“Better go find my tame Jedi,” he said, sliding his untouched glass toward her. “Before you give me back our iron to make a box to put her in.”
Jaina was pacing the silent hangar, completely in a world of her own, swinging her lightsaber—deactivated—in some drill or other. He wasn’t sure if it was unalloyed good news to see her getting on with Mirta or not, but it beat having Mirta rip herself apart dealing with the sister of the man who had killed her mother. Jaina stopped and looked up at Fett on the gantry.
“Come on,” he said, and trotted down the durasteel mesh ladder. “Time for bounty-hunting class.”
“Aren’t you whacked after today?” she asked.
“No.” Fett checked his fibercord line, coiled ready to fire and trap, and flexed his fingers. “If I don’t hand you back to the space bum smarter than I found you, he’ll just brag about being my nemesis for another forty years, and then I’ll have to shoot him to shut him up.”
“Just remember to shoot first …” And she almost grinned. Almost.
Jaina Solo was okay, he thought. And she couldn’t help being a Jedi.
Fett thought of a Jedi agent called Kubariet, and wondered if he had a granddaughter out there somewhere.
“Okay,” he said, waiting for her lunge. “Come and get me, Jedi …”
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF STATE, CORUSCANT: FOUR DAYS LATER.
Routine—salaries paid on time, nightly holodramas, predictable prices—was the anesthetic that had kept Coruscant docile in Caedus’s brief absence. He inhaled the familiar scent of carpet, warm datapad plastoid, and fresh-brewed caf as his office doors sighed apart and he limped to his desk.
I could have shot her, of course.
If the debacle of the Fondor operation had been the Force’s patient way of removing Niathal neatly, making her a traitor and Caedus a wounded hero defeated by treachery, then he was prepared to concede it was another necessary source of pain. He took off his gloves and laid them on the desk. Shoot her, and people would have called him a despot. Lose ships and personnel, both the destroyed and the stolen, and Caedus could return with some honor, with the same end result. It was all illusion. If Luke Skywalker thought his Fallanassi conjuring was fine sleight of hand, he didn’t understand the power of presentation.
The new admin droid glided in. “I’ve prepared a digest of the nonurgent matters that arose during your absence, Chief of State,” it said, placing a neat stack of datapads on the fine desk that used to belong to Cal Omas. “I’ve taken the liberty of clearing Admiral Niathal’s office and transferring all defense business to this department. Two matters for your diary today—the appointment of a new Supreme Commander, and Senator G’Sil would like to see you.”
“Oh, I’d forgotten him,” said Caedus. The Senators who were left after so many defections and secessions from the GA seemed to huddle together for comfort, forming protective herds in committees. They talked; droids listened patiently, interpreted creatively, and then just did what Caedus told them to. It was a therapeutic arrangement. Many government departments were now overseen by droids. Caedus liked their efficiency and an absence of ambitious self-interest. “Does the Security Council still sit?”
“I believe so, Chief of State. Quarterly. Hence the Senator’s wish to see you.”
“Very well.”
“He’s waiting for me to summon him.”
“Now would be ideal, then. Get it all out of the way. I’ve got a tight schedule this week.”
“I’ve thinned out the diary a little, sir,” said the droid. “I anticipated that you might be tired after the events of the last week.”
“Excellent.” That really was most impressive. “I appreciate your foresight.”
“How is Lieutenant Veila?”
“Recovering well, thank you.”
Caedus found a cup of caf poured for him—piping hot—and settled at the desk to skim the datapads. The galaxy was calming down. He could feel it. The vista from the window caught his eye and distracted him for a moment; the transparisteel wall of his office was full of Coruscant as it always should have been, canyon towers and orderly skylanes full of patient traffic; jobs, peace, ample food. The vague echoes of the Yuuzhan Vong occupation, visible in some of the alien vegetation and the more recently constructed buildings that had filled yawning gaps left by destruction, seemed to haunt the citizens no more now than the Lahag Erli occupation of Har Binande, which left the Har worlds full of exquisite architecture that attracted tourists, with no real memory of the suffering and misery inflicted centuries before. There was a point where the past stopped nagging to have a voice in every daily decision, and simply became history.
The droid had collated media coverage of the past week, too. Caedus shuffled through the pads to choose one digest to play on the larger desk screen. He skipped through the battle footage and the studio analysis of who failed and why—irrelevant, all history already—and his eye was caught by a headline from one of the scurrilous gossip holozines, not one focused on the sleazy private lives of emotidrama and holovid stars, but one of the more pretentiously political versions that mixed satire—really very funny, he had to admit—with real news, savagely written.
JACEN’S GAME OF HAPPY FAMILIES: JOINT GANGSTER OF STATE
Caedus was used to the steady stream of attacks about the removal of Cal Omas and indefinite emergency powers, but it was all talk in the fringe media. Citizens did nothing about it and got on happily with their lives. This story opened with the coup, and went on to list actions against members of his own family—the attempt to court-martial Jaina, the arrest warrant on his parents, and the rift with Luke and the whole Jedi Council. Then there was a reference to the death of “Luke Sywalker’s wife on Kavan, at a time when Jacen Solo was away from Coruscant” juxtaposed with the death of Ailyn Vel—dubbed “Fett Junior”—Cal Omas, Dur Gejjen, and a much more direct line about his involvement in an “alleged fatal assault” on Lieutenant Tebut not being investigated by the fleet or CSF.
Caedus laid his cup down on the desk and read the summary again. He found he was actually upset by it—no, offended. Hurt. None of it was actually untrue; he explored his feelings, surprised that he could be stung by such a minor episode in a turbulent, painful life, just chatter from beings who didn’t count and who couldn’t affect his destiny.
But that’s not how it happened. It wasn’t like that.
The report made him look like a common gangster, a thug who had seized power and then went about removing anyone who offended him or stood in his way, like some Hutt crime lord. Caedus wanted to comm the holozine and tell them they’d got it wrong; he was serving the common good. Gangsters were driven by wealth, by lust, or by some sick desire to see people cower. He wasn’t a criminal. He didn’t deal in drugs or rob anyone. He’d done what he had to do, because nobody else was willing to tackle the anarchy, or stand up to the old power elites. Did they think he could change the galaxy by asking people nicely to stop being monsters to each other?
All those things had to be done.
Mara, Lieutenant Tebut—I didn’t kill them for personal reasons. They were part of the path I had to take to be worthy of this office. How can you understand what a Sith has to do? How can you apply laws to us? Your ordinary laws weren’t meant for us.
Who would make the tough choices if they were hide-bound by conventional law? Had anyone protested about Luke Skywalker bringing down Palpatine? The Rebellion broke every law in the book, and killed many people, but citizens were ready to accept that because change was needed. Caedus was only doing the same thing, and yet he was vilified for it. He was wounded by the blindness around him. Why could they not understand? He wasn’t explaining it clearly enough, perhaps.
He slammed his cup down on the desk and commed the droid. “Tell Senator G’Sil I can’t see him today. Tell him we’ll reschedule.”
The droid’s voice was even and patient, not a hint of disapproval in it. “Sir, he says the Security Council must meet within t
he next week because it’s a legal requirement that they convene a minimum of once every three months, and he must have your input.”
Caedus could feel his perspective changing, as if the office was a holoimage being adjusted to monochrome and its depth of field distorted. His desk appeared to recede into the distance, bleeding color. “Well, if that’s all he’s worried about, just get the law changed.”
“Sir?”
“I set that up months ago—the amendment to the Emergency Measures Act.” Had everyone forgotten how he’d stripped away all this bureaucracy? Memories were short, it seemed. “The clause I used to change the law and arrest Cal Omas. I can change any law I need to without taking it to the Senate. Just use my administrative powers. Change it. Go on, remove the whole section about any requirement to hold meetings. Simple.”
“Yes, sir,” said the droid. Like HM-3, the excellent legal droid who had spotted the loophole for Caedus, he didn’t fuss over right and wrong, only what was definably legal.
And Caedus decided the law. It was a legitimate government responsibility, and he was the government.
“Oh, and get Captain Shevu in here, please.”
While Caedus waited for Shevu to arrive, he took deep calming breaths, seeing the color return to the room and its proportions revert to normal. I don’t meditate much these days, do I? Action had to be his meditation. He had so much to do. Tahiri would have to shoulder more of the burden. She was a Sith apprentice now, and that meant work.
Caedus had been planning to summon the editor of the holozine to his office and demand a full retraction and a new article explaining the truth of his actions, but the longer he waited, the less pressing it seemed.
Did anyone who mattered read the holozine? Had it started riots? No. All that really mattered was that the few key people around him understood his burden.
Shevu, for example.
Caedus changed his mind. He wouldn’t ask Shevu to send a GAG squad out to arrest the editor and so guarantee that the hack would listen to Caedus carefully. It was a tawdry errand for a man who’d done a fine job of keeping Coruscant safe during the last year.
A pot of caf, then, and time to catch up on policy. Caedus had missed having Shevu at his right hand during the battle. Valuing loyalty was something his grandfather had understood well, but Caedus was also aware that subservience wasn’t necessary. A little honest contention was far more important.
The doors opened. Shevu, looking carefully unemotional as always, walked in and stood in front of the desk.
“Welcome back, sir.” His quiet dislike was tangible. “Eventful few days.”
Caedus gestured to the chair. “Are you surprised about Niathal?”
Shevu sat down. “Not really, sir. Just the timing.”
“Better that than trying to oust me while I was off-planet.”
“Yes, I can imagine that would have been messy, sir.”
He was telling the absolute truth as he saw it. Caedus could feel the solid certainty in him. “Look,” Caedus said, offering him the holozine. Just thinking about the report triggered his anger again. “Look at this ungrateful nonsense.”
Shevu looked at it quickly in a way that said he either didn’t want to read it, or had already done so, in detail. But he was a former CSF officer. He’d have read it.
“Do you want me to take action, sir?”
“If you’d asked me half an hour ago, I’d have said yes.”
“So you’d prefer to forget it. The allegations are pretty strong … but then it’s a satirical holozine known for that kind of lurid story.”
“Oh, I’m not disputing the facts, Captain.”
“Really?” Shevu flared a little in the Force, a white-hot burst of surprise. Caedus realized few of the man’s superiors could ever have been totally honest with him. “They would have to prove the accusations if you pressed the issue.”
“It’s just that they don’t seem to understand why I took certain actions. They make me sound like a criminal.” Caedus clenched his fist in his lap and let out a breath before feeling in control again, back in his own skin and not watching himself from the outside. “They’re only saying what I hear crew whispering in the mess—saying that I’ve killed a lot of people, and that I wasn’t on duty when Mara Skywalker was killed, and that they wouldn’t put it past me to assassinate even my own aunt—like one of those lunatic inbred Irmenu emperors. That’s what they say, isn’t it?”
Shevu was never one to show apprehension. He sat with his hands clasped in his lap and met Caedus’s gaze straight on. “Does that worry you, sir?”
“Do you think it should?”
“Well, they seem to have sources within the fleet and other departments.”
“I despise disloyalty, too, but is it worth chasing gossiping clerks when we have admirals handing battle plans to the Jedi Council?”
“Depends on the effect on morale, sir.”
“You sound just like Niathal.”
“Command is all about harnessing the troops’ willingness to suspend sensible self-interest and put their lives on the line when everyone else is running the other way. That’s morale. You’re better placed than anyone to feel what your troops really think of you.”
A lesser man would have agreed frantically with a capricious superior, afraid of saying the wrong thing, but Shevu wasn’t intimidated. Caedus still sensed wariness, but also a powerful sense of certainty like a permacrete slab. This was a man who knew his own mind and wasn’t afraid to stand up and be counted, and as he hadn’t fled like Niathal, that meant he was here because he wanted to be on Caedus’s team.
He understood justice, too.
“Do you want to know how it happened?” Caedus asked.
Shevu pursed his lips as if embarrassed. “Do you think I need to know? After all, I was involved with Gejjen. It’s not like I’m going to be shocked by this.”
I’m not a lunatic or a common criminal. I didn’t kill Mara in cold blood, and I care what you think of me, because I see all reasonable, good beings when I look at you. You’re my gauge of how ordinary people see me.
“I’d like you to know,” Caedus said. Shevu might not have understood the complexities of Sith prophecy—if he did, Caedus suspected he was too rooted in the physical world to give it any credence—but he would see why Caedus had no choice. “If I’m not burdening you.”
“No, sir.”
“I knew that Mara or Luke would come after me sooner or later for … taking their precious son as my apprentice.” Caedus knew Shevu liked Ben. There was no point explaining why Caedus had once thought he might be forced to kill him. “Do you know what I mean by apprentice? I’m a Sith Lord.” Oh, it felt good and clean to be able to say that openly. Shevu didn’t recoil. “Do you know what a Sith is? We’re Force-users.”
“Is it like the old-fashioned wing of Jedi philosophy, sir?”
“That’s … an excellent description. Yes, we’re more inclined to bring law and order than the Jedi Council.”
Shevu’s expression said it was an academic point. “So did she come after you, sir?”
“She vowed to kill me in front of witnesses in the Senate lobby.”
“Oh.”
“Two Bith Senators, H’aas and Ph’Olla. And she was as good as her word. I was leaving the Hapes Cluster when she ambushed me in her StealthX, and we ended up on Kavan, where she pursued me into the abandoned tunnels and tried to kill me. We brawled, actually brawled—she brought down the ceiling and she was like a madwoman. Complete blind rage. I had lightsaber, blaster, and crush injuries, and the only way I could stop her was to use the poison darts I keep as a last line of defense.”
Caedus had omitted some detail about Lumiya, because it wasn’t relevant; but the rest was completely true. Mara had ambushed him, had tracked him into the tunnels, had tried to kill him—not arrest or detain him, but kill him.
Shevu looked shaken. “Well, at least I know why Ben changed his mind about serving in the Guard now.”
Everything Mara had done was about Ben. Caedus had had such high hopes for the boy, but Lumiya had been right after all. Ben didn’t have the stomach for the fight: he didn’t have what it took to be a Sith. Caedus wished he could talk to Lumiya now that he knew so much more, and that meant that he missed her. He never thought he would. But she’d diverted Luke Skywalker’s focus from him, however temporary that might eventually prove to be, and paid for that with her life. It was a heartbreakingly noble act. He had to live up to that sacrifice.
I miss her. And … I miss Allana, but I have to forget her.
“It really wasn’t personal revenge, Captain,” Caedus said, concentrating again. “That’s for small people. It was part of my path to Sith ascendancy.”
“That must be very distressing, sir,” Shevu said. Caedus felt some deep, raw emotion in him that he couldn’t quite place, but it was pity in a way. “Being one of your family.”
“Yes. I’m putting it out of my mind as best I can, because we were very close once.”
Shevu adjusted his jacket in that awkward way of someone who wanted to end a painful conversation. “Try a police tip, sir. When we’re faced with something horrible, something disgusting, a terrible crime, we try to forget what we feel about the perpetrator in case the anger distracts us and makes us careless. You know—cutting corners to get the guy, maybe losing the case in court because of that. So we focus on the victim. We find the pity. Pity keeps us going. We want to give the victims and their family justice—closure. Think about that sometime, sir.”
“That’s very helpful, actually, Captain.” Caedus hadn’t thought much about how non-Force-users might use techniques just as Sith did to channel their emotions productively. Given that Shevu didn’t like him, the advice was touching, a recognition that they both had dirty jobs to do, a mutual respect. “By the way, I have a title, now. Darth Caedus. Would you mind using it in future?”
Shevu’s expression was now unreadable. “Yes, sir.” He seemed to be trying out the name under his breath. “Do I still call you sir?”
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