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“Where is he?” Zam grits out as soon as the call connects, too on-edge to even let the pirate on the other end drawl out a smarmy greeting.
“What— Who in the—” Hondo’s voice rings out from behind the mass of crewmembers whose attention is caught by the screen, and the shock on his face as he pops into view, sees her, and blurts out, “Zam Wesell? You’re dead!” in genuine surprise might have been entertaining in any other circumstances, but right now the delay grates at her.
“Obviously I’m not,” she says brusquely. “Now where is he?”
“Now wait just a moment!” Hondo says, clearing the room with a sharp gesture before taking a seat and switching his feed to a different holocam, a close-up shot reserved for personal calls. He’s in one of the common rooms on his main ship, Zam can see, and the knowledge that he’s already mobile lets her settle, a little, into patience. “Are you truly Zam Wesell? Because let me tell you,” he warns, “I do not take kindly to people wearing the faces of my dead friends!”
Zam rolls her eyes. “Glad to know you care, Ohnaka, but yes, it’s me.”
She holds up a hand before he can ask her to verify, dropping her human face and yanking the back of her shirt down as she twists to reveal the distinct scar on the back of her roughly textured neck. There are only two people in the galaxy who know about that scar besides Zam, who have matching wounds from the same stars-forsaken weapon, the same stupid job gone horribly awry.
Well. Only one other person, now.
She swallows back the bile that rises in the back of her throat at that thought, taking a moment to compose herself as she reverts back to the face she prefers. When she turns back around, Hondo is gaping at her, his eyes wide behind his goggles and his jaw slack, and abruptly Zam has had enough.
She opens her mouth to ask him a third time, but Hondo beats her to the punch.
“Does this mean Jango is still alive, also?” he asks, and there’s a weary sort of hopefulness in him that comes across even through the grainy connection.
The incandescent rage that’s been Zam’s frequent companion over the past week washes over her again, with enough force to take her breath away before she wrangles it back down to a simmering grief-fueled determination instead. “No,” she says plainly, watching as Hondo sighs deeply, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”
“As am I, my dear friend,” Hondo laments. “As am I.”
They let the silence linger between them for long moments, the holocall sputtering and flickering until Hondo finally gathers himself.
“Who are you asking about, then?”
“His son,” Zam says softly. “Jango had a son.”
“Yes,” Hondo agrees consideringly. “I have met the Fettling a time or two myself.”
“He was there when it happened,” Zam tells him, and Hondo grimaces. “Yeah. So if you could find out where he’s ended up…”
Hondo sits back in his chair at the request, bringing a hand to his chin as he thinks for a long moment. “I can make no promises.”
“Well try!” Zam snaps, unable to contain her anger. How is it not eating Hondo alive, this knowledge that Jango’s gone because of his own insufferable stupidity, his inability to ask for help when he was so clearly in over his head and now his kid is suffering for it? The galaxy is going to war; every moment spent idle makes Zam want to rip the hair out of her head. “We’re a long way past whether or not you can karking make promises, Ohnaka.”
Hondo startles at her abrupt temper.
“I did not say I would not do it, my friend,” he placates, and it’s only because he sounds mildly appalled at the very implication that Zam lets it slide. The agreement, weak as it is, is support enough for her. “But,” he adds, pausing as he visibly decides what to say, “...hm.”
“What?” Zam asks flatly. But he’s been patient with her even when her temper’s shot through after days of increasingly frantic searching, of watching the galaxy prepare to burn itself alive from the edges out and of trying to account for every unsavory piece of shit criminal who must be champing at the bit to get a shot in at the Fett even after his death and won’t balk at using a kid to do it; she bites back the venom that comes far easier than grief and waits for him to continue, leaning down and cradling her head in her hands as she does. She lets her eyes fall shut once her face is hidden, and even she can’t tell if the tears that well up in them are from grief or exhaustion.
Over the holocall, she hears the fuzzy static of Hondo taking a deep breath, then letting it all out in one great gust.
“What will you do with him, when you find him?”
When. Not if.
Stars bless him; infuriating, self-serving, two-timing son of a bitch that he can be, but damn if he doesn’t know exactly what she needs to hear right now in the middle of her own spiraling.
When.
“Do with him,” she repeats. “Do with him. What am I going to do with him?” She sounds hysterical, she knows she sounds hysterical, giddy from lack of sleep and an overabundance of stress and the undeniable relief of finally having someone in her corner, but even that is a welcome change from the rage and the numbness. “I don’t know, Hondo, what do you do with a baby bounty hunter who disappeared into a war zone after watching his dad die right in front of him?”
“Hm. I do not know!” Hondo says cheerfully. “We will have to find out.”
“There’s no we, Hondo,” Zam growls, finally looking up at him. She has to mold her face into an exaggerated scowl to bury the smile that’s threatening to break free. “You find the kid if I don’t do it first, and then I take him and disappear.”
“Yes,” Hondo nods in mock seriousness, “where were you going to hide for the rest of your life, letting your friends think you were dead?”
It’s a calculated blow, and one Zam would have let land even if Hondo weren’t being gentler on her than she deserves.
“We had a plan,” she says, her voice cracking on the last word. “None of it was supposed to end like this.”
Hondo doesn’t respond right away, but the silence that falls feels companionable even across the distance. Zam takes the time to simply sit with him and breathe, and feels more restored than she had after a full hour of fitful sleep.
“Whatever comes next,” Hondo says finally, meeting her eyes through the holocall screen, and his expression is more serious than she’s ever seen it, “we will face it together.” His tone leaves no room for argument—not that Zam is particularly inclined to give him one.
Still, she can’t let him get into the habit of having the last word. “If you insist,” she shrugs, and the movement comes easy, the friendly teasing natural.
“Of course I insist!” Hondo says, leaning in. “I have always wanted to pass on my ways to an impressionable young apprentice!”
Zam rolls her eyes, letting the smile break out onto her face this time. “On second thought, we’re going into hiding.”
Hondo returns her smile with one of his own before he throws his hands up, sitting back in his chair. “I will get to finding, then, friend, so you can get to hiding.”
“Thank you, Hondo,” Zam says softly, and she’s referring to his easy acquiescence, his support, his friendship, things they never voice, but she has plenty of excuses for the sentimentality this time.
Hondo waves her off unceremoniously. “Go, now!” he says, his attention already on the datapad in front of him. “Rest. If you are not ready when I find the Fettling I will keep him all to myself.” He taps his chin thoughtfully. “Maybe he would make a good pirate, if he learned at the right hand of the Great Hondo Ohnaka?”
“No piracy until he’s of age at least,” Zam says firmly. She knows him far too well to believe he’s joking, and the last thing she needs is Jango’s ghost yelling at her for letting Hondo Ohnaka have a hand in training his kid. “And Hondo?” she adds as she reaches to end the call. “Keep it quiet, for once in your life.”
She cuts the connection before he can do more than squawk at her in offense. Her reflection in the blank holoscreen looks truly ragged, but for the first time in days she feels like she might be able to crawl into her bunk and catch more than a few minutes’ worth of sleep; stars know she’ll need it.
And on the other side, the rest of her life awaits.