Sacrifice

"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