[Legacy Of The Force] - 02(71)

“I would like to know if you find Ko Sai’s research, and if it cures you,” she said.

Fett resisted the urge to ask if that was personal or professional concern. “If I’m still around in a couple of years, you will.”

He left the way he had come in, crawling back up the hazmat access hatch with the aid of his grappling hook and covering the distance to the edge of the roof in a rapid crawl. The disrupter clips were still in place. Checking around him, he jetted over the fence, released the clips-and as far as the fence sensors were concerned he had never been there.

Slave I’s ramp lowered via his remote helmet link and he stepped up it, wondering why he clung so fiercely to his father’s ship. It was a wonderful vessel, but it meant more to him than just the best his fortune could buy.

I’m in my seventies now, and I’ve only just started to be more than someone’s son. Doesn’t mean I love you any less, Dad, but I can’t look back forever.

Boba Fett wasn’t certain what would fill that void and show him his purpose in life, but he knew now that it lay ahead of him, and not behind him frozen in memories.

He stood in front of Slave I, an icon of his childhood, and wondered where the line between trademark and trap was drawn.

“So you didn’t trash the cockpit,” he said, opening the conversation for once.

Mirta was wiping the console. It looked remarkably shiny: Fett kept a clean, well-maintained ship, but this time it looked polished. “Did you get what you came for?” she asked.

He kicked Slave I into life and lifted her clear, looping under the monorail that snaked two kilometers above Vohai’s surface. “I did.”

“What now?”

Fett took refuge behind his visor. He was torn now. He needed to find that impossibly old clone, and he wanted to see Ailyn, and he wanted to know how Sintas had died.

Mirta knew-or claimed to know-all three answers. Sintas’s fate now wasn’t urgent; and he could find Ailyn for himself, because he could find Han Solo, and where Solo was, Ailyn would follow.

So he needed to track that clone of Skirata’s. Even if he didn’t have Ko Sai’s data, he might be good for a tissue sample that a Kaminoan could examine and reverse-engineer.

Still too many uncertainties. Still too many variables.

Fett decided it was time to reveal his interest, but carefully. “Where did you run into that clone?”

“Coruscant. Seemed to be a regular trip for him.” Mirta stared straight ahead as usual. “So where are we heading?”

To find Han Solo, because that’ll lead me to Ailyn.

He staged a conversational diversion. “You’ve got the necklace. You tell me where we’re heading.”

Mirta took the leather cord from her neck and stared at the shimmering stone in her palm. “Let’s try Coruscant.”

Aha. Fett had never taught Ailyn anything about bounty hunting, but she had obviously learned that you could often hide better on a planet that was one vast city of a trillion people than you ever could in a cave up a mountainside on the Outer Rim.

Fett laid in a course for the galactic core; zero, zero, zero. Slave I was about to make the jump to hyperspace when the comlink console flashed impatiently in front of him.

The point of origin said CORELLIA, even if the sender had tried to disguise the source with multiple relays. Fett didn’t get a lot of calls from Corellia, and when he did they usually weren’t the kind that he wanted to take in front of Mirta Gev.

“Time to eat,” he said. “Get back aft and see what you can find in the stores for us.”

Mirta obeyed in silence, without a hint of dissent on face. It was the response of someone used to following orders, not a woman who spent her time in the kitchen. “Okay.”

“Not insulted by that, are you?”

Mirta looked at him as if he were mad. “My father was Mandalorian. So I can fight and cook.”

Fett realized how little he knew about the small details of his own culture. Next time he saw Beviin, he’d ask the man to explain all that. He waited for Mirta to close the internal hatch behind her and then switched the call to a secure circuit.

“Fett here. Make it fast.”

There was a slight pause. “And this is Thrackan Sal-Solo, Corellian Head of State. I’ve got a proposal for you.”

SQUADRON TRAINING SECTION AIRSPACE, CENTAX 2.

The XJ7 below Luke jinked to port and fell away beneath him with astonishing speed. Even for him, Jaina Solo was a serious challenge in aerial combat.

Or maybe I’m slowing down.

Luke throttled his own XJ7 into a dive, plummeting into the moon’s canyons in pursuit of Jaina. He’d thought she’d had enough flight time recently not to need to sharpen her skills, but when Jaina said she was returning to active service, she meant it. She went on exercises with the squadron just like the new intake, colonel or not.