Anyone who wants me to go down there again can pay triple.
The thought caught him off-guard. It was the sort of vague future plan that was beyond a dying man.
Goran Beviin was waiting for him at the plush Horizon Hotel. He sat at the bar with a large mug of Tarisian ale and a bowl of something that might have been deep-fried crustaceans of some kind. He had almost deferred to the bar’s dress code-his helmet was placed on the bar beside him-but in his deep blue battle-scarred Mandalorian armor he still didn’t fit in among the beautifully dressed patrons. Fett walked up behind him.
“You always sit with your back to the doors?”
Beviin turned, apparently not startled to hear the voice of his Mandalore, ruler of the clans, Commander of Super-commandos. Fett had never quite come to terms with his peacetime role.
“When I’ve assessed the risk, yes.” He looked at Fett’s helmet with slow deliberation. “Can I get you an ale and a drinking straw?”
“You’re a riot. What are those?”
Beviin popped one of the fried things in his mouth and crunched with exaggerated relish. “Coin-crabs. Reminds me of those happy days we spent frying Yuuzhan Vong.”
“Sentimentalist.”
Beviin gestured around at polished wood and expensive upholstery. “This is pretty comfortable. I always think of Taris as a dead world.”
“Maybe that’s why I feel a kinship with it.”
“What?”
“People often think I’m dead, too.” The quip didn’t seem quite as amusing now. There was no point telling anyone else about his condition, not yet-and maybe never. “So what have you got for me?”
Fett sat down on the stool next to Beviin, adjusting his holster carefully. The bartender-a middle-aged human male whose high-collared uniform looked as expensive as his customers’ evening dress-had a question forming on nervous lips. Fett knew it was probably a reminder that sir should remove his helmet. He turned his head so that it was clear he was staring at the man through his visor and waited for him to change his mind. He did. Fett turned back to Beviin.
“Get on with it.”
“Thrackan Sal-Solo approached me with a contract on the whole Solo family.”
You know, I’d really like an ale now. Relax. Never done that. Not like ordinary people. “Direct?”
“Via an intermediary, but he forgets how good my comlink surveillance skills are. And my contacts, of course.”
“Wonder why he didn’t ask me to go after Solo,” said Fett. He considered the coin-crabs and thought better of it. “Everyone else did.”
“Maybe he thinks you’d be bored with it. And too expensive.”
“Right on both counts.” Han Solo was irrelevant now, truly irrelevant. Fett had never had a feud with him anyway: just a string of contracts, and contracts were never personal. “So?”
“So I hear he’s had a few takers.”
“Not you.”
“I don’t do families. I only hunt criminals. I don’t want to be one.”
“I’m still waiting.”
“Okay. Word is that Ailyn’s back and interested in the contract, too.”
Fett was glad of the privacy of his helmet. He rarely registered surprise, because there was almost nothing left in the galaxy that could surprise him. But this felt suddenly raw even after decades.
His only child was alive. He’d heard nothing of her since the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, when billions had lost their lives. How old would she be now? Fifty-four? Fifty-five?
Somehow I knew she wasn’t dead.
“It beats her taking a contract on me.” His stomach chilled. No, you don’t mean that at all: you mean that she’s your daughter, however much she hates you, however much she blames you for her mother’s death, and you’re dying, and you want to see her one last time. She’s all you’ll leave behind to prove that you ever existed. “Who else knows?”
Beviin— late fifties, gray-haired, but with a grin that made him look like a mischievous kid-seemed to be staring into his eyes, concerned. Fett’s helmet never appeared to be a barrier for Mandalorians: somehow they looked straight into the core of him. “I thought nobody did, because she’s calling herself Ailyn Habuur.”
Fett waited. Beviin took a pull of his ale and said nothing.
“So what makes you think she’s Ailyn Vel?”
“My source tells me she’s about fifty, has a Kiffar facial tattoo, and flies a KDY assault ship that I think you’d recognize. But I don’t think that means much to anyone else these days.”
His daughter had hated him enough to kill him and take his ship and armor-at least, that’s what she’d thought had happened. Had she ever found out she’d killed a clone instead?