Fi didn’t expect it to be daylight outside, let alone a sunny afternoon. A thick carpet of snow made the light painfully bright. It was all wrong; it should have been night, and terrible weather, because this was only going to taint all sunny days for him from now on. He stood on the hatch coaming and watched Parja checking the landing gear with stress sensors, giving the huge damper pistons sharp blows with a hydrospanner and listening carefully each time.
“Hi, cyar’ika,” she said, holding out an oil-smeared hand to him. She didn’t have to ask how he was, because she knew. “As soon as everyone’s disembarked, we’ll roll Aay’han into the hangar. I missed you. Welcome home.”
His mouth worked, eventually. It wasn’t the aftermath of his injuries this time. It was just the enormity of events that he would never have found words for even when he was at his peak.
“You heard what happened.”
“Yeah,” Parja said. She put her arms around him, and they stood there for a while. “I heard.”
It was amazing how silent a place could be even with more than twenty people wandering around in it. Laseema had instantly become some kind of loadmaster, directing operations and assigning rooms with Rav Bralor. Even Jilka, who had no reason to feel positive about this anarchic Mandalorian gang—Fi accepted that was what they were, and felt no shame—was in the kitchen when he walked through it. She was organizing meals with Ruu, as if her own expectation of a relatively peaceful life hadn’t just been utterly destroyed out of the blue because she was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Everyone had fallen into a role in an unspoken duty roster, except him. Or at least he thought that until he saw Jusik and Ordo standing in the passageway to the armory, looking way beyond lost. They were both tough men in their individual ways. Now they didn’t seem sure what came next.
It was fatigue. When the plug was pulled after a heavy engagement, the sense of hitting a wall was almost unbearable. Fi had been there too often. But a night’s sleep, or even a week’s, wasn’t going to fix what was wrong this time.
“Parja needs to move the ship under cover,” Fi said. “Give us a hand, will you?”
Standing around and dwelling on loss didn’t help. Fi believed in exhausting himself with frantic activity until his body gave in and sleep like unconsciousness overwhelmed him, and when he woke up he would do it again, and again, until—eventually—things settled down to a tolerable level. He’d coped with losing his first squad that way. He could do it again.
“Yeah, better cover our tracks.” Ordo strode out, upright and alert again as if someone had thrown a switch. “What’s the Met forecast? Some more snow would be handy to cover the footprints and churning.”
Skirata and Besany weren’t in Aay’han when Fi went outside again. Parja had one of the inspection plates hanging open on the underside of the hull, working on something. She gestured out into the snow. Two figures sat huddled on the highest of four time-polished chunks of granite that jutted up through the soil. “He wanted to wait for A’den. Bes’ika’s keeping an eye on him.”
Ordo checked the sensors on his forearm plate with a conspicuous flourish. “It’s minus eight out here. They’ll be hypothermic if they’re not careful.” He walked toward them, picking an irregular path as if he was stepping on stones, still a commando trying to disguise his presence. Some conversation appeared to take place. Then he walked back again.
“Besany says they’re fine,” Ordo said. “She’ll make him put his helmet on and seal his suit.”
Vau wandered out to join the inspection. “He’ll go like Jango.” Mird tiptoed around them, leaving remarkably misleading footprints. “The first bereavement knocks the guts out of him, and then the next one turns him into something frightening, and all the anger gets swallowed and recycled into long-term retribution. But don’t worry. It kept Jango going on a slave ship all those years, and it’ll keep Kal alive, too. It’s a Mando thing—long memory, short fuse, big revenge.”
Fi was still coming to terms with the Mandalorian psyche, the contrast between not caring what someone did before they joined, and yet clinging to ancient pasts and feuds. It was in him, too. He was only just starting to find it.
Ordo started up Aay’han’s drives and nosed her down into the hangar concealed in the shallow slope to the north of the house, with Fi and Vau playing aircraft directors. With the associated chores of swabbing down the compartments, replenishing stores, and prepping the ship for the next flight, the five of them—Mird insisted on helping—managed to occupy a big chunk of the afternoon.
“Who’s going to break the news to Uthan?” Vau asked as they sat on upturned crates in the hangar. “She thinks she’s in a safe house awaiting transfer to some nice Sep facility.”
“Let her think that,” Ordo said. “Until Kal’buir decides it’s time.”
Mird went snuffling around the hangar. Fi found that the strill didn’t smell so pungent to him now, maybe because he’d grown used to the animal’s strong scent. Then it threw up its big, slobbery head and looked toward the hangar doors with a fixed gold stare, whining. A few moments later, Fi heard the faint aka-aka-aka noise of a vessel’s drive as it lost height overhead. They went outside to face a sun sitting low on the horizon in a blinding ball of amber, and saw a rusty freighter coming in to land.
“Honor guard,” Vau said sharply. “Turn to.”
Skirata and Besany were already at the ramp when A’den stepped out of the hatchway. Fi, Ordo, Vau, and Jusik took up position almost without thinking, standing to attention in line with the ramp. They weren’t alone in their reaction. From the front doors of the bastion, Bralor, Tay’haai, Gilamar, and the rest of Skirata’s clan trooped out and arranged themselves silently so that there were now two ranks facing each other.
“Apologies, Kal’buir,” A’den said. “Ny had some stragglers to collect.” He waved someone out of the hatch. It was a commando squad, four weary-looking clones minus helmets, but still in dazzle-camo Katarn body armor.
“Wayii!” Bralor said. “Cov?”
“Yayax Squad reporting, ma’am.” Cov saluted, puffing clouds into the freezing air. “I can’t believe we’re doing this.”
“Fall in, ad’ike,” she said. “Olarom. Welcome home.”
Ny Vollen stood on the top of the ramp, looking down at Skirata. “Hi, old man,” she said softly.
Skirata nodded in acknowledgment. “Thanks for bringing her home.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sorry about your husband, too.”
“Yeah. Maybe it was better not to know the details.” She looked down at her hands for a second. So A’den had found out how her husband had died. “But at least it stops me imagining something even worse.”
Skirata nodded. “That’s the truth.”
“You ready? I’ve got a repulsor trolley.”
Skirata put a boot on the ramp. “No. Too cold. Too freight.” He disappeared into the ship, and came out carrying a small body in his arms, wrapped in a blanket, head covered, as if he was just making sure she didn’t get too cold. “At least you’re home, Et’ika. Kad’s waiting.”
Fi heard the faint, ragged intake of breath.
Everyone—man or woman, soldier or civilian—drew that same breath that he did, as if they’d been punched in the chest. Skirata walked between the two lines and paused.
“Bard’ika, it’s cremation for a Jedi Knight, yes?”
“It is, Kal’buir.”
“Tomorrow, then—a final night in her own home with her family around her, and then she goes to the Force, or the manda, or wherever, like the Jedi she was.”
Normally, Kal’buir used the word as an insult. It was clear now that Jedi could mean something totally different to him. Fi wondered who would crack first, and he wasn’t as surprised as he thought he would be when it turned out to be Ordo. He thought the stifled sob was his own for a moment, until he saw Ordo put the back of his gauntlet to his mouth for a count of two, and then recover and stand to attention again.
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“Shab,” Vau said. “Kal’s building up some steam for a real good hate, now. Enough to last for generations.”
Skirata disappeared through the doors of the bastion, and the impromptu honor guard fell out. Fi found Parja’s hand somehow, not even realizing she’d been next to him, and braced for a long, hard evening.
Kyrimorut bastion,
later that day
The dining table at Kyrimorut was, as Gilamar said, the kind you could use as an operating table if you ever had to.
It was cut from a single plank of ancient veshok, a native hardwood that covered much of Mandalore’s northern hemisphere almost as far as the polar ice caps. Jusik felt it was a table for life events, huge rambling discussions, and somehow also for dismantling engines. He sat between Mereel and Jaing, while Skirata took a seat at the head of the table in true patriarchal style, more to be heard than to hold court, Jusik suspected.
“You heard the ladies,” Skirata said, face still gray and drained. “Haili cetare. Fill yer boots. Tuck in.”
Enlightened Coruscant society would have tutted at the traditionalist view that the females of the household were valued for their cooking skills, but Jusik was getting used to a subtler Mando take on that. The whole clan—even if Jusik couldn’t define it, he knew the feeling of clan—was a fighting unit. Those who weren’t on the front line as teeth were the essential tail, and many happened to be female. Sometimes women fought alongside the men, as Bralor did, and sometimes they didn’t. But those who didn’t still had a job to do—keeping warriors fed and supplied, and the base or homestead defended. One couldn’t operate without the other. And at this moment of crisis for the Skirata clan, the females had taken over and made sure that the front line was fed and rested. There was no weeping into shimmersilk handkerchiefs and waiting by the door. There was just an efficient, robust logistics operation that would still be there when the Nine Hells of Corellia were dust.
Etain was…
Etain was dead. Jusik said it to himself every few minutes, because he looked at live friends, loved friends, and couldn’t reconcile the two states.
Laseema said that Kad had screamed inconsolably for a full five minutes at the moment his mother had died, then had calmed down and regarded the world with grave eyes and contemplation more like an adult’s.
He was now eating pureed kaneta with a spoon all on his own, although a lot of it was ending up on the table. He seemed suddenly sober, like a little old man rather than a baby. Something had changed in him. Skirata kept him at his side in an elevated chair, pausing between mouthfuls to help Kad eat and wiping his mouth. Skirata had all the hallmarks of a man who knew his way around raising small kids, and who regarded it as respectable work for a warrior. Jusik imagined him coping with a company of small commandos-to-be.
But Jusik was now wholly responsible for Kad’s care in an area that even Skirata’s unerring paternal instinct couldn’t handle. The child was Force-sensitive, and living in a new era when that probably meant a death warrant. Jusik reached out in the Force and gently touched Kad’s awareness. The baby stopped smacking his spoon on the kaneta puree, and turned slowly to stare at Jusik.
You’re doing fine, Kad’ika. This is a game that only we can play, and only with our clan around. Jusik visualized the thick, safe walls of the bastion, and gave Kad a clear sensation of being protected within them, but not beyond. He gave him an impression as best he could without words. It’s special. It’s not for outsiders. Mama wanted you to be safe from bad people.
Jusik didn’t want to make the baby paranoid, but it wasn’t being taken by Jedi Masters that he needed to fear now. It was a Sith who killed Jedi, and would want to control any Force-users he came across. Palpatine knew Skirata had something that he wanted already. Jusik didn’t want to give him an extra reason to hunt for Kyrimorut.
“Does my Force-using at the table bother anyone?” Jusik asked. They could see Kad’s reaction and work it out. Jusik Force-pushed a bowl of tiingilar across the table to Laseema. It was a blisteringly spicy meat-and-vegetable casserole, which had the prized characteristic of hetikles, pungent enough to burn the nasal passages, one of the four qualities in Mando cooking. “Just teaching Kad some Force-using etiquette.”
Corr looked to Fi as if to work out whose turn it was with the wisecracks, or if they were even acceptable right now. Fi nodded.
“Well,” Corr said, “officers’ mess rules say you shouldn’t use the Force until after the Bespin port is served, but we’re very relaxed here.”
Jusik wanted to laugh, but it felt wrong and so close to tears he didn’t risk opening his mouth. Etain’s body was lying in a room next door; and here they were enjoying a meal. But if there was anything that would have gladdened her heart, it would have been seeing Corr transformed from indoctrinated, cloistered slave to a man who was wringing every drop of joy and sensation out of newfound freedom. He seemed to get a faint smile out of poor Jilka and a very bemused-looking Ruu Skirata.
What a time to be reunited with your estranged dad…
“Bard’ika,” Skirata said suddenly, “what happens to Jedi when they become one with the Force? That’s the phrase, isn’t it?”
It was the hardest question of all, but Jusik didn’t realize how much harder it could get until now. “We don’t really know,” he said. “But I truly believe some Jedi Masters can come back as ghosts in the Force, to interact with the living. Not everyone believes the ancient accounts, and thinks they’re a myth—but I think it’s real.”
The whole table went silent; no chewing, no slurping, no scraping of metal on porceplast. Jusik looked around the faces, clone and nonclone, and felt the shock.
How could he have failed to understand the impact that revelation would have on them so soon after losing Etain? And now that they thought there was a possibility of existence after death for Jedi, it had made them all feel… excluded. Ordinary beings had no such hope. Jusik wondered whether to emphasize the uncertainty of it, but that would have been a lie. He believed it, and he’d heard convincing cases. So he didn’t. He traded off truth and the possible comfort of Etain’s consciousness not being completely obliterated against the resentment he might come to face about a Jedi privilege that any bereaved being would envy bitterly.
Jusik squirmed. He tried not to think where it would leave him after his death if he were right about the ghosts.
“Well, I never,” Skirata said, bringing him back to the here and now. Jusik wasn’t sure if it was sarcasm or weary resignation. “Fancy that.”
Jusik had to confront it. Ordo’s stare was burning a hole in him. “If you’re asking if Etain exists fully in another plane like that, or if anyone else does but can’t return, I have absolutely no idea. I wish I did.”
Of course it was what they were all wondering. How could it not be? Mandalorians had a vague concept of manda, but it was very much rooted in the all-embracing continuation of the living culture rather than a literal afterlife.
“It’s okay,” Skirata said, sounding tired. Kad offered him a sloppy spoonful of vegetables and he took it. “Don’t be afraid to say it—dead, death, the dead. It isn’t going to go away, and if we don’t face it, we’ll just make it bigger than it really is. Can’t live without death, can’t die without life.”
He went on eating, head down. Ordo leaned back in his seat to reach for a bottle of tihaar spirit and poured a small glass for his father, but Ruu took it carefully from his hand. There was a tense moment as their gazes locked, and she got up to walk to the head of the table and place it in front of Kal’buir.
“Thanks, ad’ika,” he said. “It’s good to have you back again.”
Skirata looked as if he was going to weep. The mood around the table stood balanced—as it would for weeks, months, and maybe even years to come—on a knife-edge between crying and laughing.
“Kal, you’ll go over it in your head a thousand times,” Ny said. She seemed to be able to read Skirata as if she’d known him all her
life. “Over and over. I’ve done it. But remember that Etain only died once, and then it was over.”
On first take, it sounded harsh, if brutally true; but Jusik recognized the wisdom and comfort in that observation, and actually felt some beginnings of peace. Nobody died as often or as painfully as the living left behind, who kept reliving the moment of death, and speculating on it. There was no end to their dying once they let it drive out everything else. The loved one whose end they repeatedly tried to endure and imagine was now beyond pain. Skirata seemed to chew it over, then gave Ny a sad smile.
“You’ve got a point there, freight jockey,” he said. She seemed to have given him a reserve tank of emotional oxygen to get him out of a suffocating spot. “I should know that by now.” He drew himself up with a little cough that got everyone’s attention as surely as bringing his fist down on the table. “You want me to make the right kind of speech? We don’t need speeches in this aliit. We just need reminding. The one thing Etain wanted was for Dar and the clones she cared so much about to have a full life. We’ve got to grieve, or else we’ve not loved her enough, but there’ll come a stage when the grieving would hurt her, and she’d want to see you all getting pleasure out of every day and every moment, all the little things you thought you’d never have. Relishing life is the best way any of you can make sure she didn’t die for nothing. She’ll never see her kid grow up. You will see it for her. And Dar and Niner will be coming home.”
“Oya,” Prudii said, tilting a small glass of tihaar. “K’oyacyi.”
Ordo held a glass only for appearances’ sake. “To Etain,” he said. “To bringing Dar and Niner home. To getting our life spans back. To seeing Kad grow up as one of many of our children. To never being at the mercy of the aruetiise again, and to gratitude for the few good ones, like Jaller Obrim and CSF.”
“Oya.”
“K’oyacyi.”
“Oya manda.”
Mandalorian sensibilities revolved around those words, all of them from the same root, the word for life, and the urge to live it while it remained. Jusik felt embarrassed about his certain and privileged ticket to the hereafter. The meal went on for hours, breaking up into small conversations as if nobody wanted to be the first to face sleep, or to leave Skirata on his own. When his turn came to clear plates, Jusik found Ny in the kitchen, feeding Mird scraps.