[Republic Commando] - 02(49)

Arca Company Barracks, SO Brigade HQ, Coruscant

Etain trailed Skirata down the long passage that ran from the main doors of the Arca barrack wing and felt like she was following a gdan.

Omega Squad’s description had made her think of him as a kindly old uncle, a veteran soldier with a facade of tough talk who had sweated blood to give a generation of boys the benefit of his wisdom. But what she experienced in the Force was very different, just as his appearance was unlike her mental image of him.

He was a whirlpool of balanced conflict-truly cold black violence shot through with deep red passionate loves and hatreds. It marked him out as a complex man who had built a warrior elite. If she looked at him another way, though, he was very much the dark side-everything she had been taught to shun.

Yes, he reminded her of a gdan, the nasty little carnivores that hunted in packs on Qiilura and would take on any prey; small by comparison with his strapping troops, but ferociously, tenaciously aggressive.

And he wasn’t quite the elderly man the squad had first described, either. To twenty-year-old boys, he must have seemed ancient. But he was about sixty standard years-just middle-aged-and obviously fit except for his tendency to drag his left leg.

And he looked armored.

He was only wearing a civilian jacket-polished tan bantha leather with a high black collar-and plain brown pants, but he had that same presence that all the commandos had. He was ready for something. Given that he was a head shorter than his squad, had a pronounced limp, and yet still looked like trouble, Etain decided he must have once been a formidable soldier. She realized he still was.

“In here, ma’am.” He could make ma’am sound like girl somehow; he could do the same with General. But as a Jedi she had no right to feel affronted by lack of deference. She realized that she simply wished he would like her. “Just a little chat and then you can find General Jusik and catch up on events.”

Yes, Skirata gave the orders.

He ushered her into a side room that turned out to be a cabin with a table, a chair, and narrow bed with a half-packed carryall sitting on it. There was a neat pile of clothing, military-grade fabric equipment cases with unidentifiable lumpy items in them, and a set of sand-gold, battle-scarred Mandalorian armor.

The Force told her this was a tidy room filled with the wretched chaos of broken lives, pain, and misery. She wondered if it was entirely his, but she stopped herself from probing further in case he felt it and reacted. He was a dangerously perceptive man. She had no sense at all of any animosity directed at her.

“That’s a fine helmet,” she said. It had detailed crimson and gold sigils, and the alloy section that formed the eyepiece T of the visor was jet black. There were telltale scrapes and gouges as if some huge creature had clawed at it. “Does Fi still have Hokan’s armor?”

Skirata nodded. “Certainly has. Niner said he could have it, and he keeps it stashed in his locker.”

Etain thought of Ghez Hokan, and how she had first mistaken Darman for Qiilura’s brutal enforcer simply because of that sinister helmet with its T-shaped slit. Fi had the helmet now. And that was because Etain had taken Hokan’s head off with her lightsaber, nearly a year and a lifetime ago when she was still not used to killing.

It was red armor with a distinctive gray trim. She recalled that vividly.

Mandalorian helmets didn’t look half so fearsome now. The shape was familiar: it was even welcome. But she had somehow forgotten that Skirata, and most of the training sergeants who had been recruited to forge boys like Darman into elite commandos, had been Mandalorian mercenaries handpicked by Jango Fett.

She wondered if she would have seen Skirata the same way nine months earlier, had he been her enemy on Qiilura. “Packing or unpacking?”

“Packing.” He lifted the fabric bags carefully and they made a metallic clunk: weapons. “We can’t operate out of here. Officially we’re off duty and on indefinite leave.” He laid the armor plates in the bag and layered the clothing between them, then slid in the fabric-cased weapons. It occurred to her that this was probably all he owned, the nomadic mercenary ready to move on to the next war. “Are you squeamish, General? I mean ethically squeamish.”

“I’m a Jedi, Sergeant.”

“Well, that answers a lot of questions I didn’t ask.”

“Ask me a specific question.”

“Do you know what black ops means?”

“Oh yes …”

“I thought you might. I had no idea you would be coming back with Omega right now, but you spent four months with Zey on Qiilura turning the locals into guerrillas to fight the Seps, right? And before that you survived when Master Fulier didn’t. So I reckon you’re pretty handy in a scrap.”