True Colors

by Karen Traviss

  “It’s Darman and Etain’s son,” he said. “Venku.”

  “Oh. Oh.” The information floated on a current of disbelief before sinking in and shocking her. “Oh my.”

  “This is going to be a little awkward for a while. Darman hasn’t a clue he’s a father. I’m still deciding if he’s ready to find out.”

  Besany couldn’t take her eyes off the baby. He was real, a real live baby, lying on her sofa. She still had trouble taking that in. “So that’s why Etain’s been out of touch for a while. I’d never have guessed.”

  “She wants to carry on as a general.” Venku woke and started fretting, making little ineffectual kicks. Skirata picked him up again with all the ease of a father who’d done this all before, a long time ago. “If the Jedi Council finds out she’s involved with Dar, then she gets kicked out. So as far as everyone except you, me, Bard’ika, Vau, the Nulls, and a select few on Mandalore is concerned, this is my grandson.”

  “Which he is, really.”

  “I’ve got such a tangled domestic past that it won’t surprise anyone to find my family dumping a kid on me.”

  “I suppose having him brought up on Mandalore was out of the question.”

  “If his father can’t raise him,” Skirata said, “then the duty falls to me.”

  Besany still had a lot to absorb about Mandalorian custom. “But you’re on active service. You live in the barracks, don’t you?”

  “Exactly. Now, I rented a place for Laseema by the Kragget restaurant, so I’m going to move in there for the time being and see how we cope between us.”

  Skirata was a compulsive fixer who could make anything happen through his extensive network of contacts. One day, Besany would ask tactfully about his life before the Grand Army, but she already knew it would give her sleepless nights. “You rented an apartment for her?”

  “You think I’d leave her stuck at Qibbu’s? You know how Twi’lek girls get exploited in cantinas like that. She’s Atin’s lady, and that means she’s family. I’m a regular at the Kragget and there are plenty of CSF lads using the place, so it’s secure.”

  He seemed a little embarrassed. Perhaps he was worried that Besany would feel he’d failed for not settling Laseema in a smart neighborhood like her own.

  I’m insane. I really should say no. What do I know about kids? “Okay, just bear in mind my office hours. Have you asked Jaller, too?”

  “I’ve asked a lot of him lately. I’d rather avoid asking again. But it’s the best compromise I could think of that still lets Etain see Venku when she’s not deployed.”

  “We’ll make it work,” she said. It sounded like the most insane promise she’d ever made. But then she’d abducted a comatose commando from the medcenter and done plenty of other ludicrously dangerous things recently; this was just one more act of lunacy on a growing list.

  Skirata gave the baby an exaggerated grin and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s normal for Mando boys to accompany their father on the battlefield from about eight years old, but I think Venku is going to be an early starter.”

  Besany tried to reconcile Skirata’s loathing of the Kaminoans for exposing small boys to live weapons fire with the Mandalorian tradition, but maybe the difference lay in knowing that your father was teaching you to survive, not conditioning you as a product. She wondered if the kids felt the difference. It was a question to ask Ordo.

  “So what happens now, Kal?”

  “Would you mind if I brought Omega Squad here to… well, introduce him? I can’t take him into the barracks. Zey might sense him. They can feel each other in the Force, Jedi.”

  Oh my, yes. His mother’s a Jedi. He’s… a Force-sensitive. Oh boy. We’ve collected the full set of problems.

  “Of course you can.” Besany had instant thoughts of what buffet food she might put on the table. She was always ready for guests who never came, and aware that she craved belonging; the pull of Skirata’s gang was that she never felt like an outsider there. “Are they back in town?”

  “I try to make sure they get the shorter missions, yes.” He held up his hands defensively. “I know, I know, I’ve got the best part of ninety boys from my original batch out in the field, but Omega are special.”

  “One day, are you going to level with me about everything?”

  “Even the stuff you’re better off not knowing?”

  “I’ve been under surveillance by Republic Intel and I’m digging in files that are awfully close to the Chancellor.” A lifetime of knowing what she didn’t need to ask and what was best left deniable went straight out the window. “I might as well know the worst.”

  “Okay.”

  Skirata picked up Venku and walked around the apartment with the infant cradled against his shoulder, gently patting his back and making doting-grandfather noises. Now wasn’t going to be the time she got the explanations, then. Maybe it needed a whole day’s debriefing program to cover a long career of removing people and things, or dragging them screaming to a client. She had no illusions. She knew the company Skirata kept.

  He came from a dirty world, as did Ordo. But she still felt cleaner in their world than she did in the glossy corridors of the Senate, or even on the street surrounded by citizens who were too preoccupied with the latest holovid to ask what was happening to their society lately.

  “Here,” she said, holding out her arms to take the baby. “Show me how to hold him. Introduce him to his aunt Besany.”

  Office of General Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces,

  SO Brigade HQ, Coruscant,

  547 days after Geonosis

  Etain knew this was going to be bad, despite the informal arrangement of comfortable chairs in the office and the caf on the small table, but she could take it.

  There was absolutely nothing that General Zey could say or do to her that would shift the gauge with her now. Okay, she might get weepy, but that was her postnatal hormonal chaos. She wasn’t ashamed.

  She had a child, and that changed the way she saw the whole galaxy.

  Jusik, also summoned for the refocusing conversation, sat with his arms folded across his chest like a little Skirata, exuding silent defiance. His beard was trimmed short, he’d braided his hair tightly into a tail, and suddenly he didn’t look quite so much like a Jedi despite the robes and lightsaber. He looked like a man—age unknown—who’d had enough.

  Etain gave him a gentle touch in the Force. It’ll be okay. He turned his head slightly and smiled, and it was clear that it would not be.

  “I’m delighted that you could both make it,” Zey said. It was going to be the weapons-grade sarcasm today, then. “Given your very busy schedules.” He gave Etain an especially long look. “The Gurlanins thanked me for your excellent work in evacuating Qiilura, General Tur-Mukan, and… your help in the reconstruction process.”

  You can’t touch me. I have a son. All I fear is for his welfare, and his father’s. Not mine. “I did what I could, sir.”

  “Intelligence reports that some of the displaced farmers have joined the Separatist resistance already.”

  “It was never going to be a popular decision, and yes, I incurred more non-GAR casualties than I would have liked.” Sew a label on that, Zey. “Commander Levet deserves a more experienced general.”

  Zey was still scrutinizing her closely. She felt him reach out in the Force, seeking out what he couldn’t detect with his ordinary senses. All he got was her fatigue and sense of accomplishment, but he misread it totally. “I can see it’s taken a toll on you.”

  “It has, sir.”

  “And you, General Jusik… I apologize for dragging you back from Dorumaa, but I’ve been concerned about you.”

  “I’m fine, sir.”

  “And I have no idea where you were for the last few weeks, but I doubt it was all spent on Dorumaa, no matter how loyal Delta are in covering for you.”

  Jusik didn’t answer, but it wasn’t a guilty silence. Zey looked from Jusik to Etain and back again, as if looking
for a break in the wall of conspiracy, and obviously didn’t find one. He defaulted to crashing through the wall in typical Zey style.

  “I want you both to listen carefully. We are very thinly stretched, and if I had Jedi to spare, I would have pulled both of you out of active service by now. You’re both competent, and I don’t doubt your good intentions, but you’re coming off the rails, both of you.” He paused. It was the I’ll-let-this-sink-in pause, and for some reason it made Etain bristle. “Now, I understand your comradeship with Skirata. He’s an excellent soldier, but you are Jedi, and we’re fast approaching the point where I can cut you no more slack. Get back on the chart. Start following a few procedures. Skirata is not your role model. He’s a Mandalorian.”

  “Yes sir,” Etain said.

  Zey didn’t get a word out of Jusik. “General? Does that make sense to you?”

  “I think we disagree on definitions, sir,” Jusik said carefully. “Like Jedi.”

  “Which is?”

  “I’m being a Jedi, sir. It’s something you live in every interaction you have with each living thing, not a philosophy you discuss in abstract terms. And I’m not sure that the kind of Jedi the Council wants us to be is good enough.”

  “Well, you wouldn’t be the first Jedi Knight or Padawan to be rebellious. It’s normal. I did it at your age.”

  “Then why aren’t you doing it now, sir?”

  “And what would I rebel against? The war?”

  “It’s a good place to start.”

  “Jusik, I’m not blind to the concessions we have to make, but I have to answer to the Council and to the Senate, so I don’t have the luxury of waging little crusades on the margins.”

  “But that’s we’re supposed to do, sir—make a difference as individuals. I’m sorry, but a Jedi’s primary duty isn’t to keep a government in power. It’s to help, to heal, to bring peace, to defend the vulnerable—and when those are just slogans we throw around, and not how we treat individuals, it’s worse than meaningless.” Jusik didn’t seem to have broken a sweat, and he left an impression of a sorrowful calm in the Force. Etain could feel a growing strength emanating from him like a lodestone. “So…” He paused and swallowed. “So I’m requesting a transfer, sir. I want to resign my commission and serve as a combat medic.”

  Zey’s shock was palpable. His expression softened, and whatever dressing-down he was getting ready to unload on Jusik seemed to have evaporated. Etain hadn’t been expecting this, either. This was a stranger sitting next to her: but the Jusik she had always known was in there somewhere.

  “I’m not sure there’s a mechanism for that, Jusik,” Zey said at last.

  “Okay.” Jusik nodded a few times, looking down into his lap for a moment. “I’ve given a lot of thought to the consequences of not leading my men in the field, and whether I’m making their situation worse by doing this, but I can’t live with it any longer. We sanction the use of a slave army. It’s against every single principle of our belief, and it’s a stain on us, and we will pay the price of our hypocrisy one day. This is wrong. Therefore I have to leave the Jedi Order.”

  And I’ve just left my baby in the care of others because I want to stay.

  Etain was in turmoil. She felt as strongly as Jusik did, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave now. Suddenly she couldn’t see the roots of her own motives; all the certainty she’d built so carefully—precious certainty, the thing she’d craved from the earliest days when she felt so unsure of her ability to be a good Jedi—crumbled, and she felt both a coward for not standing up like Jusik did, and yet unable to walk away from her troops.

  “You’re sure about that,” Zey said. It wasn’t a question.

  “I am, sir.”

  “Then may the Force be with you, Bardan Jusik. And I regret losing you. What will you do now?”

  Jusik looked as if a massive burden had been lifted from him. He also looked scared for the first time.

  “We always think the choices open to a Force-user are light side or dark side, Jedi or Sith, but I believe there are an infinite number of choices beyond those, and I’m going to make one.” He stood up and bowed his head politely. “May I keep my lightsaber, sir?”

  “You built it. You keep it.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  The doors opened and then hissed shut behind him. Etain was left in a wasteland. Zey let out a long breath.

  “I regret that,” he said. “I really do. Very well, General. Dismissed.”

  Etain walked to the doors and turned around just as they were closing. She caught a glimpse of Zey with his elbows on the desk, head propped on his hands, and knew that it wasn’t Jusik’s resignation that had deflated him, but that he had asked and answered the question that almost every other Jedi had chosen to ignore.

  It was a stain, indeed. And they could all see it.

  Besany Wennen’s apartment,

  Coruscant,

  548 days after Geonosis

  “Aren’t you a bit old to look after babies, Sarge?” Niner asked, crunching his way through a plate of crisp moss chips.

  Skirata gave him that special Mando hand gesture of friendly disagreement, the one he taught his boys never to use in front of polite company. “I raised you lot, didn’t I?”

  “But we were a bit older, and you had a team of care droids, and you were ten years younger.”

  Besany topped up the bowl of chips while Darman peered at the baby. With his wispy dark hair, Venku didn’t look much like Skirata, but then nobody had seen his kids and they would all have been in their thirties or forties now. He wondered what had happened to make them hand over a tiny child like that to a man fighting a war.

  But that was Mandalorians for you. They were compulsive adopters, and if someone was in trouble, they all pitched in. Skirata certainly looked besotted. He wrapped the child in a blanket with the deft hands of a man who knew how to handle babies, and cradled the bundle against his chest with a big grin. Etain and Besany were making a show of keeping the food coming, and Etain looked upset. Well, Jusik had walked out of the Jedi Order. It was a shock for everyone.

  Skirata swallowed hard as if he was going to start crying. He was so hard that he didn’t care who saw his emotions, and Darman admired that. “His name’s Venku.”

  “That’s nice,” Atin said. “What would you call a son, Corr?”

  “Not Sev, for a start…” They guffawed. “I’d go for Jori.”

  “That’s not a Mando name.”

  “I’m still catching up on Mandalorian stuff, guys. Just a white job who’s been promoted, okay?”

  Darman chewed over the question. “Kad,” he said. He was aware of Etain and Skirata looking at him. Maybe he wasn’t showing enough interest. “Kad’s a nice name.”

  He moved in a little closer; Etain looked uncomfortable and stared at her boots. Maybe she didn’t find babies as fascinating as Skirata did, but then it was his grandchild. It was to be expected.

  “Can I hold him?” Darman asked.

  He wanted to show some enthusiasm, because Skirata was… fierfek, this was his own father in as many senses of the word that mattered, the man who raised him. It was rude not to admire his grandson. Darman held out his arms, and Skirata hesitated with an expression on his face that Darman couldn’t fathom at all. It looked like sorrow.

  “Here you go, son.” Skirata laid the baby in Darman’s arms, moving them into position. There was a technique to baby holding, apparently. “They don’t react much at this age. They basically eat, sleep, and… need their diapers changed.”

  Darman, surprised at how heavy the bundle was, inhaled cautiously. Little Venku just smelled vaguely of powder and skin. But the baby did react: he opened his eyes and tried to turn his head, unfocused and totally uncoordinated. His eyes were pale blue-green and glassy.

  “He’s got your eyes, Sarge,” Darman said, lost for anything else to say. What he actually felt like blurting out was so inane that he didn’t dare: that babies were so tiny, so
helpless, that he couldn’t imagine ever having been so small. He had a vague memory of babies in glass vats in Tipoca City, but that was different. This was a real live kid in his arms, and he had no idea what to do next.

  “Their eyes change color,” Skirata said. Yes, there was a definite huskiness about Kal’buir’s voice, which usually meant he was emotionally charged about something. “They’re all blue at first, pretty well. Might be totally different in a few weeks.”

  “Right,” said Darman. “Do you want him back now?”

  “You can hold him as long as you want, son.”

  “I don’t think he’s comfortable with me.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I think he’s fine…”

  Darman felt inexplicably uneasy. The baby seemed to be doing his best to squirm toward him, and for a moment he felt as if Etain was reaching to him in the Force, but that was impossible. She was right there, right next to him, looking toward the doors as if she wanted to get out of the room as fast as she could.

  “I’d make a rotten father, wouldn’t I?” Darman said.

  Skirata looked him straight in the eye, still with that same expression that was somewhere between tears and contentment. “Dar’ika, you’ll make a great dad, believe me. A terrific dad.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but not yet.” It was the first thing that came into Darman’s head. The baby scared him, and he wasn’t used to fears he couldn’t come to terms with or remove. “I need to do some growing up first. Here, take him before I drop him.”

  Great. What a stupid thing to blurt out. It always upsets him when I talk about getting older.

  Skirata just smiled sadly and held out his arms to take Venku. Etain seemed uncomfortable and shot through the door. She was in a hurry to get somewhere, and Skirata jerked his head at Darman to follow her.

  “Go and take some time together,” he said, easing his hand into his pocket to take something out. “Just go and do normal couple stuff. Plenty of credits on this chip. Here. Go have some fun for a couple of days. We’ll eat all the food and talk about you when your back’s turned.”