Legacy Of The Force_ Bloodlines Part 45

He cradled the knotted ta.s.sel in his cupped palms. He will immortalize his love. He'd turned that phrase over in his mind a thousand times. What did it mean? Total duty to the galaxy, and no time for family? Building eternal peace at his own personal cost?

He didn't know.

"It means, Jacen, that sacrificing your own feelings and reputation isn't enough."

Jacen had forced himself over the edge of what he had thought of as decency. He'd done the dirty work, the necessary work, the work that no other Jedi would, because they were too concerned about the vanity of their own reputations and the cleanliness of their own hands, to take on the burdens they placed so willingly on ordinary people.

I did my own dirty work. I faced what Grandfather faced-but I did it for the galaxy, not for my own selfish love of a woman.

Motive mattered. Some philosophers said it didn't, but in the end motive was all there was to distinguish between good and evil.

"What, then?"

"You have to kill what you love."

Jacen didn't quite take in the meaning of that at first. Then panic gripped him.

Tenel Ka. Allana. How did Lumiya know? How could she know? He'd been so careful. He hardly dared even touch them in the Force because he risked alerting Lumiya to their very existence. Every visit he sneaked in was fraught with danger, but he'd been careful, as careful as only he could be.

Jacen concentrated hard and projected a sense of bewilderment to mask the dread and fear churning his stomach, and it took almost all his strength. He picked up the candle from the table and stared into its flame as if distracted by it, using it to focus his control.

"You'll have to explain that."

"I can't teach you any more skills. You now have to pa.s.s through the final barrier and do what no ordinary man can-kill someone whose death will cause terrible suffering to those who love them, someone close to you."

"Who?"

"I can't tell you, because I don't know."

"Someone I love?"

"Do you love someone?"

"I allow myself to love many people." Careful . . . careful. You're on the knife-edge.

"How will I know who to kill?"

"It'll become clear when the time is right. You'll know."

"And why is it the ultimate test?"

"Because taking the life of an innocent is always harder even than taking your own, if you're sincere. This is the ultimate test of selflessness-whether you're ready to face unending emotional pain, true agony, to gain the power to create peace and order for billions of total strangers. That is the sacrifice. To be vilified by others, by people you know and care for, and for your personal sacrifice to be totally unknown to those billions you save, to do your duty as a Sith. To do your duty for the good of the galaxy."

She stood so close to him that her breath made the candle's flame flicker. "It's easy to be a clean-cut hero slaying monsters. There's always a little bit of vanity in it. There can be no room for vanity or pride in being despised."

It was true, and it was horrible. Courage often needed an audience. True selfless courage, by definition, took place in darkness, unseen.

Jacen held his hand in the flame. He held it there longer than he had ever done before, until he smelled his own flesh charring, and Lumiya reached out and jerked his arm away.

He wasn't sure if he was testing his ability to transcend pain or beginning his own punishment.

He thought of his grandfather, killing simply for Padme's life. Whoever Jacen had to kill as the price of being able to wield the ultimate defensive weapon of Sith order, he would know his motives were totally divorced from his own narrow wants and needs ... like Tenel Ka and his Allana.

Oh no. Oh no.

Lumiya took his hand and turned it over to examine the seared palm.

"Now ... imagine that will be nothing compared to what you'll feel when you confront the ultimate challenge."

He wanted a peaceful, orderly galaxy. He wanted it that way not only because it was right, and necessary, but because he had a daughter and he wanted her future to he free of the fighting and fear he had known all his life. He'd never known peace. He wanted better than that for Allana, and, yes, he wanted that for Tenel Ka, too. He wanted happiness for those he loved.

He wanted. He loved. And that was what had brought down Grandfather.

"The ultimate challenge," Lumiya said again, her voice oddly soft and mournful.

Suddenly Jacen could see his challenge, and the prospect terrified him. He would have to kill those he most loved. He would have to kill Tenel Ka and his precious daughter, his Allana. The fact that even the thought of it was tearing out his heart was the terrible proof that it had to be so.

And still he could hardly bear to think it. The Yuuzhan Vong thought they knew all there was to know about inflicting pain, but they were beginners compared with this.

How could he even think it? Jacen put his right hand to his face and touched it, as if it weren't his own. He felt as if he were standing over by the far wall, watching himself die by degrees.

Is it me? Is it really my burden?

Yes, Grandfather.

It's me.

Jacen accepted the burden in its entirety, and his heart-irrelevant, fragile, expendable-broke.

SLAVE I, EN ROUTE TO GEONOSIS.

So they sat in the cargo hold of Slave I-Boba Fett, Mirta Gev, and a corpse. And Fett wasn't sure what to say next.

"I never was of any use to you, was I?" Mirta said.

"Does that matter?"

"Will I ever get to know you enough to trust you?"

"I could ask the same question."

"You're not what I expected."

"Yeah."

"And you're all I've got."

There were two ways of saying that, and one was to say it like it was a last resort. And that was the way she said it. Fett wondered if his illness was affecting his mind. He heard himself say the words, going through the motions of being a normal human being.

"Want to hunt with me?"

Mirta looked at him with dark, pained eyes that were an awful lot older than they had been when he'd met her just weeks earlier.

"What's the catch?"

"I'm dying."

"What?"

"Yes. Boba Fett really is on the way out."

"You're playing one of those mind games of yours."

"I'm dying and I need to find some Kaminoan medical data if I stand a chance of surviving.

Your clone with the gray gloves might be the path to it."

She seemed to teeter on that knife-edge between wanting to believe him and a lifetime of mistrust and loathing. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I'm not what I expected, either."

"What about fighting for Corellia?"

"You heard the boys. They're not interested in mercenary work when there's real soldiering to be done. I'm Mand'alor, and I want to know what this Kad'ika has to say for himself if he thinks he's taking my job."

"Oh, you heard about Kad'ika, then."

"You're the Mando'a speaker. You tell me."

"Never seen him. Hearing plenty, though. What's the matter? Think he's after your kyr'bes?"

The crown: the mythosaur skull. Mand'alor wasn't a t.i.tle he'd ever wanted. But Beviin's retort had stung in ways he hadn't thought possible. No heir, no clan, no sense of duty.

You're not Mandalorian. You just wear the armor. Fett wanted to leave behind more than credits and a trail of bodies. In the end, every being in the galaxy wanted to mean something to somebody-even just one individual.

See, Dad, I know now why you wanted me so badly.

Mirta was stroking the heart-of-fire discreetly as it sat in the hollow at the base of her throat. "Okay," she said. "Okay, Ba'buir. Count me in."

"Ba'buir?"

"It means 'grandfather,' " she said quietly.

"I don't speak Mandalorian. Thanks to you, I can swear in it a little."

"Your father-Great-Granddad--never even took you through the verd'goten?"

"What's that?"

"The warrior trial. When you become an adult at thirteen."

"Does six decades of war and bounty hunting qualify me?"

"You're dar'manda without your culture. You don't have a soul."

She was probably right. "Let's go find your clone. And recover my father."

"What about my mama's ship?"

"I'll get Beviin to collect it. You'd be amazed what that man can find."

"Even that clone."

"Yeah. Maybe even that clone."

Fett eased into the c.o.c.kpit of Slave I and set course for Geonosis for the first time since he was thirteen. Mirta, subdued, waited for his gesture to sit up front. He'd teach her to pilot if his time held out.

The galaxy would say that the Mandalorians had finally given up. Staying out of a galactic war was unthinkable; Mando'ade had always fought. Well, there was such a thing as a strategic withdrawal, and this was one. It was time for Mandalore to put its own house in order, and if he could grab that time and defeat his illness, he'd do it. If he didn't ...

then maybe this Kad'ika would do it instead.

Either way, Boba Fett was going to let the Jedi and Han Solo fight their little war without his intervention this time. Because he had more pressing business.

Because Jacen Solo was becoming a pale imitation of his grandfather, Lord Vader, and would take on more than he had ever bargained for.

And because Fett had a granddaughter now. Family-and Mandalore-came first.

Good night, Dad. We're going home.