That was easier said than done. She needed to try a more direct approach there, maybe talk to him for once. Nobody else had managed to.
It was hard to get Jacen to listen, and even harder to get hold of him these days. He took the secret in secret police literally.
Then something vanished from the Force.
Ben—
It was like a shape flashing past her peripheral vision, and a familiar background noise stopping abruptly, leaving a dead, soundless ringing in the ears.
Ben's gone—
Ben had disappeared from the Force.
Mara's hand was on the controls to jump to hyperspace and head back to Coruscant at top speed when the sense of her son flooded back as if the sound had been turned on again. Her stomach rolled.
Maybe it's me.
He'd done it before as a little boy, scared by the last war, the one against the Yuuzhan Vong. It was uncontrolled and instinctive. But what Mara had just experienced felt like something more deliberate. When she concentrated on him, he felt fine—no, more than fine. He felt elated.
It still bothered her. She set a course for home and before she jumped, she felt him vanish and return again.
He seemed . . . delighted. She could feel the profound wonder in him. So he was doing it deliberately. No son of hers was going to pull that stunt on her: she'd had enough of Jacen doing it without Ben learning to hide in the Force as well. She'd go back and check on him, but pick her time to confront him about his new skill.
Maybe he won't get any farther than short bursts.
But he was Ben, and Ben had proved capable of astounding feats.
He'd master it, all right. She just knew it.
Suddenly she didn't feel quite so guilty about giving him a tagged vibroblade. A mother had to keep ahead of the game somehow.
SOUTH SIDE LANDING STRIP, KUAT CITY
So," said the clone. He hauled Mirta to her feet and dusted her down, and she tolerated it. His animal watched her with red-rimmed yellow eyes, and she grabbed her helmet from where he'd dropped it, expecting the creature to spring at her. "What part of stay out of my way didn't you understand?"
Mirta opened her mouth to give him a piece of her mind but Fett cut in. "Nice of you to drop in, but can we continue this discussion elsewhere?"
"Ah, the almighty Mand'alor. Hanging a gang boss over a balcony in the center of town. Yeah, that's subtle." The clone motioned the animal into the cargo bay, where it lay rumbling ominously like a distant storm.
It was the ugliest thing Mirta had ever seen: loose gold fur that made it look like its skin was several sizes too big for it, six legs, and a truly ghastly mouthful of fangs. "Thanks for getting everyone's attention."
"I was looking for you," Fett said. He closed the hatch. "We have to go. Shut up and secure yourself for takeoff."
"You abducting me?"
"Would you rather have a chat and a cup of caf while we wait for the Kuat police and all of Fraig's scumbags to show up?"
"Okay, I borrowed the speeder anyway. Sort of. Tell you what, drop us off on Coruscant and we'll be on our way." The clone grabbed his helmet with both hands and lifted it off. He didn't look any less intimidating, but after a couple of seconds he broke into an unexpected grin that completely transformed, him. He looked more like Fett's brother than his twin, not identical at all. "They say there's some family resemblance, but I don't see it myself. . ."
Fett paused for a telling moment and then stalked off to the cockpit. Mirta wasn't certain whether to land a punch on the clone or thank him for showing up.
"What's your name?" she asked.
"Jaing Skirata. You?"
"Mirta Gev." Then she realized it didn't have the required impact.
"Fett's granddaughter."
Jaing raised his eyebrows and burst out laughing. The animal lifted its head and whined. Mirta went forward to the cockpit to strap herself in for takeoff, unhappy at the laughter still ringing behind her.
"You let him ambush you," said Fett.
Mirta seethed. "I didn't pick him up on my sensors and I didn't even see him coming at me. He flattened me before I could kalik him."
"Stab?"
"You're learning."
"And you're not." Fett punched the controls, and Kuat dwindled to a disk beneath them. "You didn't check visually. Don't rely on the helmet tech all the time."
"Hey, you didn't spot him, either. That's got to be stealth armor."
"He's a Null." There was some history there, she could see that.
"They were black ops clones. The Kaminoans' attempt to improve on my dad's genome for cloning. You can see it didn't work."
"He says his name's Jaing. And did they really shove your head down—"
Fett just turned his head. He still had his helmet on, and even though few things scared Mirta these days, he had a way of being glacially slow and silent that was unsettling. She was just trying to get him to talk, looking for the long-buried man within. It was a forlorn hope. She gripped the console in front of her as Fett tapped in the coordinates for Coruscant, 000—and Slave I jumped to hyperspace.
"Jaing's not as bad as I thought," Mirta said.
"They were all psychiatric cases." Considering he probably hadn't seen them since he was a kid, Fett's recollection seemed painfully vivid.
"They say Jaing tracked Grievous in the war. Master assassin, sniper, general pain in the backside. Don't underestimate him."
"The war before last, you mean."
"It's all one long war to me."
It was time to shut up, she decided. Fett was braced against the pilot's seat, looking uncomfortable; it could be folded down so the pilot could stand at the controls, or raised to form a ledge. He usually opted for the latter. She had a feeling that he was in too much pain to sit down.
"Course laid in," he said. "Let's go talk to him."
Mirta pulled out another painkiller, grabbed his hand, and slapped the capsule into his palm. "And when we drop him off on Coruscant, you see Doctor Beluine. Okay?"
Fett grunted. That was as near as she'd get to agreement. She could see his dread of mortal weakness.
"I'm not relying completely on drugs yet," he said. "All the time I hurt, I know how far it's progressed."
Jaing was sitting cross-legged on the deck of the cargo bay, face-to-face with the animal, which was gazing into his eyes and making little whining, grumbling sounds as if trying to get him to understand something. He seemed oblivious to its smell. They both looked around when Fett and Mirta came through the hatch.
"What is he?" Mirta asked.
"You asking me or Lord Mirdalan?" Jaing held his gloved fingers up in front of the animal's face, some land of signal that produced instant attention and made it lie flat on the deck. Jaing got to his feet. "He's an it. Strills are hermaphrodites. I promised Mird's last owner I'd look after it when he passed to the manda. Strills live a lot longer than we do."
"Heard of them, but never seen one."
"They're nearly extinct on Mandalore. Mird—well, you might say it's a black ops strill. Saw a lot of commando action in a few wars."
Fett shoved his thumbs into his belt in that Pm-fed-up-with-waiting pose. "When you two finish the nature lesson . . ."
Jaing had more lines, fewer gray hairs, and a heavier build than Fett. Mirta could see the cords of muscle in his neck. And he had no scars. He looked like a man who'd spent a lot of time in the sun without a helmet, and who'd laughed a lot. Genetically, this was Fett, but they couldn't have been more different.
"Ain't I gorgeous?" He grinned, and she realized she was staring at him.