[Republic Commando] - 02(46)

Niner stood with his hands clasped behind him, with his Deece slung across his back. “Not my call. I’m not the sergeant now.”

Boss and the rest of Delta had formed up behind Omega in a neat line, presenting a more orderly rank. They were on the same comlink. Niner said it was ungrateful to block them out, seeing as they’d ridden to the rescue. But Omega would never hear the end of it, Fi was sure of that.

The Forty-first Elite were disembarked first.

Scorch leaned a little closer to Fi. He was right behind him. The nice thing about Katarn helmet comlinks was that you could switch between circuits and have totally private exchanges without any external sign that you were talking-or even having a stand-up fight, come to that. “So you want a run ashore?”

“What’s that?” Sev said.

Fi enjoyed Skirata’s wide-ranging and often bizarre language. No other squads talked quite like Sergeant Kal’s. “A night out on the town. Dinner at a fine restaurant, perhaps take in a Mon Cal ballet …”

“Yeah. Right.”

“Don’t, Fi,” Niner said. “You’re just being cruel to the Weequay team here.”

“Okay, ale and warra nuts. No ballet.”

“And maybe a little shopping with your spook squad buddy?” Scorch said. “New kama, maybe?”

Ah, news did travel, then. “Don’t let Ordo hear you say that,” Fi said. “He’ll rip your leg off and hit you with the soggy end.”

“Yeah? ARCs are all mouth and kamas.”

“Ooh, hard man, eh?”

“I’ve seen Twi’lek dancing girls tougher than you,” said Scorch. “How many times are we going to have to save your shebs, then?”

“Probably as many times as we have to clean up your osik,” said Niner. “Can’t you two talk about blowing stuff up and play nicely?”

“Where’s the general?” Fi said.

Darman interrupted. “Saying good-bye to Gett.” He seemed to be taking a keen interest in Etain’s whereabouts. “Can you see Sergeant Kal yet? She said he was meeting us.”

“So … you’ve been ordered around by a geriatric and a child, have you?”

Darman’s voice frosted over. “Scorch, do you like medcenter food?”

“Touchy, touchy . .”

There was a faint click on the helmet comlink.

“Delta! This is the geriatric. Get down and give me .fifty, now!”

“Fierfek,” Sev Sighed.

Omega parted ranks to give Delta the room to perform fifty press-ups in full armor, with backpacks. Fi watched appreciatively. He didn’t care for Sev at all.

But he was also scanning the landing platform for Skirata, desperate to see his real sergeant again: when Skirata was around, Niner ceased to play the senior NCO. Generals tended not to get much of a look in, either. Skirata was his own command chain.

“That was forty, not fifty,” Skirata said from somewhere behind them. “I hate innumeracy almost as much as I hate cracks about my personal state of disrepair.”

Skirata just had a knack for sliding around unnoticed. There had been times when Fi had wondered if he was a Force-user, because only Jedi were supposed to be able to pull those kinds of stunts. But Kal ‘buir was adamant that he was simply good at his job, because he’d been doing it since he was seven years old.

That made him a late starter-by clone standards.

He appeared suddenly from between a knot of Forty-first men and ambled over to Omega, not limping quite as badly as usual and looking rather dapper in a smart leather jacket. In rough working clothes, he could disappear, but the jacket changed him utterly. Yet there was always something about the man that inspired relief and confidence. Fi felt instantly ready for anything, just as he had when Skirata had been the highest authority in his limited world on Kamino.

Skirata paused for a moment in front of him. He didn’t seem worried whether Delta had cranked out the extra ten press-ups or not. He just clutched Fi’s arm, and hugged Darman, and slapped Niner across the shoulders, and grabbed Atin’s hand. He never seemed to have the slightest trouble now in showing how much he cared about them. Over the years he’d changed from shielding his emotions behind a veneer of good-natured abuse to abandoning the pretense altogether.

Nobody had ever been fooled by it anyway.

“Don’t scare me like that again, ad’ike.” He turned to Delta, easing themselves up from the floor. “And you bunch of di’kute, too. I’d better keep a tighter rein on you.” He watched the last of the Forty-first men disappearing into transfer vessels, presumably for return to barracks, and something appeared to amuse him. “Scorch, if you’re not a good boy then I’m going to make you wear a kama.”