501st: An Imperial Commando Novel Read Free Page B

a while.”
    Ny felt a little better for getting that out in the open, but not much. Kina Ha tilted her head gracefully.
    “Well, it could be worse,” she said.
    Scout lowered her chin. “And that place is
safe
?”
    “Kal’s a good man.” Ny was instantly defensive again, was already far too fond of Skirata for common sense. “He’s dedicated his life to rescuing clones. But Kamino left a big mark on everyone. One of the clones had a baby with a Jedi girl who got killed in the Purge. So it’s one big painful mess at the moment. But you’ll be safe there. Kal’s given me his word.”
    Mess
didn’t quite cover it. Ny decided not to plunge the two Jedi into anxiety overload by mentioning the rest of the problems. They’d find out about Dr. Uthan soon enough, and Jusik the definitely-not-Jedi, and the bounties on everyone’s head, and Jango Fett’s serial-killer sister back from the dead, and the Imperial garrison, and Fenn Shysa’s resistance plans … yes, it really did sound like less fun than falling into a sarlacc’s corrosive gut when she looked at it all in the cold light of day.
    But Ny still couldn’t help feeling better when she thought of Kyrimorut. The place was isolated, desolate, and spartan, full of the grieving and the dispossessed, but the warmth of the tight-knit community there transformed it.
    It held no memories of Terin, either. When she was there, she felt able to imagine a future. The days ahead were no longer an empty void to be endured or escaped.
    “What happened to the Jedi’s baby?” Scout asked.
    “Kad? He’s fine.” Was that telling Scout too much? Ny had grown a major caution gland when she started dealing with the Grand Army, but the girl would see for herself anyway. “Growing like a weed.”
    “And the bone? What was the bone for? Is it someprimitive Mandalorian ritual? I heard they crown their leader with a real skull.”
    “I think the skull’s symbolic, Scout.” Was it? Ny liked Mandos, but they did have a penchant for anatomical trophies. “The bone was for Mird. If you’ve never seen a strill before, they’re quite something. Very rare native animal.”
    “Never heard of them.”
    “Then you’re in for an education.”
    Ny settled back in her seat and realized that she hadn’t escaped from the Empire. She’d simply skipped one crisis and was hurtling at multi-light-speed toward the next.
    “I recall strills, I think,” Kina Ha said absently. “But that was just before the Sith went into hiding.”
    Ny was only half listening now, checking
Cornucopia
’s instrument panel. “Sorry, when did the Sith disappear?” She glanced over the back of the seat. Very few ordinary folk had even heard of Sith, so it was odd to hear Kina Ha drop the name. “I’m not good at history.”
    The Jedi frowned in concentration, furrowing her wrinkled brow all the way back to where her ears should have been if Kaminoans had them.
    “Oh … perhaps a thousand years ago?” She swayed her impossibly long neck like a snake. “It’s been so very long … and so many wars. I forget.”
    Ny wasn’t sure she’d heard right. And then she realized she had, and the galaxy changed out of all recognition for her—again.
Special Operations barracks, 501st Legion headquarters, Imperial Center (formerly Coruscant)
    Medical technology could do just about anything, Niner decided, except mend Darman.
    He watched his brother put on his newly issued Imperial armor, dark charcoal gray and black. The color was much like their old matte-black Katarn pattern plates,but there the similarity ended; everything about the shape, from helmet to chest plate to greaves, was just that bit different. It made Darman look like a stranger. And he felt like one, too.
    Darman had changed overnight. Niner couldn’t really expect anything else. How would any husband react to having to stand by and watch his wife killed? But this was more than grieving. Both he and Darman had lost brothers in the