True Colors

by Karen Traviss

  “Leave it with me,” said Skirata.

  Jusik closed the hatch behind him. Mereel gave Ordo a wary look. “So maybe I shouldn’t tell you what Agent Wennen dug up, seeing as I can’t be trusted to know we have a clone-impregnated Jedi…”

  “Knock it off, Mer’ika,” Skirata said. “It’s my fault, not Ordo’s. So what did Besany turn up?”

  “Something confirming that Palpatine is building alternative cloning facilities. Lama Su’s message mentioned Coruscant, but she’s found evidence that there’s something happening on Centax Two as well. Lots of equipment, she thinks, and Arkanian Micro have had a lot of exemption licenses for ‘medical’ cloning.”

  “Palpatine wants direct control of clone production, and so he wants his own scientists like Ko Sai. He’s edging the Kaminoans out of the picture.”

  “And if he doesn’t pay for the next Tipoca contract, clone production will have to switch to a new source at that time.”

  Ordo had been very quiet up to then. Skirata chalked it up to some emotional issue in the conversation with Besany that he wasn’t prepared for.

  “So what happens to the clones on Kamino at the moment? The ones who aren’t yet mature? And where’s the Coruscant facility?” No, Ordo had been war-gaming in his head. Besany seemed to have been forgotten as soon as he handed back the comlink. “Is he getting the equipment from Kamino? No, because the gihaal would know he was getting ready to leave them high and dry. Is he having incompletely matured clones moved to Coruscant, or is he starting from scratch again? If so, he has a ten-year lead time to worry about. At the current rate of loss, he won’t have an army left in five years, let alone ten.”

  “Unless he’s not going to use Kamino technology,” said Mereel. Mird made an exceptionally loud noise of escaping wind, and he stared at the creature. Vau didn’t seem bothered. “You have no class, Mird, you know that?”

  Vau looked at Skirata and muttered, “Microtech.”

  It was the one obvious alternative: Arkanian Microtech. Kaminoans did it best, but they did it slow. Arkanian cloning technology was very much faster—a year or two, maybe—though the results were nowhere near as good.

  “So there should be clones reaching deployment maturity each year, but we’re not seeing those numbers going into the ranks,” Skirata said. “So what’s the Republic planning to do with them?”

  Vau shrugged. “Maybe there’s a problem with the quality. They ran out of fresh Jango.”

  “Kamino certainly doesn’t like the results of second-generation cloning,” Mereel said. “I found that when I sliced their research the first time.”

  “Well, maybe the Republic is in financial trouble, and it’s happy with second-rate troopers,” said Skirata. He knew this was critical information, and that the men produced would be exploited slaves as deserving of help as his own boys. But he was impatient, imagining Delta already on Ko Sai’s trail. First things first. “Maybe Palps will have a new military strategy then. Numbers over quality. Either way, we don’t want to be around when it happens.”

  “Agent Wennen still hasn’t found anything at all on how the Kaminoans were paid or whether there’s anything in the budget in the next two years for another contract,” Mereel said, standing up. “But she’s going to carry on. As am I, because we now have upgrades to fit to this fine vessel inside forty-eight hours.” He fixed Mird with an unsympathetic eye. “Including a heavy-duty air freshener.”

  “I told her not to take any risks.” Ordo sounded wistful.

  “What did she say to that?” Skirata asked.

  “She told me she’d stop taking risks when I did.”

  “She’s a good ’un, son. Mandokarla.” Yes, Besany Wennen definitely had the right stuff, a Mando heart. “She’ll earn those sapphires.”

  “And who told her I liked roba sausage?”

  Mereel paused in the hatchway. “That’d be me, Ord’ika…”

  Vau nudged Mird onto the deck and followed Mereel to start fitting the new weapons to the ship. Skirata was left with Ordo in the crew lounge, suddenly unsure what to say to him. They stood there so long in contemplation that the sound of banging and scraping began echoing through the hull as Mereel brought the hardware inboard.

  “She’ll be fine, Ord’ika.” It was obvious he was worried about Besany getting caught. “She’s used to investigating fraud without anyone noticing.”

  “She’s close to investigating the Chancellor, Kal’buir. That’s as dangerous as it gets in her line of work.”

  “We’ll pull her out at the first sign of trouble, I promise.”

  “And do what?”

  Events were overtaking Skirata at breakneck speed. Part of his mind was on whether Delta had what it took to beat them to Ko Sai—possibly, because Vau trained them—and part was worrying about Etain, whom he hadn’t checked on for a day. He felt guilty for the way he’d bullied her.

  And part of his attention was now on the fact that three people had put themselves at risk for his scheme, and might need to be moved to safety or given refuge very fast indeed. His plans for a safe haven, an escape route, had to be firmed up right away. He’d have to get hold of the Cuy’val Dar comrades he could most rely on.

  “Do we exploit people like Jusik and Etain and Besany, or do we give them something they need?” Ordo asked. “These people who gravitate to us—they so want a community, a family, and that’s the one thing we have in abundance. But I don’t know where to draw the line. I just feel bad for them.”

  “Family’s about being willing to do that, Ord’ika,” Skirata said, and steered him toward the gunwell access. “No holding back. We give all we’ve got, too.”

  “What if she doesn’t want to come with us?”

  “Besany?”

  “Yes. We’re planning to desert, aren’t we? It’s going to be a life on the run. What if she says, Sorry, Ordo, I like my life on Coruscant too much? What if she tells me to get lost?”

  The two of them seemed a long way from that kind of commitment, but the Nulls had come out of the Kaminoans’ genetic tinkering with a capacity for instant, unshakable devotion. If they took to you, they’d die for you. If they didn’t, you were dead meat. That was what happened when the genes that influenced loyalty and bonding were overcooked. But it was an existing Mandalorian tendency that the Kaminoans had exploited, and Ordo was only making the same snap decision on which partner he wanted that Skirata and most other Mando males made.

  Besany had to stand by Ordo. Kal couldn’t bear to see the lad’s heart broken. He wanted so much for the boy, for all of them.

  “She won’t let you down, son,” Skirata said.

  She couldn’t even if she wanted to. She was now in this up to her neck. Coruscant would never be the same safe home again for Besany Wennen.

  Chapter Six

  We have laws on how we treat sentient species. We have laws on how we treat animals and semi-sentients. We even have laws protecting plants. But we have absolutely no laws whatsoever governing the welfare of clone troops—human beings. They have no legal status, no rights, no freedoms, and no representation. Every one of you here who accepted this army without murmur should hang your head in shame. If that’s the depths we as a Republic can sink to in the name of democracy, it hardly surprises me that the CIS wants to break away. The end can never justify means like this.

  —Senator Den Skeenah of Chandrila, addressing the Senate eighteen months after the Battle of Geonosis, after setting up a charitable appeal to fund the only veterans’ welfare facility in the Republic

  Rebel camp, Gaftikar,

  473 days after Geonosis

  Fi stared at Darman and Atin as they hauled Sull out of the speeder and half carried him to the center of the camp. The ARC trooper was hobbled, but it hadn’t stopped him from taking a good kick at Atin when they had bundled him into the vehicle. He looked ready to kill now.

  Darman felt guilty. I’d be doing the same. I wouldn’t let anyone take me alive.

  Fi stoo
d with hands on hips. “So he followed you home, and now you want to keep him?” He looked Sull up and down and tutted loudly. “I suppose you couldn’t resist his big appealing eyes.”

  Atin peeled off Sull’s gag.

  “Shove it,” snarled the ARC.

  Darman held up his bandaged hand. It was swollen and throbbing despite bacta and a one-shot of antibiotic. “He bites, too.”

  “Just keep him off the furniture.” Fi turned toward the camp buildings, two fingers in his mouth, and delivered a piercing whistle. “Now watch A’den lose his temper. It’s very entertaining.”

  A’den came at a run from one of the buildings, now wearing his ARC armor with its dark green sergeant’s trim, helmet clipped at the small of his back and rattling against the belt of his kama. Sull stared. A small circle of curious Marits started to form.

  The Null skidded to a halt and wheeled around on them, face like thunder. “And you lot can clear off. This is trooper business. Get lost! Usenye!”

  Even the dominant lizards with their red frills scattered as if he’d lobbed a grenade among them. A’den had that edge, just like Ordo and the others, the look and the tone that said he was a man who would erupt into unpredictable violence: even nonhumans picked it up and heeded the warning.

  “So… you took a prisoner,” A’den said, all the scarier for suddenly being softly spoken. “Did you think it through at all? You make a habit of this. I heard it was Fi who brought home strays last time.”

  “Dynamic risk assessment,” Fi said.

  “Making it up as you go along.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Di’kut.”

  But Darman had done what he had to. He didn’t plan on apologizing for that. “He was supposed to be MIA, not AWOL.”

  “Well, he was missing, and he is in action. Just not for the Republic.” A’den looked Sull over, and Darman wondered if he was looking for injuries or just finding a fresh spot to make a bruise. “And you can’t be absent without leave if you don’t get leave. So nobody lied to you, did they?”

  Atin seemed to get it a few moments later than Darman. “You knew he’d gone over to the Seps?”

  “Some things are best left alone,” said A’den. “I worked it out.”

  “Sure you did.” Sull seemed to latch on to A’den as a brother ARC and decided he ran the show. He turned his back on Darman. “I haven’t gone over, as you put it. I’m just not fighting for the Republic anymore.”

  “Subtle legal point. You’ll have to explain it.”

  “So now that you’ve got me, what are you going to do? You don’t have a long list of options for a deserter.”

  Deserter. Darman wished A’den had shot him. Somehow Sull would have seemed more honorable if he’d taken up arms for the Seps rather than sitting out the war while brother clones like Sicko—he never forgot Sicko, none of them did—died at the front. But Sull didn’t strike him as a coward. Niner jogged across the clearing in his black undersuit, towel draped around his neck, and Darman braced for a lecture on doing things by the book. Fi moved in to intercept him.

  “What I do next depends on how much grief you’ll create for me and my brothers,” A’den said. He took a look at the ARC’s bound wrists as if he was thinking of untying them and then seemed to change his mind. “So we can stand here like the cabaret at the Outlander, amusing the Marits, or discuss this in private.”

  Sull was unbowed. “Why not just shoot me now while I’m still trussed, spook? Because I’m not going back to the GAR. If you want to make me, one of us is going to have to kill the other.”

  “Fierfek, what are you two?” Niner said. “Hibel spiders? Cut the osik. Regulations are clear. He’s a traitor. We take him in.”

  “Niner, shut it.” A’den took out a vibroblade, ducked down, and sliced through the plastoid tape around Sull’s ankles. “And any kicking or biting, ner vod, and I’ll remove something you’re very attached to. Civilized chat, like comrades. Got it?”

  Sull paused, seemed to consider dismemberment, and then nodded.

  They had an audience again. The Marit rebels had edged nearer, one lizard at a time, and were now standing in earshot with their heads cocking back and forth in curiosity. A’den turned with slow menace, and they scattered again. He hadn’t said Omega couldn’t follow, though, so the four of them trooped after him and sat down on the long bench in the sparsely furnished ops room to watch the conversation. It was a grand name for the place. The Marits had built their camp like they built the homes for the humans in Eyat, and the HQ building was a comfortable little house with sliding interior walls and shutters made from translucent luet bark, utterly unmilitary in every respect. It would vanish in a ball of flame if anything bigger than a stun round hit it.

  Rebel camp? It was a village. The weapons and artillery pieces were real, though, and the citizens of Eyat didn’t appear to venture out of their city strongholds.

  A’den dragged a chair across the planked floor and sat Sull down, hands still tied behind his back, while he stalked around the room. He gave Omega a glance that told them they would be watching in silence and taking notes.

  “So,” he said. “Tell me when you first lost your enthusiasm for a long-term military career in the glorious Grand Army of the Republic.”

  “Let me see.” Sull looked up theatrically at a point above and to the right. “I think it was when they blew my buddy’s brains out. Yes, I do believe it was.”

  “Who’s they?” Darman asked. “You keep saying they.”

  A’den raised an eyebrow. “I’m doing the interrogation.”

  “He asked if they had sent me, Sergeant.”

  “Okay.” A’den patted Sull’s head, more like a couple of slow slaps by way of warning. “Answer the man.”

  “You’re one of Skirata’s undisciplined rabble, aren’t you?”

  “Proud to say so, yes.”

  “You’ve got no love for the Republic, then. Ever wondered what happens to us when we’re no more use?”

  “Yes. But I didn’t know you had…”

  Darman was sure every clone did. He thought about it almost as much as he thought about Etain, which was a lot. He held his breath, waiting for some insight. Somehow he knew it wasn’t going to be good news.

  “So did Alpha-zero-two,” said Sull. “Remember him? Spar? First off the line.”

  “I’ve got perfect recall,” A’den said. “Of course I remember. He went missing more than a year before we shipped out for Geonosis. And you lot were the second batch—after us.”

  Darman marveled at the ability of any trooper to make it off Kamino. He must have been given help, and Darman could think of at least two people who would have done just that.

  Sull leaned forward slightly, unable to sit back because of his handcuffs. “Spar saw what was coming and thought he would be better off taking his chances outside. And once we knew he was gone—well, quite a few of us started thinking.”

  “Heard from him since?”

  “No.”

  “He’s doing a little bounty hunting and merc work now.” Nulls seemed to hear about everything one way or another. Darman never asked how or why, but the comment looked designed to show Sull that A’den had better intel than he did. “The family business. He’s not exactly trained to do anything else, is he?”

  “The Republic sent someone after him to kill him.”

  “Sure?”

  “Sure. They didn’t get him, but my buddy Tavo decided to make a run for it a few months ago, and they caught him. Then they blew his brains out.”

  “They.”

  “Republic Intelligence agents. The Chancellor’s hit men.” Sull didn’t seem preoccupied with escape now. His mind was on events, and he looked past A’den as if there were someone standing to one side of him. He saw ghosts; Darman and every commando who’d lost close brothers saw them, too. “We’re not the only hired help in town.”

  He’s just like us.

  Darman realized he didn’t know the Al
pha ARCs at all. Commandos and ARC troopers led totally separate lives on Kamino during training, bar necessary contact on exercises. Despite being part of Skirata’s company, Omega never spent time with the Nulls during those years, and they’d seemed every bit as scary and alien as the Alpha ARCs.

  So Alpha ARCs had buddies. Somehow he’d seen them as solitary killing machines, incapable of forming bonds like the tight-knit commando squads, and then—

  That’s how everyone sees us.

  Darman realized he’d done what most civvies seemed to. He’d drawn a line beyond which someone else was less than him, just as citizens thought all clones were flesh machines, wet droids as Skirata used to call them, things sent to die because they weren’t like real people and so it was okay.

  If that’s how easy it is to think that way…

  Niner risked a comment. “So that’s the punishment for going over the wall. I’m not sure we should be surprised.”

  “No, chum, you’ve got it wrong,” said A’den. “This isn’t punishment. Is it, Sull?”

  All the fight seemed to have drained out of the ARC. Maybe he was just waiting to die. “No, because punishment is a deterrent. And to deter anyone, they have to know what’ll happen to them. But nobody gets told about ARCs who are executed.”

  “Killed because they know too much?” Atin asked.

  “Killed because they’re nek battle dogs.” A’den ran the tip of his vibroblade under his nails and inspected the manicure. “Once they’re too old to fight, they can’t be tamed as house pets. Dangerous, savage things. They have to be put down. Don’t they, Sull’ika?”

  “You can shove your Mando camaraderie,” Sull said, “but you’ve got it about right. And they’ll come for you, too, when you can’t—or won’t—fight any longer, Null boy. Nobody leaves the Grand Army. What do you think they had in mind for us when we weren’t any more use, putting us out to stud?”