Part 48 (2/2)
”No, son. Neither.” Skirata was looking around as if he was expecting company. ”She had Mando bodyguards. though. And I didn't kill her. We just found the body, I swear. I'd tell you if I had done it, because I don't care any longer. and frankly I'd have enjoyed slicing her up, the s.a.d.i.s.tic hut'uun. But I didn't. And that's all you need to know-for your own good.”
Skirata turned to go. Boss caught his arm. ”I hear we lost General Jusik.”
”You'll see him around ...”
”And what did happen to Fi?”
Skirata looked aside, as if concocting his official line. Sev knew that look now.
”RC-eight-oh-one-five is dead, lads. Call me if you need anything.”
They watched him go and closed the hatch behind him.
”The shab Fi's dead,” said Boss. ”I'd love to know what really went on there.”
”No, you wouldn't, because we don't need to,” Fixer said. ”Go deliver your present to the old man, then, Sev. Let's call endex on this whole time-wasting exercise.”
Sev held the box gingerly in both hands, just in case he had an embarra.s.sing spillage, and made his way down the corridor to Zey's office. He wondered whether to tell Zey what was in the container or just to let him open it and ask him to make a wild guess. Sev would get a few moments of amus.e.m.e.nt out of his general's reaction, anyway.
We just found the body. I swear. I'd tell you if I had.
”Yeah, sure you did, Kal,” Sev muttered. ”I believe you.”
Sev would have been disappointed if Skirata had done anything less than fulfill all the vows he'd made to slice the Kaminoan into aiwha-bait. It crossed Sev's mind that this also enabled him to look Vau in the eye and not have to feel he'd failed his sergeant.
Yeah, Skirata was a thug, and a thief, and even a little nuts, but he had his sense of honor and decency where the troops were concerned. This was a very generous favor to do for them all.
Sev put down the box, rapped the knuckles of his gauntlet against Zey's doors, and waited, then tucked his helmet under one arm and Ko Sai's neatly packaged head tightly under the other. He jerked his own head at the others in a leave-me-to-it gesture.
The doors slid open. The general was sitting at his desk, tapping a datapad on the edge of it in distracted annoyance at something other than Sev's interruption. ”Oh-Seven,” he said. ”You're back.”
”Sir.”
”I could do with some positive news, if you have any.” Sev placed the box in front of Zey and took a step back-ward. ”Not sure if it's positive, General,” he said. ”But it's certainly definitive.”
Zey stared at the package for a while. Then he looked up at Sev. ”Oh,” he said.
Jedi had that spooky sixth sense. Maybe Zey knew what was in there already. But he looked anyway, and didn't recoil even though his face went distinctly ashen when he lifted the inner seal.
”I think she's dead, sir,” said Sev. Zey closed the box. ”You think so? You should take up medicine, my boy.”
”You can check the DNA with the Kaminoans. At least the Chancellor has a definite answer, even if it's not the one he was hoping for.”
”Would you care to fill in any of the details? Because Pal-patine is going to ask me how this . . . trophy came into my possession.”
”We dug our way into the lab she'd constructed. It had col-lapsed after an explosion. Messy.”
”Ko Sai wasn't the careless type . ..”
”No, but she had a lot of people with short tempers on her tail.”
”Dead when you got to her, you say.”
”We didn't kill her, sir. You said alive. We can do alive.. when we try hard.”
Zey stared into Sev's face, then sighed. ”I know you're telling the truth. If you have any information on who got to her first, though, I'm sure that the Chancellor would love to hear it.”
Sev rode his apparent honesty a little farther into dangerous deception territory and hoped the omission didn't show up in the Force.
”I don't have any proof who killed her, sir,” he said. ”But I'd think that the Kaminoans took a dim view of her jumping s.h.i.+p with their trade secrets like that.”
”Speaking of which . ..”
”Nothing, sir.” It was all true, all of it. Sev could see Zey measuring each word he said, a little frown puckering his brow. ”Her computers were totally trashed. No sign of any data.”
”And presumably Kaminoans would know what they were looking for.”
”We found a few dead Mandalorians, though.”
”Ah.”
”No ID. Might have been there to protect her, or might have been caught in their own attack. Either way-no Ko Sai, and no data. We did our best, sir.”
Zey's shoulders sagged. He was a big man but suddenly he looked smaller than Skirata.
”I know, Oh-Seven. I know. You did well to find her. Take a day's leave, all of you. Dismissed.”
Sev wasn't expecting praise. He always felt he was letting someone down-usually Vau-so the comment caught him off guard. He also wasn't sure what to do with a day off, but sleep and excessive eating were the first things that sprang to mind. He saluted, turned smartly for the door, and then stopped.
”I'm very sorry to hear General Jusik has left us, sir.”
Zey was still staring at the box on his desk. ”So am I. It's always a blow to lose a good man, but it's worse to lose a good Jedi when we need to keep our focus.”
Sev didn't have a clue what he meant, but nodded sympathetically. Then he left and put distance between the office and himself as quickly as he could. Boss and the others am-bushed him halfway down the corridor.
”Well?” Scorch demanded. ”Did he buy it?”
”I think so.”
Fixer snorted. ”Not much else he can do, is there?”
”We got a day off out of it,” Sev said. ”Which is better than a thras.h.i.+ng from Vau, so shut up and make the most of it.”
Delta took a shortcut across the parade ground to get to their quarters. In the late-afternoon sun, the newly re-formed Omega Squad-no Darman, but with the new guy from EOD who could do really dangerous knife tricks with his prosthetic hands-were playing limmie with Ordo and Mereel. Skirata had joined in. They played it hard, what Vau called the Mando way, shoulder-charging and tackling one another with complete disregard for injury, kicking the spherical ball high into the air. It was about the size of a man's head-Sev did a double take to be sure it wasn't actually a real head-and it cannoned against the wall of the bar-racks to loud whoops and cries of ”Oya! Ori'mesh'la!”
None of them, except Skirata, was in armor. They weren't even in red GAR fatigues, just a.s.sorted civilian clothing they must have picked up on the last mission. There were no team colors. If Sev hadn't recognized them as his clone brothers, he would have taken them for Mandalorians whiling away the time between invasion and pillage rather than fellow commandos letting off steam.
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