Okay, I’m fourteen. I could say, all right, I’m just a kid and I don’t have to be tough when my buddies get killed. But I can’t pick and choose when I act like an adult. I’ve got to get on with it, or go to school like every other kid my age.
And he was scaring his mother. She had enough problems of her own hunting Lumiya.
According to the roster display, Jacen was on duty. The time codes showed he’d been at HQ since about one in the morning. Ben couldn’t feel his presence, but that didn’t surprise him now. There was a time when Jacen had hidden in the Force when he had to; now he only showed himself when he seemed to feel it was necessary.
Without thinking about it, Ben found himself shutting down, too. As he walked down the corridor, the tiles still gleaming with spots of water because the cleaning droids were just meters ahead of him, he let himself merge with the matter and energy around him. The more he did it, the less he felt like he was in a trance, cut off from reality, and the more he felt like he was observing the world as it truly was, particles within particles. It gave him a fleeting feeling of serene clarity. It was relief of a kind.
At the top of the corridor, a pair of doors led to the holding cells. That area was always kept shut, but today there was a notice fixed on the wall next to it that read TOP-LEVEL CLEARANCES ONLY. They were holding Chief Omas down there. It seemed surreal. Ben carried on toward Jacen’s office and he could see as he rounded the corner that the doors were open.
As usual, he couldn’t feel Jacen’s presence, but he could hear him talking to someone.
Who is it? Odd. I can’t feel anybody else.
Jacen might have been on his comlink, but his tone of voice wasn’t that slightly stilted, self-conscious one that he tended to lapse into when he couldn’t see who he was speaking to. In fact, he sounded as if he was trying to keep his temper.
“You overplayed your hand,” said Jacen.
“You worry too much,” said a woman’s voice.
That was the point at which Ben realized something was very wrong. Only a Jedi could be there and not be sensed—or a Yuuzhan Vong, and they weren’t exactly frequent visitors to the GAG HQ. And the voice was somehow familiar, even though he couldn’t place it.
It was dishonest to sneak up on his commanding officer—on his cousin, his mentor—but it seemed like the only sensible thing to do. Keeping himself hidden in the Force, Ben edged silently along the corridor and stood as close to the open doors as he could.
This wing of the headquarters building was deserted, and Jacen probably relied on sensing people coming and going. He thought he and his guest were alone.
“You cut it too fine,” Jacen was saying. “There’s being a decoy, and there’s being too clever, and you crossed that line. Are you recovered now?”
“Yes,” said the woman’s voice. It had that slightly husky edge to it, like she used too many death sticks. “But it worked. It gave you the space to act without having her crawling all over your operation. She really thinks I want revenge for some daughter …”
“I sometimes think your cover stories are too complex.”
“And mind-rubbing Ben about Nelani isn’t?”
Ben recoiled. It was all he could do not to storm in. Jacen. You did that?
“He wouldn’t understand why I had to do it,” said Jacen.
“And that’s why he can’t ever be your apprentice. Get rid of him, find another one, and stop wasting your time.”
“Now, there’s my real problem …”
“I can’t help you there. Whoever it turns out to be, that’s the Force’s decision. You’ll know very soon.”
“Well, I dealt with Omas, anyway. A clear path.”
“Are you going to keep him here?”
“I thought house arrest might be more sensible in the long term. Republica House is easy to secure, and it makes us look like the good guys. People still like Omas.”
“And here you are, joint Chief of State …”
“That way Niathal thinks she can keep me quiet.”
“Or under control.”
“She’s way too smart.”
“Play nicely with her. You need her to keep the military behind you.”
“You’re such a strategist, Lumiya …”
Lumiya. Lumiya?
Ben thought he’d misheard, or that his state of mind was making him hear what he wanted to hear, like Lekauf’s voice. But he knew what he’d heard, and his first reaction wasn’t one of fear or dread, but agonized embarrassment.
He’d trusted Jacen, and Jacen had lied to him.
He’d mind-rubbed him.
And they were talking about him as if he was in the way.
The fact that Jacen was knowingly talking to a Sith as if they were old friends seemed to take second place to that. For all his denial, Jacen knew Lumiya. And she could walk into GAG HQ and just talk to him. Jacen wasn’t being conned by her; he was chatting casually with her about what he’d do next.
Ben found himself scrabbling for excuses that would explain why Jacen could be meeting with Lumiya and still be someone he could trust, someone with a perfectly good reason for it all.
Jacen’s a Jedi. He can’t be in league with her. She’s done something to him. Mind-influenced him or something.
This woman had left his mother with a battered face. This woman was all he’d been taught to fear and avoid, and Jacen was talking to her in his office, as bold as anything.
Ben knew he had to tell someone, but he’d run out of people to trust. If Jacen could be influenced like that, anyone could—except Mom. Mom wasn’t in Lumiya’s thrall, or she wouldn’t have been in a fight with her.
Ben had to find her. He had to warn her.
That morning he’d felt like things couldn’t possibly get any worse, and now he knew they could.
chapter fourteen
If you think you’re going to scare us off by cozying up to the Mandalorians, Bug Boy, you’ve got another think coming.
—Hebanh Del Dalhe, Murkhanan Department of Trade and Industry, to the Roche ambassador, during a disagreement on intellectual property rights
BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, KELDABE, MANDALORE
“Too much holonews is bad for you,” said the man standing in the doorway of the outbuilding.
Fett had spotted him coming—it was hard not to. His armor was extraordinary. There was no real need for Fett to be vigilant on Mandalore, but then Jaster Mereel had once thought he was perfectly okay among his own people, too. Safe was always better than sorry. Fett carried on cleaning his helmet, feet up on the chair.
“It’s riveting,” he said, nodding in the direction of the monitor that he’d propped on the table. The news anchors and commentators had descended into a feeding frenzy about the bloodless coup. “Jacen Solo, the boy who wants to be Vader when he grows up. He finally did it.”
“He probably looks in the mirror when he brushes his teeth and tells himself it’s his destiny.”
“And you are?”
“Venku.”
He didn’t have a proper Keldabe accent. If anything, he sounded like he’d spent time on Kuat, and maybe Muunilinst, too. That wasn’t unusual for Mandalorians, and it was more common now that so many were flooding back to what Beviin called Manda’yaim.
That was the traditional name for the planet, not Mandalore. Fett had never realized that. Every day was an education that told him how far adrift he was from his own people.
“Sit down, Venku.” Fett gestured to the last remaining chair in the room. He tried to think leader and not bounty hunter. “Whatever it is, get it off your chest.”
Venku had the most eclectic armor Fett had ever seen. It was a custom to wear sections of armor belonging to a dead relative or friend, but Venku had no two plates that matched. Every piece was a different color. The palette ranged from blue, white, and black to gold, cream, gray, and red.
“What happened to your fashion sense? Did someone shoot it?”
Venku still stood, ignoring th
e chair. He glanced down at his plates as if noticing them for the first time. “The chest plate, the buy’ce, and shoulder sections came from my uncles. The forearm plates were my father’s, the thigh plates came from my cousin, and the belt was my aunt’s. Then there’s—”
“Okay. Big family.”
“Those who are tab’echaaj’la and those who still live, yes.”
Fett had given up asking for translations. He got the general idea. “I’m nearly done with cleaning my bucket.”
“And they said charm wasn’t your strong suit. Okay, I came to tell you I’m relieved you decided to be a proper Mand’alor. The Mando’ade are coming home. You probably don’t notice much beyond your own existence, but this is your purpose.”
Fett had never thought of himself as easygoing, but normally he couldn’t get worked up enough to slug fools if he wasn’t paid to. This man didn’t strike him as a fool, but he’d hit a nerve and Fett couldn’t quite work out why.
“Glad I could be more useful than a doorstop.”
“Which is why I’m also relieved to give you this.” Venku opened a pouch on his ammunition belt—his aunt’s belt, he’d said, so she must have been a typical Mando woman—and placed a small, dark blue rectangular container on the table. “And don’t mistake this for adulation or sentimentality. You owe your people. There’ll be someone along shortly to administer it.”
Venku turned toward the door as the word administer bored into Fett’s skull. “Whoa there.”
Venku glanced over his multicolored shoulder. “Don’t try doing it yourself. It has to be inserted into the bone marrow, and that’s going to hurt like you wouldn’t believe. Let someone qualified do it. It’ll still hurt, but they’ll place it correctly.”
So this was one of Jaing’s minions. He certainly didn’t have his boss’s sartorial style, although he did have expensive dark green leather gloves, and Fett couldn’t guess what or who had contributed to those.
“Tell him we’re even,” Fett said. “And … thank him.”
Venku started to say something then stopped as if he was getting a message via his helmet. Fett tilted his own helmet in his lap so he could see the HUD display that was patched into Slave I’s external security cam. A man tottered past the ship, clearly very old indeed from his gait but still wearing full fighting armor, and paused to look at the ship. Then he moved out of cam range in the direction of the building.
Fett would never rule out even a senile Mandalorian as a possible threat: if the old man had survived to that age, he was either unusually lucky or a serious fighter. But Fett remained with his feet on the chair, wiping the red shimmersilk lining of his helmet with a sapon cloth, consumed with curiosity but hiding it perfectly. The old man appeared in the doorway, squeezed past Venku, and stared at Fett.
“At least I lived to see the day,” he said. “Su’cuy, Mand’alor, gar shabuir.”
It wasn’t the most polite greeting that Fett had ever received, but it was certainly the most relevant to a terminally ill man. It was the only possible way that warriors and mercenaries could greet each other: “So you’re still alive.” He’d worked out what shabuir meant, too, but he chose to take it as ribald affection rather than abuse.
The old Mando walked out with arthritic dignity, paused again at the door to stare at Fett, and went on his way.
“You made his day,” said Venku.
“I shouldn’t ask.”
“Then don’t.” Venku sighed, then put his hands to his helmet to pop the seal. The rustle of fabric muffled his voice as he lifted the buy’ce. “Oh, all right, then.”
Boba Fett was looking into the face of a man perhaps ten or fifteen years younger than him: dark hair with a liberal threading of gray, strong cheekbones, and the very darkest brown eyes. He’d looked much like that himself twenty years ago. The nose was sharper and the mouth was a stranger’s, but the rest—it was a Fett face.
He was looking into his own eyes, and into the eyes of his long-dead father.
“I’m Venku,” said the Mando with the motley armor. “But you probably know me better as Kad’ika. Interesting to meet you at last … Uncle Boba.”
OSARIAN TAPCAF, CORUSCANT
“I couldn’t think who else to tell,” Ben said. “Or who else would listen to me if I did.”
Mara wondered if he’d been crying about Lekauf or Jacen’s breathtaking betrayal. He’d been crying about something, though, and he was doing a reasonable job of disguising it.
“I believe you, Ben.”
“Maybe I did imagine it.”
“You didn’t.” No, he certainly couldn’t imagine Lumiya having a friendly chat with Jacen, dissecting their run of triumphs, and deciding when Niathal would no longer be useful.
And discussing their lies. No daughter to avenge—and wiping out Ben’s memory of what happened to Nelani.
Ben had the useful ability to recall things he’d seen or heard with nearly complete accuracy. Mara’s scalp had tightened and tingled as she heard her son, her precious kid, relating the exact words of that Sith cyborg and her accomplice, like an innocent possessed by a demon.
Accomplice.
Mara realized she’d shifted her position by a few parsecs. Not a vain, conceited, naïve victim of a manipulative Sith: an accomplice. Jacen wasn’t weak-minded enough to fall that far and that fast unless he wanted to.
“I haven’t told anyone else and I don’t want to,” Ben whispered. “Not Dad, either. I mean, you can tell him if you really think he needs to know, Mom, but I don’t want to see the look on his face when he finds out what a moron I’ve been.”
But I defended Jacen. When did I get stupid? “No more of a moron than the rest of us, sweetheart.”
“What are we going to do?”
“I won’t ask you to do anything.” Mara had let her drink get cold. She couldn’t swallow it anyway, even if it hadn’t tasted like the Millennium Falcon’s hydraulic overflow, because her throat was tight with rage. “Ben, you have a choice. I told Jacen that Lumiya was trying to kill you, and he was all innocence.”
“So you knew about Ziost, then …”
“No, I don’t know anything about Ziost. But you’re going to tell me.”
Ben’s face fell. She had to gather what intel she could, but it was also good for Ben to learn that it was all too easy to give away information accidentally. Just the word Ziost made all the pieces start to fall into agonizing place.
“Jacen sent me on a mission to Almania to recover an Amulet that had some dark side power. I ended up on Ziost and a ship attacked me, but I found a really weird vessel and got away.”
“Just like that.”
“It wasn’t Lumiya, actually. It was a Bothan.”
“And how did you find this ship?” Mara was trying to work out the scam. She knew what she’d done to Lumiya’s ship, and that the transponder was now showing it was stationary on Coruscant. If the last thirty-six hours hadn’t been total mayhem, she’d have paid her another visit by now. “Just parked, hatch open, with the key in the drive?”
“It … look, I’m not insane, but it spoke to me.”
“Ohhhh …” Mara had enough pieces in the puzzle now to see the rough shape of the picture that would emerge. “Spherical. Orange. Like a big eye.”
Ben’s face drained completely of color. “Yes.”
“Tell me about it.”
He struggled visibly with something. Mara guessed he’d been sworn to secrecy. It was way too late for all that loyalty bunk.
“I’ve seen the ship, Ben. It spoke to me, too. It said it thought I was the ‘other one’ like me, and I thought it’d mistaken me for Lumiya, but it meant you, didn’t it? Somehow it picked up on our similarities.”
Ben gulped in air as if the relief of being able to share the awful experience were saving him from drowning.
“I worked out how to pilot it. It communicates through the Force.”
“And it’s soaked in dark energies. I know. Go on.”
&n
bsp; “I don’t know how it works, but if you visualize what you want it to do, it does it. It sticks out parts of itself and forms them into cannons, all kinds of weapons.”
Perfect. Perfect. Mara was getting a better picture by the second. Lumiya could think at the ship and it’d rush to do her bidding—maybe even extrude a cable, whip it around Mara, drag her away, and nearly throttle her.
It wasn’t a droid. I got bushwhacked by a living ship, a Sith ship.
That old, cold clarity and pitiless sense of purpose flooded Mara’s body, and instead of making her gut churn, as any mother’s might at hearing the kind of risk her son had been subjected to, it settled her into a calm and rational state close to transcendence. She was the Hand again, planning her move.
“So what happened to the ship between the time you found it and when I came across it the other day?”
“Where did you see it?”
“Hesperidium. When I caught up with Lumiya.”
Ben’s shoulders sagged. He folded his arms on the table and lowered his head onto them. Mara waited, stroking his hair because she assumed he was crying again.
He straightened up, face stricken but eyes dry. “I flew it back to the Anakin Solo and handed it over to Jacen.”
Everything fell into place. The only pieces missing now were how she would put an end to this, but that was her specialty, and it could wait awhile until she’d made sure Ben was safe.
“Okay, I think you know how serious this is,” she said. Their heads were almost touching over the table. To the Osarians who used the restaurant and who spoke very little Basic, they probably looked like mother and son having a tearful argument over homework and poor grades. They would never have guessed that it was about the fate of the galaxy.
Sacrifice Page 29
