Aftermath: Empire's End (Star Wars: Aftermath #3)(10)
“I’m not wrong often, so okay, lay it out for me.”
He turns to her. “This is my star. Not this ship, but this life. A life where I threaten people and make them do things. I tell them I will break their hands, kill their mothers, ruin all that they hold dear. I know how to find weakness. I know how to exploit it. And…” His voice drifts and he almost fails to summon the next part. “I think I enjoy it.”
“If you enjoyed it, you wouldn’t be telling me this.”
“Perhaps.”
“Besides, you could’ve actually chosen to hurt Swift. I wouldn’t have stood in your way. But you didn’t. You did it with words, not violence.”
“Words can be violence.”
Jas shrugs. “Sinjir, you need to think less. That brain of yours is a whole lot of trouble.”
“Now you know why I drink.”
“You ready for what’s on Jakku?” she asks, changing the subject. He knows the subject at hand bothers her. Jas cares little for self-reflection in herself or others. She is not only a woman with a star—he suspects she is the star itself. Implacable, serving itself, disinterested in debating right or wrong. She doesn’t orbit you—you orbit her.
He plays along, letting the current of the conversational river take him where she wants it to go. “If I overheard the conversation right, it sounds like what’s on Jakku isn’t much at all.”
“It’s not Jakku. I’m worried about Norra.”
“Norra will be fine.”
“She’s on edge.”
“Who isn’t?”
Jas drives the point home further: “She’s becoming like me.”
“Nobody could become like you, dear heart. Besides, I noticed you were the one advising caution down there.”
“Someone has to be a voice of sanity, and I choose me. Norra’s pushing herself hard. Not physically. Emotionally. Her husband is in the wind again, our quarry is a grand admiral she failed to dispatch above Akiva, her son is here and theoretically in danger…guilt and anger are driving her. She thinks this is all her fault.” Jas gnaws at her lower lip, hard enough that Sinjir is surprised she hasn’t drawn blood. “I just worry.”
He shrugs and sighs. “See, you’re a good person because you worry about others. And I’m a good person because I didn’t actually hurt Geb Teldar. And Norra’s a good mother and Temmin is a good son and Mister Bones is a very good murder-droid, and we’re all good people doing a good thing and let’s just shut up and get it done, hm?”
“You mean to be sarcastic, but really, that’s damn sensible.” She pats his knee. “You might be right about all that.”
“Like you, it is rare that I am wrong, Jas Emari.”
“Let’s hope Jakku has no surprises for us,” she says as she stands.
“Oh, I wouldn’t count on that. The galaxy seems quite fond of surprising us, I’m afraid.”
—
“I can handle myself,” Temmin says to his mother. He waits till she’s done talking to Leia, at least, before he begins his objection. But the moment she ends the call, he springs on her like a jaw trap. “You know I can.”
Norra, seemingly startled by his presence, looks back. “What?”
“You know what.” Temmin plunks down in the copilot’s seat and straps in. “Yet again you went planetside without me. Yet again you left me and Bones on the ship. It started on Kashyyyk, and it’s only gotten worse: Ord Mantell, Corellia, Jindau Station—”
“Tem, we don’t have time for this.” Norra’s fingers move across the controls as she enters coordinates for this planet in the Western Reaches: Jakku. Wherever that is. Some dirtball planet that he won’t get to see because yet again she’ll make him stay in the Moth. Ugh. “Someone needs to stay with the ship and make sure it’s ready to fly.”
“Bones can do that. Let me come with you. On Jakku.”
“No.”
“Mom—”
“I said no.” She gives him a stern look. “Hyperspace cross-checks?”
He rolls his eyes and scans the data. “Everything looks good.” He admits to himself that it’s a pretty cursory glance: Navigation is totally boring. Piloting is where the fun is. The MK-4 freighter is leaner than most and has a ton of aftermarket mods that keep it nimble—but it’s still nothing like flying Jas’s gunship, the Halo. Or better yet: an X-wing. He dreams of flying those.
Norra engages the hyperspace drive. The stars stretch into lines and his stomach tightens as the ship lurches to lightspeed. They sit in silence for a while, watching the starlines pass. Eventually, Temmin looks over to his mother, scowling. “This is what you do, isn’t it? This is just you.”
“Going to hyperspace? What are you talking about?”
“You think you have to do it all by yourself. It’s like when you joined the Rebellion. You left me behind to go off on some crusade to find Dad.”
“We’re not looking for your father.” She speaks those words quietly, so quietly he almost doesn’t hear them over the thrum of the ship. “This is about something else, Tem.”
“I know, I know. We’re looking for Sloane. But it’s because of Dad, isn’t it? What he did. What she did. And you think she can help you find him. Which is great! It’s smart. But don’t leave me out of it. I want in. I want to be with you on this. I wanna help.”