“I'm on watch until Skirata gets back,” he said, without waiting for Fi's question.
“What's wrong?”
“Nothing.”
“I'm sure Laseema will wait for you.”
“It's not about Laseema.”
“So it's something.”
“You never give up, do you?” Atin had always been the private type, even though he'd settled into a very different squad culture from the one he'd been raised in. There was always something new to learn about a brother who'd been trained in another batch. “Okay, now that the job's done, I've got matters to address with Sergeant Vau.”
“He's not a sergeant any longer.”
“I'm still going to kill him.”
It was just talk. Men said things like that. Fi closed the doors and sat down on the bed opposite.
“I'm supposed to be on watch,” Atin said.
“I made Sev tell me how you got the wound to your face.”
“So now you know. Vau gave me a good hiding for being whiny about surviving Geonosis when my brothers didn't.”
“It's even more than that. You know it. You wouldn't be the first commando to get in a fistfight with his sergeant.”
“You know, I like you better when you're being mindless and funny.”
“We need to know.”
“Usen'ye.” It was the crudest way to tell someone to go away in Mando'a. “It's none of your business.”
“It is if you pick a fight with Vau, and he kills you and we have to get a replacement.”
Atin laid the back plate he was cleaning on the floor and rubbed his eyes. “You want to know? Really? Look.”
He hooked his fingers inside the neck of his bodysuit and jerked down the front panel. The gription seams yielded. It was nothing Fi hadn't seen before in the refreshers: Atin's shoulders and arms were laced with long white streaks of scar tissue. It was common in the GAR. Men got injured in training and in the field, armor or not. But Atin seemed to have acquired more spectacular ones than average.
Scars happened, especially if you didn't get bacta on a wound fast enough.
“Vau gave you those, too, didn't he?”
“Vau nearly killed me, so when I finally got out of the bacta tank, I said I'd kill him one day. Fair enough, yes?”
No wonder Corr said he found commandos a little “relaxed.” They must have seemed dangerously chaotic to a clone trooper raised and trained by sober Kaminoan flash-instruction and simulation.
“Kill is a bit strong,” Fi said. “Break his nose, maybe.”
“Skirata did that already. Look, if Vau felt you lacked the killer edge, he'd crank it up a little. He'd make you fight your brother. We had a choice. We could fight each other until one was too badly hurt to stand up, or we could fight him.”
Fi thought of Kal Skirata, as hard and ruthless as anyone he had ever known, making sure his squads were fed and well rested, finding illicit treats for them, teaching them, encouraging them, telling them how proud they made him. It seemed to work pretty well.
“And?” said Fi.
“I opted to take on Vau. He had a real Mando iron saber, and I was unarmed. I just went at him. I never wanted to kill so badly in my life and he just cut me up. And Skirata beat the osik out of Vau when he found out. They never did get on, those two.”
“So … the thing with Sev. You told Skirata.”
“No, Skirata just found out. I didn't even know he knew me until we met at the spaceport siege.” Atin picked up his plate and started cleaning it again. “So now you know.”
Fi thought that a quick swing at Vau might purge Atin's hatred. Then it occurred to him that his brother was absolutely literal.
“At'ika, ever thought what's going to happen to you if you do kill him?”
“I've killed people outside my legitimate rules of engagement tonight. One more won't make a difference. And I'll die soon enough anyway.”
“Yeah, but there's Laseema.”
Atin paused, cloth gripped in one hand. “Yes, there is.”
“And how are you going to kill Vau anyway?”
“With a blade.” He picked up his right gauntlet and ejected the blade with a loud shunk. “The Mando way.”
This isn't bravado. Fi struggled for a moment, wondering what the right thing to do might be. He's really going to do it.
Fi decided he'd wait near the doors to the landing platform, ready for the moment that Vau walked through them.
Etain found sleep impossible. She sat out on the landing platform with Jusik, meditating. For all the violence of the day she had put behind her, she found a serene core within her that had never been there before, the inner calm she had sought so many years through study and struggle.
All I had to do was have a life beside my own to care for. That is the true detachment we ought to seek, putting another person above ourselves—not denying our emotions. The attachment to self is the path to the dark side.
The intricate silver threads of her child in the Force were more complex now, more interconnected. She sensed purpose and clarity and passion. He would be an extraordinary person. She could hardly wait to get to know him.
And when it was the right time, she would explain what she sensed to Darman. She imagined the joy on his face.
She brought herself out of the trance and Jusik was standing a few meters away, looking out over the ravine of towers in the direction of the Senate.
“Bardan, I have a question I can only ask of you.”
He turned and smiled. “I'll answer if I can.”
“How do I tell Darman in Mandalorian that I love him?”
She waited for Jusik to express some shock or disapproval. He blinked a few times, focusing on a nonexistent spot a few meters ahead. “I don't think he's completely fluent in Mando'a. The Nulls are, though.”
“I don't want to declare my love for Ordo, thanks.”
“Okay. Try … ni kar'tayli gar darasuum.”
She repeated it under her breath a few times. “Got it.”
“It's the same word as 'to know,' 'to hold in the heart,' kar'taylir. But you add darasuum, forever, and it becomes something rather different.”
“That tells me a great deal about the Mandalorian view of relationships.”
“They believe that complete knowledge of someone is the key to loving them. They don't like surprises and hidden facets. Warriors tend not to.”
“Pragmatic people.”
“A pity we Jedi weren't better friends with them, then. We could enjoy being pragmatic together.”
“You haven't lectured me on attachment. Thank you.”
Jusik turned to her with a broad smile that could only have come from being at complete peace with himself. He indicated his body with a flourish of his hands: dull green Mandalorian armor in the form of body plates and greaves. The matching helmet with its sinister T-shaped slit in the visor stood on the floor beside him.
“You think,” he said, “that I'll be walking back into the Jedi Temple wearing this? You think this isn't attachment?”
He really did find it funny. He laughed. The two of them were everything the Jedi Order wouldn't approve of. “Zey would throw a fit.”
“Kenobi wears trooper armor.”
“General Kenobi does not speak Mandalorian.” She found Jusik's laughter infectious, and tinged with the exhaustion and frightened relief that was often so evident in Fi. “And his soldiers don't address him as Little Obi-Wan.”
Jusik became sober again. “Our code was written when we were peacekeepers. We've never fought a war, not like this, not using others. And that changes everything. So I shall remain attached, because my heart tells me it's right. If remaining a Jedi means that is incompatible, then I know the choice I'll make.”