501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (50 page)

Ny watched Zey’s shoulders stiffen. “Altis?”

“Don’t go all doctrinal on me, Zey,” Skirata said. “You Jedi Order guys are all but extinct, so this isn’t the time to tell me you wouldn’t be seen dead in his temple.”

“I wasn’t. I just had no idea he’d survived, let alone that you knew him.”

“I don’t. But I will.” Skirata turned to Jusik. “You know how to find him,
Bard’ika
. And you, Zey—all I’m asking is that you saber-jockeys
learn
, and stay out of politics. Because if you don’t, and I’m still alive to hold a knife, I’ll personally find you and cut your throat.”

Skirata got up with slow care, wincing at stiff joints, and went outside. Ny heard the ’fresher doors close. Zey turned to her as if she was the umpire and he wanted her to tell him how the game was going.

“And he’d
let us go
, for all that?” Zey said. “He knows where Altis is, and he hasn’t turned him in?”

Ny could only shrug. “And would that save us?”

There were no deals to strike with this Empire.

She was fiercely proud of Skirata at that moment. It wasn’t about being kind to Jedi who’d almost become friends. She liked to think Skirata was ignoring his instincts and trying to do things differently, to break the cycle of revenge, even though history told him he was a fool to try.

He probably knew that. And Ny realized that nothing
would change, and that if she lived long enough, she’d see the same old wheel turn. But Skirata was the first to put the blaster aside. It didn’t matter if he failed. He’d done it.

You’re a good man, Shortie. I wasn’t wrong about you
.

Jango Fett wouldn’t have agreed, but he was dead, and Skirata had a duty to the living.

Jusik didn’t need to check any hard data when he landed the Aggressor starfighter. He was definitely in the right place. He didn’t even have to concentrate or check his instruments.

The place hummed with the Force presence of a
lot
of Jedi.

It’s like walking into the Temple again
.

He’d forgotten that feeling. Being away from the company of Jedi for so long, the sensation hit his senses afresh, and he was briefly disorientated by the sheer wealth of information in it. He shut his eyes and let it wash over him. If the
feel
of the Temple had been serene, restrained, a plain
gray
kind of sensation, then this gathering felt like … a patchwork, a vivid quilt, no two parts of it matching but somehow harmonious.

Djinn Altis’s community—or a large proportion of them—was very close. The sensation was oddly comforting.

Does this speak to me? Do I miss what I used to be
?

Jusik was constantly alert now for signs of backsliding. It worried him. Despite the fear any Jedi must have felt at that moment, the Altis sect seemed
happy
. Not serene, not purged of passions; happy,
actively
happy, in the way of people with fully lived and sometimes turbulent lives.

“Bard’ika
, have you nodded off?” Fi demanded.

Jusik opened his eyes. “Just feeling the Force. Who’s who, where’s where.”

“And?”

“They’re here.”

“Well, you did comm them first.”

“That poor woman. ‘Look, lady, no comm number stays secret from
me
forever  … ’ I hate myself for enjoying this sort of thing.”

“You going to tell them their information was compromised?”

“I ought to, but I won’t.
Kal’buir
can put the frighteners on them. He’s good at that.”

Fi put his helmet on, the red and gray one that had once belonged to Ghez Hokan. “Okay, let’s do it.”

“Fi, do
you
think this is a good idea?”

“Well, I like it better than killing old ladies. Even aiwha-bait old ladies. And little girls. Killing kids is plain wrong, even if she
is
older than me. Oh, unless they open fire on me first. Then they’re fair game.”

Jusik counted on his fingers. Yes, Scout had probably been born a year or two before Fi was hatched. He needed to remember that. It kept him focused on what Kyrimorut was all about. This off-loading of Jedi, this ducking and diving—that was a diversion, a sideshow. The main agenda was to give his brothers back their rightful
time
. He would grow old with them, not watch them fade fast and far too young.

He secured the Aggressor and stood surveying the area. It looked as rough as a bantha’s backside. The low-rise buildings were huddled together like conspirators, stucco walls peeling, and wherever there was a wall or a gulley it was full of windblown garbage. He could smell raw sewage. Some of the walls had blaster damage, their skim coat of garishly painted plaster gouged out in places to reveal the ferrocrete blocks beneath. Most of the stores seemed to be cantinas. Speeders in various stages of decay or dismantlement dotted the streets.

“Not a place to take a lady,” Fi said. “Unless she’s
especially
rough.”

“Nothing that a little urban regeneration grant wouldn’t fix.”

“Or a turbolaser. From orbit.”

“Okay, I know where we are now. Follow me.”

“I still think it’s ever so clever.”

“What?”

“Your homing instinct. It’s like watching Mird track borrats.”

“Yeah, well this borrat’s going to be armed and he can use the Force a lot better than I can, so let’s not alarm him.”

“You think the
beskar’gam
is a good idea? Too intimidating? Too dressy?”

“Safer than the alternative,
ner vod.
”

Jusik walked casually, surrendering to an instinct that made him want to turn his head in a specific direction as if trying to hear a faint sound. He tried to stay fully aware of every Force sense that he used,
un
-learning every lesson they’d tried to teach him at the Jedi Academy about feeling rather than thinking.

You
have
to challenge what you feel. You can’t just
feel
things and act on them. If we’d thought a bit more and felt a bit less, the galaxy would never have ended up like this
.

Fi started laughing. It jerked Jusik out of his inner debate, and for a foolish moment he thought Fi had picked up what he was thinking. It turned out that he was laughing at some kids who looking over the Aggressor at a cautious distance. Aggressors were popular bounty hunters’ ships, and seeing two Mandalorians swagger out of this one had probably guaranteed Fi and Jusik an uneventful visit. Jusik still wore his lightsaber on his belt. Nobody needed to know that it was his and that he hadn’t killed a Jedi to get it.

“Would you ever go back to being a Jedi?” Fi asked. “I mean, if Altis is what they say he is, and it’s all anything goes and
egalitarian
, would you think about it?”

“No, I wouldn’t. I’m Mandalorian now. Why does everyone keep asking?”

“They’re not. And I’m just checking.”

“Why?”

“Well, having your old boss around …”

“They say that you can run into an old flame who once broke your heart and not understand what you ever saw in her,” Jusik said. “I think it’s like that with me and the Order. Except I fell out of love with it over a couple of years—at least.”

“So you met us on the rebound.”

The sooner Zey and the others left, the better. It raised unnecessary specters for Jusik. “Okay, I’m an all-or-nothing type. Fodder for any cult. But you lot had the cool armor.”

They did a little backtracking and diversion just in case they were under surveillance, even though Jusik
felt
they weren’t. Eventually they ended up on the banks of a canal that seemed to contain more rusting speeder parts, rubble, and dumped garbage than water. It could have called itself a very wet road. A rainbow film of oil gave it an incongruously iridescent beauty.

A sudden feeling of Jedi—anxious, wary Jedi—hit Jusik like a punch in the chest. The old boatyard on the other side of the canal was Altis’s choice for a neutral meeting place. That should have reassured him.

“Okay, I’ll go first,” Jusik said.

“You told him what we’d be wearing, right? Because the helmet tends to upset those of a nervous disposition. Not to mention the Verpine piece.”

“He’ll know who we are. He can sense me by now.”

They picked their way across locked gates so overgrown with weeds that it would have taken a direct hit to open them. Jusik walked into the boat shed and looked around. It still seemed to be in use. There were two long, shallow wooden-hulled boats up on blocks with half their varnish removed.

“Master Altis, you can come out now.”

Jusik waited, hands well away from his sides, trying to look as harmless as he could. Fi was trying, too, but Fi was a big guy even now, and he still moved like a soldier despite his disability.

“Left,” Fi said. “Armed and unhappy-looking.”

Jusik didn’t take off his helmet. He and Fi had a good infrared image in the gloom of the shed, and there was no point being rash. The male human who walked slowly toward them was a Force-user all right, but there was something different in the impression he left in Jusik’s mind. For a moment Jusik thought they’d been set up by a dark sider, but it wasn’t that at all. And this man wasn’t a Jedi. He was something else. He stood four meters in front of them, a square-built man in an ancient ankle-length coat with deep vents and leather shoulder panels that made him look like he’d stepped out of a costume drama. But the rifle he held on Jusik was absolutely real.

“Master Altis will see you now,” he said stiffly. “Follow me.”

Jusik didn’t recognize the strong accent at all. He was starting to feel disoriented by not knowing things that he’d always taken for granted. Suddenly all the beings he’d sensed—a dozen males and females of various species—emerged from hiding places and stood watching.

He didn’t need to be told which one was Djinn Altis. He felt him before the eccentric Master stepped forward and stared for a moment.

“Bardan Jusik,” Altis said, breaking into a bemused grin. “I’ve heard
so
much about you. Except for how the blazes you managed to track us down. Let me shake your hand, boy.”

“Master Altis.” Jusik’s fingers were trapped in a handshake like a vise. This man was a legend, albeit one they didn’t talk about much in the Temple. “A pleasure to meet you.”

“So you’re the man of conscience who ran away to join the Mandos and scared all the little Padawans, eh? If you think I can help you, I’ll do my best, but you’ve probably noticed we’re in a sticky spot ourselves at the moment.”

Jusik took off his helmet and nodded to Fi to do the same. He could be forgiven for a little theater. It would
make the point so much better than an impassioned speech.

“This is my brother,” he said. “Fi Skirata.”

If anyone needed a poster boy for the clone army, Fi was the first choice. He was still charming, funny, and disarming. It was much easier to tug heartstrings with Fi for a prop than with Maze or Sull, who didn’t look like they needed saving from anything and exuded resentment at the very thought of rescue.

“I bet everyone tells you that you’ve got a familiar face, young man,” Altis said. “Now, I know they don’t retire clone troopers, so let me guess—you’re on the run as well.”

“It was just a parking fine,” Fi said. “But you know how these things escalate.”

“Ah, you want to hide with us? You’re very welcome. We’re a mixed bunch. Jedi, other Force adepts, all sorts of Sector Rangers, a couple of Ffib Nonconformists, and plenty of non-Force-sensitives. We even have a renegade spy. No obligation beyond pulling your weight in the community.”

“Actually,” Jusik said, “we’d like you to take three Jedi off our hands.”

“Ah … 
that
’s what you’re running.”

“No, we’re running an escape and rehab network for
clones
, Master. But we have Jedi who would be safer elsewhere, and we also need them to forget they know where we’re based. For everyone’s safety. We’ve
really
upset the Emperor. I mean at Intel level. It’s better that you don’t know the detail.”

Altis tilted his head. “Of course we’ll take them. Are you going to try
memory-wiping
them, though? That’s … risky.”

“I know.”

“Have you done it before?”

“Yes.” Jusik knew what was bothering Altis. Mind-rubs were regarded as a dark side practice. But then allowing marriage and families was anathema to orthodox Jedi thinking, too, and Altis didn’t seem to have any problem
with that. It hadn’t sent his sect rushing to the dark side. “I erased a courier’s memory of meeting me and a squad of clone commandos. For safety reasons.
Ours.
”

Altis just looked at him for a while. “Let me know how you get on.”

“Put it this way, Master—the alternative is to leave no witnesses. Do you understand me? And my father doesn’t want to take that route.”

“Father?”

“It’s a long story.”

A brown-haired woman a little older than Jusik—rather pretty, he thought—sidled up to Altis as if to interrupt. She looked and felt eager, half smiling.

“These three Jedi,” she said. “Is one a human female called Etain? I met her at Nerrif Station. She had a son. We talked about her joining us with her child and her partner. Did she mention me? I’m Callista Masana.”

Jusik was taken aback. He hadn’t known Etain had approached the Altis sect at all. “Did she say why she …”

He couldn’t go on. Every Force-sensitive in that boat shed could feel his distress. Callista caught his arm.

“What is it?”

“Etain was killed,” Jusik said. Realizing that she could have left and found a safer place—that if she’d gone with Altis, she’d probably be alive now—was almost too much to take. “She’s dead.”

Callista gulped in air the way people did when they were caught out by shocked tears. She composed herself quickly. “What about her son?”

“He’s fine. We have him. His father … he’s fine, too. Look, if I can deliver these Jedi to you without anything in their memories to connect them to our base, will you take them?”

“Absolutely,” said Altis. “May I know their names?”