But Skirata walked through the ’fresher doors in his civilian rig—brown bantha-hide jacket and brown pants—which was slightly at odds with his heavy Mando boots. Vau stood behind him in his black beskar’gam with his helmet under one arm, Mird at his side.
“Dar’ika,” Skirata said. “Come here, son.”
And Darman did, despite himself. He stood up and let Skirata throw his arms around him. Kal’buir thought a manly hug sorted a lot of problems, and generally he was right. This time, though, it was going to take more than affection to fix things.
“I’m sorry,” Skirata said. “I know you’re upset.”
Atin, Corr, and Niner leaned against the lockers, moral support for their brother. “Why didn’t anyone tell me, Buir?” Darman asked. “Why did Etain lie to me? What did she think I’d do? Is she ashamed of me?”
“Shab, no, son.” Skirata’s face was anguished and exhausted. “She adores you. It was me—I stopped her telling you. She wanted to, right from when she knew she was pregnant, but I threatened I’d take the kid away from her if she didn’t do as I said.”
Darman didn’t believe him. Skirata might have been a pitilessly hard man, no stranger to violence, but he was the kindest of fathers. He’d never have threatened Etain.
“Don’t cover for her, Kal’buir.”
“I’m not. It’s true. Ask Ordo—he walked in on the row, and I’m not going to dress it up. I stopped her telling you, and that was wrong, whatever the circumstances.”
Darman didn’t like the feeling growing in his gut right then. Skirata had been the sole anchor in his childhood, the only adult he trusted, his shield against the Kaminoans and everything that scared him. He wanted this not to be true. Etain—Etain was a Jedi, and as much as he loved her, she wasn’t a foundation in his life like Skirata had been.
“You put my son in my arms,” Darman said, “and didn’t tell me who he was.”
“I swear to you, son, ori’haat, we were going to tell you then. But you said that you weren’t ready for babies. So we decided against it.”
“We.”
“All right, me. Leave Etain out of it. She’s a kid like you, never had the chance of a normal life, and she did her best—because she needed something to love when she wasn’t allowed to, ever. She loves you, and she loves Kad. I’m the one who should have known better.”
Darman knew what was happening inside him now. He recognized it. So did Niner; he moved a little closer, as if he was going to take Darman’s arm and tell him it was okay, and things would be better now.
Darman was angry and hurt. He knew he had to let that steam vent out carefully. “Why did you stop her the first time?”
“I thought it would distract you when you were fighting, and you’d get yourself killed,” said Skirata. Vau was still silent. In a room full of soldiers, there was now really only Skirata and Darman. “And I didn’t know if you could take it emotionally. A lot of men with more life experience than you run away when they find out they’re going to be a dad.”
“So am I a man, like anyone else, or am I always going to be a kid who needs everything done for him?”
“Look, I was wrong.” Skirata looked rough now; his eyes glazed with unshed tears, and his voice was shaky. “You should have been told. You should have been there when Kad was born. I took that from you, and I’ll never forgive myself.”
Yeah, this wasn’t about Etain. Somehow, for all the knowledge he lacked of normal family life, Darman knew—felt—that she was in as big a mess as him, but Skirata was the grown-up, the seasoned warrior, the father, the veteran sergeant, the one who should have taken the situation in hand.
“I want to see Kad,” Darman said. “When we go off duty tonight, I want to see my son.”
“And Etain?”
Darman thought. Yes, he could face her now. He nodded. But he wasn’t satisfied. The floodgates had opened, and he couldn’t close them. He had to know everything. “What’s happening, Kal’buir? I mean—the rest of it? We know we don’t get told everything, but you’re always up to something, and you don’t tell us. You said problem when I commed you.”
Skirata looked at Vau, who shrugged and went to stand guard at the doors with Mird. Skirata held out his hand. “Come on. Buckets—show me all your helmets are offline.”
“Don’t you trust us?” Corr asked.
“Of course I trust you. I just don’t want any potentially live links while we talk. I’m getting paranoid about security breaches and the tech the aruetiise can get hold of. Things are not going great.”
“Terrific,” said Atin sourly, flipping his helmet upside down between his palms and showing a totally unlit interior, all systems down. “We’re not amateurs.”
“Neither is Jaing,” said Skirata, “but some Republic jobsworth knows someone’s been in their network.”
“What network?” Niner asked.
“Treasury.”
Darman knew that Besany had slipped codes to Skirata from the start. He could guess what was coming, or at least he thought he could. “Jaing’s been caught slicing? Or was it Besany?”
“Neither. Her friend Jilka’s been picked up by the RDS bully-boys instead, and even Jaller Obrim can’t make that problem go away. Jilka knows one thing too many. It might put Besany in the frame.”
“But what’s she done?”
“First things first,” Skirata said. “I need to go in and shut Jilka up before she tells Palpatine’s heavies too much.”
“Shut Jilka up.” Niner did his conscience-of-the-GAR act, that resigned expression that said he’d follow orders but he didn’t have to like it—and he’d argue. “As in slot her.”
“If need be, yes.”
Atin looked at Darman. “She’s Besany’s buddy.”
“And it’s Besany she’ll implicate.”
“In what?” Niner asked.
Skirata was talking about something to thwart the Chancellor. It was the first explicit proof Darman had that he was running his own operation—not in parallel with the Republic’s interests, or outside them, but against them. Darman loved and respected Kal’buir, but he was under no illusions about his methods. He’d been up to something dodgy for a long time; Fi’s extraction, the base on Mandalore, Ko Sai, the bank job on Mygeeto with Vau that Delta didn’t talk about—something major was happening. Skirata was well off the chart.
And so were the Nulls.
“Just tell us,” Darman said. “We’re big boys now. Put your credits where your mouth is, if you meant what you said to me a minute ago.”
Skirata paced slowly around the ’fresher with his head lowered, staring at the gray tiled floor as if he was working up to saying something awful. Vau was getting impatient at the doors, doing that sigh and head shake that meant he was going to cut in and tell them if Skirata didn’t. But Darman wanted to hear it from Kal’buir.
“For shab’s sake tell them, Kal,” Vau said.
Skirata let out a long breath. “Ad’ike, what I’m going to tell you must not, absolutely not, go beyond us. Do you understand? Not even if the Chancellor orders you to answer. Especially not then.” He looked at Niner. “That means you, too. You’re as straight as a die, son, but this isn’t the time or the place for being Master Ethical.”
So A’den had told Skirata about Niner’s row with him over letting Sull desert and walk free. Niner drew his head back slightly as if he was hurt by the suggestion. “We’re not going to like this, are we, Kal’buir?”
Skirata was all business again, eyes dry, as if they hadn’t had the conversation about babies and lies at all. “This is a need-to-know job, not because I don’t trust you, but because what you don’t know usually can’t drop you in it. Usually.”
“We get it,” Atin said. “Just tell us.”
“It’s not Jilka who’s been mining the Treasury’s data. It’s Besany. And I got her to do it. We don’t live in a world now where you get a lawyer and a trial—you end up committing suicide whether you want to or not, like
that HNE hack.”
It was a tough line to follow. But Niner, being Niner, tried.
“So you slot Jilka to save Besany.”
“If you knew what Besany had found, Ner’ika, you’d understand. And it’s not just about Besany.”
“What the shab is it?” Darman snapped. “Come on, Kal’buir, spit it out.”
Skirata dropped his voice almost to a whisper. “Palpatine’s developing a new clone army. A big one.”
It shouldn’t have felt like a slap in the face, but it did. It was reinforcements, but it didn’t feel like it. “What, you mean more of us? Well, that’s—”
“More Fett clones, yes, but not from Kamino. He’s fallen out with Lama Su. Got his own production plants, and building lots more ships. I think the clones from the Fourteenth are the vanguard. And the guys we’re seeing around the city.”
It was all getting too messy for Darman. There was something wrong. It was the kind of strategic information that special forces needed to know. If reinforcements were coming, they should have been told, just like he should have been told he had a son.
“About time,” said Niner. “We’re stretched thin enough to read a holozine through us. Okay, Kal’buir, that’s all we need to know. But that still doesn’t fully explain why Jilka’s a problem.”
“Niner, ner vod—shut up, will you?” said Corr.
“No, you need to know this, all of it, because it’s going to blow up soon,” Skirata said. “I want you to be ready to save yourselves.”
It was so quiet in the ’freshers that Darman could hear a faint, distant, distracting drip from a faucet. “Okay, full story,” said Niner.
“The extra troops aren’t going to be deployed for some months.” Skirata held his hand up in front of his chest as if to quell argument that hadn’t even started. “Palpatine’s holding them back, but they’re fully developed. Fast-grown Spaarti clones, we think, mature enough to fight within a year or so, not grown Kamino-style like you—millions and millions of them. He’s got a big push planned, and the fact that nobody, but nobody, has been told about it scares the living osik out of me. So… okay, I’ll blurt it out. When the big red button gets pushed, we get out. And I mean we.”
Darman heard Niner fidgeting. His armor rustled against the fabric of his bodysuit. They’d all talked around the subject, about what would happen after the war ended, and now—they knew.
Was the war going to end, though?
“Shouldn’t we be there for the final big push?” Corr asked. “Do our bit? Seems a shame to leave the party early.”
“Son, I don’t know the full details, and it’s not for want of trying.” Skirata fastened his jacket, looking as if the snatched discussion was coming to an abrupt end. “But the more I find out, the less I think this is going to end well for the likes of you and me. I—The Nulls, Vau, and me, we’ve been getting an escape route together, and a refuge for any man who wants to leave the GAR without a body bag. And we’re getting close to finding out how to stop your accelerated aging. It’s a whole new life, ad’ike, a long one like any other human’s. Are you in? Will you come with me when I say it’s time to run?”
There was another communal silence.
Drip… drip… drip. Another leaky faucet joined the first in a quietly insistent chorus.
“So it’s true about Ko Sai,” Niner said at last.
“We didn’t kill her, son, but we’ve got her research.”
Every being needed some certainty in their life. Darman knew that some needed more than others, and he didn’t need as much as Atin seemed to, but one thing he did need was to know that Kal Skirata was the honest foundation stone of the clones’ sense of identity. Right now, there was nothing solid left under Darman. He was adrift. He couldn’t rely on Kal’buir to level with him. The unknown and invisible was worse than incoming fire you could see.
“You never told us,” Darman said quietly. “Again, you decide what we get to know.”
“Dar, leave it,” said Corr. “Soldier’s lot in life, that is.”
“Kal’buir, you kept us in the dark. Like you kept me in the dark about Kad.” Darman found himself looking down into Skirata’s eyes, oblivious of everyone else. The pressure in his head, right behind his eyes, felt almost like a bad dose of flu that had hit him in just a few moments. He couldn’t hold it much longer. “What else don’t you tell us? How can I trust you?”
“Dar, I’m sorry.” Skirata put his hands on Darman’s arms as if to soothe him, but Darman pulled away. “That’s why I’m telling you everything now.”
“I said, what else?”
“I’m not holding anything back. At least I don’t think I am—”
“You wouldn’t even know if you were lying. It’s all just one big lie.”
Skirata’s eyes changed. Something went out of them; light, life, whatever, but Darman had wounded him. “Son, I’m not exactly an Asrat holy man, I admit that. But whatever I did, however stupid it was, I did because I love you boys more than you’ll ever know.”
“Liar,” said Darman. “Liar.”
And he punched Kal’buir in the face.
The shock of the impact traveled up Darman’s arm into his shoulder in slow motion. He heard the yells to stop, felt someone grab his arm, but shook them off. Skirata fell against the tiled wall. He started yelling, too; “Leave him, leave him, get out and leave us—” But the feeling didn’t stop for Darman, not even when the punch exploded in pain, the feeling that his lungs were going to burst if he didn’t get rid of this hammering pulse in his throat. Darman hauled Skirata upright and hit him again. He heard the oof and felt the spit on his face, but Skirata didn’t hit back.
“It’s okay, son,” Skirata gasped, scrambling to his feet, arms held away from his sides. All Darman could see was blood, nothing else. “It’s okay. Let it out. I asked for it.”
Darman wasn’t aware of much else for the next few seconds—maybe minutes, he had no idea—except hitting and hitting and hitting Skirata anywhere he could reach. No focus, no aim; there wasn’t even Skirata, not really. There was just this weird rage, half terror, and Darman wanted it out of him because he couldn’t draw another breath with it still inside him. Vau was shouting at the others to get out and leave them to it.
Then all Darman could hear was rasping breath. It was his own. Skirata was panting, too. When Darman looked down at his hands, they were raw and bleeding, and his first thought was that he hadn’t put his armored gauntlets on, and he was glad. He landed back in reality, shocked.
“Kal’buir, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”
Skirata leaned back against the wall, legs out in front of him. Darman could still only see the blood—not the face, just blood from the old sergeant’s nose and mouth. Skirata wiped it with the back of his hand and smeared it everywhere. Darman was almost paralyzed with horror and regret; the smell of the blood made him feel unsteady. But he edged forward and lifted Skirata to his feet.
“Do you want to talk, son?” Skirata paused, put one hand on the wall to steady himself, and spat into the nearest basin. He could hardly get the words out. “Or do you… want to be alone for a while?”
“I’m sorry. Shab, I’m sorry, Buir—”
“I’m sorry, too. It’s okay. Come here.”
Skirata embraced him. He actually hugged him, although it felt as if he was also hanging on to him to stay upright. Darman felt he was now in a stranger’s body, because he didn’t know how he could ever have done such a thing to Kal’buir. He didn’t know what had erupted from him. But it had gone away. And Skirata just held him as if he hadn’t hurt him at all.
“Now, what do you need, son?”
“I don’t want to talk,” Darman said. “But I don’t want to be alone, either.”
“It’s going to be fine, don’t you worry.” Skirata spat more bloody saliva. Something hard pinged in the basin. “Everything’s going to turn out okay.”
Chapter Ten
Arca Barracks,
t
hree hours later, 998 days ABG
So what’s wrong with being a mercenary? Is your war worth fighting? If it is, then why does it matter who fights it for you? Aren’t we imbued with the righteousness of your cause when we take up arms for you? Would you rather your own men and women died to make the point? And if your war is so noble, so necessary—why aren’t you fighting it yourself? Think of all that before you spit on us, aruetii.
—Jaster Mereel, Mand’alor, Al’Ori’Ramikade, speaking to the regent of Mek va Uil, ten years before dying at the hands of a comrade he trusted
General Zey filled the corridor, robes flapping as he bore down like a bantha stampede.
At least it looked that way to Scorch. Zey was on the warpath. These quiet days when everyone seemed to be on the brink of screaming anger and nothing was getting shot, vibrobladed, or blown up—Scorch knew there was far worse lurking under the surface. He was fed up waiting for op orders when he could taste the tension in the air.
Vau and Mird walked head-on toward the Jedi as if he was a minor inconvenience.
“Sergeant Vau!” he barked. No Walon, then. “What in the name of the Force happened to Skirata? I’ve just passed him.”
Vau was the only being Scorch had ever seen who could come to a halt grudgingly. “He’s fine.”
“He is not fine. He’s badly injured. He can’t even stand up straight.”
Vau inhaled slowly. “We were having a philosophical discussion, as Mandalorians often do, and I asserted that the only demonstrable reality was individual consciousness, but he insisted on the existence of a priori moral values that transcended free will. So I hit him.”
Zey didn’t even blink. “You think you’re so witty.”
“No, I think you should stay out of Mando clan business. It’s for your own good. Now, do you want a report, or not?”
Zey gestured Vau into a side lobby. So the old chakaar really had been spying on Skirata. Scorch was actually surprised, and even a little disappointed, but Zey had a point; and it was an inarguable order. Scorch stood to one side, trying to look—and feel—as if he wasn’t listening intently.