Republic Commando: Triple Zero

7

I think it's significant that the casualty rate among commando squads trained by Mandalorians is lower than those trained by other races. Somehow, Mandalorians imbue their charges with a sense of purpose, self-confidence, and almost obsessive sense of clan– of fancily—that gives them a genuine survival advantage. Let us be thankful they're on our side this time.

–General Master Arligan Zey, Director of Special Forces, officer commanding SO BDE, addressing the Jedi Council

SO Brigade HQ Coruscant, briefing room 8, 1500 hours, 370 days after Geonosis

“I thought we'd have a chat,” said Skirata. He turned a chair around and swung his legs astride it, folding his arms on the chair back and resting his chin on them. “Just us Mando boys. No aruetiise present.”

Delta Squad had settled in seats on one side of the briefing room and Omega on the other, with the table between them. Skirata could have sliced through the atmosphere between Atin and Sev with a vibroblade: how could they think he hadn't noticed? He knew how to read every nuance of cloned men like a book, even if they weren't the ones he knew intimately. In fact, he could read most species now. So they either thought he was stupid, or they were so at ease in his company that they felt no need to disguise their feelings.

And the Delta boys—like Omega—were painfully loyal to their sergeants. They sat around in dark red fatigues, looking disturbingly young without their armor and weapons.

“You don't see Tur-Mukan or Jusik as traitors; do you?” Darman said.

“I was using aruetiise in the general sense of non Mandalorian.” Oh, Darman was fond of Etain, wasn't he? He'd have to keep an eye on that. “What I've got to say is just squad business, not the officers'.” Skirata dropped his knife from his sleeve and fidgeted with the blade, running his fingertip carefully along the honed edge. “I hope you're listening to this, Delta.”

“Yes, Sarge.” Boss was watching him intently.

“And you, Sev.”

Sev glanced at Atin for the merest fraction of a second, but enough to confirm Skirata's hunch. “Yes, Sergeant.”

“Okay, number one—any bad blood between me and Vau is our business, not yours. If any of you want to fight about it, I'll personally make you regret it. Save it for the bad guys.”

The silence was almost solid. Atin stared ahead of him, unblinking; Sev compressed his lips as if choking back protest and flicked a glance at Niner. Darman and Fi simply looked baffled.

“No, Sev,” Skirata said. “Niner didn't say a word to me, but I've got eyes in my backside and a very good memory. You do not have a grudge against Atin, do you understand me? If you want to argue the toss about my little altercation with Vau, then you have it out with me.”

“Understood, Sergeant.”

“Good. Prove it.”

“Sorry?”

“You two.” Skirata motioned to Atin and Sev with the point of his blade. “Get up and shake hands.”

Neither Atin nor Sev moved for a moment.

“I said get up and shake hands. Now.”

Skirata wondered if he'd lost them, but then Atin stood just a heartbeat before Sev did. They leaned across the table that separated them and shook hands as ordered.

“Now do it again and mean it,” Skirata said quietly. “You have to be one team now, one big squad, and when I tell you what we're up against you'll understand why. Boss, I expect you to keep your boys in line.”

Boss leaned forward and shoved Sev in the back. “You heard the sergeant.”

Atin held his hand out again. Sev took it and shrugged.

“Good,” Skirata said. “Because we're off the charts now. What we're about to do has no official authorization from the Senate or the generals, so if we screw up, we're on our own.”

“Ah,” said Scorch. “So Jusik and Tur-Mukan don't know about this.”

“Oh yes, they do.”

“Then who's we?”

“You, our young generals, Ordo, Vau, and me.”

Scorch raised his eyebrows. “You're operational again?”

It was time for a little theater. “Yes.” Skirata hurled his knife with the exquisite accuracy born of decades of surviving by it. It embedded itself in the wooden paneling behind Sev, half a meter to his right. “Bet you can't do that with a vibroblade, son.”

“He can if I pick him up and throw him,” said Fi.

They all laughed. Skirata wondered if they'd still be laughing in a few minutes. Ordo was due back soon. With any luck, he and Vau would have beaten some information out of Orjul; the Nikto were probably too tough even for Vau to crack in that time.

In the end it might not matter. He had his team ready to deploy on Coruscant now—his team, not the Republic's—and they could do things that CSF either wouldn't or couldn't. Obrim had his hands tied by laws and procedures, and maybe he even had a mole among his own comrades.

But this strike team had no laws at all: it didn't even exist. On Triple Zero, it was … zero.

Skirata hadn't asked Zey what would happen to them if they got it wrong. They could end up dead, all of them. It was an academic detail.

Scorch got up, pulled the knife from the wall, and handed it back to Skirata with a grin. Fixer applauded.

“Remember all that dirty black ops stuff that me and Vau taught you way back?” Skirata slid the blade back up his sleeve again. My dad's knife. All I have of him. I took it off his body. “Or did you file it with the boring stuff on contingency orders and emergency procedures?”

“I think we recall it, Sarge.”

Skirata remembered it, and didn't want to. It was training that had to be done. It broke his heart, but it was going to be all that stood between those boys and death sooner or later. They had to be able to face the unimaginable, and—yes, there were even worse things than charging a line of droids with your comrades.

There were the things you might have to face alone, in a locked room, with no hope of rescue.

Maybe Vau was right. Perhaps trainees needed to be brutalized beyond the point where they were just brave, pushed into a state of existence where they became animals intent only on survival. That was how Vau had nearly killed Atin. It was why Skirata had then gone after Vau and nearly killed him.

“I'm not proud of what I did to you,” Skirata said.

“You crawled through the nerf guts first, Sarge. It looked like so much fun that we followed you in.” Fi roared with laughter and leaned back in his seat. “And then you threw up.”

The Sickener, they called it. One more endurance test to make sure they could face conditions that would break and kill lesser men, crawling through a ditch filled with rotting nerf guts.

But there were more tests to come. A night out in Fest-like temperatures; no sleep for three days, maybe more; scant water, a full sixty-kilo pack, and blistering heat; and a lot of pain. Pain, pitiless verbal abuse, and humiliation. A captured commando could expect brutal interrogation. They had to be able to cope without breaking, and it took some imagination to test that to the limit.

How far is too far, Kal?

Vau was much more detached about handing out all that punishment than Skirata could ever be. It was very hard to hurt your sons, even if it helped them survive the unsurvivable.

“Well,” Skirata said, mortified that Fi could take it in such good spirits. “The nerf guts were the fun part. It all goes downhill alter that.”

Sev seemed quite animated. “Do we get to do assassinations?”

“If we do, they never happened. You imagined them.”

“Whoops. My trigger finger just slipped, Sarge. Honest.”

“You catch on fast about the fascinating world of politics in which we now find ourselves, young man.”

“Is it okay if I say politicians are gutless chakaare?” Scorch asked.

“Call 'em what you like, son. You still haven't got a vote.” Skirata felt the thud of boots striding down the passage outside. The vibration carried; their voices didn't. “Wars are legal violence. Everything else is just crime. Fortunately we're Mandalorian, so we're a lot less prissy about that fine distinction.”

“Just point us at the bad guys and say go.”

“That's the awkward bit.”

“What is?” Scorch asked.

“You've got to find them first.”

“Well, we found quite a few so far …”

Delta laughed like one man, even Sev, and Omega joined in. The coded entry system blipped and the doors slid open. Ordo strode through them, probably aware of the kind of entrance he could make.

Delta had never worked with a Null ARC before. Maybe they thought it would be no different from working with Alpha or any of the other Jango-trained ARC troopers. Skirata watched with interest. Ordo would certainly break some more ice.

“Sir!” Delta said sharply, all at once. Niner and the rest of Omega just touched their brows casually.

“Sorry I'm late, Sergeant.” Ordo took off his helmet, tucked it under one arm, and handed Skirata a datapad and a rather heavy flimsi-wrapped package about the size of a small blaster case. “Not much information, but Vau is still working on the problem. And General Jusik sends his compliments.”

“Thanks, Captain.” Skirata glanced at it and then unwrapped the parcel. But it wasn't a weapon; it was a box of candied vweliu nuts. Jusik was a very thoughtful officer indeed. Skirata broke the seal and got up to place it on the table within the reach of both squads. “Fill yer boots, lads.”

Fi had his usual silly grin on his face, the faintest hint that he might be planning to do something at Ordo's expense.

“Ooh, nice new skirt!” said Fi. “You went to all that trouble just for us? What happened to the old kama? Did it shrink in the wash?”

He got up and stood a pace or two in front of Ordo, still grinning and clearly expecting some backslapping or some other show of delight at reunion after several months.

“ 'Scuse me, Sergeant,” Ordo said calmly, and smacked Fi down on the floor with a none-too-playful body press. Fi yelped. Being hit by someone in armor when you weren't wearing your own hurt.

Boss's expression was a study in shock. The Delta boys jerked upright in their seats and stared as if they were debating whether to step in and break it up. Ordo looked like cold death; even Skirata had times when he wasn't quite sure which way Ordo would jump.

“Your big mouth is going to get you into a lot of trouble one day,” the ARC hissed. Fi, eyes locked on Ordo's, neck tensed, looked ready to fight back. “So you better hope I'm there when that happens.” Then Ordo burst out laughing and got to his feet in one move. He hauled Fi upright by his arm, slapping his back enthusiastically. “The old firm back together again, eh? Good stuff!”

Boss glanced at Skirata, who smiled enigmatically, or so he hoped. Nulls were either your best friend or your worst imaginable enemy. Fi, luckily, had a devoted friend. He still looked shaken by the nature of the reunion, though.

“Okay, you can thin out now and we'll resume tomorrow morning with our little generals for a full intel briefing at oh eight-hundred,” Skirata said. “Now that we all understand each other.”

Ordo took a handful of candied nuts and stepped outside with Skirata. The two men stood in the corridor, giving the squads a chance to chat now that Delta had been suitably unnerved. And maybe they thought he couldn't hear them, but Skirata wasn't as hard of hearing as they imagined, years of exposure to deafening fire or not.

And it wasn't what he expected to hear.

“Fierfek, I remember thinking he was just bent over breathless, but he was actually crying and throwing up. And it wasn't the nerf guts.”

“He never liked knocking us around.”

“And he always apologized and made sure we were okay afterward.”

“Top man.” That was Niner talking. “Jatne'buir.”

The best father. Well, that was a joke. His own kids had formally disowned him and declared him dar'buir instead—no longer a father. It was a very rare and shameful thing for a Mando father to be formally shunned by his sons.

But he couldn't have left Kamino, or even told them where he was and that he hadn't completely abandoned them. Not even Ordo knew about the declaration of dar'buir.

You put your clones first, before your own flesh and blood, didn't you?

“Are you all right?”

And I don't regret doing that, not a second of it.

“I'm fine, Ord'ika. Vau must be losing his touch, then. Nothing useful from our friends?”

“There might be nothing to get out of them, of course. But it's not a quick process, interrogating experienced suspects without killing them.”

“What about getting one of our jetiise to help out? They're good at persuasion.”

“Possibly too squeamish. Jusik is always anxious to please, though.”

“He's much more use in the field. Brave lad, handy with tech, and a good pilot. But the girl's got an edge to her. Let's see if she'll put pragmatism above principle.”

“Do you dislike them, Kal'buir?”

“It's not a matter of liking them or not. It's whether they're reliable. Look, Zey will waste you and every last clone—and me—if he thinks it'll win the war and save civilians. But Jusik hero-worships you. And I don't know which of those two extremes is the more dangerous.”

“This is your opportunity to help them become the soldiers you made of us, then.”

Ouch. “Why do I always get the feeling that you were more of a man at four years old than I would ever be?”

Ordo gave him a playful shove. He was clearly in a good mood today. “Let me ask General Tur-Mukan to interrogate the prisoners. If she finds that morally unacceptable, then her view of you won't be tainted by it.”

Skirata had to bite his lip. Ordo often shamed him with unexpected compassion and diplomacy. “Yeah, I reckon she'll find it easier to do the heroic infantry stuff than get dirty along with us. But leave her to me.”

“Very well,” Ordo said. “Have you decided where we need to base the operation?”

“I've got a few people who owe me favors. Where would you hide soldiers?”

“Hide hide or conceal hide?”

“Not-taking-much-notice-of-activity hide.”

“Somewhere with a bar. Somewhere you'd get a lot of off-duty traffic.”

“You don't drink. Never seen a clone drink much at all.” Skirata was suddenly ambushed again by Ordo's agile brain. For a man who knew little of life beyond warfare, his ability to learn and extrapolate from the smallest scrap of information was breathtaking. “And you never get off duty.”

“You said, Kal'buir, that you might disguise the presence of some hulking big boys in armor by having a lot more of them around. You were going to see Mar Rugeyan about a smokescreen.”

“Sorry?”

“Remember Mar Rugeyan? The man who can talk out of all three corners of his mouth at the same time? The man you grabbed by the—”

Kal remembered, all right. “Yeah, if I'd known then that I'd need him I'd have been a little more careful.”

“I think I can propose an idea he might find attractive.”

“Would that involve leaving bruises?”

“I wasn't planning to injure him. Just point out that if troopers were actually allowed leave in considerable numbers, it would reassure the public, too. Eventually we become invisible.” Ordo pondered, that tell tale little frown creasing his brow. Sometimes his staggering intellect and perfect recall didn't help him process the real world one bit, at least not where Skirata was concerned. “Let me try, Kal'buir. I promise I'll be more diplomatic.”

“It was a joke, Ord'ika. I think you'd probably stand as much chance of charming him as I would right now.”

“Have I ever let you down?”

It wasn't a rhetorical question. Skirata was mortified. It was all too easy to swagger out of the meeting full of aggressive confidence and forget that Ordo—muscular, lethal, the ultimate soldier—was vulnerable to the approval of one person alone: him. It was as if Ordo became that literal, trusting child again, the one who had decided that the only person in the galaxy who would ever look out for him and his brothers was a down-on-his-luck mercenary who didn't much like Kaminoans.

“I didn't mean it literally.” Skirata reached up and ruffled his hair just like he'd done when Ordo was a scared little kid, terrified by the lightning on Kamino, except he hadn't had to reach quite so far in those days. “You're my pride and joy. You couldn't be smarter or better or braver, any of you.”

Ordo looked blank for a moment and then managed a smile, but it was the placatory gesture of a child under threat. “I know I have gaps in my knowledge.”

“Oh, son … I'm going to change that. For all of you.”

“I know, Kal'buir” His trust was transparent and absolute. “You're our protector and we'll always serve you.”

Skirata winced. Faith was devastating if you weren't up to being a god.

But I don't regret it. No, not a second of it.

Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 370 days after Geonosis

“You're not on the authorized personnel list for this center,” said the security droid at the doors.

Ordo reached past it and tapped a memorized code into the door panel. The sentry was a solid block with four arms, a head shorter than he was. “Well done. You're right to challenge me.”

“Sir—”

Ordo reached into his belt and took out a stylus probe. The droid was fast, but not fast enough to avoid the probe Ordo slipped silently into the command port in its chest. There was a chack-chack-chack of memory drives and motors stalling for a moment, and then the droid seemed placated.

“You appear to be on the authorized personnel list,” it said. “You have access to all areas including those restricted to staff officers, without on-site security tracking.”

“Excellent,” Ordo said, walking through the doors into the polished white marble lobby. “I'm a very private person.”

And it was easy to be private when you were in armor. Nobody took much notice of a clone inside the GAR complex, not even one wearing an ARC trooper captain's livery.

It was simply a matter of looking as if you had every right to be going about your business. And the Null squad's proper business was anything Kal Skirata deemed it to be. Right now that meant identifying a method of inserting covert surveillance into Logistics, the most likely place for a mole who could relay very precise information on transport and contractor movements to the Separatists.

Ordo took out his datapad and consulted it frequently as if he were here for a routine visit. Without the possibility of eye contact, none of the civilian staff seemed even to register his presence. The white armor here was usually clone troopers who were physically unfit for front-line service, Engineer Corps, or ARC troopers carrying out occasional inspections for their generals.

After striding into a few offices, startling the droids and getting an occasional glance from civilian technicians, Ordo walked into the operations room at the heart of the logistics wing, and struck gold.

It was a large circular room with walls that were covered in live holocharts of troop and materiel movements. It danced with brilliant light and color, a HUD on a grand scale. At the room's heart was a large multistation desk staffed by two droids, four humans, six Sullustans, three Nimbanese, and …

… one clone trooper, minus his helmet.

“Excellent,” Ordo said aloud.

The clone trooper jumped to his feet and saluted, even though it was technically a poor example of protocol to do so without his helmet in place. Ordo returned the salute anyway.

“Problem with your helmet, trooper?”

The man lowered his voice. “It makes the civilians edgy, sir. They prefer to see my eyes.”

Ordo bristled. He would never defer to civilians' whims. “I'm carrying out a routine survey for General Camas.” He didn't give the man his designation. Alpha ARCs rarely bothered to identify themselves to the lower ranks. He glanced at the civilians: one of the Nimbanese and a human female looked up at him. The pale reptilian Nimbanel was interesting as a detail, but the human female was enough to make him stop, stare, and note her as suspicious. She smiled at him. He still had his helmet on, but she smiled at him, and she was shockingly beautiful; both those facts were, worrying in an administrative department. She looked down at her data console, lost in her work again, and flicked long pale blond hair over one shoulder.

“Trooper,” Ordo said. He beckoned the man to him. “I'd like you to brief me on the operation of this unit.”

They walked outside the main doors, and Ordo removed his helmet to look a brother in the eye and give him due respect. His glove's tally scanner told him the man was CT-5108/8843, an EOD operative: a bomb disposal expert, the kind of man who disarmed booby traps and UXBs so that other troopers could advance, the kind of man who could do work that even droids could not.

The explosives connection wasn't lost on Ordo for one moment.

“What's your name?”

The trooper hesitated. “Corr, sir,” he said quietly.

“And what brings you here?”

Corr paused and then pulled off his gauntlets.

He had no hands.

They had been replaced by two simple prosthetics, so basic that they didn't have a synthflesh coating, just the bare durasteel mechanism. Ordo didn't even have to ask how he had acquired them. Somehow losing both hands was shocking in a way that losing one was not. Hands defined humanity.

“There's a parts shortage, sir, what with there being so many men injured and needing prosthetics,” Corr said apologetically. “And these aren't good enough for me to do my job in the front line. As soon as the parts come through, I'll be back, though.”

Ordo knew what Kaibuir would have said then, and he was moved to do the same, but this wasn't the time or the place. He held back. “Do they treat you properly here?”

Corr shrugged. “Fine. Actually, sir, the civilians tend not to speak to me that much, except for Supervisor Wennen. She's very kind to me indeed.”

Ordo could see it coming. “Wennen would be the blond woman, yes?”

Corr nodded, his expression noticeably softened. “Besany Wennen. She doesn't approve of the fighting, sir, but she doesn't let it affect her work and she's looking after me very well.”

Poor naïve trooper. “How well?”

“We have lunch together and she's taken me to visit the Galactic Museum.”

Fascinating. Ordo had learned the wisdom of mistrust at a very early age. Glamorous woman, EOD expert, logistics hub: he could work it out. Not starting his observation here would have been stupid, but there was little to be gained from crashing in yet.

“How many shifts?”

“Three per daily roster, sir.”

“I might need to ask you to do something for me, Corr.”

“Certainly, sir.”

“But when I do, it will be classified and you're to discuss it with nobody, not even your supervisor. It will be part of a routine fraud audit, that's all, and that's why I need your silence.” Did it matter if he told him his name? Only the special forces inner circle knew who he was anyway. “My name is … Ordo. Mention that to nobody.”

“Yes sir. Understood.”

Ordo wanted to tell him that he understood his loneliness among strangers and his need to be back with his brothers at the front, doing real work. But he could tell him nothing. He ushered him back into the operations room, noted the lovely and apparently genuine smile that Supervisor Wennen gave him, and paused on his way out to break into the automated comlink relay and place a monitoring device.

Poor Corr. Ordo patted the sentry droid on the head and strode to his parked speeder.