Legacy Of The Force_ Revelation Part 8

"Keldabe ATC, this is X-wing Amber Nine, requesting permission to enter Mandalorian airs.p.a.ce." She checked again that every weapons system was powered down so that nothing, absolutely nothing, gave them the wrong im-pression about her intentions. Maybe a shuttle would have been a better idea, but she had no idea how she might be received, and being cannoned up made her feel better. The X-wing held its position. "Keldabe, this is Amber Nine. Are you receiving me?"

"Keldabe ATC to Nine Amber, "said a female voice that didn't sound remotely ruffled by the intrusion of a GA fighter. Maybe they shot them down every day for practice. It was going to be a hard way to find out.

"Pare sol. Wait one."

Would they even recognize her? The X-wing was obvious enough, but she wasn't a known face like Jacen or Mom. She was just a pilot, not even in GA orange, deliber-ately low-key in a somber flight suit with her hair tied back. All she needed to do, though, was to land and do the humble thing, to throw herself on the mercy of Boba Fett, and she was still gambling that saving the salient point about her real ident.i.ty might get her a little farther. If she said right now that she was Jaina Solo, there was no telling if some Mandalorian patriot might fancy settling the family score on behalf of Fett.

If a bunch of Mandalorians had shown up asking for Dad.... I know how I'd react.

Jaina had never been in Mandalorian s.p.a.ce before. Mom had, in her Rebel youth; she said the Mandalorians lived in tree-houses, and their leader, a blond man called Shysa, had been very charming. Jaina waited, cultivating a patience she never knew she had.

Her Force senses told her something was approaching, but she sensed no danger. It felt oddly benign, in fact; if she hadn't known better, she would have said amused. Yes, there was definitely something approaching her. Nothing showed up on the X-wing's monitors other than a medium-sized ship with a heavy drive, something like a s.p.a.ceport tug or some utility vessel. Perhaps it was going to escort her in.

It was very close now. Jaina still couldn't see anything, but it was approaching from her port side. It was only when she turned her head as far as she could, unable to sit still any longer, that she saw a black void where stars should have been, and picked out a large, unlit shape heading straight at her. Had it detected her?

It was on a collision course. Jaina got ready to run.

Then the lights came on.

The brilliant blue-white light seared her eyes for a split second, but when she blinked away the afterimage she was looking at a grim slab of a vessel that was a ma.s.s of cannon turrets, turntables, hatches, and angles. There was no other way to describe it: it was a flying tank.

"Keldabe welcomes careful aruetiise if their credit's good, "said ATC over the comlink. "Nine Amber, what's the purpose of your visit?"

Here we go. Just do it. "I've come to see Boba Fett."

"Amber Nine, identify yourself."

"Keldabe, I'm not GA anymore." I sound like a criminal. They might have been detaining her. It was hard to tell. "I've come alone."

"Follow your escort."

She was still in one piece; that was something, although she would have to work out what aruetiise meant. The tank rotated ninety degrees in the horizontal and pulled away in front of her, dipping its starboard side like a wing to indicate to her to follow. She'd expected to be met and checked over by a Bes'uliik, and was almost disappointed not to encounter the new Mandalorian fighter. They said it was faster than an X-wing. Corellia and other planetary forces were lining up to buy them.

Aunt Mara would have had fun with one of those.

The memory ambushed Jaina several times a day. She thought it was better than forgetting, however much pain that would have saved her. She had learned that when Anakin died. Before she reached the upper atmosphere of Mandalore, the ungainly-looking tank was joined by a smooth delta-shaped fighter, and Jaina had her wish: it was the Bes'uliik she'd seen on the holonews channels. The vessel maneuvered between her and the tank, so close that she could see the helmeted pilot turn to give her a hand signal familiar to any pilot, follow me.

The tank peeled off and vanished, showing remarkably little heat signature on Jaina's sensors. "What was that?" she asked.

"You want to place an advance order?" said a male voice. It was the Bes'uliik pilot. "MandalMotors calls it the Tra'kad-the StarSaber."

It was an elegant name for an inelegant vessel, and Jaina Put it on her list of things to worry about much later. Land-iig on Mandalore needed every sc.r.a.p of her attention. She was suddenly in busy airs.p.a.ce over heavily wooded coun-try scattered with small villages. Keldabe loomed in her viewscreen, a ma.s.sive, disorganized fortress set on a granite pedestal ringed by a moat-like river. She could identify the MandalMotors tower from the logo painted on it, that grim animal skull with a flare emerging from one empty eye socket.

And her pa.s.sive scanners were picking up a formidable array of ground-to-air defenses. Keldabe was ready for all comers.

She brought the X-wing down in a smooth descent, tailed by the Bes'uliik. The ap.r.o.n area was packed with vessels from battered Gladiators and smart new KDY armed transports to-and this rattled her composure a little-old X-wings in garish paint schemes. Most vessels were disgorging pa.s.sengers, all of them wearing that dis-tinctive full-body armor in a riot of colors; red, deep yel-low, and forest green seemed to be very popular.

The X-wing's undercarriage shivered as it landed. Jaina was past the point of no return.

"Holiday?" she asked over the comlink, trying to be casual.

"Return of the expatriates, "said the Bes'uliik pilot. "Millions of Mando'ade live on other worlds. The Mand'alor asked for volunteers to rebuild the planet. So they came. They're getting their land allocations."

"I had no idea you were so scattered."

"That's why you can't get rid of us. It's like trying to hammer mercury-it just breaks up and comes back together again."

Jaina noted that for future anxiety sessions, shut down the systems, and prepped to pop the hatch, wondering it Amber Nine would end up appropriated by the locals and painted bright purple like an old X-wing sitting in a corner of the strip.

"Get down from the c.o.c.kpit, aruetii, and we'll check you out."

Now.... do I take my lightsaber or not?

Jaina took the risk and left it in her grab-bag in the c.o.c.kpit. She jumped down and stood on the permacrete, an anonymous gray flight suit in a sea of clattering Mandalorian armor. The air smelled of fresh-sawn resin trees and hot metal. "Just tell me what aruetii means."

"Foreigner, "said the pilot. He pulled a short-stock BlasTech blaster from his belt with a casual movement and ran a hand scanner over her with the other. "Outsider. Not one of us. Even traitor. Okay, you're clean."

She thought he would have been far from pleased if he'd picked up her lightsaber on that scan. "What happens to me now?"

"Someone's coming to check you out. Can't let just any old riffraff pester our Mand'alor, can we?"

Should she admit who she was now? The man had a blaster. If he took the revelation badly, she'd have a choice of taking whatever came next, or drawing on her Force skills unarmed while surrounded by hundreds of Mandalorians, every single one of them with some weapon, even the children. It would all get out of hand before she knew it. And she needed Fett's help badly.

"Absolutely, "she said.

Jaina was already having to think differently, to suppress all her own training that said she should have been treating this environment as a serious threat and preparing to defend herself. The feeling of helplessness was both utterly alien and disturbing. The Bes'uliik pilot didn't say anything else to her, and just stood with his blaster resting in the safety position against his shoulder. They waited. People were starting to stare. Eventually a speeder bike edged through the crowd on the perimeter and headed straight for her.

"She's all yours, "said the pilot. "Unarmed."

The rider was a man in royal blue armor, and she sensed that he was agitated, but in a distracted way that said he was worrying about something else.

"I'm Goran Beviin, "he said, looking wary. A short but serious-looking metal saber hung from his belt as well as a blaster. "The Mand'alor is tied up at the moment. So you can tell me all about it. Get on."

It was tempting just to come clean and tell him she was Jaina Solo, yes, that Jaina Solo, but a black object dangling from his shoulder plate distracted her. It was alien hair, somehow familiar. Mandalorians loved their trophies. Fett went in for braided Wookiee scalps. It was pretty disgust-ing, but she wasn't here to be judgmental about their customs.

She needed Mandalorian help.

"Is that Yuuzhan Vong?" she asked, trying to be casual.

"Indeed it is, "said Beviin. "Nothing I like better than killing crab-boys."

That was the sum of their conversation until they reached Keldabe.

Mom had been right: there were some tree-houses along the way. But the city was just that, a tight urban chaos of granite blocks, wood, plastoid, and dura-steel, with the houses packed together like a close-quarters battle. There were still signs of war damage on many walls, and even MandalMotors' hundred-meter tower bore scorch marks. A few new offices and other buildings looked grander, but this didn't appear to be a rich city or even a planned one; it looked like a battered survivor.

Beviin stopped the speeder in front of what could only be a cantina, its doors parted and the smell of cooking and brewing wafting onto the street. Above the entrance was lettering Jaina couldn't read, and-helpfully-a few words of Basic: UNIVERSE TAPCAF-NO STRILLS INSIDE-BARTEC ACCEPTED.

Jaina followed Beviin inside. He took off his helmet, laid it on the counter, and ruined another stereotype for her: he wasn't some granite-faced thug but an ordinary gray-haired man about her mother's age, with the kind of face that looked on the edge of a big smile all the time. And the Fett-inspired image of Mandalore that she'd nursed for so long kept crumbling. When her eyes adjusted to the light, she found herself in a cantina full of armored Mandalori-ans, not all human, helmets stacked under tables. They were watching a big holovid screen in intent, reverent si-lence, mesmerized by a bolo-ball match.

"Meshgeroya, "Beviin whispered, as if he was interrupt-ing an act of worship. "The beautiful game. Our other national pastime."

Something small and furry zipped past Jaina's foot, but she didn't dare look too closely. One of the patrons, a stocky man with white hair and a vine tattoo curling up his neck, glanced at her and guffawed.

"Throw her back, "he laughed. "You know it's wrong to catch'em that small."

Beviin was looking her over suspiciously. "She's come to see Fett, Car'ika."

"We're much cheaper than he is, lady, "said the tattooed man. "Who do you want hunted?"

"It's okay." Jaina winced at how uncomfortably close the joke brushed to reality. She leaned against the bar, wondering why she'd been brought to a cantina and not taken to some government building or even Fett's residence. "I know where my quarry is."

The place smelled of spice, yeast, and fried food, and most of the patrons were drinking a black ale or small gla.s.ses of a clear liquid that almost certainly wasn't water. Her Force senses told her they were all much, much more Worried about the final score than they were about having a stranger among them. Were they really that relaxed, or did they just think that n.o.body could touch them here?

"I'm sorry to stare, "Beviin said mildly, "but I know you, and I'm trying to think where I've seen your picture. Never mind. It'll come to me." His palm rested on the pommel of that saber, probably just a comfortable way to stand in full armor, but Jaina couldn't stop herself working out how she'd parry a blow from the thing using only the Force.

"But you're not going to tell me until you have to, are you?"

"Fett knows me and my family, "she said. She a.s.sumed Fett might recognize her; she thought she'd met him once when she was a kid, but someone had said it might have been an imposter. "He'll know why I've come."

The bolo-ball provided a neutral distraction. She was al-most caught up in it, so deafened as the room turned from total silence to explosive yells of "Oya!" when the favored team scored, that the sensation that ran up her spine and made her hair bristle caught her by surprise.

Impossible.

No, that's just not possible.

"What's wrong?" Beviin asked. He reached across the bar, grabbed a handful of something from a bowl, and munched thoughtfully. "You think that goal was offside?"

Jaina whipped around, ready to run, and the doors opened. Something was wrong-very wrong. The Force was telling her something that couldn't be true.

Two Mandalorians walked in, one in armor with no two plates the same color, and one in green, clearly much older and walking as if his joints were painful.

The older man eased off his helmet and placed it on the counter.

Yes, he was old. He looked as if life had drained him dry. His stare cut straight through her and she found herself staring back, wishing she'd announced herself the moment she landed.

"h.e.l.lo, Jedi, "he said, and drew a blaster.

Chapter 5.

In Mandalorian lore, the color blue represents reliability; green, duty; gold, vengeance; black, justice; gray, mourning a lost love; and red, honoring a father.

Mandalorians: Ident.i.ty and Language, published by the Galactic Inst.i.tute of Anthropology EN ROUTE FOR THE HAPES Cl.u.s.tER.

"You sure this isn't a trap?" Ben asked.

"I told you Jacen was nuts." Shevu was heading for the Perlemian Trade Route in a small transport bearing the livery of the geological survey team of the University of Cor-uscant. Ben felt confident about pulling off this ruse if they were questioned, because they really did look like a student and an earnest young lecturer in some arcane branch of the study of igneous rocks. Ben certainly wanted to look very closely at Kavan. "But he had no way of knowing that I was going to do this before he told me to take a break."

"He had some other motive, though."

"Well, he didn't know we'd go to Kavan. And he won't know we've been."

"Who got you this crate?"

"Jacen's ticked off a lot of people."

"Yes, I think he's off the party list at a lot of emba.s.sies now..."

"If you have to know-a lot of the Corellians he rounded up were professors and students. The uni took it badly. And.... Barit Saiy comes in handy, with that engineering company of his dad's."

The name slapped Ben in the face. Barit Saiy. He was Corellian, from an ordinary working family who'd lived on Coruscant for generations; but he did something dumb with a blaster, talked tough about fighting the Galactic Al-liance, and Ben had turned him in to Jacen. When he van-ished from GAG custody, like so many Corellians during those awful weeks, Ben had a.s.sumed the worst.

A memory came back to him, Shevu hunched over a cus-tody record, angry at losing prisoners from the list without proper procedure.

"You found him?" Ben asked, as the memory resolved into realization.

"Yeah."

"And you got him out." Ben floundered, dropped from a height into an ice-cold pool of doubt. "But he was armed and shooting at cops..."

"Yeah, and you don't have to feel guilty about informing on him.

The law's the law."

"But you bent it. You let Barit go."

"Ben, everything Jacen did to grab power was within the law.

There's law, and there's justice, and sometimes they're not the same thing. Barit was just a kid talking through his backside, like teenage lads do."

Ben's certainty wavered. He'd seen Barit fire at the cops during a riot. He'd deflected the bolt. He wondered if he was clinging to that to make himself feel better about turning him in. "And you needed an informant."

"Don't you? Isn't that what I'll be doing for your dad?"

The adult world that Ben had been catapulted into had no safety net if anything went wrong. n.o.body would call time on it like a training session, and the weapons weren't modified lightsabers designed just to sting. He'd woken up to that fast; he was playing by dirty, violent, grown-up rules. What still left him struggling, though, was the compromises, and he lay awake at night walking the endless maze of right and wrong, and wondering if two wrongs could make a right, and if he might have learned that at the Jedi academy. Dad always seemed to know what was right, even if he couldn't explain why. Ben realized at that moment that you never learned a foolproof formula for right and wrong, that there was no checklist of good and bad, and that you had to keep an eye on yourself every minute of the day and ask: Should I be doing this?

Would I want someone to do this to me?

"You don't have to spy for the Jedi Council, "he said.

"Of course I do, "Shevu said. "Who else is going to be able to get rid of a Sith? You think the GA courts can bring the full majesty of galactic law down on his head? As long as we both know the score, that's fine."

Ben went back to his datapad, understanding how tense Shevu was. He could have told Tenel Ka what they were doing, but that would have meant official Hapan Security involvement, and Shevu didn't trust anybody. Ben saw his point. He'd trusted Jacen, after all. Now he was back in the land of hard evidence, running through all the data he'd gathered in a stunned haze while his mother lay dead in the tunnel on Kavan.