Текст книги "Sacrifice "

Автор книги: Karen Traviss

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loved to dance."

Lumiya tried to think of all the things she had once loved to do, in the days before she entered Imperial service, and remembered none of them. "Get a move on, dancer," she said. "You can start by tracking the Anakin Solo."

The past didn't matter, any of it. There was only the future.

SANVIA VITAJUICE BAR, CORUSCANT

Mara swirled the sediment of groundapple and dewflower juice around her glass and drank reluctantly as Kyp Durron watched. He clearly had something to say that he didn't want to bring up in the Jedi Council Chamber—or in front of Luke.

And Ben still hadn't called in. The Anakin Solo had arrived back at Coruscant two days earlier and there was no sign of Ben. Somehow she'd hoped he would have made his way to Jacen even if he wasn't feeling communicative. Just feeling that he was alive and unharmed wasn't enough.

He was her little boy. She didn't care how many Centerpoints he could take out. This was her kid, and she couldn't stand it. Sometimes, when she looked at their lives through the eyes of a normal mother for a brief moment, she was horrified.

"If I didn't know better," Kyp said, "I'd think you were avoiding me. The whole Jedi Council, in fact."

"Just busy. But you called me here for a reason, and it wasn't to boost my antioxidant levels."

"Well, maybe I'm just observant, but we have an out-of-control Jedi on the loose. Maybe the Council can help you with that. Y'know, combined efforts of the most experienced Jedi in the galaxy?"

"What if I say Luke and I can handle it on our own?"

"Oh, family business . . ."

"That. And the fact that not all the Council is on the same side, so we don't want to open a rift," Mara said.

"Been there—"

"—done that. Put yourself in Corran's position. Would you feel comfortable helping the chief of the GA's bullyboy police after what he's been doing to Corellians and even his own parents? Better we clear up our own family mess."

"I'm surprised that Luke's tolerated Jacen this long," Kyp commented. "I wasn't entirely joking when I said we should make Jacen a Master. People tend to stop throwing rocks when they're inside the tent."

"I think now might not be the best time."

"Is Luke embarrassed he's got problems within his own family?"

Mara almost blurted out that she'd stopped Luke from acting more than once and now she bitterly regretted it, but that wasn't wholly true.

"If I tell you that I've identified the root cause and I'm going to deal with it, will you back off?"

"I note the pronoun."

"Luke knows what I'm doing."

"Which is?"

"I'm going to kill Lumiya."

"That removes the threat to Ben, but how does it deal with Jacen?"

"She's infiltrated the GAG. I don't know who her insiders are, but we have to assume she can get at Jacen, too. She might even influence him. She's

got to go."

"What took you so long? The old cyborg must be running low on lube oil by now. You could take her anytime."

"Luke tends to favor taking people alive and trying to talk them around." She couldn't bring herself to tell Kyp that Luke had had a civilized chat with Lumiya on the resort satellite. Touched her—even when she had her lightwhip in the other hand. He said her intentions felt peaceful. What was he thinking? "But she's not so decrepit, believe me. I won't have an easy time of it."

"I'll help you if you want backup."

"I don't think I'll need it, but thanks." Mara couldn't avoid the next question. "What are the rest of the Council members saying?"

"That you need to get a grip on this. We talk, you know."

"So we have a Jedi Council with the Skywalkers, and a shadow Council meeting without them . . . sounds like a fault line's forming."

"Well, you decided to go whack a Sith without consulting us . . ."

Mara tried to see the double standard, spotted it easily, and ignored it. "If I'd stood up in Council and said, Hey, this lunatic is threatening my kid and keeps coming after my husband, so Pm going to take her head off—you really think the other members would have nodded politely and voted on it? There are folks who think like Luke does, that the Council doesn't condone assassinations, and that would make that fault line into a big rift faster than a greased Podracer."

Kyp inspected the depths of his juice. He'd ordered something thick and opaquely orange that he didn't seem to be enjoying. "So you're saving us from the moral dilemma."

"If that's the way you want to see it."

The vitajuice bar was quiet and smelled unappetizingly of wet raw greenery like a flower shop. Maybe that was why it was so quiet; it made it a good place to meet. Nobody knew them here. Most of the customers seemed to be Ementes, probably because they could guarantee getting totally fruit– based nourishment here, prepared right in front of their six eyes. Ementes weren't big on trust, least of all in Coruscant's catering industry.

How much do I expect everyone to trust me?

Mara struggled with not telling her husband the entire truth while she confided in a friend. That was the problem: they were all friends, the whole Jedi Council. The Galactic Alliance Senate could tear chunks out of itself and not feel it, because it was thousands of rivals and enemies and even strangers, but the Council—they'd grown up together in many cases. They'd fought together. They were family, and not just because they were Jedi.

Cilghal often cited the ancient rule of no attachments, but the Council was one big attachment in its own right.

Mara realized she didn't like dewflower, mused on ways to get around a lightwhip, and then flinched as her comlink chirped. She pulled it from her belt and raised it to see Ben's face.

"Mom, I just landed," he said. "I—"

"Ben? Are you at the military port?"

"No, the civilian one. Galactic City. Look, I'm sorry that—"

"Stay right where you are. Don't move, okay? I'll meet you at Arrivals Seven-B, okay?"

"Mom—"

"No arguing this time. Be there." Mara snapped the comlink closed and grabbed her jacket. "If you're thinking of telling Luke, Kyp, give me a head start."

"Wouldn't dream of getting involved," he said, shrugging. "I'm glad Ben's okay. Just remember that kids like clear limits. He's still too young to set his own."

"Tried that," Mara said, and strode for the doors. "And he set his own just fine."

She worked her way through the crowds at the spaceport, sensing Ben's location. There were black-suited GAG personnel operating openly now, on foot patrol in the arrivals hall with blue-uniformed CSF

officers. They were pretty conspicuous for secret police. Jacen was adept at hearts-and-minds operations; he seemed to like to have his deterrents visible. It certainly seemed to reassure the public, despite the black visors that gave the GAG troopers the facelessly dispassionate air of battle droids.

And suddenly there was Ben, sitting on the white marble pedestal of the ten-meter abstract statue of Prosperity that formed one of the supports for the central dome of the roof of the arrivals hall.

Prosperity, Progress, Culture, and Peace.

Peace. Fat chance.

Ben looked like any other fourteen-year-old kid, drumming his heels idly against the marble, staring intently at his datapad and keying in something one-handed. A GAG trooper passed him. Ben looked up, nodded in acknowledgment, and got a respectful nod back.

If Mara needed a reminder that Ben was anything but a normal teenager, that was it. He was a junior lieutenant. He commanded troopers like that. Her son helped run the secret police.

But she'd learned the most silent and efficient ways to kill the Emperor's enemies by Ben's age, and Luke had been just five years older when he joined the Rebellion.

What did we expect to give birth to, a librarian?

"Hi, Mom." Ben slid the datapad into his jacket pocket. He had that tight– lipped look that went with bracing for a dressing-down. "You're mad at me, right?"

Mara paused, wanting at the same time to yell at him for terrifying her and to grab him in a ferocious hug. She settled for swallowing both reactions and ruffling his hair. He'd never live it down back at the barracks otherwise.

"You couldn't call us?" she said. "You couldn't even tell Jacen where you were?"

Ben frowned slightly. "I'm sorry. I was on a mission and I didn't want to give away my location."

"We can talk about it later. Let's have lunch." She gestured toward the exit. "It's okay. Your dad will be happy just to see you back safe.

No yelling. I promise."

Ben slid off the pedestal in uncharacteristic silence, and they walked to the speeder platforms. Mara kept a careful eye on the crowd, not entirely sure if she'd recognize or even sense Lumiya if she was around. Lumiya might even send one of her minions, and she had people within the GAG. The biggest threat might be one of Ben's own troopers.

"What are you frightened of, Mom?" Ben asked.

Mara didn't take her eyes off the crowds around them. She scanned constantly, as she had been trained to do. "Okay, you might as well know.

Lumiya is trying to kill you."

Ben gave a little grunt that might have been disbelief and seemed to mull over the idea rather than show alarm. "Because she's still got this vendetta with Dad?"

"Mainly because you killed her daughter."

"Uh . . . okay, I'll take her word for it."

Mara shielded Ben as he got into the speeder. It was always a vulnerable moment: she'd taken a few targets as they ducked into vehicles, caught off-balance for a moment. The hatches closed with a sigh of air, and she turned to look at him closely.

"I mean it, Ben. She's dangerous and she's subtle, so until we neutralize her, you have to be on your guard. She's got connections within the GAG. It could be anyone."

"If she was going to have this spy of hers in the Guard kill me, she'd have done it by now." He slouched in the passenger's seat. "But I'll be careful. Wow, this is getting messy. What with Jacen on Fett's list for killing his daughter, and me killing Lumiya's . . . I suppose that's what the job's about, isn't it? You collect enemies. Hey, the boys have got a bet going on when and how Fett's going to come after Jacen."

Mara wasn't sure if Ben was making light of the threat for her sake or just indulging in normal teenage dismissal. Fett was the least of her worries. "And . . . have you placed your bet?"

"Oh, Jacen can take him. But it's kind of weird that Fett hasn't made a move. The longer he waits, the more people get freaked, I suppose."

"If Fett comes for Jacen," she said, "let him handle it. Okay?"

The speeder climbed into one of the automated skylanes and headed for the Rotunda Zone. Ben gazed out of the side screen in silence.

"So can you tell me what this mission was?" Mara asked.

Ben did that three-second pause that meant he was framing his words carefully. "I had to bring back a prototype vessel. I wasn't in any more danger than I could comfortably handle."

That was a relief. It was just an errand, although why Jacen hadn't known about it baffled her. "And you missed your birthday celebration."

"You know how folks say that you get to a point in life when birthdays don't matter? That's how it felt."

"Sweetheart, that's only when you get a lot older. Not fourteen."

If anything could break Mara's heart, it was that: Ben's childhood had passed him by. "Next year, I promise, we'll have a family get-together.

Really mark the day."

"You think the war will be over by then?"

"If it's not, we'll still have a party. All of us."

"Uncle Han and Aunt Leia, too? Even after I tried to arrest Uncle Han?"

And that was the bizarre reality of a civil war: a teenage boy sent to

detain his aunt and uncle, and then fretting over whether they'd attend his next birthday party. Mara sometimes tried to add up the days she'd lived that weren't about killing and warfare, and there were so very, very few. She wanted a different future for Ben.

"Yes, even after that," she said. "Ben, does Jacen know you're back?"

"Yeah." He didn't volunteer any more. "It's okay. I report back for duty at oh– eight-hundred tomorrow. I haven't gone AWOL."

"I'll have one last try, then. Ben, I worry about you. Your dad and I would really sleep a lot better if you left the GAG and came on missions with us."

Mara braced for incoming. But Ben thought visibly for a while, and when he spoke his tone was soft and unsettlingly adult—unsettlingly old.

"Mom, have you ever had to do something you didn't want to do, but knew

you had to?"

Mara certainly had, so many times that she took it for granted. And at any given time, whether working for the Empire or for the New Republic, or whatever the stang her paymaster called itself, she'd always thought it was right.

"Yes, sweetheart, I have," she said, and knew she now had no moral high ground from which to look down upon her son, or anyone else for that matter. "And the problem was that when I looked back, I found I'd done the wrong thing sometimes. But it'll be years before I'll know if what I'm doing now is right."

"You have to go with the best data you have at the time."

It was a weary man's statement, not a boy's. Ben was a soldier. He was what she and Luke had made him. She'd wanted a Jedi son, and now she had one.

"Next year," she said. "Next year, we'll have that party, come what may."

chapter three

Mishuk gotal'u meshuroke, pako kyore.

(Pressure makes gems, ease makes decay.)

–Mandalorian proverb

SLAVE I. EN ROUTE TO BADOR, KUAT SYSTEM

Mirta Gev had settled for being tolerated by her grandfather, and although she made an effort to love him, it was hard. Part of her still wanted to make him pay for the life her mother—and grandmother—had endured. And part saw a man who had every form of regard shown him except love, and pitied him. Overall, she saw a man who put up duracrete barriers and defied anyone to breach them. As he took the Firespray out of Mandalore's orbit and prepared to jump to hyperspace, his expression was set in apparent blank disdain for the everyday world. She decided his helmet presented the softer face of the two.

At least she got to sit in the copilot's seat. That seemed to be the nearest that Boba Fett could ever get to approving of her as his own flesh and blood.

"Your clone's not an active bounty hunter," said Fett. There was never any preamble in his conversations, no small talk, no intimacy. He was all business. "I checked every bounty hunter and wannabe on the books, but none is called Skirata. Plenty of people on Mandalore knew Kal Skirata, and then—gone. Vanished."

"But he was on a hunt, I know that. He told me to get out of his way." Did Fett believe her? She'd stitched him up and tried to lure him to his death, so she could hardly blame him if he was having second thoughts about the clone. The man was real, all right. "So we're retracing his steps?"

"Yours."

"How are you going to pass yourself off as a client looking to hire a bounty

hunter?"

"I'm not. You are."

Mirta suddenly realized why he'd agreed to let her ride along. "My, I do come in handy, don't I?"

"Earn your keep. Rules of any partnership."

Mirta thought that sounded remarkably like her dead mother. Ailyn Vel was more a chip from the granite block of Fett than she'd ever admit, but that was impossible. She'd been a baby when Fett had left her grandmother, too young to pick up his callous ways.

"How do you cope?" Mirta asked.

"What?"

"How do you cope with being alone?"

"Are you going to yap all the way to Kuat?"

"You can't bring yourself to tell me to shut up, can you?"

"I cope because I like it that way," Fett said.

"Well, Mama was all I had and I don't like it that way."

Fett paused, and there was the faintest movement of his lips—as if he was stopping himself from saying something he'd regret. He ought to have understood, she thought. He'd lost his father at the hands of a Jedi, too.

"Yeah," he said. "What about your dad?"

"He died in a hull breach. Not even in combat."

"Why'd Ailyn marry a Mando? Sintas must have warned her we're bad news."

Mirta found she was clutching the heart-of-fire pendant tight in her fist. It was just half of the original stone. The other slice, split from it with a blow from the butt of Fett's blaster, was buried with Ailyn Vel in a modest grave outside Keldabe, in an ancient wood that the vongese hadn't managed to destroy.

I can't feel anything from this stone. It ought to tell me something. I'm Kiffar. Part Kiffar, anyway.

"She hung around Mando'ade to get a better idea of how to hunt you.

Then she met Papa. It didn't last."

"Romantic."

"She cared about him."

"And she let him make a Mando of you."

"I spent two summers with Papa on Null, after he and Mama split up.

He taught me everything he could. And then he got killed."

She didn't say it to shut Fett up. He was hardly a talkative man anyway, but there was quiet, and then there was breath-holding silence.

That was what she heard now.

"That's too bad," he said.

"Don't try to out-orphan me, Ba'buir. I know what it's like."

She struggled between the hatred she'd been taught to feel for him and the evidence of her own eyes that he wasn't a monster—at least not the monster painted by her mother. The very thought felt disloyal to the dead. After almost two months, she'd reached the stage where she had days when her mother wasn't her first waking thought, and didn't haunt her dreams. That felt like betrayal, too.

But life had to go on. She had to make sense of this, and not let Ailyn Vel's death be for nothing.

"No need to discuss it, then." He inhaled. He looked like he'd been holding his breath all that time. "Are you okay living where you are?"

"Yeah."

"I could buy you a house of your own. Anywhere."

Mirta never knew when he was going to flip over into awkward generosity. Beviin said he had his moments. He might, of course, have been trying to get rid of her with the lure of a place on a far planet.

"I'm okay where I am, thanks." No, that sounded dismissive. "I meant that I like living with Vevut's family."

Fett said nothing. She knew what he was thinking now.

"Yes, I do like Orade," she said. "He's a good man."

"You're a grown woman. None of my business."

But everyone knew she was a Fett now, and that carried with it some burdens. It took a brave man to risk a Mand'alor for a grandfather-in-law, especially one with Boba Fett's reputation. Mirta shut her eyes and tried to listen for whispered messages from the heart-of-fire.

"Why can't you get information from that?" Fett asked suddenly.

"I'm only part Kiffar. I don't have the full ability to sense things from objects." She opened her eyes again. Fett was still an implacable statue of detachment. She studied his profile to see what of him might be in her. "It's called psychometry. They say some Jedi can do it, too."

Mentioning Jedi might not have been a good idea, but Fett didn't show any reaction. "The stone absorbs memories from the giver and receiver," he

said. "Sintas said so." Ah. Under the veneer there might have been a man who wanted to either relive happier times or hide the ones he preferred to forget. The stone held a little bit of Sintas Vel's spirit, and a little bit of his. There was more veneer to him now than core, Mirta suspected, but she'd seen him cry, and nobody else had ever seen the adult Boba Fett weaken, she was sure of that. Maybe he hadn't even cried as a kid.

"I'm trying hard, Ba'buir."

"Worst thing you did was tell me you knew what happened to Sintas."

It was a slap in the face. When she'd said it, she hadn't even known if it would do the trick and lead him into her mother's ambush. Now she regretted hurting a dying man, even if she had been raised to loathe him.

"We'll find out how Grandmama died, I promise."

"After I get that clone," Fett said, all gravel and calculation,

"I'll find a full-blooded Kiffar to read the stone."

Mirta took it as a cue to shut up. Playing happy families wasn't the Fett way. She wondered how many other families had the record of violent death and attempted murder that theirs did. I hope what's in me is more like Papa. Then she recalled Leia Solo deflecting her blaster shot at Fett, and knew that it was Ba'buir blood in her veins after all—

Grandpapa's.

"Stand by," said Fett.

He didn't deploy full dampers when Slave /jumped. He never did. The acceleration to lightspeed and beyond felt like being punched in the chest and then sat on by a Hutt. She made a point of biting her lip discreetly as the stars streaked to lines of blue-white fire and the crushing sensation passed.

That had to hurt him, too. He was a sick man. Mirta fumbled in her pocket,