One of Dad's friends used to call them aiwha-bait. I remember that.
"We can pay."
"Okay. Dead or alive?"
"Alive, of course. A million to bring Taun We back alive, with the data."
"Two million to recover her, and an extra million for the data."
"Excessive. I do believe your father was paid only five million for what amounted to creating and training an army."
"That's inflation for you. Take it or leave it."
The thought left a staccato trail in his mind like skipping a stone across water, joining up previously disjointed ideas.
When the Kaminoans had last given any attention to Jango Fett, there had been hundreds of thousands -- no, millions of men like him, and now there were none.
Fett lowered his helmet over his head again and settled into the reassurance and identity of its confines as so many of them would have done, inhaling the deflected warmth and scent of his own breath in the brief moment before the seal closed and the environmental controls kicked in. Had the men been deployed for the good of Mandalorians, the galaxy might have been a very different place today.
But that wasn't his problem.
A year left. Time enough, if I concentrate everything on it.
He had no idea why he had started thinking so much about the long-distant war lately. Perhaps it was because he had known what news Beluine would break to him.
I'm really going to die this time.
"You need this technology as much as we do," said Koa Ne. "One million."
"I'll find it. And it's still three million if you want me to hand it back to you when I've taken the data that I need." The most satisfying part of negotiation was knowing your walk-away point. He'd reached it now. "A professional's worth his fee, Koa Ne. Take it or leave it. I'll find someone able to pay a lot more than you can -- just to cover my expenses, of course."
"But what use is your wealth to you now?"
In a human, it would have been cruel mockery of a dying man. But Kaminoans didn't have enough emotion in them for mockery.
"I've always got a use for it."
Koa Ne was right. He didn't need any more credits, or any more power and influence, either: politics really didn't interest him. He'd served too many politicians, often in their machinations against each other, and he didn't even relish being the Mand'alor, leader of the scattered Mandalorian community.
So why do I care at all?
He was the head of a ragbag of scattered Mando'ade. There were farmers and metalworkers and families scraping a living back on Mandalore;: and there were any number of mercenaries, bounty hunters, and small communities in diaspora across the rest of the galaxy. It was hard to call them a nation. He wasn't even a head of state, not in the way Corellians or Coruscanti understood it. In the wake of the Yuuzhan Vong war, he had just a hundred commandos to call on, but they were still doing what Mandalorians had done for generations: eking out a grim existence in the Mandalore sector, defending Mandalorian enclaves, or taking on the wars of others. He had no idea how many more people who thought of themselves as Mandalorians were spread across the galaxy.
A hundred Mando warriors was still a force to be reckoned with, though. And every Mandalorian was still a warrior at heart, man and woman, boy and girl. They still all still trained from childhood to fight.
I'm going to be dead within two years. I'm 68. I should have another thirty in me, at least.
"Fett..."
No.
"Three million."
I'm not finished yet.
"Two million credits, to find Taun We and bring her back. That is my best offer."
I'm my father's son. Death is a risk, not a certainty. Not if you use your fear for focus.
"I'm rebuilding your economy," Fett said. Kao Ne might have been offended: it was hard to tell with Kaminoans. "Don't insult me with small change."
"You talk as if you have no emotional attachment to Taun We at all."
"This is business. Even if I'm dying."
"Take the bounty, and we will give you all our intelligence on her."
And if you had enough of that, you wouldn't need me. "Three million."
"Remember that even you cannot succeed alone."
"They always say that," said Fett. This was where he walked away for good. "When I find Taun We, I'll auction the data to cover my expenses. Start saving."
Fett expected Koa Ne to run after him onto the landing platform, like stubborn customers always did when they saw sense. But when he glanced back behind him the platform was empty.
Maybe that's all he could afford. Too bad. This is either my last hunt, or it's the start of a new fortune.
He liked the odds. Yes, he felt he had a fighting chance. A year was a long time for a bounty hunter.
He slid into Slave I's cockpit and lowered the canopy. He'd spent a fortune restoring her for the third time -- and adding modifications his father Jango would never have dreamed of. Sitting in her pilot's seat looking out on an endless storm-locked ocean, he was a nine-year-old child again, delighted to be allowed to fly a mission with his father.
This had once been his home. He'd been at his happiest here. He'd never been that happy since.
They said your past flashed before you when you were dying. But then people said a lot of things, and he never took any notice of them unless it paid him to do so.
Fett started up the drive and lifted Slave I into a standard escape trajectory. He needed to get on Taun We's trail. But Koa Ne was right: what use would his wealth be to him now? Other men left empires: other men had families whose futures their wealth would protect.
He checked his highly illegal and very reliable comm scanner and set it to watch for unusual share trading in bioengineering companies. Taun We had something to sell, and she would sell it...and the ripples would spread far enough for him to detect them sooner or later.
You've only got sooner. There won't be a later for you, not unless you find the data.
Even his father had wanted more than credits from the Kaminoans. He'd wanted a son.
I had a wife and a daughter once. I should have taken better care of them.
He'd have nothing to show for his life except a professional reputation, and a Mandalorian needed more than that. Being the Mandalore -- half-hearted or otherwise -- didn't give you a clan.
It was time to look up old contacts. Fett leaned back in the seat, removed his helmet, and stared at his reflection in the viewscreen as Slave I followed the course he had laid in for Taris.
He hadn't realized how much he'd missed Kamino.
