True Colors

by Karen Traviss

  The gathering had taken on a somber tone, and they all sat around trying not to meet one another’s eyes. Eventually Ordo broke the silence.

  “I’ll go visit as soon as he’s transferred from Leveler.”

  “Which facility do troops get taken to?” she asked. “Does Fi end up in a neurological unit?”

  “I don’t know.” The look on Ordo’s face said it was more than just being uncertain which of Coruscant’s many hospitals would receive him. “Men normally get treated by mobile units or in theater. They either recover, or die.”

  “Atin was treated at Ord Mantell base last time,” Skirata said. “He’s got a chipped bone in his ankle, by the way. Dar’s fine. Niner’s fine. A’den’s fine, too.”

  “I hadn’t forgotten them, Kal.” He sounded a little pointed. Etain was still processing the previous sentence, feeling uneasy. “But I don’t understand the medical system. Do they have that level of care within the Grand Army? Jedi gossip as much as troops do, and I hear that the mobile units are seriously under-resourced. I’d hate to think of Fi waiting in a long queue to be healed by one exhausted Jedi.”

  Etain didn’t know why she hadn’t asked the question before. She’d asked what happened to the bodies of those who died in action, and had no answer; but from that point she’d been working with special forces, and—after the initial disastrous casualty rate when they were deployed badly by novice Jedi generals—they didn’t lose many men. The question went away. But now it was back.

  Ordo glanced at Skirata as if asking permission to mention something, and got a barely perceptible nod.

  “There’s a Senator Skeenah who’s made a nuisance of himself by demanding answers on what happens to badly injured men, and about long-term provision for troops in general.” Ordo’s impression in the Force was still tinted with fear, but it was more like anxiety for the welfare of others. Etain knew him well enough to work out who was at the top of that list. “But somehow I don’t think his well-meaning campaign to set up charity homes for us when we’re basket cases is actually addressing the problem.”

  “Of course,” said Skirata, “we don’t know if he’s aware that the Republic sends out hit men to execute clones who want to try their luck in Civvy Street, either.”

  Vau was watching the conversation with an air of boredom, which usually meant quite the opposite. He kept looking across to the one closed cabin, which had to be Ko Sai’s holding cell, and exuding impatience. “If you broadcast that on the hour, all day on HNE, nobody would care, Kal. I guarantee it.”

  “They’ll care if the Seps start attacking Coruscant and interrupt their holovid viewing, all right.”

  “But there’s not going to be this massive wave of protest on behalf of Our Brave Boys. You’ll be knocked flat by the wave of apathy. Goodness, our slave army, bred to fight, disposed of when it’s too much trouble? What a sensible system! Good for the Chancellor! That’s what we pay our taxes for!” Vau dropped the bored act and came very close to exposing emotion for once. “It saves all those civilians from having to look after their own democracy. The most you’ll get is a few creds dropped in a charity box on the anniversary of Geonosis. No Senator is going to change a thing.”

  Skirata jerked his thumb in the direction of the cabin door. “Time we had another chat with Ko Sai now that we’ve got our Force-powered lie detector on board.”

  Etain bristled. “It’s good to feel valued, Kal.”

  “You can do something none of us can, ad’ika. Yes, it’s valued.”

  Mereel stood up to open the cabin, and Mird padded across the deck to intercept. Etain noticed the electroprod hanging from the Null’s belt. I’m not even appalled. I know I ought to be, but if he handed me that thing and said a little encouragement would make Ko Sai hand over information that would give Dar and all the others a normal life span—I know I’d use it. That was where attachment led, then. She couldn’t muster up much guilt.

  But she’d also done unthinkable things to total strangers, like the Nikto terrorist, and the slippery path to that had begun when she was trained as a Jedi to use tricks like mind influence and memory-rubbing.

  As he slid the magnetic bolt, Mereel was forming a little black vortex in the Force, not unlike the impression Etain first had of Kal. Ordo appeared to forget Fi for a moment as the door opened and the tall, thin, gray-skinned figure in a monochrome uniform with black cuffs stepped into the center of the crew compartment.

  “The longer you hold me here,” Ko Sai said, “the greater the risk you take that someone else will find me.”

  This was the first Kaminoan that Etain had seen in the flesh. It was hard to believe that this graceful, soft-spoken species could be so monstrous. But she only had to look at Mereel and Ordo, radiating hatred, and the matched contempt of Skirata and Vau to see the scars Ko Sai had left in others’ lives.

  “Sit down, Ko Sai,” said Skirata. “Let’s pick up where we left off. Can you, or can you not, switch off the genes that cause accelerated aging?”

  Ko Sai folded her long, two-fingered hands in her lap as if she was meditating. “It’s possible.”

  “But can you do it?”

  “Sergeant, you know perfectly well that I identified the relevant genes for each characteristic we wanted to introduce into the basic Fett genome, so you know I can switch genes on where there are genes that need activation. You also know that I have unique expertise that no other Kaminoan has—or you wouldn’t be one of a number pursuing me.”

  It wasn’t an answer. She was going to make Skirata—or Mereel, more likely—plow through petabytes of data to find the relevant gene clusters. Etain focused on Ko Sai and let the Force impression wash over her. The Kaminoan’s sense of being right was immense, but it didn’t overwhelm a detachment so total that if Etain hadn’t seen people around Ko Sai, she might have thought the scientist was talking to herself. Skirata, Vau, and definitely Ordo and Mereel—they didn’t register as living beings with the Kaminoan. They were objects, no different from Mird or the table. There were always connections in the Force between beings, the element that Etain’s brain interpreted as threads and cables, and it was the complete absence of them around Ko Sai that made Etain take notice. It was like seeing jagged holes cut in a fine painting. What was not there was more striking than what was.

  That scared Etain more than any signs of violence lurking in Skirata. It was the void she’d sensed, and it explained everything. No wonder the Kaminoans showed no hint of brutality or anger: they just didn’t see other species as anything more than a fascinating living puzzle whose pieces could be taken apart and reassembled closer to their idea of perfection.

  Skirata wasn’t going to get anywhere, Etain knew it. It was possible to beat basic information out of people if they had it, but any complex answer—or trying to force them to do complex work—needed a bit of cooperation.

  “Ko Sai, what other cloning projects have your people worked on?” Etain asked.

  “A number of armies, as well as civilian workforces—miners for Subterrel, agricultural laborers for Folende, even hazmat workers. Our specialty is high-specification, large-volume production for labor-intensive industries where droids are inappropriate, and a product that’s tailored exactly to the client’s needs.”

  “Is all that sales-babble in your brochure?” Mereel asked. “Because I think I’m going to puke. Perhaps you’d like me to leverage your synergy with my vibroblade.”

  Ordo put a restraining hand on his brother’s arm and said nothing. Etain caught Skirata’s eye; he shrugged and let her continue. Ko Sai would never see living beings in her hatcheries, only product, and so she could never feel pressured by guilt or shame.

  She was, however, indecently proud of her reputation as the finest geneticist in the galaxy. That was a great height from which to climb down.

  “So what would your personal reputation gain, or lose, if you just told us how the aging process could be normalized?” said Etain. “Or is this about protecting a s
ecret industrial process?”

  “Every cloning facility knows how to mature clones rapidly,” Ko Sai said. “But there’s no advantage in adding a feature that the client doesn’t ask to have incorporated.”

  Etain’s temper had never been brought fully under control by Jedi discipline, and hormonal upheaval in the last few months didn’t help. “Isn’t it your role to advise them on the options?”

  “Life expectancy in a war is compromised for everyone.”

  “If you want to create an ideal army, though, I can understand rapid maturation—but it seems odd to allow that deterioration to continue once the product is at its peak.” Etain threw Ko Sai’s detached business-speak back at her. “Wouldn’t you want the product to maintain optimum efficiency for as long as possible? Preserve them at their best? I think you didn’t halt the process because you have no idea how. And in that case, we have no use for you.”

  It was out of Etain’s mouth before she could stop it. Skirata didn’t twitch a muscle, but Ko Sai wasn’t looking at him anyway. She was blinking and swaying her head slightly, all ethereal grace, and Etain would never have picked her out in a crowd as a supremacist and a sadistic tormentor of children.

  “Our client wasn’t concerned about their longevity,” she said. “Just that they should be ready when he needed them.”

  Etain sensed the Kaminoan’s defensiveness and resentment. She pushed carefully, trying to steer that arrogant intellect into thinking and believing what she suggested. Jedi mind influence was a legitimate weapon. “And your product isn’t as reliable as you tell your customer, is it? You don’t manage to identify all the defective clones for culling. They’re not blindly obedient anyway. Some even desert. You oversold the genetic factor and failed to mention that human beings aren’t that predictable.”

  Ko Sai didn’t respond. Maybe she was considering the idea that she was less than perfect, which must have stung a bit. But this wasn’t about winning a playground argument. Etain had to help Skirata establish whether Ko Sai could undo what she’d done, and then if she could be made to do it.

  What did Ko Sai really dread? Where could that lever be placed to shift her?

  “I think I’ve had enough,” said Ordo. He got up from the sofa and walked around behind it, then leaned over Mereel with his hand held out. “Give me the datachips, ner vod.”

  Mereel opened the pouch on his belt and handed over a tight-wrapped block of storage media, bundled together in a small colorful brick. Etain watched Ordo cautiously: he walked a fine line between self-control and chaos far more often than anyone seemed to realize, and news of Fi’s condition hadn’t helped.

  “Are you going to collate the files?” Mereel asked.

  “No.” Ordo unwrapped the brick of plastoid cupped in his hand. “Just having a moment of clarity.” He looked across to Ko Sai. “Your entire life’s work contained in a thousand cubic centimeters of plastoid, Chief Scientist. Not unlike mine, in fact.”

  Ordo folded the wrapping tight again and walked into the passage that separated the cockpit from the crew compartment. Etain thought he was heading for the computer terminal in the storage compartment, but she heard the hatch mechanism hiss open and the thud of his boots as he walked up the ramp.

  “Ordo?” No answer. “Ordo?”

  The realization must have hit Skirata at the same moment it hit her. Everyone bolted for the hatch, cramming into the short passageway, even Ko Sai. Looking up through the canopy, Etain watched in horror as Ordo drew his hold-out blaster, threw the package of datachips high into the air, and fired at it like a claydisk shoot.

  Fragments of plastoid flared and rained like a pyrotechnic display.

  She couldn’t see Skirata or Mereel from this angle. But Ko Sai let out a long gasp and slumped against the bulkhead, weaving her elegant head from side to side in shock. Every precious line of research was gone.

  “Oh, shab…,” said Vau, hands on hips, and hung his head. Etain was too stunned to speak. “Shab.”

  It wasn’t just Ko Sai’s entire life and purpose that had just turned into embers hitting the water. It was Darman’s, too.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Of course Ordo’s messed up. They’re all messed up. They used live rounds on exercise at five years old, they fought their first war at ten, and the lucky few got their first kiss as grown men aged eleven. Almost all of them—millions—will die without ever having heard someone say, “Welcome home, sweetheart, I missed you.” You think you’d be totally sane after all that?

  —Kal Skirata to Captain Jaller Obrim, CSF Anti-Terrorist Unit, discussing life in uniform

  The Marina,

  Tropix island, Dorumaa,

  478 days after Geonosis

  “Ord’ika?”

  Skirata tried not to show his shock, but it wasn’t working. His voice jammed in his throat and struggled to shake loose.

  Ordo stood forward of the hatch, looking out to sea in the growing dusk, and folded his arms. “I’m sorry, Kal’buir.”

  What am I going to do? How the shab can I start over now? We had it, we had it all, we were so close…

  “Just—just tell me why, son.” How could he do this to me? What did I do to tip him over the edge? “I know you’re upset. I know you’re worried about Fi.”

  Mereel caught Skirata’s arm. “Nothing you can do, Buir. Let’s start again and shake everything out of Ko Sai.”

  Skirata resisted Mereel’s pull at his sleeve. “Give me a minute, son. You go warm her up for me. I need to talk to Ordo.”

  Skirata knew there was no point in being angry with the lad: this was all his fault. It was so easy to see only the clever, courageous, loyal side of Ordo and his brothers, all their wonderful qualities, and forget how badly damaged they all were at their core. No amount of love could erase what had been done to them at a critical time in their development. All he could do was patch them up, and he was willing to do that until the day he died.

  He stood beside Ordo and put his arm around him, not sure now if that would result in a flood of tears or a punch.

  “Son, you know how much I love you, don’t you? Nothing will ever change that.”

  “Yes, Buir.”

  “I just need to know why you did that after all the trouble we went to in getting that data.”

  Ordo’s jaw muscles twitched. He didn’t look Skirata in the eye like he usually did. “This is all about having a choice. That’s what matters, isn’t it? But even now, we’re still under a Kaminoan’s control because she’s got information she won’t give us. Well, I’d rather live fifty years on my own terms than a hundred on hers. And now she’ll know it. The information she’s withholding is worthless. I’ve taken her power away for good.”

  “But I just wanted to give you a full life. You deserve that.”

  “But we’re men, Kal’buir, and I know you’ve given up everything for us, but you can’t keep making decisions for us like we’re kids.”

  That hurt. The physical pain in Skirata’s chest, like a heavy stone pressing down inside, got a little worse. “But what about your brothers, Ord’ika? What about all of the ad’ike who didn’t get to choose?”

  “There’ll be other ways around this.”

  No point arguing. He’ll feel bad enough about it when he comes to his senses. “Sure. We’ll forget it for the while and concentrate on Fi, and Etain’s baby, and then we’ll have a rethink. Ko Sai isn’t the only geneticist in the galaxy. Is she?”

  But even the Kaminoan ones need to get her back, and they’re the best. It’s over. I’ll keep trying, but unless there’s a miracle…

  The galaxy didn’t do miracles. It only gave you what you took from it. Skirata was persistent to the point of wasted obsession, and maybe even beyond, but even he reached a point where he sank beneath the weight of a task. There’d been just too much bad news today. Perhaps tomorrow would be better.

  They still had a fortune to fall back on.

  Ordo turned around, looking like a scared li
ttle boy again for the first time in ages. There was nothing Skirata couldn’t forgive him.

  “I’ve hurt you, Kal’buir, and I can’t undo that. But I’ll make it up to you, I swear.”

  “You don’t have to, son.” I forgot they hadn’t seen Ko Sai up close since she finished testing them and told them they were going to be put down. I stuck abused kids in front of their abuser and expected them to cope. What was I thinking? “You don’t owe me a thing.”

  Down below, Ko Sai was in bad shape. Skirata wasn’t shocked to find himself satisfied to see it. She was behaving like a bereaved human, head bowed, making a little cooing sound—whimpering, in fact. If anyone thought aiwha-bait were emotionless, they were wrong. It was just that different things mattered to them. She looked up into his face and he knew that, for once, they understood that they shared the same emotion, if for very different reasons—irreplaceable loss.

  Etain and Vau had retreated to the seating on the opposite side of the crew compartment, leaving Mereel to deal with the Kaminoan. He stood in front of her, arms folded.

  “Sooner you stop wallowing in self-pity, the sooner you can start rebuilding that work,” he said. “If you’re nice to me, I’ll give you a hand.”

  She raised her head slowly. “That was decades of my work, you imbecile. Decades.”

  “Ori’dush,” Mereel said. “Too bad. But that’s what you get for building us crazy. Sure you don’t want to make a start on recording it all again? Might as well do it while your memory is still fresh.”

  “I can’t even access the material on Kamino.”

  “Maybe I should make sure they can’t, either, next time I drop in. Tipoca City security’s no better than when I was a kid…”

  “You’re savages. Why should I cooperate with you now if I didn’t before?”

  “Because you’re stuck in a ship with four creatively sadistic people who hate your gray guts, and maybe the strill and the Jedi aren’t too fond of you, either, and all you’ve got is the clothes you stand up in. Not even a scrap of flimsi to make notes. See how long you last…”