True Colors

  “Busy… monitoring reports to do…”

  “Are you okay?”

  Besany tried to memorize where she was on the balance sheet. “You keep asking me that lately.”

  “You haven’t been yourself for a while.”

  Just get lost. I need to drill down into this budget. It’s the only thing I can do that’s useful right now.

  “My… boyfriend’s serving in the Grand Army,” Besany said. There: she’d said the B word to herself, and now to Jilka. If she called Ordo anything else, she would have proved to herself that she was ashamed of what he was, making him less than human. “And I spend my days waiting to hear that he isn’t dead. Okay?”

  Jilka straightened up as if Besany had slapped her. “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize. We don’t have that many citizens serving, do we?”

  Besany’s common sense grappled with her conscience. No, I won’t deny him. “Clones don’t get citizenship.”

  The two women stared at each other for a moment, and Jilka looked away first. It was a terrible moment: and maybe Besany had said too much, revealing that she had far too much contact with the Grand Army.

  “Wow,” said Jilka, ducking back out of the doorway. “You must have had more fun doing that investigation at the logistics center than I thought.”

  Besany waited for the sound of Jilka’s shoes clattering down the corridor to fade to silence, and rested her chin on her hands. That would get around the building like wildfire.

  So what? I’m not ashamed.

  She’d lost her appetite now. She went back to the public accounts menu on the Treasury system and started working through the Customs section, keying in KAMINO, TIPOCA, and CLONING. And it threw up a lot more documents than she’d expected, mostly the trade ban on the supply of cloning apparatus and services under Decree E49D139.41. Kamino didn’t feature a great deal, but Arkania did.

  Arkanian Micro must be working all kinds of dodges to get around this. Big chunk of their exports, gone in a single amendment.

  There was a big, dull section marked MEDICAL EXEMPTION LICENSES. Her natural tidy curiosity told her she should see what items did manage to bypass the cloning ban, and when she did, she couldn’t help but notice the sheer volume of the transactions: trillions of credits. That was a lot of organs and skin grafts. Or…

  Or…

  Besany checked the codes. It was always possible that the codes were wrong or falsified, but they appeared to be licenses for imports to Coruscant itself with a destination code for Centax II—especially Centax II. It was just one of Coruscant’s moons: a sterile sphere used for military staging and fleet maintenance. For a moment Besany made a mental connection and wondered if there was an army medical center there, and that was why the Coruscant Health Authority took no military patients: maybe the GAR had its own acute care facility on Centax II, and the cloned tissues were destined for that.

  Okay, the government doesn’t want the public to see how many troops are brought back too seriously hurt even for the Mobile Surgical Units and medcenter ships to treat. Bad for citizens’ morale. Keep it all offworld.

  But Kamino didn’t need licenses, did it? And if anyone wanted cloned organs to restore troopers to fighting health, Kamino was the obvious source. It was what the Kaminoans did. The Republic was now their only customer thanks to the decree.

  A little bell started ringing at the back of Besany’s mind. She knew the sound of it: it was the finely tuned instinct familiar to anyone who’d spent time uncovering that which others wanted kept covered. She had no doubt that Captain Obrim and his CSF colleagues knew that bell only too well.

  What was going on here?

  Besany transferred the data to her own device, far more sections than she actually needed to disguise which information she was interested in, just in case data movement was being monitored. She needed to talk to Mereel, but this wasn’t the place.

  She pocketed her datapad and took a late lunch far from the Treasury building.

  Landing area 76B,

  Bogg V, Bogden system,

  473 days after Geonosis

  Aay’han sat on her dampers, looking scruffy. She’d been left in the water too long at one stage in her life: there was still a definite tide mark of encrusted growth even after a few searing atmospheric reentries. Mereel laughed and slapped his gauntlet against his thigh plate. Jusik just stood and stared.

  “It’s a hybrid submarine, General.” Skirata took a piece of ruik root from his belt pouch and chewed it thoughtfully. He didn’t enjoy the perfumed taste, but the texture was soothing. “I didn’t charge her to the brigade budget, if that’s what’s worrying Zey.”

  “It’s when you call me General that I worry, Sergeant…”

  Jusik really didn’t look like a Jedi right then. Whatever it was about the Force that gave him an air of illuminated serenity had taken a walk. He looked grimly mundane.

  “Bard’ika.” Skirata offered the kid a piece of root, but he waved it aside. “You’ve come an awful long way for just a chat, son.”

  Jusik took a deep breath and trudged forward as if he knew how to get into a DeepWater. “Things are getting out of hand. I had to do something that’s… been a difficult decision.”

  Skirata was a magnet for waifs and strays; if someone was looking for a sense of belonging, Skirata could make them feel they belonged like nobody else. It was the necessary skill of a sergeant, someone who could bond troops with the intensity of a family, but it was also the authority of a father, and he often couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. He wasn’t sure that it mattered. Jusik—clever, lonely, and increasingly at odds with Jedi policy—radiated a need for acceptance: the result was inevitable. Skirata struggled to find the line between taking advantage of the Jedi’s vulnerability and getting the best deal for his clones.

  Kal followed Jusik. “You can only do what you think is right, ad’ika.”

  “Then I need you to level with me.”

  “Be sure you want to be burdened with the answer, then.”

  The port-side cargo hatch edged open, and Skirata ushered Jusik inside. Mereel tutted at an interruption from his comlink and paused to answer it.

  In the crew lounge, Vau sat rubbing Mird’s head as it lay across his lap, and looked a much healthier color than he’d been hours earlier. He nodded gravely. The proceeds of the robbery were nowhere to be seen. Skirata sat down on one of the low tables, and Ordo and Mereel planted themselves to either side of Jusik on one of the couches. Jusik—Skirata’s height, a head shorter than any clone—was swamped by Munin Skirata’s green armor. Green for duty, black for justice, gold for vengeance: Mereel had opted for dark blue and Ordo for dark red, simply a matter of taste, but when they decided they had a specific cause then they might change the livery and add sigils. The word uniform didn’t have much meaning to Mandalorians.

  Mereel was deep in conversation with his comlink pressed to his ear, and all Skirata heard was, “… that’s useful anyway… don’t worry… yes, whatever you get…” Then he handed the comlink to Ordo. From the way the lad’s face lit up, it was clear that Mereel had been talking to Besany Wennen. Skirata caught his eye and gestured to him that he was excused and he could take the call elsewhere. Ordo got up to stand by the aft engineering hatch, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed.

  Skirata dragged the attention back to the conversation. “Ask away, Bard’ika.”

  Jusik’s face was all reluctance. “I can’t keep covering for you unless I know what you’re up to, Kal. And I know you’re not telling me things.”

  “You mean like you didn’t tell Zey about the little mishap on Mygeeto.”

  “There’s not telling people because you don’t want to compromise them, and not telling them because you don’t trust them.”

  “I trust you to be a good, decent man,” Skirata said softly. “But I don’t trust events, and once you know something, it shapes everything you do even if you never breathe a word. That’s hard on you at best, da
ngerous at worst. Fierfek, Walon doesn’t know half the osik I get up to, and vice versa. Eh, Walon?”

  Vau nodded. Mird yawned massively, looking like a miniature sarlacc pit. “And I prefer it that way.”

  “I told Zey I was doing a morale visit to some of Bralor’s squads in the field,” Jusik said. “Which is partly true.”

  “So what bit isn’t?”

  Jusik was a general, and he had his own issues back at HQ. Skirata had to remind himself of that occasionally. He wasn’t always off the chart and doing as he pleased; he commanded five companies, a whole commando group, five hundred men who operated in the field without him but who still had to be given objectives, briefings, and support. There was plenty Jusik knew that he didn’t share. There was just too much of it.

  “That I’m going to disobey an order and give you information you shouldn’t have.”

  “Are you certain you want to tell me, son?”

  “Yes.” Even so, Jusik dithered for a moment, staring down at his hands. “The Chancellor’s ordered Zey to find Ko Sai, top priority.”

  Skirata’s stomach knotted. There was always the outside chance that someone might get to her first, and he could never let that happen. “Everyone’s been looking for Ko Sai since she went missing at the Battle of Kamino. So?”

  “He’s sending Delta to do it. They picked up a sighting at Vaynai.” Jusik held out his datapad. “Read for yourself. That’s all the voice traffic and messages between Zey and Palpatine, and Delta’s briefing. Zey specifically didn’t want you to know.”

  Skirata’s stomach sank. Zey wasn’t a fool, and he had a good idea what a Mandalorian with a personal grudge might do to his quarry. “You’re taking a risk showing me that, Bard’ika.”

  Sometimes Jusik had the look of an old, weary man. He was in his early twenties, all of him except his eyes. “I know. You’d never forgive me if I didn’t, and I wouldn’t have forgiven myself, either.”

  Jusik had shown his true colors, then. Skirata marveled again that most of the Republic’s citizens saw clones as highspec droids, conveniently on hand to save their shebse, and yet others would put everything on the line to help them. Skirata got up to take the datapad, read it without comment, and passed it to Mereel.

  “Thanks, Bard’ika.” Skirata ruffled Jusik’s hair. He wasn’t sure how he would have felt if the kid had divulged his critical information to Zey, though. “So you and the boss think I’m going after Ko Sai, too.”

  “I know you are. You said more than once that if you could, you’d grab a Kaminoan and force them to engineer normal life spans for the clones.”

  “You left out by its skinny gray neck, I think.”

  “Well?”

  “Yes. I intend to find her.”

  “Is that what you’re doing now? With a submersible? And why the urgency?”

  Skirata didn’t blink. How could he expect Jusik not to work it out? They’d all fought together: they could think like each other with surprising ease. And—fierfek, Jusik was a Jedi. He could sense things.

  Skirata decided to concede. Jusik would know he was holding back, and the mutual trust would corrode. “Okay, Bard’ika, I bought a hybrid because I intend to find Ko Sai and beat the osik out of her until she hands over the biotech that’ll stop my boys from aging fast. Being a useless arrogant piece of aiwha-bait, Ko Sai may well bolt to a maritime environment like home sweet home. Hence the sho’sen. Which I will be refitting shortly with military-grade sensors and weapons systems, at my own expense, although I might well make it available for Republic business as a gesture of goodwill. Does that answer your question?”

  Jusik looked slightly pained. “I just didn’t know how… imminent this hunt was.”

  Skirata had told nobody about the message from Lama Su to Palpatine that Mereel had sliced on Kamino. It was strictly between him and the Nulls, and—inevitably—Besany Wennen, who was smart enough to work things out if she stumbled across any cutoff point for clone funding.

  “I’m cracking on with it,” Skirata said at last, “because my boys run out of time twice as fast as you or me.”

  “I don’t want you running into Delta and having problems, that’s all.”

  Vau looked up. “I’d rather like to avoid that, too.”

  Ordo seemed to have finished his conversation. He handed back Mereel’s comlink and sat down again with a glazed expression, this time on a separate seat. His thoughts were elsewhere. Skirata wondered whether to bring Jusik up to date with the hunt for Ko Sai but decided to hang on. It really would place a burden on him, and he’d radiate guilt whenever Zey came near him. Better that he didn’t know yet.

  “So tell me what the robbery was all about.” Jusik seemed to want to change the subject. “It’s not like either of you to put your men at risk for personal gain.”

  “Well, that’s a question for me,” Vau said. “I reclaimed something that was due to me, but the bulk of the haul is for our men when they leave the army. You might have noticed the Republic hasn’t made pension provisions for them.”

  “It hasn’t made provision for them to retire, either,” Jusik said. “I think I understand.”

  “Vau’s handed the stash over to me, Bard’ika.” Skirata was going to have to tell Vau about the apparent end of the Kamino contract, too. He had commandos in the field who were due their chance at life as much as anyone. The more Skirata’s plan took detailed shape, the more people there’d be who needed to know things, and that always sat uncomfortably with him. “What you don’t know can’t burden you, son. If it all goes shu’shuk, you can at least look Zey in the eye and say you had no idea what I was up to.”

  Jusik leaned back in his seat. “Tell me where you’re going to be, and I’ll try to stop Delta from falling over you.”

  “I can monitor Delta, Bard’ika,” Skirata said. “If I see them on a collision bearing, I’ll ping you. Okay?”

  Jusik looked wounded. The idea that Skirata didn’t trust him after all they’d been through on Coruscant must have hurt. “I was useful once…”

  Skirata ruffled his hair again. “You’re one of my boys, Bard’ika. I said you had a father in me if you ever wanted one, and I mean it.”

  Jusik stared at him for a while, and Skirata couldn’t work out if he was hurt or just worried. “I think I can guess anyway,” he said. “Etain… you know, if there’s anything you need me to do…”

  Ordo stared straight ahead, but Mereel’s stare was searing a hole in the side of his face. Vau looked up, too, and Mird lifted its head in response to its master’s interest.

  “What about Etain?” Vau asked.

  “I know, Kal,” Jusik said. He looked embarrassed. “I can sense these things. Don’t worry about the Jedi Council. They don’t know.”

  “It’s not them I’m worried about,” Skirata said. Shab. Maybe he should have told all the Nulls that Etain was carrying Darman’s baby, not just Ordo. “It’s the Kaminoans.”

  “Fascinating.” Vau sighed. “Who doesn’t know what you know, or what Kal knows, and that I don’t know, but the Kaminoans don’t know, either, but if they did know, then Kal knows they’d be a problem?”

  “It’s not funny, Walon,” Skirata said. Mereel was going to get huffy when he realized Ordo had kept something of so much importance from him. “We have a personnel issue we have to factor in to all this.”

  “I wish I’d never taught you all those big words.”

  “Okay—Etain’s pregnant. Short enough for you?”

  Vau made a noise in his throat that sounded remarkably like Mird’s gargling objection to being moved from the sofa. “I’ll start knitting,” he said. “Obviously the Force wasn’t with her.”

  Nobody asked who the father was. The romance was hardly a secret: even Delta knew.

  “She’s on Qiilura until she gives birth,” Skirata said. “And nobody says a word to the boys.”

  “Not even us,” Mereel muttered.

  “No, Mer’ika, not even you. Because then you
can’t accidentally put your great big boot in it, like the general just did.”

  “Sorry.” Jusik hung his head. “I thought at least the Nulls would know.”

  “Okay, I’ll brief the rest of them,” said Skirata. “But Darman doesn’t know, and it stays that way until he’s in a position to be able to… well, process the news. At the moment, all he’d do is worry instead of keeping his mind on the job.”

  “That’s not fair on the man,” Vau said. “Not if you think he is a man, and not some helpless kid. Or a simpleton.”

  “Okay, mir’sheb, you got a better idea?”

  Vau blinked a few times. “No, I don’t think any answer is the right one here, other than hindsight.”

  “She wanted to give him a son, some kind of future. And smart move or not, I’m doing the same, so maybe it’s my fault for putting ideas in her head.”

  Jusik got up. “I’d better go. Got to look legit by catching up with Vevut Squad.” He gave Skirata a pat on the back. “Zey’s talking about bringing Rav Bralor back to train more troopers in commando skills—if he can find her. You stayed in touch with your Cuy’val Dar colleagues, didn’t you?”

  “Some.” Skirata followed Jusik to the hatch, not wanting to be seen to rush him, but they had a lot to do now. “If Zey thinks I’m trouble, he’ll have a nasty shock if he gets Rav back. You know what Mando females are like.”

  “I don’t, actually, but I can guess…”

  “What training does he want done?”

  “Covert ops.”

  “Try Wad’e Tay’haai or Mij Gilamar, then. They’d be a bit more tolerant of the osik from the top. Not much, but at least Zey won’t get a vibroblade in a sensitive spot if he uses the wrong fork at dinner.”

  “Can you contact them?”

  Skirata had already sought some assistance from Mandalore, including from some of those who’d vanished from the face of the galaxy at Jango Fett’s behest to train the clone army in secret. Cuy’val Dar: those who no longer exist. It was ironic that those who no longer existed were now helping those who didn’t exist for the Republic, not as men at least.