[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(25)

Ailyn had chased him across the galaxy-or so she thought-and killed a clone she thought was him. If she knew he was alive now and hadn’t tried again, then maybe she had changed her mind … no, that was stupid. You left Sintas and your baby, and you never looked back. Is that how Dad treated you? No, he was always there for you. So what kind of man abandons his own kid?

Every day of his life, Fett had thought of his father and missed him so much that he would have traded absolutely anything-sometimes even his life-for a few more minutes with him, for a chance to touch him and tell him he loved him. Right now it was unbearable. It was as raw as it had been on the day he saw him killed at Geonosis, perhaps more so, because the shock had worn off long ago and had been replaced by cold analysis and-sometimes-dull, gnawing hatred.

“Do you think I want to see her again? I wouldn’t even recognize her. She was a baby when I last saw her.”

“Why are you still talking to me, then?”

The girl was sharp. Not cocky, not insolent; just sharp.

I wouldn’t recognize my own kid. I see my own dad every day in the mirror, and never my own kid. What a thought to die with.

“Why do you care if I find her?”

“Because you might pay me.”

“Right answer.”

“I’m just trying to get by in a tough galaxy.”

“How much?”

She paused. It was the first time he’d seen her confidence waver. She doesn’t know how much to ask. “Five thousand.”

It was the cost of a repeating blaster. “Done. Payable when I see Ailyn Vel and proof of who she is.” He didn’t need her as a guide at all. All he had to do was find Han Solo, and he’d find Ailyn hunting him. But that necklace had seized his interest. “You got transport?”

“Well-“

“Just so you don’t skip out on the deal, you come with me.” I can keep a good eye on you in Slave I, girl. I’m heading Ailyn’s way anyway, so you’re just ballast. “Take it or leave it.”

“Okay.”

“Let’s go.”

Mirta never said a word. She just followed him. She didn’t ask to go back and collect her things, or pose any questions. She was either very cool or very naive. And maybe her whole life was in that scruffy shoulder bag.

But she had his wife’s necklace. And sooner or later he knew he’d ask how she came by it, and how Sintas died. He’d wait a little: he didn’t want to look as if he cared. She could carry on believing that he needed her to locate Ailyn.

But you wouldn’t recognize your own daughter. Just her ship-your old ship.

And here he was, a man who trusted no one, chancing himself on the word of a girl he didn’t know, when he should have been concentrating on finding Taun We and Ko Sai’s data.

But he could do that as well.

And if the girl turned out to be trouble, he could always shoot her.

SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL MEETING ROOM, SENATE BUILDING.

“I think you could do this, Mara,” said Chief Omas. “The enemies we face won’t always be conventional armies, or even in a separate theater of war, so we feel we need a separate arm of the Defense Force concentrating on domestic security.”

Domestic security. Sounds like a lock on the front doors and an intruder alarm. Jacen watched, still concerned by the speed at which events were unraveling.

Mara didn’t move a muscle. She sat with her legs tightly crossed and arms folded, and Jacen felt her dismay from across the room without even wanting to. He tried not to look at Luke, who was standing by the window, staring out at the Coruscant skyline. There was something terrible about conflict with family that was even worse than with others. It felt much more savage and dangerous. You weren’t supposed to have rifts with your loved ones, which was another good reason why Jedi weren’t supposed to have loved ones —

But that’s not Sith. Avoiding attachment is not the Sith way. Are you really wrong about all this?

Jacen shook himself mentally. The moments of indecision would pass. And … he wouldn’t have doubts if he’d been driven by ambition. Reluctance was becoming his touchstone, his proof that he was doing this for the right reasons.

“Why me?” said Mara.

“You’ve been an intelligence agent,” said Omas.

The head of the Security and Intelligence Council, Senator G’vli G’Sil, sat to one side of Omas in silence, scrutinizing Mara and then looking slowly toward Jacen and Luke as if he had never seen a Jedi before.

Mara’s reluctance wasn’t even disguised. “I’ll do my duty for the Alliance,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’m psychologically equipped to head up … well, a secret police force. There’s no other word for it. Spying is one thing, and maybe even assassination, but this is new to me.”