They’re going to use this so-called bomb outrage to up the ante, to take a crack at us.
Han put his head in his hands and sat there for a moment, wondering what he could possibly do now to help Corellia when he wasn’t even welcome here. Eyes shut, he reached for the cup, and it wasn’t quite where he thought he’d left it.
Someone put a hand on his arm.
“Han …”
It was a man, and Han’s instinct was to jerk his arm back and draw a blaster; but he stopped dead, hand a split second from his holster. The man was about twenty-five: dark skin, black hair cut almost military-short. A stranger.
“Do you know me?” Han was ready to drop him where he stood. “Because I don’t know you, pal.”
“But your wife knew my father.”
Ah, Gejjen. No, play it cool. You have no idea who this guy is at all. “Prove it.” Han saw familiar movement outside the window and Leia, the hood of her tunic pulled up against light rain. “How did you find us?”
Gejjen—if that was who he was—dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “When you rented the apartment, you paid in untrackable credits. That’s a lot of hard currency—unusual enough to draw attention right now.”
“From who?”
“From our own security forces.”
“So CorSec knows we’re here and Thrackan doesn’t?” Han nearly spat out the name. Luckily it was a common enough first name not to draw the same attention that snarling Sal-Solo would have done. “Right. Try again.”
“You’re assuming that everyone in CorSec would want to tell Thrackan.”
Han shook his head slowly. “Why do I get the feeling that I don’t want to know that?”
“Well, there’s Corellia, and there’s Thrackan, and they’re not the same thing in many people’s eyes. People who’d like to do something about it.”
“Call me cynical, but I think you’re talking about a change of administration without an election. I’m trying to remember the word for that.”
Gejjen—he could be nobody else—sat down next to him. As Leia came into the tapcaf, she stared at Han, and then at Gejjen, and her lips parted as if she had realized something that quite pleased her.
“You’re the image of your father,” she said.
“Dur Gejjen,” said the young man very quietly. He held out his hand for shaking, and their voices were lost in the chatter that had swamped the tapcaf again. “At your service, ma’am.”
“Hi, honey,” said Han. “This nice young man is about to ask me to take part in a coup.” He smiled theatrically at Gejjen. “Did I get the right word?”
“I asked him to meet us here,” Leia said quietly. “But he’s early …”
“Apologies. It’s a habit, just in case messages are ever intercepted. Shall we move on?” Gejjen indicated the door. “You can choose the location. Just to reassure you in case you think I’m setting you up.”
“Good idea,” said Leia. “I know just the place.”
She beckoned to Han. He rolled his eyes, but gulped down the remains of his caf and followed her out into the rain, staying to one side of Gejjen so he could keep an eye on him. Leia led them to a women’s fashion store.
“There goes my tough-guy image,” said Han, hesitating at the ornately gilded doors.
“Turbolift,” said Leia, gesturing both men inside with an expression of narrow-eyed mock impatience. Under the circumstances, she seemed in a good mood. “There’s a caf bar on the top floor. Nice and public with several exits if anything happens that we’re not expecting.”
Gejjen took the suspicion aimed at him pretty well. “Sensible precaution,” he said.
Han knew he’d never enjoy caf again in quite the same way, because the taste was starting to become inextricably linked in his subconscious with bad news. They huddled around a table, surrounded by chattering shoppers and noisy children, and tried to look unremarkable. The ubiquitous holoscreen murmured away on one wall: Corellians were addicted to news. There was no getting away from that bomb blast.
“Okay, where were we?” said Han. “Ah, I remember. Removing the elected government. Go ahead and amaze me, kid.” He offered Gejjen a small jug. “Cream? Sugar?”
“Han …” Leia fixed him with a stare.
“Sorry, honey.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “Go on, Gejjen.”
The young man was still totally unperturbed. “You’re at risk, and so is Corellia. From the same source.”
“Power-crazed galactic government?”
“Power-crazed individuals.”
“That’s half the galaxy on a good day.”
“Sir, your cousin isn’t doing anybody any favors.”
“I didn’t choose my family.”
“Well, he’s going to kill yours, because he’s put out a contract on you, your wife, and your children. And if he carries on the way he’s going, he’s also going to get a lot of Corellians killed in a war we can’t win.”
Han still didn’t know what use they were to Gejjen, but he took an instant dislike to phrases like can’t win. “So you want us to do something? See, I have this hunch that you do.”
“If Thrackan is removed, would you consider taking his place?”
Oh boy. “No.”
Even Leia looked taken aback. “Absolutely not,” she said.
“Yeah, I already said that, honey.”
Gejjen managed a nervous smile. “I didn’t mean to embarrass you, sir.”
“I’ll do anything for Corellia,” said Han. “And I agree that Thrackan’s conducting his own war for his own ends, like he always does. But there’s a real threat out there from the Alliance and it’s going to take a united Corellia to stand up to it. Just give me a blaster. Not an office.”
“You’re not going to go back to Coruscant, then?”
“Why should I? We’re not running from Thrackan.” Han slipped his hand under the table and caught Leia’s hand. She gave it a squeeze that threatened to numb his fingers. “And we’re not going to live in hiding on Coruscant, either. Might as well be here.”
“I understand.”
“Fine.”
“The good news is that Thrackan seems to think you’re on Coruscant.”
“Well, that’s another good reason for staying put, isn’t it?”
“When we find out who’s taken the contract, we’ll warn you.” Gejjen stood up and shook their hands. He had a mature, solid air about him, an elder statesman in a young man’s body. “If you’d like help to relocate, you know where to find me. If we could track you, so might others.”
“I think I already know who’ll find me.” Han watched Gejjen leave. When he was sure the man had disappeared into the turbolift, he turned to Leia. “Well, you didn’t say much for a hotshot diplomat …”
“It’s not appropriate for a Jedi to discuss political coups.”
“Yeah, I can understand how that might be a sensitive area. How did you trace him?”
“I looked up Gejjen in the comlink directories.”
Han laughed out loud. A large woman in a bright orange suit that really didn’t do her any favors turned to look at him for a second. “Funny, we always think this is cloak-and-dagger stuff.”
“Gejjen doesn’t need to hide. He’s an elected representative of a legal political party, the Democratic Alliance. They have a lot of seats in the Corellian Assembly now. With the Corellian Liberal Front, they actually form the largest bloc of votes, but Thrackan’s still hanging on.”
“If that dirtbag comes anywhere near you or the kids, I’ll kill him, I swear.”
“You think he’s got a chance, taking on three Jedi?”
“He won’t. Contract, remember?”
“You think it’s going to be Fett, don’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“No. Not Fett. Why would he? He saved us from the Vong.”
“Because business is business, maybe.” Han could feel something rising in his chest, and it wasn’t the effect of way too much caf. It was
something animal and irrational, something that was making his pulse pound in his temples. It was anger and fear; not for himself, though, but for Leia, Jaina, and Jacen. “Thrackan’s done some dirty things, but he never went this far before. Not hiring hit men. That changes everything.”
He had a thought, and it was one that almost made him recoil.
I’m going to kill the scumbag this time.
Nobody touches my family.
Leia reacted as if he’d said it aloud. “No … you’re not going to contact Fett, and you’re not going to hire him to hit your cousin.”
“That never entered my mind,” said Han, and it really hadn’t. She could see that and she could feel it, too, he knew. Unfortunately, he knew he’d have a hard job concealing the fact that he still felt murderously protective. “Besides, I haven’t had to deal with guys like that in a long time. Maybe you place a want ad in Bounty Hunter Weekly these days. Or call their agents.”
“Yes, so remember we can take care of ourselves,” said Leia. “I’ll just warn Jacen and Jaina.”
Jacen: Han kept missing him every time he called or returned a message. He really wanted to talk to him now, and not to remonstrate with him: he just wanted to hear Jacen’s voice. Whatever insanity had put them on opposite sides of a divide, Jacen was his little boy and always would be, no matter how old or powerful or distant he might be.
Nobody touches my wife and kids.
Han Solo wasn’t one of the galaxy’s natural assassins. He would fight to defend himself, but he’d never gone after anyone with the intention of killing them. There was always a first time; this would be his.
Lost in his thoughts, Han stirred the remains of his caf with a spoon, wondering how they got the foam to last that long, and then was jerked out of his trance by the one thing guaranteed to get anyone’s attention: his own name.
The words Han Solo cut through the hubbub of voices and children’s squealing as if the tapcaf had fallen into total and complete silence for a moment.
“In a statement issued by the Office of the State, President Sal-Solo has declared Han Solo and his family to be enemies of Corellia following the attacks on Centerpoint and Rellidir, and he’s ordered their arrest,” said the HNE holoanchor.
Han tried not to swing around in his seat or curse at the screen. He raised his head very slowly, caught Leia’s eye, and focused on the screen as if bored. No, he wasn’t bored at all. He was furious, and a little scared. He wondered how good an actor he was; but nobody seemed to be looking at him.
It was probably because the image on the screen was of a younger Han, a man still with brown hair and relatively few lines. The picture of Leia was way out of date, too.
“I think we’d better be going,” said Leia. “Some urgent laundry.”
“Right behind you,” said Han.
He didn’t like running, and there was nowhere safer to run. Coruscant wasn’t going to welcome him with open arms, either. Either way, they were fugitives. They split up as soon as they left the store and met up again back at the apartment.
“Have I changed that much?” said Leia.
“What?”
“The picture of me that they’re running.”
“I hope so,” said Han. Maybe he should have assured her she looked as good as ever to him, but he thought that practical reassurance about her safety was more important than flattery right then. “And I’m going to grow a beard, just in case. How about you?”
Leia gave him a withering stare. “I didn’t shave today. You didn’t notice?”
“I meant change your hair or something.”
“The Aurra Sing look? Yes, it’s so me.”
“I’m glad you’ve kept your sense of humor.”
“You know what they say,” said Leia, and took scissors from the kitchen. “If you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.”
chapter four
Vandals have desecrated the Corellian Sanctuary on Coruscant. The domed building, a resting place for Corellian dead, was daubed with paint during the night, and marble plaques were smashed. Inside, diamonds set in the dome—formed from the compressed carbon of cremated Corellians—were hacked out of the ceiling. Police are treating the attack as retaliation for yesterday’s bombing of the Elite Hotel on skylane four-four-six-seven, which left six hundred and thirty-four dead and hundreds more injured. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion, confirmed as caused by commercial-grade detonite.
HNE Morning News
UPPER CITY, TARIS.
“My name’s Mirta Gev,” said the girl.
Fett stared at the heart-of-fire necklace in the palm of his glove and wanted to clutch it in his bare hand, but he didn’t know why. For the first time in many, many years, he felt grief.
None of that turmoil showed. He made sure of that and studied her: strongly built, heavy boots, practical armor, no jewelry, a battered shapeless bag over one shoulder, and no concessions to feminine fashion whatsoever. Passersby gave them a wide berth on the promenade. “So are you a bounty hunter, or do you just like armor?”
Mirta—if that was her real name—nodded twice, just little movements as if she was measuring what she was going to say rather than blurting out a smart answer. She seemed utterly unafraid of him, and that was rare.
“Yeah, I’m a bounty hunter,” she said. “Object recovery more often than prisoners, but I’ve survived so far. Aren’t you going to ask me who killed Sintas Vel?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because we parted a long time ago.”
Mirta shrugged and held out her hand for the necklace. “I know. You left your wife when your daughter was nearly two. Sintas left on a bounty hunt before Ailyn’s sixteenth birthday and never came back. That’s not common knowledge.”
“Okay, that’s proof you know Ailyn Vel.”
“And I need to return that necklace. It’s all she has left of her mother.”
Fett hesitated and handed back the heart-of-fire. He wanted it very badly, but he didn’t rob kids like her of their meager bounties.
So it’s all Ailyn has left. Like all I had of my dad was his armor. And his ship.
“How is she?”
“What?”
Why am I doing this? “How’s my daughter?”
“She’s … okay, I suppose. Angry. But she’s surviving.”
“I think you know she tried to kill me.”
“She did mention it …”
“Does she know I’m alive?”
“Of course she does.”
Ailyn had chased him across the galaxy—or so she thought—and killed a clone she thought was him. If she knew he was alive now and hadn’t tried again, then maybe she had changed her mind … no, that was stupid. You left Sintas and your baby, and you never looked back. Is that how Dad treated you? No, he was always there for you. So what kind of man abandons his own kid?
Every day of his life, Fett had thought of his father and missed him so much that he would have traded absolutely anything—sometimes even his life—for a few more minutes with him, for a chance to touch him and tell him he loved him. Right now it was unbearable. It was as raw as it had been on the day he saw him killed at Geonosis, perhaps more so, because the shock had worn off long ago and had been replaced by cold analysis and—sometimes—dull, gnawing hatred.
“Do you think I want to see her again? I wouldn’t even recognize her. She was a baby when I last saw her.”
“Why are you still talking to me, then?”
The girl was sharp. Not cocky, not insolent; just sharp.
I wouldn’t recognize my own kid. I see my own dad every day in the mirror, and never my own kid. What a thought to die with.
“Why do you care if I find her?”
“Because you might pay me.”
“Right answer.”
“I’m just trying to get by in a tough galaxy.”
“How much?”
She paused. It was the first time he’d seen he
r confidence waver. She doesn’t know how much to ask. “Five thousand.”
It was the cost of a repeating blaster. “Done. Payable when I see Ailyn Vel and proof of who she is.” He didn’t need her as a guide at all. All he had to do was find Han Solo, and he’d find Ailyn hunting him. But that necklace had seized his interest. “You got transport?”
“Well—”
“Just so you don’t skip out on the deal, you come with me.” I can keep a good eye on you in Slave I, girl. I’m heading Ailyn’s way anyway, so you’re just ballast. “Take it or leave it.”
“Okay.”
“Let’s go.”
Mirta never said a word. She just followed him. She didn’t ask to go back and collect her things, or pose any questions. She was either very cool or very naïve. And maybe her whole life was in that scruffy shoulder bag.
But she had his wife’s necklace. And sooner or later he knew he’d ask how she came by it, and how Sintas died. He’d wait a little: he didn’t want to look as if he cared. She could carry on believing that he needed her to locate Ailyn.
But you wouldn’t recognize your own daughter. Just her ship—your old ship.
And here he was, a man who trusted no one, chancing himself on the word of a girl he didn’t know, when he should have been concentrating on finding Taun We and Ko Sai’s data.
But he could do that as well.
And if the girl turned out to be trouble, he could always shoot her.
SECURITY AND INTELLIGENCE COUNCIL MEETING ROOM, SENATE BUILDING.
“I think you could do this, Mara,” said Chief Omas. “The enemies we face won’t always be conventional armies, or even in a separate theater of war, so we feel we need a separate arm of the Defense Force concentrating on domestic security.”
Domestic security. Sounds like a lock on the front doors and an intruder alarm. Jacen watched, still concerned by the speed at which events were unraveling.
Mara didn’t move a muscle. She sat with her legs tightly crossed and arms folded, and Jacen felt her dismay from across the room without even wanting to. He tried not to look at Luke, who was standing by the window, staring out at the Coruscant skyline. There was something terrible about conflict with family that was even worse than with others. It felt much more savage and dangerous. You weren’t supposed to have rifts with your loved ones, which was another good reason why Jedi weren’t supposed to have loved ones—
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