“Cody might think the sun shines out of his ear, General, but I think he’s a glory seeker who wastes too many men.”
“As he’s fond of saying—from a certain point of view.” Zey clearly knew better than to debate with Ordo. He was also canny enough to resist asking how long the Nulls had known this information. He put his hand briefly to his chest as if stomach acid was playing him up. “This may well be the beginning of the end, Captain. Thank you.”
Ordo half turned for the doors. “I’m not banking on it.”
“Captain.” Zey put out his hand to beckon Ordo back. It wasn’t an attempt to grab his arm. He seemed almost afraid—as if he thought Ordo would swing at him, as if he didn’t think his Jedi powers would ward off a blow. That wasn’t the Zey that Ordo had come to know. “Captain, you don’t like the Jedi Order, do you? Just tell me why.”
Ordo almost choked. The naïveté of it genuinely stunned him. Maze stood like a statue, nostrils flaring slightly as he tried to take deep breaths without opening his mouth. Maybe it struck him the same way, because—as Spar and Sull had proven—the Alpha ARCs weren’t the unquestioning automata most of their commanders seemed to think.
“Because you can’t see what you’ve degenerated into,” Ordo said. “That’s what comes of having one leader dominate your organization for centuries. You need a big change in command structure. But maybe you don’t see anything wrong in creating clones with no choice when you take Force-sensitive children and turn them into Jedi whether they like it or not.”
Ordo met Zey’s eyes. He didn’t want to stare the man down; he just wanted to search his soul. He needed to know what went on in a Jedi’s mind, because whatever it was, Jusik was no reliable guide to it. Jusik had his own moral compass. So did Etain. Maybe it was a generational thing, with the younger Jedi starting to ask how things had come to this sorry pass.
All Ordo could see in Zey’s face, though, was a man drained of hope, almost too embarrassed to pause and look at his own actions.
“I think the whole Republic needs a change of management,” Zey said at last. “The war is wrong. The conduct of it is wrong. Our compliance with it is wrong. And Palpatine has outstayed his welcome.”
Maze still didn’t move a muscle, but Ordo was hypersensitive to the slightest sound. The Alpha ARC held his breath for a moment. He wasn’t happy with that, not at all.
“Don’t forget your slave army,” Ordo said, then touched two fingers to his temple in a not-quite-salute. “That wasn’t the smartest move, either.”
Ordo left with Maze close on his heels. In the corridor, he strode ten paces and then halted to spin around. Maze stopped dead behind him. Their eyes locked.
I thought we’d reached an understanding.
“There was a time,” Ordo said, testing their comradeship, “when you’d have tried to punch me out for not kissing Zey’s Force-using shebs.” He offered Maze a strip of ruik. “So?”
Maze accepted the proffered snack. “I just wanted to talk. I’m no fan of Palpatine, either, but he was elected, more or less, and the Jedi weren’t. Who are they to judge who runs the Republic?”
“My, Jango’s little gung-ho pep talks didn’t work, did they?”
“Jango’s orders were to serve the Republic. Not the Jedi. They’re like us. Instruments of the state.”
“Maze, I’m amazed his orders weren’t to kill the Jedi, given what happened to him at Galidraan.” Ordo felt genuine pity for Jango; first his family, then his surrogate father, and then every last one of his comrades—all were killed by worthless chakaare. That didn’t excuse prostituting his genetic material for credits and an heir, though. “But it’s good to see that you Alphas aren’t all Jedi-worshipping planks.”
Maze raised an eyebrow. “Orders, you crazy Null boy. Try following them sometime. They’re what separates an army as the expression of the electorate’s will from an armed rabble out for its own ends.”
“You’ve been reading holobooks.”
“You sound like a civvy.”
“I should smack you one for that.”
“While you’re out on the town with your lady friend, what do you think the likes of me and the white jobs do with our off-duty hours? You think we’re put back in stasis, offline for the duration like good little droids? Me, I read. Some guys play limmie. Some watch the kind of holovids that just make you realize what you can’t have. But I read.”
It was a sobering rebuke. Maze was right; it was too easy to slip into that civilian way of un-thinking, of never wondering how human beings just like them spent their rapidly passing lives.
“You know what your future is, don’t you?” Ordo said.
“Body bag, or a couple of rounds to the head. Best scenario—clone instructor. Yeah, I know. Zey offered to relocate me, shall we say. He was very upset to find out about the Republic’s approach to ARC retirement.”
“Let me know if you want relocation, then. I can do a better job than Zey.”
“I’ll bet.” Maze chewed thoughtfully. “But it’s nice of him to even offer when other Jedi just snap their fingers at you and call you clone.”
“Tell me something,” Ordo said. “I was raised as a son, not a commodity. I’m fully aware that clones are exploited. Do you have a sense of injustice?”
“Too right I do,” Maze said quietly. He spat the fiber left from the ruik root into a waste container with impressive force and accuracy, and walked away toward the mess, helmet under one arm, kama swinging.
Kashyyyk,
three days after the flight of Grievous from Coruscant, 1,088 days ABG
“About time,” Fixer said, cramming ammo clips into his belt. “I was getting fed up fighting this war on my own.”
Scorch nudged him in the back, indicating Boss and Sev. “What were we doing, then, filing our nails?”
“I meant Vos.”
General Vos had arrived from Boz Pity with the first wave of troopers the night before; General Yoda was inbound with the 41st Elite and the Wookiee chieftain Delta had extracted from the Seps’ prison camp, Chief Tarfful. The Republic was pouring resources into the Kashyyyk theater. Scorch agreed that it was a little overdue, and also that it was remarkably handy that all those extra troops and ships had become available, freeing up the likes of Yoda.
It’s a big ambush; Coruscant first. Grievous gets his tin shebs kicked, and runs. Chancellor, you better be right, or we’re finished.
“Ready?” Boss said.
“How long have we got?”
“Time on target for Yoda’s flagship—thirty standard minutes.”
They walked out onto the vine bridge and scanned for visible vessels in the dawn sky. The Seps knew reinforcements were coming, too; their fleet was piling in, and a cruiser had taken up position at coordinates that looked as if it was going to engage Yoda’s flagship.
Wookiees were massing, too. Scorch heard them long before he saw them, a random chorus of rumbling, growling, yawling voices, growing louder, and you didn’t need to know a word of Shyriiwook to get the gist of the sentiment. They were psyching themselves up—not that they needed it much—to take back their world. They were going to do it with their bare hands, and Scorch believed them, oh yes, he did. He’d seen it. He wasn’t keen to see it again. The screams would be enough. The Wookiee chieftains were massive, brandishing heavy bowcasters and long-guns as if they were tiny hold-out blasters. They were working their troops up to a fever pitch. They thrashed their fists against their chests, then raised their arms to the sky again, bellowing defiance. The whole Wookiee army joined in. It was a wall of sound that Scorch didn’t just hear but felt in his sinuses.
Enacca came up behind them, and even Fixer jumped. She growled and pointed back into the forest.
Boss checked his chrono. “Yeah, I know you’re looking forward to pulling off some arms, but I think our best bet is to take control of the turbolaser battery. That cruiser’s positioned to stop Yoda from disembarking ground troops, and we need it gone.”
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Enacca let out a roar of approval. She wanted it gone, too.
Etain came jogging along the platform and stood beside her. It was an image of extremes that Scorch wouldn’t forget in a hurry—the two-meter-tall Wookiee with a bowcaster slung across her back like a small accessory, and Etain, so tiny that he was still sure her conc rifle weighed more than she did.
It was nice to see a Jedi general who used more than a lightsaber. Etain knew exactly what it felt like to haul heavy kit for hours on end, so she understood when her troops needed a break. But there was something poking out of her belt, in the shadow of her robe, and Scorch realized after a few baffled seconds that it was a small furry toy, an animal.
“Reckon you can take that battery in eighteen minutes, Delta?” she said, winking. “Omega would try for fifteen.”
“We’re easily provoked into rash displays of competitive machismo, ma’am,” Sev said. “We accept the challenge.”
Scorch indicated Etain’s mascot. That’s what he thought it was, anyway. “Your Wookiee’s not very big, ma’am.”
“It’s my little boy’s toy nerf,” she said. “He put it in my hand before I left, and right now it’s really comforting. It smells of him.”
Sev said nothing. Scorch was grateful for that. Boss clapped his gloves hard to get their attention. “Come on, Delta, move it. You can play with the toy later.”
Etain gave them a casual fingers-to-brow salute and disappeared with Enacca. They were booby-trapping the walkways so that the 41st Elite could drive the Trandoshans into a trap and pick them off.
“I call dibs on the main cannon,” Sev said. “A Sep cruiser is like one big bug. I haven’t had my bug-splattering fix today.”
But he’d get plenty of chances once they blew their way into the big silo-like emplacement. The Seps had built into the trees, almost sleeving them in metal at some points and driving durasteel shafts clean through the road-wide trunks. The first set of doors Scorch blew unleashed a wave of spider droids, and Fixer picked them off with anti-armor rounds.
Boss checked his HUD chrono, flashing the countdown to all of them across their readouts. “Fifteen to go, so let’s not let the generals down. Grab the first anti-air turret you see and hang on to it. One each. Between the four of us, we should be able to put a dent in that shabuir.”
Scorch could hear the voice traffic now in his helmet between the 41st and Vos’s forward air control. The Sep cruiser was maneuvering to block the flagship, and Commander Gree was searching for alternative sites to land men. If he was forced too far from the landing zone, they’d have a hard haul back through the forest before they could engage the Sep targets. The cruiser had to move.
Two MagnaGuard droids blocked their path to the battery positions. Scorch almost didn’t count the Trandoshans who opened up with blasters. He lobbed a grenade their way while Fixer and Sev charged the droids, slicing one of them in two with a burst of plasma bolts and smashing the other to the floor with the butt of a Deece before emptying a clip into it.
Fixer ran on and swung himself into the gunner’s seat on the first turbolaser position. He waved Scorch and the other two past him, and started punching the controls. Scorch dropped into the next bay. He found a Trando trying to get a firing solution on the GAR flagship, which was now looking awfully close and in need of a parking space. Scorch brought his vibroblade up under the Trando’s chin just as the barve reached for his rifle, waited for him to stop struggling, and dragged the body clear of the seat.
By the time Scorch had taken control of the cannon’s targeting system and found the optimum points on the cruiser’s hull to do the most damage, Boss and Sev were gone, sprinting on to take control of the last two cannons. Fixer was already opening big vents in the cruiser’s hull. But the thing wasn’t going to go down easy; now Scorch could see four streams of laserfire playing along the keel of the Sep ship.
“Yeah, feel free, join the party.” Scorch thought Fixer was talking to him on the comlink, but when he saw triple-A coming up from the ground in brilliant white staccato lines, he realized Vos’s larty units had moved in. “That’s our sky, buddy. Move over.”
The cruiser was losing height. Its buckled hull plates shuddered every time it took a hit, and then it started to break up. Flame vented from rips big enough to swallow a gunship.
“We’re going to be wearing that thing for a hat if we don’t move soon, Boss,” Scorch said. “It’s as good as dead.”
“Job done, Deltas. Bang out.”
Scorch swung out of the gunnery seat and ran for the turbolift, Deece ready, but he was running over dead Trandos and shredded metal. Any remaining Seps in the battery had made a run for it, too, possibly because of the imminent fireball from a dying cruiser. Boss, breathless, was calling in a LAAT/i for extraction as he ran.
Then Sev cut in. Scorch looked around. It was the first time he’d noticed that he wasn’t with them. When he checked the point-of-view icon in his HUD, Sev still seemed to be looking out from the turbolaser viewport, and then the image broke up into streaks before going black.
Sev’s voice carried on. “Boss, I’ve got a problem here…”
“Sev, where are you?”
“Sector… multiple hostiles…”
Fixer jabbed the comlink reset on his helmet. There was just the wash and crackle of static. “Lost his signal, Boss.”
“Well, find it again. Delta, regroup—we’re going after Sev.”
The forward air controller from Vos’s unit cut in. “Negative negative, Three-Eight, new orders came through from the generals—clear the area and evac now.”
“I don’t care if they came from General Yoda himself.” Boss gestured to Fixer and Scorch to make a move after Sev. They could always claim they hadn’t heard the message. “Sev—”
“As a matter of fact, they did, soldier. Now get your squad out of there.”
Explosions shook the ship. The comm circuit was a disjointed mix of half-snatched conversations; it was all going to haran. Sep forces were streaming in from the north and east of their position, converging on them. Delta had killed the cruiser and enabled the 41st to land, but the battle had only just begun.
“He’s right, Boss,” Fixer said. “We’ve got to get out now.”
Scorch grabbed Fixer’s arm. “We can’t leave Sev. Nobody gets left behind. Remember? Remember how Sev blew up when we left Vau on Mygeeto? You want to do that to our brother? You want to abandon him? Leave him to die here?”
“He’s Sev,” Fixer said. “If he’s alive, he’ll hole up somewhere and we can retrieve him later.”
“What if he can’t?”
“Then he’s dead anyway.”
“We don’t leave without a body, moving or otherwise.”
“If we don’t evac now, we’ll all be dead.”
“Fine, then we go together, not running off to save our own shebse while Sev’s left here.”
Boss said nothing and just watched as if he had nothing better to do, even though they had seconds to make their move. Then he took hold of Scorch’s shoulder.
Scorch hadn’t wept since he was a kid, but he couldn’t see for tears now. “I’m not leaving him, Boss. You go if you want to. Not me.”
“This is an order.”
“Screw orders. Omega wouldn’t leave a man.”
“Scorch…”
“You’ll have to shoot me.”
Boss put his hand on his sidearm. “Losing one guy is bad enough. I’m not losing two. Don’t let me down now.” He shoved Scorch hard in the back and nearly knocked him over. The larty was hovering level with the exit hatch of the turbo-lift. “Shift it, Six-Two.”
“I’ll never forgive you for this, Boss. Or you, Fixer. We’re brothers, for fierfek’s sake. I’d never leave you.”
But he did. He left. They all left.
“Sorry, Sev.” Boss’s voice was suddenly husky. He wasn’t the weepy type, either, but he sounded like he was struggling. And maybe Sev could hear them, and maybe he
couldn’t, but if his end of the comlink was still live, Scorch could imagine what he was going through now as he listened to his brothers leaving him to die, or worse.
“Delta… move out.”
Sev was as hard as they came. Vau had made survivors of them all. Fixer was probably right: if Sev was still alive, he’d probably stay alive for a long time, and they could always go back.
But they didn’t know.
No, you didn’t pull out all the stops for Sev.
Skirata would have told Yoda to shove his orders, cut the comm, and gone looking for him.
As they jumped into the larty’s crew bay for the evac, Boss put his hand on Scorch’s shoulder, but Scorch shrugged it off. He longed for a cannon round and instant oblivion, some way of stopping the guilt of not being dead, not staying to search, not making a final stand and defying Boss and CIC and even shabla General Yoda. He wanted to die of shame. He could only imagine how much worse it would feel in years to come when he had to face himself every morning.
It was just as well that a clone’s life span was limited.
Chapter Seventeen
The Battle of Kashyyyk,
afternoon, 1,088 days ABG
You have to know the limits of your physical and mental endurance, so you can recognize them and pass beyond them. This is why I will push you beyond any suffering you can imagine. You will not give up and die like lesser men; you will not crack up like lesser men; you will not lose heart in the direst circumstances like lesser men. You will carry on beyond your imagined limits. And you will be the last men standing, when the weaklings have opted to do the easy thing and die.
—Sergeant Walon Vau, Cuy’val Dar, addressing junior clone trainees (average biological age: ten years old) on Kamino, five years before Geonosis
Enacca picked Etain up bodily and dropped her over the side of the vine-rope bridge.
“No!” Etain yelled. She landed safely, buffering her fall with the Force, but she didn’t need to: an old male Wookiee, gray-streaked and battle-scarred, caught her. Her small brown fabric bag fell after her. “You can’t do this! I can’t do it!”