Skirata gave the baby an exaggerated grin and kissed him on the forehead. “It’s normal for Mando boys to accompany their father on the battlefield from about eight years old, but I think Venku is going to be an early starter.”
Besany tried to reconcile Skirata’s loathing of the Kaminoans for exposing small boys to live weapons fire with the Mandalorian tradition, but maybe the difference lay in knowing that your father was teaching you to survive, not conditioning you as a product. She wondered if the kids felt the difference. It was a question to ask Ordo.
“So what happens now, Kal?”
“Would you mind if I brought Omega Squad here to … well, introduce him? I can’t take him into the barracks. Zey might sense him. They can feel each other in the Force, Jedi.”
Oh my, yes. His mother s a Jedi. He s… a Force-sensitive. Oh boy. We’ve collected the full set of problems.
“Of course you can.” Besany had instant thoughts of what buffet food she might put on the table. She was always ready for guests who never came, and aware that she craved belonging; the pull of Skirata’s gang was that she never felt like an outsider there. “Are they back in town?”
“I try to make sure they get the shorter missions, yes.” He held up his hands defensively. “I know, I know, I’ve got the best part of ninety boys from my original batch out in the field, but Omega are special.”
“One day, are you going to level with me about everything “Even the stuff you’re better off not knowing?”
“I’ve been under surveillance by Republic Intel and I’m digging in files that are awfully close to the Chancellor.” A lifetime of knowing what she didn’t need to ask and what was best left deniable went straight out the window. “I might as well know the worst.”
“Okay.”
Skirata picked up Venku and walked around the apartment with the infant cradled against his shoulder, gently patting his back and making doting-grandfather noises. Now wasn’t going to be the time she got the explanations, then. Maybe it needed a whole day’s debriefing program to cover a long ca-reer of removing people and things, or dragging them screaming to a client. She had no illusions. She knew the company Skirata kept.
He came from a dirty world, as did Ordo. But she still felt cleaner in their world than she did in the glossy corridors of the Senate, or even on the street surrounded by citizens who were too preoccupied with the latest holovid to ask what was happening to their society lately.
“Here,” she said, holding out her arms to take the baby. “Show me how to hold him. Introduce him to his aunt Besany.”
Office of General Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces, SO Brigade HQ, Coruscant, 547 days after Geonosis
Etain knew this was going to be bad, despite the informal arrangement of comfortable chairs in the office and the caf on the small table, but she could take it.
There was absolutely nothing that General Zey could say or do to her that would shift the gauge with her now. Okay, she might get weepy, but that was her postnatal hormonal chaos. She wasn’t ashamed.
She had a child, and that changed the way she saw the whole galaxy.
Jusik, also summoned for the refocusing conversation, sat with his arms folded across his chest like a little Skirata, exuding silent defiance. His beard was trimmed short, he’d braided his hair tightly into a tail, and suddenly he didn’t look quite so much like a Jedi despite the robes and lightsaber. He looked like a man-age unknown-who’d had enough.
Etain gave him a gentle touch in the Force. It’ll be okay. He turned his head slightly and smiled, and it was clear that it would not be.
“I’m delighted that you could both make it,” Zey said. It was going to be the weapons-grade sarcasm today, then. “Given your very busy schedules.” He gave Etain an especially long look. “The Gurlanins thanked me for your excellent work in evacuating Qiilura, General Tur-Mukan, and … your help in the reconstruction process.”
You can ‘t touch me. I have a son. All I fear is for his welfare, and his father’s. Not mine. “I did what I could, sir.”
“Intelligence reports that some of the displaced farmers have joined the Separatist resistance already.”
“It was never going to be a popular decision, and yes, I in-curred more non-GAR casualties than I would have liked.” Sew a label on that, Zey. “Commander Level deserves a more experienced general.”
Zey was still scrutinizing her closely. She felt him reach out in the Force, seeking out what he couldn’t detect with his ordinary senses. All he got was her fatigue and sense of accomplishment, but he misread it totally. “I can see it’s taken a toll on you.”