Sacrifice

It took a few seconds for Mirta to work out what was going on. He doesn't want to leave any DNA. He's even more cunning than you, Ba'buir.

Fett turned and swung back through the hatch. Mirta had hoped the two men would find something else to talk about, but the fact they shared a genome clearly meant nothing. Still . . . this was a relative. This was her relative, a great-uncle, even if Mandos didn't care about bloodline half as much as most species. The Kiffar half of her cared about it a lot.

"I feel bad for you, kid," Jaing said. "I feel bad for him, too, I suppose. But apart from some admiration for his skills, I think he's the worst excuse for a Mando'ad this side of the Core. On the other hand, he wins, and we need winners. And my dad would have expected me to help him, no questions asked."

Jaing spoke as if he came from a totally different family, not a vat that contained the duplicated chromosomes of Jango Fett. He slipped a three- sided knife from his forearm plate and trimmed the dried meat into smaller chunks, utterly at ease.

"Jango's not who you mean by 'dad,' is he?" Mirta said.

"No." Jaing smiled wistfully to himself for a moment. "Genes don't count. You ought to know that by now. The man who adopted me was my training sergeant. Finest man who ever lived."

Jaing sounded like he'd come from a far happier family, a strange thing for a clone soldier. "I seem to be bucking the trend of devoted kids," Mirta said. "I tried to kill my grandfather."

"So did your mother, I hear. Boba's obviously got this magic touch with the ladies."

"You seem to know everything about me, but I don't know much about you."

Jaing just grinned. "That's my job, sweetheart."