Republic Commando: Triple Zero

1

Find Skirata. He's the only one who can talk these men down. And no, I'm not going to obliterate a whole barracks block just to neutralize six ARCs. So get me Skirata: he can't have traveled very far.

–General Iri Camas, Director of Special Forces, to Coruscant Security Force, from Siege Incident Control, Special Operations Brigade HQ Barracks, Coruscant, five days after the Battle of Geonosis

Tipoca City, Kamino, eight years before Geonosis

Kal Skirata had committed the biggest mistake of his life, and he'd made some pretty big ones in his time.

Kamino was damp. And damp didn't help his shattered ankle one little bit. No, it was more than damp: it was nothing but storm-whipped sea from pole to pole, and he wished that he'd worked that out before he responded to Jango Fetes offer of a lucrative long-term deployment in a location that his old comrade hadn't exactly specified.

But that was the least of his worries now.

The air smelled more like a hospital than a military base. The place didn't look like barracks, either. Skirata leaned on the polished rail that was all that separated him from a forty-meter fall into a chamber large enough to swallow a battle cruiser and lose it.

Above him, the vaulted illuminated ceiling stretched as far as the abyss did below. The prospect of the fall didn’t worry him half as much as not understanding what he was now seeing.

The cavern—surgically clean, polished durasteel and permaglass—was filled with structures that seemed almost like fractals. At first glance they looked like giant toroids stacked on pillars; then, as he stared, the toroids resolved into smaller rings of permaglass containers, with containers within them, and inside those

No, this wasn't happening.

Inside the transparent tubes there was fluid, and within it there was movement.

It took him several minutes of staring and refocusing on one of the tubes to realize there was a body in there, and it was alive. In fact, there was a body in every tube: row upon row of tiny bodies, children's bodies. Babies.

“Fierfek,” he said aloud.

He thought he'd come to this Force-forsaken hole to train commandos. Now he knew he'd stepped into a nightmare. He heard boots behind him on the walkway of the gantry and turned sharply to see Jango coming slowly toward him, chin lowered as if in reproach.

“If you're thinking of leaving, Kal, you knew the deal,” said Jango, and leaned on the rail beside him.

“You said—”

“I said you'd be training special forces troops, and you will be. They just happen to be growing them.”

“What?”

“Clones.”

“How the fierfek did you ever get involved with that?”

“A straight five million and a few extras for donating my genes. And don't look shocked. You'd have done the same.”

The pieces fell into place for Skirata and he let himself be shocked anyway. War was one thing. Weird science was another issue entirely.

“Well, I'm keeping my end of the deal?” Skirata adjusted the fifteen-centimeter, three-sided blade that he always kept sheathed in his jacket sleeve. Two Kaminoan technicians walked serenely across the floor of the facility beneath him. Nobody had searched him and he felt better for having a few weapons located for easy use, including the small hold-out blaster tucked in the cuff of his boot.

And all those little kids in tanks …

The Kaminoans disappeared from sight. “What do those things want with an army anyway?”

“They don't. And you don't need to know all this right now.” Jango beckoned him to follow. “Besides, you're already dead, remember?”

“Feels like it,” said Skirata. He was the Cuy'val Dar—literally, “those who no longer exist,” a hundred expert soldiers with a dozen specialties who'd answered Jango's secret summons in exchange for a lot of credits … as long as they were prepared to disappear from the galaxy completely.

He trailed Jango down corridors of unbroken white duraplast, passing the occasional Kaminoan with its long gray neck and snake-like head. He'd been here for four standard days now, staring out the window of his quarters onto the endless ocean and catching an occasional glimpse of the aiwhas soaring up out of the waves and flapping into the air. The thunder was totally silenced by the soundproofing, but the lightning had become an annoyingly irregular pulse in the corner of his eye.

Skirata knew from day one that he wouldn't like Kaminoans.

Their cold yellow eyes troubled him, and he didn't care for their arrogance, either. They stared at his limping gait and asked if he minded being defective.

The window-lined corridor seemed to run the length of the city. Outside, it was hard to see where the horizon ended and the rain clouds began.

Jango looked back to see if he was keeping up. “Don't worry, Kal. I'm told it's clear weather in the summer—for a few days:”

Right. The dreariest planet in the galaxy, and he was stuck on it. And his ankle was playing up. He really should have invested in getting it fixed surgically. When—if—he got out of here, he'd have the assets to get the best surgeon that credits could buy.

Jango slowed down tactfully. “So, Ilippi threw you out?”

“Yeah.” His wife wasn't Mandalorian. He'd hoped she would embrace the culture, but she didn't: she always hated seeing her old man go off to someone else's war. The fights began when he wanted to take their two sons into battle with him. They were eight years old, old enough to start learning their trade; but she refused, and soon Ilippi and the boys and his daughter were no longer waiting when he returned from the latest war. Ilippi divorced him the Mando way, same as they'd married, on a brief, solemn, private vow. A contract was a contract, written or not. “Just as well I've got another assignment to occupy me.”

“You should have married a Mando girl. Aruetiise don't understand a mercenary's life.” Jango paused as if waiting for argument, but Kal wasn't giving him one. “Don't your sons talk to you any longer?”

“Not often.” So I failed as a father. Don't rub it in. “Obviously they don't share the Mando outlook on life any more than their mother does.”

“Well, they won't be speaking to you at all now. Not here. Ever.”

Nobody seemed to care if he had disappeared anyway. Yes, he was as good as dead. Jango said nothing more, and they walked in silence until they reached a large circular lobby with rooms leading off it like the spokes of a wheel.

“Ko Sai said something wasn't quite right with the first test batch of clones,” said Jango, ushering Skirata ahead of him into another room. “They've tested them and they don't think these are going to make the grade. I told Orun Wa that we'd give him the benefit of our military experience and take a look.”

Skirata was used to evaluating fighting men—and women, come to that. He knew what it took to make a soldier. He was good at it; soldiering was his life, as it was for all Mando'-ade, allsons and daughters of Mandalore. At least there'd be some familiarity to cling to in this ocean wilderness.

It was just a matter of staying as far from the Kaminoans as he could.

“Gentlemen,” said Orun Wa in his soothing monotone. He welcomed them into his office with a graceful tilt of the head, and Skirata noted that he had a prominent bony fin running across the top of his skull from front to back. Maybe that meant Orun Wa was older, or dominant, or something: he didn't look like the other examples of aiwha-bait that Skirata had seen so far. “I always believe in being honest about setbacks in a program. We value the Jedi Council as a customer.”

“I have nothing to do with the Jedi,” said Jango. “I'm only a consultant on military matters.”

Oh, Skirata thought. Jedi. Great.

“I would still be happier if you confirmed that the first batch of units is below the acceptable standard.”

“Bring them in, then.”

Skirata shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and wondered what he was going to see: poor marksmanship, poor endurance, lack of aggression? Not if these were Jango's clones. He was curious to see how the Kaminoans could have fouled up producing fighting men based on that template.

The storm raged against the transparisteel window, rain pounding in surges and then easing again. Orun Wa stood back with a graceful sweep of his arms like a dancer. And the doors opened.

Six identical little boys—four, maybe five years old—walked into the room.

Skirata was not a man who easily fell prey to sentimentality. But this did the job just fine.

They were children: not soldiers, not droids, and not units. Just little kids. They had curly black hair and were all dressed in identical dark blue tunics and pants. He was expecting grown men. And that would have been bad enough.

He heard Jango inhale sharply.

The boys huddled together, and it ripped at Skirata's heart in a way he wasn't expecting. Two of the kids clutched each other, looking up at him with huge, dark, unblinking eyes: another moved slowly to the front of the tight pack as if barring Orun Wa's path and shielding the others.

Oh, he was. He was defending his brothers. Skirata was devastated.

“These units are defective, and I admit that we perhaps made an error in attempting to enhance the genetic template,” Orun Wa said, utterly unmoved by their vulnerability.

Skirata had worked out fast that Kaminoans despised everything that didn't fit their intolerant, arrogant society's ideal of perfection. So … they thought Jango's genome wasn't the perfect model for a soldier without a little adjustment, then. Maybe it was his solitary nature; he'd make a rotten infantry soldier. Jango wasn't a team player.

And maybe they didn't know that it was often imperfection that gave humans an edge.

The kids' gaze darted between Skirata and Jango, and the doorway, and all around the room, as if they were checking for an escape or appealing for help.

“Chief Scientist Ko Sai apologizes, as do I,” said Orun Wa. “Six units did not survive incubation, but these developed normally and appeared to meet specifications, so they have undergone some flash-instruction and trials. Unfortunately, psychological testing indicates that they are simply too unreliable and fail to meet the personality profile required!”

“Which is?” said Jango.

“That they can carry out orders:' Orun Wa blinked rapidly: he seemed embarrassed by error. “I can assure you that we will address these problems in the current Alpha production run. These units will be reconditioned, of course. Is there anything you wish to ask?”

“Yeah,” said Skirata. “What do you mean by reconditioned?”

“In this case, terminated.”

There was a long silence in the bland, peaceful, white-walled room. Evil was supposed to be black, jet black; and it wasn't supposed to be soft-spoken. Then Skirata registered terminated and his instinct reacted before his brain.

His clenched fist was pressed against Orun Wa's chest in a second and the vile unfeeling thing jerked his head backward.

“You touch one of those kids, you gray freak, and I'll skin you alive and feed you to the aiwhas—”

“Steady,” Jango said. He grabbed Skirata's arm.

Orun Wa stood blinking at Skirata with those awful reptilian yellow eyes. “This is uncalled for. We care only about our customers' satisfaction.”

Skirata could hear his pulse pounding in his head and all he could care about was ripping Orun Wa apart. Killing someone in combat was one thing, but there was no honor in destroying unarmed kids. He yanked his arm out of Jango's grip and stepped back in front of the children. They were utterly silent. He dared not look at them. He fixed on Orun Wa.

Jango gripped his shoulder and squeezed hard enough to hurt. Don't. Leave this to me. It was his warning gesture. But Skirata was too angry and disgusted to fear Jango's wrath.

“We could do with a few wild cards,” Jango said carefully, moving between Skirata and the Kaminoan. “It's good to have some surprises up your sleeve for the enemy. What are these kids really like? And how old are they?”

“Nearly two standard years' growth. Highly intelligent, deviant, disturbed—and uncommandable.”

“Could be ideal for intel work.” It was pure bluff: Skirata could see the little twitch of muscle in Jango's jaw. He was shocked, too. The bounty hunter couldn't hide that from his old associate. “I say we keep 'em?”

Two? The boys looked older. Skirata half turned to check on them, and their gazes were locked on him: it was almost an accusation. He glanced away, but took a step backward and put his hand discreetly behind him to place his palm on the head of the boy defending his brothers, just as a helpless gesture of comfort.

But a small hand closed tightly around his fingers instead.

Skirata swallowed hard. Two years old.

“I can train them,” he said. “What are their names?”

“These units are numbered. And I must emphasize that they're unresponsive to command.” Orun Wa persisted as if talking to a particularly stupid Weequay. “Our quality control designated them Null class and wishes to start—”

“Null? As in no di'kutla use?”

Jango took a discreet but audible breath. “Leave this to me, Kal.”

“No, they're not units.” The little hand was grasping his for dear life. He reached back with his other hand and another boy pressed up against his leg, clinging to him. It was pitiful. “And I can train them.”

“Unwise,” said Orun Wa.

The Kaminoan took a gliding step forward. They were such graceful creatures, but they were loathsome at a level that Skirata could simply not comprehend.

And then the little lad grasping his leg suddenly snatched the hold-out blaster from Skirata's boot. Before he could react the kid had tossed it to the one who'd been clinging to his hand in apparent terror.

The boy caught it cleanly and aimed it two-handed at Orun Wa's chest.

“Fierfek.” Jango sighed. “Put it down, kid.”

But the lad wasn't about to stand down. He stood right in front of Skirata, utterly calm, blaster raised at the perfect angle, fingers placed just so with the left hand steadying the right, totally focused. And deadly serious.

Skirata felt his jaw drop a good centimeter. Jango froze, then chuckled.

“I reckon that proves my point,” he said, but he still had his eyes fixed on the tiny assassin.

The kid clicked the safety catch. He seemed to be checking it was off.

“It's okay, son,” Skirata said, as gently as he could. He didn't much care if the boy fried the Kaminoan, but he cared about the consequences for the kid. And he was instantly and totally proud of him—of all of them. “You don't need to shoot. I'm not going to let him touch any of you. Just give me back the blaster.”

The child didn't budge; the blaster didn't waver. He should have been more concerned about cuddly toys than a clean shot at this stage in his young life. Skirata squatted down slowly behind him, trying not to spook him into firing.

But if the boy had his back to him … then he trusted him, didn't he?

“Come on … just put it down, there's a good lad. Now give me the blaster.” He kept his voice as soft and level as he could, when he was actually torn between cheering and doing the job himself. “You're safe, I promise you.”

The boy paused, eyes and aim still both fixed on Orun Wa. “Yes sir.” Then he lowered the weapon to his side. Skirata put his hand on the boy's shoulder and pulled him back carefully.

“Good lad.” Skirata took the blaster from his little fingers and scooped him up in his arms. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Nicely done, too.”

The Kaminoan showed no anger whatsoever, simply blinking, yellow, detached disappointment. “If that does not demonstrate their instability, then—”

“They're coming with me.”

“This is not your decision.”

“No, it's mine,” Jango interrupted. “And they've got the right stuff. Kal, get them out of here and I'll settle this with Orun Wa.”

Skirata limped toward the door, still making sure he was between the Kaminoan and the kids. He was halfway down the corridor with his bizarre escort of tiny deviants before the boy he was carrying wriggled uncomfortably in his arms.

“I can walk, sir,” he said.

He was perfectly articulate, fluent—a little soldier way beyond his years.

“Okay, son.”

Skirata lowered him to the floor and the kids fell in behind him, oddly quiet and disciplined. They didn't strike him as dangerous or deviant, unless you counted stealing a weapon, pulling a feint, and almost shooting a Kaminoan as deviant. Skirata didn't.

The kids were just trying to survive, like any soldier had a duty to do.

And they looked four or five years old, but Orun Wa had definitely said they were two. Skirata suddenly wanted to ask them how long they'd spent in those awful suffocating transparisteel vats, cold hard tanks that were nothing like the dark comfort of a womb. It must have been like drowning. Could they see each other as they floated? Had they understood what was happening to them?

Skirata reached the doors of his stark quarters and ushered them in, trying not to dwell on those thoughts.

The boys lined up against the wall automatically, hands clasped behind their backs, and waited without being told to.

I brought up two sons. How hard can it be to mind six kids for a few days?

Skirata waited for them to react but they simply stared back at him as if expecting orders. He had none. Rain lashed the window that ran the whole width of the wall. Lightning flared. They all flinched.

But they still stood in silence.

“Tell you what,” Skirata said, bewildered. He pointed to the couch. “You sit down over there and I'll get you something to eat. Okay?”

They paused and then scrambled onto the couch, huddling together again. He found them so utterly disarming that he had to make a rapid exit to the kitchen area to gather his thoughts while he slapped uj cake onto a plate and sliced it roughly into six pieces. If this was how it was going to be for—for years … .

You're stuck, chum.

You took the credits.

And this is your whole world for the foreseeable future… and maybe forever.

It never stopped raining. And he was holed up with a species he loathed on sight, and who thought it was okay to dispose of units who happened to be living, talking, walking children. He raked his fingers through his hair and despaired, eyes closed, until he was suddenly aware of someone staring up at him.

“Sir?” the boy said. It was the courageous little marksman. He might have been identical to his brothers, but his mannerisms were distinctive. He had a habit of balling one fist at his side while the other hand was relaxed. “May we use the 'freshers?”

Skirata squatted down, face level with the kid's. “'Course you can.” It was quite pathetic: they were nothing like his own lively, boisterous sons had once been. “And I'm not sir. I'm not an officer. I'm a sergeant. You can call me Sergeant if you like, or you can call me Kal. Everyone else does.”

“Yes … Kal.”

“It's over there. Can you manage on your own?”

“Yes, Kal.”

“I know you don't have a name, but I really think you should have one.”

“I'm Null Eleven. En-one-one.”

“How'd you like to be called Ordo? He was a Mandalorian warrior.”

“Are we Mandalorian warriors?”

“You bet.” The kid was a natural fighter. “In every sense of the word.”

“I like that name.” Little Ordo considered the white-tiled floor for a moment, as if assessing it for risk. “What's Mandalorian?”

For some reason that hurt most of all. If these kids didn't know their culture and what made someone a Mando, then they had no purpose, no pride, and nothing to hold them and their clan together when home wasn't a piece of land. If you were a nomad, your nation traveled in your heart. And without the Mando heart, you had nothing—not even your soul—in whatever new conquest followed death. Skirata knew at that moment what he had to do. He had to stop these boys from being dar'manda, eternal Dead Men, men without a Mando soul.

“I can see I need to teach you a lot.” Yes, this was his duty. “I'm Mandalorian, too. We're soldiers, nomads. You know what those words mean?”

“Yes.”

“Clever lad. Okay, you go and sort yourselves out in the 'freshers, and I want you all sitting back on the couch in ten minutes. Then we'll sort out names for everyone. Got it?”

“Yes, Kal.”

So Kal Skirata—mercenary, assassin, and failed father—spent a stormy evening on Kamino sharing uj cake with six dangerously clever small boys who could already handle firearms and talk like adults, teaching them that they came from a warrior tradition, and that they had a language and a culture, and much to be proud of.

And he explained that there was no Mandalorian word for “hero.” It was only not being one that had its own word: Hut'uun.

There were an awful lot of hut'uune in the galaxy, and Skirata certainly counted the Kaminoans among them.

The kids—now trying to get used to being Ordo, A'den, Kom'rk, Prudii, Mereel, and Jaing—sat devouring both their newfound heritage and the sticky sweet cake, eyes fixed on Skirata as he recited lists of Mandalorian words and they repeated them back to him.

He worked through the most common words, struggling. He had no idea how to teach a language to kids who could already speak fluent Basic. So he simply listed everything he could recall that seemed useful, and the little Null ARCs listened, grim-faced, flinching in unison at every blaze of lightning. After an hour Skirata felt that he was simply confusing some very frightened, very lonely children. They just stared at him.

“Okay, time to recap,” he said, exhausted by a bad day and the realization that there was an unknowable number of days like this stretching ahead. He pinched the bridge of his nose_ in an effort to focus. “Can you count from one to ten for me?”

Prudii—N-5—parted his lips to take a quick breath and suddenly all six spoke at once.

“Solus, t'ad, ehn, cuir, rayshe'a, resol, e'tad, sh'ehn, she'cu, ta'raysh.”

Skirata's gut flipped briefly and he sat stunned. These kids absorbed information like a sponge. I only counted out the numbers for them once. Just once! Their recall was perfect and absolute. He decided to be careful what he said to them in the future.

“Now that's clever,” he said. “You're very special lads, aren't you?”

“Orun Wa said we couldn't be measured,” Mereel said, totally without pride, and perched on the edge of the couch, swinging his legs almost like a normal four-year-old. They might have all looked identical, but their individual characters seemed distinct and … obvious. Skirata wasn't sure how he managed it, but he could now look at them and see that they were different, distinguished by small variations in facial expressions, gestures, frowns, and even tone of voice. Appearance wasn't everything.

“You mean you scored too high for him to count?”

Mereel nodded gravely. Thunder slapped the platform city: Skirata felt it without hearing it. Mereel drew up his legs again and huddled tight up against his brothers in an instant.

No, Skirata didn't need a hut'uunla Kaminoan to tell him that these were extraordinary children. They could already handle a blaster, learn everything he threw at them, and understand the Kaminoans' intentions all too well: no wonder the aiwha-bait was scared of them.

And they would be truly phenomenal soldiers—if only they could follow a few orders. He'd work on that.

“Want some more uj?” he said.

They all nodded enthusiastically in unison. It was a relief. At least that gave him a few minutes' respite from their unrelenting, silent attention. They ate, still miniature adults. There was no chattering or high spirits.

And they flinched at every bolt of lightning.

“Are you scared?” asked Skirata.

“Yes, Kal,” said Ordo. “Is that wrong?”

“No, son. Not at all.” It was as good a time to teach them as any. No lesson would ever be wasted on them. “Being afraid is okay. It's your body's way of getting you ready to defend yourself, and all you have to do is use it and not let it use you. Do you understand that?”

“No,” Ordo said.

“Okay, think about being scared. What's it like?”

Ordo defocused slightly as if he were looking at something on a HUD he didn't have. “Cold.”

“Cold?”

A'den and Kom'rk chimed in. “And spiky.”

“Okay … okay.” Skirata tried to imagine what they meant. Ah. They were describing the feeling of adrenaline flooding their bodies. “That's fine. You just have to remember that it's your alarm system, and you need to take notice of it.” They were the same age as city kids on Coruscant who struggled to scrawl crude letters on flimsi. And here he was, teaching them battle psychology. His mouth felt oddly dry. “So you tell yourself, okay, I can handle this. My body's now ready to run faster and fight harder, and I'll be seeing and hearing only the most important things I need to know to stay alive.”

Ordo went from his wide-eyed dark stare to slight defocus again for a moment and nodded. Skirata glanced at the others. They had that same disturbing concentration. They had also stacked their plates neatly on the low side table. He hadn't even noticed them doing it.

“Try thinking about your fear next time there's lightning,” Kal said. “Use it.”

He went back to the kitchen area and rummaged through the cupboards for some other snack to keep them going, because they seemed ravenous. As he stepped back into the main room with a white tray of sliced food-board that looked even less appetizing than the tray itself, someone buzzed at the door.

The Nulls immediately went into a defensive pattern. Ordo and Jaing flanked the door, backs hard against the wall, and the other four took cover behind the sparse furniture. Skirata wondered for a second what flash-learning program had taught them that—or at least he hoped it was flash-taught. He waved them away from the door. They hesitated for a moment until he took out his Verpine shatter gun; then they appeared satisfied that he had the situation under some sort of control.

“You scare me,” Skirata said softly. “Now stand back. If anyone's after you, they've got to come through me first, and I'm not about to let that happen.”

Even so, their reaction prompted him to stand to one side as he hit the panel to open the doors. Jango Fett was standing in the corridor outside, a small sleepy child in his arms. The boy's curly head rested on his shoulder. He looked younger than the Nulls, but it was the same face, the same hair, the same little hand clutching the fabric of Jango's tunic.

“Another one?” Skirata said.

Jango glanced at the Verp. “You're getting edgy, aren't you?”

“Kaminoans don't improve my mood. Want me to take him?”

He shoved the shatter gun in his belt and held out his arms to take the boy. Jango frowned slightly.

“This is my son, Boba,” he said. He pulled his head back to gaze fondly at the dozing child's face. This wasn't the Jango that Skirata knew of old; he was pure paternal indulgence now. “Just trying to settle him down. Are you sorted now? I've told Orun Wa to stay away from you.”

“We're fine,” Skirata said. He wondered how he was going to ask the question, and decided blurting it out was probably as good a way as any. “Boba looks just like them.”

“He would. He's been cloned from me, too.”

“Oh. Oh.”

“He was my price. Worth more to me than the credits.” Boba stirred, and Jango carefully adjusted his hold on the kid. “I'll be back in a month. Orun Wa says he'll have some commando candidates ready for us to take a look at as well as the rest of the Alpha batch. But he says he's made them a bit more … reliable.”

Skirata had more questions than seemed prudent under the circumstances. It was natural for a Mando'ad to want an heir above all else, and adoption was common, so cloning was … not that much different. But he had to ask one thing.

“Why do these kids look older?”

Jango compressed his lips into a thin line of disapproval. “They accelerate the aging process.”

“Oh, fierfek.”

“You'll have a company of a hundred and four commandos eventually, and they should be less trouble than the Nulls.”

“Fine.” Did he get help? Were there Kaminoan minders to tackle the routine jobs, like feeding them? And how would the non-Mandalorian training sergeants deal with them? His stomach churned. He put on a brave face. “I can handle that.”

“Yeah, and I'll be doing my bit, too. I have to train a hundred.” Jango glanced at the Nulls, now watching warily from the couch, and began walking away. “I just hope they aren't like I was at that age.”

Skirata pushed the controls, and the door sighed shut. “Okay, lads, bedtime,” he said. He dragged the cushions off the couch and laid them out on the floor, covering them with an assortment of blankets. The boys gave him a hand, with a grim sense of adult purpose that he knew would haunt him for the rest of his days. “We'll get you sorted out with decent quarters tomorrow, okay? Real beds:”

He had the feeling they would have slept outside on the rain-lashed landing pad if he'd asked them to. They didn't seem at all unmanageable. He sat down in the chair and put his feet up on a stool. The Kaminoans had done their best to provide human-suitable furniture, something that struck him as a rare concession given their general xenophobic arrogance. He left the lights on, dimmed, to soothe the Nulls' fears.

They settled down, pulling the blankets over their heads completely. Skirata watched until they appeared to be asleep, laid his Verpine on the shelf beside the chair, and then closed his eyes to let the dreams overwhelm him. He woke with an explosive jerk of muscles a couple of times, a sure sign that he was past the point of tiredness and into exhaustion, and then he fell into an unending black well.

He slept, or so he thought.

A warm weight pressed against him. His eyes jerked open and he remembered he was stranded on a perpetually overcast planet that didn't even seem to be on the star charts, where the local species thought killing human kids was merely quality control.

Ordo's stricken little face looked up into his.

“Kal…”

“You scared, son?”

“Yes.”

“Come on, then.” Skirata shifted position and Ordo scrambled up onto his lap, burying his face in his tunic as if he had never been held or comforted before. He hadn't, of course.

The storm was getting worse. “The lightning can't hurt you here.”

“I know, Kal.” Ordo's voice was muffled. He wouldn't look up. “But it's just like the bombs going off.”

Skirata was going to ask him what he meant, but he knew in an instant that it would make him angry enough to do something stupid if he heard the answer. He hugged Ordo to him and felt the boy's heart pounding in terror.

Ordo was doing pretty well for a four-year-old soldier.

They could learn to be heroes tomorrow. Tonight they needed to be children, reassured that the storm was not a battlefield, and so was nothing to fear.

The lightning illuminated the room in brief, fierce white light: Ordo flinched again. Skirata laid his hand on the boy's head and ruffled his hair.

“It's okay, Ord'ika,” he said softly. “I'm here, son. I'm here.”

Eight years later: Special Forces SO Brigade HQ Barracks, Coruscant, five days after the Battle of Geonosis

Skirata had been detained by Coruscant Security Force officers and for once in his life he hadn't put up a fight.

Technically, he'd been arrested. And now he was the most relieved man in the galaxy, as well as the happiest. He jumped out of the police patrol speeder and winced at the sharp pain in his ankle as he hit the ground. He'd get that sorted out sooner or later, but now wasn't the time.

“Wow, take a look at that,” the pilot said. “They're holding off special ops squads there. You sure there's only six of 'em?”

“Yeah, six is overkill,” Skirata said, discreetly patting his pockets and sleeves to make sure the assorted tools of his trade were in place and ready for use. It was just habit. “But they're probably scared.”

“They're scared?” The pilot snorted. “Hey, you know Fett's dead? Windu topped him.”

“I know,” Skirata said, fighting the urge to ask if he also knew what had happened to little Boba. If the kid was still alive, he needed a dad. “Let's hope the Jedi don't have a problem with all of us Mando'ade.”

The pilot closed the hatch, and Skirata limped across the barracks landing pad. Jedi general Iri Camas, hands on hips with his brown robes flapping in the breeze, watched in a way that Skirata could only describe as suspicious. Two clone troopers waited with him. Skirata thought the Jedi should get his long white hair cut: it wasn't practical or becoming for a soldier to wear his hair to his shoulders.

“Thank you for responding, Sergeant,” Camas said. “And I apologize for the manner of your return. I realize your contract is completed now, so you owe us nothing.”

“Anytime,” Skirata said.

He noted the blasterproof assault shields erected across the main entrance: four squads of Republic Commandos stood behind them, DC-17 rifles ready. He glanced up at the roof, and there were two commando sniper teams spread out along the parapet as well. Yes, if a bunch of Null-class Advance Recon Commandos didn't want to cooperate, then it would take a lot of equally hard men to persuade them otherwise. And he knew that none of the commandos would be happy about being ordered in to do the persuading. They were brothers, even if the ARCs were rather different men at heart.

Skirata shoved his hands in his jacket pockets and focused on the doors. “So what started all this, then?”

Camas shook his head. “They're scheduled to be chilled down now that they're back from Geonosis, because nobody can command them.”

“I can.”

“I know. Please, get them to stand down.”

“They're even more of a handful than the regular Alpha-batch ARCs, aren't they?”

“I know that, Sergeant.”

“So you wanted the hardest troops you could buy to take on the enemy, and then you got cold feet when they turned out to be too hard.”

“Sergeant—”

“I'm a civilian at the moment, actually.”

Camas took a silent breath. “Can you get them to surrender? They've shut down the whole barracks!”

“I can.” Skirata wondered if the clone troopers were looking sideways at him, or in the direction they appeared to be facing. You could never tell with their helmets on. “But I won't.”

“I really don't want any casualties. Are you holding out for an increased fee?”

Skirata was a mercenary, but the suggestion insulted him. Camas couldn't be expected to know how he felt about his men, though. He made an effort not to be annoyed. “Enlist me in the Grand Army of the Republic and give me back my lads. Then we'll see.”

“What?”

“They're terrified of chill-down, that's all. You have to understand what happened to them as kids.” Camas gave him an odd look. “And don't even think about mind influence, General.”

Skirata didn't give a mott's backside about pay. Eight years spent on Kamino training special forces for the Republic's clone army had made him wealthy, and if they wanted to press more credits on him, that was fine; he'd have a good use for them. But what he wanted most right then, and what had made him happy to return with the CSF officers instead of showing them just how handy he was with a fighting knife, was not being safe in a soft civilian life when his men were fighting a desperate, bloody war.

And he needed to be back with them. He hadn't even had the chance to say good-bye when they suddenly shipped out to Geonosis. He'd lasted five miserable days without them, days without purpose, days without family.

“Very well,” Camas said. “Special adviser status. I can authorize that, I suppose.”

Skirata couldn't see the commandos' faces behind their visors, but he knew they'd be watching him carefully. He recognized some of the paint schemes on their Katarn armor: Jez from Aiwha-3 Squad, and Stoker from Gamma, and Ram from Bravo up on the roof. Incomplete squads: high casualties on Geonosis, then. His heart sank.

He began walking forward. He got to the blaster shields, and Jez touched his glove to his helmet. “Nice to see you back so soon, Sarge.”

“Couldn't stay away,” Skirata said. “You okay?”

“It's a laugh a minute, this job.”

Camas called out, “Sergeant? Sergeant! What if they open fire—”

“Then they open fire!” Skirata reached the doors and turned his back on them for a few moments, unafraid. “Do we have a deal? Or do you want me holed up in there with them? Because I won't be coming out unless you guarantee them no disciplinary action.”

It struck Skirata that Camas might be the one to fire on him right then. He wondered if his commandos would obey that order if it were given. He wouldn't have minded if they had. He'd taught them to do their job, regardless of their own feelings.

“You have my word,” Camas said. “Consider yourself in the Grand Army. We'll discuss how we're going to deploy you and your men later. But first let's get everyone back to normal, shall we, please?”

“I'll hold you to every last word, General.”

He waited at the doors for a few moments. The two sheets of reinforced durasteel parted slowly. He walked in, relieved, and home again at last.

No, Camas really needed to understand what had happened to these men as young boys. He had to, if he was going to cope with the war that had now been unleashed.

It wouldn't just be fought on someone else's planet. It would be fought in every corner of the galaxy, in every city, in every home. It was a war not just of territories, but of ideologies.

And it was wholly outside Skirata's Mandalorian philosophy: but it was his war regardless, because his men were its instrument whether they liked it or not.

One day, he would give them back something the Kaminoans and the Republic had stolen from them. He swore it.

“Ord'ika!” he called. “Ordo? You've been a naughty boy again, haven't you? Come here…”