Beviin hauled himself onto a bar stool and put his helmet to one side while he thumbed through his datapad.
“He kills his underlings, too, Mand’alor.” He held out the pad so that Fett could see the message from one of his long list of informants. Coruscant wasn’t half as far from Mandalore as it thought it was. “Look, Ma, no hands. He’s learning to break necks with the Force. Some lieutenant called Tebut, and it’s the talk of the fleet-well, the people I know in the fleet, anyway. He’s so adorable.”
“Just like old times, “Fett said. “Except I almost liked Vader.”
Jaina’s face fell slightly, as if she hadn’t known about
Jacen’s latest victim. She didn’t accuse him of lying to wind her up, either, because they both knew what Jacen had become. It was funny how victims mattered more when they had names. Fett resisted the urge to remind her that beings in all the places that Jacen had attacked had names, too.
“You sent the crushgaunts, “said Jaina. “So we took that as a big hint.”
“Try ten tons of high-spec thermal detonator.”
“We want him alive.”
“Alive’s always more complicated. Only do alive if they pay extra, Jedi.”
Fett laid his blaster on the counter and removed his helmet two-handed. He was more comfortable revealing his face now. Up to a few months earlier he wouldn’t even have let his own men see him without the helmet, except Beviin, but he’d seen the look on Han Solo’s face when the man had looked into his eyes close-up for the first time. He could read Solo’s reaction-that the cold, implacable, toughened durasteel helmet didn’t conceal a heart of gold, just more durasteel, more cold, and less heart. If they wanted to see a happy and well-adjusted Mandalorian under the armor, then they could go admire Beviin.
Fett watched Jaina’s eyes take him in.
“If I don’t do it, “she said, “I don’t think anyone else can.”
Beviin was used to playing a double-act with Fett at times like this-nice Mando, nasty Mando. He slipped into the role without even needing a cue while Fett just stared into Jaina’s face, testing her nerve.
“You’ve got a lightsaber, lady, and Jacen Solo doesn’t have beskar’gam, “Beviin said. “What can we possibly teach you? Ambush? Blaster master class?” He drew his ancient beskad, the traditional Mandalorian iron saber, halfway out of its hilt. “My handy Vong-splitting technique?”
Jaina’s eyes never left Fett’s. “Beskar is your special iron, yes? The metal the crushgaunts were made from.”
“Available at all good arms dealerships now, “Beviin said cheerfully. “We’ve got a lovely new supply. Is this all you really want? Just a few tips on whacking the bathrobe brigade?”
“Fett, “Jaina said, undistracted, “you can teach me to bring down Jedi. You’ve done it often enough.”
Fett counted two beats. “And end the war just when our economy’s getting back on its feet?”
“You’d sacrifice whole worlds for your own ends?”
“You sacrificed Mandalore to the Vong for your own ends.”
“I’m sorry we didn’t give you the reconstruction aid we should have, Fett. I’m not proud of that. But can’t you see what Jacen’s going to do if he carries on? I need to stop him before he consolidates his power.”
She wouldn’t back down, he gave her that much. If Sintas hadn’t been back from the dead, with all the unfolding misery that went with it, Fett might have found training Jaina Solo as near to enjoyable, as near to sweet revenge, as he’d come in decades.
Do it. Jacen Solo needs removing, because there’ll still be plenty of business in his wake, and there’s no irony finer than the Jedi elite fighting their own. Twin-on-twin com-bat, just like the Vong boys always wanted. Shame most of ‘em are too dead to enjoy it.
But if he really listened to the unquiet voice in his mind, and didn’t slap it into silence, he heard what it was whispering: that the more the war spread, the more likely it was that Shalk and Briila might see their father killed in action. No kid deserved to go through what Fett had.
Mando’ade fight, always have. ‘What’s wrong with you?
What was wrong was that they were Beviin’s grandchildren, and Beviin and Medrit had adopted the kids’ mother-Dinua-when her own mother was killed fighting the vongese with Fett. They’d all had enough of bereave-ment. Fett’s whole life was tangled in orphans and unlived lives and moral debts.
He looked Jaina up and down. She was small, and her smooth hands said that she’d never had to build an en-trenchment with them. But she was a Jedi-he could treble her weight and reach based on that alone-and she was going after her brother whether Fett trained her or not. He could see it in her eyes; a little fear, maybe not of him, and shame that she’d even had to ask the favor. It clearly stuck in her throat to beg her father’s old enemy for anything, but she was going to tough it out to get a necessary job done.