501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (25 page)

The commandos were totally at ease now. Melusar had a way with him.

“Have you been putting together a dodgy dossier on our Force-wielding friends, sir?” Ennen said. “You sound like you have.”

“Know the enemy,” Melusar said, tapping his temple with his forefinger. “First weapon in the armory. To deal with them, we have to understand them. Yes, I’ve studied them over the years. But it was the People’s Inquest group that did the compiling.”

Ennen folded his arms. “Are they that Jedi-watch group? The ones who wanted to see details of Jedi expenditure, and the Republic kept trying to shut down their HoloNet station?”

“Now who’s been keeping tabs? Well recalled, Ennen, And yes, they
did
say ‘We told you so.’ ”

Zey could never get a laugh at a briefing. Poor old Sa Cuis; wherever he’d gone, the Imperial Commando Special Unit wasn’t going to miss his guidance. Roly Melusar had made the squads his own, and it had taken him less than half an hour.

“Good old Roly,” Scorch mocked.
“Holy Roly.
”

“
That’
s going to stick … ,” Boss said.

Niner twitched suddenly as if something had startled him. Darman wondered if he’d been nodding off. “Nice guy, but dangerous.” There was no reaction from Ennen or any of Delta Squad. Only Darman could hear Niner’s voice. “But does he know Palps is a Sith?”

So Niner had finally decided it was safe to talk on private channels after all. Darman thought he sounded
strained, but maybe that was the man’s natural paranoia getting the better of him.

“Is that confirmed?” Darman asked. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Just … talk. Vader’s got a red lightsaber. Jusik said Sith have those.”

“If Melusar
does
know,” Darman said, not worrying much about Sith, “he either doesn’t care, or doesn’t think the Sith are as dangerous as hordes of unlicensed Force-users. Or maybe he’s banking on sitting it out until Palpatine dies.”

Melusar didn’t have to discuss any of this at all. Every commando in that room knew what his task was: to slot the targets on his list. Rationale wasn’t required. Knowing
why
was useful, because context helped you build a picture of who you were hunting and what they might do in a given situation. But discussing policy—no, the Republic had never gone in for that kind of debate with clones, and the Empire didn’t look inclined to, either. Melusar, though, explained clearly
why things had to be done
, like Skirata, and didn’t fall back on push-button words like
freedom
and
democracy
that could mean anything you wanted them to, including the complete opposite.

“So, we have more scraps of intel,” Melusar said, turning to a holodisplay that projected notes onto the wall behind him. He scribbled on his datapad, and the lines and words appeared on the display. “We know there are still Jedi stuck here in Imperial City. And we know some escaped the planet via Whiplash and other underground organizations. Their leadership’s been almost completely destroyed, so I expect some regrouping around the charismatic ones in the remnant. One name that keeps cropping up is Master Djinn Altis.”

He scribbled the name
ALTIS
on the display and stood back to look at it, tapping his stylus absently against his palm. Some guys in the front row shook their heads.

“Never came across him, sir.”

“That’s because he was never part of Yoda’s Council.
Went his own way. Helped out the Republic eventually, but his group was still dissident. Old-time Jedi habits. Back to basics. Very popular with civilians, because they started out giving aid to war victims.” Melusar paused and wrote the words
ANTARIAN—JEDI REJECTS —JAL SHEY—FORCE-USERS OR NOT?
like a shopping-list reminder to get back to those topics later. “Not sure about all their philosophy, but they allow marriage and have families, so there definitely wasn’t a meeting of minds between Yoda and Altis.”

Darman didn’t hear the rest of the sentence.

Jedi who allow marriage. Families
.

Suddenly the knife that had been lodged in his chest since Etain was killed, bleeding out his hopes, twisted and dug in deeper.

If Etain had followed Altis instead … none of this would have happened
.

She could have been a Jedi
and
a wife, without guilt or secrecy.
Other Jedi did it
. Melusar had just told him so. Darman knew the Jedi Order had bent the rules for Ki-Adi-Mundi, but this was different, a whole kind of Jedi thinking he’d never known about, and somehow it seemed even worse for being more widespread.

He could never forgive the Jedi for keeping him and Etain apart until it was too late. It wasn’t
Kal’buir’
s fault at all. The Jedi had failed her.

And I failed her, too. I should have been able to keep her safe
.

He couldn’t let his son down the way he’d let down his wife. He had to stand between him and everyone who’d do him harm—from the Jedi who’d claim him as theirs to the Empire that wanted to wipe out Force-users.

It had to be done, for Kad’s sake. The galaxy could go hang.

I know a lot more about Jedi than most clones—most mongrels, too. I’m not afraid of them. I know how to take them down. For Etain, for Kad, for everyone I care about
.

“Holy Roly,” Fixer chuckled to himself, oblivious of Darman’s moment of clarity. “Yeah, that’s about right. What a saint.”

Darman didn’t want a saint for a boss. He wanted a soldier, and he wanted to believe in him the way he’d believed in
Kal’buir
. Vader—Vader had a
lightsaber
. He used the Force. That meant he was a potential enemy, someone who’d have a vested interest in hunting Kad either to kill him or sign him up for the Sith club. Sith and Jedi were different sides of the same coin; Skirata said so.

But Roly Melusar was an ordinary man with no illusions about Jedi or any other Force-using sect.

“Hey,” Scorch whispered. “Guess what? Word is that Vader’s gone off looking for new clone donors. Maybe that’s the
recruitment
Fatboy Cuis is working on.”

Darman still thought that Cuis was a Force-user. And if any recruiting was being done—Kad wasn’t going to be part of it.

Iri Camas was the first Jedi Darman had fought, but he wasn’t going to be the last.

Skirata split logs in the yard, and fretted.

In the past, he had been the one who went to war and left a family behind. Now he was the one waiting for news, and suddenly he had a much better idea of what Ilippi had gone through while they were married. Waiting was hard. Even with the latest comlinks and transponders to stay in touch—a luxury his ex-wife never had—the minutes were still long and empty, begging to be filled with the wrong kind of speculation.

So this is what it’s like to be the rear party. Sorry, Ilippi. I never really understood
.

Every time he brought the ax down on the resinwood logs, the strong scent filled his nostrils. It was probably the smell that triggered his memories again. The sweet
medicinal scent of the resin reminded him of the first months of his marriage, when he was crazy about a Corellian nightclub waitress called Ilippi Jiro and he tried to teach her some essential skills of a proper Mandalorian wife—how to build a basic field shelter, a
vheh’ yaim
, and cook over an open fire. She never did get the hang of splitting logs. He didn’t care. He loved her, they had a small town house in Shuror where she never had to cook over open flames, and he never believed the fire would die in their relationship.

I can go for months, a whole year even, without thinking of her at all. Now she’s back as if it was only yesterday
.

He couldn’t see a trace of her in Ruu, though. The girl was so much like himself it was unsettling. If she started showing signs of all his character flaws, it would be like living with a rebuke that he could never ignore, and he’d know why fate had decided to throw them together again.

The crunch of boots approached slowly from one side. Skirata could see in his peripheral vision that it was Vau.

“If you’re that worried,” Vau said, “all you have to do is comm them.”

Skirata didn’t take his eyes off the log balanced on the chopping block. He’d had one accident too many with axes when he was distracted.

“If they’re doing a delicate job, I might comm just at the wrong time …” Skirata lined up his ax, swung, and split another log in two neat halves. It was a kind of meditation—nothing mystic, just living in the moment by repeating simple and necessary actions without thought, the best way of quieting the mind. “Like just then, in fact.”

“You realize that Niner and Darman could have left Imperial City under their own steam by now? They’re commandos, for goodness’ sake. Getting out of places is what they do best—after getting in, of course.”

“Yes, but they
haven’t
. That tells me they need extracting.”

“That’s what worries me,” Vau said.

“Meaning?”

“Darman’s got a son here. Even Niner agreed to desert in the end. They had every reason to get out as soon as Niner could walk again. But they didn’t.”

“You know as well as I do that you have to pick your moment to exfil in a situation like that.”

Skirata hadn’t wanted to think about it, but he wondered if he’d judged it all wrong and the two clones
wanted
to stay in the army. If they did, then it was all his fault. He’d been responsible for keeping Etain’s pregnancy from Darman, not one deceit but a daily cycle of lies until the kid was a toddler. If Darman hadn’t bonded with his son enough to put being with him above everything, then it was because Skirata had set him a rotten example as a father. And Niner—Niner had an unshakable sense of duty and responsibility that Skirata had nurtured.

I trained them to be perfect soldiers. Now I want them to forget all that and come and play renegade Mando here with me. What can I expect
?

“Yes,” Vau said, as if he’d been having an internal debate with himself during Skirata’s long silence. “I’m getting too anxious. Too much idle time on my hands. They were just waiting for the right moment.”

“No point fighting your way out when you can walk out,” Skirata said. He glanced at the chrono on his forearm plate. “Lunch. Come on, let’s spend some quality
sha’kajir
time with our highly qualified comrade.”

Sha’kajir
meant sitting down for a meal, and had come to refer to a truce or cease-fire. Skirata found that remarkably apt in this case. Everything could be resolved over a meal, the neutral territory where you said what you had to say and everyone was treated as kin, at least until the meal was over. He was still negotiating his cease-fire with Uthan.

Vau managed a smile. “
Mij’ika
seems like a new man
since he’s found someone to discuss bacteriology and congenital urethral obstruction with him. If only everyone was so easy to please.”

“Not at the table, I hope.”

“It’s all big words, Kal. You won’t understand the really stomach-churning medical detail.”

Skirata ignored the jibe without even trying. A year ago, maybe less, it would have started the old fight going again, but they both found their differences weren’t worth the effort now. “You know, I can’t dislike Uthan, Walon. I tried, but I can’t.”

“You can’t dislike Kina Ha, either, and I know you feel you should as a matter of honor.” Vau’s expression had softened and it didn’t suit him at all. Nature had selected him to be a brutal, implacable patrician, a man who beat servants and lavished more affection on his pedigree livestock. It was bred into his bone structure, revealed in that harshly aristocratic face. “Species apart, I can’t help wishing my mother had been like her. Very grand, very gracious. She’s more of a countess than dear Mama ever was.”

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.