Syra was fishing.
It chafed at her, a little, the delay that she was causing by sitting on the edge of the lake with a spear-gun. She was all armored but not helmeted, the laser sights and aiming mechanisms turned off as her father had taught her, hitting the large creatures entirely by eye. She was packed and ready to fly out at a moment's notice, with Tethys standing by in the ship and waiting for her command. But she was also incredibly nervous, and very much afraid. Afraid that she really was alone and that, despite the evidence of her Force senses telling her otherwise, her father was dead. Afraid that she was the last of her line, a legacy that went back in both of her parent's histories, a formidable history of formidable people and deeds that she never thought she'd match up to. Afraid that she'd fail her heritage.
Ridiculous. Boba Fett had crawled his way out of a Sarlaac pit. He wasn't dead now, not at the hands of Imperials who couldn't plot a course out of a dead-end tunnel.
Knowing that didn't make it any better, but Syra had grown up knowing the value of being calm in one's mind. She had hardly ever seen her father at anything less than calm, with the occasional undercurrents of tension, affection, weariness, or worry. By contrast her mother had been a veritable storm of emotion and passion… but she had somehow managed to maintain a center of perfect stillness, perfect peace at the heart of it all. They had gone well together. It was almost ironic that her father, who disliked the Jedi so much and so strongly, should espouse one of their core beliefs so fervently. It was, however, one of the core teachings of both her father and her mother… what little she had learned from her mother. So, fishing.
* * *
"Isn't that a lot like what the Jedi teach, though?" Syra asked. Her father scowled, but it was more the sort of scowl that said he was forced to agree with something he really disliked. Still, it was relatively unusual, as her father tended not to have extreme likes or dislikes.
"It is, but it's also good policy. Not all of what the Jedi teach is idealism and daydreams. Some of it is good for survival… it has to be, or else they wouldn't have lasted through the Empire. Clarity of thinking is one of them. If you're distracted by emotion, you can't think clearly, and that's when you start to lose."
"Is that why you're sending me away?" Syra asked, more plaintively than she wanted it to sound. Boba Fett had never responded positively to whining, by anyone's definition.
But the tone of her voice hadn't drawn the response she'd expected. Her father sighed, and seemed to slump forward. "If your mother were here, she'd be able to teach you about the Force, things I can't teach you even in theory. But she's not, and neither is your sister, and no one else is qualified to teach you. And you'll need that knowledge, even if it does come with idealist philosophy. You'll need that knowledge because no knowledge is wasted, and because I want you to use all your skills to the best of your ability."
"Even the ones you don't agree with?"
He smiled slightly, but it was a tired smile. "Even the ones I don't agree with."
* * *
Fishing.
Syra had a small pile of creatures in a bucket to her right, but she wasn't fishing for food so much as for the time to collect herself. They swam around discontentedly in the bucket; a bit guilty, she promised them silently that she'd turn them loose when she was done. She watched the water ripple with the movements of the creatures in it, barely breathing, waiting patiently. Then the water began to ripple with more than just the natural movements of the lake-dwellers and she stood up abruptly, tossing on her helmet and turning around with a slight creak of synth-leather and crank of metal. Absently, she kicked the bucket of lake creatures back into the water. A ship was landing, and it didn't look like the Slave II. In fact…
Her eyes widened. There was a Jedi aboard… Jacen, from the feel of it. If he caught her here… was he strong enough in the Force to tell it was her automatically? Would he even think to check… she was physically unrecognizable in her armor, modeled after her father's, but if he pushed he could most likely tell it was her, and then she just didn't know what he would do. A Fett with Jedi powers, meeting the son of Han Solo for the first time. She'd grown up in both families. She knew the stories from both sides of the fence. Jacen, on the other hand, knew only what his father had told him. That Boba Fett had been a formidable, deadly bounty hunter, and that even now they weren't sure whether he was dead or alive. Jacen knew Boba Fett wasn't force-sensitive... but if he sensed another person in the Force, and saw that the other person was in armor that hadn't been seen on anyone but a Fett in centuries... what would he do?
Jacen was nervous.
Linnara's home planet was out in the middle of nowhere, and he could kind of see why she and her father spent most of their time cruising around the galaxy. There wasn't much here except beautiful scenery; there were only two spots on the planet that had docking capabilities for spaceships, and one of them was on the mainland in the center of more attention than he wanted right now. Knowing Linnara's penchant for privacy and obscurity, it was probably more public than she or her family would have wanted too. Besides, if he was wrong, there was only one other spaceport to try. If he couldn't find any sign of her there…. Well, he'd deal with that when he came to it. She had to be here, anyway. He didn't know where else to look.
He landed the ship on one of the two other vacant platforms… one platform had a small Incom Heatwave on it. Was that her ship? He didn't know, and he couldn't sense her presence on the island… although there was someone here who seemed familiar somehow. He couldn't place the person; every time he tried to concentrate on the presence he sensed in the Force it seemed to slip away, like trying to get hold of a mercury bead. He couldn't even tell if the other person was Force sensitive, or of a species that had that sort of obscure aura as an innate ability, or if the other person was just naturally talentet. Well, he'd figure it out when he saw him or her.
The ramp descended, and he walked out slowly and carefully. He didn't feel any sort of threat in the Force, but that didn't mean one didn't exist. Something had to have happened, something bad, for Linnara to go running off like that. And he'd come to realize on the trip out to the planet exactly how little he really knew about her. It was unnerving, and it meant that he had even less of an idea what was waiting for him. Not for the first time, he thought ruefully about how stupid he was being, and resolved never to tell anyone who didn't absolutely need to know about it.
The house that he presumed Linnara had lived in was huge. In fact, it was more like a mansion. He hadn't figured Linnara for such opulent surroundings, but then again it was also less ostentatious than some of the places he had been to with his mother on state visits. More big than grand. He looked around, trying to find the other person through the Force, with little result. It was as though he or she was staying just outside the edge of his perception somehow, deliberately. He wasn't sure whether to be worried or just wary. Definitely wary at the very least; the place was big enough to hide a platoon. But it was also quiet, in sound and in the Force, too quiet for a small army. He was probably safe. If only this other person would step out and face him...
Jacen was so intent on finding the other person through the Force that he barely heard the clearly audible footsteps behind him. He whirled around just in time to see the blaster in his face, and drew his lightsaber before the other could react. At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.
He drew his lightsaber, and the person in Mandalorian armor rocketed upwards, launched by the jet-pack he'd heard so much about. The person hovered there, just out of the reach of his lightsaber, and Jacen stared in utter shock.
"Boba Fett?!"
He'd heard about the legendary bounty hunter who had chased down his father for years, heard about the carbonite and the Sarlaac and all the tales that had followed. But if that was true, Boba Fett had to be … Jacen stared.
"Boba Fett?"
The bounty hunter in Mandalorian armor sank slowly to the ground, touching down lightly and not moving the blaster from its position pointed at Jacen. He stared at the young Jedi apprentice for a bit… and then, much to Jacen's confusion, slowly began to chuckle.
"Not quite. He's out at the moment, did you want to leave a message?"
Whoever it was was finding this whole situation incredibly humorous. Jacen fought down irritation and concern. "Where is he?"
The bounty hunter was silent.
"If you're not Boba Fett, what are you doing wearing his armor?"
"It's not his armor," the bounty hunter said, and gave another one of those quiet chuckles. "It's my armor." He didn't elaborate. Was this a Mandalorian? Probably not, they'd been dead for centuries. But then... why the armor?
"Oh really."
"Yes."
This was getting him nowhere. Jacen could tell he was getting impatient, and fought that back. He was also becoming moderately unnerved at the silent person in Mandalorian armor, staring into the T-shaped visor. The bounty hunter lowered the blaster after a bit and stood at parade rest, one wrist clasped in the other hand. Jacen had a brief flash of a holo he'd seen once, of Boba Fett in the exact same position. If this person wasn't Boba Fett, he was doing a damn good job of imitating the infamous bounty hunter. And even if the person wasn't Boba Fett, he was doing a damn good job of being just as scary, just as intimidating as the infamous bounty hunter was said to be. Jacen wondered what Boba Fett would think if he knew about this imposter. He wondered what his father would think.
"What do you want?" Jacen said, with the increasing feeling that he really didn't have time for this. The bounty hunter stared at him measuringly.
"I'm looking for Boba Fett." Jacen wasn't sure about the advisability of that, and said so. It only got him laughed at. "Trust me, he won't mind. How do you think I got this armor?"
"Oh." Jacen blinked. The idea of Fett working with anyone… he'd never heard of that before. Then again, he hadn't heard all of the Fett stories either. The visor was really making him uncomfortable.
"You're not supposed to be here," the bounty hunter said then, and it didn't sound friendly. Jacen backed up a couple of paces, switched his lightsaber off, and held his hands up in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture.
"I'm just looking for a friend, okay? I got a lead that she lived here, a while ago, but I don't know where… I think she's in trouble, or at least I think her family's in trouble… her father… and she went off to go help. We just wanted to see if she needed help…"
The bounty hunter looked at him for a long time. Jacen shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. There was something profoundly familiar about this bounty hunter, but there was also something profoundly unsettling. After several minutes of staring he began to walk forward, and it was only then that Jacen realized that he was in fact a she. Interesting.
"I'll make you a deal. You help me find Boba Fett, and I'll help you find your friend. Between the two of us… well, I'm sure you know of Boba Fett's reputation. Jacen Solo."
Jacen shivered. He didn't know how she knew who he was, and it was highly unnerving that she did. What else did she know about him? "I've heard stories," he temporized, trying to read her through the Force. He couldn't, and that made him even more unnerved. It was time to get out of there. "Look, I'll go… get … help," he started, although he didn't know what kind of help he was going to get. If this was Boba Fett's… apprentice, whatever… it wasn't likely that they'd welcome any kind of help he could give. Except…
"You do that," the woman said, some sort of hidden amusement in her voice. "Here's some coordinates to get you started. Find out everything you can about this planet." She passed him a datapad with some coordinates and a name written on it: Kamino. "I'll be waiting."
"I'll be back," Jacen promised, and raced to the ship. If Dad wasn't going to kill me before, he's really going to kill me now.
Syra waited until Jacen was safely off-planet before falling to her knees, yanking off the helmet, and laughing hysterically. It wasn't the nicest thing she'd done, but she had no idea how he'd react to her true identity being kept hidden all these years. Although, really, even the son of Han Solo had to recognize the fact that the daughter of Boba Fett would have had, at the very least, an interesting welcome at the Skywalker Jedi Academy. He would have to understand, even a little, why she'd have to keep her real identity under wraps if she so much as set foot on the Academy grounds, much less attended classes there. He must be able to understand what would happen between the Solos, the Skywalkers, and the lone Fett girl.
So many names. So much history.
Besides, if she'd told him who she was, even given him the slightest hint of who she was in either identity, he would have been able to put two and two together. He would have realized who he was dealing with, and her father had already told her that the fewer people who knew about her the better. At least, who knew about her as the daughter of Boba Fett. Linnara Antilles, daughter of a Rim trader, wasn't in any real danger as far as anyone knew. Syra Fett, on the other hand, would be a target for anyone who wanted to make a name for himself or worse, get revenge on Boba. And that was a long list of unsavory characters.
She shook her head. She was wool-gathering, and that had to stop. The planet name she had given him would keep him busy for a little while but not too terribly long; hopefully it was on their star charts at… wherever he was going. She, of course, knew where Kamino was and what importance it had, having dug into some of her mother's old files and used the coordinates her father had given her as a base for the search. Just the thought of all those clones… it made her shake. And she'd visited there, that last trip before her mother...
But it didn't sound as though they were holding him there… did it? Surely the last vestiges of the Empire couldn't be foolish enough to try and use the Kamino cloning facilities without the benefit of the Kaminoans, who were not likely to render their help a second time after what had happened the first time. Surely the Empire wasn't going to try to use a failed and expensive tactic again. Then again, Syra thought wryly, this was the Empire. The last vestiges of the Empire were not known for their intelligence, only their animal cunning. Intelligence had died with Thrawn, or so she had come to believe. If it had ever existed in the Empire in the first place.
Syra went over to her ship and began powering it back down. After all, she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, not until Jacen came back… unless of course he didn't come back in time. Not that she knew what 'in time' would be, but she was in tune enough with her father through the Force that she figured she could start to sense if things got urgent. That was the idea anyway. Syra flopped into the pilot's seat and stared out the front viewer, suddenly feeling very tired and young. She didn't really care if her father had done more with less at her age, now it was her turn and she wasn't sure if she was up to the task. Only this time if she wasn't, it was her father's life on the line.
"Dad…" she reached over to one side and picked up her father's helmet, looking from it to her own. "C'mon, Dad, give me a sign. A clue. Something." She curled up in the chair with the helmet, letting it droop forward to touch her forehead. Unaware of the echoes of the past. "I miss you."
If she hadn't been sniffling quietly, if she hadn't still had the helmet in her hands and right up to her nose she would have missed it. The voice was quiet, and coming from the inside of the helmet. She slid it onto her head, wondering who was trying to contact Boba Fett, and why, and how…
"… won't always be there." It was her father's voice, and her father's face she saw in the faceplate, the same way he'd left the message for her before. Tears welled up in her eyes again. He looked sad, too. "I was younger than you were when I learned this the hard way, and with luck you won't be learning it now."
"I won't give you the speech my father gave me…" That made Syra blink. Her father had never mentioned anything about his childhood. Ever. "Because that would imply that we won't see each other again. We will, you can count on that. But I imagine you're still feeling pretty alone right now."
"Just remember: you're a survivor. It's in your blood, from both your mother and me. You're strong, and you'll find a way to get done what needs to be done, because that's what you do. That's what you were born and raised to do. And don't let you convince yourself otherwise. All the battles are won or lost here," he tapped the side of his head, "before they're even fought. It's how I've stayed alive, and it's how you'll stay alive too. You're my daughter, I know you well enough to know that. And even better, you're Cassandra's daughter. You're a survivor born of survivors, and that's what you'll do, and do well."
Syra smiled slightly. That was her father, always reassuring in the most grim, backhanded way.
"You'll feel alone, and you'll feel scared, but you'll do what you need to do anyway. Do what it is you fear the most, and you'll find the courage you seek." It had the tone of a Lesson. Syra nodded slowly. Her father's face looked as though he wanted to say something else, and then it slowly faded away.
Syra's smile grew. It had been exactly the right thing to do, but then her father always knew exactly the right thing to do. Even when it came to things like emotions.
* * *
"Dad… you loved Mom, right?"
Her father looked sharply at her. "Why?"
"Isn't that a strong emotion? Doesn't that mean it's a bad thing?" Syra's face reflected confusion, and great concern. She knew he loved her, and her mother and sister, very much. But if strong emotions like love were a bad thing…
Boba Fett took a deep breath. He thought over how to answer, thought carefully because he knew exactly what was riding on this answer. "There is nothing in the universe that is entirely bad, or entirely good. Emotions are usually bad because most people let them become a weakness. Your mother learned how to make her emotions become her strength… "
The little girl barely caught the whisper, and didn't realize the importance till years later. "… and so did I."
* * *
Syra, five years later, grinned. Her father always did know the right thing to do, and he had raised her to be at least as good, if not better. She had the knowledge, she had the resources, and she had the training to do everything she needed to do. And, thanks to her father's well-timed messages, she had the will to carry it out. All she had to do now was wait for Jacen to come back with backup or help or resources, and then someone would start learning exactly what it meant to mess with the Fett family. Now all she wondered was what kind of help he had in mind…
"Dad!" Jacen skidded to a halt outside the room where his parents were staying, catching them just as they were leaving. Good. That meant he didn't run the risk of getting trapped there for a long explanation. "I need to borrow the Falcon…"
It chafed at her, a little, the delay that she was causing by sitting on the edge of the lake with a spear-gun. She was all armored but not helmeted, the laser sights and aiming mechanisms turned off as her father had taught her, hitting the large creatures entirely by eye. She was packed and ready to fly out at a moment's notice, with Tethys standing by in the ship and waiting for her command. But she was also incredibly nervous, and very much afraid. Afraid that she really was alone and that, despite the evidence of her Force senses telling her otherwise, her father was dead. Afraid that she was the last of her line, a legacy that went back in both of her parent's histories, a formidable history of formidable people and deeds that she never thought she'd match up to. Afraid that she'd fail her heritage.
Ridiculous. Boba Fett had crawled his way out of a Sarlaac pit. He wasn't dead now, not at the hands of Imperials who couldn't plot a course out of a dead-end tunnel.
Knowing that didn't make it any better, but Syra had grown up knowing the value of being calm in one's mind. She had hardly ever seen her father at anything less than calm, with the occasional undercurrents of tension, affection, weariness, or worry. By contrast her mother had been a veritable storm of emotion and passion… but she had somehow managed to maintain a center of perfect stillness, perfect peace at the heart of it all. They had gone well together. It was almost ironic that her father, who disliked the Jedi so much and so strongly, should espouse one of their core beliefs so fervently. It was, however, one of the core teachings of both her father and her mother… what little she had learned from her mother. So, fishing.
* * *
"Isn't that a lot like what the Jedi teach, though?" Syra asked. Her father scowled, but it was more the sort of scowl that said he was forced to agree with something he really disliked. Still, it was relatively unusual, as her father tended not to have extreme likes or dislikes.
"It is, but it's also good policy. Not all of what the Jedi teach is idealism and daydreams. Some of it is good for survival… it has to be, or else they wouldn't have lasted through the Empire. Clarity of thinking is one of them. If you're distracted by emotion, you can't think clearly, and that's when you start to lose."
"Is that why you're sending me away?" Syra asked, more plaintively than she wanted it to sound. Boba Fett had never responded positively to whining, by anyone's definition.
But the tone of her voice hadn't drawn the response she'd expected. Her father sighed, and seemed to slump forward. "If your mother were here, she'd be able to teach you about the Force, things I can't teach you even in theory. But she's not, and neither is your sister, and no one else is qualified to teach you. And you'll need that knowledge, even if it does come with idealist philosophy. You'll need that knowledge because no knowledge is wasted, and because I want you to use all your skills to the best of your ability."
"Even the ones you don't agree with?"
He smiled slightly, but it was a tired smile. "Even the ones I don't agree with."
* * *
Fishing.
Syra had a small pile of creatures in a bucket to her right, but she wasn't fishing for food so much as for the time to collect herself. They swam around discontentedly in the bucket; a bit guilty, she promised them silently that she'd turn them loose when she was done. She watched the water ripple with the movements of the creatures in it, barely breathing, waiting patiently. Then the water began to ripple with more than just the natural movements of the lake-dwellers and she stood up abruptly, tossing on her helmet and turning around with a slight creak of synth-leather and crank of metal. Absently, she kicked the bucket of lake creatures back into the water. A ship was landing, and it didn't look like the Slave II. In fact…
Her eyes widened. There was a Jedi aboard… Jacen, from the feel of it. If he caught her here… was he strong enough in the Force to tell it was her automatically? Would he even think to check… she was physically unrecognizable in her armor, modeled after her father's, but if he pushed he could most likely tell it was her, and then she just didn't know what he would do. A Fett with Jedi powers, meeting the son of Han Solo for the first time. She'd grown up in both families. She knew the stories from both sides of the fence. Jacen, on the other hand, knew only what his father had told him. That Boba Fett had been a formidable, deadly bounty hunter, and that even now they weren't sure whether he was dead or alive. Jacen knew Boba Fett wasn't force-sensitive... but if he sensed another person in the Force, and saw that the other person was in armor that hadn't been seen on anyone but a Fett in centuries... what would he do?
Jacen was nervous.
Linnara's home planet was out in the middle of nowhere, and he could kind of see why she and her father spent most of their time cruising around the galaxy. There wasn't much here except beautiful scenery; there were only two spots on the planet that had docking capabilities for spaceships, and one of them was on the mainland in the center of more attention than he wanted right now. Knowing Linnara's penchant for privacy and obscurity, it was probably more public than she or her family would have wanted too. Besides, if he was wrong, there was only one other spaceport to try. If he couldn't find any sign of her there…. Well, he'd deal with that when he came to it. She had to be here, anyway. He didn't know where else to look.
He landed the ship on one of the two other vacant platforms… one platform had a small Incom Heatwave on it. Was that her ship? He didn't know, and he couldn't sense her presence on the island… although there was someone here who seemed familiar somehow. He couldn't place the person; every time he tried to concentrate on the presence he sensed in the Force it seemed to slip away, like trying to get hold of a mercury bead. He couldn't even tell if the other person was Force sensitive, or of a species that had that sort of obscure aura as an innate ability, or if the other person was just naturally talentet. Well, he'd figure it out when he saw him or her.
The ramp descended, and he walked out slowly and carefully. He didn't feel any sort of threat in the Force, but that didn't mean one didn't exist. Something had to have happened, something bad, for Linnara to go running off like that. And he'd come to realize on the trip out to the planet exactly how little he really knew about her. It was unnerving, and it meant that he had even less of an idea what was waiting for him. Not for the first time, he thought ruefully about how stupid he was being, and resolved never to tell anyone who didn't absolutely need to know about it.
The house that he presumed Linnara had lived in was huge. In fact, it was more like a mansion. He hadn't figured Linnara for such opulent surroundings, but then again it was also less ostentatious than some of the places he had been to with his mother on state visits. More big than grand. He looked around, trying to find the other person through the Force, with little result. It was as though he or she was staying just outside the edge of his perception somehow, deliberately. He wasn't sure whether to be worried or just wary. Definitely wary at the very least; the place was big enough to hide a platoon. But it was also quiet, in sound and in the Force, too quiet for a small army. He was probably safe. If only this other person would step out and face him...
Jacen was so intent on finding the other person through the Force that he barely heard the clearly audible footsteps behind him. He whirled around just in time to see the blaster in his face, and drew his lightsaber before the other could react. At least, that was the way it was supposed to work.
He drew his lightsaber, and the person in Mandalorian armor rocketed upwards, launched by the jet-pack he'd heard so much about. The person hovered there, just out of the reach of his lightsaber, and Jacen stared in utter shock.
"Boba Fett?!"
He'd heard about the legendary bounty hunter who had chased down his father for years, heard about the carbonite and the Sarlaac and all the tales that had followed. But if that was true, Boba Fett had to be … Jacen stared.
"Boba Fett?"
The bounty hunter in Mandalorian armor sank slowly to the ground, touching down lightly and not moving the blaster from its position pointed at Jacen. He stared at the young Jedi apprentice for a bit… and then, much to Jacen's confusion, slowly began to chuckle.
"Not quite. He's out at the moment, did you want to leave a message?"
Whoever it was was finding this whole situation incredibly humorous. Jacen fought down irritation and concern. "Where is he?"
The bounty hunter was silent.
"If you're not Boba Fett, what are you doing wearing his armor?"
"It's not his armor," the bounty hunter said, and gave another one of those quiet chuckles. "It's my armor." He didn't elaborate. Was this a Mandalorian? Probably not, they'd been dead for centuries. But then... why the armor?
"Oh really."
"Yes."
This was getting him nowhere. Jacen could tell he was getting impatient, and fought that back. He was also becoming moderately unnerved at the silent person in Mandalorian armor, staring into the T-shaped visor. The bounty hunter lowered the blaster after a bit and stood at parade rest, one wrist clasped in the other hand. Jacen had a brief flash of a holo he'd seen once, of Boba Fett in the exact same position. If this person wasn't Boba Fett, he was doing a damn good job of imitating the infamous bounty hunter. And even if the person wasn't Boba Fett, he was doing a damn good job of being just as scary, just as intimidating as the infamous bounty hunter was said to be. Jacen wondered what Boba Fett would think if he knew about this imposter. He wondered what his father would think.
"What do you want?" Jacen said, with the increasing feeling that he really didn't have time for this. The bounty hunter stared at him measuringly.
"I'm looking for Boba Fett." Jacen wasn't sure about the advisability of that, and said so. It only got him laughed at. "Trust me, he won't mind. How do you think I got this armor?"
"Oh." Jacen blinked. The idea of Fett working with anyone… he'd never heard of that before. Then again, he hadn't heard all of the Fett stories either. The visor was really making him uncomfortable.
"You're not supposed to be here," the bounty hunter said then, and it didn't sound friendly. Jacen backed up a couple of paces, switched his lightsaber off, and held his hands up in what he hoped was a non-threatening gesture.
"I'm just looking for a friend, okay? I got a lead that she lived here, a while ago, but I don't know where… I think she's in trouble, or at least I think her family's in trouble… her father… and she went off to go help. We just wanted to see if she needed help…"
The bounty hunter looked at him for a long time. Jacen shifted uneasily from one foot to the other. There was something profoundly familiar about this bounty hunter, but there was also something profoundly unsettling. After several minutes of staring he began to walk forward, and it was only then that Jacen realized that he was in fact a she. Interesting.
"I'll make you a deal. You help me find Boba Fett, and I'll help you find your friend. Between the two of us… well, I'm sure you know of Boba Fett's reputation. Jacen Solo."
Jacen shivered. He didn't know how she knew who he was, and it was highly unnerving that she did. What else did she know about him? "I've heard stories," he temporized, trying to read her through the Force. He couldn't, and that made him even more unnerved. It was time to get out of there. "Look, I'll go… get … help," he started, although he didn't know what kind of help he was going to get. If this was Boba Fett's… apprentice, whatever… it wasn't likely that they'd welcome any kind of help he could give. Except…
"You do that," the woman said, some sort of hidden amusement in her voice. "Here's some coordinates to get you started. Find out everything you can about this planet." She passed him a datapad with some coordinates and a name written on it: Kamino. "I'll be waiting."
"I'll be back," Jacen promised, and raced to the ship. If Dad wasn't going to kill me before, he's really going to kill me now.
Syra waited until Jacen was safely off-planet before falling to her knees, yanking off the helmet, and laughing hysterically. It wasn't the nicest thing she'd done, but she had no idea how he'd react to her true identity being kept hidden all these years. Although, really, even the son of Han Solo had to recognize the fact that the daughter of Boba Fett would have had, at the very least, an interesting welcome at the Skywalker Jedi Academy. He would have to understand, even a little, why she'd have to keep her real identity under wraps if she so much as set foot on the Academy grounds, much less attended classes there. He must be able to understand what would happen between the Solos, the Skywalkers, and the lone Fett girl.
So many names. So much history.
Besides, if she'd told him who she was, even given him the slightest hint of who she was in either identity, he would have been able to put two and two together. He would have realized who he was dealing with, and her father had already told her that the fewer people who knew about her the better. At least, who knew about her as the daughter of Boba Fett. Linnara Antilles, daughter of a Rim trader, wasn't in any real danger as far as anyone knew. Syra Fett, on the other hand, would be a target for anyone who wanted to make a name for himself or worse, get revenge on Boba. And that was a long list of unsavory characters.
She shook her head. She was wool-gathering, and that had to stop. The planet name she had given him would keep him busy for a little while but not too terribly long; hopefully it was on their star charts at… wherever he was going. She, of course, knew where Kamino was and what importance it had, having dug into some of her mother's old files and used the coordinates her father had given her as a base for the search. Just the thought of all those clones… it made her shake. And she'd visited there, that last trip before her mother...
But it didn't sound as though they were holding him there… did it? Surely the last vestiges of the Empire couldn't be foolish enough to try and use the Kamino cloning facilities without the benefit of the Kaminoans, who were not likely to render their help a second time after what had happened the first time. Surely the Empire wasn't going to try to use a failed and expensive tactic again. Then again, Syra thought wryly, this was the Empire. The last vestiges of the Empire were not known for their intelligence, only their animal cunning. Intelligence had died with Thrawn, or so she had come to believe. If it had ever existed in the Empire in the first place.
Syra went over to her ship and began powering it back down. After all, she wouldn't be going anywhere anytime soon, not until Jacen came back… unless of course he didn't come back in time. Not that she knew what 'in time' would be, but she was in tune enough with her father through the Force that she figured she could start to sense if things got urgent. That was the idea anyway. Syra flopped into the pilot's seat and stared out the front viewer, suddenly feeling very tired and young. She didn't really care if her father had done more with less at her age, now it was her turn and she wasn't sure if she was up to the task. Only this time if she wasn't, it was her father's life on the line.
"Dad…" she reached over to one side and picked up her father's helmet, looking from it to her own. "C'mon, Dad, give me a sign. A clue. Something." She curled up in the chair with the helmet, letting it droop forward to touch her forehead. Unaware of the echoes of the past. "I miss you."
If she hadn't been sniffling quietly, if she hadn't still had the helmet in her hands and right up to her nose she would have missed it. The voice was quiet, and coming from the inside of the helmet. She slid it onto her head, wondering who was trying to contact Boba Fett, and why, and how…
"… won't always be there." It was her father's voice, and her father's face she saw in the faceplate, the same way he'd left the message for her before. Tears welled up in her eyes again. He looked sad, too. "I was younger than you were when I learned this the hard way, and with luck you won't be learning it now."
"I won't give you the speech my father gave me…" That made Syra blink. Her father had never mentioned anything about his childhood. Ever. "Because that would imply that we won't see each other again. We will, you can count on that. But I imagine you're still feeling pretty alone right now."
"Just remember: you're a survivor. It's in your blood, from both your mother and me. You're strong, and you'll find a way to get done what needs to be done, because that's what you do. That's what you were born and raised to do. And don't let you convince yourself otherwise. All the battles are won or lost here," he tapped the side of his head, "before they're even fought. It's how I've stayed alive, and it's how you'll stay alive too. You're my daughter, I know you well enough to know that. And even better, you're Cassandra's daughter. You're a survivor born of survivors, and that's what you'll do, and do well."
Syra smiled slightly. That was her father, always reassuring in the most grim, backhanded way.
"You'll feel alone, and you'll feel scared, but you'll do what you need to do anyway. Do what it is you fear the most, and you'll find the courage you seek." It had the tone of a Lesson. Syra nodded slowly. Her father's face looked as though he wanted to say something else, and then it slowly faded away.
Syra's smile grew. It had been exactly the right thing to do, but then her father always knew exactly the right thing to do. Even when it came to things like emotions.
* * *
"Dad… you loved Mom, right?"
Her father looked sharply at her. "Why?"
"Isn't that a strong emotion? Doesn't that mean it's a bad thing?" Syra's face reflected confusion, and great concern. She knew he loved her, and her mother and sister, very much. But if strong emotions like love were a bad thing…
Boba Fett took a deep breath. He thought over how to answer, thought carefully because he knew exactly what was riding on this answer. "There is nothing in the universe that is entirely bad, or entirely good. Emotions are usually bad because most people let them become a weakness. Your mother learned how to make her emotions become her strength… "
The little girl barely caught the whisper, and didn't realize the importance till years later. "… and so did I."
* * *
Syra, five years later, grinned. Her father always did know the right thing to do, and he had raised her to be at least as good, if not better. She had the knowledge, she had the resources, and she had the training to do everything she needed to do. And, thanks to her father's well-timed messages, she had the will to carry it out. All she had to do now was wait for Jacen to come back with backup or help or resources, and then someone would start learning exactly what it meant to mess with the Fett family. Now all she wondered was what kind of help he had in mind…
"Dad!" Jacen skidded to a halt outside the room where his parents were staying, catching them just as they were leaving. Good. That meant he didn't run the risk of getting trapped there for a long explanation. "I need to borrow the Falcon…"