“Understood, Sarge.”
Sev managed a smile. “As long as we get to use lethal rounds later. We like dead. Dead is very us.”
“I added some Dust to the unenriched thermal,” Jusik said. “You want some made into Verpine projectiles, so you can tag anyone you spot and track them, too?” Jusik was a ferociously clever lad and Skirata prized intelligence very much, as much as loyalty and courage. “I thought I'd make sure we didn't have to follow a suspect the hard way again. Am I forgiven for my lapse of judgment the other day?”
“Bard'ika, if you ever want a father, then you have one in me,” Skirata said.
It was the highest compliment he could pay him: he was fit to be his son. Jusik might not have fully understood Mandalorian culture yet, but he certainly grasped the sentiment if his embarrassed glance down at the floor and the broad grin were any guide.
Boss gave Skirata a cautious glance. “Does that mean we get to use your Verp rifles?”
“You're such a pushover for fancy kit,” Skirata said.
“They're the business, Sarge … kandosii!”
“But you bend them, and I'll bend you. They cost me a fortune, and they do not bounce.”
“How you going to get the caliber of those marker pellets right, though, Bardan?” Sev said.
“Multicaliber magazine and bore,” Skirata said. “You could load these Verps with stones if you needed to. That's what cost the money. That and the full-spectrum range of filters, variable velocity, and anti-reflective device.”
“Kandosii,” Sev said, almost sighing. “Shame you didn't pay a bit extra to make them more robust.”
“Cheeky di'kut ... okay, I reckon you're good enough to use them. Take a look.”
Skirata went to the cupboard and slid out one of the precious rifles, disassembled into three discrete parts: thirty-centimeter barrels, matte drab green, silent, horribly accurate, and Jaing's weapon of choice for going hiking with extreme prejudice, as he described it. Sheer ballistic beauty. An assassin's tooclass="underline" a craftsman's tool.
He hadn't seen Jaing in months. He missed him. He missed all the Nulls badly when they were on long, distant missions.
Boss and Sev fondled the rifles and beamed. Even Fixer looked happy. The Delta boys didn't respond to food treats and pats on the head, then, but they loved new toys and praise. Skirata noted that.
“I need accurate ranges from your recce,” Jusik said. “I've got to pack the Dust into a medium that'll stay together until it's right at the target, or the stuff will disperse too soon. This has to splatter them close to the face so they inhale it, or it'll just sit on their clothing. If they dump their jackets, we'll lose them.”
“Fun,” Sev said, and obviously meant it.
Vau got up and wandered out toward the landing platform, no doubt to fuss over Lord Mirdalan before the slobbering thing did a real job for once in its life. When he was out of earshot, Boss turned to Skirata.
“Sargeant Vau loves that animal. Don't let anything happen to it. Please.”
“I won't. It knows I carry a knife.”
Corr, who had been the subject of much fussing and attention since Jusik had brought him back to Qibbu's, watched cautiously. Skirata ruffled his hair. He flinched. “Sorry about all this, son. Learning a lot?”
“Yes, Sargeant.”
“Want to be useful? I mean even more useful than you are now?”
“Yes. Please.”
Poor little di'kut. Skirata fought the urge to collect another damaged young boy, another stray in need of belonging, and lost immediately. He had been that orphan, and a soldier had rescued him.
“Dar, give him a crash course in using a DC-17, will you?”
Boss and Sev slid the discreet body armor plates under their tunics and checked their hand blasters. “Just off for a recce of the location, then,” Boss said. “Back in two hours, and then I suggest we insert as soon as possible so we're there before the bad guys.”
“What makes you think they won't be doing the same right now?” Etain said.
“Because it looks like a very hard location to lay up in for any length of time, and we're pros, and they're not,” said Boss. “So they'll probably go in closer to the rendezvous time.”
Skirata made a point of looking around the group so that he could see the reaction of the two Jedi. Both of them were very capable warriors but assassination—killing someone who was not about to kill you—was psychologically very different from using a lightsaber or blaster in combat.
The silent excitement that had gripped the room was palpable.
“Gentlemen—ma'am—this is a shoot-to-kill operation,” he said. “Not arrest. We want as many hut'uune identified, located, and dead by any means possible at the end of this deployment. Nothing else. We're cutting out a big chunk of this network in one slice. Are we all clear that's what we're doing?”
“Yes Sarge!”
It was one voice. And Jusik and Etain were part of it.
That was good. Anyone who hesitated would get the rest of the strike team killed, or worse.
“Okay, recce team, move out,” Skirata said. “And don't you dare drop my Verps.”
15
Mandalorians are surprisingly unconcerned with biological lineage. Their definition of offspring or parent is more by relationship than birth: adoption is extremely common, and it's not unusual for soldiers to take war orphans as their sons or daughters if they impress them with their aggression and tenacity. They also seem tolerant of marital infidelity during long separations, as long as any child resulting from it is raised by them. Mandalorians define themselves by culture and behavior alone. It is an affinity with key expressions of this culture—loyalty strong self identity, emphasis on physical endurance and discipline-that causes some ethnic groups such as those of Concord Dawn in particular to gravitate toward Mandalorian communities, thereby reinforcing a common set of genes derived from a wide range of populations. The instinct to be a protective parent is especially dominant. They have accidentally bred a family-oriented warrior population, and continue to reinforce it by absorbinglike-minded individuals and groups.
–Mandalorians: Identity and Its Influence on Genome, published by the Galactic Institute of Anthropology
Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 0815 hours, 384 days after Geonosis
This was no place for a fighting man to be when his brothers were out in the field, but Ordo reasoned that the faster he identified and neutralized the informant, the sooner he could leave this office job.
“Clone,” the Nimbanel voice said. The creature was riding him today. It was a bad idea—normally. “Clone! Have you input the overnight batch of data yet?”
I know at least ten ways to kill you without a weapon, lizard. I'd like to try them all.
“Yes, Gurus,” Ordo said, being nice, compliant Corr. “I have.”
“Then you should have told me immediately.”
Ordo heard Skirata's constant admonishment in his head and kepthis temper: Udesii, udesii, ad'ika—easy, easy, son. This clerk wasn't fit to clean Corr's boots. He certainly wasn't fit to clean his.
“My apologies,” Ordo said, acting the calm man that he definitely wasn't right then. “It won't happen again.”
Besany Wennen raised her head from her screen very slowly. She was distressingly pretty. The symmetry of her features made him uncomfortable because he wanted to stare, and his male instinct said pursue, but his brain said suspect.