[Republic Commando] - 03(35)

Ner vod. He’d never called Vau brother without a good dose of sarcasm. Forty million creds went a long way with Skirata.

“But remember my men, too, Kal. If they need help when the time comes … I expect it to be given.”

“Walon, this is for every clone who needs help. Not just my lads. I’d buy out all three million of them if I could.”

“As long as we understand each other.”

“I’ll get Ordo to inventory this. He’s good at that.”

They didn’t have a crumb of food on board Aay’han but they were… rich. Or at least Skirata’s rapidly expanding plans to secure the future for clones-his clones, Vau’s clones, any shabla clone he could get out of the GAR in the end-were well funded. Ordo sat at the treatment table in the medbay with Skirata and worked his way through the haul with a datapad and a distracted frown.

“Is this some Mandalorian renaissance you’re planning, Kal?” Vau asked.

It was starting to feel like it. He hadn’t really thought that far ahead. “If I set up a place for them all, then it might as well be Mandalore.”

“Yeah,” Vau said. “It might as well.”

Mird, draped over Vau like a badly made fur coat, watched Ordo with one red-rimmed eye. The other was shut tight. Ordo had never forgotten that Vau had set Mird on him as a kid, and it seemed that Mird hadn’t forgotten that Ordo had aimed a blaster between its eyes. It rumbled deep in its throat, apparently reassured that both Ordo’s hands were occupied with the proceeds of the robbery.

Ordo took a spectral analyzer from his belt tool kit and ran the beam over the gems, diligently noting the composition and weight of each piece in his datapad with a little frown of concentration like some heavily armed accountant. Skirata held his breath.

Some of the items in the bag were priceless antiques. “Beshavo ancestral icon,” Ordo said, and held up a time-stained square of gilded parchment. Collectors would happily shoot their mothers for it. They certainly shot each other. “I hope you know a reliable fence in the fine art world, Kal’buir, because we’re going to need one.”

“The fine arts,” Skirata said, fighting a hysterical urge to giggle, “are my natural territory.”

“You’re an uncultured savage,” said Vau. “But you did save my shebs. Here, Ordo, help me with my belt.”

Ordo raised an eyebrow. “You ought to be taking it easy, Sergeant.”

“Open this pouch. Come on.”

Skirata did it for him. Vau fumbled and pulled out a piece of jewelry, a gold pin with three square-cut, vivid blue stones of extravagant size set along its length. He could have swapped it for a penthouse apartment in the Republica. Skirata had never seen anything like it.

“My mother’s bauble,” Vau said. He tossed it to Ordo, who caught it one-handed. “Give it to that pretty girl of yours, Captain. She’ll do it justice.”

Ordo, always an odd mix of naivete and precocious experience, stared at it with visible dismay. He had no idea how to accept a gift like that: but then neither did Skirata. It was a showstopper. The only people who’d given him assets even remotely like it had done so at the point of his knife. Vau seemed utterly unmoved by wealth, but maybe if you started life that rich then it ceased to have meaning.

Ordo scanned the stones-dimensions, clarity, refraction, density-and tapped the datapad.

“Approximately one hundred and forty-three carats.” His gaze was still fixed on the sapphires as if they were going to explode. “Current market value of the unset gems is ten million. But it’s your inheritance.” He sounded like a little boy again, and the fact that it was stolen property didn’t enter into the objection. “It’s too valuable, I’m afraid.”

“Take it, Ordo. It gives me great pleasure to know that Ma Vau no longer has it, and that a better woman does.”

It might simply have been embarrassed bluster, but Skirata felt that depriving his loathed parents of something was exactly what Vau wanted. He was a volunteer orphan. It was in stark contrast with Skirata, an orphan who valued family more than anything. He tried to be the best possible father to men who’d been created without the comfort of any mother at all, good or bad.

Ordo, as ever, educated Skirata again. The lad was full of surprises.

“It’s very gracious of you, Sergeant Vau,” he said, and put the pin carefully in his undershirt pocket. He could be quite the gentleman, just as Skirata had taught him. “Thank you. I assure you it’ll be treasured.”

It took another hour to tally all the items, and some still defied valuation: even so, Skirata was now looking at fifty-three and a half million credits, if he didn’t count Ordo’s shoroni sapphires, half of it in unregistered secured bonds that could be converted to credits anywhere. While Vau slept and Ordo piloted the ship, Skirata admired the haul for a while, imagining all the safehouses, escape routes, and new beginnings it could buy for clones who decided they’d completed their service to the Republic.