Enceri was remote even by Mandalore’s standards; no wonder it had taken years to stumble across it. The Yuuzhan Vong had used singularity ordnance indiscriminately, smashing huge craters across the planet because they wanted to annihilate Mandalore, not conquer it.
Fett enjoyed a rare moment of pleasure imagining the look on their vile, arrogant, disfigured faces if they’d known they were helping Mandalore find a new source of the metal that had once made it mighty.
Beskar was the toughest metal known to science. Even lightsabers had trouble with it. There had been a time when every army in the galaxy wanted a supply.
It was still the most valuable metal on the market, and there was a war raging around them.
“I feel a new economic era coming on,” said Fett.
Beviin winked. “Oya manda.”
“And it’s not on anyone’s land.” Fett realized the reason he’d never quite got a handle on what Mandalorian government actually meant was because it was so nebulous. “This is a resource for Mandalore as a whole.”
“If you say it is, then it is. That’s the Mandalore’s prerogative.”
“Okay, I say it is. Time to gather the chieftains and do a little forward planning.”
“Shab,” said Medrit, underwhelmed by the Mand’alor’s power to requisition resources. “You’re sounding just like a proper head of state.”
Fett would normally have found a family meal and a long explanation of the finer points of metallurgy worse than a spell in the Sarlacc. It was hard enough getting used to having a granddaughter without being besieged by Beviin’s noisy, messy, demonstrative family. But that evening, he tolerated it.
“It’s not just the ore,” Medrit said, drawing an imaginary graph in midair with a nuna drumstick. “It’s the processing. Part of the strength of the metal is in what’s added during smelting and how it’s worked. What you saw was just a test batch.”
“Have we got the facilities to do that anymore?” Fett wasn’t used to eating in front of anyone else. Dinua’s son and daughter, Shalk and Briilaseven and five, he estimatedstared at him, unimpressed, across the table. The scrutiny of small children was unnerving. “Do we have a windfall we can’t exploit?”
“On a small scalewe can do it,” Beviin said. “I’ve done a few rough calculations. If the lode produces the yield we think it will, we’re going to need some help from mining right through to processing. MandalMotors could process some of it, if they’re willing to shift resources from combat craft. But the rest… we need droids.”
“But what are you going to do with it?” Dinua asked.
“What?”
“Sell it for foreign currency, or use it to arm ourselves?”
Dinua, orphaned on the battlefield like Fett, was a savagely smart woman. Beviin had adopted her the moment her mother was killed, but Fett found that ability to turn strangers into familythat central part of Mandalorian culturewas beyond him. Even Medritimpatient, critical, short-temperedhad accepted the unexpected addition to their household without a murmur. Adoption was what Mandalorians did, and always had.
If he can do it, why can’t I? With my own flesh and blood, too.
“We do both,” said Fett, trying to stay on the subject. “Some manufactured goods for export, some for our own rearmament.”
“You’ll find a lot of support for that,” Beviin said. “Satisfies both camps.”
What else can I do with the time I have left to me, except leave Mandalore in decent shape? “If we’ve got it, someone will want to take it.”
“You think anyone’s stupid enough to try invading like the Empire did?” Beviin said. “After we kicked Vong shebs like that?”
“Ba’buir’s cussing,” said Shalk gravely. “Can I say shebs, too?”
“No, you can’t.” Dinua clicked her teeth in annoyance. “Buir, please, not in front of the kids. Mand’alor, how are you going to announce the find? Other than the old-fashioned Mando way, by showing up at the border with an invading army?”
“Do we have to announce it?”
“If we want foreign revenue.”
“We don’t have a finance minister, but the job’s yours.”
“I’m serious.”
“Commission a few starfighters and see who notices,” Fett said. “Maybe this Kad’ika has a point-that we don’t have to be on one side or the other. There’s a third side, as … Goran says.” It was only courtesy to address him by his first name in his own house. Fett had so little nonhostile interaction with anyone that basic etiquette felt like a minefield. “Our own.”