“Kal …”
“They don't go out. They don't get drunk. They don't chase women. We drill them and medicate them and shunt them from battle to battle without a day off, no rest, no fun, and then we scrape them off the battlefield and send what's left standing back to the front.”
“And you alongside them. You gave them a heritage, and a family.”
“I'm as bad as Vau.”
“If you hadn't been there, your place would have been taken by another like him. You gave your men respect and affection.”
Skirata let out a long breath and folded his hands, elbows still braced on the rail of the balcony. A speeder horn blared far below them. “You know something? Live-fire exercises. They started five years into their development. That means I sent ten-year-old boys to die. And eleven, and twelve, and right on up to the time they were men. I lost four of my batch in training accidents, and—some of those were even down to me, my rifle, my realism. Think about that.”
“I hear that happens in any army.”
“So ask me the question, then. Why didn't I ever say, Whoa, enough? I've had some unkind thoughts about you, ad'ika, why your kind never refused to lead an army of slaves. And then I thought, Kal, you hut'uun, you're just the same as her. You never stood up against it.”
“Your soldiers worship you.”
Skirata closed his eyes then screwed them tight shut for a moment. “You think that makes me feel better? That stinking strill loves Vau. Monsters get loved irrationally all the time.”
Etain wondered whether to soothe him by judiciously influencing his mind that he would not feel guilty. But Skirata was his own man, tough-minded enough to spot her mind influence and shrug her manipulation aside. If she asked him for his cooperation … no, Skirata would never take the easy path. She had no comfort to offer him that wouldn't make matters worse.
That was part of his unique and appealing courage. Her first impression was that he would be a man whose bluff exterior was simply embarrassed machismo. But Skirata wasn't embarrassed about his emotions at all. He had the guts to wear his heart on his sleeve. It was probably what made him even more effective at killing: he could love as hard as he could punch.
Force, stop reminding me. Duality. I know. I know you can't have light without dark.
Her spiritual struggles were irrelevant now. She was carrying Darman's child. She longed to tell him and knew she had to wait.
“You love them, Kal, and love is never wrong.”
“Yes, I do.” His hard, lined face was an icon of passionate sincerity. “All of them. I started with one hundred and four trainees, plus my Null lads, and now I've got ninety commandos left. They say parents should never have to outlive their kid. But I'm outliving them all, and I suppose that punishment serves me right. I was a rotten father.”
“But—”
“No.” He held up his hand to stop her, and she paused. Skirata was benign but absolute authority. “It's not what you think. I'm not using these lads to salve my conscience. They deserve better than that. I'm just using what I've learned—for them.”
“Does it matter, as long as they're loved?”
“Yes, it does. I have to know that I care about them for who they are, or I've consigned them to being things again. We're Mandalorian. A Mandalorian isn't just a warrior, you see. He's a father, and he's a son, and your family matters. Those boys deserve a father. They deserve sons and daughters, too, but that isn't going to happen. But they can be sons, and the two things you have a duty to teach your sons are self-reliance, and that you'd give your life for them.” Skirata leaned on folded arms and gazed down into the hazy abyss again. “And I would, Etain. I would. And I should have had that degree of conviction when I started this sorry mess back on Kamino.”
“And walked out? And left them to it? Because it wouldn't have shifted the clone program one bit, even if it made you feel like you'd taken a brave stand.”
“Is that how you feel?”
“That stalking out and refusing to lead them is more for my comfort than theirs?”
He lowered his head on his folded arms for a moment.
“Well, that answers my question.”
As a Jedi, Etain had never known a real father any more than a clone had, but in that moment she knew exactly who she wanted him to be. She moved closer to Skirata to let her arm drape on his shoulder and rested her head against his. A tear welled up in the wrinkled corner of his eye then spilled down his cheek, and she wiped it away with her sleeve. He managed a smile even though he kept his gaze fixed on the traffic far below.
“You're a good man and a good father,” she said. “You should never doubt that for a moment. Your men don't, and neither do I.”
“Well, I wasn't a good father until they made one out of me.”
But now he would also be a grandfather, too; and she knew it would delight him. She had given Darman back his future. She closed her eyes and savored the new life within her, strong and strange and wonderful.
Qibbu's Hut, main bar, 1800 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
Ordo shouldered a space for himself at the bar table between Niner and Boss and helped himself to the container of juice.
Corr was showing Scorch a dangerous trick with a vibroblade that required lightning reflexes to withdraw his hand before the blade thudded into the surface of the table. Scorch seemed wary.
“But your hand's metal, you cheating di'kut,” he said. “I bleed.”
“Yaaah, jealous!” Corr jeered. His blade shaved Scorch's finger and went thunnkk in the table to cheers from Jusik and Darman. “You shiny boys always did envy us meat cans.”
The two squads seemed in good spirits, good enough to be telling long and elaborate jokes without the usual competitive edge of bravado between Sev and Fi. They had a task to complete in thirty hours and it seemed to have focused them completely, erasing all squad boundaries. It was what Ordo had expected. They were professionals; professionals put the job first. Anything less got you killed.
But now they were having fun. Ordo suspected it was the first time they'd ever let their hair down in an environment like this, because it was certainly a first for him. Skirata looked as happy as he had ever seen him. And Jusik sat among them, wearing of all things a chest plate of Mandalorian armor under his jacket.
“We presented it to Bard'ika as a souvenir,” Skirata said, rapping his knuckles on the plate. “In case we don't manage to have that fancy dinner.”
In case some of us are dead by the end of tomorrow.
That was what he meant, and everyone knew it. They lived with it. It just seemed the more poignant now for knowing that a rare bond had been formed between unlikely comrades: two Jedi who openly admitted they struggled with the disciplines of attachment—and Ordo was sure now that he understood that—and a very mixed bag of clone soldiers from captain to trooper who had abandoned rank to answer to a sergeant who didn't answer to anyone.
Fi, with his uncanny talent for spotting a mood, raised his glass. “Here's to Sicko.”
The mention of the pilot's name brought instant reverence to the noisy table.
“To Sicko,” they chorused.
There was no point grieving: settling a score with Separatists was a far more productive use of their energy. Jusik winked at Ordo, clearly happy in a way that reached beyond noisy laughter in a crowded bar. Whatever moat of serenity and separateness surrounded men like Zey, Jusik's had vanished—if he had ever had it. He was daring to feel part of a tight-knit group of men. Whatever brotherhood was like within the Jedi Order, it didn't appear to be like this.