Sacrifice

Fierfek, she really did have the Fett eyes. Maybe he was seeing what wasn't really there, but the look bored through into his soul anyway. It was a look that said: You failed. He didn't hear the murmur of voices around him, just the soundless accusations that his daughter Ailyn was dead, that he had never been there for her until it was too late, and that he might also be too late to start being a worthy Mandalore. His father had groomed him to be the best, and even if he'd never mentioned being Mandalore one day, it went with the legacy. Jaster's legacy.

Better be quick, then. I'm dying. I've got business to take care of. Priorities: a cure, then find out what happened to my wife, what happened to Sintas Vel.

It wasn't that Mirta wouldn't tell him.

She didn't know. She had the heart-of-fire gem he'd given Sintas as a wedding gift, but it had turned up at a dealer's shop. It was just bait. And he'd taken it.

But, Fett being Fett, it was more than bait. It was a motivator: it was another piece of evidence.

It's never too late to find out. I thought it was, but it's not.

The hubbub of the chieftains of the clans, heads of companies, and an assortment of veteran mercenaries faded voice by voice into silence.

They watched him warily. Not all of them were human, either: a Togorian and a Mandallian, both wearing impressive armor, leaned against the far wall, massive arms folded across their chests. Species didn't matter much to Mandalorians. Culture defined them. Fett wondered what that made him.

"Oya!" It was muttered at first, then shouted a few times. "Oya!"

It was a word with a hundred meanings for Mandalorians. This time it meant "Let's go, let's get on with it." They always started their gatherings this way, and this was the nearest Mandalorians ever came to a senate.