It was just as well she wasn't a Force-user.

chapter fifteen

This has to be about more than getting tough on chaos and disorder.

I need to be tough on the causes of chaos and disorder—greed, corruption, and ambition.

—Jacen Solo, joint GA Chief of State, speaking at a lunch for the heads of Coruscanti industry

BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, MANDALORE

Mirta put her finger to her lips, and the four of them stacked around the door as if getting ready to storm Fett's stronghold.

"I'll check," she said to Orade. Beviin winked at her. Medrit just kept glancing at his chrono as if he didn't have time for all this. "You can hide behind me if you like."

Orade licked his lips nervously. "Cyar'ika, when Fett says he'll break my legs, he's just looking for an excuse."

"He's a sick man, Ghes, and if you tell anyone, I'll be the one doing the breaking."

Ghes Orade would have faced a cannoned-up Chiss fleet armed only with a sharp stick, and laughed about his chances of survival, but he was scared stiff of her grandfather. Mirta wondered if she was doomed to have all her romances doused liberally with freezing water because everyone now knew she was a Fett. She leaned on the barn door—the building had been a drying shed—and two indignant faces turned to her.

"What are you doing to him?" she demanded. "Has he had a relapse or something?"

Fett was breathing hard as if he was in a lot of pain, hands clenched against his chest, face white and waxy. A woman she'd never seen before stood over him, holding a large-bore needle-tipped syringe up to the light

and checking the reservoir. Another man in a ragbag of assorted armor was standing with his back to the door. He didn't turn around.

"Jaing kept his promise," Fett said, breathless. "Or he's having the last laugh and poisoning me. We'll see."

"There's a slower and less painful way of getting this where it needs to go," said the woman, flicking the syringe with her finger to clear air bubbles. "But there's no point messing around given the state you're in, Mand'alor. Direct into your bone marrow. Two shots to go."

"Just do it." He took his hands off his chest and parted his shirt.

Mirta was surprised how bony he was: he looked such a fit, strong man in full armor. She never wanted anyone else to see him like this. "Is this the best Mandalore can offer me? A veterinarian who spends her working day with her arm up a—"

"Believe me, I prefer treating nerfs. Keep still. Or I'll miss and puncture a lung. Or worse."

"How long is this going to take?"

"Mand'alor, do you know what the alternative site to the sternum is for this treatment?"

"Amaze me."

"The pelvic bones."

Fett's expression was predictably blank, and he didn't say another word. He looked away, and anyone else would have thought it was casual annoyance at having his schedule interrupted, but Mirta knew him well enough by now to see he was in excruciating pain. She took the risk of stepping forward and folding her hand around his. He took it, too. She thought he'd break every bone in her fingers when the vet lined up the needle—so big that Mirta could see the hole in the tip—and pressed it hard into his breastbone, as if she were preparing a nuna for roasting.

There was an awful squelch. Orade swallowed loudly.

"If you're going to faint or throw up, son, go do it outside," the vet said irritably. "Failing that, find some analgesics. Where do you keep them?"

"Forget it," Fett said. "I need to know if you're doing me any damage."

"It's okay, Ba'buir,'" Mirta whispered. "You'll be okay."

"If the Sarlacc didn't finish me off, she won't, either."

The vet, all smiling menace, inserted the syringe in a glass vial to refill. "Last one. Shut your eyes and think of Mandalore."

Mirta glanced over her shoulder at the man in the multicolored armor. He slipped off his helmet.

"Just making sure he doesn't die before he does something useful for Manda'yaim," said the man. "If it works, and it should, then he'll start to show signs of recovery in a few days."

He looked a lot like Fett—and Jaing—and the resemblance was unsettling. The Kiffar part of her, the one that cared about bloodlines, told her this was her kin. Clones got around a bit during the war. She probably had a lot more genetic relatives than she'd first thought.

Fett crushed Mirta's fingers again and didn't make a sound.

The vet straightened up and opened a bottle of pungent-smelling liquid to clean her hands. "Normally, I swat my patients across the rump and let them get on with grazing. But seeing as it's you, I'll skip that and suggest you take it easy for a day or so. Expect a big bruise."

Fett gave her a silent nod of acknowledgment as she left, and fastened his undershirt. Then he looked up at Mirta. "Say hello to your uncle Venku." He indicated the man in the motley armor, who still hadn't acknowledged her. "Alias Kad'ika."

It was all making sense now. Kad'ika had to be the son of a clone trooper. There must have been a lot of them out there, and she wondered how many of them had any social graces or senses of humor, or if they all took after Ba'buir.

"Just doing my bit for Mandalorian unity," Venku said, slipping his helmet back on as if her close inspection was making him uncomfortable.

"Wouldn't do for the Mand'alor to snuff it just when we're on the rise again."

He leaned over Fett and put two fingers against the pulse in his neck. Mirta expected her grandfather to flatten him for daring to lay hands on him, but he simply looked at the assorted plates of beskar'gam with idle curiosity and tolerated the examination.

"Your heart rate's up," Venku said. "Get some rest."

"Field medic."

"Yeah, they say I have a healing touch." Mirta found that hard to believe. Venku straightened up. "Any problems—tell the folks at Cikartan's tapcaf in town. They'll know how to contact me."

Venku made for the door. As he brushed past her, he stopped and tapped his finger against the heart-of-fire dangling from her neck. He obviously never worried about getting a punch in the face.

"Interesting," he said.

He was a chancer, a man who could obtain things—and obviously information as well. It was worth a try.

"It's a heart-of-fire," she said. "It belonged to my grandmother. I need a full- blooded Kiffar to help me read the memories imprinted in it."

He paused for a few moments. "Mando'ade come from all kinds of places.

If I find anyone who can read the stone, I'll let you know." Then he was gone.

Orade nudged Beviin.

"Go on," Orade said. "Tell him. It'll make him happy—okay, happier.

Happy people heal faster."

Fett put his armor plates back on. "What's going to make me happy?"

Beviin had the beatific smile of a man who'd finished laying up stores for the winter and just enjoyed a big meal. "Yomaget's got something to show you."

Fett grunted. He was the least expressive man Mirta knew, but he seemed vaguely disappointed. "He's got the Bes'uliik spaceworthy, has he?"

"Bang goes the surprise."

"It's the thought that counts." He stood up and was instantly transformed from her sick Ba'buir into Boba Fett, ruthless and relentless. But he didn't stride out the door right away. She took a guess that he was feeling the effects of the treatment and wasn't going to admit it, not even in front of people who knew exactly what was wrong.