[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(131)

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 title 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?”