When the enemy is a droid or a wet with a weapon, then killing them is easy. But in this game you're operating among civvies, on your home ground. You could be workingright next door to the enemy. They might even be people you know and like. But they're still the enemy and you'll have to slot them just the same. There's no Mandalorian word for “hero,” and that's just as well, because however many lives you save in black ops, you will never, ever be a hero. Deal with it.
–Sergeant Kal Skirata, teaching counterterrorist tactics to Republic Commando companies Alpha through Epsilon, Kamino, three years before Geonosis
Arca Company Barracks parade ground,0730 hours, 371 days after Geonosis
The missile skimmed the top of Etain's head and bounced off the Force-shield she had instinctively thrown up to protect her face.
Jusik skidded to a halt in front of her, sweat dripping off the end of his nose, a flattened alloy rod clutched in one hand. There was a smear of blood across his cheek, and she wasn't sure if it was his.
“Sorry!” He looked elated. “Look, why don't you sit over there? It's safer.”
Etain indicated the blood. “And why don't you use your Force powers?” she said. “This is a dangerous sport.”
“That's cheating,” Jusik said, lobbing the small plastoid sphere back into the knot of commandos. They pounced on the object like a hunting pack and jostled each other ferociously to whack the thing with rods, trying to drive it hard against the barrack wall.
Etain had no idea what the game was called, if it had a name at all. Nor did it seem to have any rules: the ball, such as it was, was being hit, kicked, and thrown as the whim took the players.
And the teams were Niner, Scorch, Fixer, and Darman against Fi, Atin, Sev, and Boss. Skirata insisted that they played in mixed teams.
Several other commandos had paused while crossing the parade ground to watch. The battle was conducted in grim silence except for the clash of rods, gasping breath, and occasional approving shouts of “Nar dralshy'a!”—Put your back into it! —and “Kandosii!”—which, Jusik had explained, had been appropriated colloquially to mean “classy” rather than “noble.”
They had all become much more ferociously Mando since she had first met them. It was a phenomenon that made sense given the specific nature of their duties, but it still left her feeling that they were becoming strangers again. Working so closely with Skirata appeared to have focused their minds on a people who seemed to have the ultimate freedom.
Even Darman had fallen happily into it. He was utterly engrossed in the game, shoulder-charging Boss out of the way and knocking Jusik flat. There was a shout of “Kandosii!” as the ball thudded against the wall, two meters above the ground.
Then Skirata emerged from the doorway. Etain didn't have to take any hints from the Force as to his state of mind.
“Armor!” he yelled. His voice could fill a parade ground. The commandos froze as one. He did not look amused. “I said wear some armor! No injuries! You hear me?”
He strode across to Jusik with surprising speed for a man with a damaged leg and came to a halt with his face centimeters from the Jedi's. He dropped his voice, but not by much.
“Sir, I regret to have to tell you that you're a dik'ut.”
“Sorry, Sergeant.” Jusik was a contrite scrap of bloody robes and sweaty hair. “My fault. Won't happen again.”
“No injuries. Not now. Okay, sir?”
“Understood, Sergeant.”
Skirata nodded and then grinned, ruffling Jusik's hair just as he did his troops'. “You're definitely ori'atin, Bard'ika. Just don't get yourself killed.”
Jusik beamed, clearly delighted. Skirata had not only told him that he was exceptionally tough, but he had used the most affectionate form of his name: now he was “Little Bardan,” and thus one of Skirata's clan. He jogged off after the commandos and disappeared inside the building.
Skirata ambled across to Etain and sat down next to her on the bench. “He's a gutsy little di'kut, isn't he?”
So it wasn't only a term of abuse, then. “If there wasn't a war on, I suspect that Master Zey would have had a serious word with him by now. Bardan's become very attached.”
“Being a loner might make a warrior, but it won't make a soldier.”
“Where were you educated?”
Skirata was looking straight ahead rather than at her, and his eyes creased at the corners for a brief moment. “On the street, on the battlefield, and by a bunch of very smart little boys.”
Etain smiled. “I wasn't being rude. Just curious.”
“Fair enough. I had to analyze and explain everything I taught my Nulls for eight years. It wasn't enough for me to show them the right way to fight. They wanted me to rationalize it. They shredded me with questions. Then they'd feed it all back to me in a way I'd never seen it before. Amazing.”
“Do we get to meet them all? Are they all like Ordo?”
“Maybe,” Skirata said. “They're deployed in various locations.” It was his noncommittal answer: Don't ask. “And they're all of the same caliber, yes.”
“So out of a strike team of twelve, you have eleven tough men—atin, yes?—and me. I can't help feeling I'm not going to be much use.”
Skirata took out a chunk of something brown and woody and popped it into his mouth. He chewed like a gdan, as if he were gnawing off someone's arm. 'Atin'ade,” he corrected. “Oh, you'll be plenty of use. I suspect you'll have the hardest job of all.”
“Whatever it takes.”
“I know.”
“Sergeant, is this going to become clear at the briefing?”
“It's not a secret. I just want everyone to have the full picture at the same time. Then we ship out and disappear.”
“I hear you've done that before.”
“Cuy'val Dar. Yes, I've been 'those who no longer exist' before. You get used to it. It has its plus points.”
He got up and walked toward the barracks, Etain following. His limp was far less obvious today.
“How did you hurt your leg?” she asked.
“I didn't follow orders. I ended up with a Verpine shatter gun round through my ankle. Sometimes you need to learn the hard way.”
“Never got it fixed?”
“I'll get around to it one day. Come on, breakfast before briefing. Some things sound better on a full stomach.”
When the briefing started at 0800, Jusik looked freshly scrubbed, but he was developing a fine black eye. He also seemed delighted. Etain envied him his capacity for finding joy in the most unlikely places, just like Darman did. Omega and Delta appeared to have broken up as squads completely. They took their seats, lounging around in their black body-suits, but they no longer sat in their own tight groups. Atin and Sev still exuded a sense of distance, but Skirata's crash course in being buddies appeared to be working.
There was also the small matter of the Wookiee who had walked in. Skirata directed the creature to a bigger chair and locked the doors. It was the one who'd piloted the taxi.
“Ordo, have you swept the room for bugs?”
“Yes, Sergeant.”
“Okay, ladies and gentlemen, this is strictly for those in this room. If anyone wants out, now's the time to say.”
“Observe the complete lack of movement, Sarge,” Scorch said. “Nobody's passing on this one.”
“I didn't think so. From now on, there's no General or sir or Sergeant or designation codes, and no Jedi robes. There is no rank. There is no chain of command beyond me. If I'm otherwise engaged or dead then you answer to Ordo. Got it?” The Wookiee threw him two bundles of clothing and he lobbed one each to Etain and Jusik. She caught hers and stared at it. “Plainclothes, kids. You clone lads are just soldiers on leave, and us mongrels are … well, Etain can pass for my daughter and Bard'ika is a useful deadbeat I picked up on my travels. A go-fer”
The Wookiee emitted a long and contented trill. “This is Enacca, by the way.” Skirata indicated the Wookiee with a polite flourish. “She's our quartermaster and mobility troop—she'll secure supplies and transport for us. You ever worked with Wookiees?”
The commandos shook their heads, wide-eyed.
“Well, everything you've heard is true.” He gestured to Ordo, and a holoprojection streamed from the ARC'S glove onto the wall. It was a chart with arrows and labels on it. “So here's what we have so far. One, we have a point of origin for the explosives. Two, we think we have someone in GAR logistics or support, or in the CSF, who is either passing information or being careless with it. Now, what we don't have is a link in the chain between the following terror cells: materials to bomb manufacture; bomb manufacture to placement cell; and placement cell to recce and surveillance cell—in other words, the ones who tell them where to place the device and when to detonate it.”
Ordo had his projection arm resting on his chair. “And Vau is trying to extract at least one link from the cell Omega lifted.”
“But they might not even know what that link is,” Skirata said. “It's common to use the equivalent of a dead letter drop to deliver stuff. The prisoners tested positive for explosives, so they might be the manufacturers, but I'd assume the devices are made on Coruscant because it's simpler to ship bulk explosives than complete bombs, given that you can't pretend bombs are for mining use, although neither is easy. So our best guess is that they're the procurement cell that buys the raw material.”
Jusik had his head cocked on one side. “I take it that if we don't know this after a day, then Vau is not having much success with his interrogation. May I volunteer to help him? Jedi have some persuasive powers as well as ways of uncovering facts.”
“I know,” Skirata said. “That's why Etain's going to do it. I need you out and about at the moment.”
Etain's stomach somersaulted. Is this a test? Jusik was watching her cautiously: he could definitely sense her discomfort. Perhaps he had tried to do the decent thing and save her from the duty. Or perhaps he was so caught up in being one of the boys that he really wanted to have a crack at a prisoner. Jusik had his own wary relationship with the dark side, it seemed.
“Okay,” Etain said. You've killed. You've killed hand-to-hand, and you've killed by unleashing missiles. On Qiilura, under deep cover, you stabbed and crushed and cut, and taught the local guerrillas to do the same. And now you worry about manipulating minds? “I'll do whatever I can.”
“Good,” Skirata said, and moved on as if she had simply volunteered to cook dinner. “Now, the data Atin sliced is just a list of thirty-five thousand companies using the freight service that Vau's guests were apparently hitching a ride with. That means a lot of physical checking we can't do ourselves. So Obrim's running it through his database—his personal, special one—to see if any of them have form in customs irregularities, shady dealings, or even a speeding ticket. While he does that, we ship out. Jusik, Enacca is going to turn you into the galaxy's scruffiest taxi pilot, and the rest of you can draw your extra kit—by which I mean discreet body armor, plainclothes rig, and civilian weapons.”
“Aww, Sarge …”
“Fi, you'll love it. You might even get to wear Hokan's helmet.”
“Just for you, then, Sarge.”
“Good boy. Okay, we all RV back here at twenty-one-hundred hours when it's nice and dark.” Skirata gestured to Ordo to kill the holoprojection and then beckoned to Etain. “General, Ordo—with me.”
He led them into the passage and, instead of taking her into a quiet alcove to discuss matters, simply hurried her down the length of the corridor and out onto the parade ground, where yet another battered speeder with darkened transparisteel windscreens was waiting.
“Are you starting up a used-speeder dealership with Enacca?” Jokes always seemed to work for Fi, but Etain found they offered her no comfort at all. “They don't draw attention, though, I'll admit that.”
“Get in. Time to go to work.”
Like the clone army, she had become very good at following orders. Ordo took the speeder at a sedate pace into the main skylanes and dropped it into a gap in a route heading south.
“This is where it gets difficult, Etain,” Skirata said.
In a way, she knew what was coming. “Yes.”
“This is harder than taking on a column of battle droids and playing the hero.” Skirata was still chewing the ruik. She could smell it on his breath, sweet and floral. “I won't insult your intelligence. I want you to torture a man. It's the first intelligence break we've had in months and we need to make the most of it. Men died making sure we got those prisoners.”
She wasn't sure if it was a test of her loyalty or not. It was certainly something that Skirata knew would be the ultimate line for a Jedi to cross. But Jedi crossed the lines of decency all the time, and it was supposed to be fine as long as you didn't commit violence out of anger, or dare to love.
She was finding it harder to follow her path than ever before, and yet she was now clearer about her own convictions than she had ever been in her life.
She was aware of Ordo, too.
He appeared perfectly calm in the pilot's seat, but the eddies and deep dark pools in the Force around him spoke of a man who was not at ease with himself or the world. Great peaks of fear and pain and helpless trust and desolation and … and … sheer overwhelming speed and complexity hit Etain like a spray of cold water. He felt as foreign as a Hutt or a Weequay or a Twi'lek.
He was a man in frequent agony. His mind was racing at full throttle, and it felt as if it never stopped.
She must have been staring at him. “Are you all right, ma'am?” he asked, still veneered in calm.
“I'm fine,” she said, swallowing hard. “What … what can I possibly do that Walon Vau can't?”
“Are you ready to hear some unpleasant things?” Skirata said.
“I have to be.”
He rubbed his forehead slowly. “You can train people to resist interrogation. That's a fancy phrase for torture, and I don't like using it. I know, because I've done it, and hard-line terrorists get trained much like soldiers do. But they don't get trained to resist Jedi. And that gives you a psychological advantage as well as a real one.”
“Nikto are supposed to be tough.”
“Humans can be tough, too.”
He seemed distressed. It was severe enough for her to feel the Force around him become that dark vortex again. “Kal, who's finding this more unpleasant, you or me?”
“Me.”
“I thought so.”
“It comes back to you at times like this.”
“So who … trained Omega?” She felt the faintest shimmer of distress in Ordo now.
“Me,” said Skirata.
“Oh.”
“Would you have let anyone else do it if you were me?”
“No.” She knew immediately; she didn't even have to think about it. It would have been an act of abandonment, letting someone else do the dirty work to salve your own conscience, with the same outcome. “No, I wouldn't.”
“Well …” He shut his eyes for a moment. “If I can train my boys, then you should have no trouble doing what Vau can't.”
“Tell me what's at stake.”
“For who? The Republic?” Kal asked. “I think it's marginal, to be honest. In real terms, terrorism doesn't even dent it. Casualties in the thousands, that's all. It's fear of it that does the damage.”
“So why are you in so deep?”
“Who's getting hit hardest? Clone troopers.”
“But thousands of troops are dying in the front line every day. Numerically—”
“Yeah, I can't do much about the war. I trained quite a few men to stay alive. But all that's left for me is to do what I can, where I can.”
“Personal war, isn't it?” Etain said.
“You think so? I don't care if the Republic falls or not. I'm a mercenary. Everyone's my potential employer.”
“So where does the anger come from? I know anger, you see. As Jedi we guard against it all the time.”
“You won't like the answer.”
“I don't like a lot of things lately, but I still have to deal with them.”
“Okay. Day by day, I get more bitter when I see Mandalorian men—and that's what they are, whether you like it or not—used and discarded in a war in which they have no stake.” Skirata, sitting right behind Ordo, put his hand gently on the captain's armored shoulder. “But not on my watch.”
Etain had no answer to that. She hadn't articulated it in racial terms, and she knew that Mandalorians weren't a race as such. But there hadn't been one day since she had parted from Omega Squad on Qiilura nine months ago that she hadn't agonized over the use of soldiers who had no choice, no rights, and no future in the Republic that they gave their lives to defend.
It was wrong.
There was a point somewhere at which the means did not justify the ends, no matter what the numbers argued. Like this violent, passionate little man beside her, Etain didn't refuse her role in the war out of principle, because that would have been no more than shutting her eyes to it.
Men would still die.
And if the Jedi Council could accept the need to let that happen to save the Republic, then she could sink to a level she had never believed possible to save soldiers she knew as people.
“I'll try not to let you down,” she said.
“You mean me?” said Skirata.
And you, she thought.
Safe house, Brewery zone, Coruscant Quadrant J-47, 1000 hours, 371 days after Geonosis
Skirata had been expecting the safe house to be in another seedy part of the city where unusual activity was part of the landscape.
But Enacca had surpassed herself this time. The property was a small apartment in a refurbished quarter known as the Brewery; the construction droids were still working on some of the buildings, facing them with tasteful durasteel wrought-work. Zey was going to have a fit when he saw the bill for this one land on his desk.
“I think that's what our brothers might call kandosii,” Ordo said, bringing the speeder up to the landing platform. It had a discreet awning to shield it from view, although Coruscant was so traffic-packed that enemy surveillance from tall buildings—Skirata's dread—was less of a threat than usual here. Lines of sight were frequently obscured. “I'll be back later. Errands to run, Kal'buir.”
When the lobby doors closed behind them, the constant throb and hum of Coruscant was completely silenced. Ah. Top-range soundproofing. Enacca was a very smart Wookiee. Vau's job could be noisy. There was no point upsetting the neighbors in cheaper parts of town that had less efficient soundproofing.
And it was the last place Orjul's colleagues would come looking for him.
Etain had her arms folded tightly across her chest, her light brown wavy hair scraped back in a braid except for the wiry bits that had escaped and sprung into coils. Even her new civilian clothes already looked as if she had slept in them. She had a veil of freckles and an awkward gait; just a schoolgirl armed with a lightsaber, nothing more.
“You up to this, ad'ika?” Little one: Skirata slipped accidentally into being the reassuring father. But he reserved judgment. Like him, she might just have made a point of looking a lot less trouble than she actually was. “If not, walk away now”. And if she did, what would he have to do? She already knew dangerous numbers of people and places.
“No. I'm not backing out now.”
He thought she might suddenly reveal a powerful charisma or sweetness that would explain why this scrap of skin, bone, and unkempt hair had so riveted Darman. But she was just a kid, a Jedi kid with a lot of responsibility that showed in her young face and old eyes.
Skirata pressed on the entry buzzer into the main apartment, and after a moment the doors whispered apart. The strong smell that hit him on the moist air reminded him of walking into a barn full of frightened animals. It was so distinctive that he almost didn't notice the scent of the strill. But Mird was nowhere to be seen.
Vau, sitting at the table, looked tired. He still seemed like a professor who wasn't very happy with his class, but the physical effort showed in deeper lines from nose to mouth and the way he was drumming his fingers on the table in front of him. It was his trick for staying awake.
The man who had his head resting on the same table in front of him didn't look awake at all. Vau leaned forward and lifted the man's head by his hair, peered into his face, and set him down carefully again.
“You're the relief watch, then, Jedi?” Vau got up and stretched extravagantly, joints clicking, and indicated the empty chair. “All yours.”
Etain looked surprised. Skirata had expected her to register horror at the blood spatter on the otherwise pristine cream walls, but she just looked at Vau as if she was expecting to see someone else.
“Where are the other two?” Skirata asked.
“Nikto number one is M'truli, and he's secured in the small bedroom.” Vau was perfectly polite: this was just business after all, and even Skirata felt too centered on the task at hand to resume their feud where it had left off. “Nikto number two is Gysk, and he's in the study.”
“Your tunic could do with a wash.”
“It's the little horns. You can't punch a Nikto. Had to use something else.”
Etain sat down in Vau's seat and placed her hands flat on the table, still looking puzzled. Skirata leaned against the wall. Vau wandered into the 'fresher: water tinkled into a basin.
“You want to tell me what you know,” Etain said soothingly. “You want to give me the names of the people you operate with.”
Orjul twitched. He raised his head from the table with some difficulty and stared into her face for a second.
Then he spat in it.
Etain jerked back, visibly shocked, and wiped away the pink-stained spittle with one hand. Then she composed herself again.
“Keep your stinking mind tricks to yourself, Jedi,” Orjul hissed.
Skirata didn't expect her to break at that point. And she didn't: she simply sat there, although he knew it wasn't blank inactivity. She had been trained from childhood just like the clone army, except the first weapon she seized would be her control of the Force and her ability to read it like clamoring comlink signals.
Darman had told him. She could tell us apart right away by how we felt and thought, Sarge. Wouldn't that be a handy trick to have?
“Can I see the Nikto?” she asked suddenly.
Vau came out of the 'fresher, wiping his face on a fluffy white towel. “Help yourself.” He gave Skirata a you-know best look and unlocked the doors for her. “They're securely trussed. You know we keep them from talking to each other, don't you?”
“I worked that out,” Etain said.
She disappeared into one room for a minute and then came out and went into the other. When she emerged again, she walked up to Skirata and Vau and lowered her head.
“I'm pretty sure those Nikto have no information, and know they don't have it,” she said quietly.
“People have useful information all the time and don't know it,” Skirata said. “We piece the apparently useless stuff together and come up with connections.”
“What I mean is that they have this distinct sense that they're just afraid of dying.”
Vau shrugged. “So much for Nikto grit, eh?”
“Every creature avoids death. The difference is that Orjul is afraid of breaking. It feels different to me. It's not animal dread. It's not as deep in the Force.” Etain had her fingers meshed in that Jedi way that made her look as if she were wringing her hands. “I might as well concentrate on him. He has information he's afraid to reveal.”
They watched her walk the few meters back to the main room and settle down at the table opposite Orjul again and stare at him.
Vau shrugged. “Oh well. At least I can have a nap while she's minding the shop. Then I can get back to work with more tangible methods.”
There was a sharp gasp from Orjul and Vau looked around. Whatever Etain was doing, she wasn't even touching him. Just staring.
“Kal, those people scare me more than Orjul does,” Vau said. “I'm just going to get my head down for a couple of hours. Wake me if she gets anywhere—or kills him, of course.”
It was about 1030 in the morning, when people were going about mundane business in the city. It felt like an odd time of day to be conducting an interrogation. Skirata somehow felt they were always carried out in some permanent night.
And Etain showed every sign of being up to the task.
From time to time, she would lower her head as if to try to get a better view of Orjul's expression while he sat facedown at the table, fingers knotted in his pale hair as if he had a blinding headache. Skirata wanted to ask her what she was doing to him but he was worried it would break her concentration.
And she was fixed completely on the task in hand. Her blink rate had slowed so much that she appeared to be frozen, except for the pulse in her throat. Orjul would occasionally pant and squeal, writhing as if he were attempting to crawl into the very surface of the table.
Skirata walked away and went to stare at the Nikto for a while. When he came back into the room, Orjul was making little hiccupping sobs. Etain, face level with his, was talking quietly to him.
“Can you see it, Orjul? Can you see what happens?”
Skirata watched.
“Orjul …”
The man whined exactly like a strill, a thin animal noise. “I can't …”
“Fear of being wrong is worse than pain, isn't it? It just eats you and you can't shut it off. Are you right? Or are you as bad as the Republic you hate? Are we really the enemy, or are you? Look at the helpless pawns you kill.”
So that was what she was doing. Skirata had wondered if she was using her Force powers to cause real physical pain. But she had cut to the chase and re-created the stuff that pain did to you anyway: it made you fear for your sanity long before your life.
He had to hand it to her. It was nonlethal and not that far beyond the usual mind influence. Maybe she was struggling to find an ethical limit in her own mind. Maybe it was her own nightmare, the worst thing she could conceive.
She kept it up for an hour. He had no idea whether she was suggesting terrible images and consequences in his mind, or if she was simply flooding him with adrenaline against his wishes, but whatever it was it was exhausting him and her with it. Eventually Orjul broke down sobbing, and Etain shuddered and looked disoriented as if coming out of a trance.
Skirata grabbed Vau's shoulder and shook him awake. “Get in there. She's broken him down enough for you to finish the job.”
Vau looked at his chrono. “Not bad. What's up? Don't want to let her face the real consequences?”
“Just do it, will you?”
Vau swung his legs off the bed and stalked into the main room to usher Etain from the chair and steer her and Skirata toward the doors. “Go and have some fizzadc, Jedi.” He turned to Orjul, who was staring after Etain with wide-set eyes. “She's just stepping out for some refreshment. She'll be back later.”
Skirata caught Etain's elbow. He wasn't used to grabbing small people: his lads were solid muscle, bigger and stronger than Etain. He felt as if he were clutching a kid's arm. He sat her down on the little bench at the back of the landing platform and took out his comlink to call for transport.
“No, I'm going back in,” said Etain.
“Only if Vau calls us back.”
“Kal …”
“Only if he really needs you. Okay?”
They were still waiting for Ordo to collect them when Etain flinched and then looked back at the lobby doors.
They opened and Vau wandered out, rubbing his eyes. There was a distinctive tang of ozone clinging to him, like a discharged blaster.
“Retail zone, Quadrant B-Eighty-five,” said Vau simply. He held out his datapad with coordinates. “But he hasn't given me a date, if he knows one. He was supposed to drop the explosives off in the warehouse, and someone would be along to collect it. He never knew who.”
Skirata sniffed the ozonic scent again and switched to Mando'a, although he was sure Etain had flinched because she had sensed what had happened.
“Gar ru kyramu kaysh, di'kut: tion'meh kaysh ru jehaati?” You killed him, you moron: what if he was lying?
Vau made an irritated pfft sound. “Ni ru kyramu Niktose. Meh Orjul jehaati, kaysh kar'tayli me'ni ven kyramu kaysh.” I killed the Nikto. If Orjul's lying, he knows I'll kill him.
Orjul would be dead sooner or later anyway. No prisoners: not on this run. It was amazing how many people overlooked the inevitable while hoping for a way out.
Etain said nothing. She almost bolted for the speeder when Ordo settled it down on the platform. Skirata settled beside her. She simply seemed subdued.
“Result?” Ordo said calmly, helmet on the seat beside him, eyes straight ahead.
“Potential drop-off location,” said Skirata. “Someone might be expecting to collect a stash of explosives. So we'd better have something ready for them to collect.”
“Intel doesn't suggest they've noticed the loss of the consignment yet.”
“Well, if the cells are as isolated for security reasons as we think, then there's nobody to notice for a while, is there?”
“There's the small matter of getting hold of a cache of explosives, but we could make this work for us.”
“I can hear the cogs working, son.” Skirata patted Etain's hand. “And you did fine, ad'ika.” Ordo glanced over his shoulder and then appeared to realize that Skirata meant Etain, not him, this time. There was no gender in Mando'a. “It's never easy.”
She accepted his touch without reaction, and then seized to his hand so tightly that he thought she was going to burst into tears or protest. But she maintained the facade of calm, except for that desperate grip on his hand. He had always been a soft touch for a desperate child's grasp.
“Sowing doubt is a very corrosive thing when you're dealing with people who believe in causes,” said Etain.
Skirata decided he'd have no trouble treating her as his daughter. He forgot his real, estranged daughter all too often. He'd enjoyed returning to little Ruusaan's excited welcome, but each time he came home from a war, wherever home happened to be, she was unrecognizably older and less excited to see him, as if she didn't know him at all.
But I have sons.
“That's why I stick to causes nobody can take from me,” Skirata said.
A Mandalorian's identity and soul depended only on what lived within him. And he relied only on his brother warriors—or his sons.