“He’s an ugly barve,” she said. “But he’s adorable.”
“It,” Jusik said. The strill grumbled with delight, happily crunching bones. “Mird’s neither, or both, depending on how you look at it. Mind what you feed it, or Vau will fret.”
“I meant Skirata.”
Jusik almost blushed. “Yeah, I suspected A’den was engineering something there…” He looked for bashfulness, but Ny didn’t flicker. She was still grieving herself. “His sons want him to be happy. He’s poured years into them, every drop of sweat. This has just gutted him, the poor old shabuir.”
Ny cocked her head to mimic Mird’s mute appeal for more tidbits. She gave in fast. The strill had her well trained now. “I got to know Mandos pretty well doing this job,” she said. “Okay, you don’t want to cross them or fight them, but they’re hospitable, and they love their families. But that in there tonight—for all the grief, there’s so much love that you could saw a chunk out of it and build a kriffing house. It’s a magical thing.”
Yes, it was. It had drawn Jusik, and Besany, and Etain, and Etain had paid for it with her life.
But life went on, because it had to. And Kad was living proof.
Kyrimorut, Mandalore,
later that night
Besany had no choice but to sleep. Her body demanded it. She thought she would never sleep again for the turmoil in her mind, but her face touched the hard pillow and she fell unprotesting into a black void.
A child’s crying woke her.
She opened her eyes, and for a moment she was aware only of straining to hear. It was a thin, distant sound. Then she remembered—Etain dead, Darman and Niner marooned—and she had to put her hand to her mouth to stifle the sob. She was lying on top of the covers, still dressed; the light was still on. Ordo lay curled in a ball, head buried under the blankets as usual.
But it wasn’t a baby. It wasn’t Kad.
The crying sounded like an older child. Besany slid off the bed, pulled on her boots, and crept out into the passage, picking her way carefully in the darkness. The place smelled of newness, fresh plaster and paint. It was the kind of smell that went with a fresh start and hope for the future, not grief and terrible, unerasable endings.
She couldn’t make out where the sound was coming from, and stood still for a moment to try to identify the direction. Was she dreaming? It was faint, and if she could hear it, then others surely could. But as she crept past the various rooms, all the doors were closed, and no light showed. The quiet here, the complete absence of any sound of urban or even village life, was eerie.
The kitchen was deserted. In the chair by the fireplace, a blanket lay crumpled, and the fire looked in need of a few more logs. Skirata’s refusal to sleep in a bed was a touchstone, a habit that had grown into a ritual to remind him of all the things he had to put on hold while he made the world right for his boys; if they were deprived, so would he be, too. He seemed to be afraid that if he changed that ritual, he would lose his resolve. Skirata wasn’t a superstitious man. But it showed how much the years had ground him down, that he would cling to a daily ritual for strength and focus like a sports player.
The doors leading onto the storage area were closed.
The sound was coming from in there. No, it wasn’t Kad.
Besany stood for a moment, almost afraid to enter because she had no idea what she might find. She pressed the controls, and the doors parted silently.
“Kal?” she said.
Skirata was sitting on a crate with his arms folded and his head almost touching his knees. He was weeping like a child crying itself to sleep, stifled sobs punctuating great rattling breaths. It took him awhile to control it long enough to reply.
“Just letting it out,” he said at last. “I didn’t want to wake anyone.”
“Mij left some relaxants. Might be a good idea to take some.”
“I’ve still got to wake up sometime and face it, Bes’ika.” Skirata stood up. He was always unashamed of his emotions, and Besany found that admirable. “I’ve got work to do. Lots.”
“The… cremation. I can do that. Ordo and I can do that.”
“Thanks, ad’ika. You’re a good girl. I’ve made a mess of your life, haven’t I?”
“We all came along willingly for the ride,” she said. “Except Jilka and Ruu.”
“I’m just shaping up to show Kad his mama’s body in the morning. It has to be done.”
Besany recoiled. Maybe it was a Mandalorian custom, but it seemed brutal. On the other hand, if the child didn’t see Etain, he might regret it later. Mothers were very absent in this clan at the best of times—Skirata never mentioned his, birth or adoptive, and Besany barely thought of hers. It was a world of fathers.
“You need to start leaning on people for support, Kal, or you won’t make it,” she said. “It’s only been a day.”
“What about Dar? What’s that boy going through right now? He needs his family with him. And he’s stuck in some trash pit of a GAR barracks right now, if he’s lucky, maybe not even with Niner because the lad’s in a medbay if he’s still alive. We can’t even comm them yet, or Jaller. I let all of them down. None of it needed to go that badly wrong.”
“Dar made a choice, Kal. A brave one. He really is a grown man. We all made choices.”
Skirata seemed to be back together again now. He settled down in the kitchen chair and submitted to having her pull the blanket over him. It still surprised her how Mando’ade could sleep in armor. She had that education to come.
Niner; maybe that’s who I pity most right now. And I know he’s alive.
Poor Niner, lonely and serious, trying to play the father to his squad like Skirata had been to him, was probably in torment now for making Darman stay. Besany wasn’t sure if Vau had the best of it. He saw his father as a monster, an example to be avoided, while all those who saw Kal Skirata as a paragon of fatherhood were doomed to fall short in emulating him, and berate themselves for it.
Ordo had shifted position when she got back to the room. He’d let the blanket slip down to chin level, and she spent a few minutes propped on one arm beside him, watching. He was starting to go gray at the temples; she hadn’t noticed that before. Sometimes—rarely, but sometimes—she forgot how unfairly fast time was passing for him.
“K’oyacyi,” she said, and kissed him good night.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Kyrimorut,
dawn, next day, 1,091 days ABG
Gar taldin ni jaonyc; gar sa buir, ori’wadaasla.
Nobody cares who your father was, only the father you’ll be.
—Mandalorian saying
“Is it going to burn properly?” Kom’rk asked. “Do you want some accelerant on the pyre?”
Ordo thought that was a good idea, and wondered how it could be done discreetly. He realized yet again that he lacked some awareness that most human beings had—social blind spots—and knew he didn’t react quite the same way as others, so, as long as they were beings whose feelings he cared about, he took care to note what might offend them. Etain’s cremation was a ritual, something to soothe the onlooker, not a disposal to be carried out with maximum efficiency.
“If it’s subtle,” Ordo said carefully. Some pit tar underneath the branches might do the trick; nothing obtrusive, just enough to make the wood burn hotter. “Yes, some tar.”
“Ord’ika, have you seen any HNE bulletins today?”
“No.”
“Palpatine’s dissolved the Republic—it’s the Empire now, and he’s declared himself Emperor.”
“How modest.”
“I have to wonder where that leaves our brothers still on Coruscant.”
“Does it make any difference?”
“Yes.” Kom’rk took out his datapad. “Look. I know why we can’t get comms.”
The small screen showed a portal that Ordo didn’t recognize. It should have been the GAR mainframe, which they’d been able to access legitimately—and slice illicitly—up until a
couple of days ago. Now it looked very different, with an Imperial symbol and a different interface. Ordo activated a bogus terminal location on Kom’rk’s ’pad to disguise the access attempt and began keying his way in.
But he couldn’t.
“Shab,” he said.
“They’ve completely overhauled the system overnight, Ord’ika.” Kom’rk took back the ’pad. “Data, comms, everything. We can’t get in. We can’t take stuff out. We can’t talk or listen at will. We can’t spy.”
It was the first time Ordo could recall when he and his brothers had not been able to get at anything they wanted. Nothing had been closed to them; they’d even hacked the Tipoca mainframe as children. The Imperial networks, though, were slammed in their faces. All of them.
“It’s more an annoyance,” Ordo said at last. The mist that had hung over the quiet white landscape was lifting. It was going to be a sharp, clear day for the funeral. “None of this is beyond you or me to bypass, and Mereel or Jaing can crack this over a cup of caf.”
“I’m sure we can, but we’re starting over. The whole system’s changed. We’ve been used to being on the inside, exploiting opportunities, but if we want to keep that level of access, we’re going to have to start working harder.”
“Apart from extracting our brothers, why is this urgent?”
Kom’rk shrugged. “Just in case.”
And we hate being shut out. Ordo and his brothers were used to being in control. “We still can’t comm Darman or Niner, then?”
“No, and we can’t even get a medical sitrep on Niner. Or find out where Darman is. Because it’s the Imperial Army now. There is no SO Brigade, or Republic command.”
“Then we start over. But first things first. You get the tar for the pyre, and I’ll see how Kal’buir is.”
Ordo crunched back through the snow, forgetting his boot prints for the moment. They hadn’t tried to contact Darman because they’d been in hyperspace transit, and when they landed they’d been busy licking their emotional wounds. And then—the window of opportunity had closed, at least temporarily. Ordo knew that Kal’buir would be upset by that, and that in turn upset him. He’d delay the discussion until after the funeral.
We all decide what those we love should know and not know, and think we’re being kind. Isn’t this where it all started?
He found Skirata in the room where Etain’s body had been laid out. She looked fine. It was an odd thing to say, but she looked at rest, and that upset Ordo because he knew how her life had ended, and that it hadn’t been peaceful at all. He could never trust his eyes again to tell him how things had really been. And it wasn’t as if he’d led a sheltered life when it came to death and violence.
“Ready, son?”
Skirata held Kad in his arms. The child was gazing at the body, looking not distressed but puzzled. He stretched out a hand, and Skirata dipped a little to let him touch Etain’s hair. Bralor had done a tidy job of making her look her best. Kad gripped a lock of hair and seemed reluctant to let go.
“Ord’ika, clip a piece of her hair, would you?” Skirata said. “And his. He’ll need something of her in years to come. Did you see where her bag went? She had a bag.”
Ordo lifted the battered brown fabric sack and looked inside. “Two lightsabers, data and comm kit, and a toy.” He checked the datapad and comlink. “No datachips in these… no, nothing else in the bag. You want the toy?”
It was the toy that seemed to finish Skirata off. He handed Kad to Ordo in compete silence and walked out, returning a few moments later looking shaken.
“I’m sorted now,” he said. “Is everyone ready?”
“Yes.”
“Let’s do it, then.”
This time, Skirata used a repulsor trolley to move Etain’s body. It probably felt one step too far to carry her as if she were still alive and then lay her on the pyre. She was now the deceased, and some distance had to be created. Skirata picked up the toy nerf from the bag, and Kad held out his hand for it. He clutched it to him when Skirata passed him to Laseema. Jusik took the lightsabers before Skirata could put them on the pyre. Kal’buir wanted to get rid of them, but he’d regret it later, Ordo knew.
“They won’t burn completely,” Jusik said. “Besides, they both meant a lot to her for various reasons.”
“Okay,” Skirata said. In the few awful moments between looking at her for the last time and setting fire to the wood, Kad grizzled and squirmed in Laseema’s arms, holding out the nerf.
“He wants to give it to her,” Laseema said. “He does that. He hands you things. Come on, then, sweetie.”
She moved close enough for him to drop the toy next to Etain. Skirata muttered something that Ordo didn’t hear because he had his head lowered, but he lifted it again and simply went to the pyre to strike a spark from the metal firestarter that he kept in his belt. The sparks took immediately. Flames began licking the branches, leaping higher until they were level with the body.
“Nu kyr’adyc, shi taab’echaaj’la,” he said. Not gone, merely marching far away. It was what Mando warriors said of fallen comrades. They were never gone; as long as someone repeated their names daily, and talked about them and the fine times they had, then they lived.
Ordo didn’t even have to ask. Kal’buir had already added Etain’s name to the memorial list he whispered to himself daily.
There was a limit to how long anyone could stay watching a cremation. There was too much detail that mourners best avoided seeing. Laseema stepped back to hand Kad to Jusik, and the motley crowd seemed at a loss for any ceremony or ritual to find closure here. Not even Jusik said anything; but he rested his forehead against Kad’s, and maybe something passed between them that the likes of Ordo would never grasp.
“I’m never doing this again.” Skirata walked back to the pyre. Ordo saw his lips move, but he didn’t hear the words. He watched his father reach into the flames—no gloves, no apparent fear of being burned—to grab something before dropping what looked like the lock of Kad’s hair into the fire.
Skirata came back clutching the scorched toy, and turned to the mourners. “Ori’haat, I swear—I am never, ever going to see one of my children go to the manda before their time again.”
Skirata had started with just over a hundred commando trainees, and now there were around eighty-five left serving. Yet only Omega seemed to have become this central to his life, however much time he spent talking to the others wherever they were deployed. Ordo wondered if he would now start obsessing about the rest. If he did, that was all right by Ordo.
“You’ve burned your hand,” Ordo said.
Skirata put the toy in his pocket. There was something pitifully tender about that. “No big deal, son.”
“You said the gai bal manda, didn’t you?” It only took a few words to formally adopt. Posthumous adoption counted, too. “You finally adopted her. That’s a noble thing you did.”
“Being my son’s wife wasn’t enough,” Skirata said. “I want to make amends for the way I yelled at her, and she never knew her parents. Well, she knows her father now.” Ordo thought Skirata was going to lose his composure again, but he seemed to have passed a watershed. “When the flames die down, I’ll gather the ashes for Darman. Fi? At’ika? Come here, lads.” He beckoned them to him. “Have a hearty breakfast. And put on your full beskar’gam, too. We’re going to have a chat with an old friend.”
“Uthan?” Fi said hopefully.
“Yes,” Skirata said. “We’ve honored the dead. Now we look after the living.”
Skirata was genuinely grateful to have Dr. Ovolot Qail Uthan around.
It was a little more than the potential she represented for giving his boys a full life. She was also useful distraction. She was a task, and he could pour his sharp edges into dealing with her. All those things saved him; they saved him from drowning in grief, unable to claw his way up the sides, and from lashing out at those just as deep in grief as he was. He unlocked the armory door, followed by Atin in his
newly acquired purple-brown armor, and Fi in the plates he’d scavenged from Ghez Hokan on Qiilura. They looked totally at ease, as if they’d been free Mando’ade all their lives and never served the Republic.
“Wait until I call you in,” Skirata said.
There was an uncomfortable irony in Hokan’s beskar’gam, having just cremated the Jedi who’d decapitated him, but Etain had probably changed from that first kill. Skirata suspected it was the moment she started drifting away from the Jedi Order.
“Doctor!” Skirata forced cheerfulness. “How are you?”
Uthan looked up from her papers. Mereel had made her very comfortable; she had everything except links to the outside world, but then she was used to being in solitary confinement.
“I’m well,” she said. “How’s the war progressing? Has Coruscant been taken yet?”
“The war’s over,” Skirata said.
“Really?” Uthan blinked. “Really?”
“See for yourself.”
Skirata placed the HoloNet receiver and screen on the table. It was a high-quality set. She was going to be a guest here for a long time, so there was no point skimping; when he switched it on, it was already tuned to HNE’s news output. Uthan watched, her face a picture of amazement. She hadn’t seen a news program in nearly three years, and all she knew of the war after Omega had snatched her from Qiilura was what her captors had told her.
Shock was an interesting expression, Skirata thought. It unfolded in stages. It was almost too slow for the person doing the shocking. Uthan was trying to process a gap of three years, the end of the war, the end of both the CIS and the Republic, and now she was going to get the crushed nuts and syrup on her Neuvian ice sundae.