501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (42 page)

“Kal, you
know
that the Sith are bad news. They’re evil. They’ve always been the cause of endless war and carnage across the galaxy.”

“Oh, that’s a good one,” Skirata said. He mimicked Zey’s baritone growl. “ ‘My decapitations are more morally valid than
your
decapitations.’ Only difference I can see is that they
plan
to end up with trillions dead, and you do-gooders manage it by accident.”

“I’m not asking you to save the Jedi Order, Kal. I’m not even asking you to save me. I can leave. I should never have come here.”

“The only way you’re leaving here is dead, Zey. Because I wouldn’t trust you not to shop us filthy Mando savages to the Empire.”

It was pointless telling
Kal’buir
that Zey was genuine, and broken. Skirata would find no pity. He even seemed torn about Maze. Jusik felt the conflicting waves of sympathy and anger when Skirata looked at the man.

Skirata stared up into Maze’s face. “Just tell me,” he said quietly, “that you didn’t do this out of loyalty.”

Maze leaned over just a fraction. No, he wasn’t intimidated by Skirata at all. “I did it because I thought he should get a fair trial. And because he used to make the
caf in the office. It’s funny how the little things tell you all you need to know about the man.”

“So, give you a pot of caf—no sugar, splash of cream, maybe some nice cookies—and it’s okay to send men to their deaths without asking them if they mind.”

Ordo hovered, ready to intervene. Maze wasn’t scared of him, either, even though the Null had once punched him out. Maze stabbed a finger at Skirata but stopped short of jabbing it in his chest.

“Zey’s here,” he snarled. “I’m responsible for that, the war’s over, and you need to change the recording, Sergeant, because it’s getting kind of monotonous.”

“He’ll get you killed.”

“So? It’ll be
my choice
. I’m not one of your poor dumb victim clones. You didn’t free them from the Jedi. You just brainwashed them for Mandalore. When are you going to let them think for themselves?”

“Right
now,”
said Ordo.

Just as Ordo’s fist came up, Jusik reacted instinctively and Force-pushed him backward. Maze staggered back a few steps as if the aborted punch had landed; the wake of another Force-push tugged at Jusik as it ebbed. For a split-second both clones looked disoriented, and Zey grabbed Maze’s arm.

“That was you, was it?” Maze asked.

“Sorry.” Zey shook his head. “Don’t fight over this. Please.”

“Come on.” Jusik stepped between Skirata and Maze.
“Buir
, go for a walk. Everyone, get out and leave us to talk. You two as well.”

Ordo herded Skirata to the door, somehow forcing Kina Ha and Scout ahead of them. Maze scowled but looked to Zey for a nod to go.

“Just remember what you are,
Bard’ika,”
Ordo said.

It was one of those moments when Jusik felt he was broadcasting his innermost fears. The doors closed and he was alone with his old Master. The truly odd thing was that he had no sense of the past now, no memory of how it actually
felt
to be tied to Zey in apprenticeship.
He recalled all the details. He simply couldn’t reproduce the emotions.

“Some things can’t be undone,” Zey said. “I should have known Skirata would react like that. And he’s right. He owes me nothing, and all I can bring him is more trouble. I’m sorry, Bardan.”

Jusik struggled. He wanted to be a good
Mando’ad
. “So where will you go?”
Why am I asking him that? Am I shaking him down for information
? “What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. I can’t run forever.”

“And Maze?”

“He put his life on the line for me. As an equal, in case you were wondering. I’ve got to consider his welfare.”

Jusik decided not to mention Altis. “I need to know something.” He didn’t feel right calling Zey by
any
name now—Master, General, Zey, Arli, anything. He didn’t know what Zey was to him any longer, only that the man had been instrumental in his youth, and that had to count for something. “Are you going to try to rebuild what the Jedi had before?”

“Is this a trick question?”

“I need to know if anything I do to help you will end up cutting my brothers’ throats one day.”

“What did we ever do to you, Bardan? What did
I
do to you to drive you away like this? It’s not just a principled stand about the degeneration of the Order—much as I respect that.”

“I’m still working it out.” All or nothing; that was how Jusik was, and he knew it. He was raised in one cult and he moved seamlessly into another. He
knew
all that; he understood why the bond of combat transcended even family, too, but that didn’t mean he had any control over it. He’d settle and find an equilibrium in years to come, but not now. He couldn’t face his Jedi past for so many reasons. Mandalore represented unquestioning acceptance and space to work it all out. “This is my family. I need to be here for them. I’ll do what I can for you, but not at their expense.”

“Was it losing Etain that tipped you?” Zey asked. “We all lost too many friends. There’s nobody left.”

“Maybe there is.” Jusik felt Zey’s pain. Maze must have been the only person left that he could trust. “Did you think Maze would shoot you?”

Zey ran his huge hand through shaggy graying hair, eyes shut. “Right up to the moment the blaster bolt hit the wall a meter from me. I didn’t even sense his emotions.”

“Good man, Maze.”

“Good friend. Yes.”

“Come on, I’ll show you to a room. We’ve got plenty. Kal will calm down, and then we can talk sensibly.”

“Buir
means father, doesn’t it?”

“Yes. He adopted me.”

Zey didn’t say another word. He just put his hand on Jusik’s shoulder as they walked down the passage, diverting via another corridor to avoid the kitchen. Jusik could hear the voices there. He showed Zey into one of the spare bedrooms still waiting for deserters in need of a new identity, threw him a towel from the cupboard, and left him to clean up. Then he went in search of Jaing.

Jaing was in the small workshop that he’d set up in another bedroom. Screens and scopes covered every shelf, and a thick wooden plank of a workbench stretched across the width of the wall. Kom’rk had claimed a corner to himself and was hunched over a 2-D holochart, tapping numbers into a datapad, completely absorbed in the calculation.

“Who’d have thought it,
Bard’ika?”
Jaing said, not looking up from the screen in front of him. “Saucy old
di’kut
, showing up like that. Moral of the story—always go back and check for a pulse.”

“Ordo’s never going to live that down,” Kom’rk muttered. “Ha … ha …”

Jaing printed out some more data. “Is it hard for you? Zey, I mean. The Master-Padawan relationship must be pretty close.”

“No different from families. Or marriages.” Jusik didn’t want to be dissected. “Some are great. Some aren’t. Some don’t get on at all. Me and Zey … I don’t know. More managerial than paternal.”

“But he’s not an innocent bystander like Kina Ha or Scout. Command rank’s got to mean something.” Jaing paused, smiling to himself as if he’d found something juicy in the files. “Still, it’s hard to cap someone who’s just standing there looking pathetic, even when you know you’ll regret it one day if you don’t.”

“I’ll do it,” Kom’rk said. “Nothing personal. Just necessary.”

“Or we could use them to our advantage.” Jaing tapped his finger on the pile of flimsi. “Because one day, the Empire’s going to really tick us off, and we’ll need the skills of some saber-jockeys who owe us.”

Kom’rk laughed. “They’ve owed a lot of people for a long time. Don’t see much of them repaying their debts.”

“Yes, but there are ways of enforcing moral obligation.” Jaing grinned. He always did. He enjoyed problems and had complete confidence of his own ability to solve them. “Like by keeping a firm grip of their
gett’se.
”

Jusik could see the logic. And he found it telling that Jaing could think of him as both an ex-Jedi and a non-Jedi in the same breath.
“Buir
wants the Jedi out of our lives, advantages or not.”

“Let’s not be too hasty. We know where their bolt-holes are, and with a little ingenuity we can track their movements. They step out of line—the Empire gets a treasure map with
here be Jedi
on it.”

Kom’rk laughed again. “That boy’s sick.”

“You got that location yet?” Jaing asked. “Chop-chop. Get a move on.”

“In a minute. It’s looking like the Plawal Rift.”

“What is?” Skirata asked.

“Their main safehouse for their kids. I think they call
it Plett’s Well. Some of the data on here is from the Jedi temple archives.”

Blackmail; it sounded ugly, but having dirt on others and others having dirt on you was a glue that bound folks together across the galaxy. It was as much a power for balance and harmony as the Force.

“Of course, if we know where they’re holed up, we could just wipe out the rest of them now,” Kom’rk said. “Or even do a deal with the Empire. But I don’t trust any of them.”

Jusik took to heart the Mandalorian saying that an enemy’s enemy wasn’t always your friend. If they were, then it wouldn’t be for long.

“Ordo thinks I’m going soft on my old associates,” Jusik said. “I can’t blame him.”

“Are you?”

“Do
you
think I am?”

“Nah. Do you want me to shoot you if you are?”

Kom’rk had that kind of deadpan humor. But humor had its serious purpose in life.

“Yes,” Jusik said, half-meaning it. “Make it before I do any real damage.”

Jaing just looked up at Kom’rk, the slightest pause as if it wasn’t funny.

“You got it,
ner vod,”
Kom’rk said, and went back to his holochart.

“The droid came in to fix your helmet,” Rede said, strapping on his belt. “It’s over there. He said there was nothing wrong with it and you need to read the manual.”

Darman draped his towel around his neck, rubbing his wet hair with one end, and stared at the helmet sitting on the bunk. He couldn’t recall reporting a fault. Then it dawned on him; the droid was Jaing’s buddy, the one that had modded Niner’s bucket to give him a secure
route to the Nulls. Jaing didn’t hang about. The audio link was installed.

I can talk to Kad. I can talk to Fi and Atin, too. And Corr. And
Kal’buir.

Darman’s mood lifted instantly. It was almost as good as being there. He checked the chrono on the wall and tried to work out what time it was at Kyrimorut, then realized he had no idea because he didn’t know where the place was. Without a reading for longitude, he couldn’t work it out.

I’ll call anyway. Whoever answers won’t mind being woken up
.

“We haven’t
got
a manual,” Darman said.

“Maybe he was joking.”

Maybe Rede was, too. It was hard to tell. The kid soaked up experience and knowledge like a sponge, and Darman found it a bit unnerving. He found himself saying things that Skirata used to say back on Kamino, when he was surprised by how fast clones assimilated things, and how they changed before his eyes.

They grow up too fast
.

Is that Sergeant Kal’s voice, or mine? And who am I talking about—Rede, or my son
?

A month was nearly a couple of years in terms of Rede’s development. Darman watched him going through the checklist on his DC-17, with none of the unconscious ease that years of using the rifle had given the Kamino commandos. He wondered if that meant Rede would carry on aging at that same rate. It was a pretty depressing thought. The new clones might be even worse off than Darman’s generation.

He knew that
Kal’buir
had Dr. Uthan working on a way around that. But he wasn’t going to bank on it.

Niner was still in the ’freshers, but Ennen was sitting on the edge of his bunk, half dressed in his undersuit and lower body plates. He was staring at the floor tiles. The squad was supposed to muster at 0600 hours, which didn’t leave any time to slob around. Darman rapped the chrono on the wall to get Ennen’s attention.

“Hey, look sharp,
ner vod
. Doors to kick down, stuff to blow up.”

Ennen took a few moments to react. “What’s the point? Where’s the peace and freedom and all that garbage we were supposed to see when we got the job done? What
is
all that, anyhow?”

Darman knew it was about missing Bry. He’d seen it before with other men. They would go on coping with losses for a long time, and then one death—not always their closest brother, but usually—would hit them hard enough to knock the stuffing out of them. Ennen had fought for three tough, bloody years alongside Bry, and now Bry was gone.

Dar and Niner had something to look forward to. It might have been out of reach at the moment, but it was there; it was full of promise and potential that he could still see, even through the daily pain of thinking of all the ways Etain wouldn’t be there to share it with him.

I’ve got a son. I’ve got a home to go to one day. So has Niner
.

“You want to talk,
ner vod
?”

Ennen glanced at the chrono on his wrist. “We got to go now.” He stood up and attached his chest and back plates. “The war’s over. It’s over, and Bry made it, and then he gets killed
when it’s over
. If I thought there was a purpose to it, something more than this, I think I could take it. But it’s just going to be this day after day, isn’t it? Until we’re all dead with nothing to show for it.”

The sound of running water stopped. Darman could hear Niner whistling as he dried himself. In the sergeant’s absence, he had to deal with this.

“Ennen, you just have to get through this bad patch.” How could Darman tell him he
knew
how pointless life could feel, because he’d lost his wife? “We’ve all been there. Even Delta, remember? Look, Holy Roly doesn’t mind us going to cantinas. When we get back, how about we go and get an ale, and work all this out?”

Ennen stared at him for a moment as if he was looking for the catch, then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s do that. If I
had something to make sense of this, some end in sight, it’d make a difference. I just can’t see anything.”