Part 22 (2/2)
”I want you to plan the evacuation so that we're ready to hit the b.u.t.ton and go at a moment's notice. I'm leaving at least half the Jedi pilots here, too.”
”Relocation, ”Ben said. He'd never planned and exe-cuted anything like that before: with the ancillary staff, there were nearly a thousand beings and droids to move, plus equipment. He'd make sure he learned fast. ”We're not running from anyone.”
”I'm glad you're not daunted by the task.”
”It's common sense, Dad.”
”You've got plenty.” Luke patted his shoulders with both hands.
”And you're a moral compa.s.s. If some of us don't come back, I want someone around who'll keep ask-ing hard questions and saying, 'Should we do that? Is that right? and who won't quit unless he gets answers.”
Ben hadn't seen himself in that light. He was the method-ical one, the problem solver, the one who unpicked an issue, looked at the components, and tried to rebuild it better. Logistics-he knew he could do that. But moral certainty-Jacen probably had his, too.
I got this far on how Mom and Dad raised me. I'll deal with that as it comes.
He focused on his task, and not the fact that the maintenance crews were running up the StealthX drive.
”Now, Dad? Right now?”
”I waited until you came back. It's okay. The rest of the flight should be at Fondor by now.”
”What are you planning, Dad?”
”The usual. Help Jacen see the error of his ways.”
Okay, if he wanted to play cryptic, Ben could handle that. A tech jogged up to Luke and handed him his helmet, which somehow made it all much more imminent and final. ”And.... Jacen's enlisted the support of the Imperial Remnant, ”Luke finished.
”Admiral Pellaeon? Wow. I'm not sure if that's good news or bad.”
”Yes, I hope everyone's moral compa.s.s is working...”
Ben found himself doing what the GAG troops did be-fore an operation kicked off. He locked down the inevitable dread and let his mouth take over, laying a veneer of grim jokes over the anxiety to keep it from being seen. ”Don't get killed, Dad. You know what it did to Fett.
I don't want to end up like him.”
”Filthy rich?”
”No, polis.h.i.+ng my dad's old s.h.i.+p and ha.s.sling Uncle Han.”
”It's okay. Jaina can get you a good deal on property in Keldabe.”
”I mean it, Dad.”
”So do I. Now go, and stop worrying, or I swear I'll come back as a Force ghost and bug you while you're on a date.”
Ben winced inside. ”Love you, Dad.”
”You too, Ben.”
Ben followed orders and didn't look back, but it hurt. Having Jag's grim face to focus on was a big help; the two of them walked on a collision course across the compound and ended up almost nose-to-nose.
”You're grounded, too, then, ”Ben said. ”Never mind.”
Jag looked a little frayed. ”I love being rear party. I live to stand around waiting for the comm to buzz. Have you heard from Jaina?
Because I haven't.”
”No. But it's only been a week or so.” Ben had been too tied up to think too much about Jaina. He added that to his list of things to feel bad about. ”She got there okay, didn't she?”
”I got a pre-composed 'arrived safely' alert, yes.”
”Jag, if she'd had problems-Aunt Leia would feel it.”
”Maybe Fett's sold her off to the highest bidder.”
”She can look after herself.”
”What if she...”
”We'd know. We'd feel it.”
Jag parted his lips as if he was going to expand on it, but stopped. ”Okay. I'll rely on you to tell me if you feel any-thing.”
Sometimes, even with his closest friends, even though he worked so closely with guys like Shevu, Ben forgot he had senses that Jag didn't.
At times like this, that must have frustrated Jag. ”I'm going to draw up an evacuation plan.”
”How come you suddenly got older than me, Ben?”
”Never underestimate the calming power of a list.” It was a Shevuism. Shevu was full of commonsense one-liners that were easy to digest and apply. ”Can you get all the senior personnel together for me? I've got something I have to do now, but we ought to make a start on scoping the size of the airlift and putting deadlines and names on tasks.”
Jag just looked at him. Then he broke into a big, sur-prised grin: ”Ben, you're middle-aged! Captain Sensible! Overnight!”
”I still reserve the right to revert to being a goofy kid and not tidy my room when the pressure's off.”
Jag seemed to forget his black mood about Jaina's ab-sence for a while. ”I'll get your meeting set up, my lord...”
Ben walked on a few paces before it struck him that he'd just slipped automatically into the organizing, order-giving role that his dad often did. Because Dad never doubted I could do it. That was the kind of confidence his father could instill in him.
But he still had a task to complete first. Back in his quar-ters, he washed down all the surfaces with stericlean, then laid out clean flimsi sheets to cover the table so he could open the droid's sphere.
Did a sterile area matter? The instruments and sensors had already a.n.a.lyzed what they needed, so contamination wasn't an issue. He had the readouts on his datapad; he knew the chemical composition of every trace the droid had collected. But he felt he had to show some respect-it was the only word he could think of-for the procedure, and set the sphere down with a degree of reverence. It held destinies.
Hair. Ben needed a hair from his mother's brush.
It was all he had to do to confirm that the hair collected from the StealthX was hers. Grubbing around in his fa-ther's quarters felt like an intrusion. Luke kept the brush, a utilitarian gray plasteel thing with bristles extruded from the material, in a box with a few trinkets and other personal effects he'd grabbed from the bedroom, and Ben suddenly found himself worrying about the apartment, and if it had been left intact. His mother's clothes and possessions were still there. He didn't care about his own. He just couldn't bear to think of Jacen's bureaucrats clearing out the place or even touching anything personal.
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