501st: An Imperial Commando Novel

by Karen Traviss

  Age didn’t change a thing as far as Skirata was concerned. Vau seemed to think old age was a state of sainthood, life’s slate wiped clean simply by being too feeble to return a punch. Skirata took off his boots at the door and stood them inside the covered lobby.

  “If Demagol walked in here now, four thousand years old,” he said, “what would you do?”

  “Tell him to make himself useful for once and give Uthan a hand in the lab.”

  “Seriously.”

  “You’re asking me if I’d take a blaster to a very elderly man and kneecap him for his eugenics crimes, aren’t you?”

  Skirata wondered if Vau would forgive his loathed father simply for avoiding death long enough. He doubted it. “I’m just a simple thug trying to explore moral philosophy, Wal’ika.”

  “Then I’d have to face him to know the answer. But I’m sure you think you know yours.”

  “I do. It’s okay to shoot a helpless old man. Because when he wasn’t helpless, he did some terrible things to living beings for no other reason than scientific curiosity.” Skirata took off his torso plates in the lobby. They were good protection for any job, from chopping wood to fighting Trandoshans, and they also gave aging joints some welcome support. “Don’t worry, Kina Ha’s safe. Shab, she was a defective as far as the aiwha-bait were concerned. If she hadn’t been some use to them for tinkering, I doubt they’d have celebrated her differences.”

  Two sounds competed for Skirata’s attention as he stepped into the passage. One was the sound of clattering dinner plates and the faintly buzzing audio of a holoreceiver coming from the kitchen. The other was a noise that still gave him very mixed feelings: the vzzzm-vzzzm-vzzzm of someone swinging a lightsaber.

  Actually, it was two lightsabers. The insistent humming sounds overlapped, so Jusik was sparring with someone, and Skirata doubted it was Kina Ha.

  He gave Vau a nod to indicate he was going to check it out. The trail led to one of the empty rooms, doors wide open, a bedroom waiting for a deserter in need of a roof over his head. Jusik, fully armored but minus his helmet, was dueling with Scout. He stopped instantly. Skirata gestured to carry on and not mind him.

  “We were trying to be discreet about the lightsabers,” Jusik said, holding his blade wide to his right while Scout took up her stance. “Sorry, Kal’buir.”

  Skirata shrugged. “Ignore my ramblings. I’ve used one, too, remember.” He’d used Jusik’s, in fact. He’d killed Jedi with it, just crazed shocked seconds after Etain was cut down. He wondered if it troubled Jusik to hold it now, whether the blade spoke to him of former brothers abandoned, or if it marked some kind of watershed of leaving his Jedi identity behind. “They’re not snobs, lightsabers. You can swing one no matter who your father was.”

  “Scout has to stay sharp.” Jusik seemed to need to excuse why he was doing it. “She’ll have to defend herself again one day.”

  Jusik spun. Scout moved to block his thrust before he shifted his weight; she looked like she knew which way he was going even before he did. She did it again, and again. Jusik ended up with his lightsaber held almost like a knife, cantina-fight-style, weight on both feet, knees bent, rocking one way then the other before leaping. And she still blocked his blade. Then she lunged and hit his chest plate. A charred streak marked the green coating.

  “Sorry!” She put her hand to her mouth. “Wow, lightsabers really don’t do much to proper beskar’gam, do they?” She stepped forward and wiped her finger across his armor. “It’s just zapped the paint. The metal’s fine.”

  “That’s why I’m wearing beskar, and not durasteel.” Jusik glanced down at the mark, then winked. “Look, Kal’buir, this’ll enhance my reputation no end. Fought with a Jedi and survived to show off the damage.”

  Even harmless comments could bring that image of the chaos on Shinarcan Bridge back to Skirata. But he couldn’t go through life flinching at every word. He made himself face each painful syllable.

  “Lunch, ad’ike,” he said, clapping his hands together to hurry them up. “We’re thin on the ground today. If we keep Jilka waiting, she’ll skin us.”

  In the kitchen, Vau, Uthan, and Gilamar sat at the table watching the holonews, while Besany and Jilka helped Arla serve up the meals. It was the first time Arla had joined them. She looked lost, but then a kitchen was a chaotic, noisy place after years in a padded cell.

  “You’ll forgive me for bringing the holo in here,” Gilamar said. “But things are getting hairy on Gibad.”

  “Fine by me.” Skirata helped himself to the mealbread rolls. “Where is everyone?”

  “Fi, Parja, and Corr went hunting with Mird,” Besany said. “Kina Ha’s meditating by the lake, and everyone else is fishing or helping Levet sow beans. Yes, Laseema’s taken Kad along, but she made sure he was wrapped up warmly. Did I leave anyone out?”

  “You know me too well, ad’ika.”

  Besany winked. Jilka hadn’t gone off with Corr, so maybe relations with Besany were thawing. Skirata hoped so.

  “Anyone want to update me on Gibad?” he said.

  Uthan kept her eyes on the screen. The holocast was live from outside the Gibadan parliament, a deceptively pleasant scene of a tree-lined square with a formal fountain in the center. Skirata could see armored vehicles in front of the building, troops guarding the huge bronzium doors at the top of steps that ran the full width of the colonnaded building. Update captions edged across the screen or flashed briefly as static icons.

  “They’ve told Palps to kiss their collective shebse,” Gilamar said. “So they’re counting down to the surrender deadline and standing by for a full orbital assault.”

  Gibad wasn’t worth fighting over, nice as the place looked, except to teach the rest of the galaxy a lesson. Uthan probably knew what was coming. Skirata wondered if he would have had the stomach to watch helplessly if that had been Keldabe and he’d been marooned light-years away; he doubted it. But not watching probably felt like dereliction of duty to her.

  “Doctor, have you still got family there?” Jilka asked.

  “Indirect family, yes. Colleagues at the institute. Friends.”

  Skirata felt a sick chill in his gut. She hasn’t been able to contact her home for three years. I never thought she might want to call and talk to family, but then I wouldn’t have risked it anyway. Everything’s changed now. Do I let her call home?

  It already looked too late. He slid his comlink across the table anyway. She looked at him, then picked it up.

  If she tried anything stupid, he could always shoot her. The comlink was untrackable. She tapped in a code and lifted the comlink slowly to her mouth.

  “Sessaly? Sessaly, is that you, dear? Yes, it’s Qail … yes, I’m fine, I’m safe, I’m …” Uthan only met Skirata’s eyes for a second, then glanced away. “I can’t say where I am, but everything’s fine … no, someone got me out, but that doesn’t matter, are you all right? Are you? I’m watching it all on the news …”

  Skirata wished he’d been more deaf than he was, because it was awful to hear that panicky edge in Uthan’s voice. She was as hard as nails—until now. That was what made it worse. Jusik patted his arm as he sat down next to him, and for a few minutes everyone tried to eat and pretend they couldn’t hear Uthan’s increasingly emotional conversation. Sessaly was her cousin, by the sound of it.

  Skirata concentrated on the news anchor, and realized the reporter at the scene was the droid behind the holocam.

  Okay, send a tinnie to record a war, fine—but it’s going to get fried the moment the turbolasers start. What kind of a propaganda show is that?

  “We understand that the surrender deadline has now passed, with no undertaking from the Gibadan government,” said the anchor. “The Emperor has now authorized the use of force to restore order.”

  Gibad looked pretty orderly to Skirata.

  Oh, shab …

  “Sessaly, you have to find shelter right now.” Uthan stood up, raking her hair with one hand. “Please.
We can talk later. Just get into a shelter. Please.”

  Even a woman prepared to kill millions had feelings. Skirata glanced at Gilamar, always a more sentimental man than most realized, and saw him suffering with her. Skirata would never have bet on those two getting close.

  “No … ,” she murmured. The crawler caption running across the bottom of the image read DEADLINE FOR GIBAD SURRENDER PASSES—IMPERIAL TASK FORCE BEGINS ASSAULT. “Sessaly, stay in the basement, do you hear me? Sessaly? Sessaly!”

  Gilamar let out a long breath. Uthan stared at the comlink, eyes brimming.

  “I—I think the outgoing comms have been jammed,” she said.

  There was a chance that Sessaly might make it, but Skirata didn’t spend too long working out her odds. Uthan handed the comlink back to him and stared unblinking at the screen. Scout and Jusik watched her, grim-faced, and then Scout moved across to put her hand on the woman’s arm. Whatever Scout and Jusik could feel emanating from Uthan seemed to be a lot more harrowing than Skirata could see.

  “Who’s recording this?” Gilamar said. He looked equally unhappy. Shab, he was getting too fond of Uthan. “If the bombardment’s started, they’re missing it.”

  “Droid,” Skirata said absently. “Until a laser barrage hits it.”

  Odd …

  The holocam shot tilted up to the sky, focused on something in the clouds, and small dark dots began resolving into fighters—or so Skirata thought. Then he realized they weren’t military craft but droid crop sprayers. He could see a fine cloud emerging from the undercarriages as the holocam zoomed in.

  Gilamar seemed to get the idea before he did. “No, that’s too disgusting even for Palpatine.”

  The assault had started, all right. But there was no bombardment. And now Skirata knew why the reporter was a droid, because there weren’t going to be any turbolasers turned on the cities of Gibad. The place would still be standing tomorrow.

  Crop sprayers only did one thing. They released chemicals. And that was what this fleet appeared to be doing now.

  “Chemical weapons,” Gilamar said. “Utterly gutless. Hutuune.”

  Yes, that was a coward’s weapon. Skirata wondered if it mattered how you died in a war as long as it was over quickly, but how an army fought decided if its society was honorable or a bunch of savages. Dropping chemicals on a city instead of landing troops was about as bad as it got for Skirata. Whatever the aruetyc world thought, Mandalorians had their code of conduct, and dragging civilians into a war—as targets, as shields, as anything—meant all bets were off. An enemy like that deserved no quarter, and got none.

  But it’s Palpatine. We’re not going to fight him. Not now, anyway. So I’ll file that for the future.

  The basement hiding place wouldn’t save Sessaly or anyone else. Uthan closed her eyes, put her hand to her mouth, and wept silently as the droid cam shifted position and tracked to the city itself. Gilamar took her hand and gave Scout a look that, for just a split second, made the three of them look like a family.

  Skirata looked away, feeling like a voyeur, and wondered which chemical agent the Empire was using. Then he had a terrible thought. He wondered if it was a chemical at all.

  8

  I see no need to lay waste to an entire world to end a war. Gibad is intact—except for its sentient population.

  The buildings are still standing. Its farmland and its seas are untouched, and it can be recolonized in weeks. War is never pleasant, but it can be waged in the least destructive way, and let us not forget that this bioweapon was created by a Gibadan scientist. It could have been turned against any peaceful world in the Empire. This is justice, is it not?

  —Emperor Palpatine, giving a statement to the media on his policy on weapons proliferation in dissident worlds

  On board Cornucopia, freight terminal 35, Imperial City

  “Are you getting this?” Prudii said. He stood with one hand cupped to his ear, listening to the audio feed from Niner’s helmet via the bead comlink. “Is that Melusar guy real? Listen to him.”

  Ordo eavesdropped via his helmet system while Ny maneuvered Cornucopia along the traffic separation lanes, skimming just above ground level. The rust-bucket was just one freight vessel in an orderly line of inbound ships carrying imports from all quadrants of the galaxy. Nobody knew any better.

  And because the Empire was more worried about who might be sneaking off the planet, it wasn’t looking too carefully at who was coming in.

  Getting out would be trickier, of course. But they’d worry about that when it happened.

  Ordo caught sight of one of the outbound terminals, now a sea of grounded freighters waiting for exit clearance. Every cargo vessel was being searched; nobody seemed to expect a fugitive to stroll back into the danger zone. That was just plain unimaginative. They should have known that special forces clones were compulsive risk takers, chancers to a man, raised to believe that nothing could stop them and everything was doable—one way or another.

  “Maybe it’s a trap,” Ordo said. Commander Melusar sounded completely genuine and made perfect sense. He would have been right at home sharing a bottle of tihaar and arguing politics with Kal’buir. But he was an Imperial, and he’d hunt down Ordo and his brothers and execute them if he could. He didn’t stand a chance, of course, but it was a fascinating conflict. “He’ll lull the vode into a sense of security, make them feel they can tell him anything, and flush out the doubters and dissenters.”

  “We need a Jedi to sense his feelings.”

  “We’re fresh out of Jedi, in case you hadn’t noticed. Check his file when you get a chance, Jaing.”

  “It’s not like the commandos obeyed Order Sixty-six to the last man, is it?” Mereel said. “Or some of the meat-cans, come to that. He has to realize he’s probably still got some men who don’t think the war’s fulfilled their career expectations.”

  Jaing chuckled under his breath. “Palps should ask Kamino for a refund. He took the keys to that army thinking he’d get a hundred percent blind obedience. Sucker.”

  Ordo was disappointed that there hadn’t been a mass exodus from the ranks. But he looked at his brothers and asked himself if he’d have made a run for it without them, if there’d been no Skirata around to tell them they had a right to lead different lives. He tried to see the galaxy from a meat-can’s perspective, or even a Republic commando who didn’t have Skirata to fall back on—and there were still plenty of those serving. It was hard enough to abandon the only life you knew without leaving your family behind as well.

  Especially if you don’t even understand what else might be out there for you. Poor shabuire. They never had a chance.

  One thing was for sure. There wouldn’t have been many clones who stayed because they believed in Palpatine’s political vision.

  “I think he’ll get his representatives to drop by to discuss his dissatisfaction with Lama Su,” Ordo said. “Maybe not now, but eventually. The man’s got a lot of planets to smack down before he starts on Tipoca.”

  Ny hadn’t said a word since her last exchange with Ground Traffic Control. She always looked like she was chewing a saber-wasp at the best of times, not a woman you’d approach expecting help and a kind word, but she looked really grim now. She drummed her fingers on the console every time the line slowed to a halt.

  “Ny, are you okay?” Maybe she’d spotted something he hadn’t, an unexpected security check ahead. “It’s all going fine. You’ve done insertions before.”

  “You make me sound like the Galactic Marines.” She tapped her headset earpiece. “I’m listening to the news feed. It’s not good. They’ve attacked Gibad. And if it sounds ugly via that Imperial mouthpiece, then you can work out the rest for yourself.”

  There was only one reason for Ordo to worry about Gibad’s future, and that was the effect it would have on Uthan’s enthusiasm for her work. Skirata had done a deal: if Uthan found a way of stopping accelerated aging, then she could keep her research and go home. If that home was
reduced to a glowing river of molten slag, Skirata’s incentive scheme would be down the ’fresher. And Uthan didn’t seem the type to be threatened into cooperation.

  “Shab.” Mereel had obviously thought it through, too. “We can’t keep abducting top geneticists if she goes off the boil.”

  “Worse than that,” Prudii said. “Uthan’s the one who knows most about the aging mechanism. It’s all second best after that.”

  “Stay on task, vode.” Ordo tapped the helmet that Prudii had left on the seat beside him. “Nothing we can do about it now. Focus. We have a mission. Buckets on, and think meat-can.”

  Ny slowed and brought Cornucopia to a hover at the main exit. “And keep your heads down. We’re coming up to the gate, and if anyone decides to check us out, I can’t explain why I have four stormies on board.”

  “Copy that,” Mereel said, feigning a meat-can tone of voice. “Yes ma’am.”

  “Ha ha … well, I’m fooled.”

  “They’re all lousy shots, the Spaarti clones. I’m working on being mediocre.”

  Ny frowned at him. “That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “Well, they’re not made from fresh wholesome Jango like us. They’re second-generation DNA, clones of clones. All kinds of problems, they say.”

  “How can you dismiss them all like that when you’re the first to say you’re more than your genes?”

  Ny wasn’t joking now. She was offended, and the frown was real, not habit. Ordo interrupted. Ny was to be kept placated, or else she might not marry Kal’buir, and finding someone else for his father was only going to get harder as time went on.

  “They’re Spaarti clones,” Ordo said. “Grown in a year. It’s not the raw material that causes the problems, it’s lack of training time. We had blasters in our hands from the time we could walk. They’ve probably had a few months’ training at best. We’re bound to be better at everything requiring motor skills—until they’ve put the time in, of course. And then they’ll be able to slot us with the best of them.”