently premature even by the standards of Corellian politics.

Who had really killed him? Not some Corellian hick waving the flag, that was for sure. Gejjen had a line of would-be killers that would have stretched from here to the Core.

"Mandalore Fett . . . ," said a voice on the comm. It was high-pitched, a little above tenor, and buzzed with a faint resonance. "We noted your return with delight."

"Need someone dragged screaming to your hive, Sikili?"

"Not today, thank you. But we have a business proposition for you."

"I'm all ears."

"Ah . . . we hear exciting things about iron deposits, which we a.s.sume to be true-"

"They are."

"-and many highly desirable things can be made with Mandalorian iron. We would like to acquire some."

"Happy to sell, when we have a surplus for export."

"We note the unstable nature of the galaxy these past months, which will be exacerbated, we expect, by the pa.s.sing of Prime Minister Gejjen."

"Yeah. Good times for the arms trade."

"Indeed. But also anxious times for us, when Murkhana challenges our markets, and now Kem Stor Ai talks of war with Murkhana, which is too close for the hives' taste."

"You pack enough hardware to make Murkhana and Kem Stor Ai into their own asteroid field, Sikili. Half their kit comes from Roche. Spit it out."

"We are a literal people, Fett."

"I'm literal, too. Let's all be literal together."

Sikili went quiet for a moment. Fett could hear the faint clicking of his mouthparts. "Now that you have abundant beskar, you'll rearm.

Roche may be outside of your sector, but the last time Mandalorians had plenty of beskar, the Mandalore sector became much, much bigger."

Verpine took a little time to explain where they were heading, grinding through each step of the sequence, but they got there in the end.

"You're worried we'll expand all over you," said Fett. "Invade you."

"Yes. It's the specialty of your species."

"We're homebodies now. We like to put our feet up and watch the holovids."

"When you make jokes, the hives become more worried, because you're not a joking man. Therefore-"

It was getting painful and he didn't want to hear Sikili's character a.n.a.lysis. Fett found it amusing that he hadn't threatened or hinted about the fate of Roche-or even thought much about it-but that had always been part of his armory, as it had been for the Mandalorians as a whole. They had a certain reputation that did the advance work for them.

"Sign a treaty with us, then," he offered.

"To do what, Fett?"

"Nonaggression pact. Neighborly mutual aid."

"You have nothing to fear from us, so you'll want something in exchange, because you're a mercenary and-"

"Bounty hunter, part-time. What I want is the mutual bit."

"What can we do for you to avoid being added to your collection?"

"Supply us with exclusive products in exchange for our exclusive metal. We give you our special skills-military strength-and you give us yours in defense technology and quality control. Maybe even joint work on new projects."

"Ah, you Mandalorians have always . . . adopted technology from others. You might forcibly adopt ours now."

"Deal's on the table. You made me notice you. Bad idea."

Sikili was silent again. Verpines had a way of communicating instantly with all hive members through some organ in their chests. Fett guessed that Sikili was consulting the hive.

"Deal accepted. We'll need details."

"I'll get my people to talk to your people." Fett could imagine the reaction on Coruscant-and Corellia. "We look forward to a long and productive alliance with Roche."

"We will announce this happy and rea.s.suring news. Good day, Fett."

The good thing about literal-minded insectoids was that they were transparent in their business dealings: no games, no bluff, and-usually- no skipping out on deals. Fett wondered if he should have talked it through with the clans first, but it was his prerogative to choose Mandalore's allies, and teaming up with the best technologists in the galaxy wasn't going to upset anybody-not on Mandalore, anyway. It would certainly ruin everyone else's day.