“Yes, I do.” His hard, lined face was an icon of passionate sincerity. “All of them. I started with one hundred and four trainees, plus my Null lads, and now I’ve got ninety commandos left. They say parents should never have to outlive their kid. But I’m outliving them all, and I suppose that punishment serves me right. I was a rotten father.”
“But—”
“No.” He held up his hand to stop her, and she paused. Skirata was benign but absolute authority. “It’s not what you think. I’m not using these lads to salve my conscience. They deserve better than that. I’m just using what I’ve learned—for them.”
“Does it matter, as long as they’re loved?”
“Yes, it does. I have to know that I care about them for who they are, or I’ve consigned them to being things again. We’re Mandalorian. A Mandalorian isn’t just a warrior, you see. He’s a father, and he’s a son, and your family matters. Those boys deserve a father. They deserve sons and daughters, too, but that isn’t going to happen. But they can be sons, and the two things you have a duty to teach your sons are self-reliance, and that you’d give your life for them.” Skirata leaned on folded arms and gazed down into the hazy abyss again. “And I would, Etain. I would. And I should have had that degree of conviction when I started this sorry mess back on Kamino.”
“And walked out? And left them to it? Because it wouldn’t have shifted the clone program one bit, even if it made you feel like you’d taken a brave stand.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“That stalking out and refusing to lead them is more for my comfort than theirs?”
He lowered his head on his folded arms for a moment.
“Well, that answers my question.”
As a Jedi, Etain had never known a real father any more than a clone had, but in that moment she knew exactly who she wanted him to be. She moved closer to Skirata to let her arm drape on his shoulder and rested her head against his. A tear welled up in the wrinkled corner of his eye then spilled down his cheek, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. He managed a smile even though he kept his gaze fixed on the traffic far below.
“You’re a good man and a good father,” she said. “You should never doubt that for a moment. Your men don’t, and neither do I.”
“Well, I wasn’t a good father until they made one out of me.”
But now he would also be a grandfather, too; and she knew it would delight him. She had given Darman back his future. She closed her eyes and savored the new life within her, strong and strange and wonderful.
Qibbu’s Hut, main bar,
1800 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
Ordo shouldered a space for himself at the bar table between Niner and Boss and helped himself to the container of juice.
Corr was showing Scorch a dangerous trick with a vibroblade that required lightning reflexes to withdraw his hand before the blade thudded into the surface of the table. Scorch seemed wary.
“But your hand’s metal, you cheating di’kut,” he said. “I bleed.”
“Yaaah, jealous!” Corr jeered. His blade shaved Scorch’s finger and went thunnkk in the table to cheers from Jusik and Darman. “You shiny boys always did envy us meat cans.”
The two squads seemed in good spirits, good enough to be telling long and elaborate jokes without the usual competitive edge of bravado between Sev and Fi. They had a task to complete in thirty hours and it seemed to have focused them completely, erasing all squad boundaries. It was what Ordo had expected. They were professionals; professionals put the job first. Anything less got you killed.
But now they were having fun. Ordo suspected it was the first time they’d ever let their hair down in an environment like this, because it was certainly a first for him. Skirata looked as happy as he had ever seen him. And Jusik sat among them, wearing of all things a chest plate of Mandalorian armor under his jacket.
“We presented it to Bard’ika as a souvenir,” Skirata said, rapping his knuckles on the plate. “In case we don’t manage to have that fancy dinner.”
In case some of us are dead by the end of tomorrow.
That was what he meant, and everyone knew it. They lived with it. It just seemed the more poignant now for knowing that a rare bond had been formed between unlikely comrades: two Jedi who openly admitted they struggled with the disciplines of attachment—and Ordo was sure now that he understood that—and a very mixed bag of clone soldiers from captain to trooper who had abandoned rank to answer to a sergeant who didn’t answer to anyone.
Fi, with his uncanny talent for spotting a mood, raised his glass. “Here’s to Sicko.”
The mention of the pilot’s name brought instant reverence to the noisy table.
“To Sicko,” they chorused.
There was no point grieving: settling a score with Separatists was a far more productive use of their energy. Jusik winked at Ordo, clearly happy in a way that reached beyond noisy laughter in a crowded bar. Whatever moat of serenity and separateness surrounded men like Zey, Jusik’s had vanished—if he had ever had it. He was daring to feel part of a tight-knit group of men. Whatever brotherhood was like within the Jedi Order, it didn’t appear to be like this.
Mereel, his hair rinsed clean to its natural black, was now holding court and reciting an astonishing list of obscenities in forty different languages. So far he hadn’t repeated himself once. Fi was bent double over the table, roaring with laughter.
Even Niner was enjoying it, contributing the odd word of Huttese. “It’s nice to know that your advanced linguistic skills were devoted to something useful.”
“Urpghurit,” Mereel said, deadpan.
“Disgusting,” said Fi.
“Baay shfat.”
“What does that mean?”
Mereel whispered a translation in Fi’s ear and his face fell slightly. Mereel frowned. “Don’t tell me you’ve never heard that one.”
“We were raised to be polite boys,” Fi said, clearly aghast. “Can Hutts really do that?”
“You better believe it.”
“I’m not sure I like civilian society,” Fi said. “I think I felt safer under fire.”
Coming from Fi, it would usually have been a joke. But like all his jokes, bitter reality lay not far beneath. Fi hadn’t adjusted gracefully to the outside world. There was a moment of silence as reality intruded on all of them.
“I’ll shoot you and cheer you up, then,” Sev said suddenly.
Everyone laughed again. Darman drained his glass and got up to go. Scorch flicked a warra nut at him with impressive accuracy, and it bounced off his head. “Where you going, Dar?”
“I’m off to calibrate my Deece.”
There was more raucous laughter. Darman didn’t look amused. He shrugged and walked off in the direction of the turbolift through a crowd of men from the Forty-first Elite who were shipping out in a few days. At least they’d had something few troopers ever would: two weeks without fighting. They didn’t appear to be enjoying it, though. Kal’buir said that was what happened when you let someone out of prison after a long sentence. They didn’t fit in and they didn’t know how to live outside a cell or without a familiar routine.
I know, though. And Fi wants to know.
“Don’t wind him up about Etain, son,” said Skirata.
Scorch looked wary. “He’s not breaking any regulation, is he?”
“I don’t think so, but she is.”
The best thing was not to think.
“What happens to us when the war’s over?” Corr asked.
Mereel smiled. “You’ll have the thanks of a grateful Republic. Now, who can guess what this Ubese word means?”
Ordo glanced at Skirata, who raised his glass. Atin came to take Darman’s place at the table with the Twi’lek Laseema on his arm: the man obviously wasn’t as shy as he seemed. Except for Vau and Etain, the entire strike team had gathered here, and there was some sense of an important bond having been accomplished. It also felt very final.
“
You and Mereel are up to something,” Skirata said. “I can tell.”
“He has news, Kal’buir,” Ordo said.
“Oh.”
Should he tell him now? He’d thought it might distract him too much. But he didn’t need to provide detail. It would give Kal’buir heart for what was to come.
“He’s traced where our mutual friend fled immediately after the battle.”
There was no need to say that the friend was Kaminoan scientist Ko Sai, the head of the cloning program, or that she had gone missing after the Battle of Kamino. The hunt—and it was a private matter, not Republic business, although the Grand Army footed the bill—was often reduced to just two words: Any news?
And if any of his other brothers—Prudii, A’den, Kom’rk, Jaing—found anything as well, Skirata would be told. They might have been carrying out intelligence missions for the Republic, but their true focus was finding elements of Kaminoan cloning technology that only Ko Sai had access to.
Skirata’s face became luminous. It seemed to erase every crease and scar for a few moments.
“This is what I want to hear,” he said softly. “You will have a future, all of you. I swear it.”
Jusik was watching him with interest. There was no point trying to conceal anything of an emotional nature from Jedi as sensitive to the living Force as Jusik and Etain, but it was unlikely that Skirata had shared that secret with him. He hadn’t even told his commando squads. It was too fragile a mission; it was safer for them all not to know for the time being.
Jusik raised his glass. It was just juice. Nobody would drink before a mission if they had any sense. Alcohol had proved not to be a major preoccupation with commandos anyway: and, whatever had been rumored, Kal’buir’s only concession to alcohol was one glass of fiery colorless tihaar at night to try to get to sleep. He found sleep increasingly elusive as the years of training progressed on Kamino and his conscience tore him apart piece by piece.
He’d sleep well without it tonight, even if it was in a chair.
“This is very, very good news,” Skirata said, a changed man for the moment. “I’d dare to say it bodes well.”
They drank and joked and argued about Hutt curses. And then Skirata’s comlink chirped, and he answered it discreetly, head lowered. Ordo simply heard him say, “Now? Are you serious?”
“What is it?” Ordo said. Mereel paused in midcurse, too, and the table fell silent.
“It’s our customer,” Skirata said, jaw tense again. “They’ve hit a small snag. They need to move tonight. There’s no preparation, ad’ike—we have to roll in three hours.”
Chapter Twenty
You know that thing that sergeants are always supposed to yell at new recruits? “I am your mother! I am your father!” Well, what do you do when that’s actually true? Kal Skirata was all they had. And the troopers didn’t have anyone. How can you expect those boys to grow up normal?
—Captain Jaller Obrim, to his wife over dinner
Operational house, Qibbu’s Hut,
1935 hours, 385 days after Geonosis: whole strike team ready to deploy
“So what’s your shabla problem, then, Perrive?” Skirata conducted the conversation with his wrist comlink propped on the table while he strapped on his Mando armor. Ordo stood out of range of the comlink’s mike, holding Obrim on the line via his own link. “Cold feet? Can’t get the finance in place? What, exactly?”
Skirata didn’t need to act angry. He was. Everyone in the team was used to working on the fly, but all the planning—the careful positioning to take out the maximum number of bodies—now teetered on the brink of disaster. Around him, Delta and Omega were armoring up in full fighting order: Katarn rig with DC-17s, grenades, rappelling lines, rapid entry ordnance, and a Plex rocket launcher per squad.
For a moment he was unsettled to see Omega and Vau both in black armor. But they’re mine. They’re my squad. He renewed his concentration on Perrive’s voice.
“One of our colleagues has been picked up by the police.” Perrive’s Jabiimi accent was very noticeable now. It was an indication of stress. And that was encouraging at an animal level for a mercenary. Skirata gestured frantically to Ordo but his head was already lowered, chin tucked into his chest as he relayed the information to Obrim. “We need to move our operation.”
“And you want me to drop by with the groceries when you’ve got CSF crawling all over you? I’m still wanted for seven contract killings in town.”
Ordo gave a standing by signal: hand at shoulder level, fingers spread.
Perrive swallowed audibly. “They’re not crawling all over us, as you put it. One man was arrested. He might be a weak link.”
Cross-check this with Obrim. “Where? This better not be in my backyard.”
“Industrial sector, pulled over for an illegal cannon upgrade to his speeder.”
Ordo nodded once and then gave a thumbs-up. Confirmed. Skirata felt his shoulders relax immediately. “Call me suspicious, but last time somebody did this to me they didn’t plan on paying. You’re not sticking to our timetable.”
“I’m afraid it’s just a good old-fashioned screwup.”
“I’ll be at your location at twenty-two-hundred hours, then. But you won’t mind if I bring a couple of my colleagues just to be on the safe side.”
“Not there. We have transport issues.”
“What does that mean?”
“I mean we need to move our vessels somewhere safe. Bring the consignment to us at our landing strip and load it straight on.”
Scorch stepped in front of Skirata with as near to an expression of boyish delight as the man was ever going to manage. He mouthed CoruFresh at him. Any good mercenary could lip-read, because if he wasn’t already deafened by long exposure to gunfire, he couldn’t hear a word in battle anyway.
“I need a location.”
“We have a few vessels laid up in the commercial sector in Quadrant F-Seventy-six.”
Skirata watched Scorch clench both fists and pull his elbows hard into his sides in a gesture of silent, total triumph. They were heading for at least one site at which they’d done a thorough recce.
“I need coordinates and I need to know exactly what I can expect to see when I show up—so I know I’m not walking into a CSF welcoming committee.”
“You really do have a record, don’t you?” said Perrive.
“Isn’t that why you’re doing business with me?”
“Very well. Six speeder trucks with CoruFresh livery and four passenger airspeeders—two Koros, two custom J-twelves.”
“For a hundred kilos of thermal? I can carry that with my nephew in two shopping bags, chakaar.”
“You’re not our only supplier of equipment, Mando. And I have personnel to move. I know you’ll spit on this, but we’re soldiers, and we have a code of honor. We want the goods for the price we agreed. No trap.”
Skirata paused for effect. “So I’ll meet you there.”
“No, it’ll be my deputy. The woman you saw at our meeting earlier. I’m moving via another route.”
“Transmit the coordinates now and we’ll start packing our bags.”
“Your credits will be in the account you specified at twenty-one-fifty.”
“Pleasure doing business. But the minute I see CSF-issue blasters or even a hint of blue uniform, we’re banging out.”
Skirata closed the link and for a moment there was absolute silence in a room full of fifteen hot, anxious, adrenaline-laden bodies. Then there was a loud collective whoop of satisfaction. Even Etain joined in, and Skirata hadn’t reckoned her for wild displays of enthusiasm.
“So all was not lost after all, vode,” Vau said. Lord Mirdalan was frantic, bouncing on its front legs while the other four scrabbled for purchase on the tattered carpet. Adrenaline excited strills and made them eager to hunt. “Plan B. Disable the vessels and slot the occupants.”
“Disable…,” Scorch said.
“Minimum force required to do the job. We’re in a c
ity, remember.”
“Holochart,” Ordo said. “I’ve still got Obrim on this link. Quick sitrep, people.”
They clustered around Corr, who was collating the moving red lines and points of light with quiet enthusiasm. Methodical, calm lad. He’d need to be that in bomb disposal. “They’ve been going all shades of crazy here and here.” He zoomed into the holoimage and indicated two tangled masses of red lines like loose balls of thread, both in the retail sector of Quadrant B-85, where Fi had carried out the surveillance of Vinna Jiss. It suggested that tagged suspects had done an awful lot of repeated movement. “I’d say they’re shifting kit by hand. Plenty of it, in two locations. But the two apartments Captain Ordo recce’d have been totally dead for hours. They’ve left.”
Skirata knew what he’d do in their position. He’d assemble what kit he had, move it discreetly to a central point, and then ship out. He wouldn’t send a big, conspicuous repulsor truck to pick up from a dozen locations.
“It’s all going out via the crates on that landing strip,” he said.
“Agreed.” Ordo and Mereel nodded.
Scorch just grinned.
A red point of light suddenly moved from the location of the house in the banking sector where Skirata had met Perrive. They watched it moving fast: someone had left the house in a speeder. “Holocam,” Skirata said.
Ordo played out the remote image from his glove emitter. A speeder had taken off from the roof.
“I’d bet that was Perrive leaving,” said Vau.
Skirata knew they’d lose some of the key players, but this was about making as big a dent in the Sep terror ranks as possible. “Pity. Maybe we can catch up with him later.”
Fi held out his palm with a remote detonator on it. “If he’s flying that green speeder…”
“The one they took me in?”
“Yes.”
“Fi…”
“You can blow it anytime you like, Sarge.” The commandos had slipped back into calling him Sarge. It seemed to happen when they put their armor on again. “I stuck a nice big surprise in his air intake last night.”