[Republic Commando] - 02(120)
“Well, that saved me some time,” Skirata said irritably. “What he said.”
“You have a family, Vau?” Etain was suddenly mesmerized by people who had lives and parents. “Are you in contact with them?”
“No. They cut me off when I declined to choose the career they wanted for me.”
“Wife? Children?”
“Dear girl, we’re Cuy’val Dar. People who have to disappear for eight years or more aren’t the family kind. Except Kal, of course. But your family didn’t wait for you, did they? That’s all right, though. You’ve got a lot more sons now.”
If Etain had known nothing of Skirata, or even Vau, it was the kind of jibe guaranteed to start a fight. Skirata was absolutely and instantly white with anger. One thing she knew about Mandalorians was that clan was a matter of honor. Skirata walked up to Vau very slowly and the strill woke, whining.
Etain checked that Skirata’s jacket with its lethal array of blades was still hanging over the back of the chair.
Skirata shook his head, slow and deliberate. Vau was much taller and a few kilos heavier but Skirata never seemed to worry about that kind of detail.
“But that’s the good thing about being Mando. If you don’t get the family you want, you can go and choose one yourself.” He looked suddenly older and very sad, small, crushed by time. “You going to tell her? Okay, Etain, my sons disowned me. In Mandalorian law, children can legally disown a parent who’s shamed them, but it’s rare. My sons left with their mother when we split up, and when I disappeared to Kamino and they couldn’t locate me, they declared me dar. ‘buir. No longer a father.”
“Oh my. Oh, I’m sorry.” Etain knew how serious that would be for a Mando ‘ad. “You found that out when you left Kamino?”
“No. Jango brought the news back that they were looking for me about .
. . oh, four years in? Three maybe? I forget. Two sons and a daughter. Tor, Ijaat, and Ruusaan.”
“Why were they looking for you?”
“My ex-wife died. They wanted me to know.”
“Oh . .”
“Yeah.”
“But you could have told them where you were at the time. Jango could have talked to them.”
“And?”
“You could have made your peace with them.”
“And?”
“Kal, you could have explained to them somehow and stopped it.”
“And reveal we had an army in training? And compromise my lads’ safety? Never. And not a word to any of the boys, you hear? It’s the only thing I ever kept from them.”
He’d sacrificed his good name and the last possibility of his family’s love and forgiveness for the men he was training. It hit Etain hard in the chest like a blow.
She turned to Vau. “Do you see your men as your sons?”
“Of course I do. I have no others. It’s why I made them into survivors. Don’t think I don’t love them just because I don’t spoil them like kids.”
“Here we go,” Skirata said, all contempt. “He’s going to tell you that his father beat the osik out of him and it made a man of him. Never did him any harm, no sir.”
“I’ve lost just three men out of my batch, Kal. That tells me a lot about my methods.”
“So I lost fourteen. You making a point?”
“You made yours soft. They don’t have that killer edge.”
“No, I didn’t brutalize mine like you did yours, you hut ‘uun.”
Etain stepped between them, arms held out, pieces of old conversations falling into place with awful clarity. The strill began rumbling in its throat and dropped to the floor to pace protectively in front of Vau.
It was just as well the bedroom doors were shut.
“Please, stop this. We don’t want the men to hear you fighting right now, do we? Like Niner says-save it for the enemy.”
Skirata turned his head with that sudden total focus that left Etain tasting a ripple in the Force. But it wasn’t the angry reaction of a man who had been stung by painful observation. It was genuine anguish. He glanced down at Mird as if considering giving it a good kick, then limped off to the landing platform.
“Don’t do this to him,” she said to Vau. “Please. Don’t.”
Vau simply shrugged and picked up the huge strill in his arms as if it were a pup. It licked his face adoringly. “You can fight ice-cold or you can fight red-hot. Kal fights hot. It’s his weakness.”
“You sound just like an old Master of mine,” Etain said, and went out to the platform after Skirata.
Coruscant’s skylanes stretched above and below them, giving an illusion of infinity. Etain leaned on the safety rail with her head level with Skirata’s as they gazed down. She searched his face.