Legacy Of The Force_ Bloodlines Part 41

Stang, she's going to . . .

Mirta wasn't crying now.

"I said do it."

She held her aim for a count of five and then lowered the blaster. Han wondered if Leia had given her mind a little gentle influence but decided not to ask, not just yet. Then she sat down on the battered sofa, blaster on one knee, fingers still tight on the grip.

If Han had expected a tearful reconciliation, he had the wrong family. Fett's ice-water blood definitely ran in her veins.

Leia watched warily as if she was expecting Mirta to change her mind. Fett replaced his armor and stood by the window again, watching the police activity in the city beyond, blaster at his side.

Leia broke the silence. "Now everyone's calmed down, I'll talk to Jacen again; we'll arrange to recover the body, and then you can leave." She walked out into the kitchen and Han followed, wondering if he'd hear blasterfire the second his back was turned.

"When did you become Fett's best buddy?" he whispered. "Remember that little vacation I spent encased in carbonite thanks to him? Okay, so he saved the day when the Vong-"

"Han, I don't know how to tell you this, but I think it's going to be Fett who bears the grudge." She stared at the comlink as if she dreaded talking to their son again. "I'm not sure you're even going to believe me."

"I'm not a mind reader. What do you know that I don't?"

"Jacen killed Fett's daughter. Personally."

"Yeah?" Han lowered his voice still further. "That's the idea. She was going to kill us."

"He killed her while he was interrogating her."

Han had to think about that for a couple of seconds. Jacen was more of a stranger with every pa.s.sing day. He was becoming the Alliance's bullyboy, the head of their secret police, although there was nothing very secret about them.

But he didn't kill prisoners. He couldn't. Only monsters did that kind of thing. Jacen couldn't be a monster. He was his boy, his sweet kid.

"No."

"I think he tortured her, Han."

"No."

"So you see why we have a problem."

"I refuse to believe that ..."

"Do you think I want to believe it? How does anyone accept that their kid turns into something terrible?"

"It had to be an accident."

"I want to believe that, too. Right now I'm just waiting for Fett to ask who actually did it, because he'll want to know sooner or later. You would. We both would."

"He hadn't seen the woman since she was a baby. You think he cares?"

"I'm going to a.s.sume he does. People have feuds within families, but when an outsider gets involved, they tend to gang up. What do you think Fett's going to do? Shake your hand and say, Okay, Han, so I handed you over to Jabba the Hutt and your son tortured my daughter to death, so we're even . . . you think he'll say that?"

Han's brief relief at knowing Thrackan would no longer be around to hara.s.s him and his family was rapidly being replaced by the fear that Boba Fett would put him at the top of his vengeance list. Fett had a reputation for never giving up. He never had.

Han leaned back against the wall, not sure what scared him most: having Boba Fett as a real personal enemy, or knowing his son had turned into a killer. He settled for the latter.

"Jacen?" Leia's voice was all calm reason. Han wondered how she did it, but she was a lot tougher and cooler than he'd ever know how to be. "Jacen, I need you to do something for me. It's important."

CHIEF OF STATE'S OFFICE, SENATE BUILDING. CORUSCANT.

"Well," said Cal Omas. "Where does this leave us?"

Senator G'Sil rubbed his forehead with one hand, and Jacen watched him carefully. Luke, in turn, watched Jacen.

He could feel his uncle's focus on him, his suspicion, his dread, his calculation.

There's nothing you can do about it, Uncle Luke. You had your chance. Now we'll do things the Sith way.

"This wasn't our doing," G'Sil insisted. "The Intelligence Service definitely had no hand in a.s.sa.s.sinating Sal-Solo. That man had so many political enemies that Corellian Security will be interviewing suspects until Mustafar turns into a ski resort."

"We still have agents in Coronet, though?"

"Of course we do. But it's still not our handiwork-we wouldn't be so stupid as to hand Corellia a free pa.s.s to recruit other planets to its cause."

"We're not being believed," Luke said slowly.

Omas looked exhausted. "People believe what they want to believe. So who do we have to deal with now? Who's really running the show in this multiheaded beast of a coalition cabinet?"

"Dur Gejjen," Jacen said. So Dad really did it. I don't believe it. He killed Thrackan.

"And he came to my parents before Sal-Solo was killed with a suggestion that a regime change might be in the cards."

Omas looked to Luke as if expecting some input. "What does Intelligence have to say about him, then? I can just about remember his father in the Human League days."

"Don't expect him to disarm any faster than Sal-Solo," said G'Sil. "Forget the a.s.sa.s.sination, except as an accelerant to finding Corellia more allies. The overall situation hasn't changed."

"Where's Niathal got to, by the way?"

Jacen looked up. "She's on her way. She's being briefed by the commanders."

The blockade was biting. Corellia could feed itself, but for everything manufactured it relied on its...o...b..ting industrial stations, which were now mostly cut off by Alliance pickets. It was also losing starfighters and ships: without the repair and refueling facilities in the orbiting shipyards, which had also been successfully isolated, its fleets were seriously compromised.

Jacen considered how he would get Ailyn Habuur's body to Corellia. He could beat a blockade alone. No, it was Ailyn Vel. So you killed Fett's daughter. He has a Mandalorian army that could take on the Yuuzhan Vong. Avoid him for as long as you can. If Fett were placated, his parents could at least live on Corellia without looking over their shoulders the whole time. He considered explaining to Fett that he hadn't planned to kill Ailyn, but Fett probably didn't know exactly who had killed her, and it was better for everyone to leave it that way. There was no point adding more enemies to the list.

He's Mandalorian, remember. Long memories, short fuses.

"Are you with us, Jacen?" Luke asked.

Jacen jerked back to the here and now, caught unawares for once. "Apologies. Just considering logistics."

"The Jedi council feels that we should open formal talks with the new Corellian government and offer them a way out."

"They'll turn it down."

"Nothing's lost by offering," said Luke. "Do we need Senate agreement to do that?"

"Technically," Omas replied. "But seeing as over a hundred planets have withdrawn their representatives in protest now, I think we can a.s.sume that those left wouldn't object if we did."

Luke seemed to be optimistic about the prospects of a breakthrough even if his expression was grim. "Why would Gejjen and his cronies want to remove Thrackan if they didn't want a change of policy?"

"No better time to remove a rival than under the cover of war," said Jacen. "It probably has nothing to do with disarmament, and everything to do with old, festering resentments."

"Sometimes I'm glad I'm a simple farmboy," said Luke.

"And the Alliance isn't formally at war with anyone, Uncle."

"Oh, that makes all the difference, then. Because a growing number of planets seem to think they're at war with the Alliance."

Omas interrupted Luke. "Gentlemen, if the new Corellian administration refuses to disarm, then we have no choice but to formalize a state of war. That changes the legality of the situation and gives us different laws to deal with matters."

"More powers." Luke's voice was almost a whisper.

"More emergency powers," said Omas.

G'Sil glanced at Luke with a benign smile that did nothing to conceal from Jacen that the Senator was thinking . . . weakling.

"I'm not a great student of history," said Luke. "But I think we've been here before somehow. Before I was born, of course."

"Do you have an alternative?" Omas asked. "I really would welcome the Jedi council's views if there's a concrete course I can pursue. But right now I have three broad options: to allow Alliance planets to maintain their own independent defense forces, to continue as we're going, or to mount a much more aggressive campaign to force disarmament. If you have another option, now is the time to put it forward."

Luke shook his head. "You know I haven't. But I can't sit here and not express my unease, either."

Jacen turned his head and caught G'Sil's eye for a fraction of a second, and knew that they were thinking exactly the same thing. Well, your conscience is clear, Uncle. It's someone else's responsibility now, isn't it?

Omas stood up and began collecting flimsi sheets from his desk. It was the diplomatic way he indicated to any meeting that the talking was over and now he was going to do something. Jacen wondered if Omas ever slammed his fist on that beautiful inlaid desk. He doubted it.

"I'm going to make a formal approach now to the new Corellian administration and offer them talks on disarmament," Omas said. "Maybe we'll all get a surprise. Maybe the blockade made them see sense."

Jacen genuinely hoped it had. He wanted to see order restored, and he didn't enjoy being despised by his uncle. He turned to Luke to at least take his leave of him courteously, but Luke walked past him with a formal nod of the head and left.

Yes, it hurt. But a lot of things would hurt. Jacen accepted it as part of the price he was paying. He opened his comlink and called C-3P0.

"Threepio?" The droid, at least, always greeted him as if he was pleased to hear from him.

"Has Artoo finished repairing the Falcon? Tell him to hurry up, then. I'm flying her back to Dad."

Chapter Twenty-One.

The Galactic Alliance has offered settlement terms to the new government of Corellia. We hope that those terms will be accepted and that we can put an end to the blockade. We do not want war. This is our last chance for unity.

-Chief of State Cal Omas, speaking at a news conference CORONET CITY. s.p.a.cEPORT.

Fett occupied himself with carrying out panel checks on Slave I and tried not to think about the fact that he had lost a daughter and acquired a granddaughter in a matter of a day.

This was why it made sense to live alone. Families, wives, and kids were painful. They got in the way.

Mirta was, as far as he knew or cared, still at the Solos' apartment. How had she fooled him for so long? He couldn't believe he hadn't worked out who she was. But if you hadn't seen your daughter for more than fifty years, there was no reason to recognize her daughter.

You have a family. Like it or not, you have a family.

She might have had more than one child. What would he do about that, then? What if he had more grandchildren out there, all raised to hate him as thoroughly and efficiently as Mirta had been? No, he should have spotted it right away. When he looked into her dark eyes, he could see his father now. He could see his own eyes.

He could see his own hatred, too. He resented the galaxy, and Jedi in particular, for having to grow up without a father. It wasn't surprising to see that hate and resentment reproduced faithfully in a granddaughter.

Now he waited for Goran Beviin to shake down his network of contacts and tell him what Leia and Han Solo either didn't know or didn't want to tell him.

"Mand'alor," said the comlink.

Fett pounced on it. "Beviin? What have you got for me?"

"I'm very sorry about Ailyn, Bob'ika."

I don't want your sympathy. "I need intel."

"Ailyn was being held by Jacen Solo."

"I know that. But who was interrogating her?"

"Like I said-Jacen Solo."

I'll kill him. Fett felt his stomach settle into that cold place of detachment that preceded a strike. His thoughts fell immediately to the best weapons and strategies to add another Jedi lightsaber to his collection, the first that he would truly savor and not regard as just another job. No, remember what Dad taught you-stay professional. Stay cool.

Understand the enemy.

"This had better be accurate."

"Mand'alor," said Beviin, "this comes from the Coruscant Security Force. Some still think well of Mandalorians, thanks to your father's friends."

"I'm touched."

"You should be. The CSF bar is full of gossip about Jacen Solo, because some of his Galactic Alliance Guard are ex CSF men. Some of them really don't like his way of doing business."

Fett had taken little notice of Coruscant's descent into martial law yet again. He'd seen it all before. But now it was personal.

"I want to know everything."