501st: An Imperial Commando Novel

  No, he likes being alive too much. And if he knows Gilamar’s here—he won’t want any trouble.

  Skirata settled down in the kitchen with a mug of shig and listened to the news feed for the latest on Gibad. There wasn’t a lot to report, seeing as most of the inhabitants were dead, and any expats wouldn’t exactly be rushing to the nearest offworld studio to express their outrage.

  Am I wrong to lean on Uthan when she’s just lost her entire world?

  In the end, we all walk over those we don’t really care about. Only difference is that I don’t lie to myself about it.

  After a while, his comlink chirped. Ordo was a little early. Skirata opened the channel, wanting to hear that Dar and Niner were on their way back, but realizing that it would probably take a while to slip out of Coruscant.

  Imperial City, my shebs. Corrie.

  “Sergeant?” said a voice.

  It wasn’t Ordo. The voice was familiar, a clone’s, but not one of Skirata’s boys. It could have been anyone; word was probably finally getting around that there was a safe haven for deserters. It was hard to let those who needed sanctuary know where to get help and still keep Kyrimorut’s location a secret, but Skirata’s old comlink code was known by quite a few, and there was now no way that the link could be traced to a specific location.

  “Who wants to know?” Skirata said.

  “It’s me, Maze. Formerly Captain Maze.”

  Maze was on the wanted list. He was the last clone Skirata would have bet on to desert, but then ARC troopers were a funny bunch. “You need help, son?”

  “I heard you were … running a relocation service.”

  Skirata felt a sudden flood of relief. This was what he’d set out to do. His existence was justified. “We’ll get you sorted out. You want to tell me where you are?”

  “How do we handle this?”

  “We don’t give coordinates over the comm. Pick an RV point, and we’ll come to you.”

  Maze paused. “Fradian. The ore terminal.”

  “Might take a couple of days.” Skirata couldn’t get a location from Maze’s comlink. But he would have been disappointed if an ARC captain wasn’t cautious to the point of paranoia. “You okay to hang on?”

  “Yeah.”

  Skirata wanted to ask Maze what had made him jump ship, but that could wait. The less time they spent transmitting, the better. He’d tell Maze about the Imperial garrison when he needed to, but no ARC was going to be troubled by a few Imperials for neighbors.

  “Want to give me your comlink code? It’s not showing.”

  “It’s a public comm booth,” Maze said. “I’ll call you again when I get to Fradian.”

  He could have been anywhere, then, and he had his reasons for not saying. Skirata closed the link and smiled to himself. The waifs and strays were coming home at last. Everything was going to work out fine, he knew it.

  “Come on, Ord’ika,” he murmured, glancing at his chrono. “Call me. Tell me my boys are on their way.”

  Freight vessel park, Quadrant G-80, Imperial City

  Ny wished she’d sprung for a better security system for Cornucopia.

  The freighter’s external cams gave her a limited view of the outside world, just the critical areas she needed to keep an eye on for safety—the cargo ramp, the drive exhausts, the ground immediately beneath the landing struts, and the main hatch. As she sat fretting about who might be lurking in the yard waiting to arrest her, she realized just how much she couldn’t see.

  It’ll be dark in a few hours, too.

  “Relax, Ny.” Prudii looked engrossed in his datapad, but he had even better peripheral vision than she thought. “The eggs won’t break.”

  In the hold, a complete pallet of assorted eggs—nuna, marlello, even meal-sized ganza eggs—was secured to the deck. Ny hoped the rest of the tasks on her list would be as easy as getting the groceries. If she’d known how long they were going to be stuck here, she’d have stocked up with a lot more supplies.

  “It’s not broken eggs I’m worried about,” she said. “It’s other broken things. Like legs and necks.”

  The big illuminated sign on the opposite side of the compound really bothered her. It was the only new, shiny thing she could see in the area, which still bore signs of cannon damage from the failed Separatist invasion, blast-pocked walls and gaps in the rows of buildings like missing teeth. The sign showed a kindly but serious cop and a stormtrooper, side by side, guardians of the new Imperial peace, with the words: SUSPICIOUS? OUT OF PLACE? REPORT IT. BE THE EMPIRE’S EYES AND EARS.

  The posters were big, bright, and everywhere. It gave her the creeps.

  “Cheapens the military image, doesn’t it?” Jaing flexed his shoulders as if the new armor was too tight. The Nulls were more heavily built than the average trooper, and Ny wondered when the recreational eating at Kyrimorut was going to show up on their waistlines. “They’ll have stormies issuing parking tickets next.”

  Ny reached across and twanged his belt. “I’d really recommend trying the concealed tanks for size, boys. The Jedi found it a tight squeeze. And we’ll have six strapping lads to hide on the way out.”

  “Not for long,” Prudii said. “And these suits are atmosphere-tight for half an hour.”

  Ny had visions of the clones clinging to the outside of the ship like Salgari street kids sneaking free rides on transport speeders. “You’re going to have to draw me a picture.”

  “Means they can withstand immersion, too. Who’s going to look for illegals in a full water reservoir? Or a full fuel tank, come to that.”

  “That’s just mad,” Ny said. The idea made her shudder. That fuel was liquid trimoseratate—not as volatile as liquid metal, but nasty enough. “You’re off your kriffing heads.”

  “We can’t help it, Buir’ika.” Prudii stood with his finger pressed into his ear. He was just listening to the audio feed from Niner, but he hammed it up into a credible impression of a lunatic. “The aiwha-bait built us crazy.”

  Mereel raised an eyebrow. “As long as I don’t have to hide in the waste tank.”

  “They might not even try to board us,” Ordo said. “And your faith in Imperial procurement quality is disturbing.”

  Mereel didn’t take the bait. “Everyone’s a comedian …”

  “So what’s the plan now?” Ny asked. “We just sit here?”

  She was defying an Emperor who’d wiped out a planet for arguing with him, and she was scared that she’d be the weak link that compromised the whole mission. The Nulls could stroll through this without breaking a sweat, but she was in danger of letting them down by looking like she had something to hide when they had to clear departure checks. Waiting wasn’t easy. It gave her too much worry-time.

  “Yeah, we just sit here,” Jaing said. “Unless Niner calls for assistance.”

  Ordo was never chatty. He was staring at the bulkhead chrono, counting down to something else entirely—his scheduled sitrep call to Skirata. Every six hours, on the dot, he commed Kyrimorut to update him. Ny watched his gaze fixed on the seconds on the chrono display.

  Five, four, three, two …

  “Kal’buir? Everything’s fine here. You’ve seen the news on Gibad, I assume.”

  Jaing, Prudii, and Mereel seemed to be ignoring the conversation. Prudii was listening to Niner’s audio feed while he read a technical manual and made notes in the margin. Jaing and Mereel were watching something on Jaing’s datapad screen.

  “My,” Jaing said, all smug satisfaction, “hasn’t my little backdoor program been busy? It’s always gratifying when your offspring come of age and branch out on their own.”

  “Is that the second one you fed into the system?” Ny asked.

  “They were so trusting, the Republic. So innocent.”

  “What’s it found?”

  “You sure you want to know? With much knowledge comes bad stomach acid.”

  Skirata had explained how Jaing had acquired the clan’s vast fortune by skimming off just
a cred—sometimes half—from trillions of bank accounts via the galactic clearing system. It was, by anyone’s standards, a bank robbery on a grand scale; theft, fraud, a very wrong thing. If Jaing had walked into a branch of the Core Bank and hosed the staff with a blaster before making off with bags of credit chips, Ny would have classed him as a criminal. But when she watched him so clearly delighting in his technical genius, all she could see was a nice young man who’d had the worst imaginable start in life, and who was now redressing the balance in favor of other young men just like him.

  Skirata called it social taxation. Ny tried to work out just how far the Nulls would have to go before she’d find them frightening or repellent. But they were professional killers and saboteurs, however kind to animals and polite to old ladies, unashamedly dangerous men who were bred to be lethal. Ny just happened to be within their defensive circle, not a target beyond that protective boundary.

  Would they kill me if they thought I was a threat to Skirata’s scheme?

  She knew the answer, even if they didn’t.

  “Bankrupting Palps again?” she said carefully.

  “More like searching through his drawers.” Jaing smiled. “He keeps a lot in them, or at least his idiot minions do. Every citizen on a database, data shared among departments, clerks who use their pet akk’s name for passwords … once you get past the first level of security, you can just wander around stripping whatever you want from the system. Treasury data, banking, personal details on Imperial employees, procurement plans, government speeder pool schedules … you’d be amazed how this stuff all builds a picture.”

  “No, I wouldn’t, because I was spying on KDY for you lot, remember?” Ny said.

  “So you were.” Mereel smiled. “Kal’buir likes his ladies a bit risky.”

  Ordo was taking no notice of them, still deep in conversation with Skirata. He seemed to be listening more than talking, eyes shut occasionally as if he was struggling to concentrate. Ny heard him say, “Well … that’s a surprise. Okay, Buir. Ordo out.”

  That was worrying in itself. Ordo had everything nailed down and under control. He was never surprised by anything as far as Ny could tell.

  “What’s a surprise?” Mereel asked.

  Ordo sat down and stretched out his legs. “Guess who’s asking for sanctuary? Maze.”

  Ny couldn’t recall meeting Captain Maze. The other clones gave her the impression that he was humorless and lonely, although Fi said he was all right for an Alpha plank, whatever that meant. Ordo seemed to have grudging respect for him. He described him as persistent.

  “Really?” said Mereel. “He must be missing you, Ord’ika.”

  “Kal’buir’s working out how to get him to Mandalore. He didn’t head straight there. Odd.”

  “Maybe he thought it was too obvious a location for Kyrimorut.”

  “And you, Jaing—Kal’buir wants to know if your program can trawl for Arla’s criminal record. He wants the details of the murders. She attacked Bard’ika, and the more background they have, the better the chance of rehabilitating her.”

  Ny was appalled. “Is he okay?”

  “Broken nose and a few scratches. He’s fine.”

  Prudii shook his head, clearly dubious about the whole thing. Ny got the feeling that the Nulls accepted Arla because Skirata’s word was law, but that left to their own devices they wouldn’t have rescued her.

  “If she comes after me with a meat cleaver,” Mereel said, “I might forget my manners.”

  Nobody mentioned Gibad or how Uthan had taken the news. The only question was probably how disabling the shock had been, and whether the scientist was able to get on with her task. The promise of being allowed to return home had been all that was keeping her going.

  Prudii suddenly held up a finger for quiet, staring in defocus at the bulkhead as he concentrated on the audio feed.

  “Hey, Niner’s on the move,” he said. “Melusar’s called him and Dar into a briefing.”

  “Just them?” Ordo asked. “Not the others?”

  “Sounds like it. Maybe they’re the flavor of the month for finishing off Camas. Big prize.”

  “We’ve got a few hours yet. Whatever it is, we can wait for them.”

  Ordo folded his arms and looked relaxed enough to nod off. The Nulls seemed to treat this level of danger as absolutely normal, and Ny envied their cool confidence. Skirata had done a great job of raising them to believe that they could do absolutely anything. The fact that she’d come here with them was proof of that. They made walking into the Emperor’s front yard and scamming him in broad daylight seem routine.

  Night was the best time to do this kind of op, Ordo said, but Ny had always been a little afraid of the dark. Humans had evolved with that hardwired fear for a reason. The dark was dangerous.

  She adjusted her seat so that she could see all the security cam outputs on the bulkhead, expecting a rap on the hatch at any time and the sound of a loudhailer demanding that she exit the freighter, put her hands behind her head, and surrender.

  “So what’s on the chip, do you reckon?” Mereel said. “Names, places, codes?”

  “You’d think they’d memorize things and not record them.” Jaing shook his head. “They never learn.”

  “Good old Jaller,” Prudii murmured. “But one day soon, we’re going to need to get him out of here. He’s going to get caught.”

  Ordo glanced out of the viewplate. Cornucopia was too high off the ground for anyone to see into the cockpit, and Ny had made sure the ship was turned away from the security cams. They seemed to be a token gesture. Nobody parked valuable vessels or cargo in this yard. It was too easy to enter. That was why she chose it.

  “Just when you think that all aruteiise are the same,” Ordo said, “you find another one who puts their life on the line for you.”

  Ny reflected on that, stomach churning, and saw herself from the outside for a few moments: a crazy old widow with a beat-up ship, smuggling enemies of the state, hanging out with a gang of assassins and thieves, trying to outsmart a dictator who killed whole planets to make a point.

  At her age, she should have been knitting vests for Kad’ika and telling him stories.

  But terrified or not—crazy or not—it made her feel thirty years younger.

  501st Legion Special Unit barracks, Imperial City

  Commander Melusar’s small office had a dead, muffled silence that made Niner feel that his ears had blocked up.

  The walls were covered in sheets of flimsi—charts, lists, calendars. A single desk lamp and a holochart projection lit Melusar’s face from below and made him look cadaverous. It all felt like a dressing-down session waiting to happen. Reasons in writing with no caf, Skirata called it, a terse could-do-better speech from your CO. Niner held his helmet under his arm, systems still active, wondering how much the Nulls would be able to hear.

  “Camas was your commanding officer, wasn’t he?” said Melusar. He didn’t sound in dressing-down mode, though. “Can’t have been easy facing him like that.”

  This had to be a test, then. Niner was determined to pass it long enough to get to the extraction point. Melusar seemed like a nice enough guy, but Niner and Darman had plenty to hide, and so any figure of Imperial authority was a threat until proven otherwise.

  Two of our old squad on the run. Our sergeant and everyone we know—all on the death list. Even Zey didn’t trust us completely. Why should Melusar?

  “We weren’t conscious at the time, sir,” Niner said.

  Melusar looked up from the holochart. He was moving virtual markers around with a stylus, each green point of light representing the last known whereabouts of an escaped Jedi. The green lights were dwindling in number.

  “Sorry?”

  “We were put in stasis when we got back from Geonosis, then revived three months into the war,” Niner said. “So we didn’t see much of Camas. General Zey was our CO for most of the time.” And there was something he had to add, because Melusar’s observat
ion didn’t make sense unless he was stupid—which he clearly wasn’t—or trying to entrap them. “Most troops had to take out their own Jedi officers, so it was no harder for us than it was for them. Easier, actually, sir. Camas was firing at us.”

  Omega hadn’t carried out Order 66, of course. They’d been too busy trying to desert. Niner had a terrible sick feeling in his gut as he was reminded just how close this was becoming to a rerun of that awful night.

  “But it’s about doing the job, Sergeant.” Melusar said. “It’s about being a professional. And you’re still here when others aren’t.”

  Only a civvie would have thought of Order 66 in simple terms of either unflinching loyalty or cruel betrayal. It was neither. It was complicated. It was the sort of complicated you could only truly grasp if you were standing there with a rifle in your hands, if all your buddies were dead, if you understood exactly why orders weren’t optional. And it was the sort of complicated you just didn’t have time to debate and second-guess in the middle of a crisis.

  That was why you drilled. That was why you had orders. It was to make sure situations—and soldiers—didn’t fall apart when things got tough.

  There were clones who liked their Jedi officers, or hated them, or didn’t know them well enough to have an opinion, and there were clones who felt the Jedi had simply used up troopers’ lives in their plan to overthrow the government. But most of them carried out the order, and for one reason—lawful orders couldn’t be ignored when you felt like it. The army was there to do the bidding of elected governments, not to decide policy for itself. Orders came from those who had the bigger picture when you didn’t.

  But we didn’t obey.

  Nothing to do with some moral stand. Everything to do with wanting to get away, and not wanting to kill two ex-Jedi who gave up everything for us. Our buddy. And Dar’s wife.

  Niner didn’t feel good about that. Part of him now wondered if fate was punishing him for letting the other squads down. They’d behaved like pros, whether it had broken their hearts or not, and Omega hadn’t.