501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (56 page)

“You know you’re not evil or unusual for doing that,” he said. “Don’t you?”

“Maybe.” Arla started scratching her forearm, as if the muscle relaxant was wearing off. “But that doesn’t change how hard it is to make it through the next second from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep.”

“When did you get away from them?”

Arla went quiet for a moment. “When I got arrested for the last shooting. Five, six years? Something like that.”

“Try ten,” said Jusik.

Arla shut her eyes for a second. “That long?”

Zey didn’t even seem to be breathing. Kina Ha looked as if she was resting now, having unlocked that mental door. Now Jusik had to sweep up the Arla that was falling out of it. He wasn’t going to start asking her about the killings, not now.

“Your brother Jango survived,” he said. “He went on to be a legendary soldier and—well, most of my brothers here were cloned from him. He founded the finest army in galactic history.”

“I sort of knew he was doing okay as a bounty hunter,” Arla said. “The Watch was aware of stuff. But you talk as if he’s dead now.”

That was a shock; Jusik had no idea she even knew he’d survived. But that was before he knew she’d been living with the Death Watch for most of her life. She’d shifted from tragic lost youth to something he didn’t understand yet, a sister who never let her brother know she was still alive, but still observed him from afar.

I need to stop filling gaps in history with pieces from the obvious
.

“He was killed at the outbreak of the Clone War. I’m sorry.” It didn’t feel like a good idea right then to tell her that a Jedi killed him, and how much Jango had grown to loathe them.

“We were all good shots,” Arla said. “That was why I did so many assassinations for the Death Watch.” She looked over her shoulder again.
“Now
are you going to give me a quick way out? What do you think Jango would have done to me if he’d known I was with them.”

Jusik felt Jango would have forgiven her. “Would the Death Watch be looking for you now, if they were still around?”

That made her flinch. “Are they?”

“If they are, they won’t get near you.”

Arla looked at Jusik for a long time. “You know,” she said at last, “that this lull will wear off, and I’ll crash again, don’t you?”

“You don’t want the medication, obviously.”

“Try it sometime. It doesn’t stop you remembering. Just stops you doing something about it.”

Jusik knew what he might be able to do. He was about to do it to Kina Ha, Scout, and Zey, after all: he could blank out parts of her memory. He didn’t know whether to offer.

Shab
, he had to. She was his personal responsibility.

“I used to be a Jedi,” he said. “I can erase memories. But beyond just removing recollection of the last five minutes or so, I don’t know how safe it is, or what else I’ll remove in the process.”

Arla reached down for the discarded blanket and pulled it around her.

“I was going to die first chance I got anyway,” she said. “If you can make this go away—no, I don’t think I deserve to feel better.”

Jusik moved automatically into that game of guessing the motivator. She was still trying to atone for letting her parents’ murderers become her family. “Well, if I practice on you,” Jusik said, “I’ll be much safer when I come to wipe my Jedi friends’ memories, and you can still give me useful intel on the Death Watch. A few years out of date beats zero any day.”

Zey gave him a look that said his little earnest Jedi Knight had grown up rather fast since leaving the Order.

“Do it,” Arla said. “And if you turn me into a vegetable, you shoot me. Deal?”

Jusik nodded. “Deal,” he said.

Skirata couldn’t find it in himself to be annoyed with Gilamar, let alone angry. Priest got what was coming to him. And leaving him alive to tell the tale—no, that hadn’t been an option. Gilamar had done what Skirata should have done years ago, just by way of cleansing the Mando gene pool. Vau agreed.

But things were still getting a little too close to home. Clan Skirata didn’t have the monopoly on Mandalorian resourcefulness. Sooner or later, someone was going to track them down. Skirata flipped Priest’s shoulder plate between his fingers like meditation beads, staring at the emblem and wondering just what was out there waiting to return from
ba’slan shev’la
.

Does it matter who kills you in the end? Yes, I think it does
.

“So what if Reau works out it was one of us?” Ordo leaned on the roba pen wall, watching one of the sows with her new litter. Fi was going to get his smoked roba slices one day soon. “Is that going to make us any more wanted by the Empire than we already are? There’s no trail back to this place either way.”

“Bardan’s planning a relocation for Kyrimorut in case the worst happens.
Ret’lini.”
It was the Mando watchword for prudence;
just in case
. Everyone had a plan B. Jaing, in his business-minded way, had taken to calling it
offsite hot standby
. “I’m thinking that we should have a bolt-hole on Cheravh.”

“Why stay in the Mandalore sector?”

“Yeah, we could just walk away from Mandalore and the Empire,” Skirata said. “Find a remote planet. Build a small town. Move in. Let the Death Watch make a big mistake with Palps and get eaten alive, or let Shysa fight his guerilla war. Churn out cutting-edge pharmaceutical products. Drink
ne’tra gal
on the porch, indulge a vast army of spoiled grandchildren, get old, and let everyone else do the fighting.”

Ordo gave him a little frown. “Logistics,
Kal’buir
. We’d have to ship in everything on a dump like Cheravh, and freight gets noticed.”

That was Ordo, all common sense. Skirata reminded himself that this whole thing was about Ordo and the rest of the boys.

The sow got to her feet and trotted off, pursued by her litter. Skirata liked Kyrimorut. The stay so far had been short, but it was already full of bittersweet memories.
The unfinished memorial for the fallen clone army, the crops breaking the surface of the soil, and the idyllic spots around the lake where he could fish were all things he didn’t want to leave. And wherever he looked, he could see Etain, from the moment she let him first hold newborn Kad to the moment he stood by her funeral pyre. This was his
shabla
clan home, and everyone living here had put their blood and sweat into it. So had Rav Bralor. She’d restored the place brick by stone by plank for him. Part of Skirata refused to be driven from it. It was a very un-Mandalorian thought.

We’re nomadic. Isn’t that what
Mando’ade
were all about? Isn’t that what we still are at heart? It’s dangerous to get too attached to one place
.

He thought of Master Altis, smart enough to base his Jedi academy on a ship. He was actually looking forward to meeting the man. He had to. He wasn’t sure why. He was certain that a Jedi Master would know how to take care of his own kind. In a few hours, he’d rendezvous with him in neutral space and look the man in the eye.

“They’re very appealing when they’re little,” Ordo said absently.

“What are?”

“Roba. They’re cute.”

The babies were play-fighting, ramming one another with their snouts and squealing as if they were having fun. They still had coats of striped ginger hair that camouflaged them in undergrowth until they were big enough to cope without their mother. Roba sows were fearsomely protective. Skirata gave them a wide berth.

“Doesn’t pay to get too attached to them,” he said. “That’s going to be our breakfast.” He felt bad about that for a moment. “Like Mij getting too fond of Scout. She’s going to want to go back to her Jedi buddies one day soon.”

Ordo was still staring at the baby roba. “Where do you draw the line?”

“What, between house pet and food?”

“Protectiveness. Saving folks. Maze saved Zey, just like
you saved us. Mij and Uthan seem to want to save Scout. When does it become crazy to keep rescuing things?”

Rescue was an instinct, a moment’s unconscious reflex. Skirata hadn’t even had to think about stepping between Orun Wa and the young Nulls to save them. It was simply something that demanded doing. He didn’t regret a second of it; it never occurred to him that it might risk his own life, or cause endless ripples of trouble down the years, and even if he had he wouldn’t have cared. It just didn’t matter. Maze obviously felt the same about Zey. Soldiers would die for their buddies. It was the way of the galaxy, the best part of it, that beings cared so much for others that they did dangerous things so that someone else could live.

“Is this another hypocrisy lecture?” Skirata asked.

“Never,
Buir.
”

“It’s okay. Even I can see that I’ve got double standards. Ny keeps me fully aware of that.”

Skirata realized he’d started referring to her as casually as if she were his longtime wife. He edged into the open pen and stood still, one eye on the huge sow. The animal would break his legs if she charged him, and he didn’t want to think what her sharp tusks would do to soft tissue. Two of the litter broke away from the others and trotted up to him.

Breakfast or pets? You’re right, Ordo, there’s no logic in it
.

The babies just wanted to see if he had food for them. They were already learning to root in the mud and find their own dinner. He felt a tug at his heart, but it wasn’t quite an overwhelming drive to pick them up and keep them in the house, although he knew many folks would do exactly that.

“In the end,” he said, “we know which lives we have to save, and those come first. Even if we take insane risks to do it.”

Ordo just nodded. The sow turned toward Skirata and let out a long warning grunt that sounded as if she was gearing up to ram him. As soon as her head dipped
for her attack run, Skirata found agility he thought he’d lost twenty years ago and almost vaulted over the wall. She raced up to the half-open gate and stood rumbling a warning, even though she could have carried on and chased Skirata around the yard. This was her turf. She wanted the filthy human interloper to leave her kids alone, that was all.

“She knows she’ll be on Fi’s plate one day,” Ordo said. “What has she got to lose?”

Skirata decided to leave a couple of weeks before he let anyone venture into Keldabe again to check if there was any aftermath from Priest’s death. They might not have found his body yet. But Reau would know something bad had happened to him.

“Come on,” Skirata said. “Let’s clean our boots and then go rendezvous with Altis.”

Altis was due to comm them anytime now to say he was inbound. All Skirata could think of was how different things might have turned out if this Altis had run the Jedi Council, and not Yoda and his cronies. That was the trouble with the people who
should
have been in charge. They never really wanted the power that they were better equipped than others to wield.

Jusik let Ordo take the Aggressor for the journey. It made sense to pack some firepower and speed, even if Altis and his gang were as peaceful as beings could get. Skirata took no chances these days. The fighter dropped out of hyperspace and waited at the coordinates, giving Skirata time to simply gaze out of the viewport at the sheer emptiness of speckled space, something he rarely had a chance or inclination to do. It really was beautiful, clean, so utterly miraculous and perfect compared to the sordid events on most planets that he wondered if Uthan’s virus ever looked up at an apparently majestic ruby sky and didn’t realize it was inside some shabby humanoid that cheated and killed.

This was why he didn’t spend time contemplating starscapes. He remembered now.

Ordo cocked his head, listening on his comlink.

“Here we go,
Kal’buir
. It’s a cargo ship,
Wookiee Gunner
. They’re preparing to let us dock alongside.”

“I admire a man who doesn’t overcompensate with a Star Destroyer,” Skirata said. “I’m going to treat him with caution.”

Trust was a funny thing. They were now going to dock with a ship, not inside its bay but alongside, with a fragile corridor of flexible plastoid and durasteel as their only shield against hard vacuum. Somehow, both sides thought this was less risky than landing on a planet. Skirata felt suddenly foolish. Ordo maneuvered the Aggressor into position and the docking ring sealed with a grinding sound that reverberated through the fighter’s airframe.

“Pressuring up,” Ordo said, and hit the control. “You can board when the light shows green, Master Altis.”

It was a demonstration of goodwill, Skirata knew. The Jedi was prepared to step aboard a Mandalorian starfighter alone, taking all the risk. Maybe the docking hadn’t been such a rash move after all.

Skirata eased out of his seat and stood watching the inner hatch. The plate retracted, and he found himself staring at an ordinary-looking human male—gray hair, late sixties, maybe even seventies.

So this was Master Djinn Altis.

He walked like a workman or a scruffy college professor, with no brown robes, tunic, or monastic look. And he just felt
different
.

“I’m Kal,” Skirata said. “This is my son, Ordo.”

Altis held out his hand. “We’re in the same line of work,” he said. “Salvage.”

“People-salvage.”

“We could form a union, then.”

“My boy
Bard’ika
likes you.” Skirata winked. “And that’s a powerful recommendation. You still up for helping us out?”

“When do you want us to take your guests?”

“One of them asked to stay for a while. Kina Ha and Arligan Zey—I want their memories of my base wiped first.”

“You can always reach us, anytime you’re ready.”

“But we already knew you were willing to take the Jedi off our hands, so we’re here to talk more broadly, aren’t we?”

“We are.” Altis unsettled Skirata. He managed somehow to be both very ordinary and also radiate an ancient authority. “We’re all on the run.”

“I had this idea,” Skirata said. He heard Ordo inhale, rightly so, because he hadn’t fully discussed any of this. “We want to rescue clones and keep our planet free of scumbags. We hear stuff from extraordinary places and there’s nothing we can’t buy, build, invent, steal, or slice.
You
have all kinds of extra talents most of my clan don’t have, and a different intelligence network, so I think we could occasionally help each other out.”