“I get headlines from the datapad. It’s all garbage. It was garbage under the Republic, too. Nothing changes.”
Uthan needed the news, garbage or not, because it was her only glimpse of her homeworld, even if it was filtered through the spin of a regime that treated it as a dangerous enemy. She hadn’t been back home for years. She caught sight of her own reflection in the holoscreen, superimposed for a moment on the scenes of devastation on remote worlds like Nadhe, Cel Amiin, and Lanjer. All she saw was her failure to stop Palpatine’s power grab when she’d had the chance. She’d been so close to perfecting the FG36 virus when Omega Squad had captured her that it hurt.
And they’re here, aren’t they? Fi and Atin, at least. Funny, now I have names for them. I can tell them apart. They have lives, wives, histories, plans for the future. Is all this their fault?
She didn’t know. She was torn between seeing them as a threat she’d once tried to neutralize and young men who she knew, ate with, talked to. She watched the screen, feeling Gilamar’s stare burning a hole in her, and waited for her world to appear on the list of planets that just didn’t seem to understand that the Empire was their friend and only wanted the best for them.
“Meanwhile, on Gibad, assembly leaders have refused to allow an Imperial diplomatic mission to land in Koliverin. After a four-week standoff, Gibadan forces are …”
It didn’t look like a diplomatic mission. It looked like an assault ship. And the troops in that ship would be exactly like the nice young men she’d just watched playing bolo-ball and pulling faces to amuse the baby son of one of their brothers.
Uthan lived by clarity, definitive answers, and—even in the still-uncertain world of genetics—predictable outcomes. Confusion and conflicted feelings weren’t something she was used to. She didn’t like it at all.
“You know what the final score’s going to be,” Gilamar said. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop it. So you might find it easier to switch off the holoscreen for a week.”
“You think it’s that inevitable, do you?”
“Palps has to make it clear that nobody breaks away on his watch. Big show of force, start as you mean to go on, and all that osik.”
“I just don’t understand how the CIS caved in to the Republic when it had the upper hand, when it had Coruscant under attack—”
“Qail, there were never two sides in this war. Don’t you get it? Palpatine was running both campaigns. He’s a Sith, and he engineered the whole war to get rid of what stood in his way—the Jedi Order. Then he moved in his second army to consolidate the Empire.”
“I didn’t even know what a Sith was until I came here. If Mandalorians fought for them, why can’t they defeat this one?”
“We fought against them, too, but that’s the nature of the beroya’s job. You think we’d be any better off under the Jedi? Mandalore, I mean? It makes no difference to us. When it does—then we’ll get involved. One thing we won’t be doing is fighting an ideological war for aruetiise who’ll spit on us the moment we win it for them, and blame us if we don’t.”
“That’s how tyranny succeeds,” Uthan said. “When folks think it won’t affect them. Until it eventually does.”
“Thank you for the tips on glorious rebellion and liberty. Me, I like clearer definitions of glory and freedom before I start a fight over them.”
“The galaxy is entering the dark ages.”
“Actually, most of the galaxy won’t notice the difference. Some of it will even be better off. The average citizen just wants an excess of food on the table, something to watch on the holonet, and the freedom to indulge a few health-destroying habits. The individuals who’ll feel aggrieved about all this are the aristocrats and politicians who lost power and want it back, the hobby revolutionaries, and the relatively few unlucky shabuire who have something the Empire wants and plans to take.”
“I think you’re in that group somewhere, you Mandos.”
Gilamar just gave her a look that said he’d heard it all before. But for a moment, she wondered if she could do something to stop what would happen to Gibad. The question wasn’t whether the Empire would subdue it by force, but how much damage it would do in the process.
The only thing she could do was perfect the FG36 virus, get it to her government, and then hope there was enough time to produce millions of vials of it. She’d also have to hope there was a way to distribute it not only across the surface of Gibad but throughout the galaxy to kill every clone soldier without a shot being fired.
She would also have to find a way to get from Mandalore to Gibad. Right now, she didn’t even have a way of getting to Enceri.
She was too late. She’d been too late more than three years ago, and only just realized it.
“We’ll be in the karyai this evening if you want to join us.” Gilamar stood up to go. “Relax a bit. I know this project is urgent, but you’re no use to us dead.”
“Ah, Mando concern.” Uthan didn’t want to take it out on Gilamar. None of this was his doing. They were all in this mess together, and she was looking for reasons to like him. “The karyai is the big central living room, yes?”
“It is. We might get a little emotional when someone talks about Etain, but generally we plan to laugh. The dead don’t like us moping around.”
He leaned over and switched off the holoreceiver, smiled sadly at her, then shut the lab doors behind him. Uthan was left staring at her reflection in the dead screen, suddenly feeling worn out and useless. Her black hair was still in the meticulously groomed style she’d worn for years, pulled tight behind her ears in a pleat and highlighted with brilliant scarlet streaks. She didn’t want to be that Uthan any longer. She wouldn’t be able to maintain the complex color anyway, not here. Mandos didn’t seem to go in for hair fashions.
Perhaps it was frustration, or anger that had no safe outlet. It might just have been pragmatism. Whatever sparked it, she’d made up her mind. She unpinned her hair, reached for the lab shears, and began cutting.
Change was coming. She preferred to go and meet it.
6
Beskar is a uniquely resistant iron that develops a wide range of properties—and colors—in the hands of skilled metalsmiths. Depending on the alloy, it can take any form from plate, laminate, and wire to foam, mesh, micronized particles, and even a transparent film. Mandalorians jealously guard their beskar-working skills and refuse to sell the formulas for any price; attempts to reproduce finished beskar elsewhere have been disappointing. The ore is found solely on Mandalore, and only Mandalorians know how to work it to maximize its extraordinary properties. Therefore if you want beskar, you must take Mandalore. But that inevitably proves easier to say than to do.
—From Strategic Resources of the Galaxy, by Pilas Manaitis
Main living room, Kyrimorut
Only a Mando would create a musical instrument that doubled as a weapon.
Wad’e Tay’haai had shown up with his bes’bev, an ancient flute made out of beskar, playing tunes that Jusik didn’t recognize. He thought he didn’t, anyway. It was only when he tried to hum them to himself that he realized what they were. The marching song “Vode An”—learned by all clone troopers bred on Kamino, the only Mando’a language that most of them ever heard—sounded totally different played as a lament.
Tay’haai held out the flute to Jusik. It was painted a deep violet, like the man’s beskar’gam. “Want a go?”
“I’m not musical.” Jusik took it anyway, held it as Tay’haai demonstrated, and blew across the lip plate. The bes’bev remained stubbornly silent. When he balanced it in his hand, it had a pleasant heft to it. “So you can use this as a club. Which is probably the only use I’d get out of it.”
“It’s made for stabbing.” Tay’haai ran his fingertip along the end to indicate the diagonal cut, like a quill stylus. “Bleeds out someone very efficiently.”
“Why have a flute that’s a weapon?”
“Maybe we just don’t like music critics.”
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Tay’haai began playing again, and Mird didn’t so much as howl along with the music as whine to it. Astonishingly, the strill managed to hit at least half the notes, sounding like a drunk who couldn’t remember the words but was doing his best to join in. A’den only made matters worse by howling along, too, which drove Mird into an operatic frenzy. It was the first time Jusik had ever seen Vau laugh uncontrollably.
If only …
The karyai was almost full to capacity this evening; Cov and his three brothers from Yayax Squad were demonstrating—with Levet—how they’d learned to plow a field. The joy of simple achievement radiated from them. Rav Bralor—Parja’s aunt, another member of Jango Fett’s Cuy’val Dar—showed up with a crate of her special throat-searing tihaar. She’d trained the Yayax Squad back on Kamino, and they seemed to spend as much time at her clan’s farm a few kilometers away as they did at Kyrimorut.
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 Et
ain. 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.”
501st: An Imperial Commando Novel Page 15
