Star Wars_ The New Jedi Order_ Dark Tide 02_ Ruin - Michael A. Stackpole [98]
Jaina frowned. “I’m reading your tracking data, but still don’t have a lock on your target.”
Jag Fel sighed. “In Chiss society, there is no adolescence. Chiss children mature early and are given adult responsibilities very quickly. Those of us humans living with them were raised as they were raised. Intellectually I knew things were not the same here in the New Republic, but—”
“You think I’m a child?” Jaina gave him an icy glare. “You think I’m soft or something?”
Fel broke eye contact, and she noticed a blush rising on his cheeks. He raised a hand to ward off her comments, then shook his head. In doing that he peeled off a decade or two and seemed, to her, for the first time to be someone his own age.
“Not soft, no, not at all. You have determination and courage, but you lack—”
“Lack what?”
He frowned and glanced out at the shuttle. “You’re not grim.”
Jaina caught herself before she could proclaim that she was, in fact, grim—grim enough to outgrim him even. “Um, no, I mean, there are times, yes, but being grim takes such a toll.”
“It does at that.” He pointed a finger toward two men walking across the deck. They were wearing environment suits, but the clear headgear made them easily recognizable. “My, ah, uncle . . . when he hugged me at that reception . . . We’d met barely an hour before, privately, and he was surprised to learn who I was, but in no time after that . . . Where I come from, there are men that I have never seen smile before, and here he was, in the midst of a difficult situation, and he was happy to meet me. Not because I was an ally, but because I was his sister’s son. And he accepted me despite the fact that my mother’s departure from the New Republic hurt him deeply.”
Jaina reached out and rested a hand on Fel’s shoulder. “Wedge is like that. Most people are. Life is too harsh not to take what pleasure you can find in it, and certainly learning of his sister and how her life has gone would be wonderful to him. No matter how bad things might be, a joke, a smile, a pat on the back help break the tension.”
Fel raised his chin, and Jaina could feel his defenses repairing themselves. “Among the Chiss, celebration is saved until the job is done.”
“Even if it is never-ending?”
“If it isn’t ended, the celebration is false.”
“No, it’s necessary.” She looked at him, at his strong profile, at the determination on his face, and felt a shiver run down her spine. That he was handsome there was no disputing, and the cockiness, which was backed by fantastic skill as a pilot, had its charm. She admired the way he’d stood up to the New Republic’s politicians—most of whom disgusted her because of the way they treated her mother. Even the Imperial formality was attractive in a quaint sort of way.
I wonder if my mother saw my father that same way?
The second that thought occurred to her she pulled her hand back from Fel’s shoulder abruptly. Oh, no, I am not going to let myself fall for some guy who thinks grim is the normal state of being. Not the time or place to even be thinking about it.
Fel glanced over when she pulled her hand away, then half smiled. “The Chiss, despite the impression I might have given you, are a thoughtful people. Deliberate, calculating, but not above a flight of fantasy or two. They are not averse to wondering where they would be, had life been different. Whom they would have met, how they would have met, what would have become of them.”
“And you mention this because?”
“Because . . .” He hesitated, then looked out at the deck. “I was wondering what Uncle Wedge would have thought of my older brother.”
Jaina smiled and looked out at the deck. “The only problem with those flights of fancy are that life never works as cleanly as we’d like. Sometimes a meeting is just a meeting. Other times it’s a prelude.”
Fel laughed lightly. “Had I said that, you would have accused me of talking as if I were your father’s age again.”
“I might well have, but probably