“Kal, if you’d like me to do something about Vau—”
He shook his head quickly, eyes still downcast. “Thanks, ad ‘ika, but I can handle that heap of osik.”
“Never let a bully manipulate you.”
Skirata’s jaw worked silently. “I’m to blame.”
“For what?”
“Sending boys to their deaths.”
“Kal, don’t do this to yourself.”
“I took the credits, didn’t I? Jango whistled and I came running. I trained them from boys. Little boys. Eight, nine years of nothing but training and fighting. No past, no childhood, no future.”
“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, andsome 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 ‘tam, 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 1 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.”