[Republic Commando] - 02(2)

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, all sons 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.