Part 39 (2/2)
”We let you down, sir,” Boss said. ”Sorry about that.”
”Don't worry, Boss, it's not your fault.” Jusik's comlink bleeped for attention and he looked down at the display, pausing for a moment as if it was either baffling or important. ”General Zey was just expressing his frustration. It's a job best suited to Intel, and he knows it. They should do the tracking and call you in when they need some serious soldiering done. Look, can you give me half an hour? I have to take care of something before we go.”
It sounded like Jusik was saying they were only good for the brute-force end of the job. But maybe he'd just picked up on the fact that the squad wanted to be out on the front line. ”We'll have the TIV ready on the landing pad in thirty standard minutes, sir.” Boss knew how to give Jusik a dead-line in the kindest way. ”And an appropriate wardrobe.”
Jusik seemed agitated, turning his comlink over and over in his hands. ”Excellent.” He paused. ”By mentioning that he might bring in Skirata and Vau, has General Zey given me a nod and a wink to do that in a deniable manner?”
”Not a question we're qualified to answer, General,” Boss said. ”Although if anyone can find out what a bunch of Mandalorians are doing, it'd be them. Or the Nulls.”
”You talk as if Mandalorians are foreign to you, Boss.”
”Well, they are. Some of them, anyway.”
”Sorry, I didn't put that very well. I meant-do you think of yourself as Mandalorian in any way?” '
”Probably as much as you think of yourself as a Jedi, sir. Raised that way, more or less, but the enthusiasm depends on whether your own kind are putting you in the line of fire or not.”
Ouch. Sev winced, waiting for the reaction. None came. Jusik nodded as if that meant something, and shot off at a run toward the administration area.
Jusik was taking this whole Mando thing too far; the kid had no sense of danger. He'd dress up in that beskar'gam and end up with his throat cut, Jedi or not, because even if Skirata liked him and treated him like one of the family, the average Mando would take him for the Jedi spy he would certainly be.
”What's got into him?” Fixer asked as they made the final checks on the TIV.
”Hard to tell with a Jedi,” Scorch said. ”I get the feeling there's something going on, and Zey knows Jusik isn't leveling with him, but it's all happening on some higher plane while grunts like us just watch the outward show of business-as-usual. You can never tell what they're picking up in the Force while they're smiling politely.”
That was it. Never knowing what Jedi could see and you couldn't really got to Sev, and it went beyond the different skill set, as Jusik insisted on calling it. The word powers annoyed the general, but powers they were. The squad carried on the conversation in hushed tones, as if Jusik might have some Force method for eavesdropping on them.
Scorch just confirmed Sev's bad feeling. ”He's going to get himself killed. Skirata and Vau can play these games, but they've been around a long, long time.”
”We're all going to get ourselves killed.” Sev knew what he meant, though. ”It's in the job description. The line that says don't take out any long-term loans.”
”You think he'd rather be Bard'ika or General Jusik?” Scorch asked.
”Are you asking if I think he's loyal?”
”I suppose so.”
Sev didn't enjoy the thought. ”He's loyal to us.”
”They're great to have on your side, Jedi.”
Fixer heaved a crate of supplies into the TIV's cramped cargo area. ”I liked it better when we just blew stuff up and splattered Geonosians. All this thinking is bound to end in tears.”
”Yeah, but not yours,” Scorch said, taking out his datapad. ”I'm going to work out how much thermal plastoid it'd take to launch Action World into orbit.”
”Or excavate a hole.”
”You enjoy your hobby, Fixer, and let me enjoy mine.”
Sev sat down on one of the crates and calibrated his Deece again, something that he'd begun to see as a nervous habit. Zey, he thought, was being way too hard on Jusik. He couldn't give a brand-new officer that kind of lat.i.tude without support and still expect him not to screw up. Okay, everyone was thinly stretched lately, and every time Sev looked at the deployment chart and worked out where all the Jedi were in theater, they really were getting more and more scattered, more physically separated from one another. But that was no excuse for not picking up a comlink and giving Jusik a how-are-you chat. Skirata called all his squads, all ninety men or however many it was right now, at least once a month just to see what they needed. He knew what they were doing operationally anyway. He said it wasn't enough to have an open door: if he checked on them regularly, they didn't have to worry if he'd think they were weak or whiny for raising a concern. And sometimes they just needed to know that someone still cared if they lived or died.
That was probably why Jusik gravitated to Skirata. Zey only had himself to blame if the kid liked playing Mando now. That subtle difference in handling soldiers was why Mandalorians made better armies.
Jusik s going to get in over his head one day, and if Zey hasn't got the time to keep an eye on him when Skirata s not around, then we'll have to do it. And if he does something dumb-well, Zey let him go off and do it.
Yes, it would be down to Zey. Before you handed someone power, you had to ask yourself if you'd be happy with the worst possible thing they could ever do with it.
Galactic City, Coruscant, 482 days after Geonosis It might have been someone at the door, or the chrono alarm, or even a warning from the environment controls, but the beeping woke Besany. Then she realized it was the com-link on her bedside table making a sound she seldom heard.
She'd set it to make a different sound when calls came in from any of her secure codes-meaning Ordo, mainly. She didn't want to miss him if he tried to contact her. Fi's situation made her realize more than ever that she had to make more of what time she had with Ordo. But when she rumbled for the device and answered, it was Skirata.
”I forgot the time on Coruscant,” he said. ”Sorry. I woke you, didn't I?”
”It's okay. Just getting an early night.” She sat up and shook herself to try to clear her head. ”What is it?”
”Fi. Don't worry, he's still in one piece. But I need you to do me a favor.”
It didn't even occur to her to hesitate. ”Let me get my datapad.” She felt around on the table for it and sent a gla.s.s of water tumbling over the carpet. ”Ready.”
”We're having a little trouble over his care, and if you could keep an eye on him, it'd be appreciated.”
”Of course. Anything.” The alarm bell that went off now was real but silent, deep in her head: she probably knew more about the absence of medical support than Skirata did. ”Where is he?”
”Jusik managed to get him admitted to the main neuro unit at Republic Central Medcenter by making a few calls, but now there's some argument about keeping him there, and you're the nearest one to the medcenter to smooth it out. I wouldn't dump this on you if I could get one of my boys there faster, Bes'ika.”
You 're very good at making me feel like one of the family. How well you know me. ”I'd do it anyway, Kal, even without the psy ops. Consider me co-opted by reason of vulnerability, the general desire to do what's right, and the fact that I fell for your son.”
There was a pause. Maybe she'd been too frank.
”I didn't mean it like that.” Skirata sounded frayed; things were probably worse than he was letting on. ”Sorry. I don't even know I'm doing it half the time. But if I didn't trust you to do what I'd do myself if I was there right now, I wouldn't ask. It's just a bureaucratic thing.”
”I'll make sure Fi is getting the best medical care, what-ever it takes. I'm good at bureaucracy...”
”Ordo updated you, then.”
”I know he's in a coma, that's all. What level?”
”Niner said zero response to stimuli last time.” It had all slipped into the unemotional world of medical jargon. ”No brain activity, but still breathing unaided. I'm sending you the patient ID details now so you can get past the receptionist droid.”
”I'll get over there right away.”
”Thank you, Bes'ika. Everything hit us at once this time, or else-”
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