But it wasn't altogether a bad sign. Perhaps he was washing away the old Jacen and preparing for the one he would become. So if he needed to do that by wearing sackcloth and brushing his teeth with salt, that was fine. She shut off the lights, checked that the apartment was secure, and made her way out of the apartment building to the walkways of Coruscant.

She slipped through the back alley and into the disused warehouse where she'd hidden the Sith meditation sphere. Ben Skywalker did have his uses; even insects had a vital role in the ecology. The ship would come into its own now.

Lumiya might not have been able to find Jacen when he vanished into the Force, but the ancient red sphere somehow could. She could feel its curiosity and even a little excitement. It wanted to be useful again, to serve.

It extruded its boarding ramp without even being asked.

Follow Jacen Solo, she thought, and pictured him in her mind so that the sphere didn't get distracted by Ben. It seemed fascinated by the boy. Follow the Sith-Lord-to-be.

He was going to succeed.

BEVIIN-VASUR FARM, MANDALORE

The hard red soil was baked solid like pottery clay, and it shattered at the first blow of his vibroshovel. Fett stared at a stark white tracery of bones beneath, highlighted by the harsh sun.

"Why did you leave me here, son?" asked Jango Fett. Where was he?

There was no face, nothing at all. But the voice was right there. "I've been waiting."

"Where are you, Dad? I can't find you."

"I waited . . ."

"Where are you?" Fett was shouting for his father, but his voice was a kid's and the hands he could see clutching the shovel were an old man's, veined and spotted. Panic and desperation nearly choked him. "Dad, I can't see you." He started tearing aside the hard dirt, and the gritty particles jammed painfully under his fingernails. He kept digging, sobbing. "Where are you?"

Fett woke with a start. His heart was pounding; sweat prickled on his back. Then it faded and he was looking at the chrono on the far wall.

In the weeks since he'd brought his father's remains back to Mandalore, he'd had that nightmare far too often. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tested his weight on them, waiting for the pain to start gnawing at the joints.

It wasn't so bad. In fact, he just felt a little stiff around his lower back, as if

he'd been digging. Maybe he'd acted out that nightmare.

He bounced on his heels a few times to see what happened. There was no pain. He didn't even feel that nausea that had been so routine, he'd forgotten what it felt like to wake up without it.

Apart from running a temperature, he felt better than he had in days —months, in fact. He was alive. He wouldn't believe he was in the clear until the nerf-doctor came back with the test results, but he knew something fundamental had changed.

So you didn't poison me, Jaing.

He went to the refresher to shower, if a torrent of cold water from an overhead cistern could be called that, and shaved with an ancient fixed blade that nicked his chin. Where the Sarlacc's acid hadn't left smooth, glossy scar tissue, there was still stubble to tackle, and these days most of it was pure white and hard to see. He shaved twice a day anyway. These were the unguarded, naked times when he allowed himself to think of Ailyn and other painful things, because he had to look himself in the eye, and he wasn't a liar. Lying wasn't just bad; it was stupid.

Lying to yourself was the most stupid thing of all.

And now that he wasn't so preoccupied with his own death, he could think about the deaths of others. There was a lot of unfinished business.

He'd start with Ailyn.

She was a stranger when I opened that body bag. A middle-aged woman. Not lovely like her mother. Old before her time, exhausted, dead.

And still my baby, my little girl. I don't care if you tried to kill me.

I really don't.

Killing was his trade. He didn't enjoy it, and he didn't dread it.

The only person whose death he knew would make him feel good and not just competent was Jacen Solo.

Better that you rot than die. I can wait. Thanks for motivating me to survive.

I'm back.

Fett checked his face in the mirror for missed beard, double-checked with his fingertips, then lowered his helmet over his head. The world became sharp and fully comprehensible again with all the extra senses built into his armor. At a time when other men had failing eyesight and unreliable hearing, Fett could see through solid walls and eavesdrop kilometers away. There was a lot to be said for smart tech. He flexed his fingers in his gauntlets, finally feeling complete and girded against the world.

Yes, I really am back.

He rode the speeder bike into Keldabe and hammered on the doors of the vet's surgery. She had her name on a durasteel plate: HAYCA MEKKET.

A man leaned out of the open upper window, looking bleary-eyed, and stared down at Fett. He disappeared again. "Sweetness," he bellowed.

"It's your special patient."

The vet appeared at the window. "I suppose I've got to open early, especially for you."

"Haven't you got any letters after your name?"

"Nerfs can't read. Why bother?"

"Got my results?"

"Yeah."

"And?"

"The cell degeneration's stopped. But the lab tech over on Dawn said we shouldn't breed from you." Somehow she was easier to deal with than Beluine. "You know that needle was for banthas?"

"Felt like it."

"You're a hard man, Fett. I'm glad you're not dead."

"How much do I owe you?"

"A quilt. A nice, thick red one."

Fett went back to Slave I and caught up with the news. Murkhana and Roche were heading for a showdown: it was a good opportunity to show what a single Bes'uliik could do, if the Verpine wanted to invoke the treaty.

Fierfek, I did it again. I'm going to live.

If nothing else went wrong, he'd have another thirty years, maybe more. Most people would have been overjoyed at the reprieve. But Fett found he was actually glad that he'd come so close to death again, because it had a way of sharpening him up and making him think harder. He liked the risk; he liked beating the odds.

I suppose I should tell Mirta.

Now he felt he could ask her what Ailyn had taught her over the years to make her hate him so much. What he really wanted to know, though, was where Ailyn had learned her hatred. Most kids from divorces didn't pursue a homicidal feud across half a galaxy.

But it could wait an hour or so while he had a decent breakfast.

He'd enjoy it today. He was going to live.

chapter seventeen

I find it interesting that Taun We has never held it against Fett for attacking Kamino. Either he's her favorite unfinished project, or there's something else we don't know.

—Jaing Skirata, musing on the motives of Kaminoans LON SHEVU'S APARTMENT, PORT QUARTER, CORUSCANT

"It's really kind of you to put me up, sir." Ben tried to take up as little room as possible on Captain Shevu's sofa. It wasn't just awkwardness about intruding on someone's privacy; Ben found himself trying to hide—not in the Force, but from it. Ideally, he'd have gone home with Mom, but that meant Dad, too, and he simply couldn't face him yet.

"You're not really afraid of your dad, are you?" Shevu handed him a plate of breadsticks filled with fruit preserves, which was a weird combination but he seemed to leave the proper cooking to his girlfriend. "He seems such a nice guy."

"He is," said Ben. "But did you ever think your parents knew everything you were thinking, and everything you'd done wrong, just by looking at you?"