“This is going to be bumpy,” Ny said. “And if ATC spots us, we’re borked.”
Ordo buckled himself into the copilot’s seat, catching Mereel’s eye as he twisted around. He felt ashamed and useless. Things shouldn’t have gone this wrong. It wasn’t all Darman’s fault, either.
“They’ll be fine.” Mereel could read his thoughts. “Besides, intel from the source is priceless. As is the ability to reach out and touch the Empire.”
“You know what? I’ve abandoned two brothers. You can shove your intel.”
“Just trying to make you feel better, Ord’ika … ”
“Don’t. I blew it.”
“We all blew it,” Ny said. “Ordo, prep to jump on my mark.”
Ordo pressed the comlink bead in his ear and listened. Niner was calling in CSF and fire crews. He sounded absolutely calm, reporting a stop-and-search that had escalated.
“Isn’t that going to look suspicious on the compound security cams?” Ny’s voice shook. “How’s he going to explain all that to Holy Roly? Is he really going to be okay?”
“He’ll think of something,” Jaing said. He slipped a datapad back in his pocket. “Of course, the problem with security and traffic cams is that certain antiterrorism officers have access to them, and they tend to erase the recordings. Don’t you just hate it when that happens?”
“You called in another favor from Obrim.”
“Fair exchange. We’ll save his shebs when he runs out of luck and needs to vanish with his family.”
The freighter had now climbed enough to safely engage the sublight drive. It streaked high over the city, as far from Niner’s location as possible before Ny got Air Traffic Control’s attention by climbing vertically to a safe hyperjump altitude. It was a maneuver that screamed look at me, I’m in a real hurry to escape. How long did it take to scramble enforcement fighters? Long enough. Ordo counted down the seconds until Imperial City ATC cut in on the ship’s comm.
“ATC calling Cornucopia, you do not have customs or flight clearance, I repeat, you do not—”
“Shut it.” Ny smacked her fist down hard on the audio control to silence it. “Revoke my license. Good luck with fining me, too. Ordo, you ready?”
“Ready.”
“Okay, in five … jump.”
Cornucopia shuddered. Familiar constellations vanished instantly. And so did the chance to bring Niner and Darman home, for the time being at least. Ordo couldn’t decide whose disappointment would haunt him most—Kal’buir’s or Kad’s. He’d find out soon enough. At least jumping to hyperspace before he could comm Kyrimorut gave him time to prepare for the reaction.
“He seems like a nice lad,” Ny said, staring ahead into the featureless void. She patted Ordo’s knee. “Solid. Dependable.”
“Niner?”
“Yes. I never met him before. I didn’t even get a chance to introduce myself.”
That stung Ordo. He hadn’t realized. “He’s mandokarla. Got the right Mando stuff.”
“Free men make their own decisions, Ordo. Just remember that. Even if it upsets us, both of them are doing what they want to do, not what someone made them do.”
Free men also faced up to the consequences of their actions. I could have done this all differently. I didn’t. He’d sit Kad down and explain as best he could to a toddler that his daddy wanted to come home, but Uncle Ordo, Ba’vodu Ord’ika, had got things all wrong and had to leave him behind.
If Kad was going to feel let down by anyone, it wouldn’t be his buir.
11
Here’s why you can’t exterminate us, aruetii. We’re not huddled in one place—we span the galaxy. We need no lords or leaders—so you can’t destroy our command. We can live without technology—so we can fight with our bare hands. We have no species or bloodline—so we can rebuild our ranks with others who want to join us. We’re more than just a people or an army, aruetii. We’re a culture. We’re an idea. And you can’t kill ideas—but we can certainly kill you.
—Ranah Teh Naast, Mandalore the Destroyer, daughter of Uvhen Chal, giving the Consul of Luon a final chance to surrender during the siege of the city
Kyrimorut, Mandalore
“I let you down, Kal’buir.”
Ordo stepped down off Cornucopia’s ramp, chin lowered, looking as if he was expecting a good hiding. Skirata threw his arms around him and gave him a fierce hug.
“Don’t you even think that,” he scolded. “You hear? You never let me down. We can still get them back anytime we like. Come on.” He broke off to embrace the other Nulls one by one. “Let’s get this stuff inside. Eat.”
Ny emerged from the freighter carrying a tray of eggs. She gave Skirata a sympathetic look and shrugged.
“He was worrying how you’d take the news,” she whispered. “He’s always so confident about everything else, but he’s scared stiff of you.”
She sounded as if she was asking what Skirata had done to make him that way. “I love that boy more than my own life,” Skirata said indignantly. “He knows I’d never blame him for this. For anything.”
“I know. It’s just sad to watch it.”
Ordo’s need to please him always broke Skirata’s heart. He’d never given Ordo any cause to fear him, but the Kaminoans had already burned the idea into the Nulls’ psyches that failure was never tolerated. Failures had to be reconditioned—terminated. However many times Skirata told Ordo he was perfect, it never erased that lesson from infancy.
“You believe me, don’t you?” Skirata said. Here he was, scared in turn of Ny’s disapproval. “He did the right thing. Pull out, rethink, try again later.”
“I believe you.” Ny put a box down on the deck and caught his face in both hands, giving him a little shake. “You’re a bad boy, Shortie, but nobody doubts your devotion to your kids.”
She held on to him for a few seconds more than needed to make the point. He realized he had no idea how to respond. He’d forgotten the moves after all these years. Ny suddenly let go and picked up the box again, and he was left to wonder if he’d missed the cues and disappointed her.
“I think I over-ordered,” she said, looking at the crates still to be moved. “But if everyone gets sick of eggs, we can pickle them for the store.”
Fi and Atin bounded up the ramp, making a show of being cheerful. They’d been desperate to see Niner and Darman again.
“We never get sick of anything,” Fi said, rummaging through the cargo. “Our favorite flavor is second helpings. Ooh, you got us some warra nuts! Hot ’n’ spicy, and salt ’n’ sour! Kandosii!”
“Ten kilos of each.” She gave him an indulgent smile. Skirata noted that she fell into the maternal role with Fi without a moment’s hesitation. “And if you eat them all in one go, Parja will make you sleep in the barn. On your own head be it.”
“I’ll ration myself.”
“Hey, Fi—I’m sorry we didn’t get Dar and Niner back. But we will. It’ll all be fine. I promise.”
“Maybe we can talk to them somehow.” Fi sounded wistful, like a lost child, and he wasn’t putting it on. “Niner’s got a secure link. We can talk to him, right?”
“Yes, you can.” Ny’s eyes suddenly looked glassy. “Jaing can make it happen.”
Atin stood back to let Fi move the laden repulsor off the ship. “I’m going to go with Mij to pick up the equipment for Uthan,” he said. “We’ll be back in a day or so. Anything else we need?”
“You might want to wander back via Keldabe and see what Dred shabla Priest is up to …” I really don’t need to collect more problems now. Priest can wait, surely? “See if Vau wants a trip out, too. Poor old chakaar needs to take his mind off Sev for a while.”
“That means taking Mird as well.”
“So? Vent the aircon twice an hour.”
Atin slapped Skirata on the shoulder. “Will do. See you later.”
“That’s a little miracle, too,” Skirata said as he walked away. “Him and Vau—real death grudge. Vau gave him tho
se scars. But they called a truce. Anything’s possible.”
Ny rubbed her nose discreetly as if she thought Skirata hadn’t noticed the tears. “But not reconciliation with the Death Watch.”
“That comes under the water-flowing-uphill section of possibility. No.”
Skirata steered her down the ramp with the last of the egg crates and closed the hatch. Where could he start? But she had to know if she was going to truly fit in. Even without discussion, there seemed to be a tacit acceptance that Ny was a permanent fixture.
“Do you want to settle here?” Skirata asked.
Ny blinked a couple of times. “I think I already have.”
“I mean become a Mando. Properly.” He realized that he’d opened a delicate topic that begged the question of what he was actually asking her. He skipped over it, unable to deal with more emotional complications right then. “I mean that there’s such bad blood between us and them that you need to be aware of it.”
“Of course.” Ny reached into her jacket and took out something—a stack of cash credits. She opened one of his belt pouches and dropped the chips into it. Every time she laid hands on him he was rooted to the spot and didn’t know how to react. “I’d hate to make any social gaffes at the Keldabe country club.”
Skirata longed to be at ease with her. “I told you to keep the creds. Nobody thinks you’re sponging.”
“And I’m handing them back. Nice pickpocket job, though. Now, Death Watch. Tried to oust Jaster Mereel because he liked law and order, and that crimped their game. Big turf war. And they killed Arla’s parents for sheltering Jaster. How am I doing?”
Skirata was glad she didn’t say civil war. War was for soldiers, folks with discipline and honor. The Death Watch were just criminal scum who happened to share the same system, not real Mandalorians at all.
“Not bad,” he said. “They dressed themselves up as patriots wanting a return to the good old days of the Mando empire, but it was just a cover for organized crime.”
“But you lot don’t have a proper government like other species. You’ve got this loose arrangement of clans, and you’ve got a head of state who only shows up part-time and doesn’t make the rules. How can the Death Watch overthrow anything? There’s nothing to overthrow.”
“They can destroy our backbone.”
Ny snorted. “Yeah? Good luck with that.”
“We’ve had times in our past when we let rotten Mandalores steer us down some ugly paths. It happens, Ny. Ideas take root. Whole societies get swept up in things without thinking, because they’re just ideas, right? Just harmless things. But they’d fight to the death to resist if an invading army showed up and tried to force those changes on us. We don’t see bad ideas coming until they’ve done the damage.”
It was all he needed to say for the time being. Ny had seen enough of Arla to get the idea that the Death Watch committed atrocities, and that was enough on its own.
Inside the house, the veshok table was laid with an impressive spread of skraan’ikase, an assortment of small fancy snacks that could be lingered over for hours. It was a spread for special occasions, from weddings to funerals, and sometimes both at the same time. Jilka, Corr, and Ruu were already munching on crisply fried meat. Skirata opened one of the bottles of tihaar on the table.
Ny stared at the bounty. “Won’t Uthan find this a little … inappropriate? I mean … it’s a bit festive.”
“It’s how we do things.” Skirata tried one of the pastries. “Shereshoy bal aay’han. You can’t separate the two.”
This should have been a welcome-home party for Darman and Niner. Skirata saw nothing odd about combining it with some respectable mourning for Uthan’s people. Life was all sharp contrasts; you couldn’t appreciate joy without understanding sorrow. Happy guests at this kind of meal were a reminder to the unhappy that life would be good again one day, and the mourners reminded those celebrating not to take a moment of life for granted. The act was one of assertion, of looking for the positive side of the moment.
It made sense to any Mando. Skirata wanted it to make sense to Ny. He stopped short of asking her if she’d ever attended a wake, and realized he didn’t know much about her background. The better he got to know her, the harder he found it to talk about her dead husband.
Laseema came out of the kitchen with a tray of miniature pastries filled with conserves so transparent and brightly colored that they looked like gems. She was an impressive cook. “Might as well tuck in,” she said. “The others will show up when they smell the food. Haili cetare. Fill your boots.”
“Where is everybody?”
“Jaing went racing off to play with the datachip.” She downed a pastry, looked pleased with the result, and licked her fingers. “Kina Ha took Kad for a walk to burn off some energy.”
Skirata’s alarm bells went off. “You let a kaminii go off with him?” He regretted snapping the second the words were out of his mouth. But it told him his hatred of Kaminoans was as embedded now as Ordo’s fear of failure, and just as immune to evidence and reason. “Sorry. Just tell me they didn’t go far.”
“She’s a thousand years old or something, Kal’buir.” Laseema took his arm like an old man and gave him a kiss on the cheek, humoring him. “How fast could she get away? They’re in the yard, feeding the nuna.”
And Dar and Niner are light-years away.
Skirata tried not to dwell on it. They were alive, and they’d made their own decisions. But there was Kad, and Kad still thought Daddy was coming home. As long as Darman and Niner were behind enemy lines and not here, then Skirata could have no sense of peace.
I left my kids to go to war time after time.
What was the difference? His wife had been there for them. Kad had a choice of mothers here, at least a dozen uncles, and a grandfather, too. Aliit ori’shya tal’din—family was more than bloodline. Dar didn’t have to be here all the time to make Kad feel loved and secure. But it was more than that. It was all about Etain, and trying to heal that wound.
Skirata still couldn’t work out whose wound it was. He suspected it was more his even than Darman’s. Etain’s ashes haunted him. He went to the cupboard where the funeral urn was kept, and stood looking at it as if she was trapped within.
It was a strange thought for a Mandalorian, in a society that had had to dispense with cemeteries and revered remains in fixed places; the dead weren’t there, and the link to them in life was a piece of armor—or a lightsaber. But Etain was somehow in a kind of limbo in Skirata’s mind, waiting for Darman to scatter her ashes and free her.
Becoming one with the Force wasn’t like that. Jusik kept telling him so.
“Sorry, Et’ika,” Skirata said. “Can you wait a little longer for Dar? He’s doing it for the boy.”
Ny was right behind him when he closed the door and turned. She squeezed his arm.
“I’ll get Uthan,” she said. “I’m starting to get the picture. Shereshoy bal aay’han.”
Skirata found himself slowly surfacing from the numbness of dashed hopes and entering a stage of anger. He was angry at Darman for putting everyone through this when he could have just walked away. You’ve got a son here—doesn’t that pull you back? How can you do this to him? It felt a lot like the process of grieving; shock, then anger, and then the pain, self-recrimination, and irrational ups and downs before you accepted this was for keeps, and you had to live with it or not live at all. Skirata struggled with the familiar emotions, even knowing he’d go through a sequence of helpless feelings. But this time, those lost to him could come back. This wasn’t death. He had to focus on that.
I wanted them to have the freedom all other beings have. I wanted them to have choices. Well, they have. And they chose, and if I don’t like it—too bad.
His head knew that. But his heart remained stubbornly ignorant. He forced himself to concentrate on the room that was filling up with his family and … guests? Prisoners? Friends? He didn’t know. He wasn’t sure if it even mattered.
“Have a drink,” Fi said. He folded Skirata’s fingers around a glass of ale. Fi had definitely come back from the dead, as profound a symbol of vindicated hope as Skirata had ever seen. “We’ll think of something to be grateful for. How’s about we start with Bard’ika? A new brother. We can have sibling rivalry and fight over stuff and everything.”
Uthan stood surveying the food, but it was clear her mind was elsewhere. Skirata wondered how many times she’d replayed the news about Gibad in her head, just to try to absorb the enormity of it: the genocide of her world, something few could ever have experienced. Scout hovered close by her like a doting daughter. Skirata bet on Gilamar leaving her with orders to look after Uthan while he was away.
“I believe in coming out fighting,” Uthan said. She took a plate from the stack, none of which matched another, and placed a few morsels on it as if to show willing. “So this is the point where the Empire has to start worrying about me. An antigen for the galaxy, but a special surprise for Coruscant.”
Skirata took a pull of the ale. Casual. Act casual. “Coruscant?”
“A planet of a trillion people, crowded together. The ideal scenario to spread a pathogen.” She chewed, and nodded polite approval. “The heart of the Empire. Take out the heart …”
My boys are on Coruscant. Not just Dar and Niner. The other commandos I trained, too.
“So you’ve got an antidote,” Skirata said. This wasn’t the time for a debate. “Good work. Can we spread it quietly? So Palps doesn’t know he’ll be firing blanks in the future?”
“Silently,” Uthan said. “But you realize that spreading it here means the garrison will be immunized, too. You’ll lose your most effective weapon against the Empire.”
Skirata caught himself hesitating for a second. The stormies were clones much the same as his boys, not volunteers, not conscripts—slaves. He knew he was going to have to get a grip of this feeling or the Empire would have him beaten from the start.
501st: An Imperial Commando Novel Page 28
