[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(47)

Sintas half smiled, looking embarrassed. “I have a husband? What happened to him? How long have I been out of it? Come on, tell me.”

She might have lost her memory, but this was the old Sintas, all right, a no-nonsense bounty hunter who didn’t have time for excuses and platitudes. She always wanted to know the score.

Fett took a long, slow breath in the same way he did to prep for storming a room.

She won’t remember tomorrow, Grade mouthed at him.

Fett kicked down the door in his mind. “Thirty-eight years.” Get it over with. He even looked Sintas straight in the eye, although she couldn’t see him. “And I was your husband. I’m Boba Fett.”

He counted to three, like timing a det and getting ready to fling himself flat just before the blast wave reached him. But it never came. Sintas’s eyes moved from side to side as if she was searching. Her expression was almost beatific as some realization dawned on her.

“Who carbonited me?”

“I don’t know. Yet.”

“But you found me.”

“Yeah.”

“You found me.”

“We found you.” There was no point giving Sintas the wrong idea. He owed her more than that. “Mirta did all the work.”

“I don’t remember, “Sintas said. “I don’t remember anything. But if you came for me-after all that time, you were still looking…”

Fett parted his lips to explain that it wasn’t quite like that, but Mirta held up a warning finger. She doesn’t need to know that right now. He stopped in his tracks.

“You’re going to be fine, “he said. “I’ll come back later.”

It was a tactical withdrawal. When Fett turned, Beviin was standing in the doorway with his arms folded. He stepped back to let Fett pass, and then followed him down the passage through to the front of the farmhouse, where Dinua and Jintar were having breakfast with their kids in the kitchen, in a world of their own and clearly delighted to be together again. Fett caught a snatch of their conversation; Jintar was discussing his plans for a new workshop, so he obviously wasn’t planning on more mercenary contracts for a while. Some people managed family life ef-fortlessly even in the most trying conditions.

“I could take the Jedi off your hands today, “Beviin suggested. “Unless you want to be elsewhere.”

“Sooner I kill her idea that I’m some devoted husband, the better, “said Fett. “Just makes it harder for her when she finally gets the full picture.”

He reached the front entrance, but Medrit was blocking it. He was big enough to do that. Medrit had been born solid and tall, but years of pounding metal as an armor-smith had added prodigious muscles to his frame.

“Wait, “Medrit said imperiously. “No sparring with jetiise until you’re properly dressed.” He crooked a soot-stained finger at Fett and led him to his workshop. “Heads will not roll. Okay?”

Laid out on the bench was a set of armor plates, the mid-green paint still unmarked. It was a common color for Mandalorians; it happened to be Fett’s color, too.

“Might as well make the most of the new beskar deposits.” Medrit picked up the breastplate and twirled it between his hands. “I said you should ditch that durasteel armor, didn’t I? Here’s your proper beskar’gam. Wear it in case the Jedi gets lucky. She’ll need to hack away with her jetii’kad for a week to dent this.”

“Humor him, “Beviin said. “He made a collar section specially…”

Fett didn’t plan on testing the beskar’gam in earnest, but the collar intrigued him. It was a near-circular band that hinged open and protected the neck between the helmet and gorget plate. If his father had worn one, he would probably have survived Mace Windu’s decapitating lightsaber blow. Fett slipped it on and rolled his head to test the range of movement in it.

“You think I’m going to spend my time fighting Jaina Solo, do you?” Fett submitted to having some plates swapped out. “Plenty more ways to train her to hunt her brother than wearing myself out.”

“If I had my way, you’d be wearing greaves, too. You ask for trouble, Mand’alor.”

“It doesn’t look like mine. Too new.”

“Okay, you want your dents in it? I’ll paint dents on it if you want to look roughy-toughy. It’s beskar. It doesn’t dent.”

Mirta’s reminder that he was an ungrateful shabuir wormed into his head. “It’s good, Medrit. Thanks.”

Beviin helped him attach the rest of the plates. The new helmet-he’d sort that later, himself. The durasteel one would do for today. He swung his arms a few times and ac-customed himself to the extra weight before replacing his jetpack and Wookiee braids, and then set off for the hangar that he’d earmarked as a training area.