"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."