[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(20)

“She can’t hear you, “he said.

“Some say carbonited people do.”

They said Han Solo did, but Fett saw no reason to upset Mirta more than she was already. “She’ll hear you soon enough.”

Mirta carried on anyway. “Maybe I’m rehearsing a difficult speech.”

She was right, but she didn’t know that it wouldn’t be one-way traffic. Fett decided to face all that if and when it happened, and wished he’d been half the man his father had been. Jango Fett would have known what to say.

Slave I touched down at Beviin’s farm in Keldabe at dusk. A small grim-faced welcoming committee met the ship, and Fett could only feel discomfort that he had an audience to observe yet again what a shabby job he’d made of being a husband and father. Dr. Beluine was there as commanded, incongruous in his soft city clothes, his white-blond hair whipped by the breeze. Beviin and his partner Medrit Vasur looked at the carbonite slab with matching frowns. It was rare to see Beviin wearing anything but a cheerful grin.

Medrit raised an eyebrow. “I’m no expert, of course, but that was a handsome woman you had there, Fett.”

Fett noted the past tense and the implication of his ingratitude for the lucky hand he’d been dealt and followed the slab into Medrit’s workshop. The couple’s grandchildren, Shalk and Briila, tagged along to watch the spectacle, eyes wide.

Jintar, their father, moved in from nowhere and scooped both of them up in his arms. So he was back from the war, then; his right hand was heavily bandaged. The next time he went to fight, Shalk would be old enough to join him and learn the craft of warfare. He’d be eight next birthday, Beviin had said. It seemed far too young, and yet Fett had been at his father’s side at that age, and had loved every moment. Dangerous missions had been a rare treat.

“Come on, ad’ike, “Jintar said to them. “Nothing to see here. It’s rude to stare at the Mandalore.”

“Is the lady dead?” Briila asked. “Can we have her stuff?”

“Sleeping, “said Jintar, and winked at Fett.

Medrit had cleaned up one of the side rooms in the Workshop for the carbonite removal process. It was where he recharged blaster power packs with Tibanna gas. Beluine looked horrified as the slab was lowered into the release vat.

“It’s okay, “Medrit said, looming over the doctor. He was tall enough to make a Wookiee think twice. “I’ve thawed plenty of this stuff. It’s how we used to ship nerf carcasses when I worked on Olanet.”

“How very reassuring.” Beluine opened his bag to take out a tray of pneumatic dispensers and vials of medication. “I must write a paper on that for the Galactic Journal of Endocrinology…”

Now the onlookers had thinned out to just Fett, Mirta, Beluine, Medrit, and Beviin. Medrit stood with his hand on the controls. “Say the word, Mand’alor.”

It was said that carbonite freezing was how people had traveled interstellar distances before hyperdrive. Fett’s most vivid experience of the technique had been Han Solo’s incarceration, and the consequence of Solo’s flailing around blind after being released from the block was still something Fett saw each day in the mirror when he shaved.

“Don’t worry, Bob’ika.” Beviin grinned nervously, daring to joke when everyone else looked on the grim edge of mourning. “We don’t have any sarlaccs here.”

Only Beviin could get away with that. He was the closest Fett had to a friend.

“As soon as she’s free of the carbonite, I need to get her heart rate and blood oxygen up right away to minimize tissue damage, “said Beluine. He held a hypospray as if it were a miniature blaster, and in his other hand he had an oxygen delivery device like an aquata breather. “Stand clear.”

“Ready, Doc?” Medrit asked.

“Ready.”

Medrit pressed the switches and the ferrocrete vat erupted with cold vapor and loud hisses as gas escaped-Fett thought it was noisier than he remembered, and then he realized it wasn’t the escaping by-products of the thaw but the weak panting squeals of a woman in agony. Beluine dived forward, blocking his path, and reached into the miniature storm that had formed above the vat.

“It’s okay, Ba’buir, it’s okay, it’s okay…” Mirta leaned in, too, taking the spent hypo from Beluine’s hand while he applied the breather. Sintas wasn’t screaming-she’d never been a weakling, not her-but the sounds she was making were incoherent, the panic of any terrified animal with something unfamiliar pressed to its mouth by a stranger. “You’re safe, it’s okay. You’re going to be all right.”