“You scum-“
Fett launched himself across the desk and pinned Sal-Solo down. “Just do it, Solo,” he snapped. “Kill him. Or I will. It’s not sport.”
Mirta covered the doors with her blaster. At least the girl knew what she was doing.
“I’ve waited years for this, Fett.”
“Make it fast, then.” Fett assumed Han wanted to make his cousin suffer before he killed him, which was sloppy, but then family feuds were always too emotionally charged. “Remember what you agreed.”
Han had a stranglehold on Sal-Solo’s throat. The man’s eyes bulged. “Never again, you scumbag.” He dug his fingers into the skin. “You never mess with me or my family again.”
Sal-Solo found a defiant, strangled voice. “You think the bounty hunter I decoyed you all with on Coruscant is the only one hunting you?”
“What do you mean?” Fett grabbed Han’s wrist to stop him choking Sal-Solo before he answered. “What decoy?”
“I tipped them off about her. Too busy following her to worry about the others. They’re coming, Han, and you don’t know how many. You’ll never be able to sleep soundly again.”
Ailyn. You set up Ailyn. You used my little girl.
“Back off, Solo-he’s mine,” said Fett, and held the blaster to Sal-Solo’s head.
“No, he’s mine,” said Mirta, and rolled across the desk to fire three bolts into Sal-Solo’s forehead.
It was a split second of total silence and then two seconds of chaos. Han was cursing that he’d been cheated; Fett put two rounds into Sal-Solo to be sure he’d finished him. And that’s for Ailyn, too.
“You should learn to shoot first, Solo,” said Fett. “Now get down that passage fast. Run for it.”
“But I wanted to take him-for all he’s done to me.”
“Go on, then-put a few more through him. Have your vengeance. Then shut up and get moving.”
The room might have been soundproofed, but the sound of blasterfire could penetrate a long way. Fett wasn’t sure Han could do it. But Sal-Solo was dead already and Han no longer had to face shooting him in cold blood. At last he fired. Fett grabbed him and shoved him through the door to the passage as Mirta retrieved the spare helmet.
She was a smart kid-even if she had taken a shot she shouldn’t have.
They ran down a single flight of steps and into a long passage lit by yellow emergency lamps. Fetes helmet sensors picked up movement two rooms above; running feet. Someone was coming. He took the full set of security blades out of his pocket and set their interference pattern to block all comlinks except his own. This wasn’t the time to let anyone call for backup.
Then he shoved Han ahead of him and forced him to run. The fool was still staring back at his cousin’s body.
“Now my side of the bargain, Solo,” Fett panted as they ran. “My daughter. I have to see my daughter.”
Chapter Eighteen
The Galactic Alliance is in turmoil this morning as more planets withdraw representatives from the Senate in protest at fighting in the Corellian blockade. Atzerri’s ambassador to the Alliance described the destruction of one of its freighters as “an act of war.” Chief of State Cal Omas told HNE earlier that the exclusion zone would remain in place until Corellia disarmed and that the Atzerri vessel had opened fire after repeated warnings.
There has been no response from Corellia’s President Thrackan Sal-Solo.
-HNE morning bulletin
LUMIYA’S APARTMENT, SAFE HOUSE, GALACTIC CITY.
Jacen rubbed his eyes, trying to erase the dream he’d had on the flight back from Corellia and that was still vivid in his mind.
He hoped it was a dream and not a vision. As the turbolift climbed to the three hundredth floor of the apartment tower, he tried to shake the image from his mind and failed. In the dream, he was staring at his hands, lightsaber clutched in one, sobbing.
That’s what you dream of when you send your own sister for court-martial. Deal with it.
No, he wasn’t proud of what he’d done to Jaina, but it had to be done. He let the misery wash over him and didn’t flinch from it as he opened the doors of Lumiya’s safe house apartment with a brief focus of Force energy. Inside was a surprisingly comfortable suite of rooms scattered with objects that he thought he recognized from her asteroid habitat. She’d been back home to pick up a few things. Somehow he hadn’t thought of her as needing material trappings.
“You’re very upset,” she said, emerging from another room. Jacen was startled by her appearance. “Your grandfather found me drifting in my starfighter after Luke Skywalker had fired on it and left me for dead. Vader saved me. So my life is inextricably linked with your family. Did you know that?”