She gestured to the ceiling and offered him her arm.
Mirta was still looking for a reason not to hate Fett, and she was ready to look pretty deeply. She decided she could start by loving him for his sheer guts. Nothing fazed him, nothing stopped him, and nothing made him feel sorry for himself. They stood outside the barn and waited in silence. It looked like a tiny hut set against Slave I, laid up in her horizontal mode nearby.
A low rumble interrupted the rural peace.
Fett looked up as a dull black wedge shot across the sky and vanished behind a forested hill. Mirta lost it, but then it circled back again, came to a dead halt in midair about two hundred meters above them, and descended smoothly on burners. It landed on its blunt tail section and then extended struts to tilt through ninety degrees and come to rest horizontally like a conventional starfighter. The canopy lifted and Yomaget climbed out, slid onto the ground, and kissed the matte fuselage.
“Cyar’ika,” he said to the ship, running a tender hand over the skin. “I think I’m in love.”
“Nice,” said Fett.
“Puts the uliik in Bes’uliik.”
“Yeah, I can see it’s a beast. What’s different?”
“We applied the micronized beskar skin, Mand’alor. She’s a toughened shabuir now. Care to show her to the Verpine?”
“It’d get their attention.”
“If they share their ultramesh technology with us, we might be able to lighten the airframe and improve her top end in atmosphere. If we skin her completely in solid beskar, she’s going to be invulnerable, but heavy.”
“We’ll keep the heavy ones. Maybe the Verpine can come up with a better fuel solution.”
“Well, if you’re not going to take her for a spin, I will,” said Medrit. He scrambled up onto the wing and eased himself into the cockpit, looking as if he would fill it. “Shab, a Mando-Verpine assault fighter. That’ll cause some sleepless nights on Coruscant.”
“If we can mine and process the ore fast enough.”
Yomaget looked hopeful. “We could ask those helpful insectoid chaps to lend us an orbital facility or two.”
“I’ll go see them,” Fett said. “Got to think long-term on this. No point handing over too much to Roche early in the game.”
Medrit spent the next hour taking the prototype Bes’uliik through its paces over the Keldabe countryside while the rest of them watched. Yomaget captured the aerobatics on his holorecorder, looking satisfied.
“Might slip this hologram out to a few contacts,” he said. “We’re not a modest people, are we?”
“Remind them that most of our adult population can fly a fighter, too,” Fett said. “For starters.”
He went back inside the barn. He didn’t manage a smile, but Beviin turned to Mirta and cocked his head. “Believe it or not, that’s a happy man.”
Maybe he was a better judge of mood than she was. She was relieved just to hear Fett use the phrase long-term.
Times were changing. The rest of the galaxy might have been tearing itself apart, but the Mandalore sector—which now informally controlled Roche, if a protectorate agreement counted—was a haven of optimism after a decade or more of grim existence. That night, Mirta found the Oyu’baat tapcaf packed with new faces, and the singing was raucous.
If Jacen Solo, her mother’s murderer, had been roasting slowly over the Oyu’baat’s open fire instead of the side of nerf, Mirta might even have joined in.
SENATE BUILDING, CORUSCANT
Jacen’s official airspeeder brought him up to the main Senate entrance. He could have entered the building by any number of more private platforms, but he had no intention of sneaking in via the back doors; being seen counted for a lot, and he still had his heroic image to protect.
A line of citizens waited outside the doors that admitted members of the public to the viewing galleries. Some just wanted to watch the day’s business, but there was a small group who were clearly protesters. It wasn’t just the FREE OMAS banner that three of them were carrying among them. There was a taste of anger in the Force, vivid despite the permanent background of fear and uncertainty.
“Drop me here,” Jacen said. “I’ll walk.”
“They’ll harass you, sir,” said the Gran chauffeur. “I ought to take you straight up to your floor.”
“They’ve got a right to see who’s governing them.” It wasn’t as if they could cause him any harm. “I find that talking to people generally clears up misunderstandings.”
Jacen had expected at least one mass protest or a riot broken up by water cannon and dispersal gas. GAG intelligence showed that Corellian agents still operating on Coruscant were doing their best to make that happen. But the general willingness of the population to accept the change of regime surprised him. The stock exchange had suspended trading for a few hours, and some shares had bounced around: but the traffic still flowed, the stores were full of food, HoloNet programming was uninterrupted, and everyone was getting paid.
Unless you were Cal Omas or a civil liberties lawyer, the military junta was temporary and benign. There was a war on, after all. It was to be expected.
I ought to write a study on this. How to take over the state: smile, look reluctant, and keep the traffic flowing.
And it was just Coruscant. The rest of the GA worlds went on running their planetary business as they saw fit, unmolested, and that meant there was no need to stretch the fleet and the defense forces by deploying them to keep order on thousands of other worlds—their own, in many cases. All Jacen and Niathal had to worry about was Coruscant, because the political and strategic reality was that Coruscant … was the GA … was Coruscant.
The rest of the Alliance is detail. I have its heart and mind.
“Good morning,” Jacen said. The group of protesters stared at him with a collective, slowly dawning oh-it’s-really-him expression. Even a face that had been on HNE as regularly as his took some recognizing out of context. He extended his hand to them, and one man actually shook it. Most species responded well to placatory courtesy. “I just wanted to reassure you that Master Omas will get a scrupulously fair hearing. We’ve let him go home, too.”
When folks were worked up for yelling and seemed to want to be dragged away by CSF heavyweights, they were totally upended by having the object of their fury listen to them. Jacen’s patient smile met disoriented surprise. A couple of CSF officers began wandering across, probably expecting trouble, but Jacen dissuaded them with a little Force influence and they stopped a few meters away to observe.
More important, though, was the HNE news droid trundling around the Senate Plaza. There was always at least one on duty here, just hanging around to get stock shots, but now it had an actual story. Jacen watched it approach in his peripheral vision.
“Doesn’t matter how you dress it up,” said the young woman holding one end of the FREE OMAS banner. “The GA is being run now by the Supreme Commander and the head of the secret police, and nobody voted for you.”
Jacen managed an expression of slightly wounded innocence. “You’re right, I didn’t run for office, which is why I won’t remain joint Chief of State any longer than I have to. Would you like to see something? Inside the building?”
The woman looked at him suspiciously. “There’s always a catch.”
The news droid was right behind them now. Sometimes the Force placed things in his grasp. Suddenly he realized that everything was being handed to him and all he had to do was react, just as Lumiya had told him, and not analyze everything.
“Your choice,” Jacen said. “I just want to show you the Chief of State’s office. Anyone else want to come along?”
The security guards weren’t happy, but what Jacen wanted, Jacen got. He led a straggling group of protesters, day visitors, and the HNE droid through the glittering lobby and up in the turbolift to the floor of offices where the public was almost never allowed, the seat of galactic government itself.
A few civil servants in the corridor did a do
uble take but carried on about their business. Niathal must have seen him come in on the security holocams, because she was wandering around the lobby, clutching a couple of datapads. Jacen acknowledged her with a smile and walked up to the carved double doors of the Chief of State’s suite of offices.
The doors were sealed—taped shut. The bright yellow tape with the CSF logo and the legend DO NOT TAMPER was purely cosmetic, but it made the point far better than the impregnable but invisible electronic lock.
“That’s Chief Omas’s office,” Jacen said over the head of the HNE droid. He stood back casually to let it get a better shot of him explaining earnestly to this random sample of the electorate. “It’s for the elected head of state. It stays sealed until someone is elected to fill it. Neither I nor Admiral Niathal has moved in. That matters very much to us.”
The thing about Mon Cals was that you could never tell if they were rolling their eyes or just taking notice. Niathal was probably rolling hers, though. Jacen could feel her amusement at his expense.
The little crowd muttered and oohed and ahhed. It was a perfect media moment. The protesters seemed at a loss for words, but Jacen was anxious that they not look humiliated.
“I hope we’ve reassured you.” You’re up to your neck in this too, Admiral. “And I’m glad you feel you can raise this with us, because there’s no point fighting a war if we can’t behave as a democracy even when things get difficult.”
The jumpy security guards who’d decided to follow him showed the party out. Everyone went away either happy or at least defused. Jacen felt Niathal’s gaze boring a hole in him.
“Last time I saw anything that slick and oily,” she said, “was when Ocean leaked a whole lube reservoir over the aft weapons flat.”
“Ah, but you were absolutely right to seal that office. Neither of us should have it.”
“I believe in sharing everything.”
“As do I,” Jacen said.
“So let’s try to address the media jointly, shall we? No point looking like a publicity addict, Jacen. Citizens might misunderstand your motives.”
“I’m here to serve the galaxy,” Jacen replied, and meant every word. “Never underestimate the power of being pleasant.”
“That’s fine on Coruscant, but your charm doesn’t travel well.” Niathal beckoned him to follow. “I have Senator G’Sil in my office, and the Senator for Murkhana, Nav Ekhat. We’ve hit a small snag in our new policy.”
Ekhat didn’t look like a woman who’d had a restful night. She didn’t wait for Jacen to sit down before she launched into a tirade that had obviously been gathering steam long before he and Niathal walked in.
“I understand you’re concentrating forces in the Corellian and Bothan sectors,” she said, stabbing her finger at the holochart in the center of the meeting table. “Where does that leave us?”
“Explain your concerns,” said Jacen.
“The new treaty between Roche and Mandalore.”
“And you feel threatened by this.”
“Given the state of our relations with Roche, yes. Are you aware that we’ve been having a disagreement about export markets?”
G’Sil leaned forward. “Put another way, the Verpine are accusing Murkhana of reverse-engineering some of their most lucrative weapons command systems, breaching their patents, and selling cheap knockoffs to undermine their markets.”
“Put another way, Verpine don’t like healthy competition,” said Ekhat. “Now they’ve signed a deal with Mandalore for mutual aid and technical collaboration. It’s the bugs-and-thugs show.”
Jacen watched Niathal shift ever so slightly in her seat and felt her annoyance. Anyone who dismissed Verpine as bugs probably also dismissed Mon Cals as fish.
“Are you expecting this alliance to threaten your security directly?” Jacen asked. “Because if the Verpine were seriously annoyed, they have plenty of military hardware to make their point without calling in Keldabe.”
“Verpine might make the stuff,” she said, “but they rarely use it in anger. The Mandalorians, on the other hand, treat warfare as a national sport.”
“But this is about Mandalorian iron.” Niathal was working up to telling Ekhat that Murkhana was on its own. She’d probably enjoy it after that bug comment, too. “The Verpine want to produce enhanced armaments and vessels under license.”
“No, they want Mandalorian protection, too.”
“Why?” Jacen couldn’t see Murkhana attacking Roche.
“They’re afraid the fighting on Kem Stor Ai will spill into their backyard, and they’re rich pickings that might prove too tempting for a system at war.”
“I’m missing the connection.”
“Mandalorian protection tends to be of the outreach kind, Colonel. It’s a short step from turning out to repel the Kemi and making a … disciplinary visit to us.”
Niathal got up and walked around the table, looking at the holochart from various angles. “And are you breaching the Verpine patents?”
“We don’t think so,” said the Senator. “But the products are very … similar.”
“You see, I’m not sure we should commit troops to trade disputes. This war is about the responsibility of member planets to commit military resources to common defense. That’s one reason why the former Chief of State is former—because he was ready to concede part of that principle.”
“As a member of the GA, we expect support when attacked.”
“Roche is a neutral world,” Jacen pointed out. “If you were attacked, we’d have to assess the situation, but I feel this has to be referred to the interplanetary civil courts first.”
“So you’re saying we’re on our own.”
Jacen would play the nice officer today. Niathal was doing a fine job of being the nasty one. “I’m saying that you should try to resolve this dispute by other means rather than escalate straight to saber rattling. But …” He thought about the talk of a new Mandalorian assault fighter. It was interesting enough on its own, but if it was a collaboration with the Verpine, the GA needed to get an idea of what it could do. He decided to disagree with Niathal. “But perhaps the presence of a GA squadron and frigate might make Roche more willing to sit down and discuss the matter again.”
Niathal turned her head very slowly to stare at Jacen. He knew the risk he was taking.
“If we have spare resources, then we’ll consider it,” she said.
“Roche warned us that it’ll take direct action if we don’t cease production of the disputed products.” Ekhat looked at all three of them pointedly in sequence as if defying them to say the word no out loud. Then she stood and picked up her folio case. “So sooner rather than later, please, or you’ll lose another Rim world. And I don’t mean resignation.”
G’Sil watched Ekhat stalk out, then shrugged. “So much for the Mandalorian threat making the little planets rush to our protective arms, Cha.”
“They did rush,” Niathal said. “And that’s the problem. If we’re seen deploying a Star Destroyer every time some member state has a local disagreement, we’ll open the floodgates, not that they’re not starting to open already. Policy is to concentrate on breaking the big boys who won’t play by GA rules, or we’ll be putting out fires across the galaxy for decades to come.” Jacen braced for impact. “And, Colonel Solo, you will not commit fleet resources like that without discussing the matter with me.”
“I didn’t commit anything. I just stated the obvious.”
“And I didn’t agree to it, either.”
“Wouldn’t it be useful to have an excuse to wander out to the Rim and take a look at those new Mandalorian fighters?”
“If they’ve built any yet.”
“I say commit a couple of flights if we can’t spare a complete squadron. If we move one of the frigates out from Bothan space, that’ll bring it within range of Murkhana, at a stretch.”
“Are you sure you want to provoke Mandalore?” G’Sil asked. “It’s got that extra personal dimension now, and
the last thing we need is Fett making this a vendetta against the rest of the GA. His neutrality has been a bonus, to be honest.”
“I’m well aware that Fett has neither gone away nor forgotten his daughter,” Jacen said. “But he’s far too smart to waste his troops to fight a personal feud.”
Mandalore was always a problem: always had been, always would be. It wasn’t big enough to be a galactic threat, but wasn’t small enough to dismiss—or remove.
Tough on chaos, and the causes of chaos.
It was being the third element in a universe of pairs that made Mandalorians disruptive. The universe was binary, bipolar, ruled by the balance between opposites, whether that was dark and light or action and reaction. It couldn’t accommodate that extra pole and remain orderly. Mandalorians were an inherently destabilizing influence.
“Are you still with us, Jacen?” G’Sil asked. “You look distracted.”
“Just wishing the Mandalorians would go away.”
“Pay them to stay at home,” said Niathal, gathering up her datapads to leave. “That’s the permanent solution. As long as they have the occasional therapeutic fight to work off their aggression, they’ll be happy. And that’s just the females.” She headed for the door. “I have fleet commanders to brief. Shame we can’t approach Fett to see if he’s changed his mind about staying out of the fighting.”
“Isn’t paying them not to fight tantamount to an insult to their honor?” Jacen asked.
“I think you’re getting them mixed up with some other war-mongering savages. They’d see it as protection money. They’re pragmatists.”
“If only all wars had such simple economic solutions.”
G’Sil smiled ruefully. “Well, they’ve mostly got economic causes.”
“Not this one,” Jacen said. “It’s about order. About responsibility.”
Niathal and G’Sil both concealed their reactions at the same time and said nothing. He could tell they thought he was becoming eccentric, or perhaps that he hadn’t quite got the hang of high-level politics. Either way, their reaction said that he wasn’t playing the same game as them, and they were right.