“Made him forget.”
“Yes.”
“He could get rich on that.” Fett didn’t sound as if he were mocking. In fact, he felt totally neutral to her; a blank slate in the Force, nothing to read. “Why does he need spies and secret police if he can eavesdrop wherever he wants?”
“I… I don’t know.”
“If he can stop turbolasers singlehanded, why does he need a fleet?”
Jaina looked for the angle. “Again, no idea.”
“Why does he need shields on ships when he can create his own?”
She was balanced on the balls of her feet now, ready to leap. It was so instinctive, so ingrained by training, that she couldn’t override it. She felt threatened. In the corner of her eye, the thin strip of light that marked the barn doors expanded into a wider ribbon and someone-several someones-came in. She had an audience.
I’m the cabaret. Okay, Fett. I never thought this would be a stroll anyway.
Fett lowered the lightsaber and held it with its tip just above the dusty floor, kicking up little clouds of particles as he walked slowly toward her. “Anything else?”
“We… can’t sense him in the Force…”
“Welcome to the mundane world.”
“…and he can make himself invisible, sometimes.”
Beviin burst out laughing. “Wayii, gar ori’shukla!”
Jaina almost turned, triggered by the simple instinct to face the source of a sudden sound, but she fought it. Fett was totally relaxed, now a couple of meters from her, lightsaber held loosely in one gloved hand. His armor looked different-cleaner, brighter. Maybe he’d put on his holiday best.
“What’s that mean, Mirta?” Fett said.
One of the Mandalorians who’d come in was a young woman. Jaina remembered. Uh-uh, his granddaughter, the one Mom and Dad met…. the one who tried to kill him. I’ve come to the right place. Fett understood family rifts. She could feel anxiety in the girl, but it had nothing to do with her. It was more like a bad memory she was trying to forget.
“Beviin says, ‘Oh, dear, you’re totally screwed,’ Jedi.” Mirta moved into her field of view behind Fett, a figure in egg-yolk yellow plates with her helmet under one arm. She felt sharp and bitter now. “Jacen’s very clever, isn’t he?”
He killed her mother. Oh boy.
Jaina felt them all come to a halt. She was tracking mul-tiple targets in her Force sense, aware now of Beviin, Fett, Mirta, and three other armored figures that stood waiting. Maybe she’d made a terrible misjudgment; maybe they were just going to make her pay for the death of Ailyn Vel, an eye for an eye, a daughter for a daughter. Fett was now within striking distance. But his weight was on one leg, not evenly balanced to ready for a blow, and he exuded calm.
He was just tormenting her. He shut down the lightsaber blade and studied the intricately carved hilt. Jaina lowered her lightsaber and then shut it off.
“You’ve got problems, Solo, “Fett said, hooking his thumb in his belt, weight still on his right leg. Jaina didn’t need to be told that. “How you going to take him, then?”
She had no answer yet. Fett shrugged, and then…
The next thing she knew, the wind was knocked out of her as he landed a punch in her gut. Her lightsaber was back on and slashing up across Fett’s chest in a split sec-ond, unplanned; she snapped straight to instant raw instinct. Fett fell back a couple of steps. Jaina bent almost double, gasping for air as her solar plexus screamed in agonized protest at the punch, but she held her lightsaber out in front of her to ward him off.
“You…” Nobody had ever jumped her like that before. She hadn’t sensed it coming. She struggled for breath. But nobody was mocking her and she’d expected contemptu-ous laughter. “What’s that…”
“Lesson over, “Fett said, inspecting his chest plate. Jaina’s eyes were watering, but she could see a scorch mark across Fett from belly to chin, the green paint burned away in a line that spanned the sections of armor like a careless black brushstroke exposing a streak of bare gray metal beneath. “Hurts, doesn’t it?”
Jaina steadied her breathing with a little help from the Force to settle the disrupted nerve impulses. Yes, it hurts, you cretin. She fought to keep her dignity in front of the audience. News of her gullibility would be all over Keldabe in hours.
“And there’s… a point to… all that…, “she said, determined not to show just how painful the blow had been. Fett still held the lightsaber hilt in his right hand. He’d used it like a knuckleduster, and seventy-plus or not, he still had a serious punch on him. “I hope.”