[Republic Commando] - 03(59)

A’den squatted down level with Niner. He grabbed his wrist and forced Niner’s hand and comlink up to the commando’s mouth. “So tell Zey, then. You want to know what happens next? This isn’t like a proper army. Sull won’t get a court-martial. He won’t get jailed or busted down a rank. They’ll put a blaster round through his head, because they can’t trust him again and they can’t have an ARC on the loose.”

Niner and A’den were frozen, eyes locked on each other.

“Maybe that’s what someone who leaves his buddies to do the fighting deserves,” said Niner.

“Go ahead, then. Finish it.”

A’den let go of Niner’s wrist as if he were throwing it away and stood up. Sull ambled around at a short distance, head down, arms folded, looking for all the world as if he were listening to comlink chatter in a nonexistent helmet. Darman suddenly found himself preoccupied with unknowns that Skirata had never covered in training: Who would fire the shot? who executed renegades? He couldn’t imagine a brother clone or a Jedi officer pulling the trigger. Maybe they called in Republic Intel.

They certainly couldn’t call on CSF to do it. CSF was now very friendly with clones in general, thanks to Skirata.

“Shabii’gar,” Niner snapped, and tossed the comlink back at A’den. Then he got up and stalked off. Niner wasn’t sulking. Darman knew he was walking away from the temptation to hit the Null, because he’d never heard him use language like that before. “Just remember that if you ever expect us to haul your shebs out of the fire.”

A’den watched him go and shook his head. He had weather-beaten skin that made him look older than Ordo and Mereel, and a distinctly paternal air. “Don’t you get it?” He turned to the three remaining commandos. “What’ll happen to any clone who can’t be patched up and deployed again? Or when we get too old to fight?”

Darman found himself pinned down by A’den’s intense stare. He had to answer. “Yeah, I think about it a lot”

“And? You noticed any pension plans or retirement facilities?” A’den rolled his eyes. “Attended any career resettlement courses, did you?”

In quiet moments with Etain, the moments when he began to get a glimpse of what was tearing Fi apart, Darman tried not to dwell on it, because there was nothing he could think of doing that didn’t mean leaving his buddies in the lurch, and-statistically-he wasn’t likely to be around to worry about premature old age anyway.

But the idea of being too badly hurt to be worth saving did trouble him. He liked life, all right. He loved it. Anyone who thought clones didn’t have a sense of fear or mortality was a fool-or maybe a civilian justifying that it was okay to use them, because they weren’t like real humans.

The whole squad was silent. A’den seemed to be getting exasperated.

“You’re ex-pen-da-ble,” he said, all slow deliberation, emphasizing each syllable. “All soldiers are, always have been. but you are extra-expendable. No rights, no vote, no families to kick up a stink about your treatment, and no connection to any community that’ll fight for you. Bred, used, and disposed of when you’re beyond economic repair or show too much dissent. Fine, be noble martyrs, but do it because you choose it, not because you’re a cage-farmed nuna and you don’t know how to think otherwise.”

Fi was usually the one with all the chat and a knack for defusing situations, but he was disturbingly silent now. He seemed to have an increasingly uneasy relationship with the outside world. He craved it-Darman could almost taste the envy when Fi caught glimpses of other beings’ lives-but he looked like he tried to put it out of his mind, too, maybe because he was sure he’d never have a life beyond the GAR. Niner had proved to be far better at shutting things out than Fi.

It must have been easier for the rank-and file-troopers. They saw almost nothing of the world beyond the battlefield. They hadn’t been raised by father figures like Skirata or Vau, so they clung to one another. It was all they had. Yeah, cage-farmed nuna, and the cage could look like a safe haven when you left it. It was a good comparison. The outside world was unknown and scary. Institutional neurosis, Skirata called it.

“Problem with wars,” Fi said at last, voice suddenly a stranger’s, “is that they show people what they can really do when they put their minds to it, and that makes peace pretty uncomfortable for governments when it finally comes. You can’t put them back in their box.”

“You don’t know anything about peace,” said Atin. “None of us does.”