“You do realize,” he said to Skirata, “that if the troopers were given a choice, most would opt to stay in the army any-way?”
“I do. We all prefer the comfort of what we know best.”
“They’d be as dead as volunteers as they’d be as slaves, Kal.”
“But they’d have a choice, and that’s what makes us free men.”
“Actually, that’s a load of osik. Plenty of free beings in the galaxy don’t have a vote and don’t get a choice about what they do each day. There’s a very blurred line between slavery and economic dependence.”
“Yeah, well, if you want to argue about the continuum of oppression, clones are still at the extreme end of the graph. So I’ll concentrate on them rather than the downtrodden masses, thanks.”
The landscape of loyalty was shifting with each passing day. First it had been a matter of worrying about what would happen to troopers when the war ended. Now they were discussing men who deserted while the fighting was still going on.
“Kal, would you rather fight for the Separatists?”
“Ideologically? You know I would. The Republic’s a crumbling bureaucracy at best and a cesspit of corruption at Worst. But I joined for the credits and I stayed for my boys. Chat’s your excuse?”
Vau couldn’t claim he’d joined for the credits, although he’d often led a fairly hand-to-mouth existence since forgoing his inheritance. But he stayed for the same reason Skirata did, even if he had no intention of admitting that to him.
Mird, satisfied that takeoff was over, pulled its head out from under Vau’s arm and deposited a skein of drool in his lap.
“On reflection,” Vau said, groping for a cloth to wipe his pants, “I think it’s the elegant lifestyle.”
Teklet, Qiilura, 477 days after Geonosis
Ordo knew his limitations, and learning obstetrics from a manual was a lot riskier than piloting a new ship the same way. Requisitioning a top-of-the-line med droid from a supply base en route had cost him time but would greatly improve Etain’s chances of carrying her child to term.
And if the droid couldn’t hack it, then… no, he’d face that if he had to, and not before. He sprinted across the snow from the landing strip with the droid struggling behind him. It was big and heavy, and not adapted for rough terrain.
“Captain, I still need to know what procedure I have to perform,” it said peevishly. It was a 2-1B model, and it-he-had a professional ego on a scale with his extensive surgical expertise. “I was awaiting deployment to a more significant theater of war. Where are my nursing assistants?”
Ordo reached the door of the HQ building as indicated on his datapad chart and bypassed the security locks almost without thinking. “Don’t you take some sort of oath to help the sick and injured, Too-One?”
“No. And it’s Doctor.”
“I’ll make one up for you, then-Doctor.” As the doors opened, Ordo came face-to-face with a clone commander in yellow livery. “It starts with, I pledge to keep my vocabulator offline as much as possible.”
“Captain,” said the commander. “I didn’t know you’d be bringing a med droid.”
“Specialist stuff, sir.” So this was Levet: Ordo reminded himself that he was outranked here-technically. “We can’t afford to lose any more Jedi. It takes longer to make them than to grow us. Where’s General Tur-Mukan?”
Levet gestured upstairs. “Good luck. She seems not to realize that I know she’s yaihadla.”
Ordo was always surprised to find any clone outside the Special Operations ranks who knew more Mando’a than just the words to “Vode An.” He was especially taken aback by one with enough fluency to know the word for “pregnant.”
“Ah,” Ordo said noncommittally. Levet had somehow earned the nickname of Commander Tactful, and now he knew why. Mando’a wasn’t one of the languages generally programmed into med droids. “Really.”
“I humored her, but she has her reasons for not discussing it, and I never argue with a general if I can help it.” Levet slipped his helmet on. “The Jedi Council doesn’t like fraternization within its ranks, so I imagine the poor woman is terrified.”
Ordo waited for the next bombshell to fall, but Levet went no further in his analysis and seemed content to think that another Jedi was the father-to-be. Maybe he hadn’t considered the possibility of a humble clone, although there was plenty of speculation about other generals and the nature of their social lives.
“I’ll be diplomatic,” Ordo said.
There was the small matter of making sure that the med droid kept his vocabulator shut, but that was a technical detail. Once he’d treated Etain, he’d need a full-spec memory wipe. Ordo hadn’t mentioned that to him yet.