[Republic Commando] - 02(148)

There was a movement behind them.

“Kal’buir?”

Etain turned. Ordo stood in the doorway. She hadn’t felt him approaching; compared with the disturbance Kal was generating in the Force, he was invisible.

“It’s okay, son.” Skirata looked embarrassed and beckoned him across. He managed to feign a smile. “So Captain Maze got his own back, then?”

Ordo, attuned to Skirata’s reactions, looked at Etain suspiciously. He felt like the strut in the Force right then, except there was no joyful sense of a wild infant at play, just ferocity. “Honor has been satisfied, as they say. I wondered if you wanted to join us for a drink. Besany is anxious to see you again.”

“Ah, us sounds as if you two are getting on very well.” Skirata smiled, and it was real: Besany Wennen was not, of course, a jetii, a Jedi. She was acceptable. “I’d love to, Ord’ika. Etain and I were just finishing our chat anyway.”

Skirata left as if nothing had happened. Etain leaned on the rail, forehead on her crossed arms, and felt almost completely crushed. But Skirata was right in everything he had said: and he would honor his promise to help her. The price was inevitable. She would pay it.

She focused on the joy that surrounded her son in the Force. However hard things became, that was one thing nobody could take from her-not even Kal’buir.





25


Of course I’ve planned a way out. I’ve been a mercenary since I was seven years old. You always plan for what happens when the current war is over. It’s called an exit strategy, and mine’s been in the planning a long, long time.

-Kal Skirata to Jailer Obrim, discussing the future in an uncertain galaxy

Coruscant Security Force Staff and Social Club, 0015 hours, 389 days after Geonosis

“Well, that was fun,” Jailer Obrim said, heaving himself onto a bar stool. The club was almost deserted now. “They don’t drink much, your boys, do they?”

“They make up for it with eating.” Skirata was working out how he would deal with the current crisis. Jinart the Gurlanin had disappeared in that way that only shapeshifting Gurlanins could. She didn’t have a comlink, and he wouldn’t run into her eating a fried breakfast at the Kragget. He had to find another way of summoning her. “Enormous appetites. It’s the accelerated aging that boosts their metabolisms.”

Obrim scratched his cheek, looking embarrassed. “I know, friend. I’ve not been through what you’ve been through with them, but anyone in our game will understand just how you feel.”

“Yeah.” But Darman has a son now. I’m angry that Etain let that happen without even asking him, but he has a son. Even i fl never get hold of that Kaminoan aiwha-bait Ko Sai, he does have some kind of future now. “I’m sorry if I take it out on you sometimes.”

“Don’t you ever worry about that.”

“Thanks.”

“What would you do if you could run the galaxy now, Kal? I mean anything.”

Skirata didn’t even pause to think. “I’d stop the war right now,” he said. “Then I’d go back to Kamino and grab those gray freaks by their rotten skinny necks and make them engineer a normal life span for every single last one of our boys. Then I’d take the whole army home to Mandalore and spend the rest of my life making sure they had wives and families, and a purpose that was theirs, not some aruetii’s private feud.”

“I thought you might say that,” Obrim said. “I ought to be getting home now. Last few days have been a bit rough on my wife. Y’know, never at home. Why don’t you come around for dinner sometime?”

“I’d like that.”

“Can I drop you off?”

“I’m waiting for Ordo. He’s talking to Besany.”

“I noticed.” Obrim just smiled. “He’s a smart boy.”

Skirata was left contemplating a future that had seemed no more tangled than it ever had just a few hours ago, but was now totally upended. He stood up and threw his knife into the carvings around the bar a few times and thought about his bank account on Aargau, and the fact that Mereel was very close to finding Ko Sai. Skirata felt he was now in striking distance of making a better life for a handful of cloned soldiers-a tiny number out of so many, but that was all he could do. That had to be enough.

And he had an even sharper focus now. Darman had a son, and he would see that Darman was around to watch the boy grow up.

“Sorry I kept you, Karbuit:” Ordo strode into the bar and attempted a smile, but winced at his split lip. “We can go now.”

“Everything working out with Besany?”