“You think she’ll have a file marked SECRET FORMULA FOR STOPPING THE AGING PROCESS IN CLONES—DO NOT COPY?”
Skirata clicked his teeth, impatient. “She’ll need to be persuaded.”
“No, you’ll need to get her to work for you. That means no choppy-choppy slicey-slicey.”
“Or get another geneticist on the case.”
“Of course. They’re ten a credit. They queue up at employment centers.”
“Look, Walon, I’m not stupid. I know there’ll be a gap to fill between getting hold of the research and making it into something my boys can use.”
“Just reality-checking.”
Skirata’s voice had the tinge of a smirk in it. “And I can get my hands on a geneticist who knows her way around a Fett genome.”
Vau kept his gaze on the riverside path, distracted slightly by a loud glop as something leapt from the river beneath and snatched a low-flying creature that might have been avian or insectoid. Either way, it was lunch now.
“Tell me you’re not thinking what I think you’re thinking,” he said slowly.
Skirata ejected his knife from his forearm plate again and resumed sharpening. “Atin nearly got killed hauling her shebs back from Qiilura. Might as well make it worth the journey.”
“Oh, you are thinking it. You’re insane. Dr. Uthan’s kept under tight Republic security. Chancellor’s office level.”
Skirata just laughed. Vau suspected he had no idea what his limits were, and that he’d get killed finding out the hard way. The fool should have grown out of it at his age.
“Last I heard,” Skirata said, “was that she was bored out of her skull and reduced to trying to interbreed soka flies in her cell to stay sane. They don’t care who they work for, these folks. No ideology. They just want to play with their toys. If she can develop a clone-specific pathogen for the Seps, she can apply Ko Sai’s research—if you can take it apart, you can rebuild it, right?”
Vau had to hand it to Skirata. He always thought outside the box. “I’ll consider that an incentive for getting Ko Sai to do the work.”
Skirata sheathed his knife again, and the two of them leaned on the bridge rail to contemplate the twin evils of polluted waterways and having to wait so long at their time of life. Mird wandered around, rubbing its jowls on the bridge balusters to mark its territory.
“Here he comes,” said Vau.
Mereel had acquired yet another form of transport. He had a great fondness for speeder bikes, and he seemed to be riding a different one every time Vau saw him. He had no idea whether Mereel came by them legally or not, but the Null trooper had a pillion passenger this time, and as the speeder drew closer it was clear that the being sitting behind him was a very scared green Twi’lek male. Vau could tell from the way his lekku looked rigid. It was the Twi’lek equivalent of white knuckles.
“He’s very persuasive, is Mer’ika.” Skirata ambled off the bridge and stood blocking the path, hands on hips. “So you stopped for caf and cake somewhere, son?”
“Had to take a call from A’den, Kal’buir.” Mereel gestured to the Twi’lek to dismount. “But I thought you’d want a face-to-face chat with our esteemed colleague here.” He slid off the speeder and nudged the Twi’lek. “Okay, Leb, tell Kal’buir about your job on Dorumaa.”
“It was legal,” the Twi’lek said. “I didn’t do anything wrong.”
“’Course you didn’t.” Skirata always sounded at his most menacing when he was doing his paternal-reason act. “Just tell me about it.”
“I delivered a consignment of six construction droids and dry-lining materials to a barge half a klick off the coast of Tropix Island Resort.”
Vau tilted his head at Mird, and the strill went into its softening-up routine, padding around the Twi’lek, brushing against his legs, and occasionally stopping to gaze up at him and display a yawning mouthful of teeth. It was a sobering spectacle. It sobered the Twi’lek right away.
“Can you show me on this chart?”
Leb the Twi’lek grabbed Skirata’s proffered datapad and tapped frantically on the small screen, lekku quivering. “There,” he said. “I checked the coordinates. The barge was there. Moored out to sea.”
Skirata held the shaking datapad steady for him. “Did you collect anything later?”
“No. Nothing. One-way journey.”
“What did the barge look like? Any propulsion unit on it?”
“Only a maneuvering repulsor. The kind the resort hotels use to round up the pleasure craft after a storm.”
Vau started calculating in his head. “And you’d recall the weight of materials you delivered.”
“I had to make several trips from the resort because the barge couldn’t handle it all at once.”
“So the barge was unloaded a few times?” Skirata asked.
“Oh yes.”
“How long did that take?”
“I waited maybe twenty, thirty standard minutes after each drop.”
“And who collected the stuff?”
“Human male, not very old, brown hair…”
The Twi’lek ground to a halt, eyes darting from Skirata to Vau to Mereel as if he was going make a run for it. It was easy to forget how intimidating a Mandalorian helmet looked to outsiders when they were deprived of all the visual cues of facial expression, and couldn’t work out how well their information had been received.
Skirata moved his hand to his belt, and Leb flinched. He seemed surprised to get a credit chip rather than a blaster in the face.
“Thank you for your cooperation, son,” Skirata said, and patted him on the cheek with exaggerated care.
Leb hesitated and then jumped on the speeder. So it was his after all: Mereel turned to watch it go.
“What a helpful fellow,” Vau said. “Are you going to draw the search radius on the holochart or shall I?”
“Well, better find out the maximum speed of a Dorumaa resort barge first.” Mereel took off his helmet and scratched his cheek. “I’m piloting, yes?”
Skirata nodded. “You okay with that?”
“If Ord’ika can drive the crate straight out of the manual, so can I. Let’s get moving. And… A’den had some worrying news.”
Skirata stopped in his tracks. “How worrying? Why didn’t he call me?”
“He called me. It’s tangential, let’s say.”
“Spit it out, Mer’ika.”
“Someone sent two covert ops troopers after the ARC who went AWOL on Gaftikar. Sent after, as in assassination, but they ran into Darman instead and he slotted both of them. He’s pretty upset.”
Vau didn’t need to see Skirata’s face to guess what he was thinking. They made their way back to Aay’han in silence and sealed the hatches, preparing for takeoff. Skirata sat in the copilot’s seat and flipped switches.
“Who ordered it, Mer’ika?” he asked quietly.
Mereel propped his datapad on the console, glancing at it as he carried out his instrument checks. “I don’t know, but it’s not necessarily Zey.”
The news was a nasty little time bomb. Tangential—no, for once Mereel was wrong. It wasn’t tangential at all. It was about trust and loyalty. It was the kind of revelation that would gnaw at all of them more deeply as time wore on, and combined with whatever Mereel had dug up on Kamino about the future plans for troop strengths, it proved none of them had quite as full a picture as they’d imagined, and also that there were things they weren’t trusted with.
Like not being told that Delta is going after Ko Sai.
Vau strapped himself into the third cockpit position and tried not to think about the identity of the unfortunate covert ops troopers, because there was a good chance that Prudii—Null ARC N-5—had trained them. They were just ordinary troopers who’d shown a bit of promise for dirty work, selected from the ranks to backfill some of the roles that would have otherwise fallen to Republic commando squads.
“If it was Zey,” Vau said carefully, “the chakaar should have told us they were operating on t
he same turf as Omega simply for everyone’s safety.”
“Covert ops gets tasked by the regular GAR as well as SO, Walon.” Skirata was usually quick to pounce on any perceived Jedi failing: maybe he was developing a soft spot for Zey, who did seem remarkably understanding of Skirata’s idiosyncratic style of command—a command Skirata didn’t technically hold. He was a sergeant who pushed generals around. “Or maybe Zey knows exactly how I’ll express my disapproval of putting down clones when they get too free-thinking, so he forgot to mention it.”
“Then again, maybe it’s Republic Intelligence.”
“But that nice Chancellor Palpatine assured our lads that they’d have a secure future in recognition of their loyalty and sacrifice.”
Mereel took exaggerated interest in the controls and lifted Aay’han from the landing strip. “Either way, we clone boys know just how much the Republic loves us when push comes to shove, don’t we? And we won’t forget that in a hurry.”
Skirata put his hand on Mereel’s shoulder. “We can only trust our own, son.”
“Like the covert ops guys…”
“You think they had all the facts in front of them? You think they had any choice?”
These were almost certainly men they knew, and that made it hard to swallow. Vau wondered if they would still have carried out their orders if they’d been sent after Prudii—or Mereel, or Ordo, or any of the Special Operations men or Mandalorian instructors who’d taught troopers their commando skills. Vau marveled at Skirata’s continuing ability to absolve clones of all blame, but he did have a point.
“Humans follow orders,” Vau said. “Even human Republic Intel agents, of course. We’re herd animals. We all default to training.”
“Well, I’m defaulting to mine.” Skirata gave his restraining belt a couple of tugs as if he didn’t quite trust Mereel’s ability to execute a smooth acceleration to the jump point. “Which is covering my shebs, and my boys’.”
“How, exactly?” Vau asked.
“Safe haven, a few credits, set ’em up in a better line of work. New identity and a new life.”
“Yes, I know all that, but how are you going to do it? You can’t exactly place an ad.” Vau traced the outline of an imaginary holoboard in the air with his fingers. “Troopers! Fed up with your life in the Grand Army? Feeling undervalued and unloved? Call Kal!”
Skirata scratched his forehead. “Word gets around.”
“Word gets around to the wrong people, too…”
“Escape networks have always run that risk.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I’ll just have to pick my network very carefully, then, won’t I?”
Aay’han was clear of the atmosphere now, maneuvering carefully through the maze of gravitational fields in the Bogden system to reach a safe hyperjump point. Mird, who never liked takeoffs and landings, climbed onto Vau’s lap and buried its head under his arm with a lot of whining and snorting to ensure that he knew it was displeased. He rubbed the strill’s back to reassure it, and marveled at Mereel’s ability to pilot a ship like a DeepWater with just the manual open on the console and a little intuition. They were clever boys indeed, these Nulls.
I think I like clones better than regular beings. They’re superior in every way. Maybe we should keep them at home and send the Republic’s random humanity to be the cannon fodder.
Vau had little time for anyone else, regardless of species, but the men of the Grand Army were a different matter. It was, he realized, one of two things that stopped him and Skirata from killing each other: their mutual respect for the clone soldiers who had taken over their lives, and the fact that Mandalorians put aside their rifts when presented with a common threat from aruetiise.
“You do realize,” he said to Skirata, “that if the troopers were given a choice, most would opt to stay in the army anyway?”
“I do. We all prefer the comfort of what we know best.”
“They’d be as dead as volunteers as they’d be as slaves, Kal.”
“But they’d have a choice, and that’s what makes us free men.”
“Actually, that’s a load of osik. Plenty of free beings in the galaxy don’t have a vote and don’t get a choice about what they do each day. There’s a very blurred line between slavery and economic dependence.”
“Yeah, well, if you want to argue about the continuum of oppression, clones are still at the extreme end of the graph. So I’ll concentrate on them rather than the downtrodden masses, thanks.”
The landscape of loyalty was shifting with each passing day. First it had been a matter of worrying about what would happen to troopers when the war ended. Now they were discussing men who deserted while the fighting was still going on.
“Kal, would you rather fight for the Separatists?”
“Ideologically? You know I would. The Republic’s a crumbling bureaucracy at best and a cesspit of corruption at worst. But I joined for the credits and I stayed for my boys. What’s your excuse?”
Vau couldn’t claim he’d joined for the credits, although he’d often led a fairly hand-to-mouth existence since forgoing his inheritance. But he stayed for the same reason Skirata did, even if he had no intention of admitting that to him.
Mird, satisfied that takeoff was over, pulled its head out from under Vau’s arm and deposited a skein of drool in his lap.
“On reflection,” Vau said, groping for a cloth to wipe his pants, “I think it’s the elegant lifestyle.”
Teklet, Qiilura,
477 days after Geonosis
Ordo knew his limitations, and learning obstetrics from a manual was a lot riskier than piloting a new ship the same way. Requisitioning a top-of-the-line med droid from a supply base en route had cost him time but would greatly improve Etain’s chances of carrying her child to term.
And if the droid couldn’t hack it, then… no, he’d face that if he had to, and not before. He sprinted across the snow from the landing strip with the droid struggling behind him. It was big and heavy, and not adapted for rough terrain.
“Captain, I still need to know what procedure I have to perform,” it said peevishly. It was a 2-1B model, and it—he—had a professional ego on a scale with his extensive surgical expertise. “I was awaiting deployment to a more significant theater of war. Where are my nursing assistants?”
Ordo reached the door of the HQ building as indicated on his datapad chart and bypassed the security locks almost without thinking. “Don’t you take some sort of oath to help the sick and injured, Too-One?”
“No. And it’s Doctor.”
“I’ll make one up for you, then—Doctor.” As the doors opened, Ordo came face-to-face with a clone commander in yellow livery. “It starts with, I pledge to keep my vocabulator offline as much as possible.”
“Captain,” said the commander. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing a med droid.”
“Specialist stuff, sir.” So this was Levet: Ordo reminded himself that he was outranked here—technically. “We can’t afford to lose any more Jedi. It takes longer to make them than to grow us. Where’s General Tur-Mukan?”
Levet gestured upstairs. “Good luck. She seems not to realize that I know she’s yaihadla.”
Ordo was always surprised to find any clone outside the Special Operations ranks who knew more Mando’a than just the words to “Vode An.” He was especially taken aback by one with enough fluency to know the word for “pregnant.”
“Ah,” Ordo said noncommittally. Levet had somehow earned the nickname of Commander Tactful, and now he knew why. Mando’a wasn’t one of the languages generally programmed into med droids. “Really.”
“I humored her, but she has her reasons for not discussing it, and I never argue with a general if I can help it.” Levet slipped his helmet on. “The Jedi Council doesn’t like fraternization within its ranks, so I imagine the poor woman is terrified.”
Ordo waited for the next bombshell to fall, but Levet went no further in his analysis and seemed co
ntent to think that another Jedi was the father-to-be. Maybe he hadn’t considered the possibility of a humble clone, although there was plenty of speculation about other generals and the nature of their social lives.
“I’ll be diplomatic,” Ordo said.
There was the small matter of making sure that the med droid kept his vocabulator shut, but that was a technical detail. Once he’d treated Etain, he’d need a full-spec memory wipe. Ordo hadn’t mentioned that to him yet.
Etain was propped up on pillows, eyes closed and hands clasped in her lap, and there was no obvious sign of the shapeshifter. She looked past him at the droid, then sighed.
“Hello, Ordo,” she said quietly. “Sorry you had to be dragged all this way. I know Kal’s worried about me when he sends you.”
She could always tell one clone from another even without looking, just from the impression he made in the Force. Ordo knew she found him disturbing. Maybe it was the waking nightmares and the frustration that swirled around in his unguarded thoughts: he could keep a lid on it, but she knew it was there just as surely as Kal’buir did.
“And how are you, General?” It was as good a place to start as any. “Are you still bleeding?”
“I think I should be asking those questions,” the droid said. He pushed past Ordo and leaned over Etain, ejecting an array of sensors and probes from his chest. She stared at him in disbelief. “Any pain? I have to examine you—”
Too-One’s arm came to a sudden halt, and Ordo thought he’d malfunctioned. He seemed to be struggling to move.
Etain gave him a narrow-eyed stare. She’d apparently declined help from the other med droids, but this was the equivalent of the chief of surgery. “You better warm those appendages of yours first, tinnie…”
“Ah. You’re a Jedi. Of course.” There was an ominous grinding whine from his servos and the faintest smell of overheating. “The sooner you release me, the faster I can complete the examination.”
“I’m glad we understand each other.” The droid’s arms suddenly jerked, and he tottered slightly. Etain’s use of the Force seemed to be a lot more precise these days. “I’m about ninety days’ pregnant.”
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