Sacrifice

"Business is business." Fett gave him an acknowledging nod. "I'll chip in a few million creds, too."

Carid looked around him as if to single out anyone mad enough to dissent, but everyone had what they wanted from the meeting. Mirta still managed to look baleful. The slice of her mother's heart-of-fire stone dangled on a leather cord around her neck. At least she had a decent helmet now, apparently her first, so that showed just how much of a Mandalorian her father had been—or how little she'd seen of him.

Maybe Mando fathers have been disappointing her all her life.

"One last thing," Fett said. "I'm going to be away from base for a few days. Uncontactable."

"How will we notice?" someone muttered.

It was a fair point. "So I'm not the governing kind. But I haven't let you down yet. While I'm away, Goran Beviin stands in for me."

There was no dissent. Beviin was solid and trustworthy, and he didn't want to be Mandalore. He was also a complete savage with a beskad, an ancient Mandalorian iron saber, as many Yuuzhan Vong had discovered the hard way. Any argument about the isolationist policy in Fett's absence wouldn't last long.

"We're done here," said Carid. "You give me the inventory of all the farmland lying fallow, and my clan will make sure it gets allocated to whoever returns to farm it." He hung back for a moment and made an exaggerated job of replacing his helmet. "I'm glad you brought Jango home, Mand'alor. It was the right thing to do."

Was it? Home for his father was Concord Dawn. It was right for Mandalore, maybe. They liked their figureheads where they could see them, even their dead ones.

"Nobody has to listen to me if they don't feel like it."