[Republic Commando] - 03(51)

“You mean like you didn’t tell Zey about the little mishap on Mygeeto.”

“There’s not telling people because you don’t want to compromise them, and not telling them because you don’t trust them.”

“I trust you to be a good, decent man,” Skirata said softly. “But I don’t trust events, and once you know something, it shapes everything you do even if you never breathe a word. That’s hard on you at best, dangerous at worst. Fierfek. Walon doesn’t know half the osik I get up to, and vice versa. Eh, Walon?”

Vau nodded. Mird yawned massively, looking like a miniature sarlacc pit. “And I prefer it that way.”

“I told Zey I was doing a morale visit to some of Bralor’s squads in the field,” Jusik said. “Which is partly true.”

“So what bit isn’t?”

Jusik was a general, and he had his own issues back at HQ. Skirata had to remind himself of that occasionally. He wasn’t always off the chart and doing as he pleased; he commanded five companies, a whole commando group, five hundred men who operated in the field without him but who still had to be given objectives, briefings, and support. There was plenty Jusik knew that he didn’t share. There was just too much of it.

“That I’m going to disobey an order and give you information you shouldn’t have.”

“Are you certain you want to tell me, son?”

“Yes.” Even so, Jusik dithered for a moment, staring down at his hands. “The Chancellor’s ordered Zey to find Ko Sai, top priority.”

Skirata”s stomach knotted. There was always the outside chance that someone might get to her first, and he could never let that happen. “Everyone’s been looking for Ko Sai since she went missing at the Battle of Kamino. So?”

“He’s sending Delta to do it. They picked up a sighting at Vaynai.” Jusik held out his datapad. “Read for yourself. That’s all the voice traffic and messages between Zey and Palpatine, and Delta’s briefing. Zey specifically didn’t want you to know.”

Skirata s stomach sank. Zey wasn’t a fool, and he had a good idea what a Mandalorian with a personal grudge might do to his quarry. “You’re taking a risk showing me that, Bard’ika.”

Sometimes Jusik had the look of an old, weary man. He was in his early twenties, all of him except his eyes. “I know. You’d never forgive me if I didn’t, and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself, either.”

Jusik had shown his true colors, then. Skirata marveled again that most of the Republic’s citizens saw clones as high-spec droids, conveniently on hand to save their shebse, and yet others would put everything on the line to help them. Skirata got up to take the datapad, read it without comment, and passed it to Mereel.

“Thanks, Bard’ika.” Skirata ruffled Jusik’s hair. He wasn’t sure how he would have felt if the kid had divulged his critical information to Zey, though. “So you and the boss think I’m going after Ko Sai, too.”

“I know you are. You said more than once that if you could, you’d grab a Kaminoan and force them to engineer normal life spans for the clones.”

“You left out by its skinny gray neck, I think.”

“Well?”

“Yes. I intend to find her.”

“Is that what you’re doing now? With a submersible? And why the urgency?”

Skirata didn’t blink. How could he expect Jusik not to work it out? They’d all fought together: they could think like each other with surprising ease. And-fierfek, Jusik was a Jedi. He could sense things.

Skirata decided to concede. Jusik would know he was holding back, and the mutual trust would corrode. “Okay, Bard’ika, I bought a hybrid because I intend to find Ko Sai and beat the osik out of her until she hands over the biotech that’ll stop my boys from aging fast. Being a useless arrogant piece of aiwha-bait, Ko Sai may well bolt to a maritime environment like home sweet home. Hence the sho’sen. Which I will be refitting shortly with military-grade sensors and weapons systems, at my own expense, although I might well make it available for Republic business as a gesture of goodwill. Does that answer your question?”

Jusik looked slightly pained. “I just didn’t know how … imminent this hunt was.”

Skirata had told nobody about the message from Lama Su to Palpatine that Mereel had sliced on Kamino. It was strictly between him and the Nulls, and-inevitably-Besany Wennen, who was smart enough to work things out if she stumbled across any cutoff point for clone funding.

“I’m cracking on with it,” Skirata said at last, “because my boys run out of time twice as fast as you or me.”