Triple Zero

by Karen Traviss

  “Sergeant…”

  “Then don’t ask them, either. In fact, we never had this conversation. All you’ve done is tell me you can’t ask the Senate to give its blessing to a change in the GAR’s terms of reference.”

  “But I know what you’re suggesting,” Zey said.

  Skirata was fidgeting with his blade. Ordo could see it: it was a tiny movement, but he could detect the flex of his forearm muscles through his jacket. Skirata had the point of the blade resting on his curled middle finger and was pressing it ever so slightly up and down, a preparation for dropping and catching the grip.

  “The Jedi Council is pretty adept at turning blind eyes,” Skirata said. “For an organization that knew it was taking on an army with an assassination capability, you do send out conflicting signals to simple soldiers like me.”

  Vau was watching the exchange like a man being mildly amused by a holovid. The strill yawned with a thin, high-pitched whine.

  “The difference the Senate will see,” Zey said, “is that this is Coruscant.”

  “General, the days when wars were fought elsewhere while the home fires were kept burning are long gone.”

  “I know. But there are armies, and there are… bounty hunters and assassins. And the Senate will be wary of crossing that line on home ground.”

  “Well, that’s what tends to happen when you let a bunch of… bounty hunters and assassins train your army.”

  “We didn’t know we even had an army until a year ago.”

  “Maybe, but the fact that you’re sitting here now with a general’s rank means you’ve accepted responsibility for it. You could have objected, collectively or individually. You could have asked questions. But no. You picked up the blaster you found on the floor and you just fired it to defend yourself. Expedience ambushes you in the end.”

  “You know what the alternative was.”

  “Look, General, I need to clarify a few things, being just a simple assassin and all that. Answer a few questions for me.”

  Zey should have been furious that a mere sergeant was treating him as if he were an annoyingly pedantic clerk rather than a battle-hardened general. To his credit, he seemed more intent on a solution. Ordo wondered where expedience ended and pragmatism began.

  “Very well,” said Zey.

  “Do you want to stop attacks on vulnerable targets that are starting to compromise the ability of the GAR to deploy and are destroying public confidence in the Senate’s ability to defend the capital?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you think it’s a good idea for some of our hard-pressed special forces lads to have an unprecedented break on Coruscant after months in the field?”

  Zey paused, just a breath. “Yes.”

  “Do you need to ask anyone else to authorize that purely administrative matter?”

  “No. General Jusik is responsible for personnel welfare.”

  Ordo kept his face utterly blank. Leave? There was never any leave for the GAR, or their Jedi command in the front line. Neither would have known what to do with free time anyway.

  Jusik looked pinned down. “I do believe some R and R would be a good idea, actually.” Skirata smiled at him with genuine warmth. Jusik was all right, one of the boys, all desperate courage and desire to belong. It was hard to tell if he was now playing the game or just being a decent officer. “I’ll look into it.”

  “And sir,” Skirata said, “is it true that you knew all along that I was a complete chakaar who could never follow orders, who kept you in the dark, who treated his squads like his own private army, and was generally a Mando lowlife just like Jango and the rest of that mongrel scum?”

  Zey leaned back in his seat and pinched the end of his nose briefly, staring hard at the blue stone table.

  “I do believe I might realize that at some time in the future, Sergeant.” The corners of his eyes crinkled for the merest fraction of a second, but Ordo spotted it. “I have my suspicions. Proving them is hard, though.”

  Zey was all right, too, then.

  Vau had been watching the exchange with mild interest, and Ordo had been watching him, because he knew the man all too well.

  “Sergeant Vau, do you have any view on this… ah… leave situation?” said Ordo.

  “Oh no, I’m just a civilian now,” Vau said. The strill rumbled. Vau, apparently distracted, fondled its ghastly, stinking head, his slightly narrowed eyes revealing a doting affection that he never seemed to spare for any other living creature. “I’m just hanging around. When those detainees are released, I’ll offer them a room for a while, and I’ll have a conversation with them. Nothing to do with the GAR or the Senate at all. Merely a private citizen doing what he can to welcome visitors to Coruscant.”

  Jusik was watching the exchange with an expression that suggested he was both excited and aware that the stakes had just been raised. They were subverting democracy in one sense, but they were also saving their political masters from a decision they could never be seen to take, yet had to.

  “That’s the worst thing about having chakaare like us around,” Skirata said. “We just wander off, find someplace that you don’t know about, and hole up in it and get into all sorts of mischief that you also know nothing about. And then we bill you for it. Dreadful.”

  “Dreadful,” Zey echoed. “Is this the kind of thing that CSF might notice?”

  “Were we to get a little out of hand, I imagine very senior officers in CSF might need to be reassured, but not by you.”

  “Dreadful,” Zey said. “Hypothetically, anyway.”

  Language was a wonderful thing, Ordo thought. Skirata had just told Zey that he was about to go bandit, as he called it, running an unauthorized shoot-to-kill operation in a civilian location and simply sending Zey the bill. Vau planned to interrogate the prisoners. CSF senior command would be placated by Skirata should anything go wrong, without any need for Zey to be involved. And yet Zey had authorized it all.

  And the subject had still not been discussed.

  “I wonder if anyone will notice our commandos on leave here,” Jusik said, apparently catching on.

  “Probably,” said Skirata. “And wouldn’t it be nice if we also extended that home deployment to honest ordinary clone troopers, lots of them? That’d be good for morale.”

  “And reassuring for the public to see soldiers in armor around the capital.”

  “I wonder how I can persuade the Senate officers that it’s a good idea?”

  Zey cut in. “Have you met Mar Rugeyan, the Senate’s head of public affairs? Just asking.”

  Skirata nodded. “I do believe I’ve had some contact with him, yes.”

  “Excellent,” Zey said. “I know you two will get along very well.”

  And the conversation that had never taken place was over.

  Skirata stood to leave, and Vau gave the strill a gentle shove to persuade it to drop to the floor. It complained in a gravelly rumble but settled at his feet, looking up at Skirata with red-rimmed gold eyes. Skirata’s hand was still cupped, arm at his side, in that way Ordo knew often preceded a fight.

  “Kal, I hear Atin’s returning,” Vau said.

  Skirata walked out of the room, head down, Ordo right behind him. Jusik followed.

  “You stay clear,” Skirata said quietly. “I’m meeting them all straight off Fearless. That includes Delta. And they’re not yours to run anymore, remember? You just sit tight at the barracks and wait for me to give you a location.”

  Ordo wasn’t fooled by Vau’s restrained politeness. Seven years ago Vau had loomed over him as a figure of authority in his black Mando armor for the first time, the strill at his heels. Its name was Lord Mirdalan. Ordo, like all the Nulls, had perfect recall; he sometimes wished he hadn’t. But at least it gave him clarity, and he knew the source of all his fears and anxieties. Lord Mirdalan—Mird—had lunged at him at Vau’s command, snapping.

  Ordo had drawn the little hold-out blaster that Skirata had let him keep and would have kill
ed the animal had Kal’buir not yelled, “Check!” and brought him to a frozen halt as his blaster aim came to rest between Mird’s eyes. Vau, Ordo recalled, had laughed: he said that Ordo was ge’verd—almost a warrior. And Skirata had aimed a kick at Mird to drive it off, saying there was no “almost” about it.

  Ordo watched the strill carefully. The creature trotted ahead of them, sniffing noisily in crevices and leaving behind a waft of pungent scent and a trail of drool.

  “If that thing’s going to accompany you on jobs,” said Skirata, “you’d better keep it under control, or find a use for a strill pelt.”

  He drew up his arm and flicked his wrist before even Ordo could react. The three-sided blade shaved past Mird and thudded into the polished pleekwood floor a pace ahead of it. The knife vibrated to a standstill.

  Mird squealed, leaping sideways. Ordo stepped between Vau and Skirata ready to defend Kal’buir in yet another confrontation with the man he loathed.

  But Skirata just turned to fix Vau with a stare that said he wasn’t joking. Vau stared back, his long hard face suddenly a killer’s again.

  “It’s not the strill’s fault,” Skirata said. He walked a few paces forward and pulled the knife from the floor. The strill backed away from him, lip curled back to reveal its fangs. “But you have your warning, both of you. We need to get this job done, and that’s the only reason I haven’t gutted both of you already. Understood?”

  “I’ve moved on,” said Vau. “And it’s time you did, before I end up having to kill you.”

  Ordo really didn’t like that. He ejected the custom vibroblade in his gauntlet, a better weapon at close quarters than his blasters.

  Skirata gave him the palm-down gesture: Leave it. “Stay useful, Walon.” He beckoned Jusik and Ordo to follow him. “And I hope that Atin’s moved on too, because I won’t stand in his way now.”

  “How far is too far, Kal? Can you answer that? How far did you go?” Vau called after him. “I made that boy a warrior. Without me, he wouldn’t be alive today.”

  With him, Ordo thought, Atin very nearly wasn’t.

  “Why didn’t you mention to Zey that we might also have a leak within the Grand Army?” Ordo asked.

  “Because,” Skirata said, “I can’t assume I know who it isn’t. The leak might not even know that they’re the one, either. Until then, only the strike team will know we’re looking.”

  “What about Obrim? He’s an ally.”

  “I hope so. But in the end, who are the only people we can really trust?”

  “Ourselves, Kal’buir.”

  “So we make sure we know who’s watching our back—kar’tayli ad meg hukaat’kama.”

  It was good advice to live by. Ordo knew who always watched his.

  RAS Fearless, inbound, to Coruscant Sector Control, 369 days after Geonosis

  “I really should make a holo of this,” Commander Gett said. He reached into the assortment of pouches clipped to his belt and took out a small recorder. “It doesn’t happen that often.”

  Etain and the commander of the assault ship stood on the gantry that ran around the upper hangar bulkhead and watched the extraordinary spectacle beneath them on the deck. She had heard of this thing, but never seen it. It was the Dha Werda Verda—a Mandalorian ritual battle chant.

  Men from the Forty-first Elite and some of the ship’s company—about fifty in all, helmets off—were learning to perform it with some instruction from Fi and Scorch. Sev—easy to spot by the blood-red streaks daubed on his helmet—sat on an ammunition crate nearby, cleaning his sniper attachment and looking as if he wasn’t interested in joining in.

  He was, of course. Etain could sense it, and she wasn’t even properly attuned to Sev’s presence in the Force.

  The Dha Werda looked fearsome. General Bardan Jusik—a young man who barely came up to a clone commando’s shoulder—said he loved to see it, and drew so much courage from it that he learned to perform it with his men. It was Kal Skirata’s legacy; Jusik explained that the veteran sergeant wanted his men to know their heritage and taught them the rite along with Mandalorian language and culture.

  Taung—sa—rang—bro-ka!

  Je—tii—se-ka—’rta!

  The commandos were layering rhythm upon rhythm, hammering first on their own armor and then turning to beat the complex tempo on the plates of the man next to them. Timed precisely, it was spectacular: timed wrong, a soldier could break the next man’s jaw.

  Dha—Wer-da—Ver-da—a’den—tratu!

  Cor—u—scan—ta—kan—dosii—adu!

  Duum—mo—tir—ca—’tra—nau—tracinya!

  Gra—’tua—cuun—hett—su—dralshy’a!

  It was irresistible, ancient, and hypnotic.

  The chant rose from the hangar deck in one solid communal voice. She recognized words like Coruscanta and jetiise: Coruscant, Jedi. That couldn’t have been in the original Mandalorian chant. Even their heritage had been remolded to serve a state in which they had no stake. It was, Etain recalled, something to do with being shadow warriors and forcing traitors to kneel before them.

  They were supremely fit warriors displaying their discipline and reflexes: any flesh-and-blood enemy would have been adequately warned of the power of the forces that awaited them.

  But droids didn’t have the sense to be scared. That was a pity, really.

  Etain winced. The blows looked real. They were putting all their weight behind every one.

  Astonishingly, none of the initiates had yet timed the movements badly enough to receive an accidental blow in the face. Fi and Scorch demonstrated another sequence. Armor clashed. Sev abandoned his feigned disinterest, took off his helmet and joined in. Then Darman appeared and they formed a line of four in the front.

  It was strange to watch Darman actually enjoying himself, oblivious to his surroundings: she had no idea that he had such a powerful voice or that he could—for want of a better word—dance.

  “Jusik always talks about this,” said Etain.

  “I’ve seen a few squads do it,” Gett said. “It came via Skirata, I hear.”

  “Yes.” Etain was wondering how she would ever measure up to that man. Halfway would have been enough. “He taught all the commandos to live up to their Mandalorian heritage. You know—customs, language, ideals.” She was mesmerized by the unconscious precision of men who were all exactly the same height. “It’s very weird. It’s like they have a compulsion to do it.”

  “Yes, we do,” Gett said. “It’s very stirring.”

  “I’m sorry. That was rude of me.”

  “No problem, General. It certainly wasn’t part of our trooper training on Kamino. It gets passed on from man to man now.” He looked restless. She knew what he was thinking. “General—”

  “Give me the recorder,” she said, and smiled. “Go ahead.”

  Gett touched his glove to his brow and shot off down the ladder to the deck, sliding the last three meters on the handrails. It was delightful to see the mix of armor—yellow-striped commanders and pilots, plain white troopers, and the motley mix of commando colors—drawn together in one ancient Mandalorian ritual, every face the same.

  Etain felt adrift, excluded.

  She had never truly felt this degree of bond with her Jedi clan. The connection in the Force was there, yes, but… no, the real strength here was attachment, passion, identity, meaning.

  She thought of Master Fulier, the man who insisted she have a second chance as a Padawan and not be consigned to build refugee camps because she lacked control. The man who was also passionate and prone to taking on causes: the Jedi who lost his life because he couldn’t stay out of a fight when Ghez Hokan’s militia roughed up the locals on Qiilura.

  Etain thought that wasn’t such a bad sort of Jedi to be. Not textbook, but centered on fair play and justice. The clone soldiers were worth that, too.

  She was suddenly aware of Darman looking up at her, grinning, and if it hadn’t been for his armor and surroundings he could have
been any young man showing off his prowess to a woman. She smiled back.

  She still envied him his focus and discipline, especially as he had somehow managed not to lose it after being exposed to a galaxy that didn’t quite resemble the ideal he had probably been taught about on Kamino.

  But Kal Skirata had largely been responsible for his training. She didn’t know Skirata yet, but one thing she was certain of was that he was—just like a Jedi—a pragmatic man who dealt in reality.

  The Dha Werda went on for verse after repeated verse. Then the klaxon sounded and the pipe came over the address system.

  “Port duties men close up. Damage and fire control parties to stations. Prepare to dock.”

  Commander Gett broke out of the ranks and came bounding back up the ladder, wiping sweat from his face with a neatly folded piece of cloth.

  “General, will you come to the bridge to see the ship alongside?”

  “I won’t be much help, but I’d like that, yes.”

  It was as if she were leaving a ship after a long association, a retiring captain. She was only a temporary officer, but still Gett treated her as if she actually had some importance to the crew, and she found that touching. She stood at the command console and watched as the docking grapnels and platforms slipped past the viewscreen and the crew maneuvered Fearless on instruments. Gett had the con. “Stop reactor.”

  “Stop reactor, Commander… reactor stopped.”

  Fearless’s secondary propulsion shivered into silence. The vessel slipped gradually into dock on the power of tugs bringing her alongside port-side-to, as Etain had now learned to call it. She walked slowly across the bridge to watch the dockside team getting a brow in place to disembark those members of the crew being transferred and to allow maintenance and replenishment teams to board.

  There was the slightest of jarring sensations as the ship came to rest against huge dock fenders. Fearless was back safely in her home port—for the time being.