Zey snapped. He slapped both hands on his desk, an ordinary man at the limit of his endurance now, not a Jedi. Ordo didn’t flinch, but he saw the discomfort on Maze’s face.
“Skirata, the Jedi command doesn’t run this war!” Zey roared. “The politicians do, and the Chancellor says this is how we fight. End of story.”
“Doesn’t that scare the osik out of you?”
“Of course it does. What do you think we are, idiots? But I’ve learned that’s how wars always work—politicians don’t listen to the military, everyone lies wildly about their assets, and there are never enough troops to go around. Maybe Mandalorians live in a different reality.”
“You’ve got plenty of assets, actually—”
Ordo had a second of adrenaline-flushed panic that Skirata would mention the Centax clones, but he didn’t expand, and Zey was now too angry to stop himself from interrupting him.
“I’ve fully committed the whole brigade, Skirata, although I have to ask what your ARCs are actually tasked to do sometimes.”
“You wanted black ops folk like me to do the dirty work. This is the price of dirty, sir.”
Skirata didn’t wait to be dismissed, and stalked out almost without limping. Ordo followed. They strode down the corridor, boots echoing, until they reached the parade-ground exit. It was a pleasantly balmy day outside, and they sat on the low perimeter wall to have a hot wash-up. It was a lovely phrase for working out what the shab had gone wrong, one of those military euphemisms that poor Fi enjoyed so much.
“Zey didn’t know about the death squads,” Ordo said. “He really didn’t.”
“He’s the head of special forces.” Skirata fumbled in the pockets of his leather jacket and pulled out ruik root and some candied fruit, the ruik for him and the candies for Ordo. He chewed savagely, gaze in slight defocus. “He ought to make it his business to know.”
“And I think it was wise not to mention the new clone programs. Zey really would go charging in to demand that Windu got answers on that one. I’d prefer the Chancellor’s office not to notice us.”
“Besany did a fine job there, but I don’t want to get her killed.” Skirata nudged Ordo in the plates with his elbow. “She’s good all around, that one. But put her out of her misery, give her the sapphires, and ask her how she likes the idea of living in the middle of nowhere with a depressed Kaminoan for a house guest. Okay?”
“I’ll tell her they’re stolen. She’s touchy about that kind of thing, being Treasury.”
“Ord’ika, just take a couple of days out and spend quality time with her. You know what I’m saying.”
“Yes, Kal’buir.”
Skirata spat the fibrous remains of the ruik into the flowerbed next to the wall. “In a year’s time, if we’ve still got a year, then I want everything in place for an instant ba’slan shev’la.”
It meant “strategic disappearance,” a Mando tactic for scattering and disappearing from sight, only to coalesce into an army again later. For them, it meant banging out to the bastion on Mandalore and helping any like-minded clones that they could.
They never did get around to talking about Jusik. Zey would realize that and come back for round two with Skirata sooner or later. But unlike Skirata, he didn’t have the luxury of ba’slan shev’la.
Maybe he needed to think about that. Everyone needed a Plan B—even Jedi.
Chapter Eighteen
It took me a long time to understand that winning a war often has nothing to do with ending it, for governments at least.
—General Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces, Grand Army of the Republic, on his recent interest in military history
Kyrimorut bastion,
northern Mandalore,
539 days after Geonosis
“I don’t want you to get upset,” Vau said, “but Fi’s not as you remember him.”
Etain nodded gravely as they waited for Aay’han to land. Vau wasn’t sure if an emotional shock was a good idea for a pregnant woman so close to term, but he had Rav Bralor here if any of that female stuff needed attending to. Mird followed Etain around, staring fascinated at her belly.
“He’s still Fi, and I think I understand post-coma recovery now,” Etain said. “You have no idea how much medical literature I’ve read recently. But Mird’s worrying me.”
Bralor flicked her thumbnail against the butt of her blaster, making Mird whip its head around to stare balefully at her. “And I can worry Mird. Can’t I, my little stinkweed?”
Vau felt the need to defend his comrade. “Strills have very acute senses, remember. It knows the baby’s coming soon.”
“As in snack opportunity?”
“As in parenting, Rav. Mird is hermaphroditic, remember. It’s capable of being a mother, too, and you know how female animals will mother anything.”
“Even you, Walon…”
Etain looked up at the first distant throb of a drive decelerating for landing. “I really wish Darman knew right now. I really do.”
“Nearly there, kid,” Bralor said, squeezing her shoulders. “There’ll be a right time. Soon.”
But there was probably never a right time for her to see Fi again. Aay’han settled on her dampers, ticking and creaking as the drives cooled, and the cargo hatch eased open. Jaing stepped out, steering Fi on a repulsor chair.
“I was just passing through,” Jaing said, “but this crazy Mando’ad said he’d booked a vacation here.”
Etain didn’t even pause. She rushed up to Fi, at a respectable speed for a woman laden with cargo, and flung her arms around him. But he didn’t quite have the coordination to respond and simply flopped his arm over her shoulder.
He was wearing Ghez Hokan’s armor, at least on his upper body. The leg plates probably needed extending; Hokan had been a much shorter man. Jusik understood motivation very well.
“We’re going to have to feed you up,” Etain said. “You’re all bone now.”
“Fizz,” Fi said indistinctly.
“He means physiotherapy,” Jaing explained. “You might struggle to understand his speech, but give him a stylus and he can manage to write a lot of what he can’t say. He has to point to objects, too—he can’t find the right words. Oh, and he forgets a lot. But for a dead man, he’s doing great.”
Vau found it particularly cruel that Fi—a funny, eloquent lad—had been effectively silenced by the injury. But it was very early days. Bralor went over to fuss over him, too, but Fi had spotted that Etain had filled out rather a lot in the mid-section. He pointed.
Etain shrugged. “Your eyesight’s fine, then, Fi.”
“Neversssss…”
“I’ll tell you later,” she said. “Let’s show you the presidential suite and see what the care droid can do.”
“It’s okay, Fi.” Bralor took over. “I’ll be around, or else my sister’s kid will. Proper Mando home cooking. That’ll put you right faster than any of that aruetyc osik.”
But Fi was still looking at Etain’s bump, and Vau knew that he had enough recall to draw the very obvious conclusion. Without a major facial movement like a smile, it was hard to gauge his emotional state, but Vau couldn’t help thinking that it was a little disapproving, and that he might have been trying to say, You never said.
It was too easy to attribute thoughts and words to him. They’d have to take it slowly.
Vau left Jaing and the ladies to fuss over Fi and went to check on Ko Sai. Mird, back in its native environment, looked to him with a hopeful expression that begged permission to do what it enjoyed most: hunting.
“Okay, Mird’ika. I have to see Ko Sai anyway.” Vau pointed toward the trees. “Oya! Oya, Mird!”
The strill shot off at high speed and disappeared into the pocket of woodland to the north, and Vau went on his way. The bastion had started to acquire a routine like a real homestead, and now that Vau, Skirata, or one of the Nulls was around much of the time, Bralor was getting on with overseeing the building work for Skirata. It was definitely feel
ing yaim’la, and was a much bigger complex than Vau had first thought. Land was still free on sparsely populated Mandalore, as long as you didn’t want to cram into Keldabe. Up here in the north, a clan could spread out.
But I’m not part of this. I’m just passing through, understood?
The only part of the bastion that didn’t have that feeling of busy, wood-smoke-scented warmth was Ko Sai’s quarters, where it felt as if she’d created an exclusion zone that was every bit as unwelcoming as Tipoca City without managing to be clinical, white, or shiny.
She seemed to be draped over her desk—Kaminoans, all fluid elegance, didn’t bend. They curved. With her head lowered as she made notes, she looked as if she might droop completely.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Another day when I lament the lack of data from my last year’s work, but if you mean have I recorded more information on regulating the aging genes…”
“Let’s not insult each other’s intelligence. I do.”
“Then I have.”
“Well, my question’s not about that. It’s about motive. I still don’t understand why you’re withholding this information, because you’ve never made demands.”
“Wrong end of the ’scope, possibly. Perhaps it’s because I want to stay alive as long as possible, in the hope that something in the circumstances will change, and I can resume my work unmolested.”
“Chancellor Palpatine bothered you most, didn’t he? That’s what made you go into hiding.”
“Anyone who creates powerful technology has a responsibility not to hand it to those who’ll misuse it.”
“I can sense you’re not from Rothana, somehow…”
“It depends on your definition of misuse.” Ko Sai never looked quite as imposing as she had on Kamino, and it wasn’t just the limited wardrobe now. Exile was eroding her resolve. There might come a time when she simply caved in. “But might I ask why it’s so important to you to restore normal aging to these clones? You’re not an irrationally emotional man like Skirata. Is it a commercial venture for you?”
“Am I going to rush to Arkania with it and invite bids? No. No commercial value except to those interested in subverting genetic rights management, who tend not to be those best able to pay anyway.”
“Curiosity, then, or to prove your interrogation skills?”
“No, it’s because it’s unfair to deprive them of a full life. Crushing the weak is the hallmark of a small mind.”
“The Jedi said Skirata wouldn’t sell the data, either, and would probably destroy it after he’d made use of it.”
“That’s Kal all right,” Vau said. “All he wants is to put his boys right.”
Vau tried to work out what was going through her mind, but even after years among Kaminoans, and getting to know this one better than he ever imagined he would, he reminded himself that using human motive as a basis for understanding them was probably a mistake. Apart from pride, he couldn’t map human concerns onto Kaminoans. The mismatch was probably what made Mereel think they were devious.
“I’ll be going then,” he said. “See what Mird’s dragged back from the woods.”
“You will let me know when the Jedi has her child, won’t you?”
“Oh, you’ll probably hear it all over the bastion…”
“She promised me a tissue sample.”
No, Vau didn’t think that Ko Sai was offering to knit booties. When he got back to the central area, he could see Mird busy at some frantic activity in the field outside. Bralor and Jaing were watching it, transfixed. He had to go and look.
Mird had built a nest. Strills did that. Not only had it built the nest for the mother-to-be, but it had also stocked the larder. A huge, dead, mangled shatual lay to one side of the beautifully arranged coils of dry grass.
“It’s the thought that counts,” Jaing said.
Bralor laughed. “That’s the cutest thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Cute and strill in the same sentence… well, you learn something new every day.”
“How long do they live?” Jaing asked. “I’d heard three or four times as long as a normal human.”
“It’s true,” said Vau. “It worries me, because I don’t have a family to pass Mird’s care to.”
“You’re a big softie, Sergeant.”
“Would you consider taking Mird if anything happened to me? You never seemed quite as repelled by it as your brothers.”
Jaing pulled his I’m-considering-it expression and rocked his head a little. “Yes, I always had sinus trouble. Okay.”
“Do I have your word?”
“Yes. You do.”
Vau felt a great deal more positive than he had in years, which showed him how much he worried about the animal. That evening he felt positively benign, joining the others in the main room to speculate on the birth.
Bralor’s niece Parja—a mechanic, and making a good living for a youngster—showed up to scrutinize Fi for the first time. “Jaing says you’re worth fixing up,” she said, squatting down to look him in the eye. “I do believe he’s right.”
It would have sounded unthinkably callous to anyone but a Mandalorian, but she said it with a smile and she spent the whole evening being wonderfully attentive to him. It looked like a lot more than tact or pity. Etain, watching protectively, gave Vau a totally uncharacteristic wink from across the room. Jedi seemed to have a radar for these things. Contentment could be found in some of the least likely situations, Vau thought.
He slept well that night, with Mird draped across his feet on top of the blankets. It was only the sound of a woman in labor that woke him, and just six hours later, Venku Skirata was born, arguably the most wrinkled and angry looking of babies.
Bralor and Parja studied Venku unsentimentally.
“Kandosii,” Bralor said, taking the baby in her arms. “That’s a very healthy boy.”
Vau reflected on the kind of future Venku might face—or make for himself—and handed Etain his comlink.
“Go on,” he said. “You know what you have to do next.”
Etain, tearful and exhausted, took the device and fumbled with the controls. He didn’t even have to remind her. She keyed in Skirata’s code right away, and when he answered, she managed just one word.
“Ba’buir,” she said, and burst into tears.
Grandfather.
Kyrimorut bastion, northern Mandalore,
541 days after Geonosis
All the way from Coruscant, Skirata remained convinced that he would take Venku from Etain’s arms without a second thought, right until he walked into her room and saw that pitiful look on her face.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I’m tired and my hormones are all over the place, so if I start crying, just carry on as if nothing’s happened. I haven’t changed my mind or anything.”
Skirata leaned over to look at Venku, then Etain held the kid up for him to take.
“There you go, Ba’buir.”
“Venku’s beautiful,” Skirata said. “He really is.” His biological kids must have had their own families by now, and maybe he had great-grandchildren out there somewhere, but this was the first grandson he could actually hold and call his own. “Venku. Yes, that’s you, isn’t it? Yes it is, Venku!” The baby was too young to respond to cooing and tickling. Skirata settled for just holding him like fragile crystal, one hand supporting his tiny head. At least he remembered the drill. “He’s perfect, Etain. You did well. I’m so proud.”
“It’s nice to be able to roll over in bed again without getting stuck,” she said tearfully.
“You really need some rest, ad’ika.”
“This isn’t what I thought I’d feel. Any of it.”
She sounded just like Ippi. His late wife said it wasn’t the way they described it in the family holozines, too. Given the massive upheavals that Etain had been through in the last year, the fact that both mother and child had survived was astonishing. There was a lot to be said for Jedi blood.
Mere
el walked in and peered over Skirata’s shoulder.
“He’s very quiet, isn’t he?”
“They sleep a lot at this stage.”
“You reckon?” Etain said wearily.
Venku looked like an average baby with nothing remarkable about him except perhaps his head of fine, wispy dark hair, and that ordinariness was the most wonderful thing Skirata could imagine. It was a long time since he’d picked up a newborn and been stunned by it. And it broke his heart that Darman couldn’t be doing this instead.
I was wrong. Shab, was I wrong. I can’t keep the lad from his son.
“You don’t have to go through with this,” Skirata said. “I know what I said before, but you could raise him here if you leave the Jedi Order. Rav’s around, we’re all passing through regularly, you could even go to Keldabe and have plenty of neighbors around you…”
“But what about Dar?” she asked.
“I need to rethink this.”
“I don’t want to be sitting here worrying while he’s fighting, Kal.”
“Women with small kids do that, Etain. It’s hard being the rear party to a man at the front, but they do it.”
“It’s different when I’m serving. I feel like I’ve got some control over the situation, even if I haven’t.”
“And who needs you most now?”
Skirata couldn’t blame her for dithering and changing her mind. He’d had kids of his own and adopted a lot more, but even he found the world was a different place once the child was there in front of you. It changed everything.
And Etain didn’t seem like the naïve and well-meaning Jedi who’d enraged him so for thinking it was a good idea to give Darman a son by omitting to tell him she was taking risks. She was a small, thin kid who looked wrung out from the pregnancy, and whose only mistake was to be born with the wrong set of genes in a world that forced a destiny on her from birth. She was just like Darman. He could never blame her now.
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