Invincible Read online

  Fett laughed. “Smart barve, your dad.” He spun on his heel and started down the access corridor at a jog. “No wonder he’s so hard to kill.”

  Hey, Jaina—do you know why TIE fighters scream in space? Because they miss their mother ship!

  —Jacen Solo, age 14, Jedi academy on Yavin 4

  This deep in the transitory mists, there were no stars to relieve the night’s gloom, no constellations to make the black skies seem less alien. The vista outside the viewport was an inky fog of light-swallowing gases that never thinned and never lifted—and never failed to leave spacegazers feeling a little lost and alone.

  The Jedi had retreated to the abandoned mining world of Shedu Maad to hide from Jacen, and ever since joining them here, Jaina had been wondering whether this dark corner of the galaxy would become their tomb. Like most good refuges, it felt safe and secure … and that was an illusion. After the trouble the Jedi had caused at Fondor, Jacen would be searching for their secret base with every resource he could spare—and this time, he would give them no time to evacuate. He would have a strike force waiting to pounce the instant he had any idea where they were.

  Their only hope was to get him first.

  The Jedi would never leave Shedu Maad alive—not unless they hunted down and killed Jacen before he hunted them down. Jaina knew that in her heart.

  But could she convince the Masters?

  Several of them were gathered around a table behind her, holding an impromptu war council with Luke, Jagged Fel, and her father and mother—the renowned Han and Leia Solo. Not for the first time in her life, Jaina wondered whether she could ever live up to her parents’ legend, how she could possibly impact the galaxy as they had during their long and illustrious lives.

  “… and are we sure Jacen sent them?” Corran Horn was asking. “The Remnant is still an independent government.”

  Not wishing to involve herself in the conversation until she was invited—or at least until the time was right—Jaina kept her back to the table and continued to stare out the viewport.

  “This might have been the Moffs’ play,” Corran continued.

  “Could be,” said Jaina’s father … Han Solo. In this context—in the company of so many other greats, trying to plan a response to her brother’s latest outrages—it felt wrong to even think of her parents as Mom and Dad. They were bigger than that, along with her uncle Luke, the most legendary of the many legends sitting at that table. “Maybe all Fett did was streamline their decision-making process.”

  Nobody laughed. During the wildly confused Battle of Fondor, nearly a quarter of the Remnant’s Moffs had been executed by Boba Fett and his Mandalorians aboard Admiral Pellaeon’s flagship, the Bloodfin. Most coalition intelligence agencies had concluded that the survivors would fall into a bitter power struggle and scurry home to protect their turf. But Luke and the Jedi Council had realized that, somehow, the only Moffs who had been trapped aboard when Fett arrived were those who had been a problem during Pellaeon’s reign. The rest had managed to escape and rejoin the main body of the Remnant’s fleet—again, somehow.

  The Masters had concluded that those somehows were the doing of Pellaeon’s aide, Vitor Reige. They had also realized that a shrewd leader such as Pellaeon would have made provisions to ensure a smooth succession of power after his death. Unfortunately for the Verpine—and the Jedi coalition—it appeared they had been right.

  After a long pause in the conversation, Luke said, “I don’t think it matters whose idea it was to enslave the Verpine. If Jacen doesn’t control the Remnant already, he soon will.”

  There followed another silence during which no one disagreed. Then Kenth Hamner said, “Which means he’s reaching the tipping point. Once he has full control of the Remnant’s fleets, he’ll be able to project more power than all of his enemies combined.”

  “We could always accept Admiral Niathal’s offer to assume supreme command of all coalition forces,” Kyp Durron said, his tone clearly mocking. “That would give us, what, another dozen hulls?”

  “At least,” Kenth said, joining the others at the table in a bitter chuckle. “And all she wants in return is to negate our nonaggression pact with the entire Confederation.”

  The laughter trailed away into dumbfounded silence, until Jaina’s mom—Princess Leia—said, “All the same, I’d suggest the Council phrase its rejection as politely as possible. It’s never good to alienate a potential ally, no matter how inconsequential they may seem at the time.”

  “Thank you for the reminder, Leia,” Kenth said. “I will be careful with my phrasing.”

  “In the meantime, we’ll just have to sign up the Chiss Ascendancy,” Kyp said. Jaina could not tell from his tone whether he was still joking or actually believed there was any chance of such an alliance happening. “Then, if we can get the Corporate Sector—”

  “Forget the Ascendancy,” Jag interrupted. “You won’t involve Csilla in this. Even if the Nine Ruling Families would take sides against the Imperial Remnant, they won’t get involved with Jedi problems.”

  “Still stinging from Tenupe?” Han asked.

  “That, and the Jedi habit of telling interstellar governments how to run their sovereign territory,” Jag replied. “No offense meant, of course.”

  “Not much taken,” Corran assured him. “At least there’s no question about the coalition’s situation.”

  “No question at all,” said Leia. Her voice was dignified and calm, but the Force was smoldering with her frustration. Just days before the Remnant invasion, she and Han had failed to persuade the Verpine to withdraw from their treaty with Mandalore and join the Jedi coalition instead. “I believe the term is borked.”

  “Sorry, Luke,” Han said. There was a bitter edge to his voice that Jaina suspected only she and her mother would recognize as a personal sense of failure. “We told Siskili what you’ve been seeing when you look into the future. But the Verpine’s mutual-aid deal with Mandalore was exclusive, and he was too afraid of Fett to break it.”

  “Nor would Fett let them modify it,” Leia added.

  “Buckethead skulo!” Saba spat. “Does Boba Fett think one world of dirt-comberz is the match of thousandz? Mandalore has been hunting too far up the chain, and now the whole jungle will suffer.”

  “Fett does what works for Fett,” Han replied. “The rest of us can suck entropy.”

  “That’s not true anymore,” Jaina said, turning from the viewport.

  The décor of the makeshift conference room could only be described as mining-complex salvage, with age-yellowed sturdiplas furniture and poured plastoid walls the color of dust. The sliding door at the far end of the small chamber—it had probably been a break room when the mine was still in operation—remained open because of a corroded actuator arm that had not been serviced in centuries.

  Most of the war council sat on benches beside a long dining table that had probably once been some color other than stained amber. Their cloaks were fastened tight against the chill of a not-quite-repaired environmental control unit. Only Luke wasn’t seated, standing on the near side of the table with his back to the others, gazing out the same viewport through which Jaina had been looking. Judging by the casual acceptance of this position by everyone else at the table, it had not been unusual of late.

  “Fett has a family now,” Jaina continued, “and he has Mandalore. He still cares about his word, too.”

  “Then I guess this war has accomplished something,” Leia replied bitterly. She was dressed in a white robe that was only a few shades lighter than the gray wisps now running through her hair. “Boba Fett has grown as a person. And here I was wishing the kriffing war had never started.”

  “I’m not defending him,” Jaina replied. She could see the sad pain swimming just beneath the surface of her mother’s brown eyes, and was not surprised to find that it only served to make her appear more regal than ever. “I’m just saying he has more vulnerabilities now, and we should remember that. Of all the things I le
arned training with Boba Fett, the most important were these two: he isn’t a good guy, and he’ll never be our friend.”

  This drew a crooked, deep-wrinkled smile from her father. “I always said you were our smart one.”

  He was seated next to Leia, who sat on a stool at the end of the table—very much her own woman, but still with Han, as always. It was a stark contrast with Fett’s fifty years of loneliness, and Jaina found herself glancing at Jagged Fel’s square jaw and squarer shoulders, hoping she would survive long enough to someday have what her parents did.

  Then Jag caught her looking at him, and his grim frown was replaced by a passably warm smile. Jaina glanced away without returning the gesture, telling herself that she had only been looking in Jag’s direction because Zekk wasn’t present, that she wasn’t ready to think about choosing anyone until she had finished with Jacen.

  And to do that, she needed to win the support of the Jedi Council. The first step was to convince Luke and the others that the Jedi had to challenge Jacen no matter how strong he was; that they did not dare hide in the Transitory Mists until they could find some way to shift the balance of power back in their favor.

  Jaina stepped to the corner of the table closest to her parents. “If I may, I’d like to express an opinion.”

  Leia turned toward her with an air of attentiveness, but everyone else seemed taken aback. Her father’s jaw fell, Jag’s gaze grew even more penetrating, and the brows of several Masters rose in shock. During her tenure as a Jedi Knight, Jaina had hardly cultivated the reputation of someone who followed proper procedure.

  “You’re requesting permission to talk to us?” Kyp asked. For once, his brown hair was neatly trimmed at his collar, his face was clean-shaven, and his blue robe had only a few wrinkles. “Jaina Solo?”

  “That’s right.” Jaina checked her posture, drawing herself up straight and formal. “I think it’s important.”

  Kyp whistled in disbelief, then looked to Han. “I don’t know what Fett did to her, but I’ll help you hunt him down.”

  “Come on,” Jaina complained. “Can’t a girl learn from her mistakes? I just want to do this right.”

  “Then by all means, proceed,” Kenth said. He placed both hands flat on the table and glanced around at the others. “Unless there are objections?”

  Saba snorted. “This one did not realize you had such a good sense of humor, Master Hamner.” She let out a long siss of Barabel laughter, her forked tongue flickering between her pebbled lips. “Who would not want to hear this?”

  Jaina was fairly sure she could name two people at the table who were not going to like what she intended to propose, but she nodded her thanks and began.

  “It’s obvious that we have no hope of actually stopping the takeover of the Verpine munitions industry,” she began. “By the time I left the system, the Remnant had already captured Nickel One and most of the other important hives. With the advantage of their aerosol weapon, it’s clear that they’ll have the rest before the coalition can mount any sort of response.”

  “If we can mount a response,” agreed Corran. “Most of our partners’ fleets are already engaged near their own sectors, and they’re not going to pull out to defend an unaligned system—especially when that system has been selling arms to all three sides.”

  “That doesn’t mean we can afford to ignore the Roche system,” Kenth objected. “Once Jacen has control of those munitions factories, the war is over.”

  “Not necessarily,” Jaina said. She could not allow the Jedi to slip into a defensive frame of mind. She had to keep them focused on going after the enemy. “If Jacen can’t get the munitions to his navies, it doesn’t do him any good to control the factories.”

  “You think we should forget the Verpine?” Kyp asked.

  “Not forget,” Jaina corrected. “But the Mandalorians are the ones who have the mutual-aid agreement. All I’m suggesting is that we let them honor their contract and leave the asteroid fighting to Fett. In the meantime, we’ll concentrate on what’s important to us and—”

  “Raid the supply train,” Kenth finished. “Classic guerrilla tactics—for which we happen to be perfectly positioned.”

  “Exactly,” Jaina said. “We make them choose between defending their munitions convoys against a concentrated StealthX campaign, and keeping their fleet in the Roche system to protect their new munitions factories against a Mandalorian counterattack. They don’t have enough hulls to do both missions well, so I’m betting they’ll want to protect their new factories.”

  “And that leaves the Jedi free to demolish their freighter capacity,” Jag said. “How many cargo vessels do they have?”

  “Um … there wasn’t a lot of time to count,” Jaina admitted. She could have kicked him for jumping to details now, before she had a chance to talk about the other half of her plan, but that was Jag—focused, careful, and alert. “And I wasn’t thinking demolish. More like, um, appropriate.”

  “You mean steal,” her father said, smirking in pride. “I like it. It shows your Solo blood.”

  “This one likez it also,” Saba said. “There will be fewer pointlesz killz this way.”

  “Yeah, that, too,” Han said. He winked at Leia. “But mostly I’m looking forward to playing pirate again.”

  “All you had to do was ask,” Leia replied sweetly. “I’m always happy to clap you in leg irons, flyboy.”

  “Okaaaay,” Jaina said, feeling herself blush. “We really don’t need to hear more—at least I don’t.”

  A chuckle ran around the table, then Kenth, all business as usual, brought the discussion back to strategy.

  “I think we’ve all heard enough to agree this is an idea worth exploring,” he said. “We can refine our tactics when we have a better idea of their shipping capacity, but fundamentally this plan makes sense. We’re just about directly between the Roche system and the Core, so we can knock out their convoys almost at will. And when they do decide to come after us, we can fade into the Mists and take them by ambush. Master Skywalker?”

  Luke nodded without turning around, and Jaina congratulated herself for achieving the first part of her plan. Now all she had left were parts two and three—the hard ones.

  Luke’s gaze shifted from the darkness outside to Jaina’s reflection. “Now—Jaina, why don’t you tell us what’s really on your mind?”

  Jaina nodded, then summoned to mind the speech she had been rehearsing about how the coalition couldn’t win the war through military might alone; their only real hope was to dismantle the enemy command structure from the top down.

  But then she glanced in her parents’ direction and saw the pain lurking in the depths of her mother’s brown eyes, and how her father seemed to have aged ten years in the weeks she had been gone, and she knew she couldn’t do that to them. It would be more honest to just come out and say it, to simply tell them about the awful decision she had made not so long ago, looking out over the beautiful Kelita valley with a forgotten Jedi general.

  “Mom and Dad, I’m sorry for this.” As Jaina spoke, she did not take her eyes from her parents. “But I think we have to go after Jacen. I think it’s our duty.”

  Their eyes grew instantly glassy. Her mother’s lip began to tremble, and her father’s face grew red and grief-furrowed, but they did not look away.

  Neither did they speak. It was Saba Sebatyne who asked, “Go after? What do you mean by go after? Arrest? Capture?” She ruffled her scales in disapproval. “This one knowz you have been training with Boba Fett, but that has not worked before.”

  Jaina shifted her attention to the Barabel. “I know, and it cost us some good people.” She glanced around the table at the other Masters. “I mean eliminate. I mean hunt down and kill.”

  Not too surprisingly, it was her father who responded first. “No.” Instead of looking at Jaina or anyone else, he stared at the table and just shook his head. “That’s not Jacen. Jacen died in the war against the Yuuzhan Vong, just like Anakin did.”<
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  Jaina frowned, wondering how badly she had misjudged the impact her decision would have on Han Solo. “Dad, Jacen didn’t die,” she said. “He escaped with Vergere and—”

  Her mother grabbed her arm, silencing her with a short squeeze. “Jaina, we haven’t lost touch with reality. We’re just saying that the man you’re talking about isn’t our Jacen.”

  “Jacen was a hero.” Han’s voice was as harsh as forge fumes. “He killed Onimi and won the war with the Yuuzhan Vong, and then he died of his wounds.” He stopped talking for a moment, drawing in a loud breath and seeming to gather his strength, then finally looked up at Jaina with more anger and despair in his eyes than she recalled seeing, even when Chewbacca died. “Caedus is just the monster who stepped into the hollow shell that was left behind … and if anyone here is capable of taking him out, I’ll gladly arm the detonator.”

  Jaina did not know how to react to the raw hatred in his voice, perhaps because she had not allowed her own anger to play a part in her decision—because she had decided dispassionately that it was appropriate to put a blaster bolt through her twin brother’s head.

  So Jaina merely nodded and reached over to take his forearm. “Okay, Dad … Caedus must die. We have to hunt him down and kill him.”

  Jaina had not used Jacen’s Sith name earlier because she could not allow herself to pretend that she was thinking these things about someone other than her own brother—because when the time came, she knew it would not be Darth Caedus she saw in her sniper sight, but her brother, Jacen Solo, and if she wasn’t ready to kill him, then she would be the one who died.

  Jaina shifted her attention to Leia. “Mom?”

  Her mother’s eyes grew distant and unreadable; then she merely looked at the table and nodded. “That’s not Jacen,” she said. “And even if it was, I don’t think we’d have any choice.”

  Luke finally turned away from the viewport. With sunken eyes and hollow cheeks, he looked like he had not slept in many nights. But there was also an eerie tranquillity about him that seemed both frightening and vaguely reassuring, as though he had been staring out that viewport for days, waiting for just this moment.