[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(40)

Take this, Mom. Use me. Use the Force I’m channeling through you.

He heard her say “Uh!” as if something had startled her. Then he could feel pressure in his lungs as if he were running hard and fighting for breath. He had no idea how long it lasted. But he had the sense of clutching something tight to his chest, and an awareness somewhere outside his mind and yet at its core showed him the Falcon enveloped in the Force, the hull around her drive assembly compressed instead of expanding catastrophically.

He was sure he wasn’t seeing what his mother was actually looking at, because he had none of the images of entering the atmosphere or landing. The scenes inside the Falcon’s cockpit were being supplied by his memory. He was simultaneously aware both of that rational fact and that his Force power was being funneled through his mother, helping her hold the drive assembly in place by telekinesis.

Then relief swept over him like a wave, making his scalp tingle and his heart pound. The Falcon was down safely. He knew it. Now he could open his eyes. When he did, he was almost surprised to find himself still in the grounds of the Temple in broad daylight.

Jacen opened his comlink. He felt Jaina briefly, but his mind was on his parents. “Mom? Mom, are you okay?”

Leia sounded breathless. “So much for sneaking in discreetly.”

“Everything’s all right, isn’t it?” Jacen could hear his father muttering in the background. “I have to see you both. Stay where you are. I’m coming.”

Jedi seldom ran flat-out in public, so Jacen avoided an undignified sprint with robes flapping and limited himself to a slow jog to the nearest taxi platform instead.

He was the new heir to the Sith legacy and he had seen his grandfather behave in a way that had almost shattered his world. But at that moment he was just a son who was more worried about his parents’ welfare than the affairs of the galaxy.

Attachment had its place. Jacen let himself succumb to it and put aside his growing dispute with both his father and Jaina.

But sooner or later, he knew that a permanent rift in the family was a price he might have to pay.

SLAVE I, PREFLIGHT PANEL CHECK FOR ROONADAN.

Boba Fett had rarely carried passengers-not live or voluntary ones, anyway. The presence of this strange girl in his ship, which was more of a home than anything he owned made of stone and permacrete, bothered him. And yet he simply couldn’t walk away from her.

Mirta Gev had a piece of his past. That mattered a lot when he was running out of future.

“You normally board ships with total strangers?” asked Fett.

Mirta slung her bag over one shoulder. “Are you going to kill me?”

“Nobody’s paying me to.”

“That’s what I thought.”

She boarded Slave I via the cargo hatch and went to follow him through to the cockpit, but he turned to block her path and gestured aft. “I don’t like copilots. Stay put or I’ll lock you in one of the cells.”

Mirta didn’t show the slightest dissent. She just paused and looked around, then sat down on a crate that was secured to the port bulkhead. She opened her bag and rummaged in it before pulling out a chunk of something that she unwrapped and began gnawing.

Fett stared at her.

“Dinner,” she said. “I always carry rations. Just in case.”

Fett fought back a reflex; his instinct was to tell her she was a smart kid. “Yeah, I don’t do in-flight catering,” he said, and swung through the hatch into the main section of the ship. The internal bulkhead shut behind him, because smart kid or not, he wasn’t taking any chances with her.

He wasn’t quite as agile as he’d been a year before. Just moving around in Slave I’s awkward spaces was uncomfortable now. It wasn’t pure pain, but he felt that before long it would be.

Don’t forget you’re dying, Fett.

He settled into his seat and fired up the ship’s drives. Checking the internal cam circuit that gave him a view of each of Slave I’s compartments, he caught a shot of Mirta leaning back against the bulkhead, eyes closed, arms folded across her chest, apparently dozing. Nothing seemed to faze her. He approved of that. There were always women in the galaxy-and men, come to that-who reckoned they were tough but seemed to think that was about a smart mouth and a fancy weapon. The truly tough ones, Fett thought, were the ones who could take anything in their stride and finish the job. Mirta Gev showed every sign of being genuinely, quietly tough.

Fett didn’t like anybody much, but he didn’t dislike her, although the thaw didn’t extend to having her sit up front with him.

He laid in a course to Roonadan. His stomach rumbled: maybe he should have grabbed some of Beviin’s coin-crabs after all. He whiled away the next few hours watching the stock prices from FINE and wondered what he might say to Taun We when he finally caught up with her.