[Legacy Of The Force] - 08(48)

Beviin followed him.

“You want to watch the show?” said Fett. “I’m just going to see what skills she’s got first.”

“I don’t trust Jedi, Bob’ika. Not that I don’t think you can handle her.”

“We all trusted Kubariet during the war.”

“He was a different kind of Jedi, may he find rest in the manda.” Beviin was a traditionalist; he might not have believed literally in the collective oversoul, but he wished fervently for its existence. He patted the pommel of his beskad. “But I’ll give the woman the benefit of the doubt.”

Jaina was waiting for them in the barn, looking very small and dejected as she sat on an upturned pail. She flinched when Fett approached her; he was so used to getting that reaction that he thought nothing of it until he realized the look on her face wasn’t alarm but concern.

“Something wrong?” she asked.

Fett felt naked. She could sense anxiety clinging to him. He was sure that he wasn’t letting Sintas get to him, but Jaina seemed to smell trouble anyway.

“Family problems, “he said.

“Yeah, tell me about it…” She stood up. “Your granddaughter?”

There was no reason not to tell her. Everyone in Keldabe knew anyway. The shock might teach her a lesson about not letting anything distract you from the task in hand.

“My ex-wife, “he said. “She’s just shown up after being carbonited for thirty-eight years. And she doesn’t know your brother killed her daughter - yet.”

“If you’d rather be with her now…”

“We’ve got work to do.”

His eyes met Jaina’s, and he saw a shared pain he wasn’t expecting. Both of them had families torn apart by tragedy; both had harsh duties ahead. For a heartbeat, they looked at each other, and he could have sworn there was some sympathy, some real compassion in her. He didn’t like that at all.

Jaina drew her lightsaber with slow caution as if she didn’t want to make anyone too jumpy. “Want to see what I can do?”

Fett’s mind emptied instantly of all superfluous thought. Combat was cleansing; he’d done this so often that it was almost a form of meditation. He was in his natural element again, freed from the alien world of relationships he’d never learned to handle.

But he’d learned to master every weapon the galaxy had to offer, bar one.

“Me, too, “said Fett, drawing a lightsaber. “We can teach each other some new tricks.”



BEVIIN-VASUR FARM. OUTSIDE KELDABE

Jaina had thought that she might start her bizarre appren-ticeship with a discussion about Jacen’s prodigious catalog of Force powers, but it wasn’t to be.

“I’m no swordsman, “Fett said, holding the lightsaber like a hammer as he circled her. Its blade was green. She wondered whose hand he’d taken it from, and how. “And I’ve never trained anyone. It’ll be an education for both of us.”

It had to be a trick. Jaina matched his movements, keeping a constant distance from him. She was aware of Beviin as a deep blue blur to her right, watching, and she didn’t feel comfortable. Suspicion emanated from him, but there was a core of… she could only call it good humor. Maybe he felt this was a joke; but palpable malevolence was missing. She found herself mapping him in her Force awareness of the environment anyway, a transponder on a holochart, an enemy vessel not in range but worthy of cautious monitoring.

“I want to learn what Jacen hasn’t, “she said.

Fett stopped and stood with his head slightly tilted. He looked as if he might be smiling under the helmet, and she was ready for that; she thought he’d taunt her, mock her, generally wind her up to see how fast she lost her temper and how many mistakes she could be provoked into mak-ing.

“Tell me what he can do, “said Fett. “Other than kill unarmed women without touching them.”

Jaina felt Beviin move slowly out of her peripheral vision. So Fett didn’t want to test her fighting technique. He was distracting her.

“Apart from the academy basics?”

“Apart from the leaping, mind-influencing, throwing rocks around with his mind…”

“Telekinesis.” Jaina took a step back to keep Beviin in physical view. He had a blaster and that short, flat saber, both hanging from his belt. “I’ve known him to move starships, deflect ion cannon… even turbolasers. He can hear at huge distances with some Theran Force-listening technique. He can create elaborate Force illusions that feel real, he can walk into the past or future, he can control objects like scanners, and he can mind-rub-he even mind-rubbed Ben.”