501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (20 page)

She’s like
Kal’buir.
She treats them like her own kids
.

Jusik, pleasantly tired from an afternoon of
meshgeroya
, full of food, and slightly numbed by black ale, felt that he could sink into the sense of well-being contained in that room like a deep mattress.

If only … Etain could see this now
.

Beneath the vague sense of celebration, though, Jusik
could sense the absence of Dar and Niner nagging at everyone. They should have been here making plans for the coming year about what to grow on the farm and how the various business interests would be run.

And Dar should have been here for his son.

Kad played with Laseema on the floor, retrieving toy animals that Atin had carved out of veshok. Laseema named the animal—nerf, bantha,
shatual
, nuna, jackrab,
vhe’viin
—and Kad had to go pick out the right toy. Jusik watched, fascinated both by how fast Kad learned words, and by what a great mother Laseema was turning out to be. Atin joined them. As the three of them played, they looked like a perfect family, and Jusik sensed the slight sadness when Laseema caught Atin’s eye.

A human and a Twi’lek couldn’t have children. That didn’t matter to a Mando, of course, and adoption was common for all kinds of reasons, but it obviously mattered to Twi’leks—even those who’d joined the clan. Laseema had raised Kad while Etain was away; the kid still ran to her like a mother. Jusik would have given anything right then to see Atin and Laseema with a baby of their own, but there was nothing whatsoever he could do about it, and in this isolated place, in hiding from the world, where could they find a child who needed a home?

Skirata sat down beside Jusik on the cushions. “Well, this is fun,
Bard’ika
. All this talk of grain yields and nerf calves makes me positively giddy with excitement.”

“Levet’s taking it very seriously. The fewer supplies we buy in, the less traceable we are.”

“So is everyone happy? As happy as they can be, anyway.”

“You really want to know?” Jusik asked.

Skirata could read moods pretty well, especially within his family. He didn’t really need Jusik to sense things for him. Perhaps he was opening up the conversation to tackle something else. “Tell me.”

Jusik took a breath. “Ordo’s a little wary of Ruu.
She’s trying hard to fit in, but feels lost. Scout’s scared of clones—all of them. Jilka’s scared and confused, but Corr makes her feel better. Besany worries about everything. Ny is … Ny likes you.”

“I need to get Ordo and Ruu sorted out, don’t I?” Skirata looked weary again, and didn’t seem to take any notice of the comment about Ny. “Is he worried she’s going to rob me or something?”

“Even adults feel disoriented when a new sibling shows up—not just children.”

“Ordo, jealous? Never. Six brothers, and not one of them ever showed any signs of jealousy.”

“I think it’s his compulsion to protect you.”

“I’m not much of a father if I can’t make my kids feel secure, am I?”

“You’re a terrific father. It’s just been a very traumatic time. Not even Ordo’s immune to that.”

“No, I’m not a good
buir
, because I make decisions for my
aliit
without asking their opinion,” Skirata said. “
Bard’ika
, I owe you an apology. I made a decision for you. I shouldn’t have.”

“It can’t have been that bad,” Jusik said. “But tell me anyway.”

“I turned down an offer to put you out to stud.”

Jusik burst out laughing. “But I’d sire winners,
Kal’buir
. We’d make a fortune.”

“I wish it was a joke. Shysa got an idea into his head that
Mando’ade
would benefit from your abilities. He even mentioned a genetic line.”

“I suppose I’m the worst-kept secret on Mandalore.”

“Sull’s probably told him all about you.”

“Does Shysa realize midi-chlorians show up when they feel like it? And even if we
could
breed for it, it’d take—wow,
centuries
to populate the place with Force-users. And—”

“Yes,
yes
, he does. I told him so. And that it was un-Mandalorian anyway.”

Jusik was speechless for a moment. He’d never seen himself as a strategic resource. He
wasn’t:
he was only
one Force-user, and one against an army of millions was useless. But he understood what Shysa had been thinking, and why, and suddenly he felt guilty. He had a duty to his adopted people.

“Put your trust in trained troops and reliable weapons, because an army of better Force-users than me couldn’t take Palpatine,” Jusik said. He could feel the doubt radiating from Skirata. “But if you want me to step up,
Kal’buir
, just say.”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what I thought you’d say.”

“And you feel guilty for saying no.”

“Got it in one. Shysa’s recruiting. You and the boys have enough of a struggle ahead without getting into a new war. Am I a bad
Mando’ad
for saying so?”

Jusik tried to lighten the mood. He had a duty, all right, but he’d think of better ways to fulfill it that wouldn’t upset Skirata.

“Never,” he said. “And for all Shysa knows, Mandalore’s full of Force-sensitives anyway, but they don’t know it. They’ll just seem unusually athletic, or perceptive, or lucky. If the Jedi hadn’t signed me, I’d probably be a professional gambler or sports star now.”

Skirata looked grim for a moment. Then his face split into a wide grin and he ruffled Jusik’s hair. “It’s never too late. Break out the pazaak cards.”

“Never play cards with Force-users.”

“I like a challenge.” Skirata looked up. “Scout? Kina Ha? Can you play pazaak?”

It was an unusual peace gesture for Skirata. He seemed to be bending over backward to treat the ancient Jedi as a guest. Jusik felt Skirata’s painful memories of Kamino and the resentment on behalf of his clones crashing up against a strange sense of bewilderment, as if he still didn’t know where Kina Ha fitted into all this.

“Why do you care if the Jedi are happy?” Jusik asked.

“They’re going to be here for a long time, and I don’t want to turn this into a prison camp. It’s not good for anyone. And we’ve never been much interested in taking prisoners.”

Jusik considered what
no prisoners
actually meant. It was pretty final. “And she’s not like the aiwha-bait you knew, right?”

Skirata got to his feet and set up a small card table. “She had nothing to do with the Tipoca government or the cloning program.”

“You don’t have to feel guilty,
Kal’buir
.”

“Who said I did?”

“You feel you’re going soft on Kaminoans, and that it’s letting the clones down.”

“Maybe I’m just asking myself if I am.”

“We should judge others by what they do, not by what they are. That’s the Mandalorian way. You taught me that.”

Skirata pulled up seats as the Jedi joined them, and laid the pack of cards on the table.

“Usually,” he said.

Scout obviously disturbed him, and she seemed to know it. She kept looking at Jusik in a mute plea for explanation, but that would have to wait. She knew about Etain. That was explanation enough. She didn’t need to know that Skirata was in constant torment about the way he believed he’d treated her.

“Do you know exactly where you are?” Skirata asked, not looking up from his cards.

“A long way from anywhere,” Scout said.

Jusik knew why he was asking. If they could pinpoint Kyrimorut precisely, then they were a security risk if they ever left. Everyone had known that from the start. It was just one of the things that had to take second place to getting a look at Kina Ha’s genome.

But anyone could guess that Skirata had fled to Mandalore. It was just a big, wild planet to search, and the natives kept their mouths shut. That bought time.

Kina Ha checked her cards with an expression of baffled amusement, then peered at the hand Skirata had laid down.

“I do believe I’ve lost, Master Skirata,” she said. “So you see that Jedi are neither omniscient nor invincible.”

Scout laid down her hand. “Count me in the vincible camp, too.”

Skirata looked at Jusik and tapped on the cards. “Can you beat those?”

“No,” Jusik said. “See? You don’t need midi-chlorians.”

Gilamar wandered over. “Never play for creds with Kal,” he said to Scout. “Want me to show you how to beat him, kid?”

“Are you getting me into bad ways?” she asked.

“No point coming to Mandalore if you don’t pick up a few useful vices. Think of it as survival training.”

Kad was asleep on Laseema’s lap. Skirata got up and let Gilamar have his seat. “Time to put
Kad’ika
to bed,” he said. “I don’t think I’ll have to tell him a story this time.”

Maybe Skirata had had all he could take of diplomacy for the evening. Jusik stayed to play a few more hands of pazaak. Scout seemed a lot more relaxed with Gilamar than with
Kal’buir
.

“You don’t know what to do with us, do you?” she said. “You don’t know how long we’ll have to stay here, or if there’s going to be anywhere else safe for us.”

“That’s about the size of it.” Gilamar picked a card from the top of the pack and grimaced. “But we’re not going to kill you, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“Even in these terrible times,” Kina Ha said, “it gives me hope when beings like us, who should be at one another’s throats, can sit down, cheat at cards, and unite against a common threat.”

“I’m not cheating,” Jusik said.

“But
I
am,” said Kina Ha.

Jusik didn’t ask her to define
unite
, but he was pretty sure that Skirata didn’t see it that way. He was simply suppressing his prejudices, which was as much as anyone could be expected to do. You felt what you felt. There was no conscious will involved in hatred, or in love come to that; it couldn’t be taught, unlearned, or reasoned with. Only the visible reactions that sprang
from it could be changed. Skirata would never love Kaminoans, or see the Jedi as anything but a trouble-making sect like the Sith, but he’d decided not to take a blaster to them.

And Scout couldn’t help being scared of clones after what happened on the night of Order 66. She’d just have to stop feeling and start thinking.

The game broke up around midnight, and eventually only Gilamar, Jusik, and the Nulls were left in the
karyai
. Skirata wandered back to join them again. The season had started to change that day, and now Jusik had the feeling that everyone at Kyrimorut had reached a watershed, too.

“They’ll always be a risk, you know that, don’t you?” Gilamar said. “They might not have the coordinates of this place on a holochart, but any competent Jedi could find us again.”

“Yes, I know,” Skirata said. “But I had to do it anyway.”

“Then we need to have a plan for relocating this whole setup at a moment’s notice,” Jusik said. “Just in case.”

Skirata smiled indulgently.
“Ret’lini
. Yes, we have to be ready for
ba’slan shev’la.
”

Mandalorians were good at that—strategic disappearance. They could scatter and vanish at a moment’s notice, Vau had told Jusik, leaving no trace, to regroup later and strike back. It was like trying to crush mercury, he said. You could smash it as hard as you liked, but it would only disperse in a mass of droplets to coalesce again later, all shiny and renewed, as if nothing had happened. It couldn’t be broken. Jusik rather liked that, because it reassured him that nobody could ever wipe out
Mando’ade
. Many had tried. They’d all failed.

Skirata’s comlink chirped. He checked the display, frowned slightly, and answered it. Jusik sensed his mood change even before he saw the expression on his face settle into dismay.

“Where are you?” Skirata put one hand slowly over
his eyes as if he was shielding them from the light, trying to concentrate. He didn’t seem to be talking to anyone, but his lips were moving slightly as if he was repeating a chant or trying to make sense of something. Eventually, he hit one of the keys as if he was cutting short a transmission. The lost, wistful look that had been there for the last few days had left him, and he was the old
Kal’buir
again: focused, alert, a fire blazing within. Ordo moved in immediately, always the first to go to Skirata if he thought there was something wrong.

“So what was that,
Buir?”
he asked.

“Someone worried enough to send me a one-way message in
dadita.”
Skirata got up. “And how many
aruetiise
know that?”

It was an ancient code system of long and short tones that spelled out words or numbers, transmitted by just about anything that came to hand, from banging on a metal hull to flashing a lamp. It was so low tech, so obsolete, and so peculiarly Mandalorian that few if any outsiders even knew it existed.

“Jaller Obrim,” Mereel said.

“Got it in one.” Skirata scribbled something on his forearm plate. Even when he took off the rest of his armor, he still wore the plate to keep his comm and recording devices close to hand. “He says Niner got a computer chip that he can’t read, but it could expose us.”

“Time I called Gaib and Teekay-O,” Mereel said. “In fact, time we pulled our brothers out, whatever’s keeping them there.”

Niner now knew what it felt like to walk around with a live grenade in his pocket.

When Captain Obrim had pressed the salvaged datachip into his palm as they shook hands, he knew the
thing was vital and dangerous. He also knew that he had to keep it to himself, and in the tight-knit world of the squad, that was hard.

It was harder still now that Bry’s replacement had been picked. He wasn’t a former Republic commando, or even a white job like Corr. He was one of the new clones, the ones grown on Centax 2 in a year by Spaarti process from second-generation Fett genetic material.

Niner couldn’t imagine how anyone like that could handle special operations. The Spaarti stormtrooper couldn’t possibly assimilate all the training he needed—the
real
stuff, the hands-on stuff—in less than a year.
Shab
, that wasn’t even enough time to learn the classroom component, or anything about the outside world. Flash learning was standard on Kamino, but it still took time. That poor little
shabuir
must have had his head pumped full of basic propaganda and all kinds of shallow, undemanding
osik
. Not training, not education: indoctrination.