"To spend on importing food."

"That's the idea."

"I suppose that's one way of balancing supply and demand."

"What is?"

"Back one side or the other in this war. That'll reduce the number of mouths to feed. Dead men don't eat."

There were snickers of laughter and comments in Mando'a this time.

Fett made a mental note to program his helmet translator to deal with it, and that felt like the ultimate admission of defeat for a leader: he couldn't speak the language of his own people. But they didn't seem to care.

"I'm with the Mand'alor on this," said a hoarse male voice at the back of the assembly. Fett recognized that one: Neth Bralor. He'd known a few Bralors in his time, but they weren't all from the same clan. It was a common name, sometimes simply an indication of roots in Norg Bral or another hill- fort town. "We lost nearly a million and a half people fighting the vongese. That might be small change for Coruscant, but it's a disaster for us. No more—not until we get Manda'yaim in order. We'll eat bas neral if we have to."

A murmur of rumbling agreement rippled around the hall. A few chieftains slapped their gauntlets on their armor in approval. One of them was the woman commando Fett had met in Zerria's on Drall, Isko Talgal. Her expression was still as grim, graying black hair scraped back from her wind-tanned face and braided with silver beads, but she banged her fist on her thigh plate in enthusiastic approval. Fett wondered what she looked like when she was unhappy.

"You wanted a decision from me. You got it." Fett felt time accelerating past him, and it eroded what little patience he had. Every bone

in his body ached right through to his spine. "Galactic Alliance or Confederation—you think it's going to make any difference to us?"

"No," said another voice, thick with a northern Concordian accent.

"Coruscant won't be asking us to disarm anytime soon. They might need us if they get another vongese war."

"Chakaare!" someone laughed. But the debate picked up pace, still mostly

"And what if the war comes too close to home? What if it spreads to a neighboring system or two?"

"Even if we side with the Alliance, what's to say they won't turn on us and expect us to toe their nice tidy disarmed line?"

"It's not disarmament they want, it's pooling every planet's assets into the GA Defense Force, and we all know how slick and efficient that's going to be . . ."

Fett stood back and watched. It was both uplifting and entertaining in its way. It was the kind of decision-making process that could happen only in a small population of ferociously independent people who knew immediately when it was time to stop being individuals and come together as a nation.

Funny, that's the last thing Mandalore is: a nation. Sometimes we fight on different sides. We're scattered around the galaxy. We're not even one species. But we know what we are and what we want, and that's not going to change anytime soon.

The arguments were all coming down to one thing. A lot of people needed the credits. Times were still tough.

Fett brought his fist down hard on the nearest solid surface—a small table —and the crack brought the hubbub of discussion to a halt.

"Mandalore has no position on the current war, and there'll be no divisions over it," he said. "Anyone who wants to sell their services individually to either side—that's your business. But not in Mandalore's name."

He braced for the eruption of argument from the sudden silence, thumbs hooked in his belt. His helmet's wide-angle vision caught a fully armored figure standing at the rear of the hall. It wasn't always possible to tell if a Mando in armor was male or female, but Fett was sure this was a man, medium height and with his hands clasped behind his back. The left

shoulder plate of his purple-black armor was a light metallic brown. It wasn't unusual to see odd-colored plates, because many Mandalorians kept a piece of a dead loved one's armor, but this was striking for a reason Fett couldn't work out. Something glittered in the central panel of the man's breastplate, a tiny point of light as the sun cut across the chamber in a shaft so sharp and white that it seemed solid.

I should do that. I should wear a piece of Dad's armor with my own, every day.

He felt bad that he didn't, but jerked his attention back to the meeting.

"That's okay, then," said a cheerful, white-haired man sitting a few paces from him. A dark blue tattoo of a vine emerged from the top of his armor and ended under his chin. Baltan Carid, that was his name. Fett had last seen him dispatching Yuuzhan Vong with a battered Imperial-era blaster at Caluula Station. "That's all we needed to know. That there's no ban on mercenary work."

"I'll make it clear to both sides that there's no official involvement in their dispute," Fett said. "But if any of you want to get yourselves killed, it's your call."

"So we might see Mando fighting Mando in this aruetiise's war."

Everyone looked around at the man in the purple armor. Fett saw no need to learn the language, but there were words he couldn't avoid: aruetiise.

Non-Mandalorians. Occasionally pejorative, but usually just a way of saying not one of us. "Hardly conducive to restoring the nation, is it?"

"But fighting's our number one export," said Carid. "What do you want, make Keldabe into a tourist spot or something?" He roared with laughter. "I can see it now. Visit Mandalore before Mandalore visits you.

Take home some souvenirs—a slab of uj cake and a smack in the mouth."

"Well, our economic policy right now seems to be to earn foreign credits . .

. get killed . . . and neglect the planet."

Carid had a magnificent sneer. He was far more intimidating without a helmet. "You got a better idea? Oh, wait—is this going to be the all-day diatribe on kadikla self-determination and statehood? 'Cos I ain't getting any younger, son, and I'd like to be home in time for dinner,

'cos my missus is making pea-flour dumplings."

That got a lot of laughs. Carid generally did. There were shouts and guffaws. "Yeah, we know about the dumplings, Carid . . ."

But . . . kadikla. So the Mandalore-first movement had a name now, even its own adjective, too. He hadn't come across Kad'ika yet, the man they said was driving the new nationalism. Fett thought that was remiss of the man, seeing as he'd done just what was asked of him and returned to lead Mandalore.

"Critical mass, ner vod." Purple Man ignored the howls of laughter.

His voice had the tone of someone who'd argued this many times before.

"We have a population of fewer than three million here, and maybe as many as three times that in diaspora. We lost a lot of our best troops, our farmland's been poisoned, and our industrial infrastructure is still shot to harem after ten years. So maybe this is the ideal time to bring some people home. Gather in the exiles while the rest of the galaxy is busy."

Carid was focused on the debate now, and Fett was temporarily forgotten. "Yeah, group up to make a nice easy target. All of us in one place."

"Nobody except the vongese has attacked us in a long time."

"The Empire gutted us. You've got a short memory. Or maybe you were still in diapers when Shysa had to kick some pride back into us."

"Okay, so let's abandon Mandalore. Go totally nomad again. Keep moving. Rely on the whim of every government except our own."

"Son, we are the shabla government," Carid said. "So what do you want to do about it?"