Текст книги "Sacrifice "

Автор книги: Karen Traviss

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 33 (всего у книги 34 страниц)

He was only ten or maybe fifteen years older than Fett. "I don't think I've ever been to Phaeda."

The tapcaf owner lined up fresh ales on the bar. "I see you've met Kad'ika, then, Mand'alor."

"Yeah. Fascinating."

"The old man with him—don't see him around much. Gotab, I think. I used to think that was Kad'ika's father, but apparently not."

The name didn't mean a thing to Fett, but he filed it mentally under subjects to investigate later. Phaeda. He'd scour Slave I's databases, maybe hack into the Phaeda archives. Mirta was examining the stone closely.

"Must have cost every credit you had, Ba'buir."

She passed the heart-of-fire to Fett and he turned it over in his fingers, touching the carving on the edge. Only the most skilled cutter could facet the uncut stones without shattering them, let alone carve them.

"It's rare to find one with all the colors in it. They're usually red or orange, but the light ones with the whole rainbow . . . they cost."

"I saw a blue one once," Mirta said.

"I was sixteen. I couldn't afford a blue one."

Fett could afford one now, any number of them, even the rarest of deep royal-blue stones that showed their incredible range of multicolored fire only in bright sunlight. But he no longer had a lover to give them to. It had been a very long time.

"Tell me something about Ailyn," he said. "Was she ever happy?"

Mirta chewed over the question. "I don't think so."

The only thing Fett knew about his own daughter beyond the people she'd killed and what she'd stolen was that she had never been happy, never called him Dad, and that she'd taught Mirta to hate him. He still hadn't questioned the girl about that. The time never felt right.

"Were you ever happy?" Mirta asked.

Fett never considered if anyone wondered if he was happy or not.

There seemed to be a blanket assumption that Boba Fett coasted along on a narrow path of dispassion, never angry, never happy, never sad.

"I was happy as a kid," he said at last. "I stopped being happy on Geonosis and I never bothered trying again."

But he'd been angry, all right: angry, grief-stricken, terrified, lonely, and hostile. He'd run through all the negative emotions at full intensity in those days after his father's death, crammed in the spaces between doing what he had to do to survive, when he needed to be all cold logic. It was a switch he had to throw, off and on, off and on, until one day it didn't switch on again, and the pain was gone. So were the joy and the love.

If he did what his dad wanted, it might come back. If he did an honorable job, and tried to at least understand the remnant of his own family, he stood a chance of recapturing some of what was ripped from him in that arena on Geonosis.

"Drink up, Ba'buir" Mirta said. "I want to go and do some digging about Phaeda."

GALACTIC ALLIANCE WARSHIP OCEAN.

ON STATION JUST BEYOND CORELLIAN SPACE

It's awfully good of you to join us," said Admiral Niathal. Jacen walked onto the bridge and tasted the mix of emotions around him, ranging from vague interest to nervousness. "I was very sorry indeed to hear of your loss."

Jacen nodded politely. She sounded as if she really meant the condolence, but then she was pretty good at hitting the right note. He was visiting Ocean in his capacity as Chief of State to try out a little hearts-and-minds on a gathering of the various ally worlds. There was nothing like a meeting on a suitably mighty warship to show folks what was at stake. The Confederation was now planning a major push against the Core Worlds, intelligence suggested, so Jacen hoped everyone was paying attention.

Life was going on much as before. Recent days seemed to have been a lot of sweat for nothing. If he needed any more answers to Sith philosophical questions, he was on his own. Lumiya had managed to commit suicide-by– Skywalker. Jacen might not have been part of the Jedi Council, but the GAG were very efficient interceptors of messages.

Uncle Luke did it. He actually did it. Like my dad—you never know how far they'll go, do you?

"So," Jacen said, "Corellia seems to have been very quiet in my absence."

"They were waiting for your return—that push on the Core looks imminent. They'd hate you to miss anything." Niathal, annoyed or not about his extra day or so of absence, seemed to have an air about her of someone who was suddenly more comfortable with her new role, as if she'd taken advantage of his back being turned to forge fresh alliances and consolidate her power. It was almost like a fragrance; the aura that surrounded the love of power was something Jacen knew very well indeed.

"The triumvirate is still doing the day-to-day running of affairs, but I've got our Intel folks and political analysts reading the signs about who might replace the dear departed Prime—" She stopped abruptly, and this time she was genuinely rattled. He could feel it. "I'm so sorry.

That was grossly insensitive of me under the circumstances."

"It's okay." Maybe there was a gentler side to Niathal after all.

If there was, he'd exploit it to the hilt. "Can't tread on eggs and suspend all

normal conversation about deaths. The best thing we can do to honor my aunt's memory is to win for her."

"Indeed."

"Murkhana seems tense. We're past the deadline, yes?"

"We're keeping a watching brief on that. Might well be Mandalorian psych tactics. Eight X-wings on standby to keep the peace is the price of GA harmony. On the other hand, if the Mandalorians do show up to support their Verpine allies by halting disputed production in their own inimitable way, then at least we might get a very useful look at the capabilities of their new assault fighter."

"Some might think," he said quietly, "that we'd prefer to see them attack Murkhana than not."

"I never turn down intelligence, Colonel Solo."

"Very wise, Admiral Niathal."

Jacen wandered over to the bridge holochart that showed the entire Corellian theater. They still had a lot of ships. There was a limited action going on on the Coreward side of the chart. It always struck Jacen as overdetached to show real-time life-and-death struggles as charmingly aesthetic and silent graphics.

"Is this current?"

"Yes, sir," said the officer of the watch. "Updated once a minute."

"I think we're missing something, Lieutenant," Jacen said, dipping his fingertip into the maze of light to make his point. "Look, what you have here is actually a flotilla of corvettes, and this Destroyer here will move into this position, because she's actually operating a—"

He trailed off, aware of the raised eyebrows and puzzled looks he was getting, but bathed in the growing warmth of revelation.

I can see all this.

"Can we check that out?" the officer of the watch called to a colleague. "Colonel Solo is rarely mistaken."

Colonel Solo, Jacen thought, had just had the epiphany of his life.

It's true. Lumiya was right. Oh, this is exquisite. I was blind before. How did I ever think I could succeed as a commander without this?

Lumiya had promised him a battlefield awareness and judgment that made ordinary battle meditation look like a finger painting—to sense and coordinate by the power of his mind and will alone, a power that only came to fruition in the Master of the Sith.

It's me. It really is. It was Mara's sacrifice after all, I accept that now.

But I still don't understand the prophecy. And I don't like what I can't understand.

He was a Sith Lord. Now his work could truly begin.

It had happened.

And it was beautiful.

JEDI COUNCIL SHUTTLE, HAPES CLUSTER

Luke was grateful for something he still couldn't understand. He paused before he walked through the doors to the compartment, taking a few deep breaths. Cilghal looked up as he came in, and moved as if to leave.

Mara—no, Mara's body—lay draped from the neck down in a plain white sheet on an examination table. Luke had steeled himself for something terrible, imagining her horribly disfigured or her features contorted; but she simply looked as if she were sleeping on her back, pale and peaceful, her red hair smoothly tidy in a way it never was when he watched her as she

slept.

"It's okay, Cilghal," he said. "I don't need to be alone with her."

"Oh, yes, you do, Luke," she said softly "And I can come back later."

"I don't understand it," he said. "But I get to hold her one last time, and I wondered if I ever would. I can't tell you how grateful I am."

He couldn't see Cilghal's face now. His eyes were hot and brimming.

She patted his arm.

"You thought she would become discorporeal," she said.

"We talked about it once or twice. I thought she might choose that when the time came. I'm glad she changed her mind."

"She certainly made sure we had evidence." Cilghal paused for a second, inhaled sharply, and started again. "It was poison, one I've never seen before. But don't doubt that she also wanted you to be able to say good– bye."

Cilghal turned and hurried out.

Luke couldn't speak or even look away from Mara, and he spent a long time staring into her face. If her eyes had opened, and she'd asked how long she'd overslept, he wouldn't have been surprised. He lifted the sheet to clasp her left hand, and it was just the chill that made him flinch. After a while the skin felt warm from the heat of his own body.

Cilghal needed forensic evidence for the record. But Lumiya had killed Mara, and Lumiya had paid the price. There was no investigation to follow.

Yet that meant there was no need for Mara to remain now, and Luke was torn between wanting never to take his eyes from her and recalling how Yoda became one with the Force: then he might really see her again.

But he understood so little of those elements of mysticism. Right then, he was grateful to settle for watching her.

"You really did want to see me, didn't you?" he whispered, and leaned over to kiss her. He wondered if she would vanish in the next instant. He didn't dare look away, and knew that it was only stopping him from accepting that she was gone. Even when he felt Ben walking toward the compartment, and heard him walk softly across the deck, he didn't turn around. He reached out his left arm so Ben would walk up to him and accept the embrace while Luke watched over Mara.

"Hey, sweetheart," he said to her. "It's Ben."

"I'm sorry you couldn't find me, Dad," he said. "I just had to go to her and be there."

It was the first time Luke had spoken to Ben since before Mara had left: it felt like the first time in ages, in fact. Luke tried to think about what it must have been like for Ben to stand guard over his mother's body, alone and scared, but he was still too mired in his own grief and shock.

"Dad ... I know she's telling us something. I've been thinking about it all the way back."

Poor kid. Luke didn't quite understand what he meant, but they could talk it through later. He was proud of his son's strength and dignity. Ben could take the other news, too. He did a man's job now.

"Anyway, I got Lumiya."

"Yeah?" Ben sounded surprised. "What do you mean, got?"

"I killed her. I won't dress it up. I owed it to Mara to give her justice."

Ben was totally silent. Luke felt a small disturbance around him and his muscles stiffened.

"Dad . . ."

"I know, legal process and all that, but legal process . . . Lumiya said she had to . . . well, a life for a life. That's all."

"Dad . . . Dad, it wasn't Lumiya."

"It was. She said

What exactly had Lumiya said?

"No, no, it can't be, because I was right next to her at the moment Mom died, nowhere near the scene. We'd landed on Kavan, both of us. She was still in the Sith sphere."

Luke heard Ben's voice from a long way away, and everything was upended again.

It wasn't her. It wasn't Lumiya.

"Dad, take it easy, okay? We'll find who did it." Ben grabbed his shoulders. "Dad, that's why Mom stayed. She stayed so we could find evidence. We don't know who did it yet. Forget about Lumiya. You just got to her first—I was going after her before Mom died. You did the galaxy a necessary service."

No, he hadn't. Luke didn't feel he had done that at all. He'd killed Lumiya —evil as she was—for something she hadn't done. That wasn't justice.

Luke found himself sinking to his knees. "I killed the wrong—"

"Sith."

"I killed the wrong person. But she said—"

Ben put his hands on either side of his father's face, suddenly years older than Luke. "Look at me, Dad. It's not good to do this here.

Let's talk elsewhere."

"Ben . . ."

"What about all the other people she killed and had killed? She's not worth your anguish, Dad. Save your tears for Mom, 'cos I will."

Luke managed to hang on for a few more minutes. When he couldn't stand it any longer, he strode off to his cabin, shut the hatch, and sobbed and raged in private until he was spent. He'd thought he was bearing up well, holding in all those tears, and then something like Lumiya added a straw to the scales and the floodgates opened. He hated her for that. He'd wanted to weep for Mara, his grief untainted by anything connected with the evil that had led to her death. He didn't want Lumiya intruding in this moment, and yet somehow she had.

Whoever had killed Mara was still around. He could focus on bringing them to justice, and that meant he had something else to hang on to while he struggled with grief.

But Lumiya had done it again.

She'd fooled him one last time, manipulated him one last time, thwarted him one last time, and it broke something deep, deep inside him.

chapter twenty-four

Message to: Hapan Meet Ops

Originating station: Terephon

Unregistered and unidentified ship notified to us by Jedi Master Skywalker has been removed without authorization from Tu'ana City. Please advise Master Skywalker that we regret this act of theft while the vessel was in our jurisdiction, and will meet any claim for compensation.

MANDALMOTORS LANDING STRIP, KELDABE, MANDALORE

Boba Fett meshed his fingers to push his gloves back tight on his hands, and looked up at the open cockpit of the Bes'uliik. Under his visor, he allowed himself an intensely private, broad grin.

Beviin applauded, laughing. "Mando boys on tour! Come on, Bob'ika, take that jet pack off before you get in or you'll have a nasty involuntary ejection at altitude . . ."

Spirits were high. Fett hadn't led a Mandalorian strike force since the vongese war, as far as he could recall. There might have been others, but that was the big one, the one that counted.

There were cheers of "Oya manda!" as Bes'uliik prototype fighters were rolled out from the hangar. People were taking holorecordings and pointing out the finer points of the airframe to their kids. The mood around Fett felt like a heady blend of nostalgia and optimism for the future, which was perhaps inappropriate considering that they were about to violate Murkhana sovereign territory—only temporarily, of course—and bomb a couple of its factory complexes into Hutt space.

It was all being done considerately. He'd made a point of sending a warning to factory staff and residents in the likely blast zone to evacuate well in advance. It wasn't as if the Mando flight was sneaking in and hammering them without decent notice. Mando'ade weren't savages, after all. Well, not

recently . . . and only to vongese, if they were.

Besides, Fett wanted decent HNE coverage of the new fighter in action. It was worth an armored division in terms of deterrent. There was nothing sloppier than finishing an engagement before the media had a chance to set up and record it.

Dad would have loved this.

Fett was due to be the last pilot to embark, so he watched the other pilots getting into their cockpits. Beviin had been looking forward to this like a kid before a birthday. Medrit lifted up their grandchildren, Shalk and Briila, so the kids could slap their handprints on the fuselage in paint. It was a discreet light gray, although Shalk insisted a good verdyc blood-red shade would have been heaps and heaps better.

"Ba'buir," called Mirta. "Hey, hang on! Pare sol!"

Fett turned. Mirta was running across the field, datapad clutched in her hand, and Orade ran with her. Either she thought Ba'buir was so senile that he wasn't capable of returning alive from a simple bombing raid in the hardest fighter on the market, or she wanted to do something unforgivably sentimental. He braced for mild embarrassment.

But she didn't look like she was about to have a sentimental moment. She looked—distraught.

Fett automatically did a quick scan around the crowd to make sure everyone whose survival mattered to him was still there and in one piece.

Mirta was clearly bearing bad news that couldn't wait.

Ah well. It happens.

"Ba'buir," she panted. "I want you to be really calm about this."

Fett said nothing, and just pointed to his visor.

"I'm not sure how to tell you this." She brandished the datapad as if she wanted to show she had evidence, and that she wasn't kidding.

"It's . . . I don't know . . ."

"Spit it out."

"You know I started going through the Phaeda stuff?"

"Yeah."

"I did a search of all the archive material for names like Resada and Rezoda"

Fett could see he was going to have to drag it out of her a grunt at a time. "Yeah."

"Rezodar, gangster. Dead gangster, in fact. Died around thirty-eight years ago. That's the name stored in the heart-of-fire."

Fett noted Orade looking at Mirta as if he was more worried about her than about Fett's wrath for once. "That's going to be a significant date, I assume."

"It is. I found he had an outstanding estate, which is what Phaeda calls leaving stuff of value without a will or anyone to claim it. The state can't claim it, so they store it. The state lawyer's really annoyed about still having to store stuff, and he says if we want to file a claim, he'll be a happier man. It'll take some time."

Fett wasn't sure that news of a very dead scumbag's leavings was worth interrupting his Bes'uliik moment. But Mirta wasn't the drama-queen kind. This had to be something about Sintas's death that would make him very, very focused. She'd worked out that he'd been touchy—and then some —about slights to Sintas, even if he had left her.

"Mirta," Fett said firmly. He rarely used her name. "Just tell me the seriously bad bit."

She handed him the datapad. The screen was already set to show images of what was stored in Rezodar's lockup, all numbered by the inheritance court division. Fett thumbed through them.

"Just look for the carbonite slab, Ba'buir."

Fett didn't like the sound of that.

When he got to it, he couldn't quite make out the contours, so he magnified the image.

Oh, fierfek . . .

He wanted to blurt out something, but no sound came anyway, and nobody was any the wiser with a man in a helmet. His legs threatened to give way. He handed the datapad back to her, taking a deep, slow breath to try to control the tremor in his guts.

"What do you need from me to get this released?" Fett was sure his voice was shaking. "Credits? Signature?"

"Is that it?" Mirta demanded.

"Just tell me." It can't be true. It can't be.

"I can do it myself." She looked hurt, which wasn't easy for a hard-faced girl like that. "A thousand credits."

"I'll pay." Fett could hardly believe the words that were coming out of his mouth, all in the voice of a calm stranger. "She was—she's my ex-wife, after all."

Sintas was alive.

Sintas Vel, his first and only wife, was alive, provided nothing had gone wrong with the carbonite process.

She was going to have quite a bit of catching up to do with the galaxy—and her shattered family.

Ailyn, what can I say?

"Okay" Mirta was all sour grit again. "Play the hard man in front of your burc'yase, but I know you by now."

Fett had decided to visit the refresher before the sortie. Now was a very good time. "I bet you do."

He strode off, same as ever, because that was what everyone expected, then shut the refresher doors and leaned his back against the wall. He slid all the way down it and squatted there, head in his hands, shaking.

Sintas was alive.

He waited a few minutes, then got to his feet and walked out onto the landing strip to join his Bes'uliik as if nothing had happened.

CAPTAIN'S DAY CABIN, SSD ANAKIN SOLO

I see it now. I know what I loved most and what had to be killed.

Jacen had laid on his bunk for hours, trying to slot the last piece into the puzzle that tormented him. It was the prophecy. It didn't fit.

He will immortalize his love.

It was only when Jacen considered that he might not refer to himself that he started down a complex path that showed the prophecy in its multifaceted complexity. It didn't just have one meaning: it had many.

And this is why I'm now Lord of the Sith.

There'd been no pyrotechnics, and no cataclysmic shift in the Force; and yet, from where he stood now, Jacen looked back and saw a landscape that had changed utterly. It had changed footstep by footstep, act by act,