“So we’re going to fight over a corpse.”
“You just want to win,” said Mirta. “Doesn’t matter what you win.”
Fat couldn’t even be angry with her. He leaned against Slave I’s hull and gazed up at the sky through his helmet’s macrobinocular visor, waiting for the Millennium Falcon to appear as a speck in the sky and drop onto the landing strip. Mirta waited beside him-but not with him. He could almost feel the invisible wall she had placed between them.
It was a long half hour.
The Falcon swept across the strip and then looped back to land fifty meters away. Fett straightened up and went to meet her, Mirta at his heels.
Leia Solo was first off the ship and walked toward him as if barring his way. “I’m truly sorry about this, Fett. You, too, Mirta.”
Fett walked past her and climbed the open ramp into the cargo hold. Han was maneuvering a repulsor gurney into the main bay, and he glanced over his shoulder at the two of them.
“Are you going to put us back on your hit list?” Han asked. “If you’re thinking of going after Jacen, he’s too tough a quarry, even for you.”
Fett shook his head in slow, measured contempt. “I don’t have to punish anyone, Solo. Your son orders his own sister to fire on civilians and then suspends her from duty when she refuses. No, I think I’ll leave you to your happy family. I’ve got more pressing business.”
He watched Han look at Leia, and Leia look at Han, and knew that he’d dropped a thermal detonator on them. So they didn’t know.
Fierfek, that’s my daughter in that body bag.
The silence was that heavy moment before a thunderstorm, pressing down on all of them. Leia-yes, his predecessor Fenn Shysa had been very sweet on Leia, way back before she married the space bum-made a helpless gesture toward the hatch.
“I can get someone to arrange a funeral for you, Fett.”
“No,” he said. “She’s mine.” Time for a gesture. “She’s ours.”
“Okay.” Leia’s voice was low and careful. “Take it easy.”
“I want to see her body.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Princess Leia, I said I want to see my daughter’s body.”
Mirta took hold of his arm. Is that for her comfort or mine? Fett was once again glad of his helmet, because he didn’t want Han Solo to see his grief. His voice gave nothing away.
“And I want to see my mother,” said Mirta.
Leia stepped back, but Han hovered. Fett couldn’t stop his voice hardening. “Leave us for a few minutes, Solo.”
“Fett-“
“I said leave us.”
Han looked embarrassed and Leia steered him toward the hatch. Fett and Mirta were now alone in the cargo bay anteroom with the trolley.
They both hesitated and made a move for it at the same time. Fett stood back for Mirta, and she eased open the cover, eyes fixed and staring.
It was only the slight jerk of her chin that told him she was shocked. He stood beside her and saw a stranger. Ailyn Vel’s face was bruised and cut but surprisingly peaceful: she wore a Kiffar tattoo, three black lines from her left brow to cheekbone, like her mother Sintas had done. Her dark hair was heavily streaked with gray.
That’s my little girl.
He tried very hard to feel that the body of a middle-aged woman he didn’t recognize was the child he had once held.
They said that your kids never stopped being your babies, however old they were, but Fett couldn’t make that connection.
But I want to. I want to feel that.
You missed her whole life. Everything. Did she ever call me Dada? No, I don’t recall that she did.
Mirta leaned over, placed the heart-of-fire around her mother’s neck, and laid her cheek against hers. Then she straightened up and stood back, as if to give him space to take his leave of Ailyn as well. And that was hard. He hesitated, because he could feel another memory, one that he hadn’t suppressed and didn’t want to, crowding in on him. He was in a dusty arena on Geonosis sixty years before, picking up his father’s helmet.
Jedi always take everything from me.
Fett would have to remove his helmet to kiss her goodbye and he wasn’t ready for that, not here. He tidied Ailyn’s hair with gloved fingers and was about to close the body bag when the urge not to lose the heart-of-fire overcame him. It was all he had of a happier time. He unfastened it and found Mirta staring at him, grim and unblinking. She wanted it to rest with Ailyn’s body.
There was a solution.
Hearts-of-fire had a grain, a crystalline structure that created lines of weakness that jewelers used to cleave the stones into smaller, workable pieces. Fett set the small disc on its edge and took out his blaster. A couple of hard cracks with the stock split the stone down the cleavage line, and it fell into two slices. Fett eased one piece off the leather thong and handed it to Mirta before placing the remains of the necklace around Ailyn’s neck again.