501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (28 page)

It was an interesting thought. He set it aside when Ny suddenly took a left turn, an unplanned one that set her route computer chiming to tell her she was lost. Ordo looked around, expecting trouble.

“Relax,
ad’ike,”
she said. She was learning the odd
Mando’a
word or two. “Just a detour past somewhere I’d rather not overfly again—not yet. One day, though.”

“Where?” Mereel asked.

“Shinarcan Bridge.” Ny pressed her headset closer to her ear to follow the newscast. “And Palpatine’s just issued a statement about why he had to pacify Gibad … with a killer virus.”

“I killed them,” Uthan said. “This is all my doing.”

She sat with her head in her hands, elbows braced on the kitchen table. Jusik didn’t know where to begin to comfort her. He simply sat vigil with her, with Skirata and Gilamar at the table, while the rest of the household slept. It had been five hours since Gilamar had decided Uthan had had enough of watching the destruction of her civilization, brought to her courtesy of the Galactic News Network and the generous sponsorship of Kuat Drive Yards.

There wasn’t much you could say to a scientist whose bioweapon had just been used to slaughter millions of her own people. Jusik willed Skirata not to make the observation that those who lived by the sword also stood a good chance of dying by it, and had little right to gripe if they did. Then he had a fleeting moment of panic as he realized he’d come perilously close to mind-influencing
Kal’buir
without even thinking about it.

That’s not right. You know that’s the worst thing you can do. And you know he’s not susceptible
.

But at that moment, Skirata was; his guard was down. He glanced at Jusik as if he’d felt something. Where was the line between influencing someone the
wrong
way, and just being able to silently divert them from saying something because they knew you well enough to read the subtlest of gestures? Jusik had no idea if he’d used the Force or not. He found himself mired in guilt—guilt at having that ability, guilt at worrying about it when millions were dying, guilt for everything connected with Uthan. He berated himself both for not pitying Uthan’s grief enough but also for turning a blind eye to her job, which, at least in part, was killing at arm’s length in vast numbers.

Moral certainty. What a joke. After all my high-minded arguments with Master Zey about using clones, and here
I am suspending my morals because I want Uthan to save my brothers
.

But what could he do about a scientist like Uthan, other than disapprove? What did duty—ethics—demand when he came face-to-face with someone like that?

I don’t know. I just don’t. Should I bring her to justice? I don’t even know what justice is these days
.

Jusik’s influence, whatever it was, didn’t make Skirata pause for long. He tapped at his datapad, doing a passable act of being distracted.

“You sure it’s your virus?” he asked Uthan. “There’s plenty on the market for Palps to choose from.”

Uthan finally raised her head. Her face was gray, utterly drained of blood. “And what do
you
think he’d use to make his point?”

“But how do you know it’s your handiwork? Maybe he’s so good at messing with our minds that we’re doing his psy ops work for him.” Skirata slipped his ’pad back in his pocket. “What have you seen that makes you think it’s yours?”

Uthan looked at the dead holoreceiver’s screen for a few silent moments. “It’s mine, believe me.”

She got up and pushed her chair slowly back from the table. Gilamar gave Skirata a discreet nod to say he’d take care of things, and followed her out of the room.

Jusik waited until their footsteps had faded and switched the news back on again. Gibad wasn’t even the top headline on the hourly bulletins now. The attention span of the galactic news services was just as short as it had been under the Republic, and Palpatine’s propaganda machine didn’t have to work terribly hard.

One man—one Sith—can’t do it alone. He needs help from the lazy and disinterested
.

“Fierfek.” Skirata shook his head. “The old
shabuir
picks his moments.”

Jusik strained to focus on the small detail of the holocam shots of Gibadan cities. Disasters all had a sameness about them—cityscapes that looked almost normal, almost familiar, until the debris in the streets suddenly
resolved into bodies, and the whole scene changed. Along the lower edge of the screen, brief headlines faded in and out. Some were relevant to the images, and some were totally different stories. Nobody paused and examined anything carefully anymore. Jusik could still concentrate, though, and he followed the headline as it scrolled laboriously.

FUGITIVE GIBADAN SCIENTIST BEHIND BIOWEAPON—VIRUS COULD HAVE BEEN USED AGAINST EMPIRE, SOURCES SAY
.

“It’s hers, all right,” Jusik said. “Look. Palps has outed her.”

Skirata frowned at the screen, seeming distracted. “He’s a real sweetie, isn’t he?”

“Why’s he bothering to name her?” Jusik asked. “He doesn’t need to justify himself, and there won’t be many Gibadans left to bay for her blood.”

“Could be plenty of expats left elsewhere, though. He might think they’ll turn her in and save him some time.”

“But he’s got what he wants from her.”

“Well, he’s not got the clone-specific virus, or an extended life … and he’s a sore loser.” Skirata rubbed his eyes. “But how are we going to keep her mind on her aging research when she’s just watched her own world go down the ’fresher thanks to one of her recipes?”

Skirata had his priorities, and they obviously didn’t include weeping for Gibad. Jusik understood why that was a step too far for him. It wasn’t the first world to feel Palpatine’s fist, and it wouldn’t be the last; all that mattered was that it wasn’t Mandalore. But Jusik still felt a gut-level resistance to the idea of lying low, a need to do something that he couldn’t define, even if he knew it was pointless.

“Is that a rhetorical question,
Kal’buir?”
he asked.

“No. I need to keep her motivated, and the best I can come up with is reminding her that we might end up being her only tool for revenge.”

“You think she’ll want vengeance?”

“She’s human. Wouldn’t you? Okay, maybe not …”

“It’s hard to put those feelings aside, even with my training.”

Jusik had come to accept his darker, unlovely side. Every being had one. Denying it was dangerous delusion. Anyone who thought it could be removed by meditation or willpower simply failed to recognize ugly motives for what they were, and gave them a perverse spiritual respectability.
You can kill without falling to the dark side if you don’t feel anger or hate. That’s what the Masters taught me. Oh, really? Tell that to the being you kill
. Jusik needed to know his normal, acceptable,
inevitable
human darkness, to shake hands with it and know its face, so that he could always recognize it in the shadows. He had to be able to see the brink to step back from it.

“What we need,” Skirata said, eyes fixed on a point just past Jusik, “is for Uthan to work up a countermeasure for that
shabla
virus, in case Palpatine tries to use it on
us.
”

“But that’s going to divert her from the aging research.”

“A virus will kill my boys long before rapid aging does. So we need to find a way of getting both jobs done. Maybe
Mij’ika
can soften her up.”

Jusik was never sure whether Skirata—a very emotional man, without doubt—could feel much for strangers these days. There was only so much compassion anyone could expend in a lifetime without going under, and Skirata had already taken on the burden of every passing clone who needed help. It wasn’t fair to see him as callous toward Uthan simply because he had other priorities. And Jusik knew it was all too easy to pity vast numbers of strangers on principle without being able to apply that to flesh and blood standing right in front of you.

I used to be so sure what was right. Didn’t I
?

Gilamar had been a loyal friend to Skirata for years. Jusik tried to find the acceptable line between exploitation
and making the most of a friendship for mutual benefit. It wasn’t easy.

“She’ll want to lash out at Palpatine.” Jusik knew he was complicit from that second onward. “I could feel her helplessness, and she’s not used to it. She lives in a world where she does rational things and gets results from them. She’s used to having control. Even in jail.”

Skirata raised an eyebrow. “I know what you’re thinking.”

“You never needed Force senses,
Kal’buir
. I’m a lousy sabacc player.”

“Yes, I
will
use her any way I can. She made the
shabla
thing. She knows she’s got to do something—either to atone, or to thwart Palpatine. I don’t care which, and I don’t feel bad about exploiting that guilt. I might even be purging it for her.”

“I’m not arguing.”

“I care what you think of me,
Bard’ika
. I’m still honoring the deal I made with her.”

Jusik didn’t feel comfortable holding that much sway over Skirata. It wasn’t the way things should have been; a son needed the approval of his father, not the other way around, and Jusik felt very much the son who had most to prove.
Kal’buir
was his benchmark of devotion, so selfless that it wiped the slate clean of his long criminal history. If he stole or killed these days, he did it for those he loved, and that included Jusik.

It’s not the dark side if you don’t feel hate or anger
.

The old dilemma wouldn’t go away. Jusik realized he applied the same self-justification as any of his former Jedi brethren. The difference was … 
shab
, he couldn’t work it out. It just felt different somehow.

“I know,
Kal’buir,”
he said. “Do you think she ever tested it on humans?”

“Well, we know she never had the chance to test it on clones. I don’t want to think about what scientists get up to behind closed doors. Turns my gut.”

Jusik knew that the action of drugs, bacteria, and viruses could be modeled on computers, their biochemical
actions predicted and plotted. But he found himself feeling worse for thinking that a virus designed solely to kill had been
tested
on anything living. It was a strange sensation. He was suddenly conscious of the weight of his lightsaber on his belt, and wondered exactly when and how some ancient Jedi had worked out that an energy beam could take off someone’s head.

Nobody’s hands were completely clean. All any being could do was to strive to make sure the dirt was kept to a minimum.

“I think you should just come straight out and ask her for the antibody, and tell her why,” Jusik said at last. “She responds to reason.”

Skirata nodded. Then he levered himself to his feet, both hands braced on the arms of the chair. “Time I got some sleep,” he said. “They say you need less as you get older, but I just seem to need more.”

Skirata hadn’t slept in a proper bed since the night he saved the young Nulls from extermination in Tipoca City. He’d do what he’d done every night for the last eleven or twelve years: settle down in another chair with his feet up on a stool, or even curl up on the floor with a bedroll under his head as if he were still on the battlefield. He didn’t talk about it. Everyone knew why he did it. It was a habit that had become a ritual, his unspoken vow that he wouldn’t take it easy until his clone sons had their lives back. Jusik followed him into the
karyai
and watched him make himself comfortable—or what passed for it—on one of the upholstered seats.

He had a bedroom of his own, like everyone else. Only his clothing and his favorite Verpine sniper rifle occupied it.

“I’ll talk to her in the morning,” Jusik offered. “I won’t even mess with her mind.”

“I’ll do it. Me and her, we’ve got an understanding.”

Jusik recalled a comment
Kal’buir
had made a couple of years ago. He couldn’t remember what had led to it, but it had moved him deeply, and every so often it surfaced in his memory:
Bard’ika, if you ever want a father
,
then you have one in me
. Yes, Jusik often wanted a father. He’d been handed over to the Jedi long before he was old enough to have any memory of his own. But he was now part of a culture where fathers and fatherhood
mattered
—not lineage or bloodline, but the long and infinite duty to a youngster who depended on you. He badly wanted to be part of this family, a real part, formal and permanent.

“Kal’buir,”
Jusik said, “have you got room for another son?”

Skirata looked baffled for a few seconds, then smiled and held out his hand to grasp Jusik’s arm, Mando-style, hand to elbow. “
Ni kyr’tayl gai sa’ad, Bard’ika
. I recognize you as my child.”

Mandalorian adoption was fast and permanent, a few words to recognize someone as child and heir regardless of their age. Given the emotional weight behind it, the oath seemed almost inadequate.

“Buir,”
Jusik said.
Father
. Everyone called Skirata
Kal’buir
, a mark of affectionate respect, but the word was now changed forever for Jusik, because it was suddenly real and literal. He was finally someone’s son; someone with a name, someone he knew and cared about. For a man with no past, that sudden sense of completion was heady and unexpected. “I wonder where I’d be now if it wasn’t for you.”

Skirata let go of his arm. “Works both ways,
Bard’ika
. That’s what makes us family.”

The house was completely silent except for the crackle of embers in the
karyai
’s huge fireplace and the occasional click as roof timbers contracted. Jusik made his way down the passages to his room. He didn’t even remember falling asleep until he woke up staring into the dark vault of the ceiling, wondering what
that noise
was.

As always, it wasn’t just a noise. He sensed a whole package of other information with it via the Force. It was dread, confusion, and a need to run. He let it wash over him for a moment.