Текст книги "Sacrifice "

Автор книги: Karen Traviss

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"And you're not." Fett punched the controls, and Kuat dwindled to a disk beneath them. "You didn't check visually. Don't rely on the helmet tech all the time."

"Hey, you didn't spot him, either. That's got to be stealth armor."

"He's a Null." There was some history there, she could see that.

"They were black ops clones. The Kaminoans' attempt to improve on my dad's genome for cloning. You can see it didn't work."

"He says his name's Jaing. And did they really shove your head down—"

Fett just turned his head. He still had his helmet on, and even though few things scared Mirta these days, he had a way of being glacially slow and silent that was unsettling. She was just trying to get him to talk, looking for the long-buried man within. It was a forlorn hope. She gripped the console in front of her as Fett tapped in the coordinates for Coruscant, 000—and Slave I jumped to hyperspace.

"Jaing's not as bad as I thought," Mirta said.

"They were all psychiatric cases." Considering he probably hadn't seen them since he was a kid, Fett's recollection seemed painfully vivid.

"They say Jaing tracked Grievous in the war. Master assassin, sniper, general pain in the backside. Don't underestimate him."

"The war before last, you mean."

"It's all one long war to me."

It was time to shut up, she decided. Fett was braced against the pilot's seat, looking uncomfortable; it could be folded down so the pilot could stand at the controls, or raised to form a ledge. He usually opted for the latter. She had a feeling that he was in too much pain to sit down.

"Course laid in," he said. "Let's go talk to him."

Mirta pulled out another painkiller, grabbed his hand, and slapped the capsule into his palm. "And when we drop him off on Coruscant, you see Doctor Beluine. Okay?"

Fett grunted. That was as near as she'd get to agreement. She could see his dread of mortal weakness.

"I'm not relying completely on drugs yet," he said. "All the time I hurt, I know how far it's progressed."

Jaing was sitting cross-legged on the deck of the cargo bay, face-to-face with the animal, which was gazing into his eyes and making little whining, grumbling sounds as if trying to get him to understand something. He seemed oblivious to its smell. They both looked around when Fett and Mirta came through the hatch.

"What is he?" Mirta asked.

"You asking me or Lord Mirdalan?" Jaing held his gloved fingers up in front of the animal's face, some land of signal that produced instant attention and made it lie flat on the deck. Jaing got to his feet. "He's an it. Strills are hermaphrodites. I promised Mird's last owner I'd look after it when he passed to the manda. Strills live a lot longer than we do."

"Heard of them, but never seen one."

"They're nearly extinct on Mandalore. Mird—well, you might say it's a black ops strill. Saw a lot of commando action in a few wars."

Fett shoved his thumbs into his belt in that Pm-fed-up-with-waiting pose. "When you two finish the nature lesson . . ."

Jaing had more lines, fewer gray hairs, and a heavier build than Fett. Mirta could see the cords of muscle in his neck. And he had no scars. He looked like a man who'd spent a lot of time in the sun without a helmet, and who'd laughed a lot. Genetically, this was Fett, but they couldn't have been more different.

"Ain't I gorgeous?" He grinned, and she realized she was staring at him.

"A vision," Fett said sourly, and removed his helmet.

"I think I aged better, Bob'ika.'"

"It's the fact that you reached this age at all that interests me."

"So why do you want me? Need a loan? You've been looking for me for weeks, 'cos I've been hearing all kinds of people putting out the word for me—"

"I'm dying," Fett said.

Jaing chewed over the news, head slightly to one side. "Sorry to hear that. You're not the only clone who met a premature end."

Fett usually cut to the chase. Now he stood silent for a while, jaw muscles twitching. Mirta wondered if he was hurt by the rebuff. She guessed that he was working up to the hardest thing he ever had to say.

He was. "I want your help, Jaing."

Jaing just stared at him. The staring went on for a long time.

Mirta wondered who would give in first. Then it went on a little too long.

"Oh, for fierfek's sake," she sighed. "It's the cloning. His tissues are breaking down and he's got tumors. He needs to know what stopped you aging at double the rate, because his doctor can't help him and neither can the Kaminoans, not even Taun We."

Fett pursed his lips slightly. "What she said."

"So Taun We's still going strong, too, the old aiwha bait. Well, well." Jaing looked Fett up and down. "You had trouble with your leg, I heard. Had to have a transplant. Yes?"

"You're very well informed."

"I'm still a Tipoca boy at heart. I stay in touch with events in the old country."

"What have I got to pay you to quit gloating and give me what I need?"

"No offense, but you can shove your credits where your armor don't reach, Mand'alor.'"

"You don't know what I need yet."

"I can guess."

"Ko Sai's research." Fett gave Jaing's gloves a pointed glance.

"Because I know you found it. You certainly found her."

"You get more with honey than with sour-sap, Boba. Didn't getting your head shoved down the 'freshers teach you anything?"

Fett had no idea how to ask for help. Mirta wasn't sure if it was some male bravado thing or just that he'd never learned, but he wasn't getting far with Jaing, who seemed equally hard and obstinate.

"Can you help him?" she said. "Gedet'ye? Mandalore needs him alive, and so do I."

The clone was still staring into Fett's face. "Remember leading an Imperial force against clone troops on Kamino?"

Fett nodded, utterly impassive. "Yes."

"You didn't feel that we were family then."

"Didn't see any of you defending your brothers, either."

"And you deposed Shysa, you hut'uun. The man who put us back on our

feet as a people. Where were you when the Empire was bleeding us dry?"

Hut'uun was the worst insult any Mando could throw at another, but Fett didn't seem to notice or care. Mirta found out more about her grandfather's murky past every day. So there was no reason to feel her mother and grandmother had been singled out for his total disregard, then: he didn't give a stuff about anyone, except his father, who seemed to have been elevated to an icon of perfection since his death. So Ba'buir fought against Ms own brothers. Maybe he hadn't seen the irony.

If he had, she suspected he'd made a point of looking the other way.

"I'm not proud of anything I've done," Fett said, no hint of emotion in his voice. "But I'm not ashamed of anything, either. I just do what I have to. You don't know what went on between me and Shysa, and maybe you never will."

"He was there when we needed him," said Jaing. "And you weren't.

That's all I need to know."

Fett didn't so much as blink. "I take it you won't be handing over Ko Sai's data, then."

Jaing glanced at Mirta as if he felt sorry for her. She wondered how different her life might have been if Jaing had met Sintas Vel instead of Boba Fett.

"There isn't any data," he said at last. He was still looking at her, not Fett. "Sorry, kid."

Fett didn't even blink. "You must have taken all your vitamins, then, because you should be dead by now."

"I didn't say the research didn't exist. I'm saying that we destroyed it after we took what we needed."

Fett absorbed that slowly. Mirta's heart sank in that conflicting way it had

now, part of her desperate to find a reason to love her ba'buir, and half of her wishing Leia Solo hadn't blocked her shot when she'd tried to kill him.

Do something to make me forgive you. Please. Anything.

"You could have made a fortune from it," Fett said.

"We didn't want it used again. Ever."

"You can't stop cloning. You never will."

"No, but we put a dent in the Kaminoans. That's better than nothing. I don't like Kaminoans."

"I can tell." Fett glanced at Jaing's fine gray gloves. "But I've worked for worse."

"They paid you. They bred us like animals." Jaing looked as if he'd remembered something satisfying. "So Taun We's still alive. I always wondered."

"Leave her alone, Jaing. She's old now."

"So am I, no thanks to her. So how long have you got to live?"

"A year. Maybe two, if my luck holds."

"How long before you have to hand over command?"

"I don't know."

"The last thing Mandalore needs at the moment is a power vacuum."

Mirta saw a glimmer of hope. "So help him, Jaing."

"Best I can do is a blood sample," he said. "But I think you'll hand it over to the Kaminoans, Boba, or your doctors will, and we really wouldn't be very happy about that. Not at all."

"We?" Mirta felt she was getting on better with Jaing. She'd use her advantage as the harmless, tragic granddaughter. If Jaing wouldn't cooperate, she might find one of his brothers who would. "How many of you are there left?"

"You don't need to know that. Look, I've got grandchildren, too, Boba, and great-grandchildren. I've got family on Mandalore. So I care what happens when you're gone." As soon as he said it, it took on a terrible reality for her, and she wondered if it had the same impact on her grandfather. The great Boba Fett's on the way out. "Much as it pains me, your bu'ad here is right —Mandalore needs you for the foreseeable future."

Fett made a very good job of looking bored. Maybe he was. Mirta doubted it. He was negotiating for his life, and if Fett was anything, he was a survivor. He didn't know how to die gracefully like everyone else.

"So I get the blood if I keep the Kaminoans out of it."

"Not that simple," said Jaing.

"It never is."

"You give me blood and tissue samples, and I'll get something made up for you. If I can."

"And I'm supposed to trust you."

"As much as I'm supposed to trust you. And don't even think about taking a sample from me the hard way."

"Okay." Fett's jaw twitched again. "Thank you."

He made it sound like a foreign language, awkward and unfamiliar in his mouth. Mirta resisted the urge to react. Well done, Ba'buir. Was that so hard?

Jaing wasn't done, though. "There's a condition, of course."

"There always is." Fett crossed his arms. "What?"

"Get your shebs back to Mandalore, listen to Kad'ika's advice, and build a strong, united, stable state. Prove you're even half the man that Jaster Mereel and Fenn Shysa were. All you want to do is emulate your old man, Boba. But you're too scared to exceed him, aren't you? You can't be better than Jango. That would never do."

Mirta flinched. Mentioning his father without due reverence seemed to be the one thing that really got Fett riled. His voice didn't change, but he unfolded his arms with slow care.

"My father," said Fett, "finally destroyed the Death Watch. That's his legacy to Mandalore."

"Sectarian feud. Irrelevant to most Mando'ade's lives. Now, are you going to give me a sample?"

"What kind of scientists have you got access to that I haven't?"

"Some things," Jaing said softly, "can't be bought. I have my resources, believe me. Got a medpac with a sharp in it?"

"Yes."

"Draw some blood, then."

"I'll do it," said Mirta.

With Fett, it wasn't a case of simply rolling up sleeves. He had so much equipment on his forearms that Jaing ended up holding the flamethrower attachment, whip assembly, and assorted projectiles. Fett was an armory on legs. Mirta didn't expect him to flinch when she finally found a vein, and he didn't. The few moments while she applied pressure to the blood vessel with her thumb to stop the bleeding afterward were the longest of her life, because he wouldn't meet her eyes, and it reminded her that she could touch him and still not reach him.

Jaing held the vial of red-black blood up to the light and admired it. "That'll do nicely. Give him some candy for being a brave boy, Mirta."

"What now?" Fett asked, unmoved.

"You drop me off, and I'll let you know what we get."

"How?"

"I'll deliver it personally to Keldabe."

"Better make it snappy, then. Or you might be in time for my funeral."

"Oh, I'll be back, and so will plenty of other Mando'ade. You asked us, remember? You asked us to come home." He turned to Mirta. "When the old chakaar dies and they divvy up his armor, make sure you get the flamethrower. Because his plates are duse. Not even proper beskar."

So Jaing wasn't out of touch with events on Mandalore, and he thought Fett's durasteel armor was garbage. The strill padded closer to Jaing and yawned extravagantly with an expression that said it was totally underwhelmed by the discussion. Mirta could smell its breath, which —oddly—wasn't unpleasant at all.

"How does that thing hunt if it's got such a strong scent?" Fett asked.

Jaing bent and ruffled Mird's neck folds. "Only humanoids can smell it. And don't be too hard on Mirta for getting ambushed, Bob'ika. Few people can deal with a full-grown strill swooping down on them. These things fly, you know."

"I don't keep pets." Fett seemed on the edge of a concession. "If you want something to eat, the galley's through that hatch."

Jaing opened a pouch on his belt and took out something dried and dark that looked like leather straps. He threw a strip to Mird and chewed on one himself. "We're fine, thanks."

It took a few seconds for Mirta to work out what was going on. He doesn't want to leave any DNA. He's even more cunning than you, Ba'buir.

Fett turned and swung back through the hatch. Mirta had hoped the two men would find something else to talk about, but the fact they shared a genome clearly meant nothing. Still . . . this was a relative. This was her relative, a great-uncle, even if Mandos didn't care about bloodline half as much as most species. The Kiffar half of her cared about it a lot.

"I feel bad for you, kid," Jaing said. "I feel bad for him, too, I suppose. But apart from some admiration for his skills, I think he's the worst excuse for a Mando'ad this side of the Core. On the other hand, he wins, and we need winners. And my dad would have expected me to help him, no questions asked."

Jaing spoke as if he came from a totally different family, not a vat that contained the duplicated chromosomes of Jango Fett. He slipped a three– sided knife from his forearm plate and trimmed the dried meat into smaller chunks, utterly at ease.

"Jango's not who you mean by 'dad,' is he?" Mirta said.

"No." Jaing smiled wistfully to himself for a moment. "Genes don't count. You ought to know that by now. The man who adopted me was my training sergeant. Finest man who ever lived."

Jaing sounded like he'd come from a far happier family, a strange thing for a clone soldier. "I seem to be bucking the trend of devoted kids," Mirta said. "I tried to kill my grandfather."

"So did your mother, I hear. Boba's obviously got this magic touch with the ladies."

"You seem to know everything about me, but I don't know much about you."

Jaing just grinned. "That's my job, sweetheart."

"So why did you get involved with Cherit's gang over the Twi'leks?"

"Another promise I made a long time ago." He chewed, looking slightly past her in recollection. "I tend to keep them."

He went on chewing, occasionally throwing chunks to Mird. And that was it. Silence descended. She thought he might talk about his family on Mandalore, all the undiscovered relatives she now found she had, but he didn't.

Mirta realized she wasn't going to get anything more out of him, and she didn't want to look needy. She returned to the cockpit, settled into the copilot's seat, and clutched the heart-of-fire against her chest plate. Even if it told her nothing, it was still a connection to her mother and grandmother.

"You fed up with him already?" Fett asked.

She wanted to think Jaing had given Fett some hope and raised his spirits, but it was hard to tell. "Is your armor really rubbish? Why don't you use proper Mandalorian iron, like Beviin says—"

"Don't push your luck. I let you stick a needle in me. That's your fun for the day."

It had cheered him up. Mirta could tell. She hoped that not only would Jaing's unspecified "resources" come through, but that Boba Fett would redeem himself so that her only kin wasn't someone that she wished were someone else.

GAG HQ, CORUSCANT

Jacen didn't want to look too interested in the Policy and Resources Council proceedings. If he showed up for the meeting and sat in the gallery reserved for those hardy citizens who actually cared about the minutiae of government, he might cause questions to be asked.

On the other hand, he might just have been seen as a micromanaging, interfering colonel who put his troops' welfare above schools, health, and

transport.

That was fine by him. He did.

But a low profile was called for, so he stayed at GAG HQ and switched to the HoloNet channel that broadcast Senate proceedings. Lumiya should have been there by now. He waited for the holocam to pan to the public gallery and saw, as he expected, a woman in a sober business suit and veiled headdress. She wasn't the only one, either. Veils were considered very chic this year. She drew no attention at all.

HM-3's amendment to the procurement regulations was Item 357 on an agenda of 563 mind-bogglingly boring tweaks and changes to laws Jacen didn't even know were on the statute books.

I'm going to have to do a lot of delegating when I'm . . . in charge. A handpicked team of administrators. Led by HM-3,1 think.

The session had already started, and Senators who were happy to do the small routine work—and not be noticed—were on Item 24, having a particularly arcane piece of hazardous waste legislation explained to them. Jacen turned off the audio feed and set the monitor to alert him when Item 357 was up. Then he got on with reading more intelligence reports, with the doors to his office wide open.

He almost always kept the doors open. It reassured the troops. It told them that he was an accessible officer, always willing to listen.

But Jori Lekauf peered in, boots still firmly on the corridor side of the doors as if there were a barrier marked OFFICER TERRITORY—DO NOT

PASS.

"Lady at the security gate asking to see you, sir."

Jacen, distracted, felt in the Force to see who it might be. "Mara Skywalker."

Lekauf grinned. "It's great the way you can do that, sir."

"I don't get many women coming to see me, so I could have guessed .

. ." Jaina wouldn't be visiting, not without him feeling her resentment and mistrust marching ahead of her like a vanguard. And it wouldn't have been Tenel Ka. He missed her, and he missed Allana even more. I don't have to kill them. I'd know if I had to, wouldn't I? "Bring her in."

"Yes, sir." Lekauf turned to go.

"Lekauf. . ."

"Sir?"

"Have you ever considered a commission?"

"Not sure if I'm officer material, sir."

"I think you could be. I'm not forcing you, but we need good officers coming through the ranks, because we'll have a challenging role in the years to come."

Lekauf seemed dubious. "I'm willing to give it a go, sir."

"Excellent. I'll get the adjutant to fix the paperwork. We'll probably have to delay staff college until the security situation is more stable, but I'm sure Shevu or Girdun will be happy to guide you. And you'll be able to keep an eye on Ben. He really trusts you."

Lekauf blinked, but there was no expression on his face. "Captain Shevu looks after me very well. I'll learn a lot from him."

Non sequiturs said a lot. Lekauf wasn't naive, for all his cheerful schoolboy appearance. His careful avoidance of Captain Girdun's name confirmed Jacen's observations that the ex-Intel man wasn't a popular officer with troops from the military and CSF side. Spies had that effect. Shevu had come from the CSF—familiar, visible, reliable folks you were happy to see

in a crisis.

Jacen couldn't afford divisions. "You might do Captain Girdun good, too. It's interesting how a good apprentice creates a better teacher."

"Thank you, sir." Lekauf showed not a flicker of reaction. "I'll show your guest in."

Jacen kept one eye on the silent holoscreen while he looked through the reports, one of which he forwarded for Niathal's immediate attention—the Bothans had a new class of frigate coming into service in a matter of days. The P&R meeting had reached Item 102. A busy day: a lot of rubber– stamping was going on. He opened his corn-link and switched the signal to the small bead deep in his ear. Lumiya had a concealed receiver in her cybernetic implants and would hear it in the depths of her skull, silent as a thought.

He used her cover name, the one he'd used in front of Ben. It was common enough. It also helped avoid accidental slips. "Are you helping them make decisions, Shira?"

"Giving them a sense of urgency, that's all. Not that they don't have fancy lunches on their minds anyway."

"Does it look as if anyone troublesome has read the agenda sheets in advance?"

"Not as far as I can see. But don't worry. I can deal with that."

Jacen felt Mara approaching down the corridor, a little tornado of determination. Unlike Lekauf, she walked straight in. Jacen projected a veneer of weary good humor in the Force and smiled at her.

She glanced at the holoscreen. "That looks thrilling."

"Just making sure we get our supply issues worked out." Hiding in plain sight was always the best option, Jacen found. "An amendment so that we can cut the red tape and get our people the right kit. It's been an issue with