The Clone Wars_ No Prisoners Part 21

Altis had a point. Feeling responsible for this mess was typically Hallena. She always felt she could manage things, and that if they went wrong, it was due to error, not bad luck. Perhaps she was right. When you worked alone, you tended not to see the million ways that an interconnected group of beings could run into problems without any single definable mistake being re-sponsible for the way events turned out.

"Tell her I'll be along later." Pellaeon felt the rising frequency of a telltale vibration as Leveler powered up to jump. That, at least, was going to plan. In a few hours, they'd be back at Kemla to start all over again. "A pity this journey will be so brief. I would have enjoyed dinner, Master Altis."

"I'm sure we'll get another chance one day," the Jedi said, and walked away with Geith and Callista.

Leveler jumped, Jedi-a.s.sisted. This part of the ordeal, at least, was over.

CHIEF PETTY OFFICERS' MESS, LEVELER, ON COURSE FOR RV AT KEMLA WITH WOOKIEE GUNNER.

"Rex?"

He looked up without lifting his head, chin resting on clasped hands.

He hadn't even heard Ahsoka approaching. Jedi could do that kind of stealth thing, but for a moment he was worried that he was losing his edge. The little Togruta was wearing a smart gray naval tunic and pants. He had no idea where she'd found a uniform to fit her, but she was so touchingly earnest, so intent on doing things right and fitting in, that it almost upset him.

"You're too young to drink in here," he said.

"And you're younger than me-from a certain point of view."

She could always make him laugh, too, however bad he felt. Being a Jedi, she didn't need him to explain that to her. She knew. He knew she knew.

She sat down beside him at the table and leaned close as if she had some joke to share. He was wondering how he was going to handle her well-meaning attempts at cheering him up.

"Do you ever have days," she said, "where everything you thought you knew for sure is just gone, overturned, and you don't know where to start again to make sense of it all?"

So she wasn't here to improve his morale. He thought for a moment that she was. .h.i.tting his own problem square on the head. Then he realized she was describing her own.

"You bet, littl'un," he said quietly.

"How do you cope?"

"Good question."

"Do you cope?"

"I'm still standing ..."

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours."

"Okay," Rex said. "I'm a soldier. It's all I am. I don't know a lot about the outside world, but I'm pretty sure that other sol-diers have families and lives outside fighting. We don't. Is that why I feel so bad about guys like Vere and Ince getting killed so soon out of training?"

"And n.o.body should die that young."

"But whole regiments of us are going to die, sooner or later. Maybe all of us. Young men. We knew that. Why does it make me feel cheated?"

Ahsoka grabbed his hand as if she'd been suddenly scared by something. Rex had seen some of the little clones do that when they got their first taste of live ordnance. The Kaminoans didn't approve; clones weren't supposed to show fear, not even as children.

But Ahsoka's grip was like nothing he'd ever felt, not just because Togrutas had strangely cool skin, but because he felt as if he'd been connected to something he didn't understand, plugged into a universe too vast to grasp. Now he was the one who was scared.

"Rex, is it true what Geith says? That we're all guilty of using you?" She was distraught. He could hear the rasping wild undertone in her voice. "That we're all following orders blindly and not asking questions?"

Rex felt his world beginning to unravel. If he let Ahsoka go too far down that path-no, if he let himself go down that path, then he wouldn't be able to do the job, and if he didn't do this job, then he had no idea what his life was about. If he let that doubt take hold, he would never be able to deal with Skywalker again, or be able to lead his men. And he had to lead them because they depended on him. His whole existence depended on believing in what he was doing.

The little nagging voice that he tried to ignore was actually being more constructive this time. Don't even think about it, the voice said. Because you can't change a thing. So what if it's true? Where are you going to go? What else could you do? And what would happen to your men?

Some things were so overwhelming and beyond your control that simply noticing they were there would destroy you. Rex de-cided he could shut it out. He could shut out anything if he put his mind to it.

"I don't know," he said at last.

"You said orders were there for a reason. That they kept us alive."

"That's true."

"Jedi have orders as well. Like no attachments. And . . . well, you've seen Callista and Geith. Master Altis lets all his Jedi marry if they want. But they've not fallen to the dark side, so what's really true?"

The best Rex could do was help her live with uncertainty. He couldn't tell her what was true. And the fact that the Seps were trying to kill them-that was true. Did the rest matter?

Pull one brick out of the wall, and the whole edifice comes crashing down. For any of us.

"Remember how I said that you don't always have the bigger picture, that you get orders because someone higher up the chain of command has information that you don't, so they don't necessarily make sense? Maybe your orders are like that." It wasn't a lie. It might not have been what Rex actually wanted to say-I don't understand what's happening, I don't like what's happening, something's wrong-but if he said that, then he was adrift, too, and that didn't help anybody stay alive. "And maybe Jedi end up in the places they're meant to be-that the ones who can handle attachment find their way to Altis, and the ones who can't..."

Well, maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to say. Ahsoka's agitated expression-head-tails more deeply colored, chin down-made him wonder if she was sweet on somebody and facing the reality of orders for the first time. But it had to be kinder than agreeing that yes, it was weird that Yoda and all the Jedi Masters had told her something that now looked . . . untrue.

Cope with it. That's the best anyone can hope for. To cope with life.

"The world's full of attachment," Ahsoka said. "I just don't know why it's only wrong for Jedi."

"You think the last couple of days would have been simpler if everybody had decided that it was only one woman stuck in Athar, and rescuing her would risk too many lives?"

"Yes, but that wouldn't have been the right decision."

"Why? You see, that's the kind of decision a commander has to make all the time-when to call a halt because you'll be los-ing more lives than you're saving. Remember we talked about that?"

Ahsoka didn't answer. She stared into mid-distance for a while and chewed her lip. She still had a ferocious grip on his hand; he almost expected her to unsheath claws.

"Yes, I remember," she said. "And I argued with my Master about it, too, except he was the one who said we should never abandon anyone."

"Well, General Yoda faces the same dilemmas. Maybe the Jedi found out a long time ago that it's easier to make tough calls if you don't get emotionally involved. A bit of cold distance. Easier to make the decisions, easier to live with them afterward. That's command."

Now Rex felt better. He was back to solid truth again, not just avoiding outright lies. He and Ahsoka-all the clones, all the Jedi-were in a spot they didn't choose, and making the best of it. All he and Ahsoka could do was try to make the right call every time, decisions they could live with, and accept that the bigger game wasn't theirs to play.

"Do you understand the dark side?" she asked.

"Not really."

"Neither do I."

"Explain something to me, littl'un," Rex said. Maybe he could have asked Skywalker this same question, but something told him it was a bad idea. "What's the difference between Jedi who fall to the dark side, and do whatever it is that dark siders do, and Jedi who just let bad things happen on their watch?"

He really wanted to know.

"I'm still thinking about that," she said. "But I'm trying not to let bad things happen on my watch."

Rex wasn't sure if the conversation had helped Ahsoka at all, but it had certainly helped him; the politics and ideology and moral arguments were beyond his influence, and all he could focus on-all he had to focus on-was the day-by-day, hour-by-hour act of looking out for his brothers in arms, and making sure he dropped enemy before they dropped him. That was the foundation of his life, the essence of his existence.

The rest, as Master Altis said, was commentary.

CAPTAIN'S CABIN, LEVELER.

"I thought you were going to the wardroom," Pellaeon said.

Hallena was sitting in his sole concession to the privilege of rank, a comfortable, shamelessly padded Boruga armchair. One of Leveler's maintenance engineers had even put retractable bolts on it so it could be secured to the deck when necessary.

"I thought you would have had a rough wooden chair with extra splinters," she said. "You really do take this all-of-one-company thing seriously, don't you?"

"Yes, I don't even have a chef." Most ships' commanding officers had their own separate daily menu, prepared by a personal cook, meals taken in their own dining cabin. Pellaeon had always thought it a tad insulting to the crew. "I'll eat what my crew eat. And in the mess, too. Nothing erodes commitment and discipline like telling sailors you think you're a higher form of life than they are."

"You and Altis, a right pair of troublemakers, upsetting the natural order of society ..."

Hallena seemed completely relaxed-not content, though, just resigned. Pellaeon glanced discreetly at the decanter of syr-spirit on the side table just to check if she'd been drinking. The security cap was still in place. It was probably exhaustion, then. She'd been through a particularly rough mission.

"You really should get that b.u.mp seen to." He reached out to smooth her hair. She flinched. "Do you feel all right?"

"I feel a lot better than Trooper Ince. Or Vere." She uncrossed her legs as if she was going to stand up. "Or Shil, or Merish. See, that's my real use in life. Finding the beings who've already been screwed over by the system and making sure they're really finished. How many h.e.l.ls do you Corellians have, Gil? Nine? Add a tenth. I'll need one to myself."

He'd never seen her like this. But then they'd never been brought up hard against their respective jobs simultaneously before, with each seeing exactly what the other was obliged to do.

"It can't be the first time you've done a dirty job."

She was fiddling with something in her pocket. "No, but it's the last time."

"Just tell me what's tipped the balance."

"Maybe it was making sure that torture victims got killed. Or it might have been seeing two kids killed on their first mission. Hard to call."

He'd have to ask her about the torture victim. But he understood the kids reaction. n.o.body with a functioning conscience could have looked at clone troopers and not felt uneasy about using them. They weren't even conscripts. It was a whole new kind of warfare for the Republic.

"Gil, has everyone gone stupid overnight?" Hallena took whatever she was fidgeting with out of her pocket and stared at it. It was a tiny durasteel dispenser, like the ones made to hold that searing Alderaanian snuff. "I know we're still reeling from the war kicking off, and things take time to emerge, but am I the only being with enough functioning brain cells to ask where these troops came from? And why? There's nothing even in Rep Intel records about them. Anything like a multimillion-troop army complete with equipment and vessels is not something that Rep Intel forgets to file notes on. What the stang is going on here? And why are the Jedi in on it?"

Pellaeon sat down on the bunk and pulled off his boots. He could have used a gla.s.s of syrspirit right then, but he was tired, and alcohol plus fatigue was his personal recipe for disaster.

"The bigger the anomaly," he said, "the less likely folks are to look at it. Want to get away with a lie? Pick the biggest one you can and brazen it out."

"So you think it's a lie, then. Of sorts."

"I think it's inexplicable, yes, but I have no idea what to do about it."

Hallena opened the container, twisting off the top and gesturing with it. "If I were running Rep Intel, it would be the first task on my list. Who paid for the Grand Army? And why did they think we needed one?" She held up one finger, antic.i.p.ating him perfectly. "And don't feed me the line about smart Jedi seeing things coming in the Force. They didn't see Geonosis coming any more than we did. Altis-now, Altis is a plain-talking man. No mumbo-jumbo and mystic nonsense. I bet he wonders where the army came from. I'm going to spend some time talking to him."

Pellaeon glanced at the bulkhead chrono and did a few mental calculations to convert GST to local time at Kemla. "You think that's wise?"

"Wise? You think perhaps it might be right?"

"And what are you going to do with the truth when you find it?"

It was a good question. Everyone was certain that they wanted the truth in life, but in reality not many did, and even fewer knew what to do with it when they got it. Entire civilizations ran on that principle. The Republic certainly did. Pellaeon had no illusions. He shortened his horizons so that all he could see was what mattered-keeping his ship and crew alive. Just like Rex. We understand each other. Right then all he wanted was to hold Hallena, but she was completely absorbed in her outrage.

She upended the lower half of the snuff container, and a few tablets fell into her palm.

"No prisoners," she said. "You know what these are, don't you, Gil? Insurance. In case I'm ever really stuck without hope of escape. A quick way out, before I compromise the Republic and get a lot more people killed. That's the idea, anyway. In-stead, I called for backup, and I got people killed anyway. So next time-if there's ever a next time-I won't make that mis-take again."

"So, us."

"What about us?"

"It's open knowledge now. Shall we get married?"

"You're not the marrying kind, Gil."

"For you, I can be."

He wasn't joking; he was utterly in love with her, not just because she was striking, not just because she was smart, but be-cause she was so pa.s.sionate about life-the living of it, yes, but also about the rights and wrongs of it, which struck him as odd for a spook. But the hours were terrible and the pay was mediocre; why else would anyone do it? There was only delu-sion-the juvenile belief in excitement and glamour, which was inevitably crushed with the first dreary mission-or a desire to do the right thing in some vaguely patriotic and unquestioning way.

Like me, really. Why did I lie about my age to join the navy?

Spies seldom got to find out if they ever had done the right thing, of course. Hallena was one of the awkward ones who wanted to hang around and see how things panned out.

"I'd marry you in a heartbeat," Hallena said at last. "But I need to get myself straight first."

Pellaeon was quietly devastated. He'd been so sure she'd say yes. "Is that a charming brush-off?"

"No, it's the way I feel at the moment." She put the tablets back in the container and slid it back inside her jacket. Pellaeon hoped the toxin didn't leave residue on her hands. "I've never run away from anything before, but fifteen years in this game is long enough. There are even Jedi who think the Republic needs dismantling. I don't expect my government to be utterly blameless, but I really worry when I don't know if they're the lesser of two evils any longer."

"So what are you planning to do?"

"I'm getting out. Really out. No just-one-more-job-for-us."

"I see. Just deliver a crisp sheet of signed white flimsi to the Boss Spook." Intel-like all spymasters-never really let go of their agents. There was always some little errand to run, even in retirement. And if they thought someone was going rogue . . . "Don't risk making your farewell party rather too final, will you?"

"I know. I know they don't just let you walk away and open a cantina without expecting you still to be at their beck and call. That's why when I go-I'll go."

He wasn't sure he'd understood her correctly.

"What are you saying?" He wanted to call her darling, sweetheart, but it would have come out all wrong. "You're not going to do anything foolish. Not you."

He meant the toxin. It was so unlike Hallena that he had no idea why the thought had crossed his mind, but that was his im-mediate fear. Sometimes the only way to evade Rep Intel was drastic.

"I'm going to take a break," she said. "Somewhere that they can't find me."