Vau opened the top hatch and motioned Mird inside. "Where's your spirit of adventure, Kal? Have overpriced Deep Water hybrid, will explore ..."
"I got this tub for a good price." Insulting Skirata's ability to drive a deal was marginally worse than questioning his courage, and he realized Vau had baited him yet again. "And I wonder what you'd do with yourself if you didn't have me to torment."
Vau raised one eyebrow-now, that was annoying dumb insolence, it really was-but Skirata ignored the impulse, thought of the fortune Vau had handed over to him as if it were a cred chip he'd found on the street, and stood up. Mereel slipped the mooring line and prepared to get under way.
The islands were constructed on the tops of natural peaks jutting from the sea, like porceplast crowns on the stumps of teeth. Once submerged, it was simply a matter of doing what he'd do on land if he was hunting an animal in a lair: looking for signs of activity, checking out cave mouths, and venturing inside.
It was just a recce, just a discreet dive to scope out the topography that wasn't shown on any of the charts, so they could come back later to stage a planned assault. But if an opportunity presented itself, they'd take it.
Outside the transparisteel bubble that formed a clear dome over the cockpit, a tourist brochure of an underwater world drifted past them in vividly colored serenity. Mird seemed fascinated, pressing a snotty nose to the transparisteel and making excited grumbling noises, and Skirata risked reaching out to haul the strill back by its collar and wipe the view-port clean. Filthy thing, but it has its uses, just like us. Vau took the hint and beckoned to Mird to sit on his lap.
Relations had definitely relaxed between Skirata and Vau. There was a time when they'd have brawled over less.
Aay'han dropped below sixty meters, past the charted depth. The water was surprisingly clear; lacy weeds swayed gracefully in the currents. Brilliant pink and yellow fish like ribbons wove themselves between the fronds, flashing dis-plays of lights like a Coruscant casino.
"That's more like it," Mereel said, sounding pleased. The navigation displays stripped away the layer of marine life and showed a three-dimensional landscape of slopes marked with fissures and channels that penetrated deep into the face of the submerged mountain forming the one island within the fifteen-kilometer zone. Aay'han came alongside a deep shadow that appeared as a hole on the sensors.
"Worth a ping," said Mereel. "Let's just line up the sensors and see how far into that feature we can map."
"You okay with this, son?"
"Yes, Kal'buir." He turned the vessel ninety degrees and pointed Aayhan's nose at the opening for a deep scan. "Now, that's a likely one. Goes back a hundred meters at least. Mark that on the chart, please, Sergeant Vau." He turned to Skirata. "I'm several pages ahead of Ordo in the manual now..."
There'd be a contest later, Skirata could tell. Ordo and Mereel, a double act right from the time he'd met them as two-year-old clone kids-no names, just numbers, and already handling blasters-sometimes indulged in a little rivalry and one-upmanship. It explained Mereel's love of risk taking. He had to edge out of Ordo's shadow somehow.
They worked along the thirty kilometers of submerged coastline, checking and scanning cave after cave. Some were immediately obvious as dead ends when the sonar scan was mapped onto the three-dimensional view, just depressions in the rock that went nowhere. Some were so deep and twisted that the sonar didn't find an end, and those were marked. As Mereel eased Aay'han through the extraordinary forest of weed and marine creatures-some of which slapped sucker-like mouthparts onto the cockpit bubble as if testing the ship for flavor-Skirata kept an eye out for signs of disturbance to the environment that might indicate recent construction work. If Ko Sai was here, she'd only been in residence for a few months. Signs of activity might still be around-fresh-cut rock face, debris from cave mouths, any number of telltale signs that she'd had a hideaway built down here.
Vau stared out of the dome, too, with Mird mirroring his posture as exactly as a six-legged animal ever could, blinking from time to time and pausing once or twice to turn and gaze at its master before giving him an enthusiastic and slobbery lick across the face with a dripping gray tongue.
Skirata shuddered. But at least there was one being in the galaxy that loved Vau unconditionally. Fierfek, if he'd started feeling sorry for the chakaar after so many years, it was a bad sign. The fortune was just creds Vau had no use for, Skirata told himself, something he wanted to deny his own privileged class and that simply happened to be useful in the plan to rescue clones-an afterthought.
It's not true, though, is it? He's a Mando too. The same thing that drew him to Mandalore is the same thing that kept me there. We chose it. Maybe I hate him because of the parts of him that are too much like me.
"All stop," Vau said suddenly.
Mird stiffened, always sensitive to Vau's reactions. The strill was hunting, even if it couldn't get out there and taste the scents and currents. Mereel brought the ship to a halt and she drifted, silent except for the hum of the shields and environment controls.
Vau pointed ahead, slightly to port.
"In that weed forest. Look."
Aay'han's exterior holocams trained in the direction of Vau's finger and Mird's snout. The weed was thick and populated by shoals of glowing orange discs that could have been fish, worms, or swimming crustaceans. The impression was one of a tapcaf courtyard strung with decorative lights.
Not all the weed was pale green. Some looked white in the aquamarine light. Skirata strained to focus, and then a cur-rent moved the weed a little more and he realized he wasn't looking at weed at all, but bones.
It was a skeleton.
"Shab," Mereel muttered. "I think we're too late for resuscitation, Kal 'buir."
"I hope he bought travel insurance." Skirata couldn't see any marks on the bones at this distance. "Or she."
Who'd died down here? And why?
The skeleton was swaying in the current as if dancing with the weed. It was definitely a humanoid of some kind, picked clean and as white as an anatomical specimen, although a closer inspection-as close as they could get without leaving the vessel-showed a few colonies of pale yellow growths that looked like closed shadow barnacles. It was hard to see what was holding it down. If the flesh was gone, the connective tissue that held the bones together should have been gone, too. Skirata couldn't think of a species that fitted the bill, but it didn't matter. He-or she-wasn't going any-where.
"Diver who ignored the hazard warnings?" Vau asked.
Skirata's instinct for bad signs was more reliable than any sonar. "What kind of marine life eats a diving suit and apparatus as well as the meat?"
Mereel, engrossed in the controls for the external security holocam, let out a long breath.
"And when did you last see a fish with fingers?" he said quietly, switching the holocam image to one of the large monitors. "Look."
The close-up view of the weed bed that swayed around the skeleton's ankles like a deep-pile carpet showed a splash of bright orange. As Mereel magnified the image and went in for a close-up, Skirata realized what it was.
Mereel was right. There weren't too many marine species that could take a length of fibercord and secure a body to a rock.
The close view on the monitor showed a knot: a competent, nonslipping, textbook Keldabe anchoring bend. In a galaxy of loop rings, gription panels, and a hundred high-tech ways of attaching things, few people bothered to learn to tie knots properly, let alone one as distinctive and complex as that.
Very few people indeed: only clone soldiers-and Mandalorians.
Chapter 10.
Naasad'guur mhi, Naasad'guur mhi, Naasad'guur mhi, Mhi n 'ulu. Mhi Mando'ade, Kandosii'ade, Teh Manda'yaim, Mando'ade.
No one likes us, No one likes us, No one likes us, We don't care.
We are Mandos, The elite boys, Mando boys, From Mandalore.
-Mandalorian drinking song, loosely translated; said to date from a ban on Mandalorian mercenaries drinking in local tapcafs, when employed by the government of Geris VI * * *
Republic Treasury building, Coruscant, 478 days after Geonosis Besany closed the doors to her office and obscured the transparisteel walls with a touch of the button on her desk-She didn't want to be disturbed.
Centax II. Do I concentrate on that?
She fondled the blaster that Mereel had given her and wondered what it would take to make her use it; she'd never fired one in anger. She hadn't even been trained to shoot, but now seemed a pretty good time to learn. Then she began trying to work out how she might take a closer look at Centax II-in person, or at a distance-and work out what was going on. It was a military area, and no member of the public could stroll in there unannounced. There weren't that many excuses to pay a visit even for a Treasury agent.
The public accounts showed a number of contractors providing services to the Grand Army that could be cross-referenced to Centax, and one of them-Dhannut Logistics- also showed up on the health budget. It was worth a look as long as she was thinking medcenter.
I could be totally off beam, of course.
And I got Mereel his answer anyway. I should walk away from this.
But she couldn't, because Ordo couldn't walk away, and neither could Corr, or any of the others. She realized how empty her life must have been to have filled up so fast and so easily with people who-possibly-didn't give her a second thought except as a useful contact.
I'm not stupid, Kal.
But they had something she wanted, too, and it wasn't just Ordo. She wanted a share of their closeness, that belonging and camaraderie, and an end to feeling she was on the out-side of life.
She thought suddenly of Fi, and how-so Ordo said-he knew there was a complete element missing from his existence, and he resented it. She at least knew what hers was, and where she might get it.
But there was also the lure of a wrong to be righted, and she knew she wasn't alone in that. Senator Skeenah from Chandrila was getting very vocal about the Grand Army's conditions and clone rights. He might prove to be a handy excuse for investigating further.
Her private comlink stared back at her from the palm of her hand, daring her to choose between calling Ordo and contacting the Senator. Still scared that she might call while Ordo was gambling whether to cut a red wire or a blue one as a detonator counted down, she sent him a delayed message instead. He could choose when and if he wanted to read it.
I hope you enjoyed the cake. What else could she say? She had no idea who else might see it, secure link or not. You have to try my home cooking when you get back. She could imagine Ordo reading it with a frown, taking it at face value, while Mereel-who seemed to be leading a totally different life, and relishing it-would have given her a knowing grin.
Besany sent the message with a click of her thumbnail on the keys, then tapped in the-code for the Senate switchboard.
No point leaving an audit trail on the office link, just in case. He's a known antiwar activist. They'll be watching him-whoever they might be.
Senator Skeenah's administrative droid made an appointment for her to meet him later that day, which indicated just how few lobbyists were courting a man who opposed the war, and asked if she preferred "off site."
"I'm at the Treasury building," she said. Visiting the Sen-ate was routine for a government employee; it would draw less attention than a meeting in a tapcaf or restaurant. She'd be picked up on any of a dozen security holocams as she moved around Galactic City, and even by the surveillance satellites that kept watch over Coruscant. "I'll come to his office."
On the way to the meeting, sitting in the back of an air taxi, she felt that the small blaster in her pocket was visible to the whole planet. She didn't even know what type it was. It was a smart dark blue with a stubby green-gray barrel and a little red light that showed it was charged, quite a pretty object. When she peered at the engraved plate on the butt-she was sure the end of the grip was called that-she could see the words MERRSONN.
"Lady, you're making me nervous," said the taxi driver. "You going to assassinate someone?"
Besany hadn't realized he could see that far over the back of the seat, but there was a lot she didn't know about the visual field of a Rodian's faceted eyes. She slid the blaster off her lap and back into her pocket.
"I mix with unsavory characters," she said.
Taxi drivers had an opinion on everything. "Senate's full of them... they're called politicians."
She thought that way, too, but then realized she'd never actually met one socially. Where did she get that idea? From the holonews? From the courts? The power of stereotypes was astonishing. She wondered how she could ever gain any headway in making Coruscanti see the anonymous troopers fighting the war for them as living, breathing men.
She couldn't even say they were all someone's son or husband or father or brother. They were utterly outside of society. The size of the task almost crushed her.
One step at a time, girl. Do what you can.
Senator Skeenah met her in one of the cell-like private interview rooms kept for Senators to meet members of the public. He was much more ordinary than she'd imagined, not terribly well dressed, but he had an earnest passion that hit her like a tidal wave. Another stereotype crashed and burned.
"Of course I'm concerned about what happens to these men," he said. "Whatever other member planets might do, Coruscant hasn't tolerated slavery in millennia. It's intolerable that we adopt it now simply because it's expedient. But I'm a lone voice."
Besany took it carefully. "I'm having some difficulty identifying medical provision for the Grand Army, Senator. I can identify expenditure on what I think are medcenter facilities, but it's not... let's say the audit trail isn't transparent."
That careful comment meant a great deal in political code if the listener wanted to interpret it. Skeenah seemed to. "Yes, I've asked repeatedly about casualties-the medical field units are woefully inadequate, and I can't find out what happens to those killed in action. To the best of my knowledge, the bodies aren't recovered. There's no heroes' return for these poor men. So if you see large sums allocated to clone welfare, I can assure you there's no sign of it being used to that end."
Besany had a sensation of dread like cold water spilling in her lap. It was something she could have found out easily enough from Ordo; he'd know what they did with bodies, but it was one of a long list of things she'd never thought to ask. The inference was that troopers were simply discarded like waste, and that stoked her anger. She hovered on the edge of asking Skeenah if he knew anything about facilities on Cen-tax II, and decided that it was too dangerous to have that kind of discussion with a man she didn't know.
"I audit some of the Grand Army accounts," she said. That much was true, and hardly a secret if news of her meeting got back to her bosses. She slipped a plastoid contact card from her pocket and pressed it into his hand. "If there's ever any-thing you think I should look at-discreetly, of course, be-cause I'd be investigating other public servants-do let me know."
"Ah, you're the internal police ..."
"I look after the taxpayers' credits."
"And here was I thinking you might be concerned about the welfare of our army."
Besany bit her tongue out of habit but it was too painful a comment to let pass. "Oh, but I am," she said. "They're not just theoretical charity cases to me. I'm dating a trooper."
Skeenah looked taken aback for a moment, and she wasn't sure if he was reacting to her cutting comment or the unsolicited personal detail.
"Well," he said, "there's no point my haranguing you about the fact that they're all human men like any other, is there?"
It was time for a little humility. "I know a lot of clones, by most people's standards, and yes, I care what happens to them."
"You might know, then, what happens to them."
"In what sense?"
"When they're wounded but can't return to active duty You see, I can find out what happens on the Rimsoo medical stations-or at least I get some limited answers from the Defense staff-but I'm getting no answers about the men who can't be patched up and sent back."
Besany thought of Corr, temporarily assigned desk duties after a device he was defusing blew up and took his hands with it. He was awaiting the arrival of specialist prosthetics, and if Skirata hadn't grabbed him for commando training, he'd have gone back to ordnance disposal.
"I would imagine they die," Besany said. "The army seems to go to a lot of trouble to send them back."
"Ah, but life isn't that tidy," Skeenah said. He lowered his voice, even though the doors were shut. "There'll be injuries that a man can survive, but that means he'll never be fit for service again. I can't seriously believe something like that hasn't happened in more than a year of this war. And yet there are no homes for these men, who must surely exist, and we know they don't end up being cared for by family- because they have none. So where do they go?"
Besany didn't even want to think about it, but she had to. The only answer she could think of right then was that the most badly injured who might otherwise have been saved were left to die.
But some mobile surgical units had Jedi advisers. No Jedi would let such a thing happen ... would they?
She had to talk to Jusik. He'd tell her.
"I'm going to see if I can find out," Besany said.
"And I'm going to carry on pressing for proper long-term care facilities." Skeenah looked troubled. "Meanwhile, I'm also going to help raise funds for charitable care. There are some citizens out there who want to help, you know."
"I'll keep you posted," Besany promised.
She took the long walk back to the Treasury building, pausing for a caf on the way, and found that the Senator's question was now eating away at her. Yes, it could only mean that clone troopers lived, or died, and there was no middle way or disability provision. The war hadn't reached the eighteen-month mark yet. Governments were always poor at thinking things through, especially when wars caught them on the hop.
Maybe this was what Dhannut Logistics was doing, then: care facilities out of the public eye to hide the signs that the war might not be going as well or as cleanly as the civilian citizens imagined, just as she'd first thought. She decided to check out their other projects when she got back to her desk, but while she sipped her caf, she checked them out via her datapad simply to get a street address from the directory.
And that was where things started to get interesting.
There was no entry in the public database for Dhannut. It could have been a subsidiary of another company, of course, or even one that wasn't based on Coruscant; but either way, it would have to be registered to tender for government con-tracts, and it would have had to register for corporate taxation even if it was offworld, and so it would require a tax exemption number.
Jilka could come in useful now. She was the tax officer; she was an expert in finding companies that earned revenue and didn't pay their taxes in full.
Besany Wennen, who'd played things by the book all her life until she fell in with a crowd of misfits and men who didn't exist, put on her best liar's face and prepared to spin a plausible story to Jilka, crossing the line from merely accessing records for unauthorized reasons to entering a world of deception-with consequences she knew she could never imagine.