"Parja and Fi. She's making him walk today. His balance is shot to haran but she's got handrails set up, droids on standby, you name it. That girl never quits on a repair or orphaned nuna chicks."
Etain still saw what Fi had had and then lost: once a perfectly made, supremely fit man, now one who struggled to have a basic conversation, forgot where he was, needed help to eat, and was learning to walk properly again. Parja, never having known that perfect Fi to use as a benchmark, just saw who he was now, and appeared to find that he struck a chord in her. She seemed tireless in her devotion.
I wouldn 't cross these people, but if I had to choose who to trust if my life depended on it. . .
But she had chosen, and had not been disappointed.
"I'll go say good-bye to Ko Sai," Etain said. It still sounded utterly unbelievable to her, as if this was just a neighbor she had to humor for harmony's sake. It was sobering to think how normal even the most repellent beings could seem if you inured yourself to their ways by spending time with them. Darkness crept up quietly on the unwary. "I wonder what genetic goody I can think up, to keep her amused and cooperative."
Bralor resumed her business-as-usual tone again. "You know Kal's going to have to shoot her one day, don't you?"
"I suppose I do."
"Personally, I'd do it now, take the files you have to an-other clonemaster and trade it with them, because they all know how to age clones fast at some stage. Or just haul the shabuir down to Arkania and let them shake it out of her for you." Bralor placed a large floppy parcel in Etain's straining bag. "If she knows anything worth having, that is. That's the shatual, by the way, roasted and sliced. Share it with Darman and the boys. Right way to celebrate the birth of a son-even if you can't tell them yet."
Etain walked around the outside of the bastion to Ko Sai's laboratory, Venku held close to her, and caught sight of Parja guiding Fi between two fence rails. Fi fell over; Parja hauled him up with the aid of a droid, and they started over. Fi had once left an impression in the Force of resentment and bewildered loneliness, constantly wondering why he couldn't have the freedom and companionship in life that every other being around him seemed to have. But when Etain reached out in the Force to see what he radiated now, the mix was different- scared, confused, and seeking his old self, but the loneliness had all but vanished.
At last, Fi no longer felt alone. He'd paid a terrible price to reach that state, but he seemed more at peace than he ever had. The Force balanced its books in strange ways.
Holding Venku in her left arm, Etain rapped on the doors. "Ko Sai, it's Etain. Can I come in?" It was just diplomacy. The locked door was key-coded, and Etain could come and go as she pleased. But there was no point rubbing Ko Sai's nose in it. Seeing Venku might chip away further at her resolve. "Ko Sai?"
There was no answer. Etain had a sudden cold panic: the Kaminoan had fled with the tissue samples.
Don 't be stupid. She can 't escape. She's just engrossed in something.
Etain keyed in the code and walked in anyway.
Ko Sai had indeed fled: but she'd escaped to where no-body could follow, taking whatever knowledge she had with her.
She hung lifeless from a noose slung over one of the crossbeams.
Etain put her hand to her mouth, but she didn't scream. She'd seen far too much on the battlefield to react. I know the drill. I call Kal. Oh no, no, no . . . She found herself cursing in a sobbing voice under her breath as she summoned Skirata by comlink, and glanced at the note on the datapad that lay still illuminated on the workbench.
Thank you, Etain. It was fascinating.
Once more, Ko Sai, geneticist without equal, had had the last word.
Chapter 19.
Maze, if you ever find you wish to pursue an alternative career, let me know-privately, mind. I'm sure I could acquire some resources to help you . . . relocate.
-General Arligan Zey to his aide, ARC trooper Captain Maze, after receiving inconclusive answers about what might happen to clone troops wanting to leave the army after the war * * *
Kyrimorut bastion, Mandalore, 545 days after Geonosis So the aiwha-bait was still jerking his chain, even though she was dead.
Skirata leaned against the door frame and stared at Ko Sai's body, wondering what he had missed. Vau and Mereel checked it over carefully.
"I don't do full postmortems, not even for a hobby," said Vau, "but I can't see how anyone could have come close enough to Ko Sai out here to assassinate her, even if they knew we were holding her."
"She was getting more hacked off with life by the day." Mereel removed the ligature. "She must have known she wasn't going home. But I never had Kaminoans down as suicidal. Excessive self-esteem. It might have been the ultimate act of contempt for us."
Vau prodded the cadaver thoughtfully. "But they're not the most cosmopolitan and well traveled of species. Big deal for them to leave Kamino. Personally, I'm not surprised she went off the rails."
"I'd have taken the pearl-handled blaster and done the decent thing ages ago," Mereel muttered. "But then I'm not an arrogant xenophobic piece of tatsushi."
Skirata could only see a tenuous stream of data that had finally dried up. "I'm glad to see this hasn't traumatized you boys," he said sourly. His shock hadn't taken long to give way to anger. "I was getting worried that it might have scarred you for life."
She'd already done that to Mereel, of course. "She might have run out of information to give us."
"She might," said Skirata, "have been jerking our chain all along."
"Well, I know what I'm going to be doing for the foresee-able future. Collating what we've got and finding another geneticist or three to advise me." Mereel slotted a probe into the computer. "Just checking she hasn't trashed the data .. . no, she thought her work was too sacred even to have so much as a full stop erased. What a gal. Scrub the theory on the ultimate act of contempt, then."
"I still think we should risk it and do a deal with Arkanian Micro," said Vau. "Every cloner has to handle accelerated development. It's what they run on."
"But they're cheap and nasty," Mereel said.
"So? We're not buying from them. We just want them to say, Hey, those are the genes you need to switch on and off, and then we get the regulator manufactured by a pharma company."
"I've got that in hand," Skirata said, unable to take his eyes off the dead Kaminoan. He half expected her to be playing dead, not a corpse at all. "First things first."
"Once we"know what it is we've got, too," Mereel said. "We're sitting on the cloning equivalent of the Sacred Scroll of Gurrisalia and we can't read the language-not well enough, anyway."
They still had a dead Kaminoan to dispose of, too. Skirata wondered what use he could make of her now. Nobody would ever believe he hadn't killed her-he wasn't sure why he hadn't, in the end-so maybe there was some advantage to be gained here. If she couldn't be useful to him alive, she'd earn her keep dead.
"Delta's still digging away under ActionWorld island, aren't they?"
"Yes, Kal'buir."
"I think they need to find what they're looking for. Put the Chancellor's mind at rest. Get him off our areas of interest, so to speak."
"How are we going to plant her there?" Vau asked. "We're not," Skirata said. "I'm going to have a word with Delta."
Mereel shook his head. "They're not us. They stick to the rules. They'll tell Zey."
Vau looked offended. "Don't underestimate how diplomatic they can be, Kal. They didn't tell him about the bank raid, did they?"
"Okay, Walon, I'll get my story straight so we don't dump Jusik in it as the leak on Ko Sai, and I'll provide some forensics for them to slap on Zey's desk."
"Done. Now what about the body?"
"I'm not looking forward to this." Skirata's hatred of Ko Sai and her kind didn't extend to making what he had to do next any easier. "But help me move her into the barn. I'll do my own dirty work."
"I think Jaing and I should do it, actually, Buir." Mereel ushered the two older men out of the lab. "Ko Sai and us... we go back a long way."
Skirata could always rely on the Nulls. One day they might talk about it, but for the time being he was simply grateful that they volunteered, and wondered if there was now some kind of closure in it for them.
"Are you... donating the entire body to Delta?" Vau asked.
"No," Skirata said, suddenly getting a whole new idea, and not liking himself for it. Did she have any family? After all the years he spent on Kamino, he still didn't know. "It wouldn't do Lama Su any harm to think that we got to her in the end. I think I'm going to do the decent thing and send most of her home."
"They'll appreciate that. . ., " Vau said.
"Munit tome'tayl, skotah'iisa," Skirata said. Long memory, short fuse: it was the Mandalorian character, they said. "I'd hate Kamino to forget us."
But maybe, one day, they could forget Kamino.
"I'll get Jaing and Ordo." Mereel took out a vibroblade.
-This is a job a long time in the planning."
Mereel didn't elaborate, and Skirata didn't ask. He took Vau's elbow and steered him outside.
Ko Sai wasn't the only person Skirata didn't know quite as well as he felt he should.
Besany Wennen's apartment, Coruscant, 547 days after Geonosis Besany always took her blaster with her when she answered the door these days, and she didn't open it until she'd run all the security scans that Ordo and Mereel had installed for her. But today it was just Kal Skirata who showed up, carrying something in his arms.
"Sorry, Kal," she said. "I always expect you to show up on the landing pad, like Ordo does."
"I didn't want to panic you." He indicated the bundle with a nod. "Not with this little fella on board."
"If I didn't know better, I'd say you were carrying a-oh my, you are. It's a baby ..."
Skirata took a deep breath and laid the bundle of blankets- plain pearl gray, very soft-on her sofa, then leaned over it and peeled the layers of fabric away with slow care. "Isn't he beautiful?" His voice was a whisper. "I might need you to look after him. Not all the time, but sometimes."
The baby was a newborn, with a shock of dark silky curls, sound asleep. Besany wasn't sure what to say; she was so fond of Skirata that she'd do pretty well anything for him, but she knew nothing about babies, and she still had a regular job. He took her hand without looking away from the sleep-ing child, and squeezed it gently as if the two of them were sharing a wonderful joke.
"It's Darman and Etain's son," he said. "Venku."
"Oh. Oh." The information floated on a current of disbelief before sinking in and shocking her. "Oh my."
"This is going to be a little awkward for a while. Darman hasn't a clue he's a father. I'm still deciding if he's ready to find out."
Besany couldn't take her eyes off the baby. He was real, a real live baby, lying on her sofa. She still had trouble taking that in. "So that's why Etain's been out of touch for a while. I'd never have guessed."
"She wants to carry on as a general." Venku woke and started fretting, making little ineffectual kicks. Skirata picked him up again with all the ease of a father who'd done this all before, a long time ago. "If the Jedi Council finds out she's involved with Dar, then she gets kicked out. So as far as everyone except you, me, Bard'ika, Vau, the Nulls, and a select few on Mandalore is concerned, this is my grandson."
"Which he is, really."
"I've got such a tangled domestic past that it won't sur-prise anyone to find my family dumping a kid on me."
"I suppose having him brought up on Mandalore was out of the question."
"If his father can't raise him," Skirata said, "then the duty falls to me."
Besany still had a lot to absorb about Mandalorian custom. "But you're on active service. You live in the barracks, don't you?"
"Exactly. Now, I rented a place for Laseema by the Kragget restaurant, so I'm going to move in there for the time being and see how we cope between us."
Skirata was a compulsive fixer who could make anything happen through his extensive network of contacts. One day, Besany would ask tactfully about his life before the Grand Army, but she already knew it would give her sleepless nights. "You rented an apartment for her?"
"You think I'd leave her stuck at Qibbu's? You know how Twi'lek girls get exploited in cantinas like that. She's Atin's lady, and that means she's family. I'm a regular at the Kragget and there are plenty of CSF lads using the place, so it's secure."
He seemed a little embarrassed. Perhaps he was worried that Besany would feel he'd failed for not settling Laseema in a smart neighborhood like her own.
I'm insane. I really should say no. What do I know about kids? "Okay, just bear in mind my office hours. Have you asked Jailer, too?"
"I've asked a lot of him lately. I'd rather avoid asking again. But it's the best compromise I could think of that still lets Etain see Venku when she's not deployed."
"We'll make it work," she said. It sounded like the most insane promise she'd ever made. But then she'd abducted a comatose commando from the medcenter and done plenty of other ludicrously dangerous things recently; this was just one more act of lunacy on a growing list.
Skirata gave the baby an exaggerated grin and kissed him on the forehead. "It's normal for Mando boys to accompany their father on the battlefield from about eight years old, but I think Venku is going to be an early starter."
Besany tried to reconcile Skirata's loathing of the Kaminoans for exposing small boys to live weapons fire with the Mandalorian tradition, but maybe the difference lay in knowing that your father was teaching you to survive, not conditioning you as a product. She wondered if the kids felt the difference. It was a question to ask Ordo.
"So what happens now, Kal?"
"Would you mind if I brought Omega Squad here to ... well, introduce him? I can't take him into the barracks. Zey might sense him. They can feel each other in the Force, Jedi."
Oh my, yes. His mother s a Jedi. He s... a Force-sensitive. Oh boy. We've collected the full set of problems.
"Of course you can." Besany had instant thoughts of what buffet food she might put on the table. She was always ready for guests who never came, and aware that she craved be-longing; the pull of Skirata's gang was that she never felt like an outsider there. "Are they back in town?"
"I try to make sure they get the shorter missions, yes." He held up his hands defensively. "I know, I know, I've got the best part of ninety boys from my original batch out in the field, but Omega are special."
"One day, are you going to level with me about everything "Even the stuff you're better off not knowing?"
"I've been under surveillance by Republic Intel and I'm digging in files that are awfully close to the Chancellor." A lifetime of knowing what she didn't need to ask and what was best left deniable went straight out the window. "I might as well know the worst."
"Okay."
Skirata picked up Venku and walked around the apartment with the infant cradled against his shoulder, gently patting his back and making doting-grandfather noises. Now wasn't going to be the time she got the explanations, then. Maybe it needed a whole day's debriefing program to cover a long ca-reer of removing people and things, or dragging them screaming to a client. She had no illusions. She knew the company Skirata kept.
He came from a dirty world, as did Ordo. But she still felt cleaner in their world than she did in the glossy corridors of the Senate, or even on the street surrounded by citizens who were too preoccupied with the latest holovid to ask what was happening to their society lately.
"Here," she said, holding out her arms to take the baby. "Show me how to hold him. Introduce him to his aunt Besany."
Office of General Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces, SO Brigade HQ, Coruscant, 547 days after Geonosis Etain knew this was going to be bad, despite the informal arrangement of comfortable chairs in the office and the caf on the small table, but she could take it.