That got a lot of laughs. Carid generally did. There were shouts and guffaws. “Yeah, we know about the dumplings, Carid …”
But … kadikla. So the Mandalore-first movement had a name now, even its own adjective, too. He hadn’t come across Kad’ika yet, the man they said was driving the new nationalism. Fett thought that was remiss of the man, seeing as he’d done just what was asked of him and returned to lead Mandalore.
“Critical mass, ner vod.” Purple Man ignored the howls of laughter. His voice had the tone of someone who’d argued this many times before. “We have a population of fewer than three million here, and maybe as many as three times that in diaspora. We lost a lot of our best troops, our farmland’s been poisoned, and our industrial infrastructure is still shot to harem after ten years. So maybe this is the ideal time to bring some people home. Gather in the exiles while the rest of the galaxy is busy.”
Carid was focused on the debate now, and Fett was temporarily forgotten. “Yeah, group up to make a nice easy target. All of us in one place.”
“Nobody except the vongese has attacked us in a long time.”
“The Empire gutted us. You’ve got a short memory. Or maybe you were still in diapers when Shysa had to kick some pride back into us.”
“Okay, so let’s abandon Mandalore. Go totally nomad again. Keep moving. Rely on the whim of every government except our own.”
“Son, we are the shabla government,” Carid said. “So what do you want to do about it?”
“Consolidate Mandalore and the sector. Bring our people home, and build something nobody’s ever going to overrun again.” Purple Man had a faint accent; a little Coruscanti, a little Keldabian. “A citadel. A power base. So we choose when we stay home and when we go expeditionary.”
“Funny, I thought that was just what we were doing.”
Fett watched the exchange, fascinated. Then he realized everyone was staring at him, waiting for him to respondor at least to call a halt. So this was leadership off the battlefield. It was just like running his business, only more … complex. More variables, more unknownshe hated unknownsand something that was utterly alien to him: responsibility for other people, millions of them, but people who could take care of themselves and ran the place well enough without any bureaucracy.
Or me. Do they need me at all?
“What’s your name?” Fett asked.
Purple Man was leaning against the wall, but he pushed himself away from it with a shrug to stand upright. “Graad,” he said.
“Okay, Graad, it’s policy as of now. I’m asking for two million folks to return to Mandalore. How many you think we’ll get?” It made sense: the planet needed a working population. It needed extra hands to clean up the soil that the vongese had poisoned and to cultivate the land left fallow by dead owners. But every Mandalorian in the galaxy didn’t add up to a single town on many planets. “We’re still short on credits until we become self-sufficient in food production again.”
“We’ll contribute half our profits,” said the MandalMotors chief. “As long as we can sell fighters and equipment to either side, of course.”
“Business is business.” Fett gave him an acknowledging nod. “I’ll chip in a few million creds, too.”
Carid looked around him as if to single out anyone mad enough to dissent, but everyone had what they wanted from the meeting. Mirta still managed to look baleful. The slice of her mother’s heart-of-fire stone dangled on a leather cord around her neck. At least she had a decent helmet now, apparently her first, so that showed just how much of a Mandalorian her father had beenor how little she’d seen of him.
Maybe Mando fathers have been disappointing her all her life.
“One last thing,” Fett said. “I’m going to be away from base for a few days. Uncontactable.”
“How will we notice?” someone muttered.
It was a fair point. “So I’m not the governing kind. But I haven’t let you down yet. While I’m away, Goran Beviin stands in for me.”
There was no dissent. Beviin was solid and trustworthy, and he didn’t want to be Mandalore. He was also a complete savage with a beskad, an ancient Mandalorian iron saber, as many Yuuzhan Vong had discovered the hard way. Any argument about the isolationist policy in Fett’s absence wouldn’t last long.
“We’re done here,” said Carid. “You give me the inventory of all the farmland lying fallow, and my clan will make sure it gets allocated to whoever returns to farm it.” He hung back for a moment and made an exaggerated job of replacing his helmet. “I’m glad you brought Jango home, Mand’alor. It was the right thing to do.”