501st: An Imperial Commando Novel (16 page)

“Yeah, that’s General Jusik,” Skirata said. The glow of the
tihaar
vanished from his gut and ice took its place. “He objected to using clones and told the Jedi Order where to shove its conscience.”

“Now, if he were on your comlink speed dial, for the sake of argument, you’d let me know, would you not, Kal?”

“No.” Skirata stayed genial, but he couldn’t lie now. He could only stall. “I would not.”

Shysa paused, but the faint smile never left his face. “We don’t get too many Mando Force-sensitives, which is a bit
unlucky
, given how many worlds our fine population’s drawn from. Imagine how handy it’d be to have some
Mando’ade
who could use the Force.”

“Imagine,” Skirata said. “But one Force-user in armor isn’t going to help us much against Palpatine. The whole Jedi Order couldn’t stop him.”

“I was thinking longer term. Maybe young General Jusik will have plenty of kids who take after him.”

“No.”

“I didn’t ask a question, Kal.”

Shysa knew. He
knew
. Well, it didn’t take a clairvoyant
to work out the association, just a friendly chat with the staff in the
Oyu’baat
. Skirata stood his ground. “If anyone knew how to breed for Force sensitivity, they would have done it by now,” he said. “We’ve survived well enough against Force-users for five thousand years without it. It’s not a deficiency. It’s what we are.”

“Fine sentiments, but they won’t be much comfort when the Empire decides we’re a problem. And they will.”

“We’d be better off relying on Verpine tech and a bit of honest sweat than on genetics. Makes us no better than
aruetiise
—than Jedi, with their genetic
superiority
. No thanks.”

Shysa wore his patient look now, a slight but well-meaning frown. “I hate to spoil that fine illusion, Kal, but take a look around you at the
Mando’ade
. A mixed bunch, and no mistake, but don’t you think we’ve self-selected and bred a hardy, stubborn type? What’s the difference?”

“That’s not the same as trying to produce Force-users,” Skirata said, trying very hard not to lose his temper. He was angry with himself, not Shysa. He knew he’d already lost the argument. “We’ve bred an
attitude
, Fenn—self-reliance, tenacity, guts. That’s not in the genes.” He tapped his temple. “It’s available to anyone who is willing to work for it. It’s up
here.
”

“I’ll be sure to tell Palps that when he rolls in with a whole fleet of warships. We’ll just
think
hard and see him off.”

Skirata waited for the inevitable question, and knew that if Shysa asked it then it would be the last time he spoke to the man. That scared him. It told him that he put his own wishes above his people. This wasn’t how Munin Skirata had raised him.
Communal
responsibility. That was the watchword. A Mandalorian who thought only of himself wasn’t a
Mando’ad
at all.

But I look out for my clan. Clans build the people. Can’t have one without the other
.

“Kal, I’m just asking you for
Manda’yaim,”
Shysa
said. “If you ever run into this Jusik, and he still thinks of himself as one of us, then he’s got skills we’ll need in years to come.”

Skirata felt his world shrink. His focus shifted so that the rest of the shabby hut was a blur but Shysa was so sharply vivid that Skirata could see every pore and hair.

We could sit out this trouble. Go anywhere. Jusik’s earned some peace, every bit as much as my boys. But if I mention this to him—he’ll think it’s his duty
.

“I can’t help you,
Mand’alor,”
Skirata said.

“Ah well, I was just asking, just in case you ever saw him.” Shysa shrugged. “Anyway … if any of your fine clone boys are minded to do a little bit of observation, seeing as they can pass for stormies easy enough, then I’d be grateful.”

Skirata knew that Shysa couldn’t have guessed just how much espionage the clones could do. He hoped it didn’t show on his face. But he still couldn’t bring himself to commit them to Shysa’s fledgling resistance. Everyone thought the ends of their own cause justified its means. But that was where Skirata had to draw the line, even when he didn’t want to. If he made that choice for the clones, he was no better than a Jedi general. He wasn’t even sure that he could face asking them. They’d say yes, just like Jusik; he knew it. They’d do anything for him.

“It’ll be their decision,” Skirata said. “If I’ve struggled to give those
ad’ike
anything, Fenn, it’s a
choice.
”

Shysa looked at him for a long time, not a trace of frustration or disappointment on his face, and then pushed the bottle toward him.

“I appreciate your time, Kal,” he said. “Keep the
tihaar.
”

It was a clear glass bottle. No tracking device could have been hidden in it, but Skirata was too wary to accept it.

“Save it for next time,” he said, knowing there might never be one. “I’ll keep you supplied with intelligence.
Just accept that I’m dealing with things you’re better off not knowing about for the time being.”

A terrible feeling of finality almost overwhelmed him. He was tempted to offer Shysa some concession out of sheer guilt that he hadn’t leapt to offer everything he had to protect Mandalore against the Empire.

How can I fail the
Mand’alor
at a time like this? What would my father think of me
?

Skirata had vast resources at his disposal now, from wealth to bioweapons to … Jedi blood, whatever use that would actually be. The
resol’nare
, the six tenets of Mandalorian identity, said he was obliged to look after his kids, his clan, and his culture, and to rally to the
Mand’alor
in times of need.

Shysa smiled. “I trust you, Kal.”

It was one hell of a knife to twist in Skirata’s gut. He clasped Shysa’s forearm in farewell, the traditional Mando grip with the hand just below the elbow, and left.

The speeder was parked nearby. The hatch popped as he got closer, and he could see Ordo sitting in the pilot’s seat, arms folded.

Ordo raised one eyebrow a fraction. “What’s wrong,
Kal’buir
?”

“Let’s get out of here and I’ll tell you. Nobody’s been near you, have they? Nowhere near the ship?”

“If you’re asking if anyone’s had the chance to slap a tracking device on us—no, they haven’t. The place is deserted.”

The drives started up, rising from a low rumble to a high-pitched whine before the speeder lifted into the air.

“It’s a bad sign when you don’t trust your own
Mand’alor,”
Ordo said, confirming Skirata’s guilt.

“What did he want?”

Skirata wrestled with his divided conscience, knowing which part would win but not feeling proud of that.

“Too much,” he said.

E
nnen didn’t accompany Niner to Imperial Security to deliver the datachip. He stayed in the shuttle, hunched in the pilot’s seat.

“I’m waiting here until I get an answer about Bry,” he said, answering the unasked question. He picked up the comm mike from the console. “I want them to treat him right. Ops, I want to speak to the Special Unit duty officer.
Now
.”

Treating Bry right meant cremation, the traditional funeral for Corellians in exile. Ennen and Bry seemed every bit as Corellian as Omega Squad and the Nulls
were Mandalorian. Niner was reminded just how central the
Cuy’val Dar
training sergeants and the cultures they brought with them had been in shaping the clones they raised.

Niner ushered Darman off the shuttle. “Let’s get this chip off our hands.”

“Who are we delivering it to?” Darman looked back over his shoulder as they walked away from the shuttle. “Don’t we just give it to Cuis?”

Niner consulted his datapad again. It definitely said to deliver the material personally to Imperial Security’s IT division, part of the Anti-Terrorist Unit, and not to deviate. The last thing he saw as he walked away from the landing strip was an Imperial commander, a tall thin guy, jogging toward the vessel. Niner hoped he was the sympathetic type. Ennen wasn’t in a negotiating mood.

Niner took a waiting speeder bike, and they headed for the IS offices. Someone could get some data off that chip, he was sure. If only he could make contact with Jaing—or Mereel. Those two could do just about anything with information technology, most of it illegal and dangerous. But he’d lost contact with them. The Imperial comm codes and firewalls had all changed, and as far as he knew the Nulls were safe and well on Mandalore with Fi, Corr, and Atin.

He missed them all. He tried hard not to dwell on that. It left him churning over the whole idea of desertion, which had seemed totally wrong at first, and then started feeling a lot more right as the war reached its final days. He’d psyched himself up to go at last, and then—the moment was snatched away.

He still wanted to go. He hadn’t changed his mind. And neither Jaing nor Mereel would have been much interested in helping the Empire catch renegades even if they’d been around to help.

“They let us out without a spook,” Darman said. “They trust us more than I thought.”

Niner measured every word carefully, still not sure if
his helmet comm kit was bugged. It was starting to get to him now. He felt under siege, uneasy, violated. Maybe he was paranoid in the medical sense, though, not just over-careful, and this was how
really
crazy people felt. He just didn’t know.

He took off his helmet and switched off all the comms. “Replacement for Bry,” he said, changing the subject. “Ennen’s going to have a hard time of it. Let’s help him along best we can, Dar.”

“We’ve got to work with a new guy, too. As long as it’s nobody from Reau’s squads, that’s fine by me.”

“Might get one of the cross-trained meat-cans instead, like Corr.” Changing the dynamics of a four-man squad was never easy. Omega had worked out fine in the end, but losing a brother and absorbing a new one always upset the harmony for a while. “Don’t worry about it.”

We won’t be here long enough, Dar. We’re leaving. Soon
.

Darman was having one of his it’s-not-happening days. Niner could see him straining to be the normal Dar again. Most of the time he managed it, but when his attention wandered, the pain was visible in his eyes. His expression didn’t match his tone of voice.

“Amazing how fast they can change things when they want to.” Darman nodded at signage on the walls as they passed.
IMPERIAL SECURITY
, it said. “Shame they couldn’t have managed that speed and efficiency during the Republic.”

Imperial Security was another new label on an old box. The information technology center was an old Coruscant Security Force divisional HQ. The new organization had swallowed up chunks of the old CSF, mostly the detective and counter-terrorism side, but Niner wasn’t sure why Palpatine needed both the civilians in IS and the military Imperial Intelligence to do a similar job. Maybe he wanted them to spy on each other to stay sharp. Perhaps he was just such a dyed-in-the-wool politician that his instinctive way to deal with anything was to create new departments with confusing titles.
Niner didn’t think there were enough shady characters, revolutionaries, and terrorists to keep two big departments busy. They’d be fighting over suspects.

Ah. I get it now. That’s why he’s doing it
.

They reached the turbolift lobby through another set of key-coded doors. The sign said
PLEASE REMOVE HELMETS FOR SECURITY PURPOSES
, a remnant of the time when folks thought manners mattered.

“I already did,” Darman said. “I bet they don’t get many Mando visitors.”

Niner made a conscious effort to play down his associations with Mandalore now. He wasn’t ashamed of being Mandalorian, and he had no reason to think that Mandalore was regarded with suspicion, but something told him to keep his mouth shut about it and
go gray—
the intelligence services’ phrase for not drawing attention to yourself. His wariness was about more than the secret he had to keep. He had a feeling that Mandalorians would eventually be regarded as trouble, because they didn’t like belonging to anything—republics, empires, or anything with rules they didn’t have a say in making. Sooner or later, that was going to make Mandalore a liability. He could see it coming.

Darman looked back at the doors as they snapped shut behind him. “I hope this isn’t where we find out we’re enemies of the Empire and get banged up for life.”

“Don’t be daft,” Niner said. A couple of droids whirred past him and ignored both commandos. “They’d send us to Imperial Intelligence for that.”

“You always make me feel so much better.”

Niner stepped into the open turbolift and consulted the floor directory on the control panel. “Fortieth floor.”

“Nice view.”

The turbolift left Niner’s stomach at the ground floor. He wanted to talk to Darman about Sa Cuis, and how the agent gave him the creeps, but he didn’t dare. All the little safety valves a clone had—grumbling, off-color jokes, outright dissent—were denied to him now.

If anything finally tipped him over the edge, it was going to be that.

When the ’lift doors opened again, Niner stepped out into an even more deserted lobby, without even droids wandering around, only a muffled carpeted
quiet
with the faint trembling sensation of a million machines simmering just under the threshold of his hearing.