[Republic Commando] - 03(141)

“Rav’ika,” said Skirata. They hugged with a metallic clack. “I owe you.”

“Too right you do, you old shabuir.” Bralor pulled off her helmet, revealing thick, gray-streaked chestnut braids and a surprisingly unlined skin, and looked Etain over with a practiced eye. “So this is the little mother, hah? Shab, kid, you need to put some meat on your bones fast. Your baby needs it.” She walked up to Mereel and patted his cheek. “You’re looking fit, ad’ika. Good to see you again.”

“Mereel,” he prompted.

“Been awhile. I could always tell you apart back then.” Bralor was everything Skirata had said Mando women should be. If she’d had kids, Etain had no doubt that she’d endured a five-day labor in stoic silence, handed the newborn a blaster, and then zapped Trandoshans with the infant clutched under one arm. She looked frighteningly fit. Venku, is this where you want to be? “Thank you for your hospitality,” Etain said, having no idea if Bralor knew who the father was. “I realize this can’t be easy for you.”

“It’s okay, kid.” Bralor had vibroblade housings on her gauntlets, both of them. “I know what you are. Kal and I go back way before Kamino. No problem. When you join this team, nobody cares where you came from. Only what you do from now on in.”

That didn’t answer the question, but Etain made a mental note to check with Kal about who knew what. It was impossible to keep track now.

“Okay,” Bralor said, “follow me. Five minutes, tops.”

“There’s something else,” Skirata said.

“There always is, Kal’ika…”

“This.”

Ordo emerged from the hatch with a handcuffed Ko Sai. Bralor’s expression was a picture. She didn’t quite gape, but she parted her lips as if to speak and then just laughed her head off.

“Wayii! Bringing meat for the barbecue?” She held her helmet hugged against her chest, an oddly girlish pose for a veteran commando. “This is something of a comedown for you, Chief Scientist, isn’t it? Slumming it with the cannon fodder. Well, well.”

Skirata looked suddenly exhausted, as if he’d been worried about Bralor’s reaction and could now relax. “Ko Sai was a little reluctant to accompany us.”

Bralor grinned. “You kidnapped her?”

“Yeah. I suppose you could call it that.”

“Oya! Nobody can say you haven’t got gett’se, Kal. You know what the bounty is on this aiwha-bait?”

“Oh yes,” Skirata said. “But I liked her so much I decided to keep her.”

“So how long do I have to hide her?”

“Until she tells me what I want to know.”

“No problem, Kal’ika. I’ll take good care of her while you’re gone. I’m sure we can find lots of girly stuff to talk about from the Tipoca days.” Bralor put her helmet back on. “You do still talk, don’t you, Ko Sai? I used to enjoy our chats.”

The Kaminoan still seemed stunned. Etain almost pitied her: at the top of her profession, second in terms of power only to her Prime Minister, and then on the run, hunted and humiliated and finally reduced to a hostage without even a change of clothes. But Skirata and Bralor obviously didn’t see it that way. Bralor was relishing it.

“The only thing I can say,” said Ko Sai at last, “is that you’re ignorant savages, and I wasn’t as adept a geneticist as I thought, because I failed to breed that out of your kind.”

“I take that as a compliment,” said Bralor. She pointed to the speeder. “Follow me.”

Bralor’s homestead was fringed by trees, seemingly in total darkness until they set Aay’han down in a field of stubble at the back of the house. The building itself was circular, partly submerged in the ground with a strange grassed roof that camouflaged it from the air, but flickering lights were visible through slit-like windows as she approached the main doors.

It was a bastion. Etain reminded herself this was a warrior culture, and knew that sooner or later she’d find out why it was embedded in the ground and not on a high vantage point.

The house was deserted, smelled of wood smoke just like Qiilura, and looked partly derelict. It seemed to be in the process of restoration. Bralor took them to the main room in the center of the building and gave them a rapid orientation. Rooms were set around the main room like a rim around the hub of a wheel.

“I don’t expect you’ll have trouble,” she said, “but if you do, the exit’s here.” She pointed down at a point on the floor covered by rope-like matting. Ah, tunnels. It made sense now. “And the best lockable place to put her is the armory. Plenty of headroom.”