"Anytime. No need to apologize."
"You go careful with the other stuff, okay?" He meant her investigation of the cloning activity. "You got us some solid-gold intel, but it's not worth getting killed for."
"Isn't that the risk you all take?" Another pause. "Even a manipulative old chakaar like me feels guilty sometimes. Whatever it costs, you know I can pay."
Or General Zey can. "I'll call you as soon as I've resolved it," she said. It was Treasury-speak, but she'd flipped into that persona now. "Whatever it takes. It's nothing a budget code can't resolve."
It could have been worse, she told herself, automatically putting on her work suit. It could have been three in the morning, when she'd be too sleep-befuddled to be any use. She tied her hair back in a severe tail because loose blond hair got her instant attention, grabbed her bag-and blaster, because Skirata wasn't joking-and called an air taxi.
RCM was a small city of a medcenter with its own traffic system, and it took several passes around the internal sky-lanes for the pilot to find the entrance to the neurology unit. Besany didn't like medcenters, and the moment she walked into all that bright-lit, antiseptic state-of-the-artness, she felt agitated. It was where her father had died. That was all it would ever be to her, and no amount of exquisite fresh flowers in the lobbies could change that. Skirata probably knew he'd plugged some gap in her life, but he couldn't know how well.
"New admissions," she said to the orientation droid, holding her anonymized datapad up to its port. There was a lot to be said for knowing how to cover your tracks. "Here's the patient ID."
The droid digested the code and when she withdrew the datapad, the text SKIRATA, FI: LEVEL 96, WARD 5, BAY A/4 appeared on the screen. So Fi wasn't a number any longer, but a man with an inevitable surname. The sensor system took over from the droid, and Besany followed a flow of instructions, from a reminder from the turbolift to ALIGHT HERE to the sensors in the corridors directing her left and right via the datapad. A city-planet of a trillion beings needed medcenters on an industrial scale, but there was something soul crushing about a complex so vast, it needed its own global positioning system. It was no place to be when you were sick, scared, or dying.
But the GPS worked. Besany found herself facing a small room in a side ward with SKIRATA, FI-TEMP ADMIT DNR visible on the viewscreen next to the doors.
They opened as soon as she stepped forward, and there was Fi with a line plugged into the back of his hand, lying on uncreased white pillows with his arms neatly on top of the blankets like a man newly dead awaiting a final visit from the family. The only difference from what she recalled all those years ago was that Fi was wired up to sensors, with his vital signs displayed on a small panel on the wall.
He did look very young indeed. Besany hadn't been imagining that, and somehow she'd expected to see visible injury even though Ordo had said there was none. It seemed per-verse that Fi could look so perfectly whole and yet be so close to death.
"Fi," she said. "It's Besany. Kal sent me to keep an eye on you. Just checking you're okay."
She stood there for a while, working out what she was going to say to the administrators, and then the doors opened behind her.
"This is an unauthorized entry," said the med droid. "Who are you?"
Besany did it more out of habit than intent. She pulled out her Republic ID and shoved it in front of the droid's photoreceptors, but didn't put it in the data slot so it could identify her or her department. Something told her she was going to have to bend the rules again, and she didn't want to be traced. "Government business. What's happening with this patient?"
"There seems to have been an administrative error, Agent..."
Besany let the pause hang. "What kind? Billing?" It almost always was, and she could fix that. "Notification?"
"Are you from the Department of Defense?" It was all pure reflex now. "Would I discuss it with you if I was? Just update me on this patient. I understand some difficulty arose over treating him here."
"He can't stay here."
"If this is about budget codes, my department will be most displeased."
"No, we have to terminate the treatment."
"You've got a line of saline in his arm and there's nothing on the drug chart. You're not short of beds. What treatment? I don't see the chief of neurosurgery in here."
"He's not a citizen. He's a clone soldier."
"I know. And?"
"We have no agreement for long-term care with the Grand Army. In fact, as far as the Republic is concerned this patient doesn't exist, and as he's been declared brain-dead by the duty neurosurgical team, we would normally terminate life support, except he's still breathing, which is highly abnormal." The droid paused as if to check if Besany was following its train of logic with her inadequate organic brain. "Withdrawal of life support in his case means withdrawal of hydration or feeding, or both."
"Starving him to death, for us lay-beings."
"Indeed. This is clearly ethically undesirable, so euthanasia will be administered."
Besany thought she'd misheard, but she hadn't. "No," she said, hearing her voice as if she were standing outside her-self. "No, it will not be administered. I'll get his care authorized. In fact, I'll get him moved to private care."
Did I hear that right? Do they really put patients down like that? Like sick pets?
"He's Grand Army property, so unless you have a Defense requisition, you can't take possession of him."
"He's a human being."
"I don't make the rules."
"His name's Fi. If he hadn't been engineered and hatched, he'd be about twenty-four years old. He's a sniper. He's a trained combat medic. He likes glimmik music. He's an elite soldier."
"He's brain-dead."
"He's breathing."
"I said this was a perplexing case."
"Well, if you or any of your colleagues want to try eutha-nizing him, or whatever tidy euphemism you have for killing people in their beds, you'll have to get past me."
"You're not from the Defense Department, are you?"
"I'm from the Treasury. If he's government property, he's mine. So I'm taking him."
"I cannot allow this."
"Try stopping me."
Besany rarely said things she regretted, but she realized she was now terrified. What of? Injury? Getting into trouble with my boss? What, exactly, when Fi's lying there? But her primal defensive instincts-for herself, for Fi-had taken over, and her mouth was pursuing its own panicky agenda.
"You have to leave now," the droid said.
If she walked out of here now and abandoned him, Fi was definitely dead, really dead. He was breathing fine. She didn't care about definitions of brain death or depth of consciousness. This was about what she believed in and thought was right, from the time she'd first met Trooper Corr and realized what her government sanctioned in her name.
If I don't make a stand now, what's the use of expecting Senator Skeenah to make a difference?
"Then you'll need to have me thrown out-bodily." Besany reached inside her jacket and drew the blaster Mereel had given her. "I'm not going quietly, and I'm not leaving without Fi."
She aimed the weapon squarely at the med droid's central section, where the power packs were located, and flicked the charge indicator so that it could see she was serious about using it.
She had no idea how she was going to get Fi out of here. She had no friends or family to call upon, and her small band of special forces contacts were scattered across the galaxy; she was on her own. Order and precise planning had always been her watchwords, but there was no time for that now, and the best she could hope for was to stall for time-time for what, and how long?-or make such a scene that they backed down.
"I'm calling security," the droid said, and backed toward the door.
Besany could see that it already had, or had at least alerted someone to the argument: there was a small crowd of white-coated figures and droids outside in the corridor. She fol-lowed it to the threshold with the blaster aimed, and when the staff outside saw it, pandemonium broke loose. They ran for it. Some screamed. The security alarm boomed and flashed along the corridor.
Besany shut the doors and seared the panel lock with the blaster, something she didn't believe would actually work, but that Ordo had mentioned in passing. It worked, all right. She was now stuck in the room with Fi.
Okay, I've done it now. I'll get arrested. I'll lose my job. What happens to Fi then? But what happens to Fi if I just cave in to them?
It was sobering to think how fine a knife-edge stood be-tween an early night after a boring holovid, and plunging into an abyss of anarchy where she pulled a blaster on a med droid and made a stand against a system that stank.
Besany pulled up a chair and sat at Fi's bedside, blaster still on the door, and put her free hand on his. It felt warm and surprisingly smooth, but then the commandos always seemed to wear gloves.
"Sorry, Fi," she said. "But I asked Jilka if she wanted a date. She's nice when you get to know her."
Chances were that he'd never see her, but he wasn't going to leave here with the rest of the medical waste. She needed help, and there was only one person she could think of who could give it. She let go of Fi's hand and opened her comlink to call Skirata.
"I don't want to worry you, Kal," she said quietly, "but I've started an armed siege at the medcenter. I've got my blaster, and Fi's okay for the time being, but if you've got any advice ... I'd welcome it right now."
Kyrimorut, Mandalore, 482 days after Geonosis "We've got to go, Etain." Skirata grabbed a chunk of meat from the table and wrapped it hastily before cramming it into one of his belt pouches. Ordo was in the doorway, wearing his ARC captain's armor for a change. "We need to get back to Coruscant fast. Besany's run into a spot of trouble."
Etain was plowing through the list of members of the Re-public Academy of Genetics, identifying likely scientists for future discussions-voluntary or otherwise-while Mereel was holed up in a room with Ko Sai. The Kaminoan wasn't adjusting well to captivity, and she wasn't feeling chatty.
"What kind of trouble?"
"She was trying to get Fi released from the medcenter and ran into a few problems."
Problems didn't usually mean "admin" in Skirata's vocabulary. "Tell me they're both okay."
"They will be. I just asked Jailer to give her a hand." If Skirata had called in a favor from Jailer Obrim, the head of CSF's Anti-Terrorist Unit, then it wasn't just admin problems. He hesitated, looking guilty, which Etain found painful under the circumstances. "Okay, Besany started an armed siege. They were going to terminate Fi."
The declining value of life in Etain's personal galaxy de-pressed her more each day. The war seemed to be eroding everyone's decency, or maybe it had always been that way but she was noticing it close to home now. Darman had joked that droids were more valued than clones because they had a scrap value, but it wasn't funny anymore. She hardly knew how to react.
And as Jedi, we're supposed to defend this Republic? Etain settled for pragmatism rather than outrage. "Kal, she's a very competent woman, but she has no experience with firearms. She'll get hurt."
"Jailer will sort things out. He always does."
"Then why didn't you call him first? And isn't Vau around?"
"Vau was on Aargau but he's on his way back now-and I thought this was just some argument over budget codes. We're not abandoning her, ad'ika. Got to go. I'll keep you updated."
Ordo was completely silent. She watched his retreating back and guessed that he was going to have a rough few hours in transit, fretting about both Besany and Fi, and struggling with his own feelings about the datachips. She could taste his guilt. Every time she caught him looking at Skirata, it was with a regret that was eating him alive.
But Skirata was, as she'd thought on first meeting him, a gdan-one of Qiilura's assortment of carnivorous wildlife, very small aggressive creatures armed with dreadful little teeth, and who'd take on any prey regardless of its size. Feisty didn't begin to cover it. And Skirata, like gdans, bounced back from a drubbing fast.
Mereel came out of what Etain had started to think of as the interrogation room and laid a couple of datapads on the table. "Did I hear right? The lovely Agent Wennen started a shoot-out?"
"You gave her the blaster ..."
"Just aiming at levity, although I don't feel like it." He scrolled through the datapad screens while he sliced a chunk from the leg of nerf one-handed and chewed it thoughtfully The roasts seemed to sit on the table most of the day, losing a chunk or a slice every so often, and only the bone was left by the evening. "It's funny how scaring someone in an interrogation can be more effective than giving them a good hiding."
"You're talking as one professional interrogator to an-other, of course."
"You did a nice job with the Nikto, as I recall, when Vau hadn't made much headway."
"So what scares Ko Sai? Found it yet?"
"Anonymity."
"She's a Kaminoan. They don't take prime-time ads on HNE."
"I mean that she won't go down in her own history as one of the greats. With her work gone, she's nothing. Even when she betrayed her government and did a runner with their most lucrative industrial secrets, she could still think of her-self as one of the greatest geneticists of all time-maybe the greatest. Now she's got nothing to show for her work. We trashed her lab and the last of her cell cultures, too. She's effectively erased from science history, which is probably worse than being dead for her."
"So what do you offer someone to get them to cooperate when they already think they've lost everything?"
"To rebuild her lab here and put her back on the map."
"But she knows she can't ever apply what she discovers. You won't let her. She knows you well enough for that."
"She's quite interested in Jedi genetics . .."
"Oh no. No. Absolutely not." Etain was instantly furious. "How could you?"
Mereel looked genuinely wounded. "I was only lying to her."
"You're using my child as some bargaining chip!"
"I'm using the idea of your child as a way of getting its father a normal life span, General."
"You want me to go in there, don't you? You want me to work on her."
Mereel shrugged. "Here's my problem. I find it hard to separate what I want to do to her from what I want to get out of her. She hurt me and my brothers badly from the day we were . . . hatched, to the day two years later when Kal 'buir showed up and stopped her. They don't really understand human pain and stress, except written on flimsi as some theory, and they don't care anyway as long as the flesh machine that they build works. Think about your child, and then think how you'd feel if she did to him what she did to us. And that's without being put down at the end of the experiment for fighting back."
Mereel always knew how to target her worst nightmares. That was probably why Skirata had let him loose on Ko Sai: he knew how to hurt, and he was much more subtle than Vau. Etain didn't answer.
"So, Et'ika, you can see why keeping my mind on cooperation is hard."
What harm could it do? Ko Sai couldn't touch her, and Darman had everything to lose.
"Okay," she said. "But you're going to do a lot of babysit-ting to make up for this."
"I'd love that," he said. He smiled, and he had such an art-less, genuinely joyful smile that it was hard to square what he did with what he was. "It's going to be wonderful."
Etain spent a few minutes composing herself before she went into that room. She walked the circular path through the corridors that had quickly become her routine in the last couple of days, concentrating on a Force-bond with the baby. She could feel him growing now: before, she'd been in control of accelerating the pregnancy in healing trances, but now it was as if he had taken the reins and was deciding on his own pace. She had the strongest sense of him being impatient, of wanting to be out in the world and doing things, and it alarmed her. It was as if he felt she was a dangerous place that he needed to escape before she took him into any more battles or traded him for a deal with a scientist whose ethics were repellent.
Venku, we live in an age of chaos. You 're going to change many lives. Maybe this is where you start, saving your father and your uncles before you're even born.
She could have sworn he calmed a little within her. Venku was the future, and Skirata acted as if he knew it, or at leas: was an instrument of the Force. "Okay, aiwha-bait."
Etain took a breath and walked into the room. Ko Sai didn't look half as impressive or elegant in a borrowed shapeless gown, which was all that Bralor had managed to find to cover a being more than two meters tall. It had probably been furnishing fabric hurriedly sewn together: Mandalorian women didn't wear dresses. Without the well-cut, close-fitting suit with its spectacular high collar, Ko Sai looked faintly ludicrous, like a tau serpent trying to escape from a sack.
"I hear Mereel has been talking about my baby," Etain said, sitting down opposite her with a slightly exaggerated effort that announced how pregnant she was. It also let Ko Sai see that she had not one but two lightsabers on her belt. "Being a Jedi, I'm very pragmatic. We're trained to find peaceful compromises."